What Time Is It?
February 2, 2003 • By
WHAT TIME IS IT?
SW02.02.03am
Ecclesiastes 3:1-8“To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven.”
I. I preached this message in December 1998 with only one year to go before the year 2000 asking the question
“What Time Is It?”
1. Yesterday another tragic event occurred that has never occurred before.
2. The Shuttle Columbia exploded on reentry from a 16 day mission. All seven of the crew lost their lives.
(1. This is the very first time in the 42 year history of American space flight that space vehicle has been lost on reentry.
3. Even Apollo 13 somehow made it back to earth safely.
4. Great technological advances have been made but still the lives of these precious people have been lost.
(1. President Bush said yesterday,
“The Columbia’s lost. There are no survivors. Our entire nation grieves.”
(2. It seems we are becoming used to grieving as a nation.
(3. The President also said, “The cause in which they died will continue.” “Our journey into space will go on.”
5. It was sudden and unexpected and we as Americans appear to live in a time when sudden and unexpected has become the expected.
6. We are facing a war in Iraq (and continued war in Afghanistan), nuclear blackmail from North Korea, and the continued world-wide threat of terrorism against all Americans, all American interests, and American allies.
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7. God said through the writer of
Ecclesiastes that there is a
season, a time for everything, for every purpose.
8. What is God’s time now? What is God’s purpose now? What is His purpose and time in your life and mine at this point in time?
9. Timing has always been a very important ingredient in God’s
program.
10. Time had a beginning and in the very first verse of the Bible we are told,
“In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.”
(1. But time also has an end. In Revelation 10:5 we are told,
“The angel which I saw stand upon the sea and upon the earth lifted up his hand to heaven, And sware by him that liveth for ever and ever, who created heaven, and the things that therein are, and the earth, and the things that therein are, and the sea, and the things which are therein, that there should be time no longer.”
(2. So there was a beginning to time but there will also be an end to time.
11. We have to wonder and I believe it is important to know where
we are at in God’s timing.
II. We look at the Biblical record plus the history of the world and
we know that much of God’s time has passed. - The world’s were created.
- Creation was corrupted when Adam and Eve sinned.
- The flood came when even the thoughts of men were evil.
- Abraham became the father of the family of faith.
- Joseph through what men meant for evil became the instrument
through which God saved His people.
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- After 400 years in Egypt which eventually became slavery God used Moses to bring His people out.- Then came the Promised Land with Judges and then great Kings. Saul, David, Solomon.- But the kingdom became two with Israel and Judah. Both were carried away one scattered and the other to captivity. - Then those in captivity were returned to the Holy city of Jerusalem.
- We have had the birth, death, burial and resurrection, and ascension of the Messiah, the Savior, the King of Kings and Lord of Lords.- Since our Lord’s resurrection almost 2000 years have passed.
1. Jesus in
Matthew 24 has given us further information about
God’s timing for the end of time.
(1. Jesus in
Matthew chapter 24 is giving information needed by his disciples then but also is looking forward, prophesying of the far off future just as did the OT prophets. Matthew 24:5, “For many shall come in my name saying, I am
Christ; and shall deceive many.”
2. In the last half of the 20th century there was an
abundance of people who claimed to be Christ. David Koresh
being one of the more well known.
(1. There are still people claiming to be Christ: On Aug. 19, 2002 - Sergei Torop, known to his followers as Vissarion, came by horseback to a Siberian village, near the border of Mongolia, to deliver his annual address to thousands of Russians who believe he is Jesus.
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(2. Dressed in flowing red velvet robes and sporting long dark hair, Vissarion has appeared before his growing band of followers every year on the anniversary of his revelation in 1989 that he was Christ returned.
1. It is reported that he has thousands of followers.
(3. There is a spirit of the anti Christ abounding upon this world.
Matthew 24:6-7a, “And ye shall hear of wars and rumours of wars: see that ye be not troubled: for all these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet. For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom.”
(4. We have had wars and rumors of wars. Nations have
risen against nation more so in the 20th century and into the 21st century than ever before.
(5. We have had two world wars consuming most of the
world in violence.
1. But the wars have continued and there continues to be wars and the threat/rumor of war all across planet earth.
(6. The Russians have their messy little situation in Chechnya.
1. Pakistan and India are still facing off against each other and the battle still rages at times in Kashmir with the threat of nuclear war in the background now.
(7. There are many little wars in Africa and there are rebellions/Civil war in Southeast Asia and South America.
Matthew 24:7(b)-8, “For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom: and there shall be famines, and
pestilences, and earthquakes, in divers places. All these are the beginning of sorrows.”
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2. During the 20th century we had great famines that swept across
continents. Great multitudes of people are still starving to death across the world.
(1. Pestilences have become an increasing threat in world of rapid movement. There have been the development of new diseases such as AIDS.
1. The HIV virus is decimating Africa with over 40 million people infected.
3. But it is not just the natural development of diseases that we have to worry about. Now we have biological warfare.
(1. We know there is a real threat to us by terrorists through the use of anthrax or smallpox which they have available to them.
(2. And we cannot even imagine what lurks in the
laboratories of some nations across the world. Germ warfare is the cheap alternative to the nuclear bomb.
(3. Of course, there are threats from chemical agents such as the very deadly VX gas.
Matthew 24:9-10, “Then shall they deliver you up to be afflicted, and shall kill you: and ye shall be hatred of all nations for my name’s sake. And then shall many be offended, and shall betray one another, and shall hate one another.”
4. Religious persecution during the 20th century and continuing into the 21st Century has been astronomical in numbers.
(1. We have had the Nazi and Communist persecutions.
(2. Remnants of the Communist persecution remain in
Russia and China.
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5. Now we have the Moslem persecution as well which appears to be accelerating in countries with Moslem populations in the majority.
(1. The violent attacks upon Christians in Pakistan have been very disturbing.
6. But in addition to those well known persecutions we have
simply the anti-Christian pagan persecution which many of us have experienced right here in the good old USA. Jesus says,
“And then shall many be offended, and shall betray one another, and shall hate one another.”
(1. Because of the persecution by anti Christian pagans in this country we are seeing people betrayed and hating one another.
(2. In order to keep their jobs many are being quiet even
though they know they should speak up.
1. Many school leaders and administrators are staying quiet about their faith because they are afraid of those who will be offended by prayer and the teaching of morality.
Matthew 24:11, “And many false prophets shall rise, and shall deceive many.”
7. We are not only seeing the rise of people claiming to be Christ but also of false prophets who are leading people astray.
8. The Raelians are those who claim to have cloned some babies in recent weeks.
(1. The Raelian headquarters includes a campground and museum, and a sign in bold neon-green letters that says "UFOLand."
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(2. It has tear-shaped buildings, designed to evoke the form of alien spacecraft, and a billboard stating, in French and English: “The Messiah is Alive Amongst Us.”
Matthew 24:27, “For as the lightning cometh out of the east, shineth even unto the west; so shall also the coming of the Son of man be.”
Matthew 24:31, “And he shall send his angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they shall gather together his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other.”
Matthew 24:40-44
Matthew 24:35-36, “Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away. But of that day and hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels of heaven, but my Father only.”
9. The precise time of the return of our Lord no one knows but Jesus has given us some indications here in
Matthew 24 of when we can know that time is approaching.
Matthew 24:37, “But as the days of Noe were, so shall also the coming of the Son of man be. For as in the days that were before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noe entered the ark, And knew not until the flood came and took them all away; so shall also the coming of the Son of man be.”
(1. In the days of Noah the Bible in
Genesis 5:5 says this, “And God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.”
10. We can look around at our world today and we need to ask ourselves was the wickedness of man any greater in the days of Noah then it is now?
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(1. Are not the imagination of the thoughts of the hearts of men now filled with evil just as much as then?
III. So what time is it? We are now in the 21st Century and have witnessed a great increase in violence and attack upon that which is good.
1. We have sat and watched tragedy after tragedy. - But there are even greater tragedies occurring with some frequency in our state, in our counties and often in our community.
2. What are those tragedies? Whenever someone dies without Christ is that not a great tragedy?
3. Whenever someone who knows Christ lives their lives as a practical agnostic is that not a tragedy?
4. In the season of God’s timing for this world and even for our individual lives isn’t it time for going, and doing, and telling?
5. Haven’t we done enough of nothing? What have we done in the year 2003 to tell others of the Gospel of Jesus Christ?
6. Isn’t it time to risk the criticism of the anti-Christian pagans and open our mouths and tell those around us about Jesus?
7. Every person in this room that is a true Christian knows enough to lead someone else into a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ. (EXP)
(1. And if you don’t I would say to you that you need to earnestly examine your relationship with the Lord. Do you really know Him.
(2. If you really know Him shouldn’t you be able to tell someone else about what happened when He saved your soul?
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8. Who would the Lord have you to go to and tell about Jesus?
(1. Do you have any relatives that are lost?
(2. Do you have any friends that are lost?
(3. Do you have any neighbors that are lost?
(4. Do you work with someone that is lost?
9. And if we don’t know any one that is lost...Didn’t Jesus say something about leaving the 99 and going out to find that one that was lost?
IV. I would submit to you that in God’s timing we are much nearer to the end of time than we are to the beginning of time.
1. We stand on the threshold of a great unknown stretch of time, almost 2000 years since our Lord’s resurrection.
2. Dr. Ed Young shared with us at the Evangelism Conference about a Christian from Germany who had moved to our country.
(1. At a meeting he had an opportunity to share about what had gone on in his country during those terrible days of WWII. The man from Germany shared that he had never told this story before because he was ashamed. His church in Germany had been next to the railroad tracks and every Sunday morning there would be another shipment of Jews headed out on the train.
The people in the church would hear the train whistle and the rumble of the tracks and the train. The man shared that whenever they heard the train they would sing louder and eventually planned their worship service to try to drown out the sound of the train.
They would play the organ as loud as they could and sing to the top of their voices to try not to hear the train and the sound of those Jews headed to their deaths.
The trains of death are still running. Can you hear the cars passing by your home loaded with people bound for eternity in a devil's hell?
(2. Are we still trying to drown out the sound of those hell-bound by just singing our hymns a little louder - playing our instruments a little louder?
3. Isn’t the time for sitting, and hearing, and getting over?
(1. Isn’t it time for going, and doing, and telling?
4. Speaking of the shuttle astronauts this morning Paula Zahn on CNN spoke with awe about the astronauts and their
"Devotion to the mission" and their "sense of discipline."
5. There is no doubt they had a great mission, a great purpose and
demonstrated great courage. But in many ways each one of us as Christians have a greater mission.
(1. We are called to tell others about how they can have eternal life and escape eternal destruction. If we don't do the job, if we don't fulfill the mission - it will not be done.
6. Isn't it time for you to radically commit your life to God's mission, God's purpose for your life? Isn't time to have a true devotion to your mission and the sense of discipline necessary to complete your mission?
5. Isn’t it time?
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