The Few - Piper/washer/ravenhill/conway/leiter

Lots of people in that day say glory, glory, but it says I never knew. Well, I want to tell you today, I believe the same thing happens in our churches every Sunday. People are choking and we're trying to pour the water of life into them and the poor souls are so damned and lost they can't take it.

They've listened to the same preacher year after year, says the same things in the same way. He hasn't shed a tear since he left his mother's womb. He went to the seminary and got a big fat head and a shrunken soul.

There is no hope. This generation will fill hell quicker than any other generation we're so close unless God in mercy fills us. There is a holiness without which we will not see the Lord.

I really believe that. There is a practical daily lived out righteousness without which nobody gets into heaven, which means that Jesus will say to some professing Christians on the judgment day, I never knew you. Depart from me, you workers of iniquity.

Even though they said, Lord, Lord, we did many mighty works in your name and went to church every Sunday. He dismisses them as evildoers because they did not have the holiness without which no one will see the Lord. It also means that there are many church going people who believe that they are saved because they once prayed to receive Jesus, not realizing that the proof of the genuineness of that prayer is perseverance in faith and holiness.

He who endures to the end will be saved, not those who endure halfway to the end and then abort. I believe my ministry would be a failure if you came to this church five years, 10 years, 20 years, 30 years, and then went to hell for all eternity because you never learned to fight the fight of faith and lay hold on eternity. I might succeed in persuading you that there is a holiness without which you cannot see the Lord only to have you throw yourself into pursuing it in a way that backfires and destroys.

The Bible makes it very clear that there is a way to pursue righteousness that leads to hell. That when he speaks about few finding eternal life, he's talking about those who profess his name. Among those who call Jesus Lord, few of them will find eternal life.

Nobody purposes to go to hell. They all think to get right with God before the end. And most men make shipwreck.

Few there be that find it. You mean all those many people? They just live the life all hell-bent. They wanted to go to hell, expected to go to hell.

Men don't expect to go to hell. And most go. Because we already know these people consider themselves disciples and they call Jesus Lord, Lord.

But their life is not marked by the will of God. And so to sum this up, this is what's being said. Depart from me.

Those of you who considered yourself my disciples and even emphatically declared me to be Lord, but you did not commune with me and you lived as though I never gave you a law to obey. I just described American Christianity. The 60 or 70 percent of the people in this country who believe that they're converted because one time in their life they prayed a prayer.

I'm astounded, bewildered, confused, baffled when people tell me in America we have 75 million people still with the Holy Ghost and with the rottenest nation on earth. Come on. Let me tell you something.

Lost men, lost women, which is most of the people. Remember, you there be the finder. Oh yeah, there's lots of religious people.

Lots of people think they're going to heaven. Lots of people in that day say, Lord, Lord. And he says, I never knew you.

What he's saying is not everyone who emphatically declares me to be Lord will enter into the Kingdom of Heaven. This is not some secret discipleship here. This is not some hidden thing.

This is a person who would emphatically say, yes, I'm a Christian. He says not everyone who says this will enter into the Kingdom of Heaven, which is synonymous with not everyone who says this is truly Christian. My question is, does anybody care? Do we really care the world is going to hell? You think about Sodom and Gomorrah.

Look at how horrible the sins of Sodom and Gomorrah. They were, but he says it'll be more tolerable for Sodom and Gomorrah than for young people that have sat in meetings and heard about the Lord Jesus Christ and not believed on Him. That is wickedness beyond imagination.

And we need to have our minds renewed in this to realize we have gotten a glimpse of what is infinitely lovely. God has come into the world. And lived among men.

And if you want to talk about sin and convictment of sin, exalt the Lord Jesus Christ. The greatest miracle that God can do is to take an unholy person out of an unholy world, make that unholy person holy, put them back in an unholy world and keep them holy. In the midst of a crooked and perverted and perverse generation.

He's worthy of worship whether you end up going to hell at the end. He's still worthy of worship for what He's done. If you look at what He did on the cross, if you look at the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, He owes no one anything.

He doesn't need to save anybody. Everybody in this world ought to bow down before Him and worship Him just because of what He's done. Whether you get anything out of it or not.

He's worthy of worship. You know, we are preaching an acceptable gospel today. Make it as painless as we can.

And all we do is give people a shock to put them to sleep so they'll get to hell quicker. Do you want to know what your profession of faith in Jesus Christ is worth? Your confession of faith in Him, what it's worth? The answer is this. It's worth absolutely nothing.

No matter how emphatically someone declares themselves to be Christian, it is not the test of whether their Christianity is true. What is the test? We go on, we see this. But he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven will enter.

Now, he is in no way teaching a works salvation. Not at all. He is not teaching that men enter into the Kingdom of Heaven by their ability to perform the will of God.

That is not what he's teaching. If you think that, you're putting the cart before the horse. What he's teaching is simply this.

Those who have truly believed do so by the power of the Holy Spirit by which they've been regenerated and made new creatures. Through this miraculous work of salvation and the continuing work of the Holy Spirit in their life, their lives and manner of living are changed. And so that the true Christian is Christian by believing in Jesus, but you know he truly believes in Jesus because of the changes in his life.

And those changes are marked by conformity to the will of God. I believe we're going into the darkest days that humanity has ever known. So dark they make the dark ages look like midday.