Proverbs 23:18
“For surely there is an end; and thine expectation shall not be cut off.”
There are laws that cannot be broken no matter how hard you try to break them. For instance, what goes up must come down. Wherever there is sin there is death. One of the laws that many tend to overlook is that when there is a beginning there is always going to be an end. You may like the beginning, but you better be sure that the end is as good as the beginning.
God warns us in the verse above, “For surely there is an end…” God is warning us that there is an end to sin. He says in the previous verse, “Let not thine heart envy sinners…” You may always see the pleasure that sin advertises, but there is also an end to that sin. Sin will never advertise its end. The only thing that sin can advertise is how it starts out. It can advertise the fun of a dance floor. It can advertise the pleasure of a night of sin. It can advertise the camaraderie of a night out with the boys at the bar. It can advertise these things for there is pleasure in them.
What sin cannot do is advertise the end of these things. It cannot adversities the end of the STD’s a person gets from living a promiscuous lifestyle. It cannot advertise the end of an Al Capone who had any lady he wanted, but syphilis ate his brain to the point that he had the mind of a 12 year-old when he died. Sin doesn’t advertise that! Sin cannot advertise the young lady having to rear a child by herself because she got pregnant out of wedlock. Sin cannot advertise the prisoner sitting in his cell because of an action he performed while drunk or under the influence of drugs. No, sin cannot advertise the end, because the end of sin cannot sell.
You cannot sell a person working two and three jobs to get themselves out of debt from a life of credit card spending. You cannot sell cirrhosis of the liver from a person who pickled their liver from a life of alcohol. You cannot sell emphysema from a person who has smoked all their life. You cannot sell the broken marriages from a one night stand that no one would ever find out about. You cannot sell the broken family that was caused because someone dropped out of church over a disagreement. Sin cannot sell these things and more.
Friend, wherever there is a beginning there is always going to be an end. Instead of being enamored with the beginning of something, you would be wise to invest time in looking at the end before you ever partake of something. The end is where you are going to end up. So, before you ever decide to take sin’s advertisement, you had better do research on the end and see what sin brings.
On the other hand, God can sell His ending because His lifestyle brings joy and satisfaction. No, the beginning of the Christian life is not always going to sell, but the end of the Christian life is always one of satisfaction. The Christian who has served God their entire life will never regret living that life. Friend, you may wonder if you are doing the right thing in serving the LORD, but you must remember there is an end. Don’t envy the way of the sinner, for the end of their way is death. Keep your eyes on the LORD, for the end of His way is satisfaction.