Christmas-The Right Season

God always keeps his appointments. He's on a timetable. He announces it.

He always keeps it. And number two, God's time is always the right time. God always keeps his appointments and God's time is always the right time.

God always keeps his appointments. Christmas is about far more than just giving gifts and singing carols. It's a celebration of Jesus coming to earth. Today on Connect with Skip Hyten, Skip begins a special holiday series called A Red Christmas, sharing why Jesus came at just the right time and how that truth will strengthen your faith. But before we begin, we want to tell you about an opportunity you have to see the Bible come alive before your eyes.

You're invited to join Skip on a tour of Israel in 2022. Visiting the places where the events of the Bible unfolded is a unique and significant experience. You'll be encouraged in your faith as God's word comes to life for you in a way it never has before.

Get all the info at inspirationcruises.com slash c-a-b-q. Okay, we're in Galatians chapter four today as we get into the teaching with Skip Hyten. When the fullness of the time had come, God sent forth his son, born of a woman, born under the law to redeem those who were under the law that we might receive the adoption as sons. And because you are sons, God has sent forth the spirit of his son into your hearts, crying out Abba, Father.

Therefore, you are no longer a slave, but a son, and if a son, then an heir of God through Jesus Christ. In the context, Paul is simply saying the law of Moses that governed the Jews for thousands of years accomplished its purpose. God gave the law, keeping Israel in a state of immaturity until the full picture could come. Israel failed to keep the law, all people failed to keep the law in totality, so God introduced a new era of redemption, which is summed up in the phrase, when the fullness of the time had come. The Amplified Bible puts it, when the proper time had fully been fulfilled, the proper time had fully come.

You might want to picture a glass that is being slowly, slowly, slowly, slowly, filled up with water throughout time, throughout year, after year, after year, till it finally reaches the proper fullness, the time reached its fullness. It was the proper time, the appropriate time, the right time, the fullness of the time. Why did God send Jesus when He did? Why not earlier? Why not in Old Testament times?

Why not now in modern times? Why at that time, 2,000 years ago, why in that culture, Greco-Roman culture? Why to that part of the world, the Middle East, Bethlehem, Nazareth, Judea, Jerusalem, the Jews? Why would God send the most important person ever to do the most important work ever, at the time that He did? The answer, according to Paul, is because that was the fullness of the time. It was the right time, and I'm going to explain that today. There's two main thoughts that come to me in verse 4.

Two main thoughts that we want to kind of wash over us today. And that is, God always keeps His appointments. Number one, God always keeps His appointments. He's on a timetable.

He announces that He always keeps it. And number two, God's time is always the right time. God always keeps His appointments, and God's time is always the right time. God always keeps His appointments. One of the things I notice as I read through Scripture is that God speaks a lot of words.

God speaks a lot about the right time. He's on a timetable. He's on a schedule. Which is interesting because God is everlasting, Father. He's the God of eternity. He's outside the realm of the time-space continuum. But we're not.

We're trapped by it. So He speaks to us, condescends to our level so that we can get it, but shows us that He makes appointments and He always keeps them. Now, God is a God who is perfectly on time.

Ecclesiastes chapter 3 says, To everything there is a season, a time for every purpose under heaven. In other words, He's never late. He's never early.

He's right on time. I had an earthly father who was quite the opposite. He meant well, but he was a busy dad. And when he said he was going to pick me up at this time, I could add about 30 minutes to it.

Just automatically. I'd be the last kid in line or at the school. I'd be the last kid on the baseball field if dad was going to come or pick me up. But not our heavenly Father. Our heavenly Father is perfectly on time. Peter put it this way, God is not slack or slow concerning His promises as some men count slackness. Charles Spurgeon wrote this, There are no loose threads in the providence of God.

No stitches are dropped. No events are left to chance. The great clock of the universe keeps good time. And the whole machinery of providence moves with unerring punctuality. Now, when Jesus Christ came on the scene in Mark chapter 1, He went down to where John the Baptist was at the Jordan River. He then went to be tempted for 40 days in the wilderness, and He came back. And when He came back, He was starting His ministry. And according to Mark, in that book, the first words out of Jesus' mouth, get this, were these, The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand. He was saying essentially what Paul is saying in Galatians chapter 1, Paul is saying in Galatians chapter 4, This is the fullness of the time. And we find references to that throughout the Gospels. When Jesus went to Cana, and He performed that water into wine thing, remember His mom suggested, Hey, you know, here, here, make this water into wine. And remember what Jesus said, He goes, Woman, my hour has not yet come.

He's always talking about His hour. In John chapter 7, they tried to take Jesus by force and make Him a king, but they didn't do that because the text says, His hour had not yet come. John chapter 13, the last supper scene, Jesus gets up from the table to wash His disciples feet, because it says, Knowing that the time had come for Him to depart and go to the Father, Jesus did that.

And then He announced in His most famous prayer of all, John chapter 17, in the garden of Gethsemane, I believe that's where it was uttered, He said, Father, the hour has come, glorify Your Son, that Your Son may glorify You. So God makes appointments and God always keeps His appointments. I just want you to think about that because in January, we're going to be starting a new series on Sunday morning on the book of Daniel. And if you want to see a God who keeps His appointments down to the day, and He announces it years in advance, wait till you check out Daniel chapter 9. God always keeps His appointments. The second great truth here is that God's time is always the right time.

When the Father sent the Son into the world, it was at the fullness of the time. Now typically, we don't even think about that. What we think about is usually B.C. or A.C. That's how we look at time. That happened at 332 B.C. That happened 312 A.D. Now what we mean by that is B.C. before Christ, A.D. ano Domini, in the year of our Lord.

That's what that means. Now that has been changed in recent years. Have you noticed that by secularists? It's not B.C. anymore, it's B.C.E. before the Christian era. They don't want to say Christ, it's just before what Christians say. They don't want to say Christ, it's just before what Christians say is Christ. Before the Christian era.

Okay, whatever. You still have to admit Jesus divided time. You are still admitting every time you write a check, no document is valid, that this man came at the time that he did and split time forever. God's time is the right time. Question still remains, why did God send Jesus when he did? What factors were going on in the world that made this time the fullness of time?

Well there are several. I have time to really only give you three. Three things going on, you can jot them down, that made that time the right time. And it was the convergence of these three that sums up in the verse when the fullness of the time had come. Number one, it was the right time spiritually.

Spiritually it was the right time. Historians will tell us that there was at that time a pervasive hunger in the general population of the Roman Empire for spiritual things more than before. And one of the reasons they point to is the influence of monotheistic Judaism throughout the Roman Empire. When Alexander the Great took over Jerusalem in 332 BC, he told the Jews to colonize the world. He gave them that freedom. He encouraged them to spread what they believe and their culture in different parts of the world.

So they did that. And so Jews in different places in the Roman Empire with their belief system greatly influenced unbelievers and they were attracted to Judaism for a couple of reasons. Jews were monotheistic, they believed in one God. Most peoples in the Roman world believed in polytheism, many gods. They were attracted to a group of people who believe there's one true creator almighty God and we have a special unique covenant relationship with him. It was very attractive to them.

It was the second reason for it. The Romans had conquered most of the world and the superstition back then is if somebody conquers you, their gods are responsible for it, which makes your gods inferior. So because Rome had conquered the world, all of these different people groups in Bithynia, Cappadocia, Galatia, etc., whatever gods they prayed to were feeling a bit embarrassed. That well we prayed to our gods to protect us from the big bad wolf of Rome and they didn't protect us.

So now they suddenly became open to believing in an alternative belief system. There was another reason that the world was ripe spiritually. The Jews believed in the coming Messiah, a deliverer, because of the prophecies of the Old Testament. There's coming a deliverer, a savior king. What's interesting about that is Romans also believed that there would be a coming savior king, a deliverer for the Romans. And one of the Roman poets by the name of Virgil announced that Caesar Augustus was the ideal savior king, the one who would fulfill all of the expectations of humanity.

And he said, and I quote, this one will be the divine king bringing salvation of which the world has waited. He said that about Augustus. So they were already open to the idea of a deliverer coming. They didn't see that as time went on with Augustus, but now they were open to it. So there was a hunger more than ever before in the Roman world.

The world was ripe, it was right spiritually. Not only among the Romans, but among the Jews themselves. I mentioned that the Jews believed in the coming of the Messiah. Again, history will tell us that the expectation of the Messiah coming reached fever pitch right about the time Jesus showed up on the scene. Let me read you a quote by a very famous rabbi, Rabbi Abba Hallel Silver, who said, prior to the first century, the messianic interest was not excessive. The first century, however, especially the generation before the destruction of the second temple, that's the time of Christ, witnessed a remarkable outburst of messianic emotionalism. When Jesus came into Galilee, spreading the gospel of the kingdom of God and saying the time is fulfilled, the kingdom of God is at hand, he was voicing the opinion universally held that the age of the kingdom of God was at hand. The Messiah was expected around the second quarter of the first century of the Christian era. Well, that happened to be exactly when Jesus came in the fullness of the time. No wonder when John the Baptist was down at the Jordan River, the first question people ask is, are you the Christ?

Are you the one we've been waiting for? Because of that messianic expectation. Now, let me just tell you one of the reasons that the Jews believed that would be the time.

Here's one of the reasons. There was an ancient prophecy in the book of Genesis, chapter 49, where Jacob is going to all of his kids, all of his boys, and telling them about their future, all of the future of them and their progeny, the tribes that would come. So he gets to Judah, one of his sons, that will become the tribe of Judah, the tribe from which he was born, Judah, the tribe from which Jesus came, by the way. And he said this, the scepter will not depart from Judah until Shiloh comes. The scepter, the right to rule, the right of autonomous rule, the right to enforce the law of Moses, will not depart from Judah until Shiloh.

Shiloh means the one to whom it belongs. And most rabbis since that time immemorial have believed that that is a prophecy of the coming of the Messiah. The scepter will not depart from Judah until the Messiah comes.

So Josephus, the Jewish historian, tells us that in the first quarter of the first century, when the Romans took over, they took the right of tribal rule from Judah, the right to inflict capital punishment, according to the law of Moses. According to the Talmud, according to the Mishnah, excuse me, when that happened, the Jewish Sanhedrin put sackcloth and ashes on their body, marched through Jerusalem, and this is what they were bewailing. The scepter has departed from Judah, but Shiloh has not come. They were bewailing the fact they believed God broke his promise and didn't send the Messiah once that scepter had departed. What's interesting is that while they were making that little procession in Jerusalem, there was a young man up in Nazareth, just about ready to lay down his carpentry tools and march down toward the Jordan River. His name was Jesus. Shiloh had come, and he was about to come on the scene. It was the right time spiritually.

Number two, it was the right time culturally. For the first time since the Tower of Babel, there was now a universal language that was governing the world. It was the language of Greek.

Up to this point, there wasn't that kind of universal trade language. And the way it all started is several years before, a few hundred years before, a young boy, very, very confident young man, very, very gifted young man by the name of Alex, his mom thought he was great, thought that the world should be Hellenized, that is become Greek. They should have the Greek culture. They should have the Greek language. So basically he took over the world. By age 33, he was the ruler de facto in the world. And he managed to go as far as India to go as far as India and make Greek the official language of the East. Vernacular Greek, Koine Greek, the language of the East.

Well, he died. Rome came on the scene. And when Rome came on the scene, they made Greek the official trade language of the West. So now you have the unification, the cohesion of East and West. So historians said you could go from Britain to India in those days speaking the same language. It was understood.

Culturally, it was perfect. Now, why is that important? Because now you can express ideas to people in the same language and they're going to understand it.

They're all going to be on the same page together. Free flow thought and expression and ideas in the Greek language. And by the way, Greek is the most precise instrument to convey human thought. The nouns have to agree with the adjectives. And there are seven cases for Greek nouns. Nominative, genitive, ablative, dative, locative, instrumental and accusative. All of that is in one noun.

It will tell you how it functions. And the adjective has to agree. All the verbs have tense, past, present, future, or they also tell you is the action continuous? Is the action over?

Is the action intermittent? You get that from just looking at one verb. So the verbs have tense. They have voice. They'll tell you if it's an active voice, if it's an indicative voice, if it's an imperative voice. They'll tell you what mood it is.

It tells you if the action is real or potential, et cetera, et cetera. It's so very precise. It's interesting to me that God waited culturally for the most precise language to be the language that the New Testament would be written in and conveyed in throughout the world. It was the right time spiritually. It was the right time culturally.

Number three, it was the right time politically. Who was in charge? Who was in charge politically of the world? Rome was.

Rome was at its very peak, its very height. And Caesar Augustus managed at that time during the height of the Roman government to establish what is called the Pax Romana, Roman peace. A 200-year span of time where there was almost the complete absence of military conflict. Now up till that time, there had been a lot of wars. There was even a temple in Rome to the god of war.

That was over. Now there was a peace which brought stability, which brought cultural growth. And during that time of Roman peace, Romans built a road system.

And man, you got to just travel a little bit over there and check it out. The Roman road system was 250,000 miles of roads, 50,000 miles of which are paved by stone pavers. You can go today and see remnants in almost perfect shape of Roman roads.

So now you have a time of relative peace and the ability to travel around the world safely and freely. Roman guards stationed at different key places in that road to protect travelers. According to one historian, he said, for Paul to do the kind of extensive traveling that he did would have been impossible after the fall of the Roman Empire until modern times. Paul traveled, we believe, about 15,000 miles by land and by sea, bringing the gospel of Jesus Christ wherever he went. And by the way, some of those soldiers, the Bible tells us as well as history, came to believe in Christ.

So wherever they would get stationed around the world, they would bring those ideas with them. So basically, you have the gospel in the most precise language ever under the most ideal circumstances. Under the most ideal circumstances ever to people who are hungrier than ever, going to places more freely than ever before. It was the fullness of the time. It was the perfect time. It was the right time.

Let me underscore it all by just saying this. By the year 312 AD, everyone in 10 people in the Roman world, the known world, everyone out of 10 claimed to be Christians. That's an incredible spread from one Messiah and 12 followers to one out of every 10 people in the known world claiming to be a Christian. When the fullness of the time had come, God sent forth his son. That's God's timing. God's timing is perfect timing. Now I just want to comfort you and say, that God's timing in your life is perfect timing.

I know you don't always feel that way. A lot of times you go, God, where are you? You should have showed up like last week. You had a perfect opportunity to do that.

You blew it. I'm glad the Lord doesn't consult me when he wants to do something. We don't always understand God's timing. The people of that era didn't understand that that was the perfect timing. That was the perfect time.

But it was. We don't always understand it. This could be, this season could be, this day could be God's perfect timing in your life. He might be stirring things up in you. He might be shaking things up in you. He might be bringing you to a place of comfort that you've never known before. He might be bringing you today to a place of release and confidence and trust in him in a personal relationship where you're going to receive Jesus Christ.

This could be the fullness of the time for you. Paul put it this way. Today is the day of salvation.

Now is the accepted time. That concludes Skip Heitzig's message from the series of Red Christmas. Now, here's a resource that gives you more insight into God's character and nature by immersing you in his word every day.

2022 is almost here. Plan now for your spiritual menu starting in January. This month, we're offering Skip's Daily God Book devotional containing strong thoughts for each day of the year.

Here's a sample from January 1st. Martin Luther once said, the Bible is alive. It speaks to me. It has feet.

It runs after me. As you read each day, listen each day and prepare for the greatest adventure of your life. That's an excerpt of the direction found in Skip's Daily God Book that you'll receive in hard cover when you give $35 or more today to help keep this Bible teaching ministry growing. We'll also include playlist, eight messages by Skip on key Psalms delivered on CD as our thank you. Here's a sample of the wisdom you'll hear in the playlist series.

If you're gonna spend energy in life, and we all do, make sure it's about people that you're building up, not just projects that you're building up. To give and receive this month's resource package, visit connectwithskip.com or call 800-922-1888. If you wanna stay up to date on the latest from this ministry and from Skip, we invite you to follow Skip on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. You'll find important announcements and great encouragement from Skip. That's at Skip Heitzig, at Skip, H-E-I-T-Z-I-G. Coming up tomorrow, Skip Heitzig shares why Jesus was the right person to redeem you and give you eternal life. Somebody once said, Christmas is when God came down the stairs of heaven with a baby in his arms. It's a beautiful thought, but that's not the whole story. Christmas is when God came down the stairs of heaven with a savior in his arms. Make a connection, make a connection at the foot of the cross. Cast all burdens on his word. Make a connection, a connection. Connect with Skip Heitzig is a presentation of Connection Communications, connecting you to God's never-changing truth in ever-changing times.