God`s Time, Not Ours

Genesis 15:12-16 (NIV)

¹² As the sun was setting, Abram fell into a deep sleep, and a thick and dreadful darkness came over him.

¹³ Then the Lord said to him, “Know for certain that for four hundred years your descendants will be strangers in a country not their own and that they will be enslaved and mistreated there.
¹⁴ But I will punish the nation they serve as slaves, and afterward they will come out with great possessions.
¹⁵ You, however, will go to your ancestors in peace and be buried at a good old age.
¹⁶ In the fourth generation your descendants will come back here, for the sin of the Amorites has not yet reached its full measure.”

 This is yet another scripture that I read so many times in the past but never paid any special meaning or attention to what God promised Abraham when making a first covenant with him. Right after God affirmed Abraham to have endless amount of descendants, God showed Abraham a prophecy about Israelites going into Egypt and becoming slaves for 400 years (as we know it happened right after Joseph`s reign), and God`s promise to save them and bring them back into the promised land.

Here is a very important part of the prophecy as to why it would take so long for Israelites to maintain in slavery despite their cries for freedom: “for the sin of the Amorites has not yet reached its full measure”. Wow! God`s timing is not ours, and He knows better than we could ever calculate when is it the due season for everything. Only He can look at both sides of the story and know the depth of the circumstances, and we need to always remember that. Only God knows when it is the “right measure”.

This was a very sobering reminder for me to wait long patiently for the resolution of my circumstances because although I may think that I`m ready for the breakthrough, but another side of the story is hidden from me and only available to God, so I`m left with only trusting that He will make everything right in His right time.

Looking back at the prophecy that God gave to Abraham, we see a very crucial principle: God judges and He is a very fair Judge. He saw that in the land where Abraham dwelt, there were other nations, and they were evil. The things they did by serving pagan gods and committing all sorts of atrocities were a huge abomination to God, but He was waiting until the sin of their lives would reach the right “measure”, so He could judge them. God used Israelites when He led them out of the Egypt to judge Amorites and other nations that lived there by ordering Israelites to exterminate them completely; to wipe them out of the face of the earth.

First of all, God didn`t decide to kill one nation for the sake of another, but He used one nation to judge the evil doing of another nation. That`s how God operates. When we see the atrocities committed in the different parts of the world, it is not always because those people were innocent, but most of the times those people are either evil worshipers/ pagan worshipers, and they live extremely defiling lives regardless of being warned to repent.

¹⁶ However, in the cities of the nations the Lord your God is giving you as an inheritance, do not leave alive anything that breathes.¹⁷ Completely destroy^[a] them—the Hittites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites—as the Lord your God has commanded you. ¹⁸ Otherwise, they will teach you to follow all the detestable things they do in worshiping their gods, and you will sin against the Lord your God. (Deuteronomy 20:16-18 NIV)

We clearly see that God ordered to exterminate these nations for their evildoing, and so they would not teach Israelites those same evil things for which God is judging them and wiping them off the face of the earth for.

⁵ It is not because of your righteousness or your integrity that you are going in to take possession of their land; but on account of the wickedness of these nations, the Lord your God will drive them out before you, to accomplish what he swore to your fathers, to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob (Deuteronomy 9:5 NIV).

The interesting thing here is God already had a plan the way He would lead the Israelites out of the Egypt with all the glory and might, and the way He would give them the land. If He agreed to answer Israelites` cries for slavery deliverance any time earlier than appointed 400 years, than He would not have been able to wipe the Amorites and the other nations out, and the Israelites would have to co-exist with them by sharing land. In the end only risking for Israelites going into backsliding, which they did anyway because they disobeyed the Lord to exterminate those nations completely.

This is how perfect God`s timing is. Nobody else could ever calculate this better than God Him. Only He defines the “measure” and the Day of Judgment, so all we can do is stay faithful, continue praying, and never loose heart.

I read through the first 21 chapters of Genesis yesterday, and I made it a point for myself to mark each situation where God was fair, just, and faithful, and there has been so many occasions just  in those first 21 chapters, that it really encouraged me to keep up my faith. I saw that God is fair, and there has been not one situation where He didn`t protect or judged fairly. People failed, but He didn`t. That`s our best promise from Him that He is Faithful Always! 

The same way God judged the Amorites and the other nations, the same way He judged Israelites later on when they started to backslide while living in disobedience to the Lord. He doesn     `t makes exceptions because He is a sovereign God.

¹¹ Then the Israelites did evil in the eyes of the Lord and served the Baals. ¹² They forsook the Lord, the God of their ancestors, who had brought them out of Egypt. They followed and worshiped various gods of the peoples around them. They aroused the Lord’s anger ¹³because they forsook him and served Baal and the Ashtoreths.¹⁴ In his anger against Israel the Lord gave them into the hands of raiders who plundered them. He sold them into the hands of their enemies all around, whom they were no longer able to resist. ¹⁵ Whenever Israel went out to fight, the hand of the Lord was against them to defeat them, just as he had sworn to them. They were in great distress. (Judges 2:11-15 NIV)

This is why God was so clear to exterminate those nations, so they would not lead the Israelites into the sin, but the Israelites disobeyed His command and left some of the nations around. Sure enough, they started following their rituals, pagan worshiping and doing other wicked things in the sight of the Lord.

God has His time for everything, and we are not to question His reasons. We live in the world of an instant gratification, and that makes us impatient whenever we have to wait, leave alone when we have to wait long patiently.  It`s been two long horrible years for me, and partially it`s due to my disobedience and unyielding to God, but partially because God has His time for everything and not me.

I need to continue reminding myself that God is Sovereign, Fair, and Just, and whatever happens at the hearing in October, it would be because He has His own reasons for it. All I am accounted for is praying, fasting, and seeking His will. Only God knows when the right “measure” would be reached to judge those whom He needs to judge, and to save those whom He needs to save.

I encourage you today that if you are as weary as I am and drained from constant battle for specific circumstances/problems, please go back to His word. I haven`t found one scripture where God was inconsistent or unfaithful or unjust and contradictory to the nature of His character. It`s just not in the Bible. In the Bible, we see the opposite—He comes through to those who choose to trust in Him and to remain faithful. He especially protects and guards those who honor His word. We must persevere and remain patient because His time is perfect, but ours is not.