“Here is a call for the endurance and faith of the saints.”
– Revelation 13:10
Quite a simple verse, actually, the end of a verse in Revelation 13:10, that reminds us of part of the purpose of the book of Revelation. So if we’re not careful, we can get caught up in reading through Revelation and all the different imagery and symbolism about the future and start to wonder and even debate, what does this mean?
Or that mean, or when is this or that going to happen? And those are good questions to ask, but we need to remember that the people who were reading the book of Revelation or hearing it read in the first century were walking through major challenges as followers of Jesus. They were facing persecution all around them. They were facing temptations to give in and compromise their faith in order to save their jobs, in order to save their lives, their families.
This Verse Calls Us to Endure
And this letter was written not just to help them come up with charts about what the future is going to look like. This letter was written to them to encourage them to endure, to hold fast. This is Revelation 13:10, “Here is a call for the endurance and faith of the saints.”
And so I want to, based on this verse, pray for each one of us today for exactly that I know that there are people listening to this right now who are struggling in faith, who are walking through challenges of all kinds in your lives, in your families, in your work, in your church, in the world, as you work to spread the gospel. And there are challenges, temptations to sin. There are trials you are walking through and Revelation 13:10 is a call for the endurance and faith of the saints, for endurance and faith in your life.
Revelation 13:10 Leads Us to Pray for Endurance
And I just want to pray that over each one of us, oh God, we pray for endurance. Even as we were praying through Revelation 1–2, and we’ve seen the phrase over and over again in Revelation for patient endurance. God, I don’t presume to know what every single person listening to this right now is walking through. But I know you know, you are intimately aware with all the details of what different brothers and sisters are walking through right now. And you know those details even better than they do.
And you know what has happened, you know what they’re walking through right now and you know what will happen today and tomorrow and how this story will play out. God, I pray for their endurance in the middle of it and for their faith in the middle of it. God, I pray for the faith of the saints that they would trust in you in the middle of whatever they’re walking through, that they would know, even right now that they would be reminded that they are not alone.
This Verse Reminds Us of the Promises of God
And your promises to them, you would help them to hold fast to your promise. To strengthen all who look to you to grant wisdom, to all who ask for it. To give joy in the middle of suffering. Oh to give hope and peace in the middle of trial, knowing that greater is he who is in us, than he who is in the world. We praise you for that truth and how it resounds across the book of Revelation.
God, I pray for the faith of the saints, pray that you would use trials, tribulations that different people are walking through right now to deepen faith, to draw them closer to you, that you would keep the adversary from his attempts to deceive and to destroy faith in the middle of trials. Father, I pray Revelation 13:10 over others’ lives, over my own life. Help us, we pray to endure. To hold fast in faith in the middle of trial. To proclaim the good news of your grace, of your victory, of who Jesus is.
Revelation 13:10 Reminds Us Jesus is Our Life
Jesus, you are our life. You’re our joy. You are our strength. Jesus, you are our hope. You are our peace. You are our everything. We need you. We want to be faithful to proclaim you today. Right around us to the ends of the earth. God, to the Babra people of India, from Jain traditions.
God, we pray that you would cause the gospel to spread to them. That they might be brought into the kingdom. Help us to endure and walk with you. In faith for the sake of leading others, to faith, around us and around the world. Among the nations. We pray all of this according to your word in Revelation 13:10. We pray for endurance and faith in Jesus’ name. Amen.
David Platt serves as a pastor in metro Washington, D.C. He is the founder of Radical.
David received his Ph.D. from New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary and is the author of Don’t Hold Back, Radical, Follow Me, Counter Culture, Something Needs to Change, Before You Vote, as well as the multiple volumes of the Christ-Centered Exposition Commentary series.
Along with his wife and children, he lives in the Washington, D.C. metro area.
