Never Again

Have you grown up, all your life hearing this idiom: ‘Never say never’? People today still use it wisely, as a lash back I call it, alerting you to the fact that anything can happen.

I found this quite interesting when the earliest reference or origin of this saying, ‘Never say never’, was linked to the first novel by Charles Dickens, in eighteen thirty-seven, entitled, ‘The Pickwick Papers’. Accurate or not, this phrase comes to remind us that we should never be closed to changes. It encourages us to be open to possibilities, because human beings can change their minds due to situations, stresses, windfalls, misfortunes and suchlike. Even today, people will still say to you, and perhaps you too will say to them, ‘Never say never’. However, when it comes to Almighty, Creator, Sovereign God, it is right and fitting for Him to speak to us in the language of NEVER. Why is this the case?  Simply because God is not a human to change His Mind after He has said, NEVER.

We know that God made a NEVER covenant with Noah and many of us, believers and dare I say, non-believers, are reminded of it each time the rainbow appears in the sky. First, we need to have established in our minds to whom God made this covenant. Like me, you might say that it was a covenant with Noah, but listen to what this trail walk is bringing out for us. Then God said to Noah and to his sons with him: I now establish my covenant with you and with your descendants after you and with every living creature that was with you – the birds, the livestock and all the wild animals, all those that came out of the ark with you – every living creature on earth. Genesis 9: 8 – 10.

In that great big list, you are there. Believe then that this covenant was made with you and me also, so, by faith, we believe and receive. What therefore is the Covenant that we share? God has given His Word. Never again will all life be destroyed by the waters of a flood; never again will there be a flood to destroy the earth. Genesis 9: 11b. 

Understand this, when God makes a covenant with us, He is never the One to break it or not keep to it, regardless. He is never the One to cut from it or add to it. He is never the One to change His Sovereign Mind on it. On the contrary, God gave Noah an everlasting sign. I have set my rainbow in the clouds, and it will be a sign of the covenant between me and the earth. Genesis 9: 13. God, He who is Almighty Creator, He who is Supreme, He who is Lord, has deigned to speak in these human terms to His creation. Whenever I bring clouds over the earth and the rainbow appears in the clouds, I will remember my covenant between me and you and all living creatures of every kind. Never again will the waters become a flood to destroy all life. Genesis 9: 14 – 15. 

Never again, comes to us not just for this specific covenant God has made with Noah, but more so, to show us the Person of the God we worship and serve.

He can say, never again, and we can believe Him, because He will not change His Mind.

He can say, never again, and we know it to be so, as He controls, directs and dictates all creation.

He can say, never again, and we can take Him at His Word, for His Word remains firm, when everything else has passed away.

Never will you need My words to distrust,

For faith in Me must be a definitely must,

Never should you think that I will change My mind.

Let not fear and folly hold you in a bind.