by Richard Rundell
God is a God of time. There is a natural and a spiritual
application to scripture. We establish the day of the Lord.
1 Cor. 15:44-45, "It is sown a natural body; it is raised a
spiritual body. There is a natural body, and there is a spiritual
body." See the two types. And so it is written, The first man Adam
was made a living soul (natural); the last Adam was made a
quickening spirit (spiritual).
1 Cor. 15:46, "Howbeit that was not first which is spiritual, but
that which is natural; and afterward that which is spiritual." That
can apply to anything.
We will see TIME as a natural body (our own body) and as the
spiritual (the body of Christ). You see a person on the outside -
the natural. You cannot see the real person, the spiritual, on the
inside. On the natural you have weight, height, age, etc., things
you see with the natural eyes.
1 Cor. 15:47, "The first man is of the earth, earthy: the second
man is the Lord from heaven." If God is a God of time, we are
running on God's calendar and not man's.
Thus the first application of establishing the day of the Lord is
that there is a natural and there is a spiritual. 1 Cor. 15:48, "As
is the earthy, such are they also that are earthy: and as is the
heavenly, such are they also that are heavenly." 1 Cor. 15:49 NKJV,
"And as we have borne the image of the man of dust, we shall also
(Gr.: let us) bear the image of the heavenly Man."
It is God who has made the universe (Job 38), and set it up on
time. God sets the time - He has set the time for Himself, set the
time for the universe, and He set the time for man. For man, time is
measured by death. Had man not had death, man would have operated in
God's (spiritual) time and not his own (natural) time. Gen. 2:15,
"Then the LORD God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to
tend and keep it." Gen. 2:17, "But of the tree of the knowledge of
good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the DAY that thou
eatest thereof thou shalt surely die (Heb.: BE DYING).
Using the term DAY, God was not talking in the natural. God is
spirit and He speaks to us spiritually. And we speak spiritually
through the Holy Spirit. In the natural a day is 24 hours. In the
spiritual it is 1000 years, in the prophetical 360 years and in the
creative it is 7000 years. God called the time element that we would
work by "DAY" and he introduced a penalty in the day as DEATH. Here
we have the idea of time, day and death. If you didn't eat of the
tree of the knowledge of good and evil you would surely not be
dying. Instead, you would function on a different level or realm.
The prophets spoke of this time. Ps. 90:4 NKJV, "For a thousand
years in Your sight Are like yesterday when it is past, And like a
watch in the night." David gives us yesterday or a day gone by as
1000. When it is past, it is a watch in the night.
Ps. 102.13, "Thou shalt arise, and have mercy upon Zion: for the
TIME to favour her, yea, THE SET TIME, is come." Ps. 102:18-20,
"This shall be written for the generation (that is us today) to
come: and THE PEOPLE WHICH SHALL BE CREATED SHALL PRAISE THE LORD.
For he hath looked down from the height of his sanctuary; from
heaven did the LORD behold the earth; To hear the groaning of the
prisoner; to LOOSE those that are appointed to death;"
At the set time of Zion, the appointment of death is loosed.
There is a 1000-year day. During this set time of favoring Zion the
appointment with death should be loosed.
Hos. 6:1-2, "Come, and let us return unto the LORD: for he hath
torn, and he will heal us; he hath smitten, and he will bind us up.
After two days will he revive us: in (Heb.: during) the third day he
will raise us up, and we shall live in his sight." Revival breaks
out after two days, when the people that should be created should
praise the Lord. The charismatic movement went worldwide praising
the Lord. We are in the end time. When the people are created that
will praise the Lord, He looses the appointment of death.
When this appointment of death is loosed, you see the making of a
new day. Two days are equal to 2000 years. Thus, after 2000 years He
will revive us. Already we have had 2000 years gone by. We are
actually 13 years off the Gregorian calendar or the year 2013. We
are already into that two days past and revival has broken out.
Hosea says, DURING the third day he will raise us up and we shall
live in His sight. The appointment of death has been loosed so we
can now LIVE (Zoe life, not the life we live in now) in His sight.
Jesus speaks of the time. John. 4:21 "...the hour is coming ..."
and in Jn 12:23. ...the hour is come..." Key verse: Jn. 2: 19-21,
"Jesus answered and said unto them, Destroy this temple, and in
(Gr.: "during"; it's a process) three days (the same three days as
Hosea) I will raise it up. Then said the Jews, Forty and six years
was this temple in building, and wilt thou rear it up in three days?
But he spake of the temple of his body."
The Jews were functioning in the natural but Jesus functions in
spirit- He spoke what the Father said, and God is spirit. In three
24-hour periods his natural body was out of the tomb. But his body
in the spiritual is us. The prophecies that you have heard are now
coming into fulfillment. Jesus is saying, "In the third day I will
fulfill what was spoken by the prophet Hosea." Jesus is bringing the
reality of the prophecy and He spoke of how He would do it - in the
temple of His body. We are that body. We will not be raised in
24-hour segments, but in the third day we will rise- not from
gravity but be revived. We are talking about putting on immortality.
This was confirmed by Peter and by Paul. 2 Pe. 3:8, "But, beloved
(He's talking to you and I), be not ignorant (unlearned) of this one
thing, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a
thousand years as one day."
Peter got that from
Hosea, from Jesus and from the Psalmist David and from the
tabernacle of Moses being 1000 cubits long. Thus Peter confirms
everything.
1 Thess. 5:1-2, "But of the times and the seasons, brethren, ye
have no need that I write unto you. For yourselves know perfectly
that the day of the Lord so cometh as a thief in the night." 1
Thess. 4:17, "Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up
together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and
so shall we ever be with the Lord."
1 Thess 5:3-4, "For when they shall say, Peace and safety; then
sudden destruction cometh upon them, as travail upon a woman with
child; and they shall not escape. But ye, brethren, are not in
darkness, that that day should overtake you as a thief." But of the
times - and seasons you have no need. We are supposed to know what
time it is; we are supposed to have the day of the Lord established
in our hearts. You don't have to worry about being alive and remain,
or worry about being caught up; I don't need to write to you about
Him coming any minute, you know what time it is. But I need to write
to others who don't know. From verse two, concerning the day of the
Lord, how does a thief come? Quietly, unexpectedly, unobservedly.
The day of the Lord comes as a thief, unobservedly. The kingdom of
God comes not by observation. 1 Thess. 5:5, "Ye are all the children
of light, and the children of the day: we are not of the night, nor
of darkness." What day? The third day. We are not in darkness. After
2000 years He is going to revive us. Jesus told the Pharisees, No
sign will be given you but the sign of the prophet Jonah as Jonah
was three days and nights in the belly of the whale, so shall He be
in the heart of the earth. He was not talking about down in the
ground. When he died, they did not place Him in the ground but in a
tomb. He did not go into the dust realm. God said He would not allow
His Holy One to see corruption (Acts 2:27). When He broke the power
of death in the grave, everybody came out with Him. That's this day.
e corruption. He broke death; He tasted death for every man.
Gen. 1:3, "And God said, Let there be light: and there was
light." There is a natural and there is a spiritual. He wasn't just
talking about the natural light. There is a light besides the
natural. If in the year 2000 there is a light besides the natural,
there was a light besides the natural back then. In the N.T. Jesus
is the light of the world (John. 1). In our day, we are the light of
the world (Matt. 4:14).