The Most Dangerous Word in the Bible -TOMORROW

I want to preach this morning on the most dangerous word in the Bible. You're wondering what is that word? What is the most dangerous word in the Bible? Is it sin, judgment, temptation, hell? All of those are pretty frightening words and they would be good candidates to be voted the most dangerous word in the Bible. But I think there's another one that probably takes the first slot. And that is the word tomorrow. Tomorrow is the most dangerous word I believe in the Bible. There is a verse of Scripture, just one verse this morning, in Proverbs 27 that tells us highlights the danger of that word. Verse 27, I want to invite your attention to there and we'll consider this one verse and illustrate it from the rest of Scripture. Proverbs 27, verse 1, Do not boast about tomorrow for you do not know what a day may bring. We have a tendency to laugh about procrastination. One has said that nothing makes a person more productive than the last minute. I remember a few years ago reading an article in Major News Magazine, US News and World Report, and the article was on procrastination and why people have a tendency to put things off. And the headline of the article said this was supposed to be in last week's edition. So we have a tendency to kind of laugh off procrastination but there is a very serious side to procrastination as well. When it comes to the spiritual realm, when it comes to the things of God, I believe tomorrow is the last worst word, most dangerous word in the Bible and the most dangerous word in our vocabulary. To put off another day what God is speaking to me about right now is the most dangerous thing you can do spiritually. Now I want to make sure that you understand this verse is not forbidding planning for tomorrow. Actually, just the opposite. It is forbidding presuming on tomorrow or taking no thought for tomorrow. The Bible does commend planning for tomorrow. I know a lot of people have taken verses like this and they have said, well, I don't set any goals. I don't make any plans. I just live for today and let God take care tomorrow. Well, the Bible doesn't teach that either. The Bible, in fact, commends wise foresight and planning for the future. This very book says in chapter 6, go to the ant. You sluggard. Consider its ways and be wise. Having no overseer ruler, it stores up its food in the summer for the winter. So go learn a lesson from the ant is what Proverbs tells us. It is wise. It is advisable to plan for the future. Proverbs 24 talks about the field of the sluggard who is given no thought to providing for how his field should be cared for so it will provide him the most production. So the Bible is not saying, I just don't even think about tomorrow. What the Bible is saying really is quite the opposite. We boast of tomorrow when we arrogantly think we will have tomorrow and thus procrastinate till tomorrow what God is telling us to do now as though we control time, not God. That is the most arrogant thing you can do is to boast that you have got tomorrow so you don't need to give spiritual things serious consideration today because you have got tomorrow. You don't know if you have tomorrow and that is what this verse is talking about. We should plan, we should have wise foresight, set goals in case God gives us a tomorrow but we dare not presume on tomorrow. We dare not feel like I am in control of time so I know that I will be able to take care of this tomorrow. The present is given to us to prepare for the future but not to presume on the future. And so this verse tells us do not boast about tomorrow. The verse conveniently falls into two sections which most of the Proverbs do. The first part of the verse is a warning. Do not boast about tomorrow. The second part of the verse gives us the reason for that warning for or because you do not know what a day may bring. So what I want us to do is unpack those two parts of this verse. I want us to look carefully at the warning and why the Bible says we are warned not to boast about tomorrow and then I want us to see the reasons why it is so dangerous to use that word tomorrow when it comes to spiritual things. First of all the warning and how we boast of tomorrow. The verse says do not boast about tomorrow. How do we do that? What is he talking about? What is he warning us against here? Well some of us boast of tomorrow by taking no thought for God at all. There may well be some of you who have gathered here with us this morning who are living your life without any thought for eternity, without any thought of God, without any thought of being right with God and making sure you are ready to meet him. Oh you work hard. You provide well for your family. You have a nice home. You drive a nice automobile. You have the finest of clothes. You are preparing well for your future. You are trying to develop a portfolio that will secure your future. You are working hard but you have given no thought to God and you have given no thought to being right with him or making sure that you will spend eternity with him in heaven. And so it is presumptuous. It is the height of Folly and arrogance to say I am not going to think about God. I am going to live only for what is right here. I can take care of spiritual things later. I can do that tomorrow. Jesus told a story to warn us about that kind of Folly. In Luke chapter 12 he tells the story of a rich man who looked around and said I have a lot of stuff. My barns are just bursting at the seams with all my my harvests. So I am going to tear them down and build bigger barns. And then he said I am going to sit back and say to my soul, so take 90s, eat, drink and be merry. In other words I have got life figured out. I have got my tomorrow's all planned. I have got plenty for the future. I don't have to think about getting right with God. Because I have got everything set in my life. But God breaks into that fool's conversation with himself and says this. But God said this might, thou fool, this might, thou soul shall be required of thee. Then who shall those things be which thou hast stored up? And Jesus drives home the point when he says so is everyone that stores up treasure for himself and is not rich toward God. In other words, lives this life only for this life, this world, the plane of what's right here before us and gives no thought to being right with God. That person is a fool in God's words, a fool. So my friend, you may be boasting of tomorrow here this morning by just taking no thought for God whatsoever. It's the most foolish thing you can do. The second way we boast of tomorrow is by putting off salvation for another time. Now there are some of you maybe here this morning who would say, well, I thought about God. I really have. I've heard about God and I've heard about the Bible and I've heard about salvation. And I believe I need to address some things spiritually and I know that I probably need to get right with God. I know I need to do that and I am going to do that sometime. Tomorrow. Maybe when life gets a little easier. My friend, if you start using the word tomorrow, when you know what it means to be saved, you know how to be saved, you know that you need to trust Christ alone for your salvation. But you're putting that off for a future time. That is the most dangerous thing you can do. I will guarantee you Satan will give you a whole stable full of excuses as to why you still have to wait a little longer. Well, I'll wait till things settle down. I'll wait till life gets a little bit easier. It never will. Well, I want to wait until I get really settled in my job, you know I'm just getting started and getting my career off the ground. It's taking a lot of time. I'm having to work a lot of overtime right now. I've got to devote myself to this. I know there's God over there. I need to get right with Him and I'll take care of that. Right now I've got to focus on my job. And then you know what happens? I'm getting married and the kids are starting to come and man, do they ever take time? Do they ever change your life? You're not sleeping at night. You're still trying to keep up with your job. So things will get better. They'll even out and things and then they hit the teen years. And all you can think about is what's going on with your family and your job is reaching critical points of making decisions as to what you've got to do and whether you're going to make a career change or whether or not you're going to stay where you are and you're really focused on that. And so you're going to wait a little while longer. Things will settle down sometime, won't they? Now your kids are getting married. Now the grandkids are coming and your parents are getting old and they're getting sick and you're tending to them. Does it ever get any better? Does it ever get any easier? Is there ever a time when you can say, okay, now it's time to let the rest of life go. I can focus on spiritual things. The devil will make sure you never get to that point. That's why it is so dangerous to wait till tomorrow. I warn you do not boast about tomorrow. There's a third way some of us boast about tomorrow. And that is by making plans without considering God's will. Maybe you've made that decision to trust Christ as your Savior. You know Jesus as your Savior. But you're living your life and you're charting your own course and you're planning your own way and you haven't given one thought to bowing your knee to the one who saved you and asked him, what is your will for my life? What is your plan and purpose? How can I make the most impact in this world for your glory? Do you want me in some kind of vocational ministry? Do you want me to take the gospel to the ends of the world? Is that where you want me? Or do you want me in an office here in Princeton? Do you want me serving as a lawyer, a doctor, a school teacher, a minor or whatever it may be? But Lord, your choice. What do you want? What do you want? I want to be where you want me to be doing what you want me to do. To make plans for your life without bowing the knee to God's will and giving him control over your future is being presumptuous about tomorrow. It is boasting that you have tomorrow already figured out. James warns us about that by the way, doesn't he? In James chapter 4 he says, come now you who say we will go into this city of that city by and sell and get gain. For what is your life? It is even a vapor that appears for a little time and then vanishes away. You ought to say, James says, if the Lord will, we will do this or we will do that. Now James is not telling us just tack those words Lord willing onto the end of everything you say and that covers it all because that can become a very pious way of sounding spiritual without any thought of really considering God's will. What James is saying is don't make your plans for your life for tomorrow. What you are going to do, where you are going to be, how much you are going to gain without laying them before God and saying God your will be done. If you totally change my plans, if you change my day, my week, my year, my life in your will that is fine. I lay it all before you. God boast about tomorrow by not taking God's will into consideration. Here is a fourth way some of us boast of tomorrow. We can boast of tomorrow, presume on tomorrow by saying I am going to keep my sin a little bit longer. God has been speaking to you about that addictive behavior that has consumed more and more of your life and focus and is beginning to affect your family and yet you are just coasting right along thinking I will deal with that tomorrow. I have got to handle on that. I know what I need to do and I will get to it. Maybe God has been speaking to you about some of those spiritual growth machines and mechanisms in your life that you need to help you grow spiritually. You know you need to be reading your Bible consistently. You know you need to be cultivating some time and prayer with God faithfully. You know you need to be devoted to the work of God and to his kingdom work of spreading his light throughout this community and throughout this world. You know you need to be doing those things and you know that you are going to get to that sometime. You have the best of intentions. You will do it but not today. Tomorrow some of us boast of tomorrow by deciding that we will keep sin a little bit longer. We are not going to deal with sin right now. God has been speaking to you about those that pattern of thinking, those sinful thoughts. He has been speaking to you about greed. He has been speaking to you about an evil tongue that gossips or murmurs and complains which God hates. And yet you are hanging onto that just a little longer not really willing to give it up and fully repent and give it to the Lord. You have been sin a little bit longer. And then fifthly we boast of tomorrow when we say I will live for the Lord later. I will be faithful. I will give. I will pray. I will get involved in the work of God someday. I will do that. I know I will someday. The Bible says do not boast about tomorrow. Do not presume that you have tomorrow to do what God is speaking to you about right now. You say can I do it all right now but you can start today. You can begin today rather than saying I am going to wait until life is right until everything is easier and right and package just right and then I will get started. No today. Today not tomorrow. Are you boasting of tomorrow? Are you no thought to God or maybe putting off being saved till later or as a believer are you making plans for your life without yielding to his will, considering his will? Are you keeping holding on hanging on to sin just a little bit longer? Are you saying I know I need to live faithfully for God but I can do that later? You are boasting of tomorrow. The Bible warns against that. Why does it warn so strongly against that? It is the second part of the verse. The warning is do not boast about tomorrow. The reason for the warning is for or because you do not know what a day may bring. None of us knows what tomorrow looks like. Oh we think we do. We've got our plans. We've got our lists. We've got our appointments set. Our schedules in place. We think we know what tomorrow holds but none of us knows what tomorrow will bring. And that becomes especially dangerous when what you're thinking about doing tomorrow is a spiritual commitment that God is speaking to you about right now. So I don't know what's going to happen tomorrow. You don't know what's going to happen tomorrow but I want to take a few moments to suggest what may come tomorrow. What tomorrow may bring. I can't say for sure or I'd be violating this verse but I do know some things that might happen tomorrow and especially in the spiritual realm things that may make the warning very real that we should not boast about tomorrow. The first thing that may happen tomorrow is lost opportunities. You may never have another opportunity to do what God is speaking to you about right now. If God is speaking to you about coming to Christ as your Savior you may never ever again be in a church service like this or confronted with the opportunity in the gospel in such a way that God is speaking to your heart and you know that this is the time you know you need to be saved right now. You may never have that opportunity again. There's a story in the book of Acts that warns us about that. It's in chapter 24 of Acts when Paul is imprisoned in Cessaria awaiting his trial and the governor is a man by the name of Felix. Felix wants to hear Paul's case and so he brings him in. Here's why he's been arrested and he's really quite intrigued with what Paul has to say. He's talking about this man named Jesus and he's talking about Jesus dying and being raised from the dead and Paul has encountered him and it's revolutionized his life and now he's taking that message to everybody across the world that he can get it to and that really intrigues Felix and he wants to know more so he keeps having these meetings with Paul. And one day the Bible says in Acts 24 that as Paul was talking with him about a self-control, righteousness and judgment, Felix was so under conviction he was so moved by that that he was afraid he was trembling but he said okay Paul that's enough. I'll call for you at a more convenient time. In other words God is speaking to him right now but he's going to wait till tomorrow or next week or the next month. When it's more convenient Paul I will hear you again on this matter and we never hear of Felix again. He was soon called back to Rome and replaced with a man named Festus and we don't know. He fades off the pages of Scripture. Now do we know what happened to him? I don't know. I would like to think that he seriously considered what Paul had warned him about and that he ended up trusting Christ the Savior but there's no record of that. There's no indication that he did and so for all we know he may have lost that opportunity and never again had an opportunity to confront someone or to be confronted by someone who would share with him the gospel in such a way that God would use it to move his heart. Most opportunities may happen tomorrow. The second thing that may happen tomorrow is hardness of heart. Hardness of heart and what I'm talking about is when you hear something so long and you resist it for so long that your heart actually develops calluses. Your heart gets hard, not in a physical sense but in a spiritual sense. You become hardened to the message of the gospel. It is possible for your heart to become so hard that you no longer hear God speaking to you, you no longer have any interest at all in spiritual things or in being saved or in getting right with God. Your heart can become hardened. I don't know when that line is crossed with anyone. I cannot look at anyone and say that person is beyond salvation, beyond hope, their heart is hardened. There does come a point, the Bible teaches where a person may harden their hearts to the point where God judicially hardens them and no longer deals with them. I cannot look at anyone and say that has happened to you or you or you are right on the edge. I don't know that. None of us knows that. That's the whole point of the danger. But I do know the Bible says there are four things that will harden your heart. Quickly I want to deal with those four things. The first one is a resistance to the Word of God. The prophet Zachariah deals with this one. Zachariah was dealing with a generation of Jews who had been into captivity and had now come back home from captivity. They were sent into captivity because of judgment, God judging them for their sin. And now they've come back from captivity. They're no longer in Babylon or Persian. They're back in the land that God had promised them. And some of the religious leaders come to the prophet Zachariah and they ask him, you know, since we're not in Persia or Babylon anymore, should we continue this fast that we always did when we were there praying that God would bring us home and we should listen to Zachariah's answer? The Word of the Lord Almighty came to me, ask all the people of the land in the priests. When you fasted and mourned in the fifth and seventh months for the past seven to years, was it really for me that you fasted? And when you were eating and drinking, were you not just feasting for yourselves? Are these not the words the Lord proclaimed through the earlier prophets when Jerusalem and its surrounding towns were at rest and prosperous? Zachariah 7 verse 8, and I listen to these words. And the Word of the Lord came again to Zachariah. This is what the Lord Almighty said. In other words, this is what He said to the generation that was sent into captivity. Administrative justice, show mercy and compassion to one another. Do not oppress the widow or the fatherless, the foreigner or the poor. Do not plot evil against each other, but they refused to pay attention. Stubbornly they turned their backs and covered their ears. They made their hearts as hard as flint and would not listen to the law or to the words that the Lord Almighty had sent by His Spirit through the earlier prophets. So the Lord Almighty was very angry. And I called they did not listen. So when they called, I would not listen, says the Lord Almighty. And He goes on to describe that's when I judged them. Now, do you see the importance of that, my friend? You see the scariness of that? It is possible to hear God's word and to be so cold and callous and asleep when it's being presented that your heart literally becomes hardened to the truth of God. You close your ears, you will not listen. And God says, I called out to you over and over again and you hardened your heart. There will come a time when you will call out to me and I will not listen. There is a possible point that you cross, aligned that you cross where you have so hardened your heart that God judicially says your heart is beyond. Your heart is beyond what I am willing to do. So I take my hands off. Your heart's hard. It comes from resisting the word. Secondly, it comes from resisting the Holy Spirit. That's the second way our hearts can be hardened. In Acts chapter 7, the first martyr in the Christian church was a deacon named Stephen. And Stephen, as he is being stoned to death after he has preached this amazing message from the Old Testament about how the Old Testament Israelites resisted the Holy Spirit and the Word of God. He looks straight at those who are about to stoned him to death and says, you have resisted the Holy Spirit and he says, you have hardened your hearts, your hearts and ears. He says are uncircumcised and you have resisted the Holy Spirit. Just like your forefathers who put to death the prophets, our hearts can get hardened to the things of God by continually resisting the moving of the Spirit in our hearts. You see, when you sense that God is speaking to you, when you feel a tug on your heart, when you feel some guilt or remorse over the way your life is headed and you know God is speaking to you through His Word about what to do, that's the Holy Spirit tugging at your heart. That's the Holy Spirit doing His work of conviction. Now you can resist that and you can resist it to the point that your heart becomes hardened and you no longer hear His voice. It's like a callus on your hand that no longer feels the tool that you're gripping. So your heart can become hardened by a refusal to hear the Word by resisting the Spirit thirdly. It can be hardened by continuing in sin and this is what's dangerous even for believers, but also dangerous for unbelievers. If you continue to practice a lifestyle of sin, you can become increasingly hardened in your heart against God. That is what Romans chapter 1 teaches. In Romans chapter 1, it is clear that everybody in the world can understand some basic things about God through His creation, the fact that there is an eternal or a powerful being who is divine, who is bigger than us, must have put all this into existence. But when people start to rationalize that away and do away with the Creator, here's what happens, Romans 1 says, you've got to have some kind of God so you start worshipping the creature more than the Creator. When you start worshipping the creature, then your creature instincts and desires start pulling you towards sin and you actually start worshipping sin. The deeper you go into sin, it's all laid out there in Romans 1. The deeper you go into sin, the harder your heart gets and the more blind your eyes become. And there comes a point where God says three times in Romans 1, He says, I gave them over. In other words, they had already decided this is the path I'm going to take and I'm going deeper and deeper into more deviant kinds of sin. Read about it in Romans 1, the one that is spoken of the most is homosexuality. Going deeper and deeper into levels of deviant sin against nature, the Bible says, against what even natural law teaches us. And when a person or a culture decides I'm going deeper in that direction, no God, I don't want what you say. I'm going deeper in that direction than the heart becomes hardened to the point at some point where God says, I give you over to your own way. You've chosen that way. I'm taking my hands off. No more conviction, no more working with you. You're gone. You're done. I believe we are very close to that point as a nation. We have said to God for years now, we don't want you and we don't want your word and we don't want your moral absolutes. This is the path we want and our highest court confirmed it on Friday in the very way that Romans 1 says you're getting to the bottom when you get there. When you believe in same sex marriage, that's as deviant as it gets according to the Bible. And so any person or culture that goes that far, if it is not already there, is in danger of God taking his hands completely off. And saying, okay, you've chosen that course. My hand of blessing is removed. My hand of working is removed. I'm no prophet, nor the son of a prophet, but I firmly believe in my heart we will see whether or not that is the case in the next year and a half. Depending on which direction this country chooses to go, I think we will see whether or not God's taking his hand off of us. Now as I was reminded yesterday by a dear friend, there is always a remnant. There's always a group of God's people who will stand true and I hope you're that remnant. I want to be in that remnant. I want to be one who stands true to the word of God because I am fearful. I am fearful not only for our country, but knowing the deceptiveness of the human heart, I am fearful for myself if I were to continue in any kind of sin long enough, the Bible says my heart could get hardened to the point where God removes his hand of blessing. I don't want that. I hope you don't want that, but that's one way to harden your heart. The fourth way that our hearts can be hardened and get this one. This one doesn't seem like a big deal, but it is through a critical spirit. Through a critical spirit. Mark chapter 3 is the passage that teaches us that Jesus is teaching in a synagogue and the religious leaders are trying to set him up for failure. So they put a man there. They actually stage this. They bring a man in who has a withered arm, a paralyzed arm. It's on the Sabbath day. And so they're going to test Jesus to see if you'll have compassion on this man and try to heal him. They think he'll try that. They think that's what he'll do. And they know that if he does, they can accuse him of violating the work laws of the Sabbath. So this is a terrible, sinful, calloused, hard-hearted trap. And the Bible says Jesus looked around on the Mark chapter 3 verse 5. He looked around with anger because of the hardness of their hearts. And to the man healed him and forgave his sin. He was angry at the critical spirits of religious leaders who were just trying to set him up for a failure. A critical spirit, my friend, against the things of God, the Word of God, will lead you to a hardened heart. I don't know what tomorrow will bring for you, but if you're resisting getting saved, if you're putting off getting saved when God's speaking to you, when you're giving no thought to God or where you'll spend eternity, tomorrow could be the day you crossed that line. Your heart is hardened and you'll not have another opportunity. But you know the same thing is true even for believers. It's possible for us to harden our hearts against the things of God. The longer you put off getting right with God, the harder it's going to be to do so. Because there's this accumulation of all these excuses, lifestyle patterns, behavior tendencies, ways of thinking that begin to pile up and make it harder for you to make that commitment. The longer you harbor sin in your heart and life, the more you will get used to it. And it will start to drown out the spirit of God and his voice to the point that your heart can become hardened against the things of God. When we lived in North Carolina, the church where I passed or was right across the field in our house, also we lived in a parking right beside the church. It was right across the road from a field of corn and they were all over the place down. There was a big farming area. Not only did they go a lot of corn, they raised chickens. And so there were these huge chicken houses that 40, 50, 60,000 chickens that they would raise to nine weeks and sell them for Tyson or whoever in North Carolina. You know those farmers had it figured out the best fertilizer for the corn field comes right out of the chicken house. It's chicken droppings. You know what I'm talking about? You have to make that any clearer. Hope not. During August, those hot, humid days, you walk out of that nice air condition church onto the front porch and that wave of smell would hit you in the face. And I don't know why the wind always blew across that field toward the church, but it did. And it would almost knock you down. The stench was so awful. After we had been there a few years, I remember going out after a Sunday night service, we had a missionary with us, that Sunday night. And we walked out onto the front porch and he looked at me and said, what is that awful smell? And I honestly looked back at him and I said, what smell? I wouldn't pull in his leg. I didn't smell anything. What smell? And then it hit me. Oh, he's smelling the chicken droppings on the field. My nose had been permanently cotterized by that point, that smell. And so I didn't smell anymore. I'd gotten used to it. The same thing that happens to us when we keep tolerating sin. Sin is a stench in the nostrils of God. And it is for us too in the initial stages. We know it's wrong. We know something doesn't smell right. But then the longer you harbor that sin in your life, the more you get used to it. This really isn't so bad. I can keep watching this kind of stuff. It's not going to harm me or hurt me. I'm keeping looking at this on my computer. I can keep saying these things to this person. I can keep thinking these unforgiving, angry thoughts, not hurting anybody. I'm not saying them to anybody. It will harden your heart is what it will do. That's dangerous territory. Do not boast about tomorrow. For you do not know what a day may bring. Tomorrow may bring lost opportunity. Tomorrow may bring a hardened heart. But thirdly, tomorrow may bring death. Tomorrow may bring death. Death could come to any of us at any time. Which one breath separates you from stepping out into eternity? We all know that. I could give you a story after story after story. That first church I've passed back into a colline in the 70s. I remember a young man one morning. I can still see where he was sitting. He stood up on the back row on the left my left and walked out vancomer. He walked out of the church. 23 years old. He was feeling sick. Got in the back seat of his car. By the time the family got out there, he was really sick. And so they started toward the hospital. He died in the back seat of the car on the way to the hospital of a massive heart attack. 23 years old. I started at Needham Grove Church in 1973. I was a youth pastor at that time. And there were some really wild guys, teenagers in our youth group. They weren't actually in our youth group. But I was trying to get them to come to know the Lord. And so I was chasing them all over more county, North Carolina, trying to witness to them. And I could go up to their houses and I'd hear them going out the back door. And it was that kind of thing. One of those guys was a 19 year old young man by the name of Ronnie Garner. And never was able to win Ronnie to the ward. But one night to middle of the night I got a call. In that same field that I was talking about a moment ago, just across the road from the church, Ronnie had been driving in a high speed. Middle of the night rolled his car through that field, crushed him and he instantly was in eternity. There was a young man driving right behind him who saw it happen. 17 year old Greg Needham. Greg stopped, ran out into the field, saw what had happened to Ronnie. I remember preaching Ronnie's funeral, Greg sitting there. Two months later I get another call. Middle of the night. Greg has been driving his car, high rate of speed, intoxicated, wrapped it around a telephone pole and he's gone into eternity. In two months I had two funerals, a 19 year old boy and a 17 year old boy to my knowledge neither one of them trusted Christ. But obviously, had plenty of time, right? Plenty of time. Death could come at any time. My friend, if you don't know Jesus as your Savior, that means you will immediately be in hell where there are no second chances, no opportunity for escape, no opportunity to call back the time and make the decision now that you were putting off till tomorrow, no time to do that. You say, oh, I'm so glad I've gotten saved. I'm so glad I've trusted Jesus as my Savior because I know if I were to die, I'd go straight to heaven. And yes, that is a wonderful joy and peace and assurance to have. But are you ready to stand before the Lord? What about those kinds of things we talked about earlier about? We have spiritual commitments that you may be putting off till tomorrow? I know I need to be reading my Bible praying and witnessing to that neighbor. I know that I may, I need to get involved in God's work and serve the Lord. I know I need to be making my life count for eternity somehow. And I will, I'll do that. I promise I will. Are you ready to stand before God now? With that excuse? Because by tomorrow you may be in His presence. The fourth thing tomorrow may bring is the coming of Christ. Do not boast about tomorrow for you. Do not know what a day may bring. Tomorrow could bring the return of Christ. It could happen at any time. There's no long list of signs or prophecies that have to take place before Jesus returns at the rapture. That could happen at any moment. Could happen at any time. All the signs of the Bible point to the second coming seven years later after the tribulation when Jesus sets up His kingdom. There's no sign. People always talk about, oh, I can just see the signs fall into place. I believe it's time for Jesus to come back. Jesus could come back whether or not you ever see any signs. He could come back right now. He could come back today. And tomorrow may mean you'll be in His presence because He has returned. Now if you're unsaid, you might have a tendency to think, well, if that happens, then I'll know all this stuff was true. And then I'll be able to make my decision for Christ, right? Ah, not so fast. First of all, how do you know you'll make it to that time? How do you know you'll make it through that cataclysmic event of the rapture? And thirdly, how do you know what's going to happen with you after the rapture? The Bible indicates there will be an awful lot of people that will believe the lie of the Antichrist and be deceived. And God will send them strong delusion and they will not be saved. I don't know who all that includes, but I wouldn't want to play Russian roulette with that. I wouldn't want to risk my eternal destiny on that. You might be in that number that would never get saved even after the rapture. If you're saved, thank God, the coming of Christ, and I wish it were today. Would mean would immediately go into His presence. But again, are you ready to stand before the Lord right now? Would you do it with confidence without anything to be ashamed of? Without anything that you should say, oh, wish I had another day to get that right. I wish I had another day to talk to that person about Christ. And we said, another day to make things right with my husband or my wife or my children or my parents to talk to them to get that forgiveness in place. I wish I, whatever it is, are you ready to meet the Lord today? Do not boast about tomorrow for you do not know what a day may bring. Remember the people in Noah's day, Noah preaching, warning about a flood, building this boat. Ah, look at Noah. And then all of a sudden, there came a day when the rain started, the ground broke up and the wells of the deep started gushing forth. And they ran toward the ark to find that Noah and his family were inside and got to close the door and everybody else on planet Earth was done. Remember, don't boast about tomorrow. You do not know what a day may bring. Let's pray together. Father. Give us from the arrogance of presuming that we have more time as though we are in control of the future. Help us not to boast about tomorrow. Father, I pray if there is anyone here today who has never trusted Jesus as Savior, that they will realize as the Scriptures say, behold now is the accepted time. The deal today is the day of salvation. I pray that they would not be able to put it off another day, but would trust you this day. I pray for every one of us who knows Christ as Savior, that we too would be willing to deal with whatever you are speaking with us about right now, not putting it off till tomorrow. I ask this in Jesus' name. Amen.