Americus Times Recorder

A Dependable God
By REV. J. H. RALSTON
Secretary of Correspondence Department,
Moody Bible Institute, Chicago

TEXT--"There failed not ought of any good thing which the Lord had spoken unto the house of Israel; all came to pass."-Joshua 21:45.

When man is in his saner moments, he longs for that which is stable, for sincerity. He longs for the time when a man's word will be as good as his bond, when Regulus will willingly go back to Carthage simply because he said he would.

About almost anything that a man meets in his every day experiences prompts him to ask, "Is it trustworthy, dependable?" If a man buys a fountain pen, he asks, "Will it write all the time?" As the aeronaut looks at his biplane or monoplane, and thinks of being 5,000 feet above the earth, he asks: "Is it dependable?" If a man has a bit of money and wishes to lay it aside for a rainy day, he asks of the bank in which he thinks of depositing it: "Is it safe?" President-elect Wilson recently said: "However the variation may come, no matter what the ephemeral feature may be, no matter what the external form may be, men are looking for a foothold; they are looking for some firm ground of faith upon which to walk."

Is it possible that man can ask with reference to God: "Is he dependable?" The gods of the Egyptians, Greeks or Romans were super-mundane beings: and man was constantly asking the question: "Will the gods change?" We have a proverb that has come down the centuries, "As fickle as the gods." The ancient religious devotee would think of his gods as mercurial, changeable beings, moved by any wind that blew-he could never trust them.

If we take the gods of today, and they are not the less gods than in the days of old-money, place, appetite-men are bowing down to these and worshiping them, and they may well ask, "Are they dependable?" So the subject of a dependable God is immensely practical, and those who worship the God of the Bible claim that he is dependable. He is the same yesterday, today and forever, whether manifesting himself as Father, Son or Holy Spirit.

The Bible is full of claims of the faithfulness of God, and God may be placed in sharp contrast to the gods that are in opposition or rivalry. The true God never breaks a promise, as the text so clearly claims. There may be some support to the idea of the dependability of God, as there is a demand for this in God: just as we claim that there is a God because there is a demand for God. And again the regularity and uniformity of movement of the various parts of God's creation is proof of the regularity and uniformity in the Creator himself. We know that the rising of the sun can be depended on: seasons of the year never fail to alternate; the systems that swing in illimitable space are so exact in their movements that those movements can be calculated for millenniums in advance to minutes and seconds-and God created all of these, and he is as dependable as they.

God has given us many "great and precious promises"-of blessings material blessings to the body politic, blessings to the intellectual and esthetic nature, and to the spiritual in man, both with respect to the experiences of this life, and the eternity that stretches beyond.

The challenge of God as to his faithfulness invites the closest examination of his character for veracity, consequently for dependability. His promises have been most specific; in many cases given to individuals: dates, locations and circumstances being definitely proclaimed hundreds of years before the things promised were realized. Joshua was justified in his strong assertion as he reviewed God's personal relationship to himself, for at the beginning of his career (Josh. 1:5) God had given specific promises, and they had been fulfilled literally.

This dependability of God is comprehensive. It means something beyond his promises of blessings, and applies as well to the warnings and threatenings of his word. In the history of Israel the threatenings because of disobedience were as numerous, if not more so, than the promises of blessings because of obedience. God being just as dependable as to the carrying out of the one as of the other.

If God is proclaimed as faithful God (Deut. 7.9) with respect to keeping covenant and showing mercy to a thousand generations, it is shown in the next verse that it is the same God that "repays those who hate him face to face."

"God will not change-the restless years may bring-
Sunlight and shade-glories of the spring.
In silent gloom and sunless winter hours;
Joy mixed with grief-sharp thorns with fragrant flowers:
Earth-lights may shine awhile, and then grow dim,
But God is true; there is no change in him."