Our passage today declares that the Lord is the everlasting God. Let’s read our passage and focus on what it means when we say that God is everlasting or eternal.

Isaiah 40:28
Have you not known? Have you not heard? The Lord is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He does not faint or grow weary; his understanding is unsearchable.

The first thing we need to know about God’s eternality is this—God is without beginning. There was never a time when he was not. Stephen Charnack wrote a classic work, The Existence and Attributes of God. Here’s what he said, “The gospel is not preached by the command of a new and temporary god, but of that God that was before all ages: though the manifestation of it be in time, yet the purpose and resolve of it was from eternity” (vol. 1, p. 281). Think of that—the good news is the plan of the eternal God.

Second, God is without end. He has always been and will always be. There has never been a time when God was not, and there will never be a time when God is not. When words describing time are found in Scripture, they refer to our time, not God’s. To illustrate time and eternity, C. S. Lewis suggests that we think of a sheet of paper that is extended infinitely. That would give us a picture of eternity. Then, on the paper, draw a short line to represent time. As the line “begins and ends on that infinite expanse, so time began in God and will end in Him” (Tozer, Knowledge of the Holy).

Third, God is without succession. He never changes. Man is in constant change. We acquire something or lose something in our being every day. God, on the other hand, has always been and will always be complete and perfect. He neither receives anything in addition to what he was nor loses anything from his Person.

Ready for this? The eternal God places eternity in our hearts (Ecclesiastes 3:11). Tozer says it like this: “…God whispers within every man of an everlasting hope; somewhere he will continue to exist.” Somewhere, you will continue to exist. Do you know where that place will be?

Father, I cannot grasp the concept of no beginning and end. So I bow before you in submission and worship. Thank you for setting eternity in my heart. Thank you for your Son, Jesus Christ, who allows me to spend eternity with you. In Jesus’ name, I pray. Amen.