The Strait Gate

Strive to enter in at the strait gate; for many, I say unto you, will seek to enter in, and shall not be able (Luke 13:24).

These are the words of our Lord Jesus Christ, and so they are to be heeded in a special way. Besides, the subject of the words is the weightiest of all, namely, how we are to attain salvation; and so for that reason too they are to be heeded.

The occasion of the words was a question put to Jesus Christ by someone who was in the company of the disciples at that time. The question was this: “Lord, are there few that be saved?” (Luke 13:23). It was a serious question. It was not the kind that tended to undermine the hearers, as too many questions do nowadays, but the kind that by its very nature tended to awaken the company to good, and that called for an answer that might profit the people as well. This question also pleased Jesus Christ well. He prepared and gave an answer without the least retort or show of distaste; an answer, I say, that carried in it the fullest resolution of the question itself, and help to those who were asking it. “And he said unto them, Strive to enter in…”

The words are an answer, and an instruction as well. First, they are an answer, and that in the affirmative: the gate is strait, and many who seek will not be able; therefore only a few shall be saved. Second, the answer is also an instruction: “strive to enter in…” That is good counsel and instruction. I pray God to help me, and my reader, and all who love their own salvation, to take it.

My way of handling the words will be, first, by way of explanation, and then, second, by way of observation.

The Words Explained

The words are to be considered, first, with reference to their general scope, and then, second, with reference to their particular phrases.

1. The general scope of the text is to be considered, and that is that great thing, salvation. For these words look directly at, point to, and give directions about salvation: “Are there few that be saved? Strive to enter in at the strait gate.”

The words, I say, are meant to direct us not only to talk about being saved, or to wish for it, but to understand how we shall be effectually saved, and to seek that we may be. And so they are of the greatest importance. To be saved! What is like being saved? To be saved from sin, from hell, from the wrath of God, from eternal damnation: what is like it? To be made an heir of God, of his grace, of his kingdom, and of eternal glory: what is like it? And yet all this is included in this word saved, and in the answer to that question, “Are there few that be saved?”

Indeed, this word saved is of little use in the world, except to those who are heartily afraid of being damned. This word lies in the Bible the way excellent salves lie in some people’s houses: thrust into a hole and not thought of for many months, because the household has no wounds or sores. In time of sickness, what is valued so highly as the doctor’s bottles and ointment pots full of his excellent things? But when the person has grown well, the rest is thrown on the dunghill. Oh, when people are sick of sin and afraid of being damned, what a text is the one where this word saved is found! Yes, what a word of worth, and goodness, and blessedness it is to the one who lies continually under the wrath of a guilty conscience!

“But the whole need not a physician” (Matt 9:12). So the one who knows what hell, and death, and damnation mean, that one, and only that one, knows what saved means. “What shall I do to be saved?” is the language of the trembling sinner. “Lord, save me” (Matt 14:30) is the language of the sinking sinner. And no one admires the glory that is in that word saved except those who see that, without being saved, everything in heaven and earth is emptiness to them. Those, too, who believe they are granted a share in all the blessedness wrapped up in that word bless and admire God, who has saved them. Therefore, since the thing intended in both the question and the answer is nothing less than the salvation of the soul, I beg you to give the more earnest heed (Heb 2:1).

2. But to come to the particular phrases in the words, and to handle them in order: in the words I find four things. First, an intimation of the kingdom of heaven. Second, a description of the entrance into it. Third, an exhortation to enter into it. And fourth, a motive to enforce that exhortation.

First, there is an intimation of the kingdom of heaven. For when he says, “Strive to enter in,” and uses phrases like it, a place or a state, or both, is assumed, something to be enjoyed. “Enter in”: enter into what, or where, if not into a state or a place, or both? And so when you read this word “enter in,” you must say that the text certainly includes a good thing that it does not yet put into words. “Enter in”: into heaven, that is the meaning, where the saved are and shall be; into heaven, that place, that glorious place, where God and Christ and the angels are, and the souls or spirits of just men made perfect. “Enter in”: the thing included here, though not expressed in the words, is called in another place the Mount Zion, the heavenly Jerusalem, the general assembly and church of the first-born which are written in heaven (Heb 12:23). And so the words tell us that there is a most glorious state, and one that comes when this world is ended; and that this place and state are to be enjoyed and inherited by a generation of men forever.

Besides, this word “enter in” tells us that salvation in its fullness is to be enjoyed only there, and that only there is eternal safety. All other places and conditions are hazardous, dangerous, and full of snares, imperfections, temptations and afflictions; but there all is well. There is no devil to tempt us, no desperately wicked heart to betray us, no deceitful lust to entangle us, and no enchanting world to bewitch us. There all shall be well to all eternity.

Further, all the parts of salvation, and all the circumstances that go with it, are to be enjoyed only there. Only there is immortality and eternal life. There is the glory and the fullness of joy, and the everlasting pleasures. There God and Christ are to be enjoyed by open vision, and more. There are the angels and the saints. Further, there is no death or sickness there, and no sorrow or sighing, forever. There is no pain, no persecutor, and no darkness to eclipse our glory. O this Mount Zion! O this heavenly Jerusalem! (2 Cor 5:1-4; Ps 16:11; Luke 20:35-36; Heb 12:22-24)

See, then, what a great thing the Lord Jesus has included in this little word in. A whole heaven and eternal life are wrapped up in this word, just as they are in other little words of the holy Scriptures of truth: as where he says, “Knock, and it shall be opened unto you” (Matt 7:7), and “the election hath obtained it” (Rom 11:7). This should teach us not only to read, but to pay attention as we read; not only to read, but to lift up our hearts to God as we read. For if we are not careful, and if he does not give us light and understanding, we may easily pass over, without much notice, a word that may hold a glorious kingdom and eternal salvation in the very heart of it. Yes, sometimes, as here, a whole heaven is implied where it is not expressed at all. The apostles of old used to draw great things out of the Scriptures, even out of the very order and timing of the various things they contain (see Rom 4:9-11; Gal 3:16-17; Heb 8:13).

Second, just as we have here a hint of the kingdom of heaven, so we also have a description of the entrance into it, and that by a double comparison. First, it is called a gate; and second, a strait gate: “Strive to enter in at the strait gate.”

1. It Is Called a Gate

The entrance is set forth by the picture of a gate. A gate, you know, has a double use. It is there to open and to shut, and so to let in or to keep out, and to do each of these at its proper time. As Nehemiah said, “Let not the gates of Jerusalem be opened until the sun be hot” (Neh 7:3); and again, “I commanded that the gates should be shut, and charged that they should not be opened till after the Sabbath” (Neh 13:19-20). And so you find it with this gate of heaven. When the five wise virgins came, the gate was opened; but afterward the other virgins came, and the door was shut (Matt 25).

So, then, the entrance into heaven is called a gate to show that there is a time when there may be entrance, and that a time will come when there shall be none. Indeed, this is a chief truth contained in the text: “Strive to enter in at the strait gate: for many, I say unto you, will seek to enter in, and shall not be able” (Luke 13:24). I read in the Scriptures of two gates, or doors, through which those who go to heaven must enter.

1. There is the door of faith, the door which the grace of God has opened to the Gentiles (Acts 14:27). This door is Jesus Christ, as he himself also testifies, saying, “I am the door …” (John 10:9). By this door men enter into God’s favor and mercy, find forgiveness through faith in his blood, and live in hope of eternal life. That is why he himself has also said, “I am the door: by me if any man enter in, he shall be saved”; that is, he shall be received to mercy and inherit eternal life.

2. But there is another door or gate. For what the text calls a gate is twice called a door in the next verse. There is, I say, another gate, and that is the passage into heaven itself, the entrance into the heavenly mansion house. That is the gate mentioned in the text, and the door mentioned twice in the verse that follows. Jacob called it this when he said that Bethel was the house of God, and “this is the gate of heaven”; that is, the entrance, for he saw the entrance into heaven. One end of Jacob’s ladder stands in Bethel, God’s house, and the other end reaches up to the gate of heaven (Gen 28:10-17). Jacob’s ladder was a figure of Christ. Yet that ladder was not the gate of heaven, but the way from the church to the gate which he saw above, at the top of the ladder (Gen 28:12; John 1:51). But again, to see that the gate in the text is the gate or entrance into heaven, consider the following.

(1) It is the gate that lets men into, or shuts men out of, that place or kingdom where Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob are (Luke 13:28). That place is the paradise where Christ promised the thief, who asked to be with him in his kingdom, that he would be that very day (Luke 23:42-43). It is the place into which Paul said he was caught up, when he heard words unlawful or impossible for a man to utter (2 Cor 12:1-6).

Question. But is Christ not the gate or entrance into this heavenly place?

Answer. He is the one without whom no one can get there. That is because by his merits men obtain that world, and also because he, like the Father, is the giver and disposer of that kingdom to whomever he will. Further, this place is called his house, and he himself the Master of it: “When once the Master of the house is risen up, and hath shut to the door” (Luke 13:25). But we commonly say that the master of the house is not the door. Men enter heaven by him, then, not as he is the gate or door or entrance into the heavenly mansion house, but as he is the giver and disposer of that kingdom to those whom he shall count worthy, because he has obtained it for them.

(2) To see that this gate is the very passage into heaven, consider that the text refers especially to the day of judgment. By then Christ will have laid aside his office as Mediator, which he exercised before in bringing his own elect to the faith. He will then act not as one who justifies the ungodly, but as one who judges sinners. He will by then have risen up from the throne of grace and shut the door against all the impenitent, and will be seated on the throne of judgment, from there to deal with ungodly sinners.

Objection. But Christ bids us strive: “Strive” now “to enter in at the strait gate.” If that gate is, as you say, the gate or entrance into heaven, then it would seem that we should not strive until the day of judgment, for we shall not come to that gate until then.

Answer. By this exhortation, “Strive …,” Christ does not at all allow or encourage delay, or permit a man to neglect his own salvation. Rather, he sets poor creatures to preparing for the judgment, and counsels them to get now the things that will then give them entrance into glory. This exhortation is much like these: “Therefore be ye also ready, for in such an hour as ye think not the Son of man cometh” (Matt 24:44); and, “And they that were ready went in with him to the marriage, and the door was shut” (Matt 25:10).

So when he says, “Strive to enter in,” it is as if he said: Blessed are those who will one day be admitted into the kingdom of heaven. But those who are counted worthy of so unspeakable a favor must be well prepared and fitted for it beforehand. Now the time to be fitted is not the day of judgment, but the day of grace; not then, but now. Therefore strive now for those things that will then give you entrance into the heavenly kingdom.

2. It Is Called a Strait Gate

As it is called a gate, so it is called a strait gate: “Strive to enter in at the strait gate.”

The straitness of this gate is not to be understood literally, but spiritually. You are not to picture the entrance into heaven as some pinching little wicket gate. No, the straitness of this gate is quite another thing. This gate is wide enough for all who are truly gracious and sincere lovers of Jesus Christ, but so strait that not one of the others can by any means get in: “Open to me the gates of righteousness: I will go into them, and I will praise the Lord: this gate of the Lord, into which the righteous shall enter” (Ps 118:19-20). By this word, therefore, Christ Jesus has shown us that without due qualifications there is no possibility of entering heaven; the strait gate will keep all others out. When Christ spoke this parable, he no doubt had his eye on some passage or passages of the Old Testament with which the Jews were well acquainted. I will mention two, and so go on.

1. The place through which God turned Adam and his wife out of paradise. Possibly our Lord had his eye on that. For though it was wide enough for them to come out at, it was too strait for them to go in at. But what could be the reason for that? Why, they had sinned. Therefore God “placed at the east of that garden cherubims, and a flaming sword, which turned every way, to keep the way of the tree of life” (Gen 3:24). The cherubim and the flaming sword made the entrance too strait for them to enter. Souls, there are cherubim and a flaming sword at the gates of heaven to keep the way of the tree of life. Therefore none but those who are duly fitted for heaven can enter in at this strait gate; the flaming sword will keep all others out. “Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived, neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God” (1 Cor 6:9-10).

2. Perhaps our Lord had his eye on the gates of the temple when he spoke this word to the people. For though the gates of the temple were six cubits wide (Ezek 40:48), they were still so strait that no one who was unclean in anything might enter by them. This was because gatekeepers were placed at those gates, and their duty was to see that none but those who had a right to enter might go in. And so it is written that Jehoiada set “porters at the gates of the house of the Lord, that none which was unclean in anything should enter in” (2 Chr 23:19). Souls, God has gatekeepers at the gates of the temple, at the gate of heaven: gatekeepers, I say, placed there by God to see that no one who is unclean in anything may come in. Even now, no one who is openly profane and a scandal to religion may enter in at the gate of the church. No, not even if they plead that they are beloved of God: “What hath my beloved to do in mine house,” says the Lord, “seeing she hath wrought lewdness with many?” (Jer 11:15).

I say, I am strongly inclined to believe that our Lord Jesus Christ had these two texts in mind when he said that the gate is strait. And what confirms me all the more in this is that a little below the text he says, “There shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth, when ye shall see Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, and all the prophets, in the kingdom of heaven, and you yourselves thrust out” (Luke 13:28). Thrust out: that signifies a violent act, resisting with force those who would enter, though they are unqualified. For this very reason the gatekeepers of the temple were to bear arms if need be, and to be men of courage and strength, so that the unsanctified or unprepared could not somehow get in. We read in the book of Revelation of the holy city, that it had twelve gates, and at the gates twelve angels. But what did they do there? Why, among the rest of their service, this was one thing: that there might “in no wise enter into it any thing that defileth, or worketh abomination, or that maketh a lie” (Rev 21:27).

But to show more particularly what it is that makes this gate so strait: there are three things that make it strait. First, there is sin. Second, there is the word of the law. Third, there are the angels of God.

1. There is sin: the sin of the profane, and the sin of the professor.

(1) The sin of the profane. But this need not be enlarged upon, because it is agreed on all hands, wherever there is a common belief in the being of God and the judgment to come, that “the wicked shall be turned into hell, and all the nations that forget God” (Ps 9:17).

(2) But there is the sin of professors; or rather, take it this way: there is a profession of religion that can stand alongside an unsanctified heart and life. The sin of such people will outweigh the salvation of their souls, the sin end being the heavier end of the scale. I say, since the end that has sin in it is the heavier, they tip over. And so, in spite of their glorious profession, they are drowned in perdition and destruction. For no such person has any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God. Therefore “let no man deceive you with vain words; for because of these things cometh the wrath of God upon the children of disobedience” (Eph 5:3-6). Nor will a profession be able to excuse them. The gate will be too strait for people like these to enter in.

A man may partake of salvation in part, but not of salvation in whole. God saved the children of Israel out of Egypt, but overthrew them in the wilderness: “I will therefore put you in remembrance, though ye once knew this, how that the Lord, having saved the people out of the land of Egypt, afterward destroyed them that believed not” (Jude 5). So we see that in spite of their beginning, “they could not enter in because of unbelief” (Heb 3:19).

2. There is the word of the law, and that will make the gate strait as well. No one may go in there but those who can go in by the leave of the law. For though no one is, or can be, justified by the works of the law, yet unless the righteousness and holiness by which people attempt to enter this kingdom are justified by the law, it is useless even to think of entering in at this strait gate. Now the law justifies no one except on account of Christ’s righteousness. If, therefore, you are not truly found in that righteousness, you will find the law lying right across the passage into heaven to keep you out. Every man’s work must be tried by fire, so that it may be revealed what sort it is.

There are two errors in the world about the law. One is when people think to enter in at the strait gate by the righteousness of the law. The other is when people think they may enter heaven without the leave of the law. Both of these, I say, are errors. For as by the works of the law no flesh shall be justified, so without the consent of the law no flesh shall be saved. Heaven and earth shall pass away, before one jot or tittle of the law shall fail, till all be fulfilled. Whoever cannot be saved by the consent of the law, therefore, must be damned.

And indeed, this law is the flaming sword that turns every way. Yes, to this day it lies in the way to heaven as a bar to all unbelievers and unsanctified professors, for it has been taken out of the way for the truly gracious only. To all others it will prove a roaring lion to devour them. Because of the law, therefore, the gate will be found too strait for the unsanctified to enter in. When the apostle had told the Corinthians that “the unrighteous should not inherit the kingdom of God,” and that some of them had been such, he adds, “But ye are washed, but ye are sanctified, but ye are justified, in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God” (1 Cor 6:9-11). In this he firmly implies that if they had not been washed and sanctified and justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, the law would have kept them out for their transgressions. It would have made the gate too strait for them to enter in.

3. There are also the angels of God, and because of them the gate is strait. The Lord Jesus calls the end of the world his harvest, and says, moreover, that the angels are his reapers. These angels, therefore, are to gather his wheat into his barn, but to gather the ungodly into bundles to burn them (Matt 13:30, 39, 41, 49). Unless, therefore, the unsanctified man can master the law and conquer angels; unless he can, so to speak, pull them out of the gateway of heaven, he himself will never come there. No one goes to heaven except with the help of the angels; I mean at the day of judgment. For the Son of man “shall send his angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they shall gather together his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other” (Matt 24:31). If those who enter in at the strait gate are to enter there under the escort of the holy angels, then tell me, when do you think those people will enter there whom the angels are commanded to gather, to “bind them in bundles to burn them”? This, therefore, is a third difficulty. The angels will make this entrance strait; yes, too strait for the unjustified and unsanctified to enter in.

Third, I come now to the exhortation, which is to strive to enter in. “Strive to enter in at the strait gate” (Luke 13:24). These words are fitly added; for since the gate is strait, it follows that those who will enter in must strive.

“Strive.” This word strive supposes that great idleness is natural to professors. They think to get to heaven by lying, as it were, on their elbows. It also suggests that the difficulties professors will meet with before they get to heaven will be many. It also concludes that only the laboring Christian, man or woman, will get in there. “Strive …”

I will propose three questions on this word, and the answers to them may give us light into its meaning. First, what does this word strive mean? Second, how should we strive? Third, why should we strive?

1. What Does the Word Strive Mean?

What does this word strive mean? Answer.

1. When he says, “Strive,” it is as much as to say: bend yourselves to the work with all your might. “Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might; for there is no work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom in the grave, whither thou goest” (Eccl 9:10). This is what Samson did when he set himself to destroy the Philistines: “He bowed himself with all his might” (Judg 16:30). This is what David did too, when he made provision for the building and beautifying of the temple of God (1 Chr 29:2). And this is what you must do, if you are ever to enter into heaven.

2. When he says, “Strive,” he calls for the mind and will, that they should be on his side and on the side of the things of his kingdom. For none truly strive except those who have given the Son of God their heart, of which the mind and will are a principal part. Saving conversion lies more in the turning of the mind and will to Christ, and to the love of his heavenly things, than in all knowledge and judgment. And the apostle confirms this when he says, “Stand fast in one spirit, with one mind striving …” (Phil 1:27).

3. And more particularly, this word strive is expressed by several other terms.

(1) It is expressed by that word, “So run that ye may obtain” (1 Cor 9:24-25).

(2) It is expressed by that word, “Fight the good fight of faith, lay hold on eternal life” (1 Tim 6:12).

(3) It is expressed by that word, “Labour not for the meat which perisheth, but for that meat which endureth unto everlasting life” (John 6:27).

(4) It is expressed by that word, “We wrestle … with principalities and powers, and the rulers of the darkness of this world” (Eph 6:12).

Therefore, when he says, “Strive,” it is as much as to say: run for heaven, fight for heaven, labor for heaven, wrestle for heaven, or you are likely to go without it.

2. How Should We Strive?

The second question is, how should we strive?

Answer. The answer in general is, you must strive lawfully. “And if a man also strive for masteries, yet is he not crowned, except he strive lawfully” (2 Tim 2:5).

But you will say, “What is it to strive lawfully?” I answer:

1. It is to strive against the things that the Lord Jesus abhors; yes, to resist to the spilling of your blood, striving against sin (Heb 12:4). It is to hold in abomination all those things that the Word condemns, even if they are your own right hand, right eye or right foot, and to seek by all godly means to suppress them utterly (Mark 9:43, 45, 47).

2. To strive lawfully is to strive for those things that are commanded in the Word. “But thou, O man of God, flee the world, and follow after,” that is, strive for, “righteousness, godliness, faith, love, patience, meekness; fight the good fight of faith, lay hold on eternal life …” (1 Tim 6:11-12).

3. He who strives lawfully must therefore be very temperate in all the good and lawful things of this life. “And every man that striveth for the mastery is temperate in all things. Now they do it to obtain a corruptible crown; but we an incorruptible” (1 Cor 9:25). Most professors give the world and the vanity of their hearts leave to embrace them and to hang about their necks. They make their striving consist in an outcry of words rather than in a heartfelt labor against the lusts and love of the world and against their own corruptions. But this kind of striving is only a beating of the air, and it will come to nothing at all in the end (1 Cor 9:26).

4. He who strives lawfully must take God and Christ along with him to the work, or he will certainly be undone. “Whereunto,” said Paul, “I also labour, striving according to his working, which worketh in me mightily” (Col 1:29). And to do this rightly, he must observe the following particulars.

(1) He must take care that he does not strive about things or words to no profit, for then God will not be with him. “Of these things,” says the apostle, “put them in remembrance; charging them before the Lord, that they strive not about words to no profit, but to the subverting of the hearers” (2 Tim 2:14). But alas, how many professors in our days are guilty of this transgression! Their religion stands chiefly, if not only, in a few unprofitable questions and vain wranglings about words and things, to no profit, but to the destruction of the hearers!

(2) He must take care that while he strives against one sin, he does not harbor and shelter another; or that while he cries out against other men’s sins, he does not tolerate his own.

(3) In the striving, strive to believe; strive for the faith of the gospel (Phil 1:27). For the more we believe the gospel, and the reality of the things of the world to come, the more heart and courage we will have to labor to possess the blessedness. “Let us labour therefore to enter into that rest, lest any man fall after the same example of unbelief” (Heb 4:11).

(4) As we should strive for faith and by faith, so we should strive by prayer, by fervent and effectual prayer (Rom 15:30). Oh, the swarms of our prayerless professors! What do they think of themselves? Surely the gate of heaven was as wide in former times as it is in these days of ours. But what striving by prayer there was then among Christians for the thing that gives admittance into this kingdom, compared with what there is in these latter days!

(5) We should also strive by putting to death our members that are upon the earth. “I therefore so run,” said Paul, “not as uncertainly; so fight I, not as one that beateth the air; but I keep under my body, and bring it into subjection, lest that by any means, when I have preached the gospel to others, I myself should be a castaway” (1 Cor 9:26-27). But all this is spoken principally to professors; that is how I want to be understood.

3. Why Should We Strive?

I come now to the third question, namely, why should we strive? Answer.

1. Because the thing you are here exhorted to strive for is worth striving for. It is for nothing less than a whole heaven, and an eternity of bliss there. How men will strive when they have a little honor, a little profit, a little pleasure before them! I say again, how they will strive for this! Now they do it for a corruptible crown, but we for an incorruptible one. It seems to me that this word heaven, and this eternal life, ought truly to make us strive. For what else is there, either in heaven or on earth, like them to provoke a man to strive?

2. Strive, because otherwise the devil and hell will surely have you. He goes about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour (1 Pet 5:8). Those fallen angels are always watchful, diligent and unwearied. They are also mighty, subtle and malicious, seeking nothing more than the damnation of your soul. O you who are like the artless dove, strive!

3. Strive, because every lust strives and wars against your soul. “The flesh lusteth against the Spirit” (Gal 5:17). “Dearly beloved, I beseech you,” said Peter, “as strangers and pilgrims, abstain from fleshly lusts, which war against the soul” (1 Pet 2:11). It is a rare thing to see or find a Christian who can truly bridle his lusts. But it is no strange thing to see professors who are “not only bridled, but saddled too,” yes, and ridden from lust to sin, from one vanity to another, by the very devil himself and by the corruptions of their own hearts.

4. Strive, because you have a whole world against you. The world hates you if you are a Christian. The men of the world hate you. The things of the world are snares for you: even your bed and table, your wife and husband, yes, your most lawful enjoyments have something in them that will certainly sink your soul to hell if you do not strive against the snares that are in them (Rom 11:9).

The world will seek to keep you out of heaven with mockery, jeers, taunts, threats, jails, gallows, nooses, burnings and a thousand deaths; therefore strive! Again, if it cannot overcome you with these, it will flatter, promise, allure, entice, entreat, and use a thousand tricks on this side to destroy you. And note this: many who have stood firm against the threats of the world have nevertheless been overcome by its bewitching flatteries.

There has always been enmity between the devil and the church, and between his seed and her seed too (Gen 3). Michael and his angels, and the dragon and his angels, make war continually (Rev 12). There have been great desires and efforts among men to reconcile these two into one, that is, the seed of the serpent and the seed of the woman; but it could never yet be accomplished. The world says they will never come over to us; and we in turn say, “By God’s grace, we will never come over to them.” But the business has not ended in words. Both they and we have also added our efforts to make each other submit, but the efforts have proved ineffective too. They, for their part, have devised every kind of cruel torment to make us submit: slaying with the sword, stoning, sawing in two, flames, wild beasts, banishments, hunger and a thousand miseries. We, on the other side, have labored by prayers and tears, by patience and long-suffering, by gentleness and love, by sound doctrine and faithful witness-bearing against their gross wickedness, to bring them over to us. But still the enmity remains, so that they must conquer us, or we must conquer them. One side must be overcome; but the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God.

5. Strive, because nothing of Christianity is gained by idleness. Idleness clothes a man with rags (Prov 23:21), and the vineyard of the slothful is grown over with nettles (Prov 24:30-32). A profession that is not accompanied by spiritual labor cannot bring the soul to heaven. The fathers before us were “not slothful in business,” but “fervent in spirit, serving the Lord” (Rom 12:11). Therefore “be not slothful, but followers of them who through faith and patience inherit the promises” (Heb 6:12).

“Strive to enter in.” It seems to me that the words, at the first reading, suggest to us that the Christian, in everything he ever does in this world, should carefully heed and regard his soul. I say, in everything he ever does. Many are for their souls by fits and starts. But a true Christian, in all the doings and designs that he plans and manages in this world, should keep a special eye on his own future and everlasting good. In all his labors he should strive to enter in. “Wisdom” (meaning Christ) “is the principal thing; therefore get wisdom: and with all thy getting get understanding” (Prov 4:7).

Get nothing, if you cannot get Christ and grace, and further hopes of heaven, in that getting. Get nothing with a bad conscience, or at the hazard of your peace with God, or in such a way that in getting it you weaken the graces God has given you; for this is not to strive to enter in. Add grace to grace, both by religious and by worldly duties: “For so an entrance shall be ministered unto you abundantly into the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ” (2 Pet 1:8-11). Religious duties are not the only times for striving; anyone who thinks so is mistaken. You may help your faith and your hope in the godly management of your calling, and you may gain further footing in eternal life by studying the glory of God in all your worldly employment. I am speaking now to Christians who are justified freely by grace, and I am encouraging, or rather counseling, them to strive to enter in. For there is an entering in by faith and a good conscience now, as well as our entering in, body and soul, hereafter. And I must add that the more usual it is for your soul to enter in now by faith, the more steadfast hope you will have of entering in hereafter, in body and soul.

“Strive to enter in.” By these words the Lord Jesus also gives a sharp rebuke to those professors who, in all the bustle they make in the world about religion, have their eye not on eternal glory but on other, temporal things. There are some who make such a stir, such a noise and clamor, with their notions and forms; and yet perhaps it is all for the loaves, because they have eaten of the loaves and are filled (John 6:26). These do indeed strive to enter, but it is not into heaven. They find that religion has good trade at the end of it, or they find that it is the way to credit, reputation, promotion and the like; and therefore they strive to enter into these. But these people do not have the strait gate in their eye, nor do they have in themselves any love for their poor and perishing souls. And so this exhortation nips such people by predicting their damnation.

“Strive to enter in.” These words also sharply rebuke those who content themselves, as the angel of the church of Sardis did, “to have a name to live, and be dead” (Rev 3:1); or who are like the Laodiceans, who took their religion on trust and were content with a poor, wretched, lukewarm profession. For people like these act completely contrary to the exhortation in the text. It says, “Strive,” and they sit and sleep. It says, “Strive to enter in,” and they content themselves with a profession that is never likely to bring them there.

“Strive to enter in.” Further, these words put us on proving the truth of our graces now. I say, they put us on proving the truth of them now. For if the strait gate is the gate of heaven, and yet we are to strive to enter into it now, even while we live and before we come there, then doubtless Christ means by this exhortation that we should use all lawful means to prove our graces in this world, whether they will stand in the judgment or not. Strive to enter in. Get those graces now that will prove true graces then. And therefore test those you have; and if, on testing, they do not prove right, cast them away and cry for better ones, lest they cast you away when better ones are not to be had. “Buy of me gold tried in the fire” (Rev 3:18); mark that. That is, Christ says: buy from me faith and grace that will stand in the judgment; strive for that faith. Buy from me that grace, and also white clothing, so that you may be clothed and the shame of your wickedness may not appear; and anoint your eyes with eye salve, so that you may see. Pay attention to this advice; this is right striving to enter in.

But you will say, “How should we test our graces? Would you have us run into temptation, to test whether they are sound or rotten?”

Answer. You need not run into trials. God has ordained that enough of them will overtake you to prove your graces either rotten or sound before the day of your death. Sufficient to the day is the evil thereof, if only you have a sufficiency of grace to withstand it. I say, you will have trials enough overtaking you to prove your graces sound or rotten. Therefore, if God helps you, you may see how it is likely to go with you before you go out of this world, that is, whether your graces are such as will carry you in at the gates of heaven or not.

“But how should we test our graces now?” Answer.

(a) How do you find them in outward trials? See Heb 11:15-16.

(b) How do you find yourself in the inward workings of sin (Rom 7:24)?

(c) How do you find yourself under the highest enjoyment of grace in this world (Phil 3:14)?

“But what do you mean by these three questions?” I mean that graces show at these seasons of theirs whether they are rotten or sound.

(a) How do they show themselves to be true under the first of these? Answer. By mistrusting our own sufficiency, by crying to God for help, by desiring rather to die than to bring any dishonor to the name of God, and by counting that if God is honored in the trial, you have gained more than all the world could give you (2 Chr 20:12; 2 Chr 14:11; Acts 4; Acts 20:22; 2 Cor 4:17-18; Heb 11:24-25).

(b) How do they show themselves to be true under the second? Answer. By mourning over them, confessing them, striving and praying against them; by not being content, even if you could have heaven, as long as they live and defile you; by counting holiness the greatest beauty in the world; and by flying to Jesus Christ for life (Zech 12:10; John 19; Heb 12:14; Ps 19:12).

(c) How do they show themselves to be true under the third? Answer. By prizing true graces above all the world; by praying heartily that God will give you more; and by not being content with all the grace you can be capable of enjoying on this side of heaven and glory (Ps 84:10; Luke 17:5; Phil 3).

“Strive to enter in.” The reason why Christ adds these words, “to enter in,” is obvious: because there is no true and lasting happiness on this side of heaven. I say, none that is both true and lasting; I mean, as to our sense and feeling, as there will be there. “For here have we no continuing city, but we seek one to come” (Heb 13:14). Heaven is within; strive therefore to enter in. The glory is within; strive therefore to enter in. Mount Zion is within; strive therefore to enter in. The heavenly Jerusalem is within; strive therefore to enter in. Angels and saints are within; strive therefore to enter in. And to crown it all, the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, and that glorious Redeemer, is within; strive therefore to enter in.

“Strive to enter in.” “For without are dogs, and sorcerers, and whoremongers, and murderers, and idolaters, and whosoever loveth and maketh a lie” (Rev 22:15). Outside are also the devils, and hell, and death, and all damned souls. Outside is howling, weeping, wailing and gnashing of teeth. Yes, outside are all the miseries, sorrows and plagues that an infinite God can, in justice and power, inflict on an evil and wicked generation (Matt 25:41; Rev 12:9; Isa 65:13-14; Matt 22:13; Deut 29:18-20). “Strive therefore to enter in at the strait gate.”

Strive to enter in at the strait gate; for many, I say unto you, will seek to enter in, and shall not be able (Luke 13:24).

Fourth, we have now come to the motive our Lord urges to enforce his exhortation.

He told us before that the gate was strait. He also exhorted us to strive to enter in at it: that is, to get those things now that will further our entrance then, and to set ourselves against those things that will hinder our entering in.

In this motive there are five things to note.

1. There will be a disappointment for some on the day of judgment: they will seek to enter in, and shall not be able.

2. Not a few, but many, will meet with this disappointment: “for many will seek to enter in, and shall not be able.”

3. This doctrine, that many will miscarry then, rests on the validity of Christ’s word: “For many, I say, will seek to enter in, and shall not be able.”

4. Professors will make up a great heap among the many who fall short of heaven: “For many, I say unto you, will seek to enter in, and shall not be able.”

5. Where grace and striving are lacking now, seeking and contending to enter in will be useless then: “For many, I say unto you, will seek to enter in, and shall not be able.”

But I will go on in my former method, that is, to open the words to you.

The Words ‘For Many’

“For many …” If he had said, “For some will fall short,” that would have been a sentence worth heeding. If he had said, “For some who seek will fall short,” that would have been very awakening. But when he says, “Many, many will fall short, yes, many among professors will fall short,” this is not only awakening, but dreadful!

“For many …” I find this word many applied in various ways in Scripture.

1. Sometimes it means the openly profane, the wicked and ungodly world, as where Christ says, “Wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat” (Matt 7:13). By the many here, I say, he chiefly means those who go on in the broad way of sin and profaneness, bearing the “tokens” of their damnation in their foreheads (Job 21:29-30; Isa 3:9), those whose daily practice proclaims that their “feet go down to death, and their steps take hold on hell” (Prov 5:5).

2. Sometimes this word many means those who cling to the people of God deceitfully and in hypocrisy, or, as Daniel has it, “Many shall cleave to them with flatteries” (Dan 11:34). The word many in this text includes all who pretend to be better in religion than they are. It includes, I say, those who have religion only as a holiday suit, to set themselves off at certain times and when they come among suitable company.

3. Sometimes this word many means those who apostatize from Christ: such as believe for a while, and in time of temptation fall away. As John says of some of Christ’s disciples, “From that time many of his disciples went back, and walked no more with him” (John 6:66).

4. Sometimes this word many means those who make a great noise and do many great things in the church, and yet lack saving grace. “Many,” says Christ, “will say unto me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name have cast out devils? and in thy name done many wonderful works?” (Matt 7:22). Mark this: there will be many of these.

5. Sometimes this word many means those poor, ignorant, deluded souls who are carried away with every wind of doctrine; those who are caught by the cunning and crafty deceiver who lies in wait to beguile unstable souls: “And many shall follow their pernicious ways, by reason of whom the way of truth shall be evil spoken of” (2 Pet 2:2).

6. Sometimes this word many includes the whole world, good and bad: “And many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt” (Dan 12:2; compare John 5:28-29).

7. Lastly, sometimes this word many means the good only, even those who will be saved (Luke 1:16; Luke 2:34).

Since, then, the word is applied in such various ways, let us inquire how it must be taken in the text.

1. It must not be applied to the sincerely godly, for they shall never perish (John 10:27-28).

2. It cannot be applied to the whole world, for then no flesh would be saved.

3. Neither is it to be applied to the openly profane only, for then the hypocrite would be excluded by it.

4. But by the many in the text our Lord especially means the professor: the professor, I say, however high he seems to be now, who will be found without saving grace on the day of judgment.

Now, to see that the professor is especially intended in this text, consider this. As soon as the Lord had said, “Many will seek to enter in, and shall not be able,” he points, as it were with his finger, at the many he especially means: that is, those among whom he had taught, those who had eaten and drunk in his presence, those who had prophesied and cast out devils in his name, and in his name had done many wonderful works (Luke 13:26; Matt 7:22). These are the many the Lord intends in this text, though others are also included under the sentence of damnation by his word in other places.

“For many …” Matthew says, concerning this strait gate, that there are but few that find it (Matt 7:14). But it seems that those cast away in my text did find it, for you read that they knocked at it and cried, “Lord, open unto us” (Luke 13:25). So then, the meaning may seem to be this: many of the few who find it will seek to enter in, and shall not be able. I find that on the day of judgment some will be crying to the rocks to cover them, and some will be crying at the gates of heaven for entrance. Suppose that those who cry to the rocks to cover them are those whose conscience will not allow them even once to look God in the face, because they have fallen under present guilt and the dreadful fears of the wrath of the Lamb (Rev 6:16). And suppose that those who stand crying at the gate of heaven are those whose confidence holds out to the last, even those whose boldness will enable them to contend even with Jesus Christ for entrance: those, I say, who will have profession, casting out of devils, and many wonderful works to plead. Of this sort are the many in my text: “For many, I say unto you, will seek to enter in, and shall not be able.”

If we could compare the professors of our times with the everlasting word of God, this doctrine would appear more plainly to the children of men. How few among the many, yes, among the swarms of professors, have a heart to make it a matter of conscience to walk before God in this world, and to study his glory among the children of men! How few, I say, have his name lying nearer their hearts than their own carnal concerns! No, do not many make his Word, and his name, and his ways, a stalking-horse for their own worldly advantage? God calls for faith, a good conscience, moderation, self-denial, humility, heavenly-mindedness, love to the saints and to enemies, and conformity to his will in heart, in word and in life (Mark 11:22; 1 Pet 3:16; Heb 13:5; Phil 4:5; Matt 10:37-39; Col 3:1-4; Mic 6:8; Rev 2:10; John 15:17; 1 John 4:21; Matt 5:44; Prov 23:26; Col 4:6). But where is it?

The Words ‘I Say Unto You’

“For many, I say unto you.” These last words carry in them a double argument to prove the truth asserted before. First, he points directly at his followers: “I say unto you.” It is as if he said, Many, I say to you, even to you who are my disciples, to you who have eaten and drunk in my presence. I know that Christ has sometimes directed his speech to his disciples not so much on their own account as on the account of others. But here it is not so. The “I say unto you” in this place immediately concerned some of themselves: I say unto you, ye shall begin to stand without, and to knock, “saying, Lord, Lord, open unto us, and he shall answer and say unto you, I know you not whence ye are; then shall ye begin to say, We have eaten and drunk in thy presence, and thou hast taught in our streets. But he shall say, I tell you, I know you not whence ye are; depart from me, all ye workers of iniquity” (Luke 13:25-27). It is as though Christ said, “It is you, you, you that I mean!”

“I say unto you.” It is common for a professing people, when they hear a sharp and thundering sermon, to say, “Now the preacher has given it to the drunkard, the swearer, the liar, the covetous and the adulterer!” They forget that these sins may be committed in a spiritual and mystical way. There is spiritual drunkenness and spiritual adultery; and a man may be a liar who calls God his Father when he is not, or who calls himself a Christian and is not (Rev 2:9; Rev 3:9). Therefore all these thunders and lightnings in this terrible sermon may perhaps concern you more than you are aware. “I say unto you”: to you professors may belong the application of all this thunder.

“I say unto you!” If the Lord Jesus had not intended by these words to show what an overthrow will one day be made among professors, he would not have needed to press that you at this rate, as he has done in the text and afterward. The sentence would have run intelligibly enough without it; I mean, without his saying, “I say unto you.” But the truth is, the professor is in danger. The preacher and the hearer, the workers of miracles and the workers of wonders, may all be in danger of damnation, notwithstanding all their attainments. And therefore, to awaken us all about this truth, the text must run like this: “For many, I say unto you, shall seek to enter in, and shall not be able.”

Do you not see yet that the professor is in danger, and that those words, “I say unto you,” are a prophecy of the everlasting perdition of some who are famous in the congregation of saints? I say, if you do not see it, pray God your eyes may be opened. And beware that your portion is not the portion of one of those who are wrapped up in Luke 13:28: “There shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth, when ye shall see Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, and all the prophets, in the kingdom of heaven, and you yourselves thrust out.”

“For many, I say unto you.” These words, as I told you, carry in them a double argument confirming the truth asserted before: first, that professors are particularly pointed at here; and second, that it is the saying of the Truth himself. For these words, “I say,” are words full of authority. I say it, I say unto you, says Christ, as he says in another place, “It is I that speak; behold it is I!” (Isa 52:6). The person whose words we now have under consideration was no blundering, raw-headed preacher. He was the very wisdom of God, his Son, the one who has lain in his bosom from everlasting, and who consequently had the most perfect knowledge of his Father’s will, and of how it would go with professors at the end of this world. And now listen to what he himself says of the words he has spoken: “Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away” (Matt 24:35).

“I say unto you.” The prophets did not use to speak this way, nor the holy apostles either, for to speak this way is to press things to be received on the speaker’s own authority. They used to say, “Thus saith the Lord,” or else they named themselves Paul or Peter, an apostle or a servant of God. But now we are dealing with the words of the Son of God: it is he who has said it. Therefore we find the truth that many professors will perish asserted and confirmed by Christ’s own mouth. This consideration carries great awakening in it. But many nowadays have fallen into so fast a sleep that nothing will awaken them but that shrill and terrible cry, “Behold, the Bridegroom cometh; go ye out to meet him” (Matt 25:6).

“I say unto you.” There are two things on which this assertion may be grounded: first, there is in the world a thing like grace that is not grace; second, there is a sin called the sin against the Holy Spirit, from which there is no redemption. And both these things befall professors.

1. There is in the world a thing like grace that is not grace.

(1) This is evident because we read that there are some who “make a fair show in the flesh” (Gal 6:12), who “glory in appearance” (2 Cor 5:12), who “appear beautiful outward” (Matt 23:27), who do as God’s people do, but do not have the grace of God’s people (Isa 57:3-4).

(2) It is also evident from those frequent cautions given us everywhere in the Scriptures about this thing: “Be not deceived” (Gal 6:7); “Let a man examine himself” (1 Cor 11:28); “Examine yourselves whether ye be in the faith” (2 Cor 13:5). All these expressions suggest to us that there may be a show of grace, or a thing like grace, where there is no grace indeed.

(3) This is evident from the conclusion the Holy Spirit draws on this very thing: “For if a man think himself to be something, when he is nothing, he deceiveth himself” (Gal 6:3). The Holy Spirit here concludes that a man may think himself to be something, may think he has grace when he has none. He may think himself something for heaven and the other world when in fact he is just nothing at all with respect to it. The Holy Spirit also settles this point: those who do so deceive themselves. “For if a man think himself to be something when he is nothing, he deceiveth himself.” He deceives his own soul; he cheats himself out of heaven and salvation. So again: “Let no man beguile you of your reward” (Col 2:18).

(4) It is plain from the text: “For many, I say unto you, will seek to enter in, and shall not be able.” Alas! Great light, great gifts, great works and great confidence of heaven may be found where there is no faith of God’s elect, no love of the Spirit, no repentance unto salvation, no sanctification of the Spirit, and so, consequently, no saving grace. But,

2. As there is a thing like grace that is not grace, so there is a sin, called the sin against the Holy Spirit, from which there is no redemption; and this sin befalls professors more than ordinarily.

There is a sin called the sin against the Holy Spirit, from which there is no redemption. This is evident from both Matthew and Mark: “But whosoever speaketh against the Holy Ghost, it shall not be forgiven him, neither in this world, neither in the world to come” (Matt 12:32); and, “But he that shall blaspheme against the Holy Ghost hath never forgiveness, but is in danger of eternal damnation” (Mark 3:29). Therefore, when we know that a man has sinned this sin, we are not to pray for him, or to have compassion on him (1 John 5:16; Jude 22).

This sin most ordinarily befalls professors, for few, if any, who are not professors are at present capable of sinning this sin. Those who “were once enlightened, and have tasted of the heavenly gift, and were made partakers of the Holy Ghost, and have tasted the good word of God, and the powers of the world to come” are the sort who commit this sin (Heb 6:4-5). Peter also describes those who sin the unpardonable sin as such people: “For if, after they have escaped the pollutions of the world through the knowledge of the Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, they are again entangled therein, and overcome, the latter end is worse with them than the beginning” (2 Pet 2:20). The other passage, in the tenth chapter of Hebrews, sets forth the same thing: “For if we sin wilfully after that we have received the knowledge of the truth, there remaineth no more sacrifice for sins, but a certain fearful looking for of judgment and fiery indignation, which shall devour the adversaries” (Heb 10:26-27).

These, therefore, are the persons who are the prey of this sin. This sin feeds on professors, and those who are such very often fall into the mouth of this eater. Some fall into its mouth by delusions and doctrines of devils; and some fall into its mouth by returning with the dog to his own vomit again, and with the sow that was washed to her wallowing in the mire (2 Pet 2:22). I will not give you a particular description of this sin here; I have done that elsewhere. But such a sin there is, and those who commit it shall never have forgiveness. And I say again, there are professors who commit this unpardonable sin, yes, more than most are aware of. Let all, therefore, look about them. May the Lord awaken them so that they may do so! For what with a profession without grace, and by the venom of the sin against the Holy Spirit, many will seek to enter in, and shall not be able.

“Will seek to enter in.” This kingdom, at whose gate the reprobate will be stopped, will be the desire of all the world at the last judgment. And they, especially those in my text, will seek to enter in. For then they will see that blessedness belongs to those who get into this kingdom, according to what is written: “Blessed are they that do his commandments, that they may have right to the tree of life, and may enter in through the gates into the city” (Rev 22:14). To prove that they will seek, although I have done it already, read these texts at your leisure: Matt 25:11, Matt 7:22, and Luke 13:28. And now, in a word, to give you the reason why they will seek to enter in:

1. Now they will see what a kingdom it is and what glory there is in it. And now they will also see the blessedness that those will have who are then counted worthy to enter in. The reason this kingdom is so little regarded is that it is not seen; its glory is hidden from the eyes of the world. “Their eye hath not seen, nor their ear heard …” Yes, but then they will hear and see too. And when this comes to pass, then, even then, the one who now thinks of it least often will seek to enter in.

2. They will now see what hell is, and what damnation in hell is, more clearly than ever. They will also see how the breath of the Lord, like a stream of brimstone, kindles it. Oh, the sight of the burning fiery furnace that is prepared for the devil and his angels! This, this will raise a stir in the souls of the castaways on that day of God Almighty, and then they will seek to enter in.

3. Now they will see what such words as these mean: hellfire, everlasting fire, devouring fire, fire that shall never be quenched. Now they will see what “forever” means, what eternity means. Now they will see what this phrase means, “the bottomless pit.” Now they will hear sinners roaring in this place and howling in that, some crying to the mountains to fall on them, and others to the rocks to cover them. Now they will see that blessedness is nowhere but within!

4. Now they will see what glory the godly possess: how they rest in Abraham’s bosom, how they enjoy eternal glory, how they walk in their white robes and are equal to the angels. Oh, the favor, and blessedness, and unspeakable happiness that God’s people will have then! And this will be seen by those who are shut out, by those whom God has rejected forever; and this will make them seek to enter in (Luke 16:22-23; Luke 13:28).

Question. “Will seek to enter in.” But someone may say, “How will they seek to enter in?”

I answer:

1. They will put on all the confidence they can. They will dress up and trim their profession and adorn it with all the finery they can. This is how the foolish virgins sought to enter in. They trimmed their lamps and made themselves as fine as they could. They managed to make their lamps shine for a while; but when the Son of God revealed himself, their confidence failed, their lamps went out, the door was shut on them, and they were kept out (Matt 25:1-12).

2. They will seek to enter in by crowding themselves in among the godly. This is how the man without the wedding garment sought to enter in. He goes to the wedding, gets into the wedding chamber, sits close among the guests, and then no doubt concludes that he will escape damnation. But, you know, one black sheep is soon seen, even among a hundred white ones. Why, that is just how it went with this poor man. “And when the king came in to see the guests, he saw there a man that had not on a wedding garment.” He spotted him at once, and before one word was spoken to any of the others, the man received this dreadful greeting: “Friend, how camest thou in hither, not having on a wedding garment? And he was speechless.” Though he could swagger it out among the guests, the master of the feast strikes him dumb the moment he comes in. And since he had nothing to say for himself, the king had something to say against him. “Then the king said to the servants” (that is, the angels), “Bind him hand and foot, and take him away, and cast him into outer darkness; there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth” (Matt 22:11-13).

3. They will seek to enter in by pleading their profession and their admission to the Lord’s ordinances when they were in the world: “Lord, we have eaten and drunk in thy presence, and thou hast taught in our streets” (Luke 13:26). “We sat at your table,” they will say, “and used to attend sermons and Christian assemblies. We were well thought of by your saints and were admitted into your churches. We professed the same faith as they did. ‘Lord, Lord, open unto us.’”

4. They will seek to enter in by pleading their virtues: how they submitted themselves to his ministry, how they worked for him, what good they did in the world, and the like. But this will not help them either. The same answer the two before them received, these receive too: “Depart from me, ye that work iniquity” (Matt 7:23).

5. They will seek to enter in by pleading excuses where they cannot escape conviction. The slothful servant went to work this way when he was called to account for not improving his Lord’s money. “Lord,” he says, “I knew thee that thou art an hard man, reaping where thou hast not sown, and gathering where thou hast not strawed, and I was afraid …” (afraid, that is, either that I would not please you in laying out your money, or that I would put it into hands from which I could not get it back when you needed it) “and I went and hid thy talent in the earth: lo, there thou hast that is thine.” It is as if he had said, “True, Lord, I have not improved it; I have not gained anything. But consider also that I have not embezzled it. I have not spent or lost your money. Look, there you have what is yours” (Matt 25:24-28). There are only a few who will be able to say these last words on the day of judgment. Most professors are for embezzling, misspending, and idling away their time, their talents, and their opportunities to do good. But I say this: take the one who can make so good an excuse as to say, “Lo, there thou hast that is thine.” If such a one shall be called a wicked and slothful servant; if such a one shall be put to shame on the day of judgment; yes, if such a one, despite all this care to save his Lord’s money, shall be cast as unprofitable into outer darkness, where there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth, what will they do who have taken neither care to lay out nor care to keep what was committed to their trust?

6. They will seek to enter in by pleading that ignorance was the ground of their failing in the things in which they offended. So when Christ charges them with lack of love for him, and with lack of those fruits that should prove their love to be true (that they did not feed him, did not give him drink, did not take him in, did not clothe him, visit him, come to him, and the like), they readily reply, “Lord, when saw we thee an hungered, or athirst, or a stranger, or naked, or sick, or in prison, and did not minister unto thee?” (Matt 25:44). It is as if they should say, “Lord, we are not conscious that this charge is justly laid at our door! God forbid that we should have been such sinners. But, Lord, give an instance: when was it, or where? True, there was a company of poor, sorry people in the world, very insignificant, thought nothing of by anybody. But as for you yourself, we professed you, we loved you. Had you been with us in the world, had you wanted to wear gold, had you wanted to eat the sweetest things of the world, we would have provided it for you. And therefore, Lord, Lord, open to us!” But will this plea do? No. Then he will answer them, “Inasmuch as ye did it not to one of the least of these,” my brethren, “ye did it not to me” (Matt 25:45). This plea, then, though grounded on ignorance, which is one of the strangest pleas for neglect of duty, would not gain them admittance into the kingdom. “These shall go away into everlasting punishment, but the righteous into life eternal” (Matt 25:46).

I might add other things by which it will appear how they will seek to enter in, such as these:

1. They will make a stop at this gate, this beautiful gate of heaven. They will begin to stand outside at the gate, as if loath to go any further. Never did a condemned criminal step off the ladder so unwillingly, with the rope around his neck, as these will turn away on that day from the gates of heaven to hell.

2. They will not only make a stop at the gate; there they will also knock and call. This too shows that they are willing to enter. They will begin to stand outside and to knock at the gate, saying, “Lord, Lord, open to us.” This word Lord, being doubled, shows the vehemence of their desires: “Lord, Lord, open unto us.” They will cry, “The devils are coming! Lord, Lord, the pit opens her mouth upon us! Lord, Lord, there is nothing but hell and damnation left for us if, Lord, Lord, you do not have mercy on us! Lord, Lord, open unto us!”

3. Their last argument for entrance is their tears. When groundless confidence, pleading their virtues, excuses, and ignorance will not do; when standing at the gate, knocking, and calling, “Lord, Lord, open unto us,” will not do; then they turn to their tears. Tears are sometimes the most powerful arguments, but they are worth nothing here. Esau also sought it carefully with tears, but it did him no good at all (Heb 12:17). There shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth, for the gate is shut forever, mercy is gone forever, and Christ has rejected them forever. All their pleas, excuses, and tears will not make them able to enter into this kingdom. “For many, I say unto you, will seek to enter in, and shall not be able” (Luke 13:24).

I come now to the latter part of the words, which show us plainly the reason why these many who must be damned are rejected: “They will seek to enter in, and shall not be able.”

A hypocrite, a false professor, may go a long way. Such people may pass through the first and second watch; that is, they may be approved by Christians and by churches. But what will they do when they come to this iron gate that leads into the city? “There the workers of iniquity are fallen, they are cast down, and shall not be able to rise!” (Ps 36:12).

“And shall not be able.” The time my text has in view, as I have already hinted, is the day of judgment, a day when every mask and disguise will be taken off every face. It is a day in which God “will bring to light the hidden things of darkness, and will make manifest the counsels of the hearts” (1 Cor 4:5). It is also the day of his wrath, the day on which he will pay out vengeance, even a recompense to his adversaries.

On that day, the things these “many” now count sound and good will shake like a quagmire. All their naked knowledge, their feigned faith, their pretended love, their glorious shows of gravity in the face, their holiday words and fine-looking behavior will do them little good. I call them holiday words, because I see that some professors do with religion just what people do with their best clothes: they hang it on the wall all week and put it on for Sundays. Some people hardly ever put on a good suit except when they go to a fair or a market; in the same way, a very little religion at home will do for some. They save their religion until they go to a meeting, or until they meet a godly tradesman. Oh, poor religion! Oh, poor professor! What will you do on this day, the day of your trial and judgment? You cannot cover yourself; you cannot pass for a Christian; you cannot stand against the Judge! What will you do? “The ungodly shall not stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous” (Ps 1:5).

“And shall not be able.” The ability meant here does not lie in carnal power or fleshly cunning. It lies in the truth and genuineness of those things for whose sake God gives the kingdom of heaven to his people.

There are five things for lack of which this people will not be able to enter.

1. This kingdom belongs to the elect, to those for whom it was prepared from the foundation of the world (Matt 25:34). That is why Christ says that when he comes, he will send out his angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they will gather together his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other (Matt 24:31). And that is why he says again, “I will bring forth a seed out of Jacob, and out of Judah an inheritor of my mountains, and mine elect shall inherit it, and my servants shall dwell there” (Isa 65:9). “They shall deceive, if it were possible, the very elect” (Matt 24:24). “But the election hath obtained it, and the rest were blinded” (Rom 11:7).

2. They will not be able to enter, because they will lack the birthright. The kingdom of heaven is for the heirs: if children, then heirs; if born again, then heirs. That is why it is said expressly, “Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God” (John 3:3). With this one word, down goes every carnal privilege of being born of flesh and blood, and of the will of man. Can you produce the birthright? But are you sure you can? For it will do you little good to think about the blessed kingdom of heaven if you lack a birthright to give you an inheritance there. Esau despised his birthright, saying, What good will this birthright do me? And there are many in the world of his mind to this day. “Nonsense,” they say. “They talk about being born again; what good will a man get from that? They say there is no going to heaven without being born again. But God is merciful; Christ died for sinners; and we will turn when we have time to attend to it, and we don’t doubt that all will be well at last.” But I will answer you, you child of Esau: the birthright and the blessing go together. Miss one, and you will never have the other! Esau found this true. For having first despised the birthright (Gen 25), when he afterward would “have inherited the blessing, he was rejected; for he found no place of repentance, though he sought it carefully with tears” (Heb 12:16-17).

3. They will not be able to enter in who have not believed with the faith of God’s operation, the faith that is most holy, even the faith of God’s elect. “He that believeth on the Son of God hath everlasting life; and he that believeth not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abideth on him” (John 3:36). Now this faith is the effect of electing love and of a new birth (John 1:11-13). Therefore all the professors who do not have the faith that flows from being born of God will seek to enter in, and shall not be able.

4. They will not be able to enter in who do not have gospel holiness. Holiness that is the effect of faith is what admits a person into the presence of God, and into his kingdom too. “Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the first resurrection, on such the second death,” that is, hell and eternal damnation, “hath no power” (Rev 20:6, 14). Blessed and holy, that is, with the holiness that flows from the faith which is in Christ; for to these the inheritance belongs. “That they may receive forgiveness of sins, and inheritance among them which are sanctified, by faith,” says Christ, “that is in me” (Acts 26:18). On this day of judgment, the Lord Christ Jesus will distinguish this holiness, which is the natural effect of faith in the Son of God, from every other show of holiness and sanctity, whatever it may be. He will admit the soul that has this holiness into his kingdom, when the rest will seek to enter in, and shall not be able.

5. They will not be able to enter in who do not persevere in this blessed faith and holiness. This is not because those who truly have them can finally fall away and perish everlastingly. But it has pleased Jesus Christ to bid those who have the right to hold fast what they have and to endure to the end, and then he tells them they shall be saved. Yet it is just as true that no one has power to keep himself. But God works together with his children, and they are “kept by the power of God, through faith unto salvation,” which is also laid up in heaven for them (1 Pet 1:3-5).

“The foolish shall not stand in thy sight; thou hatest all workers of iniquity” (Ps 5:5). The foolish are the unholy ones, who have neither faith, nor holiness, nor perseverance in godliness, and yet lay claim to the kingdom of heaven. But “better is a little with righteousness, than great revenues without right” (Prov 16:8). What good is it for me to claim a house or a farm without any right to it, or to say all this is mine, and yet have nothing to show for it? That is just like the revenues of the foolish: his estate exists only in his own fancy. He has nothing by birthright and law, and therefore he will not be able to inherit the possession. “For many, I say unto you, will seek to enter in, and shall not be able.”

So you see that the non-elect will not be able to enter; that whoever is not born again will not be able to enter; and that whoever lacks saving faith, with the holiness and perseverance that flow from it, will not be able to enter. Therefore consider what I have said.

I come now to give you some observations from the words, and there may be three of them.

1. When people have put in all the claim they can for heaven, few will have it for their inheritance. “For many, I say unto you, will seek to enter in, and shall not be able” (Luke 13:24).

2. Great, therefore, will be the disappointment that many will meet with at the day of judgment: “For many will seek to enter in, and shall not be able.”

3. Going to heaven, therefore, will be no trivial business. Salvation is not gotten by a dream. Those who would have that kingdom then must strive lawfully to enter now: “For many, I say unto you, will seek to enter in, and shall not be able.”

First, then, I shall speak chiefly, and yet only briefly, to the first of these observations: namely, that when people have put in all the claim they can to the kingdom of heaven, few will have it for their inheritance. The observation stands in two parts. First, that the time is coming when everyone will put in whatever claim they can to the kingdom of heaven. Second, that there will be only a few of those who put in a claim to it who shall enjoy it for their inheritance.

I shall speak only a word or two to the first part of the observation, because I have already made it needless to enlarge on it by my explanation of the words. But you find in the twenty-fifth chapter of Matthew that all those on the left hand of the Judge put in all the claim they could for this blessed kingdom of heaven. If you take those on the left hand, as most do, to be all the sinners who shall be damned, then that completely proves the first part of the observation. For it is expressly said, “Then shall they” (all of them together, and every one by himself) “also answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we thus and thus, and did not minister unto thee?” (Matt 25:44). I could bring in here the plea of the slothful servant and the cry of the foolish virgins. I could also enlarge here upon that passage, “Lord, Lord, have we not eaten and drunk in thy presence, and thou hast taught in our streets?” (Luke 13:26). But these things have already been dealt with, and in dealing with them this first part of the observation has been proved. So, without more words, I will, with God helping me by his grace, go on to the second part of it.

Second. Of those who put in a claim to the kingdom of heaven, there will be only a few who will enjoy it as their inheritance.

I will speak to this part of the observation distinctly, and I will first confirm it by a scripture or two. “Strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it” (Matt 7:14). “Fear not, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom” (Luke 12:32). By these two texts, and by many more that I will press on you shortly, you may see the truth of what I have said.

To enlarge on this truth, then, I will speak first more generally and second more particularly. More generally, I will prove that in every age only a few have been saved. More particularly, I will prove that only a few of those who profess have been saved.

In Every Age, Few Have Been Saved

1. In the old world, when it was most populous, even in the days of Noah, we read of only eight persons who were saved out of it. Well, then, might Peter call them few. But how few? Why, only eight souls: “wherein few, that is, eight souls, were saved by water” (1 Pet 3:20). He touches on this truth a second time, saying that God “spared not the old world, but saved Noah the eighth person, a preacher of righteousness, bringing in the flood upon the world of the ungodly” (2 Pet 2:5). Notice: all the rest are called the ungodly, and there was a whole world of them too. They are also noticed in Job, and there too they go by the name of wicked men: “Hast thou marked the old way which wicked men have trodden? which were cut down out of time, whose foundation was overflown with a flood, which said unto God, Depart from us, and what can the Almighty do for them?” (Job 22:15-17).

So there were only eight persons who escaped the wrath of God on the day the flood came upon the earth. The rest were ungodly; there was a whole world of them, and to this day they are in the prison of hell (Heb 11:7; 1 Pet 3:19-20). No, I must correct my pen: only seven of the eight were good. For Ham, though he escaped the judgment of the water, was still overtaken by the curse of God to his damnation.

2. When the world began to be filled again, and people began to multiply in it, how few, even in every age, do we read of who were saved from the damnation of the world!

(1) God called one Abraham and his wife out of the land of the Chaldeans. “I called,” said God, “Abraham alone” (Isa 51:2).

(2) One Lot out of Sodom and Gomorrah, out of Admah and Zeboim: one Lot out of four cities! It is true that his wife and two daughters went out of Sodom with him, but all three of them turned out badly, as you may see in the nineteenth chapter of Genesis. That is why Peter observes that Lot alone was saved: “He turned the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah into ashes, condemning them with an overthrow, making them an example unto those that after should live ungodly, and delivered just Lot, that righteous man” (read 2 Pet 2:6-8). Jude says that in this condemnation God overthrew not only Sodom and Gomorrah but the cities around them as well. And yet you find that no one but Lot could be found who was righteous, whether in Sodom or Gomorrah or the cities around them. That is why all of them suffer the vengeance of eternal fire (Jude 7).

(3) Let us come now to the time of the Judges. How few were godly then, at the very time when the inhabitants of the villages ceased, when they ceased in Israel! “The highways” of God “were” then “unoccupied” (Judg 5:6-7).

(4) There were only a few in the days of David. “Help, Lord,” he says, “for the godly man ceaseth, for the faithful fail from among the children of men” (Ps 12:1).

(5) In Isaiah’s time the saved had come down to so few that he says plainly there was a very small number left: God had made them like Sodom, and they had been like unto Gomorrah (Isa 1:8-9).

(6) In the time of Jeremiah the cry went out to them that they should “run to and fro through the streets of Jerusalem, and see now, and know, and seek in the broad places thereof, if ye can find a man, if there be any that executeth judgment, that seeketh the truth, and I will pardon it” (Jer 5:1).

(7) God showed his servant Ezekiel how few would be saved in his day by the vision of a few hairs saved out of the midst of a few hairs; for the saved were a few saved out of a few (Ezek 5:3).

(8) In the time of the prophet Micah you find the godly complaining that they were then so few in number that he compares them to what is left behind when the summer fruit has been gathered (Mic 7:1).

(9) When Christ came, how he confirmed this truth, that only a few of those who put in a claim for heaven will have it for their inheritance! But the common people could not bear to hear it. And so, on one occasion when he only hinted a little at this truth, the people, all of them in the synagogue where he preached it, “were filled with wrath, rose up, thrust him out of the city, and led him unto the brow of the hill,” on which their city was built, “that they might cast him down headlong” (Luke 4:24-29).

(10) John, who came after Christ, says, “The whole world lieth in wickedness” (1 John 5:19); and that “all the world wondered after the beast”; and that “power was given to the beast over all kindreds, tongues, and nations.” Power to do what? Why, to cause all, both great and small, rich and poor, slave and free, to receive his mark and to be branded for him (Rev 13:3, 7, 16).

(11) If we turn to observation and experience, the very look on the faces of the bulk of mankind witnesses against them: “they declare their sin as Sodom, they hide it not” (Isa 3:9). Where is the man who makes Almighty God his delight, and who aims at God’s glory in the world? Do not almost all pursue this world, their lusts and pleasures? And so, as a consequence, they say to God, “Depart from us, for we desire not the knowledge of thy ways”; or, “What is the Almighty that we should serve him?” (Job 21:14-15); “It is in vain to serve God” (Mal 3:14).

So without doubt it will prove true in the day of God that only a few of those who put in their claim to heaven will have it for their inheritance.

Before I leave this head, I will show you what the saved are compared to in the Scriptures.

1. They are compared to a handful: “There shall be an handful of corn in the earth upon the top of the mountains” (Ps 72:16). This corn is nothing else but those who will be saved (Matt 3:12; Matt 13:30). But notice: “There shall be an handful.” What is a handful compared with the whole heap? Or what is a handful taken out of the rest of the world?

2. As they are compared to a handful, so they are compared to a lily among thorns, which is rare and not commonly seen: “As the lily among thorns,” says Christ, “so is my love among the daughters” (Song 2:2). By thorns we understand the worst and the best of men, all who are destitute of the grace of God; for “the best of them is a brier, the most upright” of them “as a thorn-hedge” (Mic 7:4; 2 Sam 23:6). I know that the church may also be called a lily among thorns because she meets with the pricks of persecution (Ezek 2:6; Ezek 28:24). She may also be called this to show the difference between hypocrites and the church (Luke 8:14; Heb 6:8). But that is not all. The saved are compared to a lily among thorns to show you that they are only few in the world, to show you that they are few and rare. For as Christ compares her to a lily among thorns, so she compares him to an apple tree among the trees of the wood, which is rare and scarce, not common.

3. Those who are saved are called only one out of many. For though there are “threescore queens, and fourscore concubines, and virgins without number,” yet my love, says Christ, is only one; my undefiled is only one (Song 6:8-9). This agrees with Jeremiah’s words: “I will take you one of a city” (Jer 3:14). That saying of Paul is much like this: “Know ye not that they which run in a race run all, but one receiveth the prize?” (1 Cor 9:24). Only one: that is, few out of many, few of those who run. For he is not comparing here those who run with those who sit still, but with those who run. Some run and lose, and some run and win; and those who run and win are few compared with those who run and lose. “They that run in a race run all, but one receives the prize.” Then let there be “threescore queens, and fourscore concubines, and virgins without number”; still the saved are only few.

4. Those who are saved are compared to the gleaning after the vintage is in: “Woe is me,” said the church, “for I am as when they have gathered the summer-fruits, as the grape-gleanings” after the vintage is in (Mic 7:1). The gleanings! What are the gleanings compared to the whole crop? And yet you see here that the saved are compared to the gleanings. It is the devil and sin that carry away the cartloads, while Christ and his ministers come after, gleaning. But the gleaning of the grapes of Ephraim is better than the vintage of Abiezer (Judg 8:2). Those whom Christ and his ministers glean up and bind up in the bundle of life are better than the loads that go the other way. You know it is often the cry of the poor at harvest: “Poor gleaning, poor gleaning!” And the ministers of the gospel cry too: Lord, “who hath believed our report? and to whom is the arm of the Lord revealed?” (Isa 53:1). When the prophet speaks of the saved under this image of gleaning, how he enlarges on it! “Gleaning-grapes shall be left,” he says, “two or three berries in the top of the uppermost bough, four or five in the outmost fruitful branches thereof, saith the Lord” (Isa 17:6). So you see what gleaning is left in the vineyard after the vintage is in: two or three here, four or five there. Alas! Those who will be saved, when the devil and hell have had their due, will be only like the gleaning; they will be few. Those who go to hell go there in clusters, but the saved do not go to heaven that way (Matt 13:30; Mic 7). So when the prophet speaks of the saved, he says there is no cluster; but when he speaks of the damned, he says they are gathered in clusters (Rev 14:18-19). O sinners, only a few will be saved! O professors, only a few will be saved!

5. Those who will be saved are compared to jewels: “And they shall be mine, saith the Lord of hosts, in that day when I make up my jewels” (Mal 3:17). Jewels, you know, are rare things, things not found in every house. Jewels fit into a little room, being few and small, though junk takes up a great deal. In almost every house you may find brass and iron and lead, and in every place you may find hypocritical professors. But the saved are not these common things; they are God’s own special treasure (Ps 135:4). That is why Paul distinguishes between the junk and the treasure in the house. In a great house, he says, there are not only vessels of gold and silver but also vessels of wood and of earth, some to honor and some to dishonor (2 Tim 2:20). Here is a word for wooden and earthen professors. The jewels and treasures are vessels to honor; those of wood and earth are vessels of dishonor, that is, vessels for destruction (Rom 9:21).

6. Those who will be saved are compared to a remnant: “Except the Lord of hosts had left unto us a very small remnant, we should have been as Sodom, and we should have been like unto Gomorrah” (Isa 1:9). A remnant, a small remnant, a very small remnant! Oh, how the Holy Spirit words it! And all to show you how few will be saved. Everyone knows what a remnant is, but this is a small remnant, a very small remnant. So again: “Sing with gladness for Jacob, and shout among the chief of the nations: publish ye, praise ye, and say, O Lord, save thy people, the remnant of Israel” (Jer 31:7). What more shall I say? The saved are often called a remnant in Scripture (Ezek 9:4, 8; Isa 10:20-22; Isa 11:11, 16; Jer 23:3; Joel 2:32). But what is a remnant compared to the whole piece of cloth? What is a remnant of people compared to the whole kingdom? Or what is a remnant of wheat compared to the whole harvest?

7. The saved are compared to the tithe, or tenth part. When God sends the prophet to make the hearts of the people fat, to make their ears dull, and to shut their eyes, the prophet asks, “How long?” And God answers, “Until the cities be wasted without inhabitant, and the houses without man, and the land be utterly desolate, and the Lord have removed men far away, and there be a great forsaking in the midst of the land. But yet,” as God says in another place, “I will not make a full end”; “in it shall be a tenth … so the holy seed shall be the substance thereof” (Isa 6:10-13). But what is a tenth? What is one in ten? And yet that is how the Holy Spirit speaks when he speaks of the holy seed, of those who were to be spared from the judgment. And notice this: the fattening and blinding of the rest was to their everlasting destruction, and that is how both Christ and Paul often explain it in the New Testament (Matt 13:14-15; Mark 4:12; Luke 8:10; John 12:40; Acts 28:26; Rom 11:8). So those who are spared out of those who perish will be very few, one in ten: “A tenth shall return, so the holy seed shall be the substance thereof.”

I will not add more general points at this time. I pray God that the world will not be offended at these. But without doubt only a few of those who put in their claim for heaven will have it for their inheritance, and this will appear still further as you read what follows.

Few Even of Professors Are Saved

Therefore I come more particularly to show you that only a few will be saved. I say that only a few of professors themselves will be saved, for that is the truth the text more directly looks at and defends. So give me your hand, good reader, and let us walk soberly through the rest of what is to be said; and as we go, let us compare each particular with the holy Scripture.

1. It is said, “The daughter of Zion is left as a cottage in a vineyard, as a lodge in a garden of cucumbers, as a besieged city” (Isa 1:8). The vineyard was the church of Israel; the cottage in that vineyard was the daughter of Zion, that is, the truly gracious among, or in, that church (Isa 5:1). A cottage: God had only a cottage there, only a little dwelling in the church, a very few who were truly gracious among that great multitude who professed. And had it not been for these, for this cottage, the rest would have been ruined like Sodom: “Except the Lord of hosts had left unto us,” in the church, a very few, they would have been as Sodom (Isa 1:9). So among the multitude of those who will be damned, professors will make up a considerable party.

2. “For though thy people Israel be as the sand of the sea, a remnant of them shall return”; “a remnant shall be saved” (Isa 10:22; Rom 9:27). For though your people Israel, whom you brought out of Egypt, to whom you have given the order of a church, holy laws, holy ordinances, holy prophets, and holy covenants; your people by separation from all peoples, and your people by profession; though this people of yours is as the sand of the sea, “a remnant shall be saved.” So among the multitude of those who will be damned, professors will make up a considerable party.

3. “Reprobate silver shall men call them, because the Lord hath rejected them” (Jer 6:30). The people under consideration here are called God’s people in Jer 6:27, his people by profession: “I have set thee for a tower and a fortress among my people, that thou mayest know, and try their way.” What follows? They are all “grievous revolters, walking with slanders”; they are “reprobate silver”; “the Lord hath rejected them.” In Jer 7:29 they are also called the generation of his wrath: “For the Lord hath rejected and forsaken the generation of his wrath.” So this is what I gather from these holy scriptures: with reference to profession and church order, a people may be called the people of God; but with reference to the outcome and final conclusion that God will make with some of them, they may truly be the generation of his wrath.

4. In the fifth chapter of Isaiah you read again of the vineyard of God. It was planted on a very fruitful hill and planted with the choicest vines; it had a wall, a tower, and a winepress belonging to it, and everything that could put it into right order and good government as a church. But this vineyard of the Lord of hosts brought forth wild grapes, fruits unbecoming her order and government. So the Lord takes away from her his hedge and wall and lets her be trampled down. Read Christ’s explanation of it in Matt 21:33 and following. Look to it, professors! These are the words of the text: “For many, I say unto you, will seek to enter in, and shall not be able.”

5. “Son of man,” said God to the prophet, “the house of Israel is to me become dross, all they are brass and tin, and iron and lead, in the midst of the furnace they even are the dross of silver” (Ezek 22:18). God had silver there, some silver, but only a little; the bulk of that people was only the dross of the church, though they were members of it. But what does he mean by the dross? Why, he regarded them as no better, for all their church membership, than the rabble of the world, that is, with respect to their final end. For to be called dross is to be put among the rest of the sinners of the world in the judgment of God, even though for the present they live in his house: “Thou puttest away all the wicked of the earth like dross; therefore I love thy testimonies” (Ps 119:119).

God says of his saved ones, “He hath chosen them in the furnace of affliction” (Isa 48:10). When the refiner puts his silver into his furnace, he puts lead in among it as well. This lead, managed as he knows how, works the dross up out of the silver, and as the dross rises he keeps setting it aside or taking it off with an instrument. And this is how God deals with his church. There is silver in his church, yes, and there is dross as well. Now the dross are the hypocrites and graceless people who have gotten into the church, and God will expose these and afterward put them away as dross. So it will without doubt prove a truth of God that many of the professors among them who put in a claim for heaven will not have it for their inheritance.

6. It is said of Christ that his “fan is in his hand, and he will throughly purge his floor, and will gather his wheat into the garner, but he will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire” (Matt 3:12). The floor is the church of God: “O my threshing, and the corn of my floor!” said God through the prophet to his people (Isa 21:10). The wheat are the good ones in his church who will undoubtedly be saved; therefore he says, “Gather my wheat into my garner.” The chaff grows on the same stalk and ear, and so is in the same visible body as the wheat, but there is no substance in it. So in time they must be separated from each other: the wheat must be gathered into the granary, which is heaven, and the chaff, that is, professors who lack true grace, must be gathered into hell, to be burned up with unquenchable fire. So let professors look to it!

7. Christ Jesus casts away two of the three grounds that are said to receive the word (Luke 8). The stony ground received it with joy, and the thorny ground brought forth fruit almost to perfection. It is true that the roadside ground was to show us that the carnal, while they remain so, do not receive the word at all. But here is the pinch: two of the three that received it fell short of the kingdom of heaven, for only one of the three received it so as to bring forth fruit to perfection. Look to it, professors!

8. The parable of the unprofitable servant, the parable of the man without a wedding garment, and the parable of the unsavory salt each confirm this as truth (Matt 25:24, 29; Matt 22:11-13; Matt 5:13). The parable of the unprofitable servant is to show us the sloth and idleness of some professors. The parable of the man without a wedding garment is to show us how some professors have the shame of their wickedness seen by God, even when they are among the children of the bridegroom. And the parable of the unsavory salt is to show that just as salt that has lost its savor is fit for nothing, not even for the dunghill, but to be trampled underfoot by men, so some professors, yes, and great ones too (for this parable reached one of the apostles), will in God’s day be counted fit for nothing but to be trampled down like the mud in the streets. Oh, the slothful, the naked, and the unsavory professors, how they will be rejected by God and his Christ in the judgment! Look to it, professors!

9. The parable of the tares also supports this truth. For though it is said that the field is the world, it is also said that the tares were sown even in the church: “And while men slept, his enemy came and sowed tares among the wheat, and went his way” (Matt 13:24-25).

Objection. But someone may object: The tares might have been sown in the world among the wheat, though not in the churches.

Answer. But Christ, in explaining this parable, tells us that the tares were sown in his kingdom; the tares, that is, the children of the devil. “As therefore the tares are gathered and burned in the fire; so shall it be in the end of this world. The Son of man shall send forth his angels, and they shall gather out of his kingdom all things that offend, and them which do iniquity, and shall cast them into a furnace of fire; there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth” (Matt 13:30, 39-43). Look to it, professors!

10. The parable of the ten virgins also suits our purpose. These ten are called the kingdom of heaven, that is, the church of Christ, the visible, rightly constituted church of Christ. For they all went out of the world, all had lamps, and all went out to meet the bridegroom. Yet see what an overthrow half of them met with at the gate of heaven: they were shut out and told to depart, and Christ told them he did not know them (Matt 25:1-13). Tremble, professors! Pray, professors!

11. The parable of the net that was cast into the sea also supports this truth. The substance of that parable is to show that souls may be gathered by the gospel (there compared to a net), may be kept in that net, may be drawn by that net to shore, to the world’s end, and yet may then prove to be bad fish and be thrown away. The parable runs like this: “The kingdom of heaven” (the gospel) “is like unto a net which was cast into the sea” (the world) “and gathered of every kind” (good and bad), “which when it was full, they drew to shore” (to the end of the world), “and sat down” (in judgment), “and gathered the good into vessels, but cast the bad away.” Some bad fish, indeed, I fear a great many, will be found in the net of the gospel at the day of judgment (Matt 13:47, 49). Watch and be sober, professors!

12. “And many shall come from the east and from the west, and shall sit down with Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, in the kingdom of heaven. But the children of the kingdom shall be cast out” (Matt 8:11-12). The children of the kingdom! Their privileges are said to be these: “to whom pertaineth the adoption, and the glory, and the covenants, and the giving of the law, and the service of God, and the promises” (Rom 9:4). I take the liberty to harp all the more on the first church, because what happened to them happened as types and examples, intimating, there is ground to think, that things of as dreadful a nature are to happen among the church of the Gentiles (1 Cor 10:11-12). Nor indeed do the Gentile churches have any security from God that equally dreadful things will not happen to them. And concerning this very thing, sufficient warning is given to us as well (1 Cor 6:9-10; Gal 5:19-21; Eph 5:3-6; Phil 3:17, 19; 2 Thess 2:11-12; 2 Tim 2:20-21; Heb 6:4-8; Heb 10:26-28; 2 Pet 2; 2 Pet 3; 1 John 5:10; Rev 2:20-22).

13. The parable of the true vine and its branches confirms what I have said. By the vine there I understand Christ, Christ as head; by the branches I understand his church. Some of these branches proved to be fruitless castaways: in time they were cast out of the church, gathered by men, and burned (John 15:1-6).

14. Lastly, I will come to particular instances.

(1) The twelve had a devil among them (John 6:70).

(2) Ananias and Sapphira were in the church at Jerusalem (Acts 5).

(3) Simon Magus was among them at Samaria (Acts 8).

(4) In the church at Corinth there were those who did not have the knowledge of God (1 Cor 15:34).

(5) Paul tells the Galatians that false brothers crept in unawares, and so does the apostle Jude; and yet these apostles were as sharp-sighted as anyone nowadays (Gal 2:4; Jude 4).

(6) The church in Sardis had only a few names in her to whom the kingdom of heaven belonged: “Thou hast a few names, even in Sardis, which have not defiled their garments, and they shall walk with me in white, for they are worthy” (Rev 3:4).

(7) As for the church of the Laodiceans, it is called “wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked” (Rev 3:17).

So put everything together, and I may boldly say, as I have also said already, that among the multitude of those who will be damned, professors will make up a considerable party; or, to speak in the words of the observation, “when men have put in all the claim they can for heaven, but few will have it for their inheritance.”

I will now show you some reasons for the point, besides the five I showed you before. And first, I will show you why the poor, carnal, ignorant world misses heaven; and then, second, why the knowing professors miss it as well.

Why the Ignorant World Misses Heaven

1. The poor, carnal, ignorant world misses heaven simply because they love their sins and cannot part with them. “Men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil” (John 3:19). The poor ignorant world misses heaven because they are enemies in their minds to God, his Word, and holiness; and all who take pleasure in unrighteousness must be damned (2 Thess 2:10-12). The poor ignorant world misses heaven because they stop their ears against conviction and refuse to come when God calls. “Because I have called, and ye refused, I have stretched out my hand, and no man regarded, but ye have set at nought all my counsel, and would none of my reproof; I also will laugh at your calamity; I will mock when your fear cometh … as desolation, and your destruction … as a whirlwind, when distress and anguish cometh upon you; then shall they call upon me, but I will not answer; they shall seek me early, but they shall not find me” (Prov 1:24-29).

2. The poor ignorant world misses heaven because the god of this world has blinded their eyes, so that they can see neither the evil and damnable state they are in at present nor the way to get out of it. Nor do they see the beauty of Jesus Christ, or how willing he is to save poor sinners (2 Cor 4:3-4).

3. The poor ignorant world misses heaven because they put off and delay coming to Christ until the time of God’s patience and grace is over. Some, indeed, are resolved never to come; but others say, “We will come later.” And so it comes to pass that, because God called and they did not hear, so, says the Lord, they will cry, and I will not hear (Zech 7:11-13).

4. The poor ignorant world misses heaven because they have false notions of God’s mercy. They say in their hearts, “We shall have peace, though we walk in the imagination of our heart, to add drunkenness to thirst.” But what does the Word say? “The Lord will not spare him; but then the anger of the Lord, and his jealousy, shall smoke against that man, and all the curses that are written in this book shall lie upon him, and the Lord shall blot out his name from under heaven” (Deut 29:19-21).

5. The poor ignorant world misses heaven because they make light of the gospel that offers them mercy freely (Matt 22:1-5), and because they lean on their own good intentions, and notions, and doings (Rom 9:30-31).

6. The poor carnal world misses heaven because unbelief reigns in them and keeps them forever from being clothed with Christ’s righteousness and from washing in his blood, without which there is neither remission of sin nor justification. But I pass over these for the present.

Why Professors Fall Short of Heaven

I come next to show you some reasons why the professor falls short of heaven.

1. In general, they rest in things below special grace: in awakenings that are not special, in faith that is not special, and so on. Let me run a little parallel between the one and the other, so that, if God wills, you may see and escape.

(1) Do those who will be saved have awakenings about their state by nature? So do those who will be damned. Those who never go to heaven may see much of sin, and of the wrath of God due to it. Cain and Judas had this, and yet they came short of the kingdom (Gen 4; Matt 27:4). The saved have convictions that lead to their eternal life; but the others’ convictions do not. The convictions of the one drive them sincerely to Christ; the convictions of the other drive them to the law, and the law drives them to despair at last.

(2) There is a repentance that will not save, a repentance to be repented of; and there is a repentance to salvation, not to be repented of (2 Cor 7:10). Yet there is so great a similarity and likeness between the one and the other that most of the time the wrong is taken for the right, and through this mistake professors perish. For example:

[1] In saving repentance there will be an acknowledgment of sin; and one who has the other repentance may acknowledge his sins too (Matt 27:4).

[2] In saving repentance there is a crying out under sin; but one who has the other repentance may cry out under sin too (Gen 4:13).

[3] In saving repentance there will be humiliation for sin; and one who has the other repentance may humble himself too (1 Kgs 21:29).

[4] Saving repentance is accompanied by self-loathing; but he who has the other repentance may have a loathing of sin too. A loathing of sin because it is sin, he cannot have; but a loathing of sin because it is offensive to him, he may have. The dog does not loathe what upsets his stomach because it is there, but because it troubles him. When it has stopped troubling him, he can turn to it again and lick it up, just as he did before it troubled him (2 Pet 2:22).

[5] Saving repentance is accompanied by prayers and tears; but he who has nothing but the other repentance may have prayers and tears too (Gen 27:34-35; Heb 12:16-17).

[6] In saving repentance there is fear and reverence of the Word and of the ministers who bring it; but this may also be found where there is nothing but the repentance that is not saving. For Herod feared John, knowing that he was a just man and holy, and observed him; when he heard him, he did many things, and heard him gladly (Mark 6:20).

[7] Saving repentance makes a man’s heart very tender about doing anything against the Word of God. But Balaam could say, “If Balak would give me his house full of silver and gold, I cannot go beyond the commandment of the Lord” (Num 24:13).

See, then, how far a man may go in repentance and yet fall short of what is called “repentance unto salvation, not to be repented of.” (a) He may be awakened; (b) he may acknowledge his sin; (c) he may cry out under the burden of sin; (d) he may have humility for it; (e) he may loathe it; (f) he may have prayers and tears against it; (g) he may delight to do many things of God; (h) he may be afraid of sinning against him. And after all this, he may perish for want of saving repentance.

2. Do those who will be saved have faith? Why, those who will not be saved may have faith too; yes, a faith in many things so like the faith that saves that the two can hardly be told apart, though they differ in both root and branch. To come to particulars:

(1) Saving faith has Christ for its object, and so may the faith that is not saving. Christ said to those very Jews of whom it is said that they believed on him, and said it after they had believed, “Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do” (John 8:30-44).

(2) Saving faith is worked by the Word of God, and so may the faith be that is not saving (Luke 8:13).

(3) Saving faith looks for justification without works, and so may a faith that is not saving (Jas 2:18).

(4) Saving faith will sanctify and purify the heart; and the faith that is not saving may draw a man away from the pollutions of the world, as it did Judas, Demas, and others (2 Pet 2).

(5) Saving faith will give a man tastes of the world to come, and joy from those tastes as well; and so will the faith that is not saving (Heb 6:4-5; Luke 8:13).

(6) Saving faith will help a man, if he is called to it, to give his body to be burned for his religion; and so will the faith that is not saving (1 Cor 13:1-5).

(7) Saving faith will help a man to look for an inheritance in the world to come; and the faith that is not saving may do that too. All those virgins “took their lamps, and went forth to meet the bridegroom” (Matt 25:1).

(8) Saving faith will make a man not only look for the bridegroom but prepare to meet him; and so may the faith that is not saving. “Then all those virgins arose, and trimmed their lamps” (Matt 25:7).

(9) Saving faith will make a man look with confidence for a share in the kingdom of heaven; and the faith that is not saving will even demand entrance of the Lord: “Lord, Lord, open to us” (Matt 25:11).

(10) Saving faith will have good works follow it into heaven; and the faith that is not saving may have great works follow it, as far as heaven’s gates: “Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name have cast out devils? and in thy name done many wonderful works?” (Matt 7:22).

Now then, the faith that is not saving may have Christ for its object, be worked by the Word, look for justification without works, draw men away from the pollutions of the world, and give men tastes of, and joy in, the things of another world. I say again, it will help a man to burn for his convictions and to look for an inheritance in another world. Yes, it will help a man to prepare for that inheritance and claim a share in it, and it can carry great works, many great and glorious works, as far as heaven’s gates. If all this is so, then it is no wonder if great numbers of people take this faith for saving faith, and so fall short of heaven by it. Alas, friends! There are only a few who can produce as much by way of repentance, and such faith, as you see I have proved even reprobates have had in various ages of the church.

3. But to go on: those who go to heaven are a praying people; yet a man may pray who will not be saved. Pray! He may pray, and pray daily. Yes, he may ask of God the ordinances of justice, and may take delight in approaching to God (Isa 58:2). Indeed, more than that, such souls may, as it were, cover the altar of the Lord with tears, with weeping and crying out (Mal 2:13).

4. Do God’s people keep holy fasts? Those who are not his people may keep fasts too, and keep them often, even twice a week. “The Pharisee stood, and prayed thus with himself: God, I thank thee that I am not as other men are, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this publican. I fast twice in the week, I give tithes of all that I possess” (Luke 18:11-12). I might enlarge on these things, but I intend only a little book.

I do not doubt that many Balaamites will appear before the judgment seat to condemnation: men who have had visions of God, and who knew the knowledge of the Most High (Num 24:2, 4, 16); men who have had the Spirit of God come upon them, and who have by that been made other men (1 Sam 10:6, 10). Yet these will go to the generations of their fathers; they will never see light (Ps 49:19).

I read of some men whose excellence in religion mounts up to the heavens, and whose heads reach to the clouds, who yet will perish forever like their own dung; and he who has seen them in this world will say at the judgment, “Where are they?” (Job 20:5-7). Many a one who was a gallant professor in this world will be missing among the saved in the day of Christ’s coming; yes, many whose damnation was never dreamed of. Which of the twelve ever thought that Judas would prove a devil? No; when Christ suggested that one among them was false, each of them was more afraid of himself than of Judas (Matt 26:21-23). Who questioned the salvation of the foolish virgins? The wise ones did not; they gave them the privilege of communion with themselves (Matt 25).

The discerning of the heart, and the infallible proof of the truth of saving grace, are reserved for the judgment of Jesus Christ at his coming. The church and the best of saints sometimes hit and sometimes miss in their judgments about this matter. And the cause of our missing in our judgments is, first, partly that we cannot infallibly, at all times, tell grace that saves from grace that only appears to save; second, partly also that some men have the art of giving right names to wrong things; and third, partly that we, being commanded to receive him who is weak, are afraid to exclude the least Christian. By such hidden means hypocrites creep into the churches. But what does the Scripture say? “I the Lord search the heart, I try the reins” (Jer 11:20; Jer 17:10). And again, “All the churches shall know that I am he which searcheth the reins and hearts; and I will give unto every one of you according to your works” (Rev 2:23). To this Searcher of hearts the time of infallible discerning is reserved; and then you will see how far grace that is not saving has gone, and also how few will be saved indeed. The Lord awaken poor sinners by my little book!

I come now to make some brief use and application of the whole. My first word shall be to the openly profane.

Poor sinner, you read here that only a few will be saved, and that many who expect heaven will go without heaven. What do you say to this, poor sinner? Let me say it over again. Only a few are to be saved, only a very few. Let me add: only a few professors, only a few eminent professors. What do you say now, sinner? If judgment begins at the house of God, what will the end be of those who do not obey the gospel of God (1 Pet 4:17)? This is Peter’s question. Can you answer it, sinner? Yes, I say again, if judgment must begin with them, will it not make you think, “What will become of me?” And I add this: when you see the stars of heaven tumble down to hell, can you think that such a muck heap of sin as you are will be lifted up to heaven?

Peter asks you another question: “If the righteous scarcely be saved, where shall the ungodly and the sinner appear?” (1 Pet 4:18). Can you answer this question, sinner? You may not stand among the righteous: “The ungodly shall not stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous” (Ps 1:5). Then you will not dare to stand among the wicked. Where will you appear, sinner? To stand among the hypocrites will do you no good. The hypocrite “shall not come before him” (Job 13:16), that is, with acceptance, but shall perish.

Because it concerns you so much, let me go over it again! When you see lesser sinners than you bound up by angels in bundles to be burned, where will you appear, sinner? You may wish you were another man, but that will not help you, sinner. You may wish, “If only I had been converted in time!” but that will not help you either. And if, like the wife of Jeroboam, you should pretend to be another woman, the Prophet, the Lord Jesus, would soon find you out (1 Kgs 14:2, 5-6)! What will you do, poor sinner? Heavy tidings, heavy tidings will attend you unless you repent (Luke 13:3, 5), poor sinner! Oh, the dreadful state of a poor sinner, of an openly profane sinner! Everybody who has even common sense knows that this man is on the broad way to death, yet he laughs at his own damnation.

Shall I come down to particulars with you?

1. Poor unclean sinner, the “harlot’s house is the way to hell, going down to the chambers of death” (Prov 2:18; Prov 5:5; Prov 7:27).

2. Poor swearing and thieving sinner, God has prepared the curse, that “every one that stealeth shall be cut off as on this side according to it; and every one that sweareth shall be cut off as on that side, according to it” (Zech 5:3).

3. Poor drunken sinner, what shall I say to you? “Woe to the drunkards of Ephraim” (Isa 28:1); “woe unto them that are mighty to drink wine, and men of strong drink” (Isa 5:22); “they shall not inherit the kingdom of heaven” (1 Cor 6:9-10).

4. Poor covetous, worldly man, God’s Word says that “the covetous the Lord abhorreth” (Ps 10:3), that the “covetous man is an idolater” (Eph 5:5), and that the covetous “shall not inherit the kingdom of God” (1 John 2:15; 1 Cor 6:9-10).

5. And you liar, what will you do? “All liars shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone” (Rev 21:8, 27).

I will not go on at length, poor sinner. Let no one deceive you, “for because of these things cometh the wrath of God upon the children of disobedience” (Eph 5:6). I will therefore give you a short call, and so leave you.

Sinner, awake! Yes, I say to you, awake! Sin lies at your door (Gen 4:7), God’s axe lies at your root, and hellfire is right underneath you. I say again, Awake! “Therefore every tree which bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire” (Matt 3:10).

Poor sinner, awake! Eternity is coming, and God’s Son; they are both coming to judge the world. Awake! Are you still asleep, poor sinner? Let me set the trumpet to your ear once again! The heavens will shortly be in a burning flame; the earth and the works in it will be burned up, and then wicked men will go into perdition (2 Pet 3). Do you hear this, sinner? Listen again: the sweet morsels of sin will then be fled and gone, and only their bitter, burning fruits will be left. What do you say now, sinner? Can you drink hellfire? Will the wrath of God be a pleasant dish to your taste? This must be your meat and drink every day in hell, sinner!

I will yet set before you God’s weighty question, and then leave you for this time: “Can thine heart endure, or can thine hands be strong, in the days that I shall deal with thee?” says the Lord (Ezek 22:14). What do you say? Will you answer this question now, or will you take time to do it? Or will you be reckless and risk everything? And let me put this text in your ear to keep it open, and so may the Lord have mercy on you: “Upon the wicked shall the Lord rain snares, fire and brimstone, and an horrible tempest; this shall be the portion of their cup” (Ps 11:6). Repent, sinners!

My second word is to those who are upon the potter’s wheel: those about whom we do not yet know whether their convictions and awakenings will end in conversion or not. I have several things to say to you, both to further your convictions and to warn you against stopping anywhere below or short of saving grace.

1. Remember that only a few shall be saved. And if God should count you worthy to be one of that few, what a mercy that would be!

2. Be thankful, therefore, for convictions. Conversion begins at conviction, though not all conviction ends in conversion. It is a great mercy to be convinced that we are sinners and that we need a Savior. So count it a mercy; and so that your convictions may end in conversion, take care not to stifle them. It is the way of poor sinners to look on convictions as harmful things, and so they make a habit of shunning the awakening ministry and checking a convincing conscience.

Such poor sinners are much like the mischievous boy who stands at the maid’s elbow to blow out her candle as fast as she lights it at the fire. Convinced sinner, God lights your candle, and you put it out; God lights it again, and you put it out. Yes, “how oft is the candle of the wicked put out?” (Job 21:17). At last God resolves that he will light your candle no more. And then, like the Egyptians, you dwell in darkness all your days and never see light again, except by the light of hellfire. Therefore give glory to God, and if he awakens your conscience, do not quench your convictions. Do it, says the prophet, “before he cause darkness, and before your feet stumble upon the dark mountains, and he turn” your convictions “into the shadow of death, and make them gross darkness” (Jer 13:16).

(1) Be willing to see the worst of your condition. It is better to see it here than in hell, for you must see your misery either here or there.

(2) Beware of little sins. They will make way for great ones, and those in turn will make way for bigger ones, on which God’s wrath will follow; and then your latter end may be worse than your beginning (2 Pet 2:20).

(3) Beware of bad company and evil communication, for that will corrupt good manners. God says that evil company will turn you away from following him and will tempt you to serve other gods, which are devils. “So the anger of the Lord will be kindled against you, and destroy thee suddenly” (Deut 7:4).

(4) Beware of any thought that tells you to put off repentance, for that is damnable (Prov 1:24; Zech 7:12-13).

(5) Beware of following the example of some poor, carnal professor whose religion lies in the tip of his tongue. Beware, I say, of the man whose head swims with notions, but “his life is among the unclean” (Job 36:14). “He that walketh with wise men shall be wise; but a companion of fools shall be destroyed” (Prov 13:20).

(6) Give yourself much to the Word, to prayer, and to good conversation.

(7) Labor to see the sin that clings to the best of your religious duties, and know that all is nothing if you are not found in Jesus Christ.

(8) Keep in mind that God’s eye is on your heart and on all your ways. “Can any hide himself in secret places that I shall not see him? saith the Lord. Do not I fill heaven and earth? saith the Lord” (Jer 23:24).

(9) Meditate often on death and judgment (Eccl 11:9; Eccl 12:14).

(10) Think often of what a dreadful end sinners who have neglected Christ will come to in that day of death and judgment (Heb 10:31).

(11) Often place yourself, in your thoughts, before Christ’s judgment seat, in your sins, and consider within yourself: If I were now before my Judge, how would I look? How would I shake and tremble?

(12) Think often of those who are now in hell, past all mercy. I say, think of them often, in this way: They were once in the world, as I am now. They once took delight in sin, as I have done. They once neglected repentance, as Satan would have me do. But now they are gone; now they are in hell; now the pit has shut its mouth upon them!

You may also turn your thoughts about the damned into questions like these: If these poor creatures were in the world again, would they sin as they did before? Would they neglect salvation as they did before? If they had sermons, as I have; if they had the Bible, as I have; if they had good company, as I have; yes, if they had a day of grace, as I have, would they neglect it as they did before?

Sinner, if you could think soberly about these things, they might help, with God’s blessing, to awaken you and to keep you awake to repentance: to the repentance that leads to salvation, which is never to be repented of.

Objection. But you have said that few shall be saved, and that some who go a great way are still not saved. This leaves me discouraged and weakened; I think I might as well go no further. I am indeed under conviction, but I may perish; and if I go on in my sins, I can only perish. And the odds are ten, twenty, even a hundred to one against my being saved, however earnest I might be for heaven.

Answer. That few will be saved must certainly be true, for Christ has said it. That many go far and yet come short of heaven is just as true, for it is testified by the same hand. But what then? “Why, then I might as well never seek.” Who told you so? Must nobody seek because few are saved? That is just contrary to the text, which bids us strive for that very reason: strive to enter in, because the gate is strait, and because many will seek to enter in and shall not be able. Why go back again, when that is the shortest way to hell? Never go to hell over hedge and ditch. If I must go there, I will go the longest way around.

But who can tell? Though no more should be saved than shall be saved, you may still be one of that few. Those who miss life perish because they will not let go of their sins, or because they take up a profession that falls short of the saving faith of the gospel. They perish, I say, because they are content with things that will not prove to be graces of a saving nature when they come to be tried in the fire. Otherwise, the promise is free, full, and everlasting. “Him that cometh to me,” says Christ, “I will in no wise cast out” (John 6:37). And again: “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life” (John 3:16). So do not let this thought, Few shall be saved, weaken your heart. Instead, let it make you mend your pace, mend your cries, and look well to your grounds for heaven. Let it make you fly faster from sin to Christ. Let it keep you awake and out of carnal complacency, and you may be saved.

My third word is to professors. Sirs, give me leave to put my trumpet to your ears again for a little while. When everyone has put in every claim they can for heaven, still only a few will have it for their inheritance. I mean only a few professors, for that is what the text intends, and that is what I have also proved: “For many, I say unto you, will seek to enter in, and shall not be able.” Let me, therefore, reason with you a little about this matter, O you thousands of professors!

1. I begin with you whose religion lies only in your tongues. I mean you who can hardly be told apart from the rest of the rabble of the world, except that you can talk better than they can. Hear me a word or two. If “I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity” (that is, love to God, and Christ, and saints, and holiness), “I am nothing” (1 Cor 13:1-2); I am no child of God, and so I have nothing to do with heaven. A chattering tongue will not unlock the gates of heaven, nor blind the eyes of the Judge. Look to it. “The wise in heart will receive commandments; but a prating fool shall fall” (Prov 10:8).

2. Covetous professor, you who make a gain of religion, who use your profession to bring grist to your mill, look to it also. Gain is not godliness. Judas’s religion lay mostly in the money bag, but his soul is now burning in hell. All covetousness is idolatry; but what is it, or what will you call it, when people are religious for the sake of filthy lucre (Ezek 33:31)?

3. Wanton professors, I have a word for you. I mean you who know how to plead Scripture wrongly to defend your pride, your banqueting, and your abominable idolatry. Read what Peter says. You are the snare and the damnation of others. You “allure through the lust of the flesh, through much wantonness, those that were clean escaped from them who live in error” (2 Pet 2:18). Besides this, the Holy Spirit has a great deal against you for your feasting, and for your eating without fear, not for health but for gluttony (Jude 12). Further, Peter says that you who count it a pleasure to revel in the daytime are spots and blemishes, sporting yourselves with your own deceivings (2 Pet 2:13). And let me ask: Did God give his Word to justify your wickedness? Or does grace teach you to plead for the flesh, or for making provision for its lusts? Among these also are those who feed their bodies to strengthen their lusts, under the pretense of strengthening frail nature. But please, remember the text: “Many, I say unto you, will seek to enter in, and shall not be able.”

4. I come next to the opinionist. I mean the one whose religion lies in some of the side matters of religion. This kingdom swarms with this sort today. These people think that everyone who does not follow their way is out of the way, when they themselves may be out of the way in the very midst of their zeal for their opinions. Please, you also take note of the text: “Many, I say unto you, will seek to enter in, and shall not be able.”

5. Nor is the formalist exempted from this number. He is a man who has lost everything but the shell of religion. He is hot for his form, indeed, and no wonder, for that is all he has to contend for. But since his form is without the power and spirit of godliness (2 Tim 3:5), it will leave him in his sins. In fact, he stands in them now in the sight of God, and he is one of the many who “will seek to enter in, and shall not be able.”

6. The legalist comes next, the man who has no life except what he makes out of his duties. This man has chosen to stand or fall by Moses, who is the condemner of the world. “There is one that accuseth you, even Moses, in whom ye trust” (John 5:45).

7. Next there is the libertine, the man who pretends to be against forms and duties as things that breed bondage, and so neglects the order of God. This man pretends to pray always, but under that pretense he does not pray at all. He pretends to keep every day as a Sabbath, but this pretense serves him only to throw off all set times for the worship of God (Titus 1:16). This man is also one of the many who “will seek to enter in, and shall not be able.”

8. There is the time-serving latitudinarian. He is a man who has no God but his belly, nor any religion but the one by which his belly is worshiped. His religion is always turning this way and that way with the times, like the weathercock on the steeple. He has no conscience either, except a numbed and seared one. He is next door to a downright atheist, and he too is one of the many who “will seek to enter in, and shall not be able.”

9. There is also the willfully ignorant professor, the one who is afraid to know more for fear of the cross. He is all for picking and choosing among truths, and he does not care to risk his all for that worthy name by which he wants to be called. Whenever he is overpowered by arguments, or by awakenings of conscience, he makes a habit of healing it all with “I was not brought up in this faith,” as if it were unlawful for Christians to know more than they were taught at their first conversion. There are many scriptures that lie against this man like the mouths of great guns, and he is one of the many who “will seek to enter in, and shall not be able.”

10. To all these we will add the professor who would prove himself a Christian by comparing himself with others instead of comparing himself with the Word of God. This man comforts himself because he is as holy as so-and-so. He also knows as much as that old professor, and so he concludes that he will go to heaven, as if he knew for certain that those he compares himself with will undoubtedly be saved. But what if he should be mistaken? Indeed, may they not both fall short? But to be sure, the man who has made the comparison is in the wrong, and a wrong foundation will not stand in the day of judgment (2 Cor 10:12). This man, therefore, is one of the many who “will seek to enter in, and shall not be able.”

11. There is yet another professor, and he is for God and for Baal too. He can be anything for any company. He can throw stones with both hands. His religion changes as fast as his company. He is a frog of Egypt, and can live in the water and out of the water; he can live in religious company, and just as well out of it. Nothing disorderly comes amiss to him. He will hold with the hare and run with the hound. He carries fire in one hand and water in the other. He is absolutely anything except what he should be. This man is also one of the many who “will seek to enter in, and shall not be able.”

12. There is also that free-willer, who denies the Holy Spirit the sole work in conversion; and that Socinian, who denies that Christ has made satisfaction to God for sin; and that Quaker, who takes from Christ the two natures in his person. And I might add as many more. Concerning their damnation, if they die as they are, the Scripture is plain: these “will seek to enter in, and shall not be able.”

Fourth Application. If it is so, what a strange disappointment many professors will meet with at the day of judgment! I am not speaking now to the openly profane. As I have said, everyone who has even a common understanding of good and evil knows that they are in the broad way to hell and damnation, and that they must come there. Nothing can prevent it but repentance unto salvation, unless God should prove a liar in order to save them, and that is a hard thing to venture on.

It is not amiss, either, to take notice of the examples briefly mentioned in the Scriptures concerning professors who have miscarried.

1. Judas perished from among the apostles (Acts 1).

2. Demas, I think, perished from among the evangelists (2 Tim 4:10).

3. Diotrephes perished from among the ministers, or those in office in the church (3 John 9).

4. And as for Christian professors, they have fallen in heaps, and almost by whole churches (2 Tim 1:15; Rev 3:4, 15-17).

5. Let us add to these that the things mentioned in the Scriptures about these matters are only brief hints and warnings of what is to happen afterward. As the apostle said, “Some men’s sins are open beforehand, going before to judgment; and some men they follow after” (1 Tim 5:24).

So then, fellow professors, let us fear, lest, a promise being left us of entering into this rest, any of us should seem to come short of it (Heb 4:1). Oh, to come short! Nothing kills like it; nothing will burn like it. I do not intend discouragements but awakenings. The churches need awakening, and so do all professors. So do not despise me, but hear me say it over again. What a strange disappointment many professors will meet with at the day of God Almighty! A disappointment, I say, and that in several things.

(1) They will look to escape hell, and yet fall right into the mouth of hell. What a disappointment that will be!

(2) They will look for heaven, but the gate of heaven will be shut against them. What a disappointment this is!

(3) They will expect Christ to have compassion on them, but will find that he has shut up all his tender compassion from them. What a disappointment this is!

Fifth Application. Again, as this disappointment will be fearful, so it will certainly be very full of amazement.

1. Will it not amaze them to be unexpectedly shut out from life and salvation?

2. Will it not be amazing to them to see their own madness and folly, as they consider how they have trifled with their own souls? They lightly took it for granted that they had the grace that would save them, but that grace has left them in a damnable state.

3. Will they not also be amazed at one another, as they remember how in their lifetime they counted themselves fellow heirs of life? To apply the words of the prophet, “They shall be amazed one at another, their faces shall be as flames” (Isa 13:8).

4. Will it not be amazing even to some of the damned themselves to see some come to hell whom they will then see come there? To see preachers of the Word, professors of the Word, and practicers of the Word come there? What wondering there was among them at the fall of the king of Babylon! He had thought to swallow up everything, and yet he was run down by the Medes and Persians. “How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! How art thou cut down to the ground which didst weaken the nations!” (Isa 14:12). If such a thing as this will surprise the damned with amazement, what an amazement it will be to them to see one whose head reached to the clouds come down to the pit and perish forever like his own dung! “Hell from beneath is moved for thee, to meet thee at thy coming; it stirreth up the dead for thee, even all the chief ones of the earth” (Isa 14:9). “They that see thee shall narrowly look upon thee, and consider thee, saying, Is this the man?” (Isa 14:16). So the damned will say of such a professor: “Is this the one who professed, and disputed, and forsook us, but now has come back to us? Is this the one who separated from us, but now has fallen with us into the same eternal damnation?”

Sixth Application. Yet again, one word more, if I may awaken professors. Consider this: though the poor carnal world will certainly perish, yet they will not have these things to add to their sorrow. But you will meet with them in every thought you have of the condition you were in when you were in the world.

1. They will not have a profession to bite them when they come there.

2. They will not have the taste of a lost heaven to bite them when they come there.

3. They will not have the thought, “I was almost at heaven,” to bite them when they come there.

4. They will not have the thoughts of how they cheated saints, ministers, and churches to bite them when they come there.

5. They will not have the dying thoughts of false faith, false hope, false repentance, and false holiness to bite them when they come there. “I was at the gates of heaven; I looked into heaven; I thought I would have entered into heaven.” Oh, how these things will sting! They will be, if I may call them so, the sting of the sting of death in hellfire.

Seventh Application. Allow me now, in a word, to give you a little advice.

1. Do you love your own soul? Then pray to Jesus Christ for an awakened heart, for a heart so awakened with all the things of another world that you may be drawn to Jesus Christ.

2. When you have come to him, beg again for more awakenings about sin, hell, and grace, and about the righteousness of Christ.

3. Cry also for a spirit of discernment, so that you may know what is truly saving grace.

4. Above all other studies, apply yourself to the study of those things that show you the evil of sin, the shortness of human life, and the way to be saved.

5. Keep company with the most godly among professors.

6. When you hear what the nature of true grace is, do not put off asking your own heart whether this grace is there. And here take heed:

(1) That the preacher himself is sound and of good life.

(2) That you do not take seeming graces for real ones, nor seeming fruits for real fruits.

(3) Take heed that no sin in your life goes unrepented of. For that will make a flaw in your evidence, a wound in your conscience, and a breach in your peace. And it is a hundred to one that in the end it will drive all the grace in you into so dark a corner of your heart that for a time you will not be able, by all the torches that are burning in the gospel, to find it out to your own comfort and consolation.