Will You Finish Well — Richard Owen Roberts

The Danger of Confusing a Good Start with True Perseverance

We're in great danger of supposing that true Christianity is a wonderful beginning, and not facing squarely the fact that it really doesn't matter very much how you start in comparison with how you finish.

We place this great emphasis upon getting people to make professions, to act as if they are beginning in the Christian life, and we pretend that if they've made a good start, then all is well. But that is so contrary to the teaching of Scripture.

Hebrews’ Two Themes: Christ’s Supremacy and Enduring Faith

And so, absolutely, the teachings, especially, who do not recognize, it's an unusual book, in that it has two major themes running throughout at one and the same time. There's the incredible point in which Christ, and in passage after passage throughout Hebrews, Christ is shown to be infinitely...

At the same time, there are these passages in which it is being made increasingly plain that it isn't how you start that counts, but how you finish. There are not less than six of these books, but I'd like to read a portion.

The Folly of Abandoning the Christian Calling

To be spoken later, but Christ, the end. We have become partakers of our assurance. We see the debris of persons who have started, but have not finished. Multitudes of men in ministry who seem to have started well, but somehow got sidetracked.

Perhaps by sin, perhaps simply by being weary of the abuse they were suffering. Women, boys, and girls of every age who somehow had the notion that a decision to accept Christ brought them into the kingdom of God, and that nothing further was required of them.

Holding Confidence in Christ Until the End

But consider the brief passages that I have read. Christ was a son over his house, and we too are his sons. The boast stated in this passage is that we must throughout our lives, from beginning to end, boldly proclaim Jesus Christ as Lord.

And naturally, we must live in a way that is appropriate to our proclamation. What an absurdity it would be to say Christ is Lord, and then to live as if he were non-existent, or as if he did not matter.

We have become partakers of Christ, if we hold the beginning of our confidence firm until the end. Faith is not a one-time thing. Repentance is not a one-time thing. All of us are demanded by God to live in faith, day in, day out, week after week, month after month, year after year, right up until the time of our call home.

Daily Repentance and Faith Until the End

Repentance is not something once done, forever accomplished. Repentance is a daily task. Repentance is something that is ever a part of the Christian life. We are constantly, without ceasing, turning from ourselves, from our sin, and in faith, turning to Jesus Christ.

The world would be radically different if every Christian, or at least every person who professed to be a Christian, were indeed walking in perpetual faith and repentance. Have you been clinging to some past event, supposing that a proclamation you made, or a prayer that you prayed, or a decision that you decided has enough weight and power to carry you to the end?

If so, abandon that nonsense and live from now on in repentance and in faith.