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Galatians chapter 4, we're going to look at verses 4 and key in on just one particular phrase, but we're going to read 4 and 5 just to get some context. Book of Galatians was written by Paul to a church that was abandoning the gospel and thinking that the answer to finding salvation was to go back to the law of Moses. And what Paul argues is you can't go back to the law of Moses because Moses' law never saved anyone in the first place, and all the people who ever were saved were by faith, just like Abraham was. And so they can't abandon the gospel. This is what it says. Starting in verse four. And let's back up to verse one just to get some context. It says, but when the fullness of time came, God sent forth his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, so that he might redeem those who are under the law, that we might receive the adoption as sons. You know, one of the intellectual movements that came out of the Enlightenment in the 16 and 1700s was known as deism. Now, the word deism comes from the Latin word deus, which means God, but the God that the deists believed in was not the God of the Bible. Deism came as a reaction to and a revulsion of the religious wars that devastated Europe. The 30-year war that was fought in Central Europe resulted in some four to eight million deaths. One half of the population of Germany died in the fighting and in the resultant plagues and famines that attended the war. Well, fed up with the division and the church and the wars that resulted from it, a number of intellectuals at that time rejected any form of Christianity and argued instead for what they called a religion of nature, which had basic fundamental beliefs that they thought that all religions ultimately drew from. And they said they included these. First of all, that there is one supreme God who created the world. Secondly, that this God has revealed himself through the things he's made, through nature. Third, that knowledge of this God could be discovered through reason. And fourth, people are responsible to live moral and virtuous lives. And fifth, they will be judged at the end of their life by God on the final day. Now, all five of those beliefs a Christian would affirm, but what separated the deists from the Christians was not what the deists affirmed, but what they actually denied. They believed in one God, but they did not believe that one God was the God of the Bible, a triune God. To them, the idea of a trinity seemed contradictory and absurd. And they certainly didn't believe that Jesus was the divine Son of God. They believed that God had revealed himself in nature, but they didn't believe he revealed himself in the Bible. The Bible, as they saw, was a collection of myth stories, which were scientifically untenable, and in many places, morally objectionable. Yes, people will be judged at the end of their life, but the deist denied that a person needed faith in Christ to go to heaven, so deism, like all other non-Christian religions, taught salvation by works. Now, there were one other belief, though, that separated the deists from the Christians. The deists, when they thought of God as creator, envisioned him as kind of a clockmaker, who, after making the clock, wound it up and let it run down on its own, and so God was a mere observer of the course of history. He didn't intervene, and he certainly didn't guide it to some predetermined outcome. In other words, they denied the providence of God. Of course, that doesn't match up with the picture of the Bible, presents of God at all. Paul told the philosophers on Mars Hill that unlike the false gods, the true God, the God who made this world and everything in it, is the Lord of heaven and earth, and does not live in temples built with human hands, and he's not served by human hands as if he needed anything. Rather, he himself gives to everyone life and breath and everything else. From one man, he made all the nations that they should inhabit the whole earth, and listen to this, and he marked out their appointed times in history and the boundaries of their land. Now Daniel, praising God's sovereignty over human history, said this, he changes times and the seasons, he deposes kings and he raises up kings, and he gives great wisdom to the wise and knowledge to the discerning. King Nebuchadnezzar learned that the hard way, but he did learn it, for after he was been humbled by God, he declared that all the inhabitants of the earth are accounted as nothing, but he does according to his will in the hosts of heaven and among the inhabitants of earth, and no one can ward off his hand and say, what have you done? So it's not just the most significant events of history, like who would win World War II, but even the smallest occurrences are ultimately determined by God. Proverbs 13.33 says, we may throw the dice, but it's the Lord who determines how they fall. And Jesus himself said of sparrows that not one of them falls to the ground apart from the will of his father. That God guides history to fulfill predetermined outcomes is affirmed all over in the Bible. But the scripture also affirms that God does this with perfect wisdom and timing, so that he works all things after the counsel of his own will. Well today, during this Advent season, I want us to think about God's timing in sending his son and the way that he prepared the world scene for the reception of a gospel message and the spread of it throughout the world at that time. So to appreciate and celebrate God's providence, not only over the events of history, and related to the coming of Christ, but also that we would trust God's providence over our own lives, we want to consider the significance of this verse found in Galatians chapter four, where Paul tells us that in the fullness of time, God sent forth his son. So why don't we pray and get into the text. Our Father God, I do pray for grace and mercy as we look at this. Everything comes about by your hand, and it comes about by your special providence. And for that, Lord, we thank you. And now we want to see it in the text so that we can apply it to our lives. For we ask in Christ's name, amen. You know, Brian Wilson of the band The Beach Boys sang a song called The Right Time. It asks these words. It says, right, could it be the right? Could it be the right time for getting together? Right, could it be the right? Could it be the right time? I'm thinking forever. Now, I don't know if it was the right time for Brian Wilson to get back with his ex-wife at the time, but I do know it was the right time when God sent forth his son, born of a woman. It was the right time politically. Politically, it was the right time. That's our first point. Historians traditionally date events by either B.C. or A.D. B.C. stands for before Christ, and A.D. stands for Anno Domini, which means after the year of our Lord. Jesus is the dividing point in history, and he's also the dividing point for eternity. Those who trust him will live eternally, and those who don't will perish eternally. But here's an interesting quirk. Jesus was born in B.C., sometime between 6 B.C. and 4 B.C. Now, we know that because Herod the Great died in March or April of 4 B.C., and since Herod tried to kill the newborn Jesus, he obviously did so before he died. Well, at the time that Jesus was born, Octavian was reigning as Caesar Augusta in Rome. If you may know or remember from history, Octavian was the one who vied with Mark Antony to succeed Julius Caesar to be the emperor. Antony was married to Octavian's sister, but he was living in Egypt with his lover, Cleopatra, which bugged Octavian. But it wasn't just a personal feud. It resulted in a political one. It resulted in civil war. Octavian and the Roman legions loyal to him declared war on Egypt and Antony and the legions of Rome that were loyal to him. But when Antony's soldiers found out that he had paid them not in gold coins but in lead coins glazed over with gold, they abandoned him and went over to the other side. And so Antony led the Egyptian forces out against the Roman forces with his fleet of 500 ships and 70,000 men, met by Octavian with 400 ships and 80,000 men. The battle took place in a city called Actium. And in the end, the Egyptian forces were defeated, and Antony and Cleopatra committed suicide. That war was brutal, but what came as a result was a long period of peace, what the historians called Pax Romana, the Peace of Rome. Now, Octavius reigned as Caesar Augustus from the year 14 BC to 27 AD, 41 years. And those were years of prosperity and stability and growth and expansion. Did you know that it was the Romans who invented concrete? And they laid roads all across Europe. You ever heard that phrase, all roads lead to Rome? That literally was true. And it's actually the case that many of those roadways are still used 2,000 years later. But what good are roads if you can't travel on them safely? I mean, there are lots of roads in Mexico or Colombia that you wouldn't want to travel on. But the Romans cleared out the bandits from the highway so the people could travel in relative safety. That facilitated later the spread of the gospel as missionaries brought the good news to the far reaches of the empire. It's believed that the Apostle Paul himself traveled in his lifetime 17,000 miles by land and by sea. Well, it wasn't just that the official missionaries brought the gospel to people, it was also common merchants who spread the message. Roman power ensured that open trade routes were kept. And without dominant power to control the seas, pirates would make free trade impossible. In the 1800s and in much of the 1900s, it was the British Navy that kept the sea lanes open. Today, since World War II, it's been primarily the United States Navy. But as our Navy has started to shrink, By decommissioning a lot of the ships, we've seen a rise in piracy. And of course, if the global trade retracts, we will continue to see empty shelves in the grocery stores. Well, there are a lot of things about the Roman Empire that were not good, but it did bring stability, and for an extended time, peace, and God deemed that time to be the perfect time, the ideal time to send his son. Politically, he came in the fullness of time. It was not only the right time politically, it was also the right time linguistically. What's a linguist? Well, a linguist is a person who studies language. Have you ever heard the phrase polyglot? I didn't say polywog. A polywog is a frog. It's a tadpole that grows up. No, a polyglot is a person who speaks a number of languages. Now, the actress Natalie Portman, she's a polyglot. She speaks six languages, English, Japanese, Hebrew, French, Spanish, and German. The actor and martial arts expert Jackie Chan speaks nine English, German, Korean, Japanese, Spanish, Thai, Mandarin, Cantonese, and American Sign Language. Queen Elizabeth I, not the one who just died, but the daughter of Henry VIII, she spoke 11 languages. helps if you're running an empire. And we know that Jesus spoke Aramaic, but he most likely spoke Greek as well, because almost everybody in the Roman Empire spoke Greek as well as their native language. Well, why is that? Well, it's because Alexander the Great, who conquered the Persians, had one of his goals was to spread Greek culture and language throughout the Middle East, and he did so. He and his those who came after him. Now Thomas Sowell is an economist and a political thinker who's authored 50 books, a number of which I've owned. One of them's entitled Cultures and Conquests. In our politically correct time, it's believed that Christopher Columbus should be remembered not as a great explorer, but as a terrible, evil exploiter, and that colonization is 100% wrong and only results in repression and oppression of indigenous people. But Saul reminds us that everything isn't so black and white, and the picture isn't all that clear. You know, when one person or one nation colonizes another, there's a cultural exchange that goes back and forth. The Romans conquered the Greeks, but they also absorbed much of Greek culture and thought. Roman children were schooled by Greek teachers and taught the Greek language. Now, when Suzanne and I were in Croatia last year visiting my son, Nathan, we didn't have any problems communicating with anybody. Almost everybody in the country speaks English, at least those who are under the age of 30. I only speak English, so my sermons go out in English over the internet, but they're listened to by people in over 100 countries around the world. All of them must speak English, otherwise they wouldn't have any idea what I was saying in the sermon. The Bible was written in Koine Greek, which is the language spoken by the common people at the time. And having a dominant common language facilitates communication, which allows for a quick spread of the gospel of Jesus Christ in that day and ours as well. And in God's providence, he raised up the Greek empire and then the Roman empire afterwards to prepare for the coming of his son and the spread of the gospel message of his death and resurrection. Well, the third way that God had prepared the world was he prepared the world religiously. Jesus came in the fullness of time. Now, it was the fullness of the time for the Jews for certain. Israel had entered in a covenant relationship with God some 1,500 years before, where they promised to be faithful to Him as He was to be their provider and their protector. Now, He kept His part, but they didn't keep theirs. I mean, what's the spiritual track record as you look through the pages of the Old Testament regarding Israel? Was their path upward and forward? No, it was backward and downward. God had destroyed the Canaanites because of their wickedness and gross sexual immorality. God had made it clear to Israel at the beginning of their history that if they ever imitated them in their practices, that the land would vomit them out just as it done to the earlier ones. But what had Israel do? They became worse than the people they dispossessed. By the way, I have to stop here. That should make Americans pause. How long until God brings judgment on our land? Our government not only tolerates but also promotes every form of sexual perversion. Back in 1996, Congress passed and President Clinton then signed what was known as the Defense of Marriage Act, DOMA. In it, it required that federal law could only recognize marriage between one man and one woman as valid in the United States. It passed with a majority of both Republicans and Democrats supporting it. President Clinton not only signed it, but in an interview with the pro-gay magazine, The Advocate, he defended his signing of the bill, saying, I remain opposed to same-sex marriage. I believe that marriage is an institution for the union of a man and a woman. This has been my longstanding position, and it's not being reviewed or reconsidered. But my, how things have changed. Back in 2015, the Supreme Court struck down the Defense of Marriage Act as unconstitutional, bringing in gay marriage. And then just earlier this week, Congress passed and President Biden signed the Respect for Marriage Act, which repeals DOMA and makes gay marriage the law of the land. All the Democrats in the Senate voted, along with 12 Republicans, and all the Democrats in the House were joined by 39 Republicans. The bill specifically says that polygamy is still prohibited, but we'll see how long that holds up before some judge strikes it down as unconstitutional. Well, Israel was not quite at that low sexual place that they were earlier in their history by the time of Jesus. But their religion, as they practiced it at the time, was still not pleasing to God. Jesus complained to the people in His day. He said, these people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. The religious leaders at the time were concerned about ritual and keeping man-made rules, not about living for God's glory and finding their joy in Him. So when Jesus came along and began to teach, people were captivated. I mean, he spoke to the heart and about the heart. And unlike the scribes, his listeners said, he speaks like one who has authority. Well, another thing that facilitated the spread of the gospel was the fact that the Jews had already scattered around much of the Roman Empire, and everywhere the Jews went, they built synagogues. And when you read through the book of Acts, what did Paul do when he went to a new city? He always went to the synagogue first to proclaim the gospel, because they had some connection with the biblical religion. Well, what was the situation as far as religion when it came to the Gentiles? Well, by this point in their history, the worship of the gods in Rome still went on, but that religion had lost its appeal for many. Instead, they were looking to exotic Eastern mystery religions with secret rituals and some bizarre practices that they could hopefully make some kind of connection with the gods. But just like New Agers today, they might get a spiritual buzz for a moment, but it left them empty, and it gave them no moral guidance for their lives. Indeed, when you read the stories, the myth stories of the Roman and Greek gods, you find they're just as bad as humans are, just as debauched. So Greeks and Romans were initially, some Greeks and Romans were initially drawn to Judaism because of the idea of monotheism, one God. It seemed more reasonable than a multitude of gods, and the morality presented in Judaism was clearly superior to that of the pagan religions. But the problem was, as Paul laid out in Romans chapter two, that though the Jews professed high moral standards, they failed to live up to them. Addressing his countrymen, he said it this way, you who boast in the law, through the breaking of the law, do you dishonor God? For the name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you, just as it's written, Romans 2, 23 to 24. So the failure of Judaism to bring moral transformation and the emptiness of pagan religion, which failed to satisfy the soul, made it the perfect time for God to send forth his son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those under the law. By the way, I have to make some application here. God in his providence, will sometimes let a nation and a society decay to a very low level before he brings revival and renewal. I mean, if you went to church during the Middle Ages, if you were to listen to a sermon, it would more likely be based on one of Aesop's fables than some passage from the Book of Romans. Indeed, the Bible wasn't taught in the churches. But then, God raised up Martin Luther, and the reformers, and the true gospel was recovered, and the preaching of the Bible returned to the church, and men were converted. The church in England and America in the colonial period was spiritually low. and in bad shape. Many Protestant pastors had given up belief in the Trinity and became Unitarians. Heresies abounded at the time. But that was the time that God raised up men like Jonathan Edwards and George Whitefield and John and Charles Wesley to preach the word with conviction and power. The result was what was known as the Great Awakening. And God can and may bring about another revival in our church in America and renew our land. For that we should pray and seek His power. After darkness, light can come again. What connected to the religious climate at that time of Christ's appearing was the moral decline. The time that God sent forth His Son was the right time morally. And one of the books I have in my library is by Jacques Barzan. He's a French writer. It's entitled From Dawn to Decadence, 500 Years of Western Culture. He released a book when he was actually 93 years of age. Well, the word decadence comes from the English word decay, and the Oxford Dictionary defines decadence as moral or cultural decline as characterized by excessive indulgence in pleasure or luxury. If that doesn't sound like a description of America, I don't know what does. Well, at the time that Jesus came into the world, the Roman Empire was expanding politically and economically, but it was declining morally. The first place you could see that was in the marriage and family. We're told by some of the Roman writers that in the early part of the Republic, divorce was almost unheard of. But by the time you get to Jesus' day, everything had changed. Did you know the Romans were the ones who invented the idea of no-fault divorce? In earlier years, you had to have a reason, a good reason to get divorced, but by Jesus' time in the Roman Empire, either a husband or a wife could dissolve the marriage simply by announcing it to be so in the presence of seven witnesses. The only requirement was that the dowry be returned. Easy come, easy go. And many Roman men and women came and went pretty often in marriage. Now in our day, the actress Elizabeth Taylor, she was married eight times, twice to Richard Burton. The actress Zsa Zsa Gabor was married nine times. One of her husbands was the actor George Sanders, by the way, who did the voice for Shur Khan in the Jungle Book cartoon. He himself was married four times, one time to Zsa Zsa's sister Magda. One article I read about Zsa Zsa mentioned after she died at 99 years of age, they said, quote, she will forever be a legendary figure for her poise and decadence. Well, the Romans decadence was not only shown in their loose sexual morals where they accepted prostitution and homosexuality as commonplace, but also in their lust for violent entertainment. Just as in our day, the Romans built huge stadiums. The Circus Maximus in Rome held 300,000 people. On a sunny day on Saturday, a Roman mom and dad could bring their kids to the stadium so the children could eat sweets and sit down in their seats and watch gladiators hack each other to bits. Later they would come to see Christians being eaten by lions and bears. What do you suppose that did to the conscience of those kids? How callous do you suppose a person would become after seeing 700 people mutilated and killed in this way? You know, your conscience, listen carefully, your conscience is to your soul what pain is to your body, the mechanism that tells and signals to you that you're hurting yourself. Years ago, the author Neil Postman wrote a book entitled Amusing Ourselves to Death. Public discourse in the age of show business. Postman argued that by expressing ideas through visual imagery, television reduces politics and news and history and other serious topics to mere entertainment. He said Americans are no longer citizens, they're an audience. Well, the fact is that we're decaying as a culture, and I think that's obvious to anybody who has eyes to see. 88% of Americans believe that we're on the wrong path when they're asked. Psalm 50, 15 says this, call on me in the day of trouble and I will rescue you and you shall glorify me. Most Americans know that we're in trouble but they don't know that the only answer is to call out to the Lord. No one can deliver us from our moral morass in which we're sinking but God. Now in Rome, they had high crime, swelling welfare rolls, breakdowns of morals, families breaking up. And there were a lot of people who were believing something had to be done, we need something. What they needed was a savior. Last thing, though, I want you to know is that it was the right time socially. Did you know that it's estimated that half the population of Rome were slaves? And something like 30% of the Roman Empire were made up of slaves. Now, a lot of those were taken as captives from war. They and their children born to them made up the bulk of the slave population. Some were sent off to work in the copper mines or salt mines. Some worked in the field, some worked as household slaves, which was easier, but still degrading. Writing about household slaves, the Roman statesman and philosopher Seneca said this, quote, when we recline at a banquet, our slaves mop up the disgorged food, when the overfed guests throw up, he means. Another crouches beneath the table and gathers up the leftovers of the tipsy guests. Another carves a priceless game bird, hapless fellow, to live only for the purpose of cutting capon correctly. Another will serve the wine, and as he does so, must dress as a woman. and wrestle with his advancing years, he cannot get away from his boyhood. He's dragged back to it. And though he's already acquired a soldier's figure, he's kept beardless by having his hair smoothed away and plucked out by its roots. He must be awake throughout the night, dividing his attention between his master's drunkenness and his lusts. In the chamber, he must be a man. At the feast, a boy. But whatever or however they worked, life for slaves was hard and degrading. According to the British Museum website, under Roman law, enslaved people had no personal rights, were regarded as the property of their masters, they could be bought, sold, mistreated at will, and they were unable to own property themselves, enter into a contract, or legally marry. Now, do you suppose people who lived like that, in such an oppressive and degraded way, were open to the message that all men are created equal and are fallen slaves of sin, but that Jesus, through his death and resurrection, can rescue us from that slavery? The gladiator Spartacus, who led a slave rebellion, thought that he could gain his freedom and the freedom of his people through a sword, but Christians told them that it's only if the sun makes us free that we'll be free indeed. And even if they had to live out their lives as slaves, they could do so in dignity because ultimately, they weren't serving their earthly masters, but a heavenly king, who after they served, would return to reward them for his service and promote them to reign as kings on the earth. And rather than actually envy their rich, indulgent masters, who at times abused them, they should pity them. Because as James says in James 2.5, has not God chosen the poor of this world to be rich in faith and to inherit the kingdom promised to those who love him? And they should also remember the warning in the Bible that James gives towards rich people when he says this. You have lived luxuriously on the earth and led a life of wanton pleasure. You have fattened your hearts in a day of slaughter. You've condemned and put to death the righteous man, but he does not resist." You know, one Roman critic of Christianity derided the religion, saying it was only fit for women and slaves. Well, perhaps the reason so many women and slaves became believers and responded to the gospel was because they realized how helpless and vulnerable they were. People who don't see themselves that way, whether in our day or Jesus' day, are not likely to get saved. Because Jesus said, unless you become converted and become like a little child, you will by no means enter the kingdom. Do you see how God is working in history and politics, culture and society? How he did so to prepare the perfect time for the coming of his son? Do you see why the promise of forgiveness of sins and reconciliation with God and eternal life was such an appealing message at that time? It's the same reason it's an appealing message in this time. It's because it's good news. It's great news, it's true news. And this eternal plan of God to send His Son into the world, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those under the law, came to fruition at just the right time, the time that He had prepared the world for. Well, God, who worked all things after the counsel of his own will in bringing Christ the first time, is working all things out after the counsel of his world, or his will, to send him a second time. And in the meantime, if you're a believer, he's working all things out in your life to bring about his plan. And what God said to the exiles in Jeremiah, he says to those who trust him today, for I know the plans that I have for you, declares the Lord, plans to prosper you, and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and give you a future. You know, in the days to come, which are gonna get darker in this country, it's gonna be really important that you understand and believe in the providence of God. And that you cling to the promise that says that we know that God causes all things to work for good to those who love him and are called according to his purpose. And the fulfillment of his plan for each of our lives will also come in the fullness of time, just as He intends. May we go through life trusting in God's providential care and knowing that the outcome for us is good and He will get us to exactly where He wants us to be. May God give us the grace to believe that and hold on. Let's pray. Our Father in God, There was a lot of things that were going on in the world at that time, and that's the time you decided to send your son. But it's not just that you look down and thought, oh, this will be a good time. It was that you plan these things. You arrange these things, because you're sovereign over all. We see all kinds of things going on in our country, in our world. We see the loss of our freedom that's just on the horizon. And we see the possible rise of the Antichrist in just a few years. Certainly, the system that would enable him to do so is already being put in place, and it's going to be put in place in just the next year or so. So in the midst of all this, Father, we pray that we would trust you, we would do what we're called to do, which is to get sin out of our own lives, and then to preach the gospel to others, and to pray for your son to return, which he will in due time. So Father, we pray and thank you for the grace that you give us and the promise you make to us, and we pray that you would help us to trust in that now, today, and forevermore. For we ask in Jesus' name, amen.
In the Fullness of Time
Jesus came at the perfect time.
Sermon ID | 1218221932516250 |
Duration | 31:14 |
Date | |
Category | Sunday Service |
Bible Text | Galatians 4:4 |
Language | English |
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