“Before the mountains were born or you brought forth the earth and the world, from everlasting to everlasting you are God” (Psalm 90:1,2).
When the first winter Olympic games convened in Albertville, France, immediately after the fall of Communism in Eastern Europe, officials at the games were uncertain how to handle the delegation of athletes from the former U.S.S.R. Athletes continued to wear the CCCP on their outfits. That was OK, but the Soviet national anthem, which had been used for decades, just would not fit. The old lyrics didn’t work anymore. And what were they? The words, “Unbreakable union of freeborn republics, great Russia has welded forever to stand…” were no longer appropriate.
The “unbreakable union” had broken up after only 73 years, and the phrase “forever to stand” had become meaningless in less than the “fourscore” or 80 years of a lifespan that Moses spoke of long ago.
What really lasts forever? When ballpoint pens were introduced in the 1950s, more than a few manufacturers made claims that their pen came with a lifetime guarantee, and it would virtually write forever. In a few short months, the point of the pen left streaks and blobs of ink on paper. By then the manufacturer had gone broke or disappeared, and it became obvious that the “lifetime guarantee” really meant the lifetime of the pen that had just malfunctioned.
Certainly, governments and the alliances of nations do not last forever. Unbreakable unions do not endure forever, whether they are governments or marriages.
If there is one thing that is certain, it is the fact that life is transitory and nothing is forever. Nothing? Perhaps that phrase should be qualified by saying that nothing human hands forge is forever.
Long ago, however, Moses, then a sheepherder on the backside of the desert, saw “an unbreakable union… forever to stand.” Here is how he described it. “Lord, you have been our dwelling place throughout all generations. Before the mountains were born or you brought forth the earth and the world, from everlasting to everlasting you are God” (Psalm 90:1,2).
This, of course, is a two-edged truth. First–my problems and the difficulties that confront me will have a limited duration or life expectancy. They are not “forever!” Situations that you don’t like are not permanent. There is an end to them, in one way or the other. The difficulties which seem to be “forever” will someday cease, and perhaps sooner than you think.
The flip side of this great truth is that beyond our difficulties and trials, is He who knows no weariness nor tires with age. “From everlasting to everlasting, you are God” is how Moses described it.
When I was a child, “everlasting” seemed to describe the length of sermons in church when I wanted to go out and play. Like a child who doesn’t understand that Christmas is 243 days away, because he doesn’t understand the function of time, neither can we fully grasp what “everlasting” is.
It is time without beginning or end, and while some things on earth seem to last forever, they don’t, but God does. One more thought I’d like to leave with you. There is a chunk of eternity in your heart, friend. The writer of Scripture put it, “He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the hearts of men…” (Ecclesiastes 3:11). It is this that makes you an individual who will live forever. That’s why you need an unending relationship–an unbroken union–with God, your Creator.
Resource reading: 1 Chronicles 22
