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I. THE CHANGEFUL IN HUMAN EXPERIENCE. There is as much variety as in the difference between July and December; between all that is summerly and all that is winterly in our English climate.

1. There is this changefulness in the experience of individuals. In the difference of differing age: Robustness of youth, decrepitude of age. In the difference of differing health: Buoyancy of strength, feebleness of disease. In the difference of differing circumstances: Prosperity, anxiety, poverty; success, failure; popularity, neglect, or scorn. In the difference of differing moods: Joy, sadness; doubt, faith.

2. There is this changefulness in the experience of families. Unbroken home circles, and desolated hearths. Wedding days, and funerals. The cradle the centre of the household, and anon the coffin.

3. There is this changefulness in the experience of nations. Commercially there is a summer and a winter. So politically; so religiously. Rome, Greece, Spain, etc., have had summer and winter. We seem getting towards winter. But though all, whether individuals, families, or nations, thus have "in the changes and chances of this mortal life" their bright, genial, glowing summers, and their chill, gloomy, cruel winters, we notice —

II. THE UNCHANGEABLE PROVISION GOD HAS MADE FOR MAN'S NEEDS. The prophet is telling of a river of blessing that, though it roll through winterly and summerly landscapes, is itself unchanged, perpetually the same. In summer and winter IT shall be. That river is surely the revealed love of God in Christianity. What else fulfils what the prophet declares about —

1. The fountain,

2. The progress,

3. The winter of this river?God's love in Christ does. And that is the sublimely unchangeable IT, which remains the same in all the summers and winters of human experience.

(Urijah R. Thomas.)

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KJV: And it shall be in that day, that living waters shall go out from Jerusalem; half of them toward the former sea, and half of them toward the hinder sea: in summer and in winter shall it be.

WEB: It will happen in that day, that living waters will go out from Jerusalem; half of them toward the eastern sea, and half of them toward the western sea; in summer and in winter will it be.