The Changing Years—the Unchanging God

by Arthur Pink

January, 1945 
 

When we were young, the transition from December to January meant little more to us than the need for another calendar and registering the new date on our letters. There was no solemn realization that another milestone had been passed in the short journey of life, and that we were 365 days nearer a never-ending Eternity—to spend the same, either as a regenerated soul in the Courts of holiness and everlasting bliss; or to be righteously cast by God as an abhorred sinner into the region of unutterable woe, there to suffer the due reward of our iniquities forever and ever.

But since Divine mercy apprehended us and gave us the spirit of a sound mind, and as we grow older, the passing of each year impresses us more deeply with the mutability of all earthly things and of our own mortality. As each fleeting year witnesses the call hence of one and another, we are reminded that the same call may likely come to us before 1945 expires; and therefore, it behooves us to see to it—that our own house is set in order.

With the changing years, come also the vicissitudes of life. True, that has been the case all through human history—but it seems to have been more pronounced of late. What alterations have been witnessed in every sphere during the last few decades! Probably most of our readers would have discredited anyone who, a generation ago, was able to forecast the principal conditions now prevailing in the world. Even the few who had sufficient discernment to see the coming events, which were casting their dark shadows before them, were unable to foresee more than the general outline of what is now before them in detail. 

Whether we view the situation in the military, the political, the social, or the religious sphere—things have deteriorated and degenerated more than even the pessimistic conceived likely. Nor can the most experienced and sagacious, prognosticate with any degree of certainty, how much further the downward trend will go, how much lower moral and spiritual values will sink, nor how much that which is still prized by the godly, will be sucked into the maelstrom of destruction. Yes, the changing years are bringing with them great changes in living conditions—changes which are solemn to contemplate, and fearful to experience.