"If I could save time in a bottle
The first thing that I'd like to do
Is to save every day, 'til eternity passes away
Just to spend them with you
That was Jim Croce
"Time..Is On My Side"
No it's not Mick
Now, I'm going to love you
'Til the heavens stop the rain
I'm going to love you
'Til the stars fall from the sky
That was The Doors....I know what "doors of perception" from which this promise came!
A friend invited me to go along with him for a day of fishing on his boat on Lake Erie. Now I'm not a fisherman....and I originally declined.....but I'm having second thoughts because being five miles out on the lake in a small craft seems like it would be an extraordinary experience....to someone as unoutdoorsmanlike as I am. I had declined at first for this reason....leaving my house at 3 AM.....and not returning until that evening.....would be tough on this body that at seventy-two needs about two naps a day.
OK.....that's the setup for this post....the passing of time. In this case....fishing on the lake....it would be great at first....but as the day progressed I would experience diminishing returns on my investment....so to speak.
It is my contention.....and has been for many years....that the average person to whom we try to proclaim the gospel of Jesus Christ....often cannot get by heaven and hell as they pertain to the passing of time. As for hell....it is obvious that people cannot see the fairness in an eternity of punishment....in return for maybe twenty or thirty years of rebellion to God here on earth. Am I correct on this or not? I hear it all the time. It sounds on the surface like a reasonable objection to a hell.
The same problem occurs even with heaven. We may admit that....yes....something like heaven could be good at first.....and maybe even for an extended period of time....but praising God for an eternity? We think....boredom....when we consider this.
I often hear pastors referring to an eternity in hell....or eternal life in heaven.....where they obviously accept the concept of continuous linear time....but I do not see it quite this way at all.....for time in and of itself....is created! So what will take it's place?
If we could somehow contract one-hundred of the most imaginative science fiction writers out there....and asked of them all to come up with some idea on what could replace time....they surely would offer dozens of ingenious science fiction ideas.....but they would all be wrong.....for our human mind cannot conceive of many things that are on God's level. We have speculated on the concept of the Trinity....for two thousand years now....but it must be so wonderfully advanced a reality....that we can believe it....for God has so very clearly told us that that is the case....and we have been regenerated....our minds renewed....in order to see it....but as to understanding it.....we will just have to wait.
So.....all of these paragraphs to get to this....if you are one that will not fall down and reverence and worship the Creator of this universe.....and all that has ever been created.....because you simply cannot find it in your mind to accept what God incompletely tells us about heaven and hell....then you should at least consider that time does not necessarily exist beyond this life....and that when you pass over.....and get that answer.....and it is then in a moment very clear to you....and even obviously wonderful....and infinitely fair.....it will be too late!
Ultimately this issue with us is not time....or anything else problematic that we cannot understand. The issue is that we are looking for an excuse.....and an eternity in hell serves the purpose very well. Ninety-nine out of a hundred people who read this.....may very well think that I am making no sense at all....but it's that one in a hundred that I am concerned with.....possibly you. Today is the day of your salvation.....not tomorrow. Trust God's Word. Look at history and pick your side....Augustine or Aquinas or Luther or Bunyan or Newton or Edwards or Billy Graham....who praised God when these things were opened up to them....or Voltaire....George Bernard Shaw....Thomas Paine....Aldous Huxley....Christopher Hitchens....et al....who would have found out that their conclusions were incorrect?
