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Endure Until the End | Bible Gleanings | August 1-2, 2025

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Wham! A gouging left-hook pierced his right eye. Boof! The world champion heavy-weight boxer threw another lethal strike. “Raaah! Whooo!” shouted the crowd, as Apollo Creed and Rocky Balboa battled in the ring. Bif! Bam! Bop! With machine-like accuracy, Creed hammered Rocky’s bloodied face. And then Rocky went down, but he was not out—he slowly rose to his feet, weary but determined.

His handlers begged him to throw in the towel. But with blood streaming down his face, Rocky warned, “You stop this fight, and I’ll kill you!” Then he launched into Creed with the fury of a mad tiger. But even after fifteen rounds of ruthless beating, neither boxer delivered a knockout, and the fight was eventually called. The announcer declared from the mic, “Tonight we have had the privilege of witnessing the greatest exhibition of guts and stamina in the history of the ring!”

Rocky Balboa didn’t win the match, but he finished it. He endured until the end. He wasn’t trying to knock out Apollo Creed. He simply sought to go the distance and prove he could take a beating. To him, finishing well was better than winning every round.

Rocky was right, and the Scripture also teaches that endurance is better than winning every fight. When Paul the apostle was at death’s door, he did not say, “I have won the good fight,” but rather, “I have fought the good fight” (2 Tim. 4:7). The Christian life is not about avoiding failure entirely—it’s about getting back up in faith after being knocked down. True believers stay in the ring and rise for the next round through the strengthening grace of God. As Proverbs 24:16 says, “For the righteous falls seven times and rises again.”

No Christian can always slay their flesh, defeat the devil, or triumph over the enticements of this sinful world. But even when struck down, beaten-up believers can rise again because, “though he fall, he shall not be cast headlong, for the LORD upholds his hand” (Psalm 37:24). When flattened out on the canvas, the believer can say, “Rejoice not over me, O my enemy; when I fall, I shall rise; when I sit in darkness, the LORD will be a light to me” (Micah 7:8). True believers can testify with Paul: “We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed” (2 Cor. 4:8-9).

So, don’t give up. Keep on keeping on. Endure until you hear the final bell—the trumpet of Christ’s return (1 Cor. 15:52). Finishing well is better than a perfect performance. As Rocky himself said, “It’s not about how hard you hit. It’s about how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward; how much you can take and keep moving forward.”

Brandon is the pastor of Bandana Baptist Church in Bandana, Kentucky, where he lives with his wife, Dakota, and their three dogs, Susie, Aries, and Dot. Brandon and Dakota are also foster parents through Sunrise Children’s Services of Kentucky. Brandon is also a published author and a religious columnist for the Advance Yeoman newspaper in Ballard County, Kentucky. He is also a devotional contributor for Kentucky Today, a news publication of the Kentucky Baptist Convention. His columns are also featured in the Times-Argus newspaper of Central City, Kentucky, West Kentucky News of western Kentucky, and the online blog, Reforming the Heart.

Sermons

War of the Soul: Introduction

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In the Beginning, There Was War

Our great country was born in war and, throughout its history, war has shaped this nation. Ever since our birth we have been fighting wars for various reasons, and it has framed our government and expanded our borders. It has united us as citizens but also divided us in dissent and grief. Through the course of our existence as a nation, we have faced an enemy that we felt obligated to fight. From battling the British tyranny in the American Revolution to our current war on terrorism, we have always faced a war with a great enemy.

It true of war that you face an enemy, and to conquer it, you must have the right economic and social resources. This is an ideal image to describe the daily war that takes place in the Christian life. For Christians, there is a war going on. It is real, it is deadly, and it is costly. According to the Bible, there are three enemies that we face: Satan, the world, and our sin nature. All of which are waging an ongoing, costly, deadly war against us.

1. Satan is our enemy. Since creation, Satan has been at war with the people of God. Peter tells us to be watchful, as soldiers, on guard against him: “Be sober-minded; be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour” (1 Peter 5:8). Contrary to many images circulating on the internet, Satan is not in an equal war against God with his soldiers, with ourselves caught in the middle. Satan is in a war against us, and he prowls around like a hungry lion, seeking someone weak, who isn’t keeping watch. He wars against us by tempting us to sin, deceiving us, and sometimes inflicting us.

2. The world is our enemy. The worldviews, desires, and influence of the world is at war against us also. The world’s ideas, desires and influence are against God and against Christians. You can see this evident more today than ever before in the history of the world. Today, the basic tenets of the Christian worldview are considered as hate-crime or arrogance. James tells us that we are to keep ourselves from being influenced by the world and associating with its worldviews and desires: “You adulterous people! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God” (James 4:4). Because we are different, because we are God’s people, we suffer persecution and rejection from the world because we are “not of this world” (John 17:16).

3. Our sin nature is our enemy. Satan is powerful and the world can exert a strong influence on us, but no enemy is as powerful as ourselves. The 90’s rock band Lit had it right they said, “It’s no surprise to me that I am my own worst enemy.” The Bible does warn us strongly about keeping guard against Satan and the world, as the Scriptures above testify. But no warning is as strong as the warning against our own sin nature: “Beloved, I urge you as sojourners and exiles to abstain from the passions of the flesh, which wage war against your soul” (1 Peter 2:11). No other passage of Scripture is as stark in its warning. The passions of our flesh wage war against the most valuable thing we possess: our souls. 

We are all fighting a war of desire to do what God wants, and to do what we want and commit sin. In this series, we will see what we are fighting, why we are fighting, and how to battle what we are fighting. The outline of the series is as follows:

1. The Battle Within (1 Peter 2:11-12)

2. Sin’s Greatest Weapon (James 1:12-15)

3. Empowered to Fight (Gal. 5:16-18)