Enduring to the End Part 1   The Book of Mormon Lecture 12A by Helen Mae Andrus
Channel: Light and Truth
Date: 2016-06-09

Hyrum L Andrus and Helen Mae Andrus All rights reserved August 10-12, 1989
Lecture – 12 ENDURE TO THE END
We will now discuss with you the view of the Book of Mormon that is a very, very important aspect of the gospel of enduring to the end. And I just want to say to you again how thankful we both are to be here and how appreciative I am of the fact that my wife is here with me and that we've had a gospel study kind of relationship in which she has made some very significant contributions, which I appreciate. So Helen Mae, we'll turn the time to you.
HELEN MAE ANDRUS: He is much too modest. Most of the ideas I have come through his knowledge of the gospel, and I'm grateful for that. Several years ago when Sister Belle Spafford was General President of the Relief Society, she went to a rest home and visited a Relief Society there. She said that the women there were between the ages of 75 and 90, they were ambulatory, they were bright and alert and able to take care of themselves. And she attended their Relief Society with them.
It was a well-organized Relief Society, the lesson was given by an intelligent woman. The people who took part were alert and attentive, and their contributions were marvelous. She felt very good about that Relief Society. She had an opportunity to speak with many of them individually after that, and she was a little discouraged. They all professed in their testimony meeting that they could endure to the end--that was the thing they prayed for and hoped for.
When she talked to them, one woman said, "Oh no, I don't attend Sacrament meeting, I don't think the Lord expects me to do that now." Another woman said, "No, I don't pay my tithing, I don't think that's required at this stage of my life." Another one said, "I wouldn't have tasted tea when I was younger, but now I have a cup every day, and I don't think it matters." One woman who was financially well-off said her children didn't need her money, and she didn't quite know what to do with it. When someone suggested perhaps she could donate it to charity or give it to someone who needed it, "Oh no," she didn't want to do that.
Sister Spafford was a little bit discouraged. Their lives just did not conform to their testimonies and their desire to endure to the end. I came to this idea of looking up enduring to the end from a Relief Society lesson I gave years ago. That was the name of it, "Endure to the End." Well, to me, enduring seems to mean suffering, gritting your teeth, bearing it, just holding on, hanging in there I guess is the expression, just kind of brace yourself until life is over. And I didn't like this negative feeling of "endure to the end."
So I took the Book of Mormon Concordance, and I checked all of the references, and oh what a difference it made in my understanding of enduring to the end. It's not a negative thing, and I believe there are about ten scriptures that are not all of them, but probably the major ones on this idea of enduring. Nephi, in 1 Nephi 22:31, said this: "...if ye shall be obedient to the commandments, and endure to the end, ye shall be saved at the last day." So that's our first clue--you endure to the end by keeping the commandments, and that's not always an easy thing, is it?
In Alma 38:2, this is Alma when he gives blessings to his sons, and this one is to Shiblon: "And now, my son, I trust that I shall have great joy in you, because of your steadiness and your faithfulness unto God; for as you have commenced in your youth to look to the Lord your God, even so I hope that you will continue in keeping his commandments; for blessed is he that endureth to the end." In this statement, Alma not only talks about the need of being steady and faithful to God, but he seems to equate keeping the commandments with enduring to the end--again this positive need to endure to the end in keeping the commandments.
In 2 Nephi 9:23-24, Jacob talks about the Lord. He says, "He commandeth all men that they must repent, and be baptized in his name, having perfect faith in the Holy One of Israel." Now, that's a challenge. How do you have perfect faith in the Holy One of Israel? "...or they cannot be saved in the kingdom of God. And if they will not repent and believe in his name, and be baptized in his name, and endure to the end, they must be damned; for the Lord God, the Holy One of Israel, has spoken it." Jacob is speaking what God has said, this need to be baptized, repent and have "perfect faith in the Holy One of Israel."
I think the one that really made me sit up and take notice is in 2 Nephi 31:16: "Unless a man shall endure to the end in following the example of the Son of the living God, he cannot be saved." Following the example of Christ--he was obedient to his Father. He did everything that was expected of him, and he followed him in every… Get the full transcription from www.hyrumandrus.com!