Sunday: Steadfast Endurance
As we have seen in Revelation 14:7, God calls all people to worship the Creator. This is the first angel’s message. In Revelation 14:8, God warns people about “Babylon,” a false religious system with roots back to ancient Babylon. This is the second angel’s message.
In Revelation 14:9-10, the third angel warns against worshiping the beast. The angel declares in a loud voice, “If anyone worships the beast and his image, and receives his mark on his forehead or on his hand, he himself shall also drink of the wine of the wrath of God“ (NKJV).
Read Revelation 14:12. What two characteristics do we discover in this passage about God’s last-day people? Why are both important?
Image © Steven Creitz Goodsalt.com
The Greek word for “patience” is hupomone, which is better translated “steadfast endurance.” God will have an end-time people who are loyal to Him in the face of opposition and fierce persecution. Through His grace, they stand with steadfast endurance, living God-centered, grace-filled, obedient lives.
Worshiping the Creator (Revelation 14:7) stands in direct opposition to worshiping the beast (Revelation 14:9) and finds its expression in a people who keep the commandments of God and have the faith of Jesus (Revelation 14:12). This final conflict over allegiance to Christ or allegiance to the beast power revolves around worship, and at the heart of this great controversy between good and evil is going to be the Sabbath.
Read Romans 8:1-4, Ephesians 2:8-10, and Colossians 1:29. What do these passages teach us about the result of living by faith?
Living by faith, we receive His grace, and our lives are changed. The committed followers of the Savior will not only have faith “in” Jesus, they will have the faith “of” Jesus. Jesus’ quality of end-time faith will be theirs, and they will remain faithful, even unto death, as Jesus did.
How faithful are you in the little things? What might that tell you about how you will be when the real trial comes? (See Luke 16:10.)
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Persistence and resilience are two words that have been seared into my brain during my years of research in computer science.
Persistence refers to the retention of data when the power is removed. Resilience has to do with ensuring that even in the event of an unexpected failure, the system recovers from that event in a consistent state.
Nowadays, most of our computers work on this basis, and often, even when computer users are incredibly stupid, we manage to recover most of their work.
Our spiritual experience should be persistent and resilient. And it is not just sound advice for when things get tough and the end of the world is nigh.
Implicit in this description is that patient endurance (persistence and resilience) is not just for the moment, but something that is practiced and tested over a lifetime.
When I was doing research on persistence in computers, I set up my algorithms and ran them on a testbed for weeks. I changed the parameters so that I ultimately knew how it was going to work in the good times as well as the bad. If you want to get these things to work, you don't just read books about it and summarise what others have done.
Christian persistent and resilience is something that we need to practice even now.
Thank you for this post. I was looking for a description on characteristics of steadfast endurance. I didnt find it on this page until i read your post; ‘ Persistence refers to the retention of data when the power is removed. Resilience has to do with ensuring that even in the event of an unexpected failure, the system recovers from that event in a consistent state.’
God bless you
This lesson shows a correlation between the “faith in Jesus” and “the faith of Jesus.” For example, when a situation presents itself or we have a Red Sea in front of us. We need the “faith of Jesus.” We need to claim to God’s promise that He will make a way out of no way.
In Isaiah 43: 1 - 2, “ 1But now thus says the LORD,
he who created you, O Jacob,
he who formed you, O Israel:
“Fear not, for I have redeemed you;
I have called you by name, you are mine.
2When you pass through the waters, I will be with you;
and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you;
when you walk through fire you shall not be burned,
and the flame shall not consume you (ESV).”
Isaiah 43: 1 - 2 talks about how we should have “the faith in Jesus.”
We need to remember that He will never forsake us.
The “faith of Jesus” implies that we have to emulate Jesus’ faith in our life. When we see the Red Sea in front of us, we need to have “the faith of Jesus” to walk through it by faith. In Philippians 4 : 13, the apostle Paul declared “ I can do all this through him who gives me strength.“ When we have “the faith of Jesus, no mountain is insurmountable.
This lesson is telling someone who is reading now that you need to have “the faith of Jesus” by reading your bible and remembering that God loves and has a plan for you. The “faith of Jesus” means that you had a close encounter with Jesus and nothing on this earth will shake or trouble you. We need the faith of Jesus and in Jesus to be victorious every day.
Have a blessed week in Jesus’ name!
In teaching we use the term ‘scaffolding’ to describe breaking up a large assignment into smaller parts so that students can learn the skills of each component before successfully putting everything together into a larger whole. I see the everyday “smaller” tests of faith all part of the scaffolding for the big exam that’s coming. In my experience, students who procrastinate and instead skip all the scaffolding are successful with the final exercise.
(Luke 16:10)
“He who is faithful in what is least is faithful also in much; and he who is unjust in what is least is unjust also in much.“
Should that be “students who procrastinate….. are not (or rarely) successful with the final exercise”?
Oops! Yes! Thanks for catching that! (I sometimes miss typos when I post from my phone)
our "Good works" are to be "By Faith," in Jesus, works and not works by our own efforts to do them but by trusting God the Father and His Holy Spirit to help us do them as per how Jesus His Son did them as an example for us.
Unwavering loyalty will need to be practiced long before the time of the end, or it will become very difficult to maintain it under the pressure coming from the opposition to our faith. Patience – ‘steadfast endurance’ -, seems to be that which is referred to when comparing our living in the kingdom of God to a race which ”God has set before us ..” – Hebr. 21:1-2; Matt.25:1-14.
During that 'time of tribulation', one might still be able to worship the Creator in quite solitude on Sabbath, or, if still safe, among others in the forum of the 'market place' through testifying to His Mercy and Grace. But should one be called upon to face open threats of persecution when doing so, our conviction of the faith need to be stronger than the fear of persecution and death.
We only know of some of the circumstances under which the faithful will be pressured to end the race, to give up the price awaiting the faithful, faltering under the immense pressures to comply with the beast’s demands. The testimony of the martyrs from the past speak loudly to the cruelty of the persecution by those who are convinced that they are doing God’s work.
There is never a time during this ‘race’ which allows us to let down our guard and take our resolve to stay faithful for granted. Remember that mankind is facing a great deception which presents itself as the light from God even now. Yes, we need to not only have faith ‘in’ Jesus, but we will need to have the faith of Jesus to stand strong until “the Words of God are fulfilled.” – Rev.17:17.
When we "walk according to... the Spirit", which means "living by faith... our lives are changed."It is a mystery, but God can work in us, so we evidence fundamental changes. To face inner modification requires an exercise that only some people are willing to do. Slow innovations are easier to deal with than abrupt and profound transformations, although sometimes we must stand these too. We must be open to this now and prepared for what is coming. Reconstruction daily!
Standing firm in one’s faith, and not getting resentful in the face of verbal attacks from the devil is what I would call resilience. Just like Jesus refuted the devil with memorized scripture that’s the only way that we will overcome him. We need to build a wall of memorized verses around our hearts.