But let us look again at those promises and threats, and we shall see that, if they were not fulfilled, it was not because GOD changed, but because the objects changed on whom He had resolved to operate, for good or evil. Jerusalem (bound to GOD by a covenant of allegiance) was promised perpetual preservation. Jerusalem forsook the allegiance, and therefore was destroyed. Nineveh’s cry of wickedness provoked the LORD to threaten it with destruction within forty days; but when those forty days were expired there was no cry of _wickedness_ to be answered; but a cry of repentance, a pledge of amendment, a nation’s voice and posture of worship. GOD did not change, but Nineveh did. The judgment was ready to fall; but there was no object for it to fall upon, and so it fell not. If the righteous ceases to be righteous, the promises made to his righteousness cannot be fulfilled; if the sinner becomes sinless, the sentence of sin cannot be executed upon him. “At what instant,” says GOD, by Jeremiah, “I shall speak concerning a nation, and concerning a kingdom, to pluck up, to pull down, and to destroy it; If that nation, against whom I have pronounced, turn from their evil, I will repent of the evil that I thought to do unto them. And at what instant I shall speak concerning a nation, and concerning a kingdom, to build and to plant it; If it do evil in my sight, that it obey not my voice, then I will repent of the good, wherewith I said I would benefit them.” {90} And the like is elsewhere declared of individuals. Thus only does GOD change His word; thus only is there forgiveness with Him. The sinner must change his sin, for sinlessness; and then for wrath he shall have favour. But this change he cannot make. He cannot wipe out or undo the past; he cannot bring a clean thing out of an unclean; he cannot repair the breaches in his soul; he cannot strengthen the things that are ready to perish. Vain, then, is his idle trust in the non-fulfilment of a published threat; and vain are all his efforts to avert that threat. While he is a sinner, GOD will not forgive him; and a sinner he can never cease to be.