Ending Up.

It is not how you start out that matters; it is how you end up. Many start out, but when the heat of persecution and troubles arise, they turn aside.

12 Take heed, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief, in departing from the living God.
13 But exhort one another daily, while it is called To day; lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin.
14 For we are made partakers of Christ, if we hold the beginning of our confidence stedfast unto the end; Hebrews 3.

The doctrine of the perseverance of the saints does not affirm that you will be saved whether or not you persevere unto the end, but that the faith that saves you is from God and cannot fail to deliver you to the goal, by the power of the Holy Spirit. Only those who are led by the Holy Spirit are the sons of God; the rest turn aside to damnation.

"When through the deep waters I call thee to go,
The rivers of woe shall not thee overflow;
For I will be with thee thy trouble to bless,
And sanctify to thee thy deepest distress."