We all know the pace of time, one second after another, but if we are not careful, it will get away from us, and we end up wondering at some point, “Where did the time go?” Remember what James, our Lord’s half-brother, said about thinking, saying, or acting independently of God like practical atheists in our lives,
(Jas 4:13) Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go to such and such a city, spend a year there, buy and sell, and make a profit”;
(Jas 4:14) whereas you do not know what will happen tomorrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapor that appears for a little time and then vanishes away.
(Jas 4:15) Instead you ought to say, “If the Lord wills, we shall live and do this or that.”
It seems like yesterday to me that my Dad was contemplating where the time had gone when he was in his late sixties; he turns 90 on December 21st of this year. James also reminds us that life is short, but not everybody takes advantage of the 168 hours in the week. It parallels Paul’s statement of “redeeming the time [or buying opportunities for God’s glory], because the days are evil” (Eph 5:16) or walking in wisdom toward those who are outsiders, redeeming the time [or making the most of the opportunity for God], Col 4:5.
In my opinion, reaching the age of 18 was the slowest part of my life. After that, it got away from me! Time moves with a slow predictable cadence echoed by the old wind-up clocks: tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, but it winds up being a blur in retrospect, whether an analog or digital display! Time slips away like the dew.
Consider that there are 86,400 seconds in a day. If that was money and we were instructed to use it or lose it, we would be determined to spend it the best that we could. Time is not money but something of far greater value, life; time is life! We cannot turn back one second of time. One look in the mirror will tell us that! Cosmetic surgeries may help us to look younger, but our organs keep pace with our biological age. We can use our time wisely by making the most of our time for God or squandering it and losing rewards for failure in seizing opportunities or redeeming the time for God’s glory.
This redeeming time does have a pace and quality about it as determined by God for every believer. God’s will is never found outside the parameters of Scripture. It is, indeed, unnerving when we contemplate that life is bleeding out of us every second of the day. How do we make the most of time for God knowing it will never stop for anyone? I love this statement by CT Studd,
“Only one life, ‘twill soon [emphasis mine] be past, only what’s done for Christ will last.”
John, under inspiration, put it this way,
“And the world is passing away, and the lust of it; but he who does the will of God abides forever [emphasis mine].”
John’s words suggest that purpose, permanence, significance, fulfillment, peace, and so forth are found only in the Word-driven life or the will of God. All else goes up in smoke one day.
It was the American author, Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862), an explorer of different sorts “of the world around him and the world within him,” who once said,
“If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away” (Walden, 326).
I going to suggest that for us the drumbeat we hear as believers in Jesus Christ is the Holy Spirit encouraging us in following Him in our service for the glory of God. It is the steps of faith in His will that matter most. The call is to be in cadence with the Word of God wherever our steps take us fulfilling the first and second commands (Mk 12:30-31; Gal 5:16; 3 Jn 1:4), but also of a certain caliber, a holy walk (Eph 5:18; 1 Pet 1:15-16).
Let me say from the outset, that you and I can run as fast and as far as we desire in Christ. In other words, in the process of growing in the stature of Christ, nothing can restrain us in that pursuit but us! I want to talk about the pace of some other things, abstract and concrete, physical and spiritual found in God’s creation and extract a principle from all of this concerning the race of our faith that glorifies God.
Could thought possibly be the mode and speed by which God's angels and Satan and His demons move about the universe from one point to another in the spirit realm since they do not have a physical body? This manner of travel is obviously not applicable to God Himself for He is omnipresent or everywhere all there, all the time (cf. Psa 139:1-12). His Spirit lives within each believer, and there is an intensive promise given to us that Jesus will never leave us or forsake us (Heb 13:5). This should bring great comfort to the saints; God can never be accused of – “If only you had been there,” because He was/is there by His attributes of omnipresence and love.
From our point of view, the earth, with its 7 billion plus people, is a large expanse for our adversary of the faith to cover (cf. Job 1:7; 1 Pet 5:8). With all of the commotions in the world, it appears he is being effective regardless of the size and population of the earth. The circumference of the earth at the equator is ~24,902 miles. From pole to pole, its circumference is ~24,860. The difference of forty-two miles between the earth's belly and its pole height is why scientists describe this terrestrial ball as less like a ball and more like an “oblate spheroid.” It is said this shape is due to the earth's rotation creating a bulge at its belly or equator! Maybe this is the reason why my equator tends to bulge due to forces beyond my control!?
Planet Earth has ~197 million square miles of surface area. 71% of this terrestrial oblate spheroid is covered by water and the remaining 29% of its surface is above water.1 This means that over 7 billion people are living on 57.1 million (57,130,000) square miles of land. Nonetheless, I suspect our adversary and his minions survey and patrol all 197,000,000 square miles because spiritual warfare has no boundaries in the creation, and his demonic host numbers at least into the one-third of innumerable (a third of countless)!
On a positive note, this means that the good angels outnumber the bad ones two to one; two-thirds of the innumerable are a double blessing! So, here we have an inordinate number of angels and demons, coursing all over God's creation possibly through wormholes, multi-dimensions, or the speed of thought, engaged in spiritual warfare, and, like it or not, it is manifested in the physical realm. We are thoroughly enmeshed in this conflict as well (Eph 6:12). Spiritual war seeks us out as believers. There are no neutral countries like in world wars of the past. Satan can strike anywhere in the world like terrorists. No country is immune to terrorism today, physical or spiritual.
For all intents and purposes, let's say that tomorrow morning, one of the itineraries of the god of this age (2 Cor 4:4; Jn 12:31; Eph 2:2; 6:12; 1 Jn 5:19) is to personally visit these cities below, say, between 0700-0900 EDT. Note the air miles Satan will need to cover based on approximate calculations, traveling at thought-like speed, and by the way, this is not inside information!
From Location
|
To Location
|
Air Miles
|
Pyongyang, North Korea
|
Beijing, China
|
502.86
|
Beijing, China
|
Kabul, Afghanistan
|
2,595.40
|
Kabul, Afghanistan
|
Tehran, Iran
|
1,009.77
|
Tehran, Iran
|
Sana’a, Yemen
|
1,474.36
|
Sana’a, Yemen
|
Mogadishu, Somalia
|
924.73
|
Mogadishu, Somalia
|
Damascus, Syria
|
2,253.69
|
Damascus, Syria
|
Moscow, Russia
|
1,539.84
|
Moscow, Russia
|
Rome, Italy
|
1,477.62
|
Rome, Italy
|
London, United Kingdom
|
891.90
|
London, United Kingdom
|
New York, New York
|
3,465.06
|
New York, New York
|
Washington, D.C.
|
203.78
|
Washington, D.C.
|
Cleveland, TN
|
504.29
|
Cleveland, TN
|
San Francisco, CA
|
2,082.23
|
San Francisco, CA
|
Moscow, Russia
|
5,874.92
|
Moscow, Russia
|
Antananarivo, Madagascar
|
5,195.05
|
Antananarivo, Madagascar
|
Suva, Fiji
|
9,144.76
|
Suva, Fiji
|
Ushuaia, Argentina
|
6,074.75
|
Ushuaia, Argentina
|
Wellington, New Zealand
|
4,837.46
|
Wellington, New Zealand
|
Madrid, Spain
|
12,351.02
|
Data source: https://www.distancefromto.net
|
62,403.49
|
|
The point of this table is to illustrate that Satan is not to be underestimated because he is not omnipresent or everywhere present; he can only be at one point at any given moment, but he can book it in a heartbeat and can arrive at any locality on earth with thought-like speed. His itinerary is probably determined by proactivity, necessity, or both, but behind that is a drive of a perplexing and consuming hatred for Yahweh and the sons of Adam (mankind), who were created in the image of God though marred by sin by the Fall of the first Adam. <><
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| To Part Two |
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1. http://www.space.com/17638-how-big-is-earth.html
