5. But now comes one jarring note to spoil the theme. To some of you God is
unchanging in his threatenings. If every promise stands fast, and every oath
of the covenant is fulfilled, hark thee, sinner!-mark the word-hear the
death-knell of thy carnal hopes; see the funeral of thy fleshly trustings.
Every threatening of God, as well as every promise shall be fulfilled. Talk
of decrees! I will tell you of a decree: “He that believeth not shall be
damned.” That is a decree, and a statute that can never change. Be as good as
you please, be as moral as you can, be as honest as you will, walk as
uprightly as you may,-there stands the unchangeable threatening: “He that
believeth not shall be damned.” What sayest thou to that, moralist? Oh, thou
wishest thou couldst alter it, and say, “He that does not live a holy life
shall be damned.” That will be true; but it does not say so. It says, “He
that believeth not.” Here is the stone of stumbling, and the rock of offence;
but you cannot alter it. You must believe or be damned, saith the Bible; and
mark, that threat of God is an unchangeable as God himself. And when a
thousand years of hell’s torments shall have passed away, you shall look on
high, and see written in burning letters of fire, “He that believeth not
shall be damned.” “But, Lord, I am damned.” Nevertheless it says “shall be”
still. And when a million ages have rolled away, and you are exhausted by
your pains and agonies, you shall turn up your eye and still read “SHALL BE
DAMNED,” unchanged, unaltered. And when you shall have thought that eternity
must have spun out its last thread-that every particle of that which.we call
eternity, must have run out, you shall still see it written up there, “SHALL
BE DAMNED.” O terrific thought! How dare I utter it? But I must. Ye must be
warned, sirs, “lest ye also come into this place of torment.” Ye must be told
rough things; for if God’s gospel is not a rough thin & the law is a rough
thing; Mount Sinai is a rough thing. Woe unto the watchman that warns not the
ungodly! God is unchanging in his threatenings. Beware, O sinner, for “it is
a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.”
6. We must just hint at one thought before we pass away and that is-God is
unchanging in the objects of his love-not only in his love, but in the
objects of it.
“If ever it should come to pass,
That sheep of Christ might fall away.
My fickle, feeble soul, alas,
Would fall a thousand times a day.”
If one dear saint of God had perished, so might it all; if one of the
covenant ones be lost, so may all be, and then there is no gospel promise
true; but the Bible is a lie, and there is nothing in it worth my acceptance.
I will be an infidel at once, when I can believe that a saint of God can ever
fall finally. If God hath loved me once, then he will love me for ever.
“Did Jesus once upon me shine,
Then Jesus is for ever mine.”
The objects of everlasting love never change. Those whom God hath called, he
will justify, whom he has justified, he will sanctify; and whom he
sanctifies, he will glorify.
1. Thus having taken a great deal too much time, perhaps, in simply expanding
the thought of an unchanging God, I will now try to prove that He is
unchangeable. I am not much of an argumentative preacher, but one argument
that I will mention is this: the very existence, and being of a God, seem to
me to imply immutability. Let me think a moment. There is a God; this God
rules and governs all things; this God fashioned the world: he upholds and
maintains it. What kind of being must he be? It does strike me that you
cannot think of a changeable God. I conceive that the thought is so repugnant
to common sense, that if you for one moment think of a changing God, the
words seem to dash, and you are obliged to say, “Then he must be a kind of
man,” and get a Mormonite idea of God. I imagine it is impossible to conceive
of a changing God; it is so to me. Others may be capable of such an idea, but
I could not entertain it. I could no more think of a changing God, than I
could of a round square, or any other absurdity. The thing seems so contrary,
that I am obliged, when once I say God, to include the idea of an unchanging
being.
“This article originally appeared here at Bible Bulletin Board.”
