It's Not Time

It's Not Time

John 7:1-8, 30

http://gbcdecatur.org/sermons/NotTime.html

We look at time from a mathematical perspective. We divide time into measurements of seconds, minutes, hours, and days. But there's another way of looking at time.

Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius, "Time is like a river made up of the events which happen in a violent stream. For as soon as a thing has been seen, it is carried away, and another comes in its place. And this too will be carried away."

This is looking at time from a philosophical perspective. From that view, time is impossible to keep up with and is always slipping away. You can't stop it, speed it up, or slow it down.

We've all had moments when we wanted to rush time. For some, this is one of those moments! When bored, time seems to stand still. When have fun, time flies. Kids often want to speed up time and be older. This is why they give their age 'and a half!'. They begin saying that like a week after their twelfth birthday..."I'm 12 1/2...basically a teenager!"

As we get older, we try to slow time down. Because age brings decay. When we were little, age meant growth. Now, age means 'growths'. Now we grow in all the wrong places! [hair in ears, knuckles]. I would tell a bald joke so funny it would make your hair fall out but I see so many of you have already heard it!

ill.--a lady up in years looked in a full length mirror with disappointment. Her husband lay in bed as she cried out, "Look at me! My face is wrinkled, my arms are flabby, my hips are wide. Look at me!" Her husband lay there silent. "Say something, you big lug, cheer me up, give me something positive." He replied, "Well, there's nothing wrong with your eyesight!"

ill.--a doctor saw one of his patients jogging down the road with a beautiful woman at his side. He couldn't believe what he was seeing. He flagged him down. "What is going on?", he asked. "What doc, I'm just doing what you told me." "Huh?" "Yeah, you said to get a hot mama and be cheerful." The doc said, "No, I said you've got a heart murmur, be careful!"

We can't slow time, speed it up, or, one more thing: We are unable to turn back time. Once today is gone, it's gone forever. Time is like a ratchet, it only turns forward.

Time is mathematical in a sense, philosophical in another sense, but there's yet one more perspective from which we can understand time, most importantly, an eternal perspective.

"Time is just the fringe of eternity." Time is very short in the framework of eternity. God is timeless and made us in His timeless image, and just so happens to have inserted us into a brief period of time, but soon will move us on to eternity somewhere, with time no more. Then and only then will we truly be able to say, "I don't have time!"

Most people live for time, when we should live for eternity. Right now we answer to time, but we ought to make time answer to us, and live for what is important, not always scurrying around as slaves to what's 'urgent.'

1. Festival Time.

v. 2 This feast was one of 3 festivals held each fall in Jerusalem.

Feast of trumpets - Rosh Hashanah - in September.

Day of Atonement - Yom Kippur - in September.

Feast of Tabernacles - if you were Jewish and lived within 20 miles of Jerusalem you were expected and required to attend this festival. For Jesus, this was a time of 'danger.' This reminds me of...

a. Divine Protection

v. 1c They sought to kill him. Open hostility begins. The religious leaders begin to plot and plan His death.

v. 19, 25

Jesus is in control of time.

v. 30 His time wasn't up. And you and I can enjoy this same divine protection.

Isaiah 54:17

No weapon that is formed against thee shall prosper;

Romans 8:31

If God be for us, who can be against us?

Psalm 34:7

The angel of the LORD encampeth round about them that fear him, and delivereth them.

b. Divine Provision

This was a joyous feast...lasted for 8 days. It was a remembrance of God's provision for Israel in the wilderness.

They surrounded the temple with candlesticks, as a picture of the pillar of fire guiding them by night.

They would go to the pool of Siloam and fill large vessels of water, and pour it out in the temple courtyard as a picture of God bringing water out of a rock.

They would sleep in homemade tents and lean-to's made of tree branches, reminding them of the same.

And we enjoy God's provision as well. It's not all up to us. He is the One Who takes care of us!