Endurance.....

November 14 2010 Reading: Luke 21.5-19

Remembrance Sunday

Text: By enduring you will win true life for yourselves....... Luke 21.19

Last year, in June, 70 years almost to the day, the remaining veterans of the 51st. Highland Division gathered together for a civic reception in Inverness, organised by Highland Council.[1] These, the last veterans of the 51st. whose name has become synonymous with courage and endurance in the face of overwhelming odds. It is an inspiring story.

In the last days of May and early June 1940, the Allied armies of France, Belgium and Britain were being steadily pushed back by the German forces in Northern France. Suddenly there was a devastating surprise attack by the German army through the Ardennes, and so powerful was this attack that it split the Allied forces in two, the British Expeditionary Force to the north was cut off and surrounded on the coast at Dunkirk. To the south the French forces were isolated along with the 51st Highland Division under Major General Victor Fortune.

The 51st. Highland Division. So many of the most famous regiments: The Black Watch, the Seaforths, the Cameron Highlanders, the Gordons, the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders and many others. These were men from the glens and the isles, the crofts, villages, towns, townships and fishing ports, of the Highlands. 10,000 of them. Instead of withdrawing south, as expected, they turned back west, then north east and headed straight for the heart of the German advance. They emerged out of nowhere and stopped the German attack in its tracks at the town of Abbeville. As the British and French forces left the beaches at Dunkirk on the boats bound for home, the 51st were deep in France - still fighting, alongside the French 9th. Army, moving south and west towards the coast 35 miles away. On the 12th. of June they arrived at St. Valery en Caux, a little seaside town on the coast of Northern France, to find that rescue was impossible.

The bombardment was so heavy, with the enemy to the east and west no boats could reach them................ there was no option but to lay down arms.

One of those at the civic reception last year was a corporal who had been in the regular army before the war. For him the memories of those June days are still clear. He remembers the final rearguard action alongside the remnants of the French army, fighting and withdrawing and fighting again till they arrived at St Valery. Coming into the town, he says: it was an "outpost of hell" shells, bombs and mortars falling in and around the streets, the buildings, the cliffs, the beach. He says - it was like the end of the world.

For a few, however, in the last hours before the town fell, there was still a gap on the western perimeter of Saint Valery, as the Germans began to surround the town. Three soldiers from the 51st. made their way through the gap, stopped by a German patrol the three men answered them in Gaelic, and were waved through on their way, reaching Spain several months later.

But for most, after enduring the heavy fighting, endurance of a different kind was demanded - the long march of 600 miles to a prisoner of war camp in Eastern Germany. However, that individual courage and determination was still there............

One soldier from the 51st. was captured and marched to a transit camp for prisoners. He left by simply walking back out of the gate, borrowed a bicycle and cycled it all the way south to Spain. Another escaped by slipping into a forest as the column of pow’s went round a bend, with the guards out of sight. Incredibly in a nearby village he was given shelter by a Scotsman who lived there, whose daughter guided him through the side roads and paths of the countryside at the start of his journey south to Spain, 400 miles away. And these are only a few, a very few of the stories of endurance to be told....... endurance.

In Luke 21 the Lord speaks of the cataclysms that will take place on the earth

the earthquakes, the famines and plagues, the clash of empires and nations, the revolutions, the wars that will ravage the earth.

He says, through all these things..........

By enduring you will win true life for yourselves.......

This is the word of Jesus to us, the word of the gospel - about endurance............

Here’s the apostle Paul speaking of his own life - and the most striking thing in what he says is the sheer endurance of this man - how he endures in faithfulness. So committed to preaching the gospel of the Lord Jesus, he tells us of the terrible hardship and persecution he has endured............

Five times I was given the 39 lashes. Three times I was beaten with rods, once I was stoned, three times I was shipwrecked, I spent a night and a day in the open sea, I have been constantly on the move. I have been in danger from rivers, in danger from bandits, in danger from my own countrymen, in danger from foreigners; in danger in the city in danger in the country, in danger at sea; and in danger from those who would betray me. I have laboured and toiled and have often gone without sleep; I have known hunger and thirst and have often gone without food; I have been cold and dressed only in the clothes I was wearing. Besides everything else, I face daily the pressures of care for all the churches. (2 Cor 11:24-33 NIV)

By enduring you will win true life for yourselves.......

What does this mean ?

Well, from the New Testament, we learn this that endurance, is perseverance, steadfastness - perseverance, steadfastness, through difficult circumstances, to keep going......... with hope - in the face of difficult times until they pass.

And if you take the whole New Testament, the word endurance is used nearly 50 times.

But the key difference is this............. endurance is not, is never in our own strength

Here is Paul again, to the troubled, struggling folks in Thessalonica

the Lord is faithful, and He will strengthen you and keep you safe from the Evil One.

May the Lord lead you into a greater understanding of God's love and the endurance that is given by Christ.

endurance is never in our own strength, the endurance we have, as believers

is given to us............. by the Lord Jesus Christ,

strength for our weakness, hope for our despair,

peace in place of our worries, faith that blossoms into bright hope for tomorrow

endurance is never in our own strength, the endurance we have, as believers

is given to us............. by the Lord Jesus Christ, and when we look at Jesus

we see in Him that endurance, that strength, that indestructible hope that He gives us....

When the little community of believers in Rome were facing the violence of the Roman authorities, deeply worried about the future............ the author of the letter to the Hebrews wrote to them, to speak words of encouragement, about endurance.....

Let us keep our eyes fixed on Jesus, on whom our faith

depends from beginning to end. He did not give up because of

the cross! .........

Think of what he went through; how he put up with so

much hatred from sinners!

So do not let yourselves become discouraged and give up.

Lift up your tired hands, then, and strengthen your

trembling knees! Keep walking on straight paths,

The writer to the Hebrews is declaring the same message as Paul.

The Word of God is this:

that the endurance, the strength, the indestructible hope that the Lord Jesus gives us....

is His own.............

That endurance that John Newton wrote of so long ago.............

Through many dangers, toils and snares,

I have already come,

tis grace has brought me safe thus far,

and grace will lead me home.............

Christ will not let us go; our trust in Him is secure; and these are His words............

By enduring you will win true life for yourselves......

endurance is never in our own strength, the endurance we have, as believers

is given to us............. by the Lord Jesus Christ,

the Lord is faithful, and He will strengthen you and keep you safe from the Evil One.

May the Lord lead you into a greater understanding of God's love and the endurance that is given by Christ.

AMEN.