Time, Eternity, and Divine Opportunity

Heavenly Father, as we approach You today through Your Word, we stand in need. Every time we have been in need, You have been faithful to provide.

Today, we know there is a portion of grace for this time, and we take hold of it. We come under it, and we need it so much. We pray that we do not leave one bit of it for tomorrow, but that we take all of it You have provided for this time. In Your precious name, amen.

I really appreciate this opportunity. The reason is that the saints here have been on my heart for some time. It has been twenty years since I first showed up.

I think there was actually a lot of prayer initiated by Matt Graham, because he knew me. He met me in New York, and I was coming down to medical school here. There was this kind of New Yorker coming down, and we like to shake things a little bit in New York. Mac was a little concerned that you guys would be too slow for me.

And he was right.

Some of the most precious years of my life were the times I spent here, and the Lord provided such a training. I am very, very, very grateful for that.

You just do not know how coming here was the Lord’s direction in my life, and how He really provided tremendous training and preparation. But I was young then.

After my four years here, I went to residency in Pennsylvania, and then we moved to Beaver Falls. The Lord clearly directed us to Beaver Falls.

We came excited. The Lord had sent us, and with all expectations we were looking forward to what the Lord was going to do. There was a gathering of saints there, and we seemed to really click with them. We were about an hour away, so we had been meeting once a month or every other month. They would come down and see us; we would come up and see them. It was really precious, a wonderful thing.

Then, a year later, the whole place fell apart. Leadership disappeared.

I was going there just to be one of the brothers in the meetings and all this kind of thing. But such death came in. At one point, it was about ten people meeting in a living room, staring at each other. It was so hard.

We had a lot of Christian friends in town who were not meeting with us there, and we would say, “Come meet with us.” The Lord was faithful to sustain us during that very rough time.

We really owe a debt to the saints here, because we could not pray for ourselves. The saints here carried us. They would take us up. Sometimes it was as if the Lord just carried us from one place to another.

We really, really appreciate it. I am so glad I have an opportunity to give thanks publicly and say, “Praise the Lord for all of you”—for your prayer, your financial support, and for calling us up.

During that time, Ernie used to come up there. I would look around and say, “Well, what is going on? Lord, why did You send us here? Why did You send us here if this was going to happen?”

The Lord spoke very clearly to us. He said, “This is why I sent you here.”

Being the young, energetic guy that I was, I thought, “I am the man of the hour. The Lord sent me here to fix the problem.”

Actually, when I look back, He sent me there because I deserved it. The answer was the right answer: “Yes, this is why I sent you there.” I thought He sent me there to fix it. No, He sent me there because I deserved to go through, in a sense, the tough time that we went through.

When I was here, you all had to endure me. I had all the answers. I knew what we should be doing, and what you should be doing. “You guys need to get this right.” You would say, “Yes, yes, we will pray about it, brother.”

I was sort of like a horse with a restraint on him. Then you go to a place where, to some degree, it is in your hands, and you realise you do not have a clue. You really do not know, and you have no answers.

It is so easy to sit back and say, “Well, you should do this, and you should do that.” But when responsibility is put in your hands, it is another matter.

Children are quick to tell their parents what they should be doing. Then, when you are a parent and raising children, you realise you really do not have any answers. You have to go to the Lord and find them out.

That is my experience. That is why I want to thank you from the bottom of my heart.

The Lord has taken us a long way. We have a long way to go, but we are praying now. We are praying for the saints here. You are on our heart, and we are holding the saints here up. You have a special place in our heart.

Scriptural Foundations

Our text today begins in Psalm 31:14-16.

But as for me, I have trusted in Thee, O Lord;
I have said, “Thou art my God.”
My times are in Thy hand;
Deliver me from the hand of my enemies, and from them that persecute me.
Make Thy face to shine upon Thy servant;
Save me in Thy lovingkindness.

My times are in Thy hand.

Psalm 39:4-7 says:

Lord, make me to know mine end,
And the measure of my days, what it is;
Let me know how frail I am.
Behold, Thou hast made my days as handbreadths;
And mine age is as nothing before Thee:
Surely every man at his best estate is altogether vanity.
Surely every man walketh in a vain show;
Surely they are disquieted in vain:
He heapeth up riches, and knoweth not who shall gather them.
And now, Lord, what wait I for?
My hope is in Thee.

Second Corinthians 4:16-18:

Therefore we do not lose heart,
But though our outward man is decaying, yet our inward man is renewed day by day.
For momentary, light affliction is producing for us an eternal weight of glory far beyond all comparison,
While we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen.
For the things which are seen are temporal;
But the things which are not seen are eternal.

Finally, Ephesians 5:15-16:

Therefore be careful how you walk, not as unwise men but as wise,
Making the most of your time, because the days are evil.

Time as a Subject of Scripture

You might be able to guess from the texts I have read that I want to share a little bit with you about time. I have been thinking about time and what the Scriptures have to say about it.

It has been a very time-consuming job. Now that we have computers, you can search for the word time, or the word days, and get a sheet full of verses. You go through and eliminate verses, looking for those on which the Lord has given light. It is a precious thing.

There are two—and actually three—things I would like to talk about concerning time.

There is a Greek word called chronos. I owe a debt to Ernie for the books he gave me—Kittel’s exhaustive encyclopaedia of Greek. But chronos is one of the Greek words for time. We get our word chronology from it.

Chronos: The Passing of Time

Chronos is the cruel ticking of the clock. It is unrelenting, unforgiving, unalterable, and unapprehendable. It is the passing of the day.

Chronos is an affliction. It is something that, in a sense, is initiated by the Lord and goes on by the Lord. We use it to measure the passing of things, but you cannot ever get it back. You cannot ever hold it. It moves on without mercy.

We use this chronos as a measuring rod: the passing of days. We anticipate what is going to happen, then that thing happens, and then we have to remember. It just ticks on by.

We are always looking forward or looking back—evaluating and considering these things. This issue of chronos affects every one of us.

I have been thinking about it a little. I am forty-three, and many of us who met together when I was here twenty years ago have gained a few years—twenty years, actually.

As I get older, these numbers and where we are in life seem to be more on people’s minds. People say, “Wow, you look very good for…” You know, it is this race: “I look bad, but I look pretty good for forty.” You see what I mean?

We were recently on holiday in Costa Rica. While we were there, my wife noticed that my beard was getting a little grey over here. My whole family encouraged me: “Why do you not try shaving that off?”

So I obliged, because it was getting kind of grey.

When I came back to work, nobody noticed exactly what had happened, but they said, “You look younger. Have you lost weight?” Everybody noticed, but they were not quite sure what it was. I had just shaved a little grey off, actually.

This is something that is really on our minds. At this point in life, people start talking about a midlife crisis. Last night, we were out to dinner, and I asked people at the table, “How many people have ever had a midlife crisis?” Everybody at the table was at least forty, and almost everybody raised their hand.

What is a midlife crisis? A midlife crisis is simply that you have come to a point in your life where you realise that most of it has passed.

You look at your life and say, “Gee, am I where I thought I was going to be? When I was twenty, did I expect that I would be here at forty? Is this what it is about?”

Now, that is not a crisis—to look at that. But here is the crisis: if I am going to do anything about it, I had better do it quickly, because time is ticking by.

Those first forty years seem to go a lot slower than these next forty years, I anticipate. If you do not do anything about it now, it will be too late—which is not true, but that is the crisis. “Ah, I have to do something about this.”

The Illusion of Attainment

We recently went on holiday in Costa Rica. It was a surfing holiday that I dragged my family to. Does this sound like a midlife crisis?

I grew up surfing on Long Island, and I love to do it. Now I am a fish out of water in Beaver Falls. Every year, we try to find our way to the beach. Most of the time the waves are small, or there are no waves at all.

Actually, some of the best surfing I get is when I visit the saints in San Diego. They think I am visiting them; actually, I am just going there to surf.

Surfing is my favourite natural thing to do, but it is so elusive. We had this big trip because Costa Rica has some of the most consistent surf in the world. You can always count on there being good surf there.

It has mountains, wildlife—my little boy loves wildlife—and all these wonderful things. We were on the web, looking at different places to go, and we built the trip up in our minds. We were anticipating its arrival.

Has anyone ever had a holiday where the best part was planning it? Or coming home?

What we did not appreciate was that the place where we were staying was a long drive from the airport. The last forty-five minutes of the drive were on rutted dirt roads. That was forty-five minutes if you were really pushing it.

Finally, you get to your place. It was a beautiful place, and it had great surf, but all of a sudden there was a sense of isolation. The people there said, “Well, it is pretty safe now that we have put bars in the windows.”

People were saying, “I drank the water, and I did not get sick.”

While we were there, our car was broken into while we were out surfing. Somehow, they electrically rolled down the window and grabbed all the bags. Those who know Bobby Barron know that his passport and airline tickets were stolen.

Bobby and I went around to a hotel nearby. Probably the people who stole everything were right there at the hotel. We asked whether we could use the telephone, and they said, “Oh, no, no, no, you cannot use the telephone. You have to go to the police station.”

As we were walking to the hotel, there was a sign: “Beware of the thieves.”

The place where we were staying had very big surf, but it was breaking two hundred yards out. I had been swimming and getting in shape, and I thought I was in pretty good shape.

But it was ten-foot surf. The face of the wave was about fifteen feet. It was all I could do to paddle close to where the waves were breaking. My arms were molasses.

Then a huge set of waves would come in and completely cream me.

I would hold on to my board and close my eyes. Sometimes I would let go of the board—you are tied to it—and swim underneath the water. The wave would grab the board and pull it backwards.

There was a point when I was out there and a wave was breaking right on my head. I was terrified. It was terrible. I had been surfing for a long time, but I had never been terrified for my life.

So I paddled back in, totally unsuccessful. I thought maybe the waves would be smaller the next day. I went back out, and for two weeks the surf was relentless.

There were guys out there having a blast, but every time I went out, I could not make it out.

At the beginning of the holiday, you say, “It is okay. It is going to get better. As time goes on, it will get a little smaller. We will find another spot.”

We drove forty-five minutes and then four hours to get to another spot. We spent all sorts of extra money, even though we were already paying for this place, because it was getting desperate. “We have got to do something. I have got to have some surf. That is why we came here. I have to have a good time.”

I had this elusive goal.

At one point, I got out and was looking at the surf. My daughter said, “How come you are not going out?”

“Too big for me.”

“You mean we came all the way out here? You dragged us all the way over here, and you are not going in? My dad is a wimp.”

I was just getting smaller by the day. There was this sense of desperation.

We went to another place and spent more money. I paddled back out in a big wave, and I had a panic attack. Now I understand what all my patients experience. Literally, I was paralysed.

Then you come home and people ask, “How was your trip?”

“I do not want to talk about it.”

Or you lie: “Oh, yes, it was good.”

The Presence of God in Disappointment

The Lord really spoke to me through this. This was a microcosm of our lives.

We have such hopes. We have an elusive arrival that we are looking for. We are trying to get somewhere. When we are young and things do not work out right, we keep trying hard. “It is okay; there is enough time.”

Then there comes a point at which you realise it probably is not going to get better. It might not happen. We start having this crisis. We start getting desperate. We start reaching out, trying things, and making bad decisions.

Instead of just enjoying what we had.

It was a beautiful place. There were monkeys jumping around in the trees. My boy Nick had the time of his life. He found a snake that was four feet long. There were iguanas running all over the place. We saw coatis on the side of the road. We went on canopy tours over the rainforest and did all sorts of wonderful things.

But I was so stuck on not getting my thing that I lost sight of what I had: a wonderful time with my family.

I saw that happening, and I said, “Stop it. Relax and enjoy it.” But I could not do it. That is what really made me angry, and I was really depressed about it.

Oh, deliver us from chronos—relentless ticking. “It is going to get you.”

Eternal Life Beyond Chronos

There is another kind of time: unmeasured, eternal. The Bible does not even call it time. The Bible calls it life—eternal life.

It resides with the Father. It was present before the watch was ever wound, before the first click, before the first turn of the second hand. It was there.

For the most part, most of us, for most of our lives, miss it. We are too busy looking at our watches.

How do we get it? The easy answer is: it comes from the Son. This is eternal life. It is found in the Son.

Kairos: The Appointed Time

There is another Greek word for time. It is called kairos.

Whereas chronos is the ticking and passing of time, kairos means the right time. Kairos is not the clicking, but that which exists and comes into being in time. It can mean a period of time, but in its highest sense, it means the right time.

There are times in chronos when heaven reaches down and touches. When that happens, kairos comes: the right time.

At the right time, God sent His Son, born of a virgin.

When kairos comes, opportunity comes.

There are periods in our lives when a door opens, and we get a chance to go through. We might not go through.

The children of Israel came to the edge of the Promised Land. It was the right time. They tried to go through that door later, but it was the wrong time. The door had opened.

With sadness in my heart, I look back on my life and see many kairos moments that were missed—many right times when I did not go through. But I see a few that we went through.

I see a few in our fellowship in Beaver Falls. Oh, how many opportunities we have missed. But I see a few times when we walked through that door. Then you can look back and say, “Oh, we could have missed it.”

I think of a lady named June, who walked through our door once. She lived in a housing project just down the road. She was an alcoholic and had tried to dry out. She did not know the Lord, though she had some history. She just walked in.

She did not even know why she came in. She said, “I was walking by, and I felt compelled to come in.”

Nancy befriended her, and they became friends. June changed Nancy’s life, and she opened the door for ministry in the housing project just down the street.

We took the children down there. It is a long story, and I cannot go through it all. But shortly after she started being with us, she got lung cancer. She was dead a year later.

Yet she opened a door that had tremendous implications.

Sometimes these opportunities are not good things. Sometimes they are tragedy. Sometimes they are ten people staring at each other in a living room. Sometimes they are seeming darkness and heaviness.

Actually, the Lord is visiting, and doors are beginning to open.

Biblical Examples of Chronos and Kairos

I want to go through some texts to help you see the difference between how these words are used. This is a clear concept in the Scriptures.

Turn to 1 Peter. As you are turning there, let me say this: in Revelation, when it speaks about the end time and the devil, it uses chronos. His time has run out.

But when it speaks about entering into life, it uses kairos: the last time, the last days. It is a wonderful thing. His time is ticking up; he has an appointed time. We have a time of entering in.

First Peter 1:5 says:

Who are protected by the power of God through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.

That is kairos.

First Peter 1:17 says:

And if ye call on Him as Father, Who without respect of persons judgeth according to each man’s work, pass the time of your sojourning in fear.

That is kairos.

First Peter 4:2-3 gives us both:

So as to live the rest of the time in the flesh no longer to the lusts of men, but to the will of God.
For the time already past is sufficient for you to have carried out the desire of the Gentiles,
Having pursued a course of sensuality, lusts, drunkenness, carousals, drinking parties, and abominable idolatries.

Both verses use the word chronos. The time has passed. The time is continuing. It is measuring the marching by.

But move down to 1 Peter 4:17:

For it is time for judgment to begin with the household of God;
And if it begins with us first, what will be the outcome for those who do not obey the gospel of God?

The time of judgment upon the household of God is kairos. It is the right time.

Sometimes the right time, when heaven is breaking through, is to correct a few things, straighten a few things out, and open our eyes. The opportunity comes. Sometimes it is judgment; sometimes it is life. But when heaven comes down, it brings an opportunity for life.

Second Corinthians 6:2 says:

For He saith,
“At an acceptable time I listened to thee,
And in a day of salvation I helped thee.”
Behold, now is the acceptable time;
Behold, now is the day of salvation.

The acceptable time is kairos: the right time.

Second Corinthians 8:14 says:

But by equality; your abundance being a supply at the present time for their want.

At this present time, you have life to share. You have an abundance.

Galatians 4:4 says:

But when the fulness of the time came,
God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the law.

These periods of opportunity come into our lives. The door opens, and God is trying to reveal something. They are periods of real opportunity.

I think of Saul, the king. He had an opportunity. There was delay. Things were not quite what he thought they would be, and he had an opportunity to hold on to what the Lord had spoken.

He blew it. Then he was given another opportunity, and he blew that again.

Opportunities come. We have a chance to go through, and we have a chance to miss out. The examples in Scripture and the examples in our own lives are many.

Redeeming the Time Through Faith

I would like to close with some thoughts about redeeming the time. When these periods come, what are we really called to do?

In Matthew 6, Jesus speaks about this. The way to enter into these opportunities is through faith, because faith is actually believing in heaven’s way in the midst of this marching chronos.

Jesus says:

Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon the earth, where moth and rust consume, and where thieves break through and steal:
But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth consume, and where thieves do not break through nor steal.

That is where chronos cannot get it. These are things that are destroyed with time. Put it in heaven, where it cannot be destroyed. Lay up for yourselves treasure in heaven.

Do not be anxious about the troubles of the day. Your heavenly Father knows what you need. Stop worrying about tomorrow. Live where you are. Be where you are.

Stop worrying about whether you are going to have a good holiday. Enjoy what you have. Enjoy what the Lord has given you. Lay up for yourself treasure in heaven. Fret not. Be at peace. Know the Lord. It is very simple.

Chronos has attacked me. I have been waiting for election results, waiting for there to be an answer. Have you seen how the enemy is just sucking us into this? I have woken up in the middle of the night angry. Anybody else ever have anything like that?

But the opportunity is that we have, ahead of us, an unelected One.

Heaven’s way says that the unelected One, Who is chosen and seated in heaven, has elected us.

Ye did not choose Me, but I chose you.

Here is a kingdom in which the members of the kingdom are chosen by the King. The members do not choose the King; the King chooses them. His choice is sure, because there is only one vote. There is no one voting against Him. There is no one to contest that vote.

We have been voted in. God has installed His King.

Kiss the Son, lest He be angry.

Opportunities break through.

May the Lord give us grace to enter into those opportunities. This is just a simple message, just a simple thought: that we would enter in.

I would like to close by reading from Ecclesiastes.

Eternity Set in the Human Heart

Recently, I heard a piece on the radio about all the rich people we have. We have all these millionaires now in this country. It is a new class of people.

There are so many millionaires now that they are no longer just a few elite people. But all these millionaires do not really know how to live.

This man had been studying millionaires, and he said a very interesting thing. They are searching. They are rich in some things, but very poor in others. He said, “They are rich in money, but they are poor in time.”

They do not have any more time than you or I do. All their money cannot buy them one hour.

What good is all that stuff if you do not have eternal life? It does not matter how much time you have.

My grandmother is ninety-nine years old. When she was ninety-five, I said, “Grandma, you are ninety-five. You do not have too much time.”

She has always been very straightforward and sarcastic with me, so I thought I had the grace to say that.

She said to me, “People do not realise how very tired you are when you are ninety-five, and how you look for a very long rest.”

You may have a long life, but what do you have? Suppose you really prolong it and live to be one hundred and twenty. It is still a vapour. It will be gone before you know it.

Teach us to number our days. Let me know how transient I am. Job hammers this over and over: how transient we are, what a vapour, what fluff, what a puff of smoke.

Ecclesiastes 3 says:

There is a time for every purpose, and a season for every event under heaven:
A time to give birth, and a time to die;
A time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted.
A time to kill, and a time to heal;
A time to break down, and a time to build up.
A time to weep, and a time to laugh;
A time to mourn, and a time to dance.
A time to throw stones, and a time to gather stones together;
A time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing.
A time to seek, and a time to lose;
A time to keep, and a time to throw away.
A time to tear apart, and a time to sew together;
A time to be silent, and a time to speak.
A time to love, and a time to hate;
A time for war, and a time for peace.

Do not get hung up on all the times. After this litany of a time for everything, pay attention to what he says afterwards.

What profit hath he that worketh in that wherein he laboureth?
I have seen the travail which God hath given to the sons of men to be exercised therewith.
He hath made everything beautiful in its time:
Also He hath set eternity in their heart,
Yet so that man cannot find out the work that God hath done from the beginning even to the end.
I know that there is nothing better for them, than to rejoice, and to do good so long as they live.
And also that every man should eat and drink, and enjoy good in all his labour, is the gift of God.
I know that, whatsoever God doeth, it shall be for ever:
Nothing can be put to it, nor anything taken from it;
And God hath done it, that men should fear before Him.

In the midst of chronos, in the midst of all these appointed times, in the midst of all these opportune times—right times that break forth in our lives—God has so worked.

The thing that He does cannot be added to or taken away from. But He has so worked that He has put eternity in our hearts, without which we could never discover it.

What was Solomon getting at? What is eternity?

It is the Lord Jesus.

In the midst of our passing through, He is speaking to us and residing in our hearts. He is there, calling to us:

“See Me in this opportunity. See Me in this thing. See Me in this planting and in this uprooting. See Me in this life and in this death. See Me in all the things of your life. See Me in your holiday. I am speaking to you.

“See Me in your joy. See Me in your sorrow. I am speaking to you.”

May the Lord speak to us all, for He has set eternity in our hearts, without which we could never figure Him out.

Heavenly Father, thank You so much for the eternal life which is found in Your Son, Jesus.

And this is life: that we would know Thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, Whom Thou hast sent.

Amen.