Finishing God’s Race

The old wisdom born out of the west was forsaken. Kings made tombs more splendid than the houses of the living and counted the names of their descent dearer than the names of their sons.

Gandolf the Grey

Minas Tirith

As they approach the city of Minas Tirith in J.R.R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings, the wizard Gandolf explains to the hobbit Pippin how the once great kingdom of Gondor grew weak and came to be under the care of a steward.  The decline occurred when the latter kings were more concerned with preserving past glory than with preparing for future battles; they “counted the names of their descent dearer than the names of their sons.”   I’ve often thought of that line from (the extended version of) the movie when examining my own ministry.  And it has always made me think of the final years of two contrasting leaders in the Old Testament.

Hezekiah

Hezekiah was coronated at the age of twenty-five, the same age as when I began my first pastorate.  During his early years, Hezekiah turned the nation back to God.  The Bible tells us that “He did right in the sight of the Lord, according to all that his father David had done” and that “He trusted in the Lord, the God of Israel; so that after him there was none like him among all the kings of Judah, nor among those who were before him” (II Kings 18:3,5-6).  In the year 701 BC, Assyria (now northern Iraq) destroyed all the towns of Judah except Jerusalem.  Hezekiah prayed with the prophet Isaiah and God brought death to thousands of Assyrian troops, causing their withdrawal in a miraculous defeat.  But in his latter years, Hezekiah became proud of this victory and content to ride out his final years on the riches the Assyrians left behind.  The prophet Isaiah warned that his pride in past accomplishments, rather than pressing on in obedience to God, would lead to the eventual destruction of the kingdom and the captivity of his descendants.  Hezekiah’s response is telling.  “‘The word of the Lord which you have spoken is good.’ For he thought, ‘Is it not so, if there will be peace and truth in my days?’” (II Kings 20:19, NASB). How King David must have wept knowing that the kingdom he fought to secure was lost due to Hezekiah being more concerned with living out his final years in comfort than strengthening the city for future generations.

Daniel

As a result of Hezekiah’s attitude, the kingdom grew weak.  In 612 BC, Babylon (southern Iraq) invaded and took some teenage boys, including Daniel, back to Iraq as captives, and in 587 BC Iraq returned and destroyed Jerusalem.  Daniel, as Hezekiah before him, served God faithfully as a young man, rising to a position of prominence in the Iraqi government.  But contrary to Hezekiah, he remained faithful until the end.  In the year 539 BC, Daniel was nearing ninety when the king issued a decree declaring no one could pray to anyone except the king for thirty days or they would be thrown into a pit of lions.  The easy course would have been for Daniel to go home, close his shutters, pray in private, and live out his final years in peace.  But instead “When Daniel knew that the document was signed, he entered his house (now in his roof chamber he had windows open toward Jerusalem); and he continued kneeling on his knees three times a day, praying and giving thanks before his God, as he had been doing previously” (Daniel 6:9, NASB).  Daniel had determined to follow God regardless of the consequences.  His greatest vision of the future came after the lion’s pit.

My Life Verses

My first week as a believer, at the age of fifteen, I read through the New Testament and latched onto one passage which has guided my life since.  In the third chapter of Philippians, Paul says “one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and reaching forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.”  Now that I am in the latter half of my ministry, I want to one day say with Paul “I have run the good race, I have fought the good fight, I have finished the course.”  I want to model my later years after Daniel and be faithful to the end.

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