In the Fullness of Time
Hye 1954
“When the fullness of time was come, God sent forth His Son.” “The fullness of time.” The life and death of the man we are about to remember is the great central focus and turning point of all human history. The previous ages had all been but preparation for this one brief vision of glory-those few short years when God manifested Himself in the flesh, and the great work of redemption was wrought in prayer, patience, and pain.
Of the patriarchs, Jesus said, “Abraham rejoiced to see my day: and he saw it, and was glad.” And Paul tells us that the whole Mosaic constitution of things, under which Israel lived from their calling out of Egypt until the time of Christ, was but a schoolmaster to lead them to him.
In the fullness of time, Christ came-the prefect man, the embodiment of all the purposes and ideals of the creation, the central axis around which all the meaning, glory, and beauty of the divine plan revolved. A great change was bound to follow upon this transcendent revelation. For 4000 years all history had been building up to this point.
“We were in bondage,” says Paul, “under the elements of the world: but when the fullness of the time was come, God sent forth His Son.”
The fullness of the time had come. Nothing could ever be the same again. The wine could no longer be restrained in the ancient bottles. That which had been brooding in the womb of the Spirit for 40 centuries, first conceived in the promise to Eve, gradually taking shape in the covenants and revelations to Noah, to Abraham, to Judah, and to David, shadowed forth through Moses’ law with unexhausted beauty and unsearchable detail, and heralded with ever increasing boldness from prophet to prophet, finally in the fullness of time burst forth into the full view of the world. Nothing could ever be the same again.
The whole relationship of mankind to God was changed, because of the transcendent revelation of Himself that God had made to man in the wonderful life, the terrible death, and the glorious resurrection of His only begotten Son-the perfect man.
“The former times of this ignorance God winked at; but now commandeth all men everywhere to repent.” That is, to change their way of life according to this wonderful divinely provided pattern.
4000 years had been devoted to preparing the scene for the brief appearance and work of this one man. God’s values and proportions are quite different from man’s. Time and numbers mean nothing to Him. And we must shake off all the human perspective, as we view the divine plan of the ages.
God said to Gideon, the people are too many for me to deliver by. Let all the fearful and fainthearted go away. Two-thirds of the host left, and 10,000 remained. And God said again, there are yet too many. And finally the number was brought down to 300-just 1% of the original host. 99% went home. And God said, by this 300, I will save you-three hundred who drank of the water differently from the majority.
How natural it is to be influenced by numbers and by the opinions of others, particularly by those who have an appearance of position and prestige. But all the Scriptures teach the lesson to the contrary.
“He hath no form nor comelines;, and when we shall see him, there is no beauty that we should desire him.” Nothing to attract the eye of the flesh or the natural man. This simple, homeless, unschooled carpenter-this wandering, unsettled creature with his few ignorant followers! What a stumbling block he was to those who judged by external appearances! “How many of the rulers and the Pharisees have believed on him?” they asked in derision. And that, to them, was conclusive. But this one despised man, forsaken at the end by even his few friends, single-handedly, this one despised man by the help and power of God turned the world’s eternal future from darkness to light-one man.
“My strength,” said God, “is made perfect in weakness.” “ God hath chosen the weak things of this world to confound the mighty.”
“Be of good cheer,” he said, “I have overcome the world.” What a fantastic statement for a condemned criminal, just a few hours from death, to make. “I have overcome the world.” “Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.” And the timeless, changeless comfort of his eternal peace he pours out freely upon his friends.
As one man single-handedly wrought this victory over the world, and thereby established the whole future course of history, we remember that John wept when the revelation was opened to him, because there was no man to unloose the seals. All those glorious things to be developed and no man to break the seal that held them back, until the Lamb came forth. And they said, “Weep not, for the Lamb has been found worthy to open the book.”
And so another man, practically single-handed carried the news of that victory throughout the length and breadth of the Roman Empire-the then known world, in the face of every form of hardship and disappointment. “He is a chosen vessel unto me, to bear my name before the Gentiles…I will show him how great things he must suffer for my name.” In this proclaiming to the Gentiles of the eternal purpose of God, the same strange divine pattern is followed-the same complete reversing of all human conceptions and values.
Jesus said, applying to himself the inspired words of Isaiah, “The Lord hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor.” Why particularly to the poor? Why is it that the poor are so constantly singled out in the record of these events? Because that is God’s way.
God is fashioning His eternal temple out of the humble and lowly things of the earth. The wise and the noble and the mighty and the able and the highly respected are no good to God. Why not? Because He cannot make anything worthwhile out of them from a spiritual point of view. They are too deeply impregnated with the pride and ambitions and interests of the flesh.
When John lay in prison, struggling against doubt and despair, he sent to Jesus asking, “Art thou he that should come, or must we wait for another?” Must this long, weary waiting still go on? And the reassuring message that Jesus sent back to him contained this: “Go and show John those things which ye do hear and see…the poor have the gospel preached unto them.”
Paul says that the apostles at Jerusalem added nothing to him as to the details of that glorious message he was commissioned to preach. But there was one vital injunction that they pressed urgently upon him. “Only they would,” he said, “that we should remember the poor; the same which I also was forward to do.” They feared that this once high-minded Pharisee would overlook the class to whom the gospel was particularly addressed.
This preaching of the gospel to the poor was the hallmark of the way of salvation, as it went forth to the Gentiles. “Have any of the rulers believed on him?” No, for it was not for them. Or rather, they were not for it. God, in His wisdom, had chosen the weak things. “I thank thee, heavenly Father, that thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes.”
Why must Jesus be of the lowest of the people? A humble workman born in a stable. Why did it have to go to that extreme? Think of the smells and the dirt and the insects and the germs-born in a stable. Surely there is a deep lesson for us. His parents were too poor even to offer the usually required sacrifice at his circumcision. The law said if she (that is the mother) be too poor to offer a lamb, then two young pigeons would do.
At the dedication of the temple, Solomon offered 120,000 sheep. But when the true living temple was dedicated his parents were too poor to offer even one lamb on behalf of the Lamb of God. What a tremendous lesson! How God delights to reverse all human standards! And we must get in line with God’s viewpoint and not man’s. Like Mary exclaimed in her beautiful, inspired song of praise, “He hath regarded the low estate of His handmaiden.” “He hath put down the mighty from their seats, and exalted them of low degree. He hath filled the hungry with good things; and sent the rich empty away.”
Why must John the Baptist be clothed with skins and exist on the meager fare that the desert afforded him? “What went ye out into the wilderness to see?” “Into the wilderness”-“A man clothed in soft raiment?” Behold, they which are clothed in soft raiment live delicately are in king’s courts. John certainly was in the court of the King, but not that kind of king. His king wore a crown of thorns. There was no soft raiment or delicate living for John. He was “the voice of one crying in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord.” “All flesh is grass, and all the goodliness thereof is as the flower of the field.”
Why must Paul suffer hunger and thirst and be buffeted and have no certain dwelling place and be made of the filth of the world, as he put it himself? And the off-scouring of all things? Nothing could be in the world’s sight more contemptible.
Why could not God at least chose normal, respectable, influential people as His ambassadors? To carry this great message of the gospel to the world? How could He hope for it to succeed? In the answer is the whole secret of God’s purpose with man.
These three great men-John, Jesus, and Paul, and those that followed them-terrible and unmovable in their single-minded fanatical devotion to the one needful thing-must be freed of all worldly and fleshly encumbrances, for the message they carried was so revolutionary, so transforming, so searching and so penetrating to the very roots of life.
The life they preached could not be veneered out of the surface of a comfortable worldly life. “The axe is laid unto the root of the trees,” John said. “Every mountain shall be brought low and every valley shall be exalted.” Everything reversed-that was the watchword of the new dispensation-a complete reversal of all human ways and thoughts.
It was a call to freedom-freedom from all that is fleshly. They that are in the flesh cannot please God. No matter how hard they try. They cannot please God. It is a failure to begin with. To be fleshly minded is death. It is a call to freedom from everything that is worldly. “All that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eye, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world, and the world passeth away.”
It is a call to divine holiness and perfection. “Be ye holy,” he said, “even as I am holy.” “Be ye perfect, even as your Father in heaven is perfect.”
In the sacrifice of Jesus, God held nothing back-no half measures, and He expects the same in return. “Freely ye have received, freely give.” Divine love and human endurance was drawn out to the uttermost to lay the foundation for a new world, free from all the evils of the flesh.
John said many things, as the voice crying in the wilderness, though very little is recorded. In the 3rd chapter of Luke we are told, summing up John’s work, “And many other things in his exhortation preached he unto the people.” But what of those things which were recorded-those things obviously picked out as the heart and substance of his message?
He came as the voice of one crying in the wilderness, “Every valley shall be filled, and every mountain brought low.” Unto the multitudes who came to him he said, “Bring forth fruits meet for repentance.” And stirred by his terrible warnings, they asked him, “What shall we do?” What was his answer?
He answered to them, “He that hath two coats, let him impart to him that hath none; and he that hath meat, let him do likewise.” That was the substance of his message-fruits meet for repentance.
He was not preaching charity. He was preaching revolution-a complete new way of life, a free way of life, different from the world’s winning way. He did not say, “He who hath five coats, let him give away one that he doesn’t need-one that he is finished with.” That would have been mere superficial human charity. For it is not just “love thy neighbor.” That is quite a pleasant hobby. It is “love thy neighbor as thyself.” And that latter part is what gives it all its point.
Need we ask why these three great men-our divinely appointed examples-lived as they did, with such a message for the world? Could any man burdened with worldly possessions go out and honestly preach such a gospel to the poor? Brethren and sisters, when shall we summon the courage and faith to shed off all the superficialities and bring ourselves face to face with the true fundamentals of life? Are we getting any closer?
This great offensive which rocked the world, begun by John, centered in and exemplified by Christ, and rounded out by Paul, was a divine crusade against all the natural ignorance, selfishness, and pettiness of the flesh. It was a campaign of faith against fearfulness and of godliness against greed.
What was the message that Jesus gave? “Sell that ye have, and give alms; provide yourselves bags which wax not old.” “Take no thought for your body, for your heavenly Father knoweth your needs.” The gospel of childlike faith-trusting dependence day by day-the only way to happiness and peace. And those who carry this message-how must they live in order to give their message any weight?
Natural and spiritual things will not mix. “The flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh.” The natural man, no matter how wise he is, cannot understand-cannot comprehend the things of the Spirit of God. Those are the Apostle’s words.
So it is the Gideon story over and over again-the 30,000 of the flesh must be cut down to the 300 of the Spirit before they can go forth in the power of God, conquering and to conquer. “Not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit, saith Yahweh of Hosts.
“His bodily presence is weak, and his speech contemptible.” That was what they said of Paul-this chosen vessel, who carried to the world the most revolutionary message it had ever heard. “I came not with excellency of speech…I was with you in fear and trembling…that your faith should not stand in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God.”
Thus was the pattern set and the foundation laid for the strange work of God during all the dark period of the Gentiles. And so by the tireless labors of this despised man, the Gentile world was told of the unsearchable riches of Christ and the marvelous divine light that had dawned upon the darkness and hopelessness of their world. And a few precious jewels were drawn out of the great mass of useless and perishing rubble.
To all outward appearances, Paul’s work was a dismal, hopeless failure. Look at him in his last days-a heartbreaking failure to outward appearances. Like the two who preceded him, he was in the end crushed and destroyed by the triumphant evil power of the flesh. All men counted John as a prophet. But where was this multitude when he was imprisoned and brutally murdered? They saved their support and clamor for men like Barabbas. Now Barabbas was a robber.
Now when the power of darkness closed in on Jesus, even his closest companions abandoned him, and the fickle people, whom he had ceaselessly labored to heal and bless, clamored for his death and rejoiced in the spectacle of his cruel destruction, glad in their hearts to be at last free from the resented burden of this strange troubler of the national conscious.
And so with Paul, who wrote, “The more I love you, the less I be loved.” And he wasn’t writing to the world, simply because he did not correspond with their fleshly conceptions of just how love should behave. He said, “Am I become your enemy, because I tell you the truth?” The world is full of Gaderenes who do not want their evil spirits cast out, nor their precious swine destroyed. And they besought him that he might depart from their coasts. He was doing too much good. It upset the order of things that they preferred.
Paul’s second letter to Timothy is the last and most intimate record of his pen. The long struggle is now nearly over. And he speaks very touchingly and personally to Timothy, who is soon to be left to fight on alone. Timothy was the one, we remember, of whom he said to the Philippians, “I have no man like-minded, who will naturally care for your state. For all seek their own, not the things of Jesus Christ’s.” The harvest was plenteous, but as usual the laborers were few.
To Timothy, he wrote from his prison cell as he awaited execution, “All they which are in Asia be turned away from me.” The Ephesian Ecclesia, among many others, was in Asia, where he had served and labored for years, and where they had wept on his neck so dramatically, when he had left them. But now he is in prison, and “all Asia is turned away from me”-the scene of most of his labors.
At the end of this letter to Timothy, as he pours out his heart, he says of his public trial, “No man stood with me-no man stood with me, but all forsook me.” But, he continues, “Notwithstanding the Lord stood with me, and strengthened me; that by me the preaching might be fully known, and all the Gentiles might hear.”
Why not raise up a dozen or a hundred Pauls to carry the gospel to the Gentiles? Surely the message and the importance of it was worthy of that! Why all the load on this one man?
God does not work in masses. We are constantly impressed that the work of God is very selective and intensely individual.
In God’s sight, one true zealous whole-hearted saint is of infinitely more value and pleasure and interest to Him than a million of mere flesh and blood individuals. This is apparent in all the records of His working with mankind.
Such then, in the wisdom of God, were the experiences of this great Apostle to the Gentiles, who carried that glorious message of Christ. Even the beloved Barnabas, the one who had first befriended him when his conversion was doubted, and he was shunned by the brethren, and who had worked so closely with him, had to be taken away in the end.
God’s plan of the ages rested for the moment upon these two men. “The Spirit said, separate unto me Paul and Barnabas for the work to which I have appointed them.” But Barnabas faultered and allowed fleshly ties to sway his judgment, and he drops from the record, and Paul goes on alone.
We make no judgment of Barnabas, when none of us could begin to compare with this faithful man, who sold all that he had and resolutely took up the hard road of the cross, laying all his possessions at the apostles’ feet. But still it is a deeply impressive lesson in the ways of God. What harder decision would Paul have to make than this-separating from Barnabas. Is it possible for us to realize how much the companionship of Barnabas meant to him, must have meant to him, in this lonely labor of enlightening the Gentiles?
And, on top of it all, he himself had that constant thorn in the flesh to buffet him and to hamper his work. Three times he earnestly pleaded that it might be taken from him. But the Lord replied (here again is that divine wisdom manifested, so different from the thinking of the flesh), “My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness.”
How strange are the ways of God! How utterly different from the ways of man! “God hath chosen the base things and the things which are despised to confound the things that are mighty.”
Why? Always the same reason-“that no flesh should glory.” That was why the army of Gideon was cut down-that no flesh should glory, and the victory should be obviously of God.
Fewness and weakness should never be regarded with anxiety or concern. Numbers should never carry any weight in determining divine things. For God’s true people have always been very few and very weak. Many from time to time have had to stand entirely alone.
In his last hours, as he faced alone, the great ordeal of the cross, Jesus said that in the last dark deceptive days of the Gentile times, that the waves of the nations would lash and toss in furry and frustration that “the love of most would wax cold, but he that endureth unto the end, the same shall be saved.”
Bro. G.V.Growcott
