COULD WE TURN BACK TIME…
2 Kgs. 20:8-11
INTRODUCTION
A. HUMOR: BLIND MAN SPINS DOG
1. There was a blind man at Wal-Mart the other day. He had a seeing-eye dog with him.
2. He seemed to be doing alright until he grabbed his seeing-eye dog by the hind legs and swung him around his head in a circle.
3. The sales lady ran over and asked, “Can I help you?” To which the blind man replied, “No thanks, I’m just looking around.”
B. TEXT
8 Hezekiah had asked Isaiah, “What will be the sign that the Lord will heal me and that I will go up to the temple of the Lord on the third day from now?” 9 Isaiah answered, “This is the Lord’s sign to you that the Lord will do what he has promised: Shall the shadow go forward ten steps, or shall it go back ten steps?” 10 “It is a simple matter for the shadow to go forward ten steps,” said Hezekiah. “Rather, have it go back ten steps.” 11 Then the prophet Isaiah called on the Lord, and the Lord made the shadow go back the ten steps it had gone down on the stairway of Ahaz.
C. THESIS
1. There has been discussion as to whether God turned back time when He made the sun go backwards. I don’t think it can be proved one way or the other, but it’s an intriguing thought!
2. If we could really turn back the hands of time, would we? Why would we? Would it be ethical? Would it be wise to do so?
3. We’re going to look at the development of this concept, reasons people would like to go back in time, would it be good to change the past, and what the Bible says about our future.
4. Title: “Could We Turn Back Time…”
I. COMMON THEME IN MOVIES
Many science fiction stories not only have people jumping across vast areas of the galaxy through wormholes, but also going through or close to a sun and going forward or backward in time.
A. H.G. WELLS, THE TIME MACHINE
The grand-daddy of all time travel is probably H.G. Wells who wrote his classic The Time Machine in 1895! It’s an enthralling story of a scientist who goes backward and forward in time, trying to save his fiancé who is killed in a car accident.
B. STAR TREK SERIES
1. Captain Kirk, Bones, and Spock regularly go back in time either accidentally or on purpose. In “Star Trek: First Contact,” the Enterprise crew meet the man who invented warp drive, Zefram Cochrane.
2. In “Assignment: Earth” the Enterprise travels back in time to 1968, where the crew encounters the mysterious Gary Seven who claims to be sent by advanced beings trying to help Earth.
3. In “Tomorrow is Yesterday” the Enterprise is hurled back in time to the year 1969, where the US Air Force sights it as a UFO. The crew must find a way to erase evidence of their visit before trying to get back to their future home.
4. Throughout the different “Star Trek” series, there are some 40X when people travel into the past.
C. THE TERMINATOR SERIES
1. In the “Terminator” series featuring Arnold Schwarzenegger, is entirely built on the motif of future robot assassins coming back into the past to kill a man, John Connor, who led the resistance to overthrow the rule of machines over the world.
2. There are 3 movies each having different robots targeting Connor or his family.
3. Many other science fiction films contain this same literary/ cinematic motif. So we’ll quit with these examples.
II. REASONS FOR WANTING TO GO BACK
A. WHY TRAVEL BACK IN TIME?
An online question asked “If you could travel back in time just once, what would you do?” Responses included
1. “Stop 9/11,”
2. “save Kennedy,” or stop some person’s death.
3. To hug a person we’ve lost.
4. Some would alter the outcome of some wars which turned out badly. DO YOU HAVE A REASON YOU WISH YOU COULD TURN BACK THE CLOCK?
5. I’ve heard many older people say that if they could, they’d like to go back and live their life over again.
B. IS BACKWARD TIME TRAVEL POSSIBLE?
1. In a Live ScienceTech article entitled, “You Can't Travel Back in Time, Scientists Say” by Sara Goudarzi on March 7, 2007.
2. Why do most physicists rule out backward time travel? Because time is a dimension much like length, width, and height. When you travel from your house to the grocery store, you’re traveling through a direction in space, making headway in all the spatial dimensions—length, width and height. But you’re also traveling forward in time, the fourth dimension.
3. “Space and time are tangled together in a sort of a four-dimensional fabric called space-time,” said Charles Liu. “In this four-dimensional space-time, you’re only able to move forward in time,” Liu told LiveScience.
4. Because, presumably, you’d have to disengage the time from the space and movements, and that can’t be done backwards. It could be done forwards, because time is not yet twisted together with the other dimensions.
III. WOULD IT BE GOOD TO CHANGE THE PAST?
A. CHANGE THE CHRISTMAS STORY?
1. If you COULD turn back the hands of time, would you? Would it be right to do so? Would it end in disaster?
2. I think of my sermon, “If I were planning Christmas” where I discussed how I would have changed the Christmas story so it wasn’t so horrible for Joseph and Mary.
3. I would’ve had them arrive early, so Mary wouldn’t have had to be so pregnant for the 70 mile trip. This would also help Mary avoid being so embarrassed about her unwed pregnancy scandal for the 9 months.
4. I would want them to have settled in Bethlehem early and Joseph have a job. They would have the best midwife in the region attending. No barn with sheep, goats & cattle; instead, a sanitary, heated baby room.
5. Have the Wise Men arrive early with gifts in CASH form, bypassing going to Herod so that he wouldn’t be a threat.
6. Have the Wise Men be Wise Women, who could help deliver the baby, cook a casserole for the family, and bring practical gifts they could really use!
7 Why would we change it? Because we want everything to be pleasant; we want to protect ourselves from pain, hardship, risk, and vulnerability.
8. But at the end I said I wouldn’t change anything. What would Christmas be without the manger, the humility, the danger, God coming down to the most humble circumstances?
9. God faced the gamut of human difficulties like we face! God shares in our sorrows. Few would feel welcome in a king’s palace, but everyone – even from the poorest countries – can all feel welcome in a barn!
B. CHANGE OR TRIALS/ DIFFICULTIES?
1. Would we really want to change all the hard/difficult trials/ disasters we went through? Wasn’t it those events that shaped you and I into the people we are today?
2. Haven’t we benefitted from our difficulties, which humbled us, made dependent on God, helped us trust with blind faith, and taught us sorrow as well as joy?
3. “A broken and contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise.” That’s what we needed. God’s not looking at the outward appearance, but at the heart.
4. Despite all the horrible moments I’ve endured in my life, I wouldn’t change a one. (Not to say that I would want to have to relive them! Once was enough!)
5. So though we might want to change our past, it’s probably our wisdom to let God be God and leave things just as God let them fall out. God, of course, is the wisest Being in the Universe!
IV. A GLORIOUS FUTURE AWAITS US
A. LOOKING BACK = CHILDISH
1. I mean, if this life in weak flesh is similar to the development of a fetus in the womb and that all creation groans and longs for the Sons of God to be born, what will the next, higher form of life be like?
2. When we have eternal incorruptible bodies – will we really want to go back to a world of sickness & disease & death & evil & selfishness? No! It would be like wanting to go back to the time of the black plague.
3. Would a beautiful butterfly really want to go back into the cocoon and be a grub worm again? Would we leave the celestial regions to inhabit the lower, earthly regions again?
B. LOOKING FORWARD
1. I, for one, am glad most physicists believe backward time travel is impossible. We need to quit looking backwards. Too many people are trying to drive their car backwards looking in the rearview mirror.
2. That’s why the Bible has 27% content that is prophetic in nature. Over ¼ of the Bible is telling about what is ahead.
3. The Rapture of the Church. The Believer’s Bema Judgment. The Marriage Supper of the Lamb. The 1,000 year Reign of Christ. The final overthrow of Satan. The New Heavens & a New Earth. Eternity in a resurrected body that will never age or get sick. No more tears, or sorrows, or death, or taxes!
4. Surrounded forever with those we love. And most of all, seeing the face of our Savior & King, and serving Him forever! Praise God for His awesome promises!
CONCLUSION
A. ILLUSTRATION: PRIORITIES: eternal Vs. earthly
1. Alexander the Great, being impressed with the answers of the philosopher Diogenes, told him to ask what he would, and he should have it.
2. The philosopher requested that Alexander bestow on him a small portion of immortality. “That is not in my gift,” says Alexander.
3. “No?” responded Diogenes, “then why does Alexander take such pains to conquer the world, when he cannot assure himself of one moment to enjoy it?”
4. An anonymous writer tells about an American tourist’s visit to the nineteenth-century Polish rabbi Hofetz Chaim:
Astonished to see that the rabbi’s home was only a simple room filled with books, and a table and a bench, the tourist asked, “Rabbi, where is your furniture?”
5. “Where is yours?” replied the rabbi. “Mine?” Asked the puzzled American, “but I am a visitor here, I am only passing through.” “So am I,” said Hofetz Chaim. Life is short!
B. THE CALL
1. Let’s ask God to help us accept our lot in life, if it’s unchangeable. Let’s accept our humble role along side the Son of God, who humbled Himself to be made human.
2. Let’s accept that the steps of a good person are ordered of the Lord, that God is in charge, that He knows the way I take, and that He’s ordering all things for my good.
3. If He allows me to go through privations or difficulties, it’s because He knows they will perfect my character, make me more dependent on Him, and give me more opportunities to be Christlike.
4. His grace will be sufficient for me and His power will be made complete in my weakness. Praise God that His judgments are like the great deep, His righteousness reaches to the skies, and His love like the stars in the firmament!
5. Let’s pray!
