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Eternal Father, strong to save,
Whose arm hath bound the restless wave,
Who biddest the mighty ocean deep
Its own appointed limits keep;
Oh, hear us when we cry to Thee,
For those in peril on the sea!
(Eternal Father, Strong to Save)
See C H Spurgeon's comments God's attribute - Eternal
As someone has said God is the great I Am, not the great I was! A W Tozer adds that... In God there is no was or will be, but a continuous and unbroken is. In Him history and prophecy are one and the same. Whatever God is He is infinitely. The great Puritan writer Stephen Charnock wrote that.. The eternity of God is nothing else but the duration of God, and the duration of God is nothing else but his existence enduring. It is indeed a high and holy mystery to contemplate that God existed before He created anything. Time dwells within God. He causes, affects, and controls it, and yet does so without time exerting any control or hold on Him. Everything about God is "always" and "I Am". No hour glass can be turned over for the Creator of time, for He is not subject to time! Ps 102:12 Thou, O Lord, dost abide forever and Thy name to all generations. (Spurgeon's Commentary) God’s nature is without beginning and without end, free from all succession of time. God dwells in eternity. Eternity is not just “extended time” but rather is existence above and apart from time. God contains in Himself the cause of time! Time has no control over God and He does not have to work within the strictures of time unless He so pleases. Being eternal, He is free to bestow eternality on His creation in His good pleasure. All of God’s attributes bask in His eternality. Since eternity neither wears out nor runs out, neither do His attributes. Isaiah 40:28 Do you not know? Have you not heard? (Listen to the Song - Do You Not Know?) The Everlasting God, the Lord, the Creator of the ends of the earth does not become weary or tired. His understanding is inscrutable. Man's life is short and the universe too is perishable but God is eternal. Be encouraged dear suffering saint. The night is almost over and your day is at hand. Take heart, for you will soon spend eternity with the Eternal God! God, being the Author of time, is in no way conditioned by it. He is free to act in relation to time and is equally free to act outside its limitations. Acting in time He said to Abraham, “Is anything too hard for the LORD? At the time appointed I will return unto thee, according to the time of life and Sarah shall have a son” (Ge 18:14). Thus, again But when the fullness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son” (Gal 4:4). Anyone existing before time began at the creation is eternal. And only God is eternal.
Norm Geisler describes God's eternality this way: The Bible declares that God is eternal. He was before time, and he created time. Hence, he cannot be a part of time, though he can relate to time as its Creator in the way a cause relates to its effect. Many verses of Scripture support God’s eternality: “God said to Moses, ‘I am who I am’ ” (Ex 3:14)..."The theological grounds for God’s eternality are found in several other attributes. For example, immutability implies eternality, for an immutable being cannot change. But whatever is in time changes. Hence, God cannot be in time. God’s eternality can also be inferred from his infinity. An infinite being has no limits, whereas a temporal being has limits. Hence, God is not a temporal being. Pure actuality is also a ground for eternality. Pure actuality (Geisler explains elsewhere that "pure actuality means that God is actuality and has no potentiality whatsoever. Everything He could be, He is and always was and always will be. He exists but has no potential not to exist) has no potentiality, but whatever is temporal has potentiality. Hence, God is not temporal but eternal." (from Why I am a Christian: Leading Thinkers Explain Why They Believe) Ps 90:1-2 Lord, Thou hast been our dwelling place in all generations. Before the mountains were born or Thou didst give birth to the earth and the world, even from everlasting to everlasting, Thou art God. (Spurgeon's Commentary on Ps 90:1, Ps 90:2) Spurgeon comments God was, when nothing else was. He was God when the earth was not a world but a chaos. If God himself were of yesterday, he would not be a suitable refuge for mortals. The eternal existence of God is here mentioned to set forth, by contrast, the brevity of human life." (from his Treasury of David) Warren Wiersbe writes that There is a difference between being immortal and being eternal. Man is immortal—that is, his soul will never die; but God is eternal—He has neither beginning nor ending. God existed before the mountains (the most durable thing known in Moses’ day); in fact, He gave birth to the mountains. Through faith in Jesus Christ, we become a part of eternity and possess eternal life." (Wiersbe, W. W. Wiersbe's Expository Outlines on the New Testament. Wheaton, Ill.: Victor Books) Our God, Our Help In Ages Past
by Isaac Watts
Click to play Our God, our help in ages past,
Our hope for years to come,
Our shelter from the stormy blast,
And our eternal home.
Under the shadow of Thy throne
Thy saints have dwelt secure;
Sufficient is Thine arm alone,
And our defense is sure.
Before the hills in order stood,
Or earth received her frame,
From everlasting Thou art God,
To endless years the same.
Our God, our help in ages past,
Our hope for years to come,
Be Thou our guard while troubles last,
And our eternal home. Henry Morris in the Defender's Study Bible commenting on "from everlasting to everlasting" writes To the skeptical question as to who made God, the only answer that satisfies all the facts of both science and human reason is that God is "from everlasting." He is the Creator of time as well as space and all things that exist in time and space. This is beyond our mental comprehension, but there is no other rational explanation for our existence, and it is surely compatible with the intuitions of our spiritual comprehension. God satisfies the heart regardless of difficulties conjured in the mind. Adam Clarke in "Christian Theology" describes God's eternal existence this way -- All time is as nothing before Him, because in the presence as in the nature of God all is eternity; therefore nothing is long, nothing short, before Him; no lapse of ages impairs His purposes, nor need He wait to find convenience to execute those purposes. And when the longest period of time has passed by, it is but as a moment or indivisible point in comparison of eternity. Eternity is God’s signature—it is who He is Isaiah 63:16 Thou, O Lord, art our Father, our Redeemer from of old is Thy name His name “I Am,” expresses clearly His unconditional and independent existence and encompasses the idea of His continuous presence (Ex 3:14) because He simply “is.” Unlike His creatures who are bound by time with life that is brief and fleeting, the Creator is eternal. Everything in existence is dependent upon Him (Col 1:15, 16, 17 -see notes Col 1:15; 16; 17), always has been and always will be! For God to be God, He, of necessity, must have always existed. Because God is infinite and exists outside of time, the past, present, and future are all one—the now to Him. When man says that God is eternal he is saying something positive about the being of God even though, as far as his own conceptualization is concerned, he cannot think of this eternity otherwise than in terms of the passage of years. God is eternal and not transitory like the fleeting strength of armies and nations. Spurgeon wrote that Man’s thoughts are for a time, and his ways but for a season; God is eternal: when he thinks his thoughts abide for ever, and when he acts his ways are everlasting Spurgeon on the relationship between God's love and His eternality: Do you not know that God is an eternal, self-existent Being, that to say He loves now, is, in fact, to say He always did love, since with God there is no past, and can be no future? What we call past, present, and future, He wraps up in one eternal NOW. And if you say that He loves you now, you thereby say that He loved you yesterday, He loved you in the past eternity, and He will love you for ever; for now with God is past, present, and future. Those who talk of God’s beginning to love His people know not “what they say, nor whereof they affirm.” They might speak of man beginning to love; they might speak of angels beginning to love; but of God we never can, since He, without beginning, had a deathless love in His heart; He has an affection which has no source except in Himself, He could not begin, for He is without beginning of years, and without end of days. From everlasting to everlasting He is God; and from everlasting to everlasting His mercies extend to His people. (from his sermon "Christ's Prayer for Believers")
Ge 21:33 And Abraham planted a tamarisk tree at Beersheba, and there he called on the name of the Lord, the Everlasting God. Here this Divine name, El Olam, assured Abraham of the unbreakable and everlasting nature of the covenant God had made with him, notwithstanding his being only a resident alien and a sojourner in the Land. Ps 102:7 Thou art the same and Thy years will not come to an end (See Spurgeon's Commentary on Ps 102:7)
Isaiah 41:4 Who has performed and accomplished it, calling forth the generations from the beginning? ‘I, the Lord, am the first, and with the last. I am He.’
Revelation 1:8 (see note) I am the Alpha and the Omega,” says the Lord God, “Who is and Who was and Who is to come, the Almighty. Isaiah 57:15 For thus says the high and exalted One Who lives forever (dwells in eternity), Whose name is Holy, “I dwell on a high and holy place, and also with the contrite and lowly of spirit in order to revive the spirit of the lowly and to revive the heart of the contrite. Eternality is the attribute associated with God alone, because God has no beginning point and no ending point. Furthermore, eternality applies only to God for only God is "uncaused". LEAD ON, O KING ETERNAL
by Ernest Shurtleff
(Play hymn) Lead on, O King eternal,
The day of march has come;
Henceforth in fields of conquest
Thy tents shall be our home.
Through days of preparation
Thy grace has made us strong;
And now, O King eternal,
We lift our battle song.
Lead on, O King eternal,
Till sin’s fierce war shall cease,
And holiness shall whisper
The sweet amen of peace.
For not with swords’ loud clashing,
Nor roll of stirring drums;
With deeds of love and mercy
The heavenly kingdom comes.
Lead on, O King eternal,
We follow, not with fears,
For gladness breaks like morning
Where’er Thy face appears.
Thy cross is lifted over us,
We journey in its light;
The crown awaits the conquest;
Lead on, O God of might. | 
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