If you have your Bible or testament, would you open it at the 11th chapter of Hebrews 2 verses 15 and 16. And truly, if they had been mindful of that country, from whence they came out, they might have had opportunity to have returned. But now they desire a better country that is unheavenly, wherefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he hath prepared for them a city. Retrace our steps. Never, never. That's the title of my subject, upon these two verses. There are four things worthy of consideration in these two texts. First of all, there is the opportunity of remembrance, and that is rejected. So the first thing we want to look at is the opportunity of remembrance rejected if they had been mindful of that contract. That's the first. Secondly, there is the offer of return renounce. they might have had opportunity to have returned. The offer of return, renounce. And then thirdly, we have the onus of responsibility, resolve. They desire And every one of us has a responsibility, and we can shoulder that responsibility and resolve in our hearts what we shall do. And these old wandering patriarchs, they resolved that their desires would be after a better Happy the man and happy the woman who desires a better country than the one through which we're sojourning here below. And then lastly, look at it, where for God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared for them a city. There you have the order of reward. God reveals the reward he's going to give them. He's not going to be ashamed to own them. And when everybody else disowns them, and when everybody else rejects them, and when everybody else scorns them, God's going to say, they're my people. I'm not ashamed of them. They're mine and I'm their God. And what's more, I'm preparing for a city. So we have four things to consider. Let's look at the first one, the opportunity of remembrance rejected. Truly, if they had been mindful of that country from whence they came out. Abraham was a come-outer. Originally, he dwelt in a city of idolaters. His old father Tira and the rest of that generation were idol worshipers. Joshua refers to that at the end of his career and he says your father served idols beyond the flood. The word Hebrew means the man from the other side. or the man that crossed over. What did he cross over? He crossed over the river Euphrates and he put the east behind him and he set his face towards the sunset and towards the land of promise. Now Abraham left the idols. He left his father's house. He last left those that were near and dear to him. One day God revealed himself and he said, Abraham, get you out from your kindred and from your father's house to a lamb that I shall show thee. And Abraham obeyed. And I want you to notice what it said here. It says concerning him, that he went out not knowing whether he went. Verse 8. That's like the Christian pilgrim. If you had met Abraham coming across the wilderness with his flocks and with his herds, and you had stopped him and said to him, Abraham, where are you going? He said, I don't know. Only God knows where I'm going. But I'm obeying God. I'm on a pilgrimage for eternity. And God has told me to quit the old life, to have done with the old associations, to say goodbye forever to the past. And that's what I'm doing. Opportunity of remembrance rejected. My friend, this is what God's people need to do. Every one of us has an opportunity to remember. We can remember the past. We can remember the old pleasures and the old thrills of the world, can't we? We can remember the ways that we spent our time. We can remember the sins that were characteristic of our past. But I want to say that the man of God rejects the opportunity to remember. He's not going to dwell in the past. He has shut his, the door on the past. He's not going back. Retrace our steps. No, never. We cannot go back. we must go forward. All said, forgetting the things that are behind and reaching forth to the things that are before, I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus. Are you thinking of the past? Perhaps you're just a young Christian, and the devil would come to you and would say, look what you're missing now as a Christian. Friend, you're missing nothing. The world didn't satisfy you. Its pleasures and relationships brought you misery. And the opportunity to remember you should reject completely. But look at this, they offered to return, they renounced. They might have had opportunity to return. You know, we have opportunity to return to the world in our daily walk, haven't we? When you go walking around the place in your dilly walk, there's the temptation there to go back, isn't there? We have an opportunity to return in the very structure of our being, an old Adamic nature that's and that strives against the Spirit of God. The flesh lusteth against the Spirit and the Spirit against the flesh. And these two are contrary, the one to the other. We have an offer to return in our circumstances. We have an offer to return in our companionship. Our companions come and they invite us back, don't they? They say, will you not come again for a night of pleasure? Will you not come again and frequent the old hunts? Will you not come again and enjoy the old pleasure? The offer to return has to be renounced. Let me tell you young believers, you'll get many opportunities to return. The devil will see to that. He'll see to it that there are many opportunities given to you to go back. But old Abraham said, no, I'll not return. You see, those that have only a profession, those that are only Servants of Christ, they'll return. And we have examples in life of men that have gone back because the root of grace was not solidly within their heart. But the person who's absolutely and altogether the Savior's, there'll be no turning back. The cross before me, the world behind me, No turning back. No turning back. Though none should join me, still I will follow. No turning back. No turning back. Perhaps there's someone here and you have come out of the old apostate church. You've left it behind you, but you have opportunity to return. And their offers have been made too. I heard the other day about one of our members and his former minister, an Irish Presbyterian cleric came to see him. He said, what have you come to see me? I've left you. Oh, he says, we're thinking of making elders in the church and you would make a good elder. And I'd like to bring you back and get you made an elder. And this free Presbyterian got up and went to the door and opened the door. He said, I think your time here has been too long already. Just go. The apostasy will offer you everything. I don't know how often members of my church have come to me and they have said to me, if you would just soften your message a little, if you would just tone it down a little, If you wouldn't be so adamant in your denunciation of potpourri and the ecumenical movement, you would do better. Friend, I'm not interested in doing better. I'm interested in pleasing Jesus. That's what I'm interested in. That's what this church is interested in, to please the Lord. And if you please the Lord, God will bless you 10,000 times over. That's all you have to do. Just please him. You know the Aesop's Fable, don't you? The old fellow with the ass. And he became a greater ass than the ass he tried to carry. And he tried to please everybody and he pleased nobody. Ram never tried to please people. Something wrong with this microphone. It's starting to whistle. As long as it whistles the Protestant boys, it'll be all right. will not say anything to him. Opportunity to return. Many opportunities have been due to return. And many opportunities have preachers had to soften the message. But many of them have taken the opportunity. Hearing about a Baptist preacher this week, And he was telling one of his members who left him and became a free Presbyterian, he said to him, he said, I have become a liberal now. And I was checking up in this Baptist church and I discovered the other week they had Father Excuse me calling him a father, but I want you to know who he is. He's a Roman Catholic priest and he was at the Baptist prayer meeting. And the pastor said, we are so honored to have Father Wilson with us. So honored. I wish he would come to our prayer meeting. I'm telling you, we would make it that hot for him that he would either get blasted or blistered. I'll assure you of that. The tendency today is to soften. And he said to this young fellow, he said, I don't denounce anybody. We don't believe in denouncing anybody. And then he started and he denounced me with all the vigor that he had. Of course, it's not denunciation when you're ripping up the free Presbyterians. That's what they're for, according to that. But let me tell you, Fram, you'll have opportunity. This church will have opportunity to compromise. God forbid that we should ever do it. God forbid we should ever retreat a step. God forbid we should ever soften our message. God forbid we should allow wordliness to get into the church. God forbid that we should lower our standards. God forbid that we should cease to preach the gospel and the power of the Holy Ghost. If you love opportunity to return, look at the onus of responsibility resolve. And now they desire, I like that word now, now they desire a better country. You have a responsibility to desire better things. You know that. You can make a choice, believer. You can live a normal Christian life, which is really abnormal. You can live an easygoing, Christian life, come to the Lord's house on the Lord's day and never pray or read the book or go soul winning or stand for God in the battle. You can do that or you can do something more. You can desire God's best and reach after the fullness of the blessing and reach after the richest blessing that God can give you. I wonder, are you desiring a better country? You know, the book of Hebrews is a book of better things. Better things. Thank God the blood of Christ speak of better things than that of evil. The book of better things. And there's something better for the people of God. Thank God there's a better country. I'm glad we're only passing through this old world. It's filled with falsehoods. It's filled with liars. We're living in a world of twisting, and the falsehood prays, God, we're going higher someday. Thank God we'll say farewell to it all. Someday the trumpet's gonna blow. Someday God's gonna say to his people, come up higher. We're just passing through this old world. It's no friend to grace, doubtless unto God. Christians, set light to the world. Don't tie your hitch tight to anything that severs of the world, for the world is passing. But praise God, I'm headed for a place that you'll never pass away. What's our desires like? They desired a better country. I like that. They weren't mindful of the old country that they left. They didn't even think about it. They were thinking of a better country. Set your affections on things above and not on things below. For you're dead and your life is hid with Christ in God. What's your affections like this morning? Are they set on the business? Are they set on the family? Are they set on the money making? Are they set on the prosperity? Are they set on the pleasure? Or can you say, praise God, I'm desiring a better country? You know, Abraham wasn't perfect and none of us are perfect. Abraham had his times of backsliding. His times of decay and declension, he went down into Egypt during the famine. You remember that. But with it all, old Abraham still had a burning desire for a better country. He couldn't stay in Egypt. He had to quit the Pharaoh. Why? Because his country was a land of promise. I want you to look at the last thing. It's the best thing of all. The order of reward revealed, wherefore God is not ashamed to be called their God. That's a great statement. There's a lot of people ashamed of us, isn't there? And I want to tell you that we're thoroughly disgusted with ourselves, aren't we? And we're ashamed of our poor love for Christ. And our poor prayer life and our poor preaching, we're ashamed of it. I'm ashamed every day that I'm not on fire for God the way I should be, that I don't work the way I ought to work for the one who died for me. But praise God, God's not ashamed of us. I'm glad of that. That's a wonderful thing. God isn't ashamed of you, my brother. God isn't ashamed of you, my sister. Oh, you say, preacher, I've had my struggles. I've committed my sins. I feel miserably. But friend, I want to tell you, God hasn't changed toward you. God's not ashamed of you. You remember what he said to the devil about Job. He boasted about Job. He said, devil, have you considered my servant Job? Have you? God boasts about His people to the devil. He says, devil, do you see that man? When you had him, he was an old drunkard. When you had him, he cursed and blasphemed. When you had him, he was a miserable, out and out, godless wretch. But I've saved him, and I've kept him, and he's mine, and I'm not ashamed of him. And one day he's going to bring us into the house, and he's going to point the angels at us, and he's going to point the inhabitants, the celestial descendants of glory at us, and he's going to say, these are my people and I'm not ashamed of them. Wonderful Jesus. Christ wasn't ashamed to die for us. Wasn't ashamed to be stripped naked on the cross and bear the thorns and give us blood for you. Oh believer, you're a precious thing in the eyes of God. He says you're my jewels, my jewels. And he keeps us like the apple of the eye. He's not ashamed of us. He's not ashamed to be called their God. And tell you something else, he hath prepared for them a city. We're outside the camp, and thank God we're outside the camp. We'll not be going back. Old J. C. Ryle said, let the dog return to its vomit. Let the soul return to its wallow in the mire. But as an evangelical Protestant, I'll never return to potpourri. And we would echo what he says. We'll never return. Retreat our steps. Think we're going to go back to the Pope to kiss his toe? You think we're going to go back and burn the candles and count the beads and scrape and bow to an old bachelor priest for forgiveness? Never, friend. We have a better faith. We have a better gospel. We have a better Christ and a better priest. Hallelujah. What a Savior. We can't go back. So then for the people of God that's onward, For the people of God, it is forward. For the people of God, it is upward. And for the people of God, it is heaven. Maybe there's someone here in the meeting and you've never started yet. No, sir. You don't know what I'm talking about. You're still in the old city of sin. You're still a resident in the city of destruction. You're still away from God and away from grace. Oh, I want to tell you, my friend, this morning, thank God you can be saved. You can start for heaven. You can start for the glory land. You say, preacher, I have habits you know nothing about. He can break every habit. I have sins that you don't understand, preacher. No, but Jesus understands it. I have troubles that no human aid can solve. Jesus can solve them. Will you trust him? I trust we'll press on to heaven. Those of us who are saved and those that are not saved, please God, they'll start for heaven this morning for Jesus' sake. Let us bow our hands. Father in heaven, We thank thee for thy presence, and we thank thee today that we have left the world. We've said goodbye to the old world. We're not walking its paths anymore. Hallelujah, we're delivered from it all. Blessed, blessed be your name. Lord, may this church never retrace its steps. May it ever be forward and onward and upward and heavenward for us. May we keep the standard high. May we preach the book and exalt the blood and look for Christ to come again. And Lord, we pray for men and women that are with us this morning that have never started. They're still in the old city of sin. They're still bogged down under guilt and under filth. Lord, break the fatters, snap the chains. Set people free this morning. As our heads are bowed and our eyes are closed, I'm making a very brief appeal. I feel I should. There are sinners here that need to come to Christ. Will you come? There's backsiders here who need to return to the Lord. Will you come? All right, as our heads are bowed and our eyes are closed, let me tell you, man, man with all your habits, with all your sins, woman with all your guilty past, let me tell you that whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be saved. Will you call upon him? You've sat a long time, sir, in the meeting. You would need to call upon him. Father, work in this service. There are anxious souls that need to come. There are backsliders that need to come. Oh God, bring them to yourself for Jesus' sake. Amen and amen.