Why The Hurry?

Introduction

Good to see everyone out this morning. We have joined together to worship God in spirit and in truth. That’s our goal here at South Bumby to do just that and only that. To simply follow the scriptures and to do what God has commanded us to do. You’ll be our friend if you’ll help join with us in that, but also to point out any way or any time in which we may not be doing that. We’d love to sit down and open the scriptures with you and to see where we might be doing it wrong and how we can mutually come to an understanding and a knowledge of God’s will in our life. And I’m so glad you’re here. Even though I recognize some of you may be a little weary this morning.

You may have been running a little late and had to hurry up to get here through the wonderful Orlando traffic. It seems like we’re always in a hurry anymore, isn’t it? I don’t know about you, but I don’t like being in a hurry. Let me tell you of what time in which I was in a hurry, in which fact my whole party, our whole group was in a hurry. Too many years ago that I care to remember when Deedra and I were at Florida College, which is in the Tampa area. Every Sunday I would drive over to the East Coast to Merritt Island and preach for a little congregation at Merritt Island. They had morning and evening services, so we would drive over from Tampa across.

We’d come through Orlando. I’d wave at you every time we came through and uh go to Merritt Island and preach in the morning, and then we would usually hang out with some of the members there, and then I would preach Sunday evening, and then after evening services, Deedra and I would drive back to the campus in the Tampa area. And one afternoon we were staying with the McNeely’s. We loved, still love the McNeely’s, though they’ve gone from this earth. And Brother McNeely had a security job at Cape Kennedy afternoon after services, and he said, Have you ever been to Cape Kennedy? And we both said, No, we’ve never had that opportunity. So let’s go. And so I’d look in my watch, and I said, Brother McNeely, you think we have oh, we’ve got time.

Come on. So we loaded up in his van, his family, and Deedra and I, and we go over to Cape Kennedy and start looking at all of those different things. They make the announcement over the PA that they’re going to start a bus tour soon. And he goes, Oh, you’ve got to do the bus tour. You can’t, you haven’t experienced Kennedy unless you do the bus tour. And I look at my watch and I say, Brother McNeely, do we have time for the oh, we’ve got time. Come on, you got to do this. So obediently we follow, we get on this little bus tour. And that the bus driver and the tour guide didn’t seem to care that services started at six o’clock. And he was taking his sweet time pointing out where the space shuttle lifted off and where this was and that was, cracking his corny jokes as we went along that way.

And I don’t remember anything about anything because I didn’t see anything but my watch that whole tour. Because I was doing the math. It took us this long to get here, it takes that long to get to the church building, divide by two, carry the one. We’re not gonna make it, I’m thinking. And sure enough, six o’clock, we’re still on the bus tour. And I’m scheduled to preach in the six o’clock service. We finally get off the bus tour, get in brother McNeely’s van, and I won’t lie to you, Brother McNeely did not obey the speed limit. So we sped from Cape Kennedy back to the church building hurriedly. We got, because of Brother McNeely’s haste, we got there 20 minutes after six. Services started at six o’clock, and I was scheduled to preach.

And I can remember thinking again as we were driving, I was timing it out right. We’ve got two songs, a prayer, and a song. That’s usually about 20 minutes. I’ll just hit the door and I’ll just walk right up, you know, big production there, kind of and go into the pulpit. Well, we open the doors, step in, everybody’s just sitting there, waiting. They haven’t even started without us. And so we were in a hurry, and I will admit that was not my best sermon. That I that great haste and hurry. And many times when we get in a hurry, it’s a bad thing. We’re stressed and we can’t think about what we’re trying to do because we need to be somewhere. We should have been there earlier.

But there are times, there are times when being in a hurry is a good thing. And I want you to open your New Testaments with me and examine some times from the New Testament when being in a hurry was a good thing. I want you to think about the book of Acts. In your New Testament, you have Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. As you know, those four gospel writers record the story of the life and the teachings of Jesus Christ. And the last teachings of Jesus Christ to his disciples were what we call the Great Commission. Go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature. He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved. He who does not believe shall be condemned. The book of Acts is the disciples doing just that.

The book of Acts is the carrying out of that great commission, of them preaching and teaching. Some have subtitled the book of Acts, the Book of Conversions. Because a part of that is Jesus had said in that great commission. Part of that mission, part of that preaching was teaching people what they needed to do to obey the gospel, to be converted from being lost to being saved. And so on every page of the book of Acts, you find the gospel being preached, you find responding to that gospel positively. You also see people responding to it negatively, but you see people positively responding to that gospel, obeying the gospel call, and being converted. And so we could call it the book of conversions. And so let’s talk about that book of conversions and what we see there.

1. In Every Conversion They Were in a Hurry

One thing that we note when you read through the story of the book of Acts and the numerous accounts of conversions, is you begin to notice a trend, more than a trend.

That all the conversions of the book of Acts have something in common. They have several things in common. In every case of conversion, they were in a hurry. There’s a sense of urgency involved. And we’re going to look at that. In every account of conversion in the book of Acts, there was baptism. And that baptism was administered as soon as possible. Will you go on a quick survey with me? Have you turned to the book of Acts? Acts chapter 2 is where we want to start. Jesus had told them that they would enter into that great commission, that they were to wait in Jerusalem for a sign. The sign of the Holy Spirit would come upon them. And then they would begin to preach this gospel, the gospel of Jesus Christ, telling people what to do.

Look in Acts chapter 2. Peter and the apostles did that by the miracle of the Holy Spirit. They did that in multiple languages, languages that they had never studied. And they preached that gospel to this mixed audience of people and told them, look in Acts 2, verse 38, Peter said to them, Repent and let every one of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. Skip ahead to verse 40. Then those who gladly received his word were baptized. And that day about 3,000 souls were added to them. Peter tells them what to do. Repent and to be baptized. And thankfully and amazingly, 3,000 people came forward and said, I need to do that.

And it says that they did that that day. Now here’s a hypothetical question for you. Why did they do it that day? Have you ever thought about what it took to baptize three thousand people? You have your calculators, they even divide 3,000 by 12. Maybe the apostles divided it up amongst themselves. And but 3,000 by 12 is still a lot of people for each person to baptize. Why didn’t they do it some? Why didn’t they delay it some? Why not organize it this way? Maybe alphabetically. We’ll baptize all the A’s today. Because this 3,000 is a lot of people. We’ll baptize the A’s today. Tomorrow, or maybe next Sunday. The B’s. Your name starts with B, we’ll get you next Sunday. And then next Sunday, C, and you see where this is going.

Spread that out a little bit, or just say, we’re going to baptize till it gets dark, and then we’ll pick. But why on that day were 3,000 people baptized? And of course, the question is, what was the hurry? Look with me now in Acts chapter 8. We have the story of a man from Ethiopia riding back home from Jerusalem, and he’s reading the scriptures. We know him to be a wealthy man if he had his own copy of the scriptures. And he’s reading from the book of Isaiah, and a man of God comes to him and asks him, turn with me to Acts chapter 8. Ask him if he understands what he is reading. And he says, No, I don’t. I need someone to help him.

And so Philip gets into the chariot with him and begins to explain to him about what he’s reading in Isaiah. What you’re reading is about Jesus. And he begins, it says, look in chapter 8, verse 35. Then Philip opened his mouth, beginning at that scripture, that’s Isaiah 53, beginning at that scripture, preached Jesus to him. Now, as they went down the road, they came to some water, and the eunuch said, See, here is water. What hinders me from being baptized? Then Philip said, If you believe with all your heart, you may. And he answered and said, I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God. So he commanded the chariots to stand still. And both Philip and the eunuch went down both into the water, and he baptized him.

Stop the chariot in the middle of the road to baptize him. Now, what we don’t know is did Philip and this eunuch, did they have a change of clothes? Because traveling in wet clothes isn’t comfortable. So why? Why did they have to just stop everything in the middle of the road to administer baptism right then? And again, we need to ask the question what was their hurry? In Acts chapter 9. Saul of Tarsus is confronted on the road to Damascus, and Jesus there tells him to go into the city, into the city of Damascus, and again, someone will tell you what you need to do. That someone, this time is Ananias. For the eunuch, it was Philip, for Saul, it’s Ananias. And Saul comes to Ananias comes to Saul in Acts 9, verse 18, and it says, Immediately there far from his eyes something like scales.

Saul had been blinded, and now Ananias restores his sight. And he received his sight at once, and he arose and was baptized. Again, we see baptism being administered, and again it was meant administered as soon as possible. Acts chapter 16. This will be our last one that we’ll look at. In Acts chapter 16, we have that man, Saul, we calling him Paul by his Gentile name at this point. And he and Silas are preaching in the city of Philippi. They get arrested, as sadly was often the case when preaching the gospel. And they’re in this prison. You remember the story? The prison cells open up miraculously. The jailer comes in, and his thought was the prisoners have escaped, they will kill me. And so he decides to save them the trouble, and he gets ready just to kill himself because I’m going to be killed because the prisoners have escaped.

Paul says, Whoa, whoa, we haven’t escaped. And he takes them. Now, let’s notice a timeline here. Are you there in Acts chapter 16? It says in verse 25, at midnight, Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God. So this story starts at midnight. We don’t know exactly the time everything happens, but it’s all happening, what we would say is in the middle of the night. After midnight, all of this happens. The keeper of the prison comes in. Saul stops them. He falls down trembling. Look at verse 30. He brought them out and said, Sirs, what must I do to be saved? And they said, believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. You will be saved, you and your household. And they spoke the word of the Lord to him and all who were in his house.

And he took them the same hour of the night and washed their stripes. And immediately he and all his family were baptized. Sometime in the middle of the night, the Philippian is taught the gospel. And it says, in the same hour of the night, immediately he and his family were baptized. You’re starting to see a trend. In every account of conversion in the book of Acts, baptism is mentioned, and it’s administered as soon as possible. Why the hurry? Now, 30 something years ago, when we were in that speeding van with Brother McNeely trying to get it to church services, it is possible, in fact, I’m kind of surprised that this didn’t happen, that the police could have pulled us over. And you know what the police officer’s first question to Brother McNeely probably would have been?

2. They Recognized Their Guilt Before God

What’s the hurry? And sheepishly he’d have to say, we’re trying to get to church. What’s the hurry? We asked that question of Peter on the day of Pentecost when he baptized 3,000 on that day. What’s the hurry? To Philip in the Ethiopian, they stopped in the middle of the road. What’s the hurry? To Saul and Ananias, what’s the hurry? To Saul, Paul and Silas and the Philippian jailer, what’s the hurry? Well, let’s see if we can answer that question. Why the hurry? I believe the Bible supplies those answers. One reason there was a haste, a hurry, is because they recognize their guilt before God. That is something that’s also universal in every account. Do you remember there in Acts chapter 2 when that same day they baptized 3,000?

How did that day begin? It began with a miracle, but began with also with the preaching of the gospel, where Peter pointed his finger at that Jewish audience and said, You killed the Son of God. They were cut to the heart and said, What shall we do? What are we going to do now? God must be angry at us. What are we going to do? Repent and to be baptized. Now, we said, the imaginary scenario, what if Peter had done it differently and the apostles and said, We’re just going to baptize the A’s today, the B’s next week, the C’s after that? You recognize that you had killed the Son of God. And you’re told what you need to do for that situation to be remedied.

Do you think you would have said, okay, we’ll wait? No. If there was ever a time in the history of recorded man when it would have been okay to cut in line, it would have been that day. I want to be first. They were cut to the heart. What are we going to do? They recognize their status as being lost. Why is a sinner lost? Now stay with me. Why is a sinner lost? Is he lost because he hasn’t been baptized? Or is he lost because he sinned? And the remedy for that is to obey the gospel and to be baptized. And so these people were convicted of their sinfulness before God, and this moved them to seek their salvation, and they rightly wanted that salvation as quick as possible.

3. Baptism Was the Point of Forgiveness

Saul, we used his example there in chapters 8 and 9 when he was confronted, and Jesus, much to his amazement, Jesus told him that he was the Son of God, and Saul was contradicting him and even persecuting him by persecuting these Christians. Do you think Saul, the good conscience that he had of being convicted of what he had done? If Ananias had said, Arise and will baptize you sometime in the future, do you think Saul would have stood for that? He knew he was lost, and he knew the answer to that. And he wanted it as soon as possible. Through the teaching of these godly men, the apostles and others, the hurry was that they recognized that baptism was the point of forgiveness. Mark chapter 16 and verse 16.

We’re going to go quickly through these scriptures. But Mark chapter 16 and in verse 16, in giving that great commission that we talked about, Jesus said, He who believes, he’s telling the apostles, here’s what you’re going to preach when you go in the book of Acts and do that great commission. He that believes and is baptized will be saved, but he who does not believe will be condemned. He who believes and is baptized will be saved. In Acts 2 in verse 38, again, Peter said, Repent and to be baptized for the remission of your sins. In Acts 22.

Acts 22 and in verse 16, Paul is retelling the story of his conversion when Ananias came to him and told him. And he says, here’s how it happened. Acts 22, verse 16, Ananias said to him, and now why are you waiting? Arise and be baptized and wash away your sins, calling on the name of the Lord. Why the hurry? Because they understood that they were lost and guilty before God and condemned, and they understood that baptism was the point of their forgiveness. Look over in Romans chapter 6. This is repeated over and over again. Romans chapter 6. Now Paul is pointing to the past, the people who’d already been baptized, and he says, Don’t you remember what happened? Romans 6, verse 3, do you not know that as many of us were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death?

Therefore we were buried with him through baptism into death, that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life. Why the hurry? Because they knew that they were being baptized into Jesus and into his death. One last passage in this line, 1 Peter chapter 3. Peter is making a comparison between the days of Noah and the water that was involved. And he says in 1 Peter 3, of that deluvian flood, he says in 1 Peter 3, verse 21, there is also an anti type which now saves us. Baptism. Not the removal of the filth of the flesh, but the answer of a good conscience toward God through the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

4. They Recognized the Uncertainty of Life

With all of those facts in mind, we don’t really need to ask the question, why the hurry? We know why there was a hurry. They recognize their guilt before God. They recognize that baptism is the point of forgiveness. And there was also the need for urgency because surely they recognize the uncertainty of life. We won’t turn over there, but you remember in James chapter 4, verses 13 and 14, James would famously say, What is our life? It’s but a vapor that appears for a little while and vanishes away. The illustration of boiling water and that little vapor trail that rises from it illustrates our life.

The fragility of life. The least bit of breeze, a wave of the hand, the least expulsion of breath from your mouth can cause that vapor to disappear. Life’s uncertain. We don’t get newspapers anymore, at least most of us don’t, but you can get them online. If you look at the daily obituaries, you’ll find out one thing. It’s not just old people who die. I grew up, I know this is going to surprise y’all. I’ve never taught, I never talk about it, but I grew up in rural North Alabama. And the little congregation I went to out in the country in that little white building on the dirt road. Uh it was a small con, relatively small. At our largest, when I was growing up, we had about 120 members.

In that small rural congregation, six young people have died before they reached their 25th birthday. Some by accident, some died of cancer, one was murdered, one died in a car accident. Six young happens to be all young men before they had their 25th birthday party.

You stood condemned before God and were told you needed to repent and be baptized to wash away those sins. You’re not going to postpone that because you don’t know.

5. Delay Is Addictive

Lastly, and this one’s possible. I don’t know that they were thinking of this, but possibly they were all in a hurry to obey the gospel, to be baptized for the forgiveness of their sins, because maybe they recognize that delay is addictive. And that’s just the way it is, isn’t it? You put something off, it gets easier to put it off. And that’s true of obeying the gospel. I’ve known of people, you have too, I’ve known of people who have tended church services for a long time but never obeyed the gospel, and heard sermon after sermon, invitation after invitation. And sometimes we might say, well, it’s a good thing. At least they’re hearing the truth. And I agree with that absolutely. But there’s a sense in which that’s a bad thing.

Because they have heard the truth. They have heard the invitation extended. And maybe the first time they were cut to the heart, like they were on the day of Pentecost in Acts 2. And they almost went forward. They were leaning and had maybe hanging on to that pew, saying, No, no. But after about that 30th sermon, that 40th invitation, they’re not hanging on to the pew anymore, are they? Because they put it off. Paul would tell Timothy about those who had a seared conscience. That is that the gospel didn’t touch them anymore. It just passed right on by without cutting the heart, without having any kind of imprint or impact. So maybe, just maybe, those in the first century, when they heard the gospel, they responded immediately and were baptized the same hour of the night, because maybe they knew that if I put it off, it’ll be easier to put it off the next time.

Conclusion

So, what’s the hurry?

I want to encourage you to do two things. This week, don’t be in a hurry. Relax, calm down, it’ll wait. There’s a lot of things you shouldn’t be in a hurry about. It’s just stressing you out. But when it comes to obeying the gospel, follow the example of the New Testament and be in a hurry. If you’ve recognized your guilt before God, if you’ve read those passages with us this morning and recognize that baptism is the point of forgiveness, if you know the truth of life, that life is uncertain, you may not see another sunrise on. If you know the danger of putting it off, can we encourage you to be in a hurry to obey the gospel this morning? What you need to do to be obeyed hasn’t changed from the first century.

God is the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow. And so we want to extend an invitation for you to hurry in your obedience to the gospel. It might be that you’ve heard this lesson and you think, I’ve got some questions about that. Not so fast, preacher. Well, then let’s talk about that. I or someone else in this congregation would love to sit down with you and just open up the Bible and say, What does the Bible teach? What do you need to do in order to be saved? So two invitations are extended this morning. Would you get in a hurry and get your life right with God? Or secondly, if you have some questions about what we’ve talked about or done today, or just some questions about the Bible and God in general, then the second invitation is can we sit down and discuss those things with our Bibles open and in hand to see what God wants you to do and why God needs you to be in a hurry to obey His gospel?

Would you respond to either of those invitations this morning as together we stand and as we sing?