22 November 2005 Devotion for Today "Get Out of This World Alive" James 4:13-16

22 November 2005  Devotion for Today  “Get Out of This World Alive”  James 4:13-16

 

“Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go to such and such a city, spend a year there, buy and sell, and make a profit”; ¹⁴ whereas you do not know what will happen tomorrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapor that appears for a little time and then vanishes away. ¹⁵ Instead you ought to say, “If the Lord wills, we shall live and do this or that.” ¹⁶ But now you boast in your arrogance. All such boasting is evil.” 

James 4:13-16

            The late Hank Williams could write songs about pain and suffering because his short life was full of pain. Kris Kristofferson once said Hank Williams was the only man who could make misery attractive. He suffered the physical pain of spinal bifida, and he struggled with an addiction of alcohol and drugs. On January 1, 1953 the #1 song on the country music charts was written and sung by Hank Williams. It was “I’ll Never Get Out of This World Alive” and the words said: It’s ironic that on the very day that this song became #1, Hank Williams died, January 1, 1953.  About the only thing that Hank Williams got out of the song was the title of the last song he recorded which was etched on his tombstone:  “I’ll never get out of this world alive.”

            Coming to grips with our mortality is not something most people enjoy pondering.  In over twenty years of ministry, I’ve conducted lots of baptisms, weddings, and funerals.  Admittedly, with some of the baptisms, there are those I baptized who no longer walk actively for the Lord.  Of the weddings that I have conducted, there have been a few couples who have since divorced.  But I can say with 100% certainty that, of all the funerals I’ve ever preached, no one has come out of their grave again!  I guess you can say I am a whole lot better at preaching funerals than I am conducting weddings or baptism services!

            Indeed, like Hank said, none of us will ever get out of this world alive.  With 100% certainty everyone who reads this devotion today will die one day.  Now before you start thinking that you will stop reading these because of what I just said ask consider that there are many people who get up in the morning determined to do one thing or another.  We make plans for the day, for next week, next year and most don’t even consider one time God’s involvement in any of it.  I am not saying that we should not make plans- it is good stewardship to make plans, to organize life in such a way.  But at the end of the day, it is God who controls what plans are allowed, by His Sovereign Will, to be carried out and what ones God will dispose of.  Therefore we all should say, as James says, “if the Lord wills” we will do such and such.  Otherwise, everything that we do which we have not first submitted to the will of God is evil, James says.

            Dr. Adrian Rogers, past president of the Southern Baptist Convention and recently retired pastor of Belleview Baptist Church, Cordova, TN went home to be with the Lord last week at the age of 74.  When I heard about it, my wife and I were attending a meeting of the North Carolina Baptist State Convention in Winston-Salem.  I was shocked, and saddened when I heard of it.   He did not live to enjoy a long retirement- at least, not here on this earth.  But because Adrian knew Jesus, there is no reason to pity him or to feel badly for him because in all actuality, unlike ole’ Hank- Adrian did get out of this world alive!  He enjoys eternal life with Christ forever.

            What about you.  Are you going to get out of this world alive?  Have a blessed day!

 

 

 

Rev. Jeffery C. Russell
Salem Baptist Church
Elizabeth City, NC
jefferyrussell@earthlink.net

 

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