4:1 I charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is to judge the living and the dead, and by his appearing and his kingdom: 2 preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, and exhort, with complete patience and teaching. 3 For the time is coming when people will not endure sound1 teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, 4 and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths. 5 As for you, always be sober-minded, endure suffering, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry.
6 For I am already being poured out as a drink offering, and the time of my departure has come. 7 I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. 8 Henceforth there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, will award to me on that day, and not only to me but also to all who have loved his appearing.
Personal Instructions
9 Do your best to come to me soon. 10 For Demas, in love with this present world, has deserted me and gone to Thessalonica. Crescens has gone to Galatia,2 Titus to Dalmatia. 11 Luke alone is with me. Get Mark and bring him with you, for he is very useful to me for ministry. 12 Tychicus I have sent to Ephesus. 13 When you come, bring the cloak that I left with Carpus at Troas, also the books, and above all the parchments. 14 Alexander the coppersmith did me great harm; the Lord will repay him according to his deeds. 15 Beware of him yourself, for he strongly opposed our message. 16 At my first defense no one came to stand by me, but all deserted me. May it not be charged against them! 17 But the Lord stood by me and strengthened me, so that through me the message might be fully proclaimed and all the Gentiles might hear it. So I was rescued from the lion’s mouth. 18 The Lord will rescue me from every evil deed and bring me safely into his heavenly kingdom. To him be the glory forever and ever. Amen.
Final Greetings
19 Greet Prisca and Aquila, and the household of Onesiphorus. 20 Erastus remained at Corinth, and I left Trophimus, who was ill, at Miletus. 21 Do your best to come before winter. Eubulus sends greetings to you, as do Pudens and Linus and Claudia and all the brothers.3
22 The Lord be with your spirit. Grace be with you.4
Footnotes
[1]4:3Or healthy [2]4:10Some manuscripts Gaul [3]4:21Or brothers and sisters. In New Testament usage, depending on the context, the plural Greek word adelphoi (translated “brothers”) may refer either to brothers or to brothers and sisters [4]4:22The Greek for you is plural
4:1 I charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is to judge the living and the dead, and by his appearing and his kingdom: 2 preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, and exhort, with complete patience and teaching. 3 For the time is coming when people will not endure sound1 teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, 4 and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths. 5 As for you, always be sober-minded, endure suffering, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry.
6 For I am already being poured out as a drink offering, and the time of my departure has come. 7 I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. 8 Henceforth there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, will award to me on that day, and not only to me but also to all who have loved his appearing.
Personal Instructions
9 Do your best to come to me soon. 10 For Demas, in love with this present world, has deserted me and gone to Thessalonica. Crescens has gone to Galatia,2 Titus to Dalmatia. 11 Luke alone is with me. Get Mark and bring him with you, for he is very useful to me for ministry. 12 Tychicus I have sent to Ephesus. 13 When you come, bring the cloak that I left with Carpus at Troas, also the books, and above all the parchments. 14 Alexander the coppersmith did me great harm; the Lord will repay him according to his deeds. 15 Beware of him yourself, for he strongly opposed our message. 16 At my first defense no one came to stand by me, but all deserted me. May it not be charged against them! 17 But the Lord stood by me and strengthened me, so that through me the message might be fully proclaimed and all the Gentiles might hear it. So I was rescued from the lion’s mouth. 18 The Lord will rescue me from every evil deed and bring me safely into his heavenly kingdom. To him be the glory forever and ever. Amen.
Final Greetings
19 Greet Prisca and Aquila, and the household of Onesiphorus. 20 Erastus remained at Corinth, and I left Trophimus, who was ill, at Miletus. 21 Do your best to come before winter. Eubulus sends greetings to you, as do Pudens and Linus and Claudia and all the brothers.3
22 The Lord be with your spirit. Grace be with you.4
Footnotes
[1]4:3Or healthy [2]4:10Some manuscripts Gaul [3]4:21Or brothers and sisters. In New Testament usage, depending on the context, the plural Greek word adelphoi (translated “brothers”) may refer either to brothers or to brothers and sisters [4]4:22The Greek for you is plural
Redeemer exists to celebrate and declare the gospel of God as we grow in knowing and following Jesus Christ.
Jeffrey Heine:
Invite you to open your bibles to 2nd Timothy chapter 2 or chapter 4, sorry. 2nd Timothy chapter 4. Tonight is a somewhat different service. This is service around the ordination of Jeff Heine. And so tonight's message is really geared towards him, and you all get to listen in on that.
Jeffrey Heine:
And so I'm gonna uncomfortably look at Jeff for most of the message. The fear that a lot of you have ever had, you know, when the preacher is preaching, I feel like he's looking just at me. Well, I will be looking a lot at Jeff for this one. 2nd Timothy chapter 4. I charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is the judge the living and the dead, and by his appearing and his kingdom, preach the word.
Jeffrey Heine:
Be ready in season and out of season. Reprove, rebuke, and exhort with complete patience and teaching. For the time is coming when people will not endure sound doctrine, but having itching ears. They will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths. As for you, always be sober minded, endure suffering, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry.
Jeffrey Heine:
For I am already being poured out as a drink offering and the time of my departure has come. I have fought the good fight. I have finished the race. I have kept the faith. Henceforth is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the lord, the righteous judge will award to me on that day.
Jeffrey Heine:
And not only to me, but also to all who have loved his appearing. Do your best to come to me soon. For Demas, in love with this present world, has deserted me and gone to Thesalonica. Crescens has gone to Galatia. Titus to Dalmatia.
Jeffrey Heine:
Luke alone is with me. Get Mark and bring him with you, for he is useful to me for ministry. Tychicus, I have sent to Ephesus. When you come, bring the cloak that I left with Carpus at Troas, also the books, and above all the parchments. Pray with me.
Jeffrey Heine:
Lord, I ask that you would, at this moment, stir in our hearts. What does it mean to be more than listeners of the word, but doers of your word? What does it mean to really understand the gospel as more than just some tagline we we put at the end of a message. I ask that you would impress those things on our heart, that through your spirit, you would answer those questions. I pray that my words would fall to the ground and not be remembered anymore, but lord, may your words remain and may they find their mark.
Jeffrey Heine:
I pray this in the name of Jesus. Amen. Jeff, you're entering into a sacred calling, not something to be taken taken lightly as you know. Being a pastor has many duties. There's gonna be hospital visits.
Jeffrey Heine:
There'll be counseling sessions. There's gonna be endless meetings a lot of time. There's gonna be doing things like budgets. But really, as a pastor, you have one primary task, and that's to be a good teacher or preacher of the word. You're a shepherd in the church, and a shepherd's primary task is to feed the sheep.
Jeffrey Heine:
You you've been a, you know, Hebrew scholar now for a couple of years going through Biesen, and I'm sure that in your Hebrew studies, you know that the word shepherd simply means to feed. Feeder. That's your primary task, and this is a task that Jesus gave the apostle Peter. When he saw Peter before shortly before he ascended, I remember when I started preaching weekly about 10 years ago, it was brutal. Both for me and for the people who had to listen to me.
Jeffrey Heine:
It was it was a brutal experience. I was a speech major in college, and so speaking was not a big deal to me. But but as you know, speaking and preaching are worlds apart and they should be worlds apart. 2 totally different things. Speaking is easy.
Jeffrey Heine:
Preaching is straining your soul to hear God's heart through prayer, and through study of his word, and to to communicate that to his flock. If I had to, describe preaching as anything, I would say it is a joyful burden. The weight of it caught me off guard when I started. Completely caught me off guard, but it's a joyful burden. It's the call of ministry.
Jeffrey Heine:
Now Jeff, I have I've worked with you, I've studied with you, I've heard you teach and preach on several occasions, and I know that God has gifted you to do those things. He's absolutely gifted you do that. That's that's why we're here is we're affirming this giftedness and this calling in your life, but you're also young, you're raw, and you're untested. You're untested. Many preachers have had the same giftedness and the same calling as you.
Jeffrey Heine:
Many have fallen away, and that should be sobering. And although your resolution right now is strong, it is it is firm, what is it gonna be like in 50 years from now? When you're when you're pushing me around in a wheelchair, you know, 50 years from now, are are you still gonna be holding on to the faith? I can remember I in a seminary class, a man named Richard Owen Roberts who who is so old, I mean he had to be 90 something years old and he's preaching, and he said, I've known many people like you. Young, excited about their ministering, their calling, and he said, and many have fallen away.
Jeffrey Heine:
And he goes, what makes you think you won't fall away? And I remember sitting in that classroom, and he preached. It was a 30 or a 50 minute class, and he preached for 2 hours. And I remember after that, I was looking around. I was thinking, I know these guys.
Jeffrey Heine:
I love these guys. I mean, they're gonna faithfully serve, and that was about 12 years ago. And in that time, people in that class have fallen away. Some of my good pastor friends have fallen. Some just, you know, moral failure.
Jeffrey Heine:
Some abandoning really the core of what they believe. How do you know that will not be you? What can you do to make sure that you go strong? Well, I must confess, I'm too young to tell you. I'm 35.
Jeffrey Heine:
Way too young to tell you what it means to finish strong, and I have rarely been tested by fire. But the Apostle Paul has, and that's the words we're gonna look at tonight, his words to a young pastor. One of my favorite texts comes from Acts chapter 20 24, in which Paul, he's gathered the elders of Ephesus together, and he's giving them his last words. He's about to go off, be imprisoned, ultimately killed, and so he gathers them together for a brief moment and he says this to them, I do not account my life of any value nor is precious to myself. If only I may finish the course in the ministry that I received from the Lord Jesus to testify to the gospel of the grace of God.
Jeffrey Heine:
And when I read these words, they're really moving to me. Very moving, and they they came a long long time after Paul's, road on to to Damascus experience. This wasn't right after his conversion that he's saying these things. This is this is many many years later. We know when you read through the book of Acts, you kind of lose that sense of time because he's converted in Acts 9, and he says these things in Acts chapter 20.
Jeffrey Heine:
But but really in the span of a few pages, Luke always says he stayed 2 years here, he stayed 3 years here, he traveled for a few years here, and and the years pile up. And at this point, it has been almost 30 years since Christ ascended, since Pentecost, since flames of tongues resting on the apostles. It has been about 24 years since the road to Damascus, and Paul was converted. 24 years, and it has been an amazing life, one he could have not anticipated. By this point in his life, Paul had been flogged 5 times.
Jeffrey Heine:
That's a 195 lashes. Three times, he was beaten with rods like police batons. He was stoned once to the point of being dragged out in the city, of the city, and left for dead, and perhaps he was dead and the Lord raised him up. He has never ever known a time of peace. Often he went without food and sleep.
Jeffrey Heine:
He's always on the move, or maybe a better way to say is, he's always on the run. He's always fleeing, always in danger of his life. He had the above all of this, he said, the daily concern for all of the churches, And then he also had to make a living. He was a tent maker. And so when you picture Paul here saying these words in Acts chapter 20, do not picture me, don't picture any pastor that you know, Picture a walking scar.
Jeffrey Heine:
Picture an older man who's gray or or bald. Picture a man whose back has been beaten so many times that his back muscles had to have been torn to shreds, and he could barely stand without pain, sit without pain, walk without pain. Picture a man whose face has been beaten in so many times, I'm sure he had enormous scars. Likely, he's missing many teeth because you don't get beaten with rods, or you don't get stoned without the breaking of bones or the breaking of teeth. And so for over 20 years now, he's been at war.
Jeffrey Heine:
This is the man, and would you hate this for a calling, in which God said, he is a chosen instrument of mine. I will show him how much he must suffer for my name's sake. This man suffered unlike anyone. To the Corinthians, he said, I I despaired even of life. The great apostle Paul despaired even of life.
Jeffrey Heine:
He told the Philippians that if he were to die, it would be gain. Be gain for me to live is Christ, for me to die is gain. And he says, I count all things as loss, and view the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus, my lord, whom I have suffered the loss of all things. I have suffered great great loss. To the Galatians, he says, I bear on my body the marks of Jesus.
Jeffrey Heine:
And so I hope you can picture that scene in Acts 20 as as this older abused scarred man is looking at this small assembly in the eyes, and he says, my life is worth nothing to me. It's worth nothing to me, except to complete the task that the Lord has given me. The task of sharing the gospel. Man, I bet when Paul said that, it hit them. Like a bat to the chest hit them, because it certainly moves me when I read those things.
Jeffrey Heine:
When I read this, I don't know about you but I just kinda wanna sell everything I have. I just wanna go off and somehow be a martyr in some land immediately and and it just fuels me. Understanding these words that Paul said in Acts 20 helps us to understand the words he says in 2nd Timothy 4. I don't know if you noticed, but in Acts 20, Paul uses future tense. He says, if only I may finish the course.
Jeffrey Heine:
If only I may do this. But here in 2nd Timothy 4, he uses the past. I have fought the good fight. I have finished the faith finished the race. I have kept the faith.
Jeffrey Heine:
Paul's at the end, and he is finishing well. This is the last letter he will ever write. He's in prison, he's awaiting execution. There is even the possibility that by the time Timothy got this letter, Paul was dead. These are his most urgent last words, it's when his ministry is coming to focus, and this is his final appeal to this young pastor.
Jeffrey Heine:
And I think we find in this passage, both the heart of the ministers calling and also the way to sustain that calling to the end. Look at the first two verses again. We'll We'll just look at the first one says, I charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is the judge the living and the dead, and by his appearing and his kingdom. Now let me let me tell you, you can search all scripture, and you're never gonna find a charge like this. This is over the top charge.
Jeffrey Heine:
Whatever he says after that, you better listen. And he says, preach the word. And he reminds Timothy that Jesus is coming back as a judge. He's coming to judge the living and the dead, and he's going to come. He's gonna establish his kingdom, and he holds up those 2 things.
Jeffrey Heine:
He says, in light of those 2 things, preach the word. The word. Don't preach self help. Don't preach volunteerism. Don't preach self esteem.
Jeffrey Heine:
Preach the word. And when you preach the word, others might criticize you, some might even judge you, but you remember that Jesus is the one whom you are accountable to. Jesus is the one whom you present your message and who judges you. As a preaching preacher, the scope of your teaching is extremely narrow. It's the word.
Jeffrey Heine:
That's what you preach, the word. Your primary goal as a pastor is not to get people more involved. It's it's not to motivate people. It's not to organize small groups. It's to preach the word, and if those things aid in communicating the word, you go after it, but your primary goal is to preach the word, and to be ready in season and out of season.
Jeffrey Heine:
And by this, Paul means that you either find an opportunity to preach or you make an opportunity to preach. But you're going to preach. Whether you find it or you make it. And Paul, he would tell the Corinthians, he said, woe is me if I do not preach the gospel for I am under compulsion. I have to do this.
Jeffrey Heine:
Whether people listen, it doesn't matter. If they listen, great. If they don't listen, fine. I have to preach. And there is a urgency that comes with the severity of your calling.
Jeffrey Heine:
When you preach, there is life and death in the balance. There's an urgency there. Now let's read verses 34, which I think have been greatly misunderstood by many preachers, many church members. Says for the time is coming when people will not endure sound doctrine, but having itching ears, they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions and will turn away from listening to the truth and will wander off into myths. Now, Jeff, most people assume that this means, you know, that you're not to preach some feel good theology.
Jeffrey Heine:
You shouldn't be like one of those, you know, mega church pastors or TV evangelists who really water down any talk about sin or, or water down any talk about repentance. You know, you're you're not supposed to preach the health and wealth gospel or anything like that, and I agree that that is true. If you ever preach the health or wealth gospel, I will come after you. I will hunt you down. That is true.
Jeffrey Heine:
Absolutely true. But I don't think that is primarily what Paul has in mind. There were 2 main ways to scratch ears in Paul's time. 2 main ways. One, when we've heard this this term before, but it was to become like a 1st century Sophist.
Jeffrey Heine:
It was to become one of those famous public speakers, these these orators that would go around telling great stories, wowing the crowds, having superb rhetoric. They could talk on any number of subjects. They were the superstars of preaching. People flocked to them. The Corinthians, they even called them super apostles.
Jeffrey Heine:
And apostles. Jeff, don't be like them. Don't be like them. Don't ever become an entertainer or a storyteller. Resist the urge to wow people, and you can wow people, you can resist it.
Jeffrey Heine:
We do not need another personality driven church. The second way people wanted their ears tickled, we discovered this by looking at the people whom Paul fought with most. For most of Paul's life, he preached against circumcisers, he preached against the Judaizers, he fought against people who wanted law, who wanted rules. Over and over again, he he expounded on the gospel, and he told people the gospel to it to a people who wanted a mixture. They wanted both law mixed with the gospel, and it's a lethal mixture when he put those 2 together.
Jeffrey Heine:
And it's crucial to understand this when listening to Paul, when he says, when he warns you about giving people what they want to hear because people want to hear law. They do. It's it's true some people want just you know, self help, feel good theology, you give them on Sundays. But more people crave crave law. They want to be told what to do, and the tougher it is, the better.
Jeffrey Heine:
That's even better. That's that's certainly what I want. I don't know if you have found yourself that way when I would listen to something that's something extreme, and you gotta do this in order to be a real follower of Christ. This shows you really love Christ as if you do this great act here. That's what I always wanted to do.
Jeffrey Heine:
That was my itching ear right there. So, yes, I could do that. Then I could pat myself on the back and think I'm so much better than all the other Christians. I can sit in judgment on all the other people who don't have the same zeal that I have. All of our hearts, every one of us in here, our hearts naturally stray not towards grace, but towards law.
Jeffrey Heine:
And it is a huge temptation to go down this road. I mean, you're gonna hear it, you know, from from some church goer, they're gonna come out, they're gonna brag about their pastor. Man, our pastor is not like the other pastors, and he's not scared to preach on sin. He's not prayer he's not scared to tell how it is. You know, he he stood up and he told all the people today that if you're not out sharing your faith, you're not a Christian.
Jeffrey Heine:
If you're not out helping the poor, if you're not out tithing, if you're not reading the Bible, if you don't care about orphans in Darfur, then you don't love the Lord. He's not, I mean, he tells it like it is. That pastor, he has no fear, but know that people are drawn to this, because it makes them feel so good about themselves. Because if they kind of embrace it, they pat themselves on the back in comparison to everybody else that, I'm doing great. I really do love the world.
Jeffrey Heine:
Why? Because I did my checklist. I did it. Resist that. It is easy to preach this way.
Jeffrey Heine:
It is easy to get up and condemn the American church. Easy, and people will love you for it. You'll grow an enormous church, people will boast about your preaching, but it's not the gospel, it's law. Only 2 things happen when you preach that way. People either feel worse about themselves, or they feel a lot better about themselves, but they don't glorify Jesus and that never changes their hearts.
Jeffrey Heine:
Your preaching has to have at the very foundation of it, the gospel. Don't preach works, moralisms, and then let the gospel be some tagline at the end. The gospel is through all of the message. It's the heart of it. It's the message of the Bible.
Jeffrey Heine:
The the reason we do good works like share our faith, the reason that we care about the situation in Darfur, or care about the environment, or AIDS, or anything like that, the reason we care is got to stem from the gospel. It's an in out approach. This is so much harder than preaching law, or preaching prosperity. But you're to preach the word, you're to preach the gospel. Let's look at how we can do this.
Jeffrey Heine:
How can you do this? How can you maintain this for life? Once again, look at Paul, he asked for 3 things. Three things as he is awaiting his death. He asked for a coat, for a friend, and for some scrolls.
Jeffrey Heine:
A coat, a friend, and some scrolls, and it's easy when you read this to understand the first two. I mean, Paul requested this cloak and this coat is just it's a winter's coat because he's cold, he's in a damp cold prison, it's wintertime, and so he he wants some form of comfort. Then he asked Timothy to bring Mark. Look at verse 15. It says, beware of our sorry, that verse 15.
Jeffrey Heine:
He says that everybody deserted him. Everybody deserted him. In verse 11, he says, Luke alone is with me. Get Mark and bring him with you. Only Luke, and I can't imagine what a comfort Luke, the physician, has been to him as this old, beat up, tired, hurting man is in that jail cell.
Jeffrey Heine:
But he says he's anxious to hear Timothy again, he's anxious or to see Timothy and to see Mark. They're useful in ministry to him. They're a great source of encouragement. And one of the ways that you can finish well is by surrounding yourselves with friends, godly friends who will encourage you. God never intended for the Christian nor the pastor to go at it alone.
Jeffrey Heine:
So you got to pick your friends well. You got to pick people who will challenge you in the word and in your faith. You need to deputize some of your friends to take a hard look and to speak truth into your life. Get friends that are not afraid of rebuking their pastor out of love. You need friends like that.
Jeffrey Heine:
So these two things here are coating friends, I can easily understand. It's this third one that's just a little puzzling, but I think it is one of the secrets for finishing well. Look at verse 13. When he come, bring the cloak that I left with Carpus at Troas, also the books, and above all the parchments. I know you are a Greek scholar as well as a Hebrew one.
Jeffrey Heine:
You'll notice there's no conjunction there. There's no conjunction between the books and the parchments, and probably a better way to understand this phrase is, bring the books, that is the parchments, with you. It's likely talking about the same thing, and and what exactly is it that that these are? Other places in scripture when we come across the same words, parchments, they refer to an Old Testament text. The Old Testament scrolls, and that's likely what he is asking here.
Jeffrey Heine:
So when Paul is asking Timothy, when you come bring my books, bring my my my parchments. He's asking for that collection of of of Hebrew scripture, or perhaps even writings of or sayings of Jesus that have been written down. He's asking for those those notes to be taken to him, Which is, I I find so puzzling because why in the world does Paul wanna continue his study? The man's about to die. He's never gonna write another letter.
Jeffrey Heine:
This is it. No more letters, and we're preaching. I mean, he's already hammered out his theology. I mean, does he really think he's gonna gain a whole lot more? I mean, he's he is taught on justification, sanctification, glorification, election, spiritual gifts, adoptions, resurrection.
Jeffrey Heine:
He is taught on all of those. What what else is left? I mean, if it was the end of my life, and this is just a confession, I would not get out my Greek New Testament or my my Hebrew Bible, open it up and start parsing words. I would not do it. I think, what is the point?
Jeffrey Heine:
I'm no longer gonna teach, I'm no longer gonna preach. Why memorize scripture when I'm about to see the living word face to face? So part of me, when I look at this old beat up Paul, wants to say, you know what Paul? The end is near. Get your coat, stay warm, get your friends, surround yourselves with friends, and relax.
Jeffrey Heine:
You've worked hard. You've worked hard. Don't waste these few precious little moments you have left with your nose in a book. And when these thoughts come to my head, God rebukes me, he snaps me back and says, Joel, you have missed the point. You've missed the point.
Jeffrey Heine:
Through this urgent, diligent, I'd even say rigorous study of scriptures, how Paul got to know his Lord. There's indescribable joy in knowing the Lord. Paul's fighting for joy here. He wants to still press further in, knowing his savior. There is a tremendous joy in pursuing the Lord through a rigorous study of scripture.
Jeffrey Heine:
And it's a joy that few Christians, few pastors have ever experienced. And if you wanna be a pastor that doesn't fade away, a pastor that stays strong, a pastor that embraces joy even in the darkest times, then you're gonna have to give yourself wholly to the study of this book. God's not called anybody here to be a casual reader of his word. Nobody here. He's not giving us his word to merely squeeze a moment here, and squeeze a moment here, and and really kind of a pop light devotional theology is all we embrace.
Jeffrey Heine:
That's not it. Dig in for the gyms. Paul didn't search the scriptures here so he could write a sermon, which will be your biggest temptation as a pastor. Your time with the word becomes professional, and the moment it becomes professional, it kills you. Joy starts fleeting.
Jeffrey Heine:
That love that you once knew that kind of brought you into ministry, gone. You don't seek the Lord and His word for a message, you seek Him. He is the object of your studying your faith. When you open his word, he is to be savored and studied, so that he might be known and adored. And if you hold to that, I believe you will be faithful to the end.