To Encourage You

Galatians 4:4 “But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son.”

Acts 1:7 “He said to them, ‘It is not for you to know times or seasons that the Father has fixed by his own authority.’”

Have you ever considered how the God Who created time is in sovereign control over it – and He isn’t bound by our schedules, no matter how we might wish that He were?  It’s something I’ve not thought about much, but as I’ve been considering it lately, it occurs to me that it is an extremely important truth. 

Sometimes the Lord is relatively silent in human history.  His Word is full of prophesies, but many of them are not given in such a way that we can pinpoint the time of their fulfillment.  In fact, we are told that the actual day or hour of most of these things are not for us to know.  One example is the timing of the Second Coming which Jesus told us no one knows but the Father in heaven (Matthew 24:36). 

But the fact that God is in perfect control of time should give us peace.  In the beautiful language of Galatians 4:4 above we are told that it was “when the fullness of time had come” that Jesus was born.  It’s God’s way of saying that it was the perfect time, a time set by His own authority. Although many of the prophets of the Old Testament had spoken of this coming King, from the time of the last prophet, Malachi, to Jesus’ birth in Bethlehem, a time period of over 400 years had passed. Four hundred years in which God had been totally silent. But oh, how He broke that silence when He finally spoke! 

There have been other long periods of silence from God, yet the truth of His Word was fulfilled at just the right time.  Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob had all been promised that the time was coming when a Promised Land would be given to Israel.  Yet, between the time of those prophecies and their fulfillment, Israel served in slavery in Egypt for over 400 years and then wandered in the wilderness for another 40 years after they were freed.  In these intervening years, God was just as much in control as when He first spoke of what was to come. 

We can be sure that God knows what He’s doing and that He is at work even when it seems that He’s nowhere to be found.  And so, we should rest in God’s perfect timing concerning the things He’s promised us.  For example, all Christians have been promised that God will supply all of our needs according to His riches in glory in Christ Jesus (Philippians 4:19).  It’s a certainty that God has staked His reputation on.  Yet, we may find ourselves in dire straits about one situation or another. We may be overwhelmed and feel like our prayers are bouncing off the ceiling.  We may wonder where God is in the situation we face.  But it’s in just those times that we need to remember that God is faithful to His Word, and if we don’t have what we need, it’s only that we don’t have it yet.  It’s not the “fullness of time” for us to have it.  For some reason or another God has delayed. He may be working through the silence to strengthen us spiritually while we wait, or perhaps other things need to happen first, things that God knows full well, although we do not.  And so, we are told to watch and wait often in Scripture.

The psalmist’s attitude was expressed by these wonderful words: “In the morning, Lord, you hear my voice; in the morning I lay my requests before you and wait expectantly” (Psalm 5:3).  God has promised us that we will reap what we sow, but we are also told, “let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap, if we do not give up” (Galatians 6:9). 

The fullness of time, the perfect time, God’s time – that’s how He always works as we serve Him.  May God help us to give ourselves continually to His service, trusting in His perfect timing to fulfill all that He has said.  May He help us to wait, yet have an attitude of imminence while we do so.  You see, while we trust in His perfect timing to do His work in our lives, we are warned that “scoffers will come in the last days with scoffing, following their own sinful desires. They will say, ‘Where is the promise of his coming? For ever since the fathers fell asleep, all things are continuing as they were from the beginning of creation’” (2 Peter 3:3-4).   But that’s the scoffing of fools, fools that forget that it is God who controls all time no matter how things may look to those who don’t know Him. It is a characteristic of unbelievers to foolishly refuse to wait.