WHAT TIME IS IT?

For a French translation of this text by the author, click on the following link:
http://thelightseed.blogspot.com/2010/08/quelle-heure-est-il.html
Written and posted by Jean-Louis.

Since I wrote this reflection 3 years ago, things have changed at a mind numbing pace. Now almost anybody around the world can experience first hand or by the proxy of television or one of the many means of communications the latest events that are tearing the fabric of life apart and spelling doom for humanity. 

Governments, citizens of all countries are perplexed trying to find a viable solution to the insurmountable problems facing mankind and unfortunately coming short of a solution that would set the earth and its population on the right course, avoiding a final global catastrophe that threatens to reduce our once habitable planet as the Lord creator made for the human race as wonderful abode, into a ruinous heap of nuclear ashes. 

From looking at the Doomsday clock that signals our eventual obliteration,  even concerned eminent scientists have not moved the minute hand from 5 minutes away from midnight in an attempt to warn earth people to change their ways or else.

Long before there was a Doomsday clock, God provided a way for men to examine his ways and provided a solution in the scriptures to remedy the terminal disease of sin or suffer the consequences. He has told us in no uncertain terms through the prophets  and the scriptures concerning the end times that if we do not heed the warning, the consequences will destroy the earth like clock work in incremental steps. 

    
Problems might be complex and seemingly unsolvable but the solution is simple. Sin is universal, so we are all guilty. so we all have our part in the solution. God´s message doesn´t change. If we persist in our sin, we die, if we repent and turn away from our sins towards him, we live. Repent and turn to God has always been the remedy.

Here are a few scriptures about turning back to God:
(Isa. 6:10 ; Jer. 3:1; Hos. 6:1; Mal. 3:7) 
Here is a link to a simple explanation of the process:
http://www.bible.ca/ef/expository-joel-2-13.htm

Actually, since time is so short, we should all consider what we should do if there was an emergency so great that needed an instant response. We should ask the question: what would I do if the flames of a raging fire were leaping across my property and threatening to engulf my house and my family? This is not indulging in cheap fear-mongering but trying to wake the sleeping, blind, unaware persons that will have a rude awakening when it all happens. 

If you are a Christian believer, then The Lord Jesus is your refuge that never fails. Believers don´t even have to think about what they would take in case of an emergency. The Lord Jesus in Revelation 3:11 told the Church in Philadelphia (the raptured church): 

"I am coming soon. Hold on to what you have, so that no one will take your crown."

We find the same counsel in Rev. 2:25. and II Tim. 1: 13-14.

What do we have that we can hang on to? We have the Holy Spirit dwelling in us, His seal guaranteeing our secure position in Him now and our future eternal security with Him in His Kingdom, the love of God that no one can separate us from, the promises of God that are sure, the Word of God trustworthy and true and all the privileges and benefits our inheritance as adopted children of our beloved and gracious Heavenly Father. 

So we have all we need already bestowed on us, inside of us and we have no fear of losing anything material if our treasure is in Heaven kept for us. So where is our heart? Jesus said in Luke 12:34:  For where your treasure is, there your treasure will be also.

What do we dwell upon when we go to sleep at night and we wake up in the morning? 

So here is the question again, what would you take with you if you had a few seconds to evacuate your house? What are we so attached to? 

I hope we would have enough time to pick up a Bible. and if not that we have enough of the scriptures in our heart that in case of widespread persecution, we would be able to provide spiritual help and nourishment to others.   

I didn´t intend  to write such a long introduction, but this is the place where I have been dwelling lately, following the advice of my Pastor´s message a few weeks ago that it´s better to dwell in the house of mourning. 

Eccl. 7:2-4 "It is better to go to the house of mourning, than to go to the house of feasting: for that is the end of all men; and the living will lay it to his heart. 3 Sorrow is better than laughter: for by the sadness of the countenance the heart is made better. 4 The heart of the wise is in the house of mourning; but the heart of fools is in the house of mirth."   

I personally believe after re reading the post about what time it is? that now the main concern of the Church should be ( as it always should have been) to proclaim the true, pure Gospel that the Lord Jesus came to preach because only the Gospel has the Power to change the hearts and minds of man, to bring reconciliation between man and God and peace with Him and his fellow man.

The Gospel in its essence is found in I Cor. 15: 3-11:
 For I delivered to you ^[b]as of first importance what I also received, that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, ⁴ and that He was buried, and that He was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, ⁵ and that He appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. ⁶ After that He appeared to more than five hundred brethren at one time, most of whom remain until now, but some have fallen asleep; ⁷ then He appeared to ^[c]James, then to all the apostles; ⁸ and last of all, as ^[d]to one untimely born, He appeared to me also. ⁹ For I am the least of the apostles, ^[e]and not fit to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. ¹⁰ But by the grace of God I am what I am, and His grace toward me did not prove vain; but I labored even more than all of them, yet not I, but the grace of God with me. ¹¹ Whether then it was I or they, so we preach and so you believed.

The next important question I would ask myself is: 

Does my life exemplify the ways, the thoughts, the heart and the  walk of Christ so that people around me can really understand what time it is on God´s clock and turn to him with broken heart and a humble willingness to obey His commands and be set free for the power of sin that keeps them in slavery. 

  

Who are the lost people going to turn to and ask for help if we ourselves do not know what time it is or we pretend not to know because in reality we don´t care.

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WHAT TIME IS IT?
10/17/2010

A teacher gathers his students around a fancy chronometer watch that indicates everything about time that 21st century man needs to know in order to live a full life. He has removed carefully the crystal in the front and is showing the face with all the many different hands.


What time is it ? he asks the young people. Everyone gives the right time in unison.
How about now ? removing the tenth of second hand. Still the same answer.
Then, he removes the second hand and the students can still give him the correct time within a minute.
Now he removes the minute hand, leaving only the hour hand. Can we still tell the time ?
Yes, of course, respond the students. It is sufficient to indicate the hour.

I know this might sounds trite, but have you noticed that when someone asks for the time, the question always is: what time is it ? The French are even more to the point; they say : What hour is it ? as do the Spanish speaking people. Have you ever heard someone ask: what minute or what second is it since we live in a world in which our lives depends of decisions made with the help of computers capable of functionning at the speed of a nanosecond ?!

If we apply this lesson to the Bible, who created time, dividing the day and the night with the sun, the moon and the rotation of the earth in 24 hours from which we get the time zones each of which measuring one hour?
How could our ancestors live simply with the help of a solar dial or an hour glass or later with a clock indicating only hours and minutes ?


Now let us think about Jesus when he criticized the pharisees for focusing their attention and judgment on small unimportant details that they elevated at a level that God himself did not require, when at the same time neglecting the more important commands.
Nowadays, there exist in some churches persons who make splitting hairs a pastime, concentrating their attention on an isolated, obscure, difficult to understand or explain bible verse in order to validate their viewpoint or to justify a false doctrine.


This Pharisaical attitude makes me think about a watch with the tenth of a second hand, or the minute hand that are obviously practical, but are not really essential when it comes to know what hour of the day or night it is. Could we compare the hour hand to the great essential doctrines of the Bible without which nobody could understand the existence, the nature and character of God, the prophecies, salvation and the forgiveness of sin, His will and his commands that he gave us for the benefit of mankind? The others isolated and very few verses are certainly a part of the biblical canon of the innerant Scriptures , but when we use them to divide the brothers and poison the Christian discourse, we are entering into a dangerous territory. Paul warns about the danger of being sectarian in I Corinthiens.

The question remains a valid one: What time is it in the church today?  Is it the primitive church with its martyrs that some believers like to dream about as the perfect church, the time of Augustine,   Martin Luther's time? do we live in the era of Calvin, of the Wesley brothers, of Charles Spurgeon or any other great man of God, even a founder of a denomination or do we live according to God's time? Granted, these men were powerful instruments in the hand of God and in the propagation of the Gospel, but they are not the ones on whom, neither are their thoughts on which our salvation depends.


The Bible is always the up to date and eternal word of God. What does God say of his salvation, the greatest manifestation of his love for mankind:
"As God's fellow workers we urge you not to receive God's grace in vain. For he says: "In the time of my favor I heard you, and in the day of salvation I helped you. I tell you, now is the time of God's favor, now is the day of salvation.” II Corinthians 6:2.


Again in Hebrews 4:7-11, Paul declares: Therefore God again set a certain day, calling it Today, when a long time later he spoke through David, as was said before: "Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts."For if Joshua had given them rest, God would not have spoken later about another day. There remains, then, a Sabbath-rest for the people of God; for anyone who enters God's rest also rests from his own work, just as God did from his. Let us, therefore, make every effort to enter that rest, so that no one will fall by following their example of disobedience.”


Let us live in the eternal present of God and let us beware of becoming slaves of a time imposed by man and believe that we are going to miss the rewards of the frantic modern life if we do not follow the patterns of a world which does not even know where it is going, neither knows what hour it is in the time allotted to it by God, the sovereign Lord and Creator on this earth. Now is the time for us to preach His Gospel, do His work, to serve Him with gladness, in His own time, empowered by His Holy Spirit in our heart full of faith, love  and joy and gratitude for his abounding grace and mercy. 


Jean-Louis.