Word of Salvation – Vol. 47 No.29 – August 2002
Two Ways
Sermon by Rev. John Haverland on Matthew 7:13-14
Scripture Readings: Deut.30:11-20, 31:9-13; Luke 13:22-35
Congregation of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Most of us, I’m sure, have been out travelling in a car, or walking on a track and have come to a T-intersection, or a fork in the road. When that happens we are faced with a decision. Which direction will we go? What route will we take? Which path will we go down? The two tracks go in quite different directions: one is the right way, and the other is wrong. Which one we take will determine where we end up – whether we get to where we want to go.
Jesus takes this type of decision and uses it as a picture of a choice of life: What path are you on? Where is your life going? In what direction are you headed? Jesus urges us to choose the narrow gate and the way that leads to life, rather than the broad gate and the way that leads to destruction.
Jesus pictures people coming up to two gates. One is wide and leads onto a broad, smooth road. That route is busy and people are streaming through the gate. The other gate is small, harder to find, and the road beyond it looks narrow and difficult. Only a few people are making their way through it. Jesus says: “Enter through the narrow gate.” The smaller gate is the right choice. Take that one!
He says this because He is close to the end of his sermon on the mount. Now He wants to apply what He has said; He wants to drive it home, to reinforce it. So verses 13-14 are the beginning of the conclusion. This is the final exhortation.
Becoming a Christian is not just about knowing doctrine. It is not enough just to have information, or to think of Christianity as a wonderful philosophy or belief system. It is about knowledge, but there must also be action. What you know must be applied. You have to make a decision. You have to take what you know and put it into practice. This is what Jesus is urging on us here.
He gives this exhortation in the light of the final judgment that is coming. This is the overall theme of this chapter. “Think ahead,” He says, “and make a wise choice. All humanity is on one of two paths. Be sure you are on the right one.”
1. There is the wide gate and broad way (vs.13b)
The entrance to this path is wide. It is an easy entrance, very inviting, spacious, roomy and accommodating. People going through this gate can take everything with them. You don’t have to leave anything behind. You can take your sin and selfishness and pride. You can take your greed and envy and jealousy. You can take all your bad habits and anger and immorality.
The entrance is so easy that you don’t have to do anything to enter this gate. In fact, by nature, everyone heads for this entrance. This is our natural sinful inclination. This is the pull of our sinful depraved heart. Unless you have made a conscious and deliberate choice to enter by the narrow gate, then you are, in fact, already through the wide gate and on the broad road.
It is also an accommodating gate. It accepts everyone, regardless of their beliefs or philosophy or ideas. There is no one standing at the gate excluding anyone or turning anyone away. Everyone is allowed through. This, of course, fits exactly with the spirit of our age. This is a world of pluralism: everyone is accepted and welcomed. Every belief is tolerated and even affirmed. In post-modern pluralism there is room for a great diversity of opinion. Everyone is right, no one is wrong, and we can all travel the road together. Wide is the gate: it is easy, it is the natural choice, and it is accommodating.
And the way is broad. It is a smooth way. This route is like a wide and spacious boulevard; the road is flat and paved and easy to walk. This is a picture of the way of the world, the way of Satan, and the way of sin. It doesn’t make any demands on you. It doesn’t require any sacrifices. You don’t have to commit yourself to anything. You can just go along, pleasing yourself, following your sinful inclinations. This is the path of least resistance; like a fish swimming downstream, going with the flow.
This is a popular way. “Many enter through” this gate and many people walk this road. It is crowded! It’s busy. There are hordes of people on this route. This is the majority view, and this is another reason why this path is so popular. It is far easier to follow the crowd, the more the merrier! At a party no one likes to be alone with no one else to talk to. It is more comfortable to be part of the group – to follow along with everyone else. You have to be in with the crowd, doing what everyone else is doing! This is the popular way. Are you like that? Just following the crowd?
But this is an unhappy way. The ease of the route doesn’t make people happy. Sure, it’s smooth, but that doesn’t give people satisfaction or contentment or security. Think of the people in the world. Many are chasing the world of fashion, of success, of money. Many are looking for happiness in social honours, in getting to the top of the corporate ladder, in doing well in education. But there is no lasting happiness in these things.
King Solomon tried all these things. He busied himself with pleasure, money, women, food, wine, building and gardening. He describes all of this in the Book of Ecclesiastes. But in the end he came to the conclusion that it was all empty, useless and vain.
This broad way might be an easy way, and many others might be travelling with you, but it will not give you lasting happiness. In fact, it ends in destruction. If you are travelling along a road, you need to know where the road is taking you. Where is it leading? Where does it end? It is foolish to get on a bus or a train and not check out its destination. You need to know where you are going so you don’t end up somewhere you don’t expect!
Many people today are on this broad road not realising that it is taking them to destruction. It would be like floating on a little boat down the Zambezi River. You are relaxing and enjoying the ride, not realising that you are heading for the Victoria Falls! Plenty of high adventure movies play on this theme. The hero is in his car or on his horse not realising that further up the road people are lying in wait to kill him! Now the hero usually escapes – because it’s a movie! – but no one on this broad road will escape this destruction. Because the roads ends in hell.
Psalm 1:6 says: “The way of the wicked will perish.”
And Romans 6:23: “The wages of sin is death.”
Some people believe that this destruction means that unbelievers are going to be annihilated. But that is not the teaching of the New Testament. The end of the road for those who don’t believe in Jesus is eternal death. No one should speak about hell in a light-hearted way. It is one of the most solemn and sobering truths of the Bible – that unbelievers will be punished forever. It isn’t easy to accept or believe, but it is the plain teaching of the Scriptures.
Each one of us must take this as a serious warning. You ignore these words of the Lord Jesus at your own peril. Many people who are on this broad road are not thinking about where it is taking them. Their thinking is short-term. They don’t consider their final end. They are preoccupied with the here and now, the present, the immediate.
Don’t you make the same mistake! Think ahead. Think long-term. Where is your life going? What is your end? Are you on the broad road that leads to destruction? Or have you found the small gate? Are you on the narrow way?
2. The small gate and the narrow road
The Entrance is Small. “Small is the gate.” In ‘Pilgrim’s Progress’, that classic story written by John Bunyan, Christian has to enter by the “Wicket Gate”, a small gate that led on to the cross. In this little parable of Jesus, the gate is small.
It is so narrow that you can’t take anything with you. You can’t take your good works, as though they were bonus points to help you through. Nor can you take your sins with you. The only way you can get through that gate is to confess your sins and resolve to leave them behind. That is repentance. You have to admit your sin and then turn away from it. You need to leave covetousness, lust, selfishness, self-righteousness and pride. To enter through the narrow gate, you must be “poor in spirit”, which is the first of the beatitudes.
This gate is so narrow it will only allow one person at a time. It is like a turnstile in the entrance to a supermarket. You have to go through on your own. When you become a Christian you join a community of people and you are part of the church. But you have to come through that gate on your own. Becoming a Christian is a personal matter – between you and God. No one else can do that for you. And you can’t come through with anyone else either – with your wife, or your husband, or your friends.
The gate itself is the Lord Jesus Christ. In John 10:9 Jesus says, “I am the gate”. He is the Entrance to the Way. The way into this narrow path is through faith in Jesus. So when Jesus said, “Enter through the narrow gate”, He was calling people to believe in Him – to believe in Him as the Son of God, as Lord, as Saviour.
He calls you to do that. Maybe you have been coming to church for a while but haven’t made a firm commitment; you haven’t decided to follow Jesus; you haven’t entered through that narrow gate. You need to do that – today! Enter by faith through that small gate.
The gate is small and the path is narrow. This means that it is a difficult way. The word ‘narrow is associated with the word for ‘tribulation’. Becoming a Christian will involve trial, difficulty and opposition. You may suffer persecution. Jesus warned us of that in Matthew 5:11-12. Narrow also suggests that it involves discipline, obedience and commitment. You will need to pursue righteousness. Jesus said, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me.” Being a Christian will mean bearing a cross and self-denial.
We need to explain this to people when we tell them about the gospel. Sometimes Christians are not always honest when speaking to others about becoming a Christian. They paint a rosy picture, but they don’t explain the hard parts. But Jesus told people what they were in for. He told the rich young ruler he had to leave behind his possessions. He spoke to the Samaritan woman about her life of adultery. He told eager would-be disciples to count the cost. This is a narrow, difficult way.
It is also an unpopular way. “Only a few find it.” This is not a well-travelled route. You have to be prepared to draw away from the crowds. You have to be prepared to stand apart from the world.
This doesn’t tell us how many will be saved. Someone asked Jesus that question once (Luke 13:23). Jesus replied, “Make every effort to enter through that narrow door.” Jesus didn’t answer the question. He doesn’t want you to be counting heads, seeing how many others are on the path. No, you make sure you find the gate. Jesus is not saying that it’s “every man for himself”; but He does want every individual person to face his responsibility, to put his faith in Jesus.
This is a blessed way. Sure, it is difficult, and it may involve persecution. It certainly requires discipline and self-denial. But despite all of that, it is a blessed way; it is a good path to be on. The best part of being on the path is that you are walking with Jesus. You are following Him. He has gone the way before you and, through His Spirit, He is walking it alongside you.
If you are on this path you will experience the joy of the Lord, the security of belonging to God the Father, the hope of eternal life and the prospect of happiness in heaven with Jesus, because this path ends in eternal life. The life that Jesus describes is the life of the Kingdom of God. It describes a life of fellowship with God that begins now, but will go on forever. Walking the narrow path requires self-denial and discipline but the Apostle Paul tells us that the suffering of this present time not worth comparing to the glory to come (2Cor.4:17-18).
There are two gates, and you must enter through one or the other. There are two ways, and you are on one or the other. There is no third alternative, and there is no middle way. You can’t sit on the fence. You have to make a decision. No decision leaves you on the broad road that leads to destruction.
Many years ago Moses spoke to the people of Israel and said, “See I set before you today life and prosperity, death and destruction” (Deut.30:15). A generation later Joshua said, “Choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve… But as for me and my household, we will serve the Lord” (Josh.24:15).
Today, through these words of our Lord, the Holy Spirit calls you to choose. Will you take the broad road that leads to destruction; or will you take the narrow road that leads to life?
Jesus says, “Enter through the narrow gate.” Have you done that? If you have, keep walking that narrow path to life. Keep persevering to the end. It will be worth it. If you haven’t done that, will you choose that small gate that leads to life? Will you do that, today?
Amen.