Three Kinds of People You Meet on Your Way to the Kingdom of God

Just a five-minute maybe excursion, digression on prophecy. This is not my sermon or whatever today, but please turn quickly over to Revelation 17 and verse 13. I want to tie together a scripture with something that's in current events right now that I just want to point you to. And I may give a sermon on this later on that will bring more detail to it. Revelation 17, 13 speaks of the coming power of the beast that Revelation describes as political combine that we have long known and understood to be a European-based entity that is prophesied to arise prior to Christ's Second Coming as a very powerful force in human affairs.

And in verse 12, it talks about ten horns being ten kings, which have received no kingdom as yet, but they receive authority for an hour as kings with the beast. The beast is the political power. These are of one mind, these ten kings, and they give their power and authority to the beast, and they make war with the lamb, and the lamb will overcome them.

Verse 13 is a key step in this whole process of what is prophesied to come together in these in-time events of ten powers, ten leaders, ten kings or presidents, prime ministers, giving their power to one individual who represents this complete beast power at this time, and they give their power and authority to the beast for a short period. I won't go into all the other details surrounding this. For many of us, this is familiar territory.

For others, it may be a little bit sketchy, but we have long understood in our tradition of understanding prophecy and teaching that this is a European-based entity, and that Germany, as has historically been, will play a role in that. I did a Beyond Today program a week before last on this subject, so this has been on my mind, and then I ran across a piece of news this week that just kind of stunned me.

Some of you may or may not know that currently Europe's going through their own economic crisis, just like the United States has been. The key factor that is impacting Europe, they've had this European community and one currency for about ten years, and yet that has not filtered through every country because every country still makes their own fiscal decisions as far as taxation, setting their budget, and if they spend way more than they've got, they run into problems.

Greece is probably the number one bad boy in the European community right now. They are about to go into bankruptcy, and this is creating a problem throughout Europe, along with the worldwide recession that has been going on. Germany's had their own problems, but they are still the strongest economic power, and because of World War II in the past with Germany, they have had their own problems asserting themselves. They don't have a large military, they have a military, but they have throttled back in the last 60 years because of World War II, and yet they are still the main engine there in what is called middle Europe.

I subscribe to a news source that is a very balanced, reputable, insightful news source called Stratfor, and they had a piece this week about Germany, and they were talking about this very situation. And essentially, as this has played out down through the end of the week here, Germany is in the role of either extending loans to Greece to keep it afloat, or Greece will go into bankruptcy, and that would upset the entire economic situation they've been working decades long to create there in Europe.

And if Germany loans out the money, just as you always know, you loan out money, you want something in return. And the balance of power that that would begin to carve out for Germany would be rather significant, and enhancing their role within the European Union towards something that would lead toward what we see here.

The current European Union is not the final picture of what prophecy tells us. We, many of us, seem to understand or feel that that's our understanding. And to get to Revelation 17, 13, a number of things will have to yet take place.

What is interesting is to note what is currently happening. In this particular non-church publication had an analysis of it, and in the last paragraph, they made this statement as they kind of summed it up as to the direction Germany would go if they make this loan to Greece, and what that would mean for the entire European Union and the future. And I'll just read one paragraph. It says, the most potent analogy here may be that of the Roman Republic, the ancient Roman Republic. And you make the connection Roman Empire from that point. But this is their words, this is not mine. The Roman Senate of the Roman Empire had provisions by which, in times of emergency, such as when Hannibal threatened at the gates, the Senate could bestow dictatorial powers on an individual. And they did, from time to time, to save Rome, to save the nation.

The European Union may be nearing such a choice, albeit with the EU in the position of the Roman Senate and Germany playing the role of Caesar. The offer may be too tempting for Germany to ignore. The question is, will Germany's past continue to torture Berlin and prevent it from assuming its natural sphere of influence? Germany has come back from the ashes of World War II and has a historic, cultural, economic, political influence by virtue of its size, its location right in Middle Europe, and has once again risen, in a sense, to the top of whatever the heap is in Europe at this point toward something of the end. And when you see these, you watch these things year by year and you wonder, you know, sometimes people think we're a little bit goofy for even still watching Europe. And that's not the case because of what we understand about prophecy and history and what Mr. Armstrong understood. I think he had that fundamentally right there.

And when you see that independently analyzed by a group such as this, as they look at the politics and the geography and the current situation over there, and then they make such a statement like that, it comes right out of Revelation 1713 where it says that these 10—and there are 27 EU countries right now, not 10—but whatever these 10 will be, in whatever form that will be, that's another issue—it says they will give their power to the beast for a period of time. And that's exactly what this particular piece was describing of the European Union in some way giving power to an individual, perhaps a leader of one nation or one region, to assume dictatorial powers, to in essence save the economy, to save the culture, to save civilization, to save—you fill in the headline there—to whatever things might be. So I'll probably come back to that in a more fuller dissertation, but it was on my mind. I just wanted to share it, especially with those of you that are prophecy buffs and help us all at least keep watching and understanding a few things there. But that's not my sermon, so don't think we're done. But I will try to be done by the time that we're supposed to be done. We all like to travel. We all take our trips, for most of us, the big trip that we take once a year is to the Feast of Tabernacles. And some of us get to travel a little bit more on jobs or just our own personal choice. But every time we travel, we understand that travel can be fun, takes planning, takes preparation. Travel can be challenging, present unknown situations. We meet people. We go through different areas. We have all kinds of challenges and sometimes obstacles that you have to deal with as you go. I think any of us realize, as we've crawled on airplanes over the last number of years, that traveling by airplane is a grueling, grueling job these days. Take off your shoes, empty everything you've got, go through security, deal with delays, everything. It's very, very grueling in that way. Even to just pack up the car and go, you've got to make certain preparations. But it's always fun, challenging, interesting. We learn, but it's a perfect part of life. Debbie and I always pray before we leave our home on a major trip. We'll always ask God for His guidance, for His protection on all aspects of the travel. We'll also ask Him to guide our steps so that we do what we should do, and in certain, you know, especially if it's a connective serving in our role in the Church, that decisions we make, where we go, and unexpected situations will always lead us to accomplish His will, not just ours. So we try to place it in God's hands. I think you all know that when you travel, you meet all kinds of interesting people, especially at the Feast of Tabernacles. When you go to the Feast, you meet people from all parts of the country. And if you go to an international site, definitely you're going to meet people from different parts of the world.

Those are probably as much—they enhance the Feast of Tabernacles as much as anything else.

Last year, we were in Newfoundland, up in Canada. We met people from all across Canada, some from Alaska and other parts of the United States. And that's just part of it. You sit down next to someone, you have a meal with someone, you share a hotel, maybe you bump into them in a hallway, and you meet people from different experiences and different places. And that enhances the trip as well. Any trip that we take really should teach us something of the larger journey through life that we are making toward God's kingdom. It's a perfect analogy. It's a perfect fit because we are on a journey to the kingdom of God. That's what our life is once God calls us into the Church and places us in the body of Christ. We're on a journey, and we go through many different challenges. We go through—we have to deal with obstacles and overcome them to remain faithful, to remain a part of His body, a part of the Church. We're going to be always learning, seeing new things. It may not be a geographical spot, but being in God's Church is going to expose you to a host of unique experiences that perhaps we would not have were we not in the Church, as well as different types of people as well. And all of that requires, that journey to the kingdom requires preparation, overcoming obstacles, and overcoming difficulties. And along the way, we meet all kinds of people. In today's sermon, I'd like to describe three kinds of people that you meet in this journey toward the kingdom of God.

In these three types of people, we can learn something about ourselves and what it will take for you and I to reach the end of our journey and to be in the family of God in the kingdom of God.

I must give credit to where credit is due. This sermon was given—the genesis of this sermon, the core of this sermon—I've added my own elements to it. It was given at the feast this year by a fellow elder and it struck me as one that I could steal. And so I do, but I must give credit to the individual, Gary Lucas, one of our elders up in Ontario, who gave this. And I've added my own parts to it to fill it out in scriptures and other things as well, but that's okay. That's how some of the things are done in our sermons over the years and we trade back and forth on the ideas. But it was particularly helpful for me and I feel it can be for all of us and choose to share it with all of you. The three types of people that we're talking about here in this sermon are these. We'll go through each one individually. Tourists, explorers, and pilgrims. Tourists, explorers, and pilgrims. Three kinds of people that we'll talk about here that we meet on the way to the kingdom. Let's look at the tourists. Tourists. We've all been tourists.

We've traveled wherever. We've had our fun. We've seen our unique places. We've had our trips of a lifetime. A few years ago, Debbie and I took a trip to England. I've told you about this before. We bought a bus tour of what they called what was billed to us as a taste of England. It was a five-day bus tour. We went over a couple of days early and spent a day just running around London and seeing some things there. She'd never seen England. We thought we went over right after the Feast of Tabernacles. This was back in 2003 when we did this. We had a bus load of people, about 40-45 of us. We had people from all over the world. People from Latin America, from Australia, from Europe, from North America. Interesting people. A young lady I remember from China accosted me in the food line buffet line one night. This was right after America had invaded Iraq in 2003.

And this lady, this Chinese gal, she was from Beijing. Before she started chewing the roast beef, she started chewing on me for being an American and for the American invasion of Iraq and what in the world was Mr. Bush doing in there. I couldn't wait to get through that conversation and get on to my roast beef. But we met interesting people. I met a couple that lived in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. He had worked in the government services and had gone fairly high up in the Department of the Interior. He was actually a superintendent of the Grand Tetons Park before he retired. He was a personal friend of then Vice President Dick Cheney. His back door neighbor was Harrison Ford there in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. So we got acquainted with him, heard his stories. It's just an illustration of the types of people you meet when you travel and the conversations you strike up and how interesting expanding that can be as you get acquainted with the people. I still remember these individuals I wrote down in my journal about a lot of them and still remember them all this time later on. You know when you're a tourist, you rush from place to place. This was a taste of England. The tour guide eventually told us, we build this, he says, as a taste of England, but it's really just a lick.

Some places you basically just view from outside the window of your bus. They say, this is a particular place and there it is. You just keep on going. Sometimes you may stop at a cathedral and they give you about 10 minutes off the bus, snap a few pictures back on the bus.

That's called seeing something, let's say Canterbury Cathedral. You read the brochure and they say you will see Canterbury Cathedral. What that means is you might see it for 10 minutes.

If they say that you will view Tintern Abbey or some other location, that means you'll view it outside your window. If you ever get into any of these travel brochures, read the fine print. Read things very carefully. If they say you will tour the city of York, they may give you three hours and a little bit of a tour. That's a tour and that's a little bit better. We learned this. That's why it's called a taste or, as he said, a lick of England in five days. We felt it was money well spent and well worth the time. You get off the bus, you take pictures, you go to a place like New York, England, or we were in Edinburgh, Scotland for one night. Saw the castle, saw the donuts going. Did have a good tour, very quick tour. But you know, you stay in a nice hotel. You're in an air-conditioned bus. You roll into a restaurant, meal's ready for you. They've already called ahead. You go through your meal. You see your sights and you're on the bus and you go. That's how tourism goes. And even at the feast, you would go to some exotic location. You generally do not get involved with the locality.

And off the beaten track, where people who are the locals really live, we don't shop where they shop in so much. Now, I'm not talking about the malls of Rapid City, South Dakota, or Panama City Beach. But if you go to Acapulco, if you go to Jamaica, as some of you have been, you know exactly where you stay. You don't stay where the natives stay, the locals. You don't eat so much where the locals eat. You don't shop where they shop, except where they have set up their tourist stands in Jamaica, for instance, and where all the tourists go to, you know, these outdoor stalls and other places. That's the nature of tourism. You take your pictures, you get back on your bus, you go back to your nice resort complex in places like Jamaica, which is behind it in a gated community garden. So the locals can't come in, because in some places, the locals want what you've got. Money. And they have to guard us. And even in safer places, we still really don't stay long enough to find out how people are. We might walk away. We don't know the unemployment rate. We don't know the homeless ratios there. We may not know the local issues. That's not why we're there. Why? Because we're a tourist. I went to Rapid City, South Dakota, Debbie and I last summer. I went to Mount Rushmore, saw the crazy horse, crazy, down the road there, and crazy horse. And that whole story, which is a fascinating story in itself.

But we left Rapid City. We stayed in Hampton Inn, Holiday Inn Express, excuse me. I don't really know that much more about Rapid City than before I went. Why? I was a tourist. I didn't get involved.

I don't know what the literacy rate, the unemployment rate, the living conditions, or the general quality of life are there. That's not really why you're there.

You know, there's something else about tourists. When problems hit in a tourist area, especially some of the those like Acapulco, Cabo, what's the one in Mexico, Cabo San Lucas, I believe, and some of these other places, even Panama City on the Gulf shore of the United States, when a hurricane comes, starts rolling out through the Gulf, the Atlantic toward these areas, what do you do? You head north on Interstate 65 if you're a tourist to get out of there.

You're looking for that first plane out to get out. That's because it's not our home. When problems hit, a tourist goes home. Where a tourist is not there to really get involved, they're there to see something, perhaps, on a surface. In 2 Timothy, chapter 3, 2 Timothy, the third chapter, the second chapter, the second chapter, and 2 Timothy, chapter 3, verse 5, he talks about those who have a form of godliness but deny its power from such people turn away. This is in the context of verse 1, where he talks in the last days, perilous times will come, and he lists how different people will be. And he mentions this one spiritual condition where there is a form of godliness, a form of godliness.

A form of godliness can be someone who is just going through the motions of religion, whatever it might be. They appear to be religious. They make a profession of faith, but there's no substance. They have a form. You know what a form is? When you form up a concrete, something you're going to pour concrete, you're going to pour a driveway, you're going to pour a concrete wall. What do you do? You place your forms in place. And then you pour the concrete in, and when a concrete sets up, you knock the forms off and you've got the edifice. But the substance is the concrete, not the forms. They have a form of godliness that means it's a shell.

There's no concrete interior. There's no substance. The inner man, the inner person, through commitment, through dedication. Paul is describing people will have a form of godliness. Now, we could talk on and on about that in terms of certainly people who profess Christianity, go to church their choice, but don't live that way. We can certainly apply it to ourselves as well. And this is the intent of the sermon, and ask ourselves, do you and I, do we ever run across anyone in the church in our years who had a form of the truth, a form of godly truth?

They came among us, kind of like a tourist, snapped some pictures, were interested, but when trouble hit, whether in their own personal life, such as persecution, opposition to their continuing in this way of life, which I could just draw in the Matthew 13, the parable of the sower and the seed, and those who have sowed the seed of the kingdom sown, and the evil one comes and snatches away that which is sown when problems arise.

When a hurricane hits, when a tornado threatens, you leave. When an earthquake hits, you leave. That's what a tourist does. Have you ever looked at someone, or even seen someone in the church over the years? For many of us here, we've been around, seen all kinds of, a lot of people come and go over the years. Think about it. Have you ever seen a spiritual tourist who left as soon as a problem hit? Some challenge to their personal faith commitment? Or maybe it was a larger churchwide problem. We've had certainly our share of those over the years. Crisis that hits the church.

Maybe it's even a local crisis. Maybe the local pastor himself fails in his responsibility, and it damages people's faith or larger issues within the church, which we could point to at any given time over the last 50 years or so. And it causes people to say, well, if that's not God's church, or that's not the truth, or any number of excuses to leave and stop and go home or go back or go something else, stop obeying God. A spiritual tourist is not really interested in the destination in some cases. They're more interested in the trip. And quite frankly, sometimes people come among us, have come among the church because we're a good group, nice group of people.

By and large, God's people are a good group. Friendly, hospitable, church of brotherly love, Philadelphia love, and they're clean people, if you will, have a clean lifestyle. And they're attracted by the message, and there's nothing wrong with that. Well, all those things are positives, and they should always be there. But again, sometimes, as I've surveyed my 47 years as a part of the church, I have to realize that I've seen a lot of people come through the doors, and I've talked with a lot of people, sat down with them in their homes, and gone through things in the Bible, and they're interested, and they're certainly searching and all. But sometimes you see them kind of come, and they look, and then they leave. And that's the way it is. They're mostly interested in the trip. And that is what is. It is what it is in that sense. Now, you and I may have all begun as a spiritual tourist in one sense. You see, any one of these types that I'm talking about today, we can go through and progress through those stages. So it's not wrong to be a tourist, but you don't want to stay a tourist. You see, because every tourist has to have a home and some place to put down roots. This can be a religion of self. You have to be very, very careful not to stay in this tourist mode. On this bus trip to England that we took, there was a couple, I believe they were from Georgia, in the United States, not Russia.

They were probably in their late 20s, maybe early 30s. They obviously didn't read the fine print and didn't even begin to understand the fine print of the brochure because they really, as time wore on, they weren't interested in seeing Westminster Abbey. They were not interested in seeing Stratford on Avon. They were interested in souvenirs, in shopping. Because they started grumbling. They didn't get enough shopping time at that last stop. They had to buy t-shirts.

Shot mugs. Trinkets for everybody back home. And she would keep hauling on bags full of this stuff, but they didn't have enough time. And it kind of got to be bothersome because they were always the last ones on and then they were just grumbling until the next stop. And I remember, I think it was in, we got to Scotland, they left their tour for a day or a day and a half, caught up with us with a taxi because they wanted to shop. And they shopped. So they were tourists. They weren't even interested in seeing the sights. They were interested in t-shirts. They were all wrapped up in themselves, in other words. Sometimes a tourist and a spiritual tourist can just be wrapped up in the religion of self. And what we want for ourselves and perhaps an exhilaration or a feeling we might get just by being religious or being among religious people or going through the, just a religious experience, whether whatever brand it is, doesn't make any difference.

As long as it's God, as long as it's a feel good approach, but there's no substance, they have a form of godliness. Spiritual tourists. Let's go to the second category. Explorers.

Now, an explorer's a bit different. You know, you look at history and adventure, and there are stories of all kinds of different explorers. Probably the foremost American explorers or exploration we might point to are the well-known explorers Lewis and Clark, Mary Wether Lewis and William Clark, who explored the Louisiana Purchase that Jefferson had made from Napoleon, America from France between 1804 and 1806. Where essentially two years they left out of St. Louis, Missouri, went up the Missouri River, looking for, they were looking for a Northwest Passage. They were hoping that there was a water wave passage from the Mississippi all the way to the Pacific Ocean, but they also were mapping and exploring this new, newly purchased territory. And it's a fascinating story. Some of you have read about it and watched some of the documentaries that were done a few years ago when the 200th anniversary took place. The Lewis and Clark expedition is a fascinating one. We saw one spot when we were out in Montana last summer on this trip out west we took. I may have told you about this. I'll tell you again, I guess. There was a spot. Debbie, we were planning the trip. Debbie looked on the map and said, oh, there's a Lewis and Clark spot there. It was near the Custer battlefield.

And they're in Montana on the little big horn. And so the day we were going to the Custer battlefield, we said, well, let's go let's swing up north and go to this spot. It's a national park spot for the Lewis and Clark trip. Then we'll go down to the Custer battlefield. So we did. There's a place called Pompey's Pillar. I'd never heard about it. And what it Pompey's Pillar is this huge outcropping of rock that juts up there out of alongside the Yellowstone River in the southeast corner of Montana. And it just you see it for miles. It's just a big outcropping of rock. And the Indians used to they looked at it as a sacred spot for years. And the National Park Service has got it nicely done. And what happened what it is is in 1806 when Lewis and Clark were coming back from the Pacific coast on their way back to St. Louis, they had split up part to and William Clark took a group of the party down along the Yellowstone River just to explore part of it while Mary Wether Lewis went north and then they were going to meet up. And William Clark came to this and they got they banked their canoes and he crawled up on this rock and he carved his name in it.

William Clark, August 1806. I think it's August 23rd. And it's still there. It's still there.

And they've got it behind a piece of glass and you can walk up there and look and see it. It's the only physical spot that shows any proof that they passed this way. There's no other physical evidence that Lewis and Clark made their trip other than their journals and the fact that we know they did it. That's the only physical evidence of the whole trip that they passed that way. It's interesting. It was interesting for us to look at. But you know, an explorer is pushing ahead. They're looking to discover new lands, discover new information, to push the bounds of civilization, knowledge, as the Star Trek says, to go where no man has gone before, to explore. And that is a very, very good and noble part. It takes courage. It takes endurance to deal with hardship. Explorers are always... there's something about them when you study some of the famous ones. They're continually searching for the next adventure, and they're moving forward. You know, when it comes to a spiritual explorer, which some of us may be or may have been, there's something we should perhaps pause and ask ourselves and to note, because an explorer is always looking for something new, new fields, new discoveries. That's just the nature of an individual who is wanting to push the bounds of knowledge, information, or space. And explorers sometimes have a hard time putting down deep roots in their relationships, or even where they live, because they have to be moving. They have to be always going on. Now, they're always wanting to learn. They're intensely desirous of learning, and that's by itself not bad. They are intelligent, and they study hard.

They have to be. They have to know so many different aspects of knowledge in order to be an effective explorer. A spiritual explorer can embody many of these elements, and if not careful, miss something that is critically important. Here in 2 Timothy 3, again, in verse 7, the apostle Paul goes on to describe another category, another element about the way people can be. And let's just read verse 6. It says, For of this sort are those who creep into households and make captives of gullible women loaded down with sins, led away by various lusts. Verse 7, always learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth.

Always learning, never able to come to a knowledge of the truth.

This, in verse 7, can be describing someone who's a spiritual explorer.

Always looking for something new. Always studying. Always learning. But, in this case, they can't come to the knowledge of the truth. Now, to say that does not mean, and we're not saying, to study is wrong. To gain knowledge is wrong. We should continue to study, grow in knowledge, grace in knowledge. We are, in rhetoric, studiers, learners of the Bible, of God, in many different ways, not just through the study of the Bible, but also through the experience that we have with each other, with individuals, and that enhance our relationship with God.

But we have to be very careful, because sometimes I've noticed this tendency in looking at people, even long-time members in the church, who aren't tourists. They put down certain roots, but there's some part of verse 7 that sometimes can apply. I've noticed that sometimes we can be a Bible mechanic. You know what a Bible mechanic is?

Well, you know what a mechanic can do. A mechanic is somebody that can take a piece of machinery, tear it down, have every piece of it lay out across a room like this, piece by piece, pistons, cylinders, rings, rods, generators, alternators, and then know exactly how to put it all back together. My dad had a Texaco gas station for years. That's where I grew up.

He had one man that was the best employee he ever had was a mechanic. He was his top mechanic. He paid him the most to keep him there. This guy could take anything apart, put it back together.

Anything. Not just an engine, a whole automobile. Anything that worked in that gas station, he could take it apart, put it back together. He was worth every dime my dad paid him. He just had that native mechanical intelligence to do that. And I don't have it. You have to pay for those things or you can learn certain things. I can take some things apart, put it back together.

But not a whole engine, I'll tell you that. There are some people that can take the Bible apart.

Greek by Greek verb. Hebrew by Hebrew word. You know, there are some people who set in services with a foreign language Bible. Not that they can't read English, but I better not say too much on that because people come up and comment about it. I've given a sermon before.

You know, you can have, let's take an interlinear Bible where you have a Bible with the English and it's got the Greek text right in there as well. And I admire people that have that knowledge, but you know, you can read that and you can have knowledge and you can explore the depth of a particular verse, a particular word in Greek or in the Hebrew and be very, very knowledgeable of that.

You can pull the one whole book, hold it all together and place it within the context. Let's say the book of Ezra. You can take the book of Ezra and understand the whole historical context of it. You could take a prophecy, let's say like Daniel's 70 weeks prophecy, which is probably one of the hardest prophecies to really get into and understand. I'm sure Mitch can explain it to us because he's been through the class this fresh this year and he could explain it to us. But I'm going to be blunt with you. Daniel's 70 weeks prophecy is one of the most intricate, detailed prophecies in the Bible. And I haven't met too many people that have mastered it.

I'm not one of them. I've studied it, but I haven't mastered it. We have an understanding in the scriptures and I think we have a paper on the subject of that. But I use it as an example of you can explore these subjects, these words, these languages, and wow people in a conversation.

And they might think you're really spiritual. Oh, that person is really into God.

And that by itself is not the sole criteria. In fact, you could read Greek and sit and listen to a sermon and study it in Greek. That doesn't mean everything. It means you can sit and read this Bible in Greek. It means you might know, have a bent towards some of the historical prophetic parts of things. But you can take it apart and you can put it all back together and still fail to grasp the bigger picture. That's my point. Because you have to have more than a technical knowledge of the Bible to make it to the kingdom of God to get to the end of the journey. You've got to have more than that. All of those can be helpful. And there are times when they certainly you want to pull those off the shelf or you want to have certain knowledge and put it all together.

But I could quote 1 Corinthians 13.2. We won't turn there. You can have all knowledge, but if you don't have love, you're just a tinkling symbol. You can know every aspect of prophecy, think you do. And if you don't have love, which is the bigger picture, the glue that holds it all together, Paul says you're just a sounding brass. You're making a bunch of noise up here or as you talk or as you pontificate over the coffee pot or in your own little email chat room.

It doesn't mean that you've got the whole picture. You can spend a whole lifetime exploring even the Bible and miss the truth. What Paul here is talking about is the knowledge of the truth.

We could talk a long, long time about that. You've got to go beyond the head to the heart.

Sometimes a spiritual explorer is a good head Christian, but not a good heart Christian sometimes. Now, you can still be an explorer and have all this knowledge and this interest, but you've got to move beyond that. You've got to move beyond that, really, to the heart, to a deeper understanding of the full body of how it all works together and the full knowledge of the truth, this way of life that God has called us to. You've got to be able to understand how it all fits together to create that unity of love that binds us ultimately together and helps us be then this last category of individual, and that is a pilgrim.

A pilgrim is a person who travels with a definite goal. They know where they're going and they know why. They'll have a bit of the tourists in them because they've got to be able and willing to break out of their comfort zone and to meet new people, see new places in that sense, have new experiences. They've got to have a bit of the explorer within them, but in the end, they're pilgrims because we keep the end goal in mind. In Hebrews 11, Hebrews 11, verse 8, says, "...of Abraham he obeyed when he was called to go out to the place which he would receive as an inheritance, and he went out, not knowing where he was going." Then down to verse 13 to sum up this whole number of people that the first 12 verses start talking about. It says, "...that they all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off, were assured of them, embraced them, and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth.

For those who say such things declare plainly, they seek a homeland. And truly, if they had called to mind that country from which they had come out, they would have had opportunity to return. But now they desire a better that is a heavenly country. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared a city for them." A true pilgrim keeps the end in mind. God's people are pilgrims living in faith, never having quite arrived, but knowing where we are going.

We move beyond being just a tourist to make a commitment. We move beyond being an explorer coming to the point where we are able to put together the whole truth and understand the way of life. And to understand that. The hallmark of a true pilgrim is faith, understanding that we are just strangers and pilgrims on this earth. I gave this sermon just before Thanksgiving last November about the Puritan settlers of the Plymouth colony, you may remember. They were pilgrims at that time and we went through a little bit of that, but they were coming to what became America to plant a utopia in the new world. And they looked upon themselves as pilgrims, never having fully arrived, even when they did reach these shores. They still had a mission, they still had a goal, and that was to in their mind create a utopia. Didn't happen, but that's why they came. We have a true utopia, the kingdom of God, toward which we are going.

And we are going to be able to worship God in spirit and in truth along the way.

Let me give you a few points to remember. Let's sum this up with a few points. Number one, we have to have faith in the destination that we are going to. We have to have faith in that and believe in that. Hebrews chapter 2, since we're in Hebrews, let's turn back to chapter 2. This tells us what that destination really is. Hebrews 2 and verse 10 says, This is our ultimate destination to be sons of glory, sons of God and his family, spirit beings.

That's where we are going. That's why we make this pilgrimage, this spiritual pilgrimage, through life. We have to always keep that in mind. A lot of challenges to take that away from us, to rob our hearts and our minds of this ultimate goal. And this is a verse that's in the midst of much here in Hebrews 2 and 1 that talks about salvation. The subject of this front section of Hebrews here, and really the whole thing, is salvation. God has offered salvation in a way to eternal life as a part of his family to create these sons. He begot Jesus, in a sense, as verse 5 of chapter 1, as Paul brings out, he says, You are my son today. I've begotten you.

God gave his only begotten son for the world, Jesus Christ. And that we might ultimately have the same salvation. The whole matter of Christ coming in the flesh, living, dying for our sins, and going through the resurrection is to be the captain of our salvation, as these verses discuss and talk about. That is the goal that we have. That is where we are headed. We cannot and should not let anything distract us from that. If we're just a tourist not there with a commitment, problems can cause us to flee. Run home. Do what we think is home. Back to what we're comfortable with. If we're just exploring, if we're just always looking for something new, but not able to come to a knowledge of the truth and therein the full truth, then there might be something that would take us astray, take us off the mark and the full knowledge of where we are going, which is the second point. We have to be aware of the dangers along the way, along the journey. There are dangers. Satan's goal is to suck the spiritual life from us.

And we have to always be recognizing when that spiritual life is starting to sink, when our levels are low, and to go to the source, to God, in prayer, to the Bible, His Word, and fill it back up. To be in church, to be among God's people. That's why when you miss a week like we did last week with that, it really begins to suck and drain a spiritual vitality. And I think those that are really spiritually attuned understand that and recognize the value of being together. That's why it says, don't forsake the assembling of ourselves together.

And so we have to understand Satan's efforts are there to continually suck the spiritual life away from us. When we're tempted, we have to rush to God. In James chapter 4, James chapter 4, and verse 7, he says, submit, therefore submit to God and resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you.

Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. Verse 10, it says, humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and he will lift you up.

We have to flee to God when we're tempted, resist Satan's influence, and understand continually the danger that is along the way.

Third point, we've got to remember that life is a mountain. Life's not always a beach.

In fact, it's more of a mountain, from my experience, than it is a beach.

We're climbing. We meet resistance. It takes effort. Just think that we got it made laying in the sun, drinking a piña colada, working on the tan.

A passive approach is the description of life is mistaken. Life's more of a mountain.

Some of us are mountain people. Some of us are beach people.

You'll always find out where everybody wants to go for the feast every year, in some cases, except when Panama City fills up, then you have to choose another spot.

But life is more of a mountain. Our society, the world trains us that we're owed the good things of life, but that's not always so. We're not owed that. To the degree we achieve it, earn it, have it, and enjoy it, that's great. But life is more of a mountain at times.

Paul says that the godly will suffer persecution.

There are challenges when we start out on this road, this journey toward the kingdom of God.

The joy is oftentimes the experiences that we have of one another, the fellowship we have of one another, but the sheer humanity of being able to just appreciate and to love one another and to be a part of God's church, to have the knowledge that we do, to fit it into a framework for the understanding of life and its purpose, to be able to help us meet the challenges that will come.

There is no promise of a problem-free life as much as we all want that. There are challenges, and the joy comes from that knowledge that God is with us. God is working with us.

He is moving us even at times through the difficulties that we have toward that ultimate end, which ranges to the last point, the fourth point, and that is we are walking, we have to walk with God as a pilgrim. This is a walk. You can use the, and Paul does use the analogy of a marathon, a race that is set before us. When we say walking with God, we're not diminishing that at all. It's just a matter of understanding that through the daily experiences that we have, we're learning to walk with God. You never know God until you walk with Him through the seasons and the trials of life. And there are seasons of age, experience, and there are trials that will come.

And all through those, we have to understand and do this walk with God and recognize that He is there when we don't think He is. To engage with Him, walking with God is a more of a spiritual art form. And it takes a long time to master that. It really does for each one of us to learn to master this walk with God. It's an art. It's not a science. You know, science is something you can pour this in, pour this ingredient in, and this is going to happen. Guaranteed every time.

Carl Herman knows the steelmaking process. He knows exactly what temperatures, what alloys, what this, or whatever to bring together to create steel.

Scientific process, right? It's going to happen every time. All the conditions are right.

Walking with God is not like that. It's an art form. It's something that we master individually, and it is going to be continually challenging, continually changing. Oh, there are principles from the Scriptures, certainly, that we always are going to use to plug in. But the variations will come in our response, or someone else that we engage in, and the circumstances, and the difficulties, and the challenges, and the things that we go through in our daily life.

To create this art of walking with God, we have to understand God will ultimately and always see us through, through a very difficult time. So we have tourists, we have explorers, and we have pilgrims. Three types of people that we meet on the way to the kingdom. We could always throw in a different type, maybe a fourth or a fifth, but sometimes threes enough to get to the kingdom.

Our minds wrapped around. And I think they all fit. Where are we?

We, as I said, may start out as a tourist, may progress to be an explorer, ultimately wind up via pilgrim. We can still explore while we're still a pilgrim. We can still see different things while we're still a pilgrim. You see, our journey to the kingdom may begin in different ways for many reasons. We may start out as a tourist or an explorer. Understand that.

But here's the point that I leave you with. We will only endure to the end if we're a pilgrim.