In First Chronicles, chapter twelve, verse thirty-two, according to God’s sovereign wisdom, He has a season and a time for all His purposes and the fulfillment of His promises, as in Ecclesiastes three, verse one. We see this in the realm of nature and His kingdom, where there are appointed times in Psalms one hundred and two, verse thirteen, and seasons of change in Isaiah forty-three, verses eighteen to nineteen, crucially significant in His ongoing redemptive purpose.
Scripture reveals again and again how God’s people are often blind and ignorant when God, in the fullness of time, sent His Son to be their Messiah. Likewise, frequently, the church does not know or discern when God is bringing to fulfillment some aspect of His purpose.
The men of Issachar are specifically mentioned in scripture because they, among Israel’s twelve tribes, understood the times and discerned what God was doing in bringing David to the throne as His anointed. Discernment of God’s times and seasons is necessary to cooperate with God in purposeful action and to embrace or sustain a God-given vision during times of change.
When the throne of Christ is in a soul, there is, or ought to be, great joy in that soul, and provision is made, not here, for a few days, but for the whole life and eternity. Happy are those who wisely perceive it to be their duty and interest to submit to the Saviour Jesus Christ, the Son of David; who renounce for his sake all that is not consistent, whose earnest endeavors to do good are directed by the wisdom that God giveth, through acquaintance with his word, experience, and observation. If any man lacks this wisdom, let him ask it of God, who giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not, and shall receive.