We can all of us, perhaps, look back to occasions when, if God had been pleased suddenly to call us away, in the state in which we were living at that moment, we could only have put our hands upon our lips and confessed that the sentence was perfectly just. Why are we here, the survivors of the thousands and tens of thousands who have gone before us? Every one will at once say, "It is the long-suffering of God." But why is He long-suffering?
The solution which the prophet, or rather which God Himself, gives of this matter is twofold one sovereignty "I am the Lord;" and the other unchangeableness, "I change not."
I. The sovereignty of God is a subject full of comfort to a balanced mind. It lays the base of every man's salvation in the free electing power of God, which is manifested to the individual soul by the outgoings of the Holy Spirit producing certain emotions and feelings in the man's mind. Therefore it is that God loves us with such an unwearied love, because His love preceded our love, and He loved us from all eternity. Sovereignty is the cause of forbearance. Mercy is, by the consent of all nations, the prerogative of the throne. Christ is exalted that He may give remission of sins. His cross justifies the act of forgiveness, and His throne makes it.
II. "I change not." In the hand of God there is a chart laid down and accurately mapped before the foundation of this world was laid. Nothing occurs in this earth which is not the transcript of that chart. It comes from one mind it is wrought out by one man it illustrates one truth, and it reaches to one appointed end. Changing pilgrims through this changing scene, fix your eyes upon the changeless. Rest yourselves on these two grand ideas the foundation of all life and of all peace for ever, "I am the Lord, I change not; therefore ye sons of Jacob are not consumed."
J. Vaughan, Fifty Sermons,7th series, p. 236.
References: Malachi 3:6. Spurgeon, Sermons,vol. i., No. 1; Ibid., Morning by Morning,p. 307; Preacher's Monthly,vol. ii., p. 461; vol. v., p. 332; J. H. Evans, Thursday Penny Pulpit,vol. iii., p. 447; F. Silver, Ibid.,vol. x., p. 221.