Tomorrow
TOMORROW — What a word! It is in every vocabulary. It is so often used. It is defined as, "on or for the day after today; on or for the morrow; the day after the present." How convenient a term it is, especially when we are called upon to that which is unpleasant, or when duty demands action, it so easy to say, Tomorrow.
It seems to me that two great mistakes are made by men relative to tomorrow:
1. PUTTING OFF UNTIL TOMORROW WHAT WE SHOULD DO TODAY. The sluggard certainly does this. He is too lazy to work and finds it easy to put it off till tomorrow. God says, "Yet a little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to sleep: So shall thy poverty come as a robber, and thy want as an armed man." (Prov. 6:10, 11 ASV) "The soul of the sluggard desireth, and hash nothing." (Prov. 13:4) "The sluggard shall not plow by reason of the cold; therefore shall he beg in harvest, and have nothing." (Prov. 20:4) We have seen folks in poverty because they were too lazy to work and found it easy to put off until tomorrow honest toil.
The wise man said, "I went by the field of the slothful, and by the vineyard of the man void of understanding; and, lo, it was all grown over with thorns, and nettles had covered the face thereof, and the stone wall thereof was broken down." (Prov. 24:30, 31) He also wrote, "By much slothfulness the building decayeth; and through idleness of the hands the house droppeth through." (Eccl. 10:18) No man wants his house to decay or his field (or yard) to grow up with weeds, but it often happens because we put off until tomorrow the work that should be done today.
There are thousands in spiritual poverty and whose spiritual house has fallen down because they have put off until tomorrow their obedience to God, or the study of God's word which is food for the soul of man. They do not want to be lost eternally, and many of them think, "Someday I will become a Christian." But they wait until "tomorrow." Many church members are spiritual dwarfs because they put off until tomorrow serious study and faithfulness. So many of these are people who would not be so negligent in physical and material things. They are not lazy or slothful but how sad that they neglect the weighter matters.
"Go to now, ye that say, To day or to morrow we will go into such a city, and continue there a year, and buy and sell, and get gain: 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. For that ye ought to say, If the Lord will, we shall live, and do this, or that." (James 4:13-15)
My friend, knowing the brevity and uncertainty of life do not put off until tomorrow your obedience to the gospel. "Behold, now is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation." (2 Cor. 6:2)
2. BEING ANXIOUS ABOUT TOMORROW. This is a common mistake of man. The worry about what tomorrow may bring has caused so much heartache to mankind. There is a simple solution to anxiety and it was given by Jesus over nineteen hundred years ago. Hear it: "Be not therefore anxious for the morrow: for the morrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof." (Matt. 6:34) This may not be easy but its worth working at, and the reward of living day by day is great. Every day will bring its own troubles and evils. If we try to bear the burdens, troubles and evils which tomorrow may bring we will find ourselves overloaded.
People worry about what they will eat tomorrow, or what kind of clothes they will have, or the kind of house they will live in, their health, whether they will have money in the bank, etc. There are things worse than hunger, patched clothes, old houses, poor health and being broke. It is much worse to be lost! Yet, most people never worry about being lost, and are not anxious about being saved.
Relative to tomorrow people become anxious about the things about which they should not worry, and put off until tomorrow the things that should be done today. May God help us to look at tomorrow in the proper perspective.
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