My wife and I invited a couple over to our house to eat a number of weeks ago. I spoke with the husband on Sunday night after church and we set the time for Monday at three o’clock. The next day I called him around ten o’clock just to confirm our appointment which he confirmed and expressed that they were excited to be coming over.My wife began cooking around one-thirty just to make sure everything would be ready when they arrived. By three o’clock the table was set and the food was ready, all that was missing were our guests. By three-thirty, I began to get a little worried and called the man just to make sure everything was okay.
“Yes Pastor, everything is fine, we are coming,” He said over the phone.
I said, “Okay, I’m just a little concerned because we set the time for three and it’s already three-thirty.”
“Yeah, no worries Pastor, we are on our way.” He assured me.
So we waited. Four o’clock came and left without their arrival. Five o’clock, nothing. At five-thirty, the food was cold and I was hot. It is amazing to me how the temperature inside of me began to rise as the temperature of the food began to cool.
I called him back, “Where are you? Is everything okay?” I asked, with half of me concerned and the other half vexed.
“Yes Pastor, everything is fine.” He replied jovially, “We are coming.”
“What do you mean you are coming?!? What in the world is going on?” I yelled (calmly) over the phone, “We set the time for three o’clock, it’s already five-thirty and you are nowhere to be seen. The food is cold!!!”
“Oh, but Pastor…” he replied, “Don’t you know, we are coming in ‘Africa time’" (which is the local excuse for always being late). "Don’t worry, we will be there soon.”
I must say in all honesty that I was very tempted to lock the gate and sit down to eat with my family, not letting the guests in when they got here, but I didn’t. However, when they finally arrived at my house, I informed them that ‘Africa time’ is too late and if I ever did invite them over again, the door would be locked a minute past our agreed time, leaving them outside wondering what they could have eaten from Sara’s Cuisine.Now, you can say that I am mean and that I need to learn patience, and I could not disagree with you. You have no idea how impatient I am when food is before me and my belly is empty. But, the fact is that God is very concerned with respect towards time; his timekeeping is perfect. As Christians we should learn to emulate the example of our creator and not follow the demise of our culture.
For an illustration of this, we need to look no further than our own solar system with all the various planets rotating and moving with impeccable timing. Or, you can look at God’s appointment with Sarah in Genesis, “about this time next year…Sarah shall have a son.” and sure enough, God kept his appointment. You can also examine in Numbers where God says, “Let the children of Israel keep the Passover at its appointed time…on the fourteenth day of this month, at twilight, you shall keep it at its appointed time…”
Here is my point; God keeps his appointments and expects us to keep ours. When you are late, you miss out. Coming late for dinner is one thing, but I am writing now concerning life. God has given us a limited amount of time on this earth and we can not afford to waste any of it. We must give it all to Him for His glory.
There will come a day when your time on earth will expire and any unfinished business will be left unfinished; everything in this life will freeze in time as you move on into eternity. At that moment, it will be too late to love, too late to forgive, too late to evangelize, too late to get your heart right with God and too late to get things right with loved ones. The list goes on.
Jesus told the story in Luke chapter sixteen of the rich man and Lazarus as death comes to them both and their fortunes are reversed. The rich man becomes a beggar in eternity. He begs for a drip of water from the finger of the man he passed by everyday who was laying at his gate in need. Then he cries out for Abraham to send someone to his home to speak of the truth of eternity to his unbelieving brothers. This man who was once rich in his life became a sad beggar in eternity because he believed too late, prayed too late and he cared too late.
Jesus gives us this illustration to tell us that time does matter; it matters to Him, it matters to us and it matters to the people around us. He gives the story to us to tell us that ‘African time’ is not acceptable for appointments and it is not acceptable for life. Don't be too late!
“We must work…as long as it is day; night is coming, when no man can work.”
