THE UNCHANGING NAME
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"Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, and today, and forever!" Hebrews 13:8
All is changing here on earth. Life is a kaleidoscope, made of shifting forms; new scenes, new tastes, new feelings, new associations; and alternation of cloud and sunshine, tempest and calm. Its joys are like the airy bubbles on the stream — tinted with sunlight; we touch them — and they are gone! We have to tell of vacant seats in our sanctuaries; vacant seats at our home-hearths; the music of well known voices hushed. Often just when we imagine we have at last obtained a stable footing — the scaffolding gives way — the props on which for a lifetime we had been leaning fails — and we feel ourselves out amid the pitiless storm!
But is there nothing stable amid all this mutability? Is there nothing secure and abiding amid these fleeting shadows? Yes! Jesus is without any variableness. Nineteen hundred years have rolled by since He left our world. The world has changed — but He is to this hour the same. We can follow Him through all His wondrous pilgrimage of love on earth. We can behold Penitence crouching at His feet — and sent away forgiven. We behold Sorrow tracking His footsteps with tears — and sent away with her tears dried and her wounded spirit healed. We behold Pain and Sickness pleading with pallid lip and wasted feature; and Disease, at His omnipotent mandate, taking wings to itself and fleeing away! And He who is now on the heavenly throne — is "that same Jesus." His ascension glories have not altered Hischangeless heart, or alienated His affections. In Him we have a Rock which the billows of adversity cannot shake. The spent fury of the chafing waves may reach us; and this only endearing the security and value of the abiding Refuge!
How often does God rouse the storm — to drive us from all creature confidences, to the stable One! How often does He poison and pollute the shallow stream — to lead us to seek the everlasting Fountainhead! "We may have lost much; but if we have found You, O blessed Jesus — we possess infinitely more than we have forfeited! We can glory in the persuasion that nothing can ever separate us from Your love."
A look may alienate us from our best earthly friends; an unintentional word may estrange; the grave must sunder. But "the Lord lives, and blessed be my Rock, and let the God of my salvation be exalted." What You have been "yesterday" yes, from everlasting ages — You are to this day, and You shall be forever and ever! We can look to the rainbow of Your promises and behold all of them in You, "yes and amen!" You are addressing us from Your throne in glory; that throne spoken of in Revelation as encircled with "the rainbow of emerald" (the emblem of perpetuity), and saying, "Do not be afraid, I am He who lives and was dead, and behold I am alive forever more!" "Because I live — you shall live also!"
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