Today Or Tomorrow?

Exodus 8:8 “Then Pharaoh called for Moses and Aaron, and said, Intreat the Lord, that he may take away the frogs from me, and from my people; and I will let the people go, that they may do sacrifice unto the Lord.”

Exodus 8:9 “And Moses said unto Pharaoh, Glory over me: when shall I intreat for thee, and for thy servants, and for thy people, to destroy the frogs from thee and thy houses, that they may remain in the river only?

Exodus 8:10 “And he said, To morrow. And he said, Be it according to thy word: that thou mayest know that there is none like unto the Lord our God.

In the book of 1 Kings, chapter 18… the man of God, Elijah, asked the big crowd gathered at mount Carmel “how long halt ye between two opinions?”

How long is long enough for you, dear reader? How long is enough rejecting of Christ? How long is enough wallowing in sin? How deep do you have to go, how far do you have to stray? “For ye were as sheep going astray; but are now returned unto the Shepherd and Bishop of your souls.”

Multitudes, multitudes in the valley of decision! God says in the book of Joel “for the day of the LORD is near in the valley of decision.”

I know people who are outright haters of God, as Romans 1 said they would be, and they are!, and they’re just gonna hate God and are determined to go to a Christless eternity as if that will teach anybody anything… and nothing is going to change that! “Who can open the doors of his face? his teeth are terrible round about.”

And that’s fine, you do you as they say, though it’s amazing you could be so angry at a God you say doesn’t exist. “His scales are his pride, shut up together as with a close seal. One is so near to another, that no air can come between them.”

And you find so many buddies just like you too, as the Bible says, the friendship of the world is enmity with God… when you choose departure from God, you’re going to find lots of company on the broad way and you get welded and rusted onto sin and sinful affinities that just it harder for yourself to be freed from “ They are joined one to another, they stick together, that they cannot be sundered.” The world says pursue, but sometimes it’s God’s grace that is pushing certain things out of your reach that would be harmful to you which you are insisting on grabbing because you deserve it and want it.

…And a child of God gently asks you if you are saved, or you would like to receive Jesus Christ into your heart as your Saviour… and sparks fly out your mouth! “Out of his mouth go burning lamps, and sparks of fire leap out. Out of his nostrils goeth smoke, as out of a seething pot or caldron.”

…Yes, you’re going to flame that child of God, you’re going to light them up to prove your disdain of God, and your superiority to religion because you’re so enlightened, but will it just end up in the burning “The sinners in Zion are afraid; fearfulness hath surprised the hypocrites. Who among us shall dwell with the devouring fire?who among us shall dwell with everlasting burnings?”

Please don’t go to hell, and please don’t choose a life of sin. Sin won’t love you back. Satan doesn’t love you back. This world won’t love you back… but Jesus Christ loves you very much. He’s got a life for you that has not entered into your mind or imagination or scope of possibility yet. He will change the world one day, but the change he’s effecting right now is in the hearts of those who open their soul’s door wide to his saving grace.

For many, the change that Christ can make exists only in theory, the work that he does is secret from them, hidden by blindness and ignorance of unbelief… “If thou knewest the gift of God… AND WHO it is…” … like the woman shutting the door on her sons and herself in 2 Kings 4 and seeing the miracle of the pot of oil that just kept pouring out, there are lives right now being changed in ways you cannot conceive of, and you will not partake in, not because God’s not fair, but because you prefer deceit and lies.

Today I want to give you one word that Pharaoh said, which may be where you are at. Maybe you’re not as vehemently opposed to the gospel… yet… because you might get there as sin keeps hardening you, but maybe you’re in some sort of personal purgatory or limbo land, and you’re hovering between the blessing of believing but the cost of confession, you’re caught between what you know is true but what your friends will think.

All the reasons to not get saved are deception dear reader, Pharaoh has often been cited by people who wrest rather than rest in God’s word as proof that God gives man no choice… in reality, he was confronted with the gospel and God hardened his heart with an opportunity to humble himself in obedience to God’s word and be a blessing to a nation. If John 3:16 makes you harder to God, is that God or your fault. I don’t want to harden you to God’s word by being a jerk, but if you being told the gift of God is eternal life through Christ Jesus makes you harden to God… then that’s more a reflection of you than some predetermined destiny that cannot be averted.

The word I want to give you today is “Tomorrow”.

Am I being a smarty pants? No. But read the verses above, and Moses offers Pharaoh salvation from the plague of frogs, I mean Pharaoh asked him for it… then Moses tells him you can have these frogs gone in a flash… and he says… TOMORROW.

Is Jesus your today… or your tomorrow? Please let God minister this one word from Pharaoh to your heart… because it may be exactly what you say to God today as well. Because the Bible says To day, not To morrow, is the day of salvation. Salvation belongs to today dear reader, if you’re ever going to get saved, it will be today. Is it really wise to leave the fate of your eternal soul to “tomorrow”? We are in a nation that pushes all our problems to tomorrow. Pushing Jesus into tomorrow will be a very bad mistake to make with your soul, your poor old soul.

In the book of Exodus where this word “tomorrow” is found, it’s Moses talking to Pharaoh after the plague of frogs has taken hold on Egypt…

And let me just say, like those plagues in Egypt, our decisions to reject God in every area of our life… they plague our life.

You want to talk about a plague of lies, a plague of darkness, a plague of deceit, a plague of confusion, a plague of adultery, a plague of lust, a plague of pride, a plague of anger… how many angry people are out there these days! … a plague of envy, a plague of discontentment, a plague of unhappiness…

The plagues are here aren’t they. We used to be happier and safer, because “Blessed is the nation whose God is the LORD; and the people whom he hath chosen for his own inheritance.” And no, that didn’t mean everyone, or even many were saved, but our constitution still begins with mentioning the Almighty God, and there is a blessing in that… you do not get out of the first page of the constitution without “Almighty God” and “Lord”…

… “WHEREAS the people of New South Wales, Victoria, South Australia, Queensland, and Tasmania, humbly relying on the blessing of Almighty God, have agreed to unite in one indissoluble Federal Commonwealth under the Crown of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland”

No we are not the nation of Israel. But this little Gentile nation was founded in acknowledgment of the same Lord of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. The constitution is the very birth certificate and founding document of our nation. Much like the Bible is, or should be, but sadly isn’t these days, the constitution and founding document and guiding star and charter of our Christian life. … But as a nation we decided to pack our bags like the prodigal son for the far country and take the Father’s inheritance, blessedness which we possessed by virtue of those gone before us which we did not procure to ourselves but enjoyed bestowment of (and used to know that)… and we have gone and wasted them like he did in the far country. He had fun a little while, but soon enough he found himself in the pig pen and his friends that had helped him party and spend his father’s wealth nowhere to be seen. Take note.

You know “commonwealth” is a Biblical term? The very fact we are in the commonwealth shows we are a nation founded on the concepts of those who retained God in their knowledge unlike us who can go days, weeks, months, years without God anywhere to be seen in the cognitive process. You can find “commonwealth” in Ephesians 2… that wealth is changing to debt now though isn’t it. As God told his own people “For the Lord thy God blesseth thee, as he promised thee: and thou shalt lend unto many nations, but thou shalt not borrow; and thou shalt reign over many nations, but they shall not reign over thee.” Err… that’s not us anymore is it.

Foreign investors own 60% of our bonds, our debt…did you know that? Did you know we are indebted to foreigners? You know foreign nations OWN us? You can cry about gas, but did you know our gas is pledged and protected by law to foreigners and we scrap for the little leftovers. Did you know our bondholders hold our money and wealth hostage? You know they can junk our country and our money, YOUR money if that helps you care more, if they firesale our bonds? And your little nest egg which you comfort your heart with and which is your certificate of certainty and safe place of security would become worthless in seconds if they did. Oh, but I’ve got millions in safe assets, no you don’t, you’ve got a number on a computer… and big numbers are worthless if they are not current… hence “currency”. There was some pretty valuable land in Israel that became pocket changed for Jeremiah when situation was tweaked just a lil… don’t feel so safe in something that is anything less than the ROCK of Christ.

You know how stupid it is to put your trust in money? If your currency goes to zero, you can have a billion units of it and a billion x 0 is worth as much as minimum wage or dole payouts x 0. I pray you find something far more current, ironically people always say the Bible is so ancient and outdated, but it gives you currency in God’s eternal economy … up to date, never outdated currency… which never deflates, never goes in debt, and is the only currency guaranteed for eternity… I ask you, if you’re scrapping over more fiat currency… do you have the currency of the blood of Jesus Christ. Have you bought into that? Are you washed in it? How wise we can be in carnal things, and yet so foolish in spiritual… the real… things.

Thank God when he saved us, we have the currency of the blood of Christ. That blood CLEARS our debt. That blood PAYS our debt. That blood REDEEMS everything we ever lost to sin.

And so I’ve rabbit trailed hard, but in Exodus, in Egypt, you couldn’t turn a pot or pan without a frog staring back at you and … RIBBIT RIBBIT! Look in the sink… frog there. On your pillow, frog there. On the window, frog there. The whole country was filled with stinking frogs in everything. And you get into sin, and you think you’ve contained it to where you can control it and you’ve charmed it like a snake charmer, next minute sin has corrupted and ruined everything, you don’t have a waking second without … RIBBIT RIBBIT! You can’t even sleep peacefully at night without… RIBBIT RIBBIT!

Like today’s junk food, you look at the label on the sin you consume and you may not have realized yet what those big word ingredients mean… there’s far more to it than you think, and it’s not as good for you as you hope which is why you don’t want to know about it other than that you enjoy it. Nevertheless, sin has a cost, and it’s more than you ever could imagine. Sin takes over. You want to talk about confusion, like a country filled with frogs would be a confusing choatic corrupt mess, our country is saying “hold my beer” isn’t it.

If you just take a step back and look at the progression “progressives” of sin in our society, it’s quite amazing. First it was let us tell our story. Then it was empathy. Then it was being understood. Then it was recognition. Then it was protection with a promise of, we just want to be recognized too. Nothing else is going to change… and now we are changing children’s body parts. It was celebrated, championed and now enshrined in law, made invincible through legal provision, and to the point of where now if you speak ill of it… you’re the demon. It went from sin, to now the person preaching against it is the sinner, the social leper. This is really happening. Even in Christian circles, often claiming Christians persecute the preacher over the pervert… it’s amazing really. So loving!

The progression from pornography as free speech, female empowerment, strong independent woman to… dangerous to walk the streets… did men get worse? Or did we open the floodgates to sin, did we write sin a blank cheque and not realizing that having boys growing up searching for deeper darker porn would not somehow be a fantasy they would want to make their tangible reality? We have politicians who championed the destruction of anything good and right we had given to us by those before us, and now crying foul when their personal little lines are crossed. When sin is in the high place, and we’ve deposed the most High from where he should occupy our society, we’ve brought the frogs on ourselves… RIBBIT RIBBIT, here’s your reminder the frogs are multiplying.

Enter God’s grace. His marvellous, amazing, saving grace. Grace greater than all our sin.

Thank God he sent Jesus to save us from our sins. Is your life plagued by spiritual problems? Do you have the plague of frogs bouncing around in your home, heart and life… are the frogs in your relationship with your friends, family, spouse? Wouldn’t you want a fast, immediate, and potent, powerful, effective solution to those frogs? Well Pharaoh did, but then when Moses says when do you want it… Pharaoh says … err, not just yet… make it tomorrow!

One word for you today… which is “tomorrow”. Jesus would save you today. Did you know if you bowed your head and prayed to the God of glory, the Father of mercies, the God of all comfort, the Lord of heaven… Jesus Christ, he’d save you this very second. Salvation is for today. Lord, save me from my sins.

And he will.

Moses offered Pharaoh God’s sweet relief from the frogs, and Pharaoh said… tomorrow. You’d think reading it, well wouldn’t you want it gone now? …Well yes, reader, don’t you want to be saved NOW?

Don’t make today’s business tomorrow’s problem! The Bible says in James, “Whereas ye know not what shall be on the morrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapour, that appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away.”

… You and I don’t have ever guaranteed tomorrow, we just have today. You can live for today, or you can use your today to be saved forever. How long will you tempt God’s grace and mercy with your “tomorrow” while he calls you TODAY? “While it is said, To day if ye will hear his voice, harden not your hearts, as in the provocation.”

Jesus said “yet a little while am I with you” He’s going to be leaving town dear reader, read about the panic that the dear lady of Song of Solomon had when beloved had withdrawn himself when she couldn’t be bothered getting the door. God has not promised you tomorrow, that’s why he doesn’t offer salvation in your tomorrow, but he promises to save you today… if you will.

The Bible continues to say in James “But now ye rejoice in your boastings: all such rejoicing is evil. Therefore to him that knoweth to do good, and doeth it not, to him it is sin.”

If you’re walking the line between not being for or against God… you’re keeping him on ice while you pursue what you want first while also keeping him in the waiting room… you’re hedging your bets on God with your own soul, you’re not yea or nay… but I’m telling you based on God’s word that to put him in your tomorrow and not today is your sin.

We are in a generation that is putting all their sin on everyone else other than owning their own sin themselves. The most freeing day I ever had in my life was when I said, it’s me Lord, it’s me. Salvation is only going to be found in your today, never tomorrow. I love you, I’ve shared from God’s holy word, you likely won’t hear as straight a truth from any other medium, let it enrich your life rather than get mad at the messenger. I’m a sinner saved by God’s grace, did I deserve salvation? No. But I did get saved in the today, and Jesus has been working in my heart ever since. He can change your life in a way and scope and magnitude that you cannot even imagine yet. He did it for me. God bless you and have a great day!

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