OPINION: HARRY MARTINEZ: What's in a Day, Pt.1
May 15—Our lives are counted in days and within those days are of hours, minutes and seconds. It is impossible to escape the "time factor" that governs one's decisions and actions. The Scriptures have much to say concerning days. Since the human mind cannot comprehend timelessness, Scripture reveals God working in the human race within the framework of time. The Psalmist said ... "So teach us to number our days, that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom" (Ps 90:12 KJV).
The words day and time are used in many ways in Scripture. The Bible begins with the emphatic statement of creation... "In the beginning God created the Heavens and the earth" and the subsequent catastrophic divine judgment on that creation as a result of Satanic rebellion ... "the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep (Gen 1:1,2 KJV). Moses then describes the six days in which God restored the earth.
One of those days was the Sabbath, the seventh day after God had completed the restoration of His original creation. That significant day symbolized His completed work. It established the precedent that God does the Work [pictured at the Cross] on behalf of man.
In the New Testament, the Apostle John said... "I was in the Spirit on the Lord's Day," [Sunday, the day after the Sabbath] (Rev 1:10 KJV). God's Spirit encouraged this apostle on the Isle of Patmos with a preview of the end times prior to Christ's return to establish His earthly kingdom.
John's revelation of those wrathful days was prophesied to Zephaniah ... "The great day of the LORD is near, it is near, and hasteth greatly, even the voice of the day of the LORD: the mighty man shall cry there bitterly. That day is a day of wrath, a day of trouble and distress, a day of wasteness and desolation, a day of darkness and gloominess, a day of clouds and thick darkness, a day of the trumpet and alarm against the fenced cities, and against the high towers. and I will bring distress upon men, that they shall walk like blind men, because they have sinned against the LORD: and their blood shall be poured out as dust, and their flesh as the dung. Neither their silver nor their gold shall be able to deliver them in the day of the LORD's wrath; but the whole land shall be devoured by the fire of his jealousy: for he shall make even a speedy riddance of all them that dwell in the land" Zeph 1:14-18 KJV).
John described another day of wrath ... "And I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God; and the books were opened: and another book was opened, which is the book of life: and the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books, according to their works. and the sea gave up the dead which were in it; and death and hell delivered up the dead which were in them: and they were judged every man according to their works. and death and hell were cast into the lake of fire.
This is the second death. and whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire" (Rev 20:12-15 KJV).
While things change from day to day, God's offer of salvation is always the same. It can be accepted by faith today, in a moment of time. "Jesus told the woman at the well ... 'whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life.'
Likewise, Paul and Silas responded to the jailer's question ... 'Sirs, what must I do to be saved?' and they said, believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved, and thy house. and they spake unto him the word of the Lord, and to all that were in his house" (Acts 16:30b-32 KJV).
Harry Martinez, a resident of Albany, is a retired minister who served a nondenominational congregation in Florida. His weekly column appears in several South Georgia newspapers.
