Dr. Barclay with Something to Think About - ALWAYS THE SAME BUT OFTEN DIFFERENT (PART 1)

 

ALWAYS THE SAME BUT OFTEN DIFFERENT 

PART 1

The Bible makes it quite clear that God is an unchanging Deity. In Malachi, it is stated that: “For I am the Lord, I do not change…” (3:6), and in Hebrews 13:8 that: “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever.”

These are the statements that give us confidence in God’s further declarations ensuring  that His covenants are also without change. He stated that the covenants that He made would be “between Me and you and your descendants after you” And that He had established “an everlasting covenant, to be God to you and your descendants after you” (Genesis 17:7). Our part of the covenant He put in a more formal way when “…He declared to you His covenant which He commanded you to perform, the Ten Commandments…” (Deuteronomy 4:13). So then, on the basis of His unchanging character and His everlasting covenants, we can take assurances from the truth of His statements that: “…‘I will never leave you nor forsake you,’” (Hebrews 13:5) and “…‘lo, I am with you always even to the end of the age’…”(Matthew 28:20) 

However, He also said: “For you have the poor with you always, but Me you do not have always” (Matthew 26:11). I realize that in the last case, He was speaking in the flesh, but the context of the statement above the question is the same: is He either with us always or not? And how is that possible when above we see that He promised to be with us always? 

Perhaps the answer, in part, lies in the fact that He has kept His part of the agreement - “My covenant I will not break, nor alter the word that has got out of My lips” (Psalm 89:34) but we have often not kept ours.

The earth mourns and fades away,

The world languishes  and fades away;

The haughty people of the earth languish.

The earth is often defiled under its inhabitants, 

Because they have transgressed the laws,

Changed the ordinance,

Broken the everlasting covenant. 

Therefore the curse has devoured the earth, 

And those who dwell in it are desolate.

(Isaiah 24:4-6)

  It is difficult to remain close to those who do not wish to remain close to you. If God never leaves us but we refuse to maintain the relationship, what can He do but try different ways to let us know that He’s still around? By doing so He gets His message across even when we expect something entirely different. Healing in the Bible, for example, often occurs in various forms but rarely by direct request. And when He calls someone to His service, it’s often by some means other than a direct route, especially in the Old Testament. He may be the same, but His ways are often different; something we’ll talk about in part 2.

In the meantime, this should give you something to think about.