May 23, 2001
Reading
“For
I am the LORD, I do not change” (6).
“You haven’t changed, you are just as beautiful as ever!” How nice to be greeted in this manner by someone you have not seen for many years; but both you and he know these words are just that – words, and both parties know they are lies! Time changes things – everything, and we live in a world governed by time. Our bodies change, as does the environment in which we live. Circumstances change, situations, health, goals and ambitions, etc.; we are creatures of change.
But there is One who never changes, One who lives in eternity and not time, indeed, He cannot change because He is eternally immutable. Do we consider God wise when He created the world out of nothing? Then He is wise still. Was Jehovah Sovereign when He brought His people out of four hundred years of bondage and destroyed those who had so mercilessly abused them? Then He is sovereign still. As we look back in awe and wonder at those acts of God that He accomplished on behalf of His people we are urged to remember the words of our text, “I am Jehovah, I do not change”.
Did He accomplish great and mighty things for Moses, Joshua, Samuel and David? Then He will accomplish great and mighty things for us. Can we point to any instance where God has failed to meet his promises? We are compelled to say “No”. If it appears that we must say “Yes”, He did not keep His promise to me, then we must look a little closer, and I am sure we will conclude that it was we who changed, not the Unchangeable One.
This was my criticism of God many years ago that ”You have not kept Your promises to me”. Because I
failed to see that it was I who had not kept my promises to Him and not He who is unchangeable, I wandered in the desert for almost as long
as the children of
“Thus God, determining to show more abundantly to the heirs of promise the immutability of His counsel, confirmed it by an oath, that by two immutable things, in which it is impossible for God to lie, we might have strong consolation, who have fled for refuge to lay hold of the hope set before us” (Heb 6:17,18).
He is the unchangeable One, it is “impossible for
Him to lie”. If we perceive Him to have failed in His word and promises, then
we are declaring Him to be something other than God! Our present faith, eternal
future, consolation, peace and rest depend solely on this declaration that “I
am Jehovah, I do not change”. If He has called you to a specific work for Him,
He will provide for you no matter what. “He who calls you is faithful, who also
will do it” “ (1 Thess
“Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever” (Heb 13:8). Did Jesus say He was the Bread of Life”? Did He promise to be with His followers and to never leave them? Did His words bring comfort and strength to His disciples? Did He promise to send the Holy Spirit to be their Teacher and Comforter? Then we can take great comfort and strength from these words because He does not change; He is “the same yesterday, today and forever”.
This is solid rock! Let the winds blow their fury and the demons propagate their lies and deceit, but, fellow Believer, sink your faith in the Rock of Ages; He who is immoveable and unchangeable – All may change, but Jesus never!