Perched high atop the cliffs between Ayr and Girvan on the southwest coast of Scotland is the beautiful Culzean (pronounced Cul-ane) Castle. Designed by the famed Robert Adam in 1777, it was built on the site of an ancient tower, one of the Scottish Kennedy strongholds guarding the coast.
More than a century before the present castle was built, the Kennedys had provided a place of refuge for the Covenanters (c. 1581-1689) who were being hunted and slaughtered for their faith in Christ. Along these rugged headlands are caves that became the hiding place of many of the “hill folk” until they could be spirited away to safety in Holland or Ireland.
Culzean is a sumptuous mansion set in lush gardens renowned for their palms and rhododendrons (able to grow there at the same latitude as Hudson Bay due to the warming influence of the North Atlantic Drift). But it was not the sweeping oval staircase, or the custom-made furniture, or the lavish paintings, or the well-stocked armory that caught my attention. It was the Clan Kennedy’s family motto chiselled in stone over the entrance: Finem Respice–Consider the End.
The motto is certainly biblical. The Scriptures are full of references to the terminus of a pathway and the importance of keeping it always in view. For example, Solomon declared, “There is a way that seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death” (Prov. 16:25). Who cares whether the scenery is breathtaking along the road if it leads you to a precipice? It is the duty of every believer in the coming days to warn our fellow-travellers on the road of life concerning the end of man’s way–eternal death. (You will find several solemn articles on the subject in this issue of Uplook because the truth of everlasting judgment is being assailed in evangelical circles today.)
David wrote, “Lord, make me to know mine end, and the measure of my days, what it is; that I may know how frail I am” (Ps. 39:4). At the dawning of 1994, how appropriate that we should remind ourselves that we are not here for long. If considering the end stirs us to evangelism, and it should, it will also remind us to redeem the time, looking for ways to turn the fleeting moments into eternal dividends.
Sometimes, in attempting to assess life, we become disillusioned by the apparent success of the wicked and the difficult path of believers. It is not a new problem. Three millennia ago, Asaph said, “I was envious at the foolish, when I saw the prosperity of the wicked…Behold, these are the ungodly, who prosper in the world; they increase in riches. Verily I have cleansed my heart in vain…When I thought to know this, it was too painful for me; until I went into the sanctuary of God; then understood I their end” (Ps. 73:3, 12, 13, 16, 17).
Peter, a thousand years later, adds this perspective: “If any man suffer as a Christian, let him not be ashamed; but let him glorify God on this behalf. For the time is come that judgment must begin at the house of God: and if it first begin at us, what shall the end be of them that obey not the gospel of God? And if the righteous scarcely be saved, where shall the ungodly and the sinner appear?” (1 Pet. 4:16-18). If many of God’s dear people barely make it through life–battered by opposition, tempted and tried, chastened by the Father, and pressed by the burdens of ministry–how will the ungodly do when, stripped of all that time could give them, they stand before the God they ignored or defied? It will be a fearful thing indeed!
So the wise preacher concluded, “Better is the end of a thing than the beginning thereof: and the patient in spirit is better than the proud in spirit” (Eccl. 7:8). Patient waiting on God while humbly doing His will in the end will have greater significance than what has been temporarily accomplished by those proud and haughty souls that have plowed their way through life contrary to the Lord’s will.
The greatest comfort in the unknown days ahead with their unmeasured burdens and uncharted waters is this: “I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, the first and the last” (Rev. 22:13). Not only does the Lord know the end from the beginning, He is the end as well as the beginning. He was there when our lives began for Him; He is there every step of the way. And He is there now at the end of our road, dwelling in the eternal Now, watching, waiting to welcome us Home. Finem Respice.