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Join us now for the chapel hour
coming to you from the campus of Bob Jones University in Greenville,
South Carolina. Today's message was recorded
during a recent Sunday morning worship service held on the university
campus. Our speaker will be the university
president, Dr. Bob Jones III. Following the
reading of the scripture from Exodus chapter 15, verses 22
through 27, Dr. Jones will bring a message titled,
Elam is good, but Canaan is better. Dr. Jones, the university president,
has asked that we read the Scriptures before a sermon this morning
from Exodus chapter fifteen. Exodus chapter fifteen. We'll
be directing our attention to verses twenty two to the end
of the chapter, Exodus fifteen, twenty two to twenty seven. So Moses brought Israel from
the Red Sea and they went out into the wilderness of shore
and they went three days into the wilderness and found no water
when they came to Mara. They could not drink of the waters
of Mara where they were bitter. Therefore the name of it was
called Mara and the people murmured against Moses saying what shall
we drink and he cried unto the Lord. And the Lord showed him
a tree, which, when he had cast into the waters, the waters were
made sweet. There he made for them a statute
and an ordinance, and there he proved them and said, If thou
wilt diligently hearken to the voice of the Lord thy God, and
wilt do that which is right in his sight, and wilt give ear
to his commandments, and keep all his statutes, I will put
none of these diseases upon thee, which I have brought upon the
Egyptians, for I am the Lord that healeth thee. And they came
to Elim, where there were twelve wells of water, and threescore
and ten palm trees, and they encamped there by the waters." Jesus Christ is the theme of
the song of your heart. You're going to be very happy
at Bob Jones University. We love him here and this is
his place. And if there's anything good,
he's done it. And I hope you are aware increasingly, the longer
you're here, that you're in the midst of a miracle. There really
is no human explanation for this place. It is the Lord's and all
of us are merely custodians, stewards of what the Lord has
done. I would say to you, parents and
friends of the institution who've come to bring your children here,
Please keep us before the Lord constantly. I know you will.
You have children here. You have a special incentive
to do that for you. And we want the will of God to
be revealed and accomplished in their life. Jimmy Martin, whose funeral was
yesterday, was a godly young man. He had just returned a couple
of weeks ago from a mission trip to Haiti. He loved the Lord with
all of his heart. He had a good testimony. One
of his fellow students told me at the funeral home night before
last, she said, you know, Jimmy and I were best friends. And
just before he went in for surgery, for some routine surgery on his
jaw, during which time he had a brain aneurysm and the Lord
took him instantly to heaven. Just before he went in, a few
days before, he said to her, you know, you won't recognize
me the next time you see me. My face will look different.
What a prophetic, sweet testimony that was of something he it had
meaning for him that he did not know. For the beauty of the Lord
will be upon him when next we see him in a way it could never
be in this world for any of us. Oscar Velasquez was an incoming
student, whose brother is also a student here from California.
He was shot at a jack-in-the-box Wednesday night after prayer
meeting. Some of the young people from
the church had gone to eat and somebody was angry for some reason. Some other person there took
out a gun and shot Oscar in the parking lot. And we know that
this wonderful family is grieving greatly. So we're going to miss
these two young men in the student body. But the Lord has put them
in a far better place where you and I yearn to be. We're glad he's brought you to
this place. This is your place by divine appointment, the opportunity
place for you by divine appointment. Hope you're expecting and looking
for the blessings of God, the will of God, the revelation of
the Lord in a fuller way to your heart day by day as you're here.
That's the prayer of all the faculty and staff for you. We've
had a great beginning as faculty and staff. We believe we're walking
with the Lord and our desire is to see you walk with the Lord
in a greater way. We welcome all of you, old and
new students and families. Good to have you here. It'll
be a time of great spiritual refreshing and joy to your hearts.
And I hope you'll find the presence of the Lord on this campus. Would
you open your Bibles, please, to Exodus 15. Call your attention to verse
27, the last verse of Exodus 15, the first few words of Exodus
16. They came to Elam, where were
twelve wells of water and threescore and ten palm trees, and they
encamped there by the waters. And they took their journey from
Elam and came into the wilderness of sin, which is between Elam
and Sinai on the fifteenth day of the second month after their
departing out of the land of Egypt. Elam is good, but Canaan is better. That's the title of this message.
Nobody likes vacations more than my wife and I do. We plan them
in our schedule. We mark them in our calendar.
They are sacred events, and we don't let anything violate that
No invitations, no whatever. We have commitments to each other
and to the Lord to take a vacation. Everybody needs a vacation. If
you've ever done any hiking or hunting and carried backpacks,
you know how good it feels to stop sometime and take that load
off your back and put it down and just rest a while. Life is
full of burdens, yours and mine. And we need sometimes to take
the burdens of life and put them aside and just do nothing, go
and rest. And that's what Elam was all
about for God's people Israel. Elam was not a rest from their
past journey because it had been a very short one. A very short
one. Elam was a storing up of energy
for what was to come. A 40 year wilderness wandering. It was a brief vacation of maybe
a fortnight, maybe three weeks. Nobody knows for sure exactly,
but probably no more than three weeks. They vacationed at Elam,
at the beautiful resort of Elam, 12 wells of water, 70 palm trees,
a place where there was no need and plenty of everything for
them. Israel was fresh from the slavery of Egypt. Jehovah's delivering
power was fresh in their mind from the Red Sea experience. The voice of Jehovah was fresh
in their ears from the bitter waters of Mara, where they complained
greatly. And we have those words from
Jehovah recorded in verse 26 of Exodus 15. If you will diligently hearken
to the voice of the Lord thy God and will do that which is
right in his sight and will give ear to his commandments and keep
all his statutes, I will put none of these diseases upon thee
which I've brought upon the Egyptians, for I am the Lord that healeth
thee." God made some wonderful promises to them and the voice
of Jehovah was fresh in their ears. You have come from a summer in
Elam, some summer vacation. For you, many of you, it was
hard work, but I hope most of you got at least some vacation,
some time in Elam, because now you're ready to go and walk for
nine months in the wilderness on your journey to Canaan, the
promised land of heaven. Think with me, if you will, about
these matters. In the first place, I submit
to you that the blessings of Elam are also the dangers of
Elam. You know, if we didn't know about
Canaan, that wonderful place God has prepared for those who
love Him and are washed in the blood of the Lamb, our heavenly
Canaan, our eternal Canaan, Elam would be a great place to be
if we didn't know there was a better place. Elam has a lot to offer. It has shade. It has plenty of
everything we need, refreshment, ease, beauty. Elam's great. All of us like Elam. The church
has times of festivity, celebration. The Lord Jesus, during His earthly
ministry, attended more than one banquet. And the times of
refreshing and good company and rest that God gives us are gifts
from His wonderful hand of bounty. They're glorious times. They
are to be received joyfully because they come from the Lord and they
are, I guess, in some measure, glimpses, if you will, into the
future life of Canaan. Elam, so soon given to them out
of their deliverance from Egypt, was so much better than Egypt.
They could have been content to drive their tent stakes down
real deep in Elam, maybe even build a city there. It looked
good. But if we put our roots down
in Elam, we'll miss the rewards of Canaan. Elam is kind of a
pass-through place. You've passed through the summer.
You've passed through whatever pleasantness of refreshing and
relaxation you might have been able to enjoy this summer. You can't live permanently in
Elam. God didn't intend for it to be. I said to my wife during
vacation this summer, I said, this is wonderful. I wish we
could just stay here But obviously we can't. You know, it doesn't
take much faith to live in Elam. That's part of the problem. Elam
had its wells of water. It had its palm trees. It's had
its attractions and its nourishment for the people there. Everything
we need for our life is in Elam. And we'll never trust God, really,
in Elam. That's why they needed to go
on. They had to go on from Elam with God into the wilderness
to find out that it's God who sends breath. And it wasn't very
long indeed. Very shortly in the wilderness,
God sent them manna from heaven and he sent it for 40 years.
They had to be dependent on God. They would never have known that,
how good the hand of God is. They would never have known to
pray for their daily bread and neither will we if we just stay
in Elam. We'll miss something far better
than Elam could ever give us. The sure knowledge that God is
with us and that all that we need will come from his hand
and we'll see it. provided by His providence. Think
about the times we have elims in our normal life. Any time
we get alone with God, and I hope it's every day, and have our
personal devotion time, that's an elim. That's a time of refreshing,
a time we come apart from the other burdens and responsibilities
and duties of life. We just get quiet with God. The
wells of water and the beautiful shade of His sheltering wings
are there. But we don't spend our day in
Elam. We have to leave there and go
on to the rest of our day. This is the Lord's Day. Today
is the Lord's Day. A wonderful day of refreshing
where we come apart from our regular duties and just spend
time in the shade and fruitfulness and blessing of heavenly water
upon ourselves. But we don't spend the week on
the Lord's Day. It's just a pass-through. It's
just an elam from which we go on to the other six days of the
week. The homes that you and I were
raised in, if we were raised in good and God-fearing homes,
were designed of God to be an elam for us at that time in our
life. But we don't spend our lives
in the homes where we were raised. Let me read you something I found
in a sermon yesterday. It's called Breaking the Home
Ties. Some of us remember the sadness
at leaving the old home and days that are gone. Every field was
familiar to us. Every tree on the place was precious.
Every item in the landscape had some association with memories
of childhood which centered our affection there. The very rooms
in the old house were holy. In one, the baby had been born. In another, a mother had died.
In the parlor, the weddings and the happy social gatherings had
occurred. And childhood cast its glamour of romance and sweetness
all around it. Therefore, it was a sad time
that night when the family gathered for the last time around the
wide-mouth fireplace. Father was pensive. And every
mind was thoughtful and preoccupied, and on the morrow tears quivered
upon every eyelash as we glanced backward when we turned the bend
in the road and caught the last glimpse of the spot which had
been home and happiness to us all. But the change meant for
us at least, did it not, in the full fruition of the passing
years, a new home and a wider life The change meant larger
opportunities, children of our own, and the inflowing of new
experiences of happiness and growth that flighted the memory
with more abundant treasure than any of the past. The homes you
grew up in, if they were nurturing and caring and happy and God-fearing
homes, were elims to you. But God didn't design you to
stay an elim all of your life. Some of you are breaking the
ties with those nurturing elims for the first time. And you feel
like the writer of this paragraph from the sermon I just read to
you. And yes, there is sadness and yes, there are tears, but
you are beginning now an embarkation upon a journey of life that will
open up such new joys and new vistas and new opportunities
and new memories that will far overshadow and will, by God's
ordaining, replace the memories of the Elam from which you have
come. F. B. Meyer, the great preacher,
said it this way, Intervals of rest are not the goals of life,
but the arbor on a hill of difficulty where we pause and brace for
the climb God has granted all of us some kind of an elam in
recent weeks or months in our life. But that's merely an arbor
on the hill of difficulty where we pause and brace ourselves
for the climb ahead. God doesn't ordain for His people
to spend their life in the pleasantness of the elams. He gives them to
us on many occasions as they're needed. But they're just pass-through
places. where we get strength for the
journey ahead. I would submit to you in the
second place that the perils of the wilderness ahead of us
are also the education about life. The perils of the wilderness
ahead of us are also the education about life. Ladies and gentlemen,
students at BJU, you have now left Elim. It's behind you. And you're beginning your arduous
wilderness walk. Israel had to leave Elam to find
out what they were really made of. And it wasn't long at all
before they found out to their shame that they were miserable,
thankless, complaining, murmuring people, and it should have scared
them to death. Look at verse 2 of chapter 16.
The whole congregation of the children of Israel murmured against
Moses and Aaron in the wilderness. You're going to find out now
that you have left the Elam behind you and started on your wilderness
journey on your way to Canaan. You're going to find out what
you're made out of. You're going to find out how
carnal you are. You're going to find out how
easily you complain when things don't go your way. They murmured
in the wilderness. Why do we murmur? Well, usually
because I think we compare our present conditions against
some illegitimate norm, some standard we have no business
comparing our present condition against. Many times we're told
that children of Israel wanted to go back to Egypt. They remembered
the leeks and garlics of Egypt. Now, they didn't like it when
they were there. Some of you complained a lot about home when
you were at home. You didn't like mother's cooking.
You didn't like this. You didn't like that. You had
the spirit of the prodigal son in you. And you just said, I
can't wait till I get out of here. This is a miserable place.
But now you get in the wilderness and you look back and you say,
man, those leeks and garlics are really good. Home was a lot
better than I thought it was. Compared to the wilderness. And
you start looking back over your shoulder, and you're making a
great mistake, just like the children of Israel did. They should have
been looking forward to Canaan, not looking back to Egypt. Not
looking back even to Elam. Because that was all in the past.
God didn't want them and their memories to be fixed back there.
He wanted their thoughts to be ahead to where they were going,
to the Promised Land, and to whatever the journey required
of them on the way there. But they measured their present
circumstances by the abundance of Egypt or the abundance of
Elam, and they found out that they just weren't really happy
in their present circumstances. You know, they could say things
like you might be inclined to say, well, this isn't like home.
No, it's not. It wasn't meant to be. The wilderness
experience wasn't meant by God to be like Elam or to be like
Egypt. You're making a false comparison. And yes, you're always
going to be unhappy in that sort of situation. Because you're
comparing it against the standard God doesn't intend you to compare
it against. The wilderness is never like
Elam. The wilderness is never like home. You say, well, it
was easier before, and I had a lot more back there. Yeah,
maybe so. But you're not supposed to be
back there. You're supposed to be here, where God put you, headed
toward Canaan through a long wilderness. They learned some
hard lessons about their complaining hearts when they got to the wilderness
and they needed to do a lot of repenting because of what they
found was in their hearts. It may surprise you during your
wilderness wanderings here at BJU for the next four years,
how wicked and ungodly your hearts are. It's going to
hurt. And conviction will be great.
And rightly so, you will feel guilty. And the only proper response
is, God, be merciful to me, a sinner. God, forgive me for having this
kind of a heart. As the Word of God begins to
work on you and as in your journey you find out more and more about
the Lord who walks with you through the wilderness and who wants
to manifest Himself to you in the wilderness, you're going
to find out what wicked hearts you have, how depraved you are. You might have thought you looked
pretty good. You say, I'm in a Christian university and, you know, I'm
not on drugs and I'm not drinking and I'm not a thief and I'm not
a whatever and a whatever. Yeah, but you're going to find
out that there's wicked sin in your hearts and you're going
to be ashamed of yourself. Well, hey, that's part of the
journey of life. It's called growth in godliness.
The more we know of the Lord, the less we respect ourselves.
And the more vile and low and reprehensible we see ourselves
to be and the more we realize that we owe everything to the
grace and mercy of Jesus Christ and that in our flesh there dwells
no good thing. They had to go in the wilderness
to learn that. And you're going to be learning that here in your
wilderness experience. They had to leave Elam to see
the miraculous provision of God, the manna from God. Verse 12
of chapter 16, God says that in the evening you shall eat
flesh, in the morning you shall be filled with bread, and you
shall know that I am the Lord your God. He said, you're going
to learn a lot of things about me. You're going to learn that
I can provide for you. Some of you are here on faith.
Many of you are here on faith. You've worked hard. Your parents
have worked hard. You'll continue to do so, but there won't be
enough. And you're going to come to the
end of your way. Some of you have been very self-sufficient people.
You've always somehow been able to connive and work and plan,
and somehow you've been able to get for yourself. Well, God's
going to bring you to a position of helplessness in this wilderness.
It's the best place you and I could ever be in where we just have
to look up and say, Help, Lord. I can't do this. It's beyond
me. You're going to see the mighty
provision of God. And like Israel, you shall know
that God is the Lord, the all-powerful One, the One who can take care
of all the needs of His own. The proper response to being in need
is not to whine and complain and feel sorry for yourself,
but to say, Lord, I'm in Your will. You're going to have to
take care of me. Show me, Lord, Your mighty hand
of provision. Some of you have never in your
life had to do that. You've had mother and dad to
provide it. You've had some source of provision. But now, many of
you are going to find yourself these next four years totally
without the ability to find any provision of your own. You're
going to find out how great and wonderful God is. They had to
leave Elam to fight battles against the flesh and win. I don't have
time to read Exodus 17, but you can read it. At Rephidim, they
came to a place where they met the enemy, the Amalekites. And I believe that we can liken
Amalek to the flesh. As long as they held Moses' hands
up, they prevailed against Amalek. When it fell down, they lost. As long as you and I keep our
guard up and fight against the flesh, God will see to it that
we can get victory in the flesh. Let our guard down a little bit,
the flesh will win. We're also told about Amalek. God said, Amalek's going to be
with you from generation to generation. You'll never permanently defeat
him. He'll keep coming back. The flesh is like that. You'll
win a battle over the flesh today, and tomorrow there'll be a new
battle with the flesh. You have to keep doing battle
all through your life against the Amalek in your life, the
flesh in your life. They had to find that out in
the wilderness. And they had to find out that you don't have
to be defeated by the flesh. They won over Amalek. But God
said, He'll be back. You're going to have to fight
Him the next day and the next and the next. You're going to
find that out here in the wilderness. You can fight and win over the
flesh. You don't have to let the flesh
be victorious over you. They had to leave Elam to find
out what capable leadership potential they had. Look at Exodus 18.
I'll just read just a little bit, verses 19 through 26 is
the whole passage, but just look at verses 21, 22, start down
later in the chapter there, about 22 or 23. Thou shalt provide out of all
the people able men, such as fear God, men of truth, hating
covetousness, and place such over them to be rulers of thousands
and rulers of hundreds, rulers of fifties, rulers of tens, and
let them judge the people at all seasons. And it shall be
that every great matter they shall bring to thee, but every
small matter they shall judge. What did he say? He said, you're
going to find out in the wilderness, Moses, you can't do it all. And you've
got a lot of capable people there with a lot of leadership potential.
And they're going to be called upon to carry some of the burden
too. They're important to the success of the cause. They had
to go in the wilderness to find that out. And Elam Moses was
the only leader they had. But later they had to find out
in the wilderness that there were people there capable of
leadership and they were given that responsibility. God is going
to grow some of you here in this wilderness. into positions of
leadership. We hope all of you will be Christian
servant leaders and that God will give all of you, because
of the training you receive here, opportunities to serve Him and
to lead for Him, to stand for Him. But you'll never know that
until you get in the wilderness. You don't learn that sort of
thing and that sort of potential in Elam. They had to leave Elam
to meet with God. Exodus 19, 17 says Moses brought
forth the people out of the camp to meet with God, and verse 11
of that chapter says, and to see God. They had to leave Elam
to meet with God. There was no visible evidence
of His presence in Elam, except in the provision He had made,
the natural provision. When they got in the wilderness,
they saw God. They got a vision of God they
never had in Elam. And they met with God. Why did you come to BJU? I hope
it was to meet with God. To be able to see Him with the
eyes of faith as you've never seen Him before. To look upon
His beauty. To see how mighty He is. How
good and gracious and kind. To see His operations daily in
your life. They had to leave Elam for the
will of God to be made known to them. Exodus 19, 5, If you
will obey my voice indeed and keep my covenant, then you shall
be a peculiar treasure unto me above all the people, for all
the earth is mine. They learned the reason for their
existence when they got in the wilderness. They never could
learn that in Elam. They had to go to the wilderness to find
that out. Why were they in the earth? What was their purpose?
To be a people of God. They learned that in the wilderness.
If you learned that here, it would be the most life-changing
thing you could ever discover. Why are you redeemed? Why are
you in the earth? What is the purpose for your
existence? Oh, I hope God's going to reveal that to you here during
this wilderness experience. They had to leave Elam for God
to make known to them His boundaries in Exodus 19, 12. God was in
the mount. And verse 12 says, Thou shalt
set bounds unto the people round about, saying, Take heed yourselves,
that you go not up unto the mount, or touch the border of it. Whosoever
toucheth the mount shall surely be put to death. They had to
find out that their God was a God who set boundaries for His people,
certain protocol, if you will, that was acceptable to Him in
their approaching unto Him, whereby they honored Him. boundaries
that God put for us as we approach unto Him. I believe one of the
greatest tragedies of the church at this hour is that in sinfulness,
in lack of biblical understanding of who our God is, there are
no boundaries in how we worship God. Anything goes. Any kind of music, any kind of
doctrine, any kind of attitude, God has boundaries for His people
when we approach unto Him. He says there's certain protocols,
certain ways you must come, there's certain things you must do, and
you can't go any further without violating my holiness and receiving my judgment. They
learned that in the wilderness. The Covenanters, the Scottish
Presbyterian people of the 17th century, who took such a wonderful
stand for God against state religion and all the rest. They referred
to the elims of life. I really like the way they call
the elims of life the blinks. The blinks. It's like you blink
your eye and it's over. The elims of life are over quickly.
Just a little moment. The earnest Christian in his
life finds out that life is best described by the wilderness.
Life is most lived in the wilderness, not in Elam. That wilderness
life is real life. It's full of trials. It's full of discipline, where
we endure hardness as a good soldier of Jesus Christ. This
is real life. Don't yearn to stay in Elam.
Don't yearn for the comforts of Constant rest and relaxation. You're going to get really busy
here in a hurry. The pressures are going to be immense. Don't
you dare make the mistake of saying, well, it was better back
there. It wasn't this hard in Elam.
It was comfortable in Elam. I don't like this wilderness.
Hey, you may not like the wilderness, but that's life. Learn to like
it. You're not being real. To think
that you can live your life in comforts and ease, with no responsibilities,
no pressures, that's not life. And you don't find God at Elam.
You find Him in the wilderness. He's proving you in the wilderness
what you're made out of, just like He proved His people Israel.
It's a proving ground. It's a way of life. And lastly,
the rewards of Canaan are also the reason for enduring. The
rewards of Canaan also are the reason for enduring. James 5.11
says, Behold, we count them happy which endure, that is, those
which persevere, those who don't flee. They're the happy ones. You are never going to amount
to anything in life if you run from the hard things. You may have been sheltered and
shielded from failure. You may have been coddled and
pampered and treated like a king or a queen, and nothing much
has ever hurt you, or maybe many of you, you've never been really
buffeted in life. Well, get real. You're going
to be. That's life. That's life. We count them happy
which persevere in the midst of hardship, who don't quit,
who don't flee, who don't run back to Elam or to Egypt. The rewards of Canaan are the
reason for endearing. We're not going to be forever
in the wilderness. Life's a vapor that appears for
a little time and then vanishes away. We're going to live somewhere
forever as long as God lives. I hope you're ready to live in
heavenly Canaan with the Lord and His presence. If you're a redeemed man or woman,
you are. The rewards of Canaan are the reason for enduring the
wilderness. We count them happy which endure.
That doesn't mean that we are always happy with our lot in
life that we're having to endure. It doesn't mean the circumstances
are always happy circumstances. But when it's over, we'll be
happy we endured. There are rewards and blessings
for such people. Joshua chapter 1, beginning at
verse 3. Every place that the sole of your foot shall tread
upon I have given unto you, as I said unto Moses. From the wilderness
and this leaven, and even unto this great river, the river Euphrates,
and all the land of the Hittites, unto the great sea toward the
going down of the sun, shall be your coast. There shall not
any man be able to stand before thee all the days of thy life.
As I was with Moses, I will be with thee. I will not fail thee,
nor forsake thee. Be strong and of a good courage,
for unto this people shalt thou divide. for an inheritance, the
land which I swear unto their fathers to give them, only be
strong and very courageous, and do according to all the law which
Moses thy servant commanded thee. Turn not from it to the right
hand or to the left, that thou mayest prosper whithersoever
thou goest." God said, keep the land before you. Keep the promise
of Canaan before you. It's a wonderful finished place. and be strong and courageous
between now and then. Don't quit. Those who endure
are a happy people. Think about it, ladies and gentlemen,
the heavenly Canaan you and I are headed to has been under construction
by the Lord himself since he ascended on high more than 2,000
years ago. He told his disciples before
he returned to glory, I go and 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. What has the Lord been doing
since he ascended 2,000 years ago? He's been getting a place
ready for us. He said in my father's house
are many mansions. many dwelling places, I go and
prepare a place for you, and if I go, I will come again to
receive you to myself." What a promise! What a glorious prospect! For the redeemed, it belongs
to them. And for 2,000 years, He made a beautiful world in
six days. Six literal days of creation, He made a beautiful
world. And we enjoy its beauties, even though they're sin-cursed
beauties. They're still beautiful. the natural beauties of this
world. But He's been getting a place
for us, ready a place for us, 2,000 years. I can't believe how beautiful
it must be, how perfect. We're not going to find anything
wrong with it. We won't have any murmuring hearts
up there. Just think what it must be like if it's taken Him
The Creator God, who made a world in six days, if it's taking Him
2,000 years to get a place ready for us. The Bible says that there will
be nothing enter into it that defiles, nothing that works abomination,
nothing that makes a lie, but those whose names are written
in the Lamb's Book of Life. Bible says there's a river of
water there, clear as crystal, proceeding out of the throne
of God, on which the Lamb sits. It says there's a tree of life
on either side of the river. Sounds a little bit like Elam,
doesn't it? Water and trees. On either side, and there's no
more curse. And God's going to wipe away
all the tears. We're going to see His face. Our names will
be written in his forehead. There's no night there, but the
Lord God gives the light to that place, and we're going to reign
with him there forever and ever. We're headed to Canaan. Don't
look back. Everything back there is in the
past. We've been delivered from that. We're on a forward journey. You look back, you'll feel sorry
for yourself. You look at the present circumstances, you'll
feel sorry for yourself. See God in the circumstances.
Seek His face here. Seek to know His plan and purpose
here. Seek to serve Him here. Be like Paul. I press for the mark, for the
prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus. It's necessary
for me to be here now, but I can't wait to be there. The heavenly Canaan waits for
me. God's prepared it for me. He's working every day for me
there to get it ready. But I have to go through the
wilderness first to get there. For some of you, the wilderness
journey will not be as long as others. You'll get there sooner
than others. Jimmy went there last week. Oscar went there last
week. They were supposed to be here.
God said, I want to hurry up and get you to Canaan. You're special to Me. I won't make you have to go through
the wilderness any longer. I want you just to come on and
be with Me now. One day He'll say that to you and Me. You don't need to turn there,
In Numbers 10, verse 29, Moses was speaking to Hobab, his brother-in-law.
Listen to what he said. These are the closing words of
the message. He said, Hobab, we're journeying unto the place
of which the Lord said, I will give it you. Come thou with us,
and we will do thee good. What goodness the Lord shall
do unto us, The same will He do unto thee. Folks, the wilderness
would be unbearable if we didn't know that at the end of it all,
there is Canaan. Are you ready for Canaan? Are
you washed in the blood of the Lamb? If not, your whole life is going
to be a wilderness, and then at the end, there's hell. God's
great prison house of the damned waits for you. Come go with us to Canaan. It'll
be a good life on the way. And at the end, all the good
things that God's prepared for them who love Him. Come go to
Canaan with us. It makes the wilderness worth
it. Let's bow together and pray. Are you bound for the promised
land? How many of you say, by the grace
of God, I am for sure. I got that settled a long time
ago. The Lord has prepared heaven
for me, glory for me, and I'm on my way there. If I died today,
I'd be there, just like Jimmy, just like Oscar. I'd be there.
And I have a Bible assurance of that.
My sins are covered by the blood of Christ. If you know that to
be true, that Canaan is your home, that heaven waits for you,
and you'd be there if you died today, and you might, I'd be
there today in the presence of the Lord for eternity. My sins
are covered to be remembered against me no more. If you know
that to be true, would you hold your hand up? Thank you, you may put it down.
I saw some hands that were not raised. My friend, you don't
want to miss out on this. But you have a sin problem that
has to be dealt with. You don't earn Canaan. You don't
work for it. It's a gift. The gift of God
is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. Somebody else
worked for it. Somebody else earned it. He won
the victory at the cross. He who knew no sin was made sin
for us that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him.
You've got to deal with the sin issue. The only place to deal
with that is the cross. The pardon has been paid. The gift of God is eternal life
through Jesus Christ our Lord. The gift is yours for the taking.
It doesn't have to be hell. The choir is going to sing number
394. Maybe the Lord Jesus has spoken to you today. Maybe you
care for your soul. You say, Preacher, I would be
a foolish person to walk out of here knowing that I'm headed
to hell. Considering how short life is, how hot hell is, how
great the judgment of God upon the sinner without Christ is,
I would be a fool to go out of here gambling with my soul. I want to get this settled before
I leave. Maybe you're here with someone. You are saved. They
are not. Maybe it's a dad or mother unsaved. Maybe it's a
child unsaved. Would you turn to that person
and say, you know, you really need to get this settled today.
Come to Christ today. I'll go back there with you.
Somebody will meet us there with a Bible and lovingly point you
to Christ. I'll go with you. The invitation
is open for whatever the need that you may need to come and
get along with God. You feel free to do that while
the choir sings. when all my labors and trials
are o'er, and I'm safe on that beautiful shore, just to be near
the dear Lord I adore, will through the ages be glory for me. Now
to Him that is able to keep you from falling and to present you
faultless before His presence with exceeding joy, to the only
wise God, our Savior, be glory and majesty, dominion and power,
both now and evermore. Amen. You've been listening to
the Chapel Hour, coming to you from the campus of Bob Jones
University. Our speaker was the University
President, Dr. Bob Jones III. If you'd like
a cassette copy of today's message, send a check for $7.20 to Campus
Store, Bob Jones University, Greenville, South Carolina 29614.
Be sure to mention the name of the speaker and today's date.
The Chapel Hour has been sponsored by Bob Jones University.
Elim is Good, but Canaan is Better
| Sermon ID | 9100116497 |
| Duration | 45:40 |
| Date | |
| Category | Radio Broadcast |
| Bible Text | Exodus 15:22-27 |
| Language | English |
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