"Lord," someone asked Him, "will only a few people be saved?" Jesus answered, Sermons
1. A vain and unrewarded curiosity. It was so in this instance; the applicant was moved by nothing more than a mere passing whim and he received no gratification from Christ (see Luke 23:8, 9; John 21:21, 22)] It will be found that, on the one hand, Jesus always answered the questions of those who were in earnest, however humble might be the applicant; and, on the other hand, that he never answered the questions of the irreverent, however distinguished the inquirer might be. And it is found now by us that if we go to his Word or to his sanctuary to inquire his will, we shall not go away unblessed; but that if we go to either for mere gratification, we shall be unrewarded. 2. The retreat of irreligion and unworthiness (see John 4:18-20). It is convenient to pass from personal and practical considerations to those of theological controversy. 3. The act of mistaken religiousness (see John 14:8). We act thus when we want to see the Divine side of God's dealings with us, or are anxious to know "the times and seasons which the Father hath put in his own power." Our Lord's reply suggests - I. THE SUPREME IMPORTANCE OF PERSONAL RELIGION. "Are there few that be saved?... Strive to enter in," etc.; i.e. the question for you to be concerned to answer is, whether you yourself are in the kingdom of God; that is preliminary to all others; that is the thing of primary importance; that is worth your caring for, your seeking after, your diligent searching, your strenuous pursuit. Surely the most inconsistent, self-condemning, contradictory thing of all is for men to be thinking, planning, discussing, expending, in order to put other people into the right way when they themselves are taking the downward road. Shall we not say to such, "Go and learn what this meaneth, 'Let every man prove his own work, then shall he have rejoicing in himself alone, and not in another; for every man shall bear his own burden' of responsibility to God"? The first duty a man owes to God and to his neighbour is the duty he owes to himself - to become right with the living God by faith in Jesus Christ his Saviour. II. The fact that ENTRANCE INTO THE KINGDOM OF GOD DEMANDS GREAT STRENUOUSNESS OF SOUL. 1. It is the great crisis of a man's career, and may well be attended with much spiritual disturbance. When a human soul first hears and heeds his Father's call and rises to return to his true spiritual home, he may well be affected with profound spiritual solicitude, and may well count that the goal he is seeking is worth all the labour and all the patience he expends to reach it. 2. There are occasions when special strenuousness of soul is demanded. Such are these: (1) When a man by long neglect has lost nearly all his sensibility. (2) When the earnest seeker cannot find the consciousness of acceptance which he yearns to attain. (3) When a man finds himself opposed by adverse forces; when "a man's foes are they of his own household;" when he has to act as if he positively" hated" father and mother, in order to be loyal to his Lord; when downright earnestness and unflinching fidelity bring him into serious conflict with the prejudices and the practices of the home, or the mart, or the social circle; and when to follow the lead of his convictions means to suffer, to lose, to endure much at the hands of man. Then comes the message of the Master - Strive, wrestle, agonize to enter in; put forth the effort, however arduous; make the sacrifice, however great; go through the struggle, however severe it may prove to be. Strive to enter in; it will not be long before you will have your reward in a pure and priceless peace, in a profound and abiding joy, in a heritage which no man and no time can take from you. - C.
Lord, are there few that be saved? The man that asked this question has long been dead, but the character lives, and it is not among the rarest exhibitions that we see. We carry to the Bible, if not the very same question he put to the Saviour, yet questions as unpractical and irrelevant, or if not in every sense irrelevant, yet premature and of minor importance; and so it is when you have the opportunity of conversing with clergymen and others, for whose theological knowledge and science in the Scriptures you have some respect. Your questions are such as these, "What is likely to be the future condition of such as die in infancy?" Cannot you trust them in the hands of God? Are you afraid that He will do them injustice? "What is the probability of the salvation of the heathen?" And why do you wish to estimate that! Is not this one thing clear, that their condition for the present life, and their prospects for the life to come, would both he far better, provided they had the gospel? And is it not manifestly your duty to do all that is in your power to send them the gospel? What, then, do you want more? Why expend all your charity in wondering, and wishing, and hoping, and pitying? Let it rather flow forth in its appropriate channel, in action. Do something. Promote foreign missions. That is the way to care for the heathens. Another is curious to know if we shall recognize each other in heaven. That is taking it for granted that we shall get there. Let us make sure of heaven, before we agitate the question of recognition. And then let us be satisfied with this, if our heavenly Father sees that it will be conducive to the happiness of the children whom He has adopted from earth that they should recognize each other and recollect the relations and renew the intimacies of life, it will be so, and if not, it will be otherwise. There are those who investigate the Scriptures primarily for some historical purpose, or to resolve some prophetical question. Others consult these oracles but as critics; and still others, only as cavillers, anxious to see how much they can discover to find fault with. They wonder what this passage means, or how it is possible to reconcile this part of the Bible with that, or what could have induced our Saviour to express Himself as He is reported to have done on certain occasions which they will specify; and the conclusion to which they come, perhaps, after all, is that this is a very strange and unintelligible volume; they can make nothing out of it. Ah! and is it so that they can make nothing out of it? Can they not make out of it what their duty is? Do they not but too plainly perceive that it is something, which they have no disposition to do, and is not this the secret of their fault-finding?(W. Nevins, D. D.) Thus, a Government sends forth a colonist; hut gives him just information enough to enable him to perform his particular work. A general charges an inferior officer with a special duty; but here, too, there is silence as to whatever does not belong to this duty. To enlarge the official directions given in either case, so as to include all the knowledge the superior may possess, would perplex the agent and withdraw his attention from that which concerned his work to that which did not concern it. And if we are to expect such silence in a parent's dealings with a child, and in a Government's dealing with a subaltern, how much more reason have we to expect it in the dealings of God with man! God knows all things, and endures from eternity to eternity! Man comes into the world knowing nothing, lives at the best a life which endures for a few years, and in this short life is charged with the momentous work of preparing for the eternity to come. Silence, then, on all irrelevant questions is what we would expect in the revelation of an all-wise God, and of the irrelevancy He is the sole Judge.I.II. I. The question is put in very general, and seemingly inoffensive, terms; yet probably a great deal of Jewish pride and uncharitableness couched under it. This busy man's inquiry proceeded from an ill-natured hope of being confirmed in the national persuasion, that God was not the God of the Gentiles; but had reserved future happiness for the Israelites alone. But supposing there was no ground for imputation either of ill-will or vanity; still all such questions — for this is a leading one to many others — are useless and irreverent. Since, then, God is just, He will make none miserable farther than they deserve; since He is good, He will both pardon and reward in such degree as is fit; and since He is wise, what appears disorder and confusion to our short sight will appear in the end perfect regularity and proportion. But why was our nature formed so liable to fall short of it, in the sad degree that we often do? II. Part of the text, to which I now proceed, REFUSE TO GRATIFY THE QUERIST'S CURIOSITY, AND RETURN AN ANSWER ENTIRELY PRACTICAL that it was not the business of mankind to pry into what God had hid, but mind what He had revealed, and to master another kind of difficulty, that of fulfilling His commands; that multitudes indeed, who professed religion, would finally appear to have professed it in vain; but this was a matter not to raise idle speculations upon. One fatal mistake of believers in religion hath always been an absurd notion that their steady faith in it, their zeal to support and spread that faith, their punctilious observance of certain forms, their constant practice of some precepts, and their periodical pretences of sorrow for having wilfully lived in the neglect of the rest; that one or other of these things would be accepted, instead of true piety and virtue. Immediately after the text He declares, that neither acknowledgment of His authority, nor attendance on His teaching, nor anything else, shall avail the workers of iniquity. They who have not been thus forewarned go on indeed with great ease; but it is not in religion that they go on. Doubtless common decency and outward regularity are very valuable things — would God more attention were paid to them! But still with these there may be little true sense of duty to God, or even man; little care that the heart and affections be such as they ought; nay, much indulgence of very criminal actions, either concealed from the world or approved by it. In short, almost everything may be right in the opinion of those around us, perhaps in our own: and almost everything wrong in the eyes of our Maker. That most men act wickedly is no more an objection against religion, than that most men act unwisely is against common prudence. That so many fail by taking a wrong course is only a warning to make sure of taking the right. And if in that several duties are painful, it is not Christianity that hath made them so. All its peculiar precepts are easy in themselves, and assistances to the practice of the rest. (T. Secker.) 1. Probably prompted in this instance merely by curiosity. This Jew, educated from childhood under a creed in which the most rigid aspects of the doctrine of election were taught, came to Christ in the hope that he might get some authoritative statement of the mystery of predestination from this One whom he regarded as a prophet of God. Christ replies, "Strive," &c. Whether there be few or many saved is no business of yours; what you have to do is to make your own calling and election sure; that cannot be accomplished by indulging in idle speculations about other people, but by struggling yourself with your whole energy, to enter into and be within the narrow door that leads to salvation. Not easy work, but difficult; not a question about your opinions, but a question of action. Agonize as wrestler, and be content with nothing but admittance. 2. Another sense in which we may put the question. Are there few or many who show in their lives that they are being delivered, because of their faith and love towards Christ, from their sins, and that the gospel they profess is producing in them the Christian spirit — the spirit of love, purity, truth, gentleness, considerateness, kindness, righteousness? This seems to have been the very light in which Jesus Christ Himself viewed the matter of salvation, for He goes on, after this man puts his question, to cast discredit upon the religion of opinions and observances, and to insist upon doing the will of God as being the only security. It is when we put the question in this sense, that we may discover ground for some serious reflections. Are there many whose lives are savingly affected by the religion they profess? Is the Christian spirit being realized in Christian society? Are there few or many of whom you can confidently assert that there is a deliverance from sin actually going on, and of goodness being attained, which is the fruit of their faith and love towards Christ? For my own part, the sad conviction is frequently borne in upon me that, when thus tested, the question admits almost of only one reply. How seldom is it that when we go to Church we expect to be made spiritually better, to be saved from our everyday sins, and to get such convictions and strength as may make us liker and liker the Master in life and character? (N. Macleod.) 9513 hell, as incentive to action True Sabbath Observance The Strait Gate Christ's Message to Herod On the Words of the Gospel, Luke xiii. 21 and 23, Where the Kingdom of God is Said to be "Like unto Leaven, which a Woman On the Words of the Gospel, Luke xiii. 6, Where we are Told of the Fig-Tree, which Bare no Fruit for Three Years; and of The Upon Our Lord's SermonOn the Mount The Mustard Seed: a Sermon for the Sabbath-School Teacher Accidents, not Punishments Liii. Repentance Enjoined. Parable of the Barren Fig-Tree. Sabbath Healing. Mustard Seed and Leaven. The Strait Gate. Warned against Herod. At the Feast of the Dedication of the Temple. Christ's Discourses in Peræa - Close of the Peræan Ministry The Historical Situation The Early Ministry in Judea The Barren Fig-Tree. Completeness and Universality of his Character. The Christian Convert Warned Of, and Animated against those Discouragements which He must Expect to Meet when Entering on a Religious Course. The Sluggard. St. Athanasius, Wesley's Remarkable vitality The Hopeless Condition of the Left-Behind Ones. First Attempts on Jerusalem. |
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