“There was in the days of Herod, the King of Judea”
….Luke 1:5 THE FULLNESS OF TIME!
Merry Monday by Parris Bailey
In the first chapter of his gospel, Luke begins to paint a crystal clear picture of the Jewish nation by saying, “there was in the days of Herod, king of Judea”. To us Gentiles we really won’t grasp this tragic historical moment. This would be the first time that a non-Jewish king would reign over the nation. If that wasn’t bad enough, he would go down in history as so evil that he even killed most of his wives! Let’s read what the Interpreter Bible says: “In the days of Herod…..such is the phrase that now strikes the divine hours and leads in the dawn of a new dispensation. And what dark days were those almost seemed as if the Hebrew faith itself would become extinct, strangled by heathen fables. “The days of Herod” were the Hebrew midnight, but they give us the Bright and Morning Star. In the Old Testament the time was maturing, but was not yet ripe. Heaven was long ago prepared for an Incarnation, but Earth was not.” Sometimes things have to get so bad, before they get good. In other words if life were perfect the Jewish people wouldn’t look for a messiah nor would we look heavenward.
This past October/November we had what you call “a perfect storm”. Hurricane Sandy came bearing down on the east coast, the most densely populated part of our nation shutting down the stock exchange, subways, and their power. Unprecedented acts of God for sure. The other storm that came would be the re-election of our President. Even the prophet Joel relates to being in the fullness of time: “Put ye in the sickle, for the harvest is ripe: come, get you down; for the press is full, the fats overflow; for their wickedness is great. Multitudes, multitudes in the valley of decision: for the day of the LORD is near in the valley of decision. The sun and the moon shall be darkened, and the stars shall withdraw their shining. The LORD also shall roar out of Zion, and utter his voice from Jerusalem; and the heavens and the earth shall shake: but the LORD will be the hope of his people, and the strength of the children of Israel.”
Paul said in Gal. 4:2, “But when the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law.” Faucet Commentary puts it this way: “The time agreed and fixed upon between God and his Son from all eternity, in the council and covenant of peace. Sin was fully developed. Man’s inability to save himself by obedience to the law, whether that of Moses, or that of conscience, was completely manifested; all the prophecies of various ages found their common center in this particular time: and Providence, by various arrangements in the social and political, as well as the moral world, had fully prepared the way for the coming Redeemer. God often permits physical evil long before he teaches the remedy.”
Yes, I believe God is up to something!