VII “Father’s Plan”
Now I want you to picture to yourselves an earthly father gathering his children around him before he took a journey.
He told them he would only be away a month, and at the end of that time it would be holiday time, and they could all prepare for a visit to the seaside.
He bade them get everything packed up; and he said he had engaged a house at a certain place, and had arranged with an experienced boatman to be at their service all day long.
He had hired a pony carriage for their mother, and everything was all ready when he should come home.
You can imagine how delighted the children were, and how they talked of nothing else but “Father’s plan” for the whole month.
But did all this ever happen?
No; not one of these “plans” came to pass.
The cloud of war came that summer, and darkened all the bright prospect.
That visit to the seaside never came off. Instead, their father was detained in a foreign country for months and months; the lodgings were shut up, for the coast was in danger; the boatmen had to join the Navy; the holidays came, indeed, but an epidemic at the school spoilt all plans for many months, and the children had to learn, and so had the dear mother and father, what bitter disappointment means. And yet nothing seemed more certain than “Father’s plan.”
But there is One Whose Throne is above the highest Heavens; and when He plans, there is no mistake; no war can hinder it; no illness nor misfortune can prevent the carrying out of what He purposes.
In chapter xlvi, of Isaiah we read what God says about this, and it is a very solemn verse—
“Remember the former things of old: for I am God, and there is none else; I am God, and there is none like Me, declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient times the things that are not yet done, saying, My counsel shall stand, and I will do all My pleasure... I have purposed it, I will also do it.”
When we look into our Bibles, and begin to think about the things which God has told people beforehand, and which have come to pass, we are amazed to find how many there are, and how wonderful are the fulfilments.
THE PROPHECY IN EDEN.
Gen. iii. 15.
—Gal. iv. 4.
The first Prophecy, and with it a great Promise, was given by God in the Garden of Eden.
When Adam and Eve were disobedient, and were tempted by Satan to eat the forbidden fruit, God could not let them stay in that beautiful garden any longer, but He told Adam he must go and dig the ground. And God told Satan that he would be like a Serpent always, and eat dust; and then God gave this promise to Eve, that her Seed—that meant one of her children’s children, long after, should bruise the head of the Serpent who had deceived her.
And this came true four thousand years after!
God sent His Son; and it was through the death of Jesus on the Cross that He destroyed the power of Satan; for those who turn to Jesus Christ for Salvation have Everlasting Life given them.
PROPHECY OF THE FLOOD.
Gen. vi. 17.—1 Peter iii. 20.
In the two thousand years after that promise in the Garden of Eden, there came to be a great many people on the earth, but most of them were very wicked, and at last God said that He would destroy the wicked people by a great Flood, in one hundred and twenty years.
But there was one man who loved God, and his name was Noah.
So God told Noah He was going to send a Flood, and He instructed him to prepare an Ark, so that he and his family should be saved from the Flood.
But though it was such a long time that the Ark was being built, and God was very long-suffering, at last the day came when He told Noah to come into the Ark with his wife and children, and to take two, and in some cases seven pairs, of every living creature into the Ark with him.
Then “the Lord shut them in” safely, and the rain began, and never ceased till even the highest mountains were covered right up.
Thus the Word of the Lord, spoken one hundred and twenty years before, was fulfilled.
At length the rain stopped and the waters began to go down, and at last the Lord told Noah to come out of the Ark. So he and his family and all the living creatures came out; and Noah built an Altar, and the Lord accepted his sacrifice.
Then God gave a beautiful Promise and a beautiful Prophecy, and of both we see the constant fulfilment now.
The Promise was, that He would never send a Flood again: and the Prophecy was—“While the earth remaineth, seed-time and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease.”
And then God gave them the Token of His Promise, in putting His rainbow in the cloud whenever there is rain and the sun shines at the same time.
God said He would look upon the rainbow and remember His covenant not to send another Flood; and when we turn our eyes to that beautiful coloured arch above us, we can say reverently: “God is looking on that bow too.”
The rain reminds us of the Flood; but the sunshine reminds us of God’s love: and the rainbow itself reminds us that in that great love He gave His beloved Son. He is our rainbow of Promise.