Are Just a Few Being Saved?, Part 1

Let's pray together. Lord, we thank you for tonight, a chance to be in your word. Lord, instruct us and teach us in the way that we should go. Help us to understand, Lord, what it is you're saying this evening, that we might really understand the kingdom of God, the purpose you have for us, to tell others about the kingdom of God. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen. If you have your Bible, turn with me to Luke chapter 13, Luke chapter 13.

And in all honesty, I have waited over five years to preach this sermon. I have longingly anticipated this portion of Scripture. You know, all of the Bible is profitable. All of it's there to equip the man of God that he might be thoroughly furnished. But there are certain portions of Scripture that seem to hit home in modern evangelicalism today that kind of drive home some of the most incredible truths that sometimes we miss. I'm concerned about how the gospel is presented today. I'm concerned about the easy believism that seems to permeate modern evangelicalism, that convinces people that they're on the way to heaven without ever truly coming to grips with what the Bible says concerning eternal life.

This text will help us understand that. We'll unfold it for you this evening and next week as we look at it together.

Luke 13, let me read it for you, verses 22 and following. And he was passing through from one city and village to another, teaching and proceeding on his way to Jerusalem. Someone said to him, Lord, are there just a few who are being saved? He said to them, strive to enter by the narrow door. For many, I tell you, will seek to enter and will not be able. Once the head of the house gets up and shuts the door and you begin to stand outside and knock on the door saying, Lord, open up to us, that he will answer and say to you, I do not know where you are from.

Then you will begin to say, we ate and drank in your presence and you taught in our streets. And he will say, I tell you, I do not know where you are from. Depart from me, all you evil doers. There will be weeping and gnashing of teeth where there, when you see Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and all the prophets in the kingdom of God, but yourselves being cast out. And they will come from east and west and from north and south and will be climbed at the table in the kingdom of God. And behold, some are last who will be first and some are first who will be last.

Verse 24 is a perplexing statement, needless to say. It need not be perplexing, but because of what most people have been taught today, it really is something that confounds us. It shouldn't, but it does. Somebody asks the question, Jesus gives an answer. He doesn't necessarily answer the question being asked, but he answers the question the people need to hear. He simply says, many, many will seek to enter, but they won't be able to get in. Many will seek to be a part of the kingdom, but they won't be able to get in.

Wait a minute. I thought heaven was a free gift. I thought heaven was something that was offered freely, that if you believed in Jesus, you'd automatically go there. What do you mean? What does Jesus mean by saying you need to strive to enter by the narrow door? For many, I tell you, will seek to enter and not be able, strive to enter. When was the last time you heard the gospel presentation and someone says, you know what? You better strive to enter because if you don't, you're not going to get in.

And many who do aren't going to make it. We don't ever hear that today. And yet that's what Jesus says.

We have, we have reinvented the gospel. We have redefined the terms of the gospel to make it easy for people to believe. Thinking we're helping build the kingdom of God, when in all reality we give people false assurance as to their eternal destiny. What does Jesus actually mean? We've heard the words, well, you know, you want to get saved? Wow. Say this prayer after me. I've never read that anywhere in Scripture. Somehow if we tell people to repeat after us a certain prayer, then we will deduce from that, that they know Jesus and they're saved.

Really? Where do you find that in Scripture? Others will say, well, you know, just receive the gift, unwrap the gift, receive the gift, believe the gift and heaven is yours. Are you sure? How do you know that? We go to churches. I grew up in a church. That offered a gospel invitation. They called it an altar call. Maybe you've been a part of those churches. And every Sunday the pastor would get up and he'd offer an invitation to those in the congregation to be saved. And we'd sing a chorus or two or a verse or stanza or two of a hymn.

And if nobody came forward, we'd sing another one. If nobody came forward, we'd sing another one. And I'd be sitting there thinking, boy, I sure hope somebody comes forward so we can go home and watch football. Lo and behold, somebody would come down and because somebody came down, we'd have to sing another one because there might be somebody else out there who wants to come down. And sometimes the invitation was a lot longer than the sermon ever was. So I started thinking, where do we come up with that idea?

An invitation, an altar call. A lot of churches have them. You go to Crusades today, they have altar calls, invitations. And they design certain people who are trained to be a part of the congregation. And when the invitation is offered, they get up. Not so as to deceive people that these people are coming forward to be saved. That's not why they're doing it. They're coming down as counselors. They're coming down to talk to people. So they get up out of their chair and then you'll hear something like this, you know, there are many people coming.

Well, how do you know which of those coming are counselors and those coming are wanting to be saved? If you're staying down front in a big auditorium or a big field someplace, right? How do you know that? And so we say many are coming and ask someone to come with you. If you don't want to come by yourself, as if somehow when you stand before the Lord God, that someone's going to be there with you to convince God that you should be in heaven. I never really truly understood that. Well, years ago in the 19th century, a man by the name of Charles Finney invented what's called the invitation, the gospel invitation, the altar call.

And Charles Finney believed that salvation was of the human will. So in order to get people to respond, he would learn to manipulate and play on the emotions of man. It might be through a song or a number of songs. It might be through a pleading of people to come down, having others come down with you. And down at the altar was what he called the anxious bench. People would come down to that anxious bench and there would be people there who would have a prayer that they would recite and follow after them.

And then begin to share with them the gospel invitation. That's how the whole altar call thing began. Charles Finney was a lawyer turned preacher. He believed that if he was able to get people to persuade people to come down, any way to persuade them to give their life to Jesus, he would do whatever was necessary to get them out of the pew and come down to quote, receive Jesus or to quote, get saved or to have quote, assurance of salvation. Now, am I saying it's wrong to have an invitation? Nope.

Am I saying it's wrong to have an altar call? Nope. Not saying that. What I am saying is that how you give the invitation and what you say at that invitation is absolutely essential when it comes to an accurate presentation of the gospel. Because in this text, Jesus gives an invitation. And I would venture to say that there's nobody in this auditorium this evening who has ever heard an invitation like the one Jesus gave. Which would lead you to believe that maybe the people offering invitations on television, in football stadiums and baseball stadiums are offering something that allows people to accept Jesus in a very easy, simple way when Jesus says, strive to enter the kingdom of God.

And once you get there, because there'll be many who strive to enter, most won't get in. Now think about that. This is how Jesus does it. And I would tend to want to follow the way Jesus did it rather than some popular TV preacher or some popular author. I would tend to want to do what Jesus did. It won't be very popular today. Many won't get saved. But by the way, isn't that not the question that was asked Jesus? Are there only a few being saved? That was the question offered up to Jesus. The church has a mandate to preach the gospel.

The church has a mandate to spread the good news. We're to call people to salvation. Paul says, I beg you, I plead with you, be reconciled to God. The Bible says, whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.

So as a church, our mandate is to preach the gospel. Our mandate is to call people to the saving knowledge of Jesus Christ, our Lord. Our mandate is to make sure that we give the gospel of the kingdom of God to people who are outside that kingdom. That's important. So to do that, we must understand what it is Jesus says and how he says it.

The question asked by this person, we don't know who it is, but Jesus knows that there are people getting saved. Also knows that there's not very many of them getting saved, which would prompt this individual to ask the question, are there just a few being saved? Tonight, I want to talk to you about the question. And then I want to talk to you about the invitation and give you the four components that make up that invitation. We'll only cover one of them this evening, the next three next week. But this becomes a very pivotal passage of scripture.

It becomes one of those milestones in scripture. It becomes one of those passages that you need to understand because you've been called to preach the gospel. How are you doing it? Because what Jesus says, I didn't learn in college or seminary when I took evangelism training courses.

How come? How come I would go to a Bible college? I would go to a, what I would consider a really good seminary because it's still good today. So I assume it was good back when I went. But when I went through evangelism training classes and was involved in evangelism outreach, what Jesus said was not what we learned. How can that be? And when you go to them at your church or you go to some kind of evangelistic seminar and they talk to you about how to share Christ and how to witness to people, why is it this passage of scripture isn't used?

It's not used because if you go around saying this, very few people are ever going to respond. And so we find ourselves saying things that get people to respond. We find ourselves in a manipulative technique, trying to convince people that we can persuade them that they need to have Jesus as Lord of their life. You can't persuade them. God calls them. You just must be an effective messenger of the truth. The Lord will do the work through his word that's presented. If you present it accurately, then the truth will be presented and true conversions will take place.

Let's look at the question. And he was passing through from one city and village to another, teaching and proceeding on his way to Jerusalem. Jesus is teaching. What is he teaching? We talked about this last week. Talked about this the week before. He's teaching about the kingdom of God. Now this is important because what I'm going to tell you, a lot of people don't agree with, but Jesus agrees with it and that's all that matters. Okay. Being saved and entering the kingdom is the exact same thing.

How do we know that? Well, the question is asked, are there just a few being saved? Jesus says, strive to enter by the narrow door.

Why? Because the narrow door is what saves you. It gets you into something. What's it get you into? It gets you into the kingdom of God. How do we know that? Because that's the rest of the conversation when Christ talks about the kingdom of God in verse 28 and the kingdom of God in verse 29. So whatever it means to be saved, it means that you're entering the kingdom of God. I read an article just yesterday that said that during the church age, the gospel of grace is preached. And during the tribulation, the gospel of the kingdom is preached.

And I scratched my head and I thought, really? You're really going to decipher between the gospel preached in the tribulation and the gospel preached in the church age? You really think there's a difference? See, that's our problem. We think that the gospel preached in the Old Testament is different than the gospel preached in the New Testament. It's not. We'll show you that in weeks ahead as we go through Luke's gospel. And we think that somehow what's happening in the church age is different than what's happening in any other age.

It's not. Man is still saved by grace through faith. That's never changed. That's always the way it's been. God doesn't have a different way of saving people in the Old Testament than he does in the New Testament. And another way in the tribulation period. And another way in the kingdom age. It's always the same way. It's by grace through faith in Christ alone. But we kind of muddle the waters and people get confused as to what to say and how to say it and that not ought to be. So it's a question about salvation.

And Jesus answers it with a discussion about the kingdom of God. Because Jesus wants them to understand that when you're saved, you're in the kingdom. That's important. And the text says that he was passing through from one city and village to another. Well, we know that way back in Luke chapter 9, he set his heart and mind to resolutely go to Jerusalem. He's making his way to Jerusalem. He is in Judea at this point. He's already ministered in the upper Galilee. He's making his way to Jerusalem. Time is short.

He's at the latter end of the third year of his ministry. Time is very short in the life of Christ. He knows that. And what does he do? He's teaching. He's always teaching. He's always disseminating the truth. He's always giving people the truth about the Lord. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. In all your getting, get understanding, for with it you find wisdom. In the book of Proverbs, it's all about the fear of the Lord and instruction and understanding and wisdom. And the Lord is disseminating the truth of the kingdom because people need to understand what it means to be a part of that great kingdom.

And even after his resurrection, it was 40 days about the kingdom, right? We told you last week, that's what it is. We talked to you about, remember the vision of the kingdom as the Old Testament prophets would give it. And then the visualization of that kingdom as the angel Gabriel came to Zacharias and told him about the forerunner, John the Baptist, who would be there right before the Messiah arrived. And Mary understood that the kingdom of God would be forever. And she began to visualize the truth of that kingdom.

That was the vision of the Old Testament prophets. And John became the voice of that kingdom as he began to preach the kingdom of God is at hand. Paul also was the voice of that kingdom. And you and I are a voice of that kingdom. Jesus came and he verified everything that John said. He was the verification of the kingdom. And he came and he preached, what? The virtues of the kingdom. He preached the ventures of the kingdom, how risky it was, all based on the value of the kingdom, like a treasure, like a pearl.

Everything was about the kingdom of God. This text is about the verity of the kingdom. Last week, we talked about the victory of the kingdom, like a mustard seed that would grow, like leaven in a lump of dough, how the kingdom would demonstrate its victory. So if I'm walking along with Jesus and I hear him talk about the parable of the mustard seed and the parable of the leaven, and talking about how great and how grand the kingdom of God is going to be, I scratch my head and ask myself, but there's not that many people in this kingdom.

Remember we told you last week that what the Old Testament prophets talked about was the end of the kingdom. Jesus is at the beginning of the building of that kingdom. So naturally the person would ask the question, are there just a few being saved? That would be the question. And so Jesus, like John the Baptist, would preach, repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand, because the message was threefold. Number one, how to get into the kingdom.

Number two, how to grow up in the kingdom. Number three, how to go out and preach the kingdom. Make sense? That's the message, how to get in, how to grow up, and how to give it out. Threefold message of the kingdom, because that's the essence of the mission of the church. How do we get into the kingdom of God? Once you're in, how do you grow? As you grow, how do you give it to others so they can get in and grow? So they can go out and give it and get others to get in to grow. See? That's just the cycle.

That's what it's about. And so here was Jesus preaching that concerning the kingdom of God. The question comes, are just a few being saved? If you went to somebody and said today, are you saved? They would say, saved from what? Because the word saved implies there's been a rescue, right? If I'm drowning and I'm saved, I'm rescued from drowning. If I'm in a fire and someone saves me, I'm saved from being burned to death, right? It implies a rescue. Are you saved? Remind of the story, the story that's told by Kent Hughes and his commentary on Luke, about Alistair Begg, who was in a restaurant.

He was eating breakfast as he was getting ready to preach at a nearby school. He noticed that a young girl was reading her Bible. He looked at her and says, are you a Christian? And she says, yes, I have found the narrow way. When was the last time somebody ever said to you, I found the narrow way? Not very many, right? That's what she found. She found the narrow way. And Alistair Begg was taken back by her answer and had a great discussion with her about her conversion experience because she was from a Buddhist country and she had given her life to Christ and she had entered the narrow gate, found the narrow way.

She had strove to enter the kingdom of God. She was there. Are you saved? In today's modern evangelicalism, we want to preach a gospel that will save your marriage. Jesus didn't come to save your marriage. If you're saved because you thought he would, you're not saved. He didn't come to save your marriage. He didn't come to save your financial condition. You're poor, you need money. He'll save you and make you rich. He didn't come to do that. He didn't come to save you from your dissatisfaction with life.

He didn't come to save you from your negative attitude. He didn't come to save you because you needed more fulfillment. Today's modern evangelicalism, we talk about, you know, you come to Jesus and your marriage will change, your financial situation will change, your relationships will change, everything will change. He's going to make things right for you. No. He's probably going to make things worse for you. And so we give the gospel with all of these deluded avenues that really are not truth. What are you saved from?

Here's what you're saved from. You're saved from God by God. You're saved from a God who judges sinners by the God who redeems man. You're saved by God, the God of wrath, the God who judges by the God who redeems and saves. You're saved from God by God. That's what salvation is. There is no condemnation for those who in Christ Jesus, right? That's what salvation is. Someone says, what do you say from? I'm saved from God. What? That's right. I'm saved from God as judge, as God, as the wrath that he could possibly be where he inflicts his fury upon man.

I am saved by the redeemer God himself, Jesus Christ, my Lord. I'm saved from God by God. That's what salvation is. And yet most people in evangelical churches today don't even understand that. They gave their life to Jesus because they thought he would change things about their marriage, their financial situation, their problems, their difficulties. And that's what the parable of the sower of the soil is about, right? The parables of the kingdom in Matthew 13 are so important to understand because people will jump onto Jesus' bandwagon, but never have entered the narrow way.

People jump onto Jesus' bandwagon with joy, but they bring forth no fruit because there's been no repentance. See? And when Jesus gives a parable of the sower of the soil, he gives four soils, one only being saved. It doesn't mean that one out of every four people is going to be saved. That's not the statistics. If it was, that would mean that 25% of the world's population would be saved. Thus the question, are there just a few being saved? But that's not what Jesus is trying to say. He's just trying to let you know that as you spread the gospel in the kingdom age, the majority of the people that hear the gospel are going to jump onto Jesus' bandwagon.

But when affliction comes, when hardship comes, they fall by the wayside. Or when the cares of this world begin to creep in and mean more to them than God, it'll choke out the seed and they'll prove they were never truly children of the living God anyway. But the seed that sinks its roots down deep when the sun comes out and the persecution comes because it has a root to dig down deep with. It'll be strong and bear fruit, some 30, some 60, some 100 fold. So Jesus says, or the man asks, are there just a few being saved?

It's an easy question to understand. We can understand why it was asked. Here was Jesus, the Messiah of Israel. He has come to banish all illness. By this point, he's just about done all of that. Blind people have, or now see, dead people have been raised from the dead. The miracles are astronomical, not only in number, but in the way they were accomplished. And so here is Jesus. The Bible says in Matthew seven, never a man spoke like this man.

Nobody could ever preach like Jesus preached. No one could ever address a crowd like Jesus addressed the crowd. No one could perform a miracle like Jesus performed the miracle instantaneously, either by word or through touch. He could do it any way he wanted, no therapy. It was automatic. It was full. And yet, in spite of all that, people weren't following. There are lots of crowds though. There are still lots of crowds. We saw that in Luke 12. Remember, verse number one, people were, there were so many people, they were stepping on one another.

When you come to Luke 14, it's going to say there's a great multitude still following him. Why? He's the greatest show on earth. There's no greater show than Jesus. I mean, after all, all the things he does, people are overwhelmed by his ability to captivate a crowd, to capture their attention, and then to heal all who come. It's amazing. So the multitudes follow. But we told you before, that multitude consists of those who are curious about the Lord and what he's doing. Others who are casual observers about the Lord and how he's operating.

There are some who are committed to following Christ, like the disciples were. And then there were a multitude of counterfeits. Those are the four characteristics that make up the multitudes of people who followed him. And Jesus is going to weave through all that to get people to come to grips with the truth, with the reality of heaven and the reality of hell. They need to understand the truth. And Jesus came, and the religious elite rejected him. Now, remember, if I'm Jewish, I understand that when Messiah comes, everything changes.

When Messiah comes, everybody follows. When Messiah comes, peace reigns. When Messiah comes, Rome was conquered. When Messiah comes, he rules. When Messiah comes, he sets up his kingdom. When Messiah comes, everybody's healed. When Messiah comes, everything that is mine through Abrahamic promise, through Davidic promise, is now realized. And Jesus claims to be the Messiah, and none of that is happening. And so the religious establishment rejected him. The people buy into the party line, well, he does what he does by the power of Beelzebul.

He does what he does by the power of Satan. He must be from below, not from above. And that's how they have characterized his ministry. So the question that arises by this individual that we know nothing about becomes a question that must be on the hearts and minds of many of the followers. Are there just a few being saved? You see, this is why Jews today say Jesus wasn't the Messiah. They say if Jesus was the Messiah, Judaism would have followed. But he wasn't. Nobody followed. So he must not have been the Messiah.

But see, the Jews had missed it. Because you see, as a nation, there is always only a remnant who truly follows. Even so, in Zechariah 13, it says that two-thirds will perish, and one-third will go into the kingdom.

Even their own prophets prophesied the fact that not all the Jewish nation was going to get on the Jesus bandwagon, or excuse me, the Messiah's bandwagon, and follow him. Two-thirds would perish. Only a third would go into the kingdom.

Even their own prophets said that. But they missed that point. They missed it completely. And so they would attribute what he did to Satan. The question recognized, are only a few being saved? You can go through the prophets of old, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Zechariah, Micah, and get the characteristics of the kingdom, of all the things that would happen when Messiah arrives. And see, they didn't see that. And because they didn't see that, he wasn't their Messiah. They missed him. So the question naturally comes, are just a few being saved?

We don't ask that question today. You know why we don't ask that question? Because we have among us an angel of light that disguises himself, and has deluded and convinced the church that many are being saved. So we don't ask that question today. A recent statistic says that over 82% of Americans believe they're Christians. 82%? Really? Are 82% of America's population going to heaven when they die? Well Satan would want you to think that. And so because he is a master deceiver, he has convinced the church that all around the world hundreds, thousands of people are being saved.

When in reality, many who find the narrow way, if they can finally find it, the reason they have a hard time finding the narrow way is because what's being preached is the broad way.

The broad way, by the way, says heaven, doesn't say hell. Doesn't say narrow way, heaven. Broad way, hell. Doesn't say that because nobody would be on the broad road, right? The broad road says heaven. This is the easy way. This is the easy believism way. You can go to heaven this way. An angel, and the angel of light wants you to, Satan has disguised himself so that you believe that the broad way is the right way, when in reality it's not, it's the narrow way. Few there be that find it. Of the few that find it, many of the few won't get in.

They won't get in, Jesus says. Why? Because they won't be able to get in. Who's going to keep them out? Who's going to keep them out? If they find it and they don't get in, who's keeping them out? That's where the invitation comes in. That's where the invitation comes in. First you have the question, then you have the invitation.

Jesus responds by not answering the question that everybody wants the answer to, because they want to know the number, statistics. We're big on numbers, right? Give us the statistics. How many were saved on your mission trip? If you had 50 saved, it was successful. If you had none saved, why did we spend all the money? Right? It's numbers, it's statistics. Do you think Jesus knows how many truly are saved? Yes, he does. You think he knows the statistics? He does. He does. He knows, but he doesn't say that.

He says, it's not how many are being saved. It's, are you saved? That's the way he says. Someone said to him, Lord, are there just a few who are being saved? He said to them, strive, enter by the narrow door. For many, I tell you, will seek to enter and will not be able. It's not about how many. It's about whether or not you have entered the kingdom. Forget about everybody else. What about you? Are you part of the kingdom? Have you entered the kingdom of God? That's the invitation. Notice he didn't say, you know, I'm not sure, but if you want to be in, you can pray this prayer with me.

He had every, he had the perfect opportunity to say that. Didn't he? Let's, let's kneel down right here and pray a prayer. As if somehow that's going to get you to heaven. He didn't say that. He doesn't say, listen, take the gift. Here it is. It's the gift of eternal life. You want it? It's free. Take it. It's yours. That's what a lot of us would say. He says, do you want to go to heaven? Do you want to get saved? Is that what you want? Don't even say that. He answers it in a very strange kind of way.

Very strange way. You think, don't you think that Jesus wants people to go to heaven? Yeah. Don't you think he'd make it as easy as possible for as many people to get there? See, this is, this is a perplexing thing, isn't it? So here's, here's principle number one.

In order to get into heaven, there must be a biblical repentance from iniquity. A biblical repentance from iniquity. This is how Jesus says it.

He says, Jesus says, strive to enter. You better get at it. Because if you don't get at it, you might not make it. Doesn't that sound like works? So wait a minute. Strive, strive to get in? I thought salvation was free. I thought it was by grace through faith. Let me say something to you that might be a little shocking to you.

Jesus never saves anybody apart from human will. Jesus never saves anybody apart from human will. Everything in salvation is a gift. Repentance is a gift. Faith is a gift. Belief is a gift. Everything about conversion is a gift from God. So whatever God asks of you, if called, will be accomplished. Making it not a work of man, but a work of God. You see, if I am granting you the gift of repentance, whatever I ask you to do that entails repentance, and you've been called by God, you'll do. If you haven't been called by God, you won't do.

You'll kick, you'll scream, you'll rebel, you won't do it. But the only ones who enter are the ones who have been enabled by the Spirit of God to accomplish what He demands. And so Jesus says, strive, strive.

Strive. It's the word agonizami. It's a word that means to compete. It's a word that deals with hand-to-hand combat. You can read about it in 1 Corinthians chapter 9, verse number 24, which says, I'm sorry, verse number 25, and everyone who competes in the games exercises self-control in all things. The word compete is the word agonizami, which means to, to exert energy. Same thing used in 1 Timothy 6, 12, which says, fight the good fight. Same thing used in 1 Timothy, 2 Timothy 4, verse number 7, where Paul says, I have fought the good fight.

In other words, whatever is involved in entering the kingdom of God, you can be assured it involves agony. It involves pain. It involves striving. It involves spiritual exertion. You say, wait a minute, that just sounds like you got to muster up yourself and pull up everything for your bootstraps in order to get into heaven. No, no. You see, you must understand that the struggle is fourfold. Your struggle is with, I'm sorry, it's fivefold. It's with sin. It's with self. It's with Satan. It's with society.

And it's with the Savior. It's a fivefold struggle. It's a fivefold striving. Put it this way. Jesus said these words, you know, these words very well. We spent eight weeks here. He said, if anyone wishes to come after me, let him deny himself, take up his cross daily, and follow me. That's what Jesus said. You want to follow me? You have to be willing to die physically. You have to be willing to give your life away. Why? Because if you're going to be saved in my kingdom, your life doesn't matter anymore.

See, that isn't preached today. You can't go to a crusade and tell everybody, if you want to be saved, your life doesn't matter anymore. Nobody's going to come down because they want their life to count. They want their life to matter. And you tell them, you got to deny yourself. It's not about self-fulfillment. It's about self-denial. And that doesn't preach today. People say, well, what about me? I got to be fulfilled. I got to have my needs met. I'm not going to come to Jesus if he's not going to take care of my issues at home.

I'm not going to come to Jesus if he's not going to help me with this issue or this problem. Why waste my time coming to Jesus if he's not going to help me with this? You see, that's our problem. We think about here and now.

Salvation is about eternity. Salvation is about heaven and hell. Salvation is about the reality of eternity. What you live in here is just nothing compared to eternity. It's about forever. Salvation is about forever. And so your battle comes because you so desperately want to get saved. You're willing to deny everything you have. You no longer want to associate with yourself because that's what it means to deny yourself. You are tired of you. You no longer want to associate with yourself anymore because the way you're going is only going to end up in hell.

But you follow God, you end up in heaven. So you're fighting sin. You're fighting yourself. You're fighting Satan because he doesn't want you out of his kingdom into God's kingdom. So when you find the narrow gate and you finally get there and you understand that this is the way into heaven, you have sin, self, Satan, everybody in society saying no.

Everybody in your family saying, you know what, if you do that, you could lose a relationship here. And Jesus says, I came to bring a sword.

I came to divide father from son, daughter from mother. I came to do that. And you've got to strive in there. There's a spiritual exertion that says, do I want to forsake family? If any man came up to me and deny himself, if any man came up to me and hate not even his own life, he says that Luke 14 again to a whole bunch of people who are following him, he turns around and says, you know what? I'm glad you're here, but let me let you know that if you want to follow me, you got to hate your family and you got to hate your own life.

And if you're not willing to do that, then you can't be a part of my kingdom. See, people don't want to hear that message anymore. They don't like that message. It goes against everything they think is true. That's why it's called a biblical repentance, a biblical turning from sin, from self, from Satan, all that's there. Because I realized that the verity of the kingdom, the truth of the kingdom is that I must deny myself, take up my cross and follow him. And the verity of the kingdom is not a problem when I understand the value of the kingdom.

It's like a treasure lost. It's like a pearl found. It is of incomparable value. And I'm willing to deny everything I am, everything I have to even sell my possessions. If God asked me to, because I will do whatever he asked me, because I want to be a child of the king. I want to be a part of his kingdom and whatever he says I will do. That's what salvation is. It's a renunciation of me. It's a total giving of myself to him to do whatever he wants. It's an abandonment of self in a commitment totally to Christ.

You give up your dreams, your desires, your goals to fulfill God's dreams, God's desires, God's goals. So someone says in Luke chapter nine, one person says, as they were going along, I will follow you wherever you go. Really? Yep. You're going to the palace. You're going to receive a crown. I want to be there. Jesus says, I'm going to a cross.

I'm not going to receive a crown. I'm going to die. In fact, I don't have any place to lay my head. You still want to follow? Complete silence. Somebody says, he says, how about you? You want to follow me? Oh, well, let me first go bury my father.

Let me first go bury my father. Let me collect my inheritance. If there's no place to lay your head, if I can collect the inheritance, you'll have a place to lay your head because I'll put you up in a room, a nice room. Says no, no. Let the dead bury the dead. You follow me. See, Jesus wants you to understand the severity of the kingdom. Strive to enter because narrow is the door. And many that get there won't be able to enter because of sin, because of self, because of Satan, maybe because of society and all of its influence, and maybe because of the Savior himself, because Jesus goes on to say in Luke chapter nine, these words, he says very clearly, he says, for whoever wishes to save his life shall lose it.

But whoever loses his life for my sake, he is the one who will save it. If you lose your life today, you'll save it. But if you want to save your life today, you're going to lose it. You got to give it all away. That's a biblical repentance. That's what John the Baptist said in Luke chapter three. What did he say? Very simply this, Luke chapter three, the voice of one crying in the wilderness, make ready the way of the Lord. The wilderness is the wilderness of your heart. The way, the path is the path of repentance.

He says, every ravine shall be filled up. Every mountain and hill shall be brought low and the crooked shall become straight and the rough road smooth and all flesh shall see the salvation of God. The ravine, that's the dark places, the hidden places, the sins you want nobody to see. The repentance exposes those things. The high places, the mountains, the hills, that's the pride, the self that raises itself up above everything else. That's got to be torn down and broken. The rough places, that's all those distractions along the way.

The lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, the pride of life. He says all that stuff's got to be torn up. That's a biblical repentance, a striving to enter the kingdom of God. Years ago, A.W. Pink in 1937 wrote these words. The words that he wrote in the message he preached ended up making him one that nobody ever wanted to hear preach again. So much so that he found himself in complete obscurity for the last 12 years of his life because no one wanted to hear the message that he preached. Here it is.

The terms of Christ's salvation are erroneously stated by the present-day evangelist. With very rare exceptions, he tells his hearers that salvation is by grace and is received as a free gift. That Christ has done everything for the sinner and nothing remains except for him to believe, to trust in the infinite merits of his blood. So widely does this conception now prevail in Orthodox circles. So frequently has it been dinned in their ears. So deeply has it taken root in their minds that for one now to challenge it and denounce it as being so inadequate and one sided as to be deceptive and erroneous, it's for him to instantly court the stigma of being a heretic and to be charged with dishonoring the finished work of Christ by inculcating salvation by works.

Salvation is by grace, by grace alone. Nevertheless, divine grace is not exercised at the expense of holiness. For it never compromises with sin. It is also true that salvation is a free gift, but an empty hand must receive it and not a hand which still tightly grasps the world. A heart that is steeled in rebellion cannot savingly believe it must first be broken.

Those preachers who tell sinners they may be saved without forsaking their idols, without repenting, without surrendering to the Lordship of Christ, are as erroneous and dangerous as others who insist that salvation is by works and that heaven must be earned by our own efforts. He goes on to say the divine grace is not bestowed with the object of freeing men from their obligations, but rather with that of supplying them with a powerful motive for more readily and gratefully discharging those obligations.

To make God's favor a ground of exemption from the performance of duty comes perilously near to turning his grace into lasciviousness. Nobody wanted to hear that message anymore. They never asked him to speak again. They thought he was a heretic. Really? What do you think? What did Jesus say? There's more to understand and we'll talk about that next week. Father, we thank you for your word, the truth that's there, and the opportunity we have to study your word. Help us, Lord, to come to grips with the reality of saving grace and the importance of biblical repentance and what it means to strive to enter by the narrow door.

Many will find it, but many will not be able to enter. A few will find it, many won't be able to enter. How sad. Something's standing in their way that keeps them from denouncing their lives and believing in all that you say you are and all that you say you'll do. Maybe there's somebody here tonight, Lord, who doesn't know true salvation. Oh, they think they're saved. They think that they have believed in Jesus, but there has been no transformation of character. There's been no brokenness of heart over sin.

There's been no righteous living on their behalf, and they have convinced themselves through some delusion that they, because they say the prayer, because they walked an aisle, because they signed a card, they're going to heaven. Lord God, please work in our hearts that we might understand true biblical salvation. We pray in Jesus' name, Amen.