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 worked so hard to keep his throne, realized that life is vanity. Through his own life he learned that the race is not to the swift, and that mighty warriors do not win every battle. Though he had received wisdom from God, as the years went by he had no choice but to let go of power, and he understood that all his wealth would in the end belong to others. Because he thought the throne was his own, he worked to build a stronger nation, but he came to see deeply that even that goal could be reached only if God was with him.
People set goals and run toward them looking only straight ahead. Only by looking to the left and right can they see more widely and reach good results, but because selfishness narrows their thinking to one thing, they lose even what is truly precious: their experience, and people of faith. If they cannot define the purpose of a goal, or judge for themselves the process by which it can be achieved, then even reaching that goal will be of no help for the rest of their lives.
Life is longer than we think, and we meet many things along the way. So the goals we set each year must be set with the end of life in view; only then will we succeed and not fail. But people, eager for success, see everyone but themselves as rivals, and so they are likely to fail. Because they do not regard others as companions to share life with, they lack a right way of thinking and fall short of a holy goal.
Only by setting a good goal suited to our abilities and running toward it steadily can we meet a future that will not be shaken. This is God’s will for his people who strive to achieve good purposes.
As the apostle Paul confessed, to live a straight and upright life we need a steadfast faith that presses on to take hold of that for which we were taken hold of by Christ Jesus. Forgetting what we have done until now — the things which are behind — and stretching forward to the things which are before, we can walk the way of truth when we press on toward the goal for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.
We who know the truth must press straight on toward a better future, even when it costs us ourselves. Acts of faith already done will become fruit on the rock of faith. When we have faith in Christ, the Holy Spirit teaches us, as a matter of course, where to run and how to live. Just as children move up a grade as time goes by, faith too matures, so there is nothing to worry about. We who, like Paul, have been taken hold of by Christ are destined to walk the narrow way toward Christ, who became our goal. Though Satan may work to hinder our true faith, the Holy Spirit is with us, so we are safe even on the narrow way. Under the Spirit’s protection we grow wiser and can keep our hearts at peace. As we walk the way of truth, we need to have compassion on the souls who have not met Christ, and carry in our hearts a greater purpose: to lead them to God.
The way we exalt the love of Christ is by proclaiming Christ, who atoned for our sins on the cross. Although Solomon received overflowing love from God, he had no concern for souls, and so he was left with regret. With such great power, 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 and cared nothing for God. He lived forgetting even this: if he used the wisdom he had received from God to exalt his own name, the glory of God might be hidden. In a world without God’s protection, then, even the mightiest strength and power are like a tree whose roots have rotted and died.
Looking back on his futile life, fallen like a dead tree, Solomon realized that having great power does not make one a victor. He understood deeply that even if a person holds the world’s strength and power, without the grace of God they cannot be a true victor. Someone may have greater intelligence and knowledge than others and carry high expectations, and still stumble, choose the wrong path, and fail to accomplish what they intend, because evil spirits keep intruding into our lives.
The unexpected always lies in wait in life. Since death is the final victor over every life, we must not lose the compass of faith, lest we let go of Jesus Christ, who is our life. Those who know clearly the goal of life must run at full speed toward it so as not to be caught by greed, selfishness, and pride. But even believers fail to run the narrow way toward Christ; under attack from evil spirits, they live lives that sway to the left and to the right.
Satan is a Hebrew word meaning adversary, one who opposes, one who slanders; in Greek he is also called the devil, which is another name for Satan, who sets himself against God. Demons are the lower-ranking evil spirits that Satan, or the devil, commands. Instead of relying on the word of the almighty Jesus Christ, people have those possessed by demons tell their fortunes, and live by relying on their utterly vain words.
Foolishly, they are deceived by evil spirits out of the greed that says if only they could know the future, they could live well in the world and stand tall at the very top. Taken in by their greed, they lean on the words of those possessed by demons more than on the word of God, thinking they can prosper in the world. But knowing the future in advance does not make anyone successful. God told them never to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, saying that in the day they ate of it they would surely die; yet human greed cast that word aside and seized hold of death.
No one abandons faith for not knowing the word of God. Worldly greed and lust take their orders from Satan, so although God taught that only by faith can we gain eternal life, human beings in the end chose death. Solomon, too, heard directly from God about his own future. God promised that he had given him a wise and understanding heart, so that there had been none like him before him, and none like him would arise after him. He also told him in advance of the blessings to come: that he would give him even the riches and honor he had not asked for, so that there would be none like him among the kings all his days.
God had shown Solomon exactly how he must live to be blessed. He promised that if Solomon only lived by his word, he would give him not only riches and splendor but also the blessing of long life. Since the Lord of life and of heaven and earth had promised it himself, all of it would come to pass if Solomon only lived by the word. But blinded by the wealth, honor, and power in his hands, Solomon committed the sin of leaving God.
This is what human beings are: sinners who cannot live by their own will, even when they hear about their future directly from almighty God. Those who stray outside God’s fence are shaken by their own greed and lust and by Satan’s attacks; they waste precious time and then meet death. It is God who granted us life, God who holds that life, and God who called and chose us as his children. We need to understand that if those who have received such love commit the sin of leaving God because they cannot give up greed and lust, they can never be saved.
I hope you will run with all your strength toward Christ, who has become our goal. We must walk the narrow way, testing ourselves by the word every day to see whether the goals we have set point in a different direction from Christ. Life does not go as we intend; suffering strikes just when we think we are at peace, and just when we feel secure that all is complete, we can collapse like birds caught in a snare. So we need always to walk with the Holy Spirit, whose keeping never wavers.
There was another man who, like Solomon, lived under the illusion that he would enjoy wealth and power forever: Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon. Nebuchadnezzar threw Daniel’s three friends into the furnace because they would 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, 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 almighty God would deliver them; and now, just as they had said, they showed that they were walking in the midst of the fire with the son of the gods. As the king and the people watched them walk out of the fire without a hair of their heads singed, did they truly come to believe that God lives?
Just as Jesus showed many miracles during his public ministry, he still shows us many miracles today; yet the reality is that the hard-hearted 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 genuine faith, ready to die, Jesus Christ came into the blazing furnace people had kindled and protected them, soul and body. Such miracles still happen all over the world today. To those who believe that almighty God will surely act, he shows miracles beyond imagining and leads them to salvation.
In Daniel 4:10 and following, King Nebuchadnezzar has a dream one day, and this is what it was. A tree stood in the middle of the earth, so tall that it reached to the sky, and so full of fruit that there was more than enough food for all. The animals of the field rested in its shade, and the birds of the sky lodged in its branches. Right after that dream the king dreamed a second one, in which a holy one came down from the sky, cut down the great tree that reached to the sky, cut off its branches and leaves, drove the animals away from under it, and chased off all the birds. The tree was cut through at the trunk, but its stump was not torn out by the roots; it was bound with a band of iron and brass and left in the grass of the field. Then the holy one told Nebuchadnezzar, who had become that stump, beforehand that his heart would be changed from a man’s and that he would live like an animal for seven years. This warning in advance was grace, given so that he would leave the place of sin and be spared this affliction.
It was a prophecy that God would overturn his very life and drive away all who flattered him and all who lived off him. Though it was only a dream, it was so vivid that Nebuchadnezzar was afraid and asked Daniel, who had the Spirit of God, to interpret it. Daniel interpreted it this way: until now the king had thought of himself as a great tree, comparable to God, and had held the proud belief that everything was under his authority. That was why God had shown him how great a sin such thinking was, and the king, having spurned grace, would surely suffer that torment.
He had been able to live with great authority as king until then by God’s grace and protection, but he had grown proud enough to rival God and wanted to be served by people; that is why Daniel said he would be judged. Just as Adam and Eve, who ate from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, wanted to be like God, Nebuchadnezzar too sought authority as high as heaven.
It seems that, seeing Christ, who had helped Daniel’s three friends in the fire, he did not repent but conceived an ambition: if the God who had preserved their lives even in the fire would help him, Babylon could last forever. But God, to show him how foolish such thinking was, warned him in advance through a dream, and hoped that he would understand through Daniel’s interpretation and return.
Nebuchadnezzar had heard from God directly what would happen in his future, had seen the three friends come out of the fire alive, and had heard a spiritual interpretation from the prophet Daniel; he certainly ought to have repented. But King Nebuchadnezzar did not repent before the God who reveals the future and surely keeps his promise, and so the dream became reality. He was driven from the throne and for seven years had to live a wretched life, eating grass like the oxen among the animals, his body wet with the dew of the sky. Only after seven years of suffering, living like an animal, did he at last understand that God is King.
This dream, fulfilled just as it was given, shows us that God tells us in advance which way we should live and gives us time to decide whether we will obey his word or disobey it. You may say you never heard, but he has already spoken through sermons, through the Scriptures, through brothers and sisters in Christ, and through circumstances. We have clearly heard and known God’s word; we simply have not obeyed.
You may think that surely what happened to Nebuchadnezzar could never happen in your life; but God is unchanging and almighty, so his promise will be fulfilled. If you think that Nebuchadnezzar, being a king, had far more room for pride than you do, God will send a holy one to cut down that very thought first; so you must examine your own sin. The very thought that you have sinned less than others, tried to be humble, and grown a great deal spiritually is itself evil. Before God we must always humble ourselves, confess our lack of faith, and show ourselves to be children who plead for the guidance of the Holy Spirit.
When the seven years had all passed, he lifted his eyes to heaven and praised and worshiped God as the only Almighty One. The seven years of suffering he endured were a time of torment beyond human imagining. As Solomon came to understand, the suffering that rushes in the moment God removes the fence of grace is pain enough to strip away pride, greed, and human righteousness. Once he suffered, Nebuchadnezzar realized that the comfortable life he had known until then had been God’s protection, and he saw how foolish it had been to rely on himself.
Ecclesiastes 9:12 says that man does not know his time: as the fish are taken in an evil net, and as the birds are caught in the snare, so the sons of men are snared in an evil time, when it falls suddenly on them. Despite Daniel’s interpretation, Nebuchadnezzar did not fear God’s judgment, because nothing had happened yet. But people do not know what will happen even in the very near future, so neither can they know the day of disaster that falls on them suddenly.
Only after being put through the fire did Nebuchadnezzar look to God. When God saw that Nebuchadnezzar had turned from his sin, if only for a while, he had mercy on him and restored to him his kingdom and his throne; the majesty and brightness that had left him returned, and God gave him counselors and lords once more. Such is our good God, who shows grace even when we turn our hearts only a little. The world you now hold in your hands may seem to give you much, but when God lifts his hand in judgment, it vanishes in an instant, like mist. But when we serve God as King, he is the one who grants a blessing that cannot be taken away, so that we may display his glory. Solomon, who had feared nothing in the world, met a disaster he could not escape, like a fish caught in a net, like birds caught in a snare; and then he saw how frail he was.
Your life, too, is in God’s hands. You did not finish first because you ran hard toward your goal, and you are not living a comfortable life now because you lived wisely. You could run at full speed because God gave you the grace to go straight toward the goal, and you can live without shame because he gave you health, wisdom, and understanding. To be given a chance to turn back through suffering may in a sense be a great blessing; but if you have the wisdom to turn back before suffering comes, you will be able to do far more of God’s work.
May you have a faith that obeys God’s word, even to the point of seeming foolish. 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 swiftly through the world; he wants you not to boast that you won your bread by your own victory. We who do not know what tomorrow holds must believe that all things come about within God’s providence, cast off the folly of boasting in empty things, and live by good faith.
Friends, the world does not go the way people intend. Even a runner who has trained hard to finish a marathon may fall where they never expected, and even someone of outstanding knowledge and skill may see their life collapse from a single mistake; that is the world. Evil spirits are at work in the world, so we cannot know when the net of disaster will fall, and we must firmly believe that without the help of the Holy Spirit we cannot escape death. Yet we need not worry, because Jesus Christ, who was at work in the midst of the fire, is with us. The world may see only the fire blazing, but like the burning bush Moses saw, it is safe inside, where Christ is.
God’s people may suffer poverty and sickness, and the world may mock them; but those of faith who stand within it are with the Holy Spirit, and so, whatever suffering shows on the outside, they are always at peace and safe. May you never forget this. If you believe that the Holy Spirit walks with you and run toward the goal of Jesus Christ, you can surely be victorious.