The Time Is Fulfilled

Welcome to all of you. Nice to see so many people here who joined us today. Some of you were here in September when we had our first Team of God seminar. I don't know about you, but it seems like every time I turn on the television and watch the news, or every time I pick up the newspaper, I know this morning I picked up the newspaper and I looked at the headlines, it seems like all I get is bad news. Not only do we hear nothing but bad news, but how in the world do we sort this mess out? Every politician tells us that if we vote for him or her and they get office, whatever the office is, it will solve everything. And of course, as soon as they get an office, somebody else is telling them, throw out the bombs and let's put in somebody else. And nothing really ever seems to get fixed anymore, does it? We worry about the economy. We worry because the whole world is destabilized in what's happening in the Middle East. Even old institutions like the European Union is coming apart. The world as we know it is changing, and all of it is bad news. We have some good news today. Now, even the Good News Magazine, when you get your copy, most of you receive a Good News Magazine, sometimes this seems to be filled with nothing but bad news. You know, this bad thing's happening, that bad thing's happening, because that's what our world is. But in that magazine, there's always another message that something good is going to happen in the future, and you can be part of it. Something that God is doing. In the first Kingdom of God seminar we did back in September, we focused on what is the Kingdom of God, and why the Kingdom of God is needed in our present world. Went through some of the prophecies, talked about what it is to submit to that Kingdom now, be part of that Kingdom now, and how it changes your life. I want to start today exactly where we started, though, in September. Let's go to Mark chapter 1. If you have a Bible, let's turn to Mark chapter 1, and verse 14. This is where we started in September. It's where we start today. First 14 of March, chapter 1. Now, after John was put in prison, Jesus came to Galilee preaching the gospel of the Kingdom of God, and saying, the time is fulfilled, and the Kingdom of God is at hand. Repent and believe in the gospel. We're going to zero in on two phrases that Jesus used in this statement. The time is fulfilled, and in this afternoon, the Kingdom of God is at hand. The time is fulfilled. What does that mean? You know, to fulfill something means to complete something. What time? What was completed? What was completed at Jesus Christ's first coming? Because we all know that Jesus lived on this earth, came here because He is the Son of God. He came from heaven to here. He lived the life as a physical human being. He died. He was resurrected. And yet, the Kingdom of God, in the way that the prophecies predict, hasn't happened yet, has it? Jesus isn't in Jerusalem ruling. There isn't peace. All world governments aren't submitting to the rule of the one King. That hasn't happened yet. So, what was fulfilled in His first coming that would allow Him to say, the Kingdom of God is at hand?

So, what are those two phrases? What do they mean? This morning, we're going to deal with the phrase that the time is fulfilled. Now, what I want to do is go through three simple prophecies in the Old Testament, and then talk and show about how those were fulfilled by Jesus Christ when He came, but not completely. There's still things to be fulfilled which has to do with the Second Coming of Jesus Christ. You and I live in this incredible time. We live between the two great events in salvation history, the first coming of the Son of God and the second coming of the Son of God. And we live in between those two events. And we are connected to the first event, and we're connected to the second. And what we're going to talk about today is how we must understand our connection to the first coming if we're going to understand our connection to the second coming. Three simple prophecies. Genesis chapter 3, right at the very beginning of the Bible. Genesis chapter 3. Now, as a Christian, you know this story.

I believe it's a literal story. I believe this is how God made the first human beings. And I believe this is what happened to them. And in this story is a prophecy. Many people read through here and never really understand or capture this prophecy. It is the first prophecy about the person that we know is Jesus Christ. Genesis chapter 3 verse 1. Now, the sermon, we know this is same. Satan, who was an angel created by God, who rebelled against God and became evil.

And there is a thing that he's real. And if we're really going to understand the gospel, we're going to understand the good news. We have to understand where the bad news comes from. The bad news comes from the reality that you and I don't live in God's world, as we're going to see here in a minute. We live in a world that literally has a God of this world, as Paul called him. A being who rebelled against God, who God has allowed for a period of time, allowed, and I stress that, because God kingdoms the entire universe. There's just one little place that he is not presently ruling, and that's because he gave that to someone else for a short period of time, and he gave it to this angel who rebelled, who we know is Satan, the adversary of God. He is real, and we'll never truly understand the gospel, unless we understand the reality that this being exists. You know, that sounds sort of superstitious in our modern world, doesn't it? You know, well, Satan, people say, okay, I can believe this is God, but I don't believe there's a Satan. Genesis 3 verse 1, now the serpent, Satan, was more cunning than any beast of the field, which the Lord God had made, and he said to the woman, he said to the first woman, Eve, that God had created, as God indeed said, you shall not eat of every tree of the garden. And he said to the serpents, we may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden, of the fruit of the tree, which is in the midst of the garden. God said, you shall not eat of it, nor shall you touch it, lest you die. Now, there's nothing in the Bible that this was some kind of magic fruit. I have no idea what that fruit is. You know, people, tradition says it was the apple. I have no proof. There is no proof it was an apple, or what exactly the fruit was. The point is, there was a tree that God said, don't choose to eat that fruit.

And the reason why is, once we choose to do something against God, we take upon ourselves a privilege that it only belongs to Him. And that privilege is, I determine right and wrong. I determine good and evil. So He says, don't do that. See, it was a very simple law that He gave them, a very simple instruction. Don't eat that tree. Everything else is yours. Understand that Adam and Eve had never experienced sin at this point. They had experienced sin. They had experienced depression or hurt. They had experienced agony, anxiety. All they knew was happiness. All they knew was good news. Two people living in a perfect world in the presence of God, their Creator. And He said, the one thing I'm going to tell you not to do is don't choose for yourself good and evil. Well, you know this story. He eats the fruit, takes it to her husband, he eats the fruit, and it says their eyes are opened. What they realize now is that they have taken upon themselves a responsibility that they should not have. You and I now have that responsibility. Ever since Adam and Eve, you and I were born in a world where we immediately, as little children, we start choosing what we think is right and wrong. Anyone who has had a two-year-old knows exactly what I said.

That little two-year-old decides, I know what's good for me, and you do not know what's good for me. Anyone that's had a child throw a temper tantrum or say, no. That wasn't part of the way human beings were originally designed. That's what we've become. As we seize for ourselves, and as we do this, we come under the rule, under the dominion of a different kingdom. There is a God of this world, and you and I live under His rule. And understand, Satan's fingerprints are on everything. There's nothing in this world, whether it's human governments, churches, whether it's entertainment, economic systems, nothing really works, because Satan's fingerprints are on everything, because he is the God of this world. And you and I spend our lives deciding for ourselves right and wrong, and we mess it up, and we will never, ever fix it. Verse 14. God says to Adam and Eve, if you read through the passage, you will now live cursed lives. It's not going to work. Adam and Eve didn't walk out of Eden. Adam and Eve were kicked out of Eden. God said, I won't rule over you anymore. You want to do it your way? Go ahead. Now, if that's all there is to this, this is a hopeless message. But notice what He says in verse 14. So the Lord God said to the serpent, He says to Satan, because you have done this, you are cursed more than all the cattle. Verse 15. And I will put enmity between you and the woman. Now, you know, there is a enmity. There is a war between human beings and Satan. But it's also interesting, most of us don't like snakes. You ever notice that? We just don't like them. There's something about it. And I picked up snakes when I was a kid, maybe because I didn't want the other boys to think I was a coward. Inside I'm going, ew! Right? He says that between your seed and her seed, He shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise His heel. And right there we have the very first prophecy about Jesus Christ. There is a seed of a woman, someone who is human. Now, we're going to find as we go on, of course, that He wasn't completely human. He was also divine. And this seed of the woman was going to conquer Satan. He was going to bruise His head. He was going to conquer Satan. If you were taking the heel of a boot and kill a snake, just put it right on His head and smash it. So we have the very first prophecy. Now, let's look at the second one. We're going to jump ahead many, many centuries. God calls a man, Abram and his wife, Sarai. He would change her names to Abraham and Sarah. And He makes a promise to this man. Let's go to Genesis chapter 12. Genesis chapter 12. God comes to him and He calls him. Now, we're going to talk about calling a lot today, this morning and this afternoon, especially this afternoon. God calls. What is the movie? God calls people. Here God went to Abraham, who lived in the city of Ur, and He said, I'm calling you and here's what I want you to do. He didn't know God. He lived in a pagan society. He was a pagan. And God comes to Him and says, you, I'm going to call you to do my work on this earth. Because from Genesis 3.15 to the time Jesus Christ comes back, God, in spite of Satan and in spite of humanity, is working out a plan on this earth. Day by day, hour by hour, second by second, there is a plan of God throughout history taking place.

And you can be part of it.

There is a plan being worked out by God that culminates in His kingdom being reestablished on this earth, and you can be part of it. God comes to Abraham and says, you can be part of it. Verse 1, Now the Lord said to Abraham, Get out of your country from your family, from your father's house and land, and I will show you, and I will make you a great nation, and I will bless you, and make your name great, and you shall be a blessing. And I will bless those who bless you, and I will curse him who curses you, and in you all families of the earth shall be blessed. He says, We are going to come someone from you in which all families of the earth will be blessed. Abraham will become the father of the people known as the Israelites. The Israelites, one of the tribes, would be the Jews. When Jesus came along, was born into this earth, he had a Jewish mother who was a descendant of Abraham.

One last other prophecy, Deuteronomy 18. Deuteronomy chapter 18.

This is for Moses. One of the greatest figures in Jewish history led the Israelites out of Egypt, where they were slaves, where God miraculously destroyed the nation of Egypt to bring them out. And he says in verse 17, The Lord said to me, he says it to Moses, What they have spoken is good.

I will raise up for them a prophet, like you, from among their brethren, and will put my words in his mouth. He shall speak to them, and I will command him. And it shall be that whoever will not hear my words, which he speaks in my name, I will require it for oven.

In other words, he says, I'm going to send the prophet, and the people will be required to obey that prophet. And it seems like, okay, there's three prophecies here. You know, how are they all connected together? In the New Testament, they understood, when they understood who Jesus Christ is, that all these prophecies were about Him. Let's go to Acts chapter 3. Acts chapter 3 verse 19. The book of Acts is the history of the early church.

You'll understand what they taught, what they believed, what they did when you study through the book of Acts. And here we have Peter, who stands up outside the Jewish temple there in Jerusalem, with thousands of people gathered around because of a miracle that God had just done. And He gives them a message. And He says, let me tell you who Jesus was. You killed Him, and He was resurrected. Now, let me tell you who He was and who He is. Acts chapter 3 verse 19. Repent, therefore, when we talk about the Kingdom of God, and in future seminars, we're going to spend a lot of time talking about what repentance means, because that word is always connected.

When people are told about the message of Jesus Christ and the kingdom He's going to... that God's going to use Him to establish, the word repent is always attached. There's a human response. You and I are required to respond to this message. It can't just be information that we're given. We are required to respond to God Himself and to Jesus Christ when this message is given. He says, repent therefore and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out, so the times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord. Jesus said the time is fulfilled. Here we have Peter saying it's not totally fulfilled.

Certain things were fulfilled. He says we're still waiting for the times of refreshing. The times when the kingdom of God is literally here on this earth. He says that He may defend Jesus Christ who was preached to you before. He has to come back a second time. We have to understand the meaning of the first and second coming to really understand what God is doing. Verse 21, Who heaven must receive until the times of restoration of all things which God has spoken by the mouth of all His prophets as the world began?

For Moses truly said to the fathers, now he's quoted here the prophecy we just read, The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from your brother, and him you shall hear in all things whatever he says to you, and it shall be that every soul who will not hear that prophet will be utterly destroyed from among the people. Here Peter said, you know, that prophecy was about Jesus when He came, He came as that prophet, to tell people about God and what God is doing, and to tell people about the future, that God is prepared, the purpose, the plan that started in Genesis 3.15, but actually started before them.

Because the Apostle Paul says that Jesus was slain from the foundation of the earth. You understand what that means? That means before God ever made a human being. Before God ever created the universe. Before Adam and Eve ever took those first breath of life, God said, we will expose them to evil because they will have to choose, and they will choose wrongly, and we will save them. Satan didn't waltz into the garden of Eden to see Adam and Eve, and then God said, oh, I wish I would have saw that coming. That's not what happened.

God allowed him to come in. God kicked them out of Eden knowing He was going to kick them out of Eden, and then said, I will work this out so that I bring all of you who want to back to Eden.

God's kingdom was on this earth in Eden, and it's going to be reestablished in the future.

And so here we have the prophet who came to tell us about that kingdom, who came from that kingdom, who was the king of that kingdom. Verse 24, yes, and all the prophets from Samuel, and those who follow as many of us spoke, and have also foretold of these days. He tells the Jews of that time, He says, you are the sons of the prophets of the covenant, which God made with our fathers, saying in Abraham, and in your seed all the families of the earth shall be blessed. Well, that's what we just read in Genesis chapter 12. Jesus was going to come according to Genesis 3.15 to conquer Satan. According to what God told Abraham, He said, and when your seed is going to bless all nations. And what God told Moses is, I'm going to send someone that's going to be a prophet, and he will foretell of what God is doing. And here we have Peter says, you know who that is? That's Jesus.

He was that seed of the woman, the seed of Abraham. He was, and is, that prophet. In this simple, at least simple, three prophecies, we have an outline of the entire Old Testament. I want to put a map up on the board here. I hope my pointer has enough light in it. I want you to see something.

Takes a second here. If you can see that, what we have here is a map of the Middle East.

Nope, I'm not going to get enough light out of it. If you look to my right, you see the Persian Gulf. See the Persian Gulf?

Just north of that is Ur, the ancient city of Ur.

Now, if you look to the left, you see the Mediterranean Sea.

On the eastern seaboard of the Mediterranean Sea is Israel. The entire history of the Old Testament takes place here. You don't have to turn the light down. We're going to have this up very long. That's the entire history of the Old Testament.

God takes Abraham from Ur, takes him into Israel. God takes the Israelites out of the land of Israel and takes them into Egypt. Moses comes along and takes them back.

The Babylonians come along and take them out. Under Ezra and Nehemiah, God brings them back. Now, that's an awful lot of work God is doing. You read Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, Joshua, Judges, 1 and 2 Samuel, 1 and 2 Kings. You read the entire Old Testament, and it's about how these people keep getting taken out of this land, and God keeps bringing them back. He works through David, and he says, what are your descendants? David is a Jew. A member of your family is going to be the Messiah.

And they're taken out, and they come back. At the exact moment in history, at the exact right time, in the exact right place, Mary and Joseph, descendants of Adam and Eve, descendants of Abraham, descendants of David, she becomes pregnant to a miracle with the Son of God. So, you have to understand that the entire focus of the Old Testament is how God's going to take Genesis 3.15 and make it happen. Four thousand years of a mess of humanity, four thousand years of Satan ruling the earth, four thousand years of generations and coming and going and wars, and big business deals, and civilizations coming on the scene and disappearing.

Four thousand years. And at the exact moment, at the exact place, at the exact time, the first step in Genesis 3.15 happened.

Because God made it happen. Because He has a purpose for human beings, and He has a plan for human beings. And this is it. This is the entire Old Testament. Anybody that's mentioned, any nation or group of people that's mentioned in the Old Testament are mentioned because they relate to the Israelites who are living in that little strip of land on the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea.

You know, there's some historians have said that Jerusalem is the center of history, the center of the world. It shouldn't be. It's just a little city. And it has, you know, Jerusalem has no military value. It has no trade value. It really doesn't have any value in what we would put on the value of cities, except one thing. God put value there because He said, that's where I'm going to work from. And that's where the Messiah is going to come. We know Jesus died there. We know He's coming back to there. And that's why it's so important to understand the prophecies that are yet going to be fulfilled about what's going to happen around Jerusalem before the Second Coming. That will be the focal point of all the news you're going to hear at some point.

Because that's the focal point of history.

It's where the Messiah came the first time to die to be resurrected. It's where He's coming the second time to establish God's kingdom on this earth. What was fulfilled then, you can take the the map down. What was fulfilled then in the coming of Jesus Christ?

Yeah, it says that something was fulfilled. Now we know that not everything was fulfilled.

Not everything was fulfilled. What was fulfilled? Here's how the Apostle Paul puts it in Galatians chapter 4. Let's go to Galatians chapter 4.

Galatians 4 verse 4.

Galatians 4 verse 4. Paul says, about when the fullness of the time had come, the fullness of the time, there were certain prophecies about the first coming of the Messiah that had to be fulfilled. You know, it's a fascinating study to go through all the Old Testament prophecies about Jesus and then see how they are quoted and used in the New Testament. There are scores of verses, dozens of passages in the Old Testament that are quoted in the New Testament to prove that Jesus is the Messiah. Yet the Messiah was supposed to establish God's kingdom on the earth, but He had to come the first time to save us from what we had become.

Look how Paul says it here. That 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.

We have to accept something that is very hard for human beings to accept.

Every one of us, in the eyes of the living God, have become so corrupted we do not deserve life. Now, that's very difficult for us to grasp. Well, but God loves me. I'm not talking about whether God loves you or not. I want you to understand. This verse makes no sense unless you understand why Jesus would have to come and why He would have to be brutally beaten, why He would have to be tortured, and why He would have to die and be resurrected. Why would God do that? Why would God plan that from the beginning, from the foundation of the earth? Why was it started then? Couldn't God find a better way to say, look, okay, kids, don't worry about it. You're forgiven. There's two things we have to understand about the character of God. One, He is love, and two, He is righteous. You cannot sacrifice God's righteousness for His law that you can't sacrifice His love for His righteousness. In other words, there must be justice. Before the righteous God, evil must pay a price. That's sort of an aspect of God that people don't want to talk about. But if we're ever going to really know God, we have to understand that. He hates evil, and there is a price to be paid for evil. And what God decided is the only way to really show us that, so we understand love and justice, is to condemn us to the death because we deserve death and then save us through the life of His own Son. What a remarkable God! What a remarkable way of thinking. I will take evil people who have become my entities, and I will save them through my own suffering to show them I do not accept evil, but to show them that I love them. The word redeem means you buy something back. You know, when you look at, you have a coupon, right? You take it to the store. You can redeem it for something. We're bought back. We're bought back from the prison that we live in. Condemn the death. That's all this life is in this world under Satan's rule. You and I live in a prison with a harsh, evil warden, the God of this world, and we are condemned to death. But we have been bought back. So we can return to Eden, and we can return to the kingdom of God.

And verse 6 says, and he says that we can become sons. And because your son's got a sense for the spirits of his son, and to your heart's crying out, Abba, father. The purpose for all this is because God wants us as his children, and as a core message of the kingdom of God, you were created to be God's child, to be his son, to be his daughter, to relate with him as a father, to relate to Jesus Christ as a brother. That's why you were created. And that's what God wants for you. That's what the kingdom of God is all about. Ultimately, you know what God's purpose for the universe is? You know what God's purpose for the earth, and God's purpose for humanity, and God's purpose for all the animals? You know, you look at all that God's created. What's the purpose of all of it? Why? And it comes down to a very simple answer. God wants a family, and we're it. So we're messed up. We don't deserve to be part of that family unless we turn to God and respond to God. There's four things that Jesus came and fulfilled. The first sign became. One is He came to be our Savior. We hear that. It's become a cliche. That's unfortunate. You know, if you look at the Old Testament, they had the Passover ceremony reminiscent of the time when they were in ancient Israel. The Israelites were in Egypt. Ancient Israel was in Egypt, and God freed them, and He freed them by killing all the firstborn of Egypt. And they had to slay a lamb and put the blood on their doorposts so that the death angel would pass over them. On the night before Jesus died, He sat down and had a Passover service with His disciples. And He said, take this wine. It is my blood. And take this bread. It is my body, because I'm going to die for you. And so the Apostle Paul said, do we not understand Jesus is the Passover. The Passover is the ceremony, and the Passover is about a lamb. But ultimately, you know what the Passover is? It's a person. He came to save us so that the eternal death angel will pass over us. And you and I can't make that happen. We have no power to make that happen. Either God does that for us by His grace, or it doesn't happen. It's that simple. Either God's love and justice are perfectly balanced, or we're doomed. He came to be our Savior. He came to destroy the works of the devil. First, John 3, 8. Remember, He's going to bruise the head of Satan. He came to conquer the God of this world. He came to let Him know, your time is limited. That's a reality. There is a spiritual warfare going on that you and I are affected by and don't even know it. But it affects us every time we're driving in traffic. It affects us every time we turn on the television set. It affects us every time we decide what to do with our time. That spiritual battle affects us every time you make a decision whether to do something right or do something wrong. It affects you every time you decide to be honest or dishonest. It affects you every time you decide to honor your parents or not honor your parents. To commit adultery or not committed adultery. There is a spiritual warfare going on and you are in the midst of it. 1st John 3. 1st John chapter 3 verse 8.

He who stands is of the devil. Now we all sin. I wouldn't ask for a show of hands of everyone who's not a sinner. That means when we sin, we're following the God of this world.

When we sin, we're on the losing side of this battle, this warfare that's going on. He who sins of the devil for the devil was sinned from the beginning. For this purpose, for this reason, the Son of God was manifested that he might destroy the works of the devil so that he could fulfill Genesis 3.15. When Jesus was resurrected, Satan knew my days are numbered. The king has come, the king has planted seeds, and those seeds will grow. He came to be prepared as a high priest. The third thing he to do. That's very interesting because that means when you get on your knees before the Almighty God and you pray, you are directly before the throne of God. And there is a high priest there interceding for you. In ancient Israel, there was a high priest that had to go offer sacrifices for the people. Intercede for the nation to God. You have a high priest. This is a very special high priest. Look at Hebrews chapter 4. Hebrews chapter 4. Verse 14.

Seeing then that we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus the son of God, let us hold fast our confession. For we do not have a high priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but was at all points tempted as we are, yet without sin. Let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need. What does that mean? You know, when you go before the Almighty God and you say, Father, I'm tired. Father, the stress at my job is too much. Father, I do not know how to deal with my husband, my children, my wife. God, I don't know how to deal with my drinking problem. God, I don't you have a high priest that says, I know what it's like to be human. Now, he never sinned. Jesus never had a drinking problem, right? Jesus never lost his temper and killed somebody. Jesus never stole anything, but he knows what it feels like to be human. He knows what it's like to feel frustration. Think God feels frustration. God doesn't, you think God never been anxious or depressed? Now, we know he grieves. I mean, God has emotions. But do you think of all the negative emotions that come from sin, from bad things in our lives? Or things that just happen because we're chemical, right? You get tired, you get hungry. God doesn't have to eat. God doesn't have to rest. Jesus did. He gave up his privileges, it says in Philippians, to come here to be like that for the first time in his existence. He had to go to sleep. For the first time in his existence, he had to eat. He never had to eat before. Why did he do that? So that we have someone that we can go to and say, you know what it's like. And he says, yes, I do. I know what it's like.

He is Savior, he is the conqueror of Satan, and he is the high priest. He came to do those three things. But he came to do a fourth thing also. He came to plant the seeds of the kingdom of God for his second coming. The planting of those seeds is that he reaches out and he calls people, not just Israelites or Jews. He calls people from all over. We're going to talk about this some in the second half of what we do today. He calls people and he says, you, I want you to be part of my kingdom, and you, I want you to be part of my kingdom, just like you did with Abraham. He called him and said, I want you to be part of the plan I'm doing. God calls people to be part of his plan. This plan eventually involves all humanity, but there's a great privilege and honor to be called to be part of it now. And that honor is given by the grace of God. It says he calls the weak of the world to prove his greatness. And so he came to establish a church, to ecclesia in Greek. It simply means an assembly of people called together. An assembly of people called together. They're called out to come together to be his people and his plan to fulfill his purpose. What's very fascinating is when we look at the times and life of Jesus Christ. When he came to this earth, not only had God planned exactly what he had said, that this family would be there. Oh, they kept getting kicked out, but they kept coming back. God kept bringing them back. They might be a bit under Roman occupation, but they were there. And the Messiah came exactly what he was supposed to, how he was supposed to, where he was supposed to, and through the exact family he was supposed to come to. God made sure all that worked out.

Think of all the lives God had to touch to make sure that happened. Think of all the callings God had to do. Call. Okay, you, come here. You're going to make sure this happens. Here, you, come here. You're going to make sure this happens. Some people refuse their calling. You can see it in the Old Testament. Those who refuse their callings, God simply calls somebody else.

People tried to stop God's calling. They tried to stop what God was doing. When God had the Jews taken into captivity by the Babylonians, he was the punish, the Jews, for not doing what they were supposed to do. He had called them. They didn't do what they were supposed to do. But what's very interesting is that God punished the Babylonians because they were too harsh.

Wait, wait, wait, wait. I wouldn't have punished. I didn't want you to do that to them. So the Babylonians were punished. And then God had the Babylonian Empire destroyed because the Persians would send them home. So sure enough, the Babylonians are punished. They're destroyed. The Persians come along, and the first thing they do is, why should Jews go home?

They sent them home. Why? They were supposed to be there. That's why.

Think of all the things, all the details. You know, there's this macro idea of God, we see God involved in all these big things, all the little things He did, the little people's lives He touched to make sure His plan was fulfilled.

What's really interesting is if He comes, you know, Jesus comes to be the Savior, He comes to conquer Satan, He comes to be the high priest, and He comes to establish the church. In order to establish the church, He had to have an environment to produce the church.

The Roman Empire, at the time of Jesus, when He was born, and Augustus was the emperor, had produced a road system that had never existed before. The preachers of the Gospel can now go outside of Israel. They can never really go far outside of Israel before. There was a postal system. Now, you and I take the postal system for granted, right? I know, I went into the post office here a while back, and a woman was arguing with the postal woman because she said she had to pay for the stamps for her package, and the woman said, no, I don't. It's the U.S. government. They give us the postage, and she said, no, we don't. I couldn't believe it. The woman thought stamps were given for free. But we take this postal system for granted.

When the postal system was developed by the Romans that allowed letters to be sent all over, you think, well, what did that change? Have you ever read Romans, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, 1st and 2nd Corinthians, 1st and 2nd Thessalonians? Well, yeah. 1st, 2nd, 3rd John, 1st and 2nd Peter, James. They're letters. They're letters. You and I have those letters today because there was a postal system that had never existed before. You had a common language.

That no matter where you went in the Roman Empire, people understood. It was called Greek. The New Testament was written in Greek. People could read Greek. That had never existed before.

These are little details. Little details. God had worked out just like He had with the life of Jesus, just like He did with Jesus Christ. He also made sure the next step in the process of re-establishing the kingdom of God was there. Jesus Christ was going to play on the scenes.

When the Jews came out of captivity and Persia brought them back, hundreds of thousands did not go back. They scattered throughout the Persian Empire because they were merchants and they went to the cities. At every place they went, they created a synagogue. Oh, that's interesting. Read the book of Acts. Christianity could not have spread beyond Judea, except there were synagogues all over the world. And guess where are the synagogues? The scrolls of what we call the Old Testament. And you see where Paul went to the synagogue, every city he went into, and opened the scrolls and taught them about Jesus Christ from the prophecies. Some of the very same prophecies we've already talked about this morning. And that's where he read to them and people said, ah, Jesus is the Messiah! Without those synagogues, without those scrolls being there, Christianity would have died in Jerusalem. It's not by accident that all those synagogues were there. It's not by accident that the book of what we call the Old Testament was all over the world. You could go to Gaul, which is now France. You could go to Rome. You could go to any place in the Roman Empire. Guess what you would find? This synagogue.

You see, God had already planned out in detail this as how detail-oriented God is in carrying out what he's going to do to re-establish God's kingdom on this earth.

The road system, the postal system, the Greek language, the Jewish synagogues, without that mixture of things, Christianity would have died in Judea.

God has a plan, and Jesus' first coming was the first great step in that plan. There is, of course, a second step.

He said, well, this is all very interesting. Where does that leave me? God's got all this big picture, and he's doing all this stuff. In all this that God does, he uses individuals. He uses people. He calls people and says to them, do you wish to be part of my plan? Do you wish to be redeemed? Do you wish to be bought back from the slavery, from the prison you're in? Do you wish to have someone overthrow that prisoned God of this world, that prisoned warden that keeps you down? Do you wish to have yourself changed into a son of God, a child of God? Christianity is not a profession of Jesus Christ. Christianity is being changed into a child of God, and those are two different things. You can profess Jesus all day long and never really be a child of God. Christianity isn't about belief. It's about becoming what God has called you to become, what God created you to be, and we'll talk about that this afternoon. It's a plan. It started before the foundation of the world. And Jesus Christ is coming back. He came the first time at the exact right time He was supposed to come. Everything was in place. Everything was in place for Him, and everything was in place for creating the Church. Now the Church is being created for Christ's Second Coming, to be there for Him when He returns. The Church has something it's supposed to do. It's supposed to tell this message. It's supposed to tell this message and prepare people for the return of Jesus Christ.

Perhaps, you know, we started with the phrase, He said, the time is fulfilled. Well, maybe a time is being fulfilled right now, here in your life. Perhaps you are here today because God is telling you and has been working with you maybe, who knows, 10 years, 20 years? Maybe before you were even born, God was working with you. But God said, I'm going to call you and you have the opportunity. Now we all have the choice. There's a difference between, you know, God doesn't make us do anything. We have the opportunity to become part of that plan, one of the wee little details in this master plan that God has for redeeming humanity.

Because at the exact time that everything's right, at that exact time, Christ is coming back.