Tomahawk Missionary Baptist Church

Several years ago Pastor George Sweetings family visited Niagara Falls. As he viewed the large blocks of ice flowing toward the falls, he could see that there were carcasses of dead fish embedded in the ice. Gulls by the score were riding down the river feeding on the fish. As they came to the brink of the falls, their wings would go out, and they would escape from the falls.

He watched one gull which seemed to delay and wondered when it would leave. It was engrossed in the carcass of a fish, and when it finally came to the brink of the falls, out went its powerful wings. The bird flapped and flapped and even lifted the ice out of the water, and he thought it would escape. But it had delayed too long so that its claws had frozen into the ice. The weight of the ice was too great, and the gull plunged into the abyss.

Oh the danger of delay! How stupid can a bird be! How foolish. Delay. We as humans can get in real trouble by delaying things. If we have pain and we ignore it and fail to go to the doctor we might have a dangerous cancer growing inside our body. And by the time we go to the doctor its too late!

You might be driving down the road and see the gas hand at less than a quarter of a tank....but we tell ourselves there will be a gas station up ahead. Then we discover that the gas station has gone out of business. Now we’ve come to far to go back and we can’t go any further. We are doomed to run out of gas.

Why do we delay doing the things we know we ought to do? We delay paying our taxes, we wait to the last minute to get to work, we delay fixing that toliet, painting the chair, and on and on. We delay some things to put off pain such as going to the dentist or fixing something. We delay some things just because we are lazy. We delay most things because we don’t see the urgency.

Oh the danger of delay!

What about the person who says...."I know that I need to think about spiritual things." "I know that I need to start going to church and thinking about eternal things." "I know that I need God in my life."

Nearly everybody thinks about God and heaven and things like that quite often. But instead of acting immediately on our uncertain future and fate...people will put of these things. It’s like they know that this is vitally important but not important now, or not important enough right now. There is time.

This is the greatest danger of delay! Presuming that there will be time for these things! Most people are in hell today not because of their open wickedness. They are not there because they want to be there. The vast majority of people are in hell because of one word...DELAY!

Most will fail to do anything about the most important decision in life. Stange enough they fail to move on a decision that they have already made. They have already decided that eternal things are important. They’ve already decided to one day do something about it.....but that day never comes.

We see a bargain in a sales ad and we will line up for hours to get it. We line up for hours for concert tickets or sports tickets. We understand to delay on these matters means that you will not get the item that you want. There is great urgency!

But in eternal things we think we have plenty of time. There is no urgency. There is no hurry. No one else seems to be running to get to church today so most sadly presume that there is plenty of time.

The Bible is clear. Psalms 95:7-8 To day if ye will hear his voice, Harden not your heart. Matthew 24:48-51 But and if that evil servant shall say in his heart, My lord delayeth his coming; The lord of that servant shall come in a day when he looketh not for him, and in an hour that he is not aware of, And shall cut him asunder, and appoint him his portion with the hypocrites: there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.

A demon came to Satan and said "master I have a plan to get more people in hell. Let’s tell them there is no God" The devil said "that won’t work everyone deep inside their heart believe in God." The demon said "then let’s tell them there is no punishment." Satan said "that won’t work either for everyone deep inside their heart believe in hell and punishment." Another demon chimed in and said "I have it master, let’s tell them there is no hurry!" "Brilliant!" said Satan.

Don’t delay in this matter! The most important matter in your life is your eternal destiny.  Believe that Jesus died on the cross and rose again.

Admit that you have sinned against Him

Receive the forgiveness that Jesus provides for you by His shed blood on the cross.

Trust in Jesus Christ as your Savior and Lord.  Do it today and please don't delay!

Jack S Ward