Will We Endure to the End? (Part One)

Will We Endure to the End? (Part One) Jesusdeclares in Matthew 24:13, "But he who endures to the end shall be saved." How do we endure while facing life's problems? How do we ensure that we make it through those unprecedented trials promised in Mathew 24:21 as our world nears its end? Believe it or not, a ratprovides an answer. In his April 19, 2006, sermon, Richard Ritenbaugh recounted a lab rat's experience: I recently heard of an experiment done on a rat. Experiments are done on rats every day, but this one was interesting. The rat was taken from its cage and placed in a large stainless-steel vat filled with water. The vat was smooth so that therat could not get a hold and climb out. The experiment was designed so the rat was stuck in there. As soon as he dumped the rat in this vat of water, the scientist started a timer. He just watched and observed the rat as it swam and struggled in the water. It treaded water for one hour, two hours. And about the third hour, it began to show signs of stress and began to drown. So, the scientist reached in and rescued the rat, dried him off, fed him (he did not need any water), and put him back inhis cage. A couple of days later, the scientist took the same rat, put him into the same vat of water, and started the timer. And he waited. And he waited. And he waited two hours, three hours, five hours, ten hours, fifteen hours, twenty hours—a fullday! (I am sure the scientist had help!) That rat swam, struggled, and treaded water for 30 hours before exhibiting the same signs of distress and drowning as it had just days before at three hours. Notice Richard's comments about this experiment: What was the difference between the two different experiments/days? The scientist rescued the rat! The rodent had hope because rescue had occurred once before, and it remembered that if it would just keep struggling, the scientist would save him again. It hung on in that water for ten times longer than it had the first time when it had no hope. Do you see what hope can do? Hope can give us strength to keep treading, to keep swimming, to keep our heads out of the water. The subtitle of the sermon was "Hope Inspires Transformation." But as we can see from this experiment and Richard's comments, hope can also inspire endurance—to keep treading and swimming. Not just a little endurance, but the rat endured ten times longer in this case. Why? The rat remembered the intervention of the scientist. This experiment gives us a key to how we can endure to the end—remember the past interventions of God in our lives. But is it that simple? It was not for Elijah. The prophet's miracles begin in I Kings 17: The rain ceased (verse 1), he was fed by the ravens (verse 4), the miracle of the bin of meal and jar of oil occurred (verse 14), and he raised the widow's son from death (verse 22). They continuein chapter 18: He called fire from heaven (verses 37-38) and caused it to rain (verses 44-45). With all these spectacular miracles behind him, notice Elijah's reaction when trouble inevitably struck: Then Jezebel sent a messenger to Elijah, saying, "So let the gods do to me, and more also, if I do not make your life as the life of one of them by tomorrow about this time." And when he saw that, he arose and ran for his life, and went to Beersheba,which belongs to Judah, and left his servant there. But he himself went a day's journey into the wilderness, and came and sat down under a broom tree. And he prayed that he might die, and said, "It is enough! Now, LORD,take my life, for I am no better than my fathers!" (IKings 19:2-4) As significant as Elijah's miracles were, the text gives no indication that even one of those examples of God's intervention came to his mind. Instead, he immediately ran and gave up, seemingly showing less endurance than the rat did when firstdropped into the water. Elijah is not alone in this shocking lapse of memory; his fellow Israelites join him. Psalm 78 is a litany of miracles through which God intervened on the Israelites' behalf. Even so, they forgot and did not remember and thus failed miserably.Notice Psalm 78:41-42: Yes, again and again they tempted God, and limited the Holy One of Israel. They did not remember His power: The day when He redeemed them from the enemy . . .. God had made it "a law in Israel, which He commanded our fathers" (verses 5-6) to teach the history of these miracles down through the generations. Verse 7 tells us why: "That they may set their hope in God, and not forget the works of God,but keep His commandments." The experiment with the rat illustrates a truth that has been in God's Word for millennia (see also Lamentations 3:21). Remembering God's interventions, the examples of His power used on our behalf, gives us the hope and motivation to endure, obey, not faint, and keep paddling even as the trials become ever more challenging. Because we Israelites, whether physical or spiritual, have a problem remembering, God, in Deuteronomy, repeatedly hammers at our need to remember His interventions (5:15; 7:18; 8:2, 18; 9:7; 15:15; 16:3, 12; 24:9, 18, 22; 25:17; 32:7). Yet,the examples of Elijah and the Israelites demonstrate our substantial potential for failure. To illustrate how ingrained forgetfulness is in who we are, notice the name of one of the tribes of Israel, Manasseh. Biblical lexicologist James Strong defines this name as "causing to forget." Interestingly most reading this essay live inAmerica, believed by many to be the land populated by Manasseh's descendants. Remembering is a crucial ingredient to enduring, but with our human nature, we too easily forget, as the examples of Elijah and Israel teach us (ICorinthians 10:11; Romans 15:4). We face a difficult challenge, considering that Elijah and Israel failed even though they had all those miracles behind them. We have not had the awe-inspiring experiences they had, but we do have interventions by God of our own to remember.We will see more on that subject in Part Two. - Pat Higgins