Why The Long Wait – 4,000 Years?

According to biblical chronology, despite the possibility that the earth may have been in existence much longer, the creative act of God’s making man is determined to be at least six thousand years ago. If we were to use this measure to calculate the length of God’s redemptive drama for mankind, then the promise of the coming Messiah King would have occurred 4,000 years before the birth of John the Baptist. This means God waited for 4,000 years before He sent His Messiah King to earth. The question is why?

Waiting For A Kingdom Model

God is a great communicator. He knew that He could not fully reveal the good news of His Kingdom until an environment existed in which people could understand the message. Only when the time was right could Christ come. Jesus could not come until a Kingdom model existed as a visual illustration to help people understand His teachings on the Kingdom. Only in the “fullness of time” could the Kingdom be revealed.

The same chapter of Genesis that describes the Fall of Man also announces God’s promised solution, but many millennia would pass before its fulfillment. Because of the serpent’s (satan’s) role in tempting the first human couple to sin, God pronounced a curse on him, which also foretold his future doom:

“So the Lord God said to the serpent, ‘Because you have done this, cursed are you above all the livestock and all the wild animals! You will crawl on your belly and you will eat dust all the days of your life. And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; He will crush your head, and you will strike His heel’” (Genesis 3:14-15).

God promised that one of Eve’s offspring (“seed” in the KJV) would crush the serpent’s head, inflicting a fatal wound. That “seed” would be Jesus Christ.

When Jesus appeared preaching the Kingdom of Heaven, He was the culmination of thousands of years of preparation in God’s plan. What was God waiting for? Throughout history God was setting the stage and preparing an environment for His Son’s appearance.

Preparing For The King

Adam and Eve sinned by disobeying God, and by this action they cut off themselves (as well all future generations of human beings) from His Kingdom. The first significant biblical figure after Adam and Eve was Noah; a righteous man who believed in and followed God. He and his family survived the great flood by riding it out in an ark. Afterward, however, Noah planted a vine-yard and got drunk. Eventually his sons went their own ways and forgot God. Their descendants fell into idol worship and other kinds of evil. The time was not yet right for the Kingdom.

Ten generations after Noah, God spoke to Abram, a descendant of Noah’s son Shem. God revealed Himself to Abraham and made a covenant with him that would make of him a great nation. From Abraham came Isaac, the one born to him in his old age. Still, God had no model of the Kingdom.

Isaac had two sons, Esau and Jacob. God appeared to Jacob and said, “I will make of you a great nation. Your name will now be Israel.” Israel had 12 sons, who were the fathers of the 12 tribes of the nation Israel. God was working toward His model. Through Moses, He delivered the Israelites from slavery in Egypt, brought them into the desert, and told them, “You will be My people and I will be your God. I will lead you into the land I promised your forefathers.” In other words, He was saying, “I will be your King and you will be My Kingdom.”

After awhile, however, the people of Israel got tired of a God they could not see and longed for a king they could see. God never desired for them to have an earthly king. This was not the appropriate model that He was seeking. Nevertheless, God gave in to their wishes and instructed the prophet Samuel to anoint Saul as king of Israel. Because the nation of Israel rejected God in favour of an earthly king, the time still was not right for the Kingdom of Heaven to be revealed.

A Long Succession of Kings

After a promising start, Saul disobeyed God to the point at which God rejected him as king. God then chose David, a man after His own heart, to be king in Saul’s place. David was a good king a mighty warrior who loved God. He was also a poet and worshiper whose songs comprise the bulk of the longest book in the Bible: the Psalms. David was the first to informally combine the functions of priest and king. He worshiped and wrote worship songs, but he also administered government wisely and ably. A model of God’s Kingdom was beginning to emerge.

Then David disappointed God by committing adultery with Bathsheba and compounding his sin by trying to cover it up. He arranged to have her husband, Uriah, killed. From then until the end of his life, trouble dogged David’s steps. After the death of Solomon, David’s wise and capable son and successor, the kingdom they had built split in two as ten tribes rebelled against the house of David. The time still was not right for the Kingdom of Heaven to be revealed.

Following a long succession of kings, most of whom rejected God and served idols, first the northern kingdom Israel and then the southern kingdom of Judah fell to outside conquerors. The northern kingdom was assimilated into the Assyrian empire and ceased to exist. The kingdom of Judah was conquered by the Babylonians, and the brightest and best of her people were carried into exile for 70 years.

Daniel, one of the exiles and an official in the Babylonian government, received a powerful vision from God that showed him that the Kingdom was not dead and forgotten. God was still working toward His model, preparing for the “fullness of time” when His Son would come and reveal the Kingdom. Daniel spoke of a “son of man” who would do great things. Several hundred years later, Jesus would refer to Himself as the Son of Man, His favourite self-designation.

Babylonians, Greeks and Romans

The Babylonians fell to the Persians, who allowed the Jews to return to their homeland and rebuild their Temple and the city of Jerusalem. The Persians fell to the Greeks, whose great tradition of philosophy influenced the entire Mediterranean world. In time, the Greek Empire fell to the Romans, with their genius for military campaigns, law, and government administration. At last, the time for which God had been preparing drew near. The Roman Empire was the first in history with a structure and administration that resembled the Kingdom of God. Finally, God had His model.

Unlike the empires that preceded it, when Rome invaded and conquered a country, it set up its own administration with its own governor appointed by the emperor, but left the indigenous people in the land. Rome governed its conquered territory through appointed representatives who ruled with the authority of the emperor himself. The job of a Roman governor was to govern his province in such a way as to make it a reflection of Rome.

Rome became the greatest empire in history because it had a system of government that worked better than any that had gone before. It was a simple system, really: take over territory, leave the people in the land, but appoint a governor and establish an administration that will turn them into Romans.

Everything was now set. The Roman Empire provided the perfect model for the message of the Kingdom of God because it contained the concepts of the Kingdom that would make the message of Jesus easily understood. God’s Kingdom model was in place. The time had come for God to send His Son. The time had come for the Kingdom of Heaven to be revealed.   

This was the reason for long awaiting 4,000 years. God was waiting for perfect template on earth of what His Son was about to deliver or unfold and the Romans was able to give us the reflection of this model, then John the Baptist stepped over to introduced the long awaited King of kings!   

In His Service,

Bisi Bolarin

Contact:

The Kingdom Life Ministries

Tel: +234 809 809 0197

Whatapps: +234 809 809 0197

E-mail: kingdomlifeminstries46@gmail.com