The Sinner's Excuse Book

“The Sinner’s Excuse Book”

How many know it is not wise to live your life based on presumption?

There’s nothing solid about presumption. Making decisions based on presumption will get you in trouble. It leaves too many things to chance… “up in the air.” Unsettled.

pre-sume – “To take a dare. To suppose something to be true without proof. To take for granted that something is the way you think it is without knowing for sure.”

Have you ever been the innocent victim of presumption?

“What do you mean ‘the banquet hall in not reserved!?!’ I assumed you took care of that month’s ago!”

You’re 200 miles down the road; “You put the dog out before we left, right?”

Story of dog owner who stopped at a rest stop and tethered their dog to bumper of their motor home. “You put ‘Skippy’ back in the camper, right hun?” (What a drag!)

“I thought we went over that together? You said…”

“No, YOU said…

“No, no, no…I distinctly remember you saying…”

“Weren’t you supposed to pick up the guest speaker at the airport?”

“I’m pretty sure she’s got that covered.”

“Don’t worry about a thing – I saw him write himself a note about that…”

At best, presumption is an educated guess. Not a fact, but a possibility. You predict, under the ideal circumstances, how the dice will end up. With presumption, if nothing were every allowed to alter the circumstances, you would always win. But you can’t count on that because circumstances for most things in life are beyond your control.

Listen – just because it happened a certain way one time doesn’t mean it will be the same this time. Just because it worked for one person doesn’t mean it will work for you the same way. Some things in life are just too important to risk through presumption. Like eternity.

Me, personally, I don’t want to take a chance on forever. Follow me for a second here. Forever is….forever. Today is just ‘today’ and tomorrow is just ‘tomorrow’ – but “forever is a long, long time.” There is no “The End” on eternity’s story. The interesting thing about eternity is, although it’s forever, you can’t do anything about it once you’re there. Did you ever think about that? You have two options (Biblically speaking) for eternity. Heaven/hell. Both of those options about your forever are decided in the very temporal existence of your life today.

So, in reality, whether you realize it or not, today is a very important day because today just might be the beginning of eternity for someone in this room. Today and tomorrow are just a drop in the bucket when it comes to eternity. Just an infinitesimal blip on the eternal screen – but there’s a lot more riding on today and tomorrow than you think.

This is hard stuff for us to fathom! I’ll guarantee you that when you wake up most days you aren’t thinking, “Whoa dude! Big day today! This might be the day when I meet my eternal destiny!” Are you kidding!?! All you’re worried about is trying to find your socks or picking out what you’re going to wear for the day! That’s the problem!

We can’t see eternity for staring into today!

Never forget: The difference between today and eternity is forever.

Ahh, but in “The Sinner’s Excuse Book,” today is just ‘another day,’ for you see, “The Sinner’s Excuse Book” is full of presumptions. The Bible talks about some of them. They are common presumptions we make about spiritual decisions. All of these presumptions assume the individual will have the ideal time and opportunity to bring about the desired end result. But life isn’t that predictable…..

One of the presumptions you’re sure to find in every copy of “The Sinner’s Excuse Book” is this:

I. “Someday, I’ll settle down and straighten out my life.”

Isaiah 56:12 – “‘Come,” each one cries, ‘Let me get wine! Let us drink our fill of beer! And tomorrow will be like today or even far better.’”

Sounds like an add for a beer commercial doesn’t it?

“C’mon! Grab another 6-pack. Go for the gusto! It doesn’t get any better than this! We’re having the time of our life and tomorrow’s/next weekend’s party will be just like today’s – or even better!”

The thinking here is that at some future point, when I’m older, it’ll be time to “mellow out,” and put the crazy days behind me. But now, I’m young and strong and full of life. So “get back, Jack! – I’ve got some living to do!!!”

THE PRESUMPTIONS?:

· You’ll wake up one morning and clearly recognize that you’ve reached the ideal age to “mellow out,” and “just like that” – you’ll straighten out you life.

· It will be easy to just “walk away” from all the people and environments that have contributed to your sinful lifestyle. (friends, parties, bars, etc.)