As He compressed time together, time became more full and He narrowed the focus a little more to deal not just with a nation but with a line -- a family within that nation -- the family of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob. As time went on, God narrowed His focus even more, to a line within that family: the line of David.

Finally, at the close of the Old Testament He had guided time down to a very narrow focus. The Old Testament closed with the line of David and the prophecy of One coming in that line who would fulfill all the purposes and plans of God for time.

Between the Testaments God was silent but not inactive. He worked within the affairs of men and within time.

The Greek people came to prominence and took over that part of the world known as the Holy Land. Even in their secular experience and their secular lifestyles God used them to develop a language which would be for all to understand. By the time of Christ, the Greek language was as close to a universal language as mankind had known since the early times of Genesis.

Then the Romans came to power. God used the things they developed, such as the Roman road system that enabled the Apostle Paul to travel all over the world. You don't have to be an advanced student of history to see God working in time, molding time, shaping time.

II. God Sent Jesus in the Fullness of Time

Like an hourglass God narrowed time, compressing it until finally Paul said:

"When the fullness of time was come, God sent forth His Son, made of a woman, made under the law, to redeem them that were under the law" (Galatians 4:4).

The fullness of time -- when time was full to the brim, stretching to express itself, when time was full and everything was just right -- God stepped into time again and brought forth His only Son: born in a manger, born of a virgin, fulfilling the prophecies of old, raised in Nazareth, ministering among Palestinians, healing many without medicine, helping people by the wayside, saying over and over again to His followers, "My time has not yet come."

They would come to Him with a question and He would say, "My time has not yet come." The authorities would attack Him severely, and He would say to His disciples, "Don't worry. My time has not yet come." When He was ready to go to Jerusalem, they said, "You'd better not." He said, "Don't worry. They can't take me until my time comes."

One day His time came. They nailed Him to a cross -- stretched out in time above the earth so that His time could come, so that His purpose as expressed by Paul in Galatians (that in the fullness of time God would send His Son to redeem the world unto Himself) might take place. All of us -- created by God, worked in by God, shaped by God, molded by God -- focus in on a skull-shaped hill where a man fulfills the time and in so doing redeems it.

It was more popular years ago than it is now, but we used to collect savings stamps -- S & H Green Stamps, Texas Gold Stamps, all kinds of stamps -- put them in our stamp books, and look in a catalog to see what we could purchase with those stamps. When we had enough stamps, we would go to a place that had a sign over the door that read "redemption center." We would go inside that building and trade in our stamp books for something of greater value.