The Pilgrim Concept

From The Sword & Trowel 2014, issue 1 by Dr Peter Masters

 Do’s and Don’ts of the Pilgrimage

   
We must now consider some of the do’s and don’ts for pilgrims, that make such a difference to the journey. We shall address them directly to readers, the first being a serious warning: Be very careful not to settle. You are a pilgrim, don’t settle! We are not talking about spiritual things here, but about earthly things.
      Do not put down roots and become dependent on earthly things, growing to like them too much. On the contrary, if you like something too much, don’t have it, don’t do it, because it will be a snare to you.
      Have we not all fallen into this trap? Something very valuable has come into our life, such as a home, or an over-treasured possession, or a recreation, or clothing, and it has meant too much to us, absorbing our fascination and attention. We have become committed and dedicated to it, which is against the whole spirit of pilgrimage.
      Perhaps we recognized this. It was not an immoral, wrong or dreadful thing, but it engaged us too much, and by God’s grace, we decided to lay it aside. We reminded ourselves we were pilgrims who must be ready to move forward unimpeded, devoted to the Lord and his cause. Called to be pilgrims – passing through – we dare not settle, allowing earthly things to enfold and detain us.
      Another rule for the pilgrim life is to remember that every phase of life is temporary. Are we young? Well we will not always be young. Time rolls on and we have to leave youth. The earnest pilgrim spends his youth preparing for the next phase, not clinging to the present stage. Young men have to think of marriage. In our godless age this is not seen as an obligation, but for believers it is, unless the Lord overrules. We certainly do not want to develop a flirtatious spirit, but we should have a prayerful spirit and a willing heart.
      In the unsaved world, when young people are asked what they aim to do in life, they generally answer by naming something they particularly enjoy, as though enjoyment is the basis of a career choice. But saved pilgrims think more of careers that will be useful and will enable them to serve the kingdom of God, and, if possible, do a good work for all people. The worldling aims at personal pleasure, gratification and fulfilment, but the pilgrim aims at service to God and good works.
     When young, the pilgrim is in training for the next phase of life, emulating Christians like Hudson Taylor, who in youth restrained his diet and denied himself many reasonable comforts in order to condition and toughen himself for pioneer missionary service in China.
      A vital don’t for pilgrims of all ages is – never surrender spiritual priorities or waste time. I once knew a Christian man who had in his garden a beautiful and elaborate working model train system, carefully engineered and constructed. The engine, trucks and tracks were quite large, capable of carrying children, and the total impression stunning. But how did a Christian man justify devoting so many hours, if not years, to building a gigantic toy! Let us never waste time that belongs to the Lord.
     One wonders what John Wesley would have done in this situation. We read that he would visit a house where silver vessels were on display, and would openly appropriate them for his orphanage work. Pilgrims cannot spend their time and set their hearts on earthly idols. They have a very practical approach to the material things of life.
      Time, however, is not only lost in excessive attention to home, possessions and recreation, but sometimes in protracted idleness. Perhaps we have been sick or distracted by an intensive period of work or study, and unable to do all the things we would normally do for the Lord, but that period of distraction has long passed and we have never resumed our former pattern of attendance and service. Well, time is short, and we are pilgrims. We are here to make every phase of life count for the Lord, and so we must hasten back to dedicated action and weeknight attendance, resisting all the overtures of the world, the flesh and the devil. Thomas Hornblower Gill’s beautiful hymn has a convicting verse:
I would not, Lord, with swift-winged zeal
   On this world’s errands go,
And labour up the heavenly hill
   With weary feet and slow.
     The hymnwriter was thinking of people who wait until later life before they wake up to serving the Lord, when all the years of energy and capability have slipped past them.
      Pilgrims do not take digressions either. I once knew a man, an earnest Christian, who bought a house far bigger than he needed. It was a very beautiful detached house with umpteen bedrooms. It altogether captured his heart, but it ruined his stewardship, absorbed all his resources, and virtually consumed his life. We cannot let that kind of thing happen to us, in any area of life. We cannot take on commitments that will rule us, and negate all Christian usefulness.
       Another don’t concerns complaining and murmuring. This was the menace that drove the children of Israel round in circles, and kept them so long from their desired destination. William Cowper had the perfect cure for this expression of faithlessness:–
Were half the breath thus vainly spent
To Heaven in supplication sent,
Our cheerful song would oftener be,
‘Hear what the Lord has done for me.’
   Yet another don’t is hostility between believers. Here is direct disobedience to the special law of Christ that his people should love one another. There are some professing believers who vent hostility on others, cause great hurt, and grieve away the Spirit, for years, if unchecked. We hear of pastors newly called to churches, who find there has been hostility for years. What a tragedy! True pilgrims surely cannot allow such things to ruin their lives.
    We can even say that pilgrims are dressed for the journey, and so should we be. In deportment and appearance believers are clearly not worldlings who relish the life of the flesh and want to take part in its lowest pursuits. True believers do not follow flesh-flaunting clothing styles, and message-laden ‘rebel’ hairstyles. (The emerging churches and ‘missional’ churches seem to emphasise worldly fashions, some of their middle-aged pastors presenting themselves as teenage streetwise hipsters, seemingly desperate to move as far as they can from a ‘strangers and pilgrims’ image.)
      God blesses us with discernment and understanding if we live as pilgrims, but these faculties, like many other blessings, are conditional upon us so living. This is the message of the famous eleventh chapter of Hebrews – the annals of faith and pilgrimage. The pilgrim spirit brings us rich spiritual experience, together with instrumentality and usefulness. Our own trust in God increases mightily, because we prove him so much. We develop in holiness by his grace and power, and gain an ever clearer heavenly view.
      We must not linger, looking longingly at material things, or fame in this world. We should think often of the journey’s end, and check everything with the question – ‘How does this affect my pilgrimage?’      It is very sad that there is this movement among Christians, already referred to, to throw away the pilgrim attitude. The so-called emerging and missional churches – or most of them – recommend extraordinary things. They want believers to give up traditional church (many say give up preaching also), and be entirely informal.
       They believe that to win people to God we must be like them. So we must go to all the films they watch (even with them), so that we can talk about them. Do the same things, they say, going to dances, clubs and pubs, for normality is vital. Just mix, mix, mix, and live like worldlings. They don’t exactly put it this way, but this is what it amounts to. We are to be more like worldlings, acting like worldlings, and mixing with worldlings in their activities and delights. The more we do so, the more we will influence them.
      Liberal churches who reject the Gospel started this line of thought and action, and the missional authors have adopted it. But this policy is the exact opposite of what Bible-believing Christians have believed for centuries, and contrary to the Word of God.
      Yet nowadays one may go to any one of a number of evangelical Bible colleges in the UK and obtain a degree in ‘doing church’ this new way. C H Spurgeon had a phrase, ‘We never know what we are going to hear next: we shall die of astonishment.’
     Some of the things we hear today are so incredible, so anti-biblical, and so wrong, we are jolted when we hear them. We must never lose hold of the fact that our Saviour has called us out of the world. We should be full of sympathy for lost souls and labour for their salvation. But we cannot do that by rejecting the pilgrim concept and grieving the Holy Spirit of God.
      Says the apostle, ‘I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus’ (Philippians 3.14). We press forward as pilgrims, a people distinct from this fallen and doomed world, having been called out of it, and winning souls from it by the power of the Spirit. Our task is to call them out, not to seal them in. This is the only valid attitude to Christian living and Christian service: to live as pilgrims.