We come today to the last message
in this series of studies, the particular focus of which has
been the teaching of our Lord Jesus Christ on the subject of
hell or the future of impenitent sinners. We have considered in
some detail the various aspects of our Lord's teaching as to
the nature of hell. not because there is not sufficient
material in the rest of the Scripture to give us a very adequate doctrine
of hell, but for the special reason that the conclusion we've
been pressed to is one that I have hoped we would be pressed to.
Namely, if we were to maintain any semblance of faith in the
Christ of Holy Scripture, we must have that Christ with His
hell, or we must create another Christ without his help. And
if you create another Christ, he is not the Christ who has
come to save his people from their sins. So there is no consistency,
then, between a confessed faith in Christ as Savior and a repudiation
of Christ's teaching on the doctrine of heaven. And we've looked at
those five aspects of the doctrine as our Lord brings them before
us again and again, particularly in the Gospel of Matthew. For
the past couple of weeks we've been considering, again primarily
from the teaching of our Lord, what influence this doctrine
that he gives to us in such vivid language should have upon us
as the confessed disciples of Christ. And we have found no
fewer than seven distinct motivational factors of this doctrine. I will
merely give them to you and then move on to the area of our study
this morning. Our Lord has taught us that this
doctrine should produce determination, even unto desperation, in the
duty of mortification. Whenever our Lord enjoins upon
His followers the necessity of lopping off sin at any cost,
He does so under the threat that failure to do so will mean hell. Far better, He says, to enter
into life maimed than having two hands or two eyes to be cast
into hell. Secondly, our Lord teaches that
this doctrine should produce unflinching stability in the
face of persecution. Don't fear those that kill the
body and after this have no more that they can do, but fear Him
who can destroy both soul and body in hell. Thirdly, this doctrine
should be that which produces constancy in cultivating the
spirit of forgiveness. In Matthew 18, our Lord says,
if we do not forgive from the heart, we have no grounds to
believe that we are forgiven, men and women. And so when you
say, I can't forgive, God says, all right, then you must burn.
In the fourth place, this doctrine our Lord taught is to be a spur
to watchfulness and faithfulness in our stewardship of gifts and
of opportunities. The unfaithful servants of those
parables of the talents and of the pounds are not rendered a
lesser place in heaven. They are sent to join the hypocrites
where there is wailing and gnashing of teeth. In the fifth place,
this doctrine should be a goal that we might avoid hypocrisy
and unreality in religious experience. Our Lord says that those who
may say eloquently, Lord, Lord, but who do not do the will of
God from the heart will hear the words, Depart from me, I
never knew you. In the sixth place, this doctrine
should be to confess disciples an incentive to earnest and fervent
witness and pleading with the lost. There is no explanation
for the compassion and the incessant labors of our Lord unless we
include, among other things, this as a vital motivation in
his own life. For he came out of that world
where hell is a reality, and he came into this world, and
its shadow and its influence was constantly felt. And so our
Lord entreated men, he pleaded, to use the words of Paul, knowing
the terror of the Lord, he persuaded men. And then in the last place,
this doctrine should be the occasion of holy dread and of godly fear. Words that must be an integral
part of true biblical worship. There must not only be filial
confidence, whereby we cry, Abba, Father. There must not only be
holy joy, but there must be holy dread and godly fear, if our
worship is to be biblical. And that's why Moses cried out
in the 90th Psalm, Who knoweth the power of thine anger, according
to the fear that is due unto thee? May God grant that this
doctrine, continually brought before our minds by frequent
meditation, may continually produce in us this sevenfold reaction
and motivation as confessed disciples of Christ. Now this morning I
want to conclude the series by considering with you from the
Word of God the effect which this teaching of our Lord should
have upon the unconverted In general and in particular, the
unconverted in this assembly, for those are the only ones I'm
preaching to, except those who will hear the sermons as they
go out on the Tate. Now, first of all, let me define
what I mean by the unconverted. Lest you sleep through the sermon
and say, well, the pastor isn't talking to me, I may well be
talking to you this morning. When I say What should this doctrine
have in the way of effect upon the unconverted? Who do I have
in mind when I use the term unconverted? I mean all of you, young and
old, you children, some of you five, four, six years of age,
some of you teenagers, up to the young adults and adults who
are strangers to true biblical repentance and to true saving
faith. You may have a lot of knowledge
or not too much knowledge, but one thing is true of all of you
who are unconverted. You are utter strangers to that
which our Lord speaks of in Matthew 5 when he says, Blessed are the
poor in spirit, blessed are they who mourn. You know nothing of
that stripping work of God whereby you've seen yourself in some
measure as God sees you. You've known no true inward pangs
of grief, not for the consequences of your sin, but for the heinous
nature of your sin as being offensive to a holy God. You are strangers
to vital living faith in Christ, of appropriating and laying hold
of Him as your prophet to teach you, your priest to forgive and
intercede for you, of your King to rule over you. Of this you
know nothing. Oh, you've got some vague notions
of Christ floating around up there, and there may be some
vague assent to some of those vague notions of Christ. but
of a spirit-wrought sight of Christ as your prophet, priest,
and king, and of a spirit-wrought faith that causes you to repose
upon Him, to rest in Him. Of this you know nothing. In
short, when I use the term the unconverted, I am speaking of
those of you who are strangers to 2 Corinthians 5.17 as your
religious experience. perhaps the most succinct statement
of a truly converted man. If any man be in Christ, saving
religion has as its essence nothing short of union with Jesus Christ. The effect of that, He is a new
creation. The fruit of it, a changed life. Old things are passed away. Behold,
all things are become new. And so in speaking to the unconverted,
I'm talking to you children, you young people, you adults,
some of you who may be members, friends and visitors, who know
nothing of union with Christ by faith. You know nothing of
having been made a new creation, and there is precious little
evidence of the effect or fruit of God's work, namely that radical
transformation of life from the inside out. And in that present
condition, whether you be children or adults, continuing in that
state and dying in it, You will find that every verse I have
quoted from the lips of our Lord and every passage I have sought
to expound on the nature of hell were but feeble and at best faint
portrayals of the terrible horror and reality of hell. You know,
it's a frightening thing to realize that some of you are going to
be far better expositors of the doctrine of hell than I could
ever be. The difference is you'll never have the privilege of facing
men and women and entreating them to flee the wrath to come.
You'll be writing an eternal commentary on the horrors of
the damned. That's a frightening thought,
isn't it? Now it's to you that I'm addressing myself this morning.
asking and then seeking to answer from Scripture, what effect should
these nine weeks of teaching on the doctrine of hell have
upon you? I'm not saying they will have
this effect, but by every single law of reason and every single
principle of Scripture, they ought to have this effect upon
you. May I suggest three things? First
of all, This doctrine ought to arrest you in your present spiritual
course. Secondly, it ought to move you
into the way of true conversion. And thirdly, it ought to keep
you in that way at any cost. First of all, then, the doctrine
of hell as found in the teaching of our Lord to you who are unconverted
should have this effect. It ought to arrest you, stop
you, bring you up short in your present spiritual course. Get
the picture? Every hour, every day, every
week, every month, every year has brought you closer and closer
to the hour when the wrath of God that hangs over your head
like a canopy will come crashing down upon that head and press
you to the deepest hell. And the whole end of this nine
weeks of ministry on this subject has been to try, by God's grace
through the preaching of the Word, to see you arrested in
that course in which you are moving closer and closer to your
own damnation. And this doctrine ought to arrest
you in your present course for two very simple and basic reasons. Number one, as you behold the
reality of this impending doom, and as you consider the mercy
and goodness of God in warning you about your doom. Let me illustrate. Try to picture with me a seacoast
town back in the days when there were kings and lords. And this
particular town It was like many towns of that day. The waves
beat upon the shore day in and day out until the people who
live in that town become deaf to their roar and to their sound.
Everyone is going about business as usual. Mothers are kneading
their bread. Fathers are out in the fields.
Children, if old enough, are out in the fields with them or
there under the protection of the home with their mothers.
Everything in life going on as usual, but at that very moment,
gathering increasing momentum out at sea as a tremendous tidal
wave, moving toward that very town with sufficient power to
utterly annihilate every individual in that town, and after it has
crashed upon it, once it drains back into the ocean to literally
carry out that entire city or town back into its watery grave. Into the midst of that situation,
comes a warning, a messenger who has somehow been made aware
of the impending doom. And he goes through that town,
get the picture now, mothers kneading bread, children playing
about in the yards, fathers walking behind the horse and the plow
out in the field, and suddenly the cry goes out, a tidal wave
is on its way. In less than half an hour it
will break upon these shores. What should the effect of that
word of the certainty of impending doom have upon every single intelligent
member of that village. It should cause the mother, with
her fingers stuck up to the wrist in her dough, to suddenly stop
her kneading of bread. For what is the kneading of bread
in the light of that impending doom? It should cause the father
to drop his plow. It should cause the children
to stop their playing and stop their laughter, all of which
are perfectly innocent activities, the making of bread, the plowing
of a field, the gambling and the playing of children, all
of these perfectly legitimate activities. But if news comes,
credible news, News that has validity of impending doom, the
first effect of that news should be to arrest every single member
of that village in his tracks and stop him in his present activity. Some in the village may say,
oh, I don't believe in tidal waves. It doesn't negate the
reality of tidal waves or the devastation that the wave will
bring when it breaks upon that town. Others may say, well, I
believe in tidal waves, but I don't believe one's coming in half
an hour. And he may put off the time of destruction. It won't
change the fact of his own destruction. The veracity of God's actions
when he promises judgment are to be determined not by some
wishful hopes that maybe God won't do what he says. God's
future action is to be read in the light of his past actions.
A preacher stood in his generation and said, a flood is coming,
judgment will break upon this generation. A hundred and twenty
years passed and God was true to his word. Some time later,
there were two cities given over to terrible wickedness and sin,
so much that the very words that were the characteristic sins
of that day have come down to us and are used in present language. We speak of sodomites and sodomy. God promised that He would open
up the heavens and send down fire and brimstone, and the smoke
of those planes went up, Jude says, as a monument of God's
faithfulness. to keep his word of promised
judgment. And so I say to every child,
every young person, every adult in this place, these nine weeks
of considering our Lord's teaching on the doctrine of hell, if it
does nothing else, should at least bring you up short and
cause you to take your hands out of the door and drop the
palm and stop your playing. Because the one who said, The
hour is coming when he shall say to the goats, Depart from
me, ye cursed! The one who said, These shall
go away into everlasting punishment, is the one who said, Heaven and
earth may pass away, but my word shall never pass away. My friend,
you're not trifling with some fool, some nut, who's simply
coming into the town crying, Clang, clang, clang, clang! You've
heard the words of the Son of God, truth incarnate, who says,
the hour is coming in which all that are in the grave shall come
forth to the resurrection of life and to the resurrection
of damnation. And the first effect this should
have upon you is to arrest you in your tracks as you behold
the reality of this impending doom. And then secondly, as you
consider the mercy and goodness of God in warning you. Go back
to our illustration. Suppose upon inquiry we learn
some more facts about that seacoast town. Suppose we learn that it
was a rebel town that had broken itself off from allegiance to
the king. And that at the very time when
the news reached them of the coming tidal wave, it was the
king himself on his way with his army to give vent to his
righteous anger because of their rebellion. Suppose these people
learned that the very king who knew of the coming tidal wave,
who was on his way to destroy that village, and could have
justly given them no word, but simply turned around and gone
back to the place of safety and viewed the coming of the tidal
wave as a divine act of providence to carry out the judgment and
spare his sword the bloody task. Suppose the people of this village
learned that it was no one other than this king himself riding
on his way to judge them, that it sent messengers to warn them. What should that do to the people? Oh, I tell you, if the thought
of the danger of impending doom wouldn't cause the mama to get
her hands out of the door, and the daddy to drop his plow, and
the kiddies to throw away their marbles, Certainly the sight
and display of such goodness and mercy on the part of the
king should arrest them in their tracks. And so the scripture
tells us in Romans 2, 4, Don't you know that the goodness of
God leadeth thee to repentance? 2 Peter 3, 15, Account that the
longsuffering of God is salvation. Listen to me. You and I are part
of that rebel colony. called mankind, who defected
and revolted and bolted against the government of God in Adam.
God could come as the righteous King without any warning and
have the sword of execution made to drip with our blood, cut us
off in our sin. But what has He done? In mercy
He has stayed His judgment, and He sent His beloved Son. who
has warned us the tidal wave is coming. The tidal wave is
coming! The tidal wave is coming! Then
why does he warn us? Because he delights in mercy
and not in judgment. I would ask you this morning,
you who are unconverted, who are strangers to that repentance
of which I spoke earlier, of that active living faith that
lays hold of Christ initially and continues to lay hold of
Him, has this series of messages at least arrested you in your
present spiritual course? Have you been able to go off
to sleep at night just as easily in your sin? Have you been able
to come and listen to the word just as indifferently as before? Can it be that all these hours
of preaching and praying and pleading have simply fallen upon
such deafened ears that the mamas are still kneading bread and
the daddies still walking behind plows and the children still
playing marbles with the tidal wave nearer and nearer? Can it be? I trust not. The second thing that this teaching
of our Lord should do is not only arrest us in our present
spiritual course, for being arrested in the presence of a tidal wave
isn't being safe from its effect. It should move us into the way
of true conversion. To go back to our illustration,
it's not enough for the mother to get her hands out of her door
and for the daddy to drop his plow and the kids to put down
their marbles and stand there trembling at the thought of the
tidal wave. They'll perish as much as the mama who goes on
with her hands in the dough and the kids that go on with their
marbles and the daddy who continues to follow his plow. It's not
being arrested and trembling at the thought of coming judgment.
But it's getting out of the way of that tidal wave of the judgment
of God, and so the biblical doctrine of hell, as we've studied it,
should not only arrest you in your present spiritual course,
it should move you into the way of escape, the way of true conversion. If it's up to the hills, to the
hills we must go. If it's into some kind of underground
shelter, we must find such shelter. But if we believe that the judgment
is coming, we'll not only stop our present course, which is
a course of destruction, we'll move into the appointed way of
deliverance. Isn't that exactly what our Lord said in the seventh
chapter of Matthew? When in that well-known passage
he speaks of the narrow gate and the broad gate, The narrow
way, the broad way. Notice his line of argument.
Enter ye in by the narrow gate, for wide is the gate, and broad
is the way that leadeth to destruction, and many are they that enter
in thereat. For narrow is the gate, and straight
in the way that leadeth unto life, and few there be that find
it. Our Lord says it's not enough
to be convinced that there is a way that leads unto destruction,
the way of the multitude, the way of the many. And it's not
enough to know that there is a way that enters unto and upon,
or into and upon life. But He says, enter, get moving
in the one direction that is the way of escape. You find similar
language in the words of John the Baptist in Matthew 3 and
verse 7, where he says to the Pharisees, who hath warned you
to flee from the wrath to come. It's not enough to merely be
arrested under the conviction of coming wrath, but we must
flee from that wrath into the appointed way of deliverance. Putting these two passages together,
we may say, in the light of the coming destruction, get into
the narrow gate, in the light of the coming wrath, flee in
the appointed way of safety. And there is no way of safety
set forth in Scripture but that of a deep and thorough and sound
conversion, a thorough turning from sin unto God through Jesus
Christ the Redeemer. John Bunyan has captured this
beautifully in his Immortal Pilgrim's Progress, and I want you to notice
these different facets as I read from the Pilgrim's Progress.
Now I saw upon a time when he, that is, Christian, was walking
in the fields. He was, as he was accustomed
to do, reading in his book, and greatly distressed in his mind. And as he read, he burst out,
as he had done before, crying, What shall I do to be saved?
I saw also that he looked this way and that way as if he would
run, yet he stood still. He was arrested. He could no
longer go on the way he was before, but he didn't know which way
to go. He was arrested, but not delivered
yet. Notice that. I looking then and
saw a man named Evangelist coming to him who said, Wherefore dost
thou cry? He said, Sir, I perceive by the
book in my hand that I am condemned to die, and after that to come
to judgment, and I find I am not willing to do the first,
nor able to do the second. Then said Evangelist, Why not
willing to die, since life is attended with so many evils?
The man answered, Because I fear that this burden that is upon
my back will sink me lower than the grave, and I shall fall into
toffet, into hell. Then, sir, if I be not fit to
go to prison, I am not fit to go to judgment, and from thence
to execution. And the thoughts of these things
make me cry. Then said Evangelist, if this
be thy condition, why standest thou still? You're arrested.
You can no longer go on kneading your bread and following your
plow and playing with your marbles. The book in your hand has convinced
you. The tidal wave is about to break upon me. I'm arrested,
but I'm standing still. And he says, why do you stand
still? And his answer, because I know not whither to go. And
he gave him a parchment roll, and there was written within
Will ye from the wrath to come?" The man therefore read it, and
looking upon Evangelist, said carefully, "'Whither must I fly? O yes, I am arrested. I know
the tidal wave is coming. But where is safety? In the hills,
in the caves, in an underground tunnel. Where is the place of
safety?' Then said Evangelist, pointing with his finger over
a very wide field, "'Do you see yonder wicket gate?' The narrow
gate. True conversion?' The man said,
No. Then said the other, Do you see
yon shining light? I think I do. That light being
the word of God. Then said Evangelist, Keep that
light in your eye and go directly thereto. So shall thou see the
gate. He says, get in earnest of searching
the Scriptures, the way, that gate which enters into the way
that leads unto life is set forth in the Holy Scriptures. Keep
your eye upon that light and then you'll see the gate. And
he said, when you come to that gate, when you knock, it shall
be told thee what thou shalt do. So I saw in my dream that
the man began to run. Now he had not run far from his
door when his wife and children, perceiving it, began to cry after
him to return. But the man put his fingers in
his ears and ran on crying, Life! Life! Eternal Life! So he looked
not behind him, but fled toward the middle of the plain. You
see, Bunyan captured this concept. The doctrine of hell is the doctrine
which arrested this man in his course. And then along came evangelists
to tell him that the one way of escape was the way of true
conversion, the wicked gate, and that way is set forth in
the word of the living God. May I speak to you, dear children?
And I'd put in the class of children anyone ten years old and under.
I'll be arbitrary, but I want you to know who I'm talking to.
All of you under ten years of age, will you listen to your
pastor this morning? Are you concerned about that coming tidal
wave of judgment? There's not a young person in
this congregation this morning who's not old enough to drop
into hell this afternoon if you die outside of Christ. Maybe
one or two, I'm not God, but I see one or two who may be below
a reasonable age or an age that we may assume that they know
what it is to consciously say I don't want to do what I know
is right. This idea that there's an age of accountability somewhere
around age 12 is an unscriptural lie. There'll be four and five
year olds in hell. There may be infants in hell.
I don't know. I don't know what God will do with infants. I know
they're guilty in Adam. Now, if God will do anything
to rescue them by some other means than the preaching of the
gospel, I don't know. That's God's business. But I
do know that my Bible teaches that the impenitent shall perish! And there are four- and five-year-olds
here this morning who are impenitent. You love your lying, and you
love your rebelling against mom and dad, and you love to fight
with brother and sister, and you won't repent, and you won't
be sorry for your sins. Listen to me, you dear children,
listen. God can deal with you in anger the same way he'll deal
with seventy-year-old sinners. Don't you ever forget it? Don't
you ever forget it? You say, well, that's cruel to
tell any young people that. No, it's the only wise and fair
and loving thing a servant of Christ can do is to tell children
the truth. Oh, listen to me, you dear children,
for whom I prayed as I prepared these messages. Has the truth
of hell brought some element of fear and concern? Has it arrested
you? Then may I plead with you, get
into the way of true conversion. Begin to read the scriptures
if God's blessed you by bringing you into this land where in terms
of our educational structure you can read by the time you're
five or six. God wants you to use that precious
privilege above all other things to read the scriptures to know
what he says. about God and sin and heaven
and hell. And I plead with you, dear children,
dear children, I plead with you, press toward the gate, cry out
to God, O God, make me a true Christian. Show me what it means
to be truly converted. Lord Jesus, you who sat the children
upon your knee and blessed them, take me into your heart and into
your family and grant me the blessing of your own grace early
in life. May I speak to you, teenagers?
May I speak to you this morning, any eleven and twelve year olds
that will fit into that category? What has this series of messages
done for you? Have you become convinced that
this is not just some trick the preachers use to get you all
stirred up about Christ and Christianity? Are you convinced, as we've looked
at passage after passage, that the tidal wave is coming? Has
it arrested you? Oh, I plead with you, get into
the way of true conversion. And you adults, whose hearts
have perhaps been hardened by years of gospel, light, and exposure,
God hasn't cut you off in your sins. The door of mercy is still
open. the door of mercy is still open.
I plead with you, get into the way of true conversion. Begin
to cry to God before you come Sunday mornings. Lord, prepare
my heart to receive that word that it may take root. Reveal
your Son to me. Enable me to lay hold of Him
in true faith. And then the last thing that
this doctrine should do is what I'm calling it should keep you
in the way of conversion at any cost. Let's go back to my illustration. There the tidal wave is coming,
and Mama's got her hands out of the dough, and Papa's dropped
his plow, and the kids have dropped their marbles. And they know
that the appointed way of escape is to a certain group of hills
outside the town. Hills that are buttressed by
high, immovable rocky cliffs, and the wave will not reach to
them. They are convinced that the way of escape is to those
high rocks. And they set out into the way
of escape, but they haven't gone far when they behold six foot
high bales of barbed wire. What are they going to do? Listen,
my friend, it's better to get bloody to the top of the rock
than be a bloated body floating upon the ocean surface in three
days. Through the barbed wire, tearing
at their flesh, it matters not. A little bit further they meet
some boggy areas that are muddy and cause their clothes to get
dirty and may even run the risk of being swallowed up. Through
the boggy mires they go. If they're convinced that the
only way of deliverance is up to the rocky cliffs, they'll
encounter and overcome every danger that it's humanly possible
to overcome, because they're convinced that's the only place
of deliverance. May I suggest that this is precisely
what our Lord says we must do if we're dead in earnest about
the salvation of our souls? For I quote the parallel passage
to Matthew 7 as found in Luke 13. And there's a very interesting
difference in our Lord's exhortation in this passage. For here he
says in Luke 13 and verse 24, Strive to enter in by the narrow
door. And the word strive is the word
from which we get our English word agonize. It speaks of intense
and strenuous, self-denying physical exertion. And Jesus said, strive
to enter into the narrow gate. But, you say, pastor, you've
taught us from the scriptures that salvation is the gift of
God. That being accepted before God
on the basis of the righteousness of Christ has nothing to do with
what we are or we do. Precisely. Absolutely. And if you understand that, then
I've taught you well. But listen. That faith which
lays hold of Christ and brings us into the possession of a perfect
righteousness imputed to us without the works of the law is a faith
that comes to exercise in the path of true conversion, which
involves repentance. And repentance involves nothing
less than the disentanglement of every tentacle of sinful bondage
by which we are held to the world, and the flesh, and the devil,
and releasing us in principle to be the bondservants of Jesus
Christ. Romans chapter 6, you who were
the bondservants of sin have obeyed from the heart that form
of doctrine unto which you were delivered and being made free
from sin and become servants unto God. That's what happens
in true conversion. And that faith which lays hold
of Christ and his righteousness is never divorced. from their
sister activities of the quickened soul in repentance and in coming
under the gracious yoke of Christ. So that's why the same Christ
who is going to the cross to die to provide a salvation which
cannot be earned by man's effort says, agonize to enter the narrow
gate. And there is no contradiction
in the teaching of our Lord but a beautiful synthesis. And either
aspect that is relinquished will bring spiritual delusion. If we at all think that our agonizing
earns merit, dead works. And if we ever think that the
faith which is unto the imputation of the righteousness of Christ
is some kind of a notion that leaves a man a stranger to the
birth pangs of a true conversion, we are also filled with delusion.
If we're convinced that the tidal wave's coming and the only way
of escape is to the high hills, then we'll stay in that way at
any cost. Again, Bunyan captured this beautifully,
for right after we find Christian arrested and starting to the
wave, what happens? The neighbors also came out to
see him run. And as he ran, some mocked. You
thought that was a contemporary word, didn't you, kids? They're
going to mock me out? That's as old as Bunyan. He said, some
mocked, others threatened, and some cried after him. Come back! And among those, there were two
that resolved to fetch him back by force. Good southern word,
too. You see, Bunyan was very Catholic. He was very modern.
He talks about mocking. He talks about fetching. He's
got it all right here. So when people say they can't
read Pilgrim's Progress because the language is antiquated, they're
betraying that something very defective in their thinking.
The name of the one was obstinate and the other was pliable. And
then you know what happened. They said, Come on back with
us. But he said, that can by no means
be. You dwell in the city of destruction,
that place where I was born. You're in the place where the
tidal waves coming. I see it to be so, and dying
there sooner or later, you'll sink lower than the grave into
the place that burns with fire and brimstone. Be content, good
neighbors. Go along with me. And then obstinate
says, not me, not me. and he refuses to move, then
pliable starts into the way of conversion, but the first difficulty
he faced, the slough of despond, what did he do? He said, listen,
if this is what's involved in getting up to the hills of safety,
you can have it. I'll go on back to the city of
destruction. As it says in one of the contemporary
beer ads, you only go around once in life, and so you want
to get all the gusto you can that one time around. That was
pliable. You only go around once, Mr.
Christian, and you want to get all the gusto you can. I'm going
back for my gusto. I'm not going on through that
place. But you know what happened with
Christian? He pressed on through every difficulty. Why? He was
convinced that the turn back was to end up in the city of
destruction. And my friends, listen to me this morning. There
are difficulties attendant upon true conversion. And if you don't
believe it, you just set this morning in your heart and mind
and say, by the grace of God, I'll not rest until I know I'm
in Christ. I'm a new creature and all things
are passed away and all things become new. And you'll hear the
voice of your friends calling you to come back. You'll have
some pliables who'll go with you for a while, maybe some of
your closest friends in the friendship of this assembly, young or old,
and when they see that you're dead in earnest and you mean
business, they'll begin to try to drag you back to the ways
of neutrality with them. Then you begin to see the humbling
terms of the gospel. that one must be brought to the
place where he gladly confesses that his whole hope for all eternity
rests upon the perfect life of a lowly Galilean and upon the
bloodletting of that same person who died in weakness under the
influence of a little puppet court 2,000 years ago and to
make the confession all my hopes for eternity are pinned upon
that person and his work until every last thread in the garment
of self-righteousness is torn to pieces and consumed by that
sight of God's burning holiness before which no garb can stand
but the robe of the righteousness of Christ. Oh, how humbling to
the human heart. Nothing in my hands I bring. You didn't think you were proud?
You don't know the tremendous sea of pride within your bosom.
Do you begin to get in earnest about true conversion, which
involves making the confession from the heart, Jesus, thy blood
and righteousness, my beauty are, my glorious dress, midst
flaming worlds, in these arrayed with joy, shall I lift up my
head? Do you think conversion is an
easy thing? You get serious about starting to deal with some of
your right hand and right eyed sins. sins as dear to you and
precious as the right hand and the right eye. And you begin
to be honest in the presence of God and say, Oh God, I want
to be delivered not only from the accusations of conscience
by the indulgence of my sin, but from the love of that sin
and the pleasure of it to my passions and appetites. Oh God,
I want it slain. You think it's easy? You begin
to get honest with God like that. But my friend, it's that or the
tidal wave. And when you're convinced of
it, you'll stay in the way of true conversion until you know
that you're the Lord's. And then you'll keep on in that
way because you know the only way you can really know that
you're in the way is to stay in the way. You say, what kind
of double talk is that? No, that's just, that's a little
double talk to explain the doctrine of perseverance. Convinced I'm
in the way, I know that the conviction that I'm in the way is sustained
as I stay in the way. And as I'm unable to persevere,
I know I'm being preserved. And I'm being preserved because
God chose me in eternity, laid hold of me in time, and will
one day complete his work in the world to come. That's Pilgrim's
Progress in a nutshell. There it is. A manual on the
doctrine of conversion and perseverance. Has this teaching had that effect
upon you? Some of you say, oh, but Pastor,
don't you get weary? I'd love to be able to know.
I don't have any assurance. I believe the Lord has done a
work or is beginning a work. My friend, stay in the way at
any cost. Try to enter into the narrow
gate. To go back from pressing to the hill is to put yourself
back in the village where the tidal wave is coming. And to
be there is destruction. Our Lord has given us some beautiful
examples, and I just close with mentioning them. I won't even
turn to them in the interest of time. You have that Syrophoenician
woman in the 15th chapter of Matthew, and then you have blind
Bartimaeus in the 10th chapter of Mark. And what a beautiful
picture they are of this. Convinced that only Christ could
meet their need. When they faced opposition to
getting to the One who could meet their need, even when the
opposition seemed to come from Christ Himself, they kept right
on. You remember Bartimaeus? It came
from his disciples. That Syrophoenician woman, it
came from Christ. He insulted her. And I don't
agree with the commentators who try to get around our Lord's
words. He said, I didn't come for Gentile dogs. Dogs don't eat the crumbs that
belong to, don't eat the food that belongs at the table. She
says, yea Lord, but they sure come around for crumbs. He said,
oh woman, great is thy She pressed through every seeming opposition,
even from Christ itself. Some of you have been crying
to the Lord for mercy. You've been seeking to lay hold
of Christ as your Savior. You say it seems as though he's
deaf. He doesn't answer. Oh, friend, keep crying. Keep
applying to Christ. Keep holding on to Christ as
he's offered in the gospel. And the Lord will soon whisper
to your heart, daughter, Thy sins be forgiven. Thy faith hath
made thee whole. Son, thy sins be forgiven. You say, why do I have to keep
on calling? I'm not God, I don't know. But
you better. Because there's every kind of
promise for people who are seeking mercy from Christ and calling
upon Him. But there's no promise for those
who don't call and don't seek. Is there? Seek ye the Lord while
he may be found, call ye upon him while he is near. Let the
wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts,
and let him return unto the Lord, for he will have mercy upon him,
and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon." Who? The one seeking,
the one calling! Seek on, call on, and if the
Lord enables you, right now this morning, as you look to Christ
with the eyes of the soul, The Spirit of God can enable you
to lay hold upon Him in such a way that you leave that place
knowing that you're safe up in the hill, safe to the rock that
is higher than I. What effect should the doctrine
of hell have upon you who are unconverted, children, young
people, teenagers, adults? It should have the effect of
arresting you in your present course, of moving you into the
way of conversion. and causing you to stay in that
way until you know that you're the Lord's. And if, in that day
when I stand before God to give an account of my ministry, there
should be but one who, as a result of this ten weeks of ministry,
will say, Pastor, do you remember that series of messages? That's
what God used to arrest me, to get me into the way and caused
me to stay in the way. And I don't need to tell you
what happened, for you see where I am. Together, looking upon
the face of Jesus. May God grant that it be so.
For your good, and for God's glory, and for my joy, for the
Apostle said, what is my joy or my crown of rejoicing are
not even ye in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. And I make
the confession without embarrassment, I have sought to preach and expound
this series of messages with one view in mind, with reference
to you who are unconverted, to see you saved. May God grant
that that end shall be realized. Let us pray.