Why Not Tonight?
Acts 16:33.

A. A person is lost who drifts away from the truth because of neglect. Heb. 2:1?3.
One might neglect the gospel in many ways, but one way you neglect the gospel is to know what is right and not do it.
1. This lesson is not addressed to the person whose problem is unbelief, but rather to the person whose problem is procrastination.
If there is something we need to do about our relationship to God and we have not yet done
it, the question of this hour is: why not tonight?
(1) What are you waiting for? What is hindering us from seeking God’s forgiveness
Acts 8:36. Acts 22:16. The question, “What are you waiting for? Another question, “What would it take to move you?”
Are you waiting for a “bargain.” For God to have a garage sale. Is God going to let you have it at a cheaper price?
Have you overestimated what our obedience will “cost.” Maybe you have underestimated what our salvation is “worth.” Do you think that somehow God will change the cost and you’ll get a better deal. The Jews made that mistake and it cost them both their souls and their nation.
(2) Do you really think your salvation is a negotiable transaction and you can gain
something by waiting?
Tell you now. The terms of your salvation do not and will not change.
My question to you is, What are waiting for? Why not do it NOW!
(B) Did you ever stop to consider the negative effects of waiting, procrastinating?
(1) Serious consequences result from disregarding your conscience, if you have one.
(1) Jas. 4:17. When your conscience speaks to do good and you refuse, you have sinned.
(2) When God’s Word speaks to you to do right and you don’t, you’re condemned.
(2) Three things will eventually happen if we delay obeying God’s commands:
(3) The Lord will abandon us - Rom. 1:24-26.
(4) That warning is repeated in 2 Thess. 2:10?12.
(5) Not only will God reject you. But, the people closest to you will quit respecting you. And on top of that, you’ll become incapable of respecting yourself.
b. Do you know what else comes with the refusal to obey God? The shame of waiting.
(1) It is a shameful thing to reject the Love of God. The Lord is tenderly affectioned toward us. But continued rejection will bring your downfall and with it great shame, Matt. 23:37?38. Great shame came when the nation made great by God’s love and power, is destroyed and humiliated by heathens. In Rom. 2:24, Paul tells the Jews, that because of their shameful disobedience, “The name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you.”
The most shamed person in the world will be the one who has turned against God in this life and will be held up to ridicule in the day of judgment for all the world to see, Matt. 10:32?38.
Guess what? All the world will be there to see your shame.
2 Cor. 5:14?16, “The love of Christ is what compels us, because we make this judgment in life: that if One died for all, then those who live should live no longer for themselves, but for Him who died for them...”
Only one thing compels, motivates, causes you to become a faithful, thankful, committed Christian. That’s the love of God for you in Christ. And

when you say no, you are marked by all of creation as a Loveless, selfish,
immature, ungrateful, clod who deserves everything that awaits you in hell.
The Lord graciously grants us the opportunity to obey Him, but not unlimited opportunity To the mocking, unbelieving Jews Jesus said in Jno. 7:34, “You will seek Me and not find Me, and where I am you cannot come."
A popular ad campaign for Nike athletic shoes says: “Just Do It.”
Why not have the same attitude about the Lord’s will?
When it comes to doing the Lord’s will, do you have the character and integrity to, “Just do it?”
(B) Have you never obeyed the gospel? Just do it!
(6) Do you need to ask forgiveness for some public sin that has brought shamed on the church Just do it!
(1) Do you need to mend a broken relationship and be reconciled to another person? Just do it!
(2) Do you need to repent of some private sin? Just do it!
(3) And you need to do it before you go to bed tonight.
(7) The Lord has invited us to receive His forgiveness and we may well ask, “Why not tonight?”
(1) The Lord has also promised to return to bring this world to an end — and it is sobering to ask, “Will He do it tonight?” If He did come would you be ready?
(2) Acts 20:32.

Spur - 07/08/2001 pm