Because we're going to, tonight, we're going to investigate four major places mentioned in the most notable aspects of dealing with the children of Israel from Egypt to the Promised Land. The four major places that kind of tie in and give us an understanding of how it can apply to the child of God today, even in the church age, and in our Christian walk and our Christian life. And we're gonna look at those four places and we're gonna look at what they do symbolize for us today, not what has been presented in an emotional symbolization. And by the way, yes, I went through, I did try to find some more songs. I was going through trying to find, are there any others that we need to be made aware of? And to my pleasant surprise, there were several songs that I thought, oh, I need to check that one out. Oh, I need to check that one out. You know, ones I've sung my whole life. And just sung, never really thought much about. Because the message felt good. Y'all get the key word? Felt good. and it's kind of like some preachers. It makes for really good preaching, really bad theology. I mean, you can hoop, holler, and shout and get a crowd worked up about it, but when you get right down to it, it's kind of hollow, okay? It doesn't really have a good foundation because it had to be emotionally built and not structurally sound in Scripture. And so, I began to look, I was looking at some different songs. I started going through and come to find out, you know, there are actually, there are a lot of good hymns that we sing that focus on heaven being heaven, glory being glory, the presence of God being the presence of God, and not trying to mix a Bible story with a truth. And that's where some songs go wrong. Now, you get into southern gospel music and you're gonna find a lot of it, okay? But in our hymn book, outside of the three that I presented as being some possible, and even in those three, it's varying degrees of severity when it comes to how much they incorporate the misleading understanding. But we began to look, and if you got your Bibles there, 1 Corinthians 10, and we'll start again in verse number one tonight. 1 Corinthians 10, verse number one. And just, I'm gonna read a little bit, may not read all of this, but I'm gonna read a little bit of it and we'll skip down a bit as well. But in verse number one of 1 Corinthians 10, it says, moreover brethren, I would not that ye should be ignorant. That's very kind of him, very thoughtful that he doesn't want people to be ignorant. And so he said, I don't want you to be ignorant. How that all our fathers were under the cloud and all passed through the sea and were all baptized unto Moses in the cloud and in the sea. By the way, I'll explain a little bit of that here in a moment. Not in depth, but we'll have a better grip of it in a moment. And did all eat the same spiritual meat, and did all drink the same spiritual drink, for they drank of that spiritual rock that followed them, and that rock was Christ. But with many of them God was not well pleased, for they were overthrown in the wilderness. And it does go down to talk about not being idolaters as they were, not being fornicators as some of them were, not attempting Christ as some of them did, nor, and this is the hardest one, verse number 10, neither murmur ye. You ever had some passage of the scripture you really wish God would allow you just to kind of, you know, erase it? That one doesn't sound like it fits very well for me. It doesn't give us that ability. Any of y'all ever murmured? Murmuring is not just outward complaining. Any of y'all ever mumbled under your breath? Right? Any of you guys? Like me, not brave enough to let your wife hear you say it under your breath, you know, right? Okay, moving on, moving on. Like y'all are gonna admit it with them sitting right there. You're not that dumb. But the murmuring, that's the grumbling, complaining. Whether anybody else hears you, you know. You were mumbling, you were complaining, you were griping. Children of Israel did a lot of that. And it says, as some of them also murmured, and were destroyed of the destroyer. And it says, now all these things happened unto them for in samples, we said this morning, that's dealing, basically just a simple understanding, they are an example to us. And they are written for our admonition, upon whom the ends of the world are come. Wherefore, let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall. There hath no temptation taken you, but such as is common to man. But God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able, but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it. Now, we dealt with that, I'm not gonna rehash all of that this evening, we dealt with that this morning. And the fact that God has given a way of escape, no matter what the temptation, no matter what the struggle, that way of escape is given to us in the form of his son, Jesus Christ. I can do all things through Christ. And we said this morning that when we fail to be able to stand as we ought to and live as we ought to when we give into those barriers that get in the way and that interfere and that bring the temptations that come before us that would cause a distraction from following the perfect will of God in our life. Every time those things come up, we do have the ability to resist and suppress the flesh and give the Spirit of God the power to work in our lives, which would give us the power to overcome. It is always there and available to the child of God, because I can do all things. And look at the context, as we said this morning, look at the context of even that passage. I can do all things through Christ, which strengtheneth me. Even that context is Paul talking about him having to resist the flesh and give power to the Spirit of God to work in his life. It was not talking about dunking a basketball. It was not talking about the ability to do 15 different weird flips so I can win an Olympic gold medal. And again, I'll just reiterate, people in sports love to use certain passages of scripture and give Jesus the glory and Jesus the praise, and in the very next breath, use four-letter words to describe how excited they are. Trash. As I said this morning, I am not the judge of whether those individuals know Christ as their Savior. That is God's business. But I did say this morning, I'll say it again, it does raise a great, great question as to their salvation, though it is not up to me to determine that. What I can tell you is something's missing. something is missing in their life when they can use Scripture and use the name of Jesus in a very spiritualistic way, and then without even thinking about it, flip to the world's mentalities, like it's second nature to talk and act like the world. There's something missing when it comes to salvation or there's something missing when it comes to the walk. And may I just remind you, the child of God can live carnally. You can have salvation and live like a heathen. Now listen, don't get me wrong. I didn't say you would fully enjoy it and be able to do it without any consequence of the conviction of God on your life that you're having to fight 24-7. I have met people that put on a good face and a good front, but if you hang around the area long enough to get to know them on a regular basis, you really see how miserable they are. Oh, I'm doing just fine not doing all this stuff that all these other people are doing when it comes to church and this and that and serving God, you know. I'm saved and I'm doing just fine not having to do all that stuff. And then you look at their life and they're not doing just fine. They're miserable. Honestly, they're falling apart. If you know them for any length of time and you're somebody that they know they can call on, you'll hear from them on a regular basis. Oh, I don't know what's going on, help me. And then turn right around the next day and they're telling somebody else, oh man, life's great. Should've heard them last night. Now again, before we go sounding too self-righteous, let's just be honest and say we all know what that feels like. If we're honest with ourselves, we all know what it feels like to put on a good face and then go home and feel like my world is crumbling around me. And then when God says, and you know why. because you're doing it in your own strength and you haven't one time asked me and you're trying to give yourself what you want and do what you want and have what you want and you not one time come before me and spent time with me and asked my guidance and my direction and you let everybody else think that it looks like, oh, I'm doing great. Then you come home and I get to hear your bellyache and complain about how I'm not doing you right. I can see this is going over really well. You say, why are you bringing all that up preacher? Because it's the same issues the children of Israel had. It's the same attitude that they fought with. And Paul is telling the church at Corinth, that there is no temptation taken you but such as is common to man, but God is faithful who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able, but with the temptation also make a way to escape that ye may be able to bear it. There is always a way out of the fleshly decision. There is always a way out for the child of God. There is always an alternative to doing it the fleshly way. There is always the alternative of letting God guide and through Jesus Christ, who is our Savior, having the power of God to resist the flesh, humble ourselves and give God the opportunity to direct. Children of Israel had that same opportunity on a regular basis, and yet they fought against it. Now, you say, Preacher, we gotta get to what you were talking about when it comes to the four areas. We're getting there, just hold on. So as we've been looking at here, 1 Corinthians, Paul is reminding them that what happened to the children of Israel, the stories that have been given to us, the word of God, Old Testament, New Testament, every bit of it is beneficial, yes, The New Testament written directly to the New Testament church. However, Old Testament is still incorporated and given to us because it is still an example. It still teaches. The law given to the children of Israel is still a guide. It still shows us the sinfulness of man. It still confirms our condition apart from Christ. It is still the schoolmaster that directs us to understanding we have a need that we cannot fix for ourselves. So the Old Testament and the New Testament, it's still entirety the Word of God. And even the Old Testament scenarios, such as the children of Israel, show us a lot about ourselves if we pay attention. What God took them through presents us with God's, I believe firmly, God's plan and design for the Christian walk and Christian life in the church age. I'll show you as we look at this. Let me pray very quickly and we're gonna jump in. I'm gonna give you these four things and don't worry, we got several more services on Sundays. We're gonna go back and dig and show details. I'm not doing that tonight. We're gonna go back, we're gonna show details of each area and how they apply and we're gonna find the way we look and act and think in the children of Israel way more often than we realize. All right, let's pray, and we're gonna dig in. Heavenly Father, again, we thank you. I pray that you'd help us as we open up your word. We need your help. We need your direction, your clarity. I pray that you'd open our eyes, Lord, to seeing the misinterpreting, the misguided understanding of this very simple truth, but yet the damage it does to understanding the principle of the Christian walk in this life when we don't understand the truth of the Word of God, but we operate by the mispresentation of the Word of God. Would you help us to see it clearly tonight for our own good and for your glory? And we'll be careful to praise you, Lord, desire to seek you to let you guide us and show us what we are to do on a daily basis as your child. Use us, Lord, as you want. I pray that you would meet with us in your perfect will and way. We ask it all in Christ's name. Amen. As we Remember in verse number five, the Bible says, Now we know Not gonna go into all of it, but we know that the children of Israel had a chance to go into the promised land, and they did not go in, not because they were, as we said this morning, looking over, longing, Lord, when are you gonna let us in? That was not the problem. God was not resisting them coming in. They chose not to go in. Therefore God sent them back to the wilderness to wander around for 40 years. Now we'll look at details as we get into that part of it, but you'll find out that even when he sent them back, he still did not leave them. He did not say, well, good luck if any of y'all survive wandering for 40 years, come find me back over here at Jordan, I'll help you out. That's not what he did. There were multiple things that happened in 40 years of wandering the wilderness that only God could have done for them, else they would have all died. And to understand though, as it said this morning, God never intended for the children of Israel to spend 40 years in the wilderness. The only reason they spent that amount of time in the wilderness was by a choice. They chose not to move forward with God. They chose to go backward and hope and pray that God would somehow help them through their pathetic choice. And by the way, that is where we are today. And I'm gonna get ahead of myself if I don't watch it. Because you think of the story and how many times in the wilderness did they start complaining and blaming God for what was going on and it wasn't his fault. He provided for them and then they complained about it. He protected them and then it wasn't enough. I mean over and over and over again. And that's not counting the things that happened without them having to say anything, such as their shoes didn't wear out, their clothes didn't wear out. That should have been obvious that that's a miracle, but that, moving on. Okay, I'm getting way ahead of myself. Let's look at the four areas. The four major places that are presented in the story from their captivity all the way to where God intended them to be which was the land promised unto their fathers. The promised land or Canaan land. Again, we said this morning, part of the misconception of some songs is, and I want to be careful saying this, I didn't say it this way this morning, but I want to be careful saying it now, but, because I don't know the people who wrote these songs, okay? But I do know how these things, when it comes to a mixture of truth and personal decision of how this goes on. I do know how the mixture of truth and misconception get tied together and accepted as whole truth. And oftentimes that happens by very shallow individuals when it comes to knowing their Bible. They know some scriptures, they know some stories, they know some terminologies, and they just begin to throw it all together because it fits. It fits as long as you only dig on the surface. It fits as long as you're just dusting away the top layer. But if you actually dig one layer down, you realize, wait a second, that can't be Canaan, because that doesn't describe it. Oh, wait a second, wait, that can't be heaven, because that's not what happens with heaven. If that's heaven, we're doomed. You know, if the promised land is actually heaven, we're doomed. Because we're gonna lead this life to more trouble. We're going to leave this life to more giants. We're going to leave this life to more, more, more ups and downs and ups and downs and ups and downs. And that's not what the presence of God has presented to me in God's word. So if there is an error in how these things come together, the error is not with the Bible. The error is with somebody who has taken the Bible and just allowed their shallow mindedness of it to be taken and let's put some ideas together and make it sound, as I said this morning, really good with religiosity. It sounds very religious, it sounds real spiritual. but it's not necessarily accurate. An inaccurate truth that is presented day in and day out and day in and day out and Sunday after Sunday and play of a song after play of a song, an inaccurate truth that is constantly presented eventually becomes accepted. We see that happen over and over and over again. And I know some people will look and say, this is just nitpicking. This really doesn't make a big difference. Here's the problem. In the early days of some of these songs or some of these things being presented or these thoughts being laid out to people, it probably didn't make a huge difference and a huge change right away. But now after generation after generation after generation of hearing it, you've got people believing that Canaan is a picture of heaven. It equates with heaven. It does not equate with heaven. Heaven is much better than the promised land that the children of Israel faced. But as we said this morning, heaven, the presence of God, is a promised place to the child of God. That's where the issue comes in. You have terminologies that are similar, and so they just marry them. That is very shallow Christianity. It is important to get the details right. Why? Because we serve a detailed God. If we didn't, who knows what you would look like? You wanna talk about Picasso and everything, yeah, we'd all be looking like something like that. Who knows where things would be? By the way, there are so many, y'all remember Jerry Patel. Uncle Jerry came with the Smite group and everything. He's a fireball. But, He is an engineer, his mind goes, he has researched a little bit about the body, and I can't even do it, I can't do it justice. But he can tell you something about the body. And he said, you understand, he told me one time, you understand that if one thing in your body is off, you're gonna blow up. You're a chemical accident waiting to happen. Everything about you. He said, you know the amount of methane that's in your body right now? I'm like, I don't wanna know. But he said, listen, if God wasn't in control and if he wasn't very particular about what he did, just the human body, the different chemicals in the body, if one mixed with the other in the wrong way, you're done for. And might even take a few people out with you. It is amazing what God made just with the human body. He does a much better job of it. He'll scare you to death. Honestly, you'll be warned if I go to bed that I need to lay still because if I turn the wrong way, I'm gonna mix two things together. But when you think about it, from the universe to the body, the Bible talks about doing everything decently and in order. God is a God of order. He's also a God of details. And he gave us those details. And for us, honestly, for us to misuse for a purpose of it feels good, is a gross error when it comes to God's word. I'm gonna give you these things. I'm gonna start into it. Here we go, all right. The first one we know and we understand when the four areas, four major places, The first one is Egypt, and we're not, as I said this morning, that's not all that confusing for people. We know Egypt, the Bible itself talks about Egypt being a type of the world, okay? Egypt is a picture of the lost state of an individual without Christ. And by the way, I will just kind of give you this. I don't have time to, again, we're doing details later, so I'm just gonna give you a brush over. but coming out of Egypt was a picture of salvation. They were being brought out of the world, okay? Egypt being a picture of the loss of the world, of separation from Christ, and they are being released from the bondage of sin. It is a picture of salvation. And by the way, even Paul talks about why have you been released from the bondage? Why would you wanna be back in bondage again? You have the ability to be free. You have ability to overcome. Why would you wanna go back to it? And so this picture of being released out of Egypt is a picture of a lost individual when they receive Christ as their savior being released from the bondage of sin. Now it doesn't mean we're free from the temptation of sin. Because you look at the children of Israel, and all throughout their entire history, they are constantly falling for the temptation. The temptation is always there. We mentioned it in our early stages of going through the book of Romans on Wednesday nights, though, that the issue of sin is always there, but there's a difference in my choice to give in to sin and my being in bondage without choice. Sin does not have to reign in my mortal body any longer. If it does, I have made the choice to ignore the freedom I've been given and play around with something I should not be playing with. But at the same time, I still am partnered with the individual who has set me free. And though I might entangle myself, I'm never going to be classed down to the guilt of sin and to be separated from God for eternity. Salvation settles that. And so from that point forward, I am not bound in bondage. Now, I can re-entangle myself a little bit and get myself tripped up, By the way, it's why he says that no man that warth entangleth himself with the affairs of this life. Because I can do that, but if I'm focused on serving God, I'm not going to. If I'm focused on letting Him lead, I'm not going to. Now, Egypt is that release from Egypt, the picture of salvation. Now, here's an interesting thing. The Red Sea, Here's another slap at the idea that it's rub-a-dub-dub salvation in the tub, okay? The Red Sea is a picture of baptism following forgiveness. And you say, well, how do you know? Well, I don't know, it says it in 1 Corinthians. and were all baptized unto Moses, and I said, but that's unto Moses. Yeah, just like they would have said they were baptized unto John the Baptist and baptized, basically it's talking about who was leading them through that at that time. So they were baptized, what, in the cloud and in the sea. So they come out of the bondage of Egypt, they are freed as a picture of being freed from sin, and then they pass through the Red Sea as a picture of obvious deliverance, and the fact that God has delivered, it is a picture of what has been done for them, just like baptism is a reminder and a picture for all that see of what Christ has done for us. It is the conclusion of the deliverance that has already taken place, not of the deliverance that will be taking place. It's already been done. They are freed and God is going to declare that openly through the Red Sea. And so Egypt there is that representation of being lost in sin and in bondage to the world, but then being released, set free, Red Sea being the picture of baptism in that sense. Again, these are symbolisms for us. It is a picture of what we go through today in receiving Christ as our Savior, following him in open declaration of what he has done. through baptism. And then we go to the wilderness. I gotta hurry. The wilderness represents the first stages of your Christian life. I want to remind you, they would never get to the promised land without going through some wilderness. There was no avoiding of the wilderness. They had to go through a portion of wilderness, but that would get them to the point of the Jordan River and the Promised Land. The wilderness timeframe was meant to be short. It was meant to be brief and for a specific purpose. Again, a representation of those early drier, not quite in-depth understandings of the early walk with God in a Christian life. I'll remind you, you can get into a lot of trouble in the first areas of your Christian walk. If you weren't raised in the church, if you weren't raised around the preaching the word of God, and even if you were, but especially if you weren't, there are many times where somebody who gets saved has a whole bunch of zeal, but not a lot of grounding. and half the time you're trying to hold the reins and keeping them from jumping off the cliff because they'll do anything. They don't quite have the discernment to go along with it yet. They haven't walked with God very long. Boy, they just got in. They just received Christ as their Savior and some of them are ready to go. Some of them have some baggage they're still dealing with. You know, some of them got some areas that they're gonna have to encounter a few things first and come to a realization, it's time for me to let go of these things so that I can follow God. They're not walking in the victorious Christian life as of yet, but they are in the early stages. It's an unknown territory. It's kind of hard to tell what everything is, and you don't exactly know how to describe things. It might even look a little barren to start with. Anybody here, if you got saved later on in life, and you didn't have a lot of background with it all, you got saved, maybe you got in church, and you probably felt a little lost for a while. It's like, man, I ain't never heard these songs. I ain't never heard that Bible story. You know, a preacher gets up and says, now I know all of us know what happened with the children of Israel. I mean, what happened? You kind of feel like you're going through a big, huge area of land and everybody else is like, what a beautiful picture. You're like, it doesn't really look like anything to me at all. It's a bit of a desert. That is a process, but may I say it is a place that far too many end up dying, not because of the early stages, but because they choose to go back and live in it. You see, God never designed us to live in the wilderness of life. just like he didn't intend for the children of Israel to walk 40 years in the wilderness of life. In the wilderness, you don't have true victories. You only survive to walk another day. In the wilderness, the early stages of growth in your life is a dangerous time. You are weak. You are impressionable. and you're easily distracted. Listen, you have somebody who gets saved, they don't know very much, they received Christ as their Savior, they got that part, they're in that early stage. If they're not careful, anybody comes around with a grandeur of information, a very good way of charisma and all that kind of stuff, and all of a sudden they see themselves getting sucked into some of these things. They don't know exactly yet how to tell the difference between somebody who's trying to play them and somebody who's trying to tell them truth. Somebody who's trying to just use them for the money they can get out of them, or somebody who's trying to actually help them learn how to invest in the work of God so that God can put a blessing upon their life that no man could do for them. Now, are there con artists out there? You better believe it, and they find them right here. They find people in the wilderness that don't know what's going on. They don't know what's happening. They're very impressionable. And these are the individuals that they go after. And they're predators on these individuals. And they'll get them to buy holy hankies. Where's my hanky? Here it is. Buy holy hanky, only 55.99. On sale. If they ever say it's on sale, you know it's fake. Or better yet, we're not selling it. We're not selling it. Just send in your love gift of $99 or greater. And we're gonna send you a handkerchief that holy men of God have sneezed on. And showered with the blessings of God. For free, that's right. We'll send it to you for free. Just send us a $99 gift. Y'all get the joke on that, right? All right, now listen. I'm not trying to make fun, but I'm telling you what happens. They prey on people, but they prey on the people of the wilderness because you can't prey on individuals who are grounded in truth and can discern truth from error. You can go after the ones that had decided to live a shallow life and don't know exactly who to believe. And so if it's grand enough and sounds good enough and feels wonderful enough, I gotta be a part of that. I need God's blessings. Listen, if you right now will just send in your gift of $200, we're gonna pray that God sends you the blessing of a million dollar lottery ticket. I mean, you name it, they have claimed it. And people have bought into it. And I'm not trying to be finger pointing, but I'm telling you the truth is the ones who buy into it are living a wilderness lifestyle Christianity. They're easily impressionable and distracted from truth. They don't know how to discern. This is not the Lord's end game for their life. By the way, when you live in the wilderness, you are not possessing the land. And God told the children of Israel, you will go and you will possess the land. What are you possessing when you're wandering in the wilderness? Sand in your shoes. It's about all you possess and that's irritating. So you're not possessing the land. The wilderness, is a needed place of early days, but it gets you through quickly. It's supposed to be short-lived. But here's the thing, every struggle, every battle, every doubt, every grief, every rebellion, everything that comes against us in the wilderness has one single purpose, and that is to kill you before you can get to the promised land, and that's not heaven. Every blessing of God that is given to you is intended also to do one thing. It is to keep you alive and moving forward toward the promised land. And that's not heaven. So what is the promised land? Last two pieces, we're done. Before you get to the promised land, you get to Jordan. Jordan is not death. Jordan is not crossing the river of Jordan. That's not the Bible. Jordan is not a picture of crossing over in death. Jordan represents the place of total dedication and full surrender of your life to God. just as they had to go through the waters of the Red Sea, as a finality of God has delivered them, and here is, this is proof of the deliverance, and it is a picture of baptism, before they could go into the victorious Christian life, I just gave away what the next one is, before they go into the next area, the promised land, they have to come to a point of consecration. Immersed, in what God wants and not what I want. Walking through God's design, not mine. Doing it God's way, not our own. Jordan is a picture of the moment when a child of God comes to that threshold and that crossroad and decides, am I gonna go back and try to survive in the desert, in the wilderness, or am I going to go forward with God? To go forward, I have to surrender self. To go forward, I have to say, I don't decide. To go forward, I have to put aside everything that people tell me have to be my dreams for life. You say, whoa, hold on a second, we can't have dreams? I didn't say that. I have to be willing to set aside those things that I wanted for me. And at times, maybe take something and say, Lord, What do you think? And if he says, uh-uh, all right, out. That's not for me. Lord, you know I really, really, really, really have always wanted to be able to go to this place or see these things. Would I ever have a chance to maybe do that? I'll give you one example real quick. Well, when we got married, I wanted to take my wife, I think I told you a long time ago this story, but I wanted to take my wife to Gatlinburg for our anniversary, not anniversary. Honeymoon, thank you. Yeah, that's what they call it, yeah. I wanted to take her to there for her honeymoon. Now, I had just spent six months in the Philippines, which I found out, in a very real situation, how they love to drain you of everything you have while you're there. The visa to stay every single month went up every single month. I had plenty of money when I left. I had almost nothing when I got back. And we got married, I got back in January. No, I'm sorry, I got back in May. We got married in August. I was real smart. But at that point, y'all know, I didn't care. But God's gonna provide. But we got married. I wanted so bad to go to Gatlinburg. I just knew, even if nothing else, you go to Gatlinburg area Pigeon Forge, you don't have to do anything. As far as I'm concerned, no, you just get a small little bitty cabin somewhere and just overlook in some areas, get a cup of coffee, sit on the little porch thing with a rocking chair in the nice cool of the morning and look out over the mountains, that's good. Ain't gotta do anything else. Now my wife be like, we gotta do something, okay? But I wanted to go there so bad. We couldn't afford it, couldn't do it. We ended up in Hot Springs, Arkansas. only because there was a church at that time, it's not any longer, but there was a church at that time, you gentlemen might actually, but Eric Capasi, y'all okay? During that time, Brother Eric Capasi was solid. I mean solid. And their church had a condo down there, and he said, listen, I wanna be a blessing. Y'all just come up, and y'all can have it the entire week free. I had enough money to get there. So we stayed there. You know what I found out about Hot Springs, Arkansas? There's nothing to do in Hot Springs, Arkansas. I mean, unless you want to go to a bathing house. with a whole bunch of people because of the hot springs, Arkansas, and we couldn't do that. So, you know, I'm like, okay, well, you know, maybe we'll just get an opportunity to do something better next time, later. And it's one of those things where you get done with your honeymoon and you know instantly, she doesn't have to say it, I owe her, okay? But here's the thing. I wanted so bad to go to Pigeon Forge, Gatlinburg. I'd only really been there one time in my life. I enjoyed it so much as a kid. I just knew that'd be a wonderful place, beautiful place. Didn't get to do that. And still for a couple of years, didn't get to go there or do anything. Then the Lord called us into missions. And we went with Rock of Ages Prison Ministry. and Rock of Ages Prison Ministries in Cleveland, Tennessee. But beyond that, I began to work with Brother Jeff Bellamy, and he at that time lived all the way up at the tip of Tennessee, there at Bristol. And for a while there, I would go two weeks up in Bristol area and we'd work in the schools in Virginia and North Carolina and Tennessee and Kentucky, several places over there. West Virginia, we went all over up in that area. But I'd drive up and spend two weeks up there and drive home to Louisiana, spend two weeks back home and do work in the ministry there. Drive back up and I did about six or seven months like that, back and forth, back and forth. But do you know what I have to pass every single time I take a trip? One of our main stops that we would make, we went to Gatlinburg Pigeon Forge so often, we knew the roads like somebody who lived there. Somebody would say, do you know how to get over here? I'm like, well, yeah, you could take this road over this direction, or you could go the back road this way, or that back road over there. But watch it, they got construction over on this one over here. And they're like, you live here? I just get to come through so often. I know exactly what's going on. It became a regular stop for us. Not anything crazy and expensive, wasn't a vacation 24-7, but we got to pass through and stop and enjoy a little bit here and there constantly. What was that? The blessings of the Lord. Something I wanted to do, does it mean I would ever get to do it? I didn't know, but once we said, Lord, I'll go anywhere, we'll do whatever you want to, it just happened to be that one of the places I wanted to spend time at one time, I got to spend time at 40 or 50 times. You see, not everything we think we have to give up, are we gonna have to give up. But people would rather try to survive in the wilderness of life as a child of God, holding on to all the things that they want for themselves, instead of surrendering and walking into God's perfect will for their life, and then just saying, Lord, would you have me do this? Lord, would you allow me to enjoy? Lord, would you want us to go here? Lord, is this something I can enjoy while serving you? Or maybe it's something he says, no. And we say, thy will be done. I thought it was an important dream. Honestly, when I start focusing on him, I realized that really doesn't matter anymore. Whatever he wants me to do matters more than anything. but people would rather live in the wilderness holding on to all their dreams. Listen, but that's not living, that's just surviving. and God didn't make us to survive. Last thing, we're done. Fourth area is the promised land, and if you haven't figured it out by now, the promised land is not a picture of heaven, just like Jordan is not a picture of death. Jordan is a picture of surrender. As a whole, if you wanna call it death, it is death to me, so I can live to Him. It is setting aside. It is saying, Lord, you have all of me. And as I pass through that moment of decision, I now enter into the opportunity of the promises of God in this life. Not in eternity. Those promises are still awaiting me. And I don't have to worry about controlling or doing or figuring out any of that. We get there and honestly, everything is so clear once you get to heaven. There's no guesswork. There's no, I wonder what God meant by that. If you don't know, go ask him, he's right there. But there won't be any questions because it will all be known, it'll all be clear. But that's heaven. The promised land is not heaven. The promised land is a picture of the victorious Christian life here on earth, being lived in the individual that calls themselves a child of God, living life in the perfect will of God day in and day out. That is the picture the promised land gives us. By the way, in the promised land, there are still battles, there are still losses, there are still sorrows, there are still griefs, there's still death. Anybody lost anybody in this life? But, There is also in the promised land victory and the ability to conquer and to keep that which is conquered. There's joy. There's a place that God calls His own with His people. And there is a possession here that no one can take away the power of God to do the impossible. Now watch, the power of God to do and see the impossible in this life in order to establish you in the place God has brought you to. Because God might bring you to a place that you say, I'm not capable of being that for God. And God says, only if you don't walk with me are you incapable of being that. But if you will let me do the work in you, then I will work in you the impossible. And what you are today is not what you will be later when I have done a work in you and you have grown and you have matured and you have learned and you have now gained a fire and a desire and also the talent that you don't even know you possess. but Christ himself can bring out in your life. The power of God to work in the child of God while living this life, to accomplish the victories, to accomplish the work, to do what only God could do through us for our good and for his glory. That is the promised land victorious Christian life. but you don't get there without the surrender. The surrender, Jordan is the decision point for every child of God. Everyone walks through a piece of the wilderness to get to that decision point. But once you reach that decision point, you now have a choice. Do I go forward with God by his will or do I step back in the wilderness and hold on to my will? and too many people are dying in the wilderness, holding on to their will. The promised land is where God intends you to live. The promised land is where God intends for you to grow. The promised land is where God intends for you to thrive. And until you get there, you're only surviving, and that's not living. This is why so many die in the wilderness. They're trying to live in the wilderness, they're trying to make a home in the wilderness, they're trying to thrive in the wilderness, they're trying to find love, joy, and peace in the wilderness, and they're trying to be satisfied in the wilderness, but you cannot be satisfied with just surviving as a child of God. You and I will die in the wilderness if we don't have a burning, unquenchable, irresistible, and unstoppable desire to get through every bit of it and just get to the promised land in total surrender to whatever God wants me to do. God didn't save you from the bondage of sin just to crawl through and die in the wilderness. John 10, 10, Jesus himself gives his reason in scripture for why you are saved. He said, the thief cometh not but for to steal and to kill and to destroy. I am come that they might have life, but it doesn't stop there. And that they might have it more abundantly. You get saved, you have life. but you don't experience the abundance until you cross over into the promised land, which is a picture of the victorious Christian life. He saved you with every purpose and intention to get you to his perfect will for your life and to use your life in ways you never imagined it could be used for God. but too many die in the wilderness because they're unwilling to cross Jordan. If that's what I gotta do, Lord, I think I'll just go ahead and go back this way. If that's what you're gonna possibly ask of me, I think I'll just go back and try to scratch out a living in the dry desert. And then we look at everybody and say, I'm happy, I'm happy. And the whole time we're hungry and we're thirsty and we're dying on the vine because we just don't wanna cross over Jordan and go where God says to go. I might have to give up everything I thought I was gonna do with my life. I might have to give up all the money I believed I was gonna make with my life. I might have to give up my talent of being a great quarterback. God forbid that you have to stop throwing pigskin across a cow field to go tell somebody about Jesus. I'm not being derogatory just to be ugly, but we have made the wilderness an illusion of desire, while the promised land is still waiting for most people that just don't wanna cross Jordan. Just wait till we start digging. We're gonna dig a little deeper in these things as time goes on. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, again, we thank you for this evening.