BITS and PIECES
A random collection of news and views
compiled by Frank McClelland for the
Toronto Free Presbyterian Church.
255th Edition – August 10, 2025
WATCH THE TIME
Our lives are governed by time. Solomon speaks of “a time to be born, and a time to die” [Ecclesiastes 3]. In between those pivotal events we are slaves to time. There is time to get up; time for work, school, or church; time to board the bus, boat or airplane; time to go to the doctor, dentist or hairdresser. We must have time for all.
Because of our reliance on time, we have calendars, clocks, phones and watches to measure it. And if someone can tell the writer what it is we measure he would be grateful to hear it. Women measure cloth to make a garment and men measure wood to make a piece of furniture, but what is time?
Physicist Richard Feynman said, “We physicists work with it every day, but don’t ask me what it is. It is just too difficult to think about.”
The theologian Augustine asked the question, “what is time?” He said, “If no one asks me I know. If I wish to explain it to the one that asketh, I know not. My soul is on fire to know this most intricate enigma.” Whatever the complexity, we can learn valuable lessons from our timekeepers.
EVERY WATCH HAS A FACE
Watches come in all shapes and sizes with different colours of faces – just like humans. In watches and humans, it is the heart that is most vital. That is why the Lord says, “My son, give me thine heart” [Prov. 23:26]
The outward skin is not so important – it is the disposition of the heart towards God that matters. God looks on the heart.
A WATCH MUST BE HONEST
A watch that does not tell the time accurately is of little value.
And the individual who does not tell the truth falls into the same category. God is “the living” and “true God” [Jeremiah 10:10] and His followers will be transparently honest in all their dealings. Society cannot function if the people are liars.
The one who finds it necessary to exaggerate the truth into an outright lie is not following the righteous Lord, but the father of lies, the devil [John 8:44]. In this Scripture Jesus said that the devil “abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him . .When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar; and the father of it.”
A WATCH MUST BE SET
What a crazy world this would be if we all set our clocks and watches to whatever time appealed to us. The world however is divided into time zones with Greenwich Mean Time (GMT) as the set standard (also known as Co-ordinated Universal Time). The standard does not change, but our time measuring devices must be set to it or chaos will reign.
The lesson is simple. Our lives are not to be governed as in the disastrous days of the Judges when “every man did that which was right in his own eyes” [Judges 21:25]. Rather we are to be set to the Divine standard, Jesus Christ. He never changes. He is “Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, and today, and forever” [Hebrews 13:8].
A WATCH MUST NOT BE HYPOCRITICAL
A Rolex is the prized timepiece of many of the rich and famous. They can cost thousands of dollars based on the precious metal from which they are made.
The students in our school were mightily impressed when, in a morning assembly, the writer produced from his pocket a Rolex. They mistakenly thought he must be very rich. But this Rolex cost a mere ten dollars purchased from a street vendor in Pisa, Italy.
You see it is a fake. It looks correct and has the Rolex name on it, but it is a play-actor, for that is what hypocrite means. This Rolex is pretending to be something it is not.
Sadly, there are many fake Rolex Christians in the world today – they look and talk aright but they are fakes and they, and the Lord know it.
If you are one of those hypocritical play actors you need to get right with the Lord. The Bible admonishes us “It is TIME to seek the Lord” [Hosea 10:12]. It also warns us that “the TIME is short” I Corinthians 7:29] and that “now is the accepted TIME” [2 Cor.6:2].
