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The Bible is filled with a sense of genuine urgency. This urgency burns on every page of Scripture and says, “Now. Today. Don’t procrastinate. Don’t wait. Don’t linger. Repent, return, reconcile with your Maker and God.”
Why Not Tomorrow?NEC Campmeeting 2009
Select passages that typify and encapsulate the Bible’s
unvarying urgency.
‣ Joshua 24:15, 25, 29
‣ 1Kings 18:21
‣ Psalm 95:7, 8
‣ 2Cor 5:17-6:2
‣ 1Kings 18:21 Elijah came near to all the people and
said, "How long will you hesitate between two opinions? If the LORD is God, follow Him; but if Baal, follow him."
Select passages that typify and encapsulate the Bible’s
unvarying urgency.
Select passages that typify and encapsulate the Bible’s
unvarying urgency.
‣ Joshua 24:15, 25, 29
‣ 1Kings 18:21
‣ Psalm 95:7, 8
‣ 2Cor 5:17-6:2
‣ Psalm 95:7, 8For he is our God, and we are the people of his
pasture, and the sheep of his hand. Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts, as at Meribah, as on the day at Massah in the wilderness.
Select passages that typify and encapsulate the Bible’s
unvarying urgency.
Select passages that typify and encapsulate the Bible’s
unvarying urgency.
‣ Joshua 24:15, 25, 29
‣ 1Kings 18:21
‣ Psalm 95:7, 8
‣ 2Cor 5:17-6:2
So here is an important question: why the burning urgency?
In the past, I might’ve answered this question by saying something like:
“Because life is uncertain, and no one is guaranteed tomorrow. You could die in a
car accident or some other unforeseen way. It happens everyday to
18 year-olds and 80 year-olds alike.”
There can be no question that we are living in a war zone. Peter, Paul, and Jesus all clearly affirm
this.
‣ 1Peter 5:8
‣ Eph 6:12, 13
‣ Matthew 10:17-19
‣ Matthew 24:9
‣ Luke 10:3
For most of us the world is not a scary enough place. We generally
feel safe. We don’t feel that we are in a war zone. This is dangerous thinking. And it militates against
the Bible’s burning sense of urgency.
Some of us take the view that our lifespan is already determined. That God has preset our entrance into and exit out of this world. We hear people say things like “when its my time there is nothing I
can do about it.” This is not Biblically-informed thinking. It is dangerous and
pacifying. It also undermines the whole warfare/ conflict motif of Scripture.
It suggests that God is not genuinely striving with rebellious agents who are seeking to thwart His will in the world.
Solomon moaned in Ecc 7:17 and warned, “ Be not overly wicked, neither be a fool.
Why should you die before your time?” You can die before God intended.
This is a genuine conflict. There are casualties!
So here is a relevant question: why the burning urgency?
There is an equally valid second component in answering this question.
It has to with character development and how it works.
Character is not developed in a day,
but it is developed day by day.
Character building is the most important work ever entrusted to human beings; and
never before was its diligent study so important as now.
Education 225
Destiny
Character
Lifestyle
Habit
Action
Thought
Thought
Action
Habit
Character
Lifestyle
Destiny
Character is not developed in a day,
but it is developed day by day.
The choices that we make today create the person that we will be
tomorrow. And we have no guarantee that the person we will be
tomorrow will even be capable of making the moral choices we are
faced with today!
Sin is a position which out of itself develops a more and more positive continuity. Sin grows every instant
one does not get out of it.
Soren Kierkegaard, 19th Century Philosopher and theology
By servitude to passion, habit is formed, and habit to which there
is no resistance becomes necessity. By these links connected
to one another a harsh bondage held me under restraint.
Augustine of Hippo
4/5th Century Philosopher and theology
Moral freedom requires both the ability to respond to God’s grace as well as the ability to
resist it.... In the end, one either perfects his moral
freedom or he perverts it.
Jerry WallsHell: The Logic of Damnation
Character is not developed in a day,
but it is developed day by day.
“It is by degrees that the character is formed.”
“A well-balanced character is formed by single acts well performed.”
“It is not through one act that the character is formed, but by a repetition of acts that habits
are established and character confirmed.”
The soul that at first delays and hesitates, resisting light and pressing against all
knowledge, has excellent intentions of making a square turn about when a
convenient season shall come; but the wily foe that is upon his track makes his plans to bind him by the imperceptible threads of
evil habits. Character is formed by habits, and one step in the downward
road is a preparation for the second step, and the second for those that
shall follow. Habits are formed by repetition of acts...
RH 6.29.97
Why not tomorrow?
1. You may die. That is, you may literally fail to see tomorrow.
2. You may not be the same person tomorrow. That is, you may be a person tomorrow that is not even capable of recognizing, much less making, the moral decisions that face you today.
I would say to the youth... whether you profess to believe or not, that
you are now in probationary time, and a second probation will
not come to any of you.
FCE 245
