Are We Drifting Toward Our Destruction?

Brethren, quite frequently, over the course of years, I've had the opportunity to speak on the seventh day Feast of Tabernacles. I've also had the opportunity to speak on a number of occasions on the last great day. Many of those times, Wisconsin Dells teamed me up with Mr. Faye. Normally, I would do the morning service. He would do the afternoon service. There is a scripture that I've used over the years in giving a message on the seventh day of the Feast of Tabernacles that is very appropriate for that day. It talks about if there is a meaning for each day, there certainly would encapsulize that particular day. But as I was thinking about it, that particular scripture also has meaning for us during these days of Unleavened Bread. Let's take a look at Revelation 20. Revelation 20. The reason I give this on the seventh day of the Feast is because, insofar as the Feast is concerned, the Feast has basically come to an end on that seventh day. The messages relate to the very end of the millennium, which this verse talks about. These verses talk about Revelation 20, verses 7 through 9. Revelation 20, verse 7, Now when a thousand years have expired Satan will be released from his prison and he will go out to deceive the nations which are in the four corners of the earth, Gog and Magog, to gather to battle, whose number is as the sand of the sea. Now, let's pause there for a second and outrun our discussion.

One thousand years, the prior one thousand years, the earth has become a garden of Eden at its most beautiful, a superb abundance of wonderful, nutritious food, human health at its best, challenging career opportunities for all people living, peaceful, safe living conditions, things such as murder and war would only be found in history books and dictionaries, the family of God ruling, teaching the way of God. Add to that for the whole millennium, Satan has been removed, the demons have been removed, and there are some scriptures, there are some prophecies that tell us that maybe God won't even allow false prophets to live on into the millennium. Mr. Waterhouse talked about that quite frequently. So here you have Satan now being released, and it says here in verse 8, he goes out to the four corners of the earth, not just one little geographical area, but he's broadcasting worldwide. Gog and Magog are symbolic of that, but it's worldwide. And it says to gather them to battle, to battle, whose number is as the sand of the sea. We're not talking about just one or two people being deceived. We're talking about great numbers of people. What in the world has gone wrong here? Verse 9, and they went up on the breadth of the earth and surrounded the camp of the saints and the beloved city, talking about Jerusalem. They saw how God has blessed Jerusalem. It was a beautiful jewel, so to speak, and they surrounded it because they wanted to plunder it. They wanted to take. And again, what is wrong here? After 1,000 years of the family of God ruling at the end of the millennium, what is wrong here? Verse 9, and fire came down from heaven. Now, the people didn't have to establish a draft. God took care of everything. A fire came down from heaven and devoured it. So here we see a…you talk about an environment. You don't get…other than what happened prior to the creation of mankind, you don't get a better environment than what we saw here. These people who should have been so zealous in the delevening process, something happened in their hearts and minds. I've often said that when we take a look at the picture of photos, if you would, symbolically of God's family, of the people of God at the end of the age, you see two sets of photos. And I've said this to you in the past. You see the fruitful and you see the fruitless. You see the bride of Christ that's preparing, delevening, getting ready for the return of Christ. And you see others who aren't delevening.

They aren't preparing. What gives? What happens? What happened here? There is a lesson that you know, we can use that on the seventh day of the Feast of Tabernacles, but we can also bring this over to the Days of Unleavened Bread. There is a question I want to ask.

And I certainly have asked it of myself. Every sermon I give, I ask of myself the issue at hand. I ask this of you. And here, if you're taking notes, would be the question I want to ask and hopefully answer it today. Are we drifting toward our destruction? Spiritual drift. The people there in Revelation 20 were spiritually drifting. They got to a place where they were not delevening as they should. And as a result, they listened to Satan. They acted on what he had to say. They were motivated to go do things they shouldn't be doing. And God had to bring fire down from the sky to devour them. Now that's at the end of the Christian era. Let's take a look at the other side of that. Let's take a look at the other bookend. Let's go to Hebrews 2. Hebrews 2. Let's look at the very beginning of the Christian era toward the beginning.

As you're aware, the Apostle Paul wrote this book. He wrote it to a group of people who were, if you want to call them church kids, they were church kids. They grew up in the faith. They were Hebrews. They knew about the Sabbath and the Holy Days and tithing and what they should eat and so on and so forth. They were well acquainted with the truth of God. Jesus Christ came. He conducted his ministry. They accepted him. They embraced him as the Messiah. Of course, part of this book, chapters 7, 8, 9, and 10 were written to show them and us what things we no longer need to do that were in the Old Testament. We don't need to sacrifice animals anymore. We've got the sacrifice of Jesus Christ. But these same people, who again should have been in the process of delevening themselves with God's help, were getting close to leaving Christianity and going back into Judaism.

Notice what Paul says here in chapter 2, verse 1. Therefore, we must give the more earnest heed to the things which we have heard, lest we drift away. Lest we drift away. It says we are to give earnest heed. In the Greek, that means to carefully consider our ways, to carefully consider maintaining our spiritual life. And, of course, I would add, not only maintaining, but moving forward in our spiritual life. Yes, not only delevening, but adding the righteousness of God into our lives.

God has given us seven days of unleavened bread. Seven days, seven, representing a time of maturity, representing completeness and wholeness. There is a desire on God's part, and it should be on our part, to want to, deleven, not drift, not lose our bearings, to be the people God has called us to be. As I was putting my thoughts together for the message today, there was one commentator who called the book of Hebrews the Epistle of Severe Warnings. The Epistle of Severe Warnings. This could be a sermon to itself.

I just want to briefly give you his diagnosis for what it's worth to you, maybe future study on your part. Five different areas he highlighted in this book, as he talked about the Hebrews being the Epistle of Severe Warnings. In chapter 2 of Hebrews, the danger of drifting away.

In Hebrews chapter 3, the danger of hardening one's heart. In chapter 5 of Hebrews, the danger of falling away. In Hebrews chapter 10, the danger of withdrawing from Christ and in Hebrews chapter 12, the danger of refusing to hear Jesus Christ. So brethren, whether we are talking about Hebrews chapter 2 or Revelation chapter 20, we see at the beginning of the Christian era, the end of the Christian era, where people are drifting. The question is, are you and I drifting? And if we are, how would we know that you and I are drifting? We don't want to do that. We want to be in a process of delavening. We want to be in a process of growing in grace and knowledge.

Yet how many people have you known who used to attend here in Chicago, who no longer attend here in Chicago? People who, great people, people you've loved, you've had meals with, you've been there through various trials that you both have gone through at the same time or you've been there to pray and fast for one another, and yet they've drifted away. They're no longer here. You and I don't want to be, you know, we don't want to have somebody saying these words a year from now or two years from now and somebody says, oh yeah, what's his name? What's their name? They used to attend for so many years, but they drifted away. Two things we need to know about drifting. Two things.

Letter A. Forgive me for the German side of my personality coming out. I'm half Italian, but a good part of the rest of me is German. Letter A. Drifting requires no effort. Drifting requires no effort. You don't or I, we don't have to do anything, and we can begin and will begin to drift. Matthew 25. Matthew 25, starting here in verse 18. Talking about the talents, Matthew 25, 18. But he would receive one, one talent, went and dug in the ground and hid his Lord's money. You know, for us to drift, to use the analogy, a nautical analogy, all we've got to do is stop rowing. All we've got to do is take down the sails. All we've got to do is cut the engine, and the vessel will begin to drift.

The lesson is, if you're going to drift, you'll have to do it. If you're going to drift, you'll have to do it.

Growing up in Michigan, a land of 10,000 little lakes, inland lakes, in addition to the Great Lakes, growing up, my family owned a boat. It was a 23-foot day cruiser. My father enjoyed it because it was a wooden boat. I didn't enjoy it because I had to paint it a lot. But he enjoyed it. It was made by the same company that during World War II it made the PT boat he served on during the Second World War.

But I remember so many times going out, and we would go fishing, and we'd go out to a certain spot in Lake St. Clair, and he'd cut the engine. We wouldn't throw out an anchor. And I would notice the boat drifting. When you're just sitting there talking, as I was talking to my dad, I didn't notice the movement of the boat. But as I looked at the shore, I can see that we were moving.

Cut the engine. Started to drift.

Our location began to change. This man here, in verse 18, went and decided to cut the engine. He wasn't going to do anything. He was going to take the money that he was given and bury it. Verse 24.

Then he would receive the one talent came and said, Lord, I knew to be a hard man, reaping where you've not sown, and gathering where you've not scattered seed.

Now, does this encapsulate the totality of who God is? Does this describe the God you and I worship in full? No. This is an incomplete view of God. It's incomplete because this man was drifting. He wasn't delavening like he should. He wasn't gathering the righteousness of God as he should. Verse 25. Verse 25. And I was afraid. Does God give us a spear of fear? No. And I was afraid and went and hid your talent in the ground. Look, there you have what is yours.

But his Lord answered and said to him, You wicked and lazy servant. Notice, wicked because he was doing his own thing and not God's thing. Lazy because he was not zealous in the delavening process. He was into spiritual inaction. He was into a lack of zeal.

You wicked and lazy servant. You knew that I reap where I have not sown and gathered, where I have not scattered seed. So you ought to have deposited my money with the bankers, that at my coming I would have received my mind back with interest. Now, therefore, take the town from him and give it to him who has ten towns. For to everyone who has, moral be given, and he will have abundance. But from him who does not have, even what he has will be taken away. And cast the unprofitable servant into the outer darkness, and there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.

Brethren, you and I have been given a lot. You and I have been given great opportunities. We have been given a calling of God. Paul called it, the Bible calls it, a holy calling.

A holy calling that separates us from the rest of the world. So one thing we need to appreciate about drifting requires no effort. It requires no effort. Let's build on that. A second thing we need to know about drifting, letter B, is that drifting can take you unaware. Drifting can take you unaware. Let's look at Matthew 24. Go back one chapter.

Matthew 24.

Verse 37. But as the days of Noah were, so will also be the coming of the Son of Man. We believe we're living in those days. For us, we better be paying attention, each and every one of us. Verse 38. For as in the days before the flood, they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage until the day that Noah entered the ark.

In other words, life was going on. They were doing the things human beings do. Much like so many times, you know, we get up early in the morning, we're rushed because maybe we've slept in, we were so tired because of the day before and all the hard work, and we come home from a hard day's work, maybe we've got to commute to get back home. There's things to do around the house. There's children to raise. There's things to do, you know, our chores and what have you.

We don't get to our spiritual disciplines. We feel bad about that. But, you know, the night is now late. Time to go to bed. We say, well, we'll do better tomorrow. And too many times, tomorrow isn't any better. Tomorrow isn't any better. So here they're getting caught up. They're unaware that they're being caught up in so many ways.

Verse 39, And they did not know until the flood came, and took them all away, so will be the coming of the Son of Man. We can drift without being aware of drifting. As I was preparing my message, I had it all prepared out, and I had to add something here, because a historical example came to my mind.

I'd like to share it with you. I think if I make mention of the name Amelia Earhart, at least those who've got some gray hair know that name. Maybe some of you younger people know the name Amelia Earhart. Amelia Earhart was a woman's aviation pioneer. She was an author. She lived during the time of another great pioneer in aviation. His name was Charles Lindbergh. Because some fella she bore a resemblance to Lindy, to Charles Lindbergh, they called her Lady Lindy. Earhart was the first female aviator fly solo across the Atlantic. She received a U.S. Distinguished Flying Cross for that record. She sent a lot of other records. She wrote a number of books.

It was quite famous in her day. In 1935, Earhart became a visiting faculty member at Purdue University. And in that same year, in 1937, she was sponsored to circumnavigate the world in her plane. She had a Lockheed Electra. She had one other person on board, Fred Noonan. Fred Noonan was going to act as her navigator. And so they started their quest. They began working their way around the world, stopping at various locations for fuel and checked the plane out.

On July 2, 1937, Amelia and Fred Noonan were looking to find Howland Island. They're in the center of the Pacific Ocean. No place to land anywhere nearby except for Howland Island. Howland Island was a speck. It was almost nothing. Howland Island was one and a quarter mile long and a quarter mile wide.

A very, very small target. Now, to help, to be an assistance to the Earhart journey, the U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Itasca was commissioned to be there, to be of service, to help with radio work and so on and so forth. As it turned out, Amelia Earhart and Fred Noonan realized they had drifted off course.

They began a radio to the Itasca asking for help, asking for direction. Now, put yourself in their shoes. They're looking at the gas gauge. There's no place to land. They can't see the ship. They can't see any land. There's a feel of desperation in the voice. If they run out of gas, they ditch. Compounding all of that, the Itasca heard all the cries for help. This is 1937. But although the Itasca heard the cries for help, their radio could not match her frequency, for whatever the reason.

And so as the radio operator and the captain and the crew of the ship were realizing these two people were begging for somebody to help them, the Itasca could not get any word to them. After a while, the captain said, well, let's make smoke. Let's throw things into the boiler. Let's make smoke. Throw out the big funnel of the ship of ours on a relatively clear day. I wish it was relatively smooth seas. I wish it was. They should be able to see that smoke plume for miles.

Earhart never saw it. Earhart never saw it. There were some scattered clouds that day. And those of you who have ever flown over the ocean, you realize when you've got a cloud over the ocean, the shadow on the water below, from a distance, looks like land. It may well be that Amelia and Fred went from shadow to shadow until their voice messages stopped.

Drifting cost them their lives. Now, legends have sprung up regarding Amelia Earhart. There was a large search by the U.S. Navy to try to find wreckage or whatever. Maybe they had ditched on some remote island someplace in 1937. On one island, where there was no water, where they would have died of thirst, they did find a little piece of shoe leather that would have corresponded to her shoe size, but nothing else. Other legends were that, you know, it was 1937, the Japanese Empire was doing various things on the world scene, but maybe the Japanese, they ditched, the Japanese got them and interrogated them as spies and then executed them.

All sorts of legends, but the bottom line is nobody knows whatever happened to Amelia Earhart and Fred Noonan. We do know they drifted off course. They drifted off course. Brethren, we want to be people who are de-leavening our lives. We don't want to drift off course.

What are some common signs of drifting? How can you and I analyze it? We don't want to be a situation like this spiritually, where we drift so far out of line that we lose our lives. Common signs of drifting. Number one, a diminishing desire, and I use that word carefully, a diminishing desire for spiritual disciplines. A diminishing desire. Do I? Do you? Do we have a diminishing desire for prayer? Do we have a diminishing desire for study? These are questions we have to, you know, just prior to Passover is not the only time we examine ourselves. Paul tells us we need to examine ourselves at all times to see whether we be in the faith. Do we have a diminishing desire? Hebrews 5. Again, Paul writing to people who were facing a diminishing desire. Hebrews 5.

Hebrews 5, verse 12. For though by this time you ought to be teachers, they have a long history in the Old Testament Church of God. They have a, at that time this book was written, they also had several decades in the New Testament history of the Church. For by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone else to teach you again the first principles of the oracles of God. And you've come to need milk and not solid food.

It reminds me of the story, and I believe I've told you this, but it's a good story that helps us to remember things. So many years ago when I was in Detroit, a man came up to me, and I don't think I was even in the ministry at that point.

As an ambassador, college graduate, people thought we knew everything, which we don't. But the fella came to me and said, you know, Randy, I've been in the church 19 years. I used to be 19 years down the road. But I felt like I've lived one year over and over 19 times. That's basically what we've got here. You and I don't want to be there. Right? Verse 13, for everyone who partakes only of milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness, for he is a babe. We want to be known as skilled people in the word. Skilled people in the word. And brethren, there's probably no other group of people who've lived in the history of God's church than, you know, our current era, where we've got so much on the Internet, all this literature, all these booklets.

You want Mr. Armstrong's literature? You want, you know, his sermons and things? There are several sites out there that has everything, most everything he produced. All the various correspondence courses, all the things he wrote, the things we have written, other groups have written. There's so much out there for us. There's no reason why we should be unskilled in the word of righteousness. We should be delevening, getting rid of the things that we shouldn't have on us, and as we study the word of God, imbibing of the meat of the word.

Verse 14, But solid food belongs to those who are of full age, that is, those who by reason of use. What did David do? David would lay on his bed at night and he would ponder the word of God. He would think about the mechanics of how these various laws of God worked and how he could apply those.

He used the Scriptures. He came to understand the meaning of the Scriptures. That's why we love his writing so much. In my notes here, I've put a little graph. Maybe you might want to do this. I don't know. On the left, mature choices. On the right, immature choices. We don't want a diminished desire for spiritual discipline.

We want a great desire. A mature choice is mastering and teaching the concepts we see in the Scriptures. That's the mature choice. We get that through our study, through zenlessly putting our nose into the book. An immature choice is when we only are basic students.

Now, there's nothing wrong with being a basic student. But we want to mature past that. We want to grow past that. We want to be at the place where we've mastered the subject. Where we can teach the subject. On a mature choice, developing a depth of understanding. In other words, we do that, as I said, as David did, through meditation. Now, the other side of that coin, the immature choice, is struggling with the basics.

We don't want to be struggling with the basics. We want to be developing a depth of understanding. A mature choice is we evaluate ourselves in order to move forward. The immature choice is criticizing ourselves so we're stuck in the past. We don't want to be stuck in the past. We want to be proactive and move forward. A mature choice, seeking unity with God the Father and Jesus Christ, our elder brother.

In your notes, you might want to jot down Ephesians 4, verse 13, where we want to grow to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Jesus Christ. That's the unity we seek versus what some people seem to want to do today is promote disunity. That's why we've had split after split. And unfortunately, and I apologize to you, those splits have not been the result of you as the brethren of the church.

They've been the result of ministers who should know better and shame on them for what they've done. And they will answer to God for what they've done. A mature choice, having an act of faith, act of faith through prayer, through fasting, through studying the Word of God, through taking all those spiritual disciplines in and allowing those to mature us as we meditate and think on those things.

The immature choice, apathy and doubt. We want to move past all of that. So a common sign of drifting is a diminished desire for spiritual discipline. Number two, another common sign of drifting, a diminishing desire to be with God's people. You know, we don't do it here. I would like to do it here. Where I would get a role every so often, I get that up in Beloit, I used to get it in other areas, where I can look at a list and see everybody's name and who's missed how many services. Now, if you know everybody in the Chicago church, please come see me. I'd like to start that process.

It's not a matter of spying, but what I've noticed over the years, brethren, is I take a look at a report and I see so-and-so consistently misses three out of four, or two out of four, or four out of five services on a regular basis over the course of months. That person's on the way out. Now, surely there could be problems with transportation. You've got to factor that in. There could be problems with health, but if there's no problem with transportation, there's no problem with health, and people are just missing, then there's a reason for that.

And as a pastor, I'd like to go visit. You know, I'm only here half the time. Half the time I'm in Beloit. I don't get a lot of continuity in terms of flow. Let's take a look at Hebrews 10. Hebrews 10, verse 24. Hebrews 10, verse 24. And let us consider one another, not as gossips. No, we are to consider one another in order to stir up love and good works.

We need to be here for that to happen, having an iron-sharpening-iron relationship. We are stirring one another to love, as we heard in the sermon today, for good works that help other people. We're here to serve. We've been called to serve. And let us consider one another to stir up love and good works. Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together is as the manner of some, but exhorting one another, encouraging one another, and so much more as you see the day approaching.

We need one another. Again, I remember the very first sermon that I gave at the feast. I had been a full-time minister three years before I was allowed to give a sermon at the feast. Back in those days, we had 1,600 ministers, and Randy de los Andres was basically who knows him. But finally, in 1987, I was given a shot to give a sermonette in Norfolk, Virginia. First opportunity. I think that year we had somewhere between 5,000 and 6,000 people. Now, I know you believe that all of us ministers, we come out of the cradle, and speaking before thousands, that's what we do.

I'm here to tell you that's not what I was like. I'm here to tell you that that day before the sermonette began, before I was called on stage, I was walking back and forth, as is my custom, about ready to have cats. And I don't even like cats. You know, cats, they need psychoanalysis or something. But Bob Jones, who was the coordinator of the feast, long-time minister coordinator, he saw that Randy Delisandro was really sweating it out.

He came up to me, grabbed me by the lapels, and very soberly said, Delisandro, no heresy. And that got me to laugh. And that put me in a frame of mind to be able to get up there and talk about my message. The message that day, I talked about a certain kind of a tree. Sequoias. I had to do some research to make the information a little more relevant to the people in that congregation.

I've done the same here. The General Sherman Tree, you'll understand the point I'm trying to make in just a moment, about a diminished desire to be with God's people. The General Sherman Tree in California is considered to be the largest tree, one of the largest living things on land. It is 270 feet high and 30 feet wide. When I gave the sermon at one of the other ministers who was from California, I said, you know, Randy, years ago we had a teen dance in our area there in California.

And there was one of those sequoia trees that had been cut off near the base. It was X number of feet. We used it as our dance floor. Can you imagine using a tree stump as a dance floor for a bunch of teens? It was 275 feet high, 30 feet wide. Now, what is that in terms of this room? What does that mean? Yesterday I called the folks here at the community house. I said, how wide is this stage? They told me this stage is 29 feet wide. Now, I don't know what that means from what I can see here and there or behind the curtains.

But let's just say it's from this area here to over here, 29 feet. When you take a look at this space, that's how wide a sequoia tree is. That's something, right? I asked from this end of the room to that end of the room, how wide is this room? They told me 56 feet. So how tall is that general Sherman tree? You take a span, raise it up, take a second span, put that on top, do that five times, five times this width.

That's how wide that tree, that's how tall that tree is. The bark is two feet thick, has in it a substance called tannin, which makes it fire resistant. Basically, these trees are indestructible. You would think they would have a root system that goes down to China, but they don't.

For their height, they have a relatively shallow root system. Their roots only go down maybe as far as 14 feet. For a tree that tall, it's nothing. But here's the strength of the Sequoia trees. In a grove of Sequoias, the roots go down 14 feet, and then they go out. And they interlock with other Sequoia trees. And so if you've got a stand that covers literally hundreds of miles, you've got a network of roots that covers a hundred miles or so with these roots interlocking. You're not going to knock that tree over. Some have fallen over.

I'll tell you why in a moment. The one that they were analyzing, it fell over, they cut it, they counted the rings. That tree, when it fell over, was 3,200 years old. Some of the trees that are living now in California were alive and thriving when Jesus Christ walked the earth.

Why? Because of the unity they have, the root structure that interlocks, they need one another. They survive because of one another. Now, the ones that fall over, why do they fall over? Well, birds will sometimes eat a seed, fly off, dropping falls way away from the grove of the Sequoias. A tree begins to develop by itself, out in isolation. In time, it becomes so tall, so heavy, you might say, weighted down by life. Good wind comes, it falls over because it's not interlocked with the others. We need to be with God's people. We need to be in Sabbath services. If we don't, we will drift. If we don't, we will be with the Sequoia trees off by ourselves, being sitting ducks for the next big wind. And, of course, Satan is the prince of the power of the air.

A third common sign of drifting is a diminishing desire to do the work of God. A diminishing desire to do the work of God.

I'm very happy that we have a culture here in Chicago where we appreciate the work of Herbert Armstrong.

It's not like that every place you'll go. But here, because of the pastors you've had in the past, the good men who've loved you and taught you and worked with you and served you, the people you currently have, loving you and working with you and serving with you, there is not a worship of Herbert Armstrong, but a true appreciation for what the man brought to the church. And when you go back and reread the autobiography of Mr. Armstrong, what do you see in his life? We see a tremendous zeal. Why? Because he continually prayed for the work. He wrote those co-workers. Remember his co-worker letters?

You would get a co-worker letter, and no two words seem to be typed the same way. You'd have one that's italicized, one that's bolded, one that's italicized bolded, one that's italicized bolded, and maybe a different color, and you looked at this and the page looks like it was a riot. But that was just the way the man was expressing himself because of his tremendous zeal for the work of God.

And we need to ask ourselves, I need to ask myself, you need to ask yourself, what is our attitude when we get a co-worker letter? Do we just throw it on a pile someplace and say, well, I'm going to get to that? Is the work of God the centerpiece of our life? Because it's the centerpiece of what we want our mission in life, or is it a hobby? Was it a hobby to Herbert Armstrong? Or was it the centerpiece of his life? I'm not talking about human beings being the centerpiece. God is the centerpiece. But we're doing the work of God. Lastly, one final common sign of drifting.

Number four, an increasing thrill over things in the world.

An increasing thrill over things. The world seems more attractive than a church.

The world seems more interesting than a church. Our life's orientation is more in the world than in a church. Our priorities, if we're drifting, are more in the world than in a church, in God's Word. 2 Timothy chapter 3 2 Timothy chapter 3 and verse 4 Well, let's start in verse 1. 2 Timothy chapter 3 verse 1. But know this, that in the last days perilous times will come, for men will be lovers of themselves.

Have we seen any of that around? Lovers of money, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, unloving, unforgiving. I mean, we see this all the time in our news reports, don't we? Without self-control, brutal, despisers of good, traitors, headstrong, haughty. Notice, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God.

We can be caught up in this. We can be caught up in hobbies. We can be caught up in recreation. Are those things of and by themselves bad? Of course not. You know, we want to live a balanced life. We work hard, as I've said so many times, we work hard. Let's play hard. Nothing wrong with that. But we've got to have a balance. We might have to make sure that we've got our spiritual priorities right.

That we have our work priorities right. We've got our pleasure activities in terms of our recreation, our hobbies, that sort of thing. That we have that right.

If we have it wrong, then we're going to drift. Matthew 6, verse 24.

Matthew 6, verse 24.

No one can serve two masters for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he'll be loyal to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and Mammon. You cannot serve God and Mammon. And it's so easy to do. It's so easy to drift on this point.

It's just as easy for us in the ministry as for anybody else.

I remember a lesson that when I first was hired by the church in 1984, I moved to Raleigh, North Carolina. At that point, in the worldwide Church of God, Raleigh was a church where typically on a given Sabbath, we would have about 375 people. It was about a medium-sized church back in those days. 375 people in Raleigh, and we were connected to Rocky Mount, North Carolina. That church had about 150.

So on any given Sabbath, we would have about 500 people attending services. And when my boss, I was the associate pastor, he was the pastor, he would come pick me up at my house at 10 o'clock in the morning. And as was the case for all the ministers I knew back in those days, you pretty much had a standard 12-hour day.

You know, he'd pick me up at 10, he would drop me off at 10 p.m. in the evening. And it was so easy to find ourselves just, you know, all this work. And of course, that wasn't balanced. And I came to see that later on, but, you know, back in those days, I was as green as grass, and, well, this is how it's done, this is how it's done. But I remember so distinctly getting in the car one day with the guy who was the pastor, and he said, Randy, I'm going to give you tomorrow off.

I said, well, we have all these visits planned. We've got five visits planned, you know, some in North Carolina, some in Southern Virginia. We're going to be going, what's happening? Why am I taking tomorrow off? And he related his story to me, which I've never forgotten. He said, you know that on my desk in my office, I've got one of these big office planners. You know, it has all the days of the month, and you can write in what you're going to do, and you can see everything.

It's one of these big, large things. I said, yeah, I remember that. He said, well, my wife came in, and she looked at the calendar, and she erased several appointments, and she put her name in there. The bottom line was, she felt she had to schedule herself with her husband. And we both felt bad because we both have been doing that. We both have been doing that. It's so easy, brethren, for any of us to drift.

It's so easy to be so – even if you're doing the work of God, you can be doing such things that are not balanced. That's why so many times when I see people even serving in a church, I'll say, well, are you okay? I mean, are you overloaded? Are you overburdened? Because I don't want to be guilty of doing that to you. Last part of the sermon – I'm going to go over a little bit here. I normally – but noticing my sermons are only going about 40 minutes. You owe me some minutes. So we're going to go over.

I've got to take a look and see what's going on, but we're going to continue on for a little bit here. Not a whole lot. It's not going to be a five-hour sermon, so don't worry.

So how do we fight the good fight against spiritual drift? How do we fight the good fight? Let's go back to letter A. We need to make sure we have a daily spiritual compass check. So back to Philippians 3. We've been using kind of a nautical theme here today. We have to continually remember who the captain of the ship is. And it's not us. It's not you. It's not me. It's Jesus Christ. Philippians 3, verse 8, Yet indeed I count all things loss for the excellence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus, my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them as rubbish that I might gain Christ.

Paul puts it all in line here, doesn't he? Jesus Christ is everything to us. This is a message about bringing in the proper kind of unleavened bread, of the proper priorities, and so on. So we don't drift, because our hearts and minds are at one with Him.

Verse 9, And be found in Him, not having my own righteousness, our own leavening, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which is from God by faith, that I may know Him, and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death. That compass check, we want to be at one with God the Father and with Jesus Christ. And as we're using this nautical theme, let's look at John 17, verse 17.

You know exactly where I'm going, John 17, 17.

Sanctify them by your truth. Your Word is truth. Brethren, it's not the Word of whoever is up here behind the pulpit. It is the Word of God, and you always keep that in mind. It is the Word of God.

Men can be deceived.

So the charts that anybody has who's out at sea, you want to make sure that you've got the right kind of charts, showing you whether there be rocks or what have you. A couple of summers ago, we've got some very good friends in Traverse City, Michigan, and they've got several homes in the area up there. A couple of years ago, as we went to go visit them, they took us for a drive around Lake Michigan. The water had been receded so far that you probably can walk a good 150 yards out where water used to be, but now it's just sand and boulders. It was just striking to me to look at that beach and go out 150 yards where the water used to be maybe, I don't know, five, six feet deep at the end of that, and see these large rocks. I was talking to the elder, I said, you know, Bill, if a person didn't know those things were there, and they had a big enough power boat with a prop that went down deep enough, they're going to bend that prop going over those rocks. They might tear the bottom out of that boat. You've got to know where those rocks are. You've got to have a chart. This is our chart.

This tells us where the danger points are. And we need to be very careful in reading our chart, having that spiritual compass check, knowing where we're at so we don't drift. Let her be. I'm fighting a good fight against spiritual drift. Allow God to propel our lives toward His kingdom. We don't want to cut the power. We want to power up. We want to put power to that engine, and we want to be going forward, not drifting. Luke 9, verse 23, something we read on the first day of Unleavened Bread, Luke 9.23.

Luke 9.23. And He said to them all, No drifting here. No. We are allowing God to propel our lives toward His kingdom. Let's go back to Philippians, chapter 3.

Philippians, chapter 3.

Verse 12. Philippians 3.12. Not that I've already attained or I'm already perfected, but I press on with God's help that I may lay hold of that for which Christ Jesus has also laid hold of me. God the Father and our elder brother have a plan specifically for each and every one of us. And they want us to move forward in our own individual... There's a plan of salvation for us all that we all fit into. But I'm fully convinced in my mind that God looks at each of us as individuals and there's something He's trying to accomplish in each of our individual lives. And He wants us to accomplish that. There are certain goals or certain things He wants for you to do and for me to do. Verse 13. Nevertheless, I do not count myself to have apprehended, but one thing I do for getting those things which are behind. Yes, I've had some failures. Yes, I may have had a shipwreck or two. But with God's help, I'm rebuilding and I'm moving forward again. For getting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead, I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. Verse 15. Therefore, let us, as many as are mature, have this mind.

The mind where we move forward in God the Father and Jesus Christ. And if in anything you think otherwise, if we're drifting and we ask God to show us if we're drifting, God will reveal even this to you.

So allow God to propel your life forward. And lastly, let us see. Watch out for the undercurrents. Watch out for the undercurrents. Jeremiah 17, verse 9. They're always there. You've got to be aware of them.

Jeremiah 17, verse 9. For the heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked. Who can know it? Brother, just because we're baptized members of God's church doesn't mean our heart all of a sudden is A-OK and everything's fine, everything's hunky-dory. We still have a heart that can be very deceitful. We still have Satan continuing to broadcast. Now more than ever before because we are God's kids and if he wants to destroy anybody, he wants to destroy us. So watch out for those undercurrents. 1 Peter, chapter 5, verse 8. 1 Peter, chapter 5, verse 8.

Be sober. Be vigilant. Watch so we don't drift. Because your adversary, the devil, walks about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour.

Doesn't have to devour you and I, whom he may devour. We're going to put up a good fight. We're going to have God there to back us up.

Brother, there is an account that is told. I don't know whether this be urban legend or not. Two young men were fishing above a low dam on a river near their hometown.

As they were concentrating on catching fish, they were unaware that they were drifting. Until they were so close to that very low dam, they were caught up in the current, and they couldn't get clear of that current. When they realized their situation, by the time they realized where they were drifting, where they were heading, the danger was imminent. It was too late. The little boat they were in went over that low dam.

There were good-sized boulders down below. The boat they were in smashed to pieces. And after three days, they finally found the two bodies of the young men. Again, drifting took their life. Drifting took their life. Final Scripture for today is over here in Matthew 25. Let's go to Matthew 25.

Matthew 25, starting here in verse 20.

Matthew 25, 20. So he who had received five talents came and brought five other talents, saying, Lord, you delivered to me five talents. Look, I've gained five more talents beside them. This guy is not a drifter. The Lord said to him, Well done, good and faithful servant, you were faithful over a few things. I'll make you ruler over many things. Enter into the joy of your Lord. He also who had received two talents came and said, Lord, you delivered to me two talents. Look, I have gained two more talents besides them. His Lord said, Well done, good and faithful servant. You've been faithful over a few things. I'll make you ruler over many things. Enter into the joy of your Lord. Brethren, those are the words we want to hear. You have been faithful. Enter into the joy of your Lord. We don't hear those words if you and I are drifting toward our destruction. So today we've taken a look at a number of things. If you're taking notes, a quick review. Two things to know about drifting. A, that drifting requires no effort, and B, drifting can take you unaware. Common signs of drifting gave you four things here. A diminished desire for spiritual disciplines. A diminished desire to be with God's people. A diminishing desire to do the work. And an increasing thrill over things of the world. And lastly, we went through how we can fight the good fight against spiritual drift. Letter A, have a daily spiritual compass check. Letter B, allow God to repel your life toward His kingdom. And letter C, watch out for the undercurrents.

Brethren, you and I will either be a victim of spiritual drift, or we will have the abundant life given to us and be rewarded by our great Father God. The choice is yours, and the choice is mine.