A Divine Challenge by John McDuff
1864 How precious are your thoughts
unto me, O God! This is what the Lord says. If
you can break my covenant with the day, and my covenant with
the night, so that day and night no longer come at their appointed
time, then my covenant with David my servant, and my covenant with
the Levites who are priests ministering before me, can be broken. and David will no longer have
a descendant to reign on his throne. Jeremiah 33, 2021. It is remarkable how often God's
revealed thoughts have for their theme the immutability of his
covenant, as if the contemplation of his own inviolable faithfulness
formed the mightiest of all topics of comfort and consolation for
his believing people. Here, he makes a solemn appeal
to the constancy of the natural world, as a pledge and guarantee
of his unchanging fidelity in spiritual things. Nothing seems
so undeviating as the succession of day and night, the revolution
of the seasons. The sun, sinking at even tide
in the golden west, and rising again like a giant refreshed,
while the earth remains," said the Great Creator over His own
world, as it emerged of old from the waters of the deluge. See
time in harvest, and cold in heat, and summer and winter,
and day and night shall not cease. In our motto verse, using human
language as a vehicle of divine thought, he makes the challenge. If you can forbid that sun to
rise, if you can put drags on his burning chariot wheels and
prevent him from setting, If you can forbid the moon to hang
her silver lamp from the vault of night, or pluck the stars
from their silent thrones. If you can transpose summer's
heat and winter's cold. If you can make sea-time belie
its promise to expecting autumn. Then, but not until then, shall
I break my covenant with my chosen servants. Just as the heavens
cannot be measured and the foundation of the earth cannot be explored,
so I will not consider casting them away forever for their sins.
I, the Lord, have spoken. It is delightful thus to look
around us on the steadfast and unvarying sequences in the material
universe and to regard them as sacraments of grace, silent witnesses
for the inviolability of God's word and promise. Nature, in
her majestic constancy, becomes a temple filled with monuments,
each bearing the inscription, God, who cannot lie. The God
of Nature and the God of Grace are one. And he who for the last
six thousand years has given such proof of unswerving faithfulness
in the one economy, for they continue this day according to
your ordinances, will be equally faithful in fulfilling the more
permanent provisions of the other. Look up to the skies above and
gaze down on the earth beneath. The skies will disappear like
smoke, and the earth will wear out like a piece of clothing.
People of the earth will die like flies. But my salvation
lasts forever. My righteous rule will never
end. It is an everlasting covenant,
well ordered in all things and sure. How can it be otherwise,
seeing it is founded on the work and righteousness of Jehovah,
Jesus, Emmanuel, God with us? Before one provision of that
covenant can fail, immutability must first become mutable. And
God himself ceased to be God. Standing on this sure foundation,
we can boldly utter the challenge, who is he that condemns? Not
God the Father, for he has justified. Not Christ, for he has died. Not angels in the heights above,
not devils in the depths beneath. universal nature and the ceaseless
hymn of her own constancy, proclaims and celebrates our covenant security
and safety. Her four great evangelists, Spring,
Summer, Autumn, Winter, endorse the utterances of the inspired
volume. In the mouth of the two witnesses,
day and night, every word is established. Thus, with reference
not only to the glory and wisdom and power of God, but to His
purpose and promise of salvation for His people. Day unto day
utters speech, and night unto night shows knowledge. But the
plans of the Lord stand firm forever, the purposes of His
heart through all generations. you