Will You Reach the Goal? Part 1

400 years ago, there were individuals and countries that decided there needed to be a canal through the middle of the isthmus that separated the two Americas, North and South America. And the land got quite narrow down in places like Nicaragua, Panama, and they began to envision a path between the seas that connected the Atlantic Ocean with the Pacific Ocean. And such a path would divert traffic, sailing ships, from having to go all the way almost to the South Pole, around the bottom of South America, during all types of inclement weather. And the weather is always quite rough down there, it seems, especially in the winter. Lots of ships were being lost on that voyage. It also would cut the distance by up to 9,000 miles, depending on where you were coming from and going to. 400 years that dream was there, various individuals would trek through the jungle, and they would come back with an idea, well, maybe it could go here, or maybe it could go there. There was a time during the Industrial Revolution, the late 1700s, early 1800s, when humans began to think that they could do a lot of things. And the world which had largely been closed off began to really open up, and possibilities became more and more available with the Industrial Revolution and the machinery. And as the 1800s went along, one of the impossible, unconquerable things was something that a Frenchman sold the idea on, got funded, and actually got done. And that was the building of the Suez Canal. And when the Suez Canal was opened, it was an amazing feat, and it just bolstered this idea that we can do anything as humans. The individual who really was responsible for the Suez Canal wasn't really so much an engineer as he was a marketing pro, that got interest in money and nations and people to work together on this project. It basically became a French project that the nation of France became very proud of, people invested in, and the payoff went handsomely. And so, in the mid-part of the 1800s, about the time of the Civil War period, there was a renewed interest, once again, on the part of the United States for putting through a canal in that part of the world. It's one of the most difficult areas on the planet at the time. Nobody really went there, so nobody knew much about it. There was no commerce, there was no transportation through there. It was a far-flung jungle from most countries, north and south. There were some Indians there who weren't real supportive of outsiders and their ambitions. And so, one of the first voyages that went down, trying to find a route that a previous person said existed, got hopelessly lost, chased their tail, got eaten up by sand fleas, attacked by mosquitoes, barely got out by the skin of their teeth, and survived to tell about it. And not much happened after that. Another expedition or two went down, and they fumbled around, and some guy said, oh, I've got a better route, and they're looking for a level route, and this person almost, in his little crew, subsidized by the U.S. government, almost died and found that their route went over mountains over a thousand feet high. That wasn't much of a route. Everybody pretty much said, whatever you do, don't do what we've tried, don't go where we've got. And probably the last place in the world, you don't want to be as Panama, try Nicaragua.

Well, because of politics and this and that and time, the same Frenchman who built the Panama Canal decided, I'll do this again. I'm sorry, the Suez Canal. He said, I'll do this again. And lo and behold, he put together another package, and everybody seemed to know how it was going to be done without even going there. People drew out maps, and they figured out how this was going to happen, and that was going to happen based on hearsay.

And one of the biggest debacles of the 19th century was France trying to put the Panama Canal through. And they were met with every conceivable problem on both shores and in between. The Panama Canal isn't on a flat isthmus at all. There's mountain ranges. There are rivers going through. There is one massive river that runs the length of that, I guess you'd call it an isthmus, but it runs the length of it going through it, not to the coast.

The diseases that were there had never been heard of before. Malaria was so rampant, but no one knew what even caused malaria. They had no idea malaria came from a mosquito. And so they were trying things like, I don't know, get extra sunshine or drink more water. And they died like flies. Those who came there initially to build that worked for years.

And they dug dirt and more dirt and more dirt, and the rains would come and the gorge that they made would simply slump in and fill in what they'd made. They died by the thousands. They put a little railroad train across the region from coast to coast to help them get supplies in. The workers on the railroad, that little railroad, said that for every railroad tie, a man died. And laying that, it cost a life per railroad tie. About every three feet. 30,000 people are estimated. They didn't even count. They didn't keep a record. But the best estimates are 30,000 people died. The whole thing was a colossal failure. And they ended up having to back out of it.

It was a massive undertaking. But people sometimes come up with these dreams, these ambitions, these ideas, only to get torpedoed along the way. Only to have them interdicted by weather, tropical heat, by diseases in the water, diseases in the air, diseases by mosquitoes, by animals.

All kinds of things come down on those plans. When the Panama Canal was finally finished, it actually cost six times more than what the Frenchman had estimated its cost. Six times. Now, this story mirrors your story. And my reason for telling it has nothing to do with the Panama Canal. I could tell any story. We could tell the story of flight with the Wright brothers. You know, the Wright brothers had a bicycle shop in Dayton, Ohio, and they built the first airplane and they flew it.

First powered flight. It was 100 years ago. Well, the problem was, is people had been trying to fly for decades, if not centuries, if not millennia. And they couldn't figure out how. And the Wright brothers took all the knowledge that had been used before and tested it and found that it was totally useless. And they had to throw it away and start from scratch.

You could look at companies. You know, somebody started a company, company got big and it's doing fine. It's not the way companies work. You could look at other stories. The Oregon Trail. Oh, let's get in a wagon in St. Louis, cross the Missouri, jump in a wagon and go to Oregon. Good land up there. And better opportunities for life. And that adventure was littered with so many human bodies and so many animal carcasses that if people really understood what they were getting into, they would have never, never started it.

You could look at Lewis and Clark, the great expedition up across the U.S., looking for, I guess, a Northwest Passage and looking at a country that had never been seen before. And they almost died so many times. And all the stuff that they got involved in was way over their head, way beyond their abilities. As I believe a couple of U.S. government workers, military, post-military people, way over their heads. And the things that they went through.

All of these stories and any story that you have in your life all share one theme. A long-range goal with short-term issues. Long-range goal, short-term issues. Think of your life for a minute. Isn't that what it's about? Isn't that what happens to you? You come up with this plan, this idea, and all of a sudden things start impacting it. You come up with who you want to be, and yet all of a sudden things start impacting it.

Other people, yourself, your own nature. Your life will become complete once you reach your long-term goal, or goals. You may have several goals in life.

That will be the completion of your life. But before you reach your long-term goals, and you know as a minister, I'm talking about one in particular. Before you reach that long-term goal, you actually accomplish it, fulfill it. There are going to be many short-term issues that are going to bombard you, surprise you, discourage you, try to unend you from reaching that goal. But your life will become complete if and when you reach your long-range goal. In this multi-part sermon series, I would like to examine working towards the goal, working for the goal. Actually, knowing what the goal is, working in increments towards achieving that goal while at the same time being hampered by short-term issues. The word issues means all kinds of things. But there are short-term interferences that we might just say are issues that are going to come up. And yet you are on this earth to achieve a long-term goal, but you've been placed on an earth that is filled with short-term issues. Now, in one sense, this is simple, and in another sense it's profound. Because if you don't realize the goal and the environment that you're in for reaching the goal, you will consider it all bizarre and weird and odd every time something comes in and tries to eclipse your progress to that goal. But when we come to realize that the short-term issues are an integral part of developing what is required in order for you to reach the goal, then you can count it all joy when you fall into various trials along the way. And you can say, yes, I'm passing some of these things, I'm dealing with some of these things, I'm managing the issues that are knocking people off the rails and keeping them from reaching the destination. I'm on this difficult path, this really rough road that Jesus has laid out, but I'm still on it. And I'm going to be on it. And I'm going to make it to the end. I'm not just going to stand here and I'm going to actually make progress to a goal that God has set for me. So in your life, there's a question. Which will prevail? Will the long-range goal prevail? Will you always be working on that minute by minute, all day every day, until the end of your life? Or will the short-term issues and opportunities prevail? That will sidetrack, discourage, change, and torpedo your quest in obtaining, reaching the goal? Today I'd like to give part one of a sermon, Will You Reach The Goal? Will you reach the goal? Part one is commitment versus distractions. Commitment versus distractions. Now I'm giving this sermon, and the other parts of it, out of concern. A deep concern. In my 61 years in the Church, I've seen most people become distracted and fail to continue in a commitment towards the goal. Most, when I say most, a fairly good calculation is 90%. 90% abandoned their quest for the goal.

Jesus said many are called to the quest, given the goal, but very few, very few actually realize that goal. I was listening to a message by Mr. Herbert Armstrong this week, and he was thundering back in 1978, 1979, that many in the Church were watering down, they were moving away from, they were leaving the path. 50%, he thought, didn't get it. Back in that time, in the audience, we would say, 50%? Are you kidding, Mr. Armstrong? That's a lot of people. Sure, it's not like 2%. What he didn't realize, and we didn't realize, it was really 90%.

And I'm concerned that in the Church today, we may have similar percentages of people who think they have the goal, and think they're going to receive the goal, and yet don't really know what the goal is, and are getting lambasted by issues that are weakening them, discouraging them, distracting them, and the commitment may not be there. I can't say it won't be there, but I'm including myself in that number. What could distract me from reaching the goal? What could take me off of that path? If 90% of those I grew up with have left, what's to say I won't leave also? You see this challenge? I think Paul said it very well. We should examine ourselves, whether we're really in the faith, and not just say, well, of course we're all in the faith. Of course I'm in the faith. No, you need to examine yourself. What am I doing here? Why am I doing it? Am I really, truly committed to the goal?

Satan wants you to focus on short-term situations and opportunities. The very first thing that happened to Adam and Eve was, boom, here's a short-term situation. It just involves an apple. It looks good, doesn't it? Have a bite. It solves a short-term challenge. The challenge is lust, desire for something God said no to, but you want it. It looks good. It's appealing to the eye. It appears to be wise. It appears to be so. The thing you do is, for your short-term desire, you do a short-term action, which is to eat the apple, with a long-term consequence. Oh, surprise! The goal is not reached. The goal is not reached. And so he wants us to focus on short-term situations and opportunities as much as possible. I mentioned in a recent sermon how, when God told Satan how righteous and steady Job was, Satan said, Well, let me just give him a little short-term issue here. Just a short-term issue. Let's go back to Job. Let's just see what he did. In the first chapter of Job, Job chapter 1, let's just kind of skim this first chapter.

There's a man in the land of us whose name was Job, and that man was blameless and upright, one who feared God and shunned evil. And that's you. That's me, hopefully. Hopefully you see yourself right there in that same situation. This isn't some wild story that is extremely odd and has no application to you and me. This is another one of your stories, and my stories. This is the Panama Canal story, or the Oregon Trail story. You're going along, you're doing things right.

In verse 6, there's a day when the angels of God, sons of God, came to present themselves before the Lord, and Satan also came among them. And so, he says, verse 8, have you considered my servant Job that there's none like him in the earth, blameless and upright man who fears God and shuns evil? When you get up in the morning, hopefully you feel the same way, and God feels the same way about you. Have you considered my daughter, my son, how well they're doing? Well, verse 11, Satan says, but now stretch out your hand and touch all that he has, and he'll surely curse you to your face. Give him a short-term issue, physical short-term issue. There's a day, verse 13, when he was eating, drinking wine. A messenger came and said, you know, the oxen were plowing beside the donkeys, and the Sabeans raided him and took them away and killed the servants. You don't have any oxen and donkeys anymore. He'd had a lot. Verse 16, while he was still speaking, another came and said, fire from God fell from heaven and burned up the sheep. All your vast herds of livestock are dead, along with the servants. Verse 17, while he was still speaking, another came and said, the Chaldeans formed three bands, raided the camels and took them away and killed the servants. You are really, really fast becoming poor and overstretched with expenses, but no capital coming in from your livestock. While he was still speaking, another came and said, your sons and daughters were eating and drinking with wine, and suddenly a wind came, struck the four corners of the house, it fell on the young people. All your children are dead. Probably your grandchildren, too. Now, just stop and think about that. Job had a long-term goal. How many short-term issues does it take to get Job off that long-term goal? This is really over the top. But let's notice in chapter 2 and verse 7. So Satan went out from the presence of the Lord and struck Job with painful boils from the sole of his foot to the crown of his head. Now it's really here now and personal. You can't stand, you can't sit, you can't lie down without the boils and this intense pain racking you, taking your focus off of your dead children, your dead animals, your dead servants, all the things that have gone bad in your life. And your ultimate goal. Where's that goal now, you see? It is so obliterated by all the here and the now and the me and the my that you're looking for short-term solutions for these short-term issues. But there's something interesting about Job. It says in chapter 1 and verse 22, In all this, Job did not sin or charge God with wrong. Job didn't let the issues divert him from his goal. That's a fantastic example. Yes, it was over the top. But God did not give him anything that he could not deal with. And you know the end of the story, God restored all of that to him, physically speaking. But Job is identified as one of the righteous ones. He's mentioned along with two others as having his eternal life guaranteed, you might say, because of the way God used it, that he by his own righteousness would be judged by God as being worthy of eternal life. That's a wonderful thing.

Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego were taken captives from Jerusalem and taken all the way to Babylon. They were probably castrated, along with Daniel, and made to serve in the king's palace.

Now, that's enough to go through in life and end up in the enemy's palace and have to serve within that context.

But there came an issue about idol worship. You've got to worship this idol, or you're going to go into this fiery furnace. A furnace that was burning hot. Now, that's a short-term issue, isn't it? You've got the long-term goal, obeying God, obeying the law, but you have a short-term issue. If I don't bow down, I'm going to fry. So the solution is simple. The solution for the short-term issue is to bow down and worship the idol. It takes away the short-term issue. It relieves it. We as humans are real good at this. Even in the church, we're real good at this. We'll often call it ox in the ditch. This is an ox in the ditch, so I just got to bow this idol one time.

So, if we're not careful, we divert ourselves from the long-term goal over a short-term issue and give it a short-term solution just like Eve did. But these guys would not do that. They would not avoid the furnace, and they went into the furnace.

God showed us, through that very bold example, that commitment to the goal is worth anything. He even will come on board and support us when we need it. He'll let us go through it when we don't need the release, because He wants to test us and try us. He wants pure gold.

He doesn't want some mixture of gold and brass. He wants the pure, real thing. Those things are good for us in measure. But then comes along Daniel. Daniel had a don't pray to God issue brought up. He better not be seen praying to God. Daniel said, all right, let's see. He has lions over here. If you've ever been close to lions, they are really hungry, and they are prowling, and they are looking at you, licking their lips. Think of what a tasty meal you are. And then you've got this don't pray kind of a thing. So, the short-term issue is, I don't want to be dinner.

I'll just not pray. I just won't pray. And maybe I'll try to do something different than pray. Something just as good as. Something self-conceived. But Daniel got down, opened his windows, got on his knees, and he prayed. And they saw him praying. In the lions, then he went. And once again, God really showed support for continuance to that goal at Babylon during all of those pressures that they had of being righteous. And Daniel is referenced in the Bible as a righteous man. He did not get distracted and lose his commitment to the goal.

Now, you and I are constantly buffered by the here and the now. As we may have good health, if so, fine. Maybe all of a sudden you feel a pain. Whoa! Are you going to be distracted from your long-term goal and turn inward now? Maybe you're distracted by the phone call. You're fired! Now I can't give and serve and do what God says anymore and pray and study or anything. I've got a fine job. I've got to find a work. I've got to burn the midnight oil. Something breaks. Oh no! There's a malfunction in the house, in the car, in something.

We've got to pour in the midnight oil and set aside the goal temporarily until I work on the short-term issue, until I get it fixed. Well, God has in your environment a thing called weather. Evidently there's a hurricane churning up the east coast that sometime by tomorrow, I think, is expected to join with a big low-pressure system that's been working across the Midwest and combine into a big storm.

Now the current storm, just to kind of give you a view of how big it is, the clouds of the current storm of the hurricane reach from Los Angeles to Memphis, Tennessee. That's how big this thing is. And they say when this other storm connects with it, you're going to have a super storm. And they're not sure if that happens, what's going to happen up in the New England area. Point is here, we live in a world of weather, and weather will bring in issues into our life. Sometimes earthquakes come in various places.

Those bring issues into our life. There's health, there's pain, there's employment. If that's not enough, there's temptations that come along. Oh, I see something. Ooh, now I want that. I desire that. It's short-term, it's here, it's now, and the solution for that is a short-term sin. That itch could be solved if I just did this. And we think, oh, that would be good. I is no longer on the long-term goal, it's now on the short-term, and our fix is like the one that David did. That's, unfortunately, how things often work. Now, Jesus warns us about short-term issues and short-term solutions. Let's go over to Matthew 6, verse 25. Matthew 6, actually, is quite a bit on this topic about long-term goal, short-term issues.

When you come down to verse 25, he says, Uh-oh. Don't worry about your life. That's a pretty big issue. That's a short-term, here-and-now issue. What you will eat, what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on.

There's the short-term issues that come up. Here's the long-term issue. Is not life. If you put a capital L on the word life, is not life more than food and the body more than clothing? Isn't that long-range goal worth focusing on? And if you don't have food, and if you don't have clothing, oops, and if you don't have something to drink, those short-term issues should not take you away from life. He came to bring life, a more abundant type of life in the future. He came as the bread of life. He came having the power of life and of death. So he goes on in verse 26. He talks about the birds of the air. Verse 28, worrying about clothing. Verse 31, Therefore, don't worry, saying, What will we eat? There's food. What shall we drink? What shall we wear? These are all short-term things. Keep your mind on the goal. These are things that those that I've called are not focused on. They're focused on the goal. He says it's the Gentiles that are focused on these things. For your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. But he says, Seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and these things will be added to you. If you're focused on what God wants you to be focused on, these here and now things will come and go. They'll take care of themselves. They're short-term issues. Verse 34, Therefore, don't worry about tomorrow. That's short-term. For tomorrow will worry about its own things. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble. You're going to have a lot of short-term issues today and tomorrow. Don't worry about that.

When we find in Mark 13, verse 10, that there are bigger, even, issues, more distracting issues than that, clothing and food and raiment, we see, once again, Jesus advocating and encouraging us. Don't get distracted by them.

Don't let them draw you away. Mark 13, verse 10, The gospel must be preached to all the nations before the end comes.

There's a couple of ways that that's done. One is, there's a commission of the church to go out and cast net and bring in those that God's calling. Go into all nations, tribes and tongues, and God will call and bring people from that. But that won't be complete, because there's a statement that says, Jesus said, You will not go to all the cities of Israel before the Son of Man comes.

And I think that's referring to the limited part of that gospel. When we go over to Revelation 14, we find that this is accomplished right when the seventh trumpet is blown, and an angel goes throughout the world and preaches the gospel to every living person on earth. So it's going to be accomplished.

Verse 11, we're part of that gospel. We're part of the preaching of that gospel. Verse 11 says, But when they arrest you... Whoa! There's an incident. There's a short-term situation that pops up when they arrest you. Don't worry beforehand or premeditate what you'll speak, but whatever is given to you in that hour, speak that, for it's not you who speak but the Holy Spirit. Notice, God's going to partner with you in this. He's part of this. Don't worry about the here and the now and the distractions. These things will work out for the good.

Verse 12, Now brother will betray brother to death. Whoa! Is that a physical brother? Maybe. Spiritual brother? Maybe.

You talk about issues that come up to dissuade one from going towards and reaching the goal. A father, it says, will betray his child. Children will rise up against their parents and cause them to be put to death.

If any of that happened to you, what would your focus be on? Would it be like Job? Would it be like Christ? Would it be like Paul? Would it be like the people in Hebrews 11? Or would you say, okay, time to shift back now. Cancel the goal. I'm going to deal with this here in the short term. These are good questions because he goes on in verse 13, and you will be hated by all for my namesake. Hated by everyone. Right now, it doesn't seem that way, does it?

Nice in the neighborhood, peaceful in the valley, religious tolerance and all that. Someday, what you're doing and the goal you're going for is going to be ridiculed, despised, hated. People are going to try to kill you for trying to reach it. Are some of those distractions going to deter your commitment? Or do you really have a love and a commitment for the goal that God gave you? Those are the questions that we have to ask. In Hebrews 11, verse 35, I know we've read this before, but I don't think that we can read it too many times because of all the sacrifice that went into these words. All the faithfulness that went in. To remember these people is important.

To forget them and say, oh, I've heard this before, would be to turn our back on brothers and sisters who really have set an awesome example in commitment to the goal versus distractions with long-term situations. So, Hebrews 13, if we break into verse 35, it says, others were tortured. I've never been tortured before. I don't like pain. I bump up against it every now and then. I wonder what it's like sometime. I usually tell my dentist not to use Novocaine in part because I want to see what I can take. But I know she's there with the needle if I need it.

But that's not torture. And when you hear what torture really is, that's not pretty. But some were tortured, not accepting deliverance, stuck with the goal while they're being tortured, and hats off to them. Great admiration for them. Because you see, the short-term solution for torture is to do whatever they're telling you you better do. And then the torture supposedly stops. That seems like a real plausible short-term solution. And they'll be probably telling you that the whole time. But they did not accept deliverance, which meant they were being offered deliverance. That they might obtain a better resurrection.

Now, a better resurrection means a better deliverance. The resurrection is life, the one we're looking for. Well, this is life, too. Being tortured to death means you're going to die. They could have accepted the short-term resurrection. I'm on the table, I'm being cut up, but, oh, hey, you can come back to life, we'll patch you back up. But they're expecting a better resurrection, or a better life, being saved.

Others had the trial of mockings and scourgings, chains and imprisonment, stones sawn in two, tempted, slain with the sword, wandered about in sheepskins and goatskins, being destitute, afflicted, tormented. That's the longer term. The one of being sawn in two, that's pretty tough, but it only lasts a while. But when you're wandering around through wasteland and hiding out in caves and there's no home, there's no comforts, there's no running water, you're probably saying, oh, if I just gave this up, I could go back to my little Egypt, my house, my way, etc., etc. Short-term solutions for short-term issues.

But these individuals were faithful. You and I have to come to grips with the fact that there are many and will be more short-term issues that will try to distract you from your goal. You know this in your own life. You might say, well, I want to be a brain surgeon.

There are so many issues that will be thrown in the way of you becoming a brain surgeon that you probably won't get there. A pilot. I want to fly a plane. There are so many issues that prevent people from flying a plane that most people who try to become pilots don't become pilots. You might say, all right, I'll tell you what. I've got a four-year degree. I'm going to get a master's degree or a doctorate, a Ph.D. I think the number that I heard when I was getting a master's degree was 80% of master's degree people who have done all the coursework, completed all the classes and all the work, will never get a master's degree.

80%. Because they'll be totally dissuaded and disillusioned by having to write a thesis. They just won't get around to it. They'll get distracted from the goal that they once had. And so here are you and me with all of these distractions in a physical life and also in our spiritual life.

In Luke 5 and verse 11, we see a personal example of individuals. How would you like to be a disciple of Jesus? How would you like to be picked? How would? That'd be neat. Right there, not only watching the miracles but actually participating in them more as life went on. That would be pretty exciting. In Luke 5 and verse 11, Jesus came and began calling certain disciples. And they were people like you and me. People weren't the greatest, brightest people in the world. Quite a few were menial jobs or more physical jobs or unrespected jobs. Luke 5 and verse 11 simply says, And it happened when he was in a certain city.

Oh, I've got the wrong one here. Let me see why I've got the wrong one.

Must be 4 or 11. No, anyway, I don't know where it is. But the disciples of Peter and John followed him. And it says they forsook their nets and their boats.

It's 5-11? What? It's not in my boat. Oh! No?

Oh, yes. I'm sorry. Thank you very much. I was reading verse 12.

5-11. So when they had brought their boats to land, they forsook all and followed. They forsook their nets and they forsook their boats and they followed Jesus. They now had a new goal and a new focus. Let's go over to Mark chapter 14 and verse 50. Just back a few pages. Mark 14 and verse 50.

Try to do better with this one.

Here's Jesus. He was seized after praying in the Garden of Gethsemane. He was seized by the Roman soldiers. And these same disciples, verse 50, they all forsook Him and fled. Why? They had been with Him for three and a half years. They had been participating in the miracles. They were sent out to preach and heal. First they forsake all their stuff and followed Him. They had this goal, a spiritual goal. Now they all forsake Him and return back to their previous goal. They've lost the goal. See how that can happen? That's just those disciples. I've told you 90% of the church has done this. Told you that Jesus said, few are chosen because this is so common. All the nation of Israel and all the tribes of Israel abandoned God and lost the goal.

This could be you and me. We think, oh, it's great to be called. And next thing you know, we can turn around and forsake God. We can forsake the goal that He gave us. In verse 51, now a certain young man followed Him, having a linen cloth thrown around His naked body. And the young men laid hold of Him, and He left the linen cloth and fled from them naked. That's how strongly you want to get away and deal with things in the here and the now. Of course, we know that Peter denied Him three times. In John 18, verse 24, John 18, 24, Simon Peter stood and warmed himself.

Remember, Peter is the one who took the sword and cut off the ear of the person. Here's Peter coming back in a little close, going to see what's happening, I guess. He's warming himself, and they said to him, You're not also one of disciples, are you? He said, Oh, no, I'm not. And one of the servants of the high priest, a relative of him, whose ear Peter cut off, said, Didn't I see you in the garden with him? Aren't you a good guy with the sword? Peter denied again and immediately a rooster crowed. See, the short-term issue is like, wow, I'm in trouble here. I've got to do a short-term solution for the short-term situation, and it obliterates the long-term goal. Because Jesus said, If you deny me, I'll deny you. That's a problem.

We find in chapter 20, in verse 10, then the disciples went away again to their own homes. Their own homes, some of them were up in Caesarea. They were up on Capernaum, and they were on the shore, the north shore of the sea of Galilee, the lake, about the size of Lake Havasu. And guess what? They went fishing. They went back to fishing.

So, if you return to the way you were before and abandon the goal, you can end up like in chapter 21, verse 2. Simon Peter called the twin Nathaniel of Caena and Galilee, the sons of Zebedee, and two others of his disciples were together. And Simon Peter said, I'm going fishing. I'm going to go get those boats, get those nets we abandoned three and a half years ago. And let's go back and abandon, essentially. These are my words, I don't know. But essentially, it looks like they've abandoned. They're depressed. They're discouraged. And all these short-term issues have conspired to where they go back fishing. And the others said, we're going with you. And they went out immediately and got into the boat. And that night, they caught nothing. When we think of times ahead, I hope you do look at times ahead and say, what would I do in this situation? Or what would I do in that situation? Realistically, what would you do? Revelation 13, verse 7, is granted to this beast. It's one pictured as a beast. This religious leader, verse 7 of Revelation 13, it was granted to him to make war with the saints. Why? Well, God does everything for a reason. And there are witnesses, there are testings, there are basic benefits to us being tested. This is nothing really more than probably what Job went through, maybe even less. Nothing more than probably what they went through in Hebrews 11. But nevertheless, the saints are put in a war situation to be overcome, to be won. The battle, the confrontation here is to be won by this beast power.

In verse 8, here's the short-term solution for that, that everyone else is falling into. All who dwell on the earth will worship him. See? Because as you know later on, if you don't worship him, you can be killed. You will be killed. So the short-term solution to the short-term issue is bow down. Daniel, bow down. Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. Do what needs to be done.

All those who dwell on the earth will worship him, whose names have not been written in the book of life of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world. If anyone has an ear, let him hear. See what he's saying? This is Jesus Christ having John write this down. He's saying, here it comes. Here's a test for the church of that time. If you're listening, if you've got an ear, listen to what I'm saying. In the next verse, he who leads into captivity shall go into captivity. This beast power is leading people into captivity. That's a short-term situation. He's got a short-term response I'm going to be giving him, God says. He who kills with the sword, that's another short-term thing. If they kill you, whatever. I've got a short-term solution for him, too. When I get there, I've got a sword of my own. But going on, here is the perseverance, the word should say. Here is the perseverance and faith of the saints. They do not give in to short-term situation. They persevere towards the goal.

That's what we have to be willing to do in any situation, any time. It's not just in the future. We have to worry about it every day in any situation that comes up.

Paul gave us a great example in Acts 21 verses 11-14. We should all grow to this. This isn't just Paul. This is, again, this should be part of your life. Hopefully it has been from time to time, and will continue to be. When a short-term issue comes up, here's how you handle it. Even though it's bizarre, it really pushes you.

Acts 21 verse 11 says, This individual who had a vision, when he had come to us, he took Paul's belt, bound his own hands and feet with it. You have to get into that position, binding your hands and feet with a belt, and then made a proclamation. Thus says the Holy Spirit, So shall the Jews at Jerusalem bind the man who owns this belt, and deliver him into the hands of the Gentiles. How that translates is, the one who's wearing this belt, Paul, if you go to Jerusalem, they're going to put you in chains, and they're going to deliver you up to Caesarea, and you're going to be shipped to Rome, and you're going to get killed there. Ooh! Short-term situation. What does Paul do? Verse 12, Now when he heard these things, both we and those from that place pleaded with Paul not to go up to Jerusalem. Short-term problem, short-term solution. Stay here. Don't go to Jerusalem. God had told Paul to go to Jerusalem. Paul answers verse 13, What do you mean by weeping and breaking my heart? For I'm not only ready to be bound, I'm ready to die at Jerusalem for the name of the Lord Jesus.

You know, we need to get in the mindset that Mr. Earl Romer expressed on the phone to my wife and I a little bit ago. We were talking about the end times coming and, you know, kind of getting into things, and this could be tough and hard and all this stuff. His comment was, Bring it on!

I love that. Bring it on! Because we want to get the kingdom of God here. We want Jesus Christ's return. Yeah, sure there are challenges. Bring it on. Not in a flippant manner, but a confident manner because you have the whole armor of God. You've got the commitment. You've got the vision. We shouldn't be fearful. Holy Spirit in you is not a spirit of fear, but of power and of a sound mind, dealing with these short-term issues in their rightful way, focused on the long-term goal.

Jesus' own temptation was a great example of that back in Matthew 4, verses 1-11. He set us a good example. He didn't just tell us how to do it. He did it himself. The first thing he did about when he started his ministry was bethrown a whole bunch of short-term issues with short-term solutions by Satan.

In Matthew 4, beginning in verse 1, he says, Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. When he had fasted forty days and forty nights, afterward he was hungry. I wouldn't say that if he weren't really hungry. It wasn't just like, oh, I could use a muffin. Something would be nice, a cup of coffee. He was hungry. Put yourself in that position where people who are hungry do about anything to get something in their tummy. When the tempter came to him, he said, If you're the Son of God, command that these stones become hot loaves of bread with cheese. That's how I interpret that. It's part of the Greek. You have to have a lot of insight there. I can smell it, can't you? Cheese bread. Back in Cincinnati, I used to go to the store once in a while, and on Friday, I'd bring home a loaf of cheese bread just out of the oven from the store. They baked it right there, and the cheese kind of wound through it. Oh, it was good. What I didn't tell Mary was I always bought two loaves.

Because this stuff, you know, you can do away with most of the loaf on the way home. It was so much better fresh out of the oven. It was amazing. So, when we're looking here, and he says, you know, have some bread. It wasn't just a casual thing to Jesus. He was a human. He identified with that. He knew all he had to do was say, be bread. And I get something to eat. Short-term solution for a short-term issue. But it would have had a long-term consequence. And he says this. It's written, man shall not live by bread alone. But by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God, I'm here on a long-range matter. Long enough that it's an eternal matter. Eternal matter. So, the devil took him up to the holy city and put him on the pinnacle of the temple. On that southeast corner of the temple, where it really drops down a long way. Puts him up there, I guess. If you're the Son of God, throw yourself down, for it's written, He shall give His angels charge over you. In their hands they shall bear you up, lest you dash your foot against the stone. What he's saying here is, you're not really the Son of God. Come on. You're just a human. If you're really the Son of God, you know how this is, guys. If you're really that, what do you mean? I'll prove it to you. Not just short-term solution. Just jump off of there and show it to me.

Short-term solution, long-term problem. When you go obeying Satan the devil, you start doing things that are tempting God, which the Bible commands against. And so, he comes back and he tells him that. It's written, verse 7, You shall not tempt or test, as the margin says, the Lord your God. So the devil said, okay, I see you're on earth, therefore you're human, therefore I get my day with you, and I get to kill you. Because that's the way the prophecy works. Now, it's not going to be pretty. Jesus knew by the time he was about to be arrested what he was going to go through.

And it was tough. And so here he's given a short-term fix for that short-term issue of being crucified. So the devil says, Come up on this mountain, and he showed him all the kingdoms of the world in their glory, and he said to these, I will make you the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords right now, you don't have to die, you don't have to go through this, you don't have to wait 2,000 years, you can have it all, right now. A short-term issue? Short-term solution. All you do is just say the word, and the kingdoms are yours. And Jesus said to him, No, away with you, Satan, for it's written, you shall worship the Lord your God, and him only shall you serve.

He stayed focused and committed on the long-term goal. And yet the short-term issues, I don't think, the temptation, and his temptation are all things, the words don't really convey probably the strength of those temptations on him in that situation.

And yet he resisted them, he put them aside and said, No, we're going for the long-term. You know, he gave us the Ten Commandments, and if you think of the Ten Commandments as laws, that's a good thing. But you can also look at the Ten Commandments through a little different lens. It's ten ways to reject short-term solutions to short-term issues. Let's take, for example, David and Bathsheba. Let's go back to Exodus 20. Exodus 20. These Ten Commandments really speak to this topic, because as you go for your long-term goal, Satan's going to bombard you with things that are short-term opportunities, with short-term fixes, and yet the Bible here gives us, God here gives us, ten different ways to avoid that.

In verse 3 of Exodus 20, with the Ten Commandments, it says, verse 3, You shall have no other gods before me. Now, David, one day, is walking on the roof of his house, and he's a good king, and he's a good guy, a man after God's own heart, and he looks over, and there's Bathsheba.

He got the word bath in her name, and she's just finished bathing. And a short-term issue shows up. He says, that's the short-term issue. What's the short-term solution? Well, the short-term solution is the Tenth Commandment, verse 17. You shall not covet your neighbor's house. You shall not covet your neighbor's wife. And yet, that's what he did. The issue was he covet it. This would be the fix. This would be the solution. David would have not had the short-term issue if he'd say, Wait a minute, I'm not going to covet her.

I'm going to say, Cute gal, now let's go look over here at the valley, you know, the mountains. Go look at the trees. End of problem. No, he went ahead, you see, and lusted. He coveted. So the next thing we found was, No other God's before me. He's put something else before God, before God's commandments. He's put, really, Satan before God. In verse 4, you shall not make yourself any likeness of anything that you really adore or worship, you see.

Well, there's Bathsheba. He's put something that he's put in to that place. These things get a little worse in verse 14. You shall not commit adultery. Well, David went ahead and did that. And when he did that, he stole, verse 15, something that was not his. He took something that did not belong to him. In verse 7, You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain. David was synonymous with God. He was God's chosen one. Jesus Christ would come from the lineage of David. He, when it says, take God as the name of the Lord, He made him into...

He associated God with something profane. Now that he, God, are pregnant, come to verse 13. You shall not murder. So he murdered her husband. Now he's brought a problem with verse 8, the Sabbath day to keep it holy. The Sabbath is a day when we commune with God, when we have this relationship with God, a holy relationship with God, and that's severed. Just like with Adam and Eve being driven out of the garden, that was severed with David because our sins separate us from God.

You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor. He lied. You know, there's all ten things can be associated with that one situation. If David had implemented these ten commandments, he would have solved all those short-term issues and stayed riveted on the goal. We may never have seen Psalm 51 written and the repentance that was required. So Jesus tells us not to worry about short-term issues, even death threats in Matthew 10, verse 28. Use those commandments when anything comes up. Know the commandments, know the law of God, know the biblical principles, all of them, and stay focused on the goal.

And don't worry about the short-term issues. In Matthew 10, verse 28, it says, Do not fear those who can kill the body, but cannot kill the soul. Let me just explain. You do not have a soul. You are a soul. You have a body, and you are a soul. A soul is a living, breathing, thinking body.

That has life, you see. And he's saying, don't fear those who can kill this body, but would take away the opportunity for life, eternal life. Fear him who can kill, take away you from being a spirit being, a physical being in the next resurrection. Worry about the long-range goal, in other words, not the short-term issue. Somebody's got a gun on you. Satan is behind it. He wants you to do something to be disqualified.

In going on in verse 28, But rather fear him who is able to destroy both the life, the living individual and body in Gehenna Fire. Verse 30, The very hairs of your head are numbered. Do not fear, therefore, you are of more value than many sparrows. God is partnering here with you. He's working on you. Therefore, whoever confesses me before men, him I will also confess before my Father, who is in heaven. But whoever denies me before men, him also I will deny before my Father, who is in heaven.

These short-term issues, we have good examples in the Bible of people who say, No, I'm not going to deny you. I'm not going to take the short-term solution for the short-term. I'm going to stick with the long-range, and the short-term will deal with itself. Jesus here said, You're of more value than sparrows, and God knows those that fall to the ground. You know, that issue with the Panama Canal was a big goal that people had. And yet, at the same time, it was a little bit bigger than the French could deal with.

Teddy Roosevelt eventually got involved. The U.S. bought the project from the French. They took over that little railroad. The big can-do attitude kicked in. It turned out to require moving a quarter of a billion yards of soil.

And as they cut the deep canyons, every cut had to have a railroad put on each cut. And as they cut the next cut below it, they had to move the railroad down to the next cut, to haul the dirt away, to move a quarter of a billion yards of cubic dirt. And then the rains would come, and the whole valley and the railroads would all slump into the valley. And they'd have to start over again. It was a massive project. It should have never been started. It would have never been started if they'd known what was involved in it.

But the short-term issues kept discouraging them. The French had only removed one-eighth of the soil needed to be moved when they capitulated. The cost turned out to be $639 million back at the turn of the 20th century. A huge amount. Some of the digging and some of the cost of just going forward with the cuts were $10 million a mile back in the day. That was when a dollar really meant something.

It was worth about 90% more than a dollar is worth today, and it was $10 million a mile for some of that. But they persevered. They persevered and they reached the goal. And the Panama Canal is arguably the largest achievement in human history throughout all recorded time.

The transportation of the things needed there required new technology developments in shipping, new technology in rail. The digging required new inventions and giant, huge steam shovels that would never even imagine before to move that kind of tonnage. The locks and the gates that would finally be used in some of the portions and some of the lakes were of a scale built in the United States and shipped down there on big ships and trucked in on specific rail that would just boggle the mind. The locks and the gates required new engineering processes that had never been thought of before.

Diseases required new medical understanding. They finally had to come to figure out what malaria was caused by and to actually find a cure, which they did. The result was that the Panama Canal was finished six months early and millions of dollars under budget, but it was very costly. Only 5,600 people died after the French had lost 30,000. 350 Americans were the total number of Americans lost.

By the 1970s, 15,000 ships a year were passing through the Panama Canal. And the annual income was $100 million a year, dwarfing the cost. And that had been after nearly half a century of the canal being opened. It was saving those ships up to 8,000-9,000 miles, every one of those ships that went through. The Panama Canal had a scheduled grand opening in August of 1914, and that grand opening just happened to be eclipsed by World War I. So there was no grand opening. On that day of the grand opening, the only thing that went through the Panama Canal was a cement barge.

Very unceremonious opening. And people largely forgot about the Panama Canal, or were unaware of it because the awareness was what was going on in World War I over in Europe. It was interesting that Teddy Roosevelt never saw it. These are some of the challenges that can relate to the story in your life, the story of your life, of the goal in your life, the big goal, the one the Bible lays out for you. There are going to be many things that are going to interfere with it, and try to impede it, try to remove it if possible.

Today we've seen that reaching the goal, the goal, requires a long-term commitment and a sharp focus, while ignoring, avoiding, and not succumbing to short-term issues with short-term solutions. Jesus said, he who endures to the end, the same will be saved. It's important that we endure in fulfilling that goal, that purpose for which we're on earth. Now, a question for next time is this. What is the goal that you are to be achieving, accomplishing, pursuing in your short life?

You have a short life, a short window, a short time in the church, maybe a short time before Jesus Christ arrives. And we're also, every one of us, each one of us, is to have reached a goal by that time. What is that goal?

Many do not realize what the goal is. We need the goal. Sadly, I think too many members think it's just, I don't know, pleasing God and hoping for the kingdom, hoping for salvation, eternal life. And many members, if you ask them, are you going to be in the kingdom, they say, I don't know. I kind of wonder. I wonder if I'll be in the kingdom. It shouldn't be any question as to whether you'll be in the kingdom, because you should know whether or not you're reaching the goal. Paul knew he was going to be in the kingdom. Peter knew he was going to be in the kingdom. God wants you to achieve that goal and know that you'll achieve that goal, but you have to first know what the goal is. And I think so many people haven't reached the goal and have abandoned it because they really never fully understood from Jesus's mouth what the goal is. The specific goal that we are to accomplish. Now, the Bible provides us with the goal, with daily objectives for pursuing the goal, with information and facts that we need to reach the goal, and also the help to make the progress towards the goal. But here's a little warning, a personal warning. This is just for me. I may be wrong. But I posit to you from the Scriptures that it's quite possible that if we merely have a goal of eternal life, which we would tend to brand as our in-house terminology, the kingdom of God. I'm not talking about the full meaning of the kingdom of God. I'm just saying sometimes we use the kingdom of God, meaning eternal life or salvation. And if we are pursuing sort of salvation, like our neighbors do, only they might think it's heaven, or somebody else does, and thinks they're going to get 70 virgins when they get wherever they're going, or like the Egyptians did, kind of like the rest of humanity. We all want this thing, this eternal life, don't we? But if that's our sole pursuit, it's not the goal. It's the reward. Remember? It's the reward for reaching the goal. So what is the goal? What is the goal? If we merely focus on the reward, we can be wishful, we can be hopeful for something we're not working towards. Now, that is my concern in my life, and I'll help communicate that to you next time as to what that goal is. Again, the kingdom of God in the Bible 29 times is called the reward. You and I need to know what the goal is so that we can receive the reward. We're supposed to be building something. We're supposed to be making something. We're supposed to be working on it every day, and developing it, and having it ready for when Jesus Christ returns. And if we do, then He is coming with a reward. So next time, when Paul said, I press towards the goal, the only time in the Bible the word goal is used. What is the goal? What is the goal? We'll discover what God tells you to perform in this life and the daily process that He established here that will achieve it in part to pursue the God-given goal.