“God’s Timetable” – FBC Morning Light (1/31/2025)

God’s Timetable in Exodus and Joseph’s Life

Well, good morning to you. I'd like to encourage you today with a few thoughts from Exodus chapter 12, and a couple of verses that we find in the latter part of that chapter. But let me ask you this question.

Do you ever find yourself frustrated with just how long things take to materialize, to come to pass, to come to fruition? Yeah, you've been there? You've done that? Well, that's what I want to think about today.

We looked a few weeks ago at the life of Joseph, and the time that he really kind of languished in prison, sold into slavery when he was 17 years old. It was 13 years before he got out of prison and was standing before Pharaoh.

And all that time, he's just, you know, time is just going by. Life is passing him by, and it seems like it's all for naught. And yet, God has his timetable with Joseph. Well, we see that again today.

Israel’s 430 Years in Egypt

Exodus chapter 12 and verse 40 and 41 says the sojourn of the children of Israel who lived in Egypt was 430 years, and it came to pass at the end of 430 years, on that very same day, it came to pass that all the armies of the Lord went out from the land of Egypt.

And this is, of course, talking about, finally, the Exodus. All the plagues are done, and the firstborn have been killed, and the Egyptians want to get rid of the Israelites and send them out. And this was 430 years after the time that they came into the land of Egypt.

430 years since Jacob and his sons left Israel to go into Egypt. And the thing of it is, when Jacob was on his way to Egypt 430 years ago, the Lord appeared to Jacob and said, don't be afraid to go to Egypt, I'll bring you out of Egypt.

And of course, he was speaking of him as a people, Jacob's people. Well, Jacob died, and he died in Egypt. He asked to be buried back in the land of Canaan, and that's exactly what they did. Took him back to Canaan, buried him, and then everybody went back to Egypt.

Joseph died a few years later, when he was 110 years old, but before Joseph died, listen to what he said. In Genesis chapter 50, Joseph is about to pass off the scene, and he says to his brothers, I'm gonna go the way to all the earth, he said, and when I do, he said, God will surely visit you and bring you out of this land to the land of which he swore to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

And then Joseph died, and now it's almost four centuries later that the Lord finally delivers them out of Egypt. I wonder how many of God's people were expecting this, like they knew that this was going to happen, and they were keeping track of the time.

I wonder. And the reason I wonder that is because about 600 years prior to Exodus chapter 12, back in Genesis chapter 15, God makes a covenant with Abram, and he says to Abram, he says, no certainly, Genesis 15 verse 13, he says, no certainly that your descendants will be strangers in a land that is not theirs, and will serve them in that land, and they will afflict them 400 years, and then eventually I will bring them out.

He says I will bring them out, and they will return here, and this will be their land. So how many descendants of Abraham living in Egypt, under the bondage and affliction of Egypt, were counting the days, the years, and when it got to 399 years, they said, hey, it's coming, any time now, it's coming.

It was a total of 430 years later. Now when you think about that, it helps us to realize that our perspective is not God's perspective on time. God's timetable seems, from our perspective, to move remarkably slow.

Why so long? Why so much bondage? Why so much oppression? Why so much suffering? Why didn't he bring them out much earlier? Well, you know, God did tell Abram that I'm not gonna bring them into this land until the iniquity of the Amorites is fulfilled and complete, and there's a whole other story there.

But the point is that God had a timetable, and he had a purpose, and he had criteria that he had established for when he's going to do what he's going to do. Our place is not to determine and demand a timetable.

Our place is to trust in the all-wise God who holds that timetable, and he knows what he's doing. Our Father and our God, I pray that we would trust you, we would learn to trust you when we get impatient, when things aren't going as quickly as we want them to, and in our timetable isn't being met.

Help us to trust you and yours, we pray, in Jesus' name, amen. All right, well listen, I hope you have a good rest of your day, and may the Lord bless you in it.