Journey to the Kingdom

New adventures tend to intrigue us. They pull us in. They excite us. Sometimes we're just armchair observers, and we like to watch the Discovery Channel or the Travel Channel and see what other people are doing.

I have an imagination and a dream inside of me that sometimes gets to be fulfilled. And there are fantastic things that we can do in this life if we are given the opportunities or go out and take those opportunities that are available. Some of the things that men have dreamed about are walking across a continent to fill your pockets and your bank accounts with gold, or getting in a small boat, a sailboat. I don't know how many of you sail, but sailboat is an awesome thing. You can get one large enough that actually can sail the oceans of the world. Large enough meaning something even shorter than 20 feet has been sailed around the world. It's better to sail one that's more like at least 40 or 50 feet.

But people do this. They have their sailboats and they get trained in them and they, let's go! Let's go around the world. You can just imagine what it's like to drift in and out of the islands over in the Far East and around various horns and capes and see things that only have been written about in books. See it yourself. Do it yourself.

Pioneers really could imagine and have imaginations of walking across this country 150 years ago. They could hear the stories of land in Oregon, gold in California, and it was so much better than the hovels back in the East where there was a lot of squalor and too many problems to get out and be free. And so they would set out some of them, the more daring ones. But they really had no idea of what it was like out West or what the journey out West would be like. They could imagine the East. They could imagine Pennsylvania with a few rolling hills. They could imagine some of the prairie states or some of the flatter states that come across as far as St. Louis and think, we're doing pretty good as you cross the big rivers and keep going west through Kansas.

They couldn't envision the Rockies of Colorado and Wyoming, Montana. Nothing prepared you for the Rocky Mountains and navigating those with what you had brought. You couldn't imagine desertification that stretched for hundreds of hundreds of miles on the west side of the Rocky Mountains. Even today, flying over it, no matter how many times you fly, say from Denver coming this way to Phoenix, it's amazing how much arid land is out there with not much growing. Just rocky, barren, dry land from West Texas or Colorado or wherever coming out west. There's nothing that prepared them to consider that before they hit the coastal ranges of the Sierras and the Cascades. And those ranges were terrible to get through, to get over. Many of the people gave up. They went back, or they died in the way. They just failed. Somewhere along the trail, everything just ended for them. And they packed it up, and somehow many of them got home. Sailing a boat is very enjoyable. When you have a big mast, and you have the fore sail as well, and those two work in tandem, and when you get the wind at about a 45 degree angle, it sort of takes off and pulls like a jet. And this whole craft that you have suddenly just moves through the water against the wind and against the current. And the power of it and the feel of it is just something that's awesome as your ship leans over and you stand on the upper side, and you work that rudder just to keep those sails filled.

And so sailing around the world is great, but sailors don't really have any experience with sailing around the world. And you forget how big the oceans are. When you look down out of an airplane going over the Atlantic, which is not a huge ocean, and you look down hour after hour, and you open the window, shade, not the window, and then you look down, there's still just little white caps down there as far as you can see. And the funny thing about the Atlantic is all the waves are going in different directions. I've never seen them line up. They splice this way, and then they splice that way, and then they splice this way, and that way. You see these crests way down there, 40,000 feet below, just a mass of confusing big swells that the caps are just crashing here and there.

I've talked to people who have sailed across the Atlantic. It's not something that they enjoy. It is just a wide open space. But people who sail across the Pacific set themselves up for an endless adventure of loneliness where there's nothing on the horizon but blue.

If you go out across the various parts of the ocean, some will have winds, some will have storms. Most sailors in small boats don't think of 50-foot seas. You can get 20-foot seas on an inland passage with islands on the outside.

But when you get out and you've got 50-foot seas, that means you're at the bottom, and the wave next to you is maybe 50 or 100 feet high. Because you're 50 feet down, then you've got sea level, then you've got another 50 feet up. And you do this hour after hour after hour, and you can pop up and you can see for a while, and you go down and you don't see anything. That's not really what we came here for.

The typhoons that come along and the rain that sometimes will smash the main mast, and it'll fall over, and you have to either repair it and have the things along, or you limp along, or put out a distress call, and maybe you pack it up and go home. Most people lose enthusiasm for sailing around the world when they hit something called the doldrums.

The doldrums is one of those weather bands that goes around the earth where the wind doesn't blow. You have the wind circulating like this, but you get in the middle and there's no wind. There's no wind for weeks. And when you get in the doldrums in a sailboat, you're going to be there a while.

I remember Robin Graham in the book The Dove, he set his sailboat on fire in the doldrums. He finally got so sick of it, he couldn't stand it. And nothing was happening, just smooth, glassy ocean. Him all by himself. Well, they don't think of the loneliness, the isolation, the piracy. They don't think of some of the dangers, the frustrations. And most people quit. Most people pack it up. They'll get to a destination somewhere and sell the boat and fly home. It makes a lot of sense at some point. 3,500 years ago, a huge group of slaves dreamed about being free, and they were offered freedom. They were very intrigued when God, through Moses and Aaron, told them that they were going to become journeymen out of this land of Egypt and go to a magical place with milk and honey, a place of their own, their own land.

They were going to be broken loose from a superpower, from Egypt, with all of its might and power that it could inflict anywhere. They would be essentially leaving their shelter, leaving their homes, leaving their life ways for a backpack trip. They would be going off into a wilderness. But that destination sounded good. What were in their backpacks? I was thinking as well, what was in the backpack?

The only thing we know that was in their backpack was kneading bowls and some dough. And beyond that, there was some jewelry. When you think today about going off on a backpack trip, you don't tend to think of getting a kneading bowl, filling it with a bunch of bread dough, getting all your gold and silver, grabbing some goats and heading out. But that's what they did. They took this backpack trip.

They didn't stop by REI first, get some lightweight gear, maybe some tents and sleeping bags, one of those little self-inflatable ground pads, canned teens, some freeze-dried food, all manner of accoutrements that you would take along. They didn't do that. They had some concerns, I'm sure. What are the consequences of doing this? What if we were to start out and the nation of Egypt doesn't like this?

What if Pharaoh, who hasn't let us go for nine times, decides to come after us? When the firstborn died that morning, do you think everybody just celebrated? Yes, the firstborn died, including the king. Or do you think some of them thought, uh-oh, the firstborn are dead, including the kings. And we are being looked at because of this.

What's that like? What are the ramifications? What are the fears of the consequences? What are the risks? You know, it says that the Israelites, as they prepared to leave Egypt, witnessed the Egyptians burying their firstborn. It's kind of riding through the train, looking out the window, oh, they're burying their firstborn. Or was it more like walking along and as they're burying their firstborn, they're looking at you. You know, you did this to me.

What do you think it was like for them to see the Egyptians looking at them, knowing that they were burying their firstborn because of the Israelites? I'm sure there were a lot of things that went racing through the mind. But one thing was it was exciting. It was exciting last night, about 1,500 years ago, when they finally got on the road. And the column must have been massive, because if you had 3 million people and they were a half a mile wide, the column would be 10 miles long. But if you add in about 3 animals per person, you would multiply that number by another 9 million.

So you might have 11 or 12 million people and animals in a column. And how long would that be? And how wide would that be? What would the route be? And could they all find a road a half a mile wide? But nevertheless, there would be excitement for a while, until you were 1.5 million people behind another million and a half in front of you with all their cows and animals and herds and dust and whatever else, making your way along.

I'm sure after a while, it became a bit of a challenge, because if any of you have ever walked 20 miles in one day, that's kind of an exhausting journey at various ages, young, old, and in between. And so this exhilaration would have become wearing, exhausting, by the time we are here today, when probably most of the people had started to arrive in Suckath from Ramses. But again, a column 10 or 20 miles long, some may not have left that long ago, just getting in line and making that journey.

So it was a massive movement that God was making out of that land. They backpacked out into their wilderness on that first day, and they came to a place, and I don't know what the camping situation was like, but they probably inhabited at least 25 miles by 25 miles in a campsite with that many people and that many animals. Recently, I had the opportunity to make a backpack trip myself up into the Zion wilderness in Zion National Park. This was back in the month of January or early February.

And it was a massive country in there. It was a very inspiring country. These sheer walls of red and yellow sandstone that have sort of eroded and capitulated in vertical sheets to where the walls are very, very tall. They go up to 3,000 feet in some places. It's very inspiring to be down in those canyons and to look up. The trip that I took was a solo adventure. Going up in the wintertime, I just wanted to get away. I needed a little bit of time to think and meditate. And so in the valley there with backpack gear in late afternoon, about 3 o'clock, I headed up about 3,000 feet up into the back wilderness.

It was interesting because this 3,000-foot climb in 4 miles had to take place in 3 hours in order to get to a campsite by dark, which I really wanted to do. I've never been into Zion before. I've never been into the backcountry back there before. And what would be interesting about this trip was not only would there be snow and ice and mud on the trails, but I'd be the only person back in there. And not too many people like to go hiking up around 7,300 feet in the wintertime when it's snowy and cold.

But I did, and I was good with that. There's a time to go out from what you're comfortable with. There's a time to step out and go somewhere new and seek a destination for whatever reason. In Exodus 14, verse 11, we find that the Israelites soon came to a time when their journey hit enough obstacles and slowed them down enough that they said to Moses, Was it because there were no graves in Egypt that you brought us to this desert to die? What have you done to us by bringing us out of Egypt?

A passenger might say that on one of those sailboats that tries to go around the world. These people said this about God's trip led by Moses. It wasn't their trip.

Didn't we say to you in Egypt, leave us alone? This is a dumb idea. Let us serve the Egyptians. How many wives have said this to their husbands, you know, after we get these ideas? Hey, let's go do this, baby. I don't think we should. Oh, but come on, it'll be great. Oh, okay. Didn't I tell you we shouldn't do this? It would have been better for us to stay there and serve the Egyptians than to die in the desert. Pushing one's body, though, is exhilarating. And pushing one to the limit, even as the Israelites were there in Egypt, can be exhilarating. If you have the right mentality, if you have the right mind, there's many sports that push themselves to the limit. I'm sure we're all familiar with marathon runners. We have a couple of ladies here that do marathons. And 26 and a little bit more miles of running. People die on marathons every year.

Marathons push the body about as far as a person should, maybe farther than a person should push their body. And yet, marathons are intriguing. They just really motivate people to train and to go after them. You can run until there's nothing left, but if you pass the finish line at that point, somehow it was all worth it.

What an exciting time that is. Mountain climbers. There's many, many types of sports that really take you to the end. Bike riding on the Tour de France, all the miles and parts of Europe that that tour goes through. Just expending everything a person has, and yet they're compelled to go back and do it more and more.

Same with flying and skiing and kayaking and venting and constructing and riding. The end result is an exhilaration. A person has given it their all. There's a deep sense of accomplishment from it. While I was pushing through mile four of that particular hike, amazed at my aging body to be able to get up there and reaching that 7,000-foot level, I was pretty exhilarated. I was racing for the sunset for that summit. My heart was beating noisily. I took my pulse as I was hiking along. I took it several times. It was always 210. It just boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, as it pushed as hard as I could to try to get on up there. First I thought, maybe something's going to be wrong. Then I realized, no, probably at this altitude, with this level of strenuousness, that's probably where it's going to be. Sure enough, that's where it was. But, you know, it didn't seem out of line. I was pushing myself to an extreme to attain a goal. And it seemed totally natural, if not a little bit risky. But I felt prepared. I felt trained. I felt equipped. I arrived at the spring at the top of the ridge, at about 7,100 feet, right at sunset. An amazing thing happened then, right at sunset. I'd been quite warm and quite hot. At sunset, as I was getting ready in my short-sleeve shirt to refill my water container out of the spring that dripped, just a little couple of drips, I looked at my thermometer and it was 28 degrees. The temperature had just plummeted at that altitude in January to 28 degrees. And my hands weren't really wet, but they hurt so bad. I mean, it was like frostbite was taking over. And as fast as I could, I got gloves on and a hooded coat on. And I hurried, only to find, as I was doing that, that both of my inner thighs locked up tight in a full cramp. And I thought, wow, now I can't move! I can't even move my legs and I'm trying to fill it. And I still have it half a mile to go to get into the camp. And I thought, this is cool! I like this. This isn't city stuff. This is good.

And so I worked that out over a little bit of time and hurried in, set up the camp in the dark. Now, there were cougar tracks. There were unknown animals around. The campsite was snowy. I had untested gear. It had certain ratings on it, but I'd never tested it.

It was alone in the dark. And you know when the dark sets in in the back wilderness? It's dark. And the only thing you hear are little noises. And you wonder what those noises are. And it's an interesting time. It gives you just a little bit of fear, just enough to be exhilarating.

It was a perfect experience. It was just perfect and a little bit beyond. It really pushed. Now, the question at that point came to me. The question came to my mind. Do I push myself this hard to find and overcome sin?

Hmm. And that hit me like a bolt out of the blue. I had plenty of time to think and meditate. I brought some sermons along, but when that question stabbed out of the dark at me, you really are pushing it here and you're feeling good about having pushed it to the max. Do you work this hard in your life at overcoming sin? And that was a scary thought.

Because I'd have to say, no. No, I'm a lot more easygoing about praying for repentance and asking God to show me my sins and really digging in and trying to find sin and eradicating that from my life. We'll do these physical things, but what about the important things? In 1 Peter 1 and verse 13, we're told to gird up and get ready and go out and do the hard things, as it were. Do the important things. 1 Peter 1 and verse 13, Therefore gird up the loins of your mind. I have girded up my body, and some of you who run or some of you who do various sports, you'll get set up for that. You'll get girded up and ready to go.

But gird up the loins of your mind. Be sober and rest your hope fully upon the grace that is to be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ. We are in a race. We are marching this week out of our Egypt. These seven days really picture our life. And the seventh day, the resurrection.

There are many illustrations in these analogies of the feasts.

As obedient children, not conforming yourselves to the former lust, as in your ignorance, but as he who called you as holy, you also be holy in all your conduct, because it is written, Be holy for I am holy. Do we go after holiness? Now there's getting rid of sin and putting in God's righteousness, therefore His holiness into our lives with that kind of gusto. With the same kind of gusto that some of you put into your crafts or put into your jobs, the great sacrifices that you make, and with sports and other things.

The question kept nagging at me the whole trip. Next day I had little sleep.

Everything was good except my toes. My toes were so cold all night, they must have woke me up every 20 minutes. I had two layers, they had their socks on and everything, but I hadn't tested out this sleeping bag and didn't realize that it zipped down into a mummy bag, and if you zip down the feet, then you had all this insulation around your toes. I didn't figure that out until the next morning when I finally got up and was putting the sleeping bag away, and then I found that. But when you think about some of the discomforts and all, that was one of them.

The next morning I was tired. My muscles were exhausted. I had just trucked four miles up 3,000 feet, and that morning I couldn't even pick my backpack up. I could hardly walk. Oh, wow, what happened? You know, old Johnny Gusto here has turned into an old man.

So that was a little hard getting going the next morning.

Pushed on another seven miles into the back country. The frozen trails overnight now were thawing into muddy trails, but the views were awesome. One panorama after another as you could come up to the edges and look almost forever down and out through these beautiful canyons of colored strata, all by yourself up there. See a cougar track every now and then, and you wonder, hmm, I wonder if I'm going to get out of here? Which just kind of adds to the excitement a little bit.

But once again, you know, I ask the question, do I push myself this hard to discover sin? As I'm discovering, I want to go over there, or take this trail, I want to go over there and see what's over that ridge. I want to go down through that valley and up that mountain. I want to see what's over the next hill. Do I have the same desire to go through my life and discover the things that are wrong, the liabilities, the detriments, the thing that hurt me, hurt others, and hurt God? Well, as I went from event to event, literally, I kept asking that question.

Is the discovery, the self-discovery of what's important in life, as important to me, is going and looking at a bunch of rocks that basically the whole thing is a bunch of erosion. That's all that happened. There's a bunch of erosion in it. People come around in their cameras and take pictures of erosion. And in the end, I thought, you know what? All this erosion really is meaningless in comparison with the kingdom of God. It's not about a bunch of erosion. It's about life. And here, I'm trucking around looking at a bunch of erosion like it's worth something.

But what about in my own life? What about pursuing those things in my life that Christ died for? In 1 Corinthians 5 and 7, this is a familiar Scripture at this time of year. He says, therefore purge out the old leaven. Purging out doesn't mean flicking or just looking the other way. Purging it out, getting rid of it, it has an action to it. Margin says to clean out. There's a certain activity to it.

As you went through delevening your house this last week and your cars, there's a certain effort that you have to put into it to lift the top of that stove and see the little leftovers from all we've been eating all year. Or getting back into the keyboard of the computer and shaking out the crumbs because my wife likes to serve me things sometimes when I'm working in there.

They tend to get down on the keyboard for some reason. It's always interesting to see what's under the seats of the car and so on and so forth. But it takes effort. It takes effort in order to find those things. And we're to purge that out that you may be a new lump since you truly are unleavened. For indeed Christ our Passover was sacrificed for us. He went through the extreme event and he went through it fully. He participated in that crucifixion, that life that ended for you and me in a full and complete way.

And so what about us? Well, let us therefore keep the feast, not with the old leaven, but with the leaven of malice, I'm sorry, not with the leaven of malice of wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth. So we're to work at moving one out and moving the other in. Part of the adventure for me that I was talking about was the fact that I was the only one back in there. The Rangers told me when I bought my permit that I was the only one with a permit. And they said every few days they might send somebody back in there, but try to be where I said I'd be in case I didn't come out, they'd want to come back and find me.

That's when you begin to think, hmm, you know, hmm. You know, winter is the off-season and the snow, the fresh snow, showed that I was the only one in there, was my footprints. And it began to realize that not too many people like to go back in that backcountry when it's cold and it's windy and it's, you know, kind of miserable and the trails sometimes are sheer ice that slip off and go down in those canyons, by the way.

And several people a year die in that very place from that. And I'm kind of a... I'm not a person who's easily afraid. And one time I was walking along, watching the trail, and trail was icy, and, you know, the big drop-off right there.

And I began to look at that trail, look at my feet, and realize, you know, with this big backpack on, all I'd have to do is make one little misstep and then I'd be off down the side, and that would be it. And Mary probably would like it more if I walked a little to the left of that little trail. And I thought, well, out of respect for her, I will, because, you know, it wouldn't be very hard.

And, you know, you are back there, kind of alone.

Few people seek that adventure. You know, similarly, this adventure trek out of Egypt that you and I are on, our Egypt, our life of sin, is sometimes not a popular trek. It's sometimes a solo event. Really, you and I have to work out our own salvation with fear and trembling, and there's not too many people during your day, during your week, when we're not at church, that are along on that trek with you. Jesus said in Matthew 7, in verse 13, to enter by the narrow gate.

The narrow gate's the one that people don't like to take. For wide is the gate, and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and there are many who go by it. This is the time of year when people like to be doing other things.

But the difficult things that happen to you and me, they're not the popular way. They're not the popular road. They're not the popular path. Verse 14, because narrow is the gate, and difficult is the way which leads to life, and there are few who find it.

At this time, there are very, very few who find that. And so, we can't really look around and say, well, what's the world doing? And let's get some encouragement from them. The world's liable to say, you're kind of weird. You went to church on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, whatever feast, and whatever year.

Some of you had to get time off from school or work to come this year on the Feast of Unleavened Bread on a Tuesday. And it's bad enough to say, I need Tuesday off to go to church. Why? Well, it's the Feast of Unleavened Bread! The what? The Feast of Unleavened Bread! Hmm. Wow, okay. That's different. So, it can be kind of a lonely road that we walk, and it's a difficult walk. But the result is awesome discovery along that way. You personally and I personally see in our lives things, and we experience things that others don't experience. And they're incredible things. And as we reach new plateaus in our life, we see sights that no one else will see.

You know, to walk up to a certain setting, and you're the only one, and that setting has something and some animals, and the moon is up, and it's just right, and you think, but there's no one here. There's no one to share it with. It's kind of an empty feeling in a way. You just have to say, oh, my camera only gets, you know, that little part of it. Can't take a picture. Yes, I'll just have to say, wow.

Wow. And that's what it's like for you and me, brethren, as pilgrims of the Kingdom of God, the family of God, as we march along in this trek out of Egypt that we're on, on this journey, on this backpack trip, as it were. There are things that we see and things that we experience that sometimes are very personal.

They're exciting. As this discovery and the inspiring revelations come from, whether you fly or you hike or you drive or whatever it is, the question comes. Do I consider overcoming sin an adventure worth pursuing? Not many of us have tried to sail around the world. Not many of us have tried to run a marathon. Not many of us really do a lot of the things that we're entertained by on TV or in the movies. When it comes to this adventure of removing sin and as we see the opportunities that are ahead, is it worth pursuing?

I think that's a very good question for us to ask this year. Is it worth pursuing? Therefore, are we even pursuing it or are we just warming a seat? Are we just hanging around people who pursue it? You know, it's fun to go where people have hobbies and hang around them. I once got to run beside Jim Ryan, who was the world record mile holder at the time in the late 1970s, and I was the mile holder, record holder for Imperial schools, which got blown away the next year.

But nevertheless, you like to go see these guys. You like to go down and watch the suns play. You like to see old Steve down there shooting his hoops. We like to be around people, maybe go to where people have these hot air balloon extravagances, and we see them. But are we doing it? No, but we're watching. It's kind of nice to feel it, see it, be part. Gordon Price and I stopped by a bunch of guys who were retired, and they were doing model airplanes the other day, and they were really into their model airplanes.

And we stood there and we admired their model airplanes. It was neat to see them fly the model airplanes, but did we fly one? No. No, we didn't fly model airplanes. But just the aura, the energy coming off those guys or their planes, it's fun to be there. What about you in church? What about you in the family of God? Are you a participant? Is this adventure something that is worth really pursuing in your life? Ephesians 4 tells us in verse 22 that we are to put off concerning our former conduct the old man which grows corrupt according to the deceitful lust.

And that's a lifelong process. We never finish that. We never finish that. And if we ever think that we're without sin, if we go back to 1 John, which I won't do, 1 John 1, about verse 7, we find that if we say we have no sin, not good. But if we do say we have sin and we repent of it, we confess that sin and we try to overcome it, then God is happy to get rid of that for us.

That's, of course, the message of this time of year. But in verse 23, he says, and be renewed in the spirit of your mind. That's part of the adventure, the exhilaration.

Renewed in this adventure, the spirit of your mind that you put on the new man more effort, which was created according to God and true righteousness and holiness. Now, if that adventure is worth it, if that is worth pursuing, then that's a worthwhile, meaningful and exciting adventure. I hope you're along for the ride. I'm along for the ride often.

I say often because all of us at times kind of get lax and we kind of get a little lazy and we drift a little bit, don't we? And pretty soon we're not in the adventure again. We're not really pursuing it wholeheartedly. So God gives us this particular holiday season to re-inspire us, to kick-start us, to get us focused once again.

Just how hard do I work at this process of removing sin? The process of removing sin, to me, involves discovery. You have to want to discover faults. There's an encounter. Once you finally discover it, it's like, whoa, there's an encounter. What do you do with that encounter?

Do you say, well, I kind of like that one. Or do you have the mind of God and say, no, that's not good. My selfishness here that I so enjoy is wrong and I should not have that. Then there's this assessment. What do I do with this? What do I think about this? Then there's a rejection. We say, that has got to go. Then there's a replacement because you can't just throw something out. You have to replace it with something. There's a righteous way of godliness that has to be built in. And finally, there's a resistance to keep it that way. Not let the old sin back in, but to keep it out. How hard do we work at this process? Paul said in Hebrews 12.4, you have not resisted to bloodshed, striving against sin. I bled on that trip, but I didn't bleed striving against sin. And I begin to see in my own life, and this is what I'm sharing with you today, I begin to see in my own life, on the physical level, this desire to push oneself. And I don't mind when my feet are bloody if I'm racing. So what? That's just part of it. Blisters pop and whatever. But have we, and do I, work at the process of removing sin to the point like Jesus Christ, when he was sweating blood? Or do we just kind of take that a little more in tow, a little easier, kind of play with that a little more than really going after it? You know, there are human adventures that challenge us that we all enjoy, and one of them is wanderlust. I don't know about you, but I think it's the German word, wunderlust. But it's the human desire to see what's over the next hill. And there's an area that my wife and I drive by on the way to Yuma, and out in the distance there's this hill. And it has track, tire tracks going right over the top of it. And I so want to drive over that hill. For five years I've been telling Mary, someday I'm going to have a vehicle, or get a vehicle, and we're going to drive over that hill. Because I want to see what's on the other side, and still haven't done it. The other day I was driving down there with Ed Dowd, and I was looking at that hill, and I was looking around. And it finally came to me. I said, you know what? I'll bet you, on the other side of that hill, it looks a lot like it does right here. But I still want to see what's on the other side of that hill. Sometimes we like, at the time of the feast, to travel, or family travel, at vacations. Go see what's over the hill. Go see something that's different. United Youth Camps provide something that's unique and different. I love to see and explore. I think I get this from my grandmother, who probably got it from Eve, so we probably all have it. I don't know, but maybe some people don't like to explore. But I was driving my grandmother one time from Cincinnati over to Clintwood, Virginia, through western...

What was that? Kentucky, through the mountains. My grandmother and I, she sat up front. Her name was Manila Gambino, and she was about 90 years old at the time. She sat in the front right seat, just like this, the whole time. I said, well, you can recline your seat and sleep. You know, a 90-year-old lady, why don't you just recline? She said, oh, no! I don't want to miss anything.

And she sat there and looked around the entire trip, as long as she could stay. She didn't want to miss a thing, not a mountain, not a hill or a boulder or a house. She just looked at it all. Well, we can desire to see and to look and to explore. In Numbers 33, verse 3, I wonder what it was like for the Israelites, who were slaves and locked up. They didn't get to do much exploring, but now they got to go on a trip, on an adventure. They got to see some new territory. What was it like for them? In Numbers 33, verse 3, they departed from Ramesses in the first month, on the 15th day of the first month. On the day after the Passover, the children of Israel went out with boldness. Or the King James Version says, a high hand. And from the moment they left Ramesses, I believe they were in new country, new territory, seeing new things. I find that fascinating. Part of the travel to get somewhere is the journey getting there. It's great, new, exciting things to see. The world is just filled with things. The Israelites toured Eastern Egypt, some new areas to the south, probably unsettled areas, where they finally came up against the Red Sea at the end of the feast. They saw the ocean for the first time. What's it like to see the ocean? The Red Sea you cannot see across. And that's a part of the ocean. So they came up and there were waves, and there was expansive water as far as the eye can see. What was that like? I remember taking some teens, my wife and I, from Arkansas, Arkansas teens. They're kind of a landlock there in Arkansas, in the middle of the country. But we took a Y.O.U. trip, or two or three with them. And one of the trips we took was out to the ocean on the east coast, on the eastern seaboard, Cape Hatteras, where the ocean is stormy and raging and the waves are high and frothy and white caps. And it was amazing. Everybody just kind of stood there and looked at the ocean for the first time ever. It's amazing to see that through people's eyes. And then they got in and played in it, and the teens and the adults had a great time that day. In Exodus 14, verse 19, we see that this journey was something that was exhilarating to them.

Let's do 1519. Sorry about that. Exodus 1519. For the horses of Pharaoh went with his chariots and his horsemen into the sea. If you hadn't have gone on that adventure, you wouldn't have gotten to see that. And the Lord brought back the waters of the sea upon them.

What was it like to walk down under the sea with high walls? What an adventure that would be! But going on, the impact on verse 20 on them was, Mary and the prophetess, the sister of Aaron, took the timbrel in her hand, and all the women went out after her with timbrels and dances. And Mary and answered them, saying, Sing to the Lord, for He is triumphed gloriously. The horse and the rider, He has thrown into the sea. We have seen things today that are unimaginable on our journey, on our trip. God has called us to make a journey. The special music today, entitled, How I Love Your Word. You know, if we love God's Word, we love our guidebook. This is the guidebook to our trip.

It tells us all about the trip, all about the journey. It's our travel guide. And if we love this Word, we will love the journey. We will love the trip. We will be dedicated to it, just as they were. Israel did this trek out of Egypt. And in Exodus 19, verse 4, God says to Israel, This trip is very special, when you and I are on. He is bearing us on Eagle's wings. He's bringing us to Himself, into His promised land and His Kingdom.

That's how God looks at His church today. We are holy people, a peculiar holy people to Him. And we are called to become kings and priests when Jesus Christ returns. This is a special trip. It's a unique trip. But it's not one that you and I planned. And you know, it's not really just like what we would have planned, is it? You ever go on someone else's trip? How many of you have ever gone on someone else's trip? Then you know what I'm talking about. You know, they say, I've got this trip planned out and you're invited. Well, okay, I like you and it sounds okay. But you know, someone else's trip is never quite like your own trip. You tend to go do things and do them at times in ways that you wouldn't tend to do them yourself. It's their inspiration. It's their destination. It's their stops along the way. It's their vehicle. They're driving. And the result is, that's not exactly what I would have chosen to do. But it's okay and the company's good. And it's fine. It works out. But this is God's trip. We are spiritual Israel. And this trip is challenging. It's very challenging. It's different. You would have never in your wildest dreams imagined going the route down the road, the narrow, difficult way, with all the challenges that God has in His trip. It wouldn't have come to you and me. But it's very good. It's a great destination. It's just not what we would have decided. Isaiah 55, verse 8, says, For my thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways my ways. That tells us right there, this trip is different. Different than what you and I would have come up with.

For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts higher than your ways, than your thoughts. So the trip's going to be an interesting one. God's directing us. He led the Israelites out of Egypt. He had the cloud and the fire, the pillar of fire. He had the route, the destination, all in mind. He had the events along the way. It's going to be quite a trip for them, just like it is for you and me. He lights our path today. He has the destination and the whole trip in mind, and all the things work for good on the path to the kingdom, to those who love and obey God.

Some of the things that take place as we go down that road are instructions and correction. You think, wow, it wouldn't be my kind of trip to get spanked, as it were. I remember being on a trip, someone else's trip, when I was 12 years old and went from Pasadena up to Colorado for most of the summer and came back. Well, at some point along the way, Call Your Wells and I, we're the same age, you know how boys are, we did something that really wound up his dad pretty tight. And his dad stopped and went over to a tree, and he took his little knife out and he made him a switch. Now, I've never seen a switch before. But of all the things that my parents had spanked me with, nothing compared to a switch. I'll tell you right now, that thing was painful. I couldn't believe the pain that came out of a little slender switch. I can remember it to this day, and I wasn't about to ever mention it to my parents, because we had trees in our yard.

The next year, age 13, 1965, I spent a week at the Raps house in Southern California. And Mr. Rapp was at work, and Mrs. Rapp and Randall and I were there at the house with the other kids. We had pretty free days there in the summertime. We did various things like went out on the street. This is a giant hairy spider tarantula walking in the street. We saved the neighborhood. We got sticks and killed that poor tarantula, thinking that we were saving the world at the time. We got into anthills in the backyard, and stuck firecrackers in there and stood on them. We had a good time.

We went down to the Alhambra Theater and saw the good, bad, and the ugly when it came out. We had a good time that week, but at some point we wound up Mrs.

Rapp pretty tight. She came after us with a hairbrush. I had never been hit with a hairbrush before. That little thing was like a little club. I will never forget the hairbrush. Randall's father was, for several years, he oversaw the cabinet shop at the college. The cabinet shop, of course, did things in wood. At some point, I guess, at the Rapp household, the hairbrush wasn't working out so well.

So Mr. Rapp designed what we called the paddle. It was well-named because it was about as big as a paddle. It was thick, it was solid, kind of like a breadboard that was long and narrow. These things erupted everywhere. They were in all the classrooms at Imperial, and somehow they found their way into my house. Because Mr. Rapp, the designer of them, was turning them out down there in great numbers and giving them away to the employees of the college. This changed my life quite a bit.

In Hebrews 12, verse 5, it says, Have you forgotten the exhortation which speaks to you as sons? My son, do not despise the chastening of the Lord. Part of our journey is to receive correction and direction. And we can't go down this trip with God to the kingdom without correction. We won't make it if we do.

And we really shouldn't despise the correction that God gives us. We should really appreciate it because it puts us on the path that will help us be successful. He says, if you do these... Hang on, I've got the wrong place here... Do not be discouraged when you are rebuked by Him.

Verse 6, For whom the Lord loves, He chastens. That's a family discipline principle. And He scourges every son whom He receives. If you endure chastening, God deals with you as with sons. For what son is there whom a father does not chasten? But if you are without chastening, of which all have become partakers, then you are illegitimate and not sons.

Now, no chastening seems to be joyful at the present, but painful. Notice the pain involved. Nevertheless, afterwards, it yields the peaceable fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it. In Proverbs 13, verse 24, there is a clarity that comes from this principle that He is talking about here, humanly. Proverbs 13, verse 24, He who spares his rod hates his son. He doesn't care about him. He doesn't really care for the development.

But he who loves him disciplines him promptly. Child rearing and discipline and pain and correction and praise all go together. It is something that is very important. I have had many father's days as an adult where I always remind my father how thankful I am for the discipline that he gave me, for the slots that he gave me, with Bill Rapp's paddle. Because it was good for me. I hated it at the time.

I didn't like it. But at the same time, I know how I was able to turn my life in a direction that was different than it would have been. And so we should be thankful to God. As it says in verse 11 here of Hebrews 12, Now no chastening seems to be joyful for the present, but painful. But we are looking for that fruit of righteousness that comes from those who are trained by the correction that God gives us.

Eventually we will enter the kingdom. Eventually the Israelites did enter the Promised Land. Our Promised Land is the kingdom of God. We'll be spirit beings. We'll be members of the God family. And that's going to be great. But at the same time, there is a journey along the way, and that journey is to be enjoyable. And part of the overcoming that I do as a husband brings joy to my wife and children around me, because as we get rid of selfishness, other people's lives get better.

And so life can be a better and better thing. And those who are married or have friendships know the principle that when we get rid of selfishness and put in love and service and sacrifice for others, relationships get stronger, life gets better, there's more support, there's more fun, there's more happiness. And so all the principles of God really embellish a life.

Deuteronomy 28, verse 1, God told ancient Israel the same principle, and it applies as much or more so to us today. Deuteronomy 28, verse 1, Now it shall come to pass, if you diligently obey the voice of the Lord your God, to observe carefully all his commandments which I command you today, that the Lord your God will set you high above all nations of the earth. Ultimately, you and I have a destination that is high above all nations as we reign and rule with Christ over the nations of the earth during the Millennial period.

He says in verse 2, And all these blessings shall come upon you. It's not just waiting for the kingdom. These things are going to overtake you. Now, if you're running from a flood that's coming from behind and you're racing along, this flood of blessings is going to overtake you. That's what he's saying. Because you obey the voice of the Lord your God. Blessed you shall be in the city. Your relationship with your employer, with your job, with your neighbors. Blessed will you be in the country. You'll find blessings when you go camping, when you recreate, when you go here and there.

These things follow those who obey God. Blessed will be the fruit of your body. Your children are going to be blessed. They're not going to be the young, rebellious children that really are part and parcel of our society today. My wife and I were watching out our window in our little park across the street and all of our lovely little teenagers, the junior high kids were out there, all 13 of them, and one decided he wanted to stick. So they started trashing and breaking apart the trees that had newly been planted and staked in the park, and some of them were breaking the trees up and jumping and crushing them, and it kind of got into a little melee of destruction.

And finally a woman in the neighborhood came running out and told the kids, stop! Does this cost hundreds of dollars? You kids are always breaking up the park here, and it costs us as the homeowners, la, la, la, la, la, la. And those kids turned on her verbally and started making fun of her, making fun of what she looked like, kind of wagging their heads at her, and told her to get out of there, and she kind of left a hail of verbiage that was awful, just terrible.

You won't have kids like that if you are training them up in the way of the Lord. Blessed will be the produce of your ground and the increase of your herds, the increase of your cattle, the offsprings of your flocks. Blessed shall be your basket and your kneading bowl. Blessed shall you be when you come in, and blessed shall you be when you go out. Now, these were the physical promises of the physical Old Covenant to Israel, but there are spiritual applications of these physical promises that come into our lives as New Covenant Christians, because, and if and when, we obey God.

So this life, this journey should be better and should be enjoyable along the way. Once we have it, is it worth hanging on to? How many people have come and started to live this way of life? They've gotten on the journey, but is it worth continuing? Jesus said that He who endures to the end the same will be saved. Is it worth continuing on to the end? The Feast of Unleavened Bread is seven days, not one. They don't just get to start and leave Egypt. No, they had to hike and walk and travel and travel and travel.

Even then, they didn't get out of Egypt on the sixth day. They were stuck. Humanly, it was impossible to get out of Egypt. Just like at the end of our life, it's impossible for any man to have eternal life by himself.

But nevertheless, they had to journey, they had to walk.

Some of them wanted to quit and go back. Some of them did try to quit and go back. But what about us? Is what we have worth keeping?

One man recently found a copy of the Declaration of Independence. You know, the original one. You know where the original one is, don't you?

Well, if you don't, you can see that movie, whatever it was. No, I forget what it was. I better remember.

What? What? National Treasure. National Treasure, yeah. Anyway, it's in a building in Washington, D.C. So you get this copy and you think, all right. Put it in a garage sale. Sold it for five bucks. Somebody came along, picked it up the other day, and he's reselling it for 25 million.

See, John Adams thought it would be really nice to make 200 copies for all of those who had signed it, and they would all re-sign them. So a month or two after the original was signed, they made a whole bunch of copies, and most of them are gone, but this is one of the original copies.

The guy thought, well, they're nice, but I don't want to keep it. Nice, but, you know, not for me. How many people have walked this way and said, you know, this is good, but it's not for me. It's not my trip. It's not my kind of a thing.

Some don't value it anymore. Well, you and I have our name written in the Book of Life, but what are we doing to keep it there? You know, if it remains in the Book of Life, we'll be in the Kingdom. In Malachi chapter 3 and verse 16, as we wrap this topic up, I'd like to just show you that hanging on and enduring and continuing on this journey is so important. It is what we're called to do. We have to continue to hate sin. We have to continue to want it out of our life. You know, don't think that, well, I do live in my house, so it's all done. No, it's not. There is living in your home. I guarantee you there's living in your home. Believe me, just offer me or anybody else $100 to find some. And some of your friends will come in with a passion looking for some leaven. I'll bet you, well, you can bet me $100. I can't. And I bet you I get the $100. So what are you going to do? You're going to say, well, I either did it perfectly or I didn't do it perfectly. And if you go in and you find, oh, look at that, right there, can of baking powder. Didn't notice that. I failed. Oh, I blew it this year. No. You know, life is full of mistakes, isn't it? You put that out and you keep going and you keep looking. Once we get on this road, it's important that we continue that way. Malachi 3, 16 says, Then those who feared the Lord spoke to one another, and the Lord listened and heard them.

And so a book of remembrance was written before him for those who fear the Lord and meditate on his name. We are in this book of life if we are fearing him, respecting, in other words, deeply respecting and participating in this way. God says, they shall be mine, says the Lord. These shall be mine, on the day that I make them my jewels, and I will spare them as a man spares his own son who serves him. Some are respecting God and talking to one another, and we continue on this journey, and we're excited about it. And I know it's tough. I know it's hard. I know in prophecy things get a little more challenging in the future, but God won't let us fail.

In conclusion, we are on a dream adventure of a lifetime. Only a few people even get the opportunity to make this trip. It's an uphill challenge, just the kind that we like. Nothing wrong with uphill. That's how you get to the top of a mountain. You don't see too many people going out and having adventure hikes in Kansas, on the flat prairies.

Other than forest, gum, running across the United States, most people like a challenge, something uphill, something that's challenging.

If we endure to the end, if we climb to the top, then a crown awaits us. It says in Hebrews 10, verse 32, and we'll make this the last scripture.

Hebrews 10, verse 32, But recall the former dates in which, after you were illuminated, the beginning of the trip, the beginning of this journey, this exciting coming out of sin, heading towards God's kingdom, you endured a great struggle with sufferings.

Partly, verse 33, While you were made a spectacle by both reproaches and tribulations, partly, while you became companions of those who were so treated, this life is not necessarily a charmed existence. It's not fair. There's going to be a lot of persecution. If you haven't experienced some in your life, you can expect some down the road.

That's just the way it is. We're going to receive what Christ received. Verse 34, For you had compassion on me and my chains, Paul said, and joyfully accepted the plundering of your goods, knowing that you have a better and an enduring possession for yourselves in heaven. We look past these physical things. We look past the pain. We don't really care as we go down the trail what we may be giving up or losing. Therefore, do not cast away your confidence, which has great reward. For you have need of endurance, so that after you have done the will of God, you may receive the promise. For yet a little while, and he who is coming will come and will not tarry.

Now the just shall live by faith, but if anyone draws back, my soul has no pleasure in him, says God. But we are not of those who draw back to perdition, but of those who believe to the saving of the soul. This feast of unleavened bread is rich with meaning for us, for encouragement for us. But more than anything, we need to get up, start our journey, continue that journey, and go all the way to the Promised Land with a high hand, full of expectations, full of hope, full of appreciation, growing evermore in that grace, that love of God. As we do this, brethren, as we go through this week, every time you see that piece of unleavened bread, let's see it with a little more gusto in mind, not just as something static, but something really to get involved in, something to be compassionate about, to build that unleavened state into our life, to approach it with all the zeal and all the sacrifice that we would put into any sport, into any activity, into any endeavor, because this is the trip that God has called you and me to take.