Pilgrims

What does it mean to be a pilgrim and a stranger? I'd like to try, if God allows to, present it as a challenge to each one of us, younger and older alike. Jeremiah, chapter 35, please, and verse number 7. 7th verse, 35th chapter of the book of Jeremiah. Neither shall ye build houses, nor sow seed, nor plant vineyards, nor of anything but all your days ye shall dwell in tents, that ye may many days in the land where ye be strangers.

Now I realize it's nice to have a house, it's nice to have a farm, but really God is asking us, as Brother Joel was developing, that our lives might be exclusively lived for the one who loved us and gave himself for us. Because he gave his all, he is requesting that our hearts, out of love, might be touched, and whether younger or older alike, we might be willing to lay all down for his honor and his glory. 1 Peter, chapter 2, please.

So I might say while you're turning to 1 Peter, it would be exceedingly thrilling if from this conference there were a band of pilgrims whose heart the Lord had touched, that we might move in a way where people can take note we've been with the Lord Jesus Christ. 1 Peter, chapter 2, and verse 11. Dearly beloved, I beseech you, it behooves you, as strangers, pilgrims, alien residents, that ye abstain from fleshly lusts which war against your soul.

You remember in Matthew, chapter 4, the Lord Jesus, when he called the disciples, he graciously, kindly, tenderly said, follow me. It was a priceless call. And this call to be a pilgrim or a stranger should be a call that each of us, redeemed by his matchless grace, should hear.

And we should be willing to follow it for his honor and for his glory. You would remember when Peter is restored with the Lord Jesus, he asked him a piercing, pulsing question. Lovest thou me more than these? When I come into the book of Proverbs, I read in chapter 23, my son, my daughter, give me thine heart.

You know, if the Lord has your heart, he has everything. And if he doesn't have your heart, he really doesn't have anything. Because we can't serve two masters.

And the Christian life is not do and don't and do this and don't do that. But the Christian life is a life that's been, we've been saved by his matchless grace and out of love and out of appreciation and out of adoration, by his grace, I want to please him. I want to live for him.

I want to serve him. Oh, yeah, we fall by the way, we make mistakes, we sin. But God is longing that our lives might be fully surrendered to the Lord Jesus Christ.

In other words, I could put it this way, take me, use me, make me, mold me for thy honor and glory. So I'll throw out a little question because Brother Joel commented on Romans 12 and 1. I beseech you, I beg of you, beloved brethren, to present your bodies a living sacrifice, wholly acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service, and be not conformed to this world. Can you remember that event in your life? Most that I view in the audience are much younger than I am.

And I am well aware that most of my days are over. But I would long that dear younger one and a wee older one, that you might put aside the toys and the trinkets of life. And that you might get on fire for the Lord Jesus Christ and never look back.

That you might be willing to be a pilgrim. That you might be willing to be a foreign alien in this land that we live. This world is not my home.

I'm just a passing through. And we sometimes sing our treasures are or should be laid up somewhere beyond the blue. And so the Spirit of God is telling us and Peter here, he says, I beg of you, I beseech you.

I can remember my Latin teacher saying, it behooves you, it behooves you. Abstain from freshly lust, which war against your soul. It's a priceless call that comes to every believer.

And it's a call to follow me. Pilgrims are to have devotion. Dedication.

Discipline in our lives. A distance from this false world and its ways and its systems and its wants and its wishes. The Spirit of God reminds us to not be entangled with this world.

When you were baptized, and if you're saved and you're not, I'd like you to consider it. But you declared to all about and to heaven above, I have died to this world, its wants and its wishes. And by God's grace, I want to live for the one who loved me and gave himself for me.

Mr. Maxwell used to work the West Coast a lot and I can remember him telling us baptism, we look for life, new life in Christ, and we look for death to the world, its wants and its wishes. Pilgrims get a tremendous call. And it's a call from God Himself.

Individuals are called for God. You would remember Abram, the man of faith, the mighty man of God. He was called out of the era of Chaldees.

Isaiah 51 says he was called alone. When you come to Genesis 14, Abram was the Hebrew. And the rendering is the man from the other side.

There was something different, something unique about this man's life. We would put it in today's terms, he had testimony making God look great in the eyes of the world. When the king of Sodom offered his riches, he wouldn't take even a shoelatch.

He was dwelling in likeness with God whose builder and maker was God. Abram was a man that was consecrated. He was one that knew God and communed with God and walked with God.

Remember Moses? God came to him alone at the burning bush and he didn't like the call. And he wanted to run away from the call and he made seven different excuses why it could not be him and it should not be him. God has a call on your life just as mine.

Some of the aspects will be exactly the same. Other of the aspects might be vastly different. But the call is to follow him and to put aside the toys and the trinkets.

Nehemiah has a phrase there in chapter 5. He says, Yet did not I, he could have, because of the fear of God. He wanted to please God. He wanted to honor one who loved him and gave himself for him and so he says, I cannot do that.

I cannot go there. If you are going to be a pilgrim for God, you're going to have to take up running. Now I'm not talking about physical running and you can tell I've never been much of a runner in my life.

The most I ever ran in life was one mile because we had to in high school and I thought I should have got a gold medal. But I read in the word of God to flee youthful lust which war against your soul. So if I'm going to be a pilgrim and I'm going to make progress for God, I'm going to have to know when to run.

I'm going to have to know when to stand. And I'm going to find something. Then my eyes are going to have to be under control.

I thank God for relatively good eyesight. But the spirit of God in the psalmist, he says, I will set no unclean thing before my eyes. Pornographic material is all too accessible today.

And I never wish I had the calls. Can you come to the house and talk to me privately? And the question is, what's the problem? And the problem is my eyes are in the wrong spot and my eyes are in the wrong place and I'm having trouble breaking the sin and I'm in God's assembly. Could I plead with you, beloved, and I speak to my own soul.

You watch what your eyes see. You watch by God's grace because there's one that died to save you where your feet go. Because the blessing of the Lord makes rich and it adds no sorrow thereto.

The more you and I try and walk with Him, and the more you and I enjoy Him, and the more you and I can have communion with Him, we're going to have peace. We're going to have joy. It says resist the devil and he'll flee from you.

You remember Jacob and Laban? And some of you might know Genex and all those technical things. But there's a simple principle that's found. Observation brings conception and conception brings reproduction.

What you observe will be conceived and before you know it, it will be produced in your life and in my life. And so the Spirit of God is guiding us graciously, kindly, tenderly, that by His grace we might be exceedingly careful and cautious. What our eyes see.

You would find in the Word of God that there is a path for pilgrims. You would find in the Word of God that the will of God will never contradict the teaching of the Word of God. He gives us a divine pattern for every aspect of life.

There's more up to date than the current news on the internet or the newspaper that you and I might give. There is daily guidance as a pilgrim. Micah chapter 6, he says, I've showed you what is good.

James chapter 1, he says, keep yourself unspotted from this world. Sometimes I tell Linda, I'm going to just do a little something on the car or something, you know. She says, you better change your clothes.

I says, you don't need to worry about that. I'll be really careful. Well, no matter how careful I am, by the time I get the project done, I found out I got spotted.

This world is full of contamination. Let me put you on a little trail in Arizona. This trail is full of rattlesnakes that you may not see until they're almost at your feet to bite you and you really get the heebie-jeebies.

God reminds us that the path can be preserved when you and I will follow the Word of God. Go against the path of the one who loved us and gave himself for us and knows what's best. There will be problems and problems and more problems.

Pilgrims should be concerned about others. Pilgrims should have a shepherd's heart. Abram the pilgrim went after Lot, first with a team of special forces, you might say, and second of all, he was rescued by prayer.

Today is the day of instant knowledge. I might be slower than most. That's quite all right.

It's the way the Lord made me. But preparation for a conference Bible reading would have been many days of looking up all the words in Rhine's, Vincent's, and all the different words, storybooks. And at the click of the mouse, I find out what the words mean so quick.

Let me just say that AI intelligence will not give you a message from God for the people of God. I was riding in a truck maybe a month and a half ago and the fellow goes to one of these churches and so he says, I was riding with my pastor and I asked him, I says, what are you studying this week? He told me. He says, while he's driving, I clicked on my phone, a passage.

He says, I want two key points and I want six sub points. I says, I read it to him. He says, how did you come up with that so fast? He says, I got it from artificial intelligence, but I didn't get it from God.

What we say needs to come from God to have any power from God. Not just a computer message or an intellect message from a book. Abram was called alone and it was get thee out of thy country and from thy kindred.

Pilgrims can grow weary. Opposition will come. Pilgrims can get discouraged.

How can I get encouraged? Just like David did. David encouraged himself in the Lord. And so as I read the word of God and I find I enjoy the Psalms more as I get older than I ever did.

And I've heard brethren say that happens when you get older. I find I can get an infusion from God of little verses that speak to my soul to help me. Naaman 1 and 7. God is a stronghold in the day of trouble and he owes them the trust in him.

The Lord is my shepherd. And you can develop the verses and God can use these verses to strengthen our ankle bones as pilgrims to go on for God and not fall out by the way. Elijah had a word to turn eastward.

Pilgrims walk in a wilderness scene. I said Moses had seven excuses. A lack of ability.

I've got no message. I'm not eloquent enough. I lack words.

I lack confidence. And I've never had any success. What I say nobody really listens to.

And a lack of acceptance. And I've got circumcised lips, I doubt. God spoke to Moses at the burning bush.

It wasn't odd that the bush was burning. It was odd that it wasn't consumed. And God in his own unique way comes across every believer's path that puts him first and wants him as Lord to hear his voice and can give divine direction what way to go.

I see a number of young ones here. God bless you. Let me make a unique statement.

Evangelistic dating is not found in the Word of God. You'll say where do you get that from? Hezekiah 2 and 1. No. Evangelistic dating is I think this one or that one would be a really nice one to have for a wife or a husband.

So I just got to get them saved. And then I got to get them baptized. And I got to get them gathered out.

And you started the whole thing wrong. God will guide. God will direct.

God will bring the opportunities. They that wait on the Lord shall renew their strength. God wants us as pilgrims to have a separated life, not an isolated life.

I've rubbed shoulders with lots of people week by week wherever I am and all the ramifications, but he says socially these people are not my people. Be careful where we go socially. Commercially, no unequal yokes believer with unbeliever.

It's totally against the Word of God. Politically, no political voting or anything. You say that's radical.

You can call it radical all you want. I'm a citizen of heaven. And this world is not my home.

I thought it was funny a few years ago, but I didn't tell anybody. I said I know who to vote for. Why the choice is so clear.

Well, I read in the Word of God that God sets up the kingdoms, the rulers, and the nations thereof. And the one the believers are voting for didn't get in anyway. God's in control.

He sets up the kingdoms, the rulers, the nations thereof. There is separation from practices, separation in thought, in word and deeds. We rub shoulders with mankind to try and win and woo them to the Lord Jesus Christ.

Pilgrim basics. Flee youthful lusts which war against your soul. Run.

Resist the devil. He'll flee from you. It's a promise from God.

We rest in God's promises. And we get an infusion of strength from God's promises to sustain us in this wilderness scene. And the entrance of thy word gives light.

Thy word have I hid in my heart that I might not sin against thee. Feeding on the Word of God will strengthen us. It'll give us equipment in our minds to be equipped when the time of trial and death comes that reading and praying is very difficult.

One of the enemy's tactics that's used globally from biblical times to today is cut up the water supply and the nation won't live. And one of the tactics that the enemy wants to use today is fill in the wells of your joy. And when you lose your joy, the joy of the Lord is your strength.

We're a defeated foe. He says keep in the love of God. Enjoy the Word.

Enjoy the book. Listen to the Word. Isaiah 30.

This is the way. Walk therein. There's the pilgrim's call.

There's devotion. There's provision for all along the journey. And then I want to just throw in for a moment or two, because most of my life has been pioneer work more than preaching in assemblies that much.

We don't have that many assemblies in the West anyway, but maybe at this conference there could be raised up a pilgrim for pioneer work to reach the regions beyond with the gospel of the race of God. You remember the Apostle Paul in Romans, he says, I fully preach the gospel of Christ, not where Christ was named. I come to 1 Thessalonians chapter 4, from you sounded out the Word of the Lord.

Have you got an exercise, an interest, a burden? I'll give you my view on gifts very quickly, and the scholars can help me later if needed. There are only four gifts found in the Word of God today. The moment you were saved, you were indwelt with the Holy Spirit.

Ephesians chapter 4 is evangelist, pastor, teachers. You say, better do some explaining quickly. Well, the clock won't let me.

No, it will. The moment you got saved, you had the Holy Spirit dwelling within. And the Holy Spirit can give you an infusion of grace.

My grace is sufficient for thee to help a beloved local brother preach the gospel of the grace of God and see a soul saved. The Spirit of God can give a dear brother to give a word at the funeral as sterling as anyone else. The Spirit of God can give a dear sister to come along with words of comfort to one in a family across the street or whatever it might be.

He equips the believers by the gracious Holy Spirit for the event or the need that's needed at that time. Most, if I ask in any assembly, what's your gift? I haven't got a clue. I remember asking a dear sister older than I am, and that's pretty old.

She's a godly girl, godly lady. I says, what's your gift? I don't know. I asked the other one at the table.

We took some out for breakfast a while ago. I haven't got a gift. I haven't got a clue.

A gift is not physical. Gift is not talent. You had that before conversion.

Gift is something that came at conversion. The Holy Spirit, you are indwelt with. And He will give you an infusion of that grace.

My grace is sufficient to meet the need at that time, whether it be in the gospel, whether it be for one that's lost and perishing, any way you want to develop it. He can come along using the Word of God that we know as a pilgrim that's learned the Word of God to equip us for the need at that time. 2 Samuel 11.

I'll try to be down in five minutes. The pilgrim's potential danger. 2 Samuel.

Chapter 11. And verse 1. Pilgrims have danger. And pilgrims that don't flee danger come into disaster.

2 Samuel 11 and 1. And it came to pass after the year was expired at the time when kings go forth to battle. David should have been at battle. David sent Joab and his servants with him and all Israel.

And they destroyed the children of Ammon and besieged Rabbath. And this is a very searching verse in your Scriptures. But David tarried still at Jerusalem.

David the pilgrim, David the soldier, why did you not go to battle with the men? Why did you tarry at Jerusalem? And the problem came in with Bathsheba because he was where he ought not to have been at that time. And so we as pilgrims, we're not prone from falling out by the way. Thank God for His grace that finds us here today.

And we trust that He'll preserve us to the end of the journey. But we find as we heard, we can fall out by the way. You would remember the Gibeonites.

Joshua 9. They wanted to look like ambassadors from another country. Their shoes were old and their sandals were old. Their bread was moldy and their clothes were all looking like homeless people on the streets.

They rested on their leaves and they received in who they shouldn't have received in. And there were problems that was brought in. We could go on, but I won't.

Uzziah, as long as he sought the Lord, he prospered. You and I can be pilgrims by His grace in a wilderness scene. And as long as we seek God's help and counsel and wisdom from the Word of God, we can be served in this ungodly scene.

And the last one I had was the, not the pilgrim's potential problem, but the pilgrim's praise. That perhaps in that day, we might hear them say, well done, thou good and faithful servant. So that might God challenge my heart greater and challenge your hearts, beloved ones.

Live that life for the Lord Jesus. Become a pilgrim for His honor and glory. And perhaps in that day, at the judgment seat of Christ, well done, thou good and faithful servant.