CALENDARS PART 4 – DRAWING A LINE ON TIME
SUNDAY, JANUARY 27
PASTOR TROY BREWER, OPENDOOR CHURCH, BURLESON, TX
This is going to be several different parts and what I am about to talk to about is very controversial and that’s because
People have drawn their lines in the sand and insist on calling their theories “God.”
I’m going to call this first part “Drawing the Line On Time.”
The Temple of God (1 Peter 2:5) = We do not budge.
The Body of Christ (1 Corinthians 12:12) = We are always growing & moving.
We have to learn. We have to process. We have to develop. We have to unpack things and go after things, and you and I get into speculation and the wonders of abstract thought. In the the midst of all that, we come up with theories.
Theories are not the bad guy.
A theory is only bad when we say our theory is God.
Even the word “theory” has the word “Theo” in it, which means “anything relating to God.”
Theology
Theocracy: a system of government where priests rule in the name of God.
Pantheon: was the place where the Greeks worshiped all the Gods – even the unknown God that Paul preached about at Mars Hill in Acts chapter 17.
So, the word “theory” has the word “theo” in it because human beings mistake theory for revelation.
DEVINE REVELATION IS NOT THE SAME AS THEORY.
And humans, both secular and biblical, tend to call their theories “God.”
I’m going to explore a bunch of fun ideas and theories regarding secular and biblical timelines, but first of all,
let me say this: Be set free in the name of Jesus to unpack and process Kingdom truth in non-traditional ways.
Permission granted to be a weirdo.
These chairs indicate a typical biblical timeline that is true:
There are 2,000 years from Adam to Abraham.
There are 2,000 years from Abraham to Jesus
and 2,000 years from Jesus to right now.
So, the biblical timeline is a 7,000 year timeline and we are at right at the dawning of the 7th day.
I have a place in Glenrose, Texas and Glenrose is famous for good barbecue and dinosaur tracks. A good example of those dinosaurs tracks is like the one I have here which I found not even 50 yards from my house.
Theropod – it was made by something scientists call an
an acrocanthosaurus at least 65 million years ago.
There are 2 reasons I would like to identify why that is so offensive to Jesus-loving bible thumpers:
1) It obviously goes against our understanding of the Bible.
It is one thing to challenge your understanding and another thing to challenge your faith.
Know the difference between a challenge to your understanding and a test of your faith.
I think it’s real important to be honest about what you think you understand, what you’re not sure about, and when you don’t know how to answer something to be honest about that. Just say, “I’ve got nothing for you on that.”
There are all kinds of timelines.
The first of Tishrei serves as the New Year for several purposes, the best known being the New Year for the civil calendar, or “the new year for seasons.”
The second new year is 15 Shevat – the New Year for trees.
The third Jewish new year is 1 Nissan, which corresponds to the season of the redemption from Egypt and the birth of the Israelite nation.
Jonathan Cahn, a messianic Jewish scholar, calculates Jesus was born and died on 1 Nissan making a complete circuit and fulfilling that he is the beginning and end of all things.
The last new year, 1 Elul, is the New Year for the tithing of cattle.
There is also the Ecclesiastes 3 timeline of times and seasons/
Timelines can tell us what time it is, but it can not tell us what time is.
2) There is an obvious anti-Kingdom bias among atheistic scientists.
Bill Nye the Science Guy
Stephen Hawking
So much of the religion verses science arguments are actually The religion of science verses the faith of Christianity.
When a guy like Carl Sagan says science is not compatible with anything spiritual, he is saying that science has all the answers.
Believe it or not, science has its limits. If you doubt me, I suggest you submit a grant to the National Science Foundation with the following introduction and see how much funding you receive:
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”
I don’t know about you, but I’m pretty happy that the Founding Fathers didn’t wait to see the results of scientific method of verification called the seven-year democracy pragmatic trials before going forward with the Declaration of Independence.
Science does not have all the answers and to declare science to be absolute truth is not a study but a religion.
What I am talking about is the difference between theory and truth.
Truth-based theory (an agenda for the Kingdom)
Anti-truth-based theory (an anti-Christ agenda)
Based on a worldview that is not only un-friendly to the idea of Jesus Christ being God, but is actually hostile to the idea of God at all.
You are made to be creative.
You are made to imagine.
You are made to ask questions and search for deep truth.
Whether it’s on timelines or how God thinks about things,
your identity in Christ or the difference you can make and are charged to make – whatever you create or imagine needs to be with a very real intention.
You are either motivated because of your faith or you are motivated to pursue something and keep God out of it.
Romans 14:23 (ESV)
“Whatever does not proceed from faith is sin.”