God's Plan Is Taking SO Long! Should We Give Up Hope?


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God's plan...

It is taking so long, so very long.
Do we give up hope?

There are many passages we could read to remind us of the assurances and promises that we have from God. However, today, I want us to find assurance in what may, at first, seem like an unlikely passage in the New Testament. 

It's in a passage of scripture from the first part of Matthew.  Let's look at Matthew 1:1.  

This is where we are going to find our hope today, from Matthew 1:1 to Matthew 1:17. 

Let's look at it. What it this section about? 



Verse 1: "This is the genealogy of Jesus the Messiah, the son of David, the son of Abraham. 

Abraham was the father of Isaac, Isaac the father of Jacob, Jacob the father of...."

Oh! Did you think maybe I had the wrong passage? This is just a genealogy. How are we going to find hope in this list of names? Let's see, let's keep going: Boaz and Ruth, Obed the father of Jesse. Jesse the father of King David. We are in verse 6 now. "David was the father of Solomon who's mother was Uriah's wife" - that's Bathsheba. Solomon, Rehoboam, Hezekiah, Manasseh, "Josiah the father of Jeconiah and his brothers at the time of the exile to Babylon."

Now we are in verse 12. I don't even recognize any of these names. Azor. Matthan. Okay, that's interesting. "Matthan the father of Jacob, the father of Joseph, the husband of Mary, and Mary was the mother of Jesus who is called the Messiah." 

And there it is, verse 17. "Thus there were fourteen generations in all from Abraham to David, fourteen from David to the exile in Babylon, and fourteen from the exile to the Messiah."

That's right, it is a genealogy -- a really long genealogy, from Abraham to Jesus Christ. 

No, this passage for today's source of hope was not a mistake. We are going to find a source of assurance and hope in a lengthy New Testament genealogy. 

Think about the question, "How many generations passed between Abraham and Christ?"

If you look at verse 17 and then add up the generations, you will get the answer. It's 14 and 14 and 14 which is 14 times 3.  

It's 42 generations passed from Abraham and the birth of Isaac, to the birth of Jesus. 

And therein lies our hope. 


God works, and has always worked, through many, many generations to fulfill his great plan for the world. He is patient. Early on, God promised His people that He would send the Christ. 

From Adam to Jesus, we know the fulfillment of His promise took 6000 earth years.

From Abraham to Jesus, the time that passed was approximately 2100 earth years.

David knew the Christ would come. David longed for his coming. Yet, God fulfilled His promise at least a full 1000 years after David’s birth. 

All of these years - that 1000 years and the 2100 years prior to that - those are just days in God's timing. We talked about that last week, or it was in the blogpost last week, about why God is so patient to remove the evil, and we remembered that with God a thousand years is like a day. Since God is eternal, this is true. Just like when we are 50 or 60 years old and a year goes by so, so fast. We can imagine that if living eternally, 1000 years is a very short time. And our time on this earth - when maybe we might make it to 100 years - is seconds, it's seconds, when considered within eternity. 


So we know that Jesus will return as he has promised. We shouldn't be doubtful because it seems to be taking so long. 

Instead, we should expect it to take so long. For that is the way God has always worked out His plans. He is outside our time and works through our time in a manner that seems so long to us, but it is not long for eternity. And that is the way God fulfills His promises. God works through the generations. Long, long lists of generations. 


This is our assurance for these times. May your will be done, Lord. May your will be done in your time, Lord. 

Amen. 


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If you would like to learn simple, practical ways to walk with God every single day, then you would really enjoy Closer to God: Simple Methods, Starting Today

If you want to learn more deeply and fully about what Jesus taught, then you would enjoy He Called: 56 Daily Studies and Reflections with the Words of Christ.

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Author's other books can  be found at: https://www.amazon.com/Sherry-Elaine-Evans

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