"The Lord Says" This seems unbelievable to you a remnant -small, discouraged as you are-but it is no great thing for me. You can be sure that I will rescue my people from East and West, wherever they are scattered. I will bring them home again to live in Jerusalem, and they will be my people, and I will be their God. Just and true yet forgiving them of sins." Zechariah 8:6-8 (TLB)
This prophecy of Zechariah is looking thousands of years into the future, like an astronomer viewing some distant galaxy. As Zechariah looked forward through his "telescope of time," he surely saw many things that he did not understand. Why were the tribes of Israel so scattered? Why did so few remain?
As he was studying this, he saw a message of hope. He did not understand all he saw, but he saw the tribes being brought from the corners of the earth to, once again, live in God’s City, Jerusalem... And he saw God, forgiving them of sin. It was hard for him to understand how, after being scattered and having become so few, they could make it back from such distant places.
But he knew God never forgets a promise. He makes good on his promises in his own timetable, but he never forgets them. God fulfilled this promise thousands of years later: in 1948, Israel returned as a nation. For, you see, God's promises never expire.
Copyright 2007 Timothy E. Davis