“Will Only a Few Be Saved?”

the following message by aleister begg is made available by truth for life for more information visit us online at truthforlife.org can we turn together then to the portion that we read just some moments ago beginning in the 22nd verse of luke 13. for those of you who are visiting we're simply making our way through the gospel of luke in a series of systematic and consecutive studies and so some of us have the advantage of already being able to pick up themes and see the development of things and certainly as we come to this opening verse of the portion this morning in verse 22 where luke reminds us of where jesus was going and of what jesus was doing this is in direct accord with what we've seen from the very beginning way back in the early chapters of luke after jesus had been involved in the healing of many people he'd gone out to a solitary place to pray and at daybreak when his disciples came and found him the people along with them were looking for him and as soon as they came to where they found him they tried to persuade him not to leave and his response to them was very clear he said i must preach the good news of the kingdom of god to other towns also it's very nice of you to ask me to stay and i know that we've had a wonderful time but i must keep moving because that is why i was sent and this of course has been a recurring theme through these chapters and here in the 22nd verse luke reminds us of it that jesus went through the towns and villages teaching he was doing exactly what it was that he'd been asked to do by his father also we've seen in this particularly from the 51st verse of chapter 9 that jesus has a direct line now to jerusalem in 51 of 9 as the time approached for him to be taken up to heaven jesus resolutely set out for jerusalem and so it is that luke is not simply giving us here a geographical note helping us to understand if you like how we could look for jesus on the map but he is rather pointing out as a reminder to the readers that what he had mentioned back in the 51st verse of chapter 9 concerning this destiny journey of jesus to his appointed place in jerusalem is now actually moving closer and closer to that time and in the course of all of this we've discovered that the crowds were just gathering and increasing with each passing day the crowds had reached such a large number at the beginning of chapter 12 as it is recorded there were many thousands that had gathered and as a result they were all trampling on each other so you have this wonderful picture of jesus the galilean carpenter moving through this uh area of the well-known uh region for him and people just coming from all directions some who are sick hoping that he might heal them somebody had said to them you know i i realize that you are bent double and uh jesus just healed somebody the other day who was bent double like that and so they said perhaps if you can find your way into the company of those who are around jesus he may heal you too a lady and her husband and their children sitting at a very meager breakfast table and finally scraping together what they had for their uh morning meal looking across the table at one another as husband and wife and realizing that frankly the larder was bare and they had nothing and they were poor and depressed and one of their neighbors had said that jesus had been quoting from the old testament prophet isaiah he'd done it in the synagogue in nazareth and he had said that from the portion there 600 years prior to this time where the word was that he sent me to preach the good news to the poor and tell prisoners that they're prisoners no more and set the downtrodden free and then the neighborhood said jesus said today this scripture is being fulfilled in your and when they had ushered the children out the husband looked at the wife and said i'm poor and you're downtrodden so why don't we go and try and join the crowd and maybe jesus will deliver us too some that were present on this occasion would have found it hard to explain why they were there at all except that again the news of the deeds of jesus and the summary of the words of jesus had intrigued them enough that they decided they would get amongst the crowd and see for themselves just what was happening now in that sense it's not uh particularly different from the average sunday morning congregation at parkside some have most recently undergone tests and whereas up until the day that you walked out with that pathology report in your hand you thought you had the world by the tail now you realize that you are very mortal you're feeling very insecure and although you've had no interest in religion or in jesus for some time you've decided that it is time for you to come back and at least get amongst the crowd and see if jesus is actually able to do anything at all some of you although you have done very well in business have found that the last year was dreadful and this year has not been any better at all and while you would not be classed amongst the downtrodden and the poor the very fact of the uncertainty of everything has caused you to say you know i think i need to consider this dimension of spiritual things which i've really given no credence to at all and you're in the crowd others of you are here and you're frankly just curious people have said things or you've heard things and you said well let's go along we'll give it a week or two i'm sure there's nothing in it at all but we don't want to find ourselves on the outside looking in if there is so let's just get close enough and see if there's anything from this jesus as people say and some of you are here because you'd like to ask jesus a question of your own you've actually said to yourself if i had a chance to walk right up to jesus i'd ask him a question and i know what question i would ask him and maybe some of you would want to ask the question that the unidentified individual asks here as is recorded for us in verse 23. you can imagine this man saying you know if i ever get up to the front of this crowd i'm just going to ask uh actually could have been a lady i beg your pardon when it's not identified as a man or a woman because when jesus replies he replies in the plural we would know by his reply if he'd replied in the singular because then luke would have said he said to him or he said to her but since it says he said to them we don't know actually whether it was a man or a woman so you see how sensitive i am to these things that i would identify them yeah he said if i ever get up there i'm going to ask him this question and suddenly he's up there and he asks the question jesus jesus question are only a few people going to be saved now in my notes i just have three headings the first heading is the inquiry the inquiry that is i-n-q-u-i-r-y as opposed to enquiry which is e-n-q-u-i-r right why in english as opposed to american english to enquire to enquire is to ask a question to inquire is to conduct an investigation you do not have that distinction in american english so this is an inquiry it's not an inquiry this is not simply a question this is an investigation i want to know lord jesus will there only be a few people that are eventually saved now it may well be that the person had been present for the healing of this lady in the synagogue perhaps he had heard jesus explain the kingdom in terms of a mustard seed a tiny seed the tiniest that palestinian farmers planted and that grew into this plant form describing it as a mustard seed and then describing it as a bit of yeast the person may have put that together ignoring the expansive qualities of the mustard seed and the way in which yeast works his way through the totality of the dough fastening just on the smallness of it and so he put two together two and two together and he said well lord jesus on the basis of what you've just been explaining here after that marginalized lady in the synagogue was converted i mean is this is this the kind of thing that we can expect that salvation is going to be negligible because when you started out with this news of the kingdom of god has come many of us were assuming this is going to be dramatic and it was going to be huge and it was going to be impactful but some of those have been following for a while now and it just seems to be that you know for example in the synagogue this lady has changed and that's a wonderful thing we're not saying it isn't but it's not really huge are there only going to be a few people that get saved now the question is understandable and the question is not uncommon but the question is at the same time largely theoretical and speculative it is if you like an arithmetical question and if this questioner had been around long enough he would have known that when people from the crowd or even from the immediacy of his disciples interrupted jesus with a question or with a situation they discovered that jesus did not always answer in the way they expected or hoped now we could go all the way back through luke but we want let me just illustrate it if you turn back a page into chapter 12 and in verse 13 someone in the crowd shouted out teacher tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me he said if i get up to the front i'm going to get this thing sorted out i have a i got a legal problem here and i'm going to get this resolved once and for all and of course what does jesus do he uses as an opportunity to provide a discourse on the dreadful nature of greed and to point out to the crowd choosing to set aside the individual's question the absolute necessity that they would understand each of them that a man's life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions now the individual thought that it was imperative that he had his question answered in the way he asked it what jesus knew was that the crowd needed a different discourse which that question gave rise to you'll find the same thing even with his own disciples still in chapter 12 verse 41 peter asked lord are you telling this parable to us or to everyone and then look at the answer the lord answered who then is the faithful and wise manager whom the master puts in charge of his servants to give them their food allowance at the proper time you can imagine the other disciples looking across at peter and going hey good question peter that was nice you know those of us who who were adept at getting our teachers off track by asking questions so as to prevent the lesson ever getting to the section in the book about which we knew absolutely nothing found our match in the teachers who were completely able to turn the tables on us so we put up our hand and say excuse me i wanted to ask about such and such and the reply comes back it's got nothing at all to do with what we said and all of our friends look at us and go she got you now here's the thing teacher knows best the discriminating teacher knows that's a red herring from beg that's the fourth one this week i don't need to go there for i have a whole group here that need instruction and he's not going to get me off track with that stuff and the answer of course on the teacher's part is right and when the teacher is divine and the teacher is jesus then although the person may say that's not the question that i asked or that's not the answer that i expected jesus never ever gave the wrong answer it may not have been the answer that the individual wanted but it was always the answer that those who were present needed and that is why you see although it is an individual who addresses the question to him the response is in the plural someone singular verse 23 asked him he said to them plural thanks for your question now let me speak to the whole group it's a reminder to us that we may think to examine jesus intellectually and we find that he examines us spiritually so what jesus does is just this he takes a potentially speculative dialogue on the nature of salvation and he turns it into a very pointed challenge that demands personal evaluation the person personally said i'd like to ask a question now they're only going to be a few that are saved jesus takes something that is speculative and theoretical and he turns it into a consideration of that which is practical and personal and as we move from the inquiry to the challenge let me essentially summarize for you what he's saying to the to the group whatever the number may be of those who are saved what should concern each of you in this group says jesus is that you should ensure without delay that you are actually part of that company make sure before the guillotine falls make sure before the door closes make sure before death snatches you that you don't allow yourself to be sidelined by speculative discussions while you are ignoring the intensely necessary practical implications of the message of the kingdom which i have brought in your hearing today now let's just look at what he says in verse 24 make every effort to enter through the narrow door now why does he speak to all of them well because all of them need to be spoken to it's interesting isn't it i mean somebody comes and asks a question you don't have to speak to the whole group do you so come over here and i'll answer your question for you i know jesus recognizes that someone has got a concern here but the greater concern is that this great company of people that gather in his wake they need to recognize that there's going to come an end day for every journey they take there isn't much hymnity about this now i searched really in vain for anything that would be helpful but i can remember growing up in scotland and and ending services with hymns that that had lines in them like life at best is very brief like the falling of a leaf like the binding of a sheath so be in time you know and then uh if in sin you longer wait you may find no open gate and your cry be just too late so be in time and i can still remember as a child the awesomeness of that thought reverbing the rating through my young frame thinking that after this individual has explained to this great company of people the nature of christ and what he's done and why he's come it was immense to me to consider that there may be individuals sitting there who by the end of their pride or by the end of whatever it may be within them determined that they would go away and they would deal with it tomorrow jesus says listen now let's get sidelined on this speculative question let's deal with a practical question what about you he says what about you in relationship to these things i want you mr miss madam sir to make sure that you are agonizing to get through that narrow door because let me tell you this there will be many who try to and they will be unable to when the householder rises up and shuts the door some of the people in the group say sounds like noah and his ark doesn't it yes it does no i was a preacher of righteousness he exhorted the people again and again the people said forget it it's a crazy idea no and by the time they came to bang on the sides of the ark with the rain beginning to beat down upon them and the water beginning to rise at their ankles suddenly the cries of their hearts were unheeded because it was too late you see the individual comes with a question that has to do with quantity jesus answers and turns the issue to the matter of chronology or to time or to brevity now the narrow door is not explained it's not interpreted for us but it is plainly the door into salvation jesus has already addressed this matthew records it in matthew 7 where in a very similar statement he says enter through the narrow gate for white is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction and many enter through it now i recognize that this is a stumbling block to many in our day living as we do in an age of pluralism where the idea is that every idea is valid in its own right that if you're going to be uh tolerant then you have to agree that everybody's angle is the right angle and everybody's way is the right way any idea of contradiction is completely ruled out i've told you before we need to distinguish between legal tolerance which is of course something that we affirm within the freedom of our democracy and social tolerance which is something that we must affirm in relationship to our diversity within the democracy people dress differently live differently worship differently and our democracy demands that we are tolerant of that within the social framework but intellectual tolerance whereby we want to argue the idea that every reason is valid and every road leads to heaven like it leads to timbuktu is not a sign of anything other than mental insufficiency those of you who play soccer know that the only way you get a goal is when you kick it between the posts and underneath the crossbar it's not recorded as a goal simply because you kick it down into your opponent's end of the field if that were the case then nobody would know who was winning or who was losing everyone understands that the game starts it's played within certain uh framework and there are goals towards which you move it's either in or it's out it's either a goal or it's a miss when the pilot lands the plane the objective is not to land it somewhere in the vicinity of cleveland last night coming down through the snow at about four thousand feet or whatever it was i was very very glad to think of all the things i've been told about the way it all funnels down and this 737 800 can get to 700 feet or 160 knots which is virtually zero zero and they can still pull their way at that point i was reminding myself all of that as we came down through those clouds and i was glad that i hadn't for a hand heard from the cockpit and we'll be landing the plane somewhere in a field somewhere in cleveland in sometime in the next little while that's not reassuring no we want to know that there is a field that it is the cleveland hopkins field and that there is a runway whether it is three right or left or whatever it is and we're going down on there for safety everybody understands that and everybody longs for that you're going to have your tonsils taken out in fact i i overheard a conversation yesterday of physicians from the staten island hospital explaining why it was that the staten island hospital had taken on board the man from another new york hospital who lost his license because he had removed a tumor from the wrong side of the guy's brain if you remember that it got a lot of press actually he removed an imaginary trimmer because the tumor was actually on the other side of his brain and he went in and he excised part of the brain that had no tumor and then the guy was back and he was practicing in the staten island hospital and i said and i didn't say what i was about to say but i was tuned in enough to the conversation to listen and fortunately one of the guys said what i wanted to say was how in the world did that happen and apparently what happened and you're all interested in this now i can tell but apparently how that happens nothing to talk with luke 13 but it's a great story how that happened was that there were two men of foreign descent with unpronounceable names in the hospital in the same time period for brain surgery the cat scans were reversed the surgeon who for 20 years of his life had trusted all of the pre-op team all of the nurses all of those doctors that scrambled to make him look like a genius walked in as he done for the previous 20 years and assumed that they had the right name and the right scan and the right person in the right circumstance and on the strength of that he made the incisions he was operating to an absolutely defined unique categorical standard which is implicit in surgical procedures everybody understands that then jesus steps on the stage of human history and he says here are the goal posts here is the runway here is where the incision goes people say wait a minute that can't possibly be the case why is that because of the perversity of the human heart that is not an intellectual issue that is ultimately a moral issue and so jesus says enter in at this narrow gate because i tell you many will try to enter it and they will not be able now let me take a moment and explain to you that this expression here make every effort is very important it is agonizing from which we get the english word agonize he says i want you to agonize i want you to wrestle i want you to struggle to enter in oh says somebody who's been attending for a time surely that's not the case we're not supposed to struggle to enter the kingdom of heaven that sounds as though we get ourselves in by the things that we do very good go to the top of the class and tie that to a bible reference if you can write it down and store it because that's good yes we know that it is by grace we are saved through faith and that not of ourselves not of works lest any man should boast we know that we're not saved by good works but we do know that ephesians 2 10 says that we are saved for good works we know that the ground of our salvation is in what jesus has achieved upon the cross but we know too that the evidence of our salvation is that we then make every effort along the journey of our lives now i don't want to believe in the point but i don't want to miss it either the phraseology here in verse 23 the actual greek terminology is a present participle lord are only a few people being saved are only a few people being saved remember we've said in the past the story of the salvation army girl um when the bishop responds to her when she asks excuse me bishop is you saved and remember he said do you mean have i been saved from sins penalty will i be saved from sin's presence or am i being saved from sin's power now the the the point of emphasis here is this jesus says and he's speaking to his disciples as well in the crowd and he looks at the group and he says now i want to make sure that every one of you is making every effort to see that you enter through that narrow gate this is if you like a precursor to what paul finally gives us in philippians 2 12 work out your own salvation with fear and trembling for it is god who is at work in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure it is the emphasis of the warnings of hebrews for example let me just turn you to one passage so that is not tedious but just look at this with me so you get the emphasis hebrews chapter 3 and verse 12. incidentally you'll find the same present participle in first corinthians 1 18 in 2 corinthians 2 15 and also in acts chapter 2 47 which is where uh it says and the lord was adding to their number daily those who were being saved now how do we know who the people are who are being saved is it the people that can go in their pocket and say here here i have a thing and on the 22nd of february uh 1981 i raised my hand at uh at a service that was held for young people in akron well thank you very much for telling me that and and thank you for letting me see your card or is it somebody else who says well i know that i'm being saved because i did this on such and such a day and the the person told me if i did this i would be saved they told me to stand up and they told me to sit down or they told me walk up or whatever it was you want to be very very careful of that kind of thing because that sounds dreadfully as if the reason you believe you're being saved is because of something that you did when being saved is all about something that god did that salvation is utterly outside of ourselves as luther said so when the challenge comes make every effort to see that you're entering through the narrow door instead of the believer saying oh this is a great word for mr so-and-so five seats along the road this is a tremendous evangelistic message loved ones this is your message this is my message jesus says aleister make sure that you are striving to enter through the narrow gate because it is by your continuance that you give evidence of the fact that that day and time when i grabbed a hold of you is reality and not spurious remember that at least well that that judas was in the group as well right judas did not strive to enter in at the narrow gate he didn't hebrews 3 see to it brothers that none of you has a sinful unbelieving heart that turns away from the living god now think about people who were sitting with us 12 months ago where are they think about the people that were marching with us that got baptized with us where are they they have not been striving to enter through the narrow gate they have not been seeing to it that they don't have a sinful heart because everything in the culture mitigates against a pure heart everything is working towards my taking on board that which is untrue and unkind and unnecessary and the bible says you better see to it that you don't have a sinful heart and an unbelieving heart that turns away from the living god do you recognize believer the great potential for turning away from the living god if you don't you you're not alive you're dead but if you're alive you know that the hymn writer was correct prone to wonder lord i feel it prone to leave the god i love prone to ignore the bible prone to ignore christian fellowship prone to get through on the least common denominator and then i and i always think as my salvation the fact that somewhere away in the past you know i i entered in at the narrow gate it's interesting jesus doesn't use that at all he says i want to say to you folks you better be striving to make sure you enter in at the narrow gate and that is where the encouragement of one another comes in encourage one another daily as long as it is called today so that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin listen loved ones the deceitfulness of sin me harden any one of us and then he explains we have come to share in christ if we hold firmly to the end the confidence we had at the beginning and for those of you who've been on the journey any time what do we know we know that it is an absolute mystery that we're still alive we know that it is an incredible mystery that we're even still here that we still sing christian songs that we still read our bible that we still gather with the people of god that the same grace that has redeemed us has sustained us and has kept us but it hasn't happened in isolation i mean jesus doesn't drop me in the pulpit you know he picked me up on the average sunday and say there you go you have to walk in he doesn't bring you to church by some special weird mechanism does he no you have to get up and say well i'm gonna have to see to it today that i don't have a sinful unbelieving heart that turns away from the living god i'm going to strive today to enter into the narrow gate and it is by our striving to enter in at the narrow gate that we give evidence of the fact that the spirit of god is striving within us which enables us then to strive with everything in us so for example you have a tickle in your pocket a ticket in your pocket you're going to the brown stadium and you've got seat 25 f or whatever else it is and the crowd is unbelievable the people moving everywhere they scramble every all over the place you just say to yourself oh well i've got a ticket who cares you know no you don't say that not if you're a sensible person not if you want to be there for the national anthem you've got your ticket in your hand or stuff down your shirt or held somewhere safe then you're going excuse me excuse me excuse me excuse me excuse me excuse me wait a minute excuse me what are you doing i'm striving to enter i want to be there i want to be there with a passion and whatever it takes i'm going to be there i'm going to be in my seat and i'm going to be on time can you imagine you take 1500 people that kind of passionate commitment to enter through the narrow gate for jesus christ excuse me jesus are there only going to be a few people saved hey cut the theory listen make sure because there will be people who will try and they won't be there what does that mean does that mean somehow or another that earnest seekers who genuinely want to go to heaven can't go to heaven that they're excluded from the kingdom of god even though in their hearts they longed to enter through that narrow gate not for a moment what jesus is emphasizing is the inevitability of a time limit on the author of salvation those outside the door finally show up and they show up too late i think that's the whole point i think the the the sentence structure in the niv is not as helpful as it might be let me explain what i mean if you look at verse 24 in the second half beginning with because many he says many i tell you will try to enter will not be able to full stop then a new sentence starts at verse 25. remember this punctuation is not actually in in the greek new testament i don't think that's the best punctuation of course i'm not brilliant at this but let me tell you what i think it probably is many i tell you will try to enter and will not be able to once the owner of the house gets up and closes the door you see the difference many i tell you will try and enter and will not be able to once the owner of the house gets up and closes the door as opposed to many will try to enter but not be able to full stop once the owner of the house gets up and closes the door they will be pleading and so on in other words the point that jesus is making is this there is going to come a time dear people as you follow me and as you listen to my message and as i explain to you the kingdom there is going to come a time in your experience where the door will be shut to you and so i say to you strive now to enter in at that narrow gate the interesting thing is that the people who came apparently it just expected that they were going to be allowed in and the staggering thing for them was the response of the householder verse 25 open the door for us sir and he said i don't know you or where you come from and then he said well we ate and drang with you you taught in our streets we've had associations with you jesus the householder said i don't know where you are who you are or where you come from away from me all you evil doers be like going to a wedding reception and looking for your name on the on that board and the easel you go in you look for your name it's not there so your wife says it must it can't have got on there it must be must be at the place in the place settings you go from table to table excuse me is there is there an alistar back there so you got a bag and in this eventually go through the whole big banquet not on the list the jews you've got to read this in the old testament but the jewish people knew that everything was moving towards a fantastic banquet because god had set his love upon them they just assumed we're in i mean we're definitely in just because of who we are we're in jesus said no you're not now you could get crucified for that right some of you are here today and because of your status you get into most places well that's wonderful and nobody wants to gain say that at all it's nice that you have access but in the back of your mind you got the idea that somehow or another the gate of heaven you're going to be able to say you know i was a member of the transport and general workers union and i believe you've got a special section for us here and peter says what union or someone says i was a member of the union club cleveland what club yeah i have the thing on the back of my car it's very very nice if i i think i brought it with me i don't know said no we don't we don't have any special deal for the union club i was a member of the parkside church what church yeah petty bone road never heard of it i listened to the radio i mean we listened to the sermons we ate and drang with you you taught in our streets verse 27 look at it i don't know you are where you come from away from me all you evildoers now let me just wrap this i'll give you my third heading i don't have time to expound on it really but you've got an inquiry then you have a challenge and then you have a statement of the final division the final division ultimately there will only be two classes of people there are only two classes of people and that is those who are on the inside and those who are on the outside ironically those who claim to be the children of abraham are going to be forbidden access to abraham's table not because they've miscalculated their family tree but because status among those being saved is not an inherited status and so they will weep and wail as an expression of their grief they will gnash and grind their teeth as an expression of their anger and you have in verse 28 one of the most tragic and most descriptive uh depictments of ultimate frustration and ultimate disappointment their misery will be compounded on two fronts because they will see abraham and isaac and jacob their heritage and their heroes combined with all the prophets the prophets to whom they would not listen and the prophets whom they stoned look at verse 34 just anticipating next sunday if god spares us o jerusalem jerusalem you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you so god sends his prophets they put their fingers in their ears god comes to them and says again and again and again would i not draw you as a handgathers or chicks and you wouldn't come to me do you think you're going to be able to come to me then under some special dispensation on the basis of status or the base of association he says many will try and it'll be too late and it won't work they won't be able to plead the case in scotland as a small boy they gave this to us as with most things in a little chorus most of the poetry in the choruses was not that great the melodies weren't particularly brilliant either but somehow or another the truth stuck with me and it used to rivet me when we sang it on a sunday morning i don't know whether i was more sensitive than most or whatever it might be i sometimes wonder if i could go back and find those children from the sunday school classes i'd love to know where they are but it went like this one door and only one and yet its sides are two the inside the outside on which side are you one door and only one and yet it's sides are two and then we used to sing i'm on the inside on which side are you see there are people out there on that vestibule right now they're either in the room or they're outside the room and the thing that makes a difference is whether they've come through the door or not go and buy yourself a copy of pilgrim's progress or ask for it for your birthday get it in the bookstore today or order it there will be now a great run and sell out all the three copies that they have or something and you're going to buy it everyone's going i've got to get through there and you're going to buy it so that you can read the section in which formalist and hypocrisy uh challenge christian on the basis of the fact that he said that they shouldn't be climbing over the wall to get into the narrow way because he said the only way into the narrow way was through the narrow gate and in the dialogue that ensues that i don't have time really to go into he chides them for the fact that they had made a shortcut and climbed over the wall and formalist and hypocrisy say to him in passing this is just a white white your appetite and we're done but they say to him that custom for doing this kind of thing has a standing as above a thousand years in other words is that people have been climbing over the wall for a thousand years why are you making such a fuss about it and we would doubtless be admitted by an impartial judge and besides they said if we get into the way what matter is it which way we get in it's got a contemporary ring to it doesn't it i mean you get to heaven i mean who cares how you get there as long as you get there isn't that it's not what we all say as other people say well that's what i always say as long as you have faith as long as you have faith that people go yes and cough in their beard for a while and they don't know what to say and those are just the ladies if sorry if he says if we are in we are in if we're in we're in thou art but in the way who as we perceive came in at the gate and we are also in the way that came tumbling over the wall wherein now is thy condition better than ours christian says to them you come in by yourselves without his direction and you shall go out by yourselves without his mercy so the devil has three apprentice devils and they come to him and they say we're going to go out and ruin people in terms of their desire to respond to the message of salvation in jesus and he said to the first one and how are you planning on doing that well to the apprentice devil i'm just going to go out and tell everybody there's no such thing as heaven no the devil said that's a silly idea everybody knows in their heart that there is a heaven they all want to go to heaven the second one how about you he said well i'm going to tell them that there's no hell the devil said that i'm going to work either because people know that bad needs to be punished they do it all the time they know there is a hell into the third one what are you going to do so i'm just going to go out and tell everybody there's no hurry the devil said go and you will ruin them by the millions many will try to enter and will be unable to once the master of the house has risen and shut the door life at best is very brief like the binding of a sheath be in time be in time father out of an abundance of words we pray that we might hear your voice indeed anything that is unhelpful or untrue or unclear we ask that in your mercy might be banished from our recollection and that which is of yourself and tends to christ and calls us to the wonder of his redeeming love may reverberate in our hearts and minds to such an extent that we can do no other and come and meet you at the gate we love the words i hear thy welcome voice that calls me lord to thee for trusting in that precious blood that flowed from calvary grant then that your kindness may lead us today and all our days towards the repentance by which we so reveal ourselves to be those who are making every effort to enter through that narrow door may the grace of the lord jesus and the love of god and the fellowship of the holy spirit rest and remain with all who believe today and forevermore amen this message was brought to you from truth for life where the learning is for living to learn more about truth for life with aleister begg visit us online at truthforlife.org

Channel: Alistair Begg

Views: 82,641

Rating: 4.8258576 out of 5

Keywords: Parables, Judgment, Repentance

Id: EDRieiHgWO0

Length: 45min 55sec (2755 seconds)

Published: Wed Mar 17 2021