If So — What Then?

“Scarcely saved” points out the difficulty of salvation.

Some think it easy to begin by believing; but the prophet cries, “Who has believed?” and Jesus asks, “When the Son of man comes, shall he find faith on the earth?”

Some may also think it easy to persevere to the end, but the godly are hard put to it to keep their faces Zionward.

It is no light thing to be saved: omnipotent grace is needed.

It is no trifling thing to be lost, but it can be done by neglect.

I. THE FACT: “The righteous scarcely are saved.”

1. From the connection we conclude that the righteous are saved with difficulty because of the strictness of divine rule. “The time is come that judgment must begin at the house of God.”

   • There is equity and fitness in this speciality of examination.
   • These tests are many, varied, repeated, applied by God himself.
   • Good corn endures the sickle, the flail, the fan, the sieve, the mill, the oven.
   • The great test of all is the omniscient judgment of the jealous God. What grace will be needed to pass that ordeal!

2. From the experience of saints we come to the same conclusion.

   • They find many saving acts to be hard, as for instance—
   • To lay hold on Christ simply, and as sinners.
   • To overcome the flesh from day to day.
   • To resist the world with its blandishments, threats, and customs.
   • To vanquish Satan and his horrible temptations.
   • To perform needful duties in a humble and holy spirit.
   • To reach to gracious attainments and to continue in them.
   • To pass the tribunal of their own awakened and purified conscience, and to receive a verdict of acquittal there.

3. From the testimony of those who are safely landed.

   • “These are they which came out of great tribulation.”

II. THE INFERENCE FROM THE FACT: “Where shall the ungodly and the sinner appear?”

1. If even the true coin is so severely tested, what will become of “reprobate silver”?

2. If saints scarcely reach Heaven, what of the ungodly?

   • What can they do who have no God?
   • What can they do who have no Savior?
   • What can they do who are without the Spirit of God?
   • What without prayer, the Word, the promise of God, etc.?
   • What without diligence? When the tradesman, though careful, is losing all his capital, what of the spendthrift?
   • What without truth? When the fire consumes houses strongly built, what must become of wood, hay, stubble?

3. If saints are so sorely chastened, what will justice mete out to the openly defiant sinner?

III. ANOTHER INFERENCE. Where will the mere professor appear?

If the truly godly have a hard fight for it—

The formalist will find ceremonies a poor solace.

The false professor will be ruined by his hypocrisy.

The presumptuous will find his daring pride a poor help.

He who trusted to mere orthodoxy of creed will come to a fall.

Height of office will do no more than increase responsibility.

IV. ANOTHER INFERENCE. Then the tempted soul may be saved.

It seems that even those who are truly saints are saved with difficulty: then we may be saved, though we have a hard struggle for it.

Uprising corruption makes us stagger.

A persecuting world tries us sorely.

Fierce temptations from without cause us perplexity.

Loss of inward joys brings us to a stand.

Failure in holy efforts tests our faith.

But in all this we have fellowship with the righteous of all ages.

They are saved, and so shall we be.

V. ANOTHER INFERENCE. How sweet will Heaven be!

There the difficulties will be ended forever.

There the former trials will contribute to the eternal bliss.

Enforcements

When the apostle uses the phrase—“If the righteous scarcely be saved,” he does not, assuredly, mean that there is any doubt about the absolute and infinite sufficiency of the ground of their salvation; or that there is any uncertainty in the result; or that there is any stintedness or imperfection in the final enjoyment; or that, when believers come to stand before the judgment-seat at last, it will go hard with them, so that they may barely come off with acquittal, the poised balance vibrating in long uncertainty, and barely turning on the favorable side, the justifying righteousness of their Lord forming no more than a counterpoise, and hardly that, to their demerits. He means none of these things. His language refers to the difficulty of bringing them through to their final salvation; to the necessity of employing the rod and furnace; the process, in many instances severe, of correction and purification; of bringing them “to the wealthy place through the fire and the water”; of their “entering the kingdom through much tribulation”; of their being “chastened of the Lord, that they might not be condemned with the world.” If “fiery trial” be required, and his hatred of sin and his love to his children will not allow him to withhold it, to purge out the remaining alloy of their holiness, what must his enemies have to look for from his abhorrence of evil, in whom sin is not the mere alloy of a better material, but all is sin together?

—Dr. Wardlaw.

There is much ado to get Lot out of Sodom, to get Israel out of Egypt. It is no easy matter to get a man out of the state of corruption.—Richard Sibbes.

Of this I am assured, that no less devotion than that which carried the martyrs through the flames, will carry us unpolluted through this present world.—Mrs. Palmer.

Do you grieve and murmur that you must be saved with difficulty? Ungrateful creatures! you had deserved certain damnation. The vengeance of God might have appeared armed for your destruction; and he might long ago have sworn in his wrath that you should never enter into his rest. And will you complain of the Lord’s leadings because he does not always strew your path with roses?

—Dr. Doddridge.

“Where shall the ungodly and the sinner appear? Surely nowhere. Not before saints and angels, for holiness is their trade. Not before God, for he is of “more pure eyes than to behold them.” Not before Christ, for he shall come in flaming fire rendering vengeance. Not in Heaven, for it is an undefiled inheritance.—John Trapp.

Where shall he appear, when to the end that he might not appear, he would be glad to be smothered under the weight of the hills and mountains, if they could shelter him from appearing?—Archbishop Leighton.