So it is with the person who puts off seeking the Lord for salvation. He needs forgiveness and cleansing from sin not tomorrow or next week or next year, but today. ‘Behold, now is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation.’ But instead of trusting in Christ immediately, he keeps waiting and waiting for a better time. Sin is consuming him a little more each day that he delays. What does he gain by continuing to live in it a moment longer? Will the case for coming to Christ be any stronger or clearer if he waits until tomorrow? No, sin will eat further into his character and his debt to God will grow greater. If serving the Lord is going to be profitable tomorrow, why is it not profitable today? If sin is going to be seen as worthy to be forsaken tomorrow, how is it somehow worthy to be embraced today? The fretting farmer who puts off work endangers his livelihood; there is never a perfect time. So it is with seeking the Lord. ‘Should I wait till I am older? Will I be able to keep up the Christian life? What will my friends say?’ If you worry about these things and let these worries rule you, you will never seek the Lord.
Furthermore, a man who lingers on the brink of faith but never trusts is in great danger. It is God who has brought him to the point where he is concerned for his eternal state. That concern is not something that he can generate for himself. If then God removes it and allows him to sink back into spiritual deadness in which he is unaware of his danger then there is nothing he can do to rouse himself out of that state again. Let him then not try the patience of God by receiving light and not responding to it; let him not be like the field that fails to produce a crop: ‘For the earth which drinks in the rain that often comes upon it, and bears herbs useful for those by whom it is cultivated, receives blessing from God; but if it bears thorns and briars, it is rejected and near to being cursed, whose end is to be burned’ (Hebrews 6:7-8). If you put off the Lord, how can you be sure your heart will ever be touched again? Besides, your delay is sinful self-interest. You have divided desires. ‘I am attracted to this. I would like help of the Lord but I also want this world.’ Will you say to God? ‘I am not so sure this world hasn’t got more to offer than you’? Have we not been amazed about the grace of God that he should speak to us? Would a beggar dare to say when offered a wonderful home, ‘I will give you a reply sometime in the future’? Don’t delay. A time will come when God won’t hear you at all.