Knowing the time

Ephesians 5: [15] See then that ye walk circumspectly, not as fools, but as wise,

[16] Redeeming the time, because the days are evil.

That’s how you walk circumspectly and that’s why Paul says: [17] Wherefore be ye not unwise but understanding what the will of the Lord is.

There’s an URGENCY to that idea of redeeming the time. The days are evil. The world we live in is this “present evil world.”

Man in his best state is altogether vanity. Everything about your life, about the world around you outside of what God’s doing is just vanity, says Richard Jordan.

You reach for it and it goes away and it’s like a cloud; it doesn’t have any substance to it. There’s a vanity associated with time; it doesn’t last.

The source of REAL life is in the life God gives you, and redeeming the time means you go out and you grasp back the opportunities in life and you do it with the understanding that the time is fleeting.

You do it understanding what the will of the Lord is. In relationship to the time we live in we’re to stand in the truth of what God’s Word is about.

Romans 8:18: [18] For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us.

There’s a present time in which we live. It’s called the “dispensation of the grace of God.” You see, dispensational Bible study is about making distinctions between the different people in the Bible and the different times in which God operates and the different messages operating in those different time frames.

[22] For we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now.
[23] And not only they, but ourselves also, which have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body.

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That issue of time. That's not the issue of, "Well, it's 8:20 and I need to be sure that by 9 o'clock I've done these things." It's not just the moment that you're living in.

II Timothy 3:1: [1] This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come.

That's more than just a date on the calendar; it's the times in which we live.

There's an illustration of this in I Chronicles 12: [32] And of the children of Issachar, which were men that had understanding of the times, to know what Israel ought to do; the heads of them were two hundred; and all their brethren were at their commandment.

The world you live in is designed by God to work on systems of cycles. They work in 80-year cycles, the average lifespan, then the 80-year cycles work in 500-year cycles, which work in 1,000-year cycles and there's this repetition in the cycles.

The "times" is the issue of where you are in the cycle. Ecclesiastes 3: [1] To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven:

[2] A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted;
[3] A time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up;
[4] A time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance;
[5] A time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing;
[6] A time to get, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast away;
[7] A time to rend, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak;
[8] A time to love, and a time to hate; a time of war, and a time of peace.

Paul says to redeem the times because the days are evil. The cycles that we live in are evil; the days of the times of the cycles are evil.

Ecclesiastes 1: [2] Vanity of vanities, saith the Preacher, vanity of vanities; all is vanity.

[3] What profit hath a man of all his labour which he taketh under the sun?
[4] One generation passeth away, and another generation cometh: but the earth abideth for ever.

Vanity means nothing, emptiness, nothing real. Without God, everything is empty. Nothing has a purpose without God. Life is total futility.