Some people have had the idea that the road to perdition is downhill all the way, paved with ice, and all a person has to do to be lost is to slip and slide his way all the way in. But you cannot accept that kind of popular attitude so long as you accept what the Bible teaches in 2 Peter 3:9. “The Lord is … not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.“

God Himself gave all heaven in His Son, the most expensive offering. God Himself is determined that no one be lost. And if all power in heaven and earth resides in Him, then, let’s face it, it’s as difficult to be lost as God can possibly make it, and it’s as easy to be saved as He can make it. He’ll do everything short of forcing a person’s will, which He has, of course, determined to leave sacred for every individual.

When the wise man told us that the way of the transgressor is hard, he must have realized the kind of God who created us in the first place. He is responsible for everyone being born. The One who is, this very moment, keeping our hearts beating. God has never held it against us for being born in this world of sin. He understands that we were born sinners. He understands that we were born sinful by nature. And He has made every provision for us to be saved.

Yet some people think the odds are too great, that the only choice they have is to accept the premise, “Some people were born to be fuel for the fires of hell, and I must be one of them.“

One time I went to visit a very sophisticated, handsome older woman, who was close to her eighties. She always came to church and always came to prayer meeting. After we had visited for a little while, it appeared to me that things were in good shape. I was about to leave. I said, “Well, is there anything that I, as a pastor, can do to be of any help or encouragement to you?“

She said, “Yes, if you could just help me forget about this God and faith and Bible and religion bit.“

And I said, “I beg your pardon?“

She said, “I have tried for years to get away from God and the church and the Bible and the Holy Spirit, and I can’t do it. I guess I’m a creature of habit. I was reared this way. I go to prayer meeting, but I can’t stand it. I wish I could not go.“ And almost with tears in her eyes, she pleaded with me to help her out of this terrible fix.

I hastened to let her know that helping people get away was not part of my job description. But I have thought about that experience many times since. What a tragic request. But what a sample of the truth that it is hard to get away from God. Maybe it was simply habit for her, but there must have been Someone else bigger at work in her life.

I’d like to suggest that God has done everything He can to place insurmountable obstacles, stumbling blocks, and hurdles in the way of those who would choose to go down the road to perdition—making it just as difficult as possible for anyone to be lost.

Consider with me seven or eight of these huge mountains. I hope that whenever you hear the text, “The Lord is not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance,“ you’ll remember some of these hurdles and mountains. I suppose that the first four mountains would be generally acceptable to enlightened countries, to people who have had an opportunity to consider the gospel, or who have a little religious background.

1. The Bible

The first great mountain that a person would have to cross, if he was going to be lost, would be the mountain of God’s Word, the Bible. Skeptics and infidels have tried for centuries to do away with God’s Word, but it’s still the bestseller. It may not be the best read, but it is still at the top of the list. The Bible comes in every color and shape and size and version. If you have no Bible, you can wander into the American Bible Society and get one free. The Bible is everywhere, and anyone who wanted to get rid of it would have a monumental task.

It’s true that God’s Word “abides for ever“ (1 Peter 1:25, RSV). Some will say, But it’s still a fairly easy mountain to get past, because for many people, the Bible is hard to read—even boring. But I’d like to suggest that the Bible, by its very presence, even if it’s never opened, is still a great deterrent to being lost.

My brother and I went to a town one time to hold some public meetings. We contacted a local manager of a sort of double auditorium. It was all one building, but two auditoriums, with the front entrances facing each other. We found out that one of the auditoriums was available for us to rent. We also found that the other auditorium had dances three nights a week. We considered that for a while, and finally decided we’d accept the odds and take the available space in spite of the dances across the way. We thought we could even stand in front of the other hall and pass out handbills to our meetings! Without even thinking twice, the manager said, “I’m sorry. You cannot have the other auditorium.“

“Why not? It’s available.“

‘Yes,“ he said. “But when people come to the dance and see other people coming into the other auditorium with their Bibles, itH ruin the dance.“ And we walked away without the auditorium.

A man and a woman check into a motel somewhere for a “fun“ weekend and discover a Bible on the night stand. I dare say they have to get rid of the Bible in order to transgress God’s law. Yet the Bible continues, in spite of the attempts to do away with it.

2. Gospel sermons

The second great hurdle or mountain a person would have to cross, if he was going to be lost, would be gospel sermons that he had heard. Paul talked about it. He talked about the foolishness of preaching (see 1 Corinthians 1:21), and he realized that although preaching is ridiculous in many ways, God has chosen to use it nonetheless, to save people.

When I was a young person, I heard gospel sermons that I would have a hard time trying to forget, sermons that still stand out in my mind after many years have gone by. Have you had the same experience? I spent one summer attending San Francisco State College. Later, when I was on a Christian campus again and heard the Word of God presented, I realized how much I had missed hearing gospel sermons during that summer at the secular institution.

I think of a sermon I heard once about Jesus of Nazareth passing by. It had to do with the story of blind Bartimaeus, who sat by the side of the road begging. When he heard the crowds, he asked them, “What’s happening?“

“Jesus of Nazareth is passing by,“ they said.

Now the last thing in the world Bartimaeus wanted was for Jesus to pass him by. He cried out, “Jesus, thou son of David, have mercy on me.“

Listen, Mend, I don’t want Jesus of Nazareth to pass me by today. Do you? I want Him to stop and stay with me in my life, in my home, and in my church. I don’t want Him to pass me by. I’d have to forget that phrase if I wanted to be lost. But there’s a Holy Spirit somewhere that keeps bringing those things back. “Jesus of Nazareth is passing by.“

You can probably recall sermons you’ve heard that had a similar impact on you. In fact, it was a sermon that he had heard, and the way it ended, that caused the apostle Paul to experience the tremendous breakthrough on the Damascus road. You will recall that he had stood in the crowd as they threw stones at Stephen, and just before that he had listened to Stephen preach a sermon. During this discourse, the hearts of the people were pricked, including Saul’s.

When Stephen reached the close of that sermon, he looked up into heaven, realizing that his life was almost over, and he saw Jesus, standing beside the throne of God. Standing! Jesus wasn’t going to take this sitting down! Can you imagine Stephen actually seeing Jesus suddenly rise from His throne, to be by his side, interested, concerned with this supreme moment in his life? He said, “I see the heavens opened, and the Son of man standing on the right hand of God“ (Acts 7:56).

Saul couldn’t forget that. He couldn’t forget the sermon Stephen had preached, and the way it ended. He tried, but he couldn’t do it. That memory continued on the road to Damascus, and he fell on the road saying, “What shall I do, Lord?“ (Acts 22:10).

3. Better judgment

I think of another great mountain a person would have to cross if he was going to be lost, and that is the mountain of his better judgment—just plain common sense. You know, the thing that the world offers at the end of threescore and ten years is really not too impressive. Have you considered the options? The Christian says, “By God’s grace I look forward to eternal life.“ The secularist, who has no time for faith and the Bible, says, “At the end of this life IH die, and I’ll be dead and buried forever.“ Frankly, I’m not impressed with the secularist’s offer. It’s not too appealing to me. I’d be willing to accept most anything else.

I like the argument that was presented to me one time. Suppose that two people were to get together. One of them believes in eternal life, God, and salvation, but the other one doesn’t. He believes that when you die, you’re dead for a long time. These two people begin talking about eternal life and heaven and hell, just on the basis of logic and reason. What would they end up with?

It would be fair for both of them to admit that neither of them could prove their point according to the human way of proving things. I cannot prove to you in some kind of scientific laboratory or experiment that there is eternal life. That has to be accepted by faith. But you can’t prove to me that there isn’t eternal life, either. That, too, must be accepted by faith!

Death is still the great mystery, the great unknown, and it’s one of the top five questions people ask: “Is there really a life after this one?“

All right, just to play the game fair, let’s say that I agree there’s a fifty-fifty chance I’m wrong and you’re right, if you’ll agree that there’s a fifty-fifty chance you’re wrong and I’m right. That’s fair, isn’t it? So we both live out our threescore years and ten, and at the end, we find out that you were right, there is no God, and no eternal life. We both die, we’re both buried in the same dirt, and I end up the same place you do. Right?

But if at the end of our threescore years and ten, one day we see a cloud approaching, and suddenly it fills the whole heavens, you will realize I was right. There is eternal life. Jesus has come, and you will have lost just about everything. The psalmist says, “So teach us to number our days, that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom“ (Psalm 90:12).

Of course, the usual argument is, “Yes, but by being religious you’ve missed the fun of life.“ The idea is that all the Christian has been doing is sitting in church and singing hymns his threescore years and ten. Well, it’s not quite that way, is it? But even during the threescore years and ten it is still true, as the wise man said, that the way of the transgressor is hard. In Isaiah 1:18 we read, “Come now, and let us reason together, saith the Lord.“ It is surprising how little we use our better judgment and common sense when we think, of the things of time and eternity.

One day I met a man who was a chain smoker. He said, “Any coward can quit smoking. It takes a real man to face lung cancer.“

Logic? Why, his reasoning fell apart from the very first word. For every cigarette he lighted up, he had to cross the giant mountain of what his better judgment was trying to tell him.

4. The prayers of others

Another great mountain a person with a religious background would have to cross, if he wanted to be lost, is the prayers of his loved ones. And that’s a big one.

There was a man named Peter, whom Jesus loved. One night in a garden, Peter remembered what Jesus had said just a little while before. “Peter, Satan hath desired to have you, that he may sift you as wheat: but I have prayed for thee that thy faith fail not“ (Luke 22:31, 32). I have prayed for you. Peter couldn’t forget those words.

Have you ever had someone tell you he or she was praying for you? What did it do for you? Did it make you grateful, or did it make you mad? There’s one thing you’ll have to admit— you cannot keep someone from praying for you. Everyone has that privilege, to pray for whomever he chooses.

A while back in my church, we studied the subject of prayer in our midweek meetings for several weeks, and the people kept asking, “Can a person pray for someone a thousand miles away, and the prayer do that person there any good, if he knows nothing about it?“ There is a modern approach to prayer that says that prayer has value for psychological reasons only, and thus it can help someone you’re praying for only if he or she knows you’re praying. But if they don’t know, it won’t do them any good.

We finally came to the conclusion that we could only answer that question in the laboratory. The people said, “Why don’t we try praying for an impossible case, and not let them know we’re praying?“

It so happened that just that day I had met an impossible case. It was a returned missionary—someone who thought he had been treated badly in the mission field. He’d left the mission service; he had left the church; he had left the faith; and he was hopelessly bitter. Someone had asked me to visit him out in the country, and all he did when I arrived was to insult me. After making every attempt I could, I was about to leave in discouragement, when his wife came out and insulted me too. As I left, they said, “And don’t pray for us.“

I remember saying to myself, “OK, buddy, I’m not going to tell you!“

Back at prayer meeting that night, I brought up his name. Many of the people knew him. We made an agreement to pray for his family every day for one month, individually, and to pray together at every midweek meeting. And we agreed that no one would tell them. It was our little laboratory experiment.

The first week of our experiment the newspaper reported that his house had burned down. At the next midweek meeting, I said, “What are you people praying for, anyway?“

The week after that it was reported that some valuable piece of equipment that the man used in his business had been stolen. Everything imaginable happened to that family during that month! We wondered what was going on. We couldn’t explain it. But the last week of that month, during the worship hour, the church door opened, and this man and his family walked into church. You could have pushed every one of those prayer-meeting people off their seats!

I can’t explain it. I don’t know all the reasons. I do know we were able to reestablish communication with that family. And I do accept the results of that laboratory experiment over and above all the analyzing and speculating about the facts or lack of facts.

Have you discovered that prayer does change things? The prayers of your loved ones are hard to forget. It’s a hard mountain to cross, if you want to be lost.

5. Conscience

These next four mountains apply to everyone. One is the mountain of conscience. John 8:9 says, “Being convicted by their own conscience.“ Evil men wanted to throw stones at a woman, but their conscience prevented it. Romans 2:14, 15 says that even those who are outside the knowledge of God have a conscience. The conscience is hard to define, but you know what it is like to be convicted by your own conscience.

I remember telling a lie to my father when I was four years old. I have looked at my own children when they were four years old and couldn’t understand how they would even know what a lie was, let alone tell one. But I remember that Me clearly. For seven years my conscience spoke to me about that lie. When I was eleven years old, one night I finally had to get out of bed, go to the bedroom where my father was sleeping, wake him up, and ask him to forgive me for the lie I told at age four. I’ll never forget the feeling of peace that came to my heart at that time. It is pretty difficult to get past the mountain of conscience.

6. Trouble

I think of another great mountain that people have to cross if they want to be lost. It’s the sorrows and troubles of life. We don’t like the idea of using God and faith and religion as a fire escape. But where do you turn?

Jesus asked His disciples one time, “Are you going to leave too?“ A lot of others had left Him.

But the disciples replied, “Lord, to whom should we go? There’s no place to turn“ (see John 6:66, 67).

Where do backsliders get the strength to face the sorrow and troubles and heartaches and disappointments and the tears of life, if not from God?

What a tremendous mountain to have to cross!

And the devil meets himself coming back when he gives us so much sorrow and trouble that he drives us to our knees. You know, if the devil had been smart enough to leave me alone, he could have had me a long time ago. But he was just dumb enough to keep hounding me and causing me trouble, until he drove me to my knees. Have you ever had that experience? The devil is not content to have a person live life apart from God. He wants us in the gutter as well. But in the process of trying to get some of us into the gutter, he drives us back to God. And God is always there. He will take us whenever and wherever He can get us. The troubles of life can make it hard for us to be lost.

7. The Holy Spirit

Another giant mountain is the Holy Spirit and His work. John 16:8 says that He convicts the world of sin, of righteousness, and of judgment. This includes even the heathen and the savage. You don’t have to have a religious background to be convicted by the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is seeking out the hearts of people everywhere. Isaiah 30:21 tells about a voice behind us, telling us where to go. The Holy Spirit knew how to get through the hide of a whale, into the mind of Jonah. How He did it, I don’t know. The Holy Spirit knows how to permeate and penetrate impossible places. The Holy Spirit doesn’t give up. Even when we are sleeping, He is working twenty-four hours a day.

When we consider the difficulties involved in choosing to be lost, we must remember the mighty power of the Holy Spirit.

8. Calvary

And finally, the great mountain peak that pushes up through the blue like a snowcap is a mountain that looks like a skull. On its top are three crosses, and the one in the middle has friendly arms that still reach out to people everywhere, saying, “God cares, God loves.“ “He that spared not His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, shall He not freely give us all things?“ How can you get across Mount Calvary?

Even among the heathen there is the dim consciousness that one must die to pay for the penalty of sin. Unfortunately, the whole idea has been perverted. The devil has done everything he can to obliterate it. But there is still the consciousness that one dies to pay for the penalty of sin. And the gospel starts to penetrate the hearts of people wherever they are. The story of the cross is an everlasting story, a great mountain to get across.

Several years ago there was a young man in a Christian college who decided that he had had enough of God and faith and religion, so one day he quit school and joined the military. His purpose was to get away from God. He began to associate with the lowest of the groups he could find. He tried to learn how to curse. He tried to learn how to smoke and drink. He tried to do everything he saw others doing and found that he could not.

After trying desperately to go the other way, he wandered into a public auditorium in San Francisco, dressed in his navy uniform, where my father and uncle were holding meetings. He came to them and said, “I can’t do it. I’ve been trying to run away from God, and I can’t.“ He came to the meetings, came back to Christ, and gave up trying to be lost.

I told that story in a meeting one time, and a man came up to me afterward and said, “I did the very same thing. I joined the navy, and was trying to forget my religious background, God, the Bible—the whole business.“ He told me he had a commanding officer who noticed him. (It takes a thief to know a thief.) Years before, this commanding officer had also tried to leave God and make a career in the military.

“I guess the officer noticed something different about me,“ my friend said. “He saw I was trying to run away from something, so he called me into his office one day and said, What are you running away from?’

“I didn’t know what to say, so I said, ‘I just came to help win. the war.’ The commanding officer said, ‘Sure you did. Come on, what are you running away from?’ And in a few moments he had smoked me out of the woods. He found out that I was a member of the same church that he had left years before. And he said, ‘I have tried to run away for years, and I have had no peace. You’re not going to do the same thing.’ Believe it or not, my commanding officer ordered me to go to church every week! He ordered me to attend the young people’s meetings. I was stuck. I said, ‘If God can follow me into the military, and reach me through my commanding officer, then it’s going to be hard to run away.’”

My clinching argument, then, is this: The reason why it’s harder to be lost than to be saved is that if you are going to be lost someday, you’ll have to fight God, Jesus, the Holy Spirit, a two-thirds majority of the angels, and all your Christian friends and loved ones who are praying for you. And that’s a big order! If you’re going to be saved someday, you only have to fight the devil and a one-third minority of the angels, who cried out for mercy in the presence of Jesus when He was here. And Jesus has promised to fight the devil and his angels for you.

Away with the idea that it is easy to be lost. God is determined to save every person. When He says that He is not willing that any should perish, He means just that. He wants each one to come to repentance. The only thing He will not do is to force our choice.

Aren’t you thankful for the great mountains and stumbling blocks that He has raised on the road to perdition, to turn us around and draw us toward His heavenly kingdom? Won’t you accept anew today His great love and come to the foot of the cross to receive His salvation so freely offered?