Redeeming time

Good evening, beloved friends and brethren present here in Austin, Texas. It is a great blessing for me to be with you on this occasion, to share with you some moments of fellowship around the Divine Program relevant to this time.

For which I want to read the Scripture that Miguel read at the beginning, in Ephesians, chapter 5, verses 13 and on, where it says:

“But all things that are reproved are made manifest by the light: for whatsoever doth make manifest is light.

Wherefore he saith, Awake thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee light.

See then that ye walk circumspectly, not as fools, but as wise,

Redeeming the time, because the days are evil.

Wherefore be ye not unwise, but understanding what the will of the Lord is.

And be not drunk with wine, wherein is excess; but be filled with the Spirit;

Speaking to yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord;

Giving thanks always for all things unto God and the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.”

May God bless our souls and allow us to understand His Word.

On this occasion, continuing with what Miguel was talking about, on the subject of “REDEEMING TIME,” let us continue in that line of thought: “REDEEMING TIME.”

Both Saint Paul and Saint Peter spoke that the last days would be dangerous days; and look, they were speaking of those days as the last days, because the last days began in the time of our beloved Lord Jesus Christ. And when Jesus was four to seven years old, the last days began; because the fifth millennium began, which is the first of the last days, and the second of the last days is the sixth millennium, and the third of the last days is the seventh millennium (that is from Adam until now); and the last days are the fifth millennium, sixth millennium and seventh millennium.

Now, those last days, we find that they are the time that pertains to the Dispensation of Grace, and then the time of the seventh millennium, which pertains to the Dispensation of the Kingdom.

Now, we can see that these are dangerous times; look at all the things that have happened in these two thousand years that have passed, see how Christians were persecuted and killed many times. In the same time of Jesus and the apostles: Jesus Himself was crucified, they killed Him; the apostles were persecuted and they killed them all, except for Saint John the apostle. And so we can see how the Church of the Lord Jesus Christ has been persecuted during these two thousand years that have passed, because the days have been bad days physically, but spiritually they have been glorious days for the sons and daughters of God, because they have been making good use of time serving our beloved Lord Jesus Christ.

We must redeem time, that is, make good use of time, avoid wasting time, avoid wasting our time. To avoid wasting time, that is to redeem time; because, you see, to redeem is to take what is lost and save it. And we save our time (how?) by making good use of it, so that our time lived here on Earth counts for the Millennium and for all eternity, as time that we have made good use of by serving our beloved Lord Jesus Christ with all our soul and with all our understanding.

Now, we have to take advantage of our time, which has been allotted to us in the Divine Program, which God has given us to serve Him, to work in His Work and so that we carry the Message everywhere. That is the time that counts, because that is the time you have saved.

Now, the time to eat, work and sleep, as far as the earthly things are concerned, is a time that we use, but it is a time that is used for our earthly body; but that doesn’t mean that because of that use that you have given to that time to work and to obtain money to buy food and to buy clothes, that doesn’t mean that you will have a reward because you worked, bought food and bought clothes for your body: That was for your own benefit, and you already received the benefit of that time that you used for yourself, working to obtain benefits for you and your family.

But the time that you have used to serve Christ, to work in His Work and to please Him with all your soul, that is a time that is not lost; and the benefits of that time, you obtain by being in this life, and then being in the new body, in the glorious Millennial Kingdom of our beloved Lord Jesus Christ; because “your work is not in vain in the Lord,” the apostle Saint Paul says¹.

Your work in the Lord is not in vain, for He will reward each one according to his work:

“For the Son of man shall come in the glory of his Father with his angels; and then he shall reward every man according to his works.²”

And the works of each one are the works he has done in the time God has given him to live on this Earth. And if the person lost time on earthly things and didn’t take advantage of it to serve Christ, notice, he lost that time; he lost it because he didn’t make good use of it in the things that are for all eternity.

Now look, Revelation, chapter 22, verse 12, says:

“And, behold, I come quickly; and my reward is with me, to give every man according as his work shall be.” (Revelation, chapter 22, verse 12).

We also find that in other places of the Scripture, and even in the Old Testament³, we are told that God will reward each one according to his works.

And now, even in the book of Revelation God gives us more light about how it is going to be and who is the one who will reward each one: It is Jesus Christ our beloved Lord, who has a record of all the time and what you have done in that time that He has given you. That is why we can’t waste time: We have to save time, making good use of it by serving our beloved Lord Jesus Christ.

Now, that doesn’t mean we are going to stop working, no. We work normally; but we make good use of the time even at the workplace by taking the Message: We take booklets and hand them out to people.

This is a time of hunger, not hunger for bread and thirst for water, but of hearing the Word of God⁴ relevant to this end time, relevant to the end of time; therefore, we have that Word, which is spiritual food for the soul, and spiritual water for the soul of people. “Give ye them to eat.⁵”

There is hunger in the soul of human beings; and now: “Give ye them to eat,” as Christ said before He multiplied the loaves and fishes; and when He multiplied them, there was food for all people. And Christ multiplying the spiritual food in this end time, there is the spiritual food for the soul of all human beings living on this planet Earth; and human beings will also be eating that spiritual food during the glorious Millennial Kingdom of Christ.

Now, it is up to us to redeem time, to make good use of the time He has given us. Wherever you go, you can make good use of time by working in the Work of Christ, while at the same time working to provide for yourself and your family.

Now, we can see how to redeem time at the end of the world, in which we are living. This is the most glorious time of all times, and, therefore, it is the time foretold by Christ, by the apostles and by the prophets of the Old Testament; and we have been allotted to live in that time.

This is the time of great blessings from Christ to His Church. This is the time when we can work more in the Work of Christ and where there are more facilities to work in the Work of Christ.

Look, in the times of the apostles and of Jesus Christ Himself, and also of the Old Testament prophets, one couldn’t be listening to the Message they were preaching: They couldn’t be listening to it in other places, except in the place where they were personally. But today they can be hearing it in any country, in any city, through the media.

And in past times, to take the words spoken in their preaching by the prophets or the apostles or Jesus, it was not easy: They had to have a person who knew stenography; and in those times, well, the stenography used today was not available. They didn’t have the tape recorders either, or the film-making machines. Therefore, they didn’t have the facilities that we have today (the same month or the same week and even the same day) to be able to say: “Here is written what was preached.” Today we have those facilities; therefore, we can work more widely in the Work of Christ; and thus we can make good use of time, better than what could be used in other occasions.

Now, we can see in this time how we can deliver the Message just as it comes: Through videos, tape recorders and also through printed booklets; and so everyone obtains the spiritual food for the soul, because “man shall not live by bread alone, but by every Word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God,⁶” every Word that proceeds from the mouth of God for the time the person is living.

That Word that comes from the mouth of God for that time, for that age and dispensation, is the spiritual food for the soul of human beings.

And we take that Message, and we feed our soul, and we also share it with other people; because we love Christ and all people; therefore, we share what He gives us.

Now, we can redeem time, make good use of it, and thus make the time that God has given us count for all eternity; because it has been used well, correctly, serving Christ, working in His Work. And our work in the Lord is not in vain; therefore, time was not in vain for us, time didn’t pass by us without doing the Work of Christ.

We are in the greatest and most glorious time of all times, the time that the prophets of the Old Testament and the apostles also desired to live in; because they, although they desired to live in the First Coming of Christ, in which they lived, they also desired to live in the time of the Second Coming of Christ; and the time of the Second Coming of Christ is this end time, where He will fulfill all promises of His Second Coming.

Now, we have the privilege of living in the greatest and most glorious time of all times; and this is a time that we have to redeem, that we have to make the most of, so that it counts in our record, in our history, so that it counts in the history of our earthly life, so that this time counts as a time well spent.

So onward, beloved friends and brethren, REDEEMING TIME. Redeeming it how? Correctly: By making good use of time.

Tomorrow we will meet again at the place that is announced… (I don’t know what the place is, but… Already?). The Arena Coliseo. How many know where it is? So almost all of you know, except two or three of you and Miguel and me. So those of you who know are going to take us, to be with you there making good use of the time.

Look, if —as far as time is concerned— we want to give Christ 24 hours a day…, now, we do it in a certain way. But look, if we only gave Him a tithe of the time He gives us to live (and He gives us all the same time: 24 hours a day; everyone has the same time)… If you gave Him, to serve Christ (to sing to Him, to worship Him and to be listening to His Word), if you gave Him 10% [Some of those present respond: 2 hours and 40 minutes], it would be 2 hours and…

A little bit, let’s see… a little bit less than 40 minutes; because 10 hours, the tithe is 1 hour; 20 hours are 2 hours; and if they were 25 hours, they would be 2 and a half hours; therefore, they are (let’s say) from 2 hours 20 (2:20) to 2 hours 25 minutes (2:25). That is, we would have a daily activity of 2 hours and a half. But now, let’s also place the offering, and there we already increase what we give to God.

So we tithe and offer time to God; and it is used in the work, in the way I told you: Working in one place and in another, at any hour of the day and even at night. Those are moments that we offer to God, which count before God; and time that we tithe to God, also, as the time already assigned for the established services; and even with the established services, if we count each month, we still owe God.

But we want to do the best for Christ, and we want Him to help us in everything, because we want to redeem time, we want to make good use of the time He has given us. “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few.”

Christ once said, notice, in the Age of the Cornerstone of that time, He said that the harvest was plentiful and the laborers were few; and He said to pray to the Father of the harvest, the Lord of the harvest, to send more laborers into His Vineyard⁷.

And in this time it also happens, because we have all of Latin America and the Caribbean and the whole world to work with; and the laborers are few, compared to the millions of human beings that there are in Latin America and the Caribbean and in the whole world; but we ask that He send more workers to His Work: send young people, send children too (they work very well)…

Miguel told me on one occasion (where was it that you were told, Miguel?), in Monterrey; that the group of new people who came to that congregation, the group of new people in the Monterrey congregation of (Roberto was it?) Roberto Monsibaez; for a year the group of new people who came to the Message was greater, the group that came through the children was greater than the group that came through the youth; and the youth were the ones who held the record.

Here Miguel doesn’t mention the adults or the elders, because they were not even in second place, right? They didn’t even come in second; they were out of the race, almost. So… Well, “almost,” that is a shame for the adults, the elders and the young people: That children have gone ahead of them working and making good use of the time in the Work of Christ. I have always said that if young people and adults are careless, children will get ahead of them.

So onward redeeming time well, making good use of time, working in the Work of our beloved Lord Jesus Christ.

Look, to finish, look at what Christ said in John, chapter 4, verse 34 and on; says:

“Jesus saith unto them, My meat is to do the will of him that sent me, and to finish his work.”

We also have a work to do: The Work of Christ; to do the will of Christ and to finish the Work that He has given us to do; to all of us as individuals and also to us as Mystical Body of the Lord Jesus Christ.

“Say not ye, There are yet four months, and then cometh harvest (that is, the reap)? behold, I say unto you, Lift up your eyes, and look on the fields; for they are white already to harvest (that is, for the reaping).

And he that reapeth receiveth wages, and gathereth fruit unto life eternal: that both he that soweth and he that reapeth may rejoice together.

And herein is that saying true, One soweth, and another reapeth.

I sent you to reap that whereon ye bestowed no labour: other men laboured, and ye are entered into their labours.”

The prophets of the Old Testament tilled, worked, sowed, and now Jesus Christ comes with His apostles to harvest. They reaped…: What was sown in the Dispensation of the Law, they reaped there at the beginning of the Dispensation of Grace.

And now, in this end time, being a time of harvest, all that has been sown in past ages, during the seven Church ages and during the time of the apostles, all that has been sown during the Dispensation of Grace, is harvested in this end time; because this is the time to harvest.

And now we have entered into the labors of the Kingdom of Christ, of the Kingdom of the Heavens, to reap what we didn’t sow; but in this the saying is true: “Others sowed, and now we reap. One sows and another reaps.”

And now, the seven angel messengers sowed in each age; and now we, in the Age of the Cornerstone, harvest. That is why the promise is that for the end time the harvest of the wheat, of the sons and daughters of God, will be carried out; and also the tares will be gathered up, they will be bound in bundles, to be thrown into the furnace of fire, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth, where the tares (that is, the children of the evil one) will be burned up during the great tribulation, where the divine judgments will fall upon the human race; but before they fall upon the human race, the harvest of the children of God, of the wheat, takes place⁸. And we are being sent to reap what we didn’t sow; that is the Divine Program for this end time.

That is why we are going on all the Latin American and Caribbean paths, and also other continents, taking the Word that harvests the wheat, that reaps the sons and daughters of God, that calls and gathers the elect of God in this end time. Gathers them where? In the Mystical Body of Christ, in the Age of the Cornerstone, which is the Age of Adoption, to be prepared to be transformed and raptured and taken with Christ to the Marriage Supper of the Lamb in Heaven, in this end time.

Now, we don’t know in which year we are leaving; but you know what? That we will not leave until the last of God’s children are harvested; until the last grain of wheat is harvested, we will not leave here. And we all want to leave soon; therefore, we work with courage and with joy and with gratitude to God for the opportunity and privilege He has given us to work in His Work, harvesting in this end time.

How many would like to know if in a place (in which you think) there are children of God, elect by God, to be harvested? Well, then go to that place, take the Message in booklets and videos, and there you will know whether or not there are elect.

This is how you were gathered and this is how all of God’s elect are being gathered in this end time: The Message reaching the people; and someone has to take it. And God is sending more workers to work and carry the Message; even children are being sent by God working in the Work of Christ. So look at all the instruments that God has in this end time: All those who allow themselves to be used in His Work in this end time.

We are in this time, at our age, making good use of time. And if someone is not making good use of it, he has to wake up to the reality of the day we have been allotted to live in: “Awake, thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee light”; and make good use of the time that God has given you to live on Earth: Don’t spend the time that God has given you without working in the Work of Christ, which is the only thing that has a reward before God.

There is no reward for living on Earth: Living on Earth is a privilege that God has given to you and me. And now, working in His Work, that does have a reward.

It’s like when a person goes to a farm or a factory: Because you go to a factory or a farm, they are not going to say: “Since you came this way and walked this way, here is your monthly salary.” If you didn’t do anything, what they tell you is: “Look, you better leave, go somewhere else, because you are being a bother.”

A person who doesn’t work in the Work of Christ is rather a bother. A person who goes into a factory where people are working, and is not doing anything, what he does is: bother, because he starts talking to people, he interrupts them, and people waste their time, their work is delayed.

In the Work of Christ, we are all called to be making good use of time by working in His Work.

“REDEEMING TIME.”

Notice, did you see how time is redeemed, how time is used well?; so that when we are with Christ receiving the rewards and then when we are in the Millennial Kingdom, we can say: “All these blessings that I have here in the Millennial Kingdom, notice, I have them because I worked in the Work of Christ; they are rewards that come for the work that I have done.”

And, look, in the parable of the talents, he who didn’t work was stripped of his talent⁹; for God gives talents to work in His Work.</sup>

So let’s make good use of time. Let us be living at this time in the Mystical Body of Christ redeeming time, making it valuable for us in the Kingdom of God.

Lest someone say: “Look, such a person came from somewhere else, got to work: handing out booklets, and presenting videos, and all these things, and visiting homes and taking literature, and look how he has raised a congregation.” —“He came and got into my territory!” And why didn’t you do it? It was up to you. If you were there and did nothing, God had to send someone else who wanted to work with divine love in the Work of Christ. You didn’t do it because you didn’t have the love to work in the Work when you had the opportunity.

Now, we can see the privilege that God gives us to live in this time. He gives us time; and that time must be used well, so that it counts for us for all eternity; and so that it remains in the history of the Church of the Lord Jesus Christ as a time that we used well.

Look at how the time of Saint Paul has remained in the history of the Church of the Lord Jesus Christ, which he made good use of; there it is, in the book of Acts, in the history of Saint Paul’s ministry. And also, of Saint Peter and Saint John and the other apostles.

Thus also your time, granted by God for you: That time that God has given you to live on Earth, you see, will count in your history as a son or daughter of God; make use of it, so that it counts as a time well spent. And when you see the time you lived on Earth, you will say: “This year I worked in the Work of Christ. This other year, look, I also worked in the Work of Christ. This other year too, in this and that.” So that not one year goes by blank, without being able to say that you were working in the Work of Christ and that you made good use of time.

“REDEEMING TIME,” making good use of it, in this end time.

It has been a great privilege for me to be with you tonight, sharing this topic that Miguel began, and which I have continued, so that we may see the great blessing that we have of living in this end time, in order to make good use of time.

Thank you very much for your kind attention; and we will see each other tomorrow, God willing, in the morning, and then in the afternoon activity.

May the blessings of Jesus Christ, the Angel of the Covenant, be upon you all and upon me also, and use us greatly in His Work in this end time. In the Eternal Name of the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen and amen.

“REDEEMING TIME.”