“I have finished my course,” 2 Timothy 4:7.
The word ‘course’ is linked in its meaning to the idea of ‘running’. I believe that Paul was referring to the course of his ministry, which he had desired to finish with joy, and was now declaring that it was finished. This desire he had stated earlier, as recorded in Acts 20:18-24.
“Ye know, from the first day that I came into Asia, after what manner I have been with you at all seasons, serving the Lord with all humility of mind, and with many tears, and temptations, which befell me by the lying in wait of the Jews: and how I kept back nothing that was profitable unto you, but have shewed you, and have taught you publickly, and from house to house, testifying both to the Jews, and also to the Greeks, repentance toward God, and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ. And now, behold, I go bound in the spirit unto Jerusalem, not knowing the things that shall befall me there: save that the Holy Ghost witnesseth in every city, saying that bonds and afflictions abide me. But none of these things move me, neither count I my life dear unto myself, so that I might finish my course with joy, and the ministry, which I have received of the Lord Jesus, to testify the gospel of the grace of God.”
Although the words of Paul in 2 Timothy 4:7-8 have the air of the approach of an imminent death: “I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith: Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, shall give me at that day: and not to me only, but unto all them also that love his appearing”, yet the words that follow indicated that Paul anticipated that he would not be put to death immediately.
He says to Timothy in verse 9, “Do thy diligence to come shortly unto me”. This request surely indicates that he expected to be alive for at least a little longer. Also, the words of verse 13 also indicate that he expected to live for some time yet.
“The cloke that I left at Troas with Carpus, when thou comest, bring with thee, and the books, but especially the parchments.”
The books and parchments indicate that Paul felt that he had yet work and studying to do.
I. FROM THESE CONSIDERATIONS I BELIEVE WE MAY LEARN THAT A MAN MAY BE AWARE THAT HIS LABOURS FOR THE LORD HAVE REACHED THEIR END.
I believe that Paul felt that his life’s work for the Lord had reached its conclusion even though he might live yet for a time.
I must confess that these ponderings of the words of verse 7 came to me in the middle of the night as Monday dawned in the wake of the heart-stirring events of the death and funeral of Dr John Douglas, following on as it did just two months from the death of my dear and sweet life’s partner, my wife Ann, on June 8th.
1. Dear Christian, it is always right to mark the milestones of life’s journey. Many live as if they will never die. That is most foolish. It is absolutely true that man “knowest not what a day may bring forth,” Proverbs 27:1. Nevertheless, the signs of aging and the approach of our demise should not be ignored.
Sinners do that in their blindness and folly. In my life I have stood at many a bedside and spoken to those who were near to death. It was plain for all around to see that was so, yet the one in bed often replied to my pleadings to receive Christ as their Saviour with the words, ‘I would like to take time to think about that’!
There was an ignoring of the ‘milestones’ of frailty, grey hairs and sickness. How wrong that is! We should heed the signals that indicate that our ‘course’ is nearing its end.
2. I have been active as a Christian now for just over sixty years. Strange to relate, although I can look back to my conversion by the grace of God on a Sabbath evening, April 5th 1964, I found assurance of my salvation the following Sabbath in Ravenhill Free Presbyterian Church, when I responded to the appeal made by Dr Paisley at the end of his sermon and came out to meet with him in the little prayer room to the left of the main door as you enter the church. He opened the Word of God and showed me that “Whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be saved,” Acts 2:21, and other related Scriptures. Instantly, all doubts vanished and my heart was filled with joyful peace that has never forsaken me.
The next day, I rang Dr Paisley at his home and asked if there were any more meetings. He said there was one that night, ‘The Christian Workers’ Training Institute’. I went along to that and there I met Joe Black, the caretaker of the church who eagerly greeted me because he was from Cookstown in Co. Tyrone and I was Fermanagh born! I also met Miss Joan McDonald, later to become Mrs Joan Cairns, wife of Dr Alan Cairns. I also met Stanley Barnes and Noel Stevenson, both of whom later entered the service of the Lord.
Noel Stevenson was in charge of the Young People’s Fellowship in Ravenhill and he invited me to the next meeting of the Fellowship which took place on Friday 17th. The young people were going to hold some open-air meetings around the church. I had never even seen an open-air meeting so it was all strange to me but I gathered with the young folk first of all in a street behind the church, which I believe has been redeveloped now and nothing like it was in 1964. There Noel gave me a printed text of Scripture and with others I went forward to the microphone and read it out. I noticed that the others were able to quote the verses without referring to the piece of paper on which it was typed out. I foolishly tried to learn the verse, which I had never seen before, in the minute or two available to me before I had to go forward to the microphone. That was foolish of me for I hardly got one word out until I had to fish the printed text from my pocket and, somewhat shamefacedly, read it out. From there we crossed over the Ravenhill Road to Ballarat Street and there I was asked by Noel to give my testimony.
I had hardly begun to do that when the open-air equipment ceased to function. Noel immediately got down on his knees to fiddle and poke at the valves and cables of the amplifier and said to me, ‘Just shout’!
That I started to do and I think I did so until it was clear that the equipment was not going to work again that night. Noel said I had done well (he was being kind no doubt) and ask me to join them again next week and maybe preach then.
To my shame, even though I consented, I failed to turn up the next week for fear overtook me in the intervening days. However, the Lord was merciful and restored me and delivered me from the dreadful sense of failure that followed.
Shortly after that, in the latter part of May or the beginning of June, I visited my Uncle William Foster in Lisnaskea. He was an admirer of Dr Paisley and the stand he took. He was overjoyed to hear of my links with Dr Paisley’s church and immediately set out to bring me to some prayer meetings he attended and show me as evidence that his view of Dr Paisley as a soul-winning preacher was true.
There happened to be an American evangelist staying in a caravan at his house, Mr Norman Worth. He was conducting a gospel mission in a mobile hall on the old railway line that later became part of the by-pass at Lisbellaw. Uncle Willie took me there for the Sabbath morning meeting and indicated that he felt that I should give my testimony, by kicking my shins, when Mr Worth invited any who would like to give a word of testimony to do so.
Amazingly, that mobile hall, where I first opened my mouth to speak of Christ and His mercy, was a mere hundred yards from the building where, some two and half years later, I would begin my ministry in my native west of Ulster.
I resigned from Bethel at the end of 1976 and I laboured for a year in Kesh.
I became the minister in Kilskeery in February 1978. I retired from its pastorate in November 2008.
SOME OTHER CHURCHES IN WHICH I PLAYED SOME SMALL PART IN THEIR FORMATION.
The front section is the original church building. Further back is the recently opened new church building.
3. My faithful and devoted friend, supporter, fellowlabourer, my dear Ann, shared fifty-six years of my Christian life as my wife. We first met in September 1964. We immediately, I believe I can say, became friends. We began our courtship on the last day of 1965. We were married on 8th March 1968 by Dr Ian Paisley in the old Gospel Tabernacle, Ballymena, which Ann’s father, Charles Beattie, had help to build as a founder member of that congregation and a staunch supporter of the late Pastor James Kyle Paisley.
I owe so much to this dear, beautiful woman. She was my right arm! She undoubtedly upheld me in prayer, aided my labours in every possible way and, if I have seen anything done for the Lord, to Ann is to be attributed the honour and praise.
II. THERE IS AN ALLOTTED SEASON OF LABOUR FOR GOD’S SERVANTS.
“It is good for a man that he bear the yoke in his youth,” Lamentations 3:27.
1. Labour for the Lord is the work of the youth. I recall Dr S B Cooke saying once to me; ‘If a man has not done something for God by the time he is forty, it is unlikely he will ever do anything!’ Of course, he stressed that this was a generalism. Yet it is very true. The labour of the gospel ministry is comprised of digging and breaking up, harrowing and sowing and then beginning to reap the fruits of that labour. This was the order of the ministry of Jeremiah as ordained of God. “Then the LORD put forth his hand, and touched my mouth. And the LORD said unto me, Behold, I have put my words in thy mouth. See, I have this day set thee over the nations and over the kingdoms, to root out, and to pull down, and to destroy, and to throw down, to build, and to plant,” Jeremiah 1:9-10.
Those words formed part of Dr Paisley’s text when he preached at my ordination in Lisbellaw in April 1968.
The farmer turning uncultivated land into that which is arable requires a rooting out, a pulling down, a destroying and a throwing down. That requires the strength and energy of youth!
After that, he will have years of growth and harvest to enjoy.
I would like to think that in my life I have sought to dig up and destroy the weeds of ecumenism, popery, compromise and unfaithfulness and endeavoured to sow the wholesome seeds of grace, holiness and obedience to God and His Word.
Contending for the faith requires ‘earnestness’. Such intensity and zealousness is not always welcome. It was said of the Saviour that “the zeal” for God’s house and glory had “eaten — consumed” Him up!
This observation followed His purging of the temple of those who had little regard for the House of God.
“And the Jews’ passover was at hand, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem, And found in the temple those that sold oxen and sheep and doves, and the changers of money sitting: and when he had made a scourge of small cords, he drove them all out of the temple, and the sheep, and the oxen; and poured out the changers’ money, and overthrew the tables; And said unto them that sold doves, Take these things hence; make not my Father’s house an house of merchandise. And his disciples remembered that it was written, The zeal of thine house hath eaten me up,” John 2:13-17.
His zeal was counted as a madness. “And the multitude cometh together again, so that they could not so much as eat bread. And when his friends heard of it, they went out to lay hold on him: for they said, He is beside himself” Mark 3:20-21. They considered His actions as those of someone ‘out of his mind or insane’!
It is the same word that is used of Simon the sorcerer in Acts 8:9. “But there was a certain man, called Simon, which beforetime in the same city used sorcery, and bewitched (the same word used of Christ) the people of Samaria, giving out that himself was some great one.”
It was derisively said in the days of Jeremiah: “Every man that is mad, and maketh himself a prophet.” I can testify that such derision persists still today!!
2. The difficulties of serving the Lord are emphasised in the use of the terms ‘burden’ and labour’ when describing God’s service! Moses’ father in law, offered sound advice to him.
“And thou shalt teach them ordinances and laws, and shalt shew them the way wherein they must walk, and the work that they must do. Moreover thou shalt provide out of all the people able men, such as fear God, men of truth, hating covetousness; and place such over them, to be rulers of thousands, and rulers of hundreds, rulers of fifties, and rulers of tens: And let them judge the people at all seasons: and it shall be, that every great matter they shall bring unto thee, but every small matter they shall judge: so shall it be easier for thyself, and they shall bear the burden with thee,” Exodus 18:20-22. He had warned Moses that if he did not share out the work of leadership of Israel, he would “surely wear away.”
The vision given to Isaiah of the part Babylon would play in the judgment of Israel was called a ‘burden’. “The burden of Babylon, which Isaiah the son of Amoz did see,” Isaiah 13:1. It was a weighty message that bore down heavily upon the heart and mind and spirit of the prophet. It was for this reason that the same “burden” brought Jeremiah to tears.
“Oh that my head were waters, and mine eyes a fountain of tears, that I might weep day and night for the slain of the daughter of my people! Oh that I had in the wilderness a lodging place of wayfaring men; that I might leave my people, and go from them! for they be all adulterers, an assembly of treacherous men. And they bend their tongues like their bow for lies: but they are not valiant for the truth upon the earth; for they proceed from evil to evil, and they know not me, saith the LORD,” Jeremiah 9:1-3.
3. It must be remembered that the Saviour Himself was thus reduced to tears with the burden that He bore!
“And when he was come near, he beheld the city, and wept over it, Saying, If thou hadst known, even thou, at least in this thy day, the things which belong unto thy peace! but now they are hid from thine eyes. For the days shall come upon thee, that thine enemies shall cast a trench about thee, and compass thee round, and keep thee in on every side, And shall lay thee even with the ground, and thy children within thee; and they shall not leave in thee one stone upon another; because thou knewest not the time of thy visitation,” Luke 19:41-44.
It is no easy thing to speak against the actions and activities of some of God’s people and rebuke them for their disobedience of God. Such rebukes are very much part of the ministry of the gospel. Remember Paul’s word to Timothy in the very portion in which I find my text.
“I charge thee therefore before God, and the Lord Jesus Christ, who shall judge the quick and the dead at his appearing and his kingdom; preach the word; be instant in season, out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort with all longsuffering and doctrine. For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears; and they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables. But watch thou in all things, endure afflictions, do the work of an evangelist, make full proof of thy ministry,” 2 Timothy 4:1-5.
None can rightly condemn a preacher who seeks to obey this command in these evil days of universal apostasy from God and His Truth, though sadly, many have done so!
III. YES, WHEN THE TIME TO STOP COMES ROUND, IT IS FOLLY TO TRY TO CONTINUE
1. I recall that record of the near escape David had from the sword of the Philistine giant in his old age.
“Moreover the Philistines had yet war again with Israel; and David went down, and his servants with him, and fought against the Philistines: and David waxed faint. And Ishbibenob, which was of the sons of the giant, the weight of whose spear weighed three hundred shekels of brass in weight, he being girded with a new sword, thought to have slain David. But Abishai the son of Zeruiah succoured him, and smote the Philistine, and killed him. Then the men of David sware unto him, saying, Thou shalt go no more out with us to battle, that thou quench not the light of Israel,” 2 Samuel 21:15-17.
This happened despite the people, some time earlier, stopping him engaging in the battle to overthrow the rebellion of his son, Absalom.
“And David numbered the people that were with him, and set captains of thousands and captains of hundreds over them. And David sent forth a third part of the people under the hand of Joab, and a third part under the hand of Abishai the son of Zeruiah, Joab’s brother, and a third part under the hand of Ittai the Gittite. And the king said unto the people, I will surely go forth with you myself also. But the people answered, Thou shalt not go forth: for if we flee away, they will not care for us; neither if half of us die, will they care for us: but now thou art worth ten thousand of us: therefore now it is better that thou succour us out of the city,” 2 Samuel 18:1-3.
His later failure to observe this wisdom almost cost him his life and nearly brought catastrophe upon the nation!
2. No, there comes a time to step back.
For me, I believe that time has come. I have felt deeply the home-call of my dear wife Ann. We shared the yoke of the gospel together for we could walk together in total agreement. I have felt also the departure of my friend and fellow preacher, John Douglas. He, along with Alan Cairns and Dr Paisley were fellow labourers in the glory days of the 60s, 70s and 80s. So too was my good friend, Dr S B Cooke. He is 95 years of age and enjoying a well earned retirement. Likewise, Jim Beggs, who was my ‘best man’ at the wedding of Ann and I, is retired. My other brother in law preacher, Rev William Beattie is in a nursing home at present. Those of my generation, with whom I was most closely associated, have been called home or have stepped down from active service and I feel my time to step down has come.
3. I will not be utterly silent!
No, I will likely put up some sermons etc., from the past and maybe even add an occasional article or comment upon news events to my ‘Burning Bush’ website. But the wearisome and so often unheeded and most certainly unwelcomed by some, (though never once publicly challenged) public rebuking of the departure from the professed theological and scriptural position of the Free Presbyterian Church on the matter of separation from the apostasy and all who compromise with it, I will draw to a close.
This departure, which I have highlighted now for many years, remains all too evident in the activities and pulpits of some of our ministers and elders, although there are those, who should know better, who have chosen to ignore it or excuse it. I have found the almost contemptuous disregarding of my warnings from God’s Word, offered humbly and sincerely, most wearing!
I will henceforth leave the contending against such sin to others.
“Thou wast as one of them”!
To those who have shown indifference regarding the betrayal by some of all that the Free Presbyterian Church once stood for, I say this: the Word of God to the Edomites is very relevant in this hour of apathy and disregarding of the eroding of the foundations of our separatist stand. It was this stand against ecumenical apostasy which brought us God’s blessing but a generation ago. The word I am referring to is found in verse 11 of Obadiah’s prophecy.
“In the day that thou stoodest on the other side, in the day that the strangers carried away captive his forces, and foreigners entered into his gates, and cast lots upon Jerusalem, even thou wast as one of them.”
As Jerusalem was plundered by the “foreigners” who entered into her gates to plunder and to spoil, the Edomites stood by and did nothing and as a result God characterised them as being as “one of them”, that is, the Syrian invaders.
Christians in Ulster cannot stand by and shut their eyes to the plundering of their gospel heritage and expect, by this shrugging of the shoulders, to remove themselves from the controversies of today. Failure to go forth boldly against the sell-out of God’s truth that is taking place amongst us, will not be excused or overlooked by the Lord.
To ignore the shameful endorsement of sodomy and moral perversion that is openly taking place amongst us by those ministers and elders of the Free Presbyterian Church who are prepared to remain in membership of and continue to support the Democratic Unionist Party in its open repudiation of all it once stood against of today’s immorality and deviances, is to bring the condemnation of Obadiah down upon such shameful shutting of the eyes.
The breach of God’s Law must cause us to act in moral outrage as did Phinehas, who executed the Law of God against those defying it in the very camp of Israel (Numbers 25:1-8). We must be stirred as was Paul by the heathen idolatry he saw on Mars Hill (Acts 17:16-34). We must openly and publicly repudiate the sell-out of God’s truth amongst us as did Jude when he put pen to paper and called for a crusade against those who had “crept in unawares” and who were seeking to turn “the grace of our God into lasciviousness, and denying the only Lord God, and our Lord Jesus Christ,” Jude verse 3-4.
To act from day to day and conduct the affairs of the church as if nothing was wrong and that all is pleasing to the Lord, will result in the Lord saying to those who may not have actually engaged in the compromise and betrayal, but who did not “earnestly contend for the faith” that was under attack, that He counts them “as one of them”, the destroyers of the witness and testimony He established amongst us some 73 years ago.
This is no idle threat on His part for those who do not “come out” from such compromise and rebellion, will undoubtedly be “partakers” of the judgments that will overtake the guilty (Revelation 18:4-5).
May there be a moving amongst us of the Spirit Who stirred the Saviour to purge His Father’s house!
“It is time for thee, LORD, to work: for they have made void thy law,” Psalm 119:126.
Sincerely in Christ’s name,
Rev Ivan Foster (Rtd)
7th August 2024