The Road Less Travelled

Title: The Road Less Traveled

Text: Matthew 7:14-15

Date: September 6, 2009

Location: Sulphur Spring Baptist Church

Children’s Sermon: Good morning boys and girls. Show a Tom Tom GPS and ask them if they know what it is? That’s right it’s a GPS and if you aren’t sure how to get somewhere you can put the address in here and not only will it give you the directions but it will guide you through every turn you have to make. It’s really quite amazing. If you miss a turn it will even tell you how to get back on the right road. It’s really quite amazing what in the world did we do without these things? Most of the time if someone was traveling and didn’t know how to get where they were going they would pull into a gas station and ask for directions. Sometimes that worked and sometimes it didn’t. Speaking of asking for directions.

How many of you have seen the movie “Alice In Wonderland.” That’s good, Well this morning I want to show you just a short clip from the movie and then I want us to talk about it for just a couple of minutes.

In this film clip Alice came to a fork in the road. She didn’t know which way to go, she was talking to herself and debating which path to take when she heard someone singing. She looked up towards the Heavens, but it wasn’t angels that were singing, who was it?

Who did she see?

That’s right she saw the Cheshire cat staring down at her from his perch in the tree above.

When she saw Him Alice said, "Which way should I go?"

The Chesire cat replied “Well, That depends on where you want to get to.”

Now, how did Alice answer the Chesire cat’s question? What did she say?

That’s right she said, “It really doesn’t matter,”

Then the Chesire cat said, “Then it really doesn’t matter which way you go.”

But in reality it does matter which way we go. The Bible teaches us that there is a right way to go and a wrong way to go.

Read Proverbs 4:18-27 (NLT)

So we need to be careful to walk in the Way of Righteousness and if we will simply put our faith and Trust in the Lord, he has promised us to lead us in the paths of righteousness and make our paths straight.

Prayer:

If you have you have your Bibles turn with me to Matthew 7:13-14, which will be our text today.

Yesterday, my family and I drove to Calvert City to visit with my mom and dad, my brother and sister and their families. Now if you want to go to Calvert City, there are several different ways you can go. You can get on 31 W or I-65 and go to Bowling Green and hit Natcher Parkway and go to Beaver Dam. At Beaver Dam you can hit the Western Kentucky Parkway and take it to Princeton. At Princeton you can get on I-24 West and go to Calvert City.

But you can also get there by going through Russellville and taking Highway 68-80 to Cadiz and hitting I-24, which is the way I prefer going since there isn’t as much traffic.

Mary Anne on the other hand prefers going to Nashville and picking up I-24 there. Now that may sound crazy but depending on traffic it can be just as quick and of course the roads are much better and you can drive faster.

Now the reason I mention that is that some people would like for you to believe that it doesn’t matter which road you take to get to Heaven. Have you ever heard someone make a comment similar to this: We are all going to Heaven, we are just taking different roads or paths to get there.”

BUT IT REALY DOES MATTER, follow along as I read Matthew 7:13-14.

So, despite what some religious groups would like you to believe all roads don’t lead to Heaven and not everybody is going to get there. Both Heaven and Hell are real, and your eternal destiny depends on one very important choice. Which is the choice that everyone has to make, the choice to either to accept or reject Jesus Christ as the Lord and Savior of their life.

Jesus himself taught that there is only one way to Heaven, and our text this morning makes that perfectly clear. In this passage, Jesus spoke about two gates, two ways, two groups of people and two eternal destinies.

The first thing I want to do this morning is to take a few minutes to

I. EXAMINE THE WAY OF LIFE.

“Enter by the narrow gate…for the gate is small, and the way is narrow that leads to life, and few are those who find it.” Matthew 7:34-35?