p. 179 | God's Yesterday by T. E. Bowen

Pacific Press Publishing Association · Mountain View, California · Mar 31, 1914

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 41, No. 12.

God's Yesterday

By T. E. Bowen

GOD does not forget. He forgets neither His gracious promises, nor the warnings against sin. With Him the events of a thousand years past are as fresh as are the events of yesterday to us, so that "with the Lord" "a thousand years [are] as one day" is with us.

A beautiful illustration of this is found in the book of Jeremiah. God had greatly blessed Israel, bringing them out of Egypt and placing them in the land of promise. Here they became a great nation. Then they forgot the Lord, and turned away from Him, to serve false gods. Long He bore with their perverseness, until there was no remedy. He was about to give His people over into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar. Faithfully He warned them of what He purposed to do, that they might repent and turn from their sins, and thus avoid this great evil. But they still rebelled. So God sent them this word:

"Therefore thus saith the Lord; Ye have not harkened unto Me, in proclaiming liberty, every one to his brother, and every man to his neighbor: behold, I proclaim a liberty for you, saith the Lord, to the sword, to the pestilence, and to the famine; and I will make you to be removed into all the kingdoms of the earth. And I will give the men that have transgressed My covenant, which have not performed the words of the covenant which they had made before Me, when they cut the calf in twain, and passed between the parts thereof, . . . I will even give them into the hand of their enemies." Jer. 34: 17-20.

The interesting part of this scripture is that the covenant to which the Lord refers was made with Abraham away back before Israel was a nation at all. See Gen. 15: 10-16. The chronology given places the time 1913 B. C., and this warning at 590 B. C. So this covenant to which God called their attention through Jeremiah was one that He and Abraham, the father of all who should by faith believe on Christ, had entered into 1,323 years before. The Lord refers to it as something of but a yesterday.

Surely God is not slack concerning His promise. His word He places above all His name. Well would it be for all to ponder with what unerring accuracy God fulfils His word. Many glibly pass by, to-day, the most solemn warnings found in God's book. They seem to think God neither remembers nor cares about what He has spoken through His prophets. Such should take warning. God deals with thousand-year periods as we deal with day-periods. He neither forgets nor slackens concerning His purposes. What the Son of God proclaimed on Sinai, what He taught on the mount and by the sea as He walked among men, is as fresh in God's mind as are the events of yesterday to us. Let us take heed, and become not only careful students of the Word, but faithful doers as well.

T. E. BOWEN.