Many of us have thought several times in our lifetime that the event that is occurring at present will be “the one” that will usher in the fulfilment of the long awaited era of the prophecy, “the final movements will be rapid ones”, only to be disappointed once again.
BUT,
Each and every event has significance toward “the Great Day”, and it is coming! It may unfold very differently to what we have thought all of our lives that it will happen like, it may be at a totally unexpected time and place, or it may not be unfolding as rapidly as we think that it should be, but there is Absolute Certainty that it will come and it will not tarry:
And the Lord answered me, and said,
Write the vision, and make it plain upon tables,
that he may run that readeth it.
For the vision is yet for an appointed time,
but at the end it shall speak, and not lie:
though it tarry, wait for it;
because it will surely come, it will not tarry.
Behold, his soul which is lifted up is not upright in him:
but the just shall live by his faith. Habbakuk 2:2-4
Each time there has been a prophecy that the faithful have been waiting for, there has been “a progressive build up to it”. You will recall the “Time of the End” prophecy - 1755, 1776, 1780, 1787, 1791, 1793, all had significant events occur in them and all pointed to this time until the prophesied year finally arrived in 1798. This progressive build up has always occurred throughout prophetic history. There have always been people prepared of God, ready to fulfil their role and faithfully waiting for the expected event.
Cast not away therefore your confidence, which hath great recompence of reward. For ye have need of patience, that, after ye have done the will of God, ye might receive the promise. For yet a little while, and he that shall come will come, and will not tarry. Now the just shall live by faith: but if any man draw back, my soul shall have no pleasure in him. But we are not of them who draw back unto perdition; but of them that believe to the saving of the soul. Hebrews 10:35-39
Now that we are in the period when time will no longer be a test for the people of God, we know not the day or the hour of the events that are to occur, but we have the Principles of Biblical Interpretation as a guide for us and one of the endorsed rules states;
“To know whether we have the true historical event for the fulfillment of a prophecy: If you find every word of the prophecy (after the figures are understood) is literally fulfilled, then you may know that your history is the true event. But if one word lacks a fulfillment, then you must look for another event, or wait its future development. For God takes care that history and prophecy doth agree, so that the true, believing children of God may never be ashamed. Psalms 21:5; Isaiah 14:17-19; 1 Peter 2:6; Revelation 17:17; Acts 3:18”
One final thought -
Christ is waiting with longing desire for the manifestation of Himself in His church. When the character of Christ shall be perfectly reproduced in His people, then He will come to claim them as His own. It is the privilege of every Christian not only to look for but to hasten the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. Were all who profess His name bearing fruit to His glory, how quickly the whole world would be sown with the seed of the gospel. Quickly the last great harvest would be ripened, and Christ would come to gather the precious grain. COL 69
It could well be that we are the cause of the apparent delay. Let us all personally make sure that we are not the cause of the tarrying.
But and if that evil servant shall say in his heart, My lord delayeth His coming; And shall begin to smite his fellowservants, and to eat and drink with the drunken; The Lord of that servant shall come in a day when he looketh not for him, and in an hour that he is not aware of, And shall cut him asunder, and appoint him his portion with the hypocrites: there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth. Matthew 24:48-51
God’s great time clock knows no haste and no delay, for when the fulness of time is reached; His love, grace and mercy have been extended to all who are willing to receive them - the end will come.
We have the assurance that in this age of the world the Holy Spirit will work with mighty power, unless by our unbelief we limit our blessing, and thus lose the advantages we might obtain... RH February 7, 1957
Each one of us has much to be done in the refining process in the mean time so let us all allow Christ to do all that He wants to in the finishing of our character and life.
