Changes

By Ron Bartanen

   Politicians promise changes. In all of our lives we find constant change. We never know from one day to the next what to expect. James wrote, “Come now, you who say, ‘Today  or tomorrow we will go to such and such a city, spend a year there, buy and sell, and make a profit’:  whereas you do not know what will happen tomorrow….” (James 4:13-14a).
    Some changes may be for the good, while others for the worse. Some things, however, never change. The laws of nature, for instance, are constant and unchanging. From creation, a stone dislodged from a cliff would fall 96 feet per second. That has not changed, nor will it. Water, that thousands of years ago would boil at 180 degrees at sea level, will do the same today.
     Some seem to think that God is changeable. Otherwise they would not think to make His word obsolete. However, the psalmist prayed, “You are the same, and your years will have no end” (Psa. 102:27). Moses declared, “God is not a man that He should lie, nor a son of man that He should repent. Has He said, and will He not do? Or has He spoken, and will He not make it good?” (Numbers 23:19).
     Cultures change. Men are not long satisfied with the statutes of God, and set their own standards of morality and religion, but they have not consulted with God. Men may even redefine marriage, but we needn’t expect God to rewrite His own “dictionary.”
     It is as true today as it was almost 2000 years ago, that Jesus is “the way, the truth, and the life”, the one way to the Father (John 14:6). It is as true today as it was  in the early days of the church that a response to the gospel by obedient faith will secure the forgiveness of sins and acceptance into the Lord’s spiritual body, the church (Mark 16:15-16; Acts 2:38, 47). Men change, as do their words.  But God does not change, and His word will stand firm forever.

- Ronald Bartanen preaches for Arthur Church of Christ, Arthur, IL.  He may be contacted through the congregation's website: http://arthurcoc.com/