No Excuse For Excuses

He got dozens of responses from his fellow professors:

* Grandparent death: an old favorite, but one professor’s class established some sort of record when 14 of 250 students reported their grandmother’s death just before final exams.

* Car Problems: "I had an accident, the police impounded the car, and my paper is in the glove compartment."

* Animal Trauma: "I can’t be at the exam because my cat is having kittens and I am her coach."

* Crime: "I need to take the final early because the husband of a woman I am seeing is threatening to kill me."

We seem to have an excuse for everything, don’t we?

DID YOU KNOW…

• There are even websites on the internet that will help you generate an excuse! You type in the excuse you need and it generates one for you,

• Also, you can by a doctor’s excuse from a licenced physician for $14.99 to give to your employer or PE or class or anyone else.

• Every pastor could write a book on the many ridicuos excuses that he has heard. But some of the excuses he hears are better than others.

Illus: One lady gave her excuse for why she does not attend church.

• She said, "I don't go to church, and this is my excuse:

• If I go some of the time, it makes me want to go all the time.

• And since I can't go all the time, it makes me feel guilty when I miss some of the time.

• So I don't go any of the time, and this keeps me from feeling guilty when I miss going some of the time."

You have to admire some people because they are very creative and if they are going to do something, they are going to do it right.

But when people build their lives around excuses, they are doing a very dangerous thing.

• Benjamin Franklin said this about excuses; "He that is good for making excuses is seldom good for anything else."

• Washington Carver said, “Ninety-nine percent of the failures come from people who have the habit of making excuses."

But not only have some of the great men and women said enlightening things about excuses, so has the Word of God.

In Luke 14:16-20 Jesus tells us a story about excuse. We read, “Then said he unto him, A certain man made a great supper, and bade many: And sent his servant at supper time to say to them that were bidden, Come; for all things are now ready. And they all with one consent began to make excuse.

Look especially at Luke 14:16-20. They all with one consent began to make excuse

I guaranteed these were Baptist because I have heard some excuses just as ridiculous as these excuses.

These verses described a man who made a great supper, only to find that:

• One guest could not come because he was recently married. (Family excuse)

• One guest could not come because he had to prove five yoke of oxen, (Business excuse)

• One guest could not come because he had just purchased a piece of ground (Investment excuse)

Throughout the ages, people have given all kinds of excuses as to why they can not obey the Lord Jesus.

Even the great man Moses, gave God all kinds of excuses why he could not do what God asked him to do.

God desired to use Moses to deliver the Children of Israel from the bondage of Egypt. But Moses was like many, HE WAS FULL OF EXCUSES!

When he reach the events captured in Exodus chapter 3, Moses is already about 80 years old... and he’s had a very interesting 80 years...

• He spent his first 40 years thinking God is going use him to deliver the Israelites from their Egyptian slavery. But Moses tried to do this all on his own, without waiting on God. So, after he kills an Egyptian, he has to flee into the desert and go into hiding.

• He then spent the next 40 years as a shepherd.

And now, Moses is 80 years old... He is an old man when the events of Exodus chapter 3 happened.

• He has spent the last 40 years thinking he’s a failure...

• He had received the best education...

• He was a member of the most powerful and most wealthy family in the world...

• He had been trained and prepared to be a leader, but his efforts to free the Israelites was a huge failure, and he had to run for his life!

For 40 years, he was no longer a royal prince...

• He no longer led armies of men... He is now the leader of a flock of sheep...