Sermon Tone Analysis

Title: Go Away for the Present!

Text:

Occasion: Pillar Sunday Pulpit 10.27.19

Thesis: To learn the important but tragic lesson of procrastination

Prayer of Illumination:

Spirit of the Living God,

We ask that You would awaken souls this afternoon, that as Your Word goes forth, You would illuminate hearts, and convict us of sin, righteousness and judgment.

We especially pray now for those who are still without Christ and the gift of salvation, we plead to You, turn their hearts away from sin and turn them toward Christ.

In the name of Jesus, we pray, Amen.

Introduction:

I’m sure I have used this illustration before, but for the sake of introduction, let me tell it to you again:

There once lived a man who was transported into the black abyss inside the earth, surrounded by the evil spirits and their ruler, Satan himself.

He watched as a discussion unfolded between Satan and his spirits.

He saw that the ruler held a scepter of wickedness in his hand, and he heard him as he said with a loud voice, “Who will go to earth for me and persuade people that I may accomplish the ruin of their souls?

What message will you use?

How will you say what you want to say so that men and women, boys and girls, will turn away from the things of God?”

A spirit responded, “I will go for you, and I will tell people that there is no heaven.”

The ruler frowned and replied, “No, that will not do.

For too many centuries humanity has been told that there is a heaven.

And our enemy, God, has given the Christians a book that talks about heaven and promises that it is a place where there will no longer be death and tears and sorrow and pain and affliction and tragedy.”

A second spirit glided forward and said, “I will go, and I will tell men and women that there is no hell.”

Again, the ruler responded negatively: “That will not do either.

The conscience, if nothing else, convinces people that someday there must be a day of reckoning and a place where men and women will come to terms with their lives.

In fact, that book I mentioned, the Christian’s handbook, has more to say about hell than about heaven.

You could never convince them there’s no hell.”

There was a pause.

The ruler added, “I need someone who will make an appeal to all classes, all ages, and all cultures in all the countries around the planet where men and women live.”

One dark spirit stepped up and said, “I have the answer.

I will go for you.

I will not tell people there is no hell.

I will not tell them there is no heaven.

I will simply tell them there is no hurry.”

And Satan said, “You’ve won the task.”

So they sent him.

The word used for that destroyer of souls is “procrastination.”

“Procrastination” E.J. Young said some years ago, “is the thief of time.”

Procrastination is not only the thief of time, but when it comes to spiritual things, procrastination is the robbery of eternity.

The more you believe there is no hurry, the less concern you have for the consequences of inaction.

Procrastination is waiting for a more convenient time, but the tragedy of procrastination is that a convenient time never comes.

Highlighting the tendency to procrastinate, Gloria Pitzer has written this clever little poem:

Procrastination is my sin.

It brings me naught but sorrow.

I know that I should stop it.

In fact, I will … tomorrow

There are many procrastinators in the Bible.

Jesus gave many examples of them in the parables he gave.

There was that farmer who was too busy building bigger farms, too busy hoarding things that he couldn’t give attention to the real issues of life and death.

“But God said to him, “You fool!

This very night your life will be demanded from you.

Then who will get what you have prepared for yourself?”

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There was the slave Jesus told, who was in charge of his master’s possessions, to keep it and to account for it, but that slave said in his heart, “My master will be a long time in coming,” and began to beat the slaves, and to eat and drink and get drunk.

Jesus said, “the master of that slave will come on a day when he does not expect him and at an hour he does not know and will cut him in pieces.”

Then there were the girls in Jesus’ parable who had put off preparing for the wedding reception, only to find themselves left out in the cold.

Procrastination is the thief of time and of eternity!

These parables of course, are stories that take place in real life.

And the Bible presents many real life stories of procrastinators, and none more memorable and more tragic than Felix.

Now this sermon will not motivate you to finally get on that treadmill and live a healthier lifestyle, this is not a sermon for those who have a habit of procrastinating their assignments at work, or for husbands who procrastinate in fixing the broken window of the house which their wives constantly remind them of, though it can apply to us in all these areas.

No, this sermon is primarily for those who have not yet decided to trust and follow Christ, but intend to decide some day.

This sermon is especially targeted to the youth, young teenagers and young boys and girls, who’ve yet to make that decision for Christ.

If I could preach only one sermon to the youth, it would be this one.

Now the Bible delights in striking contrasts.

When we begin the reading the Bible in the 4th chapter of Genesis, we immediately are struck with the contrast of Cain and Abel.

There is Jacob and Esau and the contrast Scripture lays out when it says, “Jacob have I loved; Esau have I hated.”

Then there is my personal favorite contrast between King Saul, Israel’s choice of king and King David, God’s choice of king.

Well, we see another one here between Paul, the prisoner and Felix, the governor.

So we have Paul in the presence before Felix and really there are two parts in this chapter.

Firstly, Paul before Felix (1-23) and then secondly Felix before Paul (24-27).

1. Paul before Felix

We traced, two weeks ago, the way in which God providentially worked to bring Paul to Caesarea, protecting him from being slain by the plots of 40 men and guarding him in a great company of soldiers, where Paul is now in a courtroom before Felix, the Roman governor.

Felix was a successor to Pontius Pilate, the governor who conducted the trial of Jesus.

Felix is an interesting character.

And secular sources tells us much about this man.

This man has a rags to riches kind of story.

He was born a slave, but his brother, Pallas, happened somehow to become a favorite of the emperor in Rome.

Through the influence of Pallas, Felix had been freed from slavery and somewhat later had been appointed governor of this province.

He was the first slave in history to become a governor of a Roman province.

You can say Felix was an opportunist without a conscience.

Tacitus described him as one who “practiced every kind of cruelty and lust, wielding the power of a king with all the instincts of a slave.”

Felix was a man characterized by a ruthless greed, using people and circumstances to accomplish his own agenda, and ultimately to gain more power and accumulate more wealth.

He had been married by this time to three different princesses.

The first one we know nothing about, except that she was a princess.

His second wife was the granddaughter of Antony and Cleopatra, whose namesake all recognize today because Hollywood has made them famous.

The third wife appears with him in this account.

Her name was Drusilla.

Don’t ever name your daughter Drusilla.

She was as one writer described, “a frivolous, wretched, vessel of wrath, fitted for destruction.

She has the family genes to back it up too.

She was one of the three daughters of Herod Agrippa I.

Her father murdered James, the disciple of Jesus.

Her great-uncle Herod Antipas murdered John the Baptist.

Her great-grandfather Herod the Great murdered those babies in Bethlehem in the time of our Lord.

And the way Felix married Drusilla tells us a lot about these two.

Drusilla was actually the wife of someone else.

And Felix, lusting after Drusilla, to make her his own wife, he secured a magician from Cyprus and made every effort to take her away from her husband and finally enticed this woman to live in an adulterous relationship with him.

Evidently, Drusilla was a strikingly beautiful woman, according to Josephus, and the lust of Felix’s heart made him go to any lengths to capture her for himself.

It is before such a judge that the apostle Paul must appear.

Less than a week after his arrival in Caesarea, Paul was put on trial before Felix.

Paul’s accusers sent a deputation, including Ananias, the high priest himself and his special hired gun and prosecutor Tertullus.

Nothing is known of this man outside of this passage.

We do know that he was a professional attorney, probably of Gentile birth, who would know the Roman legal system.