Out of Control
And after some days, when Felix came with his wife Drusilla, who was Jewish, he sent for Paul and heard him concerning the faith in Christ. Now as he reasoned about righteousness, self-control, and the judgment to come, Felix was afraid and answered, ‘Go away for now; when I have a convenient time I will call for you.’ – Acts 24:24-25.
In Darwin, Australia the pilot of small plane (a Cessna 182) was trying to start the plane by cranking the propeller by hand. The plane’s engine started and began to move before the pilot could get back aboard it. The pilot wasn’t aboard, but his three children were. John Hardy owner of Hardy Aviation said, “He (the pilot) wasn’t in the airplane, but his three children were, which is pretty frightening, and the aircraft engine sprang into life and developed enough power to tear off down the taxiway. I think one wheel was off the ground, and it was accelerating very quickly.” The plane came to a stop after crashing into three small planes that were parked. The children were unhurt but frightened by their wild ride.
Felix was a Roman governor and powerful official. He held Paul in prison and talked with him often over the course of two years hoping that Paul or his friends would give him money for Paul’s release. A Roman historian, Tacitus, said that Felix, “maintained the royal law with a servile disposition by means of all sorts of cruelty and greed.” There is no record of Felix ever coming to that “more convenient time” when he would have received Christ as his Savior. The downward spiral of sin in the life of Felix was out of control, and it took him farther than he wanted to go. Felix found life had taken him past heaven and all the way to hell.
During the downward spiral of sin, we will find that we are not in control of our life and that the farther we go the faster we go. Sin always takes us farther than we want to go because sin takes control. How many people have thought that they could use cocaine without becoming addicted, or that they could drink without becoming an alcoholic but discovered too late that their little sin had taken control. How many people are in prison because they planned to be in prison? Very few! They are there because sin took them on a wild frightening ride taking them farther than they wanted to go.
Do you have some “little sin” in your life? Please don’t wait until some “more convenient time” to turn away from it because that time may never come. When will you come to the point of no return? When will your life be out of control and sin will be in the driver’s seat? Felix never knew when that point came just as countless others have missed it as well.
If you have a “little sin” in your life turn around before it destroys you. If you turn around now you might miss the frightening downward plunge to destruction. Don’t let sin take you farther than you want to go!
(Sin can take you farther than you want to go.)