Well, it is December 27th and Christmas is over. The new year is coming next week. This means that the year 2009 has four days, counting today, five days left, and then we will be in the year 2010, another decade. At that point, in just four or five days, we will be able to say, “Judgment Day is next year.”
We have been thinking about this. Hopefully, we have been pondering this in our hearts. We have known about this day for a little while now. For years, we have known that 2011 would be the end. Now we know that May 21 in 2011 is the appointed day that God speaks of in which He will judge the world. Here we are getting ever closer and we see this now. We can see this. We can mark this on a calendar. It is not that far away.
The Bible tells us that the Christian life is like a race and that we are to run to obtain the prize. It is like we are on a track where we are running a race and have turned that final bend and can see the finish line. It is in view. It is right before us.
This is not off in the wild blue yonder as many people in the churches and congregations would want this to be. They claim, “You cannot know the day or hour,” despite the fact that the Bible has opened up information about the end. God is revealing this to His people, but we are not going to get into that.
The theologians, the teachers, and the pastors of the churches, however, want to keep things so that we will not know when the end will be, so that we will not know when Christ will return. But why? Why keep things that way?
It is because then we could live with an expectation each and every day that today the Lord might come. “Today the Lord might come.” This is what those in the churches would say, as well as, “We have to be ready today.”
Of course, it is a good idea to be ready today, but the only way to be ready is to be saved. It is true that for any one of us, we may not make it through these next few days, let alone this next year of 2010. Some people did die in the year 2009; some we knew. We have friends who passed away this past year. I am sure that when they entered the year of 2009 last year, they had no idea that it would be the end for them.
We do need to keep this in mind. We never would want to take this for granted and assume that each one of us will still be alive when we arrive at May 21, 2011. Some of us may not. It is true that the world will be here and the vast majority of people will still be alive on that day.
But the church really puts off “the evil day,” as the Bible calls it. They sometimes do this with their doctrine by saying something like, “There has to be a millennial reign of Christ. There has to be this thousand-year period.” Would that not be nice? This would be putting it way off into the future for a thousand years. They can thus say, “We have not even seen the beginning of this, so this thousand-year period has not even started.” Or they just say, “The Bible does not give us this information; therefore, you cannot know.”
They try to say that believing each and every day that Christ could come would lead you to live in a way that would impact you greatly. But has living with an expectation that Jesus could come at any moment, at any day, impacted the people in the churches? Or are the people in the churches living just like anybody else in the world lives?
This has had no impact upon them. This has not made them to live a more holy or godly life in any way. It has maybe even caused them to live to the contrary.
You could compare this to hearing about a coming hurricane. If you hear the weatherman speak of a hurricane coming, bearing down on Florida, and he tells you, “Well, we could get a hurricane some time this year,” is anyone living in the coastal cities of Florida going to make preparation? What if he said, “Well, maybe this will happen within the next six months”? Would they make preparation? What if he said that this would happen some time over the summer?
It is only when people hear that a hurricane is coming and that it is hours or days away when they take action and realize, “Well, I have to do something.” It is at that point when they try to board up their home and get out of the area as fast as they can.
You see, when a date, when a very near date is put to something like this, then people tend to take action. But if you just say that this could happen at any old time, people will just go on with their lives. They will not even really let it affect them.
People have been living nearly 2,000 years with the expectation that Jesus would come, so why would He come now? But you see, God in His mercy has given us advance warning, and this warning is much more exact than anything that a weatherman could predict.
If you turn to Hebrews 11:7, it says:
By faith Noah, being warned of God of things not seen as yet, moved with fear, prepared an ark to the saving of his house; by the which he condemned the world, and became heir of the righteousness which is by faith.
The rain had not happened as yet. As far as we know, there were no clouds in the sky. God came to Noah 120 years before this was to take place and told him to build the ark, and then God came to him that very same year that the flood would come and gave him more specific instructions and details and told him that the flood would come in seven days. But it was still as yet not there. God warned Noah “of things not seen as yet,” and Noah believed. God had given him the gift of faith and he acted on that faith. “Faith is the substance of things…not seen.”
It is not what we can see or what we can feel or what we can sense. Faith is the substance of something “not seen,” like May 21 in 2011. We do not see the earthquakes now. We do not see the dead bodies coming up and littering the earth. We do not see God’s people being raptured. But do you think that it is possible that God has worked things out this way in order to see if people will have faith? Has He done things this way to see if we will actually believe His Word?
At this time of the end, He has arranged things to forewarn the whole world. This is what He is going to do. He is going to give everybody this information, but the vast majority of people will mock this. They will ignore this and dismiss this and walk right past it.
This is what God did with the world of Noah’s day and only eight people took warning, whom God saved. He delivered them through the ark that I am sure was such a cause of mocking for Noah and his family; yet at the same time, that ark was a condemnation to the world.
This is just like these vans or cars or bumper stickers that you can see with the May 21 Judgment Day information on them. They are condemning the world. This is also the case with any tract or with any sharing from a believer to others. It is a condemnation of the world and the world does not like it. The world does not want to even think that this earth and the things going on here can one day come to an end.
Well, here we are. Another year is past and this is a time for us to look back. At the same time, this is also a time to look forward because a new year is about to come. So what have we done with the time that has been given to us this past year? What have we really done with the 365 days that God gave to us?
As we consider our lives over this past year, each one of us knows generally how we spent our time. Some of us do not have a very good memory, like myself, and cannot remember all of the details, but we can remember the highlights or lowlights of the past year and what we did with the time that God gave us.
I would like to look at some verses to see how the Bible views time in this world. Let us go to Job 7. This will be the first of several verses that I would like to read. We read in Job 7:1:
Is there not an appointed time to man upon earth? are not his days also like the days of an hireling?
God has given man an appointed time. Time has not been unlimited. It has not been boundless. He has set a bound. He tells us in one place, “He set the bounds of the people according to the number of the children of Israel.” We could relate this to 13,000 years, as there were 13 tribes of Israel or the 13 apostles. So God has appointed a day in which He will judge mankind, which means that there is an “appointed time” to each one of our lives.
Let us go to Job 9:25:
Now my days are swifter than a post: they flee away, they see no good.
We occasionally find a word like “post” in the Bible and we wonder what it means and how it is used. We do not normally speak like this:
Now my days are swifter than a post: they flee away, they see no good.
This word “post” is found a few times in 2 Samuel 18:19-23:
Then said Ahimaaz the son of Zadok, Let me now run, and bear the king tidings…
The word for “post” is also translated as “ran” or “run” or “running.”
…how that JEHOVAH hath avenged him of his enemies. And Joab said unto him, Thou shalt not bear tidings this day, but thou shalt bear tidings another day: but this day thou shalt bear no tidings, because the king’s son is dead. Then said Joab to Cushi, Go tell the king what thou hast seen. And Cushi bowed himself unto Joab, and ran. Then said Ahimaaz the son of Zadok yet again to Joab, But howsoever, let me, I pray thee, also run after Cushi. And Joab said, Wherefore wilt thou run, my son, seeing that thou hast no tidings ready? But howsoever, said he, let me run. And he said unto him, Run. Then Ahimaaz ran by the way of the plain, and overran Cushi.
This word “run” or “ran” is the same word that was translated as “post.” We can see how we get the English word “postman.” It has to do with running with tidings, running with news about the battle.
How would they run? They would pick the fastest men that they could. One man is described in another place as being as fleet as a deer. So they would run as quickly as possible to bring the king word. One of these men was even motivated because he wanted to get there first, and so he overran the other one.
This is the word that God is using to describe our life, our days. Days have to do with time, the time of each one of our lives since we have been born and up until today.
This is why I love that image of the hourglass with the sand that is dropping down. In the picture that we have on the “May 21, 2011 Judgment Day!” tract, there are just a few grains left.
This is accurately what the Bible is telling us. We have very little time left. Like anything else, when something is rare, it becomes precious; it becomes something very valuable.
Young people will normally waste time. I did. I can testify to wasting years of time in front of a television, hanging out with the guys on the corner, or playing sports. Some people may not think that sports are a waste of time because it can have a physical benefit. But really, what did I do with my time with all of these types of things?
Why is it that young people waste so much time? It is because they wrongly think that they have an abundance of it. They think that they have a lot of it. “I am going to be here for awhile. I am only five years old, or I am ten, or I am fifteen, or I am twenty. Look at the life I have in front of me!”
But this has never been guaranteed to anybody. Never once in the history of the world has tomorrow been guaranteed to any single person, and children have also died in man’s generations upon this earth. Children have died through war and through starvation. Do you remember the account of Elisha when 42 children came out and mocked him? Two she bears came out of the woods and killed those 42 children.
God says that He is a God who creates evil. God is not responsible for man’s sin, but He is the God who sends the hurricane upon a city where children can die as well as adults. He is the God who sends a tsunami where 100,000-200,000 people die, including many children. He is the God who destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah and all of the families there, except for some of Lot’s family. He is the God who destroyed the world of Noah’s day, except for eights souls in one family; however, there were many other families who died, including the children. And any one of them could have thought exactly as any child here today, thinking that they had a long life in front of them. “I have my plans. I have my wants. I have my desires for what is going to happen.”
I remember handing the “May 21, 2011 Judgment Day!” tract to one teenage girl. I remember this due to her response because she said, “That is not fair! I want to live my life! I want to have children! I want to have grandchildren!” I thought that she was even going to get into great-grandchildren.
This is a very typical reaction because people have plans. Their focus is on this world and not on anything else, and so they do not think that it is fair that their life may be interrupted and that they may not graduate high school.
My wife was telling me that she talked to a teenager from this group who I think is a very wise young person. He was talking about how he is never going to graduate because he believes that May 21, 2011 is Judgment Day. But she also noted that he is currently in 11th grade. So I thought for a second, “Why would he not graduate? He is in 11th grade. He still has next year.” Then I realized that May of 2011 will interrupt the school year. Those in school will never make it to June 2011. Some people will still be here in June 2011, a great many people, but school will be the last thing on anyone’s mind. Then I thought, “Yes, that is right. If someone is in 11th grade now, they would not finish the 11th grade until June of 2010. In September, they will start their 12th grade. They will begin the 12th grade. When 2011 comes, they will still be in 12th grade but they will never make it to June; they will never graduate.” This is how soon this is. It is so soon that someone who is in the 11th grade today is not going to graduate.
This is really a good thought. This person is young and I appreciate his thoughts. We know that God is no respecter of persons, old or young. This same person had another good thought as far as children not understanding May 21 in 2011. He said, “You are talking about something off in the distance and children tend to think more about the here and now and what is right in front of them. It is hard for them to think of something that is even less than a year and a half away.” I thought, “Yes, that is right. That is an accurate way to think about most children. They just do not understand how soon this is coming and how little time they really have.”
So I had to ask myself, “How can you explain this to a child,” and I do not know. I do not know exactly how to get this across. We could point out that there will never be another Olympics, because they come every four years. I think the next Summer Olympic Games are scheduled for 2012, so there will be no more Olympics after that. If you like sports like baseball, there will just be one more season. The next baseball season after that will never even make it to summer. This means that next year in 2010 will be the last baseball season. That will be it for one last full season of baseball. After that, the next baseball season will be interrupted.
So these are some of the things that younger people might be able to look at. They could also think about their younger siblings. Maybe they have a little sister or brother who might be six months old. We could ask them, “Do you see how quickly he/she is growing? Do you realize that your six-month old little brother/sister will not make it to two years old?” We all know of the terrible-twos, the toddler state. They will not make it to that stage because we only have 16 months and 25 days remaining or 509 days.
We have 509 days left. Shortly it will be 500. Then in ten days, we will have 499 days left. We will be in the year 2010 in a few short days. In a way, another milestone has passed. In 19 days, we will have 490 days left. We could literally say as Jesus said concerning forgiveness, “I say not unto thee, Until seven times: but, Until seventy times seven.” At that point, we will literally have 490 days left to forgive others in this life. There are many ways that we could look at this, but we have to realize that however we look at it, there is very little time.
Let us look at a few more verses. Turn to Job 14. Job 14:1-2 says:
Man that is born of a woman is of few days, and full of trouble. He cometh forth like a flower, and is cut down: he fleeth also as a shadow, and continueth not.
Then Job 14:5 says:
Seeing his days are determined, the number of his months are with thee, thou hast appointed his bounds that he cannot pass;
This bound has been set. God has set it and no one is going to pass it. No one—in their strength, in their belief, in their mind—is going to be able to pass what God has established. He will bring His Word to fulfillment.
God has always told us and warned us to not get too attached to this life and to this world and to the things of this world. Why does He say this? 1 John 2 tells us that it is because “the world passeth away.” This world is passing away.
What has happened is that God has given us information that reveals the end of our lives. This has caused me to think about terminal illness and how people become terminally ill with cancer or AIDS or some other very serious illness. They go to the doctor. At first they do not know what they have, but then the doctor runs some tests and sees through these tests that the person’s cancer has spread so much and to such a degree that they are not going to live long. Maybe he checks with a fellow doctor. I was reading about this and they usually tell a person to seek a second opinion.
By the way, we have done this in checking with the “multitude of counsellors” that the Bible speaks of, which are all of the books of the Bible. They are our counselors, not other people, and the Bible’s counsel, from the Great Physician Himself, is that we are terminally ill. This world is terminally ill and it is going to be destroyed as well as all of the unsaved along with it, and yet God is such a Great Physician that He can tell us precisely the very day. However, when someone has a terminal illness, the doctor does not normally tell that person the very day that they will die.
I was reading this one woman’s account of her husband who had cancer and who had died years ago. She remembered when he went to the doctor and the doctor said, “You have three to nine months to live.” His estimation was a little hazy, “You are going to die. In all likelihood, it will be within this next year, but all I can tell you is that it will be between the space of three to nine months.” But God has given us very precise information. We know the very day when this is going to happen. We know that it is going to be on May 21 in 2011.
It was interesting to read some of the reactions of these people who heard that they had a terminal illness. Some denied it. Not many, but some deny this. They do not want to face the facts. Of course, they do not like this kind of diagnosis. They would want any other kind of diagnosis, but this was the information that the doctor had given them and it was interesting to read how the medical profession feels a responsibility to inform patients that they have only so long to live.
Let me quote something that I copied down from this one website that dealt with terminal illness. It said, “As much as the diagnosis of a terminal illness marks the end, it also serves as a beginning—an opportunity to ask what the time remaining in your life means to you. How important is the present, how important is now? What are you able to do and say in the time and with the energy that remains in your lifetime?”
I thought that this was pretty appropriate when someone is referring to a person who they know is going do die, not the exact day but barring some miracle. God can on occasion give someone an extended life who was going to die. Hezekiah is an example of this. But normally, most of the time, these people do die in the length of time that they are given.
So God has given us advance information, advance warning. We can mourn over this, and some people do. We can mourn perhaps over not being able to grow up and get married or over not being able to get a degree and to involve ourself in some profession. Maybe we mourn over the things in this life that are good, the nice things that God has blessed us with. But I like where this quote read, “…it also serves as a beginning—an opportunity to ask what the time remaining in your life means to you.”
We can ask what we can do with this time. We still have a stretch of time. It is not over right at this moment. It is not the end right at this moment. We have time, and there is much more hope for anyone today than there is physically for a terminally ill person because there is the possibility that God might save anyone. We do not know who God’s elect are. He could potentially save anyone, and that would be a true miracle of God as He would deliver them and give them His salvation, which is an eternal life, and there would be no terminal illness involved in the future because they would receive life forevermore.
Let us go to Ephesians 5 and read a few verses there. We read in Ephesians 5:14:
Wherefore he saith, Awake thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee light.
We are spiritually dead. All people are, and yet God is saying, “Awake! Awake!” Just like Jesus said to Lazarus, “Lazarus, come forth.” Lazarus had been dead and in a tomb and he could not hear anything. He could not see anything. He had no life. But in commanding him to come forth, Jesus gave him ears to hear and he awoke and came forth.
So God is indicating by this that He has to do the work of salvation in someone’s life. Then the following things will happen, as we read in Ephesians 5:15:
See then that ye walk circumspectly, not as fools, but as wise,
“Circumspectly” is translated in four other places. Twice it is translated as “diligently” and another two times as “perfect/perfectly.” For example, we find it in Luke 1 where the Gospel of Luke is being addressed to Theophilus. We read in Luke 1:3:
It seemed good to me also, having had perfect understanding of all things from the very first…
This is the same word as “circumspectly” and it is referring to a “perfect understanding.”
It is also used in Matthew 2:8. This is referring to Herod and it says:
And he sent them to Bethlehem, and said, Go and search diligently for the young child…
This is the same word “circumspectly” that is also translated as “perfect” in Luke 1. God is telling us to walk circumspectly or perfectly or diligently.
Whenever the Bible speaks of walking, it has to do with the commandments of God. We read that we are to “walk in the light” or that we are to “walk in the Spirit” or that we are to “walk in truth.” It even says that we are to “walk after his commandments.”
However, this is something that man cannot naturally do because mankind is spiritually lame. We are deaf, we are dumb, we are lame in our feet and our ankle bones have no strength. If we desire and attempt to keep the Law of God, we fall into sin because we are not saved.
It is like someone who cannot walk who takes a couple of steps towards repentance, trying to turn through their own strength and power, and collapses. We even use this expression, “I fell into sin,” which is a pretty good expression because we need a miracle. We need God to strengthen our ankle bones. We need to be like the man who sat by the Beautiful gate of the temple who was told by Peter, “Silver and gold have I none; but such as I have give I thee: In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth rise up and walk.” Then this man got up and walked and leapt and was rejoicing as he entered into the temple through the Beautiful gate.
This is why the Apostle John said, “I rejoiced greatly that I found of thy children walking in truth.” This is because we are to walk in the Word of God and keep His commandments. We are to “walk in love,” which is the very same thing.
So God is telling us in Ephesians 5:15:
See then that ye walk circumspectly…
Very diligently and very carefully, according to the Word of God, we are to walk in the way that God has outlined in the Bible:
…not as fools, but as wise,
We know that the Lord divides the human race into two categories: the fool and the wise. When someone becomes saved, they become wise regardless of their age. The Spirit of Christ enters into them. Since He is Wisdom, they then possess wisdom. It does not matter if someone is a super genius and a law professor at Harvard. Whatever they are, if they do not have the Spirit of Christ, they are a fool in God’s eyes. This is because having God’s Spirit is the only definition of true wisdom. Someone can have the wisdom of the world and the world in their wisdom comes up with foolish ideas like evolution, but true wisdom must come from God and through His Spirit.
Then we read in Ephesians 5:16 what we are interested in:
Redeeming the time, because the days are evil.
This word “redeeming” is also used in Galatians twice. We read in Galatians 3:13:
Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us…
Then in Galatians 4:4-5, we read:
But when the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law, To redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons.
It is pretty clear that Jesus, the Lord God, does the redeeming of His elect people. He purchases them. He buys them by being made a curse for them. He took upon Himself their sins and paid the penalty for them from before the foundation of the world, which is our normal understanding of redeemed.
So we can see how God redeemed His people, but how do we redeem time? And why do we need to redeem the time? What is the point of this? Why does God say in Ephesians 5:16:
Redeeming the time, because the days are evil.
Look at Colossians 4:5:
Walk in wisdom toward them that are without, redeeming the time.
From what we understand of what Jesus did, He redeemed His elect. He bought them and brought them from their evil into a good relationship with God so that they could now do good as God’s Spirit moves in them to will and do of His good pleasure.
But what about time? Is time evil? In and of itself, time is not evil. But how about what we do with time? Can what we have done with our time be considered evil? Yes, it can. Of course, it is possible after salvation for someone to begin doing good because God is working out those kinds of things in them; but still, even for an elect person, the days are evil. For example, what did Jacob say when he was before Pharaoh?
Look at Genesis 47:9. Jacob was an elect person himself and he typifies the elect in some places in the Bible, and it says:
And Jacob said unto Pharaoh, The days of the years of my pilgrimage are an hundred and thirty years: few and evil have the days of the years of my life been…
“Few and evil,” which is like what Job said in Job 14:1:
Man that is born of a woman is of few days, and full of trouble.
So Jacob who was an elect person, since he was still in his body, had to admit that his days were evil, too. This is because he still sinned, and we cannot deny that we still sin according to 1 John, and all sin is evil.
So time is a problem because people who are wicked and in their sin and in their distance from God do evil within the boundaries of time. This is why it is no excuse for anyone to say that God is not fair because He is not going to let them live longer. Why do they want to live longer in this life on this earth?
If you are an elect person, there is absolutely no reason as to why you would want to live longer because God is going to take you to Heaven and give you a new Heaven and a new earth as well as everlasting life. So why would anyone prefer this world with all of its ills and all of its terrible wickedness in compared to that world? There is no comparison.
Even if you are not a saved person, is God really unfair to say to you that time is up? “But I have not had children! I have not gone to school! I have not accomplished my own desires, my own wants, my own lusts, my own wickedness.” Ultimately, this is really what a person is saying. This is because men do evil apart from God.
You may be very moral. You may think that you are doing well and you may think well of yourself. However, you have no interest in serving God. You have no interest in obeying His Word. You have no interest in doing things His way. You want to live your way, but that is evil according to the Bible. But God is not going to continue the world for anyone’s evil desires to be fulfilled. He is not going to continue this life so that man can continue to shake his puny little fist at God. This is not going to happen.
So God tells us in Ephesians 5:16 that we are to be:
Redeeming the time, because the days are evil.
Another way of saying this is what we read in Isaiah 1:16-17:
Wash you, make you clean; put away the evil of your doings from before mine eyes; cease to do evil…
If you do this, you will be redeeming the time. It continues:
…cease to do evil; Learn to do well; seek judgment, relieve the oppressed, judge the fatherless, plead for the widow.
All of these statements have to do with sharing the Gospel, bringing the Gospel to lost souls in order that they might become saved.
We have 509 days left, which is 72 weeks and 5 days—a handful of days. How are you and I going to live for these days? What are we going to do with the time? If we continue going along and wasting time, as many of us have been, then I think that we will fall short.
Of course, it is only by God’s grace and by His perfect will and His working in us that we can begin to use the time that is left as a new beginning, like the quote from the website that had information on the terminally ill, “…it also serves as a beginning” where now becomes very important and the present time becomes very important to ourself and to our family to bring the Gospel to the people of the world.
Let us stop and have a word of prayer. Dear Father, we do thank You for the blessing that You have given us concerning things to come, that You have made this information available and that You are making this known. Father, we pray that You would help us today to do things Your way and not put it off and to not continue to be a sluggard or slothful or to continue wasting and being a great waster of the talents that You have given to us. May we not be like the man who said, “Here is Your one talent.” Instead, may we have fruit. Father, we know that there can only be fruit in our life if we are attached to the vine, if we are in You, and so we do ask that You would be the vine and we the branches and that the fruit would come from You. You are the energy and the source of all blessing. Father, we pray that You would have mercy on our children and that You would have mercy on each of us. We do ask that Your perfect will be done. We pray these things in Christ’s Name. Amen.