Christ Ever the Same
“This is the rest wherewith ye may cause the weary to rest, and this is the refreshing” —
“Jesus Cf)rtst t?jc same grsttrtiag, to=l3ag, anti for rbrr.”
—Heb. xiii.
^^, We may well sit under this shadow of the
l Beloved with great delight.
Human life, outwardly, inwardly, is a *’ shifting spectacle; “so says the apostle of it. He compares it to the moving scenes or characters in the old Grecian theatre; — “the fashion” (or the drama) “of this world passeth away.” Over the “yesterday” of the past, and the “to-day” of the present, the clouds of heaven are chasing one another. The waves of its seething, restless sea, are tossing and tumbling in fretful disquietude. And whether these changes have been from prosperity to adversity, or adversity to prosperity; converting life, with some, into a golden viaduct, with others, into “a bridge of sighs,” they conduct alike to the one final goal. The path of sorrow as well as the path of glory “leads but to the grave.”
Believer, amid the fitfulness and uncertainty of earth and earthly things, come and seat yourself under this verdant Palm of a Saviour’s unchanging faithfulness. “Trust not in man, nor in the son of man, in whom is no stav.” It may be, that some who read these pages may have had, or may be even now having, painful personal proof of that mutability and uncertainty, that evanescence and transitoriness. You may have felt by experience, how often those joys, which like the bright berries in the summer woods are beautiful to the eye, prove bitter to the taste; how often the loveliest cloud in the life-sky condenses at last into a shower and then falls; how the loveliest rainbow-hue dissolves; how riches take to themselves wings and flee away; capricious fortune forsaking, often just when the golden dream seems most surely realised!
But •’ He hath said, I will never leave thee nor forsake thee.” Have you never observed, that while, in the course of a long succession of years, the scenery on a river’s bank may be changed, the river itself remains the same? Formerly it was wont, it may be, to flow through sequestered woods: — its waters, murmuring by forest glades, where the wild deer stole down in the silent eve undisturbed by human step. Now hives of industry are lining its course. Ponderous wheels are revolving and the clang of hammers are resounding, where the woodman’s axe alone was erewhile heard. But the river itself, unchanged and unchangeable, carries its unfailing tributary-torrent to the main. So it is with Him who, as “the River of God which is full of water,” rolls its own glorious volume of everlasting love. “There is a river the streams whereof make glad the city of God, the holy place of the tabernacles of the Most High. God is in the midst of her, she shall not be moved!” “Behold,” says the same Immutable One, in another metaphor, “I have graven thee on the palms of Mine hands.” Not on the mountains, colossal as they are, for they shall depart; on no leaf of Nature’s vast volume, for the last fires shall scorch them; not on blazing sun, for he shall grow dim with age; or on glorious heavens, for they shall be folded together as a scroll. But on the hand which made the worlds, the hand which was transfixed on Calvary, the hand of might and love, — I have graven thee there. No corroding power can efface the writing, obliterate the name; — thou art Mine now, and Mine for ever! The travellers come and go in the desert, — the canvas tent erected to-day, is down to-morrow, but the sheltering palms remain. The great Apostle speaks of ’ tribulation ’ — ’ distress ’ — ’ persecution ’ — ’ famine,’ and other adverse forces as so many waves dashing against The Rock — trying to “separate,” — gathering their united strength to sweep from the secure shelter. But in vain. They are beaten back in succession with Faith’s challenge, — the reproof, not of bold overweening presumption, but of lowly believing confidence and heavenly trust — “In the name of a Mightier, we bid defiance to your might!” ‘Who shall separate us? ’ “I stand upon a Rock,” says Chrysostom, “let the sea rage, the Rock cannot be disturbed.”
Bereaved Christian, you who have been called more specially to experience the sorrows of life; how consolatory to know that there is One prop that cannot give way. One Friend beyond the reach of vicissitude, who is working out your soul’s everlasting wellbeing in His own calm world, far above and beyond the heavings and convulsions of ours. One who is the same amid storm and sunshine, births and deaths, marriage peals and funeral knells: of whom you can say, amid the wreck of all human confidences, “They shall perish, but Thou shalt endure!”
“‘This same Jesus! ‘Oh how sweetly
Fall those words upon the ear,
Like a swell of far-off music
In a nightwatch still and drear.
iSS
” He who spake as none had spoken,
Angel wisdom far above,
All forgiving, ne’er upbraiding,
Full of tenderness and love.
“For this word, O Lord, we bless Thee,
Bless our Master’s changeless name;
‘Yesterday, to-day, for ever,
Jesus Christ is still the same.’”
TRUST IN THE LORD FOR EVER, FOR IN THE LORD JEHOVAH IS (MARG.) the ROCK OF AGES.’