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IMMUTABILITY
(edited from "The Bow in the Clouds" by John MacDuff)
"I am the Lord, and I do not change. That is
why you descendants of Jacob are not already
completely destroyed." Malachi 3:6
The Unchangeableness of God.
What an anchor for a storm tossed sea!
Change is our portion here!
Scenes are altering. Joys are fading.
Friends! some of them are removed at a distance;
others have gone to their 'long home'.
Who, amid these checkered experiences, does not
sigh for something permanent, stable, enduring?
The vessel has again and again slipped its earthly
moorings. We long for some secure and sheltered harbor.
"I am the Lord, and I do not change!" Heart
and flesh may faint; yes, do faint and fail.
But there is an unfainting, unfailing, unvarying God.
All the changes in the world around cannot affect Him.
Our own fitfulness cannot alter Him. When we are
depressed, downcast, fluctuating; our treacherous
hearts turning aside "like a broken bow," He does
not change.
"God who cannot lie," is the superscription on His
eternal throne; and inscribed on all His dealings.
"I am the Lord, and I do not change!" This forms
a blessed guarantee that nothing can befall
me but what is for my good. I cannot doubt His
faithfulness. I dare not arraign the rectitude
of His dispensations. It is 'covenant love' which
is now darkening my earthly horizon. This hour He
is the same as when He "spared not His own Son!"
Oh, instead of wondering at my trials, let me
rather wonder that He has borne with me so long!
It is because of the Lord's unchanging mercies that
I am not consumed. Had He been man, changeful,
vacillating, as myself, long before now would He
have spurned me away, and consigned me to the
doom of the cumberer.
"I am the Lord, and I do not change!"
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