Are There Few Saved?

Are there few saved? Then, if you are doubtful whether you are one of the few, make sure you find out at once, and be doubtful no more. Leave no stones unturned in order to ascertain your own spiritual state. Be not content with vague hopes and trusts. Rest not on warm feelings and temporary desires after God. Give diligence to make your calling and election sure. Oh, give me leave to say, that if you are content to live on uncertain about your salvation, you live like the unjust.

Are there few that be saved? Then, if you are one, do not wonder that you often find yourself standing alone. I dare believe you are sometimes almost brought to a standstill, by the corruption and wickedness that you see in the world around you. You see false doctrine abounding. You see unbelief and ungodliness of every description. Think not that Christ's purposes are being defeated. Think not that His work is not going forward in the world. He is still taking out a people to His praise. He is still raising up witnesses to Himself, here and there, all over the world. The saved will yet be found to be a multitude that no man can number, when all are gathered together at last. The earth will yet be filled with the knowledge of th Lord. All nations shall serve Him: all kings shall yet delight to do Him honor. But the night is not yet spent. The day of the Lord's power is yet to come. In the meantime all is going on as He foretold 1800 years ago. Many are being lost and few are saved.

Are there few saved? Then, if you are one, do not be afraid of having too much religion. Settle it down in your mind that you will aim at the highest degree of holiness, and spiritual-mindedness, and consecration to God, that you will not be content with any low degree of sanctification. Resolve that, by the grace of God, you will make Christianity beautiful in the eyes o the world. Remember that the children of the world have but few patterns of true religion before them. Oh, that every true3Christian would recollect that he is set as a lighthouse in the midst of a dark world, and would labor so to live that every part of him may reflect light, and no side be dim!

(J. C. Ryle)