The Pilgrimage to Heaven

iUniverse, Inc.

Contents

Preface..........................................................ixIntroduction.....................................................xiPart One: The Way of Man.........................................11. Man's Thoughts in Unbelief....................................32. Man's Works in the World......................................36Part Two: The Life in the World..................................473. Captivity.....................................................494. Poverty.......................................................605. Wilderness....................................................78Summary and Application of Parts One and Two.....................88Part Three: The Way of God.......................................916. Jesus Christ..................................................937. God's Works to the Believer...................................113Part Four: The Life in Christ Jesus..............................1218. Freedom.......................................................1239. Riches........................................................13610. Paradise.....................................................142Summary of Parts Three and Four..................................147Conclusions and Recommendation...................................148

Chapter One

    The Unbelieving

    The Revelations of God to Man
    The Unbelieving
    The Symptoms of Unbelief

    The Nearsighted and Blind

    The Ignorant and Speculating

    The Wise of the World
    No Knowledge of the Lord God
    No Knowledge of the World
    No Self-knowledge
    No Knowledge of Life
    Speculating in the Darkened Heart

    The Misguided and Separated

    The Misguided by the World
    The Deceived by Sin
    The Separated from God
    The Exiled from the Life of God

This chapter examines man's unbelieving heart and considers the unbeliever's thoughts on God, the world, man, and life.

The Unbelieving

The Revelations of God to Man

Since the beginning of the world, the God of heaven has performed His signs and manifested His glory before all men and women. Opening the Bible, we hear an amazing thing about God: "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth." The Bible declares that God made the world.

The world clearly reveals the divine nature of the Creator God. Look at the world of God's creation and see His signs as the Lord God. The natural world displays the eternal wisdom and power of God. When the majestic mountains and grand valleys of the Canadian Rockies call us to honor and worship the God of creation, we stand in awe of the Creator. We see the wonders of God in nature and say with the sense of mystery, "Wonderful!"

Indeed, God made us wonderfully. Ask a medical doctor about how human body is made in the forms and functions of its many parts, an ophthalmologist about human eyes, and a dentist about human teeth. They will bear witnesses of the greatness of God's wisdom and power. And you will marvel at the wonders of God.

God has revealed His glory in the creation of the world, so that we might seek Him, find the Lord (the sovereign Master as the Maker of the world) of creation, and know that the Lord is our God.

In addition to His revelations in the natural world, the God of heaven has shown His righteousness and justice in His judgments against man's sinfulness. When Adam and Eve disobeyed the word of God, they were exiled from the Garden of Eden and suffered death. At the time of Noah, God judged the ancient world of the ungodly with a great flood. He destroyed the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah to ashes when the citizens sinned. He punished the sinful people of Israel at the times of the Old Testament of the Bible with foreign occupations and exiles.

When Jonah, a prophet of Israel, fl ed from the presence of God on a ship, the Lord of the world raised up a great storm on the sea. He and the sailors became extremely frightened and perceived the presence of God in the calamity. When we see such a storm as we have never seen before, that our souls melt away in our peril, we fear the wrath of God on our sins. The storm of an unusual magnitude brings our sinfulness to remembrance. We come to know that sinners will not escape the righteous judgment of God.

The judgments of God abide on not only murderers and adulterers but also the scoffers and mockers saying, "Where is the judgment of God?" T ere are pain and distress for all evildoers. All over on the earth, we see sufferings and death and hear mourning and crying.

In His judgments for our sins, God remembers His promise of life in Jesus Christ. He has revealed His grace for sinners through Jesus Christ. Our hope for eternal life has been revealed by the appearing of our Savior Jesus. He performed many miracles and manifested the glory of God for us to know the Lord and Savior and believe in Him for the salvation of God.

This is the word of God we hear. We respond to it with either belief or unbelief. The believers rejoice in the God of salvation because their sins are forgiven and they have eternal life. In contrast, the unbelievers suppress the word of God and reject the gift of eternal life and heaven in Jesus Christ.

The Unbelieving

Despite all the miraculous signs that God has performed before our eyes, we would not believe in the Lord our God. We saw the glory of God in the natural world and the judgments of God on the earth and heard the word of God's salvation. But we refused to repent and turn to our God for the forgiveness of sin and eternal life. We made our hearts harder than stone and disbelieved Jesus Christ. And we despised the precious word of God without knowledge.

God has made Himself known in His works, so that we might honor, worship, and serve the Lord our God for His blessed life. Nevertheless, we worship and serve other gods in our own ways. The nations of the world make their own gods and serve them according to their cultures and traditions. Generally, Westerners serve the Judeo-Christian God; the Arabs, Allah; and Asians, Buddha or Brahman.

I was born in Busan, Korea, in November 1941. My father seemed to me to have need of nothing from God for his life. My mother was a cultural Buddhist and visited the temples in the mountains twice a year. It was impressive for me to watch from a distance her washing herself in the stream in the mountains to appear before Buddha. Early in the mornings, she used to go to the altar prepared in the back garden of our house with a bowl of clean water. Looking up to the heaven, she offered prayers to her god for me to have success in the world.

My parents taught me nothing about the God of heaven. Instead, they brought me up in the discipline and instruction of manliness. They used to teach me by saying, "Man shall be like man and live unlike animals." My father loved me so much that he did not spare me from the rod of discipline when I went my...