Unending Service to Christ

Al Mohler, President of the Southern Baptist Seminary, was asked about John Calvin and what we might learn from him. Here is his reply:

"Calvin was...a teacher and he understood the necessity of the church to be a school. We want the churches to again be the schools of Christ. I want to die like Calvin died, studying and teaching and preaching to the end. Calvin didn't retire; he died."

I love this quote. It reminds me of the John Piper book "Don't Waste Your Life" where Piper contrasts the lives of two separate missionary groups. The one, a couple who reaches middle age and then retires to enjoy the last years of their lives; the other consists of two older ladies, missionary widows whose husbands are long dead...yet they remain in service. As they travel along a mountain road in the country where they serve, their car runs off the road and they are killed. Piper says that the retired couple wasted their lives whereas the old ladies did not. You understand what he means don't you?

He means exactly what Mohler does when he says he wants to die studying and teaching and preaching to the end. Considering that we will spend an eternity serving our Lord then we have to wonder why it is people feel we need "a break" from the study of God's Word. From service to Him. I attended a church many years ago where during the Summer they would not have Sunday school....when my father in law was told it was so that people could take a break, he replied that Satan does not take breaks! :) How very true!

"Calvin didn't retire; he died."

Oh for ministers, missionaries, and laypeople who want to die doing the work which the Father has prepared for them!