04012023 Everlasting

Dear Missionary Lady,

Greetings in the name of the everlasting God. To an extent, it is entirely logical that any being designated as God should be everlasting, but the eternality of God is far more than just a technicality or expectation. It is also very practical.

This morning I read Deuteronomy 33:27. “The eternal God is thy refuge, and underneath are the everlasting arms.” I noted two similar ideas. God is eternal, and His arms are everlasting. The repetition adds emphasis.

Why does it matter that God is eternal? Why does it matter that His arms are everlasting? This verse is included in the blessing that Moses gave to the tribe of Asher. The surrounding verses speak of extraordinary strength, of divine help, of safety, and of bountiful blessing.

God gave those benefits to Israel in the time of Moses. But Moses would soon die, and Israel would continue to need the same types of divine help after the passing of Moses. They would need that divine help for conquering the land (Joshua). They would need that divine help for fighting off enemies (Jehoshaphat). They would need that divine help when invading armies threatened and besieged them (Hezekiah). They would need that divine help to protect them in captivity (Esther, Daniel) and to return them to their land (Ezra, Nehemiah).

The children of Israel were not the first ones to need such help. Adam was the first man to need it. Noah needed it. The patriarchs needed it. Joseph needed it. The children of Israel needed it to escape Egyptian slavery. Neither were the children of Israel the last ones to need divine help. The apostles needed it. Paul and his companions needed it. The persecuted church needed it.

The need for divine help extends beyond the time encompassed in the Scriptures, however. Every Christian in the two millennia since the closing of the Scriptures has also needed divine help. This extends right up into the current day. Sometimes it is difficult for us to envision the types of situations faced by Christians in previous eras, but we are aware of the type of help that we need in our present day. This help is needed on national levels, at church levels, within families, and certainly by individuals.

The fact that God is eternal and that His arms are everlasting means that He can provide the same type of help that He gave to Israel during the conquest to everyone from Adam through the present day. What God did in the past, He can continue to do. Every type of situation that He handled in the past is still under His ability to manage.

This is not true for anyone else. Moses wasn't always there for those people. King David was not always there for his people. Even with his lengthy ministry, the prophet Jeremiah was not always there. The apostle Paul was not always available to those churches. Each of these men died, and the people who were under their care remained under the eternal care of God.

One of the frustrations of government is that leaders are temporary. We may become very excited about a new governor or president or other official and the policies that he promises to implement. We may look forward expectantly to reforms and to new programs. But how often has it happened that a ruler left office before he was able to implement the things he had promised? Often millions of dollars are spent to overhaul a program. Then the party in power changes, and the new party spends millions of dollars to undo what had not even reached implementation stages and to develop their own version of the same program.

This type of problem never occurs with God, because His rule never ends. There is no disruption of power. There is no reversal of His policies. There is no waste of resources, and there is no perennial winding of the path and changing of direction. Because God is eternal, He can continue to work His plan even when the development of that plan is played out over centuries or even millennia. Because of this, God could orchestrate everything needed for the birth of His Son, and because of this, God can orchestrate everything needed for the second coming of His Son and for the events of the end of the world. And everything in between.

It matters that God is eternal, because it means that He can still offer the same help today and because it means that His long-term plans continue faithfully toward their fulfillment. It also matters what type of God this eternal God is. The verse from Deuteronomy calls the eternal God a refuge, and it describes His everlasting arms as being underneath to uphold weak and needy people.

This is who God still is for us today. He is still a refuge, just as He has always been a refuge for His people. His arms still uphold the weak, the frail, and the feeble, just as they have always done. We can rest in the care of this eternal God, and we can throw our weight and our burdens into His unfailing arms. What a blessing it is to belong to and to serve a God that is everlasting. May the everlasting God uphold you this week and do the work in you and through you that only He can do.

Love in Christ,

Peggy Holt

member at Open Door Baptist Church in Lebanon, PA