Several days later Felix came with his wife Drusilla, who was a Jewess. He sent for Paul and listened to him talk about faith in Christ Jesus. But as he was discussing righteousness, self-control [honorable behavior, personal integrity], and the judgment to come, Felix became frightened and said, “Go away for now, and when I find [a convenient] time I will send for you.”- Acts 24:24-25 AMP

Warrior;
The Time is NOW! Famous preacher W.A. Criswell called these the scariest words in the Bible, “Not today, when there is a convenient time”. Felix was aware of the Gospel. Felix was moved by the Holy Spirit, he was convicted of his living, of his NON-Righteousness. Felix was a FREEDMAN, he used to be a slave. He went from Slave to ruler, to be a Governor. God had blessed him, given him favor, and could have used him for the Kingdom, BUT it was NOT CONVENIENT TO the plans of his flesh. MacLaren’s Exposition says this about today’s verse; As Paul went 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. Will he yield? Will he resist? 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. ‘It might have been once, and he missed it, lost it forever. No sign marked out that moment from the common uneventful moments, though it saw the death of a soul.’ ‘When I have a convenient season I will send for thee.’ The thing he really means is-Not now, at all events; the thing he hoodwinks himself with is- By and by. Now that is what I know that some of you are doing; and my purpose and earnest prayer are to bring you now to the decision which, by one vigorous act of your wills, will settle the question for the future as to which God you are going to follow”. There is a time when the Spirit is moved and there is a time when the SPIRIT can be quenched, and we are NO LONGER moved by the SPIRIT. Warrior, today when you hear the Word of God preached, when you are alone with your thoughts and feelings- does your SPIRIT move, or have you grown numb and cold to the things of God, the things of the ETERNAL, the things that are Spiritual vs the Temporal?

Leader, W.A Criswell used to say these are the scariest words in the BIBLE; Not today, when there is a more convenient time, I will further investigate. The problem is PLANES CRASH and PEOPLE DIE. The problem is we are natural born procrastinators. The problem is the TEMPORAL can seem to be so important and the ETERNAL doesn’t seem that relevant as we become a squirrel just looking for a nut, survival, getting through this thing called life. Consider the story of the 10 Virgins in Matthew 25. At midnight the cry rang out: ‘Here is the bridegroom! Come out to meet him! ‘Then all the virgins woke up and trimmed their lamps. The foolish ones said to the wise, ‘Give us some of your oil; our lamps are going out.’ ‘No,’ said the wise ones, ‘or there may not be enough for both us and you. Instead, go to those who sell oil and buy some for yourselves.’ But while they were on their way to buy it, the bridegroom arrived. Those who were ready went in with him to the wedding banquet, and the door was shut. Later the other virgins arrived and said, ‘Lord, lord, open the door for us!’ But he replied, ‘Truly I tell you, I do not know you.’ (Matthew 25:6-12) The same thing happened with the Prophet Noah when God REPENTED from creating man, and he decided to start over with EIGHT. Hear the Word of the Lord; “That very day Noah had gone into the boat with his wife and his sons—Shem, Ham, and Japheth—and their wives. With them in the boat were pairs of every kind of animal—domestic and wild, large and small—along with birds of every kind. Two by two they came into the boat, representing every living thing that breathes. A male and female of each kind entered, just as God had commanded Noah. Then the LORD closed the door behind them.” (Genesis 7:13-16) There are 2 great examples in the Bible of something Jesus says in the book of Revelation; “Write this letter to the angel of the church in Philadelphia. This is the message from the one who is holy and true, the one who has the key of David. What he opens, no one can close; and what he closes, no one can open.” (Revelation 3:7) The Time is NOW, accept the Paid price of Jesus. CONFESS to God that He is right, and you are not, and REPENT, change your mind, turn, do something different, become a CHILD OF THE ONE TRUE KING! As John the Baptizer cried out; “I am the voice of one crying out in the wilderness, ‘Make straight the way of the Lord”. It is a 2-step process CONFESS, and REPENT.

Conduit, as Paul Harvey used to say, “The rest of the story” is that Felix never had that CONVENIENT TIME. It is posited that Felix wound up committing Suicide and never sought out JESUS, or PAUL to accept JESUS and the GOSPEL as his NEW WAY, YAHWEH. Why? Because the temporal takes over, and the eternal is procrastinated. In Luke 14 we have a parable called The Parable of the Banquet. Hear the Word of the Lord; “A man once gave a great banquet and invited many. And at the time for the banquet he sent his servant to say to those who had been invited, ‘Come, for everything is now ready.’ But they all alike began to make excuses. The first said to him, ‘I have bought a field, and I must go out and see it. Please have me excused.’ And another said, ‘I have bought five yoke of oxen, and I go to examine them. Please have me excused.’ And another said, ‘I have married a wife, and therefore I cannot come.’ So the servant came and reported these things to his master. Then the master of the house became angry and said to his servant, ‘Go out quickly to the streets and lanes of the city, and bring in the poor and crippled and blind and lame.’ (Luke 14:16-21) Ellicott’s Bible commentary on today’s verse explains it this way: “Felix trembled, and answered . . .–Conscience, then, was not dead, but its voice was silenced by the will which would not listen. Felix treats St. Paul as Antipas had treated the Baptist (Mark 6:20). He does not resent his plainness of speech; he shows a certain measure of respect for him, but he postpones acting “till a more convenient season,” and so becomes the type of the millions whose spiritual life is ruined by a like procrastination. Nothing that we know of him gives us any ground for thinking that the “convenient season” ever came. Extra Biblical scholars say that Felix eventually took his own life.” The Time is now, this is how the parable of the 10 virgins ends; Therefore keep watch, because you do not know the day or the hour. It is written, “Therefore, as the Holy Spirit says: “Today, if you hear His voice, do not harden your hearts, as you did in the rebellion, in the day of testing in the wilderness, where your fathers tested and tried Me, and for forty years saw My works.(Psalm 95:7-9) For he says, “In a favorable time I listened to you, and in a day of salvation I have helped you.” Behold, now is the favorable time; behold, now is the day of salvation.- (2 Corinthians 6:2) The Time is NOW, accept the paid price of the BLOOD OF CALVARY, before it is too late and the door closes…And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done. They were filled with all manner of unrighteousness, evil, covetousness, malice. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, maliciousness. They are gossips, slanderers, haters of God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless. Though they know God’s righteous decree that those who practice such things deserve to die, they not only do them but give approval to those who practice them. (Romans 1:28-32) The Time is NOW- make the commitment, trust in our REDEEMER, LORD JESUS!