OBSERVATIONS I’VE LEARNED ABOUT
THE FOURTH QUARTER
By
Jerry Falwell
1. You live life looking forward, but you understand life looking backwards.
When we’re in grade school, we look forward to junior high school; and when we’re in college we look forward to adulthood. Paul said, “This one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind and looking forward to those things which are before” (Phil. 3:13). When we’re young, we think we know a lot about the future, but do we? When we get old, we’ve learned a lot about the past; and that’s an advantage.
a. Age 20, a man wants to wake up romantically;
Age 30, wants to wake up married;
Age 40, wants to wake up successful;
Age 50, wants to wake up rich;
Age 60, wants to wake up contented;
Age 70, wants to wake up healthy;
Age 80, he just wants to wake up.
b. People say life begins at 70. I read this about why 70 is such a wonderful age, “Because everybody wants to do something for you. They want to carry your bags, help you up the stairs, give you a lift, pass you a hymnbook in church, or hold a door open for you. When you’re 70, people are very kind to you and they compliment you for no good reason at all; other than the reason that you’ve reached 70. When you reach 70 and forget a name, people forgive you. If you make two appointments for the same hour, or if you forget and don’t show up; they forgive you. When you’re young, people seem to get mad at you for the least occasion, but when you turn 70, they forgive you--no matter what.”
2. Your success in the fourth quarter begins long before the game begins.
Your success in the game of life begins on the practice field. You learn the playbook, you practice the plays, you learn how to get along with team members and you mentally get prepared for the game.
My friend, John Maxwell, says that in life if we “play now, we will pay later.” By that he says, if you spend your youth always playing and don’t prepare for life, then you will pay for it later. However, John Maxwell says, “Pay first, you can play later.” By that he means, if we pay the price early in life and learn how to live, how to make money, and how to make our families work, then later on we will enjoy happiness.
I reject the myth that growing older means becoming less useful. As a matter of fact, the opposite is true. How you play in the last quarter determines if you win or lose the game. Those who win the game usually play the best in the fourth quarter. Because I am doing more for God than I have ever done, I now realize that the fourth quarter is the most important quarter in my life. Make it the best quarter in your life.
3. The greatest thing about the fourth quarter, is still being in the game.
Think about all the people who got tired of playing and quit . . . or the coach took them out because they didn’t play well . . . or they didn’t even get in the game in the second half. When the coach leaves you in during the final minutes of the fourth quarter, it’s because the coach believes in you and knows you can get the job done.
a. I am happy to be 68, because I’ve made it thus far.
b. I am happy to be 68, because I am still in the game.
c. I am happy to be 68, because I’ve got a lot of game left to play.
4. The longer you stay in the game, the more comfortable you get playing the game.
During the first play of the game, usually you are a little tense and scared. You don’t know if you can block the guy, or if you can catch the pass. But the longer you stay in the game, the more comfortable you get with your ability. You learn what you can, and can’t do.
The longer I serve the Lord, the more comfortable I am serving the Lord. I know what I can do for God, and what I can’t. I am Jerry Falwell, I am not a Bible teacher like John MacArthur, and I am not a city-wide evangelist like Billy Graham. When it comes to ministry in the fourth quarter, Jerry Falwell is first and foremost a pastor; second, a prophet who speaks against the evils of our nation; third, I am an educator who is Chancellor of Liberty University; and everything else falls in line after that.
5. Even though the game gets more comfortable in the fourth quarter, it never gets any easier.
Sin is as divisive as ever, and Satan is as determined to destroy us as ever. I know who my enemy is, and I know that some from my team are going to get hurt in the fourth quarter. But I also know who my Coach is, and I know who eventually will win the game. Therefore, I can’t let up because I know we will eventually win; I’ve got to protect the others who are playing with me, and I’ve got to recruit as many to get on the team as possible.
6. The longer I play the game, the more comfortable I become with the differences of the people who play with me on my team. I’m a better team play in the fourth quarter.
When I first began, I wanted everyone to be a preacher, I wanted everyone to be a soul-winner, I wanted everyone to be just like Jerry Falwell. But as I grow older, I respect the differences of the players on the team. Just as a quarterback must respect his blockers, flankers, and running backs, so I respect those who serve God with music, Sunday school teaching, counseling, administration, ushering and many other ways.
As a matter of fact, as you get into the fourth quarter, you learn more and more how to trust your team members who do it differently than you. You do not want to play like they play, but they do not threaten you. And you don’t want them to do what you are doing. In the fourth quarter you are a better team player and you play better with each player than you did in the first play of the game.
7. The longer you stay in the game, the better vision you have of what’s happening on the field about you, and the better idea you have of how to succeed.
Those who are in the final quarter have a larger vision of life than those who are just starting out. When I just started out, all I could see was building a church in our section of Lynchburg, Virginia. However, the more I stayed in the game the more I realized what God could do through me and Thomas Road Baptist Church in America and around the world. I have almost 50 years of ministry experience, almost 50 years of viewing the game. Now that I am in the fourth quarter, I see more than ever, I see farther than ever, and many times, I see first before others see things.
8. As you get into the fourth quarter, you’re not as distraught about your past failures as you used to be.
When you miss a play at the beginning of the game, you think you’ve lost everything. You become discouraged and defeated over your failures. However, now that I am in the fourth quarter, I realize that past failures didn’t kill me and put me on the sidelines. Sure, my failures embarrassed me, I began some projects that failed, and I had to start over again. I began some projects that didn’t work and had to forget them. And now in the fourth quarter, I am still in the game and I don’t let past failures bother me.
I’m sometimes asked, “What would you do differently if you could live your life over?” That question is hypothetical because no one will get that chance. We are the product of our successes and failures. But if I had a chance to relive my life and not fail, it would not be good for me to do that. Why? Because I have learned many lessons from my failures. I am a stronger person because of my failures. The football player who has been knocked down several times is stronger and more determined. He learns how to knock the other fellow down. You cannot change what you did, but you can understand what you did, and your understanding will make you stronger.
9. In the fourth quarter you’re not as interested in trying new plays and the new fads, but you go back to your tried and proven methods.
You’ve spent four quarters in the game and you still have to struggle for victory. In the fourth quarter you’ve learned what works and what doesn’t work for you. You look back on the past experiments you tried and failed. You’ve tried new twists, and got knocked down. So in the fourth quarter you’re not ready to give up on the old “tried and proven” ways. I know what works for me, so I am going to keep on working it as long as I am in the game. I’m not going to try a lot of new things, at least I won’t try new things I know won’t work.
In balancing what I just said, in the fourth quarter I will be open to new things, because I’ve always been open to new things. This doesn’t mean that I am going to try them or going to use them. I know what I’ve learned from new things, and what I didn’t learn.
So I’ll support people on my team who will learn, so they can arrive at the fourth quarter like I have. They need to try new things and learn from them, and they need to learn new ways to win the game. I am open to new things on my team more than ever before, but that doesn’t mean I will try them.
10. The greatest thing about the fourth quarter is the confidence you have in the things you have learned.
When you come into the fourth quarter of the game, you know most everything you need to know. That means that when you started life at age 20, you knew most of the facts, lessons, and principles that you needed to know. But the trouble is, you knew them in your head. Young people know much, but don’t have the experiences to back up what they know in their head. But as you live life, you learn how to apply principles, you learn timing, you learn the secrets to relationships, you learn through sleepless nights of prayer, you learn through the agony of defeat, you learn through the bitterness of tears, and you learn when friends turn away from Jesus Christ.
So in the last quarter you don’t need to learn much in your head. But in the last quarter you have to rely on your experiences, and they have a deeper meaning to you because they’ve come from life’s learning curve.
There’s another experience you’ve got to talk about--passion. When you get into the first quarter, you love the game; that means you love your wife, and you love your children, you love the Lord, and you love serving Him. But as you live through the various experiences of love, you become deeper as love becomes deeper. And with love, you get reverence, faith, and devotion. That is something you get in the fourth quarter that no one beginning the game has in the first quarter. You have a deeper passion, faith and reverence for all things.
11. In the fourth quarter you learn to play with pain.
You don’t pay as much attention to pain in the fourth quarter as you did when you began the game. Now, no one likes to be hurt, however when you become 68, you realize that some things in life are “a trade off” for other things. You take the pain, so you can get the gain. To get to the fourth quarter, you learn to live with your aches, limitations, and you keep on going.
When you’re a young man, you pay attention to pain; just like you pay attention to food, and to all the things that please the body or feed the flesh. But when you get older, you learn there are a lot of things more important than pampering the body, protecting the body, and pleasing the body.
Older people have more aches and pains than younger people. So you learn to play through the pain. Let me summarize three attitudes I have toward pain:
• Winning is more important than pain.
• Pain may hurt, or even slow you down, but it doesn’t need to stop you.
• Pain is one of the “trade offs” for making it to the fourth quarter.
12. Playing in the fourth quarter means you have a good understanding of what you did not do, you cannot do, and you will not do.
When you’re playing in the fourth quarter, “limitation” is a good friend of yours. You take limitation by the hand every day, and go where it leads you. You look at the strong bodies of young men, and know you cannot do what they do. You ask yourself the question, “Was I ever able to do that?”
Now that you’re older, you know what you can do; that means to a football player, “you play within yourself.” You emphasize what you can do best, and you beat the other guy with your strength. You don’t try to “razzle-dazzle,” you don’t try new things, you go back to the “old, tried and proven ways.” You do what you can do best, and you keep doing it as long as you can.
13. When you get to the fourth quarter, you realize it is perhaps the best quarter of all.
Why? Because you get more satisfaction out of doing everything that you do. You know what you can do, why you’re doing it, how and when to do it. When you’re young, you do a lot of things you don’t like to do. Take for example: learning to play the piano. When you’re young, you hate to practice. Just like many football players hate to practice, but they do it because they love the game. When you get to the fourth quarter, since you can’t do as much, you do what you do best, and you love everything that you can do.
I love a cup of coffee, I love a toasted cheese sandwich, I love a big juicy hamburger; as a matter of fact, I get more pleasure out of eating than ever before. Why? Because I can still eat, because I am still here, and because eating is more fun than it’s ever been before in my life.
14. In the fourth quarter you gain a new appreciation for youth.
When we were all young, we wanted to be older . . . wiser . . . better . . . we all wanted to be something we were not. And when we get to be older, we look back at youth and appreciate the “potential of youth.”
I heard a man say the other day, “I can do everything at age 60 that I did when I was 20.” My response is, “You were not doing much when you were 20.” You see, life is growth, and I know a lot more at 68 than I knew at age 20. We start in the first quarter and we get better as the game gets longer. Aged Paul told young Timothy, “Stir up the gift of God that is within you” (II Tim. 1:6). A young man is supposed to stir up, and grow in his spiritual gifts. Remember, “Let no man despise thy youth” (I Tim. 4:12).
When I was pastoring in my 20s, I was aggressive, a risk taker, and courageous beyond common sense. I did things that I wouldn’t do today. Did I think I was foolish? No! Would I do them again? Yes! Can I do them now? No! Would I do them now? No! All of these experiences are a part of the growth process that brings me to where I am today.
Why did I attempt “impossible visions?” Because young men have great visions. But as you get older, your visions turn to dreams. Doesn’t the Bible tell us, “Young men shall vision visions, and old men dream dreams” (Acts 2:17). Visions are future focused, and dreams look back in what has been accomplished.
When you’re in the fourth quarter, don’t expect young men coming into the game to play like you play. Get out of the way of youth, and let them have their visions and let them take their great “leap of faith.” They’re not in the fourth quarter, I am; let youth play in the first quarter the way God intended them to play.
My promise to this church:
• I will believe in youth.
• I’m going to recruit youth. I am going to let youth stand on my shoulders and reach higher than I ever attained.
• I’m going to hand the baton of leadership to them. I am going to point them in the way.
• I am going to be their cheerleader.
I am happy for my teachers who shared with me what they learned in their fourth quarter, so I can now play my fourth quarter. I am happy for their teaching me New Testament church strategy. I am happy for Bill Dowell teaching me local church evangelism. I am happy for B. R. Lakin teaching me not to listen to my critics. I am happy for Francis Schaefer telling me to educate the young. I am happy for John Rawlings teaching me to be “hard-headed” about sin and Satanic obstructions.
If you have never really accepted Jesus as your personal Savior, would you do it right now? Do not delay or put it off. If you would like to receive Christ by faith, pray this simple prayer in your heart:
Dear Lord,
I acknowledge that I am a sinner. I believe Jesus died for my sins on the cross, and rose again the third day. I repent of my sins. By faith I receive the Lord Jesus as my Savior. You promised to save me, and I believe You, because You are God and cannot lie. I believe right now that the Lord Jesus is my personal Savior, and that all my sins are forgiven through His precious blood. I thank You, dear Lord, for saving me. In Jesus’ name, Amen.
If you prayed that prayer, God heard you and saved you. I personally want to welcome you to the family of God and rejoice with you.
For more information on the TRBC Pastor’s Bible Class, log on to the Internet for TRBC Home page at www.trbc.org/pbc.
