“For all flesh is as grass, and all the glory of man as the flower of grass. The grass withereth, and the flower thereof falleth away: But the word of the Lord endureth for ever. And this is the word which by the gospel is preached unto you.”
(1 Peter 1:24-25)
I am continually amazed at how fast things change in our world. It seems that nothing is solid, nothing is stable and dependable. Everything, it seems, is tentative and subject to revision. News cycles are typically 24 hours long, meaning that news agencies are pumping out new stories on a daily basis, eclipsing, and oftentimes revising, information already published. We saw this in spades during the alleged COVID pandemic. We heard that the lock-downs would last only “two weeks to flatten the curve.” Initially, “the experts” stated that medical masks were ineffective in preventing transmission. Overnight their opinion changed and masks were suddenly mandatory. We saw the same thing with the vaccines. Initially we were told that the vaccinated would be immune to catching the virus. We were also told there would be no vaccine passports, no abject discrimination against the unvaccinated. That certainly didn’t last long! The climate alarmist community has been doing this for years. In the 70’s and 80’s, scientists warned us about a coming global ice-age. Suddenly, in the 90’s and extending into the 2000’s, they insisted we need to be concerned about global warming. Today we are threatened by the much more nebulous and ill-defined (and therefore hard to refute) “climate change.” As a society we have been programmed to view all truth claims as tentative; we have been trained to keep one eye on our perceived trusted authorities for the latest revisions to their previous claims. Comfortable and accustomed to all this uncertainty, we view with suspicion claims to absolute and unchanging truth. The spirit of the age has effectively inoculated people against the basic, overarching claim of Scripture, namely, that the unchanging God of the Bible (Malachi 3:6; Hebrews 13:8) has given us His perfect and unchanging word (Numbers 23:19; Proverbs 30:5-6; Isaiah 40:8). In his written praises to God, the psalmist shares his blessed spiritual insight, and invites us to rejoice with him in unshakable assurance. “For ever, O LORD, thy word is settled in heaven,” he wrote, “Concerning thy testimonies, I have known of old that thou hast founded them for ever” (Psalm 119:89, 152). When alumni from schools and universities get together and reminisce, they will often laugh about the things they were taught, things that have long since been refuted, discredited, and discarded. In stark contrast, when alumni from reputable Bible schools and colleges get together to reminisce about their time together, they don’t laugh about what they were taught. The timeless truths imparted to them are just as current and just as relevant as they were when they were first recorded. Let us consult God’s timeless truth today with renewed enthusiasm, faith, and gratitude.
God bless you, dear saints
pastor john
English