I got tickled when I read the following headline: “3-year-old disables dad's iPad for 25 million minutes, or nearly half a century”. The article, written by Bradford Betz and published on April 09, 2019 on Fox News' website, relates the surprise that Washington D.C. based journalist, Evan Osnos, had once he discovered that his 3-year-old son had obviously tried to use his iPad without the correct password sometime on the previous Saturday.
The result was that dear old dad had apparently been locked out of his iPad for more than 25 million minutes – or, nearly half a century! The disabled iPad recommended its owner try accessing it again in 25,536,442 minutes, which is approximately 48.5 years in the future!
Osnos sought advice and assistance from members of the Twitter world and received ample advice in reply. One person humorously observed that he ought to reboot his 3-year-old or else try “time travel.” Others, however, offered more practical advice and resources to solve the problem.
Despite the proffered assistance, as of Monday, Osnos told the New York Daily News that he was “still locked out.” Of course, the time had gone down a few hundred minutes. But according to Osnos, “It looks like we’ve still got 25 million minutes to go.”
Apple’s own guidelines advise users experiencing this problem to restore and update their settings through iTunes. Unfortunately, however, it seems that any data not backed up will be permanently lost.
As I read this article, I thought about what the Bible tells us happened to men and women in Genesis, chapter 3. Not long after God created Adam and Eve and placed them in the Garden of Eden, they disobeyed His commandments and suffered terrible consequences as a result. They were not only kicked out of the Garden, but were forced to live under the curse of sin as well.
More significantly, their relationship with their Creator had been broken. Before they sinned, they had enjoyed unimpeded access to and perfect fellowship with Almighty God. But after their transgression, they were “locked out”, as it were, of that relationship.
Most significant of all, that broken relationship was to last beyond their time in this world. It was to last for all eternity. They were, quite literally, “locked out” for all eternity. For the chief consequence of their sin was death. And there was nothing they could do to undo either their previous actions or the consequence unleashed as a result of those actions.
But God in His mercy loved them so much that He immediately took steps to do for them what they could not do for themselves. He set out to mend their broken relationship with Him, as He Himself covered their nakedness with the skin of animals. This set in motion the principle of vicarious or substitutionary death, as the sacrificial death of an animal was obviously undertaken on their behalf.
The Bible tells us that we too share in the guilt and consequences of our progenitors’ sin. We, too, have a broken relationship with our Heavenly Father. But He also loves us just as He loved them. And he does not desire to see us locked out of His presence for all eternity either. For this reason, He gave His one and only Son as a sacrifice on our behalf in order that we might be restored to a proper relationship with Him.
Thus the most famous verse in the Bible, found in chapter 3, verse 16, of the Gospel of John, says: “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.”
And that, my friend, is the key to overcoming being locked out of Heaven!
STORY SOURCE: https://www.foxnews.com/tech/writers-3-year-old-son-disables-ipad-for-half-a-century. The author, Bradford Betz, is an editor for Fox News. He can be followed on Twitter @bradford_betz.
SCRIPTURE SOURCE: https://biblehub.com/john/3-16.htm.
SEE ALSO THE TEACHINGS OF THE APOSTLE PAUL IN ROMANS, CHAPTER 5: https://biblehub.com/niv/romans/5.htm.
The result was that dear old dad had apparently been locked out of his iPad for more than 25 million minutes – or, nearly half a century! The disabled iPad recommended its owner try accessing it again in 25,536,442 minutes, which is approximately 48.5 years in the future!
Osnos sought advice and assistance from members of the Twitter world and received ample advice in reply. One person humorously observed that he ought to reboot his 3-year-old or else try “time travel.” Others, however, offered more practical advice and resources to solve the problem.
Despite the proffered assistance, as of Monday, Osnos told the New York Daily News that he was “still locked out.” Of course, the time had gone down a few hundred minutes. But according to Osnos, “It looks like we’ve still got 25 million minutes to go.”
Apple’s own guidelines advise users experiencing this problem to restore and update their settings through iTunes. Unfortunately, however, it seems that any data not backed up will be permanently lost.
As I read this article, I thought about what the Bible tells us happened to men and women in Genesis, chapter 3. Not long after God created Adam and Eve and placed them in the Garden of Eden, they disobeyed His commandments and suffered terrible consequences as a result. They were not only kicked out of the Garden, but were forced to live under the curse of sin as well.
More significantly, their relationship with their Creator had been broken. Before they sinned, they had enjoyed unimpeded access to and perfect fellowship with Almighty God. But after their transgression, they were “locked out”, as it were, of that relationship.
Most significant of all, that broken relationship was to last beyond their time in this world. It was to last for all eternity. They were, quite literally, “locked out” for all eternity. For the chief consequence of their sin was death. And there was nothing they could do to undo either their previous actions or the consequence unleashed as a result of those actions.
But God in His mercy loved them so much that He immediately took steps to do for them what they could not do for themselves. He set out to mend their broken relationship with Him, as He Himself covered their nakedness with the skin of animals. This set in motion the principle of vicarious or substitutionary death, as the sacrificial death of an animal was obviously undertaken on their behalf.
The Bible tells us that we too share in the guilt and consequences of our progenitors’ sin. We, too, have a broken relationship with our Heavenly Father. But He also loves us just as He loved them. And he does not desire to see us locked out of His presence for all eternity either. For this reason, He gave His one and only Son as a sacrifice on our behalf in order that we might be restored to a proper relationship with Him.
Thus the most famous verse in the Bible, found in chapter 3, verse 16, of the Gospel of John, says: “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.”
And that, my friend, is the key to overcoming being locked out of Heaven!
STORY SOURCE: https://www.foxnews.com/tech/writers-3-year-old-son-disables-ipad-for-half-a-century. The author, Bradford Betz, is an editor for Fox News. He can be followed on Twitter @bradford_betz.
SCRIPTURE SOURCE: https://biblehub.com/john/3-16.htm.
SEE ALSO THE TEACHINGS OF THE APOSTLE PAUL IN ROMANS, CHAPTER 5: https://biblehub.com/niv/romans/5.htm.