Can you relate to that hymn?
The last part of that stanza says prone to wonder, Lord, I
feel it prone to leave the God I love. I can relate to that.
I'm so prone to wonder. Our prayer is that the Lord would
stop us from wondering just for a moment and cause us to see
him. We're in the book of Ruth this
morning, both hours, if you'd like to turn there, we'll look
at chapter one and two for the first hour. I've titled this
message, God's Time. God's Time. God owns time. He created time. He is other than time. He's timeless. The believer finds
a lot of comfort in this fact, knowing that he is not altered
or changed by time. And yet, when the fullness of
time was come, God sent forth His Son, made of a woman, made
under the law to redeem them that were under the law. We just
read from Isaiah 55, so I just want to repeat what I said a
few moments ago in Isaiah 55. He said, for my thoughts are
not your thoughts, neither my ways your ways, sayeth the Lord. For as the heavens are higher
than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my
thoughts than your thoughts. This is certainly true in the
book of Ruth. Everything about it, it starts out very, bleak,
if we can put it that way. There's nothing that bad ever
happens to a believer. I wanted to say that. Everything
that happens is for our good and his glory. So we can use
the term bleak, perhaps, and I think that would be proper.
We see that there was a woman by the name of Naomi that had
a husband named Elimelech. And Elimelech and Naomi had two
sons, Malon and Chilion. And they venture forth because
of a famine in the land, leaving Bethlehem, and they go to the
land of Moab. Now, geographically, Moab was on the backside of the
Dead Sea, which I find interesting because the Moabites were the
descendants of Lot, the incest offspring of Lot. Lot's daughters
got Lot intoxicated one evening and decided that they were going
to have children by their father because they thought that there
was no way they could have another man. There was no one else close
by, so to speak. Two nations came from the Moabites
and the Ammonites. And we see all throughout the
Old Testament that they warred with the children of Israel often.
But this is where they venture forth to. This is where they
go to as the land of Moab. And it says, after the fullness of time, that
Malon and Chileon die. They get wives while they're
in the land of Moab, and one's named Orpah and one's named Ruth.
That's where the book of Ruth comes from. It's really her story,
but it starts out with Naomi and the two sons. So the two
sons die, Maelon and Chileon, and Limelech dies. And Naomi
says, well, I'm going to go back to Bethlehem and tells Orpah
and tells Ruth to go back to their families, go back to their
place. Orpah certainly does that immediately. But the Lord had
put something in Ruth that was different than Orpah, didn't
he? The Lord gave her a desire to follow after Naomi. And look
in verse 16 of chapter one. That's where we are. And it says
in Ruth said, and treat me not to leave thee or to return from
following after thee. For whether thou goest, I will
go. And where thou lodgest, I will lodge. Thy people shall be my
people, and thy God my God. Where thou diest, Will I die,
and there will I be buried? The Lord do so to me, and more
also, if aught but death part thee and me. When she saw that
she was steadfastly minded to go with her, then she left speaking
unto her. So the two went, until they came
to Bethlehem. And it came to pass, when they
were come to Bethlehem, that all the city was moved about
them, and they said, is this Naomi? And she said unto them,
call me not Naomi, call me Mara, for the Almighty hath dealt very
bitterly with me. I went out full, and the Lord
hath brought me home, yet empty, again empty. Why then call me
Naomi, seeing the Lord hath testified against me, and the Almighty
hath afflicted me? So Naomi returned, and Ruth the
Moabitess, her daughter-in-law with her, which returned out
of the country of Moab, And they came to Bethlehem in the beginning
of barley harvest. Can you imagine the distress
that Naomi felt losing her husband and then losing her two sons
on top of that, just desiring to go back to be with her family
that she had? She was alone. She was lonely. And certainly to the natural
eye, if we look at this, that would not be a good situation
at all. But the Lord emptied Naomi to make her bring Ruth
back. And I wanna remind us early on,
I don't know how some preachers do, but I know preachers in religion,
certainly, it's like they keep a secret to the very end so that
they wow people with it. We're not keeping secrets this
morning. I'm gonna tell you the whole end of it. The book of
Ruth was written in order to show us our kinsman redeemer
redeeming Ruth. And at the very end, you find
out that Ruth was the great-grandmother of David, King David, King David. Boaz had Obed, Obed had Jesse,
Jesse had David. So God, you know what that means? Salvation came through the loins
of Boaz, of Ruth. We see that that's the lineage
of Christ. We see that even though it looked like a travesty or
a tragedy was taking place, God did all these things in order
to bring Jesus Christ into the world, in order to bring a savior
for his people. And he did it through a Moabite.
Think about that, a Moabite. She's mentioned over in Matthew
as in the lineage of Christ. Now we understand that he was
born from above as far as having the blood of his father, but
he had a physical human form that came from a woman, that
came from a woman. So we see God's amazing grace
in bringing Ruth back to Bethlehem to meet Boaz. We see that the
Lord emptied Naomi to fill Ruth. I was asked recently, why does
good things happen? Why does bad things happen to
good people? Well, there's... some intellectual trouble with
that thought because there's none good, no not one. So really
nothing bad happens to good people, only that which the Lord had
purposed comes to pass. Whether the person is viewed
as good or not in society doesn't determine whether they're good.
We're all bad, aren't we? We're all born in sin and shaped
into inequity. So bad things don't happen to
good people. It's just not true. I will tell
you this, as far as man is concerned, good people. There's good people
dying every day going to hell, as far as man is concerned. So
what is our hope? Our hope is that the Lord would
be merciful unto us, just as he was to Ruth in this chapter,
that in his time, he would reveal himself unto us. He would bring
us unto him, that we would not see ourself as good, but we would
see ourself as a needy mercy beggar. God's Time is different than
our time. See, I mentioned this early on. All this came to pass in God's
time. This was the appointed time for Ruth to be born so that
when Naomi brought her two sons, Malon and Chileon, to Moab, Ruth
would, I suppose, fall in love and get married. What other reason
would they get married? You know, the men found the females
attractive. The Lord gave them a heart to
marry, so they married. But this had to be the exact time, the
exact time that God had purposed for these individuals to meet.
Think about your life, how you met your spouse or how you've
come into contact, even us, whenever we met, the time had to take
place for me to fly up. I got a phone call from Rob.
He left me a voicemail. I sent him a text message back.
Actually, I screenshotted that and was looking at it the other
day. Very first time I'd ever met him on the phone. And he
asked, would I be interested in coming up and preaching for
you? Well, look where we are now. It was the appointed time that
that took place. It's God's time. God is not altered
by time. It comes to pass according to
his time. If you look throughout the entire
volume of the book, you will see it says, and it came to pass
and it came to pass. You'll see that over and over. Why? Because it's God's time. And when he purposes, It happens
in His time. The good news of His time is
that He really saves sinners. When the fullness of His time
comes, He reveals unto you those who He died for. He reveals that
He is the Savior and that you are the sinner and you come begging
unto Him in His time. Time was created for God's glory. Time was created for God to have
mercy upon who would have mercy. Time was created for Christ to
come and redeem His people back to Him. God is not frustrated
with time. Boy, our frustrations are with
time, most of the time, isn't it? Whenever we're frustrated
about something, it's usually because of something involving
time. Greg has mentioned this many times, but he said if you
could fix it with time or money, it's really not a problem. I
agree 100% wholeheartedly. If you have enough time, you
could get the money that you need, theoretically, in order
to accomplish what you need to. So really, our biggest problem
is time. We know that it's appointed unto man what's to die and after
this, the judgment. So we see our life's clock ticking away.
We get frustrated because of the slightest thing that alters
our plans in time, something that frustrates us, something
that gets in our way. I've used the example of driving
many different times. It's an easy example. Something
doesn't go right. You got to be somewhere's on
time. And yet somebody gets in front of you that's slow. How
frustrated do we get over those things? But this is all appointed
of the Lord, it's His time, it's not our time. If we could stop
viewing time as ours, then we'll spend a lot more time rejoicing
that it's God's time, not ours, not ours. Everything that was
necessary to bring us here this morning, the Lord purposed before
time ever began. Everything to save his people,
he gave in his son, the Lord Jesus Christ. Everything that
the Lord requires for the salvation of his people, the Lord Jesus
Christ is that. As we're looking here at Ruth,
we see that the everything that was necessary for the salvation
of Ruth, everything that was necessary for the Lord's lineage
to come through Ruth had to come to pass all throughout this chapter.
And we see that they were coming back in verse 22, at the end,
in the beginning of barley harvest. Now, if they had came back at
any other time, she would have had no need of going out and gleaning
among the sheaves, would she? That's what happens is she goes
out and we're going to read that in just a moment, but she goes
out and she, gleans in order to get some of this barley that's
being harvested. And so if she hadn't have went
back at that particular time, she would have never ended up
on Boaz's property. There would have been no reason
for her to be there. So the Lord's purpose in time is to get those,
is to get those that are His, and He's going to get them. The
Lord saved us, and then He calls us, then He gets us. He lets
us know that we've been saved. The Lord saved us before the
foundation of the world, But then he calls us afterwards and
he, if I can say, gets us that way. He's already got us, but
you understand what, he gets our attention, doesn't he? He
gets our undivided attention unto him in his time. So let's
look at chapter two, verse one. It says that Naomi had a kinsman
of her husband, a mighty man of wealth of the family of Elimelech,
and his name was Boaz. Now understand under the Levitical
law that a kinsman redeemer, someone that would marry And
I know that I've mentioned this to us before, but just to kind
of reiterate it real quick, a kinsman redeemer had to come from a relative
of the fallen husband, of the deceased husband. And it says
here that Elimelech's family, he had one named Boaz. So not
only is all this coming to pass in time where we see, well, that's,
have you ever had a moment where you've looked and said, well,
that had to be the Lord. There's no other explanation. Even in
bringing us up here, every door that was opened in us coming
up here, and I'm not being presumptuous on the Lord, I believe the Lord
moved my family here. I don't believe that I took it,
well, I won't even speak on that, but you understand what I'm saying?
The Lord gets all the glory in it. The Lord gets all the glory
in it. Can we see here that that's exactly what's happening in Naomi's
life, in Ruth's life. Naomi thought it was terrible
that her sons had died, yet God had already raised up a kinsman
redeemer for Ruth. to bear seed up unto her dead
son. Think about that. The Lord had already raised up
everything that you're ever going to need in your life. In order
to make certain that you are saved, you're his. He's going
to get you. He's going to call you. He's
already saved you everything that was required in time. He's already provided everything.
I mean. Let's continue reading. In verse two, Ruth the Moabite
said unto Naomi, let me now go to the field and glean ears of
corn after him in whose sight I shall find grace. And she said
unto her, go, my daughter. And she went and came and gleaned
in the field after the reapers, and her hap was to lie on the
part of the field belonging unto Boaz, who was the kindred of
Elimelech. Now notice it doesn't tell us
that Naomi told her Elimelech, my husband, had a kinsman named
Boaz. That conversation never took
place. At least it's not written if it did. But her hap was to
fall on the field of Boaz. Do you know what that word hap
means? Men use terms like luck. They
use terms like fortune. But that's not in the scripture,
is it? There's no such thing as luck. Did you know that? There's
not. It's all purposed by God. Can you rest in that? I can.
If it's up to me to produce luck or make my, people say, make
your own luck. Well, how am I going to do that? I put a rabbit's
foot in my pocket and a special quarter and whatever else and
call it luck. See how silly those things are to the believer? We
know that there's no such thing as luck. We're looking unto Christ.
We are looking unto the one who accomplished salvation. We're
looking unto the one that's provided everything for us. And our hap
this morning is to be sitting right where we're sitting. Purpose,
that's what hap means, purpose. It didn't just so happen, it
so happened. It came to pass. Do you see the
difference? This is what happens to the Lord's people. We see through a glass darkly,
but we really see the Lord. We don't look and have blind
faith. There's no such thing as blind
faith. The Lord gives eyes to see through the eyes of faith.
This is paralleled through the mind of luck and different things
like that, because people produce luck. They think they think and
even men preach that they produce faith. But brethren, we're not
relying on blind faith. We're not going through just
wishful hoping, wishful hoping. We have a blessed hope. We have hope, true hope, because
we've been given true faith of Christ. It's not something that
we produce. It's what he has done. and what
He gives unto us. We see Jesus Christ. We see Him, who was made a little
lower than the angels for the suffering of death, crowned with
glory and honor, that He, by the grace of God, should taste
death for every man. We see Christ. We see that all of this is coming
to pass according to His time. We see a man, the Lord Jesus
Christ. Now, we don't see an image, physically
speaking. We don't hang pictures on the
wall and things like that. Of course not. But we're not like those
that do not have hope. Paul said, if I had hope in this
life only, we'd be of all men. If we had hope in this world
only, we would be of all men most miserable. We have a blessed
hope in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ. We've been made
to know. We've been made to know that
he accomplished salvation. We've been made to know that
he is going to call those who he has saved. In Ephesians 1,
he says, having made known unto us the mystery of his will according
to the good pleasure which he hath purposed in himself, that
in the dispensation of the fullness of times, that in the dispensation
of the fullness of times, he might gather together in one
all things in Christ, both which are in heaven and which are on
earth, even in him. In the fullness of time, he's
gathering together all of those all of those together in one,
all things in Christ, all things in Christ, in heaven and in earth.
He's gathering together those in time. Why? Because of the
good pleasure of his own will. Galatians 4.4 says, but when
the fullness of time was come, God sent forth his son made of
a woman, made under the law to redeem them that were under the
law, that we might receive the adoption of sons. Brethren, This
thing of of time men. We're constantly. I saw a commercial
just yesterday. We're constantly trying. Men
are constantly trying to cheat death is what they're doing.
They're trying to live longer in time. They're trying to do better.
We know where it's appointed under men wants to die. We've
already mentioned that, but they the commercial is literally state. It literally said these words.
Give longevity to your life. Live longer." Literally, live
longer is what they said. I thought, man, that's a pretty
steep promise, isn't it? I mean, for a commercial to declare
that, how much longer can I live? Well, we agree with David in
this regard, don't we? In Psalm 31 15, my times are
in thy hand. We don't try to cheat death.
Christ accomplish salvation for his people in dying for them.
And he says, Oh death, where is thy sting? Oh grave, where
is thy victory? We're not trying to live a longer life. If anything,
we're trying to get to him faster. Now, we don't, somebody made
mention to me that, somebody made mention that the, forgive me for a moment. Somebody had mentioned to me
about living a healthier lifestyle. I should live a healthier lifestyle.
I should eat better foods. I should do this. And I said,
why? I mean, I wanted to know their answer. And they said,
well, you'll have a better, your life will be more fulfilled.
You'll feel better. You won't feel as bad. And I'm
like, okay, so if I put this down, my life will be more fulfilled.
And we don't, We want to eat healthy foods. Don't misunderstand
what I'm trying to say, but we rest in Christ and he's the one
that we find fulfillment in. He's the one, I'm not trying
to have an abundant life here on this earth. I'm trying to,
if I can say it this way, I'm trying to look to Christ. I want
to be found in him, not having my own righteousness, but his
righteousness. I don't, we're not concerned so much in time
about what other men are concerned with. We know that our time is
in the Lord's hands. Turn with me to Ecclesiastes
chapter three. Ecclesiastes chapter three. 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, 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, a time to gather
stones together, a time to embrace, 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. That pretty much covers
everything, doesn't it? You know what I find the most
glorious hope in is that we are not hoping in time. We're hoping
in Christ who is eternal. He became subject to time because
of being born in the flesh, but time does not alter God. Time
does not change Him. Time doesn't manipulate Him or
threaten Him in any way. Even though we have all these
times that we deal with, brethren, all these circumstances that
we're dealing with, realize this. It's all to bring about the salvation
of the Lord's people. It's all to bring them, to bring
us as our hope unto Christ. All of these times, everything
that's happening, what men call good and what men call bad, no
matter what is going on in your life and in my life, it is the
time that God has purposed and the circumstances God has purposed,
just like in the book of Ruth, to bring us unto Christ. It's God's time. Lord's the only one that can
be four days late and still be right on time. I want you to
see that in John chapter 11 if you'd like to turn there, please.
By man's standard, God was late. Lord's never late, is He? Lord
never is late. He doeth that which pleases Him,
which is purposed. Tells us in Malachi chapter 3
verse 6, for I am the Lord, I change not. I change not. Therefore,
you sons of Jacob are not consumed. Lord's the only one that can
take time and make it stand still. In the book of Joshua, chapter
12, it says that the son didn't move. Time stood still for God. Lord is, he has, he can control
anything the way he wants to control it. He is controlling
everything that wants it. He's purposed it. It's more than
just controlling it. We can't think of a, The Lord
is moving pawns around on a chessboard. That's certainly not it. He's
purposed all of it, and it's coming to pass. He could stop time. He's done it already. It's His
time. Here in John 11, we see Martha
didn't see it that way, did she? She blamed the Lord, saying that
if you'd have been here, our brother Lazarus wouldn't have died. John 11. Verse one says, now
a certain man was sick named Lazarus of Bethany, the town
of Mary and her sister Martha. It was that Mary which anointed
the Lord with ointment and wiped his feet with her hair, whose
brother Lazarus was sick. Therefore his sister sent unto
him saying, Lord behold, he whom thou lovest is sick. When Jesus
heard that, he said, this sickness is not unto death, but for the
glory of God and the Son, that the Son of God might be glorified
thereby. Now Jesus loved Martha and her
sister and Lazarus. When he had heard thereof that
he was sick, he abode two days still in the same place. Do you
find that interesting? He heard that he's sick, and
yet he abides in the same place. He abides in the same place two
more days. And he also says that the sickness
is not unto death. I don't understand I do understand
because the Lord is God and he doesn't lie. He knew that he
was going to resurrect Lazarus before it ever happened because
he had purposed it to be so. But we also have the answers to the
reason why, to the glory of God. We see here, we see that the
Lord decided to tarry. Have you ever felt like the Lord
decided to tarry in your life? Well, I know I have. Be upset
about something or distressed, discouraged, even I've had My
own children have surgeries before and things, and I, boy, I need,
when you need the Lord, you need him right then, don't you? Lord,
save me. It's a, it's an immediate need. It's not a, well, I'll think
about that later on. I've talked to men and I've talked
to women, both, and they say, well, I'll deal with the subject
of salvation later on in life. Whenever I get down to the end
of my road, then I'll start worrying about heaven and hell and such
things like that. Brethren, there's an immediate
need we have of a savior right now. We don't know when our time
is going to end, but we know we have an appointment. We have
an appointment, and as soon as that last second ticks, we'll
be standing in the presence of God. I need a substitute right
now, right now. Look in verse 17. Then when Jesus came, he found
that he had lain in the grave four days already. Now, Bethany
was nine to Jerusalem, about 15 furlongs off, and many of
the Jews came to Martha and Mary to comfort them concerning their
brother. Then Martha, as soon as she heard that Jesus was coming,
went and met him, but Mary sat still in the house. Then said
Martha unto Jesus, Lord, if thou hast been here, my brother had
not died. Is this our response most of
the time to our circumstances, our problems. Lord, if you would
have done this, this wouldn't have happened. We've left to
ourself. That's our response. Naturally, we see that sometimes
brethren, we get left to ourself enough to where we think that
we deserve better. That's exactly what Naaman did
whenever he went down to Elijah to be healed. You remember Naaman
was a leper and he comes out, the servant comes out and says,
go dip in Jordan. And Naaman was insulted How dare
he tell me, captain of the host of Syria, mighty man of valor,
the incredible man that I am, to go dip in Jordan? That was
the attitude, wasn't it? That was the attitude. He thought.
He literally says that. He said, I thought that he would
come out and do something, and he didn't. This is what Martha's
saying. Lord, if you'd have been here,
our brother had not died. But then, look at her next confession
in verse 22. But I know that even now, whatsoever
thou wilt ask God, God will give it thee. Now that's faith, isn't
it? Knowing the brother's dead. Lord,
if you hadn't been here, our brother wouldn't have died. But
I do know that if you, whatever you ask of God right now, He'll
do it. That's faith. Believe God. Completely believe
and trust God. It's not blind faith. We don't
stagger through the dark. We have a light. The Lord Jesus
Christ, and we're looking unto Him. He's giving us His light
to see Him. We see Jesus. We see Christ.
God's time is not our time. God's time is not our time. It
was created so that the Lord would show mercy for his people.
If the Lord seems to be tarrying in your life for the salvation
of your loved ones, don't get distressed. Just keep praying
for him. Pray, Lord, have mercy upon him. Continue to beg. That's
what we have been called to do is be a mercy beggar. That's
all we can do in the Lord's time. He will get all of those for
whom he died. He will. He promised he'll not
lose one. So either he's a liar or he has
successfully redeemed his people and he's going to get every single
one of them in his time in his time. Now look at verse 37. These men, they begin to doubt. It says, and some of them said,
could not this man which opened the eyes of the blind have caused
that even this man should not have died? Jesus therefore again,
groaning in himself, coming to the grave. It was a cave and
a stone lay upon it. Jesus said, take ye away the
stone. Martha, the sister of him that was dead, saith unto
the Lord, by this time he stinketh, for he had hath been dead four
days. Jesus said unto her, said I not
unto thee, that if thou wouldest believe, thou shouldest see the
glory of God. Then they took away the stone
from the place where the dead was laid. And Jesus lifted up
his eyes and said, Father, I thank thee that thou hast heard me.
And I knew that thou hearest me always, but because of the
people which stand by, I said it, that they may believe that
thou hast sent me. And when he thus had spoke, when
he thus had spoken, he cried with a loud voice, Lazarus, Come
forth. And he that was dead came forth,
bound hand and foot with grave clothes, and his face was bound
about with a napkin. Jesus said unto them, Loose him
and let him go. Martha believed that Lazarus
had begun to stink by this point, four days. You and I, whenever
we see things that the Lord's, we don't understand what the
Lord's doing. We know what he's doing in salvation for his people,
but we don't, we can't see the future. I mentioned to my wife
the other day, I don't wanna know the future. If I knew the
future, then I would start doing things in order to try to correct
something that's in the future. That's not believing Christ.
That's not resting in his finished work. We have the same confession
here that the Lord's saying that he's gonna live again, Lord,
he stinks by now. We shouldn't open up that stone.
She had no idea that he was going to call forth Lazarus. Now, something
I find wonderful, he was four days late, but he was right on
time. Something I find wonderful is that the Lord says his name.
He doesn't just generally say, come forth. You know why? because
everybody in that graveyard would have came forth if he'd have
said that. That's the power he has. Rest in that power, brethren. Rest in knowing that he's going
to call by name those for whom he lived, those for whom he died,
and those for whom he was resurrected again in his time, not our time. It's not our time, it's his time.
Sarah and Abraham, they heard that there was gonna come Child,
they were going to have a child. Angel of the Lord appeared unto
them. The Lord himself appeared unto them is what was taking
place. And says, you're going to have a son. And through him,
that was gonna be the Savior. That was gonna be the Messiah.
That was gonna be the one that would redeem man back to God.
Said, I'm gonna make your seed as the sands of the sea, the
stars of the heavens. Abraham said, can a man have a child
when he's 100 years old and his wife's 90? And I'm paraphrasing
for the sake of time. But they begin to figure things
out. Think that what we do? We figure
things out, or we try to figure them out. Most of the time, as
soon as we put our hand to it, we make it worse than it was to begin
with. So we see Sarah gives Hagar, her handmaiden, and Abraham to
wife and says, now you can have a child by her. And he does,
his name's Ishmael, and they're still over there in the Middle
East fighting today, just as they started from the very beginning,
because they took matters into their own hands. Now, did that
take God off guard? Certainly not. It was all purposed, and
he gets all the glory in it. That being said, The Lord did
visit Sarah, didn't he? In his time. Lord, it doesn't
make sense to me. Why would I have a child when
I'm 90 years old? Well, it's God's time. It's for his purpose.
It's not for you to know. We do not try to figure out the
mysteries of God. We look to Christ. We look to
Christ and rest in his finished work. Lord gets all the glory in this,
in his time. His time's already done. Everything's
already accomplished. He's already sitting down. He's
already seated. He's already seated. That means
it's already finished, and yet time is still ticking by. Why?
Because it has to come to pass. He's already seated. It's already
finished, and yet it's coming to pass everything that he is
purposed. Daniel was troubled. The Book of Daniel Chapter 21.
Daniel was troubled. And he began to pray unto the
Lord, said Lord, have mercy upon us. He said, not because of our
righteousness, but because of your righteousness. That's our
prayer, isn't it? Lord have mercy upon us, not because of our righteousness,
not because our good deeds or our good works, but because of
your good deeds, your good works, your righteousness. And as Daniel's
praying unto the Lord, we see that the Lord tarries. That's
the word I'll use is tarries for 21 days. The Lord does not
appear or give mention or answer to Daniel whatsoever for 21 days.
Understand that Daniel was concerned with the captivity of the nation
Israel in Babylon. Daniel was concerned for their
health and their wellbeing, their life, their death. They wanted
to go back to worship God. They couldn't even worship God.
This is the same Daniel that was cast in the lion's den for
praying to the Lord. I mean, that's what had happened.
But what happened after the 21 days? The angel of the Lord said,
fear not Daniel, for from the very first time that you prayed,
I heard you. And now, now I'm come for your
words. 21 days may seem late to you,
but it's not late in God's time. God's not altered or frustrated
with time. He's not twiddling his fingers
and rolling his thumbs around. He's not concerned. He's not
pacing the floor. Time does not affect him. He's
eternal. He is the eternal I am, and he
will come, and he will declare unto you, if you're his, that
Jesus Christ is all in salvation at the appointed time. And you'll
say, and it came to pass, and it came to pass in God's time.
Children of Israel wandered the wilderness for 40 years, didn't
they? That seems like a odd thing, 40 years is a long time for them
to wander around in the wilderness, to go to the promised land. Why
didn't the Lord take them straight into the promised land? Because of God's
time. 40 years. It was His purpose. That's all
we can say. This Babylonian captivity that
I just mentioned to Daniel was for 70 years. Why? Because it
was God's time. Do we see all that? It's the
Lord's time and He gets all the glory in it. We are saved. in His time, according
to His will, by His power. We are being saved in His time,
according to His will, by His power, and we're going to be
saved in His time, by His power, according to His will. We have
this promise, Job 14, verse one, man born of a woman is a few
days, a little bit of time, and full of trouble. And yet the
Lord was pleased to come in the fullness of time and redeem His
people back into the Father. It's God's time and He gets all
the glory for it. Amen. Father, thank You for Your time
that You've given unto us to be here to worship You. Pray
that You would cause us to look to Christ and rest in Him. It's
in His name we pray. Amen.