These are deep principles when applied to the spiritual life. If this principle is true – which it most certainly is – then what is called for is patience.
Better is the end of things than the start. Don’t live life with no regard for where it is going. Don’t live life and find at the end that you’re on the wrong road. Look to the end; look where the path leads; yes, think about what happens at death. Is death a conscious experience? Will I sense when I pass from one world to the next? People say, that is morbid. No, it true to life; is courageous; it is essential. Death wears a different coat after the resurrection of Christ.
Don’t react proudly to the gospel and its necessary rebukes of our sin. It is God’s kindness to us to tell us these things, and though it seems unpleasant at the time, if we persist on that path, it will lead us to life.