“The Lord your God is one Lord.” God is behind everything the final certain One. You cannot analyze, or divide, or explain Him, yet He is the one and only absolute certainty. He is ONE, all-comprehending, indivisible. When you have said that, you have said all. When you have omitted that, you have left everything out, and babbled only in chaotic confusion.

From that truth I make a deduction. If God is one, then the principles and the purposes of His government never vary. Dispensations and methods change; the will of God never changes, never varies, never progresses, in that sense. What does progress mean? Failure! What does advancement mean? Past limitations! You cannot progress unless there has been failure somewhere. If I can be better in five minutes than I am now, I am wrong now. Progress is a confession of failure. When this age boasts of its vaunted progress, it is telling the story of the failure of the past. God never makes progress, never advances. Consequently He is not always doing as we are, legislating for man—framing new laws because the old ones have failed. The will of right, love, and tenderness, His will is eternal.

Dispensations come and go, dawn and vanish; but God remains the same, underneath, with, and in each. Some people speak as though God had not only altered His methods, but His mind. I agree that He has changed His methods, but His mind, never! God did not begin to love man when Jesus came. Jesus came to roll back the curtain and show man the heart that was eternal, the love that was always there. Christianity is not God’s alteration of attitude toward man. It is not that in the old dispensation He was a policeman, and in this a father. He has always been a father, He never changes.

Dispensations and methods mark the change of man, and the necessary change in the way the Divine Hand is placed upon human life, but behind everything—God!

God the same abiding,
His praise shall tune my voice,
And while in Him confiding
I cannot but rejoice.

We must get our feet down upon this abiding rock. It is for this reason that the Old Testament Scriptures are of value. The accidents of human life perpetually change; the essentials abide forever.


G. Campbell Morgan, Wherein Have We Robbed God?: Malachi’s Message to the Men of Today, (New York; Chicago; Toronto: Fleming H. Revell Company, 1898), 16–18.

BULLETPROOF WASHINGTON
Bible Study / Daily Devotional
Average reading time is about 5 and a half minutes
AN AMAZING FACT: On July 9, 1755, during the French and Indian War, a force of 1,500 British soldiers was ambushed in the open by a small force of French and American Indian fighters shooting from the woods. The British soldiers—trained for European war—made easy targets standing shoulder to shoulder in their bright red uniforms. And their officers were even more exposed on horseback, high above the men on the ground, making perfect targets. The slaughter continued for two hours as nearly 70 percent of the British soldiers were cut down.
One by one, the chief’s marksmen shot the British officers from their horses until only one remained. Amazingly, round after round was aimed at this one man. Twice the young lieutenant’s horse was shot out from under him. Twice he grabbed another horse. Ten, fifteen, twenty rounds were fired by the sharpshooters. Still, the officer remained unhurt. The native warriors stared in disbelief. Their rifles seldom missed. The chief realized that a mighty power must be shielding this man and commanded, “Stop firing! This one is under the special protection of the Great Spirit.”

Eventually the lieutenant colonel gathered the remaining British troops and led them to safety. That evening, as the last of the wounded were being cared for, the officer noticed an odd tear in his coat. It was a bullet hole! He rolled up his sleeve and looked at his arm directly under the hole. There was no mark on his skin. Amazed, he took off his coat and found three more holes where bullets had passed through his coat but stopped before they reached his body. Nine days after the battle, the young lieutenant colonel wrote his brother: “By the all-powerful dispensations of Providence I have been protected beyond all human probability or expectation; for I had four bullets through my coat, and two horses shot under me yet escaped unhurt, although death was leveling my companions on every side!”

The 23-year-old officer went on to become the commander in chief of the Continental Army and the first president of the United States. During the years that followed in his long career, this man, George Washington, was never once wounded in battle. Washington also escaped flying bullets on four other occasions and survived contracting diphtheria, malaria, smallpox, and tuberculosis.
KEY BIBLE TEXTS
A thousand shall fall at thy side, and ten thousand at thy right hand; but it shall not come nigh thee. Psalms 91:7

3.—That ye may be able to comprehend with all saints, what is the breadth and length, and depth, and height, and to know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge.—Ephes. 3:18, 19.

DID Paul pray that the church might be thus blessed? So should all faithful pastors. And there is enough in Jesus to call up the everlasting contemplation of his people. All the dimensions of divine glory are in Jesus. Who, indeed, shall describe the extent of that love which passeth knowledge?

But, my soul, pause over the account. What is the breadth of it? Jesus’ death reaches in efficacy to all his seed—all his children: to thee, my soul; for thou art the seed of Jesus. And though that death took place at Jerusalem near 2,000 years since, yet the efficacy of his blood, as from an high altar, as effectually washes away sin now, as in the moment it was shed. Remember, Jesus still wears the vesture dipped in blood. Remember, Jesus still appears as the Lamb slain before God!

Indeed, indeed, Jesus was the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world. So that in breadth, it is broader than the sea, taking in all the seed of Jesus, through all ages, all dispensations, all the various orders of his people. Neither is the length of it less proportioned. Who shall circumscribe the Father’s love, which is from everlasting to everlasting? Who shall limit Jesus’ grace? Is he not made of God wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption? Is he not all this, in every office, every character, every relation? “Jesus Christ; the same yesterday, and to-day, and forever!” And what is the depth of this love, but reaching down to hell, to lift up our poor fallen nature! And what is the height, but Jesus, in our nature, exalted far above all principalities, and powers, and might, and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this world, but also in that which is to come?

Precious God of my salvation! oh! give me to see, to know, to entertain, and cherish, more enlarged views of this love, which hath no bottom, no bounds, no shore; but, like its Almighty Author, is from everlasting to everlasting. Shall I ever despond? Shall I ever doubt any more, when this Jesus looks upon me, loves me, washes me in his blood, feeds me, clothes me, and hath promised to bring me to glory? Oh! for faith to comprehend, with all saints, this love of God, which passeth knowledge.

Robert Hawker, The Poor Man’s Morning Portion, (New York; Pittsburg: Robert Carter, 1845), 48–49.