The End of a Thing

Ecclesiastes 7:8 KJV

Better is the end of a thing than the beginning thereof: and the patient in spirit is better than the proud in spirit.

One of the great observations I have seen over the years of my salvation has been that the beginning of a thing has little importance compared to how it ends. The month I began to pastor the church in Astoria another man began a church in Klamath Falls. As the two of us approached the end of the first year I was meeting with a small handful of people in an abandoned gas station, but he had purchased a building and had assembled nearly one hundred people. However by the end of the year he had left and I could not even tell you his name; I doubt any pastor in Oregon could. But we continued on.

Over these very nearly thirty years I have witnessed many who have come, seemed to make a big splash at the beginning, only to quickly quit. McMinnville had one of those. Wearing his black and white dress shoes, He loved to introduce himself as the pastor of the most exciting church in Oregon. In a few months time, there was no new church in Oregon. Some of the most well known pastors in the independent Baptist churches have ended as criminals and sexual perverts. Some of the pastors of the fastest growing churches have fallen in huge ways. The end of a thing is better than the beginning because we really have no idea what a thing really is until its end.

And so it is with every man. We ought not judge our own lives by where they are today but by where they end.

The Biblical Illustrator gives this:

"I. At the end of his life he is introduced into a better state.

1. He begins his life amidst impurity.

The first air he breathes, the first word he hears, the first impression he receives, are tainted with sin; but at its end he is introduced to purity, saints, angels, Christ, God!

2. He begins his life on trial. It is a race—shall he win?

 It is a voyage—shall he reach the haven? The end determines all.

3. He begins his life amidst suffering

“Man is born to trouble.”

II. At the end of his life he is introduced into better occupations.

Our occupations here are threefold—physical, intellectual, moral. All these are more or less of a painful kind. But in the state into which death introduces us, the engagements will be congenial to the tastes, invigorating to the frame, delightful to the soul and honouring to God.

III. At the end of his life he is introduced into better society.

We are made for society. But society here is frequently insincere, non-intelligent, unaffectionate. But how delightful the society into which death will introduce us! We shall mingle with enlightened, genuine, warm-hearted souls, rising in teeming numbers, grade above grade, up to the Eternal God Himself. (Homilist.)"