Expositions of Holy Scripture: Ezekiel, Daniel, and the Minor Prophets. St. Matthew Chapters I to VIIIMaclaren, Alexander
Religion
Expositions of Holy Scripture: Ezekiel, Daniel, and the Minor Prophets. St. Matthew Chapters I to VIII
Maclaren, Alexander
Bible -- Commentaries; Bible. Ezekiel -- Commentaries; Bible. Matthew I-VIII -- Commentaries; Bible. Minor Prophets -- Commentaries
Since God changes not, the life of our spirits is not at the mercy of
changing events. We look back on a lifetime of changing scenes through
which we have passed, and forward to a similar succession, and this
mutability is sad to many of us, and in some aspects sad to all, so
powerless we are to fix and arrest any of our blessings. Which we shall
keep we know not; we only know that, as certainly as buds and blossoms
of spring drop, and the fervid summer darkens to November fogs and
December frosts, so certainly we shall have to part with much in our
passage through life. But if we let God speak to us, the necessary
changes that come to us will not be harmful but blessed, for the lesson
that the mutability of the mutual is meant to impress upon us is, the
permanency of the divine, and our dependence, not on them, but on Him.
We may look upon all the world of time and chance and think that He who
Himself is unchanging changeth all. The eye of the tempest is a point of
rest. The point in the heavens towards which, according to some
astronomers, the whole of the solar system is drifting, is a fixed
point. If we depend on Him, then change is not all sad; it cannot take
God away, but it may bring us nearer to Him. We cannot be desolate as
long as we have Him. We know not what shall be on the morrow. Be it so;
it will be God's to-morrow. When the leaves drop we can see the rock on
which the trees grow; and when changes strip the world for us of some of
its waving beauty and leafy shade, we may discern more clearly the firm
foundation on which our hopes rest. All else changes. Be it so; that
will not kill us, nor leave us utterly forlorn as long as we hear the
voice which says, 'I am the Lord; I change not; therefore ye are not
consumed.'
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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