Jesus Christ, Who Became Our Goal
11I returned, and saw under the sun, that the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, neither yet bread to the wise, nor yet riches to men of understanding, nor yet favor to men of skill; but time and chance happen to them all. 12For man also doesn’t know his time. As the fish that are taken in an evil net, and as the birds that are caught in the snare, even so are the sons of men snared in an evil time, when it falls suddenly on them.
Solomon, who had lived hard to keep the king’s throne, realized that life is vanity. Through his own life he came to know that the race is not to the swift, and that strong warriors do not win every battle. He had received God’s wisdom, yet as the years went by he had no choice but to let go of power, and he realized that all his wealth would in the end belong to someone else. Because he thought the throne was his own, he had worked to build a stronger nation, but he came to realize deeply that even that goal could be reached only if God was with him.
People set goals, and to reach them they run looking only straight ahead. Only by looking left and right can they see more broadly and get good results, but because selfishness makes them think of one thing alone, they end up losing even truly precious experiences and people of faith. If they cannot define the purpose of their goal, or cannot judge for themselves by what process it can be achieved, then even if they reach that goal, it will be of no help at all for the rest of their life.
Life is longer than we think, and we meet many things along the way. That is why the goals we set each year must be set with the end of life in mind if we are to achieve them without failing. But people, in their greed to succeed, regard everyone but themselves as competitors, so they are likely to fail. They do not see others as companions to live alongside. Because of that they lack a right way of thinking and do not reach holy goals.
Only by setting a good goal that fits our abilities and running toward it steadily can we meet a future that will not be shaken. This is God’s will for believers who strive to achieve good purposes.
As the apostle Paul confessed, to live a straight and upright life we must have a firm faith that seeks to take hold of that for which we were taken hold of by Jesus Christ. When we forget the things which are behind—what I have done until now—and stretch forward to the things which are before, pressing on toward the goal for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus, we can walk the way of truth.
We who know the truth must go straight on toward a better future, even when it means the sacrifice of ourselves. For past acts of faith will become fruit on the rock of faith. When we have faith in Christ, the Holy Spirit naturally teaches us where to run and what kind of life to live. Just as children move up a grade as time passes, faith too grows more mature, so there is nothing to worry about. Believers who, like Paul, have been taken hold of by Christ are appointed to go the narrow way toward Christ, who became their goal. Even if Satan works to hinder the true faith of believers, the Holy Spirit is with them, so they are safe even on the narrow way. Under the protection of the Holy Spirit, believers can grow wiser and have peaceful hearts. As we walk the way of truth, we must have compassion on souls who have not met Christ, and we must hold a greater purpose, to lead them to God.
The way we lift up the love of Christ is to proclaim Christ, who atoned for our sins on the cross. Solomon received overflowing love from God, yet because he had no interest in souls, he came to stand in a place of regret. He held great power, so he could have saved many souls simply by sharing the grace he had received, but he only ran toward the worldly goals he had set for himself and had no interest in God. He lived forgetting even that if he exalted his own name with the wisdom God had given him, God’s glory could be hidden. So even mighty strength and power, in a world without God’s protection, are like a tree dead from rotten roots.
Looking back on his empty life, fallen like a dead tree, Solomon realized that having mighty power does not make one a victor. He realized deeply that even if people hold the world’s strength and power, they cannot be true victors without God’s grace. Even if someone has greater intelligence and knowledge than others and much is expected of them, evil spirits step into life at every turn, so they may fall, or choose the wrong path, and fail to achieve what they intended.
Life always has unknowns lying in wait. The final victor in every life is death. That is why we must not lose the compass of faith, so that we never lose hold of Jesus Christ, who is life. We who know exactly the goal of life must sprint toward the goal so as not to be seized by greed, selfishness, and pride. Yet even believers fail to run the narrow way toward Christ; they come under the attack of evil spirits and live lives that sway to the left and to the right.
Satan is a Hebrew word meaning adversary, one who hinders, one who slanders, and in Greek he is also called the devil, which is another name for Satan, who opposes God. Demons are lower-ranking evil spirits that Satan, or the devil, commands. People do not rely on the word of Jesus Christ, the Almighty; instead they have people possessed by demons tell their future, and they live relying on their words, which are vanity of vanities.
Foolishly, people are deceived by evil spirits because of the greed that tells them that if only they could know the future in advance, they could live well in the world and stand tall at the very top. People deceived by greed rely on the words of those possessed by demons more than on the word of God, thinking they can live well in the world that way. But knowing the future in advance does not mean one can succeed. God told them never to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and warned them that in the day they ate of it they would surely die, but human greed threw that word away and took hold of death.
No one abandons faith because they do not know God’s word. The greed and cravings of the world take their orders from Satan. That is why, though God taught that eternal life comes only by having faith, it is human beings who chose death in the end. Solomon, too, heard directly from God about his own future. God promised that he was giving Solomon a wise and understanding heart, so that there had been no one like him before him, and after him none would arise like him. God also told Solomon in advance of the blessings he would receive: he would give him what he had not asked, both riches and honor, so that there would not be any among the kings like him all his days.
God had told Solomon every way he could live to receive blessing. He had promised that if only Solomon lived by his word, he would not only enjoy riches and splendor but would be given the blessing of long life. Since God, the owner of life and of heaven and earth and all things, had promised it himself, everything would come to pass if only Solomon lived by the Word. But Solomon was blinded by the wealth, honor, and power he held in his hands, and he committed the sin of leaving God.
This is what human beings are: sinners who, even after hearing about their future directly from God Almighty, cannot live by human will. People who have strayed outside God’s fence are shaken by their own greed and cravings and by Satan’s attacks, waste precious time, and meet death. It is God who granted life, God who holds that life, and God who called his children and chose them. We must know that if believers who have received such love fail to give up their greed and cravings and commit the sin of leaving God, they can never be saved.
I hope you will run with all your might toward Christ, who became our goal. You must test yourselves by the Word every day to see whether the goals you have set point in a different direction from Christ’s goal, and walk the narrow way. Life does not go as we wish, so hardship comes just when we think we are at peace, and just when we feel secure that all is complete, we may collapse, like birds caught in the snare. That is why you must always walk with the Holy Spirit, who keeps you without change.
There was someone who, like Solomon, lived under the illusion that he would enjoy wealth and power forever: King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon. Nebuchadnezzar threw Daniel’s three friends into the burning fiery furnace because they did not bow down to the golden image he had set up. But when he looked into the fire, he saw not three men but four together, and the appearance of the fourth was like a son of the gods.
Daniel’s three friends had said that even if the king threw them into the burning fiery furnace, they believed God Almighty would deliver them, and just as they had said, they now showed that they were walking about in the midst of the fire with the son of the gods. When the king and the people saw them walk out of the fire without even a hair singed, did they truly come to believe fully that God lives?
Just as Jesus showed many miracles during his public ministry, he is showing us many miracles even now, yet the reality is that hard-hearted people do not receive Christ. The faith of Daniel’s three friends was that they would not bow to the image the king had set up, and that even if they were put to death in the fire, they would not betray God. Seeing their true faith, ready to die, Jesus Christ came into the midst of the fiery furnace that people had lit and protected them, soul and body. Such miracles still happen all over the world. To believers who trust that God Almighty will surely work, God shows miracles beyond imagining and leads them to salvation.
Daniel 4:10 and the verses after it tell how King Nebuchadnezzar one day had a dream, and this is what he dreamed. A tree stood in the middle of the earth, so tall that it reached the sky, and it bore so much fruit that all people could eat and still have some left; it was a great tree. The animals of the field rested in its shade, and the birds of the sky lived in its branches. After that dream the king dreamed a second dream in succession: a holy one came down from the sky, cut down the great tree that reached the sky, cut off its branches and leaves, made the animals get away from under it, and drove all the birds away. The tree, cut at its base, was not pulled up by the roots; the stump that was left was bound with a band of iron and brass and left in the grass of the field. The holy one told Nebuchadnezzar, who had become that stump, in advance that he would lose the heart of a man and live like an animal for seven years. This advance warning was grace, given so that he would leave that place of sin and not suffer such hardship.
It was a prophecy that God would turn Nebuchadnezzar’s whole life upside down and drive away everyone who had flattered him and everyone who made their living through him. It was only a dream, but it was so vivid that Nebuchadnezzar was afraid, and he asked Daniel, who had received the Spirit of God, to interpret it. Daniel interpreted it this way: until then the king had thought of himself as a great tree that could rival God, and had held the proud thought that everything was under his authority. That was why, Daniel told him, God had shown him how great a sin such a thought was, and the king, having cast grace aside, would surely suffer that pain.
It was by God’s grace and protection that he had been able to live as king with great power until then, but he had the pride of wanting to rival God and wanted to be served by people, and that is why he was told he would be judged. Just as Adam and Eve, who ate the fruit of the knowledge of good and evil, wanted to be like God, Nebuchadnezzar too sought to have power as high as the sky.
It seems that when he saw Christ helping Daniel’s three friends in the fire, he did not repent but instead conceived a desire: if the God who had kept their lives safe even in such a fire would help him, Babylon might last forever. But to show him how foolish such a thought was, God told him in advance through a dream, and wanted him to understand through Daniel’s interpretation and come back.
Nebuchadnezzar had heard directly from God what would happen in his future, had seen the three friends come out of the fire alive, and had heard a spiritual interpretation through the prophet Daniel, so of course he should have repented. But King Nebuchadnezzar did not repent before God, who tells the future and always keeps his promises. So the dream became reality. He was driven from the throne and for seven years had to live a miserable life among the animals, eating grass like oxen and wet with the dew of the sky. Only after he had lived like an animal for seven years and suffered did he finally realize that God is king.
This event, which came to pass just as the dream said, shows that God tells us too, in advance, the direction we should live in, and has given us time to decide whether we will obey the Word or disobey it. We may say we have not heard, but God has already spoken to us through sermons, through the words of the Bible, through brothers and sisters in faith, and through our circumstances. We have clearly heard and known God’s word; it is we who did not obey.
You may think that surely nothing like what Nebuchadnezzar went through would happen in your life, but God is the unchanging Almighty, so his promise will be fulfilled. If you are thinking that Nebuchadnezzar, being a king, could well have been far prouder than you, look back on your own sin, because God will send a holy one to cut down that very thought first. The very thought that I have sinned less than others, tried to be humble, and grown much spiritually is itself evil. Before God we must always humble ourselves, confess our lack of faith, and show him the face of a child who pleads for the guidance of the Holy Spirit.
When the seven years had fully passed, Nebuchadnezzar lifted up his eyes to heaven and praised and worshiped God alone as the Almighty. The hardship he suffered for seven years was a time of pain beyond human imagining. As Solomon realized, the hardship that rushes in the moment God removes the fence of grace is pain enough to take away pride, greed, and human righteousness. When he suffered, he realized that the comfortable life he had had until then had been God’s protection, and he learned how foolish it was to rely on himself.
Ecclesiastes 9:12 says that man doesn’t know his time, and that as the fish are taken in an evil net and the birds are caught in the snare, so the sons of men will be snared in an evil time when it falls suddenly on them. Despite Daniel’s interpretation, Nebuchadnezzar did not fear God’s judgment, since nothing was happening for the moment. But people do not know what will happen in the very near future, so they cannot know the evil day that falls suddenly on them either.
Nebuchadnezzar looked to God only after he had been put through the fire of trial. When God saw Nebuchadnezzar turn from his sin for a while, he had compassion on him and gave him back his kingdom and his throne, gave him back the majesty and brightness that had left him, and gave him counselors and lords as well. He is a good God, who shows grace when a heart turns even a little. You may seem to have much, but the world you now hold in your hands is something that vanishes in a moment, like mist, when God raises his hand in judgment. But when you serve God as king, he is the one who grants you blessing that cannot be taken away, so that you can reveal his glory. Solomon, who had had nothing in the world to fear, came to know how weak he was when he met a disaster he could not refuse, like fish caught in a net and birds caught in a snare.
Your life, too, is in God’s hands. It is not because you ran hard toward your goal that you arrived first, and it is not because you lived wisely that you now enjoy a comfortable life. You could sprint because God gave you grace to go straight toward the goal, and you can live without shame because he gave you health, wisdom, and understanding. Receiving a chance to turn back through hardship may in a sense be a great blessing, but if you have the wisdom to turn back before hardship comes, you could do much more of God’s work.
I hope you will have a faith that obeys God’s word almost to the point of foolishness. Then God will see that faith and lead you into a life without regret. God does not want you to disobey as Solomon did. He does not want you to trust your own wisdom and race through the world, and he hopes you will not boast that you won your bread by your own victory. We who do not know what tomorrow will bring must believe that everything happens within God’s providence, throw away the folly of boasting in vain things, and live by a good faith.
Friends, the world does not go the way people set their minds on. The world is a place where even a runner who has prepared hard to finish a marathon may fall where they least expected, and where even someone with outstanding knowledge and skill may see their life fall apart through a single mistake. The world is where evil spirits are at work, so no one can know when the net of disaster will fall. That is why you must firmly believe that without the help of the Holy Spirit there is no escaping death. But we believers need not worry, because Jesus Christ, who worked in the midst of the fire, is with us. To the world’s eyes the fire may seem to be blazing, but, like the burning bush Moses saw, it is safe inside, where Christ is present.
If a person of faith suffers from poverty and illness, the world may mock, but I hope you will not forget that the faithful who are inside are always at peace and safe because they are with the Holy Spirit, whatever hardship shows on the outside. If you believe that the Holy Spirit walks with you and run toward the goal of Jesus Christ, you can surely win.