ASSURANCE FOR THE APPOINTED TIME

“Though God seldom comes at our day, because we seldom reckon right yet he never fails His own day.

Though the promise tarries until the appointed time, yet it will not tarry beyond it! Acts 7:17 (AMP) But as the time for the fulfillment of the promise drew near which God had made to Abraham, the [Hebrew] people increased and multiplied in Egypt. Herbs and flowers sleep underground all winter in their roots but come up out of their beds, where they have lain unseen for so long, when spring approaches. And the promise will do this in its season.

Every promise is dated, but with a mysterious character; and because we cannot understand God's chronology, we think He must have forgotten us. It is as if a man should set his watch by his own hungry stomach rather than by the sun, and then say it is noon and complain because his lunch is not quite ready. We covet comfort and expect the promise to keep time with our impatient desires. But the sun will not move any faster if we set our watch forward, not the promise come sooner if we antedate it.

It is most true, as someone has said, “though God seldom comes at time or day we expect, because we seldom understand correctly, yet He never fails His own timing or day of action." The apostle exhorts the Thessalonian church not to " 2 Th. 2:2 (AMP) Not to allow your minds to be quickly unsettled or disturbed or kept excited or alarmed, whether it be by some [pretended] revelation of [the] Spirit or by word or by letter [alleged to be] from us, to the effect that the day of the Lord has [already] arrived and is here. But why did these saints need such an exhortation when they were looking for their greatest joy to come with that day? It was not the coming of that day which was so alarming, but the time in which some seducers would have persuaded them to expect it--before many prophecies had been fulfilled. "2Th. 2:3 (AMP) Let no one deceive or beguile you in any way, for that day will not come except the apostasy comes first [unless the predicted great falling away of those who have professed to be Christians has come], and the man of lawlessness (sin) is revealed, who is the son of doom (of perdition), The promise waits only until those intermediate truths--which span a much shorter period--are fulfilled, and then nothing can possibly hold back the promise after that."

Quoted material from, ”The Christian in Complete Armour Daily Readings in Spiritual Warfare” by Gurnall and James S Bell. http://www.moodypublishers.com/pub_productDetail.aspx?id=41823&pid=53617