Seeking for the help of the Lord,
I direct your prayerful attention to our first reading, John chapter
7, and reading for our text, verse 6. Verse 6, if you have
one of our free Bibles, it's page 988. Then Jesus said unto
them, My time is not yet come. but your time is always ready. John 7 and verse 6. The Lord had his brethren here,
now we understand them that they weren't those of his next of
kin as it were, brothers, sisters, but those of the wider circle,
cousins or those brethren in that connection that we are told
here did not believe on him and so in a way they were goading
him and saying that if he truly was one that wanted to be known
openly he should be seen openly and should go up to the Feast
of Tabernacles at Jerusalem. And the Lord had this word to
say to them, the word of our text, My time is not yet come,
but your time is always ready. Now he is saying this in connection,
it is cleared up in verse 8, where the Lord says, Go ye up
unto this feast. I go not up yet unto this feast,
for my time is not yet full come. So our Lord was saying for them,
they could go up, but for him, no, and the reason was his time
was not yet come. Later on, we have in verse 30
of the same chapter, just before we closed our reading, Then they
sought to take him, that is the Jews, when he had gone up and
he was teaching at the feast. But no man laid hands on him,
because his hour was not yet come. So twice we have recorded
in this passage that his time was not yet come. You might say,
well, if the Lord had power, so that they could not lay their
hands on him when he was at the feast, why didn't he go with
the disciples? Why didn't he go with his brethren? He didn't need to hide himself,
but we are told there he would not walk in Jewry because the
Jews sought to kill him. And we get this picture, our
Lord, not reckless and careless, as to where they're trying to
take him. He took precautions, as it were,
in that way, as a lesson to us. And when we come to the word
of our text and realize the Lord didn't need to avoid them. He
had that power to stop them from taking him. But we have a real
deep truth that is set before us in this word. My time is not
yet come, but your time is always ready. You know, the disciples,
all they had in view was the feast, was those things immediately
before them. But our Lord had in view the
whole plan of salvation, the timing of all the things that
had been planned and purposed from the beginning of the world.
And what a reminder it is to us how different is our view
of this world and of things that are happening. We only just make
our decisions and say what we say, same as these disciples,
based on what we know. They just knew this, that There
is no man that doeth anything in secret, and he himself seeketh
to be known openly. If thou do these things, show
thyself to the world, they could give advice from what they knew
and what they observed. But how little did they know
of the great plans of salvation. When we think of The Lord Jesus
Christ is set forth as the Lamb slain from the foundation of
the world. As soon as the promise of the
seed of the woman that was to bruise the serpent's head was
given, then God always keeps His promises. He was as good
as crucified, He was good as slain, as soon as that promise
was given. But He didn't immediately come. He didn't immediately appear
and offer that sacrifice. We have all of the years, 1640
or so, to the flood. We have Noah, a preacher of righteousness. We have the world destroyed.
And then we have the history of the Jews right through to
the coming of our Lord, 4,000 years in all that had happened. And throughout all of that time,
the things that happened were planned and timed and ordered
by the Lord. Looking at that great plan of
salvation, giving the types and the shadows in the Old Testament
dispensation, giving promise after promise, having a generation
of those that lived and died by faith as we have described
in Hebrews 11, It was the Lord's choice that there should be that
period of time. It's the Lord's choice and plan
that there should be 14 generations from Abraham to David, and from
David to the carrying away into Babylon, and from the carrying
away into Babylon unto Christ. 14 generations in each case,
a perfect timing of the Lord, a plan, not just random, not
just a careless appointment. of times. The Lord has a plan. And in the middle of that plan
now, he is upon the earth. At 12, he said, Wist ye not that
I must be about my father's business? Father's business? Wasn't Joseph
his father? No, they suppose that he was,
but God was his father. I am my father of one, he said. His Father was in heaven. He
was brought into this world by the overshadowing of Mary, by
the Holy Ghost, that holy thing which shall be born of thee shall
be called the Son of the Highest. And He is bone of our bone, born
of a woman made under the law to redeem them that are under
the law. The very timing of His coming,
the timing of the taxing that was to bring them to Bethlehem,
Joseph and Mary, so that our Lord would be born according
to the promise in Bethlehem. That timing, perfectly timed
of the Lord to bring about the fulfillment of those scriptures. And now that He is in this time
on earth, when is He to lay down His life? When he is 12? No. 20? 25? 30? 33? That time was appointed by God
and in all his ministry and where he should go and what he should
do and what he should say. And of course it was appointed
that our Lord would, during his time here, be working out a righteousness
for his people His life was to be a spotless life, a perfect
life of obedience. And Paul says to the Philippians
that it was obedience even unto death, the death of the cross,
wherefore God hath highly exalted him. That was the plan and the
purpose. When he was to be betrayed, the
Lord said, the Son of Man goeth as it is determined, as it was
determined. But woe unto that man by whom
he is betrayed, it shall be worse for him than if he'd never been
born. And the Lord was to go. He said that he laid down his
life to take it again. This commandment have I received
of my father. He was to go, he was to be crucified,
but at the time appointed by God, not man. and all that he
did wasn't governed by unbelieving brethren, not governed by Satan
as he tempted him in the wilderness to command these stones that
may be made bread, but he was in control and he is now. That
which was done on this earth in putting away the sins of his
people has been done and has been accomplished and the Lord,
as we read, ascended up into heaven and shall come again."
We think of the work that was finished and done, accomplished
at Calvary. If your sins are put away and
mine, they're put away there at Calvary. All of the people
of God have that one thing in common, that their sins were
born at the same time on the Lord Jesus Christ. They were
born away at Calvary at exactly the same time. That which was
done there was done for Abel, sins, and the last one that shall
be called by grace here below. All have that in common. When
we gather around the Lord's table, however different our experiences
may be, when we were called, how old we are, how young we
are, what was the circumstances of our calling differs tremendously
amongst the people of God. But one thing that is common
to them all is that as they sit down around the Lord's table,
it is, ye do show forth the Lord's death till he come. And they
remember when all of their sins, each one of that church, were
laid on Christ at the same time and put away at the same time.
The Lord has done this. He unites the people of God together
in what he has accomplished at Calvary. And every church, they
look back to that time. But there is yet a time to come. The disciples asked in their
reading In Acts chapter 1, they wondered whether he would at
that time restore the kingdom again to Israel. Was there going to be another
king in Israel, a king on this earth? Was the Lord to reign
upon this earth? The Lord says this to them, it
is not for you to know the times or the seasons, which the Father
hath put in his own power." Maybe think of that in view of the
words of our text. My time is not yet come, but
your time is always ready. That's our text. But when we
come to this word, it is not for you to know the times or
the seasons. which the Father hath put in
his own power. The hymn says, Providence unfolds
the book and makes his counsels shine. We walk through these
things, through these purposes of God and through the timings
of the Lord. The angels then, when the Lord
was received up into heaven, they stood next to the man of
Galilee and asked them why they were staring up, gazing up into
heaven. And they have this message that
he would come again in like manner as you have seen him go into
heaven. The fact, the assurance that
he would do so, that they told them. At the time, they did not. And we do not know that time.
It's not recorded in the Holy Scriptures. It is told us that
no man knoweth the day nor the hour wherein the Son of Man cometh. We know that He does, but that
time is hidden from us. And so, our times that are in
the Lord's hand, you know, in Ecclesiastes, we have the passage
there in chapter 3, I think it is, where we have the beginning
of it, to everything there is a season and a time, to every
purpose under the heaven, a time to be born and a time to die,
a time to plant and a time to pluck up that which is planted,
a time to kill and a time to heal, a time to break down and
a time to build up. A time to weep and a time to
laugh, a time to mourn and a time to dance. A time to cast away
stones and a time to gather stones together. A time to embrace and
a time to refrain from embracing. A time to get and a time to lose,
a time to keep and a time to cast away. A time to rend and
a time to sew, a time to keep silence and a time to speak.
a time to love and a time to hate, a time of war and a time
of peace. All those times, they are in
the Lord's hand, in His appointments, not just cast in as chance and
fortune in our lives, but our lives through various scenes
are drawn, and it is by the Lord's appointment. Some of the Lord's
dear people are made mistakes as to the time that things were
going to happen. We have that case with Moses,
and I read it from, or refer to it from, that which Stephen
speaks of in Acts chapter 7, and he sets forth a brief history
of the children of Israel before they stone him and they kill
him. And he says of Moses that when
he was 40 years old, remember Moses was born in Hebrew, put
in the ark of bulrushes found by Pharaoh's daughter and nurtured
up in Pharaoh's household for 40 years as his schooling, as
it were, to be a leader of the people of God, but Moses knew,
knew that there was a work before him. He knew that the Lord would,
by him, deliver Israel, but he got the timing wrong. And so
we read there, when he was 40 years old, in Acts 7.23, it came
into his heart to visit his brethren, the children of Israel, And seeing
one of them suffer wrong, he defended him, and avenged him
that was oppressed and smote the Egyptian. For he supposed
his brethren would have understood how that God by his hand would
deliver them, but they understood not. And the next day he showed
himself unto them as they strove, and would have set them at one
again, saying, Sirs, ye are brethren, why do ye wrong one to another?
But he that did, His neighbour wrong thrust him away, saying,
Who made thee a ruler and a judge over us? Wilt thou kill me as
thou didst the Egyptian yesterday? Then fled Moses at this, saying,
Was a stranger in the land of Madian, where he begat two sons."
And we read later on how that one that they cast away, the
Lord brought back 40 years later to lead the children of Israel. You know, we can have an intimation,
a belief, what the Lord will do, whether it is in a way a
blessing, whether it is one exercises the ministry, that one day they
would be called into the ministry, but not know what time. They
might try to go earlier than what they should do, like Moses
did, but he had to wait, wait another 40 years, and then the
Lord sent him. I remember I read Windridge in
that way, that he went before the time and had to go back again. And he thought surely his life
was just going away. He got to 54 years of age and
thought, well, if the Lord calls me into the ministry, I won't
have much ministry. But the Lord did call him at
that time. I believe he ministered to within
a week of his death at 94. So he had 40 years of ministry,
and it is in the Lord's hand. We can get it wrong. Sometimes
we can be like a high mass that says to Joab, when Absalom had
been slain, let me go, let me go today and give tidings to
David. But Joab said, thou shalt not
bring tidings today, for the king's son is dead. But he really
pressed him. But Joab sent Cushi. But then
Ahimehaz pressed and pressed. And so, in the end, Joab sent
him. And Ahimehaz overran. Cushi got there first. But he
wasn't a faithful messenger. He couldn't clearly tell David
what he needed to know. Was Absalom safe? Was he alive
or not? There is a purpose, a reason
why we should hold back sometimes. The people of God sometimes need
drawing on and encouraging to go forward. But there are other
times that they need the brakes on and they need to wait and
wait the Lord's timing and the Lord's way. And it is remembering
that God's time is a right time. And those things that He is doing,
He's looking at the overall plan. He can see what we cannot see. We cannot make plans of things
that we don't know about. Dear Jacob, could he make plans
of what he was going to do in Egypt? He thought his son Joseph
was dead. He never knew that path for him,
though if he knew the promises given to Abraham, he would have
known that his seed was to be a stranger in a strange land. 400 years from that time of promise,
but that time was so much in the Lord's hand that the Lord
keeps back information. He doesn't tell us everything.
And so we can't make those plans, and we can't do. And we need
to view that lack of information and our ignorance as one of the
Lord's kind ways of having to leave things in His hand. and
wait, knowing that this word before us is true. My time is
not yet come. Your time is always ready. You
could say this to Moses, Moses, your time is ready, but it's
not yet. You've got to wait another 40
years. My time, yes, it's only maybe
a little while, and I'll follow you up to this feast of tabernacles. but how many times that we've
proved that it's only a matter of minutes or sometimes seconds
of a timing that makes all the difference as to how things work
out and are appointed. Well, I wanted this evening,
just briefly, to look at our text in a way that encourages
us, in a way that we are not discouraged. And so in view of
that, I want to look at it under three heads. Firstly, unanswered
prayer. Unanswered prayer. My time is
not yet come, but your time is always ready. The second is waiting
for blessings and for the Lord to appear. in Providence. And the third is when we see
the wicked prosper and it seems the Lord is doing nothing about
it. He is just letting them go their
way. Firstly, unanswered prayer. Our Lord has appointed prayer
for Him to do those things for us. I will be inquired of by
the House of Israel to do it for them. And when we think of
these two truths, the appointed path of prayer for the people
of God on one hand, and on the other hand, they don't know the
time. And maybe remember just those
two things, just two facts alone, that will help understand a little
as to why it seems like prayer does not receive an answer. We do not know the Lord's timing. It may be, as some of us have
proved, that we've prayed many years for a certain thing, a
certain person, and it's been a long while before that prayer
has been answered. Sometimes we may never see an
answer. Sometimes it may be that the
Lord is pleased to give something different than what we have been
asking and there has been a reason for that. But this word of our
text is a vital key for many a prayer that is not answered. The timing of the Lord is not
yet. When we pray, we don't command,
we don't dictate, we are subject to the will of the Lord. And
what would we do if the Lord said, Whatever you ask in prayer,
it will be done immediately. Now I think many of us would
be very frightened to pray at all. You'd be frightened to pray
and ask the wrong thing, because immediately it would be done. It is adversable, as it were. But when we know that The Lord
will sift out our prayers. He will bring them in subjection
to His will and His time. And He is glorified in His people
keep coming again and again to His throne. Part of the path
of prayer is not just to get, to get and to have from the Lord,
but is a path of communion and fellowship with the Lord. Is this the answer that you've
been looking for, or I've been looking for? My time is not yet
come, but your time is always ready. You might be like Moses
saying, Lord, it is like it is set forth in the Word. Lord,
it is time for thee, Lord, to work. You might say, Lord, to
work now, to appear now. Do this for me now, don't delay. It's good to have urgent prayers
and wrestling prayer. But when the Lord is silent or
delays or gives something different, may we remember especially that
He sees more than we do and He knows the best timing. They delay. So often is not a
denial. Silence is not always a no, it will never
be so. But we'll know the difference
between silence and when the Lord does speak and the Lord
does show us his time and his way. So may this thought here
be an encouragement to those, I know many of us have those
things that we stumble over, we struggle with, because we
try and plead the promises of God, but it seems that we don't
get the answers that we feel we need and the Lord should give
now. But the Lord answers and He says,
My time, is not yet come, but your time is already ready. The second thing is waiting for
blessings and the Lord to appear in Providence. When the Lord
passes by His people and bids them live, first gives them spiritual
life so that they've got new ears and new eyes, They know
their sinners, they feel their need of the Saviour. They are
given that hearing ear to what the Spirit saith unto the churches. There is a set time to favour
Zion. The Word is very clear on that.
There is a time to be born, naturally and spiritually. And there's
a time for when the law is a schoolmaster unto Christ. And there's a time
when it is unto Christ and Christ is revealed. There's a time when
the people of God are under the law and kept under the law and
seeking life through that way. And they find that they cannot
obtain life, they cannot fulfill the law. They prove the word
true that by the deeds of the law shall no man living be justified. but they won't always remain
there. When the children of Israel went through the wilderness,
they spent a long time at Mount Sinai, but eventually the Lord
said, ye have continued long enough in this mount, and they
had to move on. And bless God, when he brings
us to move on from the law, from condemnation, move on to the
gospel, and to see the law completely fulfilled in our Lord and Saviour,
Jesus Christ. And there will be through the
lives of the people of God, those times waiting on the Lord for
his blessing. Oh, says Jabez, that thou wouldst
bless me indeed. And Jacob, I will not let thee
go, except thou bless me. And he was waiting upon the Lord
and the Lord blessed him there. And then it is in Providence. Our lives through various scenes
are drawn and vexed with trifling cares. But those things that
we go through are in the Lord's hand. Many a time we may have
waited on the Lord to appear for us, to give us a place at
university, or an employment, a place, a means of earning our
daily bread and where we should labour, on the sale of a home,
or the buying of a home, or when it was that we should move from
one country to another country. Those things are in the Lord's
hand, and many of the people of God are seeking to know when
the time is that the Lord would have them to act. How often it
is the lot is cast into the lap, the whole disposing thereof is
of the Lord. And there's been several times
in my life where I've ventured and the door has been shut and
I've heard the rod and I've heard the voice and have not tried
to push and in due time the door has been opened for me and very
clearly opened. But it will be something that
we will be exercised if we are the people of God to say with
the Apostle Paul, Saul as he was, Lord what wilt thou have
me to do? And when he was in his ministry,
when he tried to go into Bithynia, into Asia, those places, they
were blocked up to him. The Lord forbade him from one
and his spirit forbid him on the other. And then he had the
vision, come over into Macedonia and help us. Well, may Paul say,
you're not your own, you're bought with a price. Wherefore glorify
God in your body and in your spirit that are his. And those
timings in our lives, they are in the Lord's hand. And we need
to remember that not just for ourselves, but for our loved
ones as well. That we cannot order their time
and their anxious waiting for the Lord to appear. We would
watch with them, pray with them, The Lord must appear, must guide
them in his time and in his way. My time is not yet come, but
your time is always ready. And may we be able to look back
this evening, those times in our lives when it wasn't the
right time, we had to wait further, Those times it was the right
time, how the Lord made that known it was. How he shepherded
us, how he made us to do his will, willingly. How he made
that a sure, a right way, a right path. His strengthening to faith,
to view our lives past in the Lord's hand, when we then look
forward or when we walk with the following generation, when
they must walk that same path as well. My time is not yet come,
but your time is already. There will be a time when the
Lord's time is come. When the children of Israel got
to the Red Sea, when they were leaving Egypt, they were told
then, when they had the Egyptians behind them, the mountains to
the side, the Red Sea at the front, that they should stand
still. Stand still and see the hand
of the Lord. But then Moses was given the
command, saying to the children of Israel that they were to go
forward. Have you had a stay? Stay still,
wait, watch. And now is it a time? Go forward. As much as there is a time when
the Lord's time is not come, there will be a time when it
is come. It won't always be not come. And it wasn't long here, was
it, at all, that the Lord then opened the way. Sometimes the Lord does this
to make it very clear that it is His leading, not ours. Those
of you that have had animals, you might have a dog on a lead,
and it wants to go, wants to just race across the road, and
you pull it up and you make it sit. It's not saying you're never
going to go across that road, but it's saying, I'm in control,
you sit, you wait until I've seen it is clear and I've seen
it's right, now we're going to go, at my bidding, not at your
racing across. The Lord often does that with
his people. Holds them back. Hold back thy
servant from presumptuous sins. The Lord says in John 10, that
he is the good shepherd, and the good shepherd goeth before
his sheep. But sometimes it is with us,
we try and go before him. And then the Lord will pull us
back, so that we have to wait, wait for Him to go before, but
when He does, when He does, may we then follow. Remember one
wonderful opening, really, I'd had holding back over in Australia
when I was 24, and then the Lord wonderfully appeared, and I was
given this job, told I'd make the decision and let them know
the following week. And the chap that I worked with
who put me into contact with this future employer, he said,
he said, if you don't make the decision, if you don't do it,
he said, you'll lose that job. And it was just the fear of just
letting go of one job on you and benching out into another. And yet the way was so clear. Might be with you the way is
so clear, but there's a a reticence, a holding back, a fear, an uncertainty. But, you know, when you look
at all what has been done. You know, dear Jacob, when his
brethren came and they came with the wagons and they came with
the news that Joseph, his son, was alive, he didn't believe
them at first. He wasn't going to go to Egypt. How could he make that move out
of Canaan and go to Egypt? But then when he saw the wagons,
when he heard their tidings, he read that the spirit of Jacob,
their father, revived and Israel said, Joseph, my son, is yet
alive. I'll go and see him before I
die. Sometimes we need that. I mean, especially when the Lord
has held us back and we're fearful, we're afraid. There is a time
that we must go forward. There is a time that it is the
Lord's time, and if that is so tonight, may, may we venture,
may we go in that way. Well, the last thought is this. May we be not discouraged when
we see the wicked prosper. The psalmist Asaph in Psalm 73. He was greatly troubled because
he said that his feet almost, his steps had well nigh slept,
his feet almost gone. He was envious of the foolish
when I saw the prosperity of the wicked. They seemed to just
get on and God never checked them. He never reproved them.
He's far from their reins. He just let them go. And we read,
how does God know? And is there knowledge in the
Most High? Behold, these are the ungodly
who prosper in the world. They increase in riches. And
he then pictured the people of God that were chastened every
day. They were corrected. They had
afflictions. They had trials. What was God
doing? What was God doing? Well, we
have again in Ecclesiastes this word in the 8th chapter and verse
11. Because sentence against an evil
work is not executed speedily, therefore the heart of the sons
of men is fully set in them to do evil. We're like that, a child's like
that, isn't it? And we're like that. If a child
gets away with something, then they'll do it again. Never get
away with it again, they'll do it again. And the wicked are
those that, you might say they get away with it, the Lord lets
them go. His people, when they sin, the
Lord chastens them and corrects them. and doesn't let them go
far before they feel the rod. But with the wicked they go on,
with a long lead as it were. But the other side of the grave
they're pulled up. The other side of the grave they
have the judgment, the great white throne. They must stand
before God, they must give an account. And we are to remember this,
and think of the words of our text, my time is not yet come
for the wicked. My time has come for my people. I've called them by grace and
made them know my laws and made my way. I've made them know my
rod and my chastening, my displeasure, and they know me and I correct
them. But these wicked, My time is
not yet come, but most solemnly that time is not to call them,
it's for the judgment that is awaiting them. The word of God testifies as
to what is right and what is wrong and how we shall be judged. That is the most solemn warning
and for me and for you in this. May we never sin that grace may
abound. May we never say, well, I know
what I'm doing is wrong, but God doesn't seem to chasten me,
and nothing goes wrong, and I'm not corrected, so I'm just going
to keep doing it. May we think that is the way
of the wicked. There is judgment. There is a right. There is an
end to the matter. How long it was that David got
away, as it were, with his adultery and murder, but it caught up
with him in the end. And so may we be delivered from
a careless walk ourselves, may we be delivered from envying
the wicked, to which there is a judgment awaiting them. But
there's an encouragement in this as well, isn't there? because
my time is not yet come. We might look on loved ones,
and they might be walking in sin, not heeding the word of
God, not attending a place of worship, and we might be so downcast
we think, well, they're not one of the Lords, they're completely
cast away. Maybe restrain prayer concerning
them. that when we think of this word,
my time is not yet come. M76, time not to propose but
call by grace, change the heart, renew the will, turn the feet
to Zion's hill. May we be encouraged to still
pray while there is life, while there are those that still do
not know the Lord, may we still pray for them and lay them before
the Lord. Do you know, Abraham, when he
was given the first promises that his seed should be a stranger
in a strange land, and they would then be brought out, those 430
years from that time that he was given that promise, and the
Lord said, the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet full. The
reason why the land of Canaan wasn't taken over in Abraham's
day, the Lord was just letting them go on with their idols,
with their iniquities, with their sins. And that day of judgment
was coming, the children of Israel through the wilderness, and then
they completely destroyed the Canaanites out of the land. It was a judgment that was appointed
and waiting all those years until it was ready to come to pass. God does have a plan. May we
be guided by his word, guided by grace. May we rest in his
plan and his work, believe in him and trust in him alone. My time is not yet come, but
your time is always ready. The time of our calling, the
time of our death, the time the Lord shall take us home is in
his hand. May we be watching, waiting for
it, looking for that time. The Lord now add his blessing
and forgive all the mess. Amen.