[391 words]
We all have a problem with procrastination from time to time. Have you ever put off writing a term paper, paying a bill, purchasing Christmas gifts, mowing your yard, completing a house project, cleaning your house, doing the laundry, or filing your tax return? While procrastination in these and other areas will not cost you your life, there is at least one area where procrastination poses an extreme danger.
Toward the end of Acts 24, we find Felix and his wife Drusilla sending for Paul. They wanted to hear him speak about “faith in Christ Jesus” (vs. 24). Paul gave them what they wanted, discussing such things as ”righteousness, self-control, and the judgment to come.” Yet, before Paul could finish, Felix stopped him and said, ”Go away for the present, and when I find time I will summon you” (vs. 25). The inspired record gives us no indication that Felix ever made good on what he intended to do here. We are left to think that Felix’s procrastination cost him his soul. It doesn’t get more tragic than that. One’s soul is too precious to put off dealing with the sin problem (Rom. 3:23). ”Behold, now is the favorable time; behold, now is the day of salvation” (2 Cor. 6:2).
In 1982, the ”ABC Evening News” reported on an unusual work of modern art: a chair affixed to a shotgun. It was to be viewed by sitting in the chair and looking directly into the gun barrel. The gun was loaded and set on a timer to fire at an undetermined moment within the next 100 years. Amazingly, the people waited in long lines to sit and stare into the shell’s path. They all knew that the gun could go off at point-blank range at any moment, but they were gambling that the fatal blast wouldn’t happen during their brief time in the chair.
Yes, it was foolish, yet many people who wouldn’t dare dream of sitting in that chair live day after day gambling with their souls. The only thing crazier than spending a minute in that chair would be sitting in that chair indefinitely. A human being who procrastinates and does nothing about his/her sins can be likened to a person who sits in that chair minute after minute waiting for the shotgun blast.
Jacob Evans
Lawrenceburg, TN