May I encourage you to turn with
me to a portion we read a few Lord's Days ago in our morning
worship service, the thirteenth chapter of the Gospel of Luke,
Luke chapter thirteen. I shall read verses twenty-two
through thirty. Luke thirteen and verse twenty-two. Recording the activities of our
Lord Jesus at this point in his earthly ministry, Luke writes,
and he went on his way through cities and villages, teaching
and journeying on unto Jerusalem. And one said unto him, Lord,
are they few that are saved? And he said unto them, Strive
to enter in by the narrow door, for many, I say unto you, shall
seek to enter in and shall not be able when once the master
of the house is risen up and has shut to the door, and you
begin to stand without and knock at the door, saying, Lord, open
to us, and he shall answer and say to you, I do not know where
you are from. And then you shall begin to say,
we ate and drank in your presence, and you taught in our streets.
And he shall say, I tell you, I do not know where you are from. Depart from me, all you workers
of iniquity. There shall be the weeping and
the gnashing of teeth, when you shall see Abraham and Isaac and
Jacob and all the prophets in the kingdom of God, and yourselves
cast forth without And they shall come from the east and west,
and from the north and south, and shall sit down in the kingdom
of God. And behold, there are last who
shall be first, and there are first who shall be last. Let us again pray and ask God
by the Holy Spirit to cause His word to come to our hearts with
clarity and with power. Let us pray. Our Father, as in your providence
we have come in our regular reading of the Scriptures to those very
sobering words of our Lord Jesus, and as we return to this passage
read in our hearings several Lord's Days ago, we are very
conscious that there is very little in our society that would
in the slightest way cause us to think long and hard and seriously
upon these weighty And we pray that by a supernatural work of
the Holy Spirit, you would, as it were, yank us out of the world
of sense and of time, of fun and games and feelings and earthly
and sensuous delights. Lord, we pray, as you laid hold
of Lot and dragged him, as it were, out of Sodom, Will you
not lay hold of some today, and by gracious power, loose them
from their bondage to that which can only damn them? And may they
mark this day as the day when they determined that they would
enter into the narrow door. Hear us, O Father, hear us, and
answer us for Jesus' sake. Amen. As we take up this passage this
morning, the passage which I have preached on over the course of
my thirty-nine years several times, and it has been several
years since I did preach on the passage, I want us to note as
we look at this portion of the Word of God, first of all, the
historical setting identified by Luke in verse twenty-two. the historical setting identified. Whatever follows in the passage,
Luke, by the guidance of the Holy Spirit, thought it important
to put it in a very specific framework of reference in terms
of its historical setting, and he does so with these words.
And he, that is Jesus, went on his way through cities and villages,
teaching and journeying on to Jerusalem. So whatever follows
in this passage, we are to understand it with the shadow of these words
cast over the entire section, that at this point when our Lord
speaks, he speaks as one who is making his way through cities
and through villages, teaching as he goes, but the crosshairs
of his mind are set on Jerusalem. He is journeying unto Jerusalem. And we may well ask the question,
why is his mind set on going to Jerusalem? Is he going to
Jerusalem to celebrate one of the national feasts? Well, that's
part of it, but that's not the real focus of his mind and heart. Was he going for a bit of R&R?
Was he going for an extended preaching and teaching mission
in Jerusalem? Well, Luke does not leave us
any doubt in terms of the proper answer to that question. If we
turn back to chapter 9 of the Gospel of Luke, we find this
recorded in verse 21. After extracting from Peter the
confession of his identity, Jesus charges them and commands them
to tell this to no man, saying, The Son of Man must suffer many
things, and be rejected of the elders and chief priests and
scribes, and be killed, and the third day be raised up. Here he begins in very explicit
terms to tell his disciples that he is going to be rejected, he's
going to be killed, and he's going to rise again from the
dead. And we read in verse 51 of Luke
9, it came to pass when the days were well nigh come that he should
be received up. He steadfastly set his face to
go to Jerusalem. And here Luke says that it is
Our Lord's consciousness that the days were drawing nigh in
which he would be received up a reference to his exaltation
and his session at the right hand of the father. But he was
fully conscious that prior to that, there would be rejection,
suffering and death. And he knows that this will take
place at Jerusalem, and he sets his face to go to Jerusalem. And then when we turn to chapter
13 and look at the subsequent context, we see again this clear
emphasis in Luke's account. Verse 33 of Luke 13. Nevertheless, I must go on my
way today and tomorrow and the day following, for it cannot
be that a prophet perish out of Jerusalem. Jerusalem, for
our Lord, meant rejection, betrayal, suffering, and death. Jerusalem,
for our Lord, meant that as God's final prophet, he would join
the other prophets who are killed at Jerusalem. And then, by the
time we come to chapter 18, our Lord becomes even more explicit
with respect to what He knows awaits Him at Jerusalem. Luke 18, 31. He took unto Him
the twelve and said unto them, Behold, We go up to Jerusalem,
and all the things that are written through the prophets shall be
accomplished unto the Son of Man, for he shall be delivered
up unto the Gentiles, and shall be mocked, and shamefully treated,
and spit upon, and they shall scourge him and kill him, and
the third day he shall rise again. Our Lord is conscious of all
that awaits Him at Jerusalem. Here are some of the gory, R-rated
details. He is going to be handed over
to Gentile authorities. And having been handed over to
those authorities, He is going to be mocked. He is going to
be shamefully treated. He is going to be spit upon.
He is going to be scourged. He is going to be murdered. And
as he faces all of that gruesome reality, he faces it with the
confidence that the other side of all of this, he shall rise
again from the dead. Now, why is it important to establish
that bit of the historical setting of what follows in this passage? Well, for this simple reason.
No one knew better than the Lord Jesus why he had to go to Jerusalem. Why he had to be betrayed? Why
he had to be handed over to the Gentiles? Why he had to be mocked,
spat upon, scourged and crucified? No one knew better than our Lord
Jesus. Why Jerusalem was in the crosshairs
of his mind and was the terminus towards which all of his movements
through cities and villages was pointing. Jesus knew better than
any that it was only in his sufferings that his people could be redeemed.
Jesus knew better than any that the only way that sinners could
be justly pardoned and righteously accepted as sons and daughters
before the living God would be if he, the innocent one, was
willing to take the place of the guilty. if He, the sinless
One, was willing to become sin for us, that we might become
the righteousness of God in Him. Whatever follows in this passage,
coming from the lips of Jesus, cannot in any way be construed
as teaching that we have power to save ourselves, that there
is something that we do that contributes in some way to our
salvation. Nothing that Jesus says in the
following passage in any way dilutes, in any way twists or
negates the truth of Scripture that salvation is based upon
the work of Jesus Christ on behalf of sinners plus nothing. Now you must keep that in mind
as we come into the heart of the passage that the historical
setting forever establishes that salvation is all of God and all
of grace based upon the suffering, the death, the resurrection of
the Lord Jesus. Now, in that setting, as our
Lord is passing through cities and villages, teaching and journeying
on to Jerusalem, It is assumed when we come to the next verse
that as we read in other settings, crowds are following Jesus as
he makes his way through the cities and villages, teaching
as he makes his way to Jerusalem. And someone in the immediate
crowd, other than one of his disciples, blurts out this question,
so we move from the historical setting identified to this unusual
question asked. That's our second heading. The
unusual question asked. And one said unto him, an individual,
Lord, are they few that are saved? Here this unusual question is
blurted out by an unnamed member of the crowd that is following
Jesus. And the question obviously has
reference to the relative number of the saved and the non-saved. Lord, are they few that are saved? Now, who would have asked such
a question? We don't know. Various conjectures
are made, and perhaps the best thing we can do is to embrace
the very straightforward words of the good old Bishop of Liverpool,
Bishop Ryle, who, commenting on this question, writes, We
do not know who this inquirer was. He may have been a self-righteous
Jew, trained to believe that there was no hope for the uncircumcised
hordes of the Gentiles, and no salvation for any but the physical
seed of Abraham. He may have been an idle trifler,
an idle trifler with religion, who was ever wasting his time
on curious and speculative questions. Where did Cain get his wife?
In any case, we must all feel that he asked a question of deep
and momentous importance. Here the question raised has
to do, are there few that are saved? Yes or no, Lord? If yes,
tell us. If no, affirm, no, there are
many who are saved. One unnamed individual asks this
unusual question. Now then, we come thirdly. Having
looked briefly at the historical setting identified, the unusual
question asked, we come to the sobering response given. How does Jesus respond to this
question? Look at the text. And he said
unto, and it doesn't say him, but unto them. One out of the
crowd asked the question. Obviously, everyone heard the
question. And if we think back what it
would have been like to stand in the milling crowd, to hear
someone blurt out the question, Lord, are there few that be saved? If there were a moment of pause
or a few moments of pause, one can just see the crowd, someone
whacking someone in the ribs saying, hey, that's a question
I've been wondering. Are there few that are saying?
Are there many? Are there few? and our Lord sensing
that the question had reached not just his ears, but the ears
of others, without repeating the question, as we will sometimes
do in a public forum, repeat it because not everyone heard.
Apparently everyone heard because the answer is directed to everyone. The text says, and he said unto
them, his speaking in the hearing of all of those who are around
him in this particular city or village in which he is teaching
as he makes his way on to Jerusalem. And in this sobering response
given, our Lord says, in essence—look at the text—strive to enter in
by the narrow door. For many, I say unto you, will
seek to enter and shall not be able when once the master of
the house is risen up and has shut the door. And you begin
to stand without and knock, saying, Lord, open to us. How does the
Lord respond to this question? Let me paraphrase. It's as though
the Lord says, I hear your question. The entire crowd has heard the
question. But for now, I'm going to table
my answer to the question, is the relative number of the saved
many or few? I'm going to table the answer
to that question for a while, and I'm going to press on all
of you something that is of far greater importance than knowing
whether the number of the saved is many or few. And the issue
that I want to impress upon you is this, that you must be saved
by entering the narrow door of true conversion And if you seek
to be saved in any other way, you will find yourself exposed
in the day of judgment. I want you all to know some basic
realities concerning not the relative number of the saved,
but who and how men are saved. and they are truly saved when
they pass through the narrow door. And such will be owned
by me in the last day, and all others will be utterly, finally,
and eternally rejected. And only when our Lord has made
that telling point, as we shall see in many ways, does He answer
the question Is the number of the saved many or few? Toward the end of the passage,
he answers it, for he says in verse twenty-nine, they shall
come from the east and the west and the north and the south and
shall sit down in the kingdom of God. Yes, the number of the
saved shall be many, but rather than sit and discuss the relative
number of the saved and the lost, Our Lord is anxious that they
would have their minds and hearts taken up with this issue. Am
I saved? Am I of the number of the saved? And have I come to that professed
acceptance of salvation in the way appointed by God? Now, as we look at the passage,
we're going to do so Bishop Ryle fashion. I'm not following any
of the heads of Ryle. We're going to look at several
very basic principles that our Lord enunciates in responding
to this great issue. Principle number one is this.
Only those who enter the narrow door of true conversion will
be saved, whether they are many or whether they are few. Only
those who enter the narrow door of true conversion will be saved,
whether they are many or few. Look at the text. Lord, are there
few that are saved? And he said unto them, Strive
to enter in by the narrow door. For many, I say unto you, will
seek to enter and not be able when once the master of the house
is risen up. Here our Lord likens the kingdom
in its consummate blessing. and in its consummate realization,
like a large banquet hall, an extensive banquet hall. It goes
down in verse 29. He says that those who come from
east and west, north and south, shall literally recline in the
kingdom. It's the picture of a vast, wide
spacious, expansive banquet hall, and people are all reclining
Eastern fashion as they feast together. But there's a strange
thing about this large, expansive, ornate banquet hall. It has a
disproportionately small door. It would be like a three-car
bay in a house, having a door that was only big enough to let
your dog in. get some of the incongruity.
Here's this large banquet hall, able to hold people from north
and south and east and west and Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and
the prophets, all reclining in this expansive banquet hall. There is this very narrow, low
door. And Jesus says, by that imagery,
that is the only way of entrance into the kingdom. The only way
of entrance into a certain possession of the kingdom and the consummate
bliss of the kingdom. It's almost identical to the
language used in the Sermon on the Mount. When our Lord is drawing
near to the end of that sermon, having described the character
traits of the sons and daughters of the kingdom, having described
their impact upon the world as light and salt, having described
how they seek to live under the light of God's law, touching
thought and motive in words, having described them as his
kingdom subjects who hold loosely to the things of this world and
seek first his kingdom as our Lord is pressing people now to
enter it. He uses these words in Matthew
7 in verse 13. Enter in by the narrow gate,
a different word, but gate and door are almost synonyms. Enter
in by the narrow gate, for wide is the gate. Broad is the way
that leads to destruction, and many there are that go in thereat,
because narrow is the gate, and compressed is the way that leads
unto life. There he uses gate, opening into
a way. Here he uses door, entering into
a banquet hall. But he says of both, they are
narrow. They are compressed. They are
not large doors into which someone can stumble, laden down with
all kinds of stuff and junk. No, the Lord says you must strive
to enter in by the narrow door. You must be ready to be stripped
of all of the padded, down-filled clothing of your native pride
and self-sufficiency. prepared to be stripped down
to the naked, bare sinner that you are. Coming in the language
of the hymn writer, nothing in my hands I bring, simply to thy
cross I cling. speaking in this setting where
there were those Pharisees whom our Lord will address particularly
in the 18th chapter, who thought that what they were by birth
and association and what they did in religious exercises somehow
gave them a right to enter. They come to that door with all
of the padded down clothing of their own righteousness. And
Jesus said, You can't get through. You've got to strip. And that
door is not high. You come strutting, arrogant,
proud, self-willed. Got to bend your neck to get
through that door. Ready to put down the baggage
of your willful, deliberate attachment to thoughts and words and relationships
and standards that are dictated by your own depraved flesh and
by a world in rebellion against God. You've got to be ready to
put down the suitcases. That's repentance. Willfully,
deliberately reject the world as your companion in standard,
willing to be identified with Christ and His cross and His
people. Only those who enter the narrow
door of true conversion will be saved, whether many or whether
by few. Now remember, our stripping off
our down-filled garments of self-righteousness are bending the neck, are putting
down the baggage of our attachment to sin and to the world and its
standards. This does not earn admission.
Jesus is on His way to Jerusalem to lie. Because no one can present
any coinage at the door and secure a right of admission. Christ
must present the coinage of his own life's blood, and he's on
his way to Jerusalem to do it. But now listen to me carefully.
Jesus didn't go to Jerusalem to die to make the narrow door
wide. He went to Jerusalem to die to
secure that a great multitude whom no man can number will come
through the narrow door. That's why he's going to Jerusalem.
And any notion Christ is going to Jerusalem to widen the door,
to increase its height and its width, no. It was a narrow door
then. It's a narrow door now. And Jesus
is making it plain that only those who enter the narrow door
of true conversion will be saved, whether many or whether few. Second principle in our text,
and it is this, and I make a direct address to you. If you, any sitting
here this morning, if you have any hope of entering the narrow
door, you must make this the issue. of supreme concern in
your life. If you have any hope of entering
the narrow door, you must make this issue the supreme concern
of your life. On what basis do I say that?
Well, look at the text. And he said unto them, strive. He uses the word agonizo, from
which we get our word agony or agonize. And he uses it in a
present imperative. Think what this meant now. You're
standing there in the crowd. You've gotten excited that maybe
Jesus is going to give an answer to this vexing question, are
the number of the saved many or few? And suddenly Jesus is
saying to you, for now that question is irrelevant. The issue of importance
is, any who are saved are saved by getting through the narrow
gate, and this is so true that I command you to do whatever
is necessary in the way of conscious, deliberate exertion to get through. This is the word you would use
of two wrestlers on the mat together. This is the word you would use
of an athlete straining to break the tape just a few a few feet
in front of his closest competitor. It speaks of the marshalling
of all the faculties, and like a laser point focusing them upon
a given endeavor, Jesus said, Be continually striving to enter
the narrow gate. On his way to Jerusalem to die.
Because we can't forgive our own sins. We can't break our
own chains. We cannot renew our own hearts.
But Jesus, who knows that better than you or me, says, Strive
to enter. Agonize to enter. That is, if you have any hope
of entering the narrow door, you must make this issue the
supreme concern of your life. And here I want to put my heart
out in the pew this morning. As I went down through with the
directory early this morning, named out the names of dozens
of you sitting here. Most of that list, children of
parents who are members. And as I reflected of what I
know about some of you, and what I fear may be true of a lot more
of you, this is the truth that gripped my heart and I said to
myself, Oh God, help me, help me. to somehow break through
the wall of words and get into their conscience. There are not
a few of you sitting here. You don't openly deny the things
of God. Some of you have passed the years
of your minority. You are now legal adults. Your parents couldn't make you
come, but you come. You sit under the Word. You wouldn't
dare deny what the Word teaches. There's enough of a sense that
these things are real and true that you would not openly profane
them and deny them. And there are many others of
you who find yourself in that sphere of reference in which
you say, I'm not disinterested in the things of God and spiritual
realities and forgiveness of sin. But you know what the problem
is? Those issues have never become number one priority and preoccupation
to where you said, from this Lord's Day on, anything that
is not absolutely necessary in my life is going to be laid aside
until I know that I'm a child of God. And until you do, you
are presuming on God's sovereignty and God's grace. Let me get more
particular. Until some of you sitting here
are ready to go out of here this morning, and when your girlfriends
and your boyfriends gather in the foyer, out in the hallways
and want to make small talk, you're going to say, hey, I don't
know if you heard the preaching this morning, but I did. Unless
you're ready to speak to me, to encourage me to seek God and
get through the gate right now, I don't want small talk! And you'll go home, and you'll
be ready to say to your siblings, with whom you may spend the Lord's
Day afternoon in innocent activities, I'm sorry, John, I'm sorry, Mary,
I'm sorry, As soon as we're done eating and helping with the dishes,
I'm going up to my room or in the basement. I'm going to find
a place to pray. And I'm going to seek God. And
I'm not going to give myself rest until I know that I've entered
the narrow gate. It breaks my heart that so few
of you are in that place. Somewhere, somehow, by one means
or another, The great issue will be settled, but I don't want
it to cost me anything. You listen to the Son of God
who's going to Jerusalem to die. He says, Strive to enter in. Is it a form of internal agony
when you know your friends in Trinity Church, in the Christian
school context, in your home school, Relations are going to
say, huh, why are you getting pious? It'll cost you something. It's a form of internal pain
when there's social ostracization, because you're serious. And if
you believe Jesus doesn't lie, you better believe Him, that
He expects you to strive, if you're serious about entering.
Only those who enter the narrow door of conversion will be saved,
whether many or few. Secondly, if you have any hope
of entering the narrow door, you must make this issue the
supreme concern of your life. Thirdly, in this passage we see
that a day is coming when many will desperately wish they had
entered the narrow door. of true conversion. A day is
coming when many will desperately wish they had entered the narrow
door of true conversion. Look at the passage. Jesus is
going to buttress His gracious command with a very startling
rationale for that command. Strive to enter in by the narrow
door for I'm telling you, Jesus said, strive to enter now for
many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many, I say to you. And when Jesus pauses to say,
I say, when it's clear that he's speaking, he's taking his own
words and putting an orange highlighter through them. Many, I say to
you, I who speak truth, I who am the truth, I say unto you,
many shall seek to enter, and shall not be able, take away
any punctuation mark at the end of verse 25. It flows right into
verse 24. Many, I say, shall seek to enter
and shall not be able when once the master of the house is risen
up and has shut or bolted the door. And you begin to stand
without and knock at the door, saying, Lord, open to us. And
he shall answer and say to you, I don't know where you are from.
Then you shall begin to say, we did eat and drink in your
presence, and you taught in our streets. And he shall say, I
tell you, I do not know where you are from. Depart from me,
all you workers of iniquity. Jesus says, a day is coming when
many will desperately wish they had entered the narrow door of
true conversion. The command of Jesus is enforced
with a prophecy, and the prophecy is spoken by him who is truth.
I say to you, when the master of the house shall rise up and
shut the door, the door to the banquet house is not shut. by
an inadvertent gust of wind. You know what that is, don't
you? Sometime last week, I was taking out the garbage, and I
carry it from the patio in the back through the hallway and
out the front door. And there was a good wind blowing,
and I was not conscious of it, and when it caught that door
and slammed it, I'd like to have a heart attack. It was shut inadvertently
by a gust of wind. The door of the banquet hall
here is not shut. by a gust of wind. It's not shut
by some narrow-hearted guest who gets up and says, there are
enough people in here. Time to shut the door. Look what the
text says. You will seek to enter and not be able when once the
master of the house is risen up. The picture is that he's
reclining, eating with all his guests. Overtones of the marriage
supper of the Lamb, when the people of God shall sit down
with their beloved Lord and feast together. It's the master of
the house who alone has the right to control the door. He rises
up and he shuts fast the door. The word to shut has a prefix,
which means to shut firmly, to shut and to bolt the door. And when he does, then a great
group of people called many. are going to make it plain that
they wish they had entered the narrow door while it was still
open. Enter, strive to enter. Why? Many, many, many will seek to
enter and not be able when once the master of the house. Those
are frightening words. Many will seek and not be able. You hear them? Many will seek
and not be able. You're now able to seek. The
door stands open, and you will not. You'll go on in the idolatry
of your attachment to people and things and temporal interests,
and treat your soul like a piece of junk. The hour is coming,
and some of you will be part of the many. Many, many. Fourth principle. The greatest
grief will be to those who were satisfied with a passing acquaintance
with Jesus, but they never entered the house by the narrow door.
In that day, the greatest grief will be to those that were satisfied
with a passing acquaintance with Jesus, the master of the house,
but did not enter the house by the narrow door. When the master
rises up to shut the door, what do they do? Look at verse 25.
You begin to stand without and to knock at the door, saying,
Lord, open to us. He shall answer and say to you,
I don't know where you are from. I have no acquaintance with you. I do not own you as one of mine. Those who are here in the banquet
house with me, they not only profess to know me, But I joyfully
confess them before my father and the holy angels. I don't
know where you're from. You are strange and foreign stuff
to me. And so they begin to debate with
the Lord. And so they answer him. Look at their answer. And
you shall begin to say, we did eat and drink in your presence
and you did teach in our streets. He shall say, I tell you, I don't
know where you are from. What is their protestation? What
is their argument with which they seek? They have the master
open the door. He's talking through the door.
The door is shut. They're on the outside. The conversation
is passing through the door. Well, their basic claim is this.
Where you were, we went. Look at the text. You begin to
stand without and say, Lord, open to us. He said, I don't
know where you're from. We did eat and drink in your
presence. Where you were, we were. Now this may have had some literal
fulfillment of some of our Lord's contemporaries. Remember when
Matthew got converted? Levi? He had a banquet, invited
all of his friends. Maybe our Lord is envisioning
some of them. But surely it has an extended
application down to this very day and until the day of judgment
People who are satisfied to be where Christ is, they go. Now,
where is Christ? He's at the right hand of the
Father, yes. But he is also present by the Spirit in the company
of his saints. And here are people, when the
Lord says, the door is shut. Oh, but Lord, we were where you
were. We went to Trinity Church. We
sang from the Trinity hymn book. We heard the reading and preaching
of the Word of God. We went where you were. The Lord
does not debate their claim. He simply says, you may have
been where I was, but you never embraced me for who I am. I don't
know. I don't know where you're from.
Then they come back with an objection that's a little different. Notice.
We did eat and drink in your presence, and you did teach in
our streets. We were where you were, and you
came where we were. You taught in our streets. We
didn't, in this instance, go where you were. You came where
we were. Jesus was going through cities
and villages on his way to Jerusalem. Literal, historical fulfillment.
But surely there's an application to us. Every day, every day,
Christ comes to your table. and mom and dad gather the family,
read the scriptures and pray. Christ comes in these ways of
his own institutions and he comes near. You hear his word, but
that word never takes root, never becomes the regulating power
and formative influence of your life. The day is coming when
many will wish Desperately they had entered the narrow door,
and in that day their great grief will be that they did not enter
that door. Satisfied with a passing acquaintance
with Jesus, but not an intimate saving acquaintance
that would have him confess you as his own. And there is another
vital principle in our passage, and it is this. Those who never
entered the narrow door will be disowned and banished to a
place of unspeakable torment. Look at the text. What will he
say to those who give their protestations? And he answers them, We read
that when he says, Depart from me, all you workers of iniquity,
there, in that place to which you depart, there shall be the
weeping and the gnashing of teeth. That's horrible language. There are six times in the Gospel
of Matthew alone when Jesus speaks of weeping, wailing, gnashing
of teeth. In the scriptures, the gnashing
of teeth is a combination of anger and of frustration. They gnashed on Stephen with
their teeth. They ground their teeth. They
were so angry. Wailing is the uncontrollable
sob that comes from intense pain. Who can speak of these things?
Here is the gracious tender, loving Son of God, on His way
to die. And He says to real, live human
beings within sound of His voice, many of whom He could touch and
they could touch Him, He says, those who have never entered
the marrow door will be disowned by Me. I am the Master of the
house, and in the last day I will be your judge. And I will not
be moved by your claims that you came where I was and that
I came to where you were. I never knew you. You never knew
me. I don't know where you are from.
Depart. There shall be the wailing and
the gnashing of teeth. And that grief will be intensified. in a way that I'm not prepared
to fully explain, but it's here in the text. Look at what Jesus
said. There shall be the weeping and
gnashing of teeth when you shall see Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob
and all the prophets in the kingdom of God and yourselves cast forth
without. Is he using the imagery of the
banquet hall? Did it have some windows which,
as they were being banished, they could look in and see the
guests seated? I don't know. But we read from
Luke 16 this morning, in which our Lord there teaches that in
some way, the damned in hell will see the bliss of the glorified
in heaven. What a horrible thing to be outside
the banquet hall. banished! And to know what could have been
if only you'd entered the door. It's a sad thing. It's a sad thing. Those who never entered will
be disowned and banished to a place of unspeakable torment and no
little factor in intensifying the torment will be the realization
of what could have been if I had only taken the counsel of the
pastor that first Lord's Day in April in the year 2001 and
said there is something more important than putting my face
on and trying out new makeup and whatever else girls do to
try to find their femininity. Something more important than
wondering what's going to happen in the NCAA finals tomorrow night. Something more important than
anything else that will occupy your time this day. What a horrible
thing to think there may be people in this place whom Jesus saw when he said,
many, many, many. And you shall see Abraham, and
Isaac, and Jacob, and the prophets in the kingdom, and yourselves
cast out. Another principle, thank God
this is in the passage. Multitude shall enter the narrow
door, and constitute the sage of all ages, a vast host. Multitude shall enter the narrow
door, and constitute the saved of all ages, a vast host, verse
29, and they shall come from the east and the west and the
north and the south, and sit down in the kingdom of God. And what was their right to sit
down? They came through the narrow
door, that door at which they owned their That door at which
they turned from their sin, that door at which they kissed the
world goodbye and embraced Christ crucified as their only hope
of life and salvation, took up their cross and followed Him,
and they are with Him in the banquet house from the east and
the west and the north and the south. The Scripture says, I
saw a great multitude whom no man could number, out of every
kindred, tribe, and tongue, and nation. Lord, are there few that
be saved? The Lord says, now I'll answer
your question. No, there are many. They'll come
from east and west and north and south. shall sit down in
the kingdom, a great multitude. And then, as they are gathered,
the final principle in our passage, verse 30, Behold, there are last
who shall be first, and there are first who shall be last. This is a cryptic saying that
our Lord uses in several different contexts in the Gospels. And
I believe its significance here is this. The first shall be last,
the last first, the first last, the last first. What's he saying?
I believe what our Lord is saying is that in those who come in
through the narrow door and will be found in the banquet hall
in the final day, this principle will be operative. Some who are
last in privilege shall be first in the enjoyment of the actual
conferral of grace, and some who are first in privilege will
be last excluded, cut off from the banquet house. And that should
be, on the one hand, both encouraging and terrifying. It ought to be
encouraging if you sit here this morning and you say, Pastor Martin,
when you talk about mom and dad gathering the family for family
worship, that's not my experience. It wasn't my experience growing
up. When you talk about those who come and hear the preaching
and time and time again are pleaded with, that's not been my experience. This is the first or only the
second, third or fourth time I've even heard of the necessity
of being saved. Heaven and hell were not in the
language of my church. Everything was be nice and kind
and sweet and get some brownie points and all will be well.
And you feel yourself utterly lost in knowledge. Jesus said,
in those who constitute his kingdom, there are last who shall be first. You don't come through the door
based on how much you know. You know enough about yourself
to know you ought to be banished. And you know enough about Christ
that he has died for sinners and risen from the dead. You
know enough about his claims that you're prepared to throw
the full weight of your hell-deserving soul upon Christ and take up
with Christ as master and Lord and sovereign of your life, willing
to bear reproach in your identification with him, willing to bear hardship
if that comes in the path of following him. If you know that
much, you need know no more. You lay hold of Christ, Christ
who comes to you in the gospel and says, I'm yours if you will
have me. I'm yours in all the plenitude
of my grace and power and all of the virtue of my saving work. If you'll have me for who I am,
I'm yours. And you may be last in knowledge
and privilege, but first in the wonderful experience of grace,
there are first This is the frightening part, who will be last? You children, you are first in
gospel privileges. You've not been reared in a home
where the name of Christ is only used as a curse word. You've
not been reared in a home where dishonesty and infidelity, preoccupation
with nothing but stuff and things, is the order of the day. You've
been reared in a home with all of its imperfections. You know
that Christ is central to mom and dad. You know that sin is
odious to mom and dad. You've not been reared in a church
where you've been tickled and and made to giggle and laugh
at everything sacred so that so-called preachers and youth
leaders can prove they're nice guys. And so they coddle kids
and tickle them and fawn over them and never confront them
with the great issues of salvation. You've been first in privilege,
reared in a home in the church, in associations where the word
of God has been central. What a horrible thing. if these
words are fulfilled in you. There are first, we shall do
last. You see why those of us who preach,
though unplanned humor occasionally comes into our preaching, and
we know God gave us the ability to laugh, not the devil. And
as I've often said, the God who made monkeys must have a sense
of humor, and the God who made us must have a sense of humor.
But dear people, we don't break our back to be funny in every And as we bring our meditation
to a close this morning, I ask you sitting here, if Jesus were
to rise up today and shut the door, that's what he does at
his second coming, would you be found reclining with Abraham,
Isaac, Jacob, with the multitude who come from east and west and
north and south? Or would you be outside pounding
on the door? wishing you were on the inside. Which would it be? If you cannot say, by God's grace,
I'd be reclining with Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and the multitude
who come from every point on the compass. And I have biblical
grounds to believe that that confidence is not delusive. It is a well-grounded, biblically-founded
confidence. If you can't say that, my friend,
Jesus' word to you is, get serious about getting in. Get serious
about getting in. How serious? Serious to the point
of agonizing. Strive to enter. Nothing is more
important than getting through the door. God help you to say, I don't
care what John does. I don't care what Mary does.
As for me, I am committed to give myself no rest until I know
that I've entered. And if, as you're determined
to strive to enter, You feel you need guidance from the scriptures. You know your pastors, your parents,
the two are Christians in this place. Any one of us would count
it an unspeakable privilege to sit down with you, to open up
the scriptures, to pray with you and for you. We're not priests. You don't go to God through us.
But we are your servants for Christ's sake. If we can be your
helpers, please don't feel you're You're making an unwarranted
intrusion upon our time. God grant the day comes when
we don't have enough hours in the day to sit with those who
are deeply concerned with one issue. I must get through the
door. Let's pray. Our Father, We acknowledge in
your presence that this portion of your word is indeed a most
sobering portion, but we thank you it is a most hopeful portion,
that that door into the banquet hall still is open, and you bid
us in the word and by the spirit to strive to enter. Surely, Lord,
you have not spoken those words to mock us. You have promised
you shall seek me and find me in the day that you search for
me with all your heart. We thank you for your gracious
command to seek you while you may be found, to call upon you
while you are near. And we pray that this day some
would lay hold of that gracious command and promise and find
that your word is true, that you will indeed abundantly pardon. We pray for those of us who are
your people that you will give us a fresh sense of wonder and
gratitude that by your grace we have entered and we have the
wonderful prospect of sitting down with Abraham, Isaac, Jacob
and all the prophets and all the redeemed from every point
on the compass. Oh, Lord Jesus, hasten the day
when the banquet will be held. and be merciful even this day,
that others may be given right and title of entrance by laying
hold of you and of your grace. Hear then our prayers, seal your
word to the heart of every listener, and may the blessings of your
grace and presence rest upon