Other Prison Guards

Then there is that other guard, procrastination, “The road of By-and-By leads to the town of Never.” A great many people are not saved, because they are always saying, “There is plenty of time,” and the devil puts old Captain Procrastination on duty to guard them, and if they get exercised, he says to the young, “There is plenty of time; you are young yet.” To those in middle life, he says, “Go on and make your fortune, then you can think about your soul.” But old age comes and they are still in their sins. The time for them is gone, and they pass into eternity — lost. “The harvest is past, the summer is ended, and we are not saved” (Jer. 8:20).
How well Satan knows how to use the third and fourth guards — the pleasures of sin and the love of the world — to, keep people from coming to Christ. If they bestir themselves and are anxious to be saved, these guards are there to say, “You will lose all your good times, if you become a Christian; you will have to be long-faced and you will be miserable and wretched. You won’t be able to go to this, or to that; you won’t be able to enjoy this or that; put it off; wait until the world has lost its charm.” And so, because men love the world and think more of the pleasures of sin than they do of their eternal salvation, they remain in bondage — some of them until it is too late to be saved.