Because you have kept my word about patient endurance, I will keep you from the hour of trial that is coming on the whole world, to try those who dwell on the earth.
– Revelation 3:10
All right. If you’ve been tracking the last couple of podcast episodes as we’ve been praying through Revelation, we’ve seen in Revelation 1 this phrase, “patient endurance.” We saw it in Revelation 2, and now here it is again in Revelation 3. “Because you have kept my Word,” this is Jesus speaking to the church in Philadelphia, “you’ve kept my word about patient endurance.”
Revelation 3:10 teaches us God will reward Christians for their endurance.
So what’s coming for those who patiently endure? Jesus says, “I’m going to keep you from the hour of trial that is coming on the whole world, to try those who dwell on the earth.” Now, those words that Jesus just said will lead us into all kinds of discussion about what he means by the trial that’s coming on the whole world and who those who are dwelling on the earth that he’s trying?
The point I want to make crystal clear here that everyone would agree on regardless of how you understand the events of Revelation is that for those who patiently endure in Jesus, he will save us. Keep us, that’s the language he uses here in Revelation 3:10 from ultimate trial to come. In other words, when you patiently endure in Jesus, God promises it will be worth it. In the end, you will not regret. You will never, ever regret patiently enduring in Jesus.
Revelation 3:10 reminds us that trials and temptation are not the end of the story.
This is part of the point, what it means to patiently endure in faith and it’s this fallen world. Remember, to endure, think both temptations and trials as you and I are surrounded by temptations to sin, temptations to lose faith. So endure, endure. Resist sin. Hold on to faith. As you and I are surrounded by trials that would threaten our faith or trials that are hard to go through, that we don’t understand why they’re happening and what God’s doing in them, to endure through temptations and trials with patience.
What does patience require? It requires a confidence that this is not the end, and that’s the whole point of Revelation 3:10. Your trials and temptations are not the end. Patiently endure knowing that in the end it will be worth it. In the end, you will see God’s salvation. In the end, you will know, you will realize that faith in Jesus and patient endurance leads to reward. I think about a conversation I was having with somebody who’s going through really, really, really hard days, and they’re holding on in faith. I just want to say to them, in every way I can, your patient endurance will be worth it. God will reward those who patiently endure through temptations and trials in this world, and not just reward in the future, like yes, ultimately, that to come.
This verse encourages us to look forward to our eternal reward.
Ultimate reward, no more sin, no more sorrow, no more temptation, no more trial, just glory and joy with him for all of eternity. That’s what’s coming. Even in the middle of the trial, you will have a reward that sickness and death and sorrow and well, nothing in this world can steal your reward when your reward is God himself, so patiently endure. God, I pray this over the person I was just referencing, situation they’re walking through and God, I pray this over every single person listening to this right now. Amidst the temptations and trials of this world, God, I pray for their patient endurance. Even as I pray for my own patient endurance, God, help us to patiently endure with hope, with confidence that in the end it will be worth it.
That all along the way it’ll be worth it because you’re our reward, because you and all your strength and all your joy and all your peace, you’re the fountain of all these things. You are our reward. In the end, we will experience total freedom from sin, total freedom from sorrow, total freedom from death itself, all glory be to your name, Jesus who’ve paid the price for our sin, who’s risen and victory from the dead. So help us to patiently endure as we prayed in light of Revelation 1 with our eyes fixed on you, and to spread the good news of your grace and your hope and your love and your strength and your joy that supersedes anything in this world.
Prayer for the French Jewish People
God, help us to share the gospel with somebody today, especially somebody who’s walking through trials. Oh, God, help us to point them to hope that’s found in Jesus alone. God, we pray for specifically French Jewish men and women and children, Jewish men and women children in France, 500,000 of them. Oh, God, hardly if any of them knowing the joy and truth and peace and love of Jesus in trials.
God, we pray for the spread of the gospel to Jewish men and women and children in France specifically, ’cause your church to spread the gospel among them that they might see Jesus for who you are, that they might trust in you for the salvation of their sin, for salvation ultimately from suffering and death. Oh, Jesus, we praise you for the hope we have in you, and we pray for patient endurance with hope. According to your Word in Revelation 3:10, help us to keep your Word about patient endurance. 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.
