Now, in the 11th chapter of Hebrews, beginning
with verse 13, it says, These all, he'd
been talking about Noah and Abel and Enoch
and Abraham.
He says, Now, these all died in faith,
not having received the promises, but having seen
them afar off.
That is, not having received the fulfillment of
the promises, but having seen them afar off,
and were persuaded of them, and embraced them,
and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims
on the earth.
For they that say such things declare plainly
that they seek a country.
And truly, if they had been mindful of
that country from which they came out, they
might have had opportunity to have returned.
But now they desire a better country, that
is, a heavenly one.
Wherefore God is not ashamed to be called
their God, for he hath prepared for them
a city.
Now, I want you to notice that in
the 11th chapter of Hebrews, there are three
prepositions having to do with faith, by and
through and in.
And Paul adds to that in Romans 4,
the one of.
So these four prepositions touch faith, or have
to do with faith, or channel faith, show
how it operates.
It's by faith and through faith and in
faith and of faith.
But I notice it's never on faith.
Nobody is ever said to live on faith.
Nobody is ever said to go anywhere on
faith.
We do things by faith and we do
things through faith.
And if we have faith, we're doing them
in faith.
And salvation is of faith.
But the word on never occurs.
It's never on faith.
The world has the philosophy that they operate
on faith.
The preachers who used to in the Alliance,
I think maybe some of them do now,
they used to have an envelope and you
gave right to the pastor.
That was the way his salary was met,
by direct gift.
And he was supposed to be living by
faith.
And some of them said he was living
on faith.
And some of the pastors declared that that
preposition was the one that church people knew.
They thought because the pastor was living by
faith, they could live on faith.
But you're not supposed to live on faith,
never.
Because if I rest on faith, then I
am misunderstanding faith entirely, because the purpose of
faith is to get me to rest on
God.
It is by faith that I rest on
God.
It is through faith I trust the promises
of God.
It is in faith I live my life
on God.
And the whole of salvation is of faith,
but the never on faith, because we would
be stopping one little bit short of the
one upon whom we should trust.
We trust on God and in God, but
it is by faith and through faith.
Now, that little Bible lesson may not be
too important, but I think that it is
vastly important, too, because you see, the world
has their own philosophy about this.
The world says that we're to live on
faith and go on faith.
Never say die, the world says, and then
they die.
You can if you will, says the world.
And he can who thinks he can.
I've always wondered about that.
He can who thinks he can.
You know, I don't mind telling you something,
that I don't like hymns that are exhorting
me to get up and bare my breast
to the elements and flex my biceps to
the world and tell the world off.
I don't like that, because that puts the
confidence in the wrong place.
If I believe in myself, I can't at
the same time believe in God.
I must believe on God and have no
confidence in my flesh.
Then I'm in the right relation to God
and things are as they should be.
So I don't want somebody telling me, rise,
O man of God, and go out and
face the world and all that.
I would rather go to the prayer chamber
and meet God and then let God face
the world for me, because if I stick
my chin out and inflate my chest and
go out, it will be like rubbing red
breast.
They inflate their chest and hop over the
lawn.
But they wouldn't make a very good showing
against an army, and neither would the biggest
and finest and best and wisest and strongest
Christian living today make a good showing against
the mighty powers of the world.
But if we do as Luther did, he
said, when the devil knocks at the door,
he doesn't even answer.
He says, Lord, answer the door.
And he has the Lord answer the door
instead of his answering it.
I believe in that.
So we go by faith, we go through
faith, we live in faith, and salvation is
of faith, but nobody rests on faith, because
we rest on God instead.
Now, there are two kinds of faith mentioned
here.
One we might call briefly and pass on,
the microscopic faith, that is, short-range faith.
That's the faith of the beginner.
The man who begins his life in Christ
knows little of what faith is in its
telescopic or long-range aspect.
So everything has to happen now.
He believes in Christ for justifying faith, and
that is right.
He believes in Christ for forgiveness of sins,
and that is right.
These are all valid and real and good
and pleasing to God, but they're not the
best.
The best kind of faith is the faith
that goes on from there.
That's what we call telescopic or long-range
faith.
The one who has this long-range faith
identifies himself with Christ forever and says, in
effect, I take thy cause, O Christ, as
my cause, and I take thy place as
my place and thy future for my future
and thy life for my life.
I take thy path as my path.
I look far ahead and see the triumph,
thy triumph, and I'm satisfied, says the man
who has long-range faith, I'm satisfied in
the meantime to resign myself for the sake
of Christ and be misunderstood, of course, and
to be on the minority side.
The people of God are always on the
minority side.
Talk about minority groups.
Christianity has been the minority group all down
the years.
That is, the true Christians have been in
the minority.
We labor to get in the majority, but
we Christians might as well give up because
it's written that as it was in the
days of Noah, so shall it be in
the day of the coming of the Son
of Man.
And there were eight saved in the day
of Noah, and there will be a relatively
small number saved when our Lord returns.
Now, that doesn't mean there will only be
eight saved because the population of the earth
now is many hundreds of times greater than
it was in the days of Noah.
But I believe that the proportion will be,
if not as small, almost as small, so
that when our Lord comes, he says, will
the Son of Man find faith on the
earth?
We may expect to be in the minority
always, we may, because there's going to be
ten people, there's going to be a hundred
people who see the way the world sees,
to one who sees with the eyes of
God and follows along behind the Lamb.
So you may be satisfied and prepared to
be on the minority side because we know
we can't lose.
Communists form their little cells, despised by the
people around about them because they have gotten
a hold of their philosophy.
It is that someday Communism will take over
the world and so they're not in too
big a hurry and they can go underground
and they can wait around because they confidently
believe the day will be when the doctrines
of Marx and Lenin will triumph and the
whole world will be Communist.
And if laws are passed against them or
they're persecuted and it may be difficult for
them, they quietly go underground and wait because
they say we can afford to wait, it's
inevitable, it's the wave of the future.
They're wrong, tragically, frightfully wrong and their faith
is placed where it never ought to be,
in man instead of in God.
They have stolen the ways of the Christian
and they have filched from the Christian his
very philosophy for in the early days the
Christian said I can afford to wait.
I'll be in the minority and I'll be
despised and I'll be looked upon as being
a queer person, speckled bird in the midst
of all the white birds.
But I can afford to wait and when
I'm persecuted I can quietly withdraw for a
moment until the heat is off and the
troubles are over and go back at it
again because I can't lose, the Christian has
always said down the years, I can't lose.
And the Christian knows he's right because he's
resting upon God and upon Jesus Christ, the
Son of God, and upon the Holy Ghost,
the Comforter.
For the Communist rests only upon mortal flesh
and he's got to die with the mortal
flesh and be eaten by the worms.
A man with a long-range faith says,
I can afford to and I expect to
grieve and suffer and work and wait and
endure and possibly even die without vindication.
Samuel Rutherford was exiled by the Church in
his day because of his stand.
They drove him out of his pastorate and
never let him go back.
In his letters he wrote so plaintively to
his friends about those letters, about that pastorate
that he wanted to go back to, and
those sheep that he wanted to go back
and serve.
Always he hoped that he might, but he
never did.
When they finally summoned him to appear before
Parliament and answer to the terrible charge of
refusing to bow to the state church, he
was dying.
He sent back word to Parliament, I have
received your summons, but I have received a
higher summons which will be served before yours.
When my day comes to appear before you,
I will be yonder where few kings and
great men come.
I always thought that was a victorious letter.
I can imagine those red-faced men who
read that, wishing they could kill him, but
God had already taken him home.
Now to this long-range faith that can
afford to wait and can die in faith,
not having received the fulfillment of the promise,
but looking ahead and knowing, he says here,
knowing and confessing themselves to be strangers and
pilgrims on the earth, and declaring plainly that
they are seeking another country.
This long-range faith is found in Hebrews.
The other kinds mention that the long-range
faith is what is illustrated here.
It says about the promises, now mostly we
mean provision for present blessings when we say
the promises, but God said in effect, I
have a long-range plan for you, forsake
all for me, transfer your allegiance to me,
trust me and come along with me, and
when I triumph, you will triumph with me.
When I come into my glory, you will
come into your glory.
Scripture says they saw and were persuaded and
they embraced and they confessed that they were
strangers and pilgrims on the earth.
Now a Christian is a stranger and a
pilgrim if he's acting like a Christian at
all.
If he knows what it is to be
a Christian, he's a pilgrim and he's a
stranger.
The two are synonymous, but they're not identical.
A pilgrim is a religious traveler going to
some holy place, as a rule.
He went to Jerusalem or somewhere and the
Holy Ghost saw this and so he said
a Christian is that, he's a pilgrim.
He's traveling from where he was to where
he expects to be.
He's very different from a man traveling for
a gain.
A man who travels for a gain has
a different purpose.
He's a traveler, but he's not a pilgrim.
A pilgrim is not traveling for a gain.
A pilgrim is going from an old city
that's cursed and under threat of judgment to
the celestial city where dwells Emmanuel.
And he's a pilgrim then.
Wherever you see a pilgrim, he's not where
he's going.
If you're a pilgrim Christian here today, remember
one thing about you.
Whatever else may be said about you, you're
not home.
You're not where you're going, that's as sure
as you live.
Then what's a stranger?
A stranger is one who for some reason
isn't a part of that place where he
finds himself.
He may be of another race.
I sometimes walk down the street and I
see people walking about of other races and
I know they don't speak English and I
know they don't know anybody much.
You rather feel for them because they're of
another race and they speak another language.
And when they try to speak your language,
they don't do it too well as you
wouldn't theirs if you were over there.
They have a different culture, a different way
of looking at things.
And they're from a different country altogether.
So a stranger is somebody who isn't where
he was born and he isn't where he's
going.
And Christians are strangers.
One of the greatest indictments against the Church
today is that Christians accept the contemporary scene
as being theirs.
They've become a part of it.
And they're natives and not strangers.
If you feel you're a native anywhere on
earth, God has a lot to tell you
about being a Christian yet.
For Paul tells us that our citizenship is
in heaven from whence also we wait for
a Savior, even Jesus Christ the Lord, who
shall change these vile bodies and make them
over again like unto his glorious body.
Those are the words we recite at the
graveside.
But it's true not only of those who
have died, but all those pilgrims and strangers
who walk the earth now.
Our citizenship is in heaven.
You have a secondary citizenship.
Canadians, or in my case, Americans, we have
a secondary citizenship.
But our main and eternal citizenship is with
God the Father Almighty.
Heaven is our ultimate home, our own country.
And it's there where we're going.
And if we speak with a little accent,
it may be the accent of heaven.
I wish that the people of God could
be known for what they are.
Down in the States, when I'm talking to
a good-looking, intelligent chap who speaks good,
crisp English, and I don't know where he
comes from, and then he says, I was
about to go, I know he's a Canadian.
I know where he belongs because that's approximately
the way a Canadian says about.
But we smile and laugh about it, and
they say, You got me there, John, you
got me on the word about.
All right, we know he's a Canadian, and
you hear somebody say, Come in and set
us bare.
You know he's an American from way down
below the Dixieland.
So we have little characteristics that are secondary
characteristics.
They belong to our earthly scene, but earth
isn't our final dwelling place.
It isn't the end of things for us.
It isn't where we're going.
It isn't why we were ever born in
the first place.
Heaven is the home of the saints.
We mustn't accept the contemporary scene as final.
We must remember that we are not natives,
but we're strangers in the world.
Our old bodies are native here.
But the new thing that is in us,
that new deposit, the new man in Christ,
Jesus, was born from above, except he'd be
born again.
And all the translators say the same thing.
It ought to be a new earth from
above.
Christians are those who are born from above.
And they're at home, these poor Christians now.
Not on a pilgrim journey, but at home.
They accept the world as their home, tragic
and terrible.
But these pilgrims we read about here in
the 11th chapter of Hebrews, they witnessed and
testified that they were strangers and pilgrims in
the earth.
He says here that if they had wanted
to go back, truly they might have returned.
Abraham could have gone back if he'd wanted
to, after he had started down into the
land of Canaan.
He could have turned around and given it
up and said, I'm going back.
Lot's wife did look back, intensively and plaintively.
She looked back, and she died.
The rich ruler who came to Jesus turned
his back and walked away.
We never hear that the Lord ever found
him again.
Demas forsook Paul and fled, and we never
learned that Demas came back.
You can go back if you want to.
And if I should be speaking to any
borderline Christians, I want to ask you, will
ye also go back?
And if you do go back, I ask
you what you'll go back to.
What is there to go back to, I
want to ask you.
Where are you going to find that treasure
we're looking for?
Where are you going to find it, and
what secret place is it buried?
Where are you going to buy it?
Where is it?
Paul knew where it was.
He said, I am persuaded that he is
able to keep that which I have committed
unto him against that day.
He knew the Lord had it.
The Lord keeps my treasure.
He has your treasure, he's holding it for
you.
If you go back, what do you go
back to?
You can't go back to yesterday, because it's
all gone and crumbled behind you like the
crumbling path.
You say, I'll go back to money.
What will money do in the day when
the doctor says, I'm sorry to tell you,
you have cancer?
What will money do for you then?
You say, you'll go back to pleasure.
We're going to have a good time and
we're going to let the world know we're
having a good time, say a certain person.
And so they'll make donkeys of themselves, all
they like to do is lay a hair
on their ears.
And that's supposed to be fun.
I'd rather sing a hymn along with a
saint any day in the wide world than
cavort around over the street being funny.
I'd rather be put back in the crib
and reared again, giving back the bottle until
they grow up.
But the world says, give me pleasure, give
me pleasure.
Christians say they'd rather follow Jesus Christ than
enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season.
So instead of going back, he goes forward.
And if any half-hearted Christians decided to
give up and go back, I want to
ask you, where are you going back?
And what are you going back to?
Earthly pleasures that don't last.
Somebody says, young people say, I want to
dance.
I remember one young fellow came to our
church in Chicago and he stayed around a
while and then he left.
And we said, what happened to him?
He said, he wanted to go to a
church where they danced.
So he went to a church where they
danced.
But I have news for the boy, one
of these days he's going to get arthritis
or lined up joints or something wrong and
he won't be able to dance anymore.
That most terrible thing is going to happen
to him.
He'll just get so old he doesn't want
to.
And when that happens, he's found he's been
sold out.
Somebody says, a career.
I can only have a career.
Yes, a career.
What happens to career people?
They die like other people.
Somebody else wants fame, but there's no place
to go.
Peter had it right when he said, Lord,
to whom shall we go?
Thou hast the words of eternal life.
They might have gone back, says the Holy
Ghost, if they had been minded to do
it.
If they'd wanted to do it, they could
go back.
But they desire a better country, that is
a heavenly.
Wherefore, God is not ashamed to be called
their God, for he has prepared for them
a country.
These believing strangers, these confessing pilgrims, these pilgrims
of the night waiting for the morning, these
pilgrims of eternity, outlasting the world and outlasting
time till time shall be no more, traveling
on their way, stripped down to the little
as they can to get on in the
world, waiting for the trumpet that will call
them home.
God says he's not ashamed of them.
Do you remember that passage in the Old
Testament where the sons of God came in
before God and they were all there in
display and marching before the throne?
And the devil came up, too.
I don't know how the devil got there,
and I don't know why he was there,
but he got there.
And God thumbed him over.
He knew where he'd come from, he'd come
from the world.
And God said, Do you know my servant
Job, that he's a good man?
He was proud of him.
Don't think he wasn't proud of him.
When I talk to somebody and say, Where
do you live?
And I say, Well, I have a son
living in Southern California.
You wouldn't know my son.
I'm proud of that big, tall guy.
And God's proud of his people.
And he's not ashamed to be called their
brethren, their father.
Jesus is not ashamed to call them brethren,
and God's not ashamed to call them children.
The Father calls his children children, and he's
not ashamed of them.
God is not ashamed to be called their
God, and he's prepared for them a country.
It's a long-range faith.
We're likely to have a Christianity that doesn't
see ahead at all, a pragmatic Christianity.
You know what pragmatism is?
It's the philosophy that was popularized by William
James.
And, of course, it got into all the
schools and colleges everywhere, and it's influenced the
people greatly and influenced Christianity a lot.
Pragmatism says, The thing is true if it
works.
But if it doesn't work, then it isn't
necessarily true.
That is true which affects me, in which
I can get something out of.
And the Church adopts that, and we have
a pragmatic Christianity now.
A Christianity that says, If it will give
us some quick returns, it must be of
God.
But the long-range Christian with his eyes
on the future says, I don't care about
quick returns.
I want to know, is what I'm doing
going to stand the fire of judgment?
I want to know, is God pleased?
I want to know, is God satisfied with
what I'm doing?
And the Church that's cursed with the pragmatic
outlook on life says, Let's do something to
get a quick return, more people, more money.
And then they plan every kind of thing
in order to get more people in and
more money.
But the Christian with the long-range view
waits on God.
He says, One of these days, Jesus Christ,
our Brother, is going to break through the
blue and he's going to come down to
heavens, and his name is going to be
called the Word of God.
And he's going to gather the nations of
the world together and separate them as sheep
from the goats.
And I want to be on the right
side in that wonderful hour when Jesus returns.
I don't want to build a house and
settle down here to die on this volcanic
island.
I want to be a pilgrim traveling through.
Then God won't be ashamed of me.
The Old Psalm says, He calls a worm
his friend.
He calls himself my God.
That was taken from Jacob, I suppose.
And fear not, thou worm, Jacob, behold, I
will keep thee.
God loves a worm if he's a man.
That kind of worm.
Humble, lowly, trustful, harmless.
With his eyes fixed on heaven above, a
pilgrim of eternity.
Pilgrim of the night, waiting for the morning.
That's the long-range kind of faith.
Let's ask God for it.