Dakota Community Church
September 11, 2011
Eternity
Jeremiah 9:23-24
This is what the LORD says: “Let not the wise man boast of his wisdom or the strong man boast of his strength or the rich man boast of his riches, but let him who boasts boast about this: that he understands and knows me, that I am the LORD, who exercises kindness, justice and righteousness on earth, for in these I delight,” declares the LORD.
This morning we are wrapping up our series: “God’s Incommunicable Attributes” with a look at the eternality of God.
In Psalm 90 Moses writes what may be the clearest understanding of the difference between our earthly temporal existence and God’s eternality.
Psalm 90:1-6
Lord, you have been our dwelling place throughout all generations. Before the mountains were born or you brought forth the earth and the world, from everlasting to everlasting you are God.
You turn men back to dust, saying, “Return to dust, O sons of men.” For a thousand years in your sight are like a day that has just gone by, or like a watch in the night. You sweep men away in the sleep of death; they are like the new grass of the morning— though in the morning it springs up new, by evening it is dry and withered.
Norman Geisler addresses a question skeptics often ask about God’s eternality...
IF GOD IS ETERNAL, WHEN DID HE CREATE THE WORLD?
This asks a confused question. Being in time, we can imagine a moment before the beginning of time, yet there really was no such moment. God did not create the world in time; He is responsible for the creation of time. There was no time “before” time. There was only eternity. The word “when” assumes that there was a time before time. This is like asking, “Where was the man when he jumped off the bridge?” On the bridge? That was before he jumped. In the air? That was after. In this question, “when” assumes a definite point for a process action. Jumping is the process of going from the bridge to the air. In the question about Creation, it tries to put God into time rather than starting it. We can speak of a creation of time, but not in time.
(Geisler, N. L., & Brooks, R. M. When Skeptics Ask Wheaton, Ill.: Victor Books)
Everything God is He is to the perfect and ultimate degree.
1. God is without beginning or end
God is the cause of all things yet He Himself is uncaused; the eternal “I AM”.
Exodus 3:14
God said to Moses, “I AM WHO I AM. This is what you are to say to the Israelites: ‘I AM has sent me to you.’”
We teach our children very early in life about the realities of cause and effect.
The watch testifies to the existence of the watchmaker, the painting of the painter, and the poem of the poet.
Even the watchmaker, the painter, and the poet are the result of the creative initiatives of someone else, the union of parents.
During the formative years some children are particularly inquisitive. They will drive you further and further backward with the endless “Why?” Or in this case; “And Who made that/him?”
After you have exhausted your personal incite regarding history and ancestry you will begin to answer universally, “God made it”.
“Who made our apple tree?” – God made it
“Who made dinosaurs?” – God made them
“Who made my little sister?” – God made her
The final question becomes, “And Who made God?”
The answer is hard to grasp, we have no reference point for something that is “UNMADE”.
Yet that is the truth concerning God; He is responsible for and the source of every created thing yet is uncreated.
This is hard for children to grasp but no easier for adults not only conceptually but also because of the implications.
If there stands above all creation a creator who rightly claims it all as His own; then we have an accountability issue.
Human pride drives us to go to any length of foolishness to avoid surrendering our pride and admitting we are not in control, not the top of the food chain, and not where the buck stops.
Good News from the one who alone is without cause:
Colossians 1:13-23
For he has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves, 14 in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.
15 He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. 16 For by him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things were created by him and for him. 17 He is before all things, and in him all things hold together. 18 And he is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead, so that in everything he might have the supremacy. 19 For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, 20 and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross.
21 Once you were alienated from God and were enemies in your minds because of your evil behavior. 22 But now he has reconciled you by Christ’s physical body through death to present you holy in his sight, without blemish and free from accusation— 23 if you continue in your faith, established and firm, not moved from the hope held out in the gospel. This is the gospel that you heard and that has been proclaimed to every creature under heaven, and of which I, Paul, have become a servant.
Those who do not wish to accept this free gift should consider that this God who is without beginning – is also without end!
Psalm 102:25-27
In the beginning you laid the foundations of the earth, and the heavens are the work of your hands. They will perish, but you remain; they will all wear out like a garment.
Like clothing you will change them and they will be discarded. But you remain the same, and your years will never end.
Hebrews 2:1-3
We must pay more careful attention, therefore, to what we have heard, so that we do not drift away. 2 For if the message spoken by angels was binding, and every violation and disobedience received its just punishment, 3 how shall we escape if we ignore such a great salvation? This salvation, which was first announced by the Lord, was confirmed to us by those who heard him.
How shall we escape indeed? Where does one hide after refusing to bow before the one who died to redeem him?
Our God is eternal; he is the creator of time but is not contained within it. He is without beginning or ending!
2. He is free from the constraints of time
There is no succession of events for God. He never taken off guard or surprised.
Time is sequential it moves in one direction, though we do not know why, past, present, and future; yesterday, today, and tomorrow.
We are bound to the fleeting succession of present moments.
The past is but a memory with lingering effects, and the future a mystery unknown, at times enticing us and at times terrorizing us.
We measure the passage of time by the rotation of the stars.
We use clocks to divide the segments of the day or hour.
On some occasions, like in the Olympic Games or Kentucky Derby, we break the succession of moments down into hundredths of a second.
We cannot escape the limitations of time, our bondage to it is complete, once events unfold we are powerless to go back and undo them no matter how desperate is our desire to do so.
Eternity is more than the endless extension of time past and future.
We speak of eternity past and eternity future, but in actuality eternity supersedes time.
It is a mode of existence that is not bound by this succession.
There are no such things as past, present, and future with God.
God dwells in eternity but time dwells in God.
He has already lived all our tomorrows as He has lived all our yesterdays.
An illustration offered by C. S. Lewis may help us here. He suggests that we think of a sheet of paper infinitely extended. That would be eternity. Then on that paper draw a short line to represent time. As the line begins and ends on that infinite expanse, so time began in God and will end in Him.
He created time and He can work within its framework, but He Himself is over and above it.
He lives in one eternal now.
Our tomorrow is just as real and present to Him as our yesterday and today because He has already experienced them.
Isaiah 46:1-13
Bel bows down, Nebo stoops low; their idols are borne by beasts of burden. The images that are carried about are burdensome, a burden for the weary. They stoop and bow down together; unable to rescue the burden, they themselves go off into captivity.
“Listen to me, O house of Jacob, all you who remain of the house of Israel, you whom I have upheld since you were conceived, and have carried since your birth. Even to your old age and gray hairs I am he, I am he who will sustain you. I have made you and I will carry you; I will sustain you and I will rescue you.
“To whom will you compare me or count me equal?
To whom will you liken me that we may be compared?
Some pour out gold from their bags and weigh out silver on the scales; they hire a goldsmith to make it into a god, and they bow down and worship it. They lift it to their shoulders and carry it; they set it up in its place, and there it stands. From that spot it cannot move. Though one cries out to it, it does not answer; it cannot save him from his troubles.
“Remember this, fix it in mind, take it to heart, you rebels. Remember the former things, those of long ago; I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is none like me. I make known the end from the beginning, from ancient times, what is still to come. I say: My purpose will stand, and I will do all that I please.
From the east I summon a bird of prey; from a far-off land, a man to fulfill my purpose.
What I have said, that will I bring about; what I have planned, that will I do. Listen to me, you stubborn-hearted, you who are far from righteousness. I am bringing my righteousness near, it is not far away; and my salvation will not be delayed. I will grant salvation to Zion, my splendor to Israel.
We do not serve a God we must carry, a God who weighs us down and is burdensome to us; we serve the living God who carries us!
We do not serve a God caught unaware by sudden events; we serve the God who declares the end from the beginning and does all that He pleases!
3. We rest in eternal arms
Hebrews 9:11-12
When Christ came as high priest of the good things that are already here, he went through the greater and more perfect tabernacle that is not man-made, that is to say, not a part of this creation. He did not enter by means of the blood of goats and calves; but he entered the Most Holy Place once for all by his own blood, having obtained eternal redemption.
Deuteronomy 33:27
The eternal God is your refuge, and underneath are the everlasting arms.
We do not know what the day holds; but thank God we know the One who holds the day!
PowerPoint available (Free of charge) on request dcormie@mts.net
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