Frank W. Nelte
December 2025
WE MUST ENDURE TO THE END
Back in 1963, the year after I finished high school, I first heard the World Tomorrow radio broadcast with Mr. Herbert Armstrong. I wrote for the Plain Truth Magazine, and 4 years later I started attending Ambassador College in Bricket Wood, England, where I then also observed my 1st Feast of Tabernacles.
That was 58 years ago.
Now I have observed my 59th Feast of Tabernacles.
When I arrived at Ambassador College in Bricket Wood, Mr. Armstrong was there, and he was already 75 years old. He lived another almost 19 years. And during those years in the 1960s and 70s and into the early 80s the whole Church of God was looking forward to the 2nd coming of Jesus Christ. While the Church didn’t set any specific date for Christ’s return, we hoped that it would be soon, always hoping for within a decade or two.
But the years passed and Jesus Christ had not returned. And then Mr. Armstrong died, and a new leadership took control of the Church’s affairs. While the new administration changed many of the Church’s teachings, and replaced those teachings with heretical beliefs, we continued to hope that Jesus Christ would return soon.
The years and the decades kept passing, but Jesus Christ has still not yet returned. With the passage of time the Church has splintered and scattered in different directions, as far as beliefs and teachings are concerned. We are now divided into numerous different organizations and factions, all tracing their roots back to the time when Mr. Herbert Armstrong was the undisputed human leader of the Church.
Next month it will be 40 years since Mr. Armstrong died. And Jesus Christ will still not have returned by next month. It is now more than 60 years ago that I began to listen to Mr. Armstrong on the radio, talking about the 2nd coming of Jesus Christ. Back then Mr. Armstrong himself hoped to live up to the time of Christ’s return. But that was not to be by a long shot.
Now Mr. Armstrong was no different from the apostles in the 1st century, and from the leaders of the Church throughout the ages. The leaders in the Church of God have always looked for and hoped for a 2nd coming of Jesus Christ during their own lifetime. That hope gave them the strength to face harsh tests and trials. And towards the end of their lives they all came to understand that Jesus Christ’s 2nd coming was still off in the future, that it was not for them to live up to the 2nd coming.
We have been called to look forward to the time when Jesus Christ will rule this Earth. We have been called to hope for a speedy return of Jesus Christ, to put an end to all the evils and perversions in our present world. That’s what Jesus Christ has instructed us to pray for.
Jesus Christ told us to pray “Your Kingdom come”. We are to pray that God’s will may be done here on earth, even as right now God’s will is being done “in heaven” (see Matthew 6:9-10). These instructions are to focus our minds on the things God wants us to hope for.
Jesus Christ did not mean that we are to pray “Father, please let your Kingdom come 1000 years from now”! When Jesus Christ gave these instructions regarding things to pray for to His disciples in Matthew chapter 6, He Himself knew full well that it would still be in excess of 1900 years before God’s Kingdom “would come”. Yet Christ instructed His followers to pray with the expectation that God’s Kingdom would come in their lifetime.
Think about that!
Jesus Christ, the God who knew that He would not return for more than 1900 years, told His closest followers to pray with the expectation that His return would be in their lifetime. Why did Jesus Christ do that?
In the 1st century the Church leaders seriously expected the 2nd coming to be quite soon. And so within a few weeks after Jesus Christ’s resurrection they asked:
When they therefore were come together, they asked of Him, saying, Lord, will You at this time restore again the kingdom to Israel? (Acts 1:6)
Jesus Christ did not dispel their wrong expectations. He didn’t tell them something like “no, it is still more than 1900 years from now, before I’ll return”. He could (theoretically) have said something like that without committing to a specific year for His return. But He didn’t do that! Jesus Christ deliberately kept them in the dark regarding the time for His return. And so He said:
And He said unto them, It is not for you to know the times or the seasons, which the Father has put in His own power. (Acts 1:7)
This statement “it is not for you to know” did not remove their false expectation, that Christ’s return would be soon, in their own lifetime. And Christ’s statement wasn’t intended to remove their false expectation. It was intended to tell them not to try to guess or figure out when His return would be.
Christ’s statement is still true for the Church of God today, and it has always been true, that “it is not for us to know” when Jesus Christ will return.
To be clear: This is an instruction for us in God’s Church not to set dates for anything that is to happen in the future. Every prediction for when Jesus Christ will return has always been wrong. And if anyone makes any predictions right now, those predictions will also be wrong.
However, this is not an instruction to stop us hoping for a soon return of Jesus Christ. This is not an instruction for us instead to relegate the 2nd coming to the distant future.
We need to clearly distinguish between two things: not setting any dates for specific prophesied events on the one hand, and on the other hand never stopping from focusing our own minds on a soon return of Jesus Christ.
These two things are not the same thing.
Set dates are impersonal and objective. Dates that have been set don’t depend on how long you will live or I will live. Dates are fixed points in time, independent of what happens where and when. All setting of dates will always be wrong. Why? Because God the Father has not revealed the decisions He will make regarding the timing of Christ’s return.
Hoping for Christ’s return to be soon, on the other hand, is very personal and very subjective. There is nothing objective about such a hope. That hope is based on how our own minds function. That hope will determine our motivation for how we will conduct our lives. It will determine the level of our commitment to God. And that is why it is important that we always hope for a 2nd coming in the near future. Such a hope increases our chances of staying faithful until we die.
So let me repeat that:
It is important that we always hope for a 2nd coming in the near future!
That is one major way to keep us motivated to be faithful to God!
When we in the Church of God don’t have that hope for a 2nd coming in the near future, then we are going to have a “my Lord delays His coming” attitude! The consequences of such an attitude are invariably fatal. See Christ’s explanation in Matthew 24:48-51. And people with that “my Lord delays His coming” attitude are always going to accuse us, those who hope for a soon 2nd coming, of setting dates. Such accusations are aimed at justifying their own attitude of “my Lord delays His coming”.
Furthermore, on an individual personal level, for every single one of us in God’s Church the return of Jesus Christ is always going to be “soon”! For the apostles Peter and Paul Jesus Christ’s return was indeed “soon”. Even for the Apostle John Christ’s return was “soon”. How is that?
Our lives are very short! As James wrote:
Whereas you know not what shall be on the morrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapor, that appears for a little time, and then vanishes away. (James 4:14)
Whether we’ve got only 30 years to live, or whether we’ve got 100 years, our human lives are very short in God’s scheme of things, like a vapor that is around for a short while before vanishing. And that’s all we’ve got, that short vapor of a lifetime! So for every one of us in God’s Church Christ’s second coming is only as far away as the day of our death.
For the original apostles Jesus Christ’s return was only as far away as the day on which each one of them died. For them there is no passage of time between the day of their death and the day when they are going to be resurrected. So here is how I look at it:
For every Christian in every age the 2nd coming of Jesus Christ is always very soon. It is either within the person’s lifetime (which has thus far never yet happened), or it is on the very day that they died. There is no passage of time between the day of death for a true Christian who possessed God’s holy spirit, and the day of the 1st resurrection. For those who are dead there is no passage of time.
What happens after we die, however much time may pass before Christ’s return, is totally inconsequential to us. To us the time of the resurrection will seem like no more than a nanosecond has passed since we died.
I myself have been looking forward to Christ’s 2nd coming for over 60 years, since the time I began to listen to Mr. Armstrong on the radio. And I don’t know how long God will still allow me to live, be it one year or 10 years or 20 years. I certainly could be wrong, but I personally don’t think that I’ve got 20 years left ... because then I would be over 100 years old. But however many or few years of life I’ve still got ahead of me, for me Jesus Christ’s return will be “soon”, because 40 or 60 or 80 years are not really very long at all before God.
So I myself intend to continue to believe that for me personally Jesus Christ’s return will be ”soon”. And it doesn’t matter to me whether Jesus Christ returns 5 years or 50 years from now. For me personally it is going to be “soon”, because I’ve only got until the day I die. And that is “soon” before God.
There is always a difference between “setting dates”, something that is guaranteed to be wrong, and having a personal hope for God’s intervention in this wretched world of ours! Hope is not the same as setting dates, not at all. For me personally my hope for a “soon” return of Jesus Christ has nothing at all to do with any dates! I don’t have a date in mind! I just know that my life is running out, and however long it may be before Jesus Christ returns, for me it is going to be “soon”! That’s how I look at it.
Now let’s look at an instruction from Jesus Christ.
But he that shall endure unto the end, the same shall be saved. (Matthew 24:13)
What does this instruction “to endure unto the end” tell us? What is implied? It tells us that events will take longer than we anticipated. It tells us that we will be called upon to exercise patience. And it tells us that none of us will know in advance when “the end” will come. It tells us that we will have to hold on to the truth of God, because the truth will be attacked by heretics.
In order to “endure unto the end” we must have a strong hope, a hope that will give us a strong motivation to stay faithful to God. It is hope that will give us an anchor to stay firm and committed.
Let’s look at Hebrews 6.
That by two immutable things, in which it was impossible for God to lie, we might have a strong consolation, who have fled for refuge to lay hold upon the hope set before us, which hope we have as an anchor of the soul, both sure and steadfast, and which enters into that within the veil; (Hebrews 6:18-19)
God has set a hope before us. That hope is to give us strength and security, to keep us committed to the calling God has given us. That hope is for God’s intervention to be soon, in our lifetime. That hope gives us the strength to hold fast and “endure unto the end”. We must never lose that hope. It is precious, and we need to do everything we can to hold fast to that hope.
But Christ as a son over His own house; whose house are we, if we hold fast the confidence and the rejoicing of the hope firm unto the end. (Hebrews 3:6)
We have to be confident in the things we hope for. And the foremost thing we are instructed to hope for is the return of Jesus Christ. That hope must keep us faithful and stirred up to live the Christian life as an example to other people.
Seeing then that we have a great High Priest, who is passed into the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our profession. (Hebrews 4:14)
When we were baptized we made a commitment to God. That commitment is “our profession”. Whether Jesus Christ returns “soon” or whether it is another 50 years is really immaterial to our salvation. We have to hold fast because for all of us on an individual level God’s intervention and Christ’s return are soon! When we die the race ends. So we only have until the day of our death. And for every human lifetime the day of death is “soon”.
Let us hold fast the profession of our faith without wavering; (for He is faithful that promised;) (Hebrews 10:23)
Paul is saying that we must endure to the end. And Jesus Christ said the same thing to the eras of His Church.
But that which you have already hold fast till I come. (Revelation 2:25)
Remember therefore how you have received and heard, and hold fast, and repent. If therefore you shall not watch, I will come on you as a thief (i.e. unexpectedly), and you shall not know what hour I will come upon you. (Revelation 3:3)
Behold, I come quickly: hold that fast which you have, that no man take your crown. (Revelation 3:11)
In order to endure to the end, we must hold fast to the truths of God that we already have, because there will be great pressure on us to let go of those truths. In our age many people have not held fast. Many people have already let go of a number of the true teachings of the Bible; many have already fallen away from the truths they at one time understood. And there is very likely still a greater falling away in the time still ahead of us. We have not yet reached the time when “the man of sin” is going to be revealed.
Let no man deceive you by any means: for that day shall not come, except there come a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition; (2 Thessalonians 2:3)
The falling away, and the doctrinal changes away from the true teachings of the Bible by various groups amongst the churches of God, have put a lot of pressure on us to also let go. We have to fight against becoming discouraged in our obedience to God’s laws.
For consider Him who endured such contradiction of sinners against Himself, lest you be wearied and faint in your minds. (Hebrews 12:3)
We must beware so that we never give up in our minds. If we ever “faint in our minds”, then the battle is lost. In that situation outward obedience to God’s laws may continue for a while, but it will be mechanical and without real conviction. People who “faint in their minds” will sooner or later leave God’s Church. We have to guard against this condition overtaking us.
Remember Paul’s admonition.
And let us not be weary in well doing: for in due season we shall reap, if we faint not. (Galatians 6:9)
Doing good, doing what is right, setting a good example and letting our lights shine are the best antidotes to fainting, spiritually speaking. We must focus our minds on Jesus Christ’s return and on the establishment of the Kingdom of God here on earth, because that is the answer to all the evils in our world today. For that focus on Christ returning and establishing the Government of God on earth it doesn’t matter whether that return actually occurs sooner or later. That focus on the 2nd coming must not be linked to any dates. That focus must be maintained for the rest of our lives, because it is the only answer to all of the problems in our wretched world today.
The Apostle Paul set us an example.
Therefore seeing we have this ministry, as we have received mercy, we faint not; (2 Corinthians 4:1)
Paul looked upon his trials as a part of fulfilling the calling God had given him. And Paul endured more trials than most of us, if not all of us, have had to endure. Paul rejoiced when people came to repentance and submitted their lives to God. It gave him strength and motivation to persevere, when he saw growth in the Church of God.
For which cause we faint not; but though our outward man perish, yet the inward man is renewed day by day. (2 Corinthians 4:16)
“To faint” is another term for: giving up on the calling God has set before us. We have to endure to the end, we must not faint. This is also the message of one particular parable Jesus Christ told.
And He spoke a parable unto them to this end, that men ought always to pray, and not to faint; (Luke 18:1)
Here Jesus Christ revealed one more vital tool for enduring to the end. We must never stop praying to God the Father for help and guidance and favor with other people.
In this parable there was a judge who could not be impressed by anything. This judge “feared not God neither regarded man” (verse 2). In other words, he was not motivated to uphold the law and to mete out justice. He eventually did intervene for a poor widow, because she just kept coming to him. So this judge helped the poor widow, just to get her off his back.
The lesson Jesus Christ was teaching with this parable is: we must never stop praying to God for help with our trials, confident that God will in His time help us. In other words, we have to endure to the end. And we must never lose hope that God will intervene for us.
That hope must never leave us. Hope is vital in our relationship with God.
For we are saved by hope: but hope that is seen is not hope: for what a man sees, why does he yet hope for? But if we hope for that we see not, then do we with patience wait for it. (Romans 8:24-25)
Hope has no physically discernible evidence. Hope is quite similar to faith.
Faith is absolute confidence in the things God has promised to do. Examples include faith that upon real repentance our sins are forgiven, faith in the sacrifice of Jesus Christ paying the penalty for our personal sins, faith in a resurrection to spirit life in the Family of God, faith that God will give us His holy spirit upon real repentance, etc.
Hope is also an unwavering confidence that God will do things for us. But the focus of hope is more on things that God has not explicitly promised to do. Examples include: hope that God will grant us favor with certain people, hope that God will help us obtain certain things we may need, hope that God will allow us to live to a certain point in time.
As an example, Mr. Armstrong did not have faith that he would live up to the 2nd coming. But he had a hope that God would allow him to live up to Christ’s return. It was good that Mr. Armstrong had that specific hope.
So likewise, it’s fine for all of us to hope that God will give us the privilege to live up to the time of Christ’s return. It is fine to boldly hope for a 2nd coming that is “soon”. But we cannot have faith in these things, because God has not revealed when Christ will return.
When God struck the baby Bathsheba had given birth to with sickness, King David hoped that God would let the child live. And he fasted for 7 days, demonstrating the depth of his hope. But he couldn’t have faith in the child being healed, because this sickness was a direct penalty from God. So when the child died, then David stopped hoping. See 2 Samuel 12:15-20 for the details.
There is a lesson here for us.
In some cases God may do for us the things we hope for. At other times God may not do the things we hope for. And sometimes there is a clear and irreversible sign that God will not do whatever we have been hoping for, and seeking God’s help with. In David’s case that irreversible sign was the death of the child. For us an irreversible sign that God will not give us what we have hoped for might be things like: someone else gets the job or the promotion we had hoped for, some house or property we were hoping to buy is sold to someone else, etc. And those things make clear that our hopes are not going to be fulfilled.
A few chapters further in Romans Paul wrote:
Now the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, that you may abound in hope, through the power of the holy spirit. (Romans 15:13)
God responds to the things we hope for. The things to hope for primarily are not so much our personal wishes, as are things connected with the fulfillment of God’s will. That includes hoping for an earlier rather than a later 2nd coming, hoping for open doors for the truth of God to reach more people, and then hoping that more people will be motivated to seek repentance and obedience to God, hoping to see righteous judgments being enacted in our legal systems, hoping for God’s people to be blessed, etc. In other words, our hopes don’t primarily focus on us and our circumstances, but on God’s will being done.
For example:
It is clear that God is preparing 144000 individuals for the 1st resurrection. That is not a simple task, because every single individual in that group has a free will and a free mind. God does not force any human being to repent. The desire to repent must originate in the mind of the person who is being called by God. We all know the Scripture that says “many are called but few are chosen” (see Matthew 22:14). This is so precisely because most of the people who are called, as per Matthew 22:14, do not of their own accord submit their will to the will of God. Therefore God must call far more people than God is actually looking for.
So God does not know in advance exactly how many years are needed to produce exactly 144000 men and women for the 1st resurrection. And since God has committed Himself to an exact number of people for the 1st resurrection, rather than an exact number of years for this to be achieved, therefore all we can do is hope for that number of 144000 to be achieved sooner rather than later. But we cannot have faith (except for a blind irrational faith) in that number of 144000 being achieved at a predetermined year in time. We cannot have faith that a certain number of people will of their own free will voluntarily repent by a certain point in time. But we can hope for sooner rather than later.
And sometimes God’s own hopes have been disappointed. Before the flood God’s hope for how many people would willingly submit their lives to God’s will was greatly disappointed. And when King Saul rejected God’s instructions, God was once again disappointed. When King Solomon accepted idolatry in his old age, God was again disappointed.
Let’s speak plainly.
We are now well beyond 6000 years from the day God created Adam and Eve. The only reason why Jesus Christ has not yet, in the year 2025, returned to this earth is because the number of people God has ready right now for the 1st resurrection is still less than 144000. That is what is holding back the start of end-time events that will culminate in the 2nd coming. So the return of Jesus Christ is being held back because God’s requirement for 144000 people has not yet been achieved.
And so this is an opportunity for us to hope for a sooner achievement of this number, rather than a later achievement. Part of the difficulty in achieving God’s total is something Jesus Christ addressed.
Then said He to His disciples, The harvest truly is plenteous, but the laborers are few; (Matthew 9:37)
It is a problem when there are not enough laborers to bring in the harvest. But the laborers have to be called by God, and they have to of their own free will accept that calling. “Fewer laborers” means that fewer men are willingly submitting their lives to God, where God can then use them as laborers. God does not force anyone to repent.
The harvest depends on the number of good laborers that can be used to bring in the harvest. (As an aside, during the millennium Jesus Christ will have 144000 “laborers” and that means that then a huge harvest can be brought in. But in this age the number of laborers has always been “few”.) So Jesus Christ then gave us the following instruction:
Pray you therefore the Lord of the harvest, that He will send forth laborers into His harvest. (Matthew 9:38)
We are to pray that God will send more “laborers” to bring in the harvest. More laborers means that God’s target of 144000 can be achieved more quickly.
As a matter of interest, we might look at the Greek text for “that He will send forth laborers”, which is “hopos ekbale ergatas”. The important Greek word in our context is “ekbale”. This is the 2nd aorist active subjunctive of the verb “ekballo”.
This verb refers to forcefully casting out or driving out something. It implies the use of force. And the subjunctive mood means that this may or may not happen. In our context in Matthew 9:38 it means that we are to ask God the Father to force more laborers to bring in the harvest. But the subjunctive mood tells us that this may or may not happen. It depends on how fervently we approach God and ask for this to be done. We have to hope that God will do this ... force more laborers into the harvest. And if God does that, then the end-time events will start sooner than if the number of laborers is not increased. This is an important responsibility Jesus Christ has bestowed on us in this verse.
Could it be that we don’t do this nearly often enough ... ask God to force more laborers to work in bringing in the harvest?
Hope is extremely important. Paul ranked hope as one of the top three essential attributes. While hope is not the greatest, it is among the top three.
And now abides faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity. (1 Corinthians 13:13)
However, our hope must have the correct focus. We can hope for many things. But the primary things we are to hope for must always be connected to the establishment of God’s Kingdom here on earth.
If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men most miserable. (1 Corinthians 15:19)
We have to hope for things beyond this present life.
For we through the Spirit wait for the hope of righteousness by faith. (Galatians 5:5)
For the hope which is laid up for you in heaven, whereof you heard before in the word of the truth of the gospel; (Colossians 1:5)
“The hope” that is laid up for us in heaven is “the expectation of immortal life in God’s Family”. That hope is based on what God has told us in the Bible. If we fulfill our part, to freely submit our minds to God’s will, then we can have faith in God’s promise to resurrect us to immortal life. That’s what Paul wrote to Titus.
In hope of eternal life, which God, who cannot lie, promised before this present age (Greek “aionion”) began; (Titus 1:2)
The things we hope for are the things we look forward to, the things we anticipate happening. We look forward to God giving us immortal life. Here faith and hope clearly overlap. The Apostle Peter made the same point.
Wherefore gird up the loins of your mind, be sober, and hope to the end (Greek = completely) for the grace that is to be brought unto you at the revelation of Jesus Christ; (1 Peter 1:13)
It is our fervent hope to be changed into immortal spirit beings at the time of Christ’s 2nd coming that provides the determination to endure to the end. Our hope helps us to grasp what is at stake for us ... future immortality. That is the hope of our calling.
There is one body, and one Spirit, even as you are called in one hope of your calling; (Ephesians 4:4)
The hope is immortal life.
And that hope should stir us up to endure to the end, when we are faced with difficult tests and trials.
So this was my 59th Feast of Tabernacles. This feast looks forward to the time when Jesus Christ will be ruling this whole earth, and the 144000 in the 1st resurrection will be assisting Jesus Christ, and ruling with Him.
At my 1st Feast of Tabernacles I was looking forward to a “soon” return of Jesus Christ. 58 years later I am still looking forward to a “soon” 2nd coming and the establishment of God’s Government over this earth. And it doesn’t matter to me how many more years may pass before Jesus Christ returns. It doesn’t matter to me whether or not I die before Christ returns. I am in the sunset years of my life, and I know that my years are numbered. And that’s fine with me. I can hope to live up to the time of Christ’s return, but if I die before Christ returns that doesn’t change anything. For me the return of Jesus Christ is, and has always been, “soon”. I am not ignorant of the point the Apostle Peter made.
But, beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. (2 Peter 3:8)
Before God my whole lifetime is so short; it’s like a vanishing vapor. And the conviction that Jesus Christ’s return is soon gives me a strong motivation to endure to the end. For the apostles Peter and Paul and James and John Jesus Christ’s 2nd coming is “soon” because back then they only had a few decades of life left. And in the next instant of their awareness, though it will be almost 2000 years later, they will witness the return of Jesus Christ.
The strong hope of the resurrection must also motivate us to endure to the end.
Frank W Nelte