PROCRASTINATION PRODUCES PAIN (Part 2)

TEXT:        Acts 24: 24-25 and James 1:17

THESIS:    To refuse to accept Jesus Christ as your personal Savior will cost you heaven and earn you hell.

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I.  The Apostle Paul was called to preach Jesus Christ.

A.     Felix, the governor of Judea and his wife Drusilla sent for Paul vs. 24a)

B.     Preaching to Felix and Drusilla was God’s plan and not theirs.

1.      Paul received his call to preach from God, not man.

Yet when I preach the gospel, I cannot boast, for I am compelled to preach.

Woe to me if I do not preach the gospel.

If I preach voluntarily, I have a reward; if not voluntarily,

I am simply discharging the trust committed to me.

(I Corinthians 9: 16-17)

C.     God calls everyone to be an ambassador for Christ.

And how can they hear without someone preaching to them?

And how can they preach unless they are sent?

As it is written, “How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!”

(Romans 10:15)

II.  The Apostle Paul preached Christ Crucified.

A.     The message that can save the hardest sinner.

But we preach Christ crucified: a stumbling block to Jews and

foolishness to Gentiles, but to those who God has called,

both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.

For the foolishness of God is wiser than man’s wisdom,

and the weakness of God is stronger than man’s strength.

(I Corinthians 1:23-25)

B.     Jesus suffered and died for my sin.

We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way;

And the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.  (Isaiah 53:6)

C.     There will be many who will not accept Jesus Christ as the Messiah.

1.      Felix would not repent of his sin and accept Jesus as Lord due to a harness of heart.

2.      Drusilla would not repent of her sin and accept Jesus as the Christ for religious reasons.

D.    There will be a small minority that will be “Born Again” (John 3) and follow Jesus.

Enter through the narrow gate.

For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction,

and many enter through it.

But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life,

and only a few find it.

(Matthew 7:13-14)

III.    Everyone who rejects Jesus Christ will not go to heaven but to hell.

For if God did not spare angels when they sinned, but sent them to hell

putting them into gloomy dungeons to be held for judgment;

if he did not spare the ancient world when he brought the flood on its ungodly people,

but protected Noah, a preacher of righteousness, and seven others;

if he condemned the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah by burning them to ashes,

and made them an example of what is going to happen to the ungodly

(2 Peter 2:4-6)