We're going to observe the Lord's table now, and let's ask the Lord's blessing upon. Father, as we come to this ordinance of your church that the Lord Jesus has given to us, we give you thanks for him and for the truths that these elements preach to us and remind us of Christ giving his body and blood on the cross for us. We pray, Father, that your spirit would use these emblems, these tokens that you've decreed for us as a powerful reminder and that we would believe that by this ordinance, we are sharers that we are reminded of and that we have fellowship with Christ and one another. And we pray this all in Christ's name, amen. Case, if you'd come and serve the elements. If you're a Christian, you are welcome to participate in the Lord's table then with us and you may serve the elements. I'm reading from the Heidelberg Catechism, one of the reformed confessions of the faith, and has a very good statement upon the Lord's Supper here. It's actually a catechism, so it begins with a question. How are we reminded and assured in the holy supper that you participate in, the one sacrifice of Christ on the cross and in all of his benefits? Here's the answer. Well, in this way, Christ has commanded me and all believers to eat of this broken bread and to drink of this cup in remembrance of him. He has thereby promised that his body was offered and broken on the cross for me. And his blood was shed for me, as surely as I see with my eyes that the bread of the Lord is broken for me and that the cup is shared with me. Also, he has promised that he himself has certainly feeds and nourishes my soul to everlasting life. with his crucified body and shed blood as I receive from the hand of the minister and actually taste the bread and the cup of the Lord which are given to me as sure signs of the body and blood of Christ." It goes on again and it asks another question, what does it mean to eat the crucified body of Christ, and to drink his shed blood. It's not only to embrace with a trusting heart the whole passion and death of Christ, and by it to receive the forgiveness of sins and eternal life. In addition, it is to be so united more and more to his blessed body by the Holy Spirit dwelling both in Christ and in us that although he is in heaven, and we are on earth, we are nevertheless flesh of his flesh and bone of his bone, always living and being governed by one spirit as the members of our bodies are governed by one soul. Well, that has a lot to say, needless to say, but as we partake of these elements and observe the Lord's Supper, we need to always remember that There is in it, and we can read about that in 1 Corinthians 10, that in some, well, there's a mystical element to it, to the Lord's Supper. It's not just some external ordinance, nor is it the heresy of Rome either. But nevertheless, there is a mystical element to the Lord's Supper in which we have koinonia, we have fellowship with the Lord in it, and he meets us, you might say, in the ordinance of the Lord's table, particularly. Well, here's the bread then, and he gave it to us as a symbol of his body, which he was put to death on the cross, and by which our sins are healed. Eat it in remembrance of Christ. And then he also gave us the cup, which is the symbol of his blood shed for us. And he said, this cup is my blood. It's a symbol of my blood shed for remission of sin. Drink it in remembrance of Christ. Our scripture reading is also from Isaiah, Isaiah chapter 10. This morning, we want to give our thoughts to this subject of the nature of the church. What is the church? And specifically, as we see repeatedly in scripture, the church as remnant, the church as remnant, a very, very important doctrine So listen to Isaiah chapter 10 beginning in verse one. Woe to those who decree iniquitous decrees and the writers who keep writing oppression to turn aside the needy from justice and to rob the poor of my people of their right that widows may be their spoil and that they may make the fatherless their prey. What will you do on the day of punishment in the ruin that will come from afar? To whom will you flee for help? And where will you leave your wealth? Nothing remains but to crouch among the prisoners or fall among the slain. For all this, his anger has not turned away, and his hand is outstretched still. Woe to Assyria, the rod of my anger. He used Assyria to wipe out the northern kingdom. The staff in their hands is my fury. Against a godless nation I send him, and against the people of my wrath I command him. Take spoil and seize plunder, and to tread them down like the mire of the streets. But he does not so intend, and his heart does not so think, but it is in his heart to destroy and to cut off nations, not a few. For he says, are not my commanders all kings? Is not Kalno like Carchemish? Is not Hamath like Arpad? Is not Samaria like Damascus? As my hand has reached to the kingdoms of the idols, whose carved images were greater than those of Jerusalem and Samaria, shall I not do to Jerusalem and her idols as I've done to Samaria and her images? When the Lord has finished all his work on Mount Zion, And on Jerusalem, he will punish the speech of the arrogant heart of the king of Assyria and the boastful look in his eyes. For he says, by the strength of my hand, I've done it. And by my wisdom, for I have understanding, I remove the boundaries of peoples and plunder their treasures. Like a bull, I bring down those who sit on thrones. My hand has found, like a nest, the wealth of the peoples. And as one gathers that have been forsaken, so I have gathered all the earth. And there was none that moved a wing or opened the mouth or chirped. Shall the axe boast over him who hews with it? Or the saw magnify itself against him who wields it, as if a rod should wield him who lifts it, or as if a staff should lift him who is not wood? Therefore the Lord God of hosts will send wasting sickness among his stout warriors and under his glory a burning will be kindled like the burning of fire. The light of Israel will become a fire and his holy one a flame and it will burn and devour his thorns and briars in one day. The glory of his forest and of his fruitful land the Lord will destroy, both soul and body, and it will be as when a sick man wastes away. The remnant of the trees of his forest will be so few that a child can write them down. In that day, the remnant of Israel and the survivors of the house of Jacob will no more lean on him who struck them, but will lean on the Lord, the Holy One of Israel, in truth. A remnant will return, the remnant of Jacob, to the mighty God. For though your people Israel be as the sand of the sea, only a remnant of them will return. Destruction is decreed, overflowing with righteousness, For the Lord God of hosts will make a full end as decreed in the midst of the earth." And there is the word of God, his judgment on Assyria, boastfulness. Assyria, of course, fell to the Babylonians. And yet, in it all, as God had brought judgment upon Israel and Judah, He promises to preserve a remnant. And that is a very important theme in Scripture concerning the Church that we want to address this morning. Let's ask the Lord's blessing then on the ministry. of his word. Father, we thank you for your word. Thank you for giving us this book, this revelation that we can read, study, meditate on, and you, by your spirit, teach us and open our minds that we might understand with the purpose of knowing you more and more. that we would understand more of your ways and your decrees and that we might increase in holiness so that we would be holy as you are holy. Father, so we ask your blessing now and presence as we come to your word and we pray this in Christ's name, amen. You've probably heard of an entity called the World Council of Churches. It actually started in 1948. Its goal was just that a world church, we call this movement ecumenism, ecumenism. Somehow or another, the root of that word is related to the Greek word oikos for house. So it's like, I suppose, one household. all the churches, World Council of Churches. And the idea is that everyone and every group that claims the name of Christian needs to be united into one body. And they are very, they exert lots of pressure on local churches and denominational groups and so forth to unite together. So the World Council of Churches would say, the Church of Rome, the Church of England, the Methodist Church, the Baptist Churches, Lutheran Churches, Congregational Churches, everybody. Everybody that professes to be Christian must join together and be one. And they love to cite Jesus' statement, his prayer, in John 17, where he prayed for his remnant for his people, that they may all be one, that they may all be one. And I've run into that kind of a thing before in dealing with other pastors who have bought into this ecumenism thing. And I suppose you've experienced some of it too. The idea is that, yeah, OK, yes, we have our differences, different nuances and so on, different takes on what this verse means and what Christianity is. But what we've got to do is get together, and we'll find a common denominator, a lowest common denominator that we can all agree on. And that will be the basis, then, of our unity. Well, that kind of ecumenical spirit, which is from the pit, is still alive and well today. And it still has its effect. And as a result, there is widespread confusion in the minds of many people that profess to be Christians. Maybe they are Christians. Maybe they're some genuine churches, but they're confused by this pressure to join together. And it's fairly widespread. I mean, it's widespread enough, even in our day, that if we do not participate, we don't buy into that false, it's a false unity. You know, the unity that Jesus prayed for in John 17 is something that God, well, it exists. It already exists. As he prays, all true Christians are united already, okay? So ecumenism wants to establish a false counterfeit external unity. And when we, I hope us, all of us in our church, for instance, and people like us, Christians like us, insist that we have to stand for the truth of God's word and that we reject the Roman church as a church, and we say that it is apostate and heretical, and when we reject liberal theology that denies that the Bible is the inspired, inerrant word of God, and so on, well, we are accused of being schismatics, separatistic, judgmental, arrogant, and so on. And you don't have to leave our own community here to run into this. uh... i think i've told most of you story probably i don't know this is probably close to twenty years ago now but the thing is the same in in the community now among the the churches here is that uh... one time and i can't remember i think there was there was a group of pastors that were meeting together and they invited me to come and i came and we're talking about things that that we as Christians. in the community could do together, and so forth. But I brought up the fact, and I knew this would come up, so I had taken with me a one-page statement, doctrinal statement, the fundamentals of the faith, all right? I didn't include, well, if we're going to get together, everybody's got to be amillennial, or something like that. This is the deity of Christ, justification by faith alone, and the atonement, and all of these kinds of things. And I said, you know, for us to be able to work together, I need to know where you stand doctrinally, and you need to know where I stand. That's got to be the foundation. And so here's this statement. Take a look at it here and see what you think. And they wouldn't even hardly read it. They were upset. they were upset with me, you know, how can you, well, who are you to require us to sign this kind of a thing? And so I had my answer right then. That's not the only time that's happened to me. I had it happen to me when we were in our first church in Montana where an Elka pastor, that's more of a liberal Lutheran pastor, evangelical, not evangelical, evangelical Lutheran church in America, And he was kind of the man about town there. And he'd been a pastor of a big church. And he was retired. And he was popular and so forth. And he and a Presbyterian PC USA church, that's the liberal arm, invited me and a couple of other local pastors to lunch and so on. He had this idea that, hey, we can all get together in the summertime, and we can have an outreach in the campground here, the big campground at the lake, and we can preach. We could hold a service there and so on. I said, well, that's an OK idea. I need to know what we will be preaching, if I'm going to work together with you. So I asked him. I got right to the heart of the matter, and I said, I asked the Lutheran pastor, well, do you believe in the inerrancy of Scripture? And immediately, see, what happens with these kind of guys, they're very arrogant. And they immediately, immediately start almost scoffing, you know. Oh, you're one of these guys. This inerrancy stuff, it's so divisive. And I said, yeah, yeah, it does divide. And so he blew that off. And then I asked the Presbyterian guy, I said, so what do you believe about the Bible? Well, I hold to the higher critical method. I said, OK, I have my answer. You don't believe in the inerrancy of Scripture either. I said, we're done. We can't work together. And so they were all mad and looking down their nose and so on. But this is this idea. This idea, oh, let's not talk about doctrine. We say we're Christians. Come on, we've got unity. That's the thing. And that Lutheran pastor cited John 17. Well, you're violating Jesus' prayer that we all be one. He said, no, I'm not. No, I'm not. Genuine Christians already are one. I'm upholding his prayer, then, you see. All through, so this ecumenism causes great confusion in the churches, and that's why it's so dangerous to remain an infant, a spiritual infant, because if you're in a church and the pastor starts preaching this kind of stuff, well, you're going to be at best confused, if not fall for it hook, line, and sinker. All through the Old Testament, in the prophets, for example, we find interspersed, as we just did here in Isaiah 10, interspersed in pronouncements of coming judgment, God's coming judgment for particularly idolatry and covenant unfaithfulness, little rays of light where God will interject. All of a sudden, it's like there's been this pronouncement of judgment, and then in an instant, in the next verse, in the next section, God will be saying through the prophet, but I'm going to preserve a remnant. I will preserve a people then for myself. Here it is again here that we just read in Isaiah 10, starting in verse 19, the remnant of the trees of his forest will be so few that a child could write them." A child could count them, right? So it's like Israel is a forest, and he's going to wipe it out, but he's going to preserve a few trees, a remnant. In that day, the remnant of Israel and the survivors of the house of Jacob will no more lean on him who struck them. They're not going to trust Egypt or Assyria or something and make treaties with them, but they will lean on the Lord, the Holy One of Israel, in truth. A remnant will return, the remnant of Jacob to the mighty God. For though your people, Israel, be as the sand of the sea, only a remnant of them will return. Destruction is decreed, overflowing with righteousness." Now, we know Because the Apostle Paul tells us, we know that God there is speaking of more than a remnant among the Jews. And we know that because of what Paul says in Romans 9, where he quotes Isaiah, and he applies it to the church, the true Israel of God. So here it is, Romans 9 24, even us whom he has called, not from the Jews only, but also from the Gentiles. Okay, you see this. He's talking, this little section shoots dispensational theology. The church is the true Israel, you see, and it consists of Jew and Gentile. The church, the people of God, are not just The Jews, not just Israel, but it's all those who are in Christ. All of those he's called, whether they be Jew or Gentile. As indeed he says in Hosea, those who are not my people, the Gentiles, I will call my people. And her who was not beloved, I will call beloved. And in the very place where it was said to them, You are not my people. There they will be called sons of the living God." And then here's our passage from Isaiah 10. And Isaiah cries out concerning Israel. Though the number of the sons of Israel be as the sand of the sea, only a remnant of them will be saved. And you know from the context here that this Israel, he then applies to the Israel of God, which is then the church. The church then as remnant. And this theme is seen over and over in scripture. Well, most professing Christians today, nothing's really new, is it? It was that way in Jesus' day then as well. But many, many, many professing Christians embrace a false notion of the church. And there are serious and even spiritually fatal consequences of this error. Think about it. If we don't know what the church is or who the church is, who the people of God are, if we don't understand that they are a remnant, then we're going to go wrong in many, many other places then as well as we're going to see. You know, the illustration of the fires in Southern California is so fresh on our minds, it's still burning now and so forth. But it is an illustration of what this false doctrine does to a local church. Yes, the true church, Jesus will always preserve. There will always be a remnant. The gates of hell will not triumph over it. a local church can be destroyed. And one of the ways, one of the fires that destroys a local church is false teaching. You know, what's at the root of the fires in Southern California right now? Progressive wokeism. That's what is at the root of the thing. It's false teaching. teaching by fools. Well, in a similar way, if false teaching by fools and heretics and so on is introduced into the church so that nobody knows the true nature of the church, the church then, that local church, is going to be ultimately destroyed. So here's the questions, the issues of the day. What is the church? You know, we, for us, maybe, you know, I think, well, surely everybody knows that, that's a professing Christian. Surely everybody knows what the church is. No, no, they don't. What does the true church look like? Who are the people of the church, according to the Lord? Who is a Christian? Who is a Christian? What does a Christian look like? Those are the questions that are so largely being answered wrongly in our day. Here's what the Bible says, for one thing, about the church, Ephesians 2. So then, you, Christians, genuine Christians, people who've been born again, you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints. and members of the household of God, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone in whom the whole structure being joined together grows into a holy temple in the Lord. In him you also are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit. Now clearly, we could stop right there and just examine those verses. Clearly, one thing, what is the church? The church, the builder of the church is God. The church is a holy temple that God himself is building. And the building blocks are believers, his true people, and The foundation that he has laid, and Paul says to the Corinthians, let everybody be, you better beware. You better be certain that you build on the true foundation, you see. Well, what is the foundation? The foundation is the word of God. It's what the Old Testament prophets preached. It's what the apostles, and it's what Jesus himself preached. That's the church. If an entity which calls itself the church is not built on that foundation, sound doctrine, truth as given to us by God through his son, through the apostles and prophets, it's not a church. No matter how much it puts on an appearance as a church, It's not a church, then, you see. And this problem is very, very widespread, then, today. So ignoring, what happens with ecumenism is it ignores that truth. It says, no, we don't have to be built on those doctrines. Well, what they're saying then is that they're going to lay their own foundation, they're going to write their own Bible, and they are going to disregard what God's word says, all right? They're going to disregard it. And by doing that then, they can have their so-called ecumenical group so that Rome and Protestants and everybody else then is in it. And they claim, well, we've got to have this unity or God's not going to bless us, right? That will be it. Well, no, he's not going to bless you no matter how much you get together if the foundation is not true. But I want to particularly this morning to have us think about what the church, not only what the church is, but what does it look like? What does it look like in the world? If we're not clear on this, a lot of problems develop. But think about it. If we don't truly understand what Christ's true church is, what the body of Christ is, we are not going to be clear on what we are supposed to be doing. we're not going to be clear on our methods and we're not going to be clear on the gospel that we preach. You see, the false church is built on a false gospel and a false foundation. And these are matters uh... and i suppose this is the most important thing to remember when we're talking about these things who is a christian what is a christian look like what is the church what is the gospel we're talking about matters of eternal importance of the of the eternity of the soul of heaven and hell that's what we're talking about get answers to these questions wrong and It's an eternal, then, wrong answer. Now, the Old Testament prophets, this one section has that little section where the names of the Bible are kind of hard to memorize, the minor prophets, all right, the minor prophets. One of the minor prophets was Zephaniah. Zephaniah, not a very long book at all, but Zephaniah lived in the time It was a rarity. The godly King Josiah, godly King Josiah. Remember, he's the one where they discovered the law in the temple had been so long neglected, and he put in to practice great reforms as a result. But Zephaniah was a contemporary of King Josiah before the fall of Jerusalem and before the captivity. in Babylon. And through Zephaniah, the Lord warned of coming judgment, which would come after the days of Josiah. Josiah was killed in battle, in a battle with Egypt in 609 BC. Judah would fall to the Babylonians in 587 BC. But what's particularly interesting in Zephaniah is that as he preached about coming judgment, he also urged repentance. And his target audience that he directed, especially directed his call for repentance to, was the remnant, the remnant of Judah. That even at that time in those dark days, there was a remnant. So for example, Chapter 2, verse 3, he says to them, seek the Lord, all you humble of the land. There's some of you out there that are humble. I'm talking to you. Seek the Lord, who do his just commands. Seek righteousness. Seek humility. Perhaps you may be hidden on the day of the anger of the Lord, that you might be preserved, you see. And then you have it again in chapter 3, verse 12. But I will leave in your midst. When I bring judgment upon Judah, all right, I will leave in your midst a people humble and lowly. They shall seek refuge in the name of the Lord. Those who are left in Israel, they shall do no injustice and speak no lies, nor shall there be found in their mouth a deceitful tongue. For they shall graze and lie down, and none shall make them afraid. And you have the same kind of promise to a remnant century earlier by the prophet Micah. Micah 4. For all the peoples walk, each in the name of its God. You know, that's how bad it had gotten. Everybody's an idol worshiper, but we will walk in the name of the Lord our God forever and ever. In that day, declares the Lord, I will assemble the lame and gather those who have been driven away and those whom I have afflicted and the lame, I will make the remnant and those who were cast off a strong nation and the Lord will reign over them in Mount Zion from this time forth and forever more. He mentions, this is what Zephaniah was talking about in those verses in chapter three. I will leave in your midst a people humble and lowly. They shall seek refuge in the name of the Lord. So what the prophets, what they're saying here is, look it, you've got Israel, You got the people of Israel, all these people, but not everybody there is an Israelite. And that's what Paul says in Romans 2. For no one is a Jew who is merely one outwardly, nor is circumcision outward and physical. But a Jew is one inwardly, and circumcision is a matter of the heart, by the spirit, not by the letter. His praise is not from man, but from God, you see. And it's also seen here in Romans 9. It's not as though the word of God has failed, for not all who are descended from Israel belong to Israel. And not all are children of Abraham, because they're his, he means physical offspring. But through Isaac shall your offspring be named. In other words, What are all these passages saying? The true church, the true body of Christ, is this remnant consisting of people who are humble and lowly. They are the creation of God who preserves them. They seek the Lord. They're the people of his pasture whom he loves. And so just as in the old covenant, as Isaiah was saying, Just as in the old covenant, not every Israelite was an Israelite. Remember when Jesus saw Nathanael coming toward him? Ah, a true Israelite in whom there's no guile. What do you mean? Everybody here is an Israelite. No, that's a true Israelite there, you see. So just as there were descendants of Abraham, But only the children of the promise, who are born again by faith in God's word, are actual children of Abraham. Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness. His children are those who are born again by believing God, and it was reckoned to them as righteousness. And I will leave in your midst a people humble and lowly, and so it is today. Not everyone who says, Lord, Lord, is in the kingdom of God or is then in the church. Well, the typical message today preached in our day is that God loves everyone. Now think about that. Think about what Isaiah and Micah and Zephaniah and Jeremiah, is that what they were preaching? Did they preach? Who was it that preached to the Israelites that God loves you all, right? Who was it that did that? The false prophets. They're the ones that did that, but not God's true prophets. Listen to this, the Puritan preacher, Richard Sibbes. He lived back 1577 to 1636. He's a Puritan, and listen to what he says here. There is a difference of the people both in regard of the providence in this world and regard of his God's love. For God has a more special care of some than he has of others. And he loves some to eternal life and not to others. God will leave some. He will purge away others. There is a difference. All are not alike. Even as there's a difference in the created things, There are precious stones and common stones. So among men, there is a difference. And there is a difference in the visible church. There are common stones that God is going to pass by. And there are those that are precious stones, his elect. So the true church is a remnant. And his remnant, as we see, is the object of his love and his preservation. He preserves his true church. The gates of hell shall not prevail. So think about this. This is really reassuring. Someday you're going to die, and I'm going to die. And this church, this church, this group, this fellowship, this building, it's going to be gone. It will be ultimately gone. But in the meantime, think about this. We can take comfort in the fact, even in the worst of times, that when we die, And in God's providence, he orders things so that the world continues on until Christ comes again. But when we die, when our day and our generation passes away, the church is not going to die with us. the remnant will still remain. God always preserves his remnant, and he will do so until Christ comes again. It'll get really, really small just before Christ comes again. You see, when the Antichrist has his three years or whatever. But sometimes, I'm sure you have thoughts like I have thoughts. Well, we're all getting older. We're not going to be here forever. What's going to become of all this? What's this church? What's this building? What's it going to be? Well, we don't know. That's up to the Lord. But we know this. His church. is not going to die with us. It's not going to happen. His church then will prevail. As long as the Lord permits this fallen world to continue, he will preserve his church. Here's Sibbes again. I believe that in all times to the end of the world, there will be a company of people spread over the world, gathered out of the rest of mankind, whom Christ has knit to himself by faith, and whom he has also knit together with one another in a holy spirit of love. The church will not cease then to be. Now this remnant then is the church. And we need to always keep that in mind. I find this to be a very, very encouraging doctrine. and I hope that you do too, that the church is the remnant. Here's ways that it's described. Here's how Zephaniah described it. A people humble and lowly, a people who seek refuge in the Lord, a people who do no injustice or speak lies, and the Lord is their shepherd. They graze and lie down and do not fear. Those are some characteristics of Christ's remnant, of his people. But this true church, this remnant, is also characterized by its number. They are a remnant. They are few, a handful in comparison to the world and even to the visible church. Now, in the new heavens and earth, there will be myriads and myriads of Christ's people. That's one reason, I'm sure, that the Lord Jesus is tarrying in his return. He's building his church, then, you see. But listen to some of these passages to help us understand the characteristics of the true church. Jeremiah 3, return, O faithless children, declares the Lord, for I am your master. I will take you. One from a city, two from a family, and I will bring you to Zion. You see that? The church consists of what? One here, two here that he calls, right? Some of you can identify with this if you're the only Christian in your family, the only one. Your family might have a lot of kids, but then you're the only one. The only Christian, you see. Isaiah 17, gleanings will be left in it. As when an olive tree is beaten, you know, all the olives shaken off the tree, except two or three berries in the top of the highest bough. Four or five on the branches of a fruit tree, declares the Lord God of Israel. In that day, man will look to his maker, and his eyes will look on the Holy One of Israel. In Isaiah 10, again, in that day, the remnant of Israel and the survivors of the house of Jacob will no more lean on him who struck them, but will lean on the Lord, the Holy One of Israel in truth. A remnant will return, the remnant of Jacob to the mighty God. And Jesus says, as he addresses his church, he says that his flock is what? He's a fear not little flock. Little flock, that's how he describes his church. Someone asked, we have it in Luke 13, you're familiar with this. Someone asked Jesus, Lord, are there few that be saved? Now we don't know exactly why he asked that question. I suppose he could have been very familiar with the Old Testament, he's probably a Jew. and had wondered as he read some of these passages about that seems to be there just be few, a remnant. It's a remnant that will return. Maybe he picked it up in Jesus' teaching, kind of like, Lord, are you saying? I'm kind of getting the idea here that you're saying there's only going to be a few that are saved. Is that what you're saying? Probably, in a way, Jesus didn't answer his question directly then. But Jesus replied to him, strive to enter through the narrow door. For many, I tell you, will seek to enter and will not be able. And it's a parallel passage in Matthew 7. Enter by the narrow gate, for the gate is wide and the way is easy that leads to destruction. And those who enter by it are many. For the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life. the punchline here, and those who find it are few. Right? You see this? Those who find it are few. Now, what Jesus is essentially telling that man is, listen, you're all concerned whether I'm saying there's just going to be a few saved. Your concern is focused on the wrong issue. Here's the issue. You better strive yourself to enter the narrow gate. That's what you should be concerned with, not how many are going to be saved or how few. But what about you? You'd better seek first the kingdom of God and make it that priority. Then that's the issue. Here again, though, we see this emphasis on few, on a remnant. And this tells us some things, then, about the nature of Christ's true church. It's small in comparison to the rest of humanity. It is small in comparison to the outward visible church. The people who comprise it are genuine. They love and they seek the Lord. Listen to Richard Sibbes. Once again, if there is but a few, just a remnant in all times, then am I one of those? There's the question, right? What evidence do I have that God has put his stamp upon me to be his? How can I be sure that I'm not going on the Broadway to destruction? This truth that few are saved should force these questions upon our souls. When we hear of the few that shall be saved, we should make use of Christ's words in connection with this fact. Oh, strive to enter in at the narrow gate. Now, we're going to look at some more examples of the church as few. But let me get ahead of myself just a bit here and get us to think about this. the image, this remnant, this fewness, is that the image that your typical professing Christian today has of what a church should look like? Is that the kind of church that future pastors that are being trained in seminary are being told, this is what you should strive for. This is what you should strive for. A little flock, right? You're going to have a little flock. You're going to suffer at the hands of the world. I can tell you firsthand, right, I spent a total of, I guess a total of four years, four and a half years in seminary, and never once, never once, where these things taught forcefully to everybody. It was always about identify a vision for your church that everybody can get behind. Why? So you can grow big. That's what it's all about. You know, you're a denominational leader standing up at a conference I was at and saying, now you men, there's a bunch of pastors there. You know, here's an old brother so-and-so over here. If you want to know what worship should look like, go visit his church, because they do worship very well. It's a big church, and so on. The whole thing is a joke. That's not the true church, then, you see. That's why it's vital that we get these questions answered correctly in our minds, you see. You, if you don't understand these things, if you do understand them, you're going to be encouraged. If you don't understand them, you're going to be discouraged or worse, you see. Listen to 2 Peter. Here's some more examples of the church as remnant. 2 Peter 2, for if God did not spare angels when they sinned, but cast them into hell and committed them to chains of gloomy darkness to be kept until the judgment, If he did not spare the ancient world but preserved Noah, a herald of righteousness, with seven others when he brought a flood upon the world of the ungodly, if by turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah to ashes, he condemned them to extinction, making them an example of what's going to happen to the ungodly, and if he rescued righteous Lot, greatly distressed by the sensual conduct of the wicked, For as that righteous man lived among them, day after day he was tormenting his righteous soul over their lawless deeds that he saw and heard. And by the way, addendum, Lot should have moved, right? He should have moved. And the Lord in his mercy rescued him, but he should have moved. Then the Lord knows how to rescue the godly from trials and to keep the unrighteous under punishment until the day of judgment. Now think about this. In the day of Noah, how many people were in the church? How many? Eight. That's all. Only eight. In the wilderness wanderings, how many people did not harden their heart and they failed to enter into Canaan? Well, Moses is a little bit of an interesting Answer there, but set him aside for a minute. Two, Joshua and Caleb, right? In Sodom and Gomorrah, that whole region, how many believers were there? Lot and what, his two daughters? That was it. These are things to think carefully about and biblically about. Where, in Old Testament or New Testament, where do we find that we are to expect the church to be a magnificent edifice with thousands and thousands and thousands of people in it, right? Just these facts here alone should tell us that Rome is not the church. But it's not just Rome. It's many, many Protestant churches that, even if they don't have thousands, that's what they're moving toward. That's what they regard, then, you see, as success. Elijah, there were so few believers in Elijah's day that he thought he was the only one. He thought he was the only one. Now, he was mistaken. But notice the language. The Lord said, I have kept 7,000 of those who have not bowed the knee to Baal. Why did they not bow the knee to Baal? Because they were God's elect. And he preserved them. But they're still a small number. And they were having to hide out, you see. Listen to the apostle to the Hebrews describe Christ's true church, right? Hebrews 11. And what more shall I say? For time would fail me to tell of Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, of David and Samuel and the prophets, who through faith conquered kingdoms, enforced justice, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions, Daniel, right? Quenched the power of fire, Daniel's three friends, escaped the edge of the sword, were made strong out of weakness, became mighty in war, put foreign armies to flight. Women received back their dead by resurrection. Some were tortured, refusing to accept release so that they might rise again to a better life. Others suffered mocking and flogging and even chains and imprisonment. They were stoned. They were sawn in two. They were killed with the sword. They went about in skins of sheep and goats, destitute, afflicted, mistreated, of whom the world was not worthy, wandering about in deserts and mountains and in dens and caves of the earth. And all these, though commended through their faith, did not receive what was promised, since God had provided something better for us, that apart from us, they should not be made perfect. We're all going to enter into Christ's renewed new creation than together. Now, put that description, again, up against what we are seeing in our own nation. What are we seeing in our own nation? And in regard to the church, what is the view of most local churches, or what is the goal, and so on. It isn't this. And then let's bring it home to ourselves. I like to ask this question, and I ask it of myself. Has your profession to be a Christian, has your profession, your claim to be a Christian, one of Christ's people, has it ever cost you anything? Ever. Has it ever cost you anything, then, at all? And I think that there's a widespread notion that these things that Hebrews 11 just described, these sufferings, in fact, today are viewed as, well, if a Christian's going through that, especially in this country, well, they must have done something wrong. That's not normal. When the abnormal in a culture becomes normal, everybody's abnormal, right? It's like when everybody's a lunatic, lunacy becomes normal. Well, we need to be abnormal then in our day if we truly know the Lord. it's going to cost us something. Here's a little paragraph from Lloyd-Jones' sermons on the Book of Acts. The great tragedy is that there is utter confusion with regard to what the gospel is and what the church is and what Christians are supposed to do. And I would add confusion about who a Christian is. I have an increasing fear that the confusion of people outside the church has been produced mainly by the so-called Christian church herself. You see, here's the church. Zephaniah, but I will leave in your midst a people humble and lowly. They shall seek refuge in the name of the Lord. Well, this transfers then, as we've said, into a false, wrong concept about the gospel. And what it is we're supposed to be doing, then, in this present world. All kinds of those errors, then, come in. And it affects our methodology. It affects the methodology. What are the methods that we're seeing being utilized in the church? So, well, so often what it is, and it draws great crowds and so on, what it is is feeding the flesh. Feeding the flesh. I won't read the whole thing to you. It's in your handout here. This is this account of Jesus in John 6 when all of the crowds were coming after him on another day, a subsequent day. And you know, now today, that would be a mark of success, wouldn't it? I mean, you come into a place and what's often one of the first questions they'll ask? Well, how many people are in your church? How many people are in your church? If you think about that, what does it matter? What does it matter? Other than I would say, oh, we have 2,000 people in our church. And then I would say, something's wrong. Something's wrong there. You're feeding the flesh, you see. But Jesus did what virtually no seminary is going to teach pastors to do, and no church is going to tell people to do. He's got all these crowds, and he doesn't say to them, All right, all you guys, boy, it's just great that you're here. I'm so encouraged because we have this big group of people and so on. You know what he did? He turned to them and he said things like this. He said, you guys are not coming for true manna. You're not coming I'm the bread of life. He began, I will give you living water. You guys just came out here so you could get more bread and fish, that I would give you more bread and fish. That's why you're here. It's for your flesh. And he confronted them. And he said to them, some of you here don't believe. And in fact, You can't be saved unless my father calls you. There's nothing you can do. There's nothing you can do to be saved. Nothing that will contribute or obligate God to save you. God has to do it. And he put that out there. Basically, what he's saying is you are dead in your sin, you are absolutely unable to do anything that will merit you before God, my Father has to do it. He has to call you. And then at the end of this chapter, we read this. After this, many of his disciples turned back and no longer walked with him. Now, I can tell you that Jesus' career as a pastor and church builder In our day, it would have been over. It would have been over. You know, years ago, probably nearly 30 years ago, I was a lot stupider than I am now. Now, a lot of that I can blame on the seminary that came in, but you guys were stupider too. Some of you weren't around 30 years ago, but anyway, Kids, you will grow out of your stupidity, I hope so, but as we all had to. But one of the things that we did here, there's a church growth, that's what it's all about. How are we going to get more people here and so on? Maybe we better have two services. I think we tried that nonsense for a while. But we had this professor from the seminary come, who was, he taught about church growth and so forth. And he did this study, this interview, maybe some of you filled out some forms and whatever as to what your spiritual gifts are and so. Then he put this all together in a recommendation package and told us, here's the plan, here's the vision for your church. You do this and the people then will come in. The Lord protected us from our stupidity. And that thing, I think we basically eventually just threw it in the garbage can. I think it cost us like $2,000 or something like that for that study. But I can remember that guy, that professor, he was teaching ecclesiology and church growth and so on over at the seminary. He said to me, he said, you know, Jeff, I listened to one of your sermons. And you're a good preacher, and it was a good sermon, but you're just too hard on the people. You're just too hard on the people. And he said, you know, I look around here. Here you are in Tillamook. Here you are in this church building, but the property is small and so forth. When are you going to stop setting yourself up for career failure? Now, what's the common denominator in the whole thing? It's of the flesh. The whole thing is of the flesh, then, you see. And it's an absolute wrong concept of the church and how the church is built by the Lord. One more thing. I'll close here. How come the Lord leaves his remnant in this world until Christ comes. How come? Why does he do that? Well, he does it for his glory. He does it for our sanctification. He permits us to have to be in this foreign enemy territory and experience persecution. And so that is part of the reason that he does this. Richard Sibbes says, Noah must come into the ark before the flood consumed the world. But as long as Noah was in the world, the flood wasn't going to come. Lot must come forth out of Sodom before it was destroyed. God's people, each one, are marked and sealed before the destruction of the world. God has an exact care of his remnant at all times. And he leaves us in the world then because, now get this, Jesus tells us that we are salt and light. We are salt and light. What does that mean? The world is in darkness. If the moment the Lord takes his church out of the world, the lights go out, all right? Everybody's lost in darkness. The people walking in darkness will not see a great light any longer. That's one reason. Another reason is because we are salt. What was salt in the ancient world is a preservative. When God removes his church, sometimes he removes his church from a community. Sometimes he removes his church from an individual's life, right? He's done with them. And what happens? What would happen to this world if Christ's church was removed right now? it would rot. It would rot into corruption. We see some of that rotting going on around us. But if the church wasn't here, then even though the world hates the church, then the world would rot. And that would be then the end of it. So never be discouraged when you see that your church or you as an individual Christian are a remnant. And don't be discouraged when the world hates us, because we are then his church. The question is one then, as we said, that we have to put to ourselves. Are we part of that remnant? Do I know that? Do I realize that? You know, when we were, all of us, when we were young, Maybe we didn't think about these things much. I can remember thinking about hell some, because I heard about it in church and so on, and it produced a godly fear then in me. But people today are just going along and along and along, and as we did before the Lord saved us, and not thinking much then about it. You know, it is a powerful illustration, the fires in Southern California. Think of it. People went to bed one night before and the next day their world was gone, if not their life. Their world was gone. That was it. They weren't, you know, eat, drink and be merry. Soul, take your rest. I have All good stored up for me for many days to come, you fool. This night, your soul is required of you. And God, in his mercy, spared most of those people's lives that they could, as the Puritans would say, improve upon this lesson. When you've been living godless and wickedly and evil, as certainly not only Los Angeles, but city's closer than that to us now. But when you have, and God destroys your nation, you might say, your city with a fire, you better sit back and do some serious consideration as to what he is telling. Now, in our day, for the most part, anyone, and I'm going to write an article about it for America Out Loud, but anyone who implies that this fire or this hurricane is the hand of God and it's a judgment from God upon wicked people and a call to them to repent. Oh, that's terrible. What an idiot. No, but God, he wouldn't do that. How dare you say that this is a judgment upon these people. That's the typical response. And that's the response that was happening in Isaiah's day. And in 587 BC, the inhabitants of Jerusalem found out that it was no joke. But then it was too late. Father, we thank you for these great truths from your word. We pray that you would impress them upon us. And we pray, Father, for the city of Los Angeles and that area around and all of those people there. No doubt you have some of your own people there, genuine Christians who suffered as a result. And we pray for them that they would be encouraged, but also as a result, they would be drawn closer to you and have a greater understanding of just how transitory this world is. And Father, we pray for the rest of the people there. It is a wicked and evil place, and it has been for a long time, corrupting the entire world. And we know that your hand is in this, and in a judgment that's even kind of a forewarning and a reminder that this world is not forever. And someday this entire world will perish in fire when Christ comes again. And so, Father, we pray that you would affect a great revival among the people of this nation, of that city, and among the churches. We pray that you would remove wicked, false pastors from pulpits, and that you would raise up more to preach the truth of the gospel And we pray this all in Christ's name, amen.