Ensign: Happy Birthday World!
AN ENSIGN ON THE MOUNTAINS 26 October 2012
[I do have a personal prayer request, for my mom Doris who as of this morning is in ER in Harlan, Kentucky with heart and breathing problems. I called her yesterday and she wouldn't or couldn't say anything, and according to my aunt Mary still doesn't. Mom is seventy-six and been in assisted living for four, maybe five years now. Now on to today …]
I thought today sounded familiar. And not for the reason I'll focus on in today's message, at least I don't think so. I considered alternative titles like "You Disintegrated Einstein!" to commemorate the movie Back to the Future (not due to the date the film was released but the first date the time-traveling DeLorean in the film was used – October 26, 1985) or "6016 + 3 Days" and leave you guessing what it meant until you started reading, but I'm accused by some of being inaccessible enough. But everybody likes to go to a birthday party; heck, I'll go to one for the cake!
October 23, 4004 BC. That's the date, according to a seventeenth-century chronology composed by James Ussher, an archbishop in the Church of Ireland, that God created the world. He based that on a literal reading of the Bible and working his way back – or forward, I guess it would be – from the lifespans of Adam, Seth, Abraham, and so on and correlating them and later persons mentioned in Scripture with then-known historical events. I admit, I don't understand all the method involved either, but the belief in a very young Earth as opposed to the millions of years most of the -ologies seem to attest to persists today. And vice versa.
For me personally, it is not a heaven-or-hell issue how old or young you believe the world is. And the fact that you and I are still here and the world DIDN'T end in AD 1996 (4004 + 1996 = 6000, a thousand years for each day of Biblical creation, also supported by a thousand years in God's sight being equal to one day, per Psalm 90:4 and 2 Peter 3:8) or 2000 (remember Y2K, and don't you feel you overprepared now for that?) or 2012 ... okay, maybe the jury's still out on that. But we need to ask ourselves what we're doing to prepare for maybe not the end of the world, but the end of our own lives.
Really, what happens to you when you die? This should be a straightforward question, I know, but the older I get the less it is to me. At least the process of getting there; I know (regardless of what some well-intentioned older people of Christian faith share with me) whom I have believed [in], and am persuaded that he is able to keep that which I have committed unto him against that day. 2 Timothy 1:12. When I was a kid, I thought this was the corniest song we sang in Sunday school, "I know whom I have believ-ed ..." but it's a truth that stuck in my head. I hope stuck in all our heads, even if years, decades, and children afterward we forgot the source.
(YES, I DO have to look up where Bible verses are from time to time and to get the wording right!) But here's the key, as I express it in the six thousand thirteenth year and third day after the creation of the world, or the twenty-sixth of October in the two thousand twelfth year of our era, or whatever dating system you use -- where you go and what you believe is not what matters, in the long eternal run. (Waiting to hear the pin drop.) What you do as a result of who you believe – for those who've accepted Jesus Christ as their Savior from hell and Lord of eternity – is what matters to those around you, and to God Himself.
And it can have far more impact that 88 miles per hour,
David
P.S. I write this weekly devotional to keep in touch with all of you in my address book, and I hope to be an encourager to action too! If you find that I'm not or you want me to get lost, just let me know -- thank you!
Thank You, Lord, that we can come to you in prayer and that You provide for all our needs, even when we don't know what they are. We pray for the peace of Jerusalem on both sides of the fence there and around the world.
Thank You, Lord, for everyone in leadership and service, both here and abroad. Thank You for the opportunities we have and the promise of new life through You. I pray that we all seek and have a blessed week! Amen.
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