For you this whole vision is nothing but words sealed in a scroll. And if you give the scroll to someone who can read, and say, "Read this, please," they will answer, "I can't; it is sealed." – Isaiah 29:11

Today's Scripture Reading (April 7, 2023): Isaiah 29

The earth's core has stopped spinning; well, kind of. In fact, according to scientists, the earth's core has reversed in direction, but again we have to add the words, kind of. You see, as long as our world travels around the sun, the core can never wholly stop spinning. But it can change the speed with which the earth rotates. So, in the past, the earth's core has been spinning in the same direction as the earth's outer crust, the place where we live, only it is spinning just a little faster than we are. So, it appears to be turning in a specific direction. What has happened recently is that the core has slowed a little so that it either spins at the same rate as the outer crust, which means it appears to have stopped from our point of view, or slows a little more so that it seems that it has reversed direction from our point of view living on the outer crust. But that is not entirely true.

What does it mean? Well, that depends on to whom you are listening. According to most scientists, it doesn't mean much. Our twenty-four-hour day might get a little longer, or maybe a little shorter, but not enough that any of us will notice. Having said that, I know some Christians who seem to believe that this is the end of time. I had one friend who recently texted me as he read one of the news reports on the slowing of the core with the exclamation, "It's over!" Is it? Maybe. I don't really know. But it also isn't the first time this has happened. It happened in the 1960s and 70s, and nothing happened then. Yet, anything is possible.

Isaiah looks at his prophecy and states, "I know you will not understand this. It is like you are illiterate and trying to make sense of the various strokes, lines, and dots you see on the page. It is like I handed you a book that someone has sealed. And when I ask you to read it, you look at me and tell me that the book is shut and cannot be opened." And if you do get to read it, the words don't make any sense to you because your eyes are closed. But that doesn't mean that there isn't truth in the words.

I think prophecy is still locked, but the purpose is different. Maybe, God has sealed the prophecy because of our sin, but there might be another reason. I don't think God wants us to know the specifics of what will happen, even though we seem to expend a lot of energy on that task. We don't need to know when God has said that this will end, just that it will. And so, we are to live daily as if Jesus's return is only moments away. But our focus is not on the return, but on what God wants from us with the time we have left before he arrives on this planet he created, regardless of whether that return is only moments or decades away.

Tomorrow's Scripture Reading: Isaiah 30