The If you've ever witnessed a marathon, you know there are more people who begin the race than who finish.

That's true of the Christian life as well. There are some who start out strong, but who do not end well. Today on Truth for Life weekend, Alistairbegg introduces us to Caleb, an Old Testament example of steadfast faithfulness.

Father, we pray again tonight that as we have our hearts open to your word and your word

open before our hearts, that you will do what you alone can do.

And that is take the mere faltering words of human mortality and breathe into

them your power and your might, so that as we sit here in this building this evening, we might be encountered

by the living God in the power of his word.

For we ask these things in Jesus name, amen.

It is a sobering question to ask ourselves,

what would they use for our epitaph if it were to be

written today? What would they put? Maybe you've already thought of it. And perhaps many of you don't want to think about it.

But sooner or later, one day it will happen and they will have occasion to announce in the newspaper that I'm no longer here and I've gone on and

somebody somewhere will have to come up with something to put on the Tombstone.

And I don't think it's particularly morbid, but I like reading tombstones.

There are some very interesting things that you can discover there.

It gets a little scary as you realize that the dates of the people in the, underneath the tombstones are getting a little closer

to the time when you were born. But nevertheless, it is sobering and it is revealing to consider these

things. For example, on a tombstone in Scotland, towards the

west of Scotland, you find these words concerning a man by the name of Jimmy Wyatt, who obviously wasn't the most generous of individuals.

It reads, interred beneath this Kirkyard stain, church yardstone, Kirkyard Stain, lies stingy Jimmy Wyatt, who died one morning just at

ten and saved a dinner by it.

So when they thought of Jimmy, they said,

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