January 7th, 2024
Michael W. Dewar, Author
“There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens: a time to born and a time to die, a time to plant and a time to uproot…”(Ecc.3:1-1NIV). You do not have to be a farmer to know the truth of this statement made by King Solomon a long time ago. “After the great flood, God told Noah, “As long as the earth endures, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night will never cease” (Genesis 8:22). In other words, the seasons are divinely guaranteed. And so are the seasons of human life.
At the beginning of each year, we tend to think and speak of time as no other. We are getting older, and our lives are going through the cycle of seasons. When I was a child, I used to hear my father said, “Once a man, twice a child,” and I had no idea what he meant. But as I grew up, I saw older people wearing diapers all over again. We are all affected by time.
Your life and mine are made up of time. The length of a person’s life is 70 years and by reason of strength eighty, and even so the years are fraught with pain and sorrows and our days quickly fly away (Psalm 90:10). The psalmist goes on to say, “Teach us to number our days that we may gain a heart of wisdom” (verse 12). In other words, teach us to use our time wisely. Why?
Time is not a renewable commodity. Each day we are given 24 hours. We cannot say, well, I have only used 12 hours, so I can save the other 12 hours for tomorrow. We can do that with some phone company’s mobile plan but not with the allotted time given to us by God. The sand leaving the upper half of the hourglass do not return, so are the days of our lives.
In Luke 12: 13-21 we find the parable of the rich fool. He is not called a fool because he was rich. He was a smart businessman. He is called a fool because he spent all his time accumulating material things that he could not keep but neglecting spiritual things that he could not lose, if he had any. He died in the prime of life at high noon and left it all. Jesus calls him a fool. Do a little banking in heaven.
Our Lord gives this caution, “Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal; but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also” (Matthew 6: 19-21 NKJV). Again, do a little banking in heaven.
I have prepared thirteen books to add to your reading list this year. There are three below and there are ten in the series, Related Events to the Second Coming of the Christ, see them here. If you challenge yourself to read all 13 books by year’s end you will have an excellent knowledge of the time of the end, heaven, and how to secure your place there.
