An Appointed Time

"Having faith and acting in faith gives Him joy."

A MAN BORN LAME sat at the gate to the temple asking alms. Everyone knew him and had passed by him many times before. Peter and John were no exception. Jesus, too, when He was alive had passed by this man. What made this day different? Because there is a word in the story which is key to it. Acts 3:2 says the man was laid daily at the gate “called Beautiful.” The word for “Beautiful” means “belonging to the right hour or season (timely).” That man, that day, didn’t ask Jesus’ disciples for healing. He asked for alms, as usual. But there, in that moment, when they passed, at the right-time gate, the right time came, and Peter said, “Silver and gold have I none; but such as I have give I thee: In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth rise up and walk.”

There is another story in the gospels which bears repeating on this topic. The man at the sheep-market pool had lain there 38 years wishing for someone to put him in the water so he could be healed. Thirty-eight years is a long time to watch other people receive what you hope for. Now, the story doesn’t say how often the angel stirred the waters, but given it was twice a week, for 38 years, that’s 3,952 people. That’s a lot of people! It could even have been more than that, but however many it was, it must’ve happened often enough one man would keep hoping for his chance for 38 years.

The woman with the issue of blood, another story we read in the gospels, had been bleeding continually for 12 years and had grown worse during that time, not better. She shouldn’t even have been in the crowd, her condition making her unclean. Yet for her and for the man at the pool, like the man at the temple gate, their right time came, one day, and both were miraculously healed. What made the right time the right time?

Ecclesiastes 3:1 makes a statement which bears our meditation. “To every thing there is a season and a time to every purpose under the heaven.” God works in timings, and His timings fit into seasons, or the word’s meaning, appointed times, where things are fulfilled. And interestingly enough, the word “purpose” here means “pleasure.” It’s foremost a positive word. All of God’s plans have seasons, appointed times, and purposes, good things for His pleasure. They aren’t random nor does He grow bored seeing men blessed. The time for Jesus’ life, death, and Resurrection, for instance, couldn’t have been more precise (appointed). The season for redemption had come with all of the purposes of the Law being fulfilled and a New Covenant being written. It was Peter and John, New Covenant men, who raised the lame man using the name of Jesus, that afternoon at the right-time gate. Suddenly, all that Jesus had come to do found fruition in them.

Think of it. For God’s season, appointed time, to be fulfilled, Jesus had to be born to a virgin, so there’d be no sin in His conception. He had to be born a Jew of the ancestry of David, specifically in the line of the kings of Israel who had reigned over them, years ago. He had to be born under the Law in the time of the Romans, be circumcised in the temple on the eighth day (while it was in existence). He had to be baptized by John, the last Old Covenant prophet, and die on the cross, the preferred form of death of the Romans for criminals. There are so many other specific points to His life, death, and Resurrection which were fulfilled. The tomb had to be a known location, owned by a respected man. It had to be guarded and His death on a Sabbath, so there’d be no question of tampering. After His Resurrection, He had to be seen and recognized so that Peter and John and the other disciples could say, “We saw Him. He’s alive.”

Prophets often refer to things in seasons. I am not here to explain prophets or prophecy, but there is a common sense to there being a season of a particular fulfillment in God’s timing, in His pleasure. The purpose of prayer is in its answering. The purpose of having faith in God’s goodness to men is seeing the promise come to pass. That the lame man was healed, not by Jesus, but by the disciples had huge implications when it happened. Dragged before the religious council and forbidden to speak the name of Jesus, great boldness came into the church (Acts 4:29), which sent them out filled with the Holy Spirit, as the children of God the gates of hell could not prevail against (Matthew 16:18).

“Be it known unto you all, and to all the people of Israel, that by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom ye crucified, whom God raised from the dead, even by him doth this man stand here before you whole. This is the stone which was set at nought of you builders, which is become the head of the corner. Neither is there salvation in any other: for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved. Now when they saw the boldness of Peter and John, and perceived that they were unlearned and ignorant men, they marvelled; and they took knowledge of them, that they had been with Jesus. And beholding the man which was healed standing with them, they could say nothing against it.” (Acts 4:10-14)

The man at the pool, in God’s season, at His appointed time, saw the Messiah. Healed on the Sabbath, he was scolded for carrying his bed through town and so remarked that the man that made him whole had told him to do so. When asked who that man was, he didn’t know Jesus’ name, but curiously enough, Jesus found him later and revealed Himself. A man people had neglected was healed by the Savior, not years before at the troubling of the waters, but at the hour on the day God had chosen. The Father in heaven had heard his cry and sent His Son with deliverance.

READ “And God Heard.”
https://sdwauthor.blogspot.com/2024/03/and-god-heard.html

“The man departed, and told the Jews that it was Jesus, which had made him whole.” (John 5:15)

The woman healed of the issue of blood became an example of faith. Ignoring the rules of society, she said to herself, “If I can but touch the hem of His garment, I will be made whole,” and because she believed the words she’d spoken, virtue, or power, went out of Him into her and everyone around them saw her healed. What the doctors couldn’t do, Jesus did when she sought Him. The time came for a new season for all three of these people. Here is where we must see in ourselves. Individually, corporately as God’s children, and nationally within our nation, there is a new season upon us. Just like that, the right-time has come, and God’s pleasure will be fulfilled.

Hebrews 10:38 makes this statement about faith. It says, those made righteous by Jesus’ salvation shall live by their faith in God’s goodness to men, and God will have pleasure in seeing His answers to them fulfilled. Those that draw back from faith give Him no pleasure. This wording does not mean He will be angry because of our lack of faith, but that our having faith and acting in faith gives Him joy. Answering prayer In His season for His purpose (pleasure) is what brings our loving God joy. The chapter which follows, Hebrews 11, gives us many examples of those who pleased God with faith. Here, we can see ourselves in their trust in Him, and we can walk in the Spirit, as He directs us, in ever-flowing faith.

Minister Bill Johnson said this of Jesus. For Him, “faith was not an effort. It was the ever-flowing reality of His relationship with His Father.” How beautiful this is. I desire to always be in the Spirit, always aware of Him, always in touch with my Father and my Savior, and always trusting them for my needs. Because the season of our struggle leads to the fulfillment of freedom at the right-time. We are never locked into failure or shortcomings. God sent His Son to ensure we can have whatever we need. If the Father was willing to give His only Son, why would He not with Him freely give us everything else (Romans 8:32)? We believe and in believing, we speak His Word and trust that our answer, our miracle, will happen exactly when He knows it is best, and the results be for His glory.

As Jesus’ life was on earth, His coming foreordained before the beginning of the world, as His fulfillment came when it did, in the time of history it did, for our greatest benefit, so also God will do for us in what we need. The Old Testament completed, the New finally came, God’s life is now in us and working through us to give us the fullness of salvation. A truth shown one day at the ninth hour when a well-known lame man, sitting at the gate called Beautiful, raised his gaze to Peter and John and begged for alms.

“For your Father knoweth what things ye have need of, before ye ask him.” (Matthew 6:8)

Image by Eva Schmidseder from Pixabay


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Suzanne D. Williams, Author
www.suzannedwilliams.com
www.feelgoodromance.com