The Alternative

Dr. Tony Evans: When it comes to God, you are not to look at time in the same way. God has a sovereign plan. He knows when he’s coming back, but he also knows things are happening along the way.

Guest (Male): Dr. Tony Evans says God’s timing includes far more than what we can presently see. This is The Alternative broadcast, featuring the timeless biblical teachings from the archives of Dr. Tony Evans.

It’s easy to get so caught up in the pressures of everyday life that we lose sight of the bigger picture. Today, Dr. Evans challenges us to look beyond the temporary to catch a glimpse of God’s promises for the future. Let’s join him as he begins.

Dr. Tony Evans: When you go to a restaurant and you sit down, the first thing they’re going to do is give you a menu. The menu is a written documentation of what the restaurant has to offer. You can sometimes salivate merely by reading the menu. Sometimes the menu is so exciting to read, your taste buds can begin to feel it. Oh, that looks good. Oh, maybe I want to try that. Oh, I think, boy. You sometimes are wrestling with the text of the menu.

Then, after you have been given a menu and had time to review the words that are on it, someone comes up who will do exegesis on the menu. That’s a waiter or waitress. They will come and their knowledge of the menu can give you inside information that merely reading it doesn't offer you. In fact, they will offer you a Q&A session so that you might have clarity.

In fact, the waiter or the waitress may give you personal testimony and say, well, I tried this, and I liked that. They will also make personal recommendations. You ought to try this, you ought to try that. So you’ve gone to the restaurant, you’ve read the words on the menu, you’ve heard proclamation, clarification by the waiter or waitress.

At that point, what you don't do is get up and leave. And the reason you don't get up and leave is that’s not why you came. It was essential to your being there; it’s not the reason that you came. The reason that you came was to experience a meal. You didn't merely come to hear about it or read about it. Therefore, if you leave, you leave empty, no matter how excited you were at what you read or what you heard, because the goal is the experience. Anything short of that leaves you hungry.

Conversely, people can go to church and have the word read. The waiter, the deliverer, the exegete can explain it clearly, and people still leave hungry. Peter's goal with the prophetic word is that prophecy should lead to an experience, not merely written information about what's to come, not merely proclaimed explanation of the prophetic word. But as we saw in chapter one, he wanted the morning star to rise in your heart. And so prophecy, the word of God generally, but specifically in this chapter, it is the prophetic word to create a life experience because of the prophetic word, an impact because of the prophetic word.

From 1996 to the year 2000, there was a TV show I would regularly watch and it was called Early Edition. Anybody watch that TV show? Numbers of you. In the TV show Early Edition, Gary Hobson receives a newspaper brought to the door by a cat every day. But it was tomorrow's newspaper that he got today. So he would get tomorrow's newspaper a day in advance.

And what the show was about was what he was going to do in light of the news to come. And so it showed how he would intervene in situations, help people, correct scenarios, because he knew what was coming tomorrow, because he'd gotten early information today. You and I who hold the Bible and believe the Bible have been given the early edition. We've been given the news today—information about tomorrow today.

But the purpose of having the information about tomorrow today is what are you going to do in light of what you now know? Because we've gotten inside information. After Peter is talking about this coming of the Lord, he's dealing with false teachers, people who are using the pulpit wrongly. False teachers. He calls them false prophets.

Watch out for any ministry that uses time to camouflage or cancel eternity. Whenever the temporary gets more emphasis than the eternal future, you have flipped the script and you're wandering into the arena of false teaching. A lot of that is seen in prosperity theology. It becomes a false prophet because it emphasizes now at the expense of eternity. Nothing wrong with maximizing time as long as you don't lose sight of tomorrow as you do it.

This affects you in practical ways. It affects whether people will give or not, because all they see is now. They don't see what the newspaper's saying tomorrow. Or serving, all they see is now, they don't see tomorrow. So the clearer the view of tomorrow, the better the experience today in time, which is why he wants prophecy to stir them up, to be reminded as he said.

So he says there's coming a day, like Noah's day, when there will be an unexpected, untimed intrusion by God, the coming of Jesus Christ, concluding with what he concludes with, a new heaven and a new earth. He's going to talk about that. So we pick it up in verse eight as we go through verse 13 in this session.

But do not let this one fact escape you, beloved, that with the Lord one day is like a thousand years and a thousand years like one day. He says make sure your theology of time is correct. He's talking about time. With the Lord one day, he says, is like—he doesn't say one day is a thousand years—he says one day is like a thousand years.

Translation is: God does not view time as we do. You can't look at your clock to time God. Jesus didn't even do that because he said I don't know the day or the hour either. His divine consciousness blocked his human consciousness. Because he's God and man, so because he's God, there's nothing he doesn't know, but he's also man. So in the hypostatic union, the coming together of two natures in one person unmixed forever, Jesus would have to not let his deity cancel out his humanity.

He can't say, because I'm God, I don't get hungry. Because I'm God, I don't get thirsty. Because I'm God, I don't need to sleep. Or because I'm God, I know everything. Which is why the Bible says he had to learn in Luke chapter two. He had to grow as a baby, and he had to grow through the process of development. Now, how are you going to do that if you're God? Because he does not let his divine nature cancel his human reality.

He says, when it comes to God, you are not to look at time in the same way. One day is as a thousand years, a thousand years is as one day. And the reason that time for God is different is that God is an eternal being. God has no yesterday. God has no tomorrow. In the sphere in which God exists, he exists in the realm of timelessness.

So in his realm of existence, time is meaningless, and that's why he could tell Moses my name is I Am, because he only exists in the present tense. He doesn't have a yesterday, he doesn't have a tomorrow, he only has now. Everything is now for God. Now, we can't appreciate that because we're time-bound creatures. We go from minutes to hours to days to months to years to decades to centuries to millenniums; we are creatures of time.

Peter says don't impose that on God, because he doesn't operate that way. Now, there is coming a day when God's reality will be our experience. In the eternal state, when there's no longer any night, no longer any sun, and we are existing in a timeless state, there will be for us no tomorrow and no yesterday. We will live in a now because we will be in an eternal state.

But we can't relate to that now because we are creatures bound by what God created. God created time. In the beginning, God created the heaven and earth, which means God existed before heaven and earth began. So if there's no heaven and no earth, you're talking about another dimension, because the only dimension we know is the dimension of the universe.

So God exists in a whole other dimension, and that's why people, atheists, what they want to do is judge God by our universe context. And so they're starting with the wrong question. You can't ask that question—well, you can ask it, but it is an impossible question to answer because it is not connected to the nature of God and the realm in which he exists.

That makes me think of a little humorous story. A man went to heaven and ran into St. Peter. And said to St. Peter, "Boy, this place is awesome, and the whole setting." He says, "What is a penny worth up here?" Peter said, "Oh, up here, a penny's worth a million dollars." He said, "Well, time, what's a minute up here?" "A minute? Oh, that's equal to like a million years." The man said to Peter, "Well, can you loan me a million?" Peter said, "Yeah, in a minute."

But time is different with God. But it also means to our benefit that God can accomplish in one day what it would take man a thousand years. See, he can do in a day, and that's why in scripture you see all these "suddenly's." God will immediately or suddenly do something, or stuff comes out of nowhere, because he's not bound by the systems of time. And he doesn't limit himself to our calendar although he is involved because he is transcendent in nature outside of time, he's immanent in function with time. Transcendent outside of time, immanent in time, and he's both locations at the same time.

So he says, when it comes to the coming of the Lord—because that's what's leading him to say this—don't use your clock, don't use your calendar.

Guest (Male): One we return to our message in just a moment, Dr. Evans will explain why what looks like delay from our perspective is actually evidence of God's patience and mercy. First though, today's lesson is part of a special three-part series called The Sure Word: Living in Light of Prophecy. These messages were recorded live at the Kingdom Leaders Summit and focus on what happens when we view life through the lens of eternity instead of through the pressures of the moment.

Dr. Evans explains that when we understand God's prophetic promises, we begin to live with greater purpose, patience, and peace, even when life feels uncertain. We'd like to send you all three messages in this powerful series as our thank-you gift when you make a donation to support the ministry of The Alternative. Along with the audio collection, we'll also include Tony's book, Thy Kingdom Come. It's a practical, encouraging resource that explores biblical prophecy and explains how God's plan for tomorrow should shape the way we live today.

Get all the details right now at tonyevans.org or call our 24-hour resource center at 1-800-800-3222. Again, that's tonyevans.org or call 1-800-800-3222. We'll get back to part two of today's message right after this.

Guest (Male): I urge you to take this course. Dr. Craig Evans, renowned expert on the New Testament, serves as the special guest lecturer for the Tony Evans Training Center course on the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Bible that covers very important ground—what they are and what they're not. One of the most significant archaeological finds of the 20th century, the Dead Sea Scrolls provide unparalleled insights into the accuracy of the Bible. These ancient manuscripts offer a treasure trove of historical and spiritual significance.

They preserve for us the Hebrew Bible and shed light on the teaching of Jesus and the major contributors to the New Testament. The scrolls open a vivid window into the life and beliefs of the Jewish people during the time of Jesus. You will understand the Bible and Jesus and Christian origins better than you ever have before. Take your first step as an honorary amateur archaeologist. Dive into the Dead Sea Scrolls with special guest lecturer Dr. Craig Evans. Discover this and other fascinating biblical studies at tonyevanstraining.org. Explore the kingdom anytime, anywhere.

Dr. Tony Evans: The Lord is not slow, verse nine, about his promise. What promise? The promise of his coming. Remember, the scoffers were saying, "Where is the promise of his coming?" He is not slow about his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing for any to perish but for all to come to repentance.

He says God is not slow concerning what he says or what he promises he's going to do, as some men—because they're looking at it from a human perspective—count or look at time or promises. He says, but he's waiting on us, not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance.

So wait a minute. God and his promise includes what you and I do or don't do. He says he's waiting on us. He keeps his promise while waiting, because his promise includes our participation. Notice he's waiting on "us." Us are the beloved he's talking about. So he's talking about Christians. He says, "I'm waiting on you."

Oh, wait a minute. God's got his own clock and he's not slow, but is patient toward us. Okay. How do we marry this promise of God and our responsibility that he's waiting on? When you understand the relationship of sovereignty and responsibility and how the two marry one another, it then can explain things that brings to light this reality. Sovereignty means God rules. God rules. He makes a promise; he's going to keep his promise because he is true to himself. He is sovereign.

At the same time, he holds us responsible. And he's doing both. In football, you have sovereign lines, meaning lines that don't change. The goal line will never move, the sidelines will never move, the first down markers, the hash marks, they don't budge. They are sovereign. In other words, they're unchangeable lines. But within the lines, there are all kind of plays being called, and they do change.

Some plays will take you forward, some plays will take you back, some plays you don't gain any yardage, you're stuck right where you were. Those plays never change the line, but they can affect where you are on the field. Because the play you called affects your location without changing the sovereignty of the line. God is sovereign in the line. He's going to achieve what his goal is. But he gives you and me the right to call plays within the sovereign lines.

Taking the football illustration a little further and tying it to time, every football game is one hour. But you're sitting there three hours. You're sitting for three, but it's only a one-hour game. When the clock ends, it's going to end at an hour. But it took three hours to accomplish one hour. How is it going to take three hours and it's only a one-hour game? It will never go beyond that in the regular course of a game, unless there's overtime. But in the regular course of the game, you've got an hour.

That's because a lot of things are happening within the hour that extends the time of the hour without changing the hour. The hour is still a sovereign hour. But all kind of timeouts and all kind of halftimes and all kind of out-of-bounds and incomplete passes, all these activities are occurring within the one hour, but it's still only a one-hour game. But you have to sit because of all the stuff happening. If very few penalties are called, then it's going to be shorter. If more penalties are called, it's going to be longer.

And guess what? The clock stops when certain things happen on the field of play within the one hour. God has a sovereign plan. He knows when he's coming back, but he also knows things are happening along the way that affect the timing without changing the time. So it's not that he's slow; it's that things are happening within the prescribed time, which makes it feel longer, looks longer than it actually is.

And so he says God can be trusted, and he's waiting on us, not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance. So his love affects his timing. His desire, his emotion, not willing, not desiring, for any to perish but for all to come to repentance.

Guest (Male): Dr. Tony Evans with a reminder that eternity is too important to delay, and God wants us to place our hope and trust in Christ while we still can. If that's something you'd like to find out more about, visit tonyevans.org and click the link at the top of the homepage that simply says "Jesus." Tony has information for you there about what it means to completely trust your life to God's care.

Now, today's lesson on the urgency of eternity is part of a three-part teaching series from Dr. Evans called The Sure Word: Living in Light of Prophecy. For a limited time, we're bundling these full-length lessons on CD, USB flash drive, or digital download along with Tony's helpful book on biblical prophecy called Thy Kingdom Come. You'll receive these powerful resources as our thank-you gift when you make a donation to help us keep Tony's teaching on this station. Get your copy before this special offer runs out. Visit tonyevans.org or call our 24-hour resource center at 1-800-800-3222. That's 1-800-800-3222 or online at tonyevans.org.

Well, if you find these messages from Dr. Evans helpful, you'll also want to listen to the Unbound podcast, a place where Tony engages in thoughtful discussions on a variety of topics with other followers of Christ. You can find these conversations on his YouTube channel or wherever you stream your favorite podcast. Have you ever noticed how quickly temporary things start to feel permanent? Tomorrow, Dr. Evans explores why God calls us to hold this world loosely while living with eternity firmly in view. I hope you'll be back with us for that.