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Our Lord Jesus Christ indicated that Christianity is both a gate and a road. It is a gate that one enters once and for all by a simple and speedily affected experience. But it is followed by a road that lasts the whole of life. It is on the road that I wish to concentrate this evening, whereas in many other evenings we have been thinking rather of the gateway.
I would therefore like to point out from the start that it is important to see that Christianity is both a gateway and a road, and still more important to see in which order those things come. Straight is the gate and narrow is the way that leadeth unto life, said our Lord Jesus Christ. And in his exposition, the gate comes first, and then the road. Unfortunately, in many people's thinking, the order has been reversed. Their idea of salvation is that it is a long road with a gate at the further end, and we toil along the Christian pathway, doing our best to behave like good Christians, with the result always left uncertain, whether we shall in fact qualify to enter the gate of heaven after all at the end.
That, of course, is not only wrong, but exceedingly harmful. It is not the fact that we walk the Christian pathway in order to qualify to enter God's heaven and kingdom. It is altogether the reverse. True Christian experience starts with entering the gateway. To put it in our Lord's words, I am the door, by me if any man enter in, he shall be saved. Without that initial experience of salvation, it is impossible to walk the Christian pathway.
Unless I can honestly say I know what it means to enter that door, unless I can honestly say I have entered it and I am saved. All my trying to walk the Christian pathway will prove in the end not only fruitless, but disastrous. We cannot, in a word, live as Christians until by God's great salvation personally applied, we have become Christians.
And that is an emphasis that I should like to lay heavily at the beginning of this talk. For I do want this evening to speak at some length on the Christian pathway. And I choose to take as a springboard from which to attack this subject what the Apostle James has to say in his chapter two. For you who care for the reference, it is James chapter two and verse fourteen. What does it profit, my brethren, if a man say that he hath faith but have not works? Can that faith save him?
If a brother or sister be naked and in lack of daily food, and one of you say unto them, go in peace, be ye warmed and filled, and yet ye give them not the things needful to the body, what doth it profit? Even so, faith, if it have not works, is dead in itself. Yea, a man will say, thou hast faith and I have works. Show me thy faith apart from thy works, and I by my works will show thee my faith. Thou believest that God is one.
Thou doest well. The devils also believe and shudder. But wilt thou know, O vain man, that faith apart from works is barren? Was not Abraham our father justified by works in that he offered up Isaac his son upon the altar? Thou seest that faith wrought with his works, and by works was faith made perfect. And the scripture was fulfilled, which saith, and Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned unto him for righteousness. And he was called the friend of God. Ye see that by works a man is justified, and not only by faith.
And in like manner, was not also Rahab the harlot justified by works, in that she received the messengers and sent them out another way. For as the body apart from the spirit is dead, even so faith apart from works is dead. So I fulfill tonight the promise that I made you on that evening when I discussed justification. On that evening, I lectured from the Apostle Paul's writings and from the words of our Lord Jesus, that a man is justified by faith, apart from the works of the law.
And I stressed that matter heavily, that we are justified before God not by works, but by faith alone. And I promised you on that occasion that I would one night explain what appears to be a contradiction here in the words of the Apostle James. James is making the point that faith apart from works is utterly dead, and that a man is justified by works. Now, this has been a very real difficulty to many people. It is the fact that many people find James far easier to understand than they do the other side of the question.
There they say that now that begins to make some sense. We must work, and to say we believe without doing Christian works, that's, um, altogether idle. And is not James saying that we are justified by our works? Does that not mean that we must do our very best in order to please God and be saved? If you point out to such people the words of Romans chapter four, to him that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted to righteousness.
They will very often frankly confess that that completely mystifies them. They understand James when he says that we're justified by works. It seems common sense. They find it very difficult to grasp that, uh, other parts of the Bible should say that it's to him that worketh not that God's salvation is given. Of course, it is not a question of some isolated verse. Paul elsewhere positively says that by grace you have been saved, not of works, lest any man shall boast. He records his own conversion in these terms, after that the loving kindness of God appeared, not by works of righteousness which we did ourselves, but by his mercy he saved us.
So then somebody will say there must be a contradiction in the Bible after all. Here are a good many chapters that say salvation is utterly by faith and not by works. How will you reconcile it with James when he says positively we are justified by works? Well, let us notice that there is, of course, no contradiction. That is easily seen and proved. The Apostle James wrote his epistle before the Apostle Paul wrote the letter to the Romans and the letter to the Galatians, or perhaps any of his letters. But more than that, we read in the book of the Acts of the Apostles that early on there arose doubt in the minds of Christians as to what Paul taught and what James taught.
And in consequence, Paul went up to Jerusalem along with Barnabas, and he met James. And at that conference, it was found and declared and published for all to know that James believed exactly as Paul believed, and Paul believed exactly as James believed. So that the idea that they contradicted each other was permanently and forever knocked on the head for anyone that will be willing to read what they said. They published the fact that they did not contradict each other, they meant exactly the same thing.
How then can it be reconciled? The answer is, uh, very easy. Paul says that we are justified before God by faith because our works are altogether inadequate. We could not possibly earn salvation by them. So we come as bankrupt sinners, and we believe the Savior. He gives us eternal life as a free gift. But because that eternal life is a real thing, a real power, then it will show itself in the life of the person who receives it.
If I say I am a real believer in our Lord Jesus Christ, I am laying claim to the fact that I have eternal life. If I lay claim to have eternal life, everybody has a right to look at me and see whether there is evidence in my way of behaving that I have the gift of eternal life that I claim to have. And therefore, my profession of faith, my claim to have eternal life is justified and shown to be real and right when in my life there are works that give practical evidence.
If I claim to have eternal life, but my works sh- belie my profession, if my works are consistently unworthy of a Christian, you have every right to call in question the reality of my salvation. And it is not only that my fellow men and women have a right, if I claim to be a Christian, have a right to demand that my life, my works shall justify my profession.
But the Bible informs us that God himself also looks for the evidence of good works in the lives of those who th- that profess to trust him. James cites two examples. Was not Abraham justified when he offered up his son? And you will remember that on that historic occasion, it was not a question of Abraham proving to his friends that he was a genuine believer, for there weren't any friends there. He was alone on the mountaintop with Isaac.
Even the servants had been left behind. He was not proving his genuineness to his friends, he was demonstrating the thing before God. And when Abram showed the reality of his faith by his act of obedience, the voice came from heaven saying, not now Sarah knows that you are a genuine believer, not no, now your friends will see that your profession of faith is real. The voice came from God himself, now I know. Now I know that thou fearest me.
Oh, but somebody says, surely God knew that before. Perhaps he did. That does not in the slightest diminish the fact that God himself insists that there shall be in our lives, those of us who profess to be saved, there shall be works that evidence that we are genuine. Or take Rahab, who let in the spies, says Jane. She showed by her practical action towards those spies that her allegiance had been transferred from the people of her city, those evil and wicked men, had been transferred to the side of God and God's people.
Now, to be sure, if the people in the city of Jericho had known what Rahab had done, they would not have felt like commending the woman. It would have enraged and infuriated them. They would have probably said, you call that being a good religious person? It was not a question so much of proving to her fellow townsmen the genuineness of her trust in God, but showing it to God himself.
In fact, it is a common thing that when a man or woman gets converted, and he begins to break off from his former evil habits and sins, then his former companions, instead of complimenting the man, will criticize him most severely and dub him as narrow-minded, and all sorts of other things. They will object most furiously. What they say is for the moment beside the point. We must show God that we are genuine.
How we show him, and what are the kind of works that God is looking for in those that trust him? I come to in a moment. But while we are considering this matter of evidence, we ought to notice one exceedingly important thing. I say this lest, uh, uh, somebody should go away this evening, somebody that is a genuine Christian, and that somebody starts to to look at his life or her life and look within and say, ah, well, no, I've not been too good there, I've not been too good there. Ah, I wonder if I'm a Christian at all.
That could be exceedingly dangerous. I have no intention of unsettling people's faith. Try then to follow me when I make what may seem to you a difficult distinction. When we think of the evidence of our lives, we are always to remember that evidence is one thing, proof is quite another thing. You can have conflicting evidence, can you not?
You can never have conflicting proof. Evidence that I'm saved, there ought to be plenty in my works, but the proof I'm saved is another thing altogether. And tonight we're not talking about proof. We are talking about evidence. Let me adopt what may appear to be a crude illustration. Here's a car.
Beautiful car. Engine is all right and perfect. But there are two ways, as everybody knows, of propelling a car along the road. The one way is the way that we use normally. We fill up the tank with petrol and set the engine going, and the petrol pushes the thing along the road. The other way that I is the, is the, is the method we are forced to adopt sometimes to our discomfort when the petrol runs out, and that is to get behind the thing ourselves and push it. Hmm.
The distinction is exceedingly important. Bearing that in mind, come now, we've got a car here, and we are to try and find out whether it has the vital stuff that makes it go. We know right well that the real secret of making the thing go is that there shall be petrol in the tank, but we can't see the tank without taking the thing to bits. We can't see whether it's full or empty or what it is. How shall we find out the garage, garage man says that he's put the petrol in?
How shall we find out if the claim is genuine? Ah, says somebody, we'll turn the key and we'll look at the gauge. We turn the key and the gauge says full up. Ah, but then you can't trust all gauges. They go wrong sometimes. How shall we justify the profession that gauge makes? The gauge says the thing is full. Ah, but is the claim right? Somebody says, I shan't believe it until I see the car move along the road. Very good and sensible.
You want evidence that there's petrol in the tank. Of course, the only kind of evidence that's likely to satisfy you for the moment, you say, is that the car moves along the road. All right? Well, now that's my Christian. The only way we can possibly lead a Christian life is by obtaining from God his spirit, his eternal life within us. We cannot buy that eternal life by our works. We must have it as a gift. I claim to have the gift.
Oh, but then you won't be satisfied with my words as the gauge, will you? You'll say, all right, very good, you claim to have eternal life. Show me your faith, show me your, your, your eternal life by your works. Very good. How about we come back to my car at this stage? Who has not known the experience of going along the road in a car, and suddenly the thing peters out. Dead stop. You pull the old starter button, nothing happens. You bang the car in all the places that cars have to be banged to make them go, uh, when they stop.
Nothing happens still. You say, I didn't know we'd run out of petrol, and you have a look at the gauge. No, the the gauge says at least half full. Somebody comes along and says, I don't believe there is any petrol in the thing. How would you say right, know right well there's some petrol in? I was there when the thing was filled up. Oh, well, he says, it doesn't go. And you're engineers enough to know that the fact that the car doesn't go for the moment is not proof that it hasn't got any petrol. Some dirt may have got into the carburetor or one of those many pipes or something, or the plugs be not clean.
And for a moment, it's stopping the power of that petrol doing its work. Petrol's there, though. And my illustration aimed to show this. It is very possible for a man or woman to believe the Savior, to receive his Holy Spirit, to have eternal life, and yet for that life to become temporarily choked. For that man or woman to be sowing to the flesh, and his actions for the time being seem to contradict his claim that he has God's salvation.
Possible. Alas, in how many of us that profess Christianity, is that frequently the case? We let the channels get clogged. Though, in fact, we do have eternal life, and we are born again, and we shall never perish. The fan channels get clogged, and the evidence of the Holy Spirit's work within us is not apparent to the onlooker. Now see the point. When that unfortunately happens with a genuine believer, it is most unfortunate, but it doesn't prove that that man has never been saved, does it?
That does not prove that he has not eternal life. But you see, the Bible talks like this. It's possible for a man that has the Holy Spirit to be overtaken in a fault and fall. But if you see a man that continually lives in sin and constantly practices sin, and it's his normal way of behavior. If you'll find a man that hates his brother, and that is his constant attitude to his brother, then that man is not of God.
Not of God. We see the difference. Ah, but there's a third thing we ought to notice. Here's a beautiful car, we watch it, speeding downhill. It's doing fifty, going well. Gets on the flat and begins to pull up, meets an incline, comes to a dead stop. Plugs clean, carburetor clear, all works in order. What's wrong with the thing?
Well, it just hasn't got any petrol. What do you do about that? Oh, says somebody now, the works are important, you see here. We get out and push, and we'll push it until it gets some petrol. Oh, but it will never get petrol by pushing, you know. If you're strong enough, you'll push the thing along the road at fifty miles an hour, but that won't put any petrol inside. No, no. You see, the going of the car doesn't put the petrol inside. And alas, there are many people there. They're pushing desperately through life to do Christian things, to live like Christians ought to live, and they've no petrol inside.
They've never received eternal life. They feel that, uh, they ought to work hard and really endeavor to be Christian, and that's how they'll get God. They have, if I may mix the metaphor, a cart before the horse. No, if you want to get petrol, you don't get it by getting out of the car and pushing hard and trying to make the car go. You go along to the supplier. I'm afraid he won't give it you. You'll have to buy it off him. But my illustration is not so crude as you might think.
For change the car to a lamp, and the petrol to oil, and the motorist to a virgin, and we have precisely a parable that our Lord himself gave. He said, you know, the kingdom of heaven will be like ten virgins. They took their lamps and they went forth to meet the bridegroom. All ten had heard the fact that the bridegroom was coming. Outwardly, all were alike. All had lamps. All were virgins. All were outwardly waiting for the bridegroom to come.
And then, all of them slumbered and slept. Yes, all of them. They oughtn't to have slumbered and slept. The Bible exhorts us who are Christians in these terms, let us not sleep as the others do. The Lord is coming. Judgment is coming on this wicked world and coming very fast. And the coming of the Lord draws nigh. Then don't let us go to sleep. We ought to be awake. And one of the evidences that, evidences that we are genuine Christians will lie just here.
The fact that we are awake to the Lord's coming. How can I call myself a Christian if I know right well the Lord is coming? And I believe that this age is soon to experience God's judgment. And I believe my me- fellow men and women, if they are not saved and born again, will perish eternally. How do I call myself a Christian if I never mutter a word to my friends of their need to get saved? It seems to make nonsense of the whole profession, doesn't it?
They oughtn't to have slumbered and slept. And if you had come across those virgins all asleep and slumbering, you would have said to yourself, I wonder whether they, whether they really expect the bridegroom is coming. Are they really interested in this thing? Are they genuine? At length the cry went forth, the bridegroom cometh. All woke up. Then the truth came out. Five of them had not only oil in their lamps, but they had oil in their large pitchers.
They had been joined, so to speak, to the great supply. And waking up out of their temporary carelessness and slumbering and sleeping, they made themselves ready, and they went in with the bridegroom. And waking up out of their temporary carelessness and slumbering and sleeping, they made themselves ready, and they went in with the bridegroom. The others woke up. They found that they had no big supply. What little oil they had was going out. Our lamps are going out, they said. Eventually they spluttered out completely.
And while they went off to buy the oil, the bridegroom came and they were left outside. That does not excuse Christian incons- inconsistency. But if our Lord, if it were announced that our Lord would be here in ten hours from now, some of us Christians would wake up with a tremendous start. And folks, we know that we've never told. In places where we live and they don't know God's salvation. My, how furiously we work.
And waking up, because we are genuine believers and have God's Holy Spirit, we should find resources adequate for our responsibility. But if it were announced that our Lord would be here in ten hours from now, and we all woke up, I wonder would some of us find that we hadn't got the real thing. We've all got some oil, haven't we? All of us but know some little text of scripture, maybe.
All of us have sometimes stood in our church and we've sung hymns. We've got a little light. That's not enough. Not enough to know pieces out of the Bible. Not enough to sing nice hymns, lovely as those things are. The only thing that will suffice for time and the world beyond is the possession of God's infinite Holy Spirit, the personal possession of eternal life. And all the pushing in the world and the trying to be a Christian will never put that oil inside us.
That must be done by coming to the Lord and buying ourselves, and yet not buying. Or if you like the Bible's words, come buy without money and without price. You see, the thing is a free gift. How important it is to see that we have received that free gift of God's eternal life, his Holy Spirit, that we are saved before we go about trying to lead a Christian life. Then how important if we have got God's salvation.
We have God's Holy Spirit, and light enough for ourselves and light for our whole city, if need be, that we get about our business and blaze the trail around the world that Christ is coming. That it is possible to go in with him when he comes, but that those that are not prepared will be left outside forever. And it is important to remember these distinctions.
Christians are sometimes criticized by people of the world. Here's a poor woman, and she was brought up in an ungodly, cruel home. Father was a beast of a drunkard. Her mother was a careless woman. She grew up maimed in her personality from a child. Saddled, maybe, with an inferiority complex that makes a difficult woman to live and to work with. In all her lameness, in all her awkwardness, she comes to the Savior and receives the gift of eternal life, and the Lord receives her just as she is.
And she becomes one of God's children. And the Lord begins his work of reconstruction inside the woman, but of necessity now that's a work that will take years. She has God's Holy Spirit. She is eternally secure, for God loves her and for Christ's sake has forgiven her. But often and again her difficult temperament clogs the channels, and there isn't always the full evidence of the Holy Spirit within her. There you are, says the world, look at her sharp tongue and look at her temper on times. Calls herself a Christian, doesn't she? Yes, she possibly is a genuine Christian.
If she has God's Holy Spirit, certainly she is. Before God has finished with her, he'll make her perfect and present her faultless before the presence of his glory with exceeding joy. Here's another man, he was brought up in a very comfortable home. Good breeding over years had given him a good physique and a good temperament. Kindly chap. Hail fellow well met. It's easy to be him to be suave and courteous. His back doesn't break over a wash tub, and he isn't constantly pushed for tuck and save me.
And he thinks he's a decent chap. But God says the man is a broken sinner. And if that man has not been regenerated, if he has not received God's holy Spirit, if he is not born again, time and eternity will tell. Good as he is, he's not good enough for God, proceeding on his own steam. Without God's salvation, he will perish and his personality disintegrate for eternity.
Then what are those things that God requires of Christians? People who do have his Holy Spirit, that are saved and have eternal life. I do not propose to list in detail all those many duties, those social duties, those church duties, those family duties, those business duties that we have, nor have I any need. They are plainly written for us all to see in Holy Scripture. Let me remind you of the basic principle, said our Lord Jesus, if you love me, you will keep my commandments.
Let me mention, however, those two commandments that our Lord specifically left. I refer to the two Christian ordinances. There are only two. Our Lord personally commanded them both. He commanded his followers to be baptized publicly in his name. He commanded his people, through his apostle, to celebrate the Lord's Supper and so remember him.
These things are not left as a matter of our choice. If you had been one of Peter's converts, he would have done with you what he did with Cornelius. When Cornelius believed and received the Holy Spirit, and there was evidence that his profession of faith was genuine. We read that Peter commanded him to be baptized. Commanded. And so has our Lord ordained it, that at the very threshold of our profession of faith in the Lord Jesus, we publicly give evidence that we have accepted his lordship without any reserve, by being baptized in his name.
Ours not to reason why, or to reply, what good is it? Or to offer the observation, but I don't think it's necessary. That is to miss its immediate point. We profess to receive Jesus as Lord. Very good, says God. Now justify your profession by your works. It wouldn't matter if baptism were no earthly use whatever. It stands as a test of our profession.
The man that says, yes, I receive Jesus as Lord, and the next moment when the Lord's apostle says, I command you to be baptized, says, oh, but no, I, I, I, I don't see the point of it. I don't see the need of it. Seems to most people to contradict the profession he has just made. If we love him, we keep his commandment. We keep the ones we can understand, and we keep the ones that we don't yet understand, surely? He too asked us in his dying moments that we gather publicly and celebrate his death in the Lord's Supper.
If we love him, we keep his commandments. Idle to say we love him, isn't it? And not keep his commandments. But of course, Christianity is not merely keeping of ordinances, valuable as they are. Christians will give heed to the exhortation of the Apostle Peter in his second epistle, that being saved and having eternal life, we now cooperate with God and give all diligence.
By the aid of God's power and his promises, we build into our character those virtues that are Christianity. Seriously, deliberately, and joyfully cooperating with God. You see, it's one thing to be born a wee babe in God's family. It's another thing to grow to a maturely developed Christian personality. It is open to us, if we please, to remain babes and argue, well, I'm eternally secure, then why should I bother anymore?
Or it is open to us to do as we are asked to do and cooperate with God in the deliberate building up of a Christian character. Does it matter? It matters eternally, says Peter. Let us cooperate with God, lay hold of his power, lay hold of his promises, and by his grace develop our characters and add this, add that, and add the other quality. Then, when it comes to his eternal kingdom, an abundant entrance shall be ministered to us. Let us neglect that task and remain Christian babes.
We shall still get in. Just in. And as far as I read it, the difference is eternal. We are fond of com- comforting the sinner who repents with the story of the prodigal son and how right we are to do so. That man that went out and in folly wasted his substance with riotous living. Money, time, talent, strength, wasted the lot. He repented and came to his father, and his father received him with open arms.
The past was forgotten. The father re-equipped him, shoe and staff and sandal and robe. And our Lord holds up the example to show us how God receives the sinner who returns, though he has been an utter rotter hitherto, God's grace welcomes him back and makes him a child in the Father's family. Oh, but we should not forget that there is another parable following that one. While the first parable teaches us that however we have squandered our substance, there is salvation for us and receiving and eternal life if we come to the Savior.
The next parable reminds us that if, as Christians, we squander our lives, our money, our time, our talents, we shall suffer loss eternally. Use your time and talents, says our Lord, so that when you are put out of this life and have to leave earth's goods behind, they may receive you into everlasting tabernacles. Make to yourself friends, that in eternity you have friends.
I sometimes think that we are not realistic enough as we think of eternity. Being saved on earth doesn't mean that everybody, every Christian is equally our intimate friend. There is no reason to think it will be so in heaven. If I have lived for God and God's glory and my fellow's good, and have spent my time and energy in bringing God's salvation to my fellow men and women, when I get home at last, I shall not only be eternally saved, but there will be a bond of friendship between me and them who were saved by my work and prayers.
A bond of friendship that will be close and eternal. But if I have taken those same, that same time and energy and money and talents, and I have spent them on legitimate things, but spent them just selfishly for myself. I shall still be saved, but I don't know that anybody will feel specially friendly towards me. It could be that then eternity was somewhat of a lonely thing. Our Lord urged the necessity upon Christians. They use their time and talents to eternal advantage.
And says our, says the Apostle Paul, it is not merely a matter of building into yourself Christian character, but of building up that great church, that great temple for God that consists of redeemed men and women. Talking to his fellow Christians at Corinth, he said, now look, I have laid the foundation, which is Jesus Christ. You don't need to lay the foundation again, but you go on and build. You build good quality work, gold, silver, and precious stone, you, your work will abide eternally, and you will receive a reward.
But if you build shoddy stuff, hay, wood, and stubble, then at Christ's judgment seat, his keen critical eye will burn up the shoddy work. The man who did it because he is a believer in Christ himself shall be saved, but he shall suffer loss, and a lifetime's work shall go, maybe. He shall be saved, yet so as by far. Christian responsibility and opportunity is an exceedingly real thing. Oh, says somebody, I don't believe in working for reward.
I think we should work for the love of it. Well, go on and work for the love of it then. But it has pleased God to say that there is reward for Christian work. A kind of reward, you say? Well, judging from our Lord's parables, this kind of work. A man that had used the little gift he had in service for the Lord here, at the judgment seat of Christ, shall get the reward, not of a gracious and dignified retirement, but the opportunity to do ten times more work up there.
For in heaven they count the opportunity to work one of their greatest privileges. To walk around on golden streets unemployed, I don't know how enjoyable it would be. Somebody says, but you know, that's all right for you to talk because apparently you are a Christian lecturer and preacher, but we can't all preach and we can't all lecture. Some of us have got to run the shop and cut up the meat. Why, of course. But let none of us feel any conflict here. It is the motive that counts. Whether our work be tending the sheep, or making the beds, or expounding the Bible, it is the motive that counts.
And if the motive be right, much of the apparent conflict of duty will disappear. Seek first the kingdom of God. Make that your object in all you do, rather than the getting of your bread and butter. But in the peeling of the potatoes and the keeping of the ledger and the making of money, let the prime motive be that I'm in God's business and I'm doing this for him.
And all the rest shall be added. And there shall be no conflict of duty. It is as holy a thing to plow one's field, if it be plowed primarily for God, as it is to preach to sinners. Of course it is. And will obtain a right reward. But now I come back to the point I made at the beginning, and with this I close this lecture and this series of lectures. As I say, I tonight have concentrated on the Christian pathway.
I trust these few observations have been helpful to you, even as they have added to my own personal responsibility. But for any who have followed these lectures, who are not yet committed Christians, I have just one fear. I perhaps in earlier lectures insisted and pressed and emphasized the need that you begin by coming to the Savior and being born again and receiving eternal life, and I have stressed it heavily.
In a word, I have emphasized the need that if we would be saved, we must come through this experience that the Savior describes, entering in. I am the door. By me, if any man enter in, he shall be saved. And the reaction in your mind, perhaps, has been a whole array of, uh, different emotions. You see that what I have been saying is founded on holy writ, that a man must be born again if he is to enter the kingdom of God. And you have wondered and wondered and thought and thought. You've stood outside the door wondering.
Now I have gone on to speak of the Christian pathway, and perhaps I have diverted your attention, and I have tonight raised all sorts of other issues in your mind that strictly belong to people that are already Christians. I say I am just afraid that thereby I have diverted your attention from what for you is the first, and in fact the only important point at this juncture. I would then, if any of us are not yet inside the gate, any of us not yet born again, any of us in whose mind there lingers a doubt about his personal salvation, I would, if you please, that you forgot the lot of this lecture.
No need to worry about the road until we have settled this business about entering the gate. You say I find it so difficult, there are so many viewpoints, you say. So there are, of course. It is not as difficult as you make out. Conflicting though your emotions may be and your thoughts may be, in the end this thing is settled by a decision of your will. Christ says he is the door. He urges you to come to him and enter in.
Outside, he says, you'll perish. Inside you are saved. Inside he will deal with all those manner of perplexities that may surround you, but come in first and discuss the problems with him on the inside, and I warrant you they look a lot different from the inside. It is a matter of the will. Whether it all seems abundantly clear to you, or whether at the moment a number of things confuse you.
In his name, I insist once more this is your decision. As simple as this, as he says, come to me, enter in and be saved. You either decide you will, or you decide you won't. Putting it off, wanting to get clear the very last question and decide the last difficulty is often but a snare by which the enemy of our souls diverts our attention from the real issue.
It is not feeling, it is not emotion, it is the decisions of our will as we listen to the Savior. Will we come? Or won't we? Said our Lord, be in deadly earnest. Enter in. Because many, I tell you, shall come when the door is shut and want to enter in, but shall not be able. Of some, our Lord had regrettably to lament.
Ye will not come. Until we will to come, he can do nothing to give us practical salvation. God grant that these lectures shall go to that end, that all of us might come and enter in, and entering in, be helped of God to walk that narrow road that ends in glory. Shall we pray?
