When Your Days on Earth Are Ended — E.A. Johnston

The Sudden End of Earthly Life

I was having lunch with Adrian Rogers and Stephen Olford. They were smiling and they both were full of vim and vigor. They were excited about the ministry plans they had for the coming year. I got up from that table and said my goodbyes, and within twelve months' time I was standing over each of them in their caskets.

Their time on earth came to a close and they entered eternity. I had a close friend who was a pastor in Africa, and every time he came to America he would make it a special point to come through my town and visit with me and stay in my home.

He was a brother to me. As a matter of fact, when he would introduce me to someone he would say, this is my brother. His skin is a different color, but he's my brother for sure. He was as close to me as a man can get.

He was sitting at my kitchen table talking to me and my wife. My wife loved this man as well, and he was like family to us. All three of us were sitting at our kitchen table. Within seven months' time, both my African friend and my wife were gone out of this world into another world.

Their deaths were unexpected and their days on earth were ended quite suddenly. My Bible speaks of the brevity of life. In the book of James it reads, whereas ye know not what shall be on to-morrow, for what is your life?

It is even a vapor that appeareth for a little time and then vanish away. In 1 Peter it declares, for all flesh is its grass, and all the glory of man is the flower of the grass. The grass withereth, and the flower thereof falleth away.

Our lives are mere myths that are here for a little while, friends, and then they are gone. Let me ask you, friend, when your days on earth are ended, what will remain? If the Lord tarries, each of us here will be laid in a grave some day.

Our time on this earth will end. We will enter eternity, and I fear some of you are not prepared for eternity. You don't like to think about it. You'd rather have your mind occupied with today and its pleasures and activities than think about another world which you will enter sooner than some of you realize.

Contemplating Mortality in the Cemetery

I want you to go straight from my sermon to the cemetery today. I don't mean I want you to die or be cut down like those who heard George Whitefield preach, several of whom dropped dead right in the middle of his sermon.

No, I mean I want you to go straight from my sermon to the cemetery today. As an exercise, I want you to visit a cemetery today, park your car in a lane, and get out and walk across that field of graves.

I want you to take the time to read some of the markers, read the dates of death, and ponder in your heart how death is no respecter of persons. Those that are young die and are placed in a grave, just as those who are older in years.

I want you to visit that cemetery, friends, and while you are there, I want you to ponder your own mortality. Go to that cemetery and walk around and picture yourself in one of those graves. And I want you to reflect on when your days on earth are ended, what will remain.

What will remain? Will you do that for me? Will you do it for yourselves? I promise you, it will be worth your investment of time if you take me up on it and go straight from my sermon to the cemetery.

Ecclesiastes and the Procession Toward Death

The title of my message this morning is, When Your Days on Earth Are Ended, and my text is found in the book of Ecclesiastes in chapter 12. You may turn in your Bibles there now. It will be in verses 1 through 7.

I want to read it to us, but please focus your attention on how this passage speaks of a funeral procession that leads to a grave, because that's where we're all headed to, a grave. This is not a feel-good message, friends, but it's a necessary one.

We each must face head-on the fact that life is short, our duty is large, and we only have one life to serve Jesus Christ and advance His kingdom. What are we doing with our life? Is our life in harmony with God's will for us?

Have we run from a call of God on our life? Have we squandered the time that God has given us? Have we made good use of the time that God has allotted us? Have we spent most of our free time in prayer, Bible study, and a gospel witness to others, or have we spent that time selfishly on our own amusements and self-gratification?

When your days on earth are ended, what will remain? Let me read us our text and listen to it, how it describes a person's body as it begins to fall apart piece by piece until finally death visits. Here now is the word of God, and may the Spirit of God hover over the reading of His holy word.

Remember now, thy Creator, in the days of thy youth, while the evil days come not, nor the years draw nigh, when thou shalt say, I have no pleasure in them. While the sun, or the light, or the moon, or the stars be not darkened, nor the clouds return after the rain, in the day, when the keepers of the house shall tremble, and the strong men shall bow themselves, and the grinders cease, because they are few, and those that look out the windows be darkened, and the doors shall be shut in the streets, when the sound of the grinding is low, and he shall rise up at the voice of the bird, and all the daughters of music shall be brought low, also, when they shall be afraid of that which is high, and fear shall be in the way, and the almond tree shall flourish, and the grasshopper shall be a burden, and desire shall fail, because a man goeth to his long home, and the mourners go about the streets, or ever the silver cord be loosed, or the golden bowl be broken, or the pitcher be broken at the fountain, or the wheel broken at the cistern, then shall the dust return to the earth as it was, and the spirit shall return unto God who gave it.

Peace and the Solid Foundation of Christ

You cannot escape death, friend. The king of terrors awaits each of us, and although death will come to each of us, it does not have to be a time of terror. Adrian Rogers, when he lay a dying in the hospital, right before he died, he said, I am at perfect peace.

And if you know Jesus, friend, you have that peace. God declares in the book of Isaiah, I create the fruit of the lips, peace, peace to him that is far off, and to him that is near, saith the Lord, and I will heal him.

But the wicked are like the troubled sea when it cannot rest, whose waters cast up mire and dirt. There is no peace, saith my God, to the wicked. Everyone here, within the sound of my voice, better be sure that the foundation you rest upon is solid and not sand.

You better not be resting upon a false foundation of self-righteousness and good works, friend, and then die because there is no peace, saith my God, to the wicked. You better be sure, friend, that the foundation you are resting upon is none other than Jesus Christ, the solid rock, because all other ground is sinking sand.

Investing in Eternal Fruit

Now let's assume you will follow my advice and go straight from my sermon to the cemetery and contemplate your time that is remaining here on God's earth. Look around, you friend, at your neighbors, some of whom may not even last the rest of this year and will enter eternity.

When your days on earth are ended, what will remain? Will you be able to look back from heaven and see the lasting fruit of a life spent on the full stretch for God? Did you live your life in light of eternity?

Did you spend all your free time and energy and money on advancing the kingdom of God on earth while you were here in this mortal flesh? Were Bibles translated into a foreign language because of you? Were missionaries able to subsist because of you?

Were the gates of hell stormed by your desperate prayers? Was darkness pushed back in your community because your life of light? Did you continually tell others about the mercy you had received from the Christ who hung on a bloody cross for sinful man?

Did you share your faith on a regular basis? Did you pour your life into others by discipling them what other believers had invested in your own? Did you deny yourself sleep and stand in the gap and pray for this nation, begging God not to destroy it?

Did you reach the teenagers with the gospel that God put in your path? Did you pray for the teenagers of this corrupt generation? Did you weep over their souls? Have you shed a tear in the last year for the unconverted?

The Pastor's Ministry and Lasting Spiritual Fruit

When your days on earth are ended, what will remain? What will remain, brother pastor? When your days on earth are ended, what will remain of your ministry? Will it be brick and mortar from an extended building program?

Will you leave behind a large sanctuary but unsanctified souls? Was your reputation more important than losing it for God? How much of your free time was spent on your knees and in your Bible? Or was it spent on the golf course or watching ball games and silly entertainments that add up to zero in eternity?

Did you knock on doors enough and visit homes enough and catechize all your people? Did you take the time to even get to know them? They were your sheep. Were you truly their shepherd? Was the top priority in your life to have a successful church?

Or did you pour out your life as a drink offering for others by snatching them out of the fires of hell? When your days on earth are ended, what will remain? What will remain? Parents, did you spend enough time with your kids while you had them?

Parenting as a Legacy of Holiness

I remember a man I used to work with. He was a very successful businessman. One day I went to his office and he looked sad. I asked him what was wrong. He said, I just dropped my daughter off at college this weekend.

And as I stood in her dormitory room and hugged her goodbye, I realized that I didn't know her. I didn't know her. Listen friends, that man was a success in business, but an utter failure as a parent.

Have you been an example of holiness and godliness to your children? Or have they just heard do as I say and not do as I do? Can your children say of you that their mom, their dad, is the most godless example they ever have known?

That to be around their mom or dad makes them thirsty for Jesus. Can they say that of you friend? What has your example been? When your days on earth are ended, what will remain? What will remain? I can tell you this friend, you don't have as much time as you think you do.

Repentance, Hell, and Refuge in Christ

Life is shorter than you realize. A sudden death is all around you. You could be cut down before this week is over. Some of you who are outside of Christ are in great danger. For instead of lying in your bed this evening, you could be making your bed in hell tonight.

Repent and turn to the God who can save you. Seek Christ for he is your only refuge in the coming storm. Listen friends, a Christless eternity is a living hell. You don't want to go there. Hell is a horrible place of unending misery.

The book of Job warns, there is wrath. Beware lest he take thee away with his stroke. A sudden death is all around you. In society today, you could be gunned down standing in a line. You could catch an infectious disease and be gone in a few weeks.

A sudden stroke could suddenly remove you. Are you prepared for eternity? Are you? Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God. Whoso putteth his trust in the Lord shall be safe. And you friends who are saved, what have you done with your life for God and your generation?

Self-Denial and Faithful Obedience

Have you hung on to your life and lived it selfishly? Have you denied yourself, taken up your cross and followed a crucified Savior? Because Jesus declared, if any man will come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.

For whosoever will save his life shall lose it. And whosoever will lose his life for my sake shall find it. Did you do all you could for God in your life? Were you faithful enough? Were you obedient enough?

Did you pursue a life of holiness unto God for his glory? When he told you to do something, did you do it? Did you do it grudgingly? What did you do with the talents he gave you? Did you make five more, perhaps 10?

Or did you hide them in a napkin and bury them in the ground? When your days on earth are ended, what will remain? What will remain? I want you to do one more thing, friend. Before I leave you today, I ask you to go straight from my sermon to the cemetery.

Urgency, Prayer, and Putting on Christ

The other thing I ask you to do is this. After you go visit the cemetery and see death all around you, go back to your home and get along with God and ask him to make you a dead to this world. We are fast running out of time, friends, to reach this generation with Christ and the gospel.

I will leave you with the Apostle Paul's words from Romans which declare, the night is far spent, the day is at hand. Let us therefore cast off the works of darkness and let us put on the armor of light.

Let us walk honestly as in the day, not in rioting and drunkenness, not in chambering and wantonness, not in strife and envying, but put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ and make not provision for the flesh to fulfill the lust thereof.

I leave you with some more words, friend. When your days on earth are ended, what will remain? What will remain? Only one life which will soon be passed. Only what's done for Christ will last. And as I lay dying, how good it shall be if the lamp of my life has been burned out for thee.