Not One Thing Hath Failed by T. E. BOWEN

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Aug 18, 1910

Not One Thing Hath Failed

By T. E. BOWEN

T. E. BOWEN

IN a world of failures, where much that is spurious is passed for the genuine, where fair promises are made, only soon to be broken, it is comforting and refreshing to be able to turn to One against whom failure is never written concerning the thing promised or undertaken. God never undertakes a thing without accomplishing it. It may be a few years, a few centuries, or even a few thousand years; but when the time comes for the thing purposed to actually be fulfilled, it stands forth an accomplished fact.

Israel was told, before leaving Egypt, that God had a land awaiting them,—a “land flowing with milk and honey;” a land of vineyards; a land where it was not necessary to water the ground by the foot,—that is, laboriously drawing water from the river, and spreading it upon the ground,—but where showers came down in their season, and refreshed the earth. This was a good report. It presented a country greatly to be desired by a captive nation of slaves.

It was a long, tedious journey to reach this promised home. The way was beset by many difficulties; it was, in fact, made very much more difficult by their own unbelief; yet there stood God’s promise that he had given the land of the Hittites, the Gergusites, and a long list of other strong tribes, for an inheritance to Israel, to be their very own.

The long wilderness wandering served to dim in the minds of these people the luster of the promise. The goodly land seemed a long way off. The present environment, the every-day annoyances, served to eclipse the reality of the olive-yards, the fruitful fields and vineyards, promised to them. They murmured at God for the trials of the wilderness wandering—the result of their own iniquitous unbelief and rebellion at Kadesh-Barnea, when in heart they turned back to Egypt after spying out the land of Canaan.

There were two men in that company who never took their eyes from that promise of God, nor doubted its exact fulfilment. Caleb and Joshua, amid all the faithless murmuring surrounding them in the great camp of Israel, steadfastly believed the Lord. They knew that what he had promised, he was able to perform. They held on, never doubting; and God richly rewarded them for their unwavering confidence in him.

Joshua must have taken great delight in being used by the Lord in his ripe old age to divide by lot the promised land to the very children whose parents had charged Moses with bringing them into the wilderness to die. These same children had now lived to see the fulfilment of God’s promise, while their unbelieving fathers had been left behind in sorrow, buried in the wilderness.

Very forceful and appropriate are Joshua’s words to these people just before he was to die. “Ye have seen all that the Lord your God hath done unto all these nations because of you,” he said; “for the Lord your God is he that hath fought for you. Behold, I have divided unto you by lot these nations that remain, to be an inheritance for your tribes, from Jordan, with all the nations that I have cut off, even unto the great sea westward. And the Lord your God, he shall expel them from before you, and drive them from out of your sight; and ye shall possess their land, as the Lord your God hath promised unto you. . . . And, behold, this day I am going the way of all the earth: and ye know in all your hearts and in all your souls, that not one thing hath failed of all the good things which the Lord your God spake concerning you; all are come to pass unto you, and not one thing hath failed thereof.” Joshua 23:3-5, 14.

Notice that Joshua is very particular to emphasize that “not one thing” of all the good things promised by the Lord had failed. And in all that vast assembly there was no voice heard denying Joshua’s solemn challenge as to God’s faithfulness. Israel knew, in their hearts and in their souls, that what Joshua said was so, what God had promised he had fulfilled.

All this means much to remnant Israel. The real promised land, of which the other was merely a type, is just before us. Christ’s everlasting kingdom is about to be set up. God’s sure promise is, “To him that overcometh will I grant to sit with me in my throne, even as I also overcame, and am set down with my Father in his throne.” “And there shall be no more curse: but the throne of God and of the Lamb shall be in it; and his servants shall serve him: and they shall see his face; and his name shall be in their foreheads. And there shall be no night there: and they need no candle, neither light of the sun; for the Lord God giveth them light: and they shall reign forever and ever.” Rev. 3:21; 22:3-5.

By keeping the eye upon this promised city, eternal in the heavens, this home prepared for the redeemed ones, as Caleb and Joshua held to the promise of the Canaan of old, murmurings will cease, and ere long we, too, shall know that, of all the good things God has promised, not one has failed.

Takoma Park, D. C.