Parousia Second Coming of Jesus Christ.
It is a familiar sentence, but with growing significance, that “we have nothing to fear for the future, except as we shall forget the way the Lord has led us, and His teaching in our past history.”–“Life Sketches,” p. 196.
Travelers we all are, bound for the Promised Land. Clear have been the evidences of divine guidance thus far. The Holy City looms up in the distance, but the path just before us seems perilous. Some, as we have moved along, have dropped off by the wayside. Something has been allowed to enter the life that has dimmed their great objective, and their feet have turned aside. Still others may fail to reach the cherished goal.
But, says our great Leader Jesus Christ, “We have nothing to fear for the future”—”EXCEPT.” What is the exception? “Except as we shall forget the way the Lord has led us.” We are a forward-looking people, but there are times when it is appropriate to look back—not fearfully to see if we should have taken some other path, or to make sure that the foundations are securely laid. No! No! But to gain strength and renewed confidence, through the clear assurance of the testimony of experience, that truly this is God’s work. He has led us, and He will lead us safely through the difficult days before us.
As Israel was about to enter the land of Canaan, Moses, their veteran visible leader, gathered the people about him. Realizing that he was to go no farther with them, he admonished the traveling hosts with words of assurance: “Remember the days of old.” Deut. 32:7. The apostle Paul, likewise, in an endeavor to maintain confidence, appeals, “Call to remembrance the former days.” Heb. 10: 32. Then to modern Israel nineteen centuries later, just about to cross the Jordan to the heavenly Canaan, the words resound, calling us to remember “the way the Lord has led us.”
It seems most fitting then, just at this hour, in 2023, when the future seems fraught with uncertainties, wars and rumors of wars, calamities, that the ministry of God’s people should pause to look back and catch an assuring glimpse of God’s providential guidance and protection through the years. The essential factor in guarding us in these perilous times is to acknowledge that God is in control and that we review our history as a people. Repeatedly have leaders in the cause been admonished with the need to recount our story.
“We must do as the Lord directed Moses to do. when the children of Israel, having crossed the desert, were encamped on the borders of Jordan. Moses was bidden to rehearse to them all the dealings of the Lord to them during their journeyings through the wilderness.”—E. G. White Letter 105. 1903.
“There is a work of sacred importance for ministers and people to do. They are to study the history of the cause and people of God. They are not to forget the past dealing of God with His people.” —E. G. White MS. 22, 1890.
“Those who enter the work at the present time know comparatively little of the self-denial and self-sacrifice of those upon whom the Lord laid the burden of His work at its beginning. The experience of the past should have told them again and again; for they are to carry forward the work with the same humility and self-sacrifice that characterized the true workers in the past.”—E. G. White, in Review and Herald, June 3, 1902.
“If they [our pioneer workers] would recount the sacrifices made by those who led out in the work and would keep before the people the simplicity of the early workers, and the power of God that was manifested to keep the work free from error and delusion and extravagance, they would have a molding influence upon the workers at this time. When we lose sight of what the Lord has done in the past for His people, we lose sight of His present working on their behalf.”—E. G. White MS. 23, 1899.
Is this God’s people? Is this the true church, or do we look for another?
The answer given by the Lord through His messenger calls attention to the past, and then reassures us:
“The Lord has declared that the history of the past shall be rehearsed as we enter upon the closing work. Every truth that He has given for these last days is to be proclaimed to the world. Every pillar that He has established is to be strengthened. We cannot now step off the foundation that God has established. We cannot now enter any new organization; for this would mean apostasy from the truth.”—E. G. White, quoted in “Organization,” pp. 175, 176.
Let every soul seeking to promulgate the Gospel of Jesus Christ, as he pauses now and then during the year 2023, to look back on our HIStory through the eyes of one who traveled the way of earlier years, gain strength and confidence and assurance, for, “we have nothing to fear for the future, except as we shall forget”!
“So do not fear, for I am with you;
do not be dismayed, for I am your God.
I will strengthen you and help you;
I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.
“All who rage against you
will surely be ashamed and disgraced;
those who oppose you
will be as nothing and perish.
Though you search for your enemies,
you will not find them.
Those who wage war against you
will be as nothing at all.
For I am the Lord your God
who takes hold of your right hand
and says to you, Do not fear;
I will help you.
Do not be afraid, you worm Jacob,
little Israel, do not fear,
for I myself will help you,” declares the Lord,
your Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel.
“See, I will make you into a threshing sledge,
new and sharp, with many teeth.
You will thresh the mountains and crush them,
and reduce the hills to chaff.
You will winnow them, the wind will pick them up,
and a gale will blow them away.
But you will rejoice in the Lord
and glory in the Holy One of Israel.
“The poor and needy search for water,
but there is none;
their tongues are parched with thirst.
But I the Lord will answer them;
I, the God of Israel, will not forsake them.
I will make rivers flow on barren heights,
and springs within the valleys.
I will turn the desert into pools of water,
and the parched ground into springs.
I will put in the desert
the cedar and the acacia, the myrtle and the olive.
I will set junipers in the wasteland,
the fir and the cypress together,
so that people may see and know,
may consider and understand,
that the hand of the Lord has done this,
that the Holy One of Israel has created it.”
Isaiah 41: 10-20
