now this particular question, this, it's a very solemn and searching question, it belongs to a group of three questions found in the New Testament which have to do with a matter of salvation, the first one is, we won't look up the reference and that for time this morning, the first one is the question that the disciples put to Jesus, who then can be saved, that's in Matthew, chapter nineteen, then there's this one in Luke thirteen, are there few that be saved and then that very, very personal question that was put not to Jesus but to Paul by the Philippinean jailer in act sixteen, what must I do to be saved, three questions in the new testaments about salvation, who then can be saved, are there few that be saved, what must I do to be saved, you know as Christians you possibly found yourself, asking yourself the, the same question that these people put to Jesus, why are there so few Christians, look about our own town, think of your own neighbourhood, your own street, think of the place where you work  how few there are who are followers of Jesus Christ, how few there are who have committed themselves to Jesus Christ to of receive him as their saviour, who've have accepted him as saviour, how few there are when you compare it er to all the others who are rejecting him and er who are living their life regardless, how true it is that the great majority of people seem in, in this present day to have little time for God or for the things of God, they've got time for all sorts of other things, but God and his claim on their life is crowded out, how many there are like that, how few there are who have submitted to Jesus Christ and have received him as their saviour or so it seems.