The More Things Change, The More They Stay The Same

I confess: I’m computer dependent. I use one every day to prepare sermons, work up class material, write articles (like this one). I’m sure I could still do my work without one, but I sure wouldn’t want to.

I’m on my fifth computer since I began preaching. Computers have come a long way in those few years. This one has more than 100 times the memory, more than 1,000 times the storage capacity, and who-knows-how-many times the processing speed of my first one. It has standard features that didn’t even exist just a few years ago. And it fits in a briefcase.

But there’s a funny thing about buying computers. It doesn’t matter if you buy the most sophisticated, state-of-the-art, high-dollar computer available; by the time you get it home and out of the box, someone will have figured out how to make one that does more and costs less. In a matter of weeks, computers exactly like yours will be selling at a much lower price than you paid. In a few short months your beloved machine won’t be considered “high-tech” anymore. And in a couple of years people will say, “You mean you’re still using one of those?”

Such is the nature of technology—always progressing. In our world, change seems to come ever faster and ever larger. Sometimes it’s just overwhelming.

Solomon observed that “there is nothing new under the sun” (Ecclesiastes 1:9). Technology may constantly change, but the basic needs, problems, and shortcomings of men remain constant from age to age. The old plague of sin still affects every one of us (Romans 3:23), and all our advances have neither lessened its effects nor made us able to save ourselves from its consequences. Men still need Jesus—that will never change. Thankfully, “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today, yes and forever” (Hebrews 13:8). His death proved his love for all men; his resurrection proved his ability to save them from sin and death. He was, and is, and always will be, the only solution to our greatest problems.

“For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God” (Ephesians 2:8). It’s as true for a 21st century computer engineer as for a first century tent maker. No matter how the world may change in the years to come, salvation will always be in the unchanging Christ.