Persisting without Bitterness

During his years of imprisonment on the infamous Robben Island and in other South African prisons, Nelson Mandela never gave up on his vision of abolishing apartheid, the system of racial oppression in that country. That struggle sent Mandela to jail, separated him from his family, and sparked a global network of support for his movement.

Yet even though Mandela suffered greatly, he refused to be bitter: “Resentment is like drinking poison and then hoping it will kill your enemies,” he famously said. He faced disappointments along the way but emerged from prison not only a free man, but also as the eventual president of South Africa.

Nelson Mandela persevered even when things seemed to be at their worst.

The emergence of the remnant church at the close of a long period of persecution (Daniel 7:25) came as people around the globe were studying ancient Bible prophecies and seeing where those prophecies led. There was unmistakable evidence that God’s hand was moving in world events and that the devil was working fast “because he knows that he has a short time” (Revelation 12:12).

But why a remnant church? Clearly, the Reformation begun by Martin Luther and his peers centuries earlier had stagnated. There was no longer that same spirit of reformation. Even as the 1798 captivity of the pope— precisely at the end of the 1,260 years prophesied in Daniel 7:25—came to pass, there were only a few stirrings among those in the churches founded by Luther and other Reformers.

God saw the need for action by His people to share the end-time message with others. In many places around the world, Christians studied the Word and recognized that “the time of the end” (Daniel 12:4) had come. God led those Bible students (like Joseph Wolff and William Miller) to proclaim the message of the Second Advent and the freedom it will finally bring from this bitter prison house of sin.

Apply It:

Remembering the faithfulness of the pioneering Reformers and of the believers in the Second Advent, resolve to stay committed to your faith and the message you’ve received.

Dig Deeper:

Revelation 12:14–17; Daniel 7:25; Daniel 12:4

Key Bible Texts

And to the woman were given two wings of a great eagle, that she might fly into the wilderness, into her place, where she is nourished for a time, and times, and half a time, from the face of the serpent. (Revelation 12:14 KJV)