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 And Still the Rivers flow ( a contemplation of time)

One hundred years a thousand years
And still the rivers flow
I stand upon the bridge and look
Where does the water go?

It flows in perpetual motion
And travels swiftly under me
As it goes down to the ocean
And is swallowed by the sea

It rises there again once more
It rises to the sky
Taken up into an open door
As time begins to fly

It flies towards the mountain
And falls again as rain
And as it passes under me
It knows something of my pain

It exists for just a moment
The water that I see
And then before I know it
It is carried far from me

If I look on down the river
It quickly vanishes from sight
And yet it still is part of one
As the sun exists at night

Trauma passes out of view
And life it rushes on
Yet still a very part of you
It's never really gone

The past goes on before us
And the future's right behind
In the river there's no chaos
Not to look is to be blind

Time exists for man alone
There is no time before the throne
No future, no past that I can see
A single moment is eternity

Who can stop this river
And its never ending flow?
The one who started all the rain
It's to Him that I must go

For time and space it is but one
It carries faith and hope and sin
Yet in the world that is to come
New wine shall find a new wine-skin

For time is but the sum of the whole
Yet in heaven it ceases to be
For there, love and love alone
Exists to finally set us free. (bro Frank)

 2014/7/15 12:29
TMK
Member



Joined: 2012/2/8
Posts: 6650
NC, USA

 Re: And Still the Rivers flow ( a contemplation of time)

Very nicely written.

I don't mean for this to be a physics discussion but when you say that times "ceases to be" what do you mean? I have a hard time wrapping my mind around that concept.


_________________
Todd

 2014/7/15 14:47Profile
MaryJane
Member



Joined: 2006/7/31
Posts: 3057


 Re: And Still the Rivers flow ( a contemplation of time)

Beautiful Frank, thank you for sharing this with us here.

God bless
mj

 2014/7/15 15:39Profile









 Re:

HI TMK,

Obviously no one has a proper understanding of time, but we know this, that God created the universe and everything in it and He is not contained by any of it, including time, but He contains that which He has created. He holds it all in the palm of His hand so to speak. So since He created time, then He stands outside of time. A clue is the God has neither beginning nor end. In the realm of time this is not possible. We who are created have a beginning and an end, at least our flesh. Our spirits have a beginning but they do not have an end because they will dwell in a realm that is outside of time therefore we have eternal heaven or eternal hell. So therefore, by conclusion, at some point time shall be no more. There is a Scripture that may be helpful but in no way conclusive..........

Rev 10:5 And the angel which I saw stand upon the sea and upon the earth lifted up his hand to heaven,
Rev 10:6 And sware by him that liveth for ever and ever, who created heaven, and the things that therein are, and the earth, and the things that therein are, and the sea, and the things which are therein, that there should be time no longer:

Also I suppose that when we consider a thousand years as merely one day to God, this sounds like flowery poetic language that speaks to heavenly things that we cannot possibly understand..........bro Frank

 2014/7/15 15:47
TMK
Member



Joined: 2012/2/8
Posts: 6650
NC, USA

 Re:

I guess my difficulty lies in the fact that I consider time as nothing more than a way to measure the duration between one event and the next. So I don't see time as a "thing" that actually exists.

So perhaps saying that eternity is something that lasts forever is not entirely accurate. Perhaps rather it is simply a state of uninterrupted "being".


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Todd

 2014/7/15 18:18Profile









 Re:

TMK writes.......

"So perhaps saying that eternity is something that lasts forever is not entirely accurate. Perhaps rather it is simply a state of uninterrupted "being"."

I agree with that thought brother. I maybe disagree on time being nothing more than a way to measure the duration between one event and another. I think space is something that is consistent when it comes to measuring, time is more conceptual I think. Here is an example and of course is merely anecdotal. I fell of the scaffold one time, falling backwards and injuring myself to the extent that I was off work for over a year. I only fell about 14 feet. If you were to measure the time it took me to fall, you would probably have clocked about one second. Here is the strange thing, everything slowed down as I fell. I had at least 10-15 seconds worth of thoughts. Such a weird experience.

We have all heard that time flies when your enjoying yourself, and actually to some extent that is true. If one is engaged in a joyful activity one wonders " where did the time go," yet if one were sitting in solitary confinement for the same amount of time, time seems to " drag." ......bro Frank

 2014/7/15 18:48









 Re:

Thank you MJ, may the Lord bless you too..........bro Frank

 2014/7/15 18:50
dolfan
Member



Joined: 2011/8/23
Posts: 1727
Tennessee, but my home's in Alabama

 Re:

We actually spoke some on this in our SS class a few months back. It was part of some studies we did I apologetics. Fortunately for us, we had a Ph.D. Physics guy in our class who works for NASA.

Here is my physics for dummies way of expressing what I understand.

First, time is really a measurement of distance. Without some sort of matter, there is no such thing as time. Think of it. What is a second? It is a calculated fraction of a minute, which is a fraction of an hour, which is a fraction of a day. Each of these were formerly measured by the relationship of some point on earth to some point on the Sun, and the rate of the change of distance between those points. Think of light years: simply a measurement of distance of how far light travels from A to B in the time it takes for the earth to cover a distance (the length of its orbit) of one full year around the sun. You cannot even conceive of time without matter.

Nowadays, our time is measured atomically. The cesium atom emits electrons at a certain rate. The length of the microwave from top to bottom is at a given measurement called a hertz. Cesium atoms consistently emit electrons at x number of hertz in what everyone agrees is one second. From there, essentially, our times are measured. Point is that time is a function of the existence of matter. No matter, no time.

It is also why you can't reach absolute nothingness in the physical universe. This is true of distance and temperature. Since all matter exists in space, and because all matter, even the indivisible electron, cannot be in the same space as any other matter, there is no true zero in distance. Time is FORCED into being by the very existence of matter because all matter requires distance. Without matter, there is no concept knowable as time. With matter, there is no concept knowable without it.

This is why some atheists can say "there never has been a time when there was nothing." It is true. But, saying that doesn't really mean anything since time requires a "thing". No thing equals no time.

Outside of time, God is. He is not a thing. He is the I am. He simply is and that is who He reveals Himself to us to be. He hung everything on nothing, according to the imagery in Scripture. Whereas there was nothing, God spoke and there was something. By His word, all that is came to be.

Atheists will argue that nothingness is illusory and matter has always been, that it has no beginning or end. As Dawkins says, nothing is really something. He says so with a straight face. He isn't alone. Of course, that merely replaces one form of belief with another form of belief, doesn't it? Saying everything always has been, and that time never wasn't, begs the question of how that is true. They say that nothing never was and matter always was, but can only speculate. We say that matter wasn't eternal, but that God is and He made something which is, in truth, everything.

It is indeed hard to conceive. I don't really. I don't know anyone who truly can except our Lord.


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Tim

 2014/7/16 10:07Profile
ADisciple
Member



Joined: 2007/2/3
Posts: 835
Alberta, Canada

 Re:

Just to carry on the science lecture a bit further. :)

Dolfan said, "Whereas there was nothing, God spoke and there was something. By His word, all that is came to be. Atheists will argue that nothingness is illusory and matter has always been, that it has no beginning or end. As Dawkins says, nothing is really something."

Here is a quote from "Who Are You" by George Warnock:

"It is not true that God created the world, or anything in it, out of nothing. Everything God made, He created out of attributes or powers or qualities that are inherent in Himself... so that 'things which are seen were not made of things which do appear'-- but from invisible things (Heb. 11:3). And these 'invisible things of Him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and godhead; so that they are without excuse' (Rom. 1:20)."

To put that in my own words, the things that were made were not made out of nothing; they were made out of invisible things-- things in a spiritual dimension. For example, God created rock-- material rock. But the real Rock is Christ Himself. So we know what the true Rock is like by checking out some earthly rock. It is very enduring, and will not give way under us when we stand on it. Or... the branch of a tree. This was not made out of nothing. It was made out of something invisible-- Christ the Branch. And God did all this, created all this, so that we would come to know and understand the invisible things of the spiritual realm. The visible things are a testimony of the invisible things of Him.

End of my contribution to the science lecture.

...Beautiful poem, Frank.





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Allan Halton

 2014/7/16 11:11Profile









 Re:

Good stuff Dolfan. I saw a famous athiest trying to tell an audience, a fairly neutral audience that nothing was actually something. The audience began to laugh and he was puzzled at what they were laughing at. One of his co-panelists said " I think they are laughing at you saying that nothing is something." He was not amused and simply did not get it.

Good explanation though Dolfan, God is indeed outside of time as time is what you stated, a reaction, an effect of the material universe. When this universe ceases to be then time ceases to be. Good quote from George Warnock brother Alan. One day we shall ponder no longer when we step out of this flesh and this material world into the next...........bro Frank

 2014/7/16 13:02





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