FINISHING WELL
One thing that marked our brother was that he finished well. May that be a comfort to our hearts! I believe it would be normal for a Christian, to finish well. God said to Israel that He had fed them with manna and led them through the wilderness that they might have a humble mind, to do them good at their latter end, Deut 8: 16. Of some of us it might have to be said, “Ye ran well; who has stopped you ...?”, Gal 5: 7. But scripture is full of persons who finished well through divine grace. Jacob’s closing days were his best. Of Joseph it says, “when dying ... gave commandment concerning his bones”, Heb 11: 22. Great men whose closing days were very precious to heaven! That was peculiarly true of our Lord, perfect in every circumstance and every day, indeed, but at the close of His days, how precious to heaven that in the presence of adversity the will of God was His paramount object—pleasing His Father to finish in a note of triumph. What victory has ensued from those closing moments of our Lord, the pressure that was there bringing out the substantiality of who was there, pressures unparalleled, betrayed, denied, even forsaken, and yet in those closing days, the present dispensation a tribute to it all! Paul would bring this forward here that we may look to how we finish. It is peculiar to this dispensation that things are going to finish well. In Israel things broke down, but this dispensation will finish in glory, not any tribute to men, but a tribute to the Holy Spirit of God that this long dispensation will end in glory.
Paul here is speaking of his finish. He is already being poured out. Prison had not hardened his spirit. The pressures of all that was rolled in upon him had not hardened his spirit. He was looking for the time of his release from these things, but in the midst of the pressure, he was finishing well, finishing in confidence in his Lord, finishing in the spirit that marked his Lord in spite of the pressure.
So he writes here that he had ‘‘finished the race”. Our brother has finished his race: he is now with Christ, but what he has left in those closing years is not only a comfort to us but an encouragement to us that we may finish well. We do not know when the finish may be. For him it came very quickly, but may it exercise our hearts that the Spirit would give grace that we may finish well.
He says, “I have kept the faith”. That had not been easy. Many pressures there have been in the history of the saints, but there is power and there is grace that we may finish, God’s work in us completed. In earlier years it may be other things command our attention, but I believe particularly the start and the finish of a believer’s course are peculiarly pleasurable to heaven. It says, “I remember for thee the kindness of thy youth ...”, Jer 2: 2, and here we have the finish, but what about in between? It brings out many features sometimes, but I believe that God in His ways would work with us that there may be an end to the ambitious and commercial spirit, the self-pleasing spirit, that there may be in His grace an end to these things, and to the bitterness and emulation that may arise in the human heart, that there may be something formed that can be ready, we may say, for translation. Paul calls attention here that in that race he had his eye on the goal. I believe that is of all importance if we are to finish well that our eye is on the goal, not on things here. We can never finish well if things here are our object, but Paul said he was looking for His appearing, not only the rapture, blessed as that will be, but if we are to finish well and if we are to finish the race, our eye is to be on the goal; and that is that Christ and Christ alone is to be magnified in His glory. Paul was looking on, not only for that chain to be taken away or even to be with Christ, blessed as that would be, but he was looking for the day when his Master, the King of kings, would come to be displayed in His glory. Our brother had that in his heart too and may it be increasingly in our hearts, looking not for anything here that would justify us or please us, but our eye on the goal that Christ in the day of His appearing will come to be glorified. He whose right it is will come to reign and there will be seen the once despised Jesus as the King of kings and Lord of lords, worthy by all to be adored. May our hearts and our eyes be kept on the goal that we in grace and the Spirit’s strength may finish to the praise and glory of God’s Name!
KIRKCALDY
26th April 1995
At a burial meeting