Endurance Brief

Preparing to stand when the world demands you bow. The Endurance Manual — theological depth meets practical readiness for what Scripture says is coming.

[Endurance Brief @EndaranceBrief]

"The one who endures to the end will be saved." — Matthew 24:13

Jesus didn't say "the one who escapes." He didn't say "the one who is raptured before things get hard."

He said endures.

The entire New Testament assumes believers go through tribulation, not around it.

Are you preparing to endure?

[Koinonia House @KoinoniaHouse]

Throughout history, humanity has repeatedly struggled to combat deception effectively. This book takes the reader on a journey from the fall of man to the ultimate struggle for truth, equipping readers with an understanding of the nature of deceit as well as defensive strategies to emerge victorious.

Reply for the links

[Living Passages @LivingPassages]

We're really looking forward to bringing folks here in 2027 with Joel Richardson.

[Koinonia House @KoinoniaHouse]

https://t.co/J67EftSKUw

[Living Passages @LivingPassages]

Where the Jordan flows, the journey out of Egypt finds its echo.

This is one stop on an 11-day Exodus study expedition through Saudi Arabia & Jordan. Mount Sinai, the Split Rock, the Red Sea crossing, Petra, and Shavuot celebrated at the mountain itself.

May 9–20, 2027 with Todd D. Bennett.

Join our journey 👉 https://t.co/xYhVYNBlD9

[Endurance Brief @EndaranceBrief]

Two thousand years since the heavens opened over the Jordan River, the Spirit descended like a dove, and a voice declared: "This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased."

And the nation that guards Bethany Beyond the Jordan — the place where John baptized and Jesus stood in the water — is preparing to mark it.

"And when Jesus was baptized, immediately he went up from the water, and behold, the heavens were opened to him." — Matthew 3:16

The baptism site sits on the Jordanian side of the river, protected and preserved for two millennia. Whatever else changes in that region, the ground where the Trinity was revealed in a single moment — Father speaking, Son standing, Spirit descending — remains.

A worthy anniversary for the kingdom that keeps that ground.

[Joel Richardson @Joel7Richardson]

A New Middle East Security Order? Iran, Israel, and the Mecca Defense Ag... https://t.co/3GAkiIGRqR via @YouTube

[Living Passages @LivingPassages]

How a small Syriac kingdom in what is now southeastern Turkey may have been among the first on earth to believe.

Come with us to Sanliurfa and Harran during our GENESIS 2027 expedition with Joel Richardson.
https://t.co/1sMa5bGKdV

[Living Passages @LivingPassages]

The wilderness of Arabia is not the empty margin of the biblical story, but one of the places God keeps things.

Read our blog on the Rechabites:
https://t.co/oLSHEvphZq

[Living Passages @LivingPassages]

We have a new blog up about Mt. Cudi (Judi)
https://t.co/LPBkVRuMAE

[Endurance Brief @EndaranceBrief]

Thirty Christians killed in Naridon village, Kaduna State, Nigeria. A local council spokesman described what has become routine: monthly burials.

Monthly. The community has stopped counting attacks as events and started counting them as a calendar.

This is the same Nigeria the account has documented all year. Plateau State. Oyo State. Wukari Diocese — 217 churches destroyed. Michael Oyedokun beheaded. And now thirty more names in Kaduna.

The government calls it "communal conflict." The graves keep the truer record.

"How long, O Lord, holy and true, before you will judge and avenge our blood on those who dwell on the earth?" — Revelation 6:10

The souls under the altar have been joined by thirty more from Kaduna. They are not statistics. They are witnesses gathered before the throne, asking the oldest question the martyred church has ever asked.

Pray for Naridon. Pray for the families burying their dead again this month. Pray for a Nigerian church that has turned funerals into a monthly liturgy — and still gathers to worship the following Sunday.

https://t.co/ZKYla1I61I

[Evangelist Ebube Joseph @EvangelistEbub2]

President, Donald Trump, Prime Minister of Israel please help Nigerian Christian

[Evangelist Ebube Joseph @EvangelistEbub2]

Christian genocide in Nigeria

[Joel Richardson @Joel7Richardson]

Centuries ago, the Monastery of Noah's Ark stood on Mount Judi. Though struck by lightning and lost to time, its stone foundations and archeological remnants remain, a testament to its history. #AncientHistory #Archeology

[Endurance Brief @EndaranceBrief]

@LivingPassages Ağrı Dağı — "Mountain of Pain." Yes. It showed me the pain of leaving its summit with every step down.

[Endurance Brief @EndaranceBrief]

06:24 AM, July 4, 2022. The summit of Mount Ararat — 16,945 feet.

Little Ararat below us. Armenia and Iran laid out to the horizon. The Araxes plain still holding the last of the mountain's shadow. What went through me up there: exhilaration, thankfulness, prayer, joy. An American on top of Ararat on Independence Day — the grin came free.

Somewhere in this country of high peaks, the waters went down and a family walked into an emptied world to begin again. God's great reset. The first one had a rainbow at the end of it. So does the last.

"And the ark came to rest on the mountains of Ararat." — Genesis 8:4

The descent was 8,700 vertical feet in one push. Old knees. Harder down than up. Worth every step. If you get the chance to go — go.

[Endurance Brief @EndaranceBrief]

@LivingPassages @Joel7Richardson I have now. It begins like this — the full account is on my feed, eight posts, start to summit.
https://t.co/xaS7x7WIkW

[Endurance Brief @EndaranceBrief]

Out of the dark at midnight the climbers rose,
strapping steel to their boots, breath smoking,
and the mountain above them, vast, holding its ice
as a king holds silence.

Then dawn — dawn rising rose-gold out of Persia,
flinging the mountain's shadow like a spear
across the plain of the Araxes,
and the men turned on the ice and saw it,
a pyramid of darkness laid on the waking world,
and no man spoke.

At the sixth hour they stood on the crown of Ararat,
sixteen thousand feet and more above the sea —
where once the waters failed, and the keel
of the world's remnant found its rest —
and one gray soldier of a far republic,
his wars behind him, gave thanks to the God
who drowns and saves, who scatters and gathers,
whose bow still hangs in the storm.

The moon in this frame rose a season later,
when I came back to the foot of the mountain —
cresting the black shoulder of Ararat
above the lamps of Doğubayazıt,
and the mountain held its silence still.

"And the ark came to rest on the mountains of Ararat." — Genesis 8:4

This is how it ended. Here is how it began.

[Endurance Brief @EndaranceBrief]

16,400 feet, just after sunrise. The final summit dome ahead, climbers strung out on it, spindrift smoking off the snow into a sky so blue it looks black.

The last 650 feet are the slowest. Thin air makes every step a decision. You stop reasoning your way up and simply endure your way up. One foot. Breathe. One foot.

Endurance is not a mood. It is a direction.

"But they who wait for the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint." — Isaiah 40:31

[Endurance Brief @EndaranceBrief]

Summit day began at seven minutes past midnight. Headlamps, frozen scree, then crampons on the ice cap. For hours the world is a circle of light and the sound of your own breathing.

Then the sun came up behind the mountain — and Ararat cast its shadow across the whole plain below, a perfect dark pyramid laid over the land toward the west.

Every man on that slope stopped and turned around. Some things you climb through the night to see.

"Weeping may tarry for the night, but joy comes with the morning." — Psalm 30:5

[Endurance Brief @EndaranceBrief]

Day two we climbed to 12,800 feet and came back down to sleep at 10,500. Climb high, sleep low. You do not conquer altitude. You negotiate with it, and it sets the terms.

There are bellflowers growing out of the volcanic rock at first camp. Dew on them at dawn. Life at the treeline of a mountain the world remembers for a flood.

"The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God will stand forever." — Isaiah 40:8

[Endurance Brief @EndaranceBrief]

I came to see the mountain and the sites. Then, before I ever arrived, a thought became a plan: hire an outfitter and climb it.

July 1: vehicles to the trailhead at 6,500 feet. Bags onto horses. Four miles and 3,300 vertical feet on foot to first camp at 10,500 — green tents among black volcanic boulders, a meltwater stream off the ridge, the summit hiding in cloud above.

The group was assembled from all over the world. I was the only American. On a mountain, that stops mattering by the first rest break.

"The heart of man plans his way, but the LORD establishes his steps." — Proverbs 16:9