On Thy Immutability
“Thou art the sarae.” — Ps cii. 27.
What a fountain of comfort is to be found in the Immutability of God! Xot one ripple can disturb the calm of His unchanging nature. Were it so, He would no longer be a perfect Being — He would undeify Himself — He would cease to be God!
“Change is our portion here!” “They shall perish,” is the brief chronicle regarding everything on this side heaven. The firmament above us, the earth beneath us, the elements around us — all these things shall be dissolved.” Scenes of hallowed endearment — they are fled! Friends who sweetened our pilgrimage with their presence — they are gone! But here is a sure and safe anchorage amid the world’s heaving ocean of vicissitude — ‘Thou art the same.” All is changing but the Unchanging One! The earthly scaffolding may give way, but the living Temple remains. The reed may bend to the blast, but the living Kock spurns and outlives the storm!
How blessed especially, to contemplate the unchangeableness of our Great High Priest! “Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, and to-day, and forever!” True, He is, in one sense, “changed.” No longer “the man of sorrows” — the homeless wanderer — He is enthroned amid the glories of heaven. Seraphs praise Him — saints adore Him; but His Heart knows no change! His ascension glories have not obliterated His tender human sympathies. We can think of Him receiving an outcast sinner, or stilling the Tiberias storm, or standing at the gate of Kain, or weeping tears of pity over a lost city, or tears of sympathy over a buried friend, and write over all these, ‘’ Ttiou art the same /”
The name which He bequeathed by angels to
His Church until He comes again is —” that
same Jesus P’’ His own Patmos title is His!
memorial for all time —” I «m He that I
liveth!” I
Believer! has He ever seemed to change i
towards thee f Art thou even now mourning
i over the withdrawal of that countenance
whose smile is heaven? Art thou saying in
the bitterness of thy spirit,” Hath the Lord
forgotten to be gracious?” — The change is
with thyself, not with thy God. Behind the
clouds of thine own depai-ture, the Sun of
His love shines brightly as ever. He faint-
eth not, neither is weary.” i
Or, it may be, thou art laboring under other j
triuls. The hand of thy God may l)e heavy
upon thee. The secret thought may be bar-
])ored that some tear might have been spared
—that thy chastisement might have been;
less severe — that thy bereavement, with its
dark accompaniments, might have been initigated or averted. Look upwards! and take the Psalmist’s antidote as thine own, ‘’’ I will remember the years of the right hand of the Most HighP Think that the same hand which was for thee nailed to the cross, is now pleading for thee on the throne, ordering and controlling every trial, and over every dark providence writing the unanswerable challenge, “He who spared not His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things?” Oh! thus pillowing thy head on the Immutability of Jesus, amid the rude buifetings of a changing world, thou wilt be able, night after night, to say, till the dawn of a morning breaks on thee, which knows neither night nor vicissitude —
“I WILL BOTH LAY ME DOWN IN PEACE AND SLEEP ‘, FOR THOU, LORD, ONLY MAKEST ME DWELL IN SAFETY!”
firirlr |[ig|t.