October 24: WAITING WITH CONFIDENCE IN THE LORD
Blessed is he who waits, and comes to the one thousand three hundred and thirty-five days. Daniel 12:12
Today, another prophetic period is placed before us. It builds upon the verse regarding the 1290 days, thus we have a clue of the starting point: 508 A.D. Unless we honor the context of reckoning from that point, we venture onto the territory of wild guesses. A simple calculation brings us back around to 1843.
What is the blessing promised to he who waits, and comes to the end of that stretch of time? In looking back to 1843, what do we behold? We see an astonishing fulfillment of prophecy in the great proclamation of the second coming of Christ. Forty-five years before, in 1798, the time of the end began, and the little book of Daniel was unsealed. The new light shed upon the prophetic interventions of God in the history of man imparted new life to the disciples of Christ. The proclamation went forth with power, stirring hearts all around the world, awakening a keen awareness of the setting up of the kingdom of God.
To this day, there are still those who criticize those who preached the coming of Christ. Yes, they were met with a bitter disappointment when He did not return at the time they had thought. After all, Jesus Himself had said, “But of that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, but My Father only” (Matthew 24:36). In the Lord’s patience, He encouraged and blessed those who held on to their faith and, in earnest, sought to find their error.
To this day, there are Jews who criticize their Jewish brethren who put their faith in Christ. Yes, the believers at that time were in for a terrible disappointment. They hailed Him as He rode into Jerusalem on a donkey, fully believing He would set up His kingdom then and there. But instead, He was nailed to a cross and died the most humiliating of deaths. His fascinating conversation with the two men walking to Emmaus is a model for learning after disappointment (see Luke 24:13-32).
Yes, those who had preached His coming were devastated when Christ did not come in 1843 or 1844. But God sustained and richly blessed them. They were provided with a clearer understanding of the 2300-day prophecy and the work of Christ in the heavenly sanctuary as our High Priest. They were also blessed to learn that even their disappointment, along with further instructions, had been prophesied in Revelation 10:8-11.
Waiting can be an enormous challenge. It is the how of waiting that is the determining factor of the outcome. It requires patient endurance.* The one who truly loves Him will diligently search to know Him better, to please Him more, and, by faith, remember that He is waiting on each of us too. You know that He loves you, but do you believe that He has confidence in you to live for Him? He has things to teach each of us, if we would but listen and heed… How is your wait?
But those who wait on the LORD shall renew their strength; They shall mount up with wings like eagles, They shall run and not be weary, They shall walk and not faint. Isaiah 40:31
*Luke 8:15; 21:9; Acts 14:22; Romans 15:4; Hebrews 6:12; 10:36; 12:1; James 1:3-4; 5:10; Revelation 13:10; 14:12