Dear Fellow Believers,
When we think of having to endure, we think of marathon runners and people climbing Mt. Everest. Does God think of it this way? Yes and no. These things mentioned do require endurance, but endurance need not be heroic. The English elements of the underlying Greek word translated "endurance" in the Concordant Version are "UNDER-REMAIN." Endurance is merely remaining under something.
As opposed to what? As opposed to trying to get out of something. This reduces endurance to something we can all do. It's still not often easy, but we can all do it.
"If we are enduring, we shall be reigning together with Him also" (2 Timothy 2:12). Reigning with Christ is something above and beyond salvation. We are not saved to eonian life because of endurance. Eonian life is a free gift from God that comes irrespective of whether one remains under something or not. Members of Christ's body who just don't want to stick out this walk anymore—these
are still saved. They just won't reign.
What does NOT enduring look like? Great question. I get to that at the end of this video.
I recorded this message in the summer of 1997 in Baldwin, Michigan, at a little chapel behind a Tru Valu Hardware store. I have good memories of those times. As I listened to and watched the digitized version of this talk, compliments of Rodney Paris of Texas, I cried. I cried for these bygone days. Sitting outside later, smoking a cigarette, I mused over those days, hardly able to
believe that that was me back there in Baldwin, Michigan. I mention many names in this presentation, and I guess it was hearing those names again—many of whom who are now dead—that turned me melancholy and hoping hard for the return of Christ. TODAY.
I am happy beyond words that all of you are here with me today. Life would be unbearable (unendurable) without you.
Grace, peace and love from the edge of the bottom of the Floridan Peninsula, https://youtu.be/g5O1529Tfaw
—Martin
