Rush for Eternity

Just over a hundred years ago, life in the 1890s was a very challenging thing. In various countries around the world, the caste system was very much in play, in that you had the very wealthy and you had the lower class, not much middle class, and money alone wouldn't move you from class to class. And so people were stuck in a very menial type of situation that required hard work, a lot of cold or heat, things that required a lot of physical labor and discomfort. They scraped to get by. Jobs were often menial jobs. The Industrial Revolution hadn't fully kicked in. A lot of the jobs were in mass production of a dangerous sort of labor. Overall, people had general poverty. Some of the great tycoons and icons were getting rich off the backs of those who were laboring by the tens of thousands and getting by on little or nothing. Back in the 1890s, there was no electricity. There was no telephone. There was no plumbing. There were no cars. There were no planes. There were very few machines. The life's prospect for a child in the 1890s, a young adult getting married, was that your life was going to be what you might call terminally mundane. Like the saying, life's the pits, and then you die. It's sort of a dark chapter, as it were, for many, many people. Similarly, people's lives were declining through health and various problems that were affecting masses back then. Great waves of disease spoiled and hampered the lives of many. Aging. People didn't live as long. Fading lives. Certain purposeless in life. And in the end, they were hopelessly trapped with very little to get out. And that's what made the United States of America such an appealing place to go to. To leave whatever you had behind. To get on whatever ship you could. To take what little you might have with you. To break family ties and go somewhere where maybe you could get a new start. Humans have always had a trap in that as we approach the end of our lives, that's the end. That's the end of it. The words of Solomon talk about that in Ecclesiastes. What's the purpose of life? He comes down to in the end. You can do all these wonderful things, but in the end, you're still going to die. In the third chapter of Ecclesiastes in verse 11, you don't need to turn there, but there's a statement that God has put eternity in their hearts. There has been something in the hearts of mankind that raises our spirits and our hopes above that which we find ourselves in physically, whatever the situation may be. That there is something more, there is some eternity, there is something better, there is some gold at the end of the rainbow, as it were. And so man has always had this unquenchable desire for a better life, sometimes now, but all the time later. A fabulous afterlife has warmed the hearts of many who had little chance for happiness in this life. You remember the song that the slaves or the descendants of the slaves in this country used to sing, Swing low, sweet, cherry-eye, or various songs that would talk about the terrible life now that they had to leave, and all they could hope for was going to heaven when they died. Some kind of a release at the end of death would lift them out of this and take them to a glory. So it was in July of 1897 that the newspapers on the West Coast burst out with, there's gold in Alaska and lots of it. Here's how to get it. And that message went around the world to people of all types of languages and all types of cultures. It certainly rocketed around this country and gave people hope that in their situation, if they could just get to America or if they could just get to the West Coast and get to Alaska, they could strike it rich.

It was a way out. It was a promise of a new future, a new life, an end of menial existence, an end of just scraping by. And there were pamphlets distributed that showed a person how they could get there and what road to take, what map they would need, what materials they would need, and how to be successful in getting gold in Alaska. Concurrently, religious pamphlets scream out, there's eternal life in heaven. Here's how to get it. Here's the map. Here's the way. Here's the road.

Today I'd like to examine our rush for eternity. Today we are trying to go to something that has eternal life, that is eternally grand, that is eternally wonderful beyond all of our expectations. And we're not in this rush alone. The rest of the world is also in a rush for eternity. And they're going about it through various means and various methods. Today I'd like to examine our rush for eternity in God's kingdom. What is the purpose? What is our future? Where is this? For whom is it? And how do we get there? The events of 1897 and 1898, I feel parallel humans' ambitions for the afterlife in this rush for eternity. My wife and I followed the steps of some of this, some part of the route, earlier this year. And I learned quite a bit that I'd like to share with you in the sermon today. Let's look at some of the parallels. And my goal is that we will come to appreciate more the calling that God has given to the saints. And this unique opportunity that we have to pursue something that really, really is gold.

There are vast riches to be had in God's kingdom. The Bible talks about unlimited wealth, unlimited power, for those who are saved. In Hebrews 9 and verse 18, it says, The eyes of your understanding shall be enlightened about this topic. Notice this. The eyes of your understanding, being enlightened, that you may know what is the hope of your calling, of His calling, and what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance.

There's riches, there's glory, there's inheritance. We need to be enlightened and have hope in this. This is what rises you and me above the mundane-ness, the challenges, the declining situations that we find ourselves in as well. Paul said in Romans, we are heirs, heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ. Heirs of God, heirs of the family, the kingdom of God, and co-heirs with Jesus Christ, who God has put everything under His feet. News of the riches of this kingdom has gotten out. It's not just you and I that have heard about this. It's gotten out to others. It's spread around the world. And there has been a literal stampede to Christianity, to Islam, to various religions who promise an afterlife that the Bible largely describes. It's interpreted differently by some. But Christianity and Islam have tried to cash in on this, and there's been such a stampede for it at times that wars have broken out. Of people clamoring over each other. And we know at the end time that there will be wars between the king of the south, Islam, and the king of the north, Christianity, as they duke it out. Yes, this rush for eternity is in people's hearts.

In Alaska, there was gold to be had, and lots of it. Lots of gold. There are rich quantities of gold being processed in one particular area up there.

There was a particular group of miners that were processing this gold. They had found it. A huge fortune was made. Nuggets as big as your hand were found. Massive things of gold. Thousands of pounds were brought out in the spring of 1897. Thousands of pounds of gold. This is clue number one, if you like to pay attention to details. Thousands of pounds were brought out in the spring of 1897. On July 14, 1897, the steamer Excelsior sailed into San Francisco with passengers carrying over $750,000 in gold. It might not sound like a lot, but remember, gold wasn't worth very much back then. That was a lot of gold. Three days later, the steamer Portland arrived at Seattle with passengers carrying over 4,000 pounds of gold. I can't even tell you how many troy ounces a pound of gold is, let alone thousands of pounds of gold.

The newspaper reported there, on July 14, 1897, the post-Intelligencer reports that the first steamer arriving from Alaska has men carrying bags of gold. Some $5,000, some $20,000, some $40,000, some $100,000 in their bags. And that was true. But what that did was it led readers to believe that they could do the same thing.

Gold, free for the taking, it was said. Just bend over and pick it up. And wherever the news stories went, the people dreamed of doing just that. Going and picking up gold right off the ground, nuggets as big as your hand, and getting it for themselves, and lots of it. And as the news spread, the Alaska Gold Rush was on. And within 10 months, 100,000 people stampeded up to Alaska to begin the Gold Rush.

I've got to play this for you. Just a second. Because I grew up with this song, and now I've found out what it's about.

And now, we are going to go on, to Alaska Gold Rush is on. Now, news of a reward or a bonanza like that really gets people's attention. It sells well. Let me repeat that. It sells well. And where did you learn about it? In a newspaper that sells well. Merchandising has been at the heart of mainstream Christianity ever since Simon Magus in Acts 8 tried to buy the power of the Holy Spirit from the apostles. And he went on, as some historians say, to found a great religious church that became the most wealthy organization on the planet. That just sucked its members dry and has piled up the gold and piled up the artifacts down through time. It sells well. Revelation 19, verse 15. I'll turn there, but you'll remember that in the end, towards the end of the age, that church is shown to be trading and buying merchandise. It's about merchandising. And what do we see as the great icon today of that system? And what does he stand for? Merchandising. It's about money. It's something that sells well.

There are concepts that sell really well. Yesterday, some of us were at a funeral. And at the funeral, a former member of our church, who later converted to something quite different, was quoted as saying, He stopped seeing Jesus as a religion and started seeing Jesus as a person and claimed the free gift of heaven. And he went on to say, he stopped trying to obey and live his life according to certain laws or standards, and then instead realized that it was all free. All you had to do was bend over and pick it up.

It sells well. Claiming and taking salvation can sound simple. For instance, if you read John 3, verse 16, that whoever believes on him should have eternal life, sounds like all you got to do is believe. That's all that's required.

Well, that's actually just a summary of God's love. It's not a summary of the process of receiving salvation. But it's like selling the Alaska gold rush. All you have to do is bend over and pick it up. The word went out. And the way the description continued, the way to the gold fields is very accessible and well developed. You can easily drive a wagon the entire route. Sound like a religion that you might have heard about?

The first point is that there are vast riches to be had in God's kingdom. And others will hear about those riches, and they will begin to advertise and sell and merchandise to others about how that can be received. The second point is obtaining the treasure is a process. Obtaining that treasure is a process.

The process must have a beginning. You must begin in the process. You must proceed through the process. And you must finish the process in the proper way in order to receive the reward. Jesus Christ is our helper in the process. He is the way. He is the truth. He is the light. And He is the life. It's through Him that we can go through this process. To be a first fruit inheritor, there is a process. Just like to be a first comer to the gold fields, there was a process. You had to know about it before others did in order to be a first fruit or a first comer to the gold fields. The masses were totally unaware. It's like with what you and I have been taught as potential first fruits, Jesus said, to them it's not been given to know, but to you it has been. The masses are totally unaware. Then, once it's revealed to you, you have to trust. You have to believe. You have to act on it. Once you do that, you have to forfeit, don't you? You have to divest yourself. You have to sacrifice. You have to get rid of something. Sell all, as it were, of your old nature. Forsake all. Sometimes family. Sometimes other things. Jobs. Then you had to leave. You can't just stay there. You had to leave. You had to go somewhere. You had to march out of sin. You had to leave. You had to be in motion. For the miners, they had to leave their country. They had to go to Russia, Russian land. Alaska was owned by Russia at the time. And then on to a second country.

We have to endure a lot of hardship and difficulty to be followers of Christ, just as they did. They had to endure massive hardship. Risk their lives often.

In the process that we go through to the reward, you have to file a claim with a foreign government. You have to be registered in heaven. You had to search and find. Root out your sins. Find the gold, as it were. Evaluate and judge as well, because not everything is gold. It looks like gold. And you had to work the claim. You had to work and work and fight and wrestle. It was an incredible effort. Each of those steps is what you and I must do as firstfruits, or to be firstfruits. That's what each of those steps is what those who were called the El Dorado Kings did in 1896. And there's another clue. In Colossians 1 and 12, we find that this process is something that comes from God.

And it is specifically for certain individuals that He has set aside. In Colossians 1 and 12, it says, It is God who has chosen us, God who has qualified us to be in this process. In Acts 26 and verse 18. In Acts 26 and verse 18. Jesus Christ here is going to talk to Apostle Paul.

There's a process that begins with the Father drawing. Jesus Christ, the ministry, goes and works with certain individuals to turn them that they may receive repentance and an inheritance among those who are sanctified. Those who are entitled to receive it. God has to open one's eyes. Nobody else can do it. You and I have tried, you know you've tried, so have I. It's so obvious. Just tell this person how rotten and pagan Christmas is, for instance. And then you get a treatise written by a religious writer or a bunch of religious writers. One was published here recently on a Christian website. It was amazing to read it. You couldn't have said it any better, could you, Mr. Anderson? It's just amazing how Christmas came from paganism. It's based on foreign gods, foreign idols. It's all wrong. Christ wasn't born in that season. It's not even about him. It's about other deities and gods. All this merchandising and everything is wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong. But what we need to do, the conclusion is, is to put Christ more in Christmas. You know what? You just want to... Okay. To open their eyes. God has to open your eyes. You know, knowledge has to be revealed to you. You can't derive it from anywhere else. It has to be revealed to you. If you derive it from somewhere else, you get false knowledge. Just think about that for a minute. If you derive it from any other source, then direct revelation from God through opening your mind. If you're getting it not from God in this direct revelation but from any other source, then you're getting news like they got about the gold rush.

Jesus Christ warned about the knowledge from other sources. He called them false teachers, false prophets, deceivers. The world is blind. It's in darkness. It can't see. And if you go to any source from there, you're not going to get the truth. You're going to get something else.

The world is blind. It cannot see. And yet sometimes we in the church feel so close to other Christians. Why? Aren't we all Christians? You know, don't be fooled by the terminology.

They say Jesus. They mean Nimrod. They say Mary. They mean Semiramis. They say eternal life. They say heaven. They say heaven. What is that? That is the reward of Satan and the demons that are bound and cast into the outer darkness forever. Are we talking about that? Do we really feel so close just because the same terminology is used? See, there's two totally different systems. It's not just a matter of, well, you didn't get that Scripture just right. We're talking about two different things totally.

We talk about grace only. Grace only. What is that? Lawlessness. Breaking the laws of God. The religions are full of kingdom to heaven. How to get there? The location? The route to reach it? The requirements to reach it? Go to a funeral, especially when you hear the requirements, and the person is determined by the audience or somebody there as to whether they are in heaven or not. And then, when they're there, what they're doing exactly at this moment? And yesterday, the deceased person was actually standing beside the preacher. We were told, anyway. He was standing right here beside the preacher. It's amazing what you can know. But there he was, I guess.

Here's a book for sale, Cosmo Classics, or Cosimo Classics. Heaven, How to Get There. Sat by a woman on the airplane reading one of these books, How to Get to Heaven. It's amazing. She was about 200 pages in there, and I'm sure she was learning a lot. She just seemed engrossed by it.

But what was she learning?

Sadly, most of what people are told is fiction. It's a combination of some facts from the Bible, but it's loaded with imaginations and self-explanations and human logic that takes the message and takes it somewhere else. Heaven. It is a wonderful place. Can't you just see yourself going there? There's a white dove leading the way.

Here are some websites that offer information. One of them, How to Get to Heaven, a biblical inspection. Here's another one, How to Get into Heaven, with a simple prayer. They figured it out. Simple prayer. How can I get to heaven? Most people want to go to heaven, hope to go to heaven, but does anyone really know for sure how to get there? Another website said. And then they went and explained exactly how to get there.

Fictitious pamphlets were sold to what became known as the Stampede, the hundred thousand people who stampeded to Alaska to make it rich in the summer of 1897. Pamphlets were printed and sold to them. Now, it's interesting, kind of like the writers here, none of these people have been to heaven. Hmm. Well. Here's an individual we know. The Haydnham are some pyramids in Egypt. And Monty is excited to learn how to get to heaven, because you see, it's in the pyramids. So when you go in the pyramids, here he is, reading all about it.

Now, if you look on the walls that are on the wall, you can see the walls that are on the wall. You can see the walls that are on the wall. Now, if you look on the walls that line these monuments to the deceased, the priests of Egypt wrote down all the steps needed for the deceased Pharaoh to follow to get to heaven.

Oh, I mean, there was wall after wall after wall. It's just rooms filled with more steps and things that you needed for your journey, and the right thing to eat or drink or where you went or what you talked to. And when you saw this, God, you had to say the right password, and all this was written down just by people who had never been there. And so it was with the Stampeders in 1897. The writers hadn't been there either. They were told, the way is very accessible and well developed.

You can easily drive a wagon the entire route. And to help them on their journey, outfitters sprang up in Seattle and made fortunes selling the goods needed by the Stampeders that they would need when they got to Alaska and the Goldfields. And the list was provided for them of all the things that they would need. I'm going to pass around a little nugget from Alaska. This is real Alaska gold.

Bought it up there just for you. Not that you get to keep it. I'll keep it for you. But I wanted to show this to you. And I've also put there, I went hiking up in the mountains and found some Fool's gold. Pyrite is Fool's gold. And I found some Fool's gold I put there, too. That Pyrite doesn't look so shiny, but tell you what, when you get it in the bright sun, and a little water on it, wow does it look good.

Really good. And also, the article there. I'll just pass this around. And this will end up over with Mr. Lepley. So if he doesn't get it, we'll track you down. You and I have to have our eyes opened by God. We have to receive the real truth. Not just what some pamphlet or somebody selling something at our door would want to have us believe.

In Ephesians 1, verse 11, to the church of Ephesus, a very pagan environment, the church here is being told some important things. Ephesians 1, verse 11, In Christ also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestined. We're chosen for this. According to the purpose of Him who works all things according to the counsel of His will. Verse 12, Ephesians 1, that we who first trusted in Christ should be to the praise of His glory.

This isn't about us, it's about God, it's about His needs. Verse 17, that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give to you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him, the eyes of your understanding, being enlightened, that you may know what is the hope of His calling, what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance to the saints, and what is the exceeding greatness of His power toward us who believe according to the working of His mighty power.

The rest is all fables. This has been developed by God the Father and Jesus Christ. They present it to us, they inspire it to be taught to us, they inspire us to be able to receive it. But the rest are blinded by fables. Just like in the Alaska Gold Rush of 1897. When you had the news come to you, wherever you were in the world, or maybe you were on the east coast, and you got the word, you had to cross the continent. You had to get across the continent somehow.

Pretty much sell all you had, maybe leave your family behind, and off you went, heading maybe for Seattle. Maybe you even had to cross an ocean in order to start your journey across the U.S. Then you paid your passage on a steamer from Seattle, or somewhere in the northwest, to go to Alaska, up to Skagway.

Skagway, even today, is a very small little town. It's kind of a scrappy collection of storefronts that were quickly erected to merchandise the miners, the potential miners, who came there in the summer of 1897. Here's what they came to. It's not your dream destination, if you know what I mean. But Skagway, and if you brought a tent, you had somewhere to stay. You couldn't go very far, because by the time you got there, the summer was already over.

The winter was setting in, in late August, September, it was already getting cold. And actually, there was much to do before you could ever get to where the gold was. And so, here was the first stop. And at Skagway, there were storefronts that would milk the innocent miners who were coming there to look for gold. Soapy Smith was his nickname, Soapy. He was the mayor, and he had a town council. A very friendly guy. They had a lot of things going on there in town. One of them was the telegraph office. And after your long voyage, of course, you'd want to encourage to go to the telegraph office and send a telegraph home.

And it didn't cost very much. And pretty much when you got to the telegraph office, you'd tell them, Well, I've made it here. It's been a long journey. I lost a few things along the way. But here's what I still have, and I still maybe have $1,000-$2,000. And I hope to buy some goods and head on. And I'm having to stay just outside of town in a tent, etc., etc.

And you send the message. And you head back for your tent and go on about your business. Never stopped to realize that there were no telegraph wires that led from this remote location. And all they were doing, the mayor and the town council, was getting all your information to bill you and rob you later.

That happened to lots of people there. There were lots of crooks and people who conned you. Skagway, you also became aware of some new details that nobody told you before. They weren't in those pamphlets you bought. The gold was not in Alaska. The gold was over 500 miles away, deep into northern Canada, in the farthest point north of the Yukon, well inland.

There were no roads. There were no trails. In between you were lakes that were frozen in the wintertime, rushing rivers and bitter cold subarctic temperatures.

Right here, and at other points along the way, some drank themselves to death. Some women became soil doves in this town they called themselves, working out of shacks behind Main Street. Some could never face the shame of going home. They pretty much spent what they had by the time they got here. Some of them lost everything to the dishonesty of this little community. But the rest pushed on. Here's a trail starting out of Skagway, some miles out, men and women packing their goods on the 525 mile journey that would take them to what is now known as Dawson. From Skagway, they hauled their goods and provisions 14 miles, and they came to this particular slope called the Chilkoot Pass. The Chilkoot Pass was very steep. It rose 1,000 feet in a half a mile. It was a multi-layered pass, but in one half mile it went up 1,000 feet. It was too steep for an animal to climb, so they were no good there. When you came to the base with your goods, you obviously had a challenge ahead of you. There were 1,500 steps cut into part of it, just into the ice that people walked up. It's called the Golden Staircase. It got nicknamed that. Here you can see the infamous photo at the top of the pass, just the last section of the pass, of people going up to the top. It's very deceiving for several reasons.

About 6 miles past the top of the pass, you came to the Canadian border, and there were the RCMP, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. The Royal Canadian Mounted Police cared about you a lot more than the people so far on your trail had. They didn't want to see you die in their country, so they made some immediate requirements upon you. First of all, every person who comes into our country will have 2,000 pounds of provisions per person. If you do not have that, you cannot enter Canada. So, what happened here was, they had come up with enough provisions to last them for a year. A ton. 2,000 pounds. On the list, 4,000 pounds of flour, 400 pounds of flour, 200 pounds of bacon, 100 pounds of beans. Beans were strongly recommended as part of your 2,000 pound parcel, because they didn't want to see you starve to death.

Now, you had to go back 14 miles to town and work out getting 2,000 pounds of provisions and hauling them back to the base of the Chilkoot Pass. The interesting thing about the Chilkoot Pass is, the people climbing this particular pass, they used 50 pound packs. I don't know if you can see that. You can see packs going up. They usually, they typically loaded 50 pounds in a pack and carried it up that 1,000 foot ridge. And then they carried it at 43 miles to the first lake that you came to, the end of that short piece of trail. And then you would cash your goods. Hopefully, somebody wouldn't steal them when you walked all the way back to town and got another 50 pound pack and came back up that ridge to the lake with another 50 pounds. I did some calculations on that.

It took each person to go 33 miles. The first 33 miles of that trip took each person 1,320 miles. In history records, it took the average person three months to get their 2,000 pounds of goods up to the top of Chilkoot Pass and cashed at the lake. Three months. 1,320 miles of round trip hauling your stuff just to go the first 33 miles. And you still had 500 miles to go. There was an alternate route. It became known as the Dead Horse Pass. It was a little less steep, but it was very bold or strewn and very rocky. I've seen photos of it. And people who had more money could come in with pack animals, horses, and instead of carrying it themselves, they could pack train their stuff up through this canyon. The problem was it was so dangerous that they exposed their animals to conditions that left 3,000 horses dead on the trail. I can't imagine what that is like. Mr. Scriber and I were hiking a few weeks ago, and we came upon a horse that had a similar situation in a boulder-strewn canyon, and the owner had to put it down right there. He had read about it a week before, so we knew it was coming up. But I'll tell you, you could smell that animal a long way off. And then when you got a lot closer and had to pass it on the trail, it was not a pleasant thing at all, not to see or to smell or anything else. And that one had only been there for a week. It was said that those who finally managed to make it up Dead Horse Pass route became unconscionable and beyond feeling. I'll show you a brief photo of, back in the day, 1897. Most people had to come through the Chilkoot Pass, however, at the first lake, and here you can see them coming up. The Chilkoot Pass were there 50 pounds. They finally arrived with their goods at Bennett Lake. To continue, now you needed a boat. Did you see any boats coming up there? To continue, the rest of the journey was pretty much by boat across lakes, they were told. Interesting thing, down in town, breakdown canvas boats were advertised and sold in Skagway. My wife and I have seen them. A bundle of boards and canvas that you could put all together, and you had a boat with a canvas hull. These were advertised and sold in Skagway. Lots of people bought them. At least 89 people did, we know, because there are 89 breakdown canvas boats at the Royal Canadian Mounted Police Checkpoint in a pile. They took them away from people so they didn't kill themselves by drowning in such a stupid thing as a canvas boat.

Here we see them at Bennett Lake camping again. If you can notice carefully, down the foreground, just on the right, you see some planks laid out. Go a little further out, you can see boats are being constructed here and there, various types of flat bottom boats. Look over in the lake, I think you can even see one that's sunk for some reason. But you can see various boats. Do you see trees? Funny, there are no trees, are they? But the time the people came up there, I don't know how many of them were boat builders. Probably not many. I don't know how many of them were tree fellers or tree splitters or wood carvers. It was quite a deal by the time you got here and you didn't want to go back to somehow build a boat. And they had to range further and further. You see how denuded all the hills are around there. Further and further, to somehow fell trees, split lumber and get in the business of building yourself a boat.

They spent all winter here at very high altitude in the frozen north making a boat from who knows what. You know, it reminds me similarly that people say your reward is heaven, but it's not heaven. It's something completely different. It's a new Jerusalem coming down to be located on a new earth. And the way we're told by Jesus Christ is not so easy that you can drive a wagon there.

It is narrow and difficult and few find it, he said. Here we see reaching... Hold on. We come now to the third point, and that's just because everyone believes it. Does it? Doesn't mean it's true. Just because everybody believes it or does it doesn't mean it's true. One hundred thousand people joined the stampede and they headed for the Klondike.

And weren't all those people proof that there was gold and it was easy enough for these men and women to go get it? Wasn't it proof to you? Yeah, all I need to do is jump in there with them. It's the same with truth and salvation. Millions of Christians pursuing heaven, easy grace, a road that's so easy to get there. Let's look at Matthew chapter 13, verse 11.

Matthew 13, verse 11. Jesus answered and said to them, Because it has been given to you, not to the world, not to anybody who gets a copy of this book, No, it's been given to you to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it has not been given. And this is so clear to you and to me as we enter this season or if we step into some other religious environment, it is so clear that truth has been given to us but to others it has not been given.

To go out during this season and see people pursuing things that are just sad, it's very, very unfortunate. It's like the journey to Dawson. At Lake Bennett, when the first lake thawed there in the chain, people headed off in these new boats that they had built. Nobody told them that after you get across the lake, there would be other challenges. Many of the boats sank in the lake a short distance from shore with all the possessions that the people had hauled up for so many months. They simply wouldn't hold water. Those who got across the lake then found, oh, it's not just a lake we have to cross, it's a very, very long series of rivers and lakes.

And they put their boats into the rivers. They weren't told about the rapids. They weren't told about the tests and the trials and the twists and the turns and the rough water. Here you can see a boat coming through the rapids but look to the left and you see people whose boats had sunk. And all of their worldly possessions were at the tumbling down at the bottom of this river somewhere.

And it happened to masses of people that this is as far as they got. And they had nothing else but the clothes on their back that they swam to shore with. And they were done. It's like the truth of the resurrection in 1 Corinthians chapter 15 and verse 20. We are told by the Apostle Paul when the resurrection is, what it is, what happens and to whom it happens. And verse 20 it says, But now Christ has risen from the dead and has become the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep.

Nobody else has been resurrected. No human being is with God or has eternal life other than Jesus Christ. For since by man came death, by man also came the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, and even so in Christ all shall be made alive. But each in his own order Christ the firstfruits. Afterward those who are Christ at his coming. At his coming. It doesn't come every time somebody dies. He's coming as the Messiah, as the King of kings, and he's coming.

And in verse 52 it says, In a moment, in a twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. A particular time at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound and the dead will be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed. You know, but the same fortune is not available just to anybody else who hears about it. We preach the gospel of the kingdom of God.

We preach the resurrection. We preach eternal life. But as we just read, there is an order. There is a process that God the Father and Jesus Christ have established. And the same fortune for the firstfruits is not available to those who hear about it. And then come up with, maybe, some other plan of their own. That brings us to the fourth point. Hard work is required to qualify for the reward. Hard work.

Ephesians chapter 5 and verse 5 clues us in on something that dispels this notion that easy grace is all you need. Or as one website said, a simple prayer and you're on your way to heaven.

Ephesians 5 verse 5 says, For this you know, that no fornicator, unclean person, nor covetous man, who is an idolater, has any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and God. Let no one deceive you with empty words.

Yesterday, some of us heard, you don't need to work for salvation. You don't need to do anything. It's grace only. Don't be deceived with empty words. This journey out of sin is long. It's difficult. It's impossible. Remember the sermon I gave? Are you perfect? You know, there's a certain work that we must always be engaged in and it never ends. It requires fighting with the whole armor of God, wrestling.

When we do that, it shows our desire to be like God, our continuing desire to be like Him, to follow Him, to emulate Him. And to those who do that, He is very gracious. And we are saved by His graciousness.

The lesson of unleavened bread is a lifetime struggle against sin will still leave you in sin. It's only by God's graciousness that that miracle at the end will transport you out of Egypt or out of our human life and into what's represented by the Feast of the First Fruits Harvest.

It's like the El Dorado Kings. This group of miners who was very successful and their gold was on board the ships in the summer of 1897, they worked tirelessly. They worked very, very hard in the gold fields to be able to bring that gold out. The work that was necessary to retrieve the gold was incredible, it is written. Most of the gold was not at the surface, but 10 or 15 feet below ground. And up in that cold climate there was permafrost, which is frozen earth for the first three or so feet. And then you had to dig down another 10 feet below that.

To get through the permafrost, you can't shovel it, you can't crack it, you have to melt it. That's a slow process right there, to melt it. Then in order to go down to where the gold ore was, it required five gallons of water for every square yard of dirt in order to get the gold sifted out of it. It was an incredible amount of work. And yet others were saying, oh no, all you have to do is just bend over and pick it up.

And the way is so easy, you could drive a wagon there. You know, some have the heart for work, some have the heart for rooting out sin. It's a fun thing. They like to get up in the morning. Help me, Father, to see sin. Help me to see more sin. Show me. And then going after it. Wow, look at this. Ooh, that's ugly. Let's get rid of that. Focus on it. Work at it. And they enjoy that work. Some people enjoy running marathons or long distance running.

And they just love it. You know, once you pass mile four or five, then you really begin to get your pace set and get into kind of a sink there that you just love. It's a thrill. Some people just love hard work, difficult work. In Luke chapter 19 and verse 15, we find that those who are successful as saints enjoy the work. They are, in a sense, they have a mind for it. They have a heart for rooting out sin. They have a heart for wanting righteousness.

It's not something that somebody has to say, you go do this. You have to do this. All right, if I have to do this. Oh, I hate doing this. Luke 19 and 15. And so it was that when he returned, the king who went to heaven, received for himself a kingdom.

Having received the kingdom, he came and commanded his servants, to whom he had given the money to be called to him, that he might know how much every man had gained by trading. Some really had a heart for trading. Then came the first saying, Master, your amina has earned ten minas. That's an amount of Roman money, a mina. And he said to them, Well done, good servant, because you are faithful and very little, have authority over ten cities.

And the second came saying, Master, your amina has earned five minas. Likewise, he said to him, you also be over five cities. Some people don't have a heart for work. I know a lot of people who don't have a heart for running. And they say, well, you can tell them how great running is, distance running, how wonderful it is. I want to experience that, too. And they'll go out and they'll run.

Oh, this is terrible! This is the most awful experience I've ever had in my life. Who in his right mind would put himself through this pain and anguish? This is nuts! I'm into bicycling. I'm into something else. I'm into some aerobics. I like to jump over things and say, aha, I can go. That's what I like to do. But they don't have a heart for, say, running. Similarly, in verse 20, we find some don't have a heart for getting rid of sin.

They want the reward. Yeah, I'll do that, but I don't really want to overcome sin. That's work. Verse 20, then another came saying, Master, here is your mena, which I've kept put away in a handkerchief, for I feared. It wasn't in his heart.

He feared. It was something detestable to him. In 1 Timothy 6 and verse 18, we find that there is work to be done. And it's good work. The Apostle Paul reveled in the work he did. I've fought the good fight. Look at all the things I've done. And I'll keep fighting. In 1 Timothy 6 and verse 18, he says, let them do good. Do good. Not just like good. I'm saying, oh yeah, that's what I like. No, do good. That they may be rich in good works, ready to give, willing to share, storing up for themselves a good foundation for the time to come, that they may lay hold on eternal life.

Laying hold on eternal life is all about doing. All about doing. And it's hard work. That's point four. Point five is you must be entitled to participate. You must be entitled to participate. Simply hearing about somebody else's good fortune, somebody else's treasure, somebody else's opportunity, doesn't mean it's available to you. For instance, in Romans chapter 8 and verse 16, Romans 8, verse 16 and 17, it says, the Spirit itself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God.

There's something unique there. Children of God. The next verse, and if children then heirs, heirs of God, and joint heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with Him, we work, that we may also be glorified together.

You know, the feasts of God are crucial to understanding about eternity and our rush for eternity. The feasts include the festival of the first fruits, which celebrates the success of the first comers, the first ones, the first ones to strike it rich, as it were. We know that John 6.44 says that no man can come to Christ unless the Father draws Him, nobody. And I will raise Him up at the last day. That's the process. That's the truth, and that's the way to get life. The point is, you have to be selected to become first fruits in the family of God. You have to be chosen from the foundation of the world to receive the first fruits opportunity. Other get rich quick schemes bypass those rights, if you notice. Remember, there were people bringing gold back from Alaska. Others decided they could do the same thing. There are people who are on track to be first fruits and reign with Christ. There are others who decide, well, they can do the same thing, or some version of it. There are some people who see that there are fairly well-off people who have money in banks, and they say, well, I can have that money, too. There are people who see money being spent by those who have jobs, and those without jobs can say, I will take and have that money, too. Get rich quick seeks to bypass rights, ethics, sacrifice. So you have theft, bank robberies, casinos, get rich quick, lotteries. There are various ways where other people say, oh, you have someone who has worked hard, he's a master of fortune? Well, I can do that, too, by bypassing these things when they are not entitled to participate. You're not entitled to go to a bank where you don't have an account and withdraw money. People want to do that.

The Stan Peters were rushing to Alaska to grab easy gold, and they were told, all you have to do is bend over and pick it up. Just like bank robbers, just like people going to the casinos. The signs tell you, oh, your luck is just waiting here.

It's like the family of God. People think that they can somehow, short-circuit, jump in and be part of the ultimate family of God without becoming like the family. I know it's illogical, but nevertheless, that's what people will come up with. You don't have to become like the family. Just take the fortunes of the family. In 2 Thessalonians 2, verse 10, it says, And with all unrighteous deception among those who perish, because they did not receive the love of the truth that they might be saved. There's unrighteous deception. They didn't receive that mind of God. They're just trying to get the reward. And for this reason, God will send them strong delusion. Yeah, there's a strong delusion. You can get it anyway. That they should believe the lie. Verse 12, It was interesting, by the time the Stampeders got to Bennett Lake and found out they'd been lied to in Seattle. They'd been lied to in Skagway. They'd been lied to all the way up to the top of the pass. And they now get to the lake, and they were lied to and found out they had to build boats. They'd been lied to every step of the way. As many as could chose to continue. Chose to continue on.

500 miles further on. Of the 100,000 that began the journey, 70,000 did not make it.

70% did not make it.

There were personal losses. There were insurmountable obstacles. It was too hard for most. Many were simply defeated by odds that were stacked too high against them. I mean, imagine the personal losses. Imagine the blame, the regrets. Imagine somewhere up in the middle of nowhere, you're just done. What do you do? The bitterness, the spoiled lives. Reminds me of people who used to be in the church, who years later will get together and they'll talk about the experience. How bitter they are, how spoiled their lives have become, how just awful it was for them. And they're so glad to be free from having to do anything. It's sad, but there are regrets, and there's a lot of blame. But those who survived the trip did finally arrive in Dawson. In one year, nothing became a city of Dawson with a population of 30,000 people. Almost overnight, it just grew up. In one year, it became the largest city east of Montreal, Quebec, and north of Vancouver and Seattle. It had a population of nearly 30,000 people. Here's a picture from the following two years later, in 1899. Some houses in Main Street there by bank in Dawson, up in the Yukon. This was the great destination you finally got to, where you could begin to think that you could chop through permafrost or melt your way through permafrost and certainly not walk out and just pick up gold off the ground.

But what did they arrive to? Let's go to Matthew 22, verse 12. Imagine making this incredible journey, and you finally arrive at the door of your destination. You come to this place where people had picked up gold nuggets off the ground and others had gotten thousands of pounds of gold. You finally come. Matthew 22, verse 12. Jesus said to him, or Jesus was giving the parable, so he said to him, Friend, how did you get in here without a wedding garment? What are you doing in Dawson? How did you get here without a wedding garment? And he was speechless. And the king said to the servants, Bind him hand and foot and take him away and cast him into outer darkness. There will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. It is so similar to what's called the Alaskan gold rush, which had nothing to do with Alaska. But when you got to Dawson, you couldn't go out and try to get gold without a claim. And the claims were processed by the Canadian government. It required applying to the Canadian government for a certain parcel of land, instaking what is called a staked parcel and getting a permit for a certain staked parcel. And before the stories ever ran in the press, in the summer of 1897, as people were stepping off the boat, before the stories ever ran in the press, every square inch of the Klondike had already been registered with the Canadian government by the first comers, who had been busy the year before processing the gold. These El Dorado kings had gotten the gold, had staked all the land, and many of them were aboard the steamer Portland, which arrived in Seattle in the spring of 1897, the news of which triggered the Alaska Gold Rush. A hundred thousand Stampeders had wasted their time, their money, and many of them their lives in a foolish gold rush to Alaska that you probably never hear about. The Bible is written to those whom God has called. It's full of treasure, but word has gotten out. Word has gotten out. Others have gotten copies of this book. It's become very popular. And millions today are pursuing a rush for eternity on their own terms. And the word is, in the pamphlets that you read, all you have to do is bend over, pick it up. And the way is very easy. And the road is so smooth that you could drive a wagon the entire route. And Jesus said in Matthew 7, verse 13, For wide is the gate, and broad is the way that leads to destruction. That concept, that mind, that it's as you could drive a wagon there. And there are many who go in by it. A hundred thousand people took off. Millions today bound into religions that promise an easy journey to a rich afterlife. 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, it's just the first comers who are pursuing it. And the shocking reality was that the only opportunity for treasure was for the first comers. Similar for the first fruits, it says in Hebrews 9.15, that those who are called may receive the promise of eternal inheritance. Those who are called... So the question becomes, are you called to become a first fruit in the Kingdom of God? Do you have that right, that opportunity? Are you chosen to participate in the process? If so, how much do you treasure that opportunity? What do you think about that opportunity? What are you doing with that opportunity?

In 1 John 3, verse 3, we are encouraged to be zealous in overcoming, in pursuing this opportunity that God has laid before us. That's my goal today, is for us to realize what a precious thing it is. We're not one of the late comers. We're not one of the deceived. We're not one of those with a false pamphlet. We actually are the first comers. There is real gold and it's accessible.

It's treasure in heaven that we can be laying up. 1 John 3, verse 1, Therefore the world does not know us because it did not know Him. Beloved, now we are children of God and it has not yet been revealed what we shall be, but we know that when He is revealed, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is. And everyone who has this hope in Him purifies Himself just as He is pure. He is involved in the process of cleansing the bride, cleaning herself, making herself ready. They're good for the work. They've got a heart for the work to really dig down their deep, to melt the permafrost, dig the stuff and get the water and do the processing.

And in the process lay up treasure in heaven. And as we conclude this, it's curious to me that there's no gold rush to Alaska today, because there's a lot of gold in Alaska, actually.

All you have to do is bend over and work really, really hard to get a little bit of it.

I hiked back in about five miles behind Juneau and met a prospector who does just that. Every day he harvests a half an ounce of gold, and it's a lot of work. He says, it's not luck. He told me how to do it. He showed me where to do it. He doesn't mind if I did it too.

You see, it's not luck. It's more like science. It's more like fact. And he told me, you go back to this area which I went to, and he said, you look up there on the cliff, and you'll see white ribbons of white quartz down this huge cliff, and down the face of it you'll see these little ribbons of white quartz. He says, gold is inside white quartz. And he said, if you go up, if you could get on the face of that mountain, you'd find little tiny pieces where, in the volcanic action and the upheaval of the earth, that quartz was formed and the gold would melt first and run down and find little pockets. He says, the trick is to either find the pockets or go down in the river below where that quartz has been flaking off and pan for it. It's a lot of work. He has to carry a pack on his back every day, all the way from town, all the way back up the mountains. His pack has a shovel in it. It's got a pan in it, some other materials in it. He goes up there every day. And he gets gold out of the ribbons or flakes out of the stream. Not much, just a half an ounce.

Takes him five gallons of water for each cubic yard of soil. And you know what? That water, to get water up on the side of the mountain, he has to carry it. It's a lot of hard work. He's learned how to divert some rainwater into certain buckets and things, but a lot of it, he just has to haul up the mountain every time he wants to sift through some sand.

It's steady work. It's daily. It's lonely. But it is certain, and it's dependable. And he'll get his half an ounce every day he goes up to work. Our journey and your journey is like that, to the Kingdom of God. It's hard work. It's steady work. But it's dependable. If we've got a heart for it, it pays off a little bit at a time, a little bit of treasure being stored up. Each time you take another step, overcome an obstacle, it pays off just a little bit. We'll close with 2 Peter 3 and verse 13. 2 Peter 3 and verse 13. After talking about the cataclysm at the end of human and physical time, nevertheless we, according to his promise, look for new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells. Therefore, beloved, looking forward to these things, be diligent to be found by him in peace without spot and blameless. So what are you doing with your opportunity to be a first fruit, co-heir with Christ in the Kingdom of God? The rush for eternity is on. You know the way. You know the truth. You have the light that will take you to life. What will you do with it?