25. One’s carrying out one’s Christian ambassadorship calls for what, and with what knowledge about possessions in mind?

²⁵ Just the same as nineteen hundred years ago, one’s serving as an ‘ambassador substituting for Christ’ in among people today alienated from God calls for one to endure such suffering. As a pattern for us, Paul endured faithfully. He held onto his ambassadorship or his Christian ministry. He said: “In every way we recommend ourselves as God’s ministers, by the endurance of much, by tribulations, by cases of need, by difficulties, by beatings, by prisons,” and so forth. (2 Cor. 6:4, 5) As a fellow sufferer, Paul could tell his Christianized Hebrew brothers to keep on enduring, just as they had endured much when they first got the light of Bible truth. Although they might lose all earthly material possessions, yet they, and he too, had “a better and an abiding possession.”​—Heb. 10:32-34.

26. Why is there yet need for Christian ambassadors and emissaries to hold on in faithful endurance?

²⁶ As ambassadors or as emissaries from God who substitute for Christ, we Christian witnesses of Jehovah today have need to develop the power of endurance, do we not? Yes, for we need to continue enduring. Since the end of the Gentile Times in 1914 we have gone through a lot of persecution and mistreatment in a hostile world. Still more of such experiences lie yet ahead of us before we realize the fulfillment of God’s promise of “new heavens and a new earth,” in which righteousness is to dwell forever. (2 Pet. 3:13) The fulfillment of this promise is getting nearer and nearer. This generation among which all such unrighteous persecution of God’s ambassadors and emissaries has been committed since World War I of 1914-1918 C.E. is a marked generation. How so? In that it will experience God’s fulfilling of his promise to bring in the righteous new system of things. (Matt. 24:34; Mark 13:30) So let us hold on confidently in faithful endurance!

The Promise Fulfilled to Doers of God’s Will

1, 2. (a) Though the world makes it hard for doers of God’s will, what are we determined to do? (b) Where do we have God’s word for it that the needed power of endurance will be supplied to us?

THIS world tries to make it hard for a person to do God’s will. Yet, for as long as this world lasts​—and that will not be much longer—​we are determined to persist in doing His will. Our doing so will call for us to endure further world opposition and persecution. But God gives us his glorious promise to strengthen us to keep on enduring until his promise is fulfilled. So it remains for us to have faith in His promise, just as Abraham of ancient time did. God Almighty can supply us the needed faith and power of endurance. We have His word for it in Romans 15:4, 5:

² “All the things that were written aforetime were written for our instruction, that through our endurance and through the comfort from the Scriptures we might have hope. Now may the God who supplies endurance and comfort grant you to have among yourselves the same mental attitude that Christ Jesus had [not pleasing himself, but pleasing God].”

3. (a) How did Christ’s mental attitude function, leading to what reward? (b) In consideration of what on our part shall we be rewarded with the fulfillment of God’s promise?

³ The mental attitude of Christ Jesus leaned ever toward doing the will of God his heavenly Father. His mental attitude inclined him to endure whatever befell him for doing God’s will. Consequently he never wavered. Never did he shrink back. The prospect of enduring a sacrificial death as foretold for him in the Scriptures “written aforetime” did not turn him aside from doing his Father’s will. For enduring a martyr’s death he was rewarded with a resurrection to heavenly life. Thus he endured until the fulfillment of God’s promise to him, even though he knew that this required God to perform his mightiest act in his behalf. (Eph. 1:19-21) In harmony with Christ’s own case, the apostle Paul prayed for God Almighty to supply endurance to us. (Rom. 15:5) This prayer will never fail as long as we persevere in doing God’s will. As a reward for our enduring down to the finish we shall receive the gladdening fulfillment of God’s promise to us.

4. What is now required of doers of God’s will who have the mental attitude of Christ, and for how much longer?

⁴ May the mental attitude of Christ support us in bearing up under whatever God yet permits to come upon us from a hostile world, in which we are “aliens and temporary residents.” Let us constantly keep in mind what is required of doers of God’s will now during what is left of this “time of the end.” (Dan. 12:4) “You have need of endurance, in order that, after you have done the will of God, you may receive the fulfillment of the promise. For yet ‘a very little while,’ and ‘he who is coming will arrive and will not delay.’” (Heb. 10:36, 37) Can we endure “yet ‘a very little while’” longer? If we do so, then God, “he who is coming,” will arrive on time and fulfill his promise to us.

“HE WHO IS COMING WILL ARRIVE”

5. According to the Hebrew reading of Habakkuk 2:2, 3, the observer of the vision was to keep in expectation of what?

⁵ In Hebrews 10:37 the apostle Paul makes quotations from the inspired pre-Christian Scriptures. But he does so, not from the original Hebrew reading, but from the Greek translation thereof known as the Greek Septuagint Version (LXX), made during the three centuries immediately before our Common Era. According to the Hebrew, Habakkuk 2:2, 3 reads: “And Jehovah proceeded to answer me and to say: ‘Write down the vision, and set it out plainly upon tablets, in order that the one reading aloud from it may do so fluently. For the vision is yet for the appointed time, and it keeps panting on to the end, and it will not tell a lie. Even if it should delay, keep in expectation of it; for it will without fail come true. It will not be late.’”

6. According to the Greek Septuagint Version, from which Paul quoted, there is to be a waiting for a thing or for a person​—which?

⁶ However, according to The Septuagint Bible by Charles Thomson and the Septuagint Version as published by S. Bagster and Sons, Ltd., Habakkuk 2:2, 3 reads: “And the Lord answered [me] and said: Write a vision; write it distinctly in a book that the reader may trace these things [may run]; for the vision is for a time yet to come. But it will spring up at last and will not be vain. Though he may tarry, wait for him; for he will assuredly come and will not fail [and will not tarry].”

7. How may Paul have been influenced by the Greek Septuagint to speak about “endurance” in order to receive the fulfillment of the promise?

⁷ Thus the Septuagint Version turns our attention from the vision to a coming person. Also, when it says, “wait for him,” the Greek text uses the verb that means “to endure,” so that the idea would be one of enduring waitingly until the coming one arrived. Likely this use of the Greek verb meaning “to endure” influenced the apostle Paul to use the related Greek noun in the preceding verse (Hebrews 10:36), saying: “For you have need of endurance, in order that, after you have done the will of God, you may receive the fulfillment of the promise.”