Herbert W Armstrong

   So we've been in the church now a little over 28 years. And over that particular period of time, we have found that most of our closest friends that my wife and I have had??"I don't mean all of our friends, but most of our closest friends during that time??"are no longer with us. Now, I know that some of you have lost dear friends in recent months or recent years also from the Church of God.

   Now, these people left the Church of God, and when each left, certainly it was a very sad and a very upsetting experience for all of us. Now, why is it that they left? Why did they leave? But more importantly, how can we avoid making the same mistakes that they made? {Skip on the tape here} [And we should]:

   Hebrews 12:1 “...and let us run with patience the race that is set before us,”

   Now, in the race that we're in, we're not in it just so that one could receive the prize, as I mentioned, but all who complete the race receive the prize. And that prize, of course, is eternal life.

   Now, when you think about that, you might think of the Boston Marathon or various other marathons, but that one comes to mind that's about the most famous marathon race, I think, in the United States. There are some others, I guess, that are quite famous abroad as well.

   But if you were going to enter the Boston Marathon, would you be entering that race to be the first one across the finish line? If you were entering that race, probably you would realize that you would not be able to be the first one across the finish line. It seems like it's a rather select few who have crossed that finish line first, I guess. And in recent years, I think one man has won it a couple times or maybe more than that. And the object of entering, at least I would think for most, is not, well, I want to be first, but rather I want to finish. That is the goal. You see, the goal is the finish line, whether it takes X number of hours or X number of hours plus. And when you watch this on television, and it seems like each year they have a little blurb on television about the Boston Marathon, and they will show you the field of runners as they start out.

   It seems to me that the last one was maybe 5,000 people, more or less, who entered that particular race. Now, all 5,000 didn't think they were going to be first. You can be sure of that. What they were trying to do, as I said, was to finish. Maybe they were trying to better their own time, their previous time. But I'm sure that most of them realized, you know, well, I can't be number one. There were probably just a very few of those who had hoped and maybe expected that they would be number one.

   Then when you see the end of the race on television, you see the man who comes across first. Then probably you won't see the man who was second or third or fourth or whatever. Then they'll probably show you the first woman who completed the race. And then maybe they'll show you a fellow who was in a wheelchair or who had some physical disability and how he was able to complete that particular race. And that's all you see. You know, you don't see the second, third, fourth winners. You just see the first and then those others.

   Well, making it into God's kingdom and completing the spiritual race is a little bit like that. Our goal is not to be number one. The goal is to complete the race.

   Back quite a number of years ago, in fact, almost 17 years ago, on Thursday, May 16th, 1963, in Pasadena, California, the college had its annual field day. And on an annual field day, there are all kinds of athletic events going on all day long. And sometimes there's more than one activity at the same time. Maybe some will be playing tennis. Others will be playing some other game. Others will be running or jumping or pole vaulting or whatever it might be.

   And a lot of the faculty and a lot of the friends and so forth would be in the bleachers watching these various events, and in particular the running events. And on that particular occasion, there was a race of girls, the 880-yard race, or run, I guess they call it, 880-yard run for the girls. At that time, we had an eighth-of-a-mile track. Presently, we have a nicer, longer track, a quarter-mile track, but I think it was an eighth of a mile. It might have been a sixth of a mile, but I think it was an eighth of a mile. It certainly was one or the other.

   And I can remember as the girls started out, there was one young girl who was ahead of everyone else. She, you might say, led the pack. And she went around several laps. I think it might have been three laps if it were an eighth-of-a-mile track, and I guess I should check and make sure one way or the other what size track that was. But anyway, she was way out ahead until about the last lap. And then at the last lap, the others began to pass her. And pretty soon, they all passed her, and she was now in the rear, way behind the others, and just going very slowly compared to the way they had been going. And I watched her, and as the others were going past the finish line, you know, the first, second, third, and so on, I noticed her on the other side of the track, and she just stopped running, and she walked off the track and off, I think, behind some buildings, and I guess that was the last I saw her that particular day. This particular girl quit. She left the field. She was a quitter. You know, she never completed that race to this day.

   And I would like to ask now, are you a quitter? Some of my friends have been quitters. They quit. Or, to put it in different ways, they gave up the ship. Now, when I think about that, of giving up the ship, and that particular analogy, I'm reminded of a story that Dale Hanway, who was one of our older marriage students who came to Ambassador College back in the early 60s, I think. That he told us in an Ambassador Club one time. And Mr. Hanway was in the war, World War II, and I think he was a co-pilot on a B-17 bomber stationed in England, the particular occasion that I'm going to refer to here, and they were bombing various parts of Europe, and at times, of course, especially at the early part of the bombings, they were really getting a lot of flak, not of a verbal kind, but the literal flak, anti-aircraft guns, in other words, and shells, trying to shoot them down.

   And they had been over their target, had been, well, not he, but someone else, another man that he knew that he met, another B-17, and they had been shot up very, very badly at the target area, and things were very grim. It was a little bit doubtful at the time whether they would ever make it back to base because they had received such severe damage to the airplane. A very serious situation, a critical situation, and as a result of this, as they limped back towards home, there was confusion, there was terror on board. The captain told the crew by intercom, he says, “Now be ready to jump.” And one of the gunners in the rear then was sitting by the bomb bay, and the bomb bay was open, and waiting there for the captain's order to jump. And the plane began to shudder and shake, and I don't know what else; I guess they got some turbulent air or whatever, and he thought, well, this is it, so he jumped. Now the captain hadn't told him to jump. He had said,”Be ready to jump”, but he hadn't told them to jump yet. So he jumped.

   Well, now, just before he jumped, of course, things were chaotic and in confusion, and now all of a sudden, as he jumped and the parachute opened, things were very peaceful and very quiet, and quite a change, you know, after being in the chaos and the trouble that he was in in that crippled airplane. And he watched the airplane and, you know, sort of expected it was going to crash, but it didn't. It just kept going right on, and finally it went out of sight as he floated down to Earth. Well, when he landed, he was captured, and he spent the remainder of the war as a prisoner of war of the Germans.

   Sometime after this, there were others from his particular wing that also were captured, and so he asked them, you know, did my plane make it back to base? Yes, it did. And so this man, he jumped ship. You know, he quit. He gave up ship because things were chaotic and in great trouble, and he had peace and quiet for a little while, but he spent the rest of the war as a prisoner of war.

   Now, some of those who have left God's church, they jumped ship at a time when maybe there was a lot of confusion and a lot of chaos and upset conditions and uncertain things, and maybe they were hearing all kinds of bad rumors, and they didn't know whether they were true or not true, or maybe they thought they were true. And so they jumped ship. And to carry on the analogy, I think you'll find that those people are going to be a prisoner of war, but a different kind of a prisoner of war for the duration.

   Now, we must not follow their example??"those that have jumped ship, those who have stopped from the race, those who have left the race. You probably remember the statement by Paul in Philippians 3, verse 14, where he says, in part:

   Philippians 3:14 “I press toward the mark [of the high calling in Christ Jesus or] for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.”

   Now, that's what we need to be doing. You know, we need to be pressing with all of our energy towards that mark, towards that goal, towards that tape, towards that string at the end of the race, towards the resurrection and to eternal life, and not let anything deter us from completing that race.

   Now, we're all in that race, but do you realize that we all run at a little different speed? Some of us may be our sprinters, some of us may be our runners, and some of us may be our plotters. The speed is not the important thing, necessarily. What is important is that we never stop, that we continue on, no matter what happens, until we complete the race.

   Now, it seems rather unusual, but in our immediate family, our elder son, Larry, who is the pastor of the church in Tucson, in his college days, in his high school days, did very well as a runner. In fact, he usually, I think, always won the one and two-mile run in high school and then often did in college. I think that until Mr. Ernest Williams came along and bettered him, that he pretty well always won those particular races. And I can still remember the first time that I saw him run, when he was, oh, I suppose, about in his middle years of high school. Some of the teachers had been telling me, you know, "Have you seen your son run?" Or they'd be talking about how well he ran. And I'd never seen him run. I was not a runner. I wasn't interested particularly in that type of thing. But we went to a high school field day one time, and I saw my son run for the first time. He ran, I think, the one mile that particular day, probably the two miles as well. And I was just shocked to see how gracefully he ran.

   Now, I also noticed that there were some others who seemed to run with great difficulty and were rather awkward in the way they ran. I suppose they were working harder at it than he was, as far as that's concerned. But it seemed like it was just a natural thing with him. And I was so impressed by it.

   Well, then, some years later, his younger brother came along in high school. And he didn't like the mile run or the two-mile run. I don't think they ever entered in those. But he was a sprinter. And he would enter the various dashes, you know, the hundred-yard dash or whatever. And he did very well. I don't remember whether he won or not. It seems to me he may have sometimes. But he did very well; that was his strength. I don't know where they got these running abilities. I don't think they got them from me. Because I never was a runner, even when I was in high school. Even when I was young, that was the last thing in the world I wanted to do was to run.

   But I've always been a plotter. You know, a plotter is one who walks. I enjoy walking. And so I think of myself as a plotter. And I mention this because I presume that probably some of you might feel the same way about yourself. You know, you're not the flashy sprinter or runner that everybody's watching. Maybe you're just a tortoise. You know, you just keep going and going and going and going, and you never stop. You've all heard, of course, the child story of the hare and the tortoise, the race they had. And you know who won. It was the tortoise who won. At least the story says it that way. Probably such a thing never happened. But some of us are like that. You know, we're just plotters.

   Now, I have seen over the years others who came in the church after I came in the church. They had great abilities, great intellect, charisma maybe, personality, and so on, at Ambassador College and also in the ministry and in the church. And it seemed like they just went by me like I was standing still. But they're not in the race anymore. At least most of them aren't in the race anymore.

   And I've just been plotting right along. And I'm determined. And I hope you are too. Because whether you're a plotter or whether you're a runner, the important thing is not how fast you're running, but that you keep going. Maybe even you need to be a little stubborn about it, you know, and you just sort of set your jaw and your mind is on that goal, and I'm going to make it, as they say, come hell or high water. We need to keep at it. Keep up. Don't quit. And be determined.

   Now, I don't know what happened about, or with rather, some of those who raced by so quickly. Maybe they came to a cliff, and they were going so fast they couldn't stop. Or maybe they found some side road along the line, and they took that, and they went the wrong direction. I don't know what's happened to some of them. I guess God only knows, and that's His responsibility, not mine. But anyway, some of them are gone. Some of the sprinters, some of the runners, some of them didn't last very long. And sadly, too many of them are gone.

   Now, whether you're a sprinter or a runner or a plodder, the main thing is we need to keep our eye on the goal, the Kingdom of God, and when we look at that and see how great that is and how important that is, nothing else matters very much. The only thing that matters is to finish the race.

   Now, why have some quit? Why have some turned aside? There are many reasons, I'm sure, and maybe each case is a little different than every other, probably as different as people are different. But here are some of the reasons, six of them, that I want to mention that I have noted over the years of those that I knew personally, some of them very, very well, and happening to know some of the specifics in their case as to what happened.

   Now, the first one I'd like to mention is that I've observed for some that finally their sins caught up with them. Now, they may have had private, secret sins, and in some cases maybe they weren't so private or maybe not so secret, but they did have sins that they did not overcome or that they did not put out of their lives.

   I'll give you some examples. The first one that I knew about, a real close friend we had in Portland, Oregon, when we first came in the church back in 1951, and I think it was in the late 50s that a couple of our closest friends left the church, but just before that, a little while before that, we found that they had stopped tithing. Now, I don't know why they stopped tithing, because they had been tithing at one time, and they stopped. And, of course, if you don't tithe, you are stealing from God. So you're breaking several of the laws of God as far as that's concerned, and sooner or later someone like that, who is stealing from God, who is not doing what God says in that particular aspect of life, sooner or later they're going to find that the grass is greener somewhere else. They're going to find cause to become offended or whatever, and they will no longer be with us.

   In some other cases, I've known of some who were breaking the Sabbath. They had sort of watered down the teachings of the church, and after a while the Sabbath for them was just about like any other day. Maybe now they were sort of keeping their Sunday on Saturday. Maybe you've heard some speak of us in that way. Well, we don't keep the Sabbath like other people keep Sunday by any means, or at least we hadn't ought to be.

   So some of them began to be careless about how they kept the Sabbath until it was almost like every other day of the week, except maybe they went to services on the Sabbath, and sometimes they didn't even do that. I have known of some who were former ministers of the church who are now no longer in God's church, who would not think anything about taking off on the Sabbath to go up in the mountains skiing instead of attending Sabbath service, or going to the beach instead of attending Sabbath service, or in some cases even on Holy Days. Instead of going to services, they would maybe stay home and relax and go swimming in the pool in the apartment or the house, whatever it might be, and sun themselves and so on, and it doesn't take very long to do things like that until you're no longer in God's church.

   I've known of others who drank too much, and in due time that caught up with them. Others who committed or were committing adultery, either one occasion or repeated, and apparently not repented of.

   Other occasions, I think of one specific case of a man who had a very responsible position in God's church, and he misappropriated some of the funds of the church and used it for a personal purpose. Well, he was doing fine for a little while, and bang, all of a sudden he was gone. He's not been back since.

   So that was what happened to some that I know of. Their personal sins caught up with them. Now, God will put up with sin maybe a little while, but the time comes, you know, he comes back and comes back, and we're still living the same old way, and he'll say, you know, cut the tree down, and that's the end.

   Now, a second thing that I've noticed was that some of them disagreed with church doctrines. A few years before that time, they supposedly heard those doctrines, supposedly proved those doctrines, and apparently joyfully received them, believing that, you know, this is God's church, this is the truth. And then a few years later, they determined or decided, whatever it was, you know, well, those doctrines are all wrong. How sad, how strange.

   The third reason: some became upset over real or imagined injustices in the church or in the work. And maybe they thought, you know, so-and-so didn't get a good deal. They got a raw deal, or maybe they thought that happened to them. The third reason, some became upset over real or imagined injustices in the church or in the work, and maybe they thought, you know, so-and-so didn't get a good deal. They got a raw deal, or maybe they thought that happened to them. And I think that things happen to all of us, at one time or another, maybe several times, where we could conclude that and say, you know, well, I got a raw deal. I’d say they shouldn't have done this, or they shouldn't have done that. And maybe it was a real fault or a real problem, or maybe it wasn't. But whether it was real or imagined, because of these so-called or apparent injustices, then they left the church.

   The fourth thing that I have noticed, some became offended over the leadership of the church. And usually it was not directly Mr. Armstrong; it was usually someone maybe close to him, but indirectly it was Mr. Armstrong, and sometimes it was him directly. They disagreed about how the church was being run, and some of them said, “Well, we should not have this hierarchical type of church government; that we should have a committee.” And of course, you can guess who they thought ought to be on the committee. At least one should be on the committee. That would be number one. And they didn't like, you know, maybe various policies that were established, or whatever, by the leadership of the church. And so they left.

   Others became upset over what other people did or didn't do. And in some cases, especially some of those who have prominent positions in the work, it doesn't matter whether they do something or don't do it. It'll be taken wrong by some people. And the old saying goes, you know, you're damned if you do and you're damned if you don't. And that's the way it is for some people. You know, they just can't do anything right. And so for that reason, some have left.

   Then, the sixth reason that I've noticed is that some were not content to wait for what they thought were needed changes. And sometimes these needed changes that are thought needed to be done really didn't need to be done. In other cases, maybe they needed to be. I think of particularly a couple of church doctrines that were changed, one relating to Pentecost, one relating to divorce and remarriage. And the last one, of course, being misunderstood by a lot of people and misapplied, but some were not content to wait for needed changes. They wanted to make those changes. They forgot, apparently, or rejected the fact that Jesus Christ is the head of the church, and that all power had been given to him in heaven and on earth, and that he could and that he would correct any problems in the church in his own time and his own way. But they were not content to wait for that. And as I mentioned, in some cases, they left because they believed that Pentecost should be on Sunday. Well, they were right in their conclusion, and usually they were wrong in how they came to that conclusion. At least, I don't know of anybody who came to it from the right premise.

   And others, in regard to divorce and remarriage. Now, if they could have just waited a little while, even a few months, that would have been changed. But they were not content to wait on the head of the church, Jesus Christ. Really, when it gets right down to it, I don't think they believed that Jesus Christ was the head of the church. They were looking to some man, and when that man didn't do the way they thought he ought to do, then they were disenchanted, and they left.

   Now, in these cases, what these people really did was to reject God's government. They rebelled. You'll find over in the book of Samuel, 1 Samuel, that rebellion is as a sin of witchcraft, which is a pretty serious sin, I would think. And you can read 1 Samuel 8, where a similar thing happened where people rejected God's government or what God said about it.

   Now, they thought they were just disagreeing with how Samuel ran things, more particularly what his sons did or didn't do.

   Now, in thinking of these various reasons why people have left the church that I have personally known about, I was reminded of one of the parables, one of the very well-known parables, the parable of the sower. I'm not going to turn there, because I would think it would be very familiar to all of you. You'll find it in three places in the Scriptures: Matthew 13, Mark 4, and Luke 8. But in going through all of those particular accounts, I noticed that there were seven specific reasons why some did not continue. You remember the story how that the sower went out to sow, and he sowed seeds. Some of them fell on stony places, some of them fell on thorny places, some of them fell on good ground, and so on.

   So I noticed that there was seven different reasons that were mentioned there as to why some did not continue. Some of them went just a little while, some went a little longer, but none of them, except for the last group, you know, that bore good fruit, some thirty, some a hundred, or some sixty, some a hundredfold, I think it says. Except for those, the others somewhere along the line stopped and did not continue.

   I would like just to reiterate these particular reasons. One was affliction, and I would assume affliction might include different things that could include illness, could include financial reverses, problems of one kind or another. And some have come up against problems, illness, affliction, whatever, and that has been the end of them, and probably you have known some like that as well.

   The second reason that is mentioned is persecution. Now, when the church was persecuted in California with this takeover, now some laugh at that and scoff at it and say, Well, that's not persecution. Well, maybe it isn't to them, but it sure is to me, and I think it is to most of God's people as far as that's concerned. But as a result of what happened there, some lost faith and left the church, and the persecution is going to get worse as far as that's concerned. I think the persecution there is just a little different than people anticipated.

   The third reason that's mentioned is temptation, and some were tempted. I mentioned, for example, some who were stealing tithes, others who were committing adultery, others who were breaking the Sabbath, and I presume that that came about as a result of temptation somewhere along the line, and they just were weak enough that they did whatever it was that they were tempted to do. And, of course, this is the temptation that usually comes as a result of Satan and his devices, where he works on our own lust, and in their particular case, they weakened and they were tempted, and they sinned.

   The fourth reason that is mentioned in that particular parable is the deceitfulness of riches. You know, many people, I suppose most people today in the United States, are having difficulty making ends meet. Not all, but I suppose the overwhelming majority are having that problem, because it seems like the American public usually wants to live beyond its income. And people look around, and they see what money will buy, and they would like to have that money so they could enjoy these things. Things look alluring. And I think, for example, some ministers who are no longer with us, and they looked around and they saw other men making more money than they, and so then they began to think about that. So they began to prepare for that for the future, to try to get maybe proper training so that they could in due time leave the ministry and so that they could make more money.

   I'm reminded of a true story that one of our ministers, Jerry Whitty, told me some years ago. Jerry Whitty is the pastor of, I think it's a Sherman, Texas church. Back in 1974, there was a group of ministers who were in the process of breaking away and did break away and formed their own church. And they were working on Jerry Whitty. They'd gone to school with him, and they knew him, and some of them particularly. They'd been classmates together, and so one, I won't mention his name, he's no longer with us, of course, but he says, Jerry, he says, come with [inaudible], he says, You'll make more money with us than you ever will with the Worldwide Church of God and Herbert Armstrong. Well, Jerry didn't go. He stayed with the church. He's still, as I said, a minister in the church.

   But what happened to the man who tried to get him to leave? Well, it wasn't very long until he found out that those people that went with them were not going to support him in the style that he expected, and he had to go out and get a job somewhere. So maybe he was deceived by all of these riches that he was going to make, but he found out that he wasn't going to get them that way.

   Now, along with that, I might just mention on the side here, in regard to this, this particular group of ministers, they disagreed on several doctrines, but one doctrine related to tithing. And they had come to the conclusion that tithing was not a law; it was just a principle. And since it's a principle, I guess you can sort of either take it or leave it however you want. And if you want to tithe, I guess it's all right; there's no law against it, but you don't have to. And so, you know, you can give whatever offering you want, or if you don't want to, I guess you don't have to do that. Or you can give five percent or one percent, you know, that's entirely up to you.

   Let me give you some advice, if any of you are ministers here. Of course, we have a couple ministers, and I'm saying this tongue-in-cheek, I hope you realize. But if you're a minister, and you're going to try to take some of the people of the Church of God away and start your own church and expect them to support you royally, don't teach that tithing is just a principle. Because if you do, you'll just cut your own throat. Now, I say that facetiously, but I also say it seriously because, and the reason why I say that is because it's a law, you know, and thus sayeth the Eternal. That's the main reason, you know, not just because you're going to cut your own throat. Anyway, that's what those fellas found. And that particular movement, which took away, I think, three or four thousand people from the Church of God in the United States. The last I heard, there was one man who still had a small congregation. All the rest of them are gone. I don't know what they're all doing, but they're not living off that particular church any longer. All right, so the deceitfulness of riches, apparently in those particular cases, caused those men to leave the Church of God.

   The fifth reason that is mentioned is the worries of the world, the cares of this life, making a living, making ends meet, providing for the self and for the family in the style that we think we should be having. Now, this can be a great concern, and where the Bible warns us against this being something we're overly concerned about, it says, you know, not to take any anxious thought about these things. Put the kingdom of God first, and these things are going to be taken care of. But some begin to worry about these things. They begin to put their mind and their thoughts on these things, rather than on the things of God.

   Now, the sixth reason that is mentioned is the pleasures of this life. Now, everyone wants happiness, everyone wants pleasure, none of us wants pain and unhappiness and woe and trouble. But to some of us, the world appears rather attractive. We see the affluence around us, at least as some seem to have. We see that some people have more of the things of this life than we have. We see maybe the thrills that other people are receiving from recreation, or from success, or from sex, or whatever reason, and, you know, we want to have that. Or maybe we're having some of these things, and we want to have more of them. We want to continue to happen and to happen. There are many pleasures of this life that people seek after, and in the time that we live today, we live in a time of the greatest danger, I believe, and the greatest hazard of all time.

   And when you see what's happening in the world, what's happening in Afghanistan, what's happening in Iran, and other parts of the globe, certainly there is the greatest threat to peace and happiness and security now that there ever has been. And especially when we know what the Bible says about these things, we are very aware of that. In the time of the greatest hazard, the greatest danger in the world is the time when it seems like more people, even in the Church of God, are concerned about the pleasures of this life. And they want to hang on a little bit, you know, it's, I want to have mine while the getting's good. I want to hang on to it as long as I can. That's the sixth reason.

   And the seventh reason is the desire of other things. Now, I guess there's no end to that, is there? Other things. But that's sort of a catch-all for anything that's been left out. The desire of other things, whatever they may be. And, of course, when we have the desire of other things, we want to have the pleasures of this life. And these various other things, we neglect the things of God. Now, some people want their reward now; they're not content to wait for God to give it to them at the resurrection. They want it now, and that becomes the big thing in their life. And then they're no longer a part of God's Church.

   Well, these are the reasons why some people have left God's Church. And I hope none of us are headed in that particular direction. But I hope that all of us have as our greatest goal, the uppermost thing in our mind, the desire, the earnest desire, whatever the cost, that we are going to receive that goal. We're going to reach that goal. We're going to receive our part in God's kingdom. In spite of the tribulations, the trials, the tests, the problems. Of the three main points that I would like to mention first, before we get into some specific things, but these are just general things here. In order to reach that goal, first we need to recognize what that goal is: The Kingdom of God. And believe and be convinced that it's more important to attain that goal than any or all other goals or all other things. That is the most desirable thing for us, is to reach that goal: The Kingdom of God.

   Secondly, to determine that we are going to reach that goal no matter what. To set our will. Maybe even be a little stubborn, you know, and just, this is what I'm going to do, and nothing's going to stop me. I'm reminded of this old saying in connection with this. Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift accomplishment of their appointed routes. I suppose you've heard that before. You thought, well, that’s talking about the U.S. Postal Service. Maybe it's not too applicable anymore, but maybe it was at one time.

   That's sort of the attitude we need to have. You know, I'm going to complete this race no matter what happens. You know, it doesn't matter about the weather or difficulties of any or every kind. Now, that old saying, maybe you thought that it was written about the U.S. Postal Service. You might be interested to notice that it was not. It was written a little bit before the United States Postal Service was established. It was written in 430 B.C. by a famous historian, Herodotus, in his histories, and he was talking about the Persian post writers. He wasn't talking about the U.S. Mail Service. But I thought it was rather an appropriate thing. You know, neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stay these couriers from the swift accomplishment of their appointed routes. That’s sort of the attitude we need to have. You know, I'm going to complete the route no matter what happens. Don't let anything deter you from your goal. Whether you're a sprinter, whether you're a runner, or whether you're just a potter like me, the important thing is to keep it up and never stop.

   Now let's turn to the book of Matthew in chapter 24 to notice here a little bit what's going on, what is happening, and what we must do if we're going to reach that goal. Matthew 24, verse 9:

   Matthew 24:9 “Then shall they deliver you up to be afflicted...”

   He's talking here in a dual sense to national Israel, all twelve tribes, and also he's talking about the church.

   Matthew 24:9 “Then shall they deliver you up to be afflicted, [or to tribulation, that's the same word you'll find in verse 21, where it speaks about great tribulation] and shall kill you: and ye [you] shall be hated of all nations for my name's sake.” And we're seeing that fulfilled in such places as Iran right now.

   Matthew 24:10 “And then shall many be offended, [You know, we have seen some, haven’t we, be offended. Offended at the church, offended at the brethren, offended at the leadership of the church.]...and shall betray one another, [In some cases we have had former brethren betray God's Church, make accusations that were untrue]...and shall hate one another.”

   And isn't it sad when someone who, you know, in years past had great love and affection, a kindly person, to turn around now and just be filled with hate and venom, almost like a snake. And just rant and rail literally about God's people or the leadership in the church.

   Matthew 24:11 ”And many false prophets shall rise, and shall deceive many.”

   And there have been a few in God's Church. Some who apparently started out right, but somewhere along the way they turned another direction. And they have deceived some in the Church of God and led them away.

   Matthew 24:12 “And because iniquity [or lawlessness, it could be better translated] shall abound... And the world, you know, is just increasing and abounding in lawlessness and sin. And now you might say the status quo and the way people act and what people do would not have been thought of a few decades ago. What is accepted now would have been the bizarre, the peculiar, the odd, the unknown, the unspeakable in a few decades ago. He says ...the love of many shall wax [or grow] cold.” And that's what's happened to some of these that I've been talking about. They had love to start with, but it grew cold.

   Matthew 24:13 “But he that shall endure to the end, the same shall be saved.” Now that analogy, of course, is a little different, but it's the same principle as I've been talking about. It's the one who completes the race. The one who endures to the end. Not the one who stops along the way. If we stop along the way for whatever reason, whatever good we may have done, God says it doesn't amount to anything anymore. It's just as though it never had happened. That's what we need to do. We need to endure to the end.

   But now I want to go to some more specific ways is how we can endure to the end. How we can complete the race and how that we can be sure that we will not fall. I'd like to turn to 2 Peter chapter 1. 2 Peter, chapter 1. This particular passage gives us certain instructions of certain things we should do. And I would like to point out at the end of verse 10, he says:

   2 Peter 1:10 “...if you do these things, ye [you] shall never fall:”

   Now that's what I want to emphasize today. How you can keep from falling. Because this section of the scriptures tell us how we can be sure that we will not fall.