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Source: https://www.sermonindex.net/speakers/brandon-doll/4-things-men-dont-know/
The Gospel of Matthew, please, chapter 7. Matthew 7, verse 13. Matthew 7, verse 13,. "'Enter ye in at the straight gate, for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leadeth to destruction. And many there be which go in thereat, because straight is the gate and narrow is the way which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it.'".
Turn with me to the book of the Revelation. Last book in your Bible, chapter 3. And I'll tell you what's on my heart today. I'd like to look at four questions that we need to examine ourselves. We're going to learn in Matthew 7, where am I going?
In Revelation 3, we're going to take this and apply it to us in a meeting tonight, what I am. Verse number 17, Revelation 3, verse 17,. "'Because thou sayest, I am rich and increased with goods, and have need of nothing, and knowest not that thou art wretched and miserable and poor and blind and naked.'".
Now to the Gospel of Luke, please. Luke 23, verse 34. Luke 23, verse 34,. "'Then said Jesus, Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.'". They know not what they do. And finally, the Gospel of John, chapter 1, verse number 9.
John 1, verse 9,. "'That was the true light, which lighteth every man that cometh into the world. He was in the world, and the world was made by him, and the world knew him not. He came unto his own, and his own received him not.
But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believed on his name, which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.
Nor to bless to us the reading of his word.'". Four things that men don't know. We read about the broad road and the narrow road, and which road are we on and where is that road taking us? So, men don't know necessarily tonight where they're going to be in eternity.
We come to Revelation chapter 3, and we've got a list of adjectives that are really describing Christians, and they don't know what they are. And oftentimes we look around and we look in our own hearts, and we don't know what we are either in the sight of God.
We come to Luke 23, and the Lord Jesus said, as he's hanging on the cross, Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do. They don't know what they're doing. And then finally, in John chapter 1, they don't know who he is.
They don't know who the Lord Jesus Christ is. And that's our goal tonight by the end of this meeting, that if you've never come to know him as your own personal Savior, that this might be the night in your life's experience when you trust him for the first time, the one that went to the cross of Calvary, to satisfy God as far as the penalty of our sin is concerned.
When we consider the broad road and the narrow road, this chart for most of you way back there, you probably can't see it, but it's illustrated over here on the two roads and the two destinies chart. And this little chart is good for us if we're not familiar with the Bible, because it has the Bible verses on it, and we can look them up.
And this is where we read tonight, Matthew 7, verse 13, wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and many there be which go in their acts. This is destruction. A place called hell, a place that was prepared for the devil and his angels, but a place where every unrepentant sinner will be for all eternity.
They reject the Lord Jesus Christ as their Savior. Then straight is the gate and narrow is the way that leads to life, and few there be that find it. This point was brought home to me real personal a few years ago.
I flew to Canada for the first time, and I was going to Taylorside, Saskatchewan for the conference. And I didn't know it, but Taylorside doesn't even exist. It's just a hollowed-in-the-middle-of-nowhere, kind of like Heightsville.
And so as I'm going through customs, my friend Ron Wright was to pick me up, and all I knew was I was going to Taylorside. I didn't know that it was by Malford. And so I'm going through customs, and you know how customs agents are.
They're trained to stare right into your soul. And the guy with the beady eyes, he looks at me, and he asks me the normal questions, and everything's good. And he says, where are you going? And he said, I'm going to Taylorside.
And he got kind of a long face, and he said, I've never heard of Taylorside. Where's it at? I didn't know. I didn't know where Taylorside was at. All I knew that Ron was going to get me, it was about an hour and a half away, and this is what he said.
I'll never forget this as long as I live. He looked me right in the eye with those beady eyes, and he said, son, you're going to a foreign country, and you don't know where you're going. What do you say?
Come with me. So he took me in the back, and he went through all my stuff, and asked me 20 questions. And another guy come in, and went through all my stuff, and asked me the same 20 questions, just in a different order.
And finally when I was done, the whole airport was empty, and Ron was just walking out the door, and he thought that I missed my plane. But I want to ask you a question tonight. You know, it's one thing for a young, ignorant boy to go to Canada, and get sent back home, because he doesn't know what he's doing.
That's understandable. What's the worst they're going to do? Send you on the next plane home. But friend, you're going into eternity, and you don't know where you're going? You're going out into eternity.
And you don't know where you're going to be. There's no coming back from eternity. There's no just sending a person back to give them another chance. That's how it would have been for me. Go back home, try again some other day.
But this is the urgency of the Gospel tonight. Souls are going out into eternity. Forever, and forever, and forever. And they don't know where they're going. I want to make this personal tonight. I want you to ask your own heart, if you died tonight, where would you be?
Let's be real, let's get personal. I know I'm preaching to an audience, but God is trying to reach your heart as individuals. Where would you be if you went out into eternity tonight? Would you be in a place of destruction?
A place called hell? A place that burns with fire and brimstone? Where the worm dies not and the fire is not quenched? Where the fierce wrath of God is burning in the lowest hell? Deuteronomy tells us.
Is that where you would be? Or would you be in the splendors of heaven? I can hear someone saying tonight, you can't know that. How can you be sure? Friend, not only can you be sure, but you must be sure.
You must know where you're going to be. If you don't know for sure you're going to be in heaven at the end of life, based on the cross and the work of the Lord Jesus Christ, friend, you won't be there.
You won't be there. Going out into eternity to meet God and to not know. I hope that speaks to us tonight. To not know. Did you know the fact of the matter is this? The vast majority of mankind doesn't know tonight.
The miserable masses of mankind that go about with all of their religion, and all of their reform, and all of their reasoning, and all of the things that they're trying to do to either explain God away so they don't have to be accountable, or all the things that they're trying to do to make themselves better so that God would accept them for who they are, so that they can show God that they're sincere and they're sorry for what they've done.
They don't know. And think about it, friend, if that's the way you are tonight, how would you ever know that you've done enough? How would you ever know that God would be satisfied? And what if you died in a bad day?
If I could put it that way. You had a rough day and sin was abounding. How would you know? Friend, you need to know. You need to know. We're going to get into that in a little bit. When we come to Revelation 3, people don't know what they are.
That's kind of interesting, isn't it? People who don't know what they are. And in this little list of things, it's the Christians that are rich and increased with goods and they have no need of God, and they don't know that they're in that condition.
But we could go to a different list in the Bible, and we could read about a list of sinners. Sinners are described as the ungodly, lost, foolish, and so on. But I want us to understand tonight on the authority of the Word of God what we are in the sight of God.
Now, you are all dressed up nice. You look wonderful. I'm just looking on the outside. God's looking on the heart. You know what God says? He says, We all have sinned and come short of the glory of God.
We are all as an unclean thing. And all of our righteousnesses are as filthy rags. And so, friend, we need to understand what we are in the sight of God. Why is that important? This is why. If we're never convinced what we are in the sight of God, why would we ever search for a way of salvation?
Why would we ever look for a Savior? Why would we ever long for a way of escape? If there's nothing to flee from. Friend, we were born in sin and we're shaping in iniquity. And we sin because we were born sinners and we sin because we want to.
And that's what we are. And I'm not trying to run anybody down because that's what we are. That's what I am. I can tell you the night that God showed me what I was. I was in a Gospel meeting just like this.
And I've been raised in a God-fearing home and a Christian home. And I'd heard since I was a little kid that I was a sinner. And if you'd asked me that, I would have said I was a sinner. And if you'd asked me where I would be when I died, it would have rolled off my tongue just like it rolls off your tongue.
I would be in hell. But the night that God showed me what I was, I was sitting in a meeting and the verse was read, the plowing of the wicked is sin. I grew up on a dairy farm. And I was upset with God because what is sinful about plowing a field?
What's sinful about you farmers going out and planting your corn? That's not right. And so, yeah, Brandon was disgusted with God. And I couldn't get that out of my mind. The plowing of the wicked is sin.
So I asked my mom, I said, Mom, I'm not understanding something. I didn't want to blame God in front of her. I'm not understanding how the plowing of the wicked is sin. And this is what she said. She said, Brandon, it doesn't matter what you do in your life.
Every moment you reject the Savior is sin. And that's how she answered that question. And that's what I was doing. Moment after moment after moment, I was rejecting God's offer of salvation. I was trampling on the blood of Christ.
And I figured it up on a calculator because I wanted to know how big a sinner I was. I was 17 years old when I was saved. And just for the sake of argument, I figured maybe I was old enough to understand at the age of 7, but I think I was younger than that.
But just for easier figuring, 10 years. How many days in a year? How many hours in a day? How many minutes? How many seconds? And it was 315 million opportunities that I had to be saved. And it come to me like this, Brandon, Hitler killed 6 million Jews.
And I rejected Christ 315 million times. And God showed me what I was. Has God ever showed you? And God showed me that if He put me in the very farthest corner of the lake of fire, that's exactly what I deserved.
God would be right to do that. God would be just to do that. In fact, that's what God would have to do with me because of my sin. And for the first time in my life, having heard the Gospel for 17 years, God showed me what I was.
I was a guilty sinner that deserved to be in hell. And friend, with all the love in my heart, I'm going to tell you this, you'll find out from God you're the same. You're the same. Has God ever showed you what you are?
I mean, for real. I don't mean just rolling it off your tongue because that's the right answer. People don't know what they are. We don't know where we're going. We don't know what we are. We come to Luke 23 and what does the Lord Jesus say?
Father, forgive them, for they don't know what they do. They don't know what they do. Pretty hopeless case, aren't we? We don't know where we're going. We don't know what we are. And when we reject the Lord Jesus Christ, we don't know what we're doing.
Picture the context here. Here's the Savior, the Lord Jesus. He's on the cross, nailed through His hands and through His feet. And you know what men did to Him. They reproached Him. They put the crown of thorns on Him.
They beat it down with a reed. They blindfolded Him and they hit Him in the face and said, prophesy who smote thee. They plucked the hairs from His cheeks. They jerked Him right out. They nailed Him to a cross after they had scourged Him.
And this was His cry for them. Father, forgive them. Forgive them. Now some people have a misunderstanding of God tonight. Some people think God is this great big mean voice in the sky. And God is just looking to put sinners in a place of judgment.
And God is just longing to exercise His mighty arm and show Himself strong in judgment. But the fact of the matter is tonight, friend, is this. He said, Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.
It's God's heart to forgive the people. They crucified His Son. It was the heart of the Lord Jesus. And you know what had to take place in order for Him to say that? You think back with me every time the Lord Jesus told a man or a woman that their sins were forgiven.
What was He saying in essence? He's saying, I'm going to bear that sin on the cross. That's what He was saying. When He told the woman in the story of the debtor in Luke, He told her her sins were forgiven.
In order for Him to righteously do that, He had to guarantee payment for those sins. You take the man with the palsy whose friends let him down through the roof, and He told him his sins were forgiven.
And in that context, it says, what's easier to say, your sins are forgiven, or arise, take up your bed and walk? Well, as far as a man is concerned, it's easier to say your sins are forgiven. Who's ever going to find it out?
A person's going to die? Who knows where they are? But for a man to say, arise, take up your bed and walk, well, then there needs to be proof. There needs to be reality. But for God, for the Son of God, what was easier to say?
He told him first that his sins were forgiven. For the Lord Jesus, it would have been easier to say, arise, take up your bed and walk, because He could have did it with the Word of His power, and He did.
But for Him to forgive the man his sins, He had to guarantee His death on the cross for that man. It took His death for the forgiveness of sins. And this is what we see in Luke 23. We see the Lord Jesus wanting to save those that rejected Him.
Wanting to save those that crucified Him. Wanting to save those that reviled Him. And He says, Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do. He was willing to bear the sin of those that crucified Him.
Why? For the same reason, He was willing to bear my sin and your sin tonight, because He loved us. Because He loved us. Now, if you can't see the love of the Lord Jesus in His cry at the cross, Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.
And sometimes I wonder, I wish I could be in heaven, and I wish I could hear the intercessor at the throne of God, the Lord Jesus Christ at God's right hand, even now. And I wonder if it isn't the cry of His heart, as He's looking down at boys and girls and men and women not saved in this audience tonight.
And maybe He whispers in the ear of God, Father, forgive them, for they don't know what they're doing. He's interested in your soul, friend. He's interested in your salvation tonight. But people hear the message, and they go their way, and they don't know what they're doing.
Because they're rejecting God's Son. They're rejecting God's way of salvation. They're rejecting the payment price for sin. And they go about their way, and they die in their sin. And they force God to put them in hell.
Are you going to force God to do that with you? Because of my stubbornness and because of my unbelief, I was forcing God to do that with me if I had died. We don't know where we're going. We don't know what we are.
We don't know what we're doing. But in John we read this, the world knew Him not. They didn't know who He was. It's my suspicion tonight that neither do we. Neither do we. If we're saved, we do. But if you're not saved tonight, you don't know who He is.
The Lord Jesus is a good man. Or maybe you'll even acknowledge He's the greatest man that ever lived. We've got a guy like that back home. He wasn't sure about the Lord Jesus, and one night in meeting, one of the men was preaching, and he'd come to understand that the Lord Jesus was the greatest man that ever lived.
That's not salvation. Do you know who He is? He's God's Lamb. God will provide Himself a Lamb. He's God's Son. He is the sacrifice that was made at Calvary to put away sin once for all by the sacrifice of Himself.
If you don't know Him tonight, you need to. If you don't know where you're going tonight, friend, be honest in your own heart. There's never been a time in your life, a day of salvation, the new birth, born again the Bible way.
You're going down to a place of destruction. Be located tonight. If it's the only thing that you get out of this little message, figure out where you're going. Because you're going into eternity, and you're not coming back.
Find out what you are tonight in the sight of God. Not in the mirror. Don't look in the mirror to find out what you are. Look in the Scriptures and see what God says. You'll find out that you're a guilty sinner.
Look to the cross, to the Lord Jesus Christ, and you'll know what you'll find when you know Him. See, the world knew Him not. He came unto His own, His own received Him not. But to as many as received Him, to them gave He power to become the sons of God.
Even to them that believe on His name. When you see who He is, as your Savior, that's salvation. To know that Christ died for me is the greatest thing a person can know. You can have all the knowledge and all the wisdom in this world, but friend, if you don't know Christ is your Savior, you're missing out on everything.
You're missing out on the most important thing in time and in eternity, and that's the salvation of your precious soul. And friend, you are worth more than the whole world tonight in the sight of God.
What shall it profit a man if he gained the whole world and lose his own soul? And I revel in this almost every day, that if I was the only person ever to be saved, the Lord Jesus would have had to die just for me.
And I revel in that. Because I have a whole Savior for myself. And friend, if you're saved tonight, you'll have a whole Savior for yourself. Find out where you're going. Find out what you are. Find out what you're doing.
But most importantly, find out who He is. Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners. Amen.