"What Time Is It? Wake Up!"

                   "It is already the hour for you to awaken from sleep."

                                             Roman 13 :11b

What is the first thing you do when your alarm goes off in the  morning? Hit the snooze button? Right apostle Paul tells us to notice intead how late it is.

               Do this, knowing the time, that it is already the hour.(v11a)

"Do this," he begins, but what is "this"? "This" refers to at least the preceding three verses, and at most all, of chapter 12 and the rest of the chaoter 13. In 13:11-14, the. Paul is establishing a Endtimes perspective for how Christians should live.

The Bible divides time into only two categories: "this age" and "the age to come." "This age," our age, is a time waiting for the one to come, as John stott explains.

             The day, although it dawned at Christ's coming. Has not yet experienced the fulness of sunrise at his return. . . The apostles (knew) that the kingdom of God came with Jesus, that the decisive salvation events which established it ( his death, resurrection, exaltation and gift of the Spirit) had already taken place, and that God had nothing on his calendar before the parousia (Second Coming). It would be the next and the culminating event.

Although the kingdom of God will not be fully realized until Christ's earthly reign during the millennium, it has been set in motion by His resurrection and ascension. In light of Christ future millennial rule, Paul sounds the alarm for us to 'wake up" to God's sense of time 

              This perspective acknowledge that the Lord controls all events people, and nations and that He directs history to a predetermined end. The world lives as though human history will continue forever, but we know the world is wrong. We know that we live in "the hour" the finite period of time between Christ ascension and His imminent return. This unveiling of true time gave Paul a sense of urgency, a sense that all of us should have.

               Our urgency, however, should not lead us into extremist ways of thinking. A doomday mentality that sets dates for Christ's return does not stand in truth. The Bibles makes it clear that no one will know the time or the hour (Matt 24:36).

               An appropriate response is to heed Paul's  exhortation to "not be conformed to this world" (Rom.12:2). We need to remember that this world will not last forever, that one day God will judge it, end it, and replace it with a new creation (Rev.21:1-5). Our sense of urgency springs from the realization that we only have a limited time to spread the gospel and make God known to the world.