Time Between The Times

Alas and did my Savior bleed, and did my Sovereign die...
Would He devote that sacred head for sinners such as I....
At the cross...at the cross where I first saw the light
And the burden of my heart rolled away...
It was there by faith I received my sight...
And now I am happy all the day.

Tonight as we gather for our meeting, it will be a strange time.
Good Friday has already passed....
Easter isn't here yet.....
We are kind of in a time between the times.
And such will be our focus tonight...
The sheer fact that we do exist in a time between the times.

Paul, in Galatians 1, referred to it as "This present evil age".
We live between Jesus' first appearance here on earth, and His second coming.
Such time has passed, that many view Jesus as one more religious "fairy tale." A good story that has nothing to do with our current day and time, and certainly nothing to do with our personal lives. After all, if in fact this Jesus did do everything people claimed He did.....well, that was over 2000 years ago. Different time. Different culture. Different country.

The one thing that is always left out of the equation in this disproving of the validity of Jesus is the heart.
The heart of man (humanity).
That has not changed.
It still beats with the same greed, lust for power, a penchant for sin, huge amounts of anger. And the list could go on and on and on. That part has not changed. Look around you and see the evidence. Mother's killing their children by drowning them. Sexual perversion that no longer shocks us as a society. Some might throw up the argument, "Yeah, but we didn't pass our children through the fire like the people did when they worshiped the false god, Molech!" I'll give you that one. We didn't pass them through the fire....we just aborted them. We don't even refer to them as children or babies. In an effort to cleanse our conscience, we call them fetuses and tissue. That sounds more humane. Well, let me ask you this. If we gave fetuses and birth tissue the right to vote, how do you think they would vote when it comes to abortion.

As much evil as there is in the hearts of men....
We must never forget that Jesus did not die in vain.
Jesus did not walk out of that tomb on the first day of the week and think to himself, "Well, that was all for nothing." He knew all too well the power and the plans of His heavenly Father. He knew that lives would be changed. And the cross would stand as a defining moment when everything changed here on planet earth. The door was now open for everyone to be made right and reconciled to God. The gift of abundant life and eternal life was now awash over the planet. No wonder our enemy the devil works so hard to tear down and corrupt. He knows that he can never stop or thwart God's plans. That devil must be one frustrated individual.

So tonight as we gather, we will give thanks for the cross of Christ.
We will look forward to His resurrection....
But we will acknowledge that we are living in a time between the times, and we need Him more now than ever.

God on you...
mb