I guess I was fortunate growing up. I had few accidents aside from the occasional scraped knee or cut finger. The big one for me came when I was 18 years old. Every summer I worked on a plastering crew. That particular day, which was about three weeks before I would return to college, our job was to stucco a house. There were only two of us there that early morning, the other guys hadn't arrived yet. My buddy and I decided to check out the electric cement mixer. I connected the heavy-duty extension cord to the temporary power pole, and Willis plugged in the mixer.

It was turned on, so immediately the mixing paddles begin to slowly go around and around. When he saw that the machine was up and running, Willis set the cord down on the ground. But when he did so, the machine became unplugged from the extension cord because the connection was loose.

Willis picked up the end of the extension cord and began to spread the tines so they would stay plugged in. While he was doing that, I looked inside the mixer and noticed that there were some sticks in the bottom of the tub, so I reached my arm down into the mixer to take them out. No sooner was my hand at the bottom of the mixer than Willis plugged it in again.

The rotating paddles caught my arm, and it immediately snapped like a dry stick across your knee. I cried out, "Willis!" and I thank God he instantly unplugged the connection. I believe to this day that in a moment more my arm would have come off at the shoulder.

X-rays at the hospital revealed that, although I had not suffered a compound fracture, it would be necessary to do what is called an open reduction. This meant the doctor would put stainless steel rods through both arm bones and of course my arm would be in a cast for a long while. The recuperation went well. However, when they finally took out the steel rods, my right arm could no longer be fully extended.

You see, while my arm was in the plaster cast and I couldn't move or exercise it, the muscles had shrunk. The only way I could get back full movement of the arm was to submit to physical therapy. The therapist basically applied physical force to my arm until the muscles were finally stretched out again. The therapist would have made a good wrestler, because basically he put my arm into a reverse hammerlock. I don't need to tell you how painful the treatments were.

"So, Pastor O'Ffill, what is the point?" The point is, if you don't use it, you lose it.

I have a friend who is an orthopedic surgeon. He told me that, not only do our muscles suffer from lack of use, but so do our bones. Our bones are the framework that keeps us from being like jellyfish. They give us our shape and form, like the frame does to a building; but unlike steel girders or two-by-four, they are alive. And if they are not exercised or, in this case, stressed, they actually loose mass.

Perhaps you have learned by personal experience that when a person has to go to the hospital, the medical personnel try to get the patient up and around as soon as possible, because every day in bed without movement can result in complications and a slow-down in the healing process.

"So, Pastor O'Ffill, I get it, I get it. I understand that. So, what's the point?" The point is, if you don't use it, you lose it.

"You said that already."

But what I didn't say is that it is the same in the spiritual life. Jesus told about a man who was about to go on a trip. The story is found in Matthew 25:14-30.

"For the kingdom of heaven is as a man traveling into a far country, who called his own servants, and delivered unto them his goods. And unto one he gave five talents, to another two, and to another one; to every man according to his several ability; and straightway took his journey.

"Then he that had received the five talents went and traded with the same, and made them other five talents. And likewise he that had received two, he also gained other two. But he that had received one went and digged in the earth, and hid his lord's money.

"After a long time the lord of those servants cometh, and reckoneth with them. And so he that had received five talents came and brought other five talents, saying, Lord, thou deliveredst unto me five talents: behold, I have gained beside them five talents more. His lord said unto him, Well done, thou good and faithful servant: thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will make thee ruler over many things: enter thou into the joy of thy lord. He also that had received two talents came and said, Lord, thou deliveredst unto me two talents: behold, I have gained two other talents beside them. His lord said unto him, Well done, good and faithful servant; thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will make thee ruler over many things: enter thou into the joy of thy lord.

"Then he which had received the one talent came and said, Lord, I knew thee that thou art an hard man, reaping where thou hast not sown, and gathering where thou hast not strawed: And I was afraid, and went and hid thy talent in the earth: lo, there thou hast that is thine. His lord answered and said unto him, Thou wicked and slothful servant, thou knewest that I reap where I sowed not, and gather where I have not strawed: Thou oughtest therefore to have put my money to the exchangers, and then at my coming I should have received mine own with usury. Take therefore the talent from him, and give it unto him which hath ten talents.

"For unto every one that hath shall be given, and he shall have abundance: but from him that hath not shall be taken away even that which he hath. And cast ye the unprofitable servant into outer darkness: there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth."

This story ups the ante from muscles and bones to all that there is about us, and Jesus wasn't teaching anatomy and physiology. He was teaching concepts that are not only important in time but also in eternity.

The title of this discussion is "What Are We Waiting For?". It is based on the premise that many Christians are somehow convinced that, although they do not have the Christian walk they ought to have, and although in their everyday lives they are not seeking first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness, somehow, when the going gets hard and things really begin to look grim in the world, they will get serious about their commitment to eternal things.

This makes about as much sense as a university student deciding that he will not prepare for the final exam, thinking that when the test paper is on his desk somehow all the facts he never learned will somehow come to mind.

Ladies and Gentlemen, we are moving on a sure course toward a day in which there will be a huge test. This test will not be to gain three credit hours nor even be the comprehensive exam to receive a Master's or a Doctorate.

This test will be for everyone living at that time; and when it is over Jesus will pronounce the fateful words, "He that is unjust, let him be unjust still: and he which is filthy, let him be filthy still: and he that is righteous, let him be righteous still: and he that is holy, let him be holy still."

This pronouncement will declare the eternal destiny for the entire human race from Adam until that moment.

Our time can be compared to only one other time in the history of this planet, and that time is "as it was in the days of Noah".

The conditions will be similar in three ways:

1. A warning message is given.
2. The people are interested only in the good life.
3. When the time is up and the game is called, it is all over for the people on the outside.

Of course, in the time of the flood, when it actually began to rain, some of the people did get serious, but it was too little, too late. Friends, what are we waiting for?

Many have somehow come to the conclusion that, inasmuch as we are saved by grace through faith and not of ourselves, it is the gift of God, somehow this means that we can live our lives business as usual and still qualify for a passing grade in the course even though we didn't attend the classes.

Being saved by grace through faith doesn't make void the great law of cause and effect which is based on the truth, Use it or lose it.

Salvation is a process by which, if we are not using it, we will lose it. This has nothing to do with salvation by works. When we give our hearts to Jesus, He writes our name in the Lamb's Book of Life, and the Holy Spirit immediately begins a process that will be ongoing and must necessarily be progressing until Jesus says, "It is finished."

Salvation is not only about where we will live when Jesus comes but how we live as we await His coming. We may not have thought of it this way before, but salvation ultimately manifests itself in a lifestyle.

You may be thinking, "Pastor O'Ffill, I caught you now. You just said that we are saved by works".

No, I didn't say that we are saved by our lifestyle. I said that our salvation necessarily affects the way we live. It would be a fatal mistake to say that having the Holy Spirit in the life will not affect how spouses treat each other or how parents treat their children or children their parents.

Just as in the physical realm our bones must move and stretch, so the Christian life must be maintained and kept viable. We understand that it must be exercised and growing or else we missed the point of the parable of the talents.

Notice that God didn't make us with a cookie cutter. We are not all the same. One servant had five talents, one had two, and the other had only one. But the point of the story is that God takes us where we are; and whoever we are and whether we have a lot of advantage or little, He expects us to do something about it. The person who begins a life in Christ and doesn't allow the Holy Spirit to do something with it will end up losing what little they had.

These days, people are into exercise and physical fitness. Perhaps not in every case, but judging from the fact that the health club walls are often covered with mirrors, it would seem that people are more often into physical fitness to look healthy than to be healthy.

Living the life in the Spirit is not something we do to look good, rather it has to do with being good. Speaking of looking good, 1 Samuel 16:7 declares that man looks on the outward appearance but God looks on the heart.

We often use this text as an excuse to look or dress the way we please. And if anybody dares to question us, we say, "Man looks on the outward appearance but God looks on the heart."

But what does this text really say? Does it give Christians a cart blanche to look or dress like the world because it's only the heart that matters? Monkeys look like monkeys because they are monkeys. Birds look like birds because they are birds. Is it asking too much that Christians look like Christians because they are Christians?

There is a tendency these days which suggests that Christians can dress like non-Christians and they will still be Christians, or that Christians can go to the same places and listen to the same music as non-Christians and they will still be Christians.

Perhaps they think they can, but the fact is they can't. A changed heart is a changed life, and a person who has received the Holy Spirit in the life, whether they eat or drink or whatever they do, it will be to the glory of God (1 Corinthians 10:31).

There is an Old Testament story that makes it clear. It is not exactly a story with high morals, but it is found in Genesis 38. Judah, one of Jacob's sons, had a son named Er who died. His wife was a woman named Tamar. The custom of the time was that Judah should have given Tamar another of his sons to marry and raise a family, but he would not. So Tamar decided to take the matter into her own hands. One day she dressed up like a prostitute and sat down beside the road where she knew Judah would pass. Sure enough, Judah passed by and, yielding to her suggestions, he disgraced himself, which fact she later used to persuade Judah to give her his son. You see, Judah picked up his own former daughter-in-law Tamar whom he didn't recognize because he was looking at the outward appearance of a prostitute.

Don't you see that, because as humans we do look on the outward appearance, it is so important that as daughters of God Christian women not dress like those who aren't? By the way, you notice that I referred to those who are daughters of God and those who aren't. Although God created everyone, not everyone is a son or daughter of God. John 1:12 reads, "But as many as received Him, to them gave He power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on His name."

Although God is love, this does not imply that everyone on this planet has the same relationship to Him. There are those the Bible refers to as "the wicked".

I have often thought of those who the Bible says have thoughts that are evil continually. If you have an e-mail address, you have probably received hundreds of e-mails offering pornography. Those who are purveyors of this traffic are evil and wicked. We are not all the same. Although God is not willing that any should perish and that all should come to repentance, there are at any one time two groups-the children of God and the children of the devil.

The Bible commands those who are followers of Jesus to be separate from the ways of the world. Although we should, of course, work to save the lost, we must be careful not to catch the disease they have. Jesus made this relationship clear when He said that we should not love the world. A person who claims to be a follower of Jesus and essentially follows the lifestyle of the world is not only in the world, but they are in fact of the world.

The purpose of the Christian life is not so much to try to win unchurched Harry and Mary, but foremost it is to live a holy life. Holy means separate. Israel could never win the Egyptians while they still lived in Egypt. Those whom God would sanctify He must first separate.

The Christian life, though progressive, is not a do-it-yourself, or do-it-my-way process. These days more and more Christians are giving themselves an "A" in the Christian life because they are making up the roles for themselves as they go along.

In recent years there has been a resurgence of spirituality in the culture. I suppose we should, on the surface of it, celebrate this. But this spirituality is home-grown because, although it uses all the right words, it tends to pick and choose as far as the application to the life is concerned.

But a warning here: It is possible to get bogged down in rules and regulations and miss the spirit of it all. It is also possible to get so bogged down in the spirit that we become like a dog chasing its tail.

A few weeks ago I was the house guest in a minister's home. You can imagine we had a nice visit together sharing stories and concerns. The pastor was telling me that he recently had the opportunity to be with a group of people who were church planters. If I remember correctly, he had known one of these people from some years before. He asked his friend what he had been doing since they last met.

The man confessed that, although he had been in the ministry for a period of time, he had gotten fed-up with all the doctrines and was out of the church for ten years. Then, he told my friend, he found Jesus and came back into the ministry.

My friend knew the first elder of the church that this man had most recently pastored, and the elder later confided that it appeared that the man, although he claims to have found Jesus, was still fed up with the doctrines.

I really can't figure out why so many these days say they are fed up with the doctrines. The truth about Jesus is a doctrine; and if a person has a correct concept of the doctrine of Jesus, he won't have trouble with the other doctrines. Jesus put it this way, "They are they which testify of Me."

Just as bones and muscles will atrophy and lose their strength if they do not obey the laws of nature and exercise, so it is in the Christian life. And the exercise of the Christian life is obedience. When we say obedience, we are not talking about obeying rules we make up for ourselves. We are talking about obeying the rules and regs that God has stipulated for us. Obedience in the Christian life is not merely having ethics or morals. There are many ideologies and religions that are moral and ethical. Obedience in the Christian life is not about obeying Buddha or Mohammed but about obeying Jesus.

The whole problem at the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil was not whether or not our first parents should obey but rather whom should they obey. The temptation of Satan to our first grandmother was that, if she would eat from the tree, she basically wouldn't have to obey anyone anymore but herself. The issue was and still is whether or not we will or will not do what God tells us to do.

This is why obedience really is disobedience unless it is obedience to the Word of God.

The exercise of the Christian life-and by "Christian life" we mean the life of a person who professes to follow Jesus-is something that comes through obedience. Obedience, not just where we happen to agree or understand, but obedience whether or not we agree or even understand.

There are some who teach that God doesn't expect us to obey unless we understand why. I must disagree and say that we will never understand why until we begin to obey.

Someone might ask if I believe in blind obedience. I suppose I would answer yes and no. For instance, I believe it would be the better part of wisdom to obey the law of gravity and not jump off a ten-story building even though I may never have taken a class in physics.

On the other hand, I am convinced that as we obey we will begin to understand the issues behind the rules. After all, Jesus said that He would send the Holy Spirit, who would lead us into all truth.

The Holy Spirit and our conscience are linked together. I believe that the conscience is that special part of us where it might be said the Holy Spirit works. I believe that the conscience is where the Holy Spirit meets us. The conscience under the influence of the Holy Spirit gives us a reference point for our decisions.

You see, there is no decision we make that is neither good nor bad, neither right nor wrong. The Bible says that God will bring every work into judgment. This being the case, our every decision is either to the glory of God or it isn't. But it is important to remember that God doesn't hold everyone accountable in the same way. Remember, like in the parable, some have five talents, some have two and others have only one.

Our life in this world that will pass away is a time to develop Christ-like characters that will last for eternity. In order to have a Christ-like character, it is necessary to have a highly developed conscience. Obedience to the Word of God is impossible if our consciences are malfunctioning.

An important aspect of the Christian life, then, includes formatting the conscience so that it will be super-sensitive. Some people don't like the concept of having a sensitive conscience.

I have read that since 9-11 the customs and immigration agents at the ports of entry carry a little instrument that is extremely sensitive to radioactive materials. This is very important, because now there is the possibility that an enemy might try to bring a small nuclear device into the country.

On several occasions the inspectors at an airport's x-ray machine have asked me to step aside. They wipe the handle of my suitcase with a small cloth and then expose the cloth to a machine that can detect even the smallest amount of residue of explosive materials.

What I am emphasizing is that in these last days it is imperative that a Christian's conscience be sensitive to anything that is not to the glory of God and so may be used by the enemy to lead us into danger.

However, a problem that can arise is that, once a person's conscience has been sensitized, it is extremely dangerous to ignore its warnings. 1 Timothy 4:2 says, ". . . speaking lies in hypocrisy; having their conscience seared with a hot iron."

In 1984 an Avianca Airlines jet crashed in Spain. One of the first things crash investigators do is try to locate the "black box" cockpit recorder. In this case they made an eerie discovery. The recorder revealed that, several minutes before the crash, a computer-synthesized voice from the plane's automatic warning system repeatedly told the flight crew in English, "Pull up, Pull Up!"

The pilot must have thought the system was malfunctioning. The "black box" recorded him responding, "Shut up, Gringo," and then he apparently switched the system off. Minutes later the plane plowed into the side of a mountain. Everyone on board perished. This is a tragic story, yet it is an apt example of the way people today are treating the warning messages of their consciences.

Many have the perception that guilt is the cause of our difficulties. As a result they will do whatever it takes to avoid being put on a guilt trip. However, contrary to the popular thinking, guilt is not what is causing our most severe problems. Guilt cannot be the culprit, because guilt is not a cause, rather it is an effect. You see guilt, is something that is detected by the conscience. Therefore, if we are going to address what to do about guilt, we must first understand what the conscience is and what role it plays in the Christian life. If our perception of guilt is not accurate and we address it as a cause rather than as an effect, we could wake up one day to discover that the steps we took to remedy guilt in fact made it impossible for us to be free from what was causing the trouble in the first place.

It was God's plan that the conscience warn us of the moral implications of what we do or plan to do (Isaiah 30:21). The conscience was designed to react to lawlessness and irresponsibility. The conscience is the place where guilt, shame, and even fear of punishment are registered. Contemporary society incorrectly sees the conscience as a defect that is robbing people of their self-esteem. The conscience doesn't create guilt (Isaiah 59:2), it detects guilt. God placed the conscience into the very fiber of the human soul to be an automatic warning system that tells us, "Pull up, Pull up," before we crash and burn. When we understand the function of the conscience, we can appreciate that it is one of the greatest gifts God has given us.

The conscience is that part of us that separates us from the rest of God's creation on this planet. It is the ability God has given us to know right and wrong. Unlike the rest of the animal creation, the conscience is that part of man that reflects the image of God (Genesis 1:26). Animals don't have a conscience. When a snake bites or a lion kills, they are not violating their consciences. They don't have the ability to make moral self-evaluations.

The conscience is a human faculty. Though sometimes it may not seem so, everybody has a conscience. "For when the Gentiles, which have not the law, do by nature the things contained in the law, these, having not the law, are a law unto themselves. Which shew the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience also bearing witness, and their thoughts the meanwhile accusing or else excusing one another" (Romans 2:14, 15).

Though a person is born with the faculty of conscience, it is important that we understand it is not the voice of God nor is it the law of God. The conscience simply judges our actions and thoughts in the light of the highest standard that we happen to understand at the time.

Furthermore, the conscience is not infallible. It can be tainted. The role of the conscience is not to teach moral and ethical ideals. The conscience doesn't decide what is right and wrong, it only reminds us what is right and wrong according to the way it has been programmed. Inasmuch as our conscience may be programmed by tradition and environment as well as by truth, it may or may not have been programmed correctly or in harmony with biblical truth.

The conscience may even be sensitized to things that are not biblical issues. For that matter, at the other extreme it may be totally unresponsive to things that are clearly a moral issue. It is even possible to have a conscience that has no foundation in the Word of God. When this happens, it will do a lot of spinning but will not be taking anyone anywhere. For this reason a strong, regular input of Scripture is necessary to strengthen a weak conscience. Scripture also helps to stabilize a conscience that is, as it were, spinning because it has no foundation in truth. If the conscience is going to function as it is supposed to, it must be programmed and continually updated by the Word of God.

Sometimes we hear, "Just let your conscience be your guide." This is not a safe criterion, because it takes for granted that a person has a sensitive, developed conscience based on the Word of God and that it has not been blunted or rendered inoperative. Like a fine instrument, conscience must be kept well calibrated with the Word of God.

God did not give us our conscience to condemn us but to protect us. It is wrong actions that condemn us. God has put the conscience within to alert us and to tell us when we are off the road. It is possible to dull the conscience or even to make it inoperable (Titus 1:15, Ephesians 4:19). If we resist the voice of conscience or keep it uninformed or misinformed, it will cease to function and may even begin to malfunction.

For some years my work occasionally took me to Africa. It was there that I saw the scourge of leprosy for the first time. Leprosy is a disease that makes it impossible for the one affected to feel pain. I saw men and women without their feet and hands. Previously, I had thought that the disease destroys the extremities. This is not so. The disease simply takes away the sensation of pain, and without pain the victim is not able to distinguish when their hands and feet are being traumatized and destroyed. This helped me understand how the conscience is the moral organ of pain. A person who ignores his conscience or seeks to do away with it will sooner or later end up badly disfigured morally and eventually may lose his soul.

I had often wondered why people who were raised in a Christian environment, but who left it, could end up worse than those who had lived in the world all their lives. People with primitive or undeveloped consciences, but who are responsive to what consciences they have, will often not be nearly as wicked as people who once had sensitive consciences, but who have turned their backs on their consciences and, in the words of the Scripture, have "crucified the Son of God afresh" (Hebrews 6:6).

It is dangerous to try to run your conscience backward or pretend that it isn't there. "And Jesus said unto him, No man, having put his hand to the plow, and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God" (Luke 9:62). It is more serious to have known the truth and rejected it than not to have known it at all. The apostle Paul speaks of this phenomena in Timothy 4:1-2: "Now the Spirit speaketh expressly, that in the latter times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits, and doctrines of devils; speaking lies in hypocrisy; having their conscience seared with a hot iron."

A person who has defiled or blunted his conscience will end up being like a ship without a compass. The warning signals that previously made him feel guilty are gone, but the danger remains. Without a way to detect moral problems, he is in greater danger than ever.

I had an experience that helped me understand the importance of a sensitive conscience. I used to own a 1985 Ford LTD station wagon. On the dashboard the car had what are called "idiot lights," although I am sure the manufacturer doesn't call them that. Idiot lights are different from gauges. An oil gauge will show you what your oil pressure is as you drive along. An idiot light doesn't come on until the engine is out of oil, and by then it is probably too late. Two times I burned the head on my engine because the light came on after the damage had already been done. The second time it happened I paid to have gauges installed that constantly monitored the condition of the engine (you could say I was an idiot not to have put the gauges in after the first time!).

But notice, the gauges on a car are not the problem, rather they are there to tell us what the condition of the motor is and to help us prevent problems. When problems come, the gauge indicates that we should stop and do something about it. In the same way our consciences were meant to alert us when we have wandered into dangerous territory in our lives. I suspect that much of the pain we suffer in our lives is due to the fact that, either we have not paid attention to the signals that have come on in our consciences, or that our consciences are not calibrated by the Word of God and have been blunted.

As Christians, if we are not making the effort by the grace of God to live up to all of the light that we have, when the time comes for the final test, we will surely fail. Those who are lost will not be those who didn't have the light, but rather they will be the ones who preferred darkness, those who, having had the truth, preferred to believe a lie. If we don't implement the truth, we will lose the ability to discern it.

The Christian life must be growing or it is dying. God has given us the Holy Spirit, His Word, and a conscience. We must make the choice. Not once in a lifetime, but everyday we are choosing what it will be. The trials that are ahead of us will only strengthen us if we are in fact committed in our hearts to the Lord Jesus and only if we have determined that it is our choice to do His will, not only in the big things of life but the little ones as well.

What will it be like to live in the time of trouble? I am not sure. It will probably be like this, only more so. I believe that we are now in what has been called the Little Time of Trouble.

Friend, if you know that your life is not consistent with your profession, what are you waiting for? Now is the accepted time, now is the day of salvation. When the door of the ark was closed, it was too late to decide to get in. For those of us who have known the truth but not lived up to the light we have had, when the Sunday law comes it is more than likely we will think of some reason for not remaining faithful. Those who receive the Mark of the Beast in their hand will be those who rationalize and say, "God knows my heart, He knows that I have to support my family."

I am worried with what appears to be a growing trend toward a liberal view of Sabbath keeping. If this is what we do when we have little to lose by being faithful, what makes us think that, when it is a matter of survival, we will somehow change our minds and begin to keep it holy? What are we waiting for?

This is not a time to turn our consciences down, but it is time to turn them up. What are we waiting for? May God help us to get serious while the getting is good, and He has promised, "Lo I am with you always, even until the end of the world."