If you were driving by a house late and night and noticed that it was on fire, would you: 1) Drive on by, not wanting to make “too big a deal of it” and chance waking people up? 2) Or, yell loudly and beat on the door of that house to awaken the family that lived there (and even the whole neighborhood) to the danger of the fire? (I actually believe that most, if not all of us would try to awaken the family AND call 911.) But in this world we encounter people, sometimes daily, that are heading toward a hotter fire, and often we just pass them by. The English Puritan preacher Richard Baxter was plagued by poor health and “the frequent sight of Death’s most awful face.” As he was gripped by the urgency of the gospel message -- and the fleeting opportunity he had to proclaim it to the lost he wrote: “Still thinking I had little time to live, My fervent heart to win men’s souls did strive. I preach’d, as never sure to preach again, And as a dying man to dying men! ” We preachers are subject to the same vices as others. We sometimes joke about procrastination, but we have a natural tendency to overlook the present and put off for tomorrow what we should do today. Sometimes we think, “I will wait until another time to preach this message. Here is the one I want to preach today.” But of course, we are not promised tomorrow. I only get to preach today! So, if this very day is my one last chance to share God’s Word, would I preach differently? What if I preached as if my life depended upon it, as if I were to stand before the Judgment Seat of Christ immediately after the message and give an account for it? What if I pleaded with the lost to be saved and the saved to faithfully serve God? What if I spoke as a dying man to dying men? Why should I even consider such a thought – preaching as a dying man? It is because I am a dying man . . . and you are dying men and women (we don’t like to think about it), and we will one day stand before the Judgment Seat of Christ. Hebrews 9:27 reminds us that “ . . . it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment . . . ” James 4:14 tells us of the brevity of life: “Whereas ye know not what shall be on the morrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapour, that appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away.” Where did James get that idea? Inspiration! Observation! The Old Testament! Proverbs 27:1: “Boast not thyself of to morrow; for thou knowest not what a day may bring forth.” And not only is death certain, it is unpredictable as to the time of it. We probably all know of people who had their lives planned only to pass away before those plans could be carried out. In I Samuel 20:3 David said, “. . . there is but a step between me and death.” In Job 7:6 Job said, “My days are swifter than a weaver’s shuttle . . . ” And in vs. 7 he said, “O remember that my life is wind . . . ” And in those verses he said, (vs. 6) “. . . and are spent without hope”  and “. . . mine eye shall no more see good.” There is a sense of desperation in his words. Of course, we are aware of his physical condition at that time. Even some in the world understand the brevity of life (though their words may not acknowledge the eternal nature of man’s spirit). In the 1970s one musical group sang a song titled “Dust In The Wind.” Listen to some of the words. “I close my eyes only for a moment and the moment’s gone. All my dreams pass before my eyes, a curiosity. Dust in the wind, All they are is dust in the wind. All we do Crumbles to the ground, though we refuse to see. Don't hang on Nothing lasts forever but the earth and sky. It slips away. All the money won’t another minute buy. Dust in the wind, All we are is dust in the wind.” We are on the threshold of another year. (Isn’t it amazing that all it takes is for the minute hand to slip from 11:59 to 12:00 and we are suddenly in a new day, a new month,  and a new year!) When the minute hand of our lives slips from now to eternity, we, too, will find all things new. As we face this new year we must wonder: 1) Will this be the year that Jesus comes? (That’s the best thing that could happen.) 2) Will this be the year that God calls me home? Once again, the quote from Richard Baxter encourages us, encourages me to preach “AS NEVER SURE TO PREACH AGAIN, AND AS A DYING MAN TO DYING MEN!” For that reason, I ask you to, as Paul said in II Corinthians 11:1, “bear with me a little in my folly: and indeed bear with me” for a little as I share My Final Message (For 2023) . . . or maybe for ever. I have put off this message, and even the preparing of it for a while. I have even tried to talk myself out of preaching it today, but as we approach the end of one year and the beginning of another, I feel led that NOW is the time to share it. If I knew for certain that after this moment I would never have another chance to preach . . .

  I. I WOULD SPEAK FIRST TO THOSE WHO DO NOT KNOW CHRIST AS SAVIOR.

 II.  I WOULD SPEAK NEXT TO THOSE WHO ARE SAVED.

III. AND I WOULD SPEAK TO THE LORD’S CHURCH WHERE I AM.