Numbers 9:1-5 Now the Lord spoke to Moses in the Wilderness of Sinai, in the first month of the second year after they had come out of the land of Egypt, saying:  “Let the children of Israel keep the Passover at its appointed time. On the fourteenth day of this month, at twilight, you shall keep it at its appointed time. According to all its rites and ceremonies you shall keep it.” So Moses told the children of Israel that they should keep the Passover. And they kept the Passover on the fourteenth day of the first month, at twilight, in the Wilderness of Sinai; according to all that the Lord commanded Moses, so the children of Israel did.

You will remember that Israel celebrated Passover as they were leaving Egypt, so this Passover marks one year into their journey out of the bondage of Egypt. I’m pretty sure many if not most of the people of Israel felt they would have been in the promised land by now. After all, the journey from Egypt to Canaan should take only a few weeks … even walking … even with kids … at the most a few months. But it’s been a whole year!

I’m probably like the people of Israel on that journey because every day I’m surprised that we are still here. I keep thinking that the rapture must surely be overdue. But God’s timing is spot on and though we may feel that something is overdue, it’s not. It might be overdue according to my timetable or my desires, but God operates on His own timetable and it is to our advantage that we press into His timing instead of wandering off into what we want. Our goals and desires might even match God’s plans for us, but if we are unwilling to abide in His timing but press forward in our own willfulness we settle for something less. Whatever is less than what God desires is sin, just as James said, “Anyone who knows the good he ought to do and does not do it, sins.”

Putting God and His will first is something that we all begin learning from the moment we are saved to the day we are with Him in heaven. We cannot then say, “I didn’t know that I should wait on God” because if we do, then we have caught ourselves in a lie, for the Holy Spirit Who dwells in us and seals us to God directs us to abide in God’s timing. Yet, there is a learning process in that, and so we can thank God for His long-suffering toward us that we are chastised as His children and not condemned as law breakers, for where the debt of sin has been cancelled and where the body of sin has been put to death there no longer remains condemnation for sin. Instead, as children of God we are chastised rather than condemned so that we learn to abide in the good things of God. And that is a process, and a struggle for many Christians today, just as it has been for Israel, for Christians of the past and, should the Lord tarry, will be for Christians of the future.

In verse 2 where it says appointed time, the Hebrew word is Moedim which is the plural form of Moed, the word for meeting place. The implication, for Israel then is that by keeping God’s appointed times, they stay near to God. The feasts were all prophetic of future events, but they were also reminders of God’s charity toward His people. By keeping the feasts, they were reminding themselves to stay close to God and not wander from Him. But then, maybe we say, “That must have been easy for Israel, after all they had the pillar of cloud and fire and the manna and even a rock that went with them and gave them water, but we don’t have a pillar of cloud or fire and we don’t have manna and we don’t have a rock that is always with us giving us water!” Oh, but we do!

• Who brings you relief from the heat of this sinful world if not God?
• Who ignites the fire within you every day to continue the journey if not God?
• Who provides your food and your needs if not God?
• And from what Rock do we receive refreshing if not Jesus?

“But, Israel had these things visually! They saw these things and touched these things!” Yes, they did, and what happened? Many of them fell into idolatry, and craved evil things and their sin caused them to perish in the journey; they may have seen those wonderful works, but many were blind to God.

1 Corinthians 10:1–5 (NKJV) Moreover, brethren, I do not want you to be unaware that all our fathers were under the cloud, all passed through the sea, all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea, all ate the same spiritual food, and all drank the same spiritual drink. For they drank of that spiritual Rock that followed them, and that Rock was Christ. But with most of them God was not well pleased, for their bodies were scattered in the wilderness.

We may feel that it would be easier to abide in God’s timing if we just had the visible and the touchable, yet we have the tangible Spirit of God indwelling us, empowering us and enabling us to live in constant confirmation of Who we are in Christ, walking by faith, which is not our own but which is given to us by God. The author of Hebrews tells us in chapter 11 that faith is the substance of reality that we do not see. So, if faith is substance and it is given to us by God when we hear the Word of God, and it is not something we create in ourselves (faith is not the same thing as belief), then faith must itself be the proof that what God says is true. The logical conclusion, then, is that if God has given us faith as confirmation of promises, then we can live and walk comfortably in His timing.

Looking in the book of Habakkuk, in the same passage where he says, “The just shall live by faith,” Habakkuk writes:

Habakkuk 2:3 This vision is for a future time. It describes the end, and it will be fulfilled. If it seems slow in coming, wait patiently, for it will surely take place. It will not be delayed. 

God’s plans will always be fulfilled, and so if He has said He will do something, waiting on Him to move is the best policy. Habakkuk comes from a word meaning “to embrace.” Perhaps we may relate that meaning to this by recognizing that we are better off embracing God’s plans according to His timing rather than choosing our own, and while we wait, we may use that time enjoying His goodness in our lives, the confidence of faith that He has given us, the knowledge of His promises for good, and we can take delight in the Lord. Psalm 37 says, when you delight in the Lord, “He will give you the desires of your heart.” Perhaps sometimes when God makes us wait it’s because He wants us to take the time to delight in Him, and learn to trust Him. Why did God tell them to keep the Passover? So they would remember that He saved them out of Egypt, but also so they would trust Him to save them again. When we consider that Jesus is the fulfillment of Passover, we remember that God has a great track record of saving people.