Tell me, if you can, of any one who ever entered in at the strait gate without "striving." I know of none excepting those who die in infancy. He that would win heaven must be content to fight for it.
Tell me, if you can, of any one who ever strove earnestly to enter, and failed to succeed. I know of none. I believe that however weak and ignorant men may be, they never seek life heartily and conscientiously, at the right door, and are left without an answer of peace.
Tell me, if you can, of any one who ever entered in at the strait gate, and was afterwards sorry. I know of none. I believe the footsteps on the threshold of that gate are all one way. All have found it a good thing to serve Christ, and have never regretted taking up His cross.
If these things are so, seek Christ without delay, and enter in at the gate of life while you can! Make a beginning this very day. Go to that merciful and mighty Saviour in prayer, and pour out your heart before Him. Confess to Him your guilt and wickedness and sin. Unbosom yourself freely to Him: keep nothing back. Tell Him that you cast yourself and all your soul's affairs wholly on His hands, and ask Him to save you according to His promise, and put His Holy Spirit within you.
There is everything to encourage you to do this. Thousands as bad as you have applied to Christ in this way, and not one of them has been sent away and refused. They have found a peace of conscience they never knew before, and have gone on their way rejoicing. They have found strength for all the trials of life, and none of them have been allowed to perish in the wilderness. Why should not you also seek Christ?
There is everything to encourage you to do what I tell you at once. I know no reason why your repentance and conversion should not be as immediate as that of others before you. The Samaritan woman came to the well an ignorant sinner, and returned to her home a new creature. The Philippian jailor turned from darkness to light, and became a professed disciple of Christ in a single day. And why should not others do the same? Why should not you give up your sins, and lay hold on Christ this very day?
I know that the advice I have given you is good. The grand question is, Will you take it?
(3) The last thing I have to say shall be a request to all who have really entered in at the strait gate. That request is, that you will tell others of the blessings which you have found.
I want all converted people to be missionaries. I do not want them all to go out to foreign lands, and preach to the heathen; but I do want all to be of a missionary spirit, and to strive to do good at home. I want them to testify to all around them that the strait gate is the way to happiness, and to persuade them to enter in by it.
When Andrew was converted he found his brother Peter, and said to him, "We have found the Messias, which is, being interpreted, the Christ. And he brought him to Jesus." (John i. 41, 42.) When Philip was converted he found Nathaniel, and said to him, "We have found Him, of whom Moses in the law, and the prophets did write, Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph. And Nathaniel said unto him, Can there any good thing come out of Nazareth? Philip said unto him, Come and see." (John i. 45, 46.) When the Samaritan woman was converted, she "left her waterpot, and went into the city, and said to the men, Come, see a man which told me all things that ever I did: is not this the Christ?" (John iv. 28, 29.) When Saul the Pharisee was converted, "Straightway he preached Christ in the synagogues, that He is the son of God." (Acts ix. 20.)