The Sun Dial

From sunrise to sunset, the shadow of the sun, slowly crosses the face of the sundial, and the mystery of time is placed on display. Time is something we take for granted. Try to define time, and you will immediately run into great paradoxes and mysteries.

Here's 'Webster's definition: "a nonspatial continuum that is measured in terms of events which succeed one another from past through present to future."

What is time? Does it actually exist? Is there an actual real time, that we are trying to measure or is time a human invention to describe the passing of events? Is it simply a function of memory? Some believe there is only an 'eternal now', and time is an illusion. But time stands or falls with space and motion. If there is no time, motion and place must be illusion as well. Try measuring speed (motion) without time. Try to think of traveling from one place to the other, without the notion of time. "I was there, I am here, I will be there." And it took so much time to make the trip. New Age Adherents still use past, present and future tenses in language. They live and describe their lives in terms of past, present and future. Yes, time, space and matter exist, despite attempts to dismiss them as illusion. 

Is time finite, or eternal? Did it always exist, or did it have a beginning? If it is finite, then it had a beginning. But then one must ask what happened before time? If time is eternal, meaning it always was and always will be, then we could never have arrived in the present moment since an eternal amount of moments could never come to pass. 

Is the universe eternal? Can an eternal amount of events ever come to pass? Try imagining a chain hanging in air, each link holding up the one before it. Doesn't there need to be an original link hooked to a nail? As each event in the universe causes the next succeeding event to take place, there must be an original event that began the chain.

Let's put it another way. Every effect in time, was caused by the event before it. Picture a long string of dominoes, each one being pushed over by the one before it. There is always the first domino. Likewise there cannot be an eternal regress of causes and effects, for an eternal amount of events could never come to pass. Therefore there has to be a First Cause to all the effects of the universe. No matter how many dominoes you count, or examine in the Universe, at some point you still must get to the First Cause, that my friends is God. He is the Uncaused Cause of all Causation. And He wants you to know that whatever portion of creation you examine, it will all point back to Him. And thankfully, He is good, and He loves you.

Let's note some other features of our universe. The universe is expanding. If you were to run a movie of the universe expanding, and then reverse it, you would see all matter coming back together to an original point.

The universe is cooling, meaning that the available amount of energy giving light and heat to the universe is running down. No new energy is being created. These are two laws of thermodynamics. The universe could not have been cooling down for eternity, or it would have completely burnt itself out by now.

What does all of this mean? It means time and all of creation had a beginning. They call it "The Big Bang"; the moment when all mass and energy were created and began expanding. But what was the Cause of the Big Bang? If they do find a cause one day, one must certainly ask, "Then what caused that?" In fact, you can ask, "What caused that?" to every event in the Universe. But you must one day come to the original event, for an eternal amount of events would never even reach the event that you stand in today.

Then what caused God? Many atheists think they have arrived at the death blow question with this. But my friends, we have only two choices: either an eternal Universe or an eternal God. Which seems more logical?

We have already seen that the Universe is expanding, running out of energy and began at the Big Bang. Not only that, but the universe is full of transcendent things, like love, good, evil, beauty and justice. All of which would not exist, if the Universe were simply a random collection of molecules eternally bouncing around. The Universe doesn't seem to be random at all, instead it seems to show great design. No atheistic nature show can tell the story of any creature without using the word design. Nature designs, nature in it's wisdom provided. But what is nature? It is nothing. But they won't say, "nothing created, nothing in it's wisdom provided." Nature is a substitute for the word God.

Either Mind made matter, or matter made Mind.

The time displayed on a simple ancient sundial, points to the Creator of time, space and matter. If we live to be 70 years old, the shadow on the sundial would cross the its face 25,550 times by the time of our death. Let's honor our Creator by giving Him the glory for the gift of time. It is a precious gift, from The Precious Gift Giver. 

Psalm 19
The heavens declare the glory of God; 
the skies proclaim the work of his hands. 
Day after day they pour forth speech; 
night after night they display knowledge. 
There is no speech or language 
where their voice is not heard. 
Their voice goes out into all the earth, 
their words to the ends of the world.