Introduction
A. A high school history teacher was discussing the funeral of the Pope with his class. One student asked how they chose the new Pope. The teacher explained the process, finishing with, "So the Cardinals pick him." A student in the back of class, asked, very seriously, "Why would they let a baseball team pick the next Pope?"
B. The outline for this message came from Reverend Brian Bill of Edgewood Baptist Church
C. In 2008, The Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life conducted an unusually detailed study of faith in America.
1. According to Luis Lugo, the director of the Pew Forum, Americans “are very open.
2. In terms of various paths to heaven, and even in interpreting the teachings of their own faith, the majority tell us that there’s not just one right way to do that.”
3. The study found that 70% of Americans – even 57% of evangelicals – believe that many religions can lead to eternal life
a. This sounds a little like the proclamation of Pope Francis that atheists will get to heaven if they just follow their conscience.
b. In an article in the New York Times in May of 2009, Ross Douthat points out the worldlier behind Dan Brown’s “The DaVinci Code” and the current blockbuster movie “Angels and Demons.” “In the Brownian worldlier, all religions…have the potential to be wonderful, so long as we can get over the idea that any one of them might be particularly true. …the polls…reveal the growth of do-it-yourself spirituality, with traditional religion’s dogmas and moral requirements shorn away.” His conclusion is quite correct: “For millions of readers, Brown’s novels have helped smooth over the tension between ancient Christianity and modern American society. But the tension endures. You can have Jesus or Dan Brown. But you can’t have both”
c. According to some, civil religion in America is tolerant and inoffensive.
(1) Here then is a list of some core elements of the new catechism
(a) The central goal of life is to be happy and to feel good about oneself
(b) God does not need to be particularly involved in one’s life except when God is needed to resolve a problem
(c) Good people go to heaven when they die
D. We are coming to the end of our study in the Sermon on the Mount and we’re going to find out what Jesus said about getting to heaven as He drives home the necessity of putting what we’ve heard into practice
1. Please turn in your Bibles to Matthew 7:13-14
II. Body
A. Our main passage contains only two verses, two very important verses.
Matthew 7:13-14 NKJV
"Enter by the narrow gate; for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and there are many who go in by it. {14} "Because narrow is the gate and difficult is the way which leads to life, and there are few who find it.
1. Jesus is using a common teaching method to contrast two decisions and two destinations
a. Clearly put, this part of Jesus’ sermon could be summarized like this: The gate you take determines your fate, therefore keep it straight before it’s too late! Where you wind up later depends on which road you take now.
2. I see four imperatives, that is commands
a. First, enter the Gate!
b. Look again at verse 13
Matthew 7:13 NKJV
"Enter by the narrow gate; for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and there are many who go in by it.
c. “Enter by the narrow gate.”
(1) Can you see that there’s an action that must be taken – we must actually enter through the narrow gate
(2) It’s given in the form of a command which means that we’re to do it now, with a sense of urgency
(3) We are not to simply admire the principles of the Sermon on the Mount
(a) We must accept and receive Jesus as your Lord and Savior
(b) This means that it’s not automatic; it doesn’t just happen by osmosis because you’re an American or because you’ve gone to church your whole life.
(c) By the way, this would have been appalling to the Jews who were listening. They thought they were going to heaven because of their heritage as “God’s chosen people.”
B. Jesus actually describes two different gates
1. The narrow gate
a. The gate to God is narrow, meaning that it not only takes effort to find it, but it takes determination to enter through it.
(1) Turn to John 10:9
b. Jesus made it narrow without checking with us
(1) Actually, the gate is Jesus Himself as stated in John 10:9
John 10:9 NKJV
"I am the door. If anyone enters by Me, he will be saved, and will go in and out and find pasture.
(2) “I am the gate; whoever enters through me will be saved.”
(a) Have you ever heard someone say that Christians are too narrow-minded
(b) Most of us run away from this term but we need to come to terms with the fact that Jesus said the gate is narrow
i) Turn to John 14:6
(c) Martin Lloyd-Jones compares the narrow gate to a turnstile that admits one person at a time.
John 14:6 NKJV
Jesus said to him, "I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.
(d) How narrow is this, Jesus is the only way, the only truth, and the only life
(e) There is no other plan but the person of Jesus
(f) There is no way to get to heaven except that we go through Him
i) Turn to John 6:37
c. Jesus is very inclusive in the sense that everyone is invited to a relationship with Him
John 6:37 NKJV
"All that the Father gives Me will come to Me, and the one who comes to Me I will by no means cast out.
d. Jesus’ claims are very exclusive because there is no other way to Heaven except through Him
(1) Yes this is very narrow minded
(a) Praise God we believe the Bible
(b) The inerrant Word of God
i) Turn to Acts 4:12, 1 Timothy 2:5-6, 1 John 5:12
(2) How does this compare with our modern pluralistic society that values variety and excludes exclusive truth claims
Acts 4:12 NKJV
"Nor is there salvation in any other, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved."
1 Timothy 2:5-6 NKJV
For there is one God and one Mediator between God and men, the Man Christ Jesus, {6} who gave Himself a ransom for all, to be testified in due time,
1 John 5:12 NKJV
He who has the Son has life; he who does not have the Son of God does not have life
e. These passages are extremely exclusive, narrow minded, and overwhelmingly clear: Jesus is the only way to heaven
f. His statements of divine authority are incompatible with the homogenized views of religious pluralists
g. Truth is the scarcest commodity in the world
(1) I’ve hear people say, “That might be true for you, but it’s not for me.”
(2) Researcher George Barna has discovered that nearly 75% of Americans do NOT believe in absolute truth
(a) And as stated earlier that might well include 57% of evangelicals
(b) Turn to Proverbs 21:2
h. Here’s the sad part of that
(1) Without the clarity and consistency of absolute moral truth, we are reduced to doing what seems right, what feels good, what produces the least resistance, and what provides the greatest personal fulfillment
Proverbs 21:2 NKJV
Every way of a man is right in his own eyes, But the LORD weighs the hearts.
(2) Actually, it doesn’t really matter what 75% of Americans think about anything, since God has already told us what He thinks
C. The wide gate
1. While the narrow gate is exclusive, the wide gate is all-inclusive
2. The word wide means ample and more than usual
3. The implication is that it is very popular and very easy to enter: “…and many enter through it.”
a. Charles Spurgeon gives us this illustration: A holy woman used to say of the rich, "They are hemmed around with no common misery; they go down to hell without thinking of it, because their staircase thither is of gold and porphyry that is pretty stones which glitter and shine.
4. We might as well admit that the wide gate seems far more inviting than the narrow one
a. Who really wants to surrender their wills, repent of their sins and be willing to surrender to Christ for the rest their lives?
(1) Turn to 1 Peter 3:20
5. Let me point out that those who go through the gate of the Lord Jesus Christ will be in the minority: “and only a few find it.”
a. Donald Bloesch says, The Christian way is not the middle way between extremes, but the narrow way between precipices.
b. God always has His remnant and it’s normally a small number
1 Peter 3:20 NKJV
who formerly were disobedient, when once the Divine longsuffering waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was being prepared, in which a few, that is, eight souls, were saved through water.
6. And those who go through the wide gate will be many
a. If we consider following Christ, and we want to be popular and live a life of pleasure, we’re standing at the wrong gate
b. The gate of Christ is narrow, it always has been and it always will be
D. Having said all that, while it seems that right now many are on the road to destruction and only a relatively small number have, are or will enter the narrow gate
1. First, enter the narrow gate…and second, keep it straight
a. Keep it Straight!
b. Once we go through one of the gates, then we’re on one of two roads
c. Robert Frost wrote a poem that closely parallels the words of Jesus: “Two roads diverged in a wood, and…I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference.”
2. Once we enter the narrow gate we will never enter the wide gate
a. But having entered the narrow gate we could still walk a crooked road
b. From Men of Integrity comes this story, with which we will close: On July 20, 1993, while cutting down oaks in a Pennsylvania forest, Don Wyman got his leg pinned beneath a fallen tree. No one could hear his yells for help. After digging for more than an hour to try to free his bleeding, shattered leg, he hit stone. He would bleed to death unless he did something drastic. Wyman made his decision. Using a wrench and the starter cord from his chain saw as a torniquet, he cut off the flow of blood to his shin. Somehow he had the fortitude to amputate his own leg below the knee with his pocket knife. He crawled to his vehicle and drove to a farmer's home. The farmer got him the help that saved his life. Like Don Wyman, men who want to follow Christ face tough choices. We have sinful habits we want to keep as badly as our leg. We also have a Lord and Savior who calls us to repent. It takes strength to cut off our wickedness.
c. So, keep ir straight
