In this 11th chapter of the book
of Hebrews, I'd like to read beginning with verse 13 and read
down through verse 16. Verse 13 through verse 16. These all died in faith, not
having received the promises, but having seen them afar off,
and were persuaded of them, and embraced them, and confessed
that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth. For they
that say such things declare plainly that they seek a country. And truly, if they had been mindful
of that country, from whence they came out, they might have
had opportunity to have returned. But now they desire a better
country, that is, an heavenly, wherefore God is not ashamed
to be called their God, for he hath prepared for them a city."
Now I want this morning, and of course my desire, and I believe
this is true, through the years, before God I speak, that I want
to be honest with those to whom I preach. I do not want ever,
if I can help it, to fail in preaching the truth that I know
that God has revealed to me and showed to me to those that I
minister to. I want to be able to say that
I am free from the blood of all those that have heard testimony
and witness at my mouth of the Word of God. I was failed miserably
when I was a young person, desperately failed, because nobody had the
courage to stand in my face and tell me the truth of the Word
of God. I, for many, many years, felt
that I had been neglected greatly and felt that I, as I made every
attempt to search myself for the Word of God, I had no one
who I felt was a faithful preacher of the Word of God that would
declare God's truth to me. with courage and with boldness,
not paying any attention whatsoever to what folks might think of
it or what I might think of it, but would be courageous in the
effort of ministering the Word of God to my own soul. Therefore,
when I began in the ministry back before I was 20 years old,
I had the considerable difficulty in being able to lay hold of
myself and to preach the truth that I now know and through the
years God has been pleased to reveal to me. And I needed help
desperately, and I do not want to fail. You young people, I
do not want to fail this church. I want to be faithful, and God
has, I believe, enabled us for these many years to be so. And
I want to continue to be faithful in preaching the Word of God
to you. And I beg you, I would not offend anybody for anything. I would not do it. I would preach
the word of God to you, but I would not offend you needlessly. I
would never say anything, just simply, I hope that I would not,
just simply, to be able to fill up space with words. When I say
something, it is because of conviction of soul, and it is because of
the truth that weighs heavenly upon my soul, and the fact that
I soon shall stand before God and give an account of that which
I preach to you and preach to others. And so may the Lord enable
us this morning to be faithful to him. Now I've selected these
verses, I did so reluctantly, feeling in my heart that it would
be easier maybe to deal with something else. But I do feel
that the Lord has led me this morning in this direction, and
therefore we want to speak, if we can, upon the pilgrim's belonging
or the desire of the pilgrim, the desire of the child of God
in this world and their conflicts and difficulties as they confess
that they are strangers and pilgrims on the earth. But as we begin
this morning, let me say that Abraham, he's one of the old
patriarchs of the faith, and he's one who is the father of
the faithful, that he left his country at God's command and
he never went back again. He never did go back. The Lord
said in Genesis 12 verses 1 and 2, Abram, you get up, you leave
your father's house and you go to a place that I shall show
you. And so Abraham became a sojourner. He became a pilgrim in that land
of promise that God gave him. Now, beloved, we sometimes wonder
why it would be that God calls for separation for his people. Why it would be that God would
ever demand of a man like Abram that he would go away from his
father's house. Why would he go away from a place
of security to a place of non-security? Why would he go out from a place
where he has all kinds of material blessings and material helps
and go out into a place that the Lord would have to, as it
were, to provide daily for him. Why leave a full cupboard to
go out into a place where you had to pray daily for your bread? Why? Why would the Lord do that? Well, we know that it's God's
will that he try the faith of his people. And we know that
God never created a useless thing, never. And we know that when
God creates faith in an individual that he means to try that faith
and he means to test that faith. And it is best for faith to be
in a place where it has no security but God. It is best. It is best for the soul. It is
best for the spiritual life of a believer to have no security
except God. Now, of course, we rejoice if
we have a measure of security in this world, and there's nothing
wrong with that. But I'm saying for the soul of
the Christian needs to learn faith in God and needs to learn
to trust the Lord and lean upon him. And when you're taken out
into a place where your family is not there, and you're out
into a place where your security has been left behind, And you
go out, as it were, as a stranger into a land, you must need to
trust God and lean heavily upon Him day after day. And it's there
where you'll experience great trials and great tests of your
faith as to whether or not you're going to endure or not. And most
people don't know a thing on earth about what it means to
persevere in faith and endure the test and the hardships and
the difficulties and the insecurities that one endures when God leads
them in his own way to perfect faith in their hearts. Most people
know nothing about it. But the proof of faith lies in
perseverance. It lies in perseverance. If we
have the true faith of the gospel, Abraham, he did not go back.
And in verse 38 and 39 of the 10th chapter, look at it. Now,
the just shall live the faith. The justified man will live by
what he believes. The justified man will live on
the basis of what he knows about his God, about the faithfulness
of his God, about the dependability of his God. He will live on his
faith. But if any man draw back, My
soul shall have no pleasure in him. If any man draws back from
the life of faith, if any man draws back from living by what
he believes and what God has taught him and what God has instructed
him out of his pure word, then he says my soul shall have no
pleasure in him, but we're not of them who draw back. We're
not of them who go back to the old life. We're not of them that
go back to the carnality and to the flesh, and we're not of
those that must have. the security of the world, and
must have the applause of the world, and must have that which
the world can favor us with to exist. We're not of them that
draw back into perdition, back into that place, into the city
of destruction, into that place where the wrath of God would
come upon the ungodly, but of them that believe. And to them
that believe to the saving of the soul, it says here, and also
that word soul means life. And to them that believe to the
saving of the life by giving up that life to live it for the
glory of God and for the praise and honor of Christ and to live
that life in such a way as a disciple of Christ, denying oneself in
order that they might be able to be fruitful in the kingdom
of God in a word, If a grain of wheat fall into the ground,
a grain of corn fall into the ground and die, it abides—unless
it falls into the ground and die, it abides alone. But if
it die, you know what happens. Up springs the stalk, there's
ears on the stalk, and many, many—it's fruitful if it falls
into the ground and die, and that's a picture of the Christian
denying themselves and dying out to their old ambitions and
to their old lust and to their own ways and following the Lord
and being fruitful in the knowledge of Christ. That's what that is
a picture of. Now there's a sort of faith which
does run well at the beginning. It runs well at the beginning,
here's a person and they hear the gospel and they say, well
that's wonderful that Christ died for sinners, that's wonderful,
well I accept that, I believe that, but I want to remind you
it's soon hindered by the fact that God calls upon men and women
to do things, upon boys and girls to do things, that he wants them
to do. And that faith is soon hindered
and it does not obey the truth, it does not persevere. That's
not the faith to which the promise is given. The promise is given
to the faith that perseveres whatever the hardships and the
difficulties are that God calls you to. Now the faith of God's
elect, it continues and abides, it perseveres. The Bible says
the righteous shall hold on to his way. The righteous will hold
to his way. Now, truth, faith, being connected
with the living and incorruptible seed of the Word of God, it abides
forever. Abraham, Isaac, Jacob returned
not. They persevered on. The promise
was to them as to strangers, sojourners, and so they continued. Now, Paul tells us here in our
text that they were not forced to continue. They were not forced
to continue. They did not continue to walk
with God as strangers and pilgrims because they could not return
to that place from which they had been called. Now, if you
look at verse 15 here, it says, And truly, if they had been mindful
of that country from whence they came out, they might have had
opportunity to have returned. They were not forced to continue
on in that way. Now, I'll explain that a little
more later. There was frequent opportunities
that presented themselves for these old patriarchs to have
returned to their country. There was communication kept
up between them and the old family. at Padamaram. They had news from
relatives, messages, exchange servants were sometimes sent
from the old home place up to these sojourners and messages
sent back. Rebecca, you know, she came from
the old family. Jacob, one of the patriarchs,
he tried to go down into the land again, but he could not
stay there. He never could settle there.
He had to come back to the life of a pilgrim and a stranger into
the land of promise. You see, they could have returned
and tilled the ground just like their fathers before them did,
but they continued to follow that uncomfortable, that shifting
life of wanderers in a desert. Those who dwell in tents, who
did not own a foot of land themselves, they were aliens in the country
which God had given them just by promise. Now our position
is similar to theirs if we are true believers in the Lord Jesus
Christ. As many of us as have been brought
by sovereign grace to faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, we have
been called out. We have been called out just
as really as Abraham was called to go out. We've been called,
the church is called out. This is the meaning of the word
church. It's a called out assembly of believers. And we have been
separated by the sanctifying work of the Spirit of God in
the effectual call in that that we have been called out of the
world and separated. And Jesus said, as I am not of
the world, even so are you not of the world. Believers are not
of the world. They have been separated from
it. We trust that we know the meaning of what it is to have
gone without the camp bearing Christ's reproach. We've been
called upon to follow Christ, to bear witness of him and to
be faithful to him, and we have been called to go out beyond
the camp, which is the top of the world, and to bear that reproach
for Christ in the world. Now in this world, believers
have no home, no true home, for our souls that is. The Bible
says that our citizenship is in heaven from whence also we
look. for the Savior, the Lord Jesus
Christ, who will change these vile bodies and fashion them
like unto his own glorious body, according to the power whereby
he is able to subdue all things unto himself. Our citizenship
is in heaven. That's where our head, Christ,
is, and we're citizens of that country. Our home is beyond Jordan. We're looking for it among the
unseen things. which I cannot see, which is
not appeared yet to the ear of man, but the things which God
hath revealed unto us by His Spirit, with strangers and sojourners,
as all the elect are, dwelling in this wilderness, passing through
it to reach the land of Canaan, which is to be the land of our
perpetual inheritance. Don't you see? Now, well, there's
three things that I want to quickly, briefly talk to you a little
bit about this morning. The number one thing this morning
is I want to say a few words upon the opportunities which
we've had and still have to return to the old way of life if we
were mindful of it. That is, if our minds were in
such a state that we would be inclined to go back, then, beloved,
if we're mindful of it, there will be opportunities. Now, I
want you to know that the word opportunity would suggest a time
period wherein we would have the time would be allotted to
us to go back, if we wanted to go back. Times of trial, times
of tests, when we're under great pressure. I mean, if God leaves
us to ourself, we will be inclined to go back to the old way, back
to the way of the flesh, the mind of the flesh, and so on.
Now, the word opportunity, as it occurs in this text, means
a great deal more than just a window of opportunity. It means a great
deal more than that, and this word hardly seems strong enough
to express to express what really is meant
here, because it's talking about the influence, it's talking about
the incentive, it's talking about the provocations and the solicitations
by which, in our case, we will be urged to go back. And so there's
more to it than just a window here of opportunity, where it
presents itself and there's no pressure whatsoever put upon
us. Any pressure would be that which we would apply to ourselves.
That's not the meaning here. That's not what it means. It
talks about the influence of the world and the incentives
that's offered by the world, and the things of the world,
and the provocations that's all around us to move us back toward
the world, and the solicitations of the world to drag us back
to itself. And beloved, those are real.
Those are real, and every believer has to face it. Now, brother,
sister, it's a wonder of wonders that we have not gone back to
the world. It's a wonder of wonders. I've
often said that if a man can go back, he will. He will go
back. But with its sinful pleasures
and its idolatrous customs, it is a miracle that we have not
gone back. When I think of the strength
of divine grace, I see why I haven't gone back. I see why you haven't
gone back. When I think of the strength
of God and how we are kept by the power of God through faith
in Christ Jesus, when I see that God has undergirded us, when
I see that God has kept us in his own hand and that none can
pluck us out of his hand, I know why it is that we've not gone
back. But if I dwell long on your weakness and my weakness
of nature and flesh. It seems a miracle of miracles
to me that anyone should be a Christian in this world, that anyone could
maintain, as it were, his steadfastness for an hour. It is indeed a miracle
of grace that we remain in the ways of the Lord. It's the strength
of the grace of God that keeps the feet of the saints and preserves
them from going back to the old unregenerate condition. It's
the strength of God's grace that keeps us. Now we've had opportunities
to return. Let me talk about that a little
bit. We've had solicitations, we've had provocations, we've
had incentives that's been placed before us by the enemy of our
souls to draw us back into the ways of the world. Now in our
daily calling, whatever that be, we have to rub shoulders
with the people of this world. You've been called out of the
world. God has put his spirit in you. God has put a new nature
in you, and you've been called out of the world. But you rub
shoulders daily with people in this world, and the Bible says
that you'd have to go clean out of the world for you not to do
that. You can't get away from the ungodly
in this world. You cannot get away from them.
And so, when we think about the ungodly men and women around
us, in our employment, in our work, in our daily associations,
in the places where the Lord has put us in this life, opportunities
we have to sin as they do, to think as they do, to fall in
the same excesses that they fall into, and to lapse into the forgetfulness
of God and take part, in a little measure, in their sinfulness
and in their blasphemies toward our God. And we have that upon
us. Now, beloved, when we're in this
world, we must be aware of the fact that as we attempt to associate
with this world, we must use great wisdom. We must use great
wisdom. We must pray earnestly because
we recognize that there is an enemy. There is an enemy out
there, and he is attempting to draw us back. Now, the world
would welcome us with open arms. They would. Well, they think
it's a strange thing that we don't run to the same excess
that we used to run. when we know that the time that
we spent in days gone by was sufficient to have walked in
the ways of the lust of the flesh. Now we want to serve the will
of God, but men would welcome us back if we would just come
back to them and to their ways in the world. And we must be
aware of the fact that as we associate with men and women
in this world, with different boys and girls in this world,
with you young people, that we must be aware that the enemy
is at work to try to not just give us a little opening, but
he tries to draw us and pull us and to provoke us to go back
into that way which is sinful. And then the Bible says that
we're not to be unequally yoked together with unbelievers. We're
not to be unequally yoked together with unbelievers. It takes a
separation. We must remain separate from
those of another sort. We must remain separate in our
hearts. We cannot cohabit, as it were,
with those that are unregenerate. The Bible forbids it. The Bible
says what? Fellowship hath light with darkness.
The Bible says what? part does he that believe have
with an infidel? The Bible is clear on it that
believers cannot cohabit with the unbelievers of this world. Now listen to me. Now you take
here a believer and an unbeliever. Say they're going to go in business
together. And the one is a staunch Christian, the other is a blasphemer,
he's an unbeliever. They're going to go in business
together. Now, beloved, if both parties, or we'll also include
cohabitation in marriage, if an unbeliever is going to marry
an unregenerate person, Let me say that if those two people
in whatever their situation is, if they are true to their natures
and consistent to their nature, the believer consistent with
the divine nature which God has put in them, which God has planted
in them by His Holy Spirit, and if the unbeliever consistent
with his nature, the old Adamic nature, if they live up to their
natures, they cannot have any compatibility. There will never
be any compatibility. Now you listen to me now, just
listen to me and follow me. I want you to know this morning
that when we're in this world and we were tugged upon to go
back into this world and go back and think like the ungodly, listen,
let me tell you, the people of this world are not, we know that
the unregenerate will always be consistent with their nature.
They always will. Unbelievers will be consistent
with their natures. is consistent with that new nature
that God has put in them. It's not so. You see, the unregenerate
would want you to walk in the broad way with them, but they
would not walk in the narrow way with you. They would not
do that, you see. They want you, and that's exactly
what always happens. Listen to me. Health is not infectious. Disease is infectious. And I want to impress that upon
you this morning, that when it comes to the unregenerate or
they'll be consistent with their nature. And they are going to,
as it were, dominate in the situation and they will lead you and you
will have to make the sacrifices if there's any compatibility
in business or in marriage or whatever relationships you might
form with the ungodly. There's nothing wrong with having
friends among those that are in this world. It's whenever
you try to maintain a relationship and become intimate with those
people that you're going to have trouble. And you have trouble
the rest of your life if you do not understand that you're
going to be tugged upon and provoked and you're going to have an incentive
set in front of you to go back to the unregenerate and to their
way. The Bible says, can a leopard
change his spots? Can the Ethiopian change the
color of his skin? So then can he that is accustomed
to do evil do good. And you can believe me that the
unregenerate will always take the believer down to his level.
He'll take you down. to his level, and I want you
to understand that. Now, some of you have had strong
inducements, I know, and if it were not for the grace of God,
you would become exactly as those around you would have wanted
you to become. And then, too, let me say that
if in this life we are alone, if our occupation keeps us alone
in the world, Is that any protection from that power of the evil one
to try to draw us back into the thinking of the unregenerate?
Absolutely not. Because there we shall still
have our corrupt thoughts that plagues us, our strange desires. There are perils in company,
but there are perils likewise in our loneliness in this world. You have many opportunities to
return. You cannot escape from these opportunities. They're
everywhere and there's no walk of life where you will not find
them if you're out among the many or if you're isolated by
yourself. And that may be, listen, that
may very well be because the main mischief lies in our own
bone and in our own flesh. It's our own nature. You see,
we have in our breast an enemy. We have in our own natures, our
own natures are aliens with the demons and with the devils. And
we need to be aware of that. Anyone who knows himself knows
exactly what I'm talking about. The nearer you get to God, it
seems the nearer that the devil will get to you, and he'll draw
near. You'll have opportunities to
return as long as you're in this body, oh wretched man that I
am. If you want to go back to sin,
to carnality, and to the love of the world, to your old condition,
you'll never be prevented, it seems, by the lack of opportunities. It'll be something else that'll
have to prevent it. God will have to hedge you up.
God will have to intervene. And do you know, and I don't
know whether you've come to this place or not as a believer, But
as you grow in the grace and knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ,
there'll come a day when you'll pray against yourself. You will
have to pray against yourself. You'll have to ask God to intervene,
even when in your own mind and in the depths of your own being
there's a rage going on, wanting to go in a certain direction.
You just feel you will have to go in that direction, and yet
at the same time you're praying unto the God of your salvation,
intervene, intervene, and come between me and this. that I'll
be able to walk as you would have me to in this world. Now,
listen to me. You ask, well, why does the Lord
allow these opportunities to be so plentiful and so forceful? Could it not keep us from temptation?
No doubt He could, but it's not His intentions for any of us
that are believers to be hothouse plants. He does not mean to ever
have a hothouse plant. This is to prove our faith, as
we said earlier, faith that is not tried, not true faith. These
opportunities return to try our faith to prove that we love the
Lord. That's what they're about. Now, you listen to me. If it
were a physical impossibility to forsake the Lord, there would
never be a test of faith. If it was impossible, never would
be a test of faith. The man who does not run away
because his legs are weak, is no true follower of the Lord
Jesus Christ. So I just can't do it. I can't
get away. I can't get out. I can't get
away. But he that could run but will
not run, he that could desert his Lord, but will not desert
him, has within him a principle of grace stronger than any rope
could be. This is the highest, and the
firmest, and the noblest bond that unites a soul to the Lord
Jesus Christ. When you could go, but you will
not go. You say, I love my master, and
I'll have my ear bored through with it all, I won't go. I love
the Lord Jesus Christ. By this you know whether you're
in Christ or not. When you stay, when you stay,
don't you see, in the way. When you have opportunity to
return, if you do not return, that'll prove that you're His. Now, two men are walking along
a country road, and there's a dog that's behind these two men.
And they're going along on this straight country road, and it's
impossible to know who the dog belongs to. But then, after a
while, you come to a fork in the road, and we're going to
find out who the dog belongs to. because the dog is going
to follow his master. And whichever way the master
goes on that fork, the other fella go one way, the master
go off on the fork, the dog's going to follow him. And I'll
tell you what, you'll find out when the world runs along and
you're following along with the world, and all of a sudden Christ
leads you another way, you'll find out who you belong to. Whether
you go on with the world or whether you'll follow the Lord Jesus
Christ, your fleshly interests and your pleasures seem to go
the other way than if you can part with the world and keep
with Christ, then you're one of His. So, my friend, where
does that put you this morning? Where does it put you? I want
to be honest with you. I've tried to be honest, and I want us to
be friends with the Lord, not like the adulterers and the adulterers
who are enemies of God because they're friends with the world.
I want you to be separate and to glorify God and know how to
walk and to please the Lord. Now number two, and we've got
to hurry here, we cannot go back because we desire something better.
I want you to see this. It says in verse 16, but now
they desire a better country. These pilgrims, they are separated
and they are pilgrims and sojourners in the world, but they desire
a better country. They have an insatiable desire
that's been implanted in them by the grace of God, which urges
them to forget the steps already trod and onward press their way. Notice how it's put in the text,
but now they desire a better country. That is a heavenly country. They desire something better
now. Brother, sister, you want something better than this world,
the lust of the flesh and the pride of life and the lust of
the eyes. You want something better than
what this old world can give. Has the world ever really satisfied
your soul? Well, not since the Lord delivered
you out of spiritual death. It has never satisfied your heart.
But a believer wants something better than the vanity of this
world, vanity of vanities. All is vanity, saith the old
preacher. The true mature child of God
would say, if God were to say to me, you shall have all the
world. This is your portion. Well, that
child of God would say, no, no, not so, my Lord. Do not put me
off with these trifling things. I don't want these trifling things.
Feed me not on these husk. Oh, no, give me yourself, and
take all these things away. Take the world, but give me Jesus.
That's what the psalm says. I cannot be content with Egypt
since I have set out for Canaan. I can't settle down in the wilderness
now that I'm journeying to the promised land. We desire something
better. There is something about a Christian
that even when he does not enjoy something better, he still desires
something better. He desires it. Much about our
character is revealed in our desires, don't you think? Don't
you think? Down deep. I mean, if the eye
of God was to look upon you this morning, what is your desires?
spiritual desires. Don't you have spiritual desires? Old Spurgeon talked about the
desires of believers and how that many times a tear from the
eye, he says, can float a desire to God. God knows our desires. Many times the tears fall from
our eyes because we long to see God. visit, God bless, God get
the victory, God have his way, and make a name for himself among
us. And we have these desires. Now
this encourages me. They desire a better. The word
country is supplied here by the translators. They desire a better. They desire a better. I know
I long for something far better, something preferable to that
which my eyes can see or that my tongue can express. Now, I
want you to know that I do not always enjoy that something better,
as I said earlier, because my path is often dark, and my house
is not so. With God, I cannot always see
the Lord. I do not always enjoy his presence, but I do desire
his blessing. I do desire his presence. Now,
a desire may be a little thing. And it may just be a little thing
to you, but let me say a good desire is more than nature ever
grew. It is more than nature, old flesh
nature, ever grew. A spiritual desire. You say,
that's all I got preacher, I don't have anything else. Nothing else
to talk about, nothing else to say anything about, but if you
have that, the grace of God is the author of it. If it's a spiritual
desire. a desire toward the Lord, some
small thing in you toward the Lord. God is the author of that. They desire better. We cannot
go back. There is enough in the world to charm sinners on the
road to hell, but there is not enough in this world to satisfy
the saints of God and to keep them in the way. We confess this
morning and rejoice in the confession that our best hopes are for things
that are out of sight, things that only faith can lay hold
of. Our expectations, our largest
possessions, the things we have title to by faith, only at the
present. But when our air shifts, shall
be fully manifested. You know we're going to be joint
heirs with Christ? Heirs and joint heirs. We'll come to the
full ripe age, then shall we come into our inheritance, to
our wealth, to the mansions and to glory, and to the presence
of Jesus Christ, our Lord. Now then, there's an old song
and we sing it once in a while. On Jordan's stormy banks I stand
and cast a wishful eye to Canaan's fair and happy land. where my
possessions lie. Or sometimes we also read, Jerusalem,
my happy home, name ever dear to me. When shall my labors have
an end in joy and peace in thee? Jerusalem, the golden, with milk
and honey blessed. Beneath thy contemplation sink
heart and soul oppressed. We know not, oh, we know not
what joys await us there, what radiance of glory, what bliss
beyond compare. It is the hope, the blissful
hope, which Jesus' grace has given, the hope when days and
years are past, we shall all meet in heaven. And that's what
our desire is. Our desire is toward the Lord.
Our lease of mortal life is fast running out. The time of our
sojourn on earth, for some of us, is getting shorter and shorter.
We're daily, as it were, pitching our roving tent. A day's march
near home, is that not so? And the stakes, we don't drive
them quite as deep now as we did before, and we just kind
of more or less just set them in just enough to hold up the
old tent. Because it comes to this, brethren,
the tent's coming down one of these days, and our faith is
going to be turned into reality over there. I know we sometimes
feel that we have so little here on this side to show for our
faith. Our faith never built an ark like Noah's faith did.
It never offered a sacrifice like Abraham did, and it never
subdued kingdoms like Joshua, and it never quenched the violence
of fire like Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. Well be it so,
but he that endureth to the end shall be saved, and we persevere
on, and those who die in faith shall be gathered with that great
cloud of witnesses. This ought to cheer us on, brethren.
And last of all, we've spoken here of our desire, last of all,
And this is the sweetest part of the text to me, because it
says here, therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God.
They're strangers and pilgrims, and God is not ashamed to be
called their God, for he hath prepared for them a city. God
not ashamed to be called their God? Well, the Lord might well
be ashamed of me. I thought about that, my soul.
I do not think if any If anybody had such a family
like God has, oh my, would they be as patient with that family
as He is with us? If anybody had a family carried
on like we do, God have mercy, we lose patience with ourselves.
We lose patience with ourselves. But how is it that God bears
with ill manners such forwardness and weak foolishness, forgetful
bunch of people as we are? He could not help but be ashamed
to be called their God if he looked upon them as they are,
judging them on the merit of their person. If God judged us
on the basis of what we are and what we appear to be this morning,
he'd be ashamed of us. He'd be ashamed of us. I'm sure
he has asked himself this question, how can I put J.R.M. among the
children? How can I do that? How can I
ever put that guy among Yet he devises means and brings about
the purposes of his grace. He, God, is an inventing God. He said, I'll be your God. He
says to the joy of his heart, I'm not ashamed to be called
their God. He's the God of all the elect,
the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the man who has a brother.
Listen to me. I have a brother or two. Well,
I had, and I still have. all my brothers. There's five
of us. And there's one of them who has
sunk low in the world. And I don't suppose I'd be ashamed
to call him my brother. No, I wouldn't. But I want you to see that we're
dealing here with God. We're not dealing with me and
you and our brothers and our sisters in the world. However
low his people may sink, he is not ashamed to call them brethren.
He is not ashamed of it. One of the reasons for this seems
to me to be because he does not judge them according to present
circumstances, but rather what he intends to make them. Conform them to the image of
Christ. Romans 4 and 17 says, Even God
that quickeneth the dead, and calleth those things that be
not as though they were. The Lord knows, he takes into
account what he's prepared for them, and we know that God has
provided everything that he demands of his children, and we know
that God is going to make his poor people, through his own
work, he's going to make them to be without spot, blemish,
or any such thing. He's going to receive them with
joy, with ecstatic joy, because God Himself has so fixed them
up to where not even He Himself can find any fault with them.
They stand perfect and complete in the Lord Jesus Christ. They
are standing in the merit of the Lord Jesus Christ, and there
is nothing that God is going to see wrong with them when He's
finished with them. They're going to be conformed
to the image of the Lord Jesus Christ. God sees the poorest,
the weakest, the least proficient disciple as a man in Christ,
as a perfect man. Come to the measure, the stature,
the fullness of Christ, as we shall be when we shall see him
as he is, for we shall be like him. You know, this world has
a very, very warped view of what this is all about. God not being
ashamed to be called their God. And sometimes I think we do too,
and that's the reason why we're somewhat miserable, and we miss
the truth of the gospel. Yesterday it was, if you'll just
indulge me for a moment, I know a fellow who owns a grocery store
in Fairfield, and I was out picking up a few things at the grocery,
and he noticed me being in the store, and so he came around.
We'd talked several times before. He came to me and said, John,
do you have a few minutes? I'd like to talk to you about
something. And I said, well, sure. And so
we went in the back and he had an article out of the Reader's
Digest that he wanted to discuss with me. And in this article
there were four or five old men sitting around a pot-bellied
stove down south someplace where they grow cotton. And they were
discussing back and forth about what religion would give the
most hope of salvation in the end. what religion would offer
the most security in the end. And they were unable to come
to any successful conclusion as to what religion that might
be. So there was another old gentleman there that overheard
their conversation and he said, well, men, he says, you know
we live here and grow cotton, and we pick that cotton and we
all take it to the same gin, we all take it to the same place.
And you know what we do is, some of us we take the northern route,
some of us take the southern route, some of us go over the
gravel road, some of us we take the pavement, all of us taking
our cotton to the very same place. And when we arrive there, they
don't ask, how did you get here, which road did you come by, how
did you get here, they don't ask you. All they're interested
in is how good is your cotton. How good is your cotton? And
he said, I just wonder what you thought about that. What do you
think about that story? Well, I'd been praying unto the
Lord while he was reading and while he was trying to find the
article in the first place, and I asked God to give me wisdom
to be able to answer whatever it was that he said. All right,
I told him, I said, well, I tell you what, there's two things
wrong with the article. Number one, The Lord Jesus said,
I am the way, the truth, and the life. No man cometh unto
the Father except by me. that there is no such thing as
some going by air and some by land and some by sea. You either
go by Christ or you don't get there. Now that's what the Bible
says. That's not what my religion says. That's what the Word of
God says, that He's the door. And by Him, if any man enter
in, he shall be saved and shall go in and out and find pasture.
And the second thing is this, that when you get there, It won't
have a thing on earth to do about how good your cotton is. That
question will not be asked. Your cotton is not good enough. Your cotton, I don't care how
good it is, it is not good enough. Your cotton, my friend, will
not meet the test. God demands absolute perfection,
and you can find that perfection in one place, and that's in the
Lord Jesus Christ. And unless you are there standing
in all of the perfections and merit and the white righteousness
of the Lord Jesus Christ, you will not be accepted. You will
not be accepted in this business that, well, I'm going to come
up there and I'm going to show the Lord what I've done and how
I've lived and so on and so forth. It will not get you in, my friend.
God demands of you what he has provided. for you in the person
of the Lord Jesus Christ and you better not come to the judgment
without having it as appropriated for yourself. You better have
on the white garments of the imputed righteousness of the
Lord Jesus Christ or you won't be accepted. Now I'm going to
tell you this, God fixes up his people. He fixes them up. And there ain't going to be nobody
there that we're going to look around and as we see them be
ashamed of them. No, no, no, no. And God ain't
going to be ashamed of anybody there because all of them are
going to look just like His Son. And God loves His Son. He's beloved
to Him. And the Lord Jesus always did
that, which was right in the sight of God. And Christ lived
a perfect life, which was vicarious. It was for me. And God says,
I'll put down his righteous life under your account. And when
you stand before me, I'll dress you just like he is dressed. And you're going to appear as
he appears. And you'll stand in him. And you'll be as perfect
as he is. Away with the stuff. Have God
going to ask us about how good our cotton is? Away with it.
Well, when I got done talking to him, let me tell you something.
I asked him this question. I said, now if God were to save
you by the merits wholly and entirely from the merits of His
Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, If he was to wipe your slate clean,
put down under your record the obedience and faithfulness of
the Lord Jesus Christ, your head, and save you entirely on the
basis of the righteousness of his Son, would you give him the
glory?" Well, he said, I don't know that I could do that. And
I said, now listen to the question. If God was to save you free grass,
if God was to save you without you making any contribution whatsoever
to this salvation, if God was to put on you His holy garments
to wear that when He looked upon you, you would be as holy as
the Holy One, couldn't you give Him all the glory and the praise
of it? He said, I ought to. I ought
to. And I'll tell you what, bless
God, we ought to. We ought to. Because that's exactly
how it is. And God calls those things that
are not as though they were. Look at this bunch, and then,
O Lord, see us in glory. See us when we stand before the
Lord. See us when we're looked upon as a perfect man in Christ.
And when we're looked upon to be without spot or blemish or
any such thing, that's the way the Lord sees us already. We're
already glorified in the mind of God, already, his people,
glorified already. Well, I just want to give you
a couple of words here and then we're going to be done. Do not
wonder, first of all, if those of you who have reason to believe
that God has prepared for you all of these glories and the
city, which hath foundations, Don't wonder if you have discomforts
here. No wonder. There will be many,
many discomforts here. But wouldn't it be better to
have some discomfort here than to be uncomfortable for all eternity? This brother prayed earlier. Not to be where the worm died,
where the fire has never quenched, where the smoke of men's torment
has sent it up forever and ever, and there is no rest, neither
day nor night. I'll take the discomfort there. I'll take it.
If you truly are what you profess to be, strangers, don't expect
this world to treat you as one of the members of their community. Listen to me. When the day comes
when the people around you treat you just like they treat everybody
else in the community, you have reason to be afraid. You have
reason to be afraid. If they don't kind of look at
you just a little bit different, because you are different, and
because your conversation is different, because your life
is different, your hopes are different, and your desires are
different. If they look at... Dogs don't
bark at people they know, they bark at strangers. And hell,
nobody ever say anything about you. You're just one of the old
boys. And everything's just hunky-dory.
You're just accepted everywhere. You're fine. Beware, my friend. Beware. Dogs, I said, don't bark
at people they know. They bark at strangers. People
got a word to say. They just say, well, I don't
know about this guy, this guy, this, this guy, that. Well, don't
expect to find comfort and acceptance here. in this world that you
long for. That will be fulfilled, bless
God. But it'll be in another place.
This is not our home. We're just passing through, as
the old song says. We're in an inn. We care for a night. We're
out of here in the morning. Soon to go on. We can bear any
annoyance for a night, can't we? Joy comes in the morning. Joy comes in the morning. Now,
number two, remember that your greatest joy while you're a pilgrim
is your God. is your God, your greatest joy,
for your pilgrimage here in this world is your God. Now, you say,
is that all, preacher? Listen, my friend, if we only
knew him, if we only knew him, like old Paul said, oh, that
I might know him and the power of his resurrection, be conformed
to the image of his death, the world and all But then it's going
to be burned up. The lost are in the city of destruction,
and its name, as its name, so shall it end be. The lost will
lose all they have. They're going to lose it all.
Lose it all. Lose it all. Well, you know,
it's like the stories often been told about the people sitting
in the barber chair. So somebody died and passed away. And somebody said, well, how
much did he leave? And the fellow said, well, they
left it all.