Spoken from the Heart v Volume 2
that this feature of the divine character comes out most markedly. It is in this connection that we best behold the amazing timekeeping of God. My first text is Galatians 4:4: But when the time had fully come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under law, to redeem those under law, that we might receive the full rights of sons. The coming of Christ to Bethlehem was neither late nor early, neither behind nor beforehand, neither tardy nor premature. Charles Wesley’s carol, Hark the Herald Angels Sing, says: ‘Late in time, behold Him come …’ As a boy, whenever I sang that carol, I used to ponder how it was possible to be both things at once, late and in time, wondering if I could achieve the same feat in relation to my school attendance. But Jesus was not late. Although it might have appeared that He was late, He came at the divinely appointed hour. His advent chimed exactly with the striking of the great clock of God. Make no mistake about it, His birth was not a last minute brainstorm by the Creator, some hectic attempt to rescue mankind. God had prepared this even before the foundation of the world. He announced His coming way back in time. He predicted it through prophecy. People get some predictions wrong. We can’t predict the weather exactly, for example. But there are hundreds of prophecies about Jesus’ coming: Genesis 3:15 was the first prophecy of Scripture, Micah 5:2 speaks prophetically of Bethlehem as His birthplace, Isaiah 7:14 says He will be born of a virgin and Hosea 11:1 refers to the time when the family of Jesus would take refuge in Egypt. It was no fluke that Jesus arrived when He did.
12
SFTH2_internals.indd 12
11/9/06 11:28:22