Romans 13:11-12: What Time Is It?

INTRODUCTION:

What time is it?  Where are we in the unfolding of time?  There are different answers to this question depending on your worldview. If you are materialist that has science as your religion, then the answer is we are somewhere between the big bang and the big freeze/crunch.  If you are New Age we are living in the time of Aquarius and no longer in the age of Pisces. The age of Pisces being represented by a fish was the age of Christianity and of hierarchy and power. They now believe that we are in the age of Aquarius and this is the age of knowing yourself and becoming.  All the conflicts of minority groups gaining equal rights and clashing with older traditional values is seen as a mark of this transition.  The bible has God’s view of time.  And it is an awareness of this time and the nature of it that Paul turns to in the next section in Romans 13:11-14, ‘Besides this you know the time, that the hour has come for you to wake from sleep. For salvation is nearer to us now than when we first believed.12 The night is far gone; the day is at hand. So then let us cast off the works of darkness and put on the armor of light.13 Let us walk properly as in the daytime, not in orgies and drunkenness, not in sexual immorality and sensuality, not in quarreling and jealousy.14 But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to gratify its desires.’  This section falls naturally into two parts. V11-12a deals with the fact of what time it is; and 12b-14 deals with how we ought to live in light of the facts. We will be focusing on 11-12a today as we seek to understand the nature of the times.