Acts 24:25 And as he reasoned of righteousness, temperance, and judgment to come, Felix trembled, and answered, Go your way for this time… Felix had sent for Paul evidently not as a judge, but partly with a view to try to get a bribe out of him, and partly because he had some kind of languid interest, as most Romans then had, in Oriental thought, and perhaps too in this strange man. Or he and Drusilla were possibly longing for a new sensation. So they called for the apostle, and the guilty couple got a good deal more than they bargained for. Christianity has sometimes to be exceedingly rude in reference to the sins of the upper classes. As Paul goes on, a strange fear began to creep about the heart of Felix. It is the watershed of his life that he has come to, the crisis of his fate. Everything depends on the next five minutes. The tongue of the balance trembles and hesitates for a moment and then, but slowly, the wrong scale goes down. "Go thy way for this time." Ah! If he had said, "Come and help me to get rid of this strange fear," how different all might have been! The metal was at the very point of melting. What shape would it take? It ran into the wrong mould, and, as far as we know, it was hardened there. I. THIS INCIDENT IS AN EXAMPLE OF THE FACT THAT MEN LULL AWAKENED CONSCIENCES TO SLEEP AND EXCUSE DELAY IN DECIDING FOR CHRIST BY HALF-HONEST PROMISES TO ATTEND TO RELIGION AT SOME FUTURE TIME. Felix's anxiety is to get rid of Paul and his disturbing message for the present. But he does not wish to shut the door altogether. So he gives a sop to his conscience to stop its barking. 1. Let me remind you that however beautiful the message of God's love in Jesus Christ is, there is another side to it which is meant to awaken men's fears. You bring a man like Felix, or a very much better man, into contact with "righteousness, temperance, judgment to come," and the effect of a direct appeal to moral convictions will always be more or less to create a dread that if I set myself against the law of God, that law will crush me. The fear is well founded, and not only does the contemplation of God's law excite it. God's gospel comes to us, and just because it is the best "good news," it begins often by making a man feel what a sinful man he is, and how there hang over him consequences bitter and painful. 2. The awakened conscience, like the sense of pain, has got a work to do — to warn you off dangerous ground. Now have you used that sense of wrong-doing to lead you to Christ, or what have you done with it? There are two men in this book who pass through the same stages of feeling up to a certain point, and then they diverge. Felix becoming afraid, puts away the thing that disturbs him; the Philippian jailor becoming afraid (the phrases in the original being almost identical), like a sensible man, says, "What must I do to be saved?" The fear is of no use in itself. It is only an impelling motive that leads us to look to the Saviour. II. SOME OF THE REASONS WHY WE FALL INTO THIS HABIT OF SELF-DECEIVING INDECISION AND DELAY. 1. The instinctive, natural wish to get rid of a disagreeable subject — much as a man, without knowing what he is doing, twitches his hand away from the surgeon's lancet. So a great many of us do not like these thoughts about "righteousness, and temperance and judgment to come," and make an effort to get our minds away from the subject because it is unpleasant. Do you think it would be a wise thing for a man, if he began to suspect that he was insolvent, to refuse to look into his books, and let things drift. And what do you call people who, suspecting that there may be a great hole in the bottom of the ship, say, "Oh! she will very likely keep afloat until we get into harbour"? Certainly it is not wise to shuffle a thing out of sight because it is not pleasing to think about. 2. The notion that it is time enough to be religious when you get a bit older, and that religion is all very well for people that are turned sixty, but that it is quite unnecessary for you. Some are tempted to regard thoughts of God as in place only among medicine bottles, or when the shadows of the grave begin to fall on our path. "Young men will be young men"; "We must sow our wild oats"; "You can't put old heads on young shoulders" — practically mean that godlessness belongs to youth, and virtue and religion to old age, just as flowers to spring and fruit to autumn. I beseech you not to be deceived by such a notion. 3. The habit of allowing impressions to be crowded out by cares, enjoyments and duties of this world. If you had not so much to do at college, if you had not so many parties and balls to go to, if you had not your place to make in the warehouse, if you had not this, that, and the other thing to do, you would have time for religion. Here tonight some serious thought is roused; by tomorrow at midday it has all gone. You did not intend it to go, you simply opened the door to the flocking in of the whole crowd of the world's cares and occupations, and away went the shy solitary thought that, if it had been cared for and tended, might have led you to the Cross of Jesus Christ. 4. Because you do not like to give up something that you know is inconsistent with Christ's love and service. Felix would not part with Drusilla, nor disgorge his ill-gotten gain. He was therefore obliged to put away from him the thoughts that looked in that direction. III. SOME REASONS FOR PRESENT DECISION. 1. Delay is really decision the wrong way. 2. There is no real reason for delay. No season will be more convenient than the present. Every time is the right time to do the right thing. 3. There is nothing to wait for. 4. Every time that you delay to accept this message you make yourselves less capable of receiving it another time. If you take a bit of phosphorus and put it upon a slip of wood, and ignite the phosphorus, bright as the blaze is, there drops from it a white ash that coats the wood and makes it almost incombustible. And so when the flaming conviction, laid upon your hearts, has burnt itself out, it has coated the heart, and it will be very difficult to kindle the light there again. Felix did send for Paul again, and repeated the conversation, but we do not know that he repeated the trembling. 5. Delay robs you of large blessing. Why should you postpone possessing the purest joy, the highest blessing, the Divinest strength? 6. Delay inevitably lays up for you bitter memories and involves dreadful losses. There are good Christian men and women who would give all they have if they could blot out of the tablets of their memories some past hours before they gave their hearts to Christ. I would have you ignorant of such transgression. 7. No tomorrow may be yours. Delay is gambling, very irrationally, with a very uncertain thing — your life and your future opportunities. (A. Maclaren, D. D.) Parallel Verses KJV: And as he reasoned of righteousness, temperance, and judgment to come, Felix trembled, and answered, Go thy way for this time; when I have a convenient season, I will call for thee. |
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