WHEN JESUS MANIFESTED

Acts 13:16-25 Then Paul stood up, and beckoning with [his] hand said, Men of Israel, and ye that fear God, give audience. The God of this people of Israel chose our fathers, and exalted the people when they dwelt as strangers in the land of Egypt, and with an high arm brought he them out of it. And about the time of forty years suffered he their manners in the wilderness. And when he had destroyed seven nations in the land of Chanaan, he divided their land to them by lot. And after that he gave [unto them] judges about the space of four hundred and fifty years, until Samuel the prophet. And afterward they desired a king: and God gave unto them Saul the son of Cis, a man of the tribe of Benjamin, by the space of forty years. And when he had removed him, he raised up unto them David to be their king; to whom also he gave testimony, and said, I have found David the [son] of Jesse, a man after mine own heart, which shall fulfil all my will. Of this man's seed hath God according to [his] promise raised unto Israel a Saviour, Jesus: When John had first preached before his coming the baptism of repentance to all the people of Israel. And as John fulfilled his course, he said, Whom think ye that I am? I am not [he]. But, behold, there cometh one after me, whose shoes of [his] feet I am not worthy to loose.

We wish to use this text and apply it to each of our lives. Israel wasted God's time in bringing a Messiah. Let us not waste our time in allowing Jesus to manifest through our lives!!

Paul was making a point God searched for a man through whom Christ might come to the world It was a hard thing to find as we shall see.

• God seen man kind in sin since Adam, and desired to rescue man from sin
• But before Christ could come, He needed a nation to act as incubator
• so He had to give holy commandments to the nation and keep them just holy enough that Christ could be born amongst them, because Christ is holy.
• Christ cannot come in an unholy nation.
• and once that nation was holy Christ could come and redeem the WHOLE WORLD.

In Acts 13, we read where Paul came to Paphos to preach and saw that Elymas the sorcerer discouraged the deputy from believing the Gospel. Paul cursed him blind, and the deputy believed.

Then they came to Antioch and went into the synagogue. When the opportunity came, as was the custom, the rulers allowed Paul and the brethren to speak anything they felt would edify the people.

And Paul began giving a history of Israel. He was leading up to a major point.

I wish to use that history and show you how God was trying to say something which is still true today - He still wants to say something to us. All of us.

• Israel was freed from Egypt..
• But God waited 40 years for the adults who disbelieved to die and allow the younger generation to enter the Promised Land.
• God gave the land of Canaan to them
• But when they were ready to enter and claim it, the spies looked through and 10 out of 12 became scared and did not believe they could take the land.
• Since the spies spent 40 days looking and doubted God could give them the land, God said 40 days would become 40 years.
• So 40 years wasted between the time God took them from Egypt and put them into Canaan.
• what could have occurred in Canaan if Israel entered 40 years before they did, not making God waste time?
• they would have been in Canaan all those years.
• We read of prophets rising and speaking to Israel after they did enter
• That could have happened 40 years earlier. And a lot can happen in 40 years.
• Maybe more books of the Bible written
• Maybe more heroes of faith and stories of trust in God to look back upon.
• But they held back and doubted and wasted years.

• Israel was called to be a nation of priests.

Exod 19:4-6 Ye have seen what I did unto the Egyptians, and [how] I bare you on eagles' wings, and brought you unto myself. Now therefore, if ye will obey my voice indeed, and keep my covenant, then ye shall be a peculiar treasure unto me above all people: for all the earth [is] mine: And ye shall be unto me a kingdom of priests, and an holy nation. These [are] the words which thou shalt speak unto the children of Israel.

Exod 19:8 And all the people answered together, and said, All that the LORD hath spoken we will do. And Moses returned the words of the people unto the LORD.

And later in Exodus 32 they made a golden calf and broke the covenant!!

Exod 32:26 Then Moses stood in the gate of the camp, and said, Who [is] on the LORD'S side? [let him come] unto me. And all the sons of Levi gathered themselves together unto him.

• The Levites later became the priests which all Israel should have been.
• lost opportunity for such a grand example to the world.
• went back on their commitment to God.

THEN PAUL MENTIONS DIVIDING THE LAND UP BETWEEN THE TRIBES.

• They enter the land.
• something that should have happened 40 years earlier.
• after 40 long years they receive the land.
• THEN JUDGES RULE FOR 450 YEARS.
• And the time of Judges is said to have been a time of rebellion.

Judg 2:10-19 And also all that generation were gathered unto their fathers: and there arose another generation after them, which knew not the LORD, nor yet the works which he had done for Israel. And the children of Israel did evil in the sight of the LORD, and served Baalim: And they forsook the LORD God of their fathers, which brought them out of the land of Egypt, and followed other gods, of the gods of the people that [were] round about them, and bowed themselves unto them, and provoked the LORD to anger. And they forsook the LORD, and served Baal and Ashtaroth. And the anger of the LORD was hot against Israel, and he delivered them into the hands of spoilers that spoiled them, and he sold them into the hands of their enemies round about, so that they could not any longer stand before their enemies. Whithersoever they went out, the hand of the LORD was against them for evil, as the LORD had said, and as the LORD had sworn unto them: and they were greatly distressed. Nevertheless the LORD raised up judges, which delivered them out of the hand of those that spoiled them. And yet they would not hearken unto their judges, but they went a whoring after other gods, and bowed themselves unto them: they turned quickly out of the way which their fathers walked in, obeying the commandments of the LORD; [but] they did not so. And when the LORD raised them up judges, then the LORD was with the judge, and delivered them out of the hand of their enemies all the days of the judge: for it repented the LORD because of their groanings by reason of them that oppressed them and vexed them. And it came to pass, when the judge was dead, [that] they returned, and corrupted [themselves] more than their fathers, in following other gods to serve them, and to bow down unto them; they ceased not from their own doings, nor from their stubborn way.

• The judges ruled after Joshua died, and their days were 450 days of rebellion in Israel
• they kept running into sin after the judge rescued them
• THEN THEY DESIRED A KING IN SAMUEL'S DAY
• And that was not God's will.

1Sam 8:4-10 Then all the elders of Israel gathered themselves together, and came to Samuel unto Ramah, 1Sam 8:5 And said unto him, Behold, thou art old, and thy sons walk not in thy ways: now make us a king to judge us like all the nations. But the thing displeased Samuel, when they said, Give us a king to judge us. And Samuel prayed unto the LORD. And the LORD said unto Samuel, Hearken unto the voice of the people in all that they say unto thee: for they have not rejected thee, but they have rejected me, that I should not reign over them. According to all the works which they have done since the day that I brought them up out of Egypt even unto this day, wherewith they have forsaken me, and served other gods, so do they also unto thee. Now therefore hearken unto their voice: howbeit yet protest solemnly unto them, and shew them the manner of the king that shall reign over them. And Samuel told all the words of the LORD unto the people that asked of him a king.

• they rebelliously wanted a king
• AND SAUL WAS THAT KING

Acts 13:21-22 ...God gave unto them Saul ...by the space of forty years. And when he had removed him...

• What a shame that God had to remove Saul
• Why?
• The man became self-proud. Started out so humble.
• 1Sam 9:21 And Saul answered and said, [Am] not I a Benjamite, of the smallest of the tribes of Israel? and my family the least of all the families of the tribe of Benjamin? wherefore then speakest thou so to me?

• but Saul lost that humility
• 1Sam 15:17 And Samuel said, When thou [wast] little in thine own sight, [wast] thou not [made] the head of the tribes of Israel, and the LORD anointed thee king over Israel?

• pride destroys God's use of us
• such a noble cause as being a vessel of God for His purpose is cast away due to these things listed
• the years we live can be totally wasted
• God cannot bring Jesus through us any more than He could those people
• Perhaps Jesus would have come much sooner than He did
• God was bringing the saviour to earth, to save fallen humanity, but humanity was cutting its own throat, by sinning and blocking God from being able to bring the messiah.

Psal 78:40-49 How oft did they provoke him in the wilderness, [and] grieve him in the desert! Yea, they turned back and tempted God, and limited the Holy One of Israel. They remembered not his hand, [nor] the day when he delivered them from the enemy. How he had wrought his signs in Egypt, and his wonders in the field of Zoan: And had turned their rivers into blood; and their floods, that they could not drink. He sent divers sorts of flies among them, which devoured them; and frogs, which destroyed them. He gave also their increase unto the caterpiller, and their labour unto the locust. He destroyed their vines with hail, and their sycomore trees with frost. He gave up their cattle also to the hail, and their flocks to hot thunderbolts. He cast upon them the fierceness of his anger, wrath, and indignation, and trouble, by sending evil angels [among them].

Psal 78:51-57 And smote all the firstborn in Egypt; the chief of [their] strength in the tabernacles of Ham: But made his own people to go forth like sheep, and guided them in the wilderness like a flock. And he led them on safely, so that they feared not: but the sea overwhelmed their enemies. And he brought them to the border of his sanctuary, [even to] this mountain, [which] his right hand had purchased. He cast out the heathen also before them, and divided them an inheritance by line, and made the tribes of Israel to dwell in their tents. Yet they tempted and provoked the most high God, and kept not his testimonies: But turned back, and dealt unfaithfully like their fathers: they were turned aside like a deceitful bow.

• The king He did not want them to have, eventually turned away from God and God is said to have removed him.

• And the man who wrote the words of remembrance of how Israel so provoked God, must have realized how awful Israel was.
• and it so happens that this very man is in this story who brings light to the history of Israel and especially in light of God's desire to bring Christ to the world.
• DAVID

Acts 13:22-23 And when he had removed him, he raised up unto them David to be their king; to whom also he gave testimony, and said, I have found David the [son] of Jesse, a man after mine own heart, which shall fulfil all my will. Of this man's seed hath God according to [his] promise raised unto Israel a Saviour, Jesus:

• Notice the terminology:
• I HAVE FOUND DAVID
• A MAN AFTER MINE OWN HEART
• WHICH SHALL FULFILL ALL MY WORD
• of THIS MAN'S SEED hath God raised up a Saviour.
• JESUS

• AT LONG LAST, GOD FOUND A VESSEL.
• Matt 1:1 The book of the generation of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham.

• God chose the nation through ABRAHAM, and it was not until DAVID came...
• 400 years in Egypt (OF THOSE YEARS MOSES TRIED HELPING ISRAEL AND ACTED IN FLESH AND GOD HAD TO PUT HIM ASIDE FOR 40 YEARS TO GET OUT PRIDE til finally EXODUS COULD START)
• 40 years in wilderness
• 450 years under judges
• 40 years under Saul

THEN GOD SAYS I HAVE FOUND DAVID.

• Jesus is called SON OF DAVID, SON OF ABRAHAM

2Chr 16:9 For the eyes of the LORD run to and fro throughout the whole earth, to shew himself strong in the behalf of [them] whose heart [is] perfect toward him...

Psal 37:37 Mark the perfect [man], and behold the upright: for the end of [that] man [is] peace.

1Kin 15:5 Because David did [that which was] right in the eyes of the LORD, and turned not aside from any [thing] that he commanded him all the days of his life, save only in the matter of Uriah the Hittite.

• David was not perfect, but his heart was right
• when sin was present he repented
• Oh, what God could do, in all our lives!
• time can be wasted and you can hear God's word and hold back
• or you can take hold of God's word, believe it and obey it, and God will bring Christ through your life.

2Cor 4:7 But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellency of the power may be of God, and not of us.

• We can be treasure chests
• be vessels of Christ.
• finally, God can find one who will be holy
• someone who is honest with God
• no covering up and doing things that are distinctly wrong
• LET GOD USE YOU
• I am not going to preach hell-fire to get you to live for God, for that will only make you serve Him in a less capacity than what you would IF YOU LOVED HIM.

• DON'T WASTE YOUR LIFE. -- BE FAITHFUL.
• There are people who are going to be faithful, and receive much reward in glory for their labours.
• EVERY ONE OF US CAN BE ONE OF THOSE PEOPLE
• MOTIVATION IS SUCH A LACKING THING TODAY.
• humans are so forgetful and allow too many things to go.
• DO NOT MISS THIS OPPORTUNITY.

The one thing the prodigal son wasted and never received back, though he was welcomed back into the Father's house, was TIME. Do not waste your time. Give all your days to Jesus.

RIGHT NOW start anew!