What Will Your End Be? You Are Building It Today

Introduction

"What will your end be?" That is the question Samuel Peterschmitt put to the congregation during the service of October 13, 2026 at La Porte Ouverte Chrétienne, in front of many pastors who had come from Belgium, Hungary and several regions of France. He even invited everyone to ask it of their neighbor. The question is uncomfortable: "clever is the one who knows what his end will look like."

The preacher believes, however, that you can answer it before the end ever arrives, because everything depends on how you have built your life. Looking at the endings of several biblical figures, he shows that we live either according to the flesh or according to the Spirit, and that it shows at the end of the road.

His call is simple: be intentional, live according to the new creation, and be filled with the Holy Spirit so you stay "boiling hot to the very end."

Outline of the Message

1. The End Is Not a Fatality

Ecclesiastes says it: "Better is the end of a thing than its beginning" (Ecclesiastes 7:8). When an illness or a string of problems hits, you can't wait for it to be over. But there are also moments, like a family celebration, that you wish would go on.
The end of something always marks the beginning of something new. Even the end of a life is not a tragedy in itself: it can be glorious.
The end is the time of reckoning: at the end of the day, the week, the year. The result is the sum of everything we have done.
"The end is not a fatality." It becomes one if you have not been intentional about what you do, about the direction you give your life and about the way you build it.

2. Paul Adds Up His Life

As he feels his end approaching, Paul does a kind of addition: "I have fought the good fight. I have finished the course. I have kept the faith." Then he draws the line and gives the total: "From now on, there is stored up for me the crown of righteousness" (2 Timothy 4:7-8).
Paul went through trials that few of us will ever know, yet he did not simply endure his circumstances. "Many believers put up with their life but do not live their life."
"The way you live today will determine your end." This applies to your personal life, your marriage, your family, and to pastors in the way they lead the church.
Hebrews 13:7 tells us to remember our leaders and to consider the results of their conduct. To consider is to examine and weigh, in order to learn from it.
"The end often speaks louder than all the speeches you may have given throughout your life." Samuel Peterschmitt remembers the end of his father, one of his main spiritual leaders: a glorious end, lived as a family in such a presence of God that they felt they were in "another dimension."

3. Korah, Samson, Judas: Endings Built According to the Flesh

Korah, together with Dathan and Abiram, stirs up the assembly against Moses and Aaron. The earth opens its mouth and swallows them, and they go down alive into Sheol (Numbers 16:19-33).
Korah had seen it all: the plagues of Egypt, Goshen spared, the sea opened. He was a Levite and served at the tabernacle. His problem was envy, pride and jealousy: he sought to glorify himself through the glory of God that he saw. "What an ending, when the ground opens up!"
Our endings are built first on the inside: our way of thinking, our sometimes secret motives, which one day rise to the surface.
Samson had a destiny, an anointing and a strength that came from God. He used that power to satisfy his own desires. His end: a slave with his eyes put out, turning the millstone and dying under a temple of idols (Judges 16:21-30). "His end was determined throughout his life."
Judas received Jesus' teaching, and saw the paralyzed man rise and the blind man see. "He was so close to the master and yet inwardly so far from the master." Love of money or political aims, it hardly matters: his heart was not in the right place. His end is described in Matthew 27:5 and Acts 1:16-18.
In all three cases, what drove them was the flesh. "You can be in a church, you can hear the gospel every Sunday [...] and still be far away."

4. Abraham, Moses, Job, Caleb: Endings That Bear Witness

Abraham "died in a good old age, an old man, and full of years" (Genesis 25:8). His life was not smooth, as with the half-truth about his wife being his sister, but he never sought God for his own sake: he followed him for who he is.
For Moses, it is the LORD himself who buries him (Deuteronomy 34:5-6). The preacher smiles: "if I had to choose a funeral service, that is really the one I would wish for." A life that was "a bit battered," but "God writes straight with crooked lines."
Moses sought neither fleshly advantages nor popularity. He refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter (Hebrews 11:24-26). A man who serves God for the right reasons, the opposite of those who only pray, "Lord, give me success. Lord, bless me."
The LORD blessed the latter part of Job's life more than the first, and Job "died, being old and full of days" (Job 42:12-17). To be full of days is like leaving a good meal: even the best dish no longer tempts you, and you have only one desire, to "go home." The preacher's father, also full of days, said at the end: "Do not pray for me to stay, now I am going home."
"The end is like the supermarket. You can put a lot of things in the cart, but one day you have to go to the checkout."
The end of Jesus is dramatic in human terms, but glorious: the centurion acknowledges, "Truly this man was the Son of God!" (Mark 15:39). John, a prisoner on Patmos, receives the revelation (Revelation 1:9-10). Caleb, at 85, still asks, "give me this hill country" (Joshua 14:10-12).

5. Holiness Means Living According to the New Creation

All these men were intentional: some for their flesh, others for the Spirit. "It doesn't just fall on you by chance." God will bless you, but it takes your will.
Paul writes that those who live according to the flesh cannot please God, but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live, for those who are led by the Spirit of God are God's children (Romans 8:8-14).
At the cross, you became a new creation: "The old things have passed away. Behold, all things have become new" (2 Corinthians 5:17). God sent Paul to turn people from darkness to light (Acts 26:18). There is a before and an after.
Holiness is not an effort to become better: "It's not an improvement." It is living now according to your new life. Before, you lived in darkness and acted according to darkness; now you live in the light and act according to the light.
The preacher often prays: "Lord, I want the new Samuel to have priority." Many Christians live in guilt and fall again because they have not understood that they are a new creation.

6. Filled With the Holy Spirit to the End

In your own strength, you fight yourself, wear yourself out and grow tired. Samuel Peterschmitt tells it with humor: he wanted to change his wife, and even a tiger tamer he met outside a circus told him to give it up. You cannot change the other person, and you cannot change yourself any better: you need the Holy Spirit.
This was the concern of the apostles. In Samaria, they lay hands on the believers so that they receive the Holy Spirit (Acts 8:14-17). In Ephesus, Paul first asks: "Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed?" (Acts 19:2).
The question to ask when leaving the service is not "was the music beautiful?" but "Are you filled with the Holy Spirit?"
Many Christians "are just trying to survive, and they are happy if they end their life with their head above water." That is not a plan. "Let him do it, let him work, let the Holy Spirit fill you and you will be boiling hot to the very end."
His friend Reinhard Bonnke used to say: "Christians should be like airplanes. It is at the end of the runway that they are at full power to take off."
His father spoke about Jesus everywhere. At 94, he told a woman he met in a forest about the Creator; she gave her life to the Lord and was baptized. A brother of 89, in the hospital, was sad that he could no longer carry out his "ministry": hitchhiking every day to talk about Jesus to those who gave him a ride.

7. A Church That Scattering Cannot Extinguish

After the death of Stephen, a great persecution breaks out in Jerusalem and everyone except the apostles is scattered. "Therefore those who were scattered abroad went around preaching the word" (Acts 8:1-4).
We don't hear them say, "poor us." "The biggest mistake the devil can make is to try to put an end to a church whose members are filled with the Holy Spirit, because by scattering them, he spreads the gospel everywhere." By trying to end it, he multiplies it.
The preacher tells of the end of Reinhard Bonnke, whom he knew from the age of 10. According to his account, this man who had seen many miracles, struck by cancer, thin and weakened by treatments, kept preaching the gospel every day on social media until his death. "Though our outward man is decaying, yet our inward man is renewed day by day" (2 Corinthians 4:16).
The message ends with a call to consecration: to return to the life of the Spirit and to be able to say, like Paul, "I have fought the good fight. I have finished the course. I have kept the faith." In the closing prayer: "We will finish in glory because we chose to live in glory."

Key Takeaways

The end is not a fatality: it is the sum of what you build every day.
The end reveals who we have been. You can be close to God, like Korah or Judas, and still live according to the flesh.
Those who finish well served God for himself, not for what he could give them.
Holiness is not self-improvement: it is living according to the new creation you are in Christ.
Only the Holy Spirit makes it possible to stay boiling hot to the end, and a church filled with the Spirit spreads the gospel even when people try to scatter it.

Personal Application

If you took stock of your life today, what total would appear under the line of the addition?
In which areas are you putting up with your life instead of living it intentionally?
Which secret motives, like Korah's envy or Judas's ambitions, are building your end on the inside?
Are you trying to become better in your own strength, or are you living according to the new creation God has made of you?
If someone asked you on the way out of the service, "Are you filled with the Holy Spirit?", what would you answer?

Verses Cited

Frequently Asked Questions

Can you know what your end will be?

For Samuel Peterschmitt, yes: the end is not a fatality. It is the sum of what you have built. Like Paul adding up his life in 2 Timothy 4:7-8, you prepare your end by the way you live today, in your personal life, your marriage, your family and your church.

Why does the Bible describe the endings of certain figures?

Because the end reveals who they were. Hebrews 13:7 invites us to consider the outcome of our leaders' lives. Korah, Samson and Judas lived according to the flesh despite their closeness to God. Abraham, Moses, Job and Caleb lived for God himself, and their endings bear witness to it.

What is holiness according to this message?

Holiness is not an effort to improve yourself. It is living now according to the new creation you have become in Christ (2 Corinthians 5:17). In your own strength you wear yourself out: you need to be filled with the Holy Spirit to live by the Spirit to the end.