Few Saved

(Article for publication week of 3-11-2009 AD)


“Because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it.” (Matthew 7:14).

We have noted in previous articles the urgency and difficulty of true conversion as taught by our Lord in the latter part of the Sermon on the Mount. The next thing that we wish to show you is that our Lord said that true conversion is a very rare thing. The Bible tells us that only a few will be saved. The vast majority of the human race will spend eternity in eternal hell where there is weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth.

Our text tells us that there are few who enter the difficult gate of conversion (repentance of sin and faith in Christ) and persevere in true holiness and finally arrive at the Celestial City. “FEW there be that find it.” But this is not the only place in the Bible where we are told that there are few saved. Our Lord said in Luke 12:32, “Fear not little flock; for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.” The Lord’s people are a LITTLE flock. Again, in Romans 11:5 we read, “there is a REMNANT according to the election of grace.” A remnant is, of course a smaller part of a larger whole. There are few that are truly saved.

Many of you have the idea that most everybody is saved. Sadly, when I go to a funeral or funeral home, I hear everybody talking like everybody is saved. How many people I hear say at the funeral home, “well he (or she) is ‘better off.” But my friends, if your relative that died was not one of the few spoken of in my text, they are not better off, for they are now in hell and will never get out. Most preachers preach at funerals like they are Universalists. I made up my mind a long time ago that if I do not have clear and Biblical evidence that a person was saved, I would not say at the funeral that they are in heaven. I imagine that is the reason I do not get asked to preach many funerals anymore. Most people want the preacher to get up at their mama’s funeral and preach her into heaven whether she was a holy person or not. But neighbor, no preacher can preach your loved one into heaven if they were not savingly joined to Christ. And if you die without Christ, no preacher can preach you into heaven.

Now, I want you to just stop and consider that it is a miracle of God’s Sovereign Grace that any are saved. Were it not for God’s electing grace there would be none saved. The whole human race (that includes you) is doomed and damned in our federal head Adam. When Adam fell, he and his whole posterity became sinners. We are fallen sinners; we are natural sinners; we are practicing sinners. “The soul that sinneth it shall die” (Ezekiel 18:4). You and I and your grandmother and your grandfather and the whole human race deserve eternal death because we are sinners. If God had left the whole human race in sin and sent the whole world to hell, He would still be thrice holy and just. God is not obligated to save any sinner. My friend, God is not obligated to you. If He leaves you in your sin and sends you to hell, He will be a good and just and holy God. So, those of us who have been saved by grace know that it is all of God’s mercy that we have been spared the awful wrath of God. Praise God for His sovereign Grace that rescued a remnant of the human race. Praise God that He sent His Son to die for His little flock and they shall be saved. Praise God that He draws His people to the strait gate and sweetly forces them in.

Now dear reader, the question for you is, are you one of the few? Be sure if you are not in the narrow way the leads to life you will go to hell with the vast majority of the human race. And be sure the only way you will ever get into the narrow way is through the gate of conversion. Any that tries to come another way is a thief and a robber. Are you one of the few? Only if you are saved by the atoning work of Jesus Christ. Flee to Him poor sinner. He is able and willing to save the chief of sinners.

A True Man of God

(Article for publication week of 3-4-2009 AD)


“This is a true saying, ‘ If a man desire the office of a bishop, he desireth a good work.’ “(I Timothy 3:1).

We continue this week in our biblical description of a true man of God. If we are thoroughly acquainted with the genuine, we will be able to recognize the counterfeit. We have shown that a true minister of Christ is a man that is a converted man (John 21:15-17). He is a man that is called and sent by the Lord (Jeremiah 3:15; I Corinthians 9:16; I Timothy 1:12). And he is a man that feeds the Lord’s people with the Word of God (Acts 20:27-28; II Timothy 4:2). And now we come to emphasize that he must be a MAN of God.

Our text this week says “if a MAN desire the office of a bishop“. (Note well that a bishop is synonymous with an elder or pastor. The reader is invited to compare with Acts 20:17,28; Titus 1:5,7; I Peter 5:1; I Timothy 4:14). True ministers of the gospel must be MEN. God’s word forbids a woman to be in the ministry, to teach publicly, to hold office or to have any authority outside her own home. I Corinthians 14:34 clearly says , “Let your women keep silence in the churches: for it is not permitted unto them to speak; but they are commanded to be under obedience, as also saith the law.” I Timothy 2:12 says, “But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence.” Churches that have women preachers, teachers or officers are in gross violation of scripture and indicate that they do not care what the Bible says. Women are to teach their own children and older women are to teach younger women in private, but the office of pastor-teacher is closed to women. I thank the Lord for the few Godly women I know who are content with their place as wives and mothers and keepers at home. Such women are (like true ministers) “one of a thousand”, and I pray the Lord may increase their tribe.

All through the Bible, Old and New Testaments, we see that public ministry and office is limited to men. In the Old Testament, which is written for our learning, the Lord only allowed MEN of the tribe of Levi to be in the priest’s office. All the Old Testament prophets were MEN. The forerunner of Christ, John the Baptist was a “man sent from God.” The first New testament preachers that the Lord Jesus Christ Himself called into the ministry were all men (the twelve apostles).

The scriptural qualification for a minister is that he must be the “husband of one wife” (I Timothy 3:2). It is quite clear that a woman cannot be the husband of one wife. By clear command, example, and precedent, a true minister must be a MAN.

A true minister of Christ must be a man in every sense of the word. He must be a man physically, mentally, emotionally and in his general demeanor. The Christian ministry is no place for sissies. We have had too many of those I am afraid. The Lord Jesus Christ Himself is the Manly pattern for ministers. Our Lord was a preacher Himself, and he was our ideal of masculinity. The Lord Jesus Christ was not a longhaired, limp-wristed sissy. He was a carpenter by trade before they had power tools. He generally walked everywhere He went. He once took a whip and took on several men at once. And you see men like John the Baptist and the fishermen that our Lord called into the ministry as men who were strong and masculine. The soft wimps who act more like girls than men that are frequently found in the “ministry’ are a disgrace to their profession. Preachers, I call on you to “quit yourselves like MEN.” May the Lord give us real men in the ministry.