03-Jun-05

Essay: Do You Believe in Time Travel?

One morning a few weeks ago, Tricia and I had a BBC music channel playing in the background as we ate breakfast. Our meal was pleasantly interrupted as we paused to pay attention to some lovely music being played. It sounded vaguely recognizable, but it was not completely familiar to either of us. When the piece ended, the BBC presenter said that this composition by John Barry was part of the soundtrack for the 1980 film, Somewhere in Time, starring Jane Seymour and the late Christopher Reeve. The delightful music prompted us to borrow the music CD and the video from our local public library.

Although the movie was a little disappointing, the basic idea was intriguing, so I took the tape back to the library and exchanged it for the novel upon which the movie was based. Titled Bid Time Return and authored in 1974 by Richard Matheson, the book, as in so many other cases, is far superior to the film. It is quite well written in a fictional diary format—the audiotaped diary of a young man living under the death sentence of terminal cancer. The hero discovers how to travel back in time to the year 1896 to find the dream girl whose dusty, faded photographs he had fallen in love with in 1971. And you thought that Internet romances were risky!

Many novels and movies have dealt with this fascinating topic of time travel: the hilarious Back to the Future movie series, H.G. Wells' The Time Machine, Mark Twain's A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, and many others. Although these stories are fictional, the concept of time travel is a thought-provoking one, and more so when approached from a biblical perspective, including the sub-topic of prophetic visions.

Think for a moment about the book of Revelation and its human scribe, the apostle John (see "The All-Important Introduction to Revelation"). Although other dates have been forwarded, most scholars now agree that this amazing book was written in the last decade of the first century—just when everyone thought that the era of prophecy was over. Yes, Jesus had prophesied in a big way, and several sub-prophecies based on His and others' prophecies had been included in many of the apostles' epistles, but apart from Jesus, no major prophets had been raised up since the close of what we call "the Old Testament era."

Then, one night—if this event, in fact, took place at night—the aged John hobbled off to bed in his usual way. Perhaps he retired that evening grumbling in a good-humored way about the constant aching in his old bones, thinking back yet again on the amazing experiences of his long life in God's service. Then, suddenly, just as he was dropping off to sleep, God picked him up and transported him in spirit to another time! Not into the relatively familiar past—the sights and sounds of which had not really changed much over the thousands of years prior to John's time—but rather a couple of thousand years into the future! John found himself in the distant, end-time future with all of its bizarre and frightening technologies and its strangely dressed people.

John's time travel was a vision, it is true—but an astounding vision. His was not just some vague, unclear dream, as most of us frequently experience, the details of which he would forget the next morning. His vision was amazingly clear in every respect. The Lord Jesus Christ, in a glorious state as the apostle had seen only once before, looking as He did then (Luke 9:28-36; Revelation 1:13-16), commanded him to write down all the details, not after the vision ended but as it was actually in progress.

As we read time travel and other adventure stories, or as we watch movies of the same sort, we reassure ourselves with thoughts like, "It's okay. This is only fiction and fantasy. It's not real." But what John (and the other prophets) experienced was real—very real. John's vision was unique in many ways, and this uniqueness may understandably have worried him at first. However, he was soon reassured that its veracity and authority could be corroborated by comparison with the former prophecies of Jesus, Ezekiel, Daniel, Isaiah, and many others.

As the era of spiritual time travel did not end with the close of the Old Testament era, neither did it end with God's revelation to John. More, real prophetic visions may be given again! No, not "may be given again"—will be given again! Quoting Joel 2:28-29, on the Feast of Pentecost in ad 31, the apostle Peter was inspired to announce:

And it shall come to pass in the last days, says God, that I will pour out of My Spirit on all flesh; your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your young men shall see visions, your old men shall dream dreams. And on My menservants and on My maidservants I will pour out My Spirit in those days; and they shall prophesy. (Acts 2:17-18)

Peter was applying Joel's prophecy to what was happening to (and through) himself and his fellow apostles at that time, which, as other scriptures reveal, they sincerely thought to be "the last days." But when John was transported into the real last days—the last of the last days—and saw and heard the things he did, he knew without a doubt that, although the events of ad 31 had certainly heralded the beginning of a new era, much time had to transpire before the reality of the prophetic visions God gave to him could come to pass.

As those last days arrive, world and local conditions will be so horrifying that God's people will be in the sorest need to receive accounts of these new visions, which may turn out to be reassuring images, encouraging foresights of "the wonderful World Tomorrow." Yes, in those terrible, final days before the return of our Savior, we will need and welcome these new, real, comforting spiritual "time-travel stories" very much.

- Staff

From the Archives: Featured Sermon

Uniqueness and Time
by John W. Ritenbaugh

John Ritenbaugh, focusing upon the topic of uniqueness, observes that our unique calling makes us a special possession of God, His peculiar people. Sealed with a downpayment of God's Holy Spirit, we have the obligation to glorify God by keeping His commandments until our ultimate and final redemption—when we will receive God's Holy Spirit in full measure, allowing us to be born again into His Family. Until then, we are only partially redeemed—like the ancient Israelites, outside of the boundaries of Egypt but still enslaved to sin. We are involved in a long-term process, moving slowly, patiently, and incrementally toward perfection. We cannot assume we are a finished product and let down on our urgency, realizing that on that path lie abundant deadly snares and hidden traps.

From the Archives: Featured Article

Time and Life
by Richard T. Ritenbaugh

The way men and God look at time and life are very different. But if we come to understand God's perspective, we have a greater chance of living His way!