time Archives

December 31, 2024December 30, 2024

There Is No Time Machine

As we end another year, we look back and think about things we should have done differently. Hindsight is always better than foresight. There is probably no person alive who doesn’t wish they could change something from their past. Perhaps we made a bad investment or missed a good investment of either time or money. We may have spoken words to someone that we wish we could take back. Perhaps we failed to do something to encourage a person facing difficult times. We may have missed a golden opportunity to share Jesus Christ with someone. Whatever past regrets we have, we can’t do it over. There is no time machine.

Even if we could go back in time, we still might not get it right. Also, changing things in the past could have dramatic and potentially disastrous effects on the future. Seriously, we should be glad that there is no time machine. That also means we can’t see the future. What will the next year bring? Whether good or bad, we are probably better off not knowing. God is the only one outside of time who can see the future because it’s all present to Him. Being unlimited by time, God knows our past and sees our future.

Since there is no time machine and time for us moves in only one direction, we can choose to change the future. We can determine how to do things differently in the new year. Sure, we will continue to make mistakes, but that’s part of being human. The great thing is that the One who knows our past can forgive our mistakes because He entered time and did what we could not do. He took our sins on Himself so that we can look to the future with a clean slate.

Don’t beat yourself up over your past. In Christ, starting today, you have a new beginning. “As far as the east is from the west, so far has He removed our transgressions from us” (Psalms 103:12). There is no time machine, and we don’t need one.

April 18, 2024April 15, 2024

The Nature of Time Is a Mystery

The nature of time is one of the great mysteries of life. Time is not three-dimensional; in other words, we can’t describe it as left-right, up-down, or back-front. Time is a created thing, and thanks to Einstein’s relativity theory, we know that it is not constant. At very high velocities, time changes.

In quantum mechanics, we discuss things that happened “before time began.” In Proverbs 8:22-23 Wisdom speaks about being with God before the world began, and 2 Peter 3:8 tells us that “with the Lord, a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like one day.” Acts 1:7 tells us, “It is not for you to know the times or the dates the Father has set by His own authority.”

Many questions arise because people fail to understand the relationship between time and God. The way God answers prayers is radically affected by time. Humans tend to want our requests instantly gratified, but God frequently acts in a different time frame than we desire. God also does not answer prayers or produce actions that would violate our freedom of choice. We can pray for someone to do a certain thing, and God may make it possible, but He will not violate a person’s ability to choose. We are here for a purpose in the war between good and evil, and we can choose what we will do. God makes it possible but does not force us to accept His will.

Those who try to predict the time of Christ’s second coming fail to understand that all things are embedded in God’s independence from time. The question of the Earth’s age is also rooted in a poor understanding of the nature of time. Changes in stars and galaxies take very long periods of time, including how long it takes for the light from distant stars to reach the Earth.

How long did it take to produce the land masses we live on, and by what method did God make them? Those who want instant gratification have God miraculously zapping the entire geologic column instantly. That is not what the evidence from geology tells us. The record in the rocks of our planet tells of God’s careful preparation of the natural resources He knew we would need. God could zap oil into existence in an underground storage formation, but the evidence is that He has taken a long time with many different agencies to produce the fossil fuels of coal, oil, and gas, as well as the minerals we depend on.

The nature of time is a mystery to us, and we create conflict when we force our concept of time on a God who created time and is not limited by it.

November 21, 2021November 17, 2021

Bearing Fruit Before the Time is Gone

The importance of not putting things off gets highlighted when we realize how quickly the past fades into an unconnected reality. How quickly we forget things that we should have done, people we should have visited, and ways we should have responded to the needs of others. The whole concept of “bearing fruit” (John 15:2) is to do as much as possible with the time God gives us. We recently received a list from David Harrington that reminded me how quickly the past fades from our memory. Do you realize:

1) That the Beatles split up 52 years ago?
2) That Elvis has been dead 44 years? (He would be 86 today.)
3) That the movie “Wizard of Oz” is 82 years old?
4) That Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” video is 38 years old?
5) That John Lennon has been dead 41 years?
6) That Mickey Mantle retired from baseball 53 years ago?
7) That the Ed Sullivan show ended 49 years ago?
8) That the “Brady Bunch” TV show premiered 52 years ago?
9) That the triplets on the TV Show “My Three Sons” are now 52 years old?
10) That the Corvette turned 68 years old this year?

In Luke 16, we read about the “Rich Man” and “Lazarus.” The rich man wanted to get the message to his brothers that they needed to conform to God’s will. Abraham responded to the rich man that no one can go from the existence of the dead to the living. All the years that the rich man had to meet the needs of Lazarus were forgotten. We should be using our time now for bearing fruit by doing the things Jesus described in Matthew 25:31-40.

July 8, 2020July 7, 2020

Time Debate and Genesis

Several years ago, I was involved in a three-way debate in California between a Young Earth Creationist, a Modern Apologist Scholar, and myself. I was supposed to present design arguments while the other two engaged in an intellectual tug-of-war over the Genesis account. I learned from that experience not to get involved in that kind of time debate again.

I have engaged in debates with atheists for over 50 years, but those debates were easy to understand, and the different views were clear. This Califonia debate was between believers. Because the subject was the integrity of the Genesis account, I used a chart that shows that the SEQUENCE of the Genesis 1 account and the fossil record are identical. The Apologist Scholar denigrated my chart by saying that the events described occurred over a 600 million year period, and, therefore, the Genesis account could not be viewed as historically accurate. The Young Earth Creationist reacted to that claim, and they engaged in a free-for-all about the time issues and the purpose of Genesis 1. The point of my chart was lost in the time debate.

Humans always get hung up on the time issues. God created time. Psalms 90:4 says, “A thousand years in your sight are but as yesterday when it is past and as a watch in the night.” God is outside of time, and the Bible tells us over-and-over not to restrict Him by demanding a time-scale for what God does. “But, beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years and a thousand years as one day” (2 Peter 3:8). “It is not for you to know the times or the seasons, which the Father has put in His own power” (Acts 1:7).

The message of Genesis is not about time. The first verse of the Bible describes an event and process that is not dated or timed. The fact that the first chapter gives an accurate account of the SEQUENCE in which God created the Earth and all that is on it is excellent evidence that it came from the Creator. Since God created time, there is no reason for us to get hung up on how long God chose to do His work.

Theologians have led us down a rocky road of ascribing dates and times to the things God has done or will do. The birth of Christ certainly did not happen on December 25. Denominations have been created by theologians who try to establish when Christ will come again and when the judgment will take place. This is even though Jesus said, “…of that day and hour knows no man, no not the angels of heaven – only my Father” (Matthew 24:36).

People want to know when things will happen so that they can be prepared, but 2 Peter 3:11 anticipates that and warns us to always be prepared. It is hard for us to comprehend the fact that time for us ends when we die. It is equally difficult to realize that God acts outside of time. Many people stumble by putting the Genesis account at odds with the scientific evidence or relegating the Bible to symbolism and mythology rather than being literally true. Don’t get caught up in the time debate and make time an enemy of faith in the God of love, truth, and wisdom portrayed in His Word.

February 9, 2020May 14, 2023

How We Use Our Time

During 2019, several popular books were published on the subject of how we use our time. The February 10, 2020, issue of Time magazine carried an article talking about all these new books and programs (page 14). The article stated that in 2018 women spent an average of 4.9 hours a day on leisure activities, and men spent 5.7 hours. It also said that 55% of all Americans don’t use their paid time off.

God gives all of us 168 hours every week that we live. Let me encourage you to make out a time budget just for information purposes. Allow yourself generous amounts of time for what you already do. Give yourself eight hours a day to sleep, three hours a day to eat, 40 hours a week for your job, and 4.9 hours or 5.7 hours a day for leisure activities, as the Time article suggests. How much time do you have left? For most of us, it will be over 15 hours a week.

For Christians, we can spend that 15 hours in direct service to God. The local congregation would be blessed beyond measure if all of its members would do this. Visitation, caring for infirm and elderly people in a nursing home, operating a food bank, making phone calls to encourage and uplift others, teaching, caring for young people who lack adult care and guidance – the list is endless. Spending that time in front of a TV or watching R or X rated movies is not a good use of the time.

Paul wrote in 2 Timothy 4:6-8, “… the time of my departure is at hand. I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith…” We will all defend our use of the time God gave us to live on Earth. For active Christians, how we use our time will not be an issue. Make your time count.

October 28, 2019November 15, 2019

How Do You Use Your Time?

John Clayton asks, "How Do You Use Your Time?" God has given you 168 hours of time every week that you live. The question that each one of us must answer is, “What to do with that 168 hours?” How do you use your time?

If you consider the average essentials, they might look like this:
Eight hours a day for sleeping is 56 hours a week.
Work might be 40 hours per week.
If you take an hour to eat each meal, that would add up to 21 hours a week.
Personal hygiene, including exercise, might be 20 hours a week.

That adds up to 137 hours a week, giving us 31 hours or more than 4 hours a day left. How do you use your time that is left? The chances are that the numbers quoted here not accurate with what you do. I never get eight hours of sleep in a day, but I work far more than 40 hours a week. Realize that these numbers are just a starting point for what we do with the time we have been given.

Suppose we took the Old Testament tithe of 10%. A tithe of 168 is 16.8 hours. Let’s round that down to 16 hours a week to give back to God. Assume you go to worship and Bible class every time the door is open at the Church meeting place. That would be four hours a week spent in worship and Bible study with other Christians. We still have 12 hours to give back to God every week. Let me point out that these numbers allow 14.2 hours a week for you to watch TV, go fishing, go to a movie, etc.

Sixty years ago, I decided that I was going to give God 12 hours a week, not counting “going to Church,” to equal 10% of what He had given me. I found it very hard to do. The way I did it included:
Visiting people in the hospital.
Writing and sending cards.
Setting up and conducting Bible studies in my home or in other people’s homes.
Getting involved in a prison ministry.
Working with disturbed teens.
Taking youth groups to rallies and workshops.
Shoveling widow’s sidewalks.
Preparing the Church bulletin.
I did those and other things and kept a record to get to 12 hours a week.

Do you know what happened? I found contentment and peace and strength that I had never known as an atheist. Life was full of joy and surprises. The hard knocks in my personal and professional life became less destructive to me personally. When the Bible said, “It is more blessed to give than to receive,” it wasn’t just talking about money. Imagine what would happen if every Christian gave back to God 16.8 hours of the time God has given them! How do you use your time?
— John N. Clayton © 2019

October 27, 2019October 25, 2019

Time Crystals

Time Crystals Compared to a Quartz Crystal One of the most difficult things for anyone to understand is that time and space are created things. Many biblical passages present the concept that time had a start and will have an end. (See Genesis 1:1, Proverbs 8:22, Hebrews 1:10, 2 Peter 3:10-13, etc.) That concept of time is difficult to understand because it is outside of our experience. Scientific American (November 2019, page 28 ff) published a report on a new state of matter called time crystals.

We are all familiar with crystals that show symmetry in their shape. When we look at a quartz crystal with extreme magnification, we see that layers repeat over and over, giving the crystal its shape. Scientists theorize that a similar process operates in time. Time crystals show symmetry, but they do it in time rather than in space. This means that the repeating pattern is seen in time and is not visible to the naked eye directly but rather governs the way materials behave on a quantum level.

All of this is highly complex, and the Scientific American article “The Exquisite Precision of Time Crystals” is very technical. The bottom line is that it has a lot to do with how matter behaves. Time crystals have the potential to expand our understanding of cosmology and black holes. God has used some sophisticated methods to create a universe in which there is stability. Just as ordinary crystals are the building blocks of rocks and minerals, time crystals are the building blocks of charge, mass, and time. Science is just beginning to understand them.
— John N. Clayton © 2019

September 2, 2019September 4, 2023

Being Timeless

Being Timeless Being outside of time or timeless is a new concept to science. In classical physics, time is perhaps the most fundamental standard against which everything else is based. When we measure velocity, it’s basic unit is length per second or hour. Feet per second or miles per hour are familiar to most of us. When we measure acceleration, the units are meters per second squared. Newton’s Second Law defines force as mass multiplied by acceleration, so time even becomes involved in parameters that don’t directly include motion.

One of the equations that Einstein gave us which high school students like to play with is the equation for time at very high speeds. For a given frame of reference, time is defined by the equation T = T’/the square root of 1 – V² over C². In the equation, T = the time you experience. T’ is the time you would experience at rest relative to a given frame of reference. V is the speed at which you move, and C is the speed of light. Notice that as your speed reaches the speed of light, the fraction V²/C² become 1, and since it is subtracted from 1, the value of the denominator becomes zero. Time ceases to exist. It becomes undefined.

If you could exceed the speed of light, the denominator would become the square root of a negative number which is said to be imaginary. Einstein gave us a similar equation for mass in which the mass is the undefined factor. Nuclear physics and quantum mechanics verify these equations.

This is an over-simplified explanation, but the point I am making is that there is physical evidence that there are dimensions beyond the three in which we exist. Being timeless is something science has begun to comprehend because these equations show that time is a variable that can be changed. The creation is far grander and far more mysterious than we can imagine.

For Christians, this is no surprise. The Bible is full of descriptions that embrace the idea that time is a created entity and that creations exist outside of time. The whole concept of there being a beginning to the cosmos in Genesis 1:1 recognizes that there was an existence before time. Proverbs 8:22-23 indicates that time was a designed and fashioned quantity. Revelation 22:13 repeats this concept. Second Timothy 1:9 refers to it, and the whole idea of eternity relies upon it.

When we reach the end of life, time ceases to exist for us. That has interesting implications. If there is no time, there is no death because death depends upon aging, and without time, nothing ages. There is no physical pain if time doesn’t exist. That’s because physical pain depends upon the time it takes for the pain signal to go from what gets hurt (like a finger) to what registers the hurt – your brain.

“No more tears, no more sorrows.” Revelation 21:4 Describes this change saying that “the former things have all passed away.” Second Peter 3:8-13 speaks of the elements dissolving at the end of time. Science has given us some reinforcement for these promises recognizing that the physical world will be done away with when time ends. Let us live in such a way that we can look forward to the timeless new order God has in store for us.
— John N. Clayton © 2019

September 6, 2018September 9, 2018

Evolution Does Not Explain Creation

Evidence from Cosmology
The notion of God as the creator has escaped our world today. We have not understood that there was a beginning, that God caused the beginning, and that His imprint is on all we see around us. We have been told that evolution explains all these things, but in reality, evolution doesn’t address the question. Evolution does not explain creation.

Evolution assumes that time has been created. Evolution assumes that space has been created and that matter/energy has been created within space/time. Evolution assumes that forces we are just beginning to understand shaped the matter/energy in space/ time so that stable physical matter came into existence. It assumes that the properties of matter/energy caused it to become organized into galaxies, and stars, and solar systems.

Evolution further assumes that within one of those solar systems a planet was created within the Goldilocks zone where water could exist as a liquid. On that planet, carbon and oxygen and heavy metals were produced to allow tangible matter to exist for long periods of time. Then evolution assumes that within a limited time these materials came into existence in an environment and with a catalyst that could produce life.

Once all those assumptions have been made, evolution attempts to explain how that first life changed to eventually become us. In other words, evolution tries to explain how once the creation happened, things got to be as they are today. Evolution does not explain creation.
–John N. Clayton © 2018

This post was adapted from “First-Century Athens and the 21st-Century World” by John N. Clayton. We encourage you to read the complete article which appears in the third quarter 2018 DOES GOD EXIST? Journal. If you subscribe to the printed version, you should have received it in the mail. Otherwise, you can read it online at THIS LINK.

June 6, 2017October 6, 2018

Outside of Time and Space

A view outside of time and space
As physicists and astronomers gather more data on the nature of the cosmos, the more they realize one important thing. Scientists realize that the cosmos came into being by agencies outside of time and space.

Einstein’s famous concept of gravity and mass as depressions in the fabric of space/time assumes that the view is being made by an observer outside of space/time. There is a famous illustration which shows a bowling ball and a soccer ball sitting on a mattress. The bowling ball makes a bigger dent in the mattress than the soccer ball does. Its mass is the explanation of the deeper impression than the soccer ball. All of that can only be seen by an observer looking at the mattress from a position outside of the frame of reference of the mattress.

In the mathematics of quantum mechanics and string theory, the equations suggest more than the traditional four dimensions of X, Y, Z, and time. In string theory, the equations suggest eleven spacial dimensions. This is another interesting agreement between science and faith. God is described throughout the Bible as existing in a higher dimension than X, Y, Z, and time. In Acts 17: 23-28 Paul talks about “the unknown God” and portrays the real God as one “in whom we live and move and have our being.”

Science and the Bible agree that there are more dimensions than three spacial dimensions and time. All evidence says that the creation process involved an entity or entities in higher dimensions than X, Y, Z, and time. Time and space could only be created by an entity outside of time and space. The disagreement is whether that entity is personal or impersonal. The properties of a personal creator would involve purpose, beauty, design, intelligence, and order. The properties of an entity that is not personal would have no purpose, would be totally chance-driven, would show no design, and would have no reason for beauty.

A cosmos created by that which is in a higher dimension gives another strong evidence for the existence of God. We were created with a sense of and need for purpose, beauty, color, and design. Our very being reflects that creation in glowing terms. We are not androids or robots. We are creatures created in the image of the Creator who has a love for those beings that reflect His nature.
–John N. Clayton © 2017