GOD’S TIMETABLE

Posted by Pastor Greg Allen on March 10, 2021 under AM Bible Study |

AM Bible Study Group: March 10, 2021 from Luke 13:31-35

Theme: We can be confident that God’s redemptive plan will unfold according to His own sovereign timetable.

(All Scripture is taken from The New King James Version, unless otherwise indicated).

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Have you ever felt as if the times we’re living in are out of control? They certainly may seem to be that way to us. But from the standpoint of our sovereign God, they are not out of control at all. He has a plan; and all things are unfolding in accord with His sovereign intention and design.

When I was very young in the faith, someone held up a pencil to me and said, “This pencil was like ‘time’ from God’s viewpoint. To us, it is like a long line; and we are at some specific point along that line. We only see ‘time’ from the perspective of where we are in it. But God—as it were—holds the pencil in His hand. He is not ‘in’ time; but is outside of it and sovereign over it. He sees the whole thing—from the beginning to the end and all around it. It accomplishes His will.”

In times like ours, I believe it’s helpful to remember that God does not see things as we see them. He sees the beginning of it all, knows the end of it all, and has directed every detail in it all in accordance with His sovereign purpose. We should never fear that ‘the times are out of control’. It may seem that way to us; but all things are moving along in accord with God’s sovereign plan of redemption for the ages.

We see that in the experience of our Lord Jesus. In the portion of the Gospel of Luke that we’ve been studying, the times were hard for Him. He was facing opposition and rejection. And yet, He was in the perfect plan of His Father; and all things were going along according to the Father’s perfect timetable. Our Lord moved and walked and worked in the complete confidence of His Father’s sovereign timing of things. The Father’s good plan was being fulfilled; and our Lord would not be swayed from it.

In Luke 13:31-35, we read of what happened as Jesus was teaching and ministering in the towns and villages while on His way to Jerusalem;

On that very day some Pharisees came, saying to Him, “Get out and depart from here, for Herod wants to kill You.” And He said to them, “Go, tell that fox, ‘Behold, I cast out demons and perform cures today and tomorrow, and the third day I shall be perfected.’ Nevertheless I must journey today, tomorrow, and the day following; for it cannot be that a prophet should perish outside of Jerusalem.

“O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the one who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her! How often I wanted to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, but you were not willing! See! Your house is left to you desolate; and assuredly, I say to you, you shall not see Me until the time comes when you say, ‘Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord!’ ” (Luke 13:31-35).

Now; of course, you and I do not have the sovereign knowledge that our Lord had of the Father’s plan. He knew what was about to happen—and when—and how—and even for how long. We do not … except to the degree these things are revealed to us in the Scriptures. But our Lord’s confidence in the Father’s timetable of things, and His unshakable devotion to the Father’s will, can give us confidence in our own day—so long as we are following Him and trusting Him as we should. As this passage illustrates to us, we can be confident that God’s redemptive plan unfolds according to His own sovereign timetable—even in times of unbelief or opposition or hostility to His plan.

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Now; vital to this passage is God’s plan for His chosen people—the Jewish people. Jerusalem was the center of it all.

I have had the blessing of being there twice. And I’ll never forget being in the place on the Mount of Olives where you can look out and see the panorama of the city itself. I marveled at it because that city—and even the general location from which I was standing and looking—is, to my mind, the most significant place on earth. It was near there that our Lord entered the city in His triumphant entry, and was later crucified—paying the debt for the sins of humanity. And it was there that He rose—conquering death. It was from somewhere near the place that I was standing that He ascended bodily to the Father. Jerusalem was conquered and destroyed by the Romans not long afterward; and the city sat without the Jewish people dwelling in it for nearly two-thousand years. They returned and began to occupy that city again within just a lifetime ago. And it will be to somewhere near the place I was standing—perhaps very soon—that Jesus returns and sets His feet on earth again to go down the hill, and enters the city, to be greeted and welcomed by His people, and to reign as King of kings and Lord of lords over all the earth. What a stunning place! What a plan for the ages!

In our passage this morning, the Son of God walked in the midst of time—just like we do. But He was looking ahead to events that would involve God’s future plan for the city of Jerusalem—and for His work of redemption for humanity. As He walked and labored in that time, He exhibited confidence in the Father’s plan—and a resolve not to be diverted from it.

Notice first how this is shown to us with respect to …

1. THE DURATION OF JESUS’ EARTHLY MINISTRY.

In the previous passage, the Lord Jesus had taught the people about the narrow way: “Strive to enter through the narrow gate,” He said; “for many, I say to you, will seek to enter and will not be able” (v. 24). And in verse 31, we’re told, “On that very day some Pharisees came, saying to Him, ‘Get out and depart from here, for Herod wants to kill You.’”

The ‘Herod’ spoken of here was Herod Antipas. He was the son of Herod the Great. He had been made ‘tetrarch’ over the region of Galilee by the Romans in 4 B.C. And he was an evil man. He was the one who had put John the Baptist to death because John had told him that he had sinned in marrying his sister-in-law. And he was the one who would later mock Jesus and put a purple robe upon Him. As Jesus taught and ministered on His way to Jerusalem, these Pharisees came and issued this warning to Him that Herod wished to kill Him.

Now; it may have seemed at first glance that these Pharisees were actually doing our Lord a favor. They were warning Him that He should cease His teaching and flee. But Jesus saw right through them. He knew that they were in partnership with Herod, and were being used by Herod to scare Him away.

Verse 32 says that Jesus told them, “Go, tell that fox …” And you need to know that, in the original language, it really says that Jesus told them, “Going out on your way …” It was as if He was telling them—in a veiled way—to hit the road; because He knew who was behind their supposed ‘warning’. Jesus called Herod a ‘fox’; because he was behaving in a sly and sneaky manner. And Jesus told them to tell Him, “’Behold, I cast out demons and perform cures today and tomorrow, and the third day I shall be perfected’” (v. 32).

On the third day from the time He spoke those words, Jesus would arrive at Jerusalem. At that point, He would be “perfected”; or as it can be translated, His earthly ministry would be “completed”. It would be from there—from His base in the small town of Bethany—that He would spend His final week in the city; and then be crucified. And what we see from this is that no one—not even Herod with the threat of death—would turn Him away from God’s timetable. He would do the work the Father gave Him to do; and would keep on doing it up until the time that He was done.

He had enough confidence in God’s timing of things to keep to the work. And so should we.

Notice also that this is shown to us with respect to …

2. THE PLACE OF JESUS’ ATONING SACRIFICE.

Jesus went on to say in verse 33, “Nevertheless I must journey today, tomorrow, and the day following; for it cannot be that a prophet should perish outside of Jerusalem.” He had no fear that Herod would kill Him before He got to the city. And that’s where He would go when it was time to go there.

There’s a bit of sarcasm in our Lord’s words. But it was sarcasm that had a basis. Jerusalem had a sad history of rebelling against God and against the prophets that He had sent to her. And now, she was about to reject its promised King and crucify Him. Perhaps you remember the story in Acts 7 of the disciple Stephen, who was put to death by the leaders of the city after Jesus had been raised. He spelled out the long history of the rebellion of the leaders of the Jewish people; and he told them,

“You stiff-necked and uncircumcised in heart and ears! You always resist the Holy Spirit; as your fathers did, so do you. Which of the prophets did your fathers not persecute? And they killed those who foretold the coming of the Just One, of whom you now have become the betrayers and murderers, who have received the law by the direction of angels and have not kept it” (Acts 7:51-53).

The sarcasm of Jesus’ words, then, was warranted. Jerusalem had a long history of killing the prophets that God sent to her; so why should things be different now? But more than that, there was a promise to Jesus’ words. No matter what Herod may have intended, He would not die anywhere else but in Jerusalem. Jesus told His disciples repeatedly that they were going to Jerusalem where He would be betrayed, arrested and crucified. That was the Father’s will; and nothing would stop it. Not even Herod.

Next, we see that God’s plan would be fulfilled even in terms of …

3. THE PERIOD OF ISRAEL’S TEMPORARY REJECTION.

In verse 34, Jesus went on to say, “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the one who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her! How often I wanted to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, but you were not willing!” It may be that these are words that the Lord Jesus spoke more than once; because we find them also spoken by Him in Matthew 23—when He had already arrived in Jerusalem and entered the temple. But in both cases, they express the longing He had for His people. He wanted to bless them. He wanted to care for them just like a mother hen hovers over her brood. But they wouldn’t come to Him.

And now the time was up. Jesus told them, in verse 35, “See! Your house is left to you desolate …” Some ancient copies of Luke’s Gospel have the word “desolate” and some do not. But the idea is the same. The ‘house’ of Jerusalem—its precious temple—would be destroyed and made desolate. It happened in 70 A.D.; when the Roman general Titus entered the city and smashed it down. It laid ‘desolate’—for two-thousand years—without the Jewish having possession of it.

God was only temporarily rejecting His people, though. It was only for a time; so that the gospel of Jesus could then be sent to the Gentiles. In Romans 11, the apostle Paul wrote to Gentile Christians and said;

For I do not desire, brethren, that you should be ignorant of this mystery, lest you should be wise in your own opinion, that blindness in part has happened to Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in. And so all Israel will be saved, as it is written:

“The Deliverer will come out of Zion,
And He will turn away ungodliness from Jacob;
For this is My covenant with them,
When I take away their sins.”

Concerning the gospel they are enemies for your sake, but concerning the election they are beloved for the sake of the fathers. For the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable. For as you were once disobedient to God, yet have now obtained mercy through their disobedience, even so these also have now been disobedient, that through the mercy shown you they also may obtain mercy. For God has committed them all to disobedience, that He might have mercy on all (Romans 11:25-32).

This too was God’s plan. And Jesus walked in the confidence of God’s perfect timing of it.

And with this in mind, notice finally

4. THE CERTAINTY OF THE KING’S FUTURE WELCOME.

Jesus said in verse 35 that the house of Jerusalem would be left to them desolate; “and assuredly, I say to you, you shall not see Me until the time comes when you say, ‘Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord!’” Their King would be taken away from them until they would welcome Him as they should.

And they will! There’s an amazing promise in Zechariah 12:10-14. It tells us of a future time when the Lord Jesus will return and will come again to the city. God says;

“And I will pour on the house of David and on the inhabitants of Jerusalem the Spirit of grace and supplication; then they will look on Me whom they pierced. Yes, they will mourn for Him as one mourns for his only son, and grieve for Him as one grieves for a firstborn” (Zechariah 12:10).

Perhaps Jesus was making reference to that very same Old Testament promise. There will be great national sorrow that they crucified their King. And then—as in the words of Psalm 118:26—they will finally say,

Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!
We have blessed you from the house of the Lord (Psalm 118:26).

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Now; Jesus walked upon this earth just as we do. He walked and ministered in a time of difficulty and struggle. He faced opposition and hostility in the work of His Father. But nevertheless, the times were not out of control. He was completely confident and resolute in His walk and in His work. He didn’t sway from the path or cease from His labors—but kept His trust in God’s perfect timing and purpose. This was because He was confident that everything in the sovereign plan of the Father would happen when it should, where it should, for as long as it should, and with the outcome that the Father intends.

And this should give you and me confidence; dear brother or sister in Christ. We live and labor right now in the confines of time; and in it all, we don’t have the perfect understanding of things that our Lord had. But no matter how it may seem otherwise to us, the times are not outside of God’s control Jesus demonstrated this to us. And to the degree that we are close to Him and trust Him, we can have His confidence and devotion—knowing

… that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose (Romans 8:28).

EA