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I have fought a good fight. Nothing in nature is more beautiful than the all-glorious sunset; even the storm clouds make it a more magnificent scene. So it was with St. Paul. Amid the threatening clouds of persecution the Saviour's glory shone all around and about him, and lighted up the dark firmament of the martyr experiences.

I. THE PAST FIGHT. He was a man of war in the best sense, and had fought a good fight. He had conflicts in himself - "fightings without, and fears within." He had opposition from the Jews of the ancient Church, and from the Judaistic Christians, who were trying to pervert the gospel! Rome, that dreaded sedition, looked upon him as a stirrer-up of strife, and though St. Paul was not an enemy of Caesar, this gave Caesar's enemies an opportunity for casting opprobrium on him. He had, too, as we all have, invisible enemies, so that he did not war only "against flesh and blood." The past fight was a lifelong one with him, for he had at first to withstand even his Christian coadjutors in his determination to proclaim and to preserve the universality and spirituality of the gospel kingdom; he boldly and triumphantly withstood even Peter to the face, and so gave to the Church of all ages the Magna Charta of its Divine freedom.

II. THE FINISHED COURSE. He could look back upon the racecourse now, and he varies his imagery. Now he introduces the idea of the Grecian games. We can see the eager athlete girding his loins for the race - a race which taxed all his energies. In heat and cold, amidst enemies and friends, St. Paul "pressed toward the mark." There is no tone of finality, however, about his language in the strictest sense. The end was only a post which he had to pass, not a grave in which he had to sleep. For to him to live was Christ, and to die was gain. - W.M.S.

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KJV: I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith:

WEB: I have fought the good fight. I have finished the course. I have kept the faith.