As I ministered this week at the European Bible Training Center in Berlin, I was blessed to see how God has built a tenacity — a true biblical endurance — into the hearts of these teachers and Bible students who live in a continent where atheism and spiritual indifference is the fastest growing religion. Today I also preached on “The Steadfast Life” to a German-Russian congregation. Although there were young people in the crowd who have certainly tasted of persecution and ridicule for their faith, there were also those precious elderly saints who had lived here in Germany during World War II and felt powerless to stop the widespread atrocities. Others had later fled to a post-war Germany to avoid the persecution in the former Soviet Union. Still others had lived under the oppressive government of East Germany before East and West were reunified. And now, as followers of Jesus, they all face the scorn and ridicule of a society that believes that evangelicals have “gone off the deep end” in their commitment to the lordship of Christ and the authority of Scripture. I have no doubt that these precious followers of Christ fully understood what I was teaching, not just on “the theology of endurance” but on “the so-what-ology of steadfastness”.
The old saying is certainly true here: “Christians are like tea-bags; they do better in hot water!” No matter what form of trial we face this side of heaven — physical, emotional, spiritual, social, or financial — their timely challenge to us is simple: Niemals aufgeben — Never give up!
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