The Time Is Fulfilled

Well, good afternoon, everyone. We're so glad to have you here in attendance this afternoon. I see a few of you were here last time in September when we had our first Kingdom of God seminars. I see a lot of new faces, so we're really glad that you're here today.

You know, we all spend our lives looking for meaning and looking for relevance. We all want success. We all want happiness. We want happiness for ourselves and also for our families. The message of the Kingdom of God is, frankly, the main key to a life of real success and purpose. You've come here today to learn more about the Kingdom of God. We have prepared messages that have the power to turn your life around and show you how to access the very power of God and His coming Kingdom. So we're, again, very excited to be here today. Our first series, the first segment of the series that we had a few months ago, offered two sessions.

The first one focused on just what is the Kingdom of God. The second one, why the Kingdom of God is needed now in our present world. These sessions spoke to both the building blocks that frame such a kingdom and also the sobering reality of the need for the intervention of this realm that's spoken of by Jesus Christ. Christ spoke about the Kingdom of God in Mark 1, verses 14 and 15, and we talked about this some last time.

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. So today we're going to focus on the impact of God's timing in dealing not only with the expansive and potentially very dangerous world affairs. I mean, even now we have warships around the Strait of Hormuz. There's much conflict in the Middle East, much going on in Syria right now. China and Russia haven't really gone along with the way the United States and many of the European countries have seen things.

So there's a great deal of potential for conflict in the world today. So we want to bring to you the Gospel of the Kingdom of God and how it's going to affect your life in the future. As we talked about last time, the time is fulfilled and we're going to go into that in more detail today. This first presentation centers on Christ's words. The time is fulfilled. It will lay a framework to fully appreciate the second presentation, which will be on the Kingdom of God is at hand. We're going to talk about what Christ meant when He said these words.

To develop a scriptural foundation to begin to comprehend Christ's words that the time is fulfilled, we need to consider two basic verses. First of all, in the book of Isaiah, in chapter 46, verse 10, God says, I make known the end from the beginning. God knows all things. He's all-powerful. He's omniscient. He knows the end from the beginning.

From ancient times, what is still to come? God knows exactly what's going to be happening in the days ahead. I say, my purpose will stand and I will do all that I please. Now, many people don't even believe in God, but God makes these claims that He knows the end from the beginning, that His purpose will stand. The great and almighty God who was not created but has life inherent will come to the fore in this world and in our lives.

He will make Himself known in the days ahead. In this next slide, it shows John 5, verses 17 and 18. Jesus said, My Father has been working until now and I have been working. God is not simply a first cause, that is, some form of absentee cosmic landlord. No, He is very real. He's not simply love without substance, without definition, or without outcome. His love is defined by working with a purpose.

God has a purpose. He has a master plan. He has made promises in the Bible. He's also made provisions that will usher forth His kingdom to this dying age and to each of us personally. The word translated time in the original Greek is the word kairos. The word translated and fulfilled is the word playrao. Used together, these words convey time, not in the sense of a turning of a watch hand, but more profoundly in the sense of a fixed moment in time. A time opportune in nature, something that God designed Himself, also seasonal in nature, as if something is to be planted towards harvesting.

God has planted various seeds and He's going to be doing some harvesting in the future. It's important that we understand what He's going to do. This word kairos, that was translated time, is a season. It is a brief period of time that is marked in some special way, implying that the season is now filled full and remains so. According to Lensky's commentary on the New Testament, the thought is that time has now fully arrived for the spread of the Messianic Gospel.

When Jesus Christ first came, He came to bring the Gospel of the Kingdom of God. This other word that we mentioned, playrao, which signifies fulfillment, in the sense that all was complete or filled up. It was filled up to set the stage for the entrance of God's gift to humanity, the Messiah and His message of the Kingdom of God.

Thus, we might suggest the time was ripe. The time was ripe for Christ's first coming. It was ripe to begin planting and also to begin harvesting. In Isaiah 46, verse 10, which we mentioned earlier, remember, God declares the end from the beginning. So we need to follow the path so that we can understand the purpose that God has for us. What is His purpose that needs to come to fruition?

Let's ask again, what is it that came to fruition in the first place? God knows what He's doing. Again, He knows the end from the beginning. Here we see in Matthew 25, verse 34, Jesus said, Come, inherit the Kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. Now, that hasn't taken place yet. We haven't yet inherited the Kingdom that was prepared for us from the foundation of the world. Christ came to announce the coming of the Kingdom of God. In Genesis 3, verse 15, God says, I will put enmity between your seed and her seed. In fact, I'm going to go ahead and look in the Bible and just read a couple extra verses that we don't have in the slide here.

In Genesis 3, verse 15, just to give you a little context here, this was when Adam and Eve sinned against God. They ate of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. In verse 13, the eternal God said to the woman, What is this that you have done? The woman Eve said, The serpent deceived me, and I ate. Of course, the serpent being Satan the devil. So the Lord, eternal God, said to the serpent, Because you have done this, you are cursed more than all cattle and more than every beast of the field.

On your belly you shall go, and you shall eat dust all the days of your life. Now he was talking about the physical manifestation, the serpent, and of course, snakes. They're still crawling around on the ground today. But notice verse 15, And I will put enmity between you and the woman, between Satan the devil and the woman, and between your seed and her seed. And here the word seed is capitalized. Speaking of Jesus Christ, who was to be born of a woman, He shall bruise your head.

Speaking of Christ, bruising the head of Satan, you shall bruise His heel. He was talking about how Satan would be instrumental in having Jesus Christ crucified. Jesus Christ would die. So in that sense, Satan would bruise Christ's heel. And of course, we know that Christ was resurrected and is now at the right hand of God. So it was not a mortal wound, it was a wound, but not like the wound that God is going to give Satan in the future, where it says, He shall bruise your head.

Satan will be crushed in the days ahead by God, and God is going to make Satan... He's going to bind him for a thousand years. We know the Scripture tells us that. And then he's going to be cast into outer darkness for eternity. So God certainly has the upper hand, even though the Bible refers to Satan as the God of this world.

Satan does have a role to play in God's plan. And Satan is actually the God of this world, and that's why we see the world in such bad shape. That's explained so much of why the world is the way it is, because God has allowed Satan to be the God of this world. So Genesis 3.15 is a prophecy that Jesus Christ would be born of a woman and would eventually take care of Satan the devil.

Actually, when Adam and Eve rejected the essence of the value structure of the kingdom of God that was in the form of the tree of life. They did not eat of the tree of life, lest they would have lived forever. They instead were forcibly expelled from the garden in Eden. Even at that time, God put into motion a return to Eden in those values of His kingdom. And that's why we're here today, because we believe in the kingdom of God, and there are many values that need to be taught regarding God's kingdom. The booklets that we have at the information table are chock full of the values of God's kingdom.

And you're welcome to take any of the booklets at all. Just one requirement, we ask that you read whatever you take. Or pass them along to someone who will read them. You can get double duty on these booklets as well.

But we believe there is an awful lot that people need to understand these days, and we're grateful that God has opened our minds to understand the truth of His way of life. The seed of Eve, that is Jesus Christ, would be wounded, but as I mentioned earlier, would crush the head of the serpent. So this is actually the first recorded prophecy in the Bible, Genesis 3, verse 15. And it depicts an ongoing struggle that will be dominated and concluded with hope. There is great hope for the future.

A seed of hope is planted, and it will come to fruition. In Genesis 12, we see here a blessing upon the faithful pilgrim Abram, who became known as Abraham, the father of the faithful. And this verse says, From whom all the families of the earth would be blessed. Jesus Christ was to come from the seed of Abraham. Again, it was a seed of hope. It was planted a long time ago. In the next slide here in Deuteronomy, Moses spoke of one to be raised up like him, like Moses, a deliverer and a lawgiver who would grant passage from slavery into freedom. Of course, Moses led the children of Israel out of bondage into freedom.

Of course, God was the one doing the orchestrating of all that, but Moses was an instrument in God's hands. So again, a seed of hope was planted as Moses prophesied that Jesus Christ would indeed come, a prophet. As it says here, God will raise up for you a prophet like me from your midst. And Moses went on to show that this prophet would be greater than Moses. The book of Hebrews talks about that as well. So with all this stated, expectation was certainly in the air about the time when Jesus Christ came on the scene. Now came this herald-like proclamation and the entrance of the Messiah.

The time is fulfilled. It is right for these prophecies to be fulfilled, these first prophecies of Christ coming. And there are many prophecies in the book of Isaiah and Jeremiah and Ezekiel that were fulfilled when Christ came the first time. Now, the Apostle Paul basically knells it down here in Galatians 4. Paul says, But when the fullness of time, and this word is the word chronos, it means a space in time, a particular period, when this time had come, God sent forth his son, born of a woman, as we mentioned in Genesis 3.15, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, that we might receive the adoption as sons.

So Paul speaks of a pinpoint timing that is ripe to plant the seed of the kingdom and then to bring forth a harvest. So why did Jesus Christ come to earth? Why did he come the first time? Well, the seed was firmly planted, Jesus Christ coming to earth and being planted in the form of a man. He divested himself of his divine nature. He came as a human being.

He lived a perfect life without sin. Scripture says he was tempted in every point as we are, yet he was without sin. God's incredible plan, inscribed in the name Emmanuel, I'm sure most of you, or perhaps all of you, have heard this name Emmanuel, which means God with us. It's a prophecy in Isaiah 7, verse 14. So Jesus Christ dwelt as God in the flesh, as Emmanuel, and he did so for a fourfold purpose.

First of all, Jesus Christ came to be our Savior. Christ came to save us from our sins, to pay the penalty for our sins, not to do away with God's law, because sin is the transgression of God's law. He didn't come to do away with the law. He even says that himself. Think not that I came to destroy the law or the prophets.

No, Christ came the first time to be our Savior, to pay the penalty for sin by dying in our place, by laying his life down, by sacrificing himself. He was a worthwhile and complete sacrifice as the Lamb of God. John chapter 1, verse 29 says, Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. That's exactly why he came the first time, is to take away the sin of the world.

Christ's sacrifice would offer a road of return to the values of God's kingdom that was rejected in the Garden of Eden. Remember, God declares the end from the beginning. In Revelation chapter 13, 8, it clearly states that Christ is the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world.

Before this world was created, it was in God's plan that Jesus Christ would be slain. He was slain from the foundation of the world. At the very time when the worlds were created, it was already in God's plan that his Son would come and die for mankind. And now was the time, that time when Christ came upon the scene nearly 2,000 years ago, that was the time for his first coming.

So the first purpose was to be our Savior. The second purpose was to destroy the works of the Devil. Even though Satan still remains as the God of this world presently, Christ came to destroy his works and he started to process. And he's going to finish it at his return this second time when he comes back again. So in 1 John chapter 3, there it is. 1 John chapter 3 verse 8, For this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that he might destroy the works of the Devil. The second Adam, Jesus Christ, or the last Adam, as he is referred to in the Scripture, also a life-giving Spirit.

Christ fully resisted the Devil's temptations. We're familiar with Matthew 4 and the temptations of Jesus Christ. He completely thwarted the evil plans of Satan the Devil. He did not give in to any temptation whatsoever. And he put to death the penalty of sin at Gogotha, at the crucifixion. And he will yet remove Satan altogether, as Revelation chapter 20 shows us, that Satan is going to be bound first for a thousand years.

And then he will be cast into outer darkness. He will be loose for a short time, but then he will be cast into outer darkness. Now a third reason Christ came was to prepare to be our high priest. And Christ is at the right hand of God. He now makes intercession for you and for me.

He is fulfilling the role as our high priest. So the Word became flesh, as it says in John 1. The Word became flesh, and He dwelt among us, so that we might touch God, and in turn God might be touched by the workings of our flesh.

In Hebrews chapter 2 verse 17, it says, Therefore in all things he had to be made like his brethren. Christ had to be made like you and me, that he might be a merciful and high priest in things pertaining to God to make propitiation, which means to pay the penalty for the sins of the people. Christ came to pay the penalty of sin. Remember, the wages of sin is death, and that's what we all deserve. It's only through Jesus Christ and His sacrifice that we might be given the gift of eternal life.

Now, a fourth reason why Christ came, and a very important reason, was to establish His church. Jesus Christ is the head of the church, and He came to establish His church. In Matthew chapter 16 verse 18, Christ says, I will build my church in the gates of Hades, speaking of the death or the grave, shall not prevail against it.

Again, Christ said, my church. Christ was the head of the church, and Christ is in the process of developing a spiritual body of believers. A small flock today, but nevertheless, seeds have been planted, and God's church does exist. In fact, the gates of hell will not prevail against the church of God, even though it be a small flock. Christ is in the process of developing a spiritual body of believers, and Ecclesia called out ones is what that word means, a Greek word that means called out ones, not talking about buildings.

We don't put a lot of emphasis on church buildings. We meet here in a hall, because it works for us, and we actually have more monies to preach the gospel of the kingdom of God. We are a small flock. We don't need huge buildings. We are told that we are to worship God in spirit and in truth. That's very, very important to us, that we worship God in spirit and in truth. In Ephesians 1, verse 23, the apostle Paul says, The church is Christ's body, and we are to become like him, like Jesus Christ, a glorious church without spot or wrinkle, without blemish.

Christ was the unblemished Lamb of God, who laid his life down and sacrificed himself for us. The church is to follow in Christ's footsteps. We are to become without spot or wrinkle. That's not an easy task, because we're still in the flesh, and only with God's help can we grow and overcome and be pleasing to God. So again, we might ask ourselves, why did Christ come to earth? Well, he certainly came to establish the church of God, as well as the other purposes that we talked about.

He came to prepare a people, and he also came to preach the gospel of the kingdom of God. Now I don't know if you can see the emblem that we have in front here, but this is the emblem of the United Church of God. And on it you can see that these two issues are the goals that we have set as the church of God, to prepare a people for God's coming kingdom, to become a church without spot or wrinkle, and also to preach the gospel of the kingdom of God.

That's why we are holding these seminars. We want to preach the gospel of God's kingdom. That was a commission that God gave His church. Now as Galatians 4, verse 4 points out, when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth His Son. God the Father sent forth His Son. Remember, He knows the end from the beginning. This was part of His plan to send His Son. Indeed, God's purpose for His Son's entrance into human history was established, and the moment was ripe about 2,000 years ago for that first coming.

The people of Judah were under the oppression of the occupying power of Rome, and the world of antiquity had increasingly become aware that their pantheon of God's was bankrupt. It could not deliver a life of substance, of meaning, and of purpose beyond just the moment, temporary and fleeting. So it was at this precise moment in history that the prophecy of Isaiah 9, verse 2 is given birth or is fulfilled, the people who walked in darkness have seen a great light.

Jesus Christ was that great light. Jesus Christ is the light of the world. The light of God's purpose in a darkened society, dominated by the spirit of this world or this cosmos, was ready to burst forward at that time, almost 2,000 years ago. A lot has happened since then. God still knows the end from the beginning. He still has a plan. He's still working it out. So why is it that God's purpose comes to the fore at this juncture of human history about 2,000 years ago? Why at that particular time in history? Well, first of all, there were Roman roads that were sufficient to help spread the gospel at that time.

For the first time, there were roads that were built that could be used to communicate the gospel of God's kingdom. And there was Pax Romana, which means Roman peace. The Roman Empire ruled very strongly, and as a result, there was peace in the world for the most part for a time. There was a secure environment in which the gospel of the kingdom could travel quickly and could travel smoothly. The second reason why this happened at that particular time in history was because of the Greek language. The Greek language was a language rich in meaning, and it was spoken throughout the entire Roman Empire. It would not only tie people together then, but centuries later it would be a means to bring God's Word to us today during the translation period of the Reformation.

The New Testament was written in Greek, and that was the language that God was using at the time. God does certainly see ahead, and he knows what he's doing. Another reason why the time was ripe back when Christ first came was because of Jewish synagogues. The Jewish diaspora was dispersed throughout the Roman Empire, and the empires in the trading routes of the East. So these synagogues, these Jewish synagogues, Christ of course was a Jew, these synagogues would be springboards for explaining what the prophets meant and that the Messiah had truly come.

Of course, all this didn't happen overnight. The Jews were dispersed throughout the world during the 6th and 5th centuries BC. The Greek language didn't come to the fore until the 3rd century BC, and Rome didn't become an empire until AD 31. And yet God allowed the development of three civilizations, these three civilizations to ultimately intertwine for a specific moment in time that would usher in the optimal moment for the Son of God to appear on earth and to perform what had been declared thousands of years before. It just didn't happen by happenstance.

It happened because God has a purpose and He has a plan. And that plan continues today. So let's ask ourselves, what does this have to do with you? Why are you here today? What does this have to do with you? Have you ever considered that all the events of your life are intertwined for a purpose to bring you to a point of accepting the fullness of the gospel of Jesus Christ and the Kingdom of God?

Here in Matthew 24, verse 14, it says, This gospel of the kingdom will be preached in all the world as a witness to all the nations, and then the end will come. Now, The Good News magazine goes out to just about every nation on earth today.

We have many subscribers. We're just a small part in preaching the gospel of the kingdom of God, but we believe we have a very important part in preaching the gospel.

The Bible talks about two witnesses that will come on the scene in the future, and they will have a great deal to do with preaching the gospel of God's kingdom as well. We're preparing for that time in advance. We want people to be prepared for the tumultuous times that are going to come upon the earth. That's what the Scripture tells us. There are prophecies in the book of Revelation and the book of Daniel and Isaiah and Ezekiel and various places in the Bible that show what's going to happen shortly before Christ's Second Coming.

We believe we're drawing ever closer to the return of Jesus Christ. So today, you've been hearing the gospel of the kingdom of God. This is the primary reason again that these seminars are being held around the world and why we will continue to hold these seminars for those whom God is working with, who God is calling. We want to prepare a people for the return of Jesus Christ. We want to preach the gospel to the world. Now, as 2 Timothy 1, verses 8 and 9 clearly says, God who has saved us and called us with a holy calling, according to His own purpose and grace, which was given to us in Christ Jesus before time began.

Again, it shows the purpose that God has. Before time even began, Jesus Christ was to be our Messiah. So let's be plain. God not only is sovereign over the universe, God the Father is sovereign over the universe, and He deals with humanity in a macro sense that is in a large sense. He deals with all of mankind. But He also deals with each of us in a micro sense or a personal sense.

He is calling individuals to become a part of God's Kingdom, to prepare for the return of Jesus Christ today. You've been invited to understand the truth of God and His plan for you. Perhaps a time of fulfillment is here today in your life. Only you and God can answer that. Perhaps God has been leading you over a lifetime and allowing or bringing into your life a combination of experiences that would create a pinpoint moment in time that has ripened you to take the next step, which will be explained in the next session, the second session today, which is titled, The Kingdom is at Hand.

So as we break for a moment, just remember that God is not simply the creator of time, but God is the master of timing. And the reality is that you must understand that God is the master of timing. He's your master of timing. You must allow Him to be your master. So at this time we're going to take about a 10-minute break, 10 or 15 minutes to use the restroom to have a drink or have some light refreshments. We will have some sandwiches and things later on after the second part of the seminar. So the first segment is now completed and we'll take about a 10 or 15-minute break.