Promises and Their Fulfillment.
By R. F. Cottrell
In the development of the great plan of salvation, God has seen fit to give promises of future events, and at the proper time fulfill them. The promises are to inspire faith, and their fulfillment discovers to the people how much faith they really have. Alas! how often is it found that faith is wanting. God revealed to Abraham that his posterity would be in bondage for four hundred years, but at the end of this period of service, he would judge their oppressors and deliver them and bring them again to the land of Canaan. Gen. 15: 13–16. It seems to have been thirty years from the time that Jacob removed into Egypt to the commencement of their servitude, when another king arose that “knew not Joseph,” for their departure was four hundred and thirty years to a day from the time that they went into Egypt. At the appointed time, God, faithful to his word of promise, sent Moses to deliver them. But it took as many signs to convince the Israelites that God would fulfill his promise as it did to convince Pharaoh that he should let them go; and many of them distrusted God all the way as they went, till their carcasses fell in the wilderness. They are examples to us who hear the last merciful message, a message which proclaims the final deliverance at hand. They lacked faith; how is it with us? Again, before the Jews were carried captive to Babylon, God promised them restoration to their own land. Jer. 27: 22; 29: 10. At the end of the seventy years, Jer. 25: 12, in the time of the grandson of Nebuchadnezzar, Chap. 27: 7, with punctuality God punished the king of Babylon and began to open the way for the restoration of the people to their land. Some few who had faith in the promises began to seek God, to confess their sins, and pray for, and expect, their fulfillment. Dan. 9: 2–19. But how slow were the people to believe! And when a free privilege was offered to all to return, how few were ashamed of their sins and embraced the privilege of returning. Yet a few had faith to go up, and God sustained that few in their arduous work of rebuilding in troublous times. This is a lesson of faith to us. Will we learn the lesson? Again, the predicted Messiah came at the time appointed, at the end of the sixty nine weeks of Dan. 9: 25. The predictions of the prophecies were perfectly fulfilled in him, and in the commencement of his preaching, he proclaimed the time fulfilled, Mark 1: 15, and that the preaching of the gospel, as foretold by Isaiah, was being fulfilled at that very time in the hearing of the people. Luke 4: 18–21. And what caused the leaders of the Jewish people to reject him? Their unbelief in the fulfillment of the very prophets in whom they professed faith. They professed faith in Moses and the prophets. Said they, “We know that God spake unto Moses, but as for this fellow, we know not whence he is.” But Christ’s language to them was, “Do not think that I will accuse you to the Father: there is one that accuseth you, even Moses, in whom ye trust. For had ye believed Moses, ye would have believed me: for he wrote of me. But if ye believe not his writings, how shall ye believe my words?” The faith of the church is now being tested by the fulfillment of the closing message of probation, as promised in the word of God. Rev. 14: 9–12. But how few are ready to believe, when God redeems his pledges in the fulfillment of that which he has promised. The great mass of professing Christians are in imminent danger of disbelieving God’s word and providence, as did the Jews. If they believed the apostle John, they would believe the work that is now being done; for he, being in the Spirit, wrote of it. Those who shall finally reject this message, will make a fatal mistake. And how many who have professed faith in it, will, for want of real, living faith, make this same mistake. We want a living faith, a faith that works. The word to Israel now is, that they go “forward.” R. F. COTTRELL.