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Tag: time

  • Now is the Time Christmas Advent 3

    Now is the Time Christmas Advent 3

    Does anybody really know what time it is?

    Chorus overlap: “I don’t care…”

    Does anybody really care?

    from ‘Chicago Transit Authority’ (1969)

    Time in Perpetuity

    I asked you in the first ADVENT post of this calendar year: ‘Have you considered that in the time of Noah and Before Christ GOD cleansed the earth of all but eight?’

    Then we looked at the concept of ADVENT as a time of preparation for celebrating the coming of GOD as a man, even as a child born before the witnesses of the A.D. first century.

    Advent 2 of Christmas Evangelicalism

    Before Christ, Prophesy

    We considered prophesy as a type of advent with certain prediction of that which was to come.

    When at certain times God speaks to men such as Noah, Abraham, Moses, Elijah and others, the LORD warns of times ahead, as well as the consequences of rejection of His Law, commandments and His grace.

    A visible advent of our disobedience to God is documented in Scripture and warns of God’s wrath against sin in more times ahead.

    What must we do?

    Take for instance the LORD’s negotiation with Abraham about Sodom. AND considering the destroyed city ponder this 21st century dilemma:

    • HOW are we so different than those who perished in Sodom for their sin?
    • Should the Lord spare US for only breaking our marriage covenants with impugnity?
    • Are we less sinless than those who created gods of stone from hearts of stone, proclaiming our own self as the god we worship?
    christianity lite - the marketing of jesus by the church in the Common Era

    Does this Common Era world not appropriate signs of the LORD’s covenant with mankind for sins offensive to God and creation?

    And YES, do some so-called churches culturally encourage an all-inclusive sin of Sodom?

    Have some churches missed an advent of the judgement to come by fire?

    • Are our sins of selfishness any less offensive to the LORD than those of ALL HE destroyed from the earth by the flood?

    A righteous man such as Noah or Job would appeal to the LORD for mercy.

    Do YOU and do I?

    ‘Remember now, that You have made me as clay; And would You turn me into dust again?

    Job 10:9 LSB

    The righteous example of Job

    Even Before Christ, Job foresaw the advent of the savior of mankind, the Very Person of God Who IS before all and after all time.

    “As for me, I know that my Redeemer lives,
    And at the last He will rise up over the dust     H6083 of this world.

    Job 19:25

    A Savior in a manger,

    Jesus a child –

    a son of man: son of Mary and Son of God – a redeemer for the sins of mankind.

    manger of a timeless Christ "I will be with you always even to the end of the earth

    Perpetuity after Time

    perpetuity, n.
    The quality or state of being perpetual; an instance of this, an endless or indefinite duration or existence; permanence, endlessness.

    Oxford English Dictionary

    A line, even a timeline representing lifetimes of days and centuries of history extends beyond our sight before its beginning and from its END into measureless eternity.

    “Even after my skin is destroyed, Yet from my flesh I shall behold God, Whom I myself shall behold..

    “If you say,

    ‘How shall we persecute him?’ ‘And the root of the matter is found in him?’ “Then be afraid of the sword for yourselves,

    For wrath brings the punishment of the sword,

    So that you may know there is judgment.”

    Job 19 excerpt

    Calculating Calendars within the bounds of the observable

    The heavens declare the glory of God,
    and the sky above proclaims his handiwork.
    תְהִלִּים (Psalm) 19:1b ESV

    But HOW does mortal man MEASURE the expanse of the Eternal?

    by Calendars (and with timepieces we call ‘clocks’)

    a brief look at ancient & current calendars

    All calendars began with people recording time by using natural cycles: days, lunar cycles (months), and solar cycles (years).

    Source linked above.

    Let’s try to take this chronologically from the beginning:

    Have you ever considered that Adam had no need for a calendar or timeclock?

    Calendars Before Christ

    • Noah – 360 day calendar
    • Moses * 365 day Egyptian calendar
    • The astronomical day had begun at noon ever since Ptolemy chose to begin the days in his astronomical periods at noon.
    • The Julian calendar began in 45 BC (709 AUC) as a reform of the 10 month Roman calendar by Julius Caesar.
      • Source: linked above

    Hebrew Calendar

    The history of the Jewish calendar may be divided into three periods—the Biblical, the Talmudic, and the post-Talmudic. Jewish Encyclopedia.com

    https://www.bible.ca/archeology/bible-archeology-maps-timeline-chronology-kings-prophets-assyrians-babylonians-egyptians-synchronisms-tisri-nisan-inclusive-accession-divided-kingdom-dates-931-587bc-new-year-calendar-julian.jpg

    Take a look at the link above for a more complete understanding of changes in the Jewish Calendar during the centuries Before the Messiah of Israel.

    Bible TimeLine

    Timelines, like calendars and cultural customs must have a point of reference. The intersection of measured history and timeless truth becomes central to conflicting narratives of a fallen created peoples of the world.

    At the ever-present center of time history records the birth of Jesus Christ.

    Calendars of the Common Era

    Lines in the shifting sands of time:

    B.C. OR BCE?
    A.D. OR CE?
    Let's start from the present and find our center of history and timelines by looking back.

    Anno Domini

    noun a Latin phrase meaning

    “in the year of the Lord”, the full form of the abbreviation AD, which is used when referring to a year after Jesus Christ was born

    Cambridge Dictionary

    • B.C. is short for “Before Christ”
    • BCE and CE.
    • CE stands for “Common Era” BCE is “Before Common Era”
    • CE and BCE dates are identical with A.D. and B.C. dates
    • (for example, 2000 CE is the same as 2000 A.D.). This is a thinly veiled attempt by atheists and religious people other than Christians to remove Christian religious references from our culture.

    MORE READING about the years of our Lord and our Common Era

    NEXT: ADVENT 4

    We will look at that moment in history and the Messiah in a manger in Bethlehem of Judea..

  • The Gardener, the Shepherd and the Hunter: a Garden

    The Gardener, the Shepherd and the Hunter: a Garden

    the Gardener, the Shepherd and the Hunter - a story by Roger Harned takes place in a garden, which at first looks like the garden of Eden

    Scene One:

    a Garden

    An illustration of times in life beyond the bounds of time and place

    The Gardener, the Shepherd and the Hunter

    Once upon a time there was a gardener, a shepherd and a hunter.

    I met a man who knew each of them (and many others), for he frequented the garden during his journeys through time.

    But before I tell you about these men from long ago, allow me to describe this garden seen by just a few men, women and even children during these countless years and times.

    To begin, you must close your eyes in order to look through a distant twilight upon a face of this place not visible to any who think we might see this extraordinary place by the light of this distant earth.

    For that is how I met his man who showed me the way to look into the vast darkness to see this paradise.

    Of course, if anyone wanted to look for a gardener,

    wouldn’t you first try to find the garden where he works?

    That’s what I did after I heard a Voice of the man who had met them all. Then he showed me where to look into the twilight of the night sky.

    Better, with your eyes closed to this world, he said.

    Do you have a picture of the garden where I can see this gardener, I asked?

    Imaginations of it by men and women paint many pictures of places not at all like this garden, he replied.

    You cannot allow even the most beautiful earthly place of your imagination to mirror this distant garden beyond the borders of time and place.

    Beyond …time… and place

    What do you mean that this garden is on another side of a border of time?

    (I thought is was a straightforward question about where I should look.)

    Have you ever been there … or met anyone else who has seen this garden?

    (Of course I hadn't.)

And without saying anything and with my eyes still closed I could still see the man who spoke to me as he gently looked into the depths of my thought.

    So you would like to see this garden..? .. and have me show you how to get past your border of..

    .. The man was suddenly silent.

    I strained to see him with faint light passing through my eyelids as I imagined a beautiful garden filled with light and life. I imagined scrumptious fruit, the greenest of plants and purest of air.. a blue sky (of course).. Behind a moving mist somewhere between my eyelids and my wandering mind, I painted for myself a paradise with several people wandering about carelessly…

    … time … ?

    But which one was the Gardener, I wondered?

    Then as my mindless mist obscured my vision of this garden beyond the bounds of time and place, I realized that the man had just spoken to ME again.

    …time… ? (he had just said – his last word inviting me to follow him there)

    Do you see this … LINE …

    he asked?

    Yes.

    Where does it end?

    (With my eyes again closed tightly and staring into the distance both to the left and then the right, I could see NO END

    and the … LINE … just keep going beyond where I could see..)

    Can you see it’s BEGINNING?

    I nodded.. NO.

    Yet haven’t your READ the truth of a garden beyond this …LINE… drawn in …TIME…?

    How about the other END of the …LINE…?

    Now I thought briefly of the Revelation of Jesus Christ to John. A horrific scene of apocalypse began to unfold — a scene I had never wanted to look upon.

    The Garden

    And just as before when I had tried to glance back at the garden of Eden, the desired paradise with GOD, the voice of the man no longer spoke comfort into my spirit.

    I did not know then WHO the gardener was, but now I knew where to look …beyond the line of time and place…for the garden.

    from the Voice of Truth

    וְהָאָרֶץ הָיְתָה תֹהוּ וָבֹהוּ וְחֹשֶׁךְ עַל־פְּנֵי תְהוֹם וְרוּחַ אֱלֹהִים מְרַחֶפֶת עַל־פְּנֵי הַמָּֽיִם׃

    Bereishit (Genesis) 1 :: Westminster Leningrad Codex (WLC)

    גַּן

    CLICK HERE for MORE Original truth of the garden: Strong’s H1588 – gan

    • garden, enclosure; גַּן gan, gan; from H1598; a garden (as fenced):—garden.

    The LORD God planted a garden H1588 toward the east, in Eden; and there He placed the man whom He had formed..

    Out of the ground the LORD God caused every tree to grow that is pleasing to the sight and good for food; the tree of life was also in the midst of the garden H1588, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

    Then the LORD God took the man and put him in the Garden H1588 of Eden to cultivate it and tend it.

    Genesis 2:15 NASB20
    the Gardener, the Shepherd and the Hunter - a story by Roger Harned

    NEXT:

    Scene Two: a gardener near the beginning

    (more…)
  • Father, the hour is come

    Father, the hour is come

    Jesus uses ‘Father’ as a relational approach to God, just like the trust which the boy Jesus surely must have had with Joseph, husband of His mother Mary, many times.

    Yet what does this mean to a disciple of Jesus’ teaching to address the Lord God as Father?

    Father, the hour has come

    There’s a certain immediacy to saying, ‘the hour’ is come, or now is or has come. It is the precise time we have been awaiting – a time prepared long before now.

    Our present focus of The Hour Is Come is Jesus’ prayer at the precise time after Judas left the room and prior to the Lord and the Eleven departing for Gethsemane where He is about to be betrayed.

    When Jesus had spoken these words, he lifted up his eyes to heaven, and said, “Father, the hour has come;

    glorify your Son that the Son may glorify you since you have given him authority over all flesh, to give eternal life to all whom you have given him.

    John 17:1-2 ESV

    Jesus begins His conversation in prayer by addressing the LORD God in a most intimate and relational way.

    “Father,” the Son of Man so boldly addresses Almighty God in heaven. What a connection!

    A Man Who IS more than a man — speaking directly to the LORD GOD, as if He Who IS the very Son of God would humbly address his papa on earth.

    Trinity begins with the Father

    The lesson and relationship learned from Jesus’ prayer is both mysterious and wonderful — glorious in a sense of worship and humbling in the light of an intimate relationship.

    Later we will focus again on Jesus the Son of God, His connection through the Holy Spirit and a new covenant of grace for all who will follow Jesus as Lord. But for now we look up only to the Father, as did Jesus in His prayer..

    πατήρ – patēr

    Choose any of the three definitions you like, but realize that John and the Eleven are listening to the Son of Man, Jesus their Master and Teacher, pray directly to the LORD God in heaven, whose Voice they have heard previously.

    1. generator or male ancestor
    2. metaphor for:
      1. the authors of a family or society of persons animated by the same spirit as himself
      2. one who has infused his own spirit into others, who actuates and governs their minds
      3. one who stands in a father’s place and looks after another in a paternal way
      4. a title of honour
        1. teachers, as those to whom pupils trace back the knowledge and training they have received (We don’t really honor teachers in this way in these last days, but some give this authority to a priest leader of a flock.)
        2. the members of the Sanhedrin (As you know, Jesus had some issue with these ‘fathers of Israel’ as well & they will be the ones to clandestinely convict the Messiah of God our Father sent as our atoning Sacrifice to save a remnant of Abraham.)
    3. God is called the Father (This applies is many ways you may read here, but above all ‘Father of spiritual beings and of all men.’)

    By all Authority implied in Jesus’ opening of HIS High Priestly Prayer, it is highly significant that the Lord Jesus ‘lifted up his eyes to heaven, and said, Father …’

    And from Vine’s Expository Dictionary of New Testament the definition instructs us from the everyday Greek word used by Jesus and those in Jerusalem governed by Rome:

    πατήρ : ‘from a root signifying “a nourisher, protector, upholder” (Lat., pater, Eng., “father,” are akin), is used

    [God’s] “Fatherhood” in spiritual relationship through faith is the subject of NT revelation, and waited for the presence on earth of the Son. The spiritual relationship is not universal.

    Vine’s Expository Dictionary of New Testament

    [& an additional insight: Note: Whereas the everlasting power and divinity of God are manifest in creation, His “Fatherhood” in spiritual relationship through faith is the subject of NT revelation, and waited for the presence on earth of the Son, Mat 11:27; Jhn 17:25.

    The spiritual relationship is not universal, Jhn 8:42, 44 (cp. Jhn 1:12; Gal 3:26).] [I will leave you to your own further revelation of the Father through your research of these scriptures. RH]

    The ‘Father’ of Jesus’ prayer

    With additional insight of bowing down to God the Father in our prayer to heaven, let us recall that Jesus had already taught the Disciples that which we know so well and do take for granted.

    The Lord’s Prayer

    After this manner therefore pray ye: Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name.

    Matthew 6:9 KJV
    father with turban and beard seated with arms around son

    ‘Our,’ which precedes Father, in the Lord’s Prayer is a personal possessive pronoun, a possessive plural in corporate prayer.

    So perhaps appropriate in a singular personal possessive sense in prayer, you or I might reasonably pray,

    “My Father in heaven. Holy is your Name.”

    (And recall that the Lord Jesus has declared: “I and the Father are One.” [John 10:30]

    What glorious mystery for us to observe Jesus and the Father, who are One, in this, His most personal prayer prior to the Son’s sacrifice on a Cross for our sins.

    The Disciples had been accustomed to Jesus praying to the Father at many times corporately before the multitudes, more privately among them and privately away from them at times.

    Luke 11:

    And it came to pass, that, as he was praying in a certain place, when he ceased, one of his disciples said unto him,

    ‘Lord, teach us to pray, as John also taught his disciples.’

    And he said unto them, ‘When ye pray, say,

    Our Father which art in heaven,

    Hallowed be thy name.

    Thy kingdom come.

    Thy will be done,

    as in heaven, so in earth.

    Luke 11:2b KJV

    When your mortal ‘time is come’ will you able to approach your heavenly Father saying, ‘Thy will be done?’

    Roger Harned – talkofJesus.com on Jesus’ prayer in John 17

    So from this final prayer following the last supper of Jesus and the Disciples, John witnesses this high priestly prayer of their Master and Teacher Jesus, a beloved father to the Twelve for these past three years.

    πατήρ – patēr – a title of honour – teachers, as those to whom pupils trace back the knowledge and training they have received

    John 17:

    … “Father, the hour has come; glorify Your Son, that the Son may glorify You…

    5 Now, Father, glorify Me together with Yourself…

    11 I am no longer in the world; and yet they themselves are in the world, and I come to You.

    Holy Father, keep them in Your name, the name which You have given Me,

    that they may be one even as We are.

    One with the One Father

    Do you think that it is important to the Apostles that Jesus again prays to the Father with words confirming that He and the Father are ONE?

    שְׁמַ֖ע יִשְׂרָאֵ֑ל יְהוָ֥ה אֱלֹהֵ֖ינוּ יְהוָ֥ה אֶחָֽד׃

    “Hear, O Israel! The LORD is our God, the LORD is one!

    Deuteronomy 6:4 Masoretic Text, NASB

    Jesus continues and prays just a short time later:

    21 that they may all be one;

    even as You, Father, are in Me and I in You,

    that they also may be in Us, so that the world may believe that You sent Me.

    Relationship with our Father in heaven

    Paul, Apostle to the gentiles, later writes to the church in Corinth:

    Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ? … But the one who joins himself to the Lord is one spirit with Him… Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you

    1 Corinthians 6:15-19 excerpt NASB

    Again, the Apostle Paul and Jesus both point to the glorious mystery of the Trinity of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit as ONE, as well as a personal relationship between the spirit of a redeemed man like you or me to the ONE GOD, Who IS Spirit and truth.

    John 17:

    Jesus continues His High Priestly Prayer as intercession for these disciples and those to follow:

    24 Father, I desire that they also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am…

    25 O righteous Father, even though the world does not know you, I know you, and these know that you have sent me…

    What must the Disciple have thought following Jesus’ prayer to the Father?

    What do you think of this prayer to the Holy Father in heaven by the Highest of High Priests praying for your soul?

    “Lord,” they called Jesus — “the existing One” as more than a Son of Man, as the LORD GOD IS ONE!

    אֱלֹהִים

    ‘elohiym – ʼĕlôhîym, el-o-heem’; plural of H433; gods in the ordinary sense; but specifically used (in the plural thus, especially with the article) of the supreme God

    Our LORD is the ONE GOD — Trinity — the Son interceding by prayer and His own priestly Sacrifice for those who believe and would be saved.

    When Jesus had spoken these words, he went out with his disciples across the brook Kidron, where there was a garden, which he and his disciples entered.

    John 18:1 ESV
    To be continued...