As the Earth Turns
—Three things to be aware of
As you sit listening to my message today, or reading it as the case may be, you probably feel that you are sitting still. In fact you are most likely travelling at high speed, faster than a jet plane, perhaps approaching 1000 kilometres per hour. That's because you are sitting on the surface of the great globe of earth and it is spinning.
Earth makes one revolution in almost twenty-four hours. That seems very slow, but the earth is more than 12,000 kilometres in diameter so that a point on its surface nearer to the equator than to the poles, is moving at high speed.
As the earth turns, you are not aware of its motion, and I suppose you do not need to be. There are three things you should be aware of, however, that are true as the earth turns.
1 People Remember
Jesus said, "Do this in remembrance of me" (1Corinthians 11:23-26). Jesus also said, "Wherever two or three are gathered in my name, there I am in their midst" (Matthew 18:20). And so, "upon the first day of the week, the disciples came together to break bread" (Acts 20:7).
When people are gathering in churches down the east coast of Australia, partaking of the Lord's Supper, people in Vanuatu and New Zealand have done it already, and gone home for lunch. People on the West coast of Australia however, are still just getting out of bed or having breakfast. They have not yet gone to church. So as the planet revolves, the Lord's Day and the time of meeting arrives.
In a succession of churches, the dying Saviour is remembered in the symbolic supper. And so the Lord's death is proclaimed from place to place, over twenty four hours, as the earth turns. Are you there when the saints assemble in your part of the globe?
2 People Die
Another thing that I'd like us to think about is our own death. "It is appointed unto man once to die and after this comes judgment" (Hebrews 9:27).
James says, "Come now, you who say, 'Tomorrow we shall go to such and such a city, and spend a year there and do business and make a profit.' Yet your do not know what will happen tomorrow. For what is your life? It is but a vapour that appears for a little while and then vanishes away. Instead you ought to say, 'If the Lord wills we will do this or that'" (James 4:13-15).
As the earth turns, and the sunlight brings dawn to another city on the globe, many in that city will not see that new dawn, because they died. Every day —in but one turning of the earth— more than 150,000 people die. Before the earth turns one more degree, should you not get yourself ready to meet your God?
3 God Looks Down
Isaiah says that God "sits above the circle of the earth, and its inhabitants are like grasshoppers" (Isaiah 40:22). As the earth turns, God is watching. "There is no creature hidden from his sight, but all things are naked and open to the eyes of him with whom we have to do" (Hebrews 4:13).
As the earth turns, your thoughts, your words, your actions, all are observed by God. Is he pleased with you, or is he made angry by what he sees?
Epilogue
God knows all things. As the earth turns, you and I have not the faintest idea how many times it has turned before, or how many times it will turn again, but God knows. He knows when the last day will be, when earth will turn no more. Let us therefore worship, praise, and fear God, as the earth turns.