LIFE ON EARTH IS BUT A PILGRIMAGE
- INTRODUCTION:
- SONG BEFORE THE SERMON: "HERE WE ARE
BUT STRAYING PILGRIMS"
- SCRIPTURES:
- "And Jacob said unto Pharaoh,
The days of the years of my pilgrimage are an hundred and
thirty years: few and evil have the days of the years of my
life been, and have not attained unto the days of the years
of the life of my fathers in the days of their pilgrimage."
=(Genesis
47:9).
- "And God spake unto Moses, and
said unto him, I am the Lord: and I appeared unto Abraham,
unto Isaac, and unto Jacob, by the name of God Almighty, but
by my name JEHOVAH was I not known to them. And I have established
my covenant with them, to give the land of Canaan, the land
of their pilgrimage, wherein they were strangers."
=(Exodus
6:2-4).
- David wrote in Psalm
119:54, "Thy statutes have been my songs
in the house of my pilgrimage."
- The faithful in Hebrews
11:13 are spoken of as pilgrims:
"These all died in faith, not
having received the promise, 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."
(Hebrews11:13).
- Peter exhorted those to whom he wrote as
pilgrims. I
Peter 2:11 = "Dearly beloved, I beseech
you as strangers and pilgrims, abstain from fleshly lusts,
which war against the soul:"
COMMENT: VINES EXPOSITORY
DICTIONARY OF NEW TESTAMENT WORDS, PAGE 865, tells us the
Greek word translated "pilgrims" signifies one "sojourning
in a strange place, away from ones own people.
The word is thus used metaphorically of those to whom Heaven
is their own country, and who are sojourners on earth."
(We think of a pilgrim as one on a journey to a certain place
that has not been reach as of yet. We are on a pilgrimage
journeying to heaven here on earth, where we are just passing
through. JHB)
- "And Moses said unto Hobab,
the son of Raguel the Midianite, Moses father in law,
we are journeying unto the place of which the Lord said, I
will give it you: come thou with us, and we will do thee good:
for the Lord, hath spoken good concerning Israel."
=(Numbers
10:29).
- LIFE ON EARTH IS A PRILGRIMAGE OR JOURNEY:
- That is what Jacob said to Pharaoh (Genesis
47:9).
- That is what was said of all those in Hebrews
chapter eleven.
- Man is truly a sojourner on earth. Psalms
39:12 = "Hear my prayer, o Lord, and give
ear unto my cry; hold not thy peace at my tears: for I am
a stranger with thee, and a sojourner, as all my fathers were."
- We need to ever remember these words in
Hebrews
13:14 = "For here have we no continuing
city, but we seek one to come."
- DISCUSSION:
- WHAT IS THE DESTINATION OF OUR JOURNEY, OR
PILGRIMAGE?
- A prepared place. Jesus said: John
14:1-3 = "Let not your heart be troubled:
ye believe in God, believe also in me. In my Fathers
house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told
you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare
a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself;
that where I am, there ye may be also."
- A place of rest. Hebrews
4:9-11 = "There remaineth therefore a rest
to the people of God. For he that is entered into his rest,
he also hath ceased from his own works, as God did from his.
Let us labour therefore to enter into that rest, lest any
man fall after the same example of unbelief."
- A place without tears, death, sorrow, crying
and pain.
Revelation
21:1-4 = "And I saw a new heaven and a new
earth: for the first heaven and the first earth were passed
away; and there was no more sea. And I John saw the holy city,
new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven, prepared
as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a great voice
out of heaven saying, behold, the tabernacle of God is with
men, and he will dwell with them, and they shall be his people,
and God himself shall be with them, and be their God. And God
shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be
no more dearth, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there
be any more pain: for the former things are passed away."
- HOW LONG WILL THIS JOURNEY OR PILGRIMAGE
TAKE?
- David spoke of it length as a handbreadth.
Psalms
39:5 = "Behold, thou hast made my days
as an handbreadth; and mine age is as nothing before thee:
verily every man at his best state is altogether vanity."
- Job spoke of lifes journey being
as swift as a weavers shuttle. Job
7:6 = "My days are swifter than a weavers
shuttle, and are spent without hope."
- James speaks of the duration as being as
brief as a vapor. James
4:14 = "Whereas ye know not what shall
be on the morrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapor,
that appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away."
- David and Peter both referred to lifes
journey as grass and a flower.
Psalms
103:15 = "As for man, his days are as grass:
as a flower of the field, so he flourisheth."
I
Peter 1:24 = "For all flesh is as grass,
and all the glory of man as the flower of grass. The grass withereth,
and the flower thereof falleth away."
COMMENT: We can not come back and
correct any mistakes we made on this journey of life as is noted
from the passage in II
Samuel 14:14 = "For we must needs die, and
are as water spilt on the ground, which cannot be gathered up
again; ;neither doth God respect any person: yet doth he devise
means, that his banished be not expelled from him."
- HOW DO I KNOW IM GOING THE RIGHT WAY
ON MY JOURNEY OF LIFE?
- God has shown us the way. Psalms
16:11 = "Thou wilt show me the path of
life; in thy presence is fullness of joy; at thy right hand
there are pleasures fore evermore."
- God has provided a highway on which to
travel. Isaiah
35:8 = "And an highway shall be there,
and a way, and it shall be called the way of holiness; the
unclean shall not pass over it; but it shall be for those:
the wayfaring men, though fools, shall not err therein."
- The path is straight and narrow. Matthew
7:13-14 = "Enter ye in at the strait gate:
for wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to
destruction, and many there be which go in thereat: Because
strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto
life, and few there be that find it."
- Jesus said, John
14:6 = "
I am the way, the truth,
and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me."
- CONCLUSION:
- ARE YOU IN CHRIST? If not you are on the
wrong path.
- ARE YOU STAYING IN THE RIGHT PATH? Or have
you "
Forsaken the right way, and are gone astray,
following the way of Balaam the son of Bosor, who loved the
wages of unrighteousness."
(II
Peter 2:15).
- LIFE IS TOO SHORT TO LOOSE OUT ON ETERNITY.
- SONG: "THE WAY OF THE CROSS LEADS
HOME."
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