Fit to Run

Eph 6:15 “and with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace.”




Do you know why we call a marathon race a marathon?

The marathon began as a way of commemorating Phidippides, a Greek runner who lived in 546 B.C. In that year the Persians invaded Greece. At the battle of Marathon, the Athenians defeated Persians and Phidippides was sent to tell the good news to Athens. The distance beteen Athens and Marathon is twenty-six miles. Phidippides accomplished the run over mountainous terrain, and fell dead as soon as he got there!

I have always wondered why, if modern runners run marathons all the time, Phidippides died. The rest of the story is this. The day before the battle, Phidippides had just finished running to tell the Spartans—a round trip of 380 miles. This he accomplished without stopping. Then without resting Phidippides fought in the battle. Then without resting he ran back to Athens.

If I had been Phidippides, I would have fallen over dead after a couple of miles!

Phidippides was a professional runner. He had trained for it all his life. Thre were many such professional runners in ancient times. We even read about them in the Bible. Isaiah wrote about them in Isa 52:7

How beautiful on the mountains

are the feet of those who bring good news,

who proclaim peace,

who bring good tidings,

who proclaim salvation,

who say to Zion,

"Your God reigns!"

In ancient times, armies communicated by sending runners. They have beautiful feet when they carried good news. Everyone wanted to see them.

When Isaiah wrote these words, he was not being spiritual. They were in physiLIbercal danger ad the needed good news.

Isaiah is a puzzling book to scholars, because it describes two separate time periods over a hundred years apart. Liberal scholars assume there must have been two Isaiah’s and that their books got mixed together. They do not believe in prophecy, so they cannot account in any other way for the clarity of Isaiah’s vision. In both of them, the country needed to hear the footsteps of a Phidippides.

Isaiah lived in the Eighth century, BC. At that time, Jerusalem was under siege by the Assyrians. The Assyrians were just about the worst people in the world. The Assyrians were like a giant amoeba, surrounding and invading foreign countries. First they conquered then they digested. They dismantled its entire country and shipped off to many different places in their empire. 701 they tried to swallow Judah and Jerusalem. They almost succeeded, too. They laid siege to Jerusalem for years.

I have often wondered what it must have been like inside the walls of Jerusalem during those days. The picture the Bible paints of that life is truly terrible. They had no food to eat. They even resorted to cannibalism. When King Hezekiah of Judah heard this he put on sackcloth and

ashes, and walked the walls of Jerusalem, weeping.

The prophet Isaiah was inside those walls, praying for God’s help. And did deliver them. He destroyed most of the conquering army, and the rest went home, leaving all their food behind.

In the second part of Isaiah, chapters 40-66, Isaiah predicts another siege of Jerusalem, a hundred years in he future by another country--Babylon. This time, though the result was different. The beautiful feet never came. Jerusalem was destroyed. Many people were disappointed with Isaiah’s words. But they were not listening to them. Isaiah did not say the runners would say they were victorious, only that they would announce that their God would be victorious. They were defeated on the battlefield, but seventy years later, the country was reborn. The runners Isaiah saw coming were not announcing the country’s deliverance, but it’s rebirth.

In the Apostle Paul’s day, there was a third siege of Jerusalem. This time it was the Romans. It took almost two thousand years for the Jews to return after that.

Three sieges. Three outcomes--each one worse than the last. Each time God’s people looked to God for deliverance. Once it came. The other two times God brought resurrection. It was not until after the destruction that God came to help.

Now the people of God are in a fourth siege—a spiritual one. The Devil has us under attack from all sides. Militant atheism, Islam, rampant drug use, and pornography are attacking from the outside. The world which seemed so friendly to believers sixty or seventy years ago now despises us. We try to attract people, but all we get are refugees from other churches We are not impacting the rest of the world at all.

The world is also under attack from the inside. The people inside the church are turning on each other to make us feel better about ourselves. While enemy arrows are flying around us, we have our hands around each other’s throats.

But the message of Isaiah is clear. Our God reigns. At such a time as this, we cannot save ourselves, That salvation has to be from the Lord.

The problem with the church today is not lack of strength. We do not need strength. We need faith. If we have strength and no faith, we perish. But if we have faith and no strength, we will eventually triumph.

Christians today are losing hope. Hope is a byproduct of faith. If we believe God is coming, we get the confidence to stand our ground. Hope does not come when we hear the army. We have it as soon as we hear the messenger.

Athens did not have to see Miltiades to have hope, They just needed to see Phidippides. People today are like people back then--they need a messenger. They will die from the lack of it.

They need to know that God has not forgotten them, that they can still call upon him and get an answer. They need someone to come and tell them the answer that will provide hope.

We are the messengers of Christ’s hope.

Isaiah describes what it is like when the messengers of hope arrive. The watchmen on the walls of the city see them first. A shout goes up. Then the townspeople pour up the stairs to the walls, looking for the man with running feet. Then news spreads like wildfire through the town. The defenders on the wall fight harder. Those who have been laying around suddenly get up and get busy. The whole town comes alive when hope comes.

You are the messengers. You are the ambassadors of hope. Therefore, Paul says we must be ready. Like Phidippides, we must train for the mission of bringing hope to the people “Let your feet be shod ith the preparation of the Gospel of peace.”

There are two reasons that our church does not have a greater impact on the world. The first is that we do not believe that we can. The second reason is that we are not prepared. We have not trained ready for Spiritual warfare.

How long does it take for a person to prepare for a marathon? Experts tell me that if a person is reasonably healthy, it should take about a year. Maybe if we as a church trained and prepared, in about a year, we would be prepared to be messengers of peace.

What would it take to be trained for a spiritual marathon?

First, it will take prayer. Not just occasional prayers prayed when we feel like it, but a concentrated effort of prayer that is ongoing. Before we can withstand the pressures of a marathon, we have to learn to breath. Prayer is our breath. We take our sins to God, and we receive His forgiveness. We take our desires to God, and He gives us back instructions. We take our will to God, and He changes our hearts.

Then we need the right food. We feed on the word of God. How many of us are on a training regimen diet? Do we study the Bible when we feel like it, or do we study the Bible as if our lives depended upon it?

Then we need to join a group. Studies have shown that most people do not get fit alone. They need the encouragement of others. We need to make this an open source of discussion and sharing. We will not make a difference right away, but we must talk and continue to talk together. More than that, we need to pray and read the Bible together.

Then we need to lose some weight. Most of us have tons of spiritual fat on us. Those are the things we should not be doing that we are doing. We have allowed ourselves to eat spiritual junk food, and feast on television and modern culture, until we have no spiritual strength left. We are defined not only by what we read, but by what we do not read. If we do not read the Bible but constantly read junk, are we any difference, or can we expect any other result than if we did not eat vegetables but tried to live off Coke and Twinkies. These things are fine for a treat once in while, but we cannot live off them.

Then we need to practice, practice, practice! Start small. Start by praying for the lost. Then go on to meeting the lost. Third, bring them to church. Finally, tell them about Jesus. Once we all get those skills down, then we need to meet the lost in large numbers. We need to provide events and programs that will bring them into this church. Furthermore, we need to go out where they live and tell them in their homes, schools, and markets. We do not know exactly where God will send us. But if we are not prepared, we know where we will go—nowhere.

We have a choice. We can stay in our comfortable pews, growing older and fatter, slowing dying off until the last one of us left turns off the lights. Or we can train as a church to be the messengers of God that He wants us to be. God has all power and sovereignty. He who made us to spread the good news also made it possible for us to do it, if we take the training seriously.