Too Little, Too Late

Verse of the day: Genesis 28:9 So Esau went to Ishmael and took Mahalath the daughter of Ishmael, Abraham’s son, the sister of Nebajoth, to be his wife in addition to the wives he had.

Esau’s failure to seek his father’s guidance led him to marry two Canaanite women that were not pleasing to both Isaac and Rebekah. After hearing Isaac tell Jacob not to take a wife of the women of Canaan, Esau decides that he will try to please his father, by taking a wife from the family of Ishmael. The only problem with this solution is that Ishmael was the son of a bondwoman, Hagar, who was cast out, by God, and would not inherit the promise God made to Abraham in respect to Isaac and his descendants. It is obvious that Esau’s motivation in making things right was not genuine, in the sense that he was only doing this in hopes to be in better standing with his father, and perhaps he would receive a greater blessing than Isaac bestowed upon Jacob. Not only was his motivation wrong, but the reconciliation he sought was with his father, and not God. His superficial attempts at making things right led him to make things worse, as he took on a third wife; one that would not bring him any closer to inheriting God’s promise, but one that would take him further away from it. Sadly, this is the approach too many of us take today in our relationship with Christ. 1 John 1:8-10 tells us that, “If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. 9 If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. 10 If we say that we have not sinned, we make Him a liar, and His word is not in us.” However, the approach that we often take is that we confess without really repenting. We see the consequences of our sinful actions, and we immediately begin to promise God that we will do one thing or another to make up for what we did, if God will only “bail us out” of our current circumstances. We do the right thing for the time being in hopes that God will remove the consequences, only to return to our folly once the dust has settled and the sting of the consequences seem not as painful. Another wrong approach we take is deciding for ourselves what the punishment should be for our stumbling. We take the “Judas” approach to repentance. After realizing what he did in betraying Jesus, rather than seek God’s forgiveness for his sin, he decided that committing suicide would be payment enough (Matthew 27:3-5). How wrong he was. We must trust God’s promise that He will forgive us if we truly repent and confess our sins. Like Esau, we also fall into the trap of doing “too little, too late”. He despised his birthright, already married two Canaanite women, and now seeks to get things right for the wrong reason; and only after seeing that his younger brother was receiving the blessings he felt belonged to him. This can certainly happen when God opens an opportunity of service, but we are “too busy” to take it, but then decide to “join in” when we see how well It is going, and how people are being blessed by being involved. However, there does come a time when God says, “Too late.” Israel experienced this when God told them to go into the Promise Land, but they allowed what they saw persuade them not to, instead of trusting that God had already given them the land, regardless of who was already there. Once they realized what they had done, and what they were going to miss, they decided they would go into the land, only to suffer painful consequences in the form of defeat (Numbers 14). The bottom line is that we must be careful that our repentance be genuine when we come before the Lord to confess our sinful failures. We must also be careful that we not delay when God calls us to carry out a task or serve Him in a ministry opportunity, whatever that opportunity might be. Waiting until we see that there will be dire consequences or potential loss of blessing is not the time to decide that we will repent and obey God’s leading, or do the “right thing”; by then, it is most likely too little, too late.

Today, God extends an invitation to you to accept His free gift of salvation (Rom 6:23). Will you accept it? Anyone who calls on Jesus, by faith, in repentance, confessing their sins, will receive eternal life. Do not put off calling on Him, and receive Him and His free gift of salvation today (Rom 10:13).