xxx. 25, 26. _And there shall be upon every high mountain,
&c._
These are symbolic of the blessings God will confer upon His people
when He returns to them in mercy. These are vivid presentations of
two characteristics of these blessings, their copiousness and their
universality. 1. To express their COPIOUSNESS the prophet speaks not
of streams merely, but of rivers; "rivers and streams of water;" and
declares that they shall be poured forth, not merely as the light
from the sun, but as if the light of seven days were concentrated in
one.[1] 2. To express at once their copiousness and their
UNIVERSALITY, He declares that the rivers and streams shall run on
the hills and mountains, yea, upon _every_ hill and mountain.[2] The
idea of universality is involved also in the future of sunlight.[3]
Have these promises been fulfilled? Yes. 1. _When the Gospel was
given to the world._ Its messengers were sent forth into every land,
and it is a small thing to say that the light it gave was sevenfold
that which the most enlightened of the heathen had possessed. 2. _In
the experience of every believing soul._ The Gospel reaches many who
seem utterly beyond any saving influence; and when it does really
reach a man, is received into his heart. It gives him a light of more
than sevenfold brightness and value as compared with the best of the
lights he before professed--reason and conscience.[4] 3. It is
fulfilled in our own day _by the remarkable increase of religious
knowledge._ God's Word is being carried into every land, and the
children in our daily and Sabbath schools have a fuller acquaintance
with Scripture than many men and women of the last generation. There
is to be a yet more complete fulfilment of these promises in that
glorious era of which we speak as the Millennium.[5]
It rests with ourselves to determine whether the fulfilment of these
promises shall be to us a blessing.[6]--_John Packer: Warnings and
Consolations,_ pp. 256-271.