Keep Swimming!

A single word carved into stone by an 18-year-old prisoner still speaks across centuries: endure. We open with the stark beauty and spiritual barrenness of France, then move into the Huguenot story and Marie Durand’s 38-year stand in the Tower of Constance. From there, we connect past courage to present resilience, unpacking Peter’s charge to “make every effort” and exploring why endurance sits at the heart of a mature, fruitful faith.

Together we define steadfastness the way Scripture does: remaining under pressure with an expectation of victory. We weave Hebrews 12:2, James 1, and Paul’s candid admissions into a practical roadmap that refuses denial and embraces hope. You’ll hear why some believers stagnate without this “gemstone,” how trials can be wasted through complaint, and how small, daily choices form a durable core when the big storms hit. The tone isn’t triumphalist; it’s grounded and honest, built for people who feel both the weight of life and the pull of God’s promises.

History and everyday life meet here. Marie’s quiet leadership behind prison walls, Job’s ashes and unanswered questions, and George Müller’s late-life sprint across nations show endurance in different seasons and speeds. We offer concrete ways to stay the course: quick prayers before hard conversations, confession that interrupts shame, and service that keeps your heart warm when zeal runs low. And yes, a simple frog fable reminds us that sometimes the only way out is through, one faithful churn at a time.

If this resonates, follow the show, share it with a friend who needs courage today, and leave a review so others can find these stories of resilient faith. Then tell us: where are you choosing to endure right now?

Transcript

France Trip And A Hard Field

SPEAKER_00 0:26

Marcia and I traveled to France several years ago. We had been invited to sing in a wedding for a couple from a small church pastored by a Frenchman and his wife. They had become our friends through related ministries. We'll never forget the beauty of that countryside, by the way, traveling by train to the south of France. The pastor and his wife described to us some of the challenges related to pastoring in that country, very difficult country to reach to this day. Just over 70% of the entire population claims absolutely no affiliation to any religion whatsoever. Very atheistic country. For a church to have 30 or 40 members would be the rule. The Protestant Reformation in the 16th century had made a significant impact in this country. During the early decades, thousands of new believers had left Catholicism and began forming protesting churches, Protestant, which gives us the word Protestant. In this particular country, they were nicknamed Huguenots. It wasn't a Protestant denomination. In fact, it was a rather derisive, slanderous, mocking label that meant these Christians were rebels. Well, finally, in 1685, at the urging of church leaders, the Protestant community was outlawed by the king. Huguenots were hunted down, many of them put to death, persecuted, and put into prisons. Hundreds of thousands of them fled to other neighboring countries. Several thousand of them fled to the Savan mountains in the south of France, where they rebuilt their lives, built villages. They would meet secretly in the forests to worship, in their homes, in caves. This pastor's wife we were traveling with, in fact, made the comment that when France exiled the Huguenots, they turned out the light in their country. But the flames still existed, though flickering. It exists to this day. We visited one of those Huguenot sites in a forest where they worshipped some 350 years ago. Many would be captured from that one site and imprisoned. One of them was Marie Durand, an 18-year-old, who had taken her stand for Christ, much like these teenagers have done today. That was thrilling to watch their public testimony. She was taken to the Tower of Constance, 65 miles away. It was a stone circular tower that was being used to hold Huguenot women. Marie was never given a trial. She was never given an official sentence. She was offered freedom only if she recanted of her faith in Christ alone. And she refused. Many women recanted. Many died in that tower, brutally cold environment, only straw to sleep upon, those stone cold floors. Scraps of food given to them, disease, malnutrition. She would spend 38 years in that tower. But she spent her time serving the other women, leading them in Bible studies, organizing prayer meetings, writing letters on their behalf, assisting the sick and the weak. And for 38 years she refused to recant. Eventually, the religious laws softened, and she was released at the age of 56. She returned to her home village, got involved once again in the Protestant movement. Twelve months later, she passed away into the presence of the Lord. She never married. She never sought revenge. She never recanted. Over time, the accounts of her witness and her service in the prison made its way out into the public. Something inside that tower remained, carved into the granite windowsill of the cell she occupied with about 20 to 30 other women. Prisoners confirmed that Marie had taken a piece of iron and had traced, and over the years that tracing it would deepen as she would repeat it, into that stone ledge, a word that's still there today, a word translated into English is the word endure. Endure. This is the word the Apostle Peter adds to his list of seven supplements that we have been uncovering. Let me invite your attention back to that list, Second Peter chapter one. In his commentary on this passage, the Greek scholar Lensky wrote that these supplements are seven gemstones, all of which are fastened to the necklace of faith in Christ. And he pointed out that Peter's statement at the beginning of verse five, where he says, make every effort, make every effort to supplement your faith. You have faith. Now add, supplement to that. In the original language, that's a decisive imperative. You can write a little exclamation point after that phrase, make every effort. Exclamation point. In other words, these gemstones are not suggestions that you might, you know, add to your life if you feel up to it. This is a decisive mindset. It's a command. Peter's effectively saying, make up your mind. Go after these seven. Give it everything you've got, as we've learned. Now, let's move on to the fourth supplement in the study. Let's get a running start here at verse five. For this very reason, make every effort to supplement your faith with virtue, and virtue with knowledge, and knowledge with self-control, and self-control with steadfastness. Your translation might read patience or endurance. Now we've discovered that these supplements are both the work of God's Spirit in cooperation with the surrendered believer. They're not handed out to you at salvation. These are developed in your life through daily surrender. And that surrender is called the process of sanctification. Changing habits, changing attitudes, changing your vocabulary, changing your perspective on life. It isn't quick, it's lifelong. He'll complete it at the day when you see Christ and you're glorified and perfected. Along the way, he's chiseling away. That's what sanctification means. So it's not a matter of perfection, it's a matter of direction. This is the direction in which your spiritual toes are pointed. Now we come to this fourth supplement: endurance. It's been called in church history, by the way, the queen of all virtues. This is a compound word. It's made up of two parts. The opening preposition means under, and the verb means to remain. To remain under is the idea. To stay under that load. To stay under, to bear up under the pressure, the challenge, the battle. In fact, secular Greeks used this word to describe swords. Swords endured. That was because it had the idea that swords were designed to withstand the blows. And they were in a battle, fighting for victory. And there's that little nuance we need to keep in mind as we think of the word endure. Kittle's Greek dictionary describes that little nuance of someone courageously enduring with an expectation of victory. Victories might come along the way, not nearly as often as we'd like, but that final victory is in view. So there is this eschatological sense, this future prophetic sense as well. It's no surprise then that this same word is used of our Lord describing everything that he encountered at his crucifixion. Listen to the combination of this idea of suffering with victorious expectation. Here's how the writer of Hebrews described it. Hebrews 12, verse 2. For the joy that was set before him, he endured, same word. He endured the cross. He stayed under. Aren't you glad he did? All the way to victory. So this word isn't the idea of just remaining under pressure and, well, assuming the worst. I'm under it because God has abandoned me. Or I'm under it because he doesn't care. It's his plan, it's progress, it's development. It isn't remaining under a burden and letting everyone around you know how miserable it is. Now, this word refers to remaining under the weight of pressure and difficulty, all the while trusting that God is in control and you are remaining in his care. Spurgeon, I love the way he balanced this idea when he wrote that we are at our spiritual best when we are shipwrecked on the island of God's sovereignty. There's that combination: challenged, pressured, suffering as if shipwrecked on an island. Yes, but that island is labeled God's presence, God's plan, God's sovereign control. Now, is it possible for a Christian to live without endurance? Is it possible for a Christian to experience suffering without having any expectation of victory? Is it possible to be under a cloud so thick that at times you cannot feel the light of his grace? Absolutely. And this is Peter's challenge to those who want to develop strength for those pressures and challenges. To be under the burden without giving up in the battle. That's the idea. You explore your Bible, take this word, go to the concordance, and just sort of ransack the scriptures to find illustrations, and you'll find more than you have time to chase down. I often think of, for instance, taking a biblical tour, as I do in my mind at times, to that landfill where villagers brought their trash to be burned. It was the town dump. Go out there while the ashes are smoldering, and they always were. That was a place where lepers congregated and fought over scraps of food. There you'll find a man sitting in the ashes. He's rocking back and forth as he's scraping his terribly itching body with a piece of broken pottery. There sits a man who was once the most famous man in the region. Wealthy, wise, well known, now haunted by ten gravestones where his ten children's bodies are buried. All of them taking at that same hurricane moment when wind came in unexpectedly and toppled the house where they were celebrating the birthday of the oldest child. Came out of nowhere. His body's riddled with 29 illnesses, if you care to count them. And I have. Hudson Taylor often described things that happened in life, and he gave him three words. He said, they follow in this progression. I love this. I've given to you years ago. The first one is labeled, the first stage is impossible. The second stage, difficult. The third stage, done. Impossible, maybe that's where you are right now. Difficult, maybe that's where you are. Done. A moment of victory along the way. And the Spirit of God through Peter commands us make up our minds with all diligence. Add to the necklace of faith the gemstone of endurance. Now let me break down this biblical command into three reality checks. Let's get as real as we can here. Number one, we're told to add endurance because every Christian doesn't automatically have it. That's a challenge. It's a warning from Peter. Now keep in mind, this is not a list telling you how you're saved by God's Spirit. This list is evidence that you are surrendered to God's Spirit. This letter is written to believers, that you're growing in your salvation. If endurance was a guaranteed possession for every one of us, he wouldn't have warned us in verse 8. You don't want to be without it. Because if you are, he writes, for if these supplements or qualities are yours and are increasing, they protect you. They'll keep you from being ineffective or unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. But whoever lacks these qualities is so nearsighted that he is blind, having forgotten that he was cleansed from his former sins. Can you imagine a sense of blindness being associated with a believer? Peter does. He just did. This isn't automatically handed to you. This is something you make up your mind to pursue. If these were automatically given to us in a little glad bag, you know, and we came to faith, we'd all have it. Now, this is what we develop if we are willing to pursue it. He says, if you neglect it, you're going to forget where you came from. You're going to forget what Jesus did for you. You're going to forget what you're supposed to do. You're going to forget where you're going to be. So the question isn't, can a Christian afford to pursue this supplement? The question is, how can we afford not to? So here's reality. Check number one. We're told to add endurance because every Christian doesn't automatically have it. Number two, endurance cannot be added to your life unless you accept trials with the right spirit. In other words, it's possible to waste suffering. Suffering's hard enough, don't waste it, right? In his letter from James chapter 1, it's a familiar passage to he uses the same word for endurance, where he makes the same connection with joyful expectation and suffering. He writes in verse 2, consider it, count it up as joyful. My brothers, when you meet trials, not if, but when, of various kinds, why? Well, you know that the testing of your faith produces endurance, the ability to stay under the pressure. And let endurance have its full effect that you may be mature, that you might grow up in your faith. Now, this isn't about somebody being joyful that trials are showing up. Hey, we we love trials. No. This isn't about somebody saying, Hey, trials are coming my way. Yay! No, you need medication if that's how you feel. One author wrote that this refers to enduring difficulty and delay and inconvenience without complaining. Not a fake smile. You know, not expecting from God a quick fix. Endurance is added over time. It's like chiseling that word endure that took years to chisel. It's formed in the furnace over time. It's like iron, willing iron, one author wrote, which is fashioned on the anvil by the pounding circumstances of life. Some of you have come in here, I'm assuming every one of us, and you've been pounded by something. And you're gonna get up tomorrow, and you know you're gonna get a pounding again. None of it is a surprise, it's part of the development program for endurance. This is David writing in Psalm 119, the benefit of affliction. He writes, Before I was afflicted, I went astray, but now I keep your word. It is good for me that I was afflicted. Wait, what? It was good for me to suffer so that I might learn your statutes. I might learn what your word really means when the rubber meets the road. That's endurance. To supplement when a believer says, Affliction's coming, but I'm going to trust that God will demonstrate his strength as I give him my willing heart. Although these trials are going to be heavy weight on my mind, I choose to consider the joy of being in the Lord and in his plan, especially when I cannot find joy in anything else. That's the perspective of the Apostle Paul. He was a realist, and he writes with realism to the Corinthians. He writes, we are afflicted in every way. What kind of testimony is that? We're afflicted in every way, but not crushed. There you go. We are perplexed. That word means at times we don't know which way to turn. Even the Apostle Paul was perplexed. Aren't you glad? But not driven to despair. We are persecuted, but not forsaken, struck down, thrown to the ground, but not destroyed. I love the paraphrase, thrown to the mat, but not pinned. So here's the reality check. Endurance cannot be added to your life unless you accept trials with the right spirit. Let me give you one more. Reality check number three endurance is added to your life when you make even the smallest decision to demonstrate it. It doesn't have to be monumental. You don't have to, you know, sail to China for 50 years. It's in the moment. That moment of frustration when you're tempted to quit, to walk away, to walk out, to throw in the towel, and you take a deep breath, pray that quick prayer, and you walk back in. It's that moment when sin derails you and you fail the Lord and the tempter is licking his chops, comes to you and says, you know, you need to give up on that commitment thing. That's not for you. That's for somebody more mature. That's for a better Christian. Look at you. Give up. And you defy the enemy of your soul, the God of this world, Satan the lion, who roams about seeking someone to devour, and you remind him of the cross. You remind him of your forgiven status. You remind him of the grace of God. And you get back up. It's that moment when you stay on the path, when it seems like everything around you is trying to push you off. You're gonna stay the course. This is the cooperation of your decision with God's provision. This is the cooperation of your daily commitment and God's daily empowerment. It takes both. You make up your mind that you want to demonstrate in small ways and big, you're determined, as Peter says to give all diligence to this. Give it everything you've got. And endurance can be the experience for every believer. In fact, no matter how old you are, some of you are coming to faith in Christ, you've accepted the Lord, and you're older, and you're thinking, you know what, what's there for me? I'm late to the game. No matter how old you are, no matter where you are, it is today's decision. Just today. I read recently that George Mueller, you're older in the faith, you know well of him. I've talked about him. Provided for more than 10,000 orphans through the course of his ministry. He and his wife started when he was about 28 years old. When he retired from the orphanages, having turned 70, he decided he really wanted to keep on preaching, traveling. He had been turned down by four missions agencies in his 20s because he wanted to be a foreign missionary. So now at 70, he decided he didn't need them, and he was just going to accept invitations to go, and he began to receive them. He would travel for the next 20 years, speaking in 42 countries, 6,000 times, logging 200,000 miles. When he was 90, he was interviewed and he said that one of his favorite verses was Hebrews 11:6. God rewards those who diligently pursue him. I mean, I just get the idea this guy's all grit, man. Don't don't slow me down. Don't get in my way. I think of that when I get on Penny Road. Don't don't slow me down. I'm already late. Every believer in here has a race to run. It's your own unique race. Nobody else is running it. Just like you. You face the temptation to give in and give up. Now maybe you are older and you're thinking, well, Stephen, that illustration, and that, you know, I I can't travel, I can't tour the world, I can't log 200,000 miles. I have a hard enough time putting on my socks, uh, for that matter. Maybe you feel like there's not a need for you in the assembly. Oh, there are a lot of needs. I heard just this past week in the office that we're in desperate need of more awana volunteers. That's our Sunday evening program. We evidently need people, children are just exploding by the by the dozens around here. They need people who can sit in a chair and listen to children quote verses, Bible verses. People who just sit in a chair. I know that you've got the gift of sitting. You can do this. Helping with crafts. Maybe that can be a place where you demonstrate I'm not done. Whatever you do, beloved, stay at it. Don't give up. Don't give in. And keep this expectancy of future and final victory. Victories along the way that are far and few between. That final victory. When the work is finished, we're perfected. And this brief life is a very brief prelude to eternity. I came across this poem, much like one of Aesop's fables, where he would take an animal and he'd teach a little truth. Uh, simple tale, weighty moral to the story. So I'm going to close by reading you this, whether you like it or not. Here it comes. Two frogs fell into a deep bowl of cream. Okay, this is not in the Bible, so just relax, okay? All right. Two frogs fell into a deep bowl of cream. One was a persevering soul, but the other saw only a dismal scene. We will drown, he said, without more ado and with a last despairing cry, flung up his legs and said goodbye. Said the other frog with enduring decision. I can't get out, but I won't give in. I'll just swim on till my strength is spent. I won't give up in this gloomy. Event. Bravely he swam ahead, though it would seem his swimming only churned that cream. But then cream turned to butter, and at last he stopped, and out of the bowl he finally hopped. What is the lesson? 'Tis easily found when you can't hop out. Keep swimming around. For you deep theologians, you're thinking, oh, I can't believe you went to seminary. Well, you know, here you go. Simple as that. Make up your mind. Add this to your life, which is another way of saying. I don't know how deep it is for you. Just keep swimming. It's another way of saying, if I go back to my opening comments, that's like chiseling over time into the stone windowsill of what might feel like a cell. That word, endure. Endure. Pray with me. Father, in an audience this size, I can't imagine all of the errands that you are running through the lives of the believers. If we had the time, we could have each one tell of what endurance means to them. You have brought us here this morning, and it is not a coincidence. It has been planned from eternity past for right now, at this moment, in the difficulties that this fellowship is facing individually, to encounter this word, this inspired text. So if you're a believer right where you uh sit, just for a moment, you know what endurance means to you. You may be the only one who knows. This reaches down into the deepest part of our heart where that battle takes place. What does it mean for you to endure? What's the pressure? What's the weight? Well, you know. And the Lord knows. So why don't you talk to him and ask him with your cooperating spirit to take hold of the hand of his spirit. Your decision. His provision. Take just a moment and talk to the Lord. Believers are talking to the Lord if you're here and you're not a believer in Christ. This is not a seven steps to happiness. This is not a list that you can check off to find approval. We have to start at the cross. And if you'd like to know more about the gospel, I'll be visiting with those who are new to our assembly. If you're visiting, I'd be delighted to meet you through these doors up here. I can begin a conversation with you on how to know Christ. Father, thank you for the encouragement that has come as we have raised our voices and at the top of our lungs we have sung. Blessed assurance. We thank you that along the way we have these little foretastes of heaven divine. There's a victory here or there. But the Christian life is described as a battle, as a race, as a fight, with armor needed. With this supplementary diet to begin. So we thank you for the instruction we find, not just in your word, but in words.