20110621: Awakening II: Rom13:11 HIgh time to awake out of sleep

Rom13:

¹¹And that, knowing the time, that now it is high time to awake out of sleep: for now is our salvation nearer than when we believed.

¹²The night is far spent, the day is at hand: let us therefore cast off the works of darkness, and let us put on the armour of light.

¹³Let us walk honestly, as in the day; not in rioting and drunkenness, not in chambering and wantonness, not in strife and envying.

¹⁴But put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make not provision for the flesh, to fulfil the lusts thereof.

When the subject was stressed twice in 2 days, guess it was a time of deeper reflection. The above verse and topic of aWaKeNing was preached on 19/6 , a day after I blogged my own "awakening".

My continuation of Tick Tock Tick Tock thoughts.

Who invented the Clock?

Many types of clocks are in use today. Each kind has its own inventor and history. Ancient peoples had other ways to tell time.

1.The Egyptians invented the obelisk. Its shadow was used to mark the hours of the day. This was a type of sundial.

2.Another kind of clock was the water clock. Different models of water clocks existed. The oldest was a vessel with a hole at the bottom. The vessel was filled with water and it would pour out at a constant rate.

3. The first accurate, modern clock was the pendulum clock. It was invented in 1656 by a Dutch scientist, Christian Huygens..

4. The pendulum went out of vogue when the quartz clock ticked in. The quartz clock was the invention of a Canadian engineer, Warren Marrison. He discovered he could use quartz crystals’ vibration in an electric circuit to be able to accurately tell time. It became the standard timekeeping device from the 1930s onward.

Astronomical Calendars

When men looked up at the sky, they noticed that the sun, moon, stars and other heavenly bodies moved in cycles. This allowed them to tell time.

Nobody actually knows the reason why the day was split into 12 hours and each hour split into 60 minutes and then each minute into 60 seconds. The best guess is that it was the Babylonians who worked out that there were 12 full moons in a year which gave them a 360 day year. They also knew the relationship between the radius of a circle and its circumference, which split the circle into six segments. Dividing this by two gave them 12 segments, which also fitted well with their religious beliefs that the number 12 had some kind of special significance. [Twelve is a perfect number, signifying perfection of government, or of governmental perfection. It is found as a multiple in all that has to do with rule. The sun which "rules" the day, and the moon and stars which "govern" the night, do so by their passage through the twelve signs of the Zodiac which completes the great circle of the heavens of 360 (12 x 30) degrees or divisions, and thus govern the year.]

The Sumerians used a solar calendar with 30-day long months and 12 periods in each day. The famous Stonehenge in Britain was an ancient timekeeping monument. It marked various astronomical and seasonal events like eclipses, equinoxes, etc.

The Egyptians first used a lunar calendar, just as the Chinese did. Later the Egyptians invented a 365-day solar year based on when the Dog Star Sirius would rise near the sun. The Mayans had a very accurate calendar too. They used not only the sun and moon, but also the planet Venus.

BACK TO BASICS

Going back in time. Who invented the clock? We can say that perhaps it is the SUN?

Well, if that's the case, we will have to go back to Genesis, the very first book in the Bible. In fact, the first thing God did was the invention of light. He spoke into being "Let there be light" He was the source of separation of the light from the darkness. He called the light "day" and the darkness "night" Later in verse 14, he was the MASTERMIND of the seasons , days and years. He made the two greats lights - the greater light to govern the day -sun, and the lesser light to govern the night - moon. He also made the stars.

Got it???

Reflections

"Knowing" the time or "understanding" the time is therefore critical.

We each have 24 hours a day to utilise. Of which 8 hours are taken up by "SLEEP"

We can only work mainly in the day - and when nightfalls, we take our rest (unless one is a graveyard shift worker).

How we prioritise our time is thus important. It is not that we "have no time" but rather "how we view what is more important to our heart to make time for"

Time lost cannot be regained or turned back.

What goes on in the physical realm is the same for the spiritual. One can be in spiritual slumber even when one is physically awake.

Conclusion

Rom13:11 The hour has come for us to wake up from our slumber (NIV)

or it is HIGH TIME to awake out of sleep (KJV)

We pray :

Psalms90:12 "So teach us to number our days, that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom"

The preacher James Goll who preached on Sunday, quote" Yesterday's dreams about your tomorrow is your today's opportunity". How apt.

We serve Yahweh who knows the past, the present and the future.

The present is TODAY.

Live wisely.