BANG! The starter’s gun sounded, and the final event of the 1982 Commonwealth Games was underway. Many of the world’s elite marathoners began the arduous task of running through the winding streets of Brisbane—one of Australia’s most scenic cities. The host nation pinned its hopes for victory on Robert de Castella, a talented young athlete with great potential. As the nation sat glued to its televisions, all cameras appeared to be focused on De Castella.
As the lead group of runners rounded one of the early mile markers and reached for a brief drink, there was a terrible collision. Caught up in the tangle of arms and legs, De Castella smacked into the pavement face first. The nation froze, stunned, awaiting the fate of their beloved champion. As the lead pack ran past him, many thought that this was the end for Robert de Castella and any chance he had of victory.
Did he accept defeat? Did he quit, give up and ask for a stretcher? No!
Resisting the overwhelming temptation to quit in front of his nation, bleeding, grazed from head to toe, Robert de Castella raised himself up from the asphalt and began running again. By now, he was far behind the lead pack. Television commentators gave him no chance for a medal; perhaps, at best, a noble finish, if he could withstand the intense, stinging pain of his injuries.
Have you at one time or another felt like giving up when the going seemed just too rough, too tough, too difficult? When unforeseen obstacles appeared to block your spiritual path? If we were to answer this question honestly we would all say yes.
In this last hour of man’s 6,000 years of misrule of Earth, with Satan and his demon cohorts cast down to the Earth (Revelation 12:12), will we withstand the challenges and battles ahead? Will we please men or please God? Will we display human nature or godly character? Our survival as God’s very elect will depend upon a key trait that the great men and women of the Bible have displayed throughout the ages—spiritual endurance!
End-Time Elijah’s Example
“Yes, nine in ten, at least once or twice in a lifetime, come to the place where they appear to be totally defeated! All is lost—apparently, that is. They give up and quit, when just a little more determined hanging on, just a little more faith and perseverance—just a little more stick-to-it-iveness would have turned apparent certain failure into glorious success” (Herbert W. Armstrong, The Seven Laws of Success).
Mr. Armstrong noted that he too had reached this point of apparent failure. While making a top executive salary in 1920, he had it swept out from under him in a flash depression that year. Later, in 1926, his advertising business was wiped out. A million-dollar project was dashed by the stock market crash and Depression of 1929.
Ambassador College, in its infancy, appeared to be defeated. Many associated with the college thought it was about to fold. They were often puzzled why Mr. Armstrong wouldn’t just realize it and give up. He fondly recalled Winston Churchill’s words of encouragement during the turbulent days of World War ii, when he said, “It is always darkest just before the dawn.”
The college didn’t fold. It overcame its financial challenges time after time and grew from just one campus in California to having an additional one in Texas and still another in England. All of that growth would never have come if Mr. Armstrong had given up. Instead, he relied totally, unconditionally, on God for deliverance. He walked by faith and not by sight. He focused on the spiritual, not the physical.
Reflecting on the end-time Elijah’s fruits of faith should be intensely motivating to us who back and support the re-establishment of God’s program of education through Herbert W. Armstrong College. Do we, individually, have the perseverance, endurance, the stick-to-it-iveness to rely totally on God in living faith to see Armstrong College succeed?
God’s Power IS Our Power
You cannot have spiritual endurance on your own power. Loyalty cannot be stirred up, turned on or faked. Only through total, unconditional reliance on God’s power and submission to His government can you survive and endure spiritually in this last hour (Zechariah 4:6).
Every great work of God is accomplished through the power of God’s Holy Spirit. The miraculous growth and development of God’s Work through His end-time Elijah and latter-day apostle are accomplishments of this great power. We see Christ leading the way through His chosen servants.
“As ye have therefore received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk ye in him: Rooted and built up in him, and stablished in the faith, as ye have been taught, abounding therein with thanksgiving” (Colossians 2:6-7). To endure spiritually in this last hour we must remain rooted in the revealed truth we have received of Christ through His end-time Elijah as well as being established in the “present truth”—the abundant revelation God has showered upon His remnant people in this end time through Mr. Gerald Flurry.
“It is virtually impossible to uproot a strong tree. The roots are planted so firmly in the ground that a violent storm can’t uproot it. This is what God says we must be like spiritually. Our eternal life is at stake, so we must be deeply rooted in God’s truth!” wrote Mr. Flurry in his Colossians booklet. This is where the Laodiceans have failed: They have neglected establishing deep roots in God’s foundational truths.
God wants His loyal Philadelphian warriors to “be comforted, being knit together in love, and unto all riches of the full assurance of understanding, to the acknowledgment of the mystery of God, and of the Father, and of Christ” (Colossians 2:2). The mystery mentioned here is about the Father and Son—a Family into which we will soon be born!
God’s loyal remnant fought for this mystery in court—fighting for the Father, fighting for the Son, fighting for the very Family of God. Soon this mystery will be shared with those who live on into the coming Millennium, and they will understand “all riches of the full assurance of understanding.”
Our calling today as Christ’s affianced Bride is the preparation we receive to become kings and priests, teachers in God’s future world. Your skin color, station in life or financial standing make no difference when you are a spiritual Jew.
God is looking for sons who will obey Him unconditionally through tests, trials, obstacles, difficulties and all unforeseen challenges—those who will conquer Satan today that they might fly as eagles in the coming Kingdom of God.
God is fashioning and molding us today. We must sense the urgency of this last hour and of our individual need to let Christ truly shape and mold us by living in us as never before. We have in us an earnest, a down-payment, of God’s very nature—His impersonal power (Ephesians 1:13-14).
The last hour is truly a time of great urgency—and great encouragement. “Christ IS at this very moment the High Priest of God’s Church! … We must conquer our fears. We win in the end—regardless of what happens to us today!” (Gerald Flurry, The Royal Book of Revelation).
Onward to Victory!
So what happened to Robert de Castella? Did he finish the marathon?
As the television cameras focused on the progress of the lead pack, they forgot about the young gritty Australian. As the race neared its final miles, De Castella unthinkably rejoined the lead pack. In the heat of the summer day, his grazes and cuts continued to bleed openly. As a nation sat stunned at this rare display of courage and endurance, thousands of local residents raced to the sidewalks with tears in their eyes to cheer on this athlete whom, hours earlier, they had thought washed up and finished! They were learning a valuable lesson: It is not so much how you start a race but how you finish it—how well you endure.
As the lead pack approached Queen Elizabeth ii Stadium, wincing with pain De Castella pushed his way into third place. With steely determination he began lifting the pace, running faster. By the time the top three runners reached the entrance to the stadium car park, De Castella had taken the lead. Entering the stadium he was greeted with thousands of cheering spectators who had risen to their feet in recognition of this astounding athletic achievement.
As Robert de Castella ran the last 400 meters of the marathon bleeding, tears streaming down his face—he knew that this was his finest hour as an athlete. In 1984, he was crowned world marathon champion and thereafter retired into a teaching role at the Australian Institute of Sport.
As God’s very elect, we too are running in a race. A spiritual race with eternal consequences! How well we run this spiritual race in this last hour will determine the quality of our eternal reward.
“Do you not know that those who run in a race all run, but one receives the prize? Run in such a way that you may obtain it. And everyone who competes for the prize is temperate in all things. Now they do it to obtain a perishable crown, but we for an imperishable crown. Therefore I run thus: not with uncertainty. Thus I fight: not as one who beats the air. But I discipline my body and bring it into subjection, lest, when I have preached to others, I myself should become disqualified” (1 Corinthians 9:24-27; New King James Version).
Now is our time to run with spiritual endurance. To run to win! To overcome and conquer in our spiritual race, so we may soon reside with Christ and eat from the tree of life in the paradise of God (Revelation 2:7). Then God will give us power over the nations of this Earth.
“What kind of confidence and trust will God have in you in the World Tomorrow if you are loyal all the way through? God says the Philadelphians will be pillars, for all eternity, in that headquarters temple. Beautiful pillars make a temple look majestic” (ibid). Christ is coming, and He wants to find faith on the Earth. It will reside in a small very elect who—no matter the obstacles, tests, trials and challenges they faced—conquered, displaying absolute stick-to-it-iveness, perseverance—spiritual endurance.
Mr. Flurry wrote in Daniel—Unsealed at Last!: “If you really believe that the Messiah is coming, you will be one fierce warrior! If you really believe this—if you have eaten it up and digested it—you will be one tough Christian. You will fight like no warrior has ever fought. People will marvel, What is it that makes him fight like that? And if that doesn’t motivate others now—if that doesn’t turn many to righteousness now—it will in the World Tomorrow. Then they will know what it was that motivated us. They will see how it changed us and made us a different kind of people.
“The Messiah is coming. Now is the time for us to seize the moment and fight for God’s truth! We will never have another opportunity like this for all eternity!”