The Temporariness of Life

Welcome back to Ignite. You know when people ask me what I do, I tell them I lead people to Jesus. It's a wonderful opener for conversations. People say, what? It's not offensive. It's almost funny, but people are immediately know where I'm coming from and I like that. In 2016, this is interesting story. In 2016, David Wilhelm and his wife invited us to dinner, Karen, me. And during dinner, David was struggling a little bit about saying something to me. I said, well, what's going on? He's, well, I have something I want to tell you, but I'm sworn to secrecy. But I got to tell you now he was not a believer, okay? David was not a believer. And he says to me, our friend, Dave Robertson, you need to get to him right away. And I said, well, what's the urgency? I hadn't seen him for a while. He says, I got to tell you, again, I'm not supposed to tell you, but he has stage four cancer. And he's dying and it's soon. It was a total shock. So I called Dave later, one actually the next morning, asked if you go lunch and he said, yes, he wanted to go to lunch. Now, mind you, David, I have known each other about 30 years and a battered back and forth for 30 years about God. He always had another question. He loved the debate, but he wasn't antagonistic. He wasn't arguing to be argumentative. He would just search you for God. And now he's dying. And so his focus on God was a lot clearer, you understand? So I'm inviting a lunch. He said, yes, immediately. And so we had lunch the very next day. In over a three hour lunch, he told me exactly, I did act like I didn't know anything about it. And he told me that he was dying and he was concerned. And by the end of that three hour lunch, he was ready. And he received the Lord. Wow. I mean, it was just great. The next day, he called me and he had a different countenance, but he didn't have four questions. Three, four, I don't know. He had some questions. All right. One, he said, I don't have a church. I said, yeah, he said, well, I don't have a place to have my memorial service. He was thinking about that. I said, well, I got that hand or what else you did. He said, I don't have a pastor. Could you lead my memorial service? I said, of course, I will. You do it. Do that for you. He says, then my friends are coming. They're mostly car guys that don't know the Lord. Would you tell them I received the Lord? I'm in heaven now. I would have done that no matter what. Of course. And then he said, and would you give them an opportunity to receive the Lord? Would you have an also call at the end of my funeral? I said, absolutely, I would do that. So the funeral came and we had a wonderful time, a wonderful time. David Wilhelm actually got up and spoke. But then I talked about God's faith with us to Dave Robertson and he accepted the Lord at the end of his life. And I said, if there's anybody else here that would like to raise their hand and receive God's gifts of eternal life right now, just just raise your hand. Four people raised their hands. One of them was David Wilhelm. Understand that. Do you get the irony of this? Dave Robertson accepted the Lord only because David Wilhelm told me about him. It's the need to get with him. And Dave Robertson before he dies says, I need you to give a call at the end of my service. Perfume received the Lord and David Wilhelm received the Lord. Do you see the dichotomy? It's just God. It's how God works. And so now when we go to Calvary Chalvichito Hills, who's saving a seat since David Wilhelm and Victoria. And their hoarding Bible studies, they love the Lord. And it's just such a great experience. I mean, it's just I say every time I'm with them. I think if thank you, God for allowing me to be a small part of these two miracles, really. So a few days ago, Karen threw me a surprise birthday party, a surprise 82nd birthday party. Who throws a birthday party for an 82nd birthday? And unless they don't think they're going to have an 83rd birthday, I don't even care. Know something. I don't know. I'm feeling pretty good. But there we were. And not only that, she threw it on the night before my birthday, which didn't make sense at all. Okay. So we have a wonderful time. It was a great surprise. And David Wilhelm was in rare form. He had his all laughing. We had pictures. And it was just it was a sensational evening with our with David's closest friends. Okay. What a wonderful night. At 7.45 the next morning, suddenly David died. He died. We all know about the temperateness of life that we can leave anytime. But and I know that I live that. But then it happens like this. It's in your face. And I've talked with God about it a bit. What is this message? You need to be ready. And live for me every moment. I know that. But it's more poignant now. You follow what I'm saying. Think back for a moment. If Karen hadn't thrown me the birthday party, the night before my birthday, we wouldn't have a birthday party. Because David was going to die the next morning. We would never have a party after that. But what she had the night before he passed away. So he could be with all of his friends and have a wonderful evening. And then he drove 40 minutes to his office at X-rays. He's a dentist. He drove to his practice. And he could have passed away along the way because he died suddenly. Could have been tragic. But he got to his office. He met with his staff. His assistants had a wonderful time with them. Told him about the time. What happened the night before just a wonderful last time with them sat down with his first patient and working on that patient sitting in a chair. He suddenly just leaned over. And he's gone. He's gone. The message that take away is always, always, always be ready. You know, we just have to live that. And it's the sadness of like the temporaryness of life. James 414 describes our life on earth as like being a morning fog. You think about eternity? It never ends. I'm wondering after we've been there a million or two years. Well, we remember much about this hundred years that we had on earth. And that's why he says that our temporaryness of our life is like a morning fog. It just comes and goes away. The moral of the story is we need to always be ready. David was ready. Are you ready? See you next time.