Eighty-Six Years and Not Once Forsaken

In February of 155 AD, Roman soldiers came for Polycarp, the aged bishop of Smyrna. He was eighty-six years old. A student of the Apostle John himself, Polycarp had spent a lifetime shepherding believers through persecution, famine, and imperial hostility. Now the arena crowd was demanding his death.

The Roman proconsul offered him a simple way out: "Swear by Caesar. Revile Christ, and I will release you."

Polycarp's answer rang across the stadium: "Eighty-six years I have served Him, and He has done me no wrong. How can I blaspheme my King who saved me?"

They threatened him with fire. He did not flinch. They threatened wild beasts. He stood steady. The old bishop had fought his good fight. He had finished his race. And he knew exactly who stood beside him in that arena.

When Paul wrote to Timothy from his Roman prison, he spoke with that same unshakable certainty: "The Lord stood at my side and gave me strength." Paul was not whistling past a graveyard. He was testifying to a lifetime of proven faithfulness — not his own, but God's.

This is the confidence available to every believer who has walked long with the Almighty. Not that the fire will never come, but that the One who has never once failed us — in eighty-six years or in ten — will not abandon us at the finish line. The crown is sure, because the righteous Judge is faithful.