Night Watches by John McDuff
The Immutability of God You are the same. Psalm 102 verse 27
What a fountain of comfort is to be found in the immutability
of God. Not 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 a brief
chronicle regarding everything on this side of heaven. The firmament
above us, the earth beneath us, the elements around us. All these
things shall be dissolved. Scenes of hollowed endearment,
they have 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.
You are 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 rock spurns and outlives the storm. How blessed
especially to contemplate the unchangeableness of our great
High Priest, Jesus Christ, the same yesterday and today 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 storm, or standing
at the gate of Nain, or weeping tears of pity over a lost city,
or tears of sympathy over a buried friend. And right over all these,
you are the same. the name which he bequeathed
by angels to his church until he comes again is that same Jesus. His own utmost title is his memorial
for all time. I am he that lives. Believer,
has he ever seemed to change towards you? Are you even now
mourning over the withdrawal of that countenance whose smile
is heaven? Are you saying in the bitterness
of your spirit, has the Lord forgotten to be gracious? The
change is with yourself, not with your God. Behind the clouds
of your own departure, the sun of his love shines brightly as
ever. He faints not, neither is weary. or it may be you are laboring
under other trials. The hand of your God may be heavy
upon you. The secret thought may be harbored
that some tear might have been spared, that your chastisement
might have been less severe, that your bereavement with its
dark accompaniment might have been mitigated or averted. Look
upwards and take the psalmist antidote as your own. I will
remember the years of the right hand of the Most High. Think
that the same hand which was for you nailed to the cross is
now pleading for you on the throne. ordering and controlling every
trial, and over every dark providence riding 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? O thus, pillowing your head on
the immutability of Jesus, amid the rude buffetings of a changing
world, you will be able, night after night, to say until the
dawn of a morning breaks on you which knows neither night nor
vicissitude. I will lie down and sleep in
peace. For you alone, O Lord, make me
dwell in safety. Psalm 4 verse 8.