Well, we're in the gospel of Matthew Chapter 7.
Matthew chapter 7, we are getting close to the end, the
Lord has been teaching an incredible amount of things in
this particular sermon and he's beginning to wrap it up.
In fact, today's passage the Lord, outlines two paths, two
ways and we'll look at those in a little bit of detail in just a
moment. But first, let's read the
passage. Here.
Now, the word of the Lord in Matthew 7:13, Enter by the
narrow gate for the gate is wide and the way is easy, that leads
to destruction and those who enter by, it are many for the
gate is narrow. And the way is hard that leads
to life and those who find it are few, the word of the Lord,
you may be seated. This probably is one of the most
symmetrical passages you'll find anywhere in Scripture, it is
written very much in Poetic style and it's consistent, we're
looking at two different ways and that's what I'm going to ask
you this morning is to consider these two different paths.
The word is O dose, or road or path or way or Journey.
Sometimes it means a journey. So we're talking about the path
of life. We're talking about the Journey
of life. We're talking about what you do
with those days. As in years, the Lord has given
you on Earth and how are you situated in that?
What are you doing? And where do you think you will
end? And it and it lays out pretty
simply, there's a mention of a gate on each of these roads.
There's a mention of the path in something about the path.
One path is very difficult, it's hard.
The other path is easy. And then there's a destination.
There's a destination to each of these paths.
One path leads to destruction. And the other leads to life.
There's I don't think there's any question that these two are
talking about eternal life and eternal destruction death.
There's about a half a dozen verses in the scripture.
We won't recount them. You're familiar with probably
each and every one of them had pretty well.
Tell us that at the end of the path, there's a time of judgment
and then there's a time of Consignment to a reward or a
punishment. And that's where this one leads
to the broad. Path.
Leads to destruction leads to Eternal death.
I'll use a good word. It's the word Jesus used hell.
At least a hell. It's just that simple over and
over in the Bible were called from the earliest days of the
scripture all the way up until the very last verses of the
Bible. We're told that we need to make
some discernment. Some discretion, we need to make
a decision. We need to decide and choose,
which path were on. Choose you this day.
Whom you will serve. Joshua told the people that's in
the choices. Binary, there's only two choices
then and now, in the days of Joshua's, you served the gods
that were served on the other side of the river by our
fathers, or Gods of this Pagan land Canaan, but as for me and
my house, we will serve the Lord the other choice.
Moses had laid down the same prescription for the people.
Just half a generation earlier when he had said, simply I set
before you life and death choose life that you may live.
And the Lord is doing the same thing here, he's sitting before
us two ways, two paths. So let's look at a couple of the
details concerning each one of these and see where it leads us.
I'll talk first about the gate. The first gate is narrow.
The road is a road that has a narrow gate, the word there
really is Street and it means it is very tight.
It's pressed in on every side. In fact that you word is used in
English to speak of a a straitjacket or being straight
laced. It means your compressed in your
pushed in. It's really not a very
comfortable place. The gate is narrow so that you
can't carry a lot of baggage with you.
The gate is narrow, you've got to go in by yourself.
You can't take some friends or parents or someone with you.
You've got to enter it one by one by one.
You come through that narrow gate.
And that narrow gate is constricted to where you must
leave all the baggage behind especially That which has to do
with self and selfishness and that which has to do with your
sin. In other words, it's not easy to
get into this gate. In fact, the Bible says there
are few that find it. Never mind how few that seek for
it. Few that find it, it escapes
most everybody because most everybody has found a better
gate gate to another road that gate is a gate that is wide.
It is flat, it is open. It's the word that we get our
word plate or the word Plateau from it's a wide gate effect.
You hardly notice it. It's a gated so wide.
It's just a looks like just a whole big beautiful party and
it's a place where everybody starts.
It's a place where everybody is born to.
It's that natural condition of mankind where you're born into
the life and even though you draw your first breath at your
birth, you don't worry too much. The Bible says that path is
easy. It's comfortable, its fly out,
there's no stress and it's a place where it's easy to travel
because many people are on that road, you've got a lot of
company. In fact, you look around, you'll
find all kinds of companions, all kinds of fellow Travelers,
and you'll be able to get in a crowd that really makes you
comfortable birds of a feather flock together and you'll find a
group of people that you're willing to try.
Able to hang out with, on this broad, easy Flat Road.
The the life there is said to be easy, whereas the road that is
narrow that comes through the constricted gate is said to be
hard, and that word, for hard means, it is Affliction.
It has persecution. It has Tribulation and
Temptation. In fact, over in Luke, when
Jesus preaches, this material, he says strive to enter the
narrow gate. He's already told us, it's few
that find it. How many fewer actually enter
it? And how many you're going to
enter it without striving. The word is where we get our
word agony. It means to agonize that's not
exactly the way coming to Christ was presented to me and some of
us were presented Christ is it's going to solve your problems.
Christ is going to make your life better.
If your teenager, your acne will clear up quicker.
There's just liable to be all kinds of wonderful things.
It's a place where you can have your best life.
Now, it's a place where you can live out the best.
Version of yourself. It's a place where you'll have
health and where you'll have wealth and on, and on the
presentation of that particular road is marked out as is easy to
can. Jesus said you have to agonize
to get there? What kind of Agony?
Well, you've got to struggle with your sin.
You have to struggle with yourself.
You've got to come to some realizations.
You've got to sober up. and realize where you are and where
you're headed and the Destinies that are mentioned as I
mentioned before or life, eternal life for the constricted
gate and the Hard Road leads to life But wide gate in the flat
easy Road leads to destruction. So I think probably in the
moment to, we have left, I'm just sketch some things out and
I got carried away and I just wrote up, way more more sermon
than I can preach. And I remember in seminary, was
somebody telling us when you through preaching, shut up, So
I'm through preaching, but I'm not going to shut up.
I'm going to met a little and I'm going to look on the broad
Road. I remember a few weeks ago, we
went to Memphis Tennessee to Mike to my uncle's funeral and
we stayed in a the Hilton wanted honey.
Big old Hilton there in the beautiful part of town and it
overlooked a couple of major intersections the the loop, the
interstate, and then a big broad area.
And I remember, looking out the window and it's a dreary day,
the two days we were there with lots of rain but I can watch The
traffic go and I could see the times when it was Rush Hour,
everybody basically parked out there for about a half-hour.
It looked like and that was all there was to it.
And then there were times when the traffic and move and in the
wee hours of the morning games, no traffic at all.
And and I had a chance to just look on that.
Big broad Highway and that's what I want to do this morning.
Very quickly with the broad Road, I want to see what's on
the broad Road. What's going on out there?
It's easy, it's a good life most, everybody's out there.
In fact, you're not going to feel peculiar weird because
there's people on the road, just like you are.
It's a comfortable place to be actually.
But what's going on out there? I tell you what's going on out.
There is a path that leads to destruction.
Let me sketch. Just a few things.
I'm going to use a real simple outline.
I'm going to use the Commandments right out of God's
word. A few of them, not all of them,
but you look out there and you see that, which is life and
health given by God life comes from God, and help comes from
the Lord and we've been given that, but what is going on on
the broad Road out there on the broad Road?
There were those who are out to destroy Humanity And they're out
there advocating and practicing abortion euthanasia.
There's an Insidious move that some of us are becoming aware of
where there's an effort by some Elites to deep populi to
populate the earth. The earth has now about 7
billion people in. They believe that's about three
times too many. So 2/3 of us have to go.
So you start watching accidents, public policies, and all sorts
of things that are designed to send more and more people to
their grave, help them die a little earlier, help them maybe
never to Be born in the first place.
It's that's what's going on out there on the broad Road, there's
a culture of death, the Lord says those that hate me, love
death. So on the broad Road, it may be
a comfortable place in a lot of ways, but it's headed for
Destruction, the very destruction of the human race I
look on the broad Road and I see that there are those out there
that are committed, not to private property and
productivity. And all those things that the
Lord said about working and dressing and keeping and
guarding, and saving, and multiplying, and building.
All of those, great positive affirmations, that God gave on
creation morning to the, to the, to the humans that were there
Adam and Eve the great creation mandate but instead they are out
to destroy. Property in the means of
production and you see that there are government sponsored
inflation confiscatory, taxation income redistribution and the
worst of all that destroys is the decriminalization of actual
theft. We're now people that steal a
certain amount of money, it's just not worth, Prosecuting them
go to the little Whole Foods up here in the edge of Highland
Park and and talk. To the security guard.
Got to know him. He's a lay preacher from the
Philippines. He's a wonderful man.
And I was talking with him Time After Time After Time, and he
was telling me to. Finally, the policy came down,
that if someone steals shoplifts and carries out a whole bag of
groceries, or a whole Carter, groceries, he's to let him go.
He's not to violate their rights.
He's not to do anything, but just let them go.
It's just Cost of doing business, raise every item in
the store, just another percentage, and let you and me,
pay for it. And we're seeing that in more.
Or Justice systems where criminals are just let go not
prosecuted sentences. Are shortened.
The jailhouse door is opened giving carte blanche to those,
who would steal. What else is going on on the
broad Road? Well, God gave us marriage and
from marriage. We are to be fruitful and
multiply and have families with little babies like that.
That's what the Lord wants us to do.
But what's going on out there? Well, there are those that Would
destroy God's design with one man.
One woman for one lifetime for the purposes of raising children
for the glory of God. Instead we have fornication
cohabitation. We have adultery divorce,
homosexuality, gender confusion transgender anything in the
world to pervert and warp that which God has given.
So if you're on the broad Road you need to kind of accept that.
He's think well, that's just kind of the way people are, you
know? Because one of the things on the
broad road is freedom, Don't You Love Freedom?
Do whatever you want to Do whatever there's a way that
seems right to a man, but the end thereof are the ways of
death. And that's what you see here.
This death and destruction, Thou shalt not bear false, witness
what's going on in the broad Road there?
Well, truth and Justice. What we're looking at on the
broad road is the absolute destroying of Truth and Justice
slander is standard fare for almost all media these days in
our country, repeated false reports coming from government
agencies, Agencies and police and every place else gender
identification, calling that, which is male with pronouns
pronounced for the female and looking at that Stark binary God
created difference and lying about it.
Using the language the tongue that God made for us to speak
and communicate in truth and in love to lie about the realities
that we see and we see courts rendering false decisions in
verdicts ridiculous decisions based upon no established
principle of law, just absolutely serendipitously
ruling any old miscellaneous thing they want and start paying
attention and you'll see those things coming down.
Not only in but anything that's it says a judgment.
School boards, making decisions city council's, state
legislatures, the United States Congress Supreme Court
government, bureaucracies who handle most of the laws these
days. Anyway, most of the laws we love
under never were under the halls of Congress.
They were just put in by edict, in Fiat by the bureaucracy and
it's a pressing God's people. There's a culture out there that
destroys truth and Justice. What else is going on in the
broad Road? Well, people are getting very
comfortable. Table with the notion of
covetousness Bible tells us not to covet but there's a whole
movement in our country that is based upon covetousness, it's
reparations. It's giving back, all kinds of
income redistribution for all kinds of fictitional reasons and
it's not based upon sound demographics.
It's based upon pure ideology. That was born in the pit of
Hell. And we'll take everybody else to
hell. All these doctrines were
atheistic without God to start with.
Not the mind of God, they're not the law of God, they're not the
will of God, they are Godless, and they're headed to a Godless
place of darkness and that's what's going on out there on the
road, real the politics of in me Envy fraud, bribery most
business now is conducted by bribery.
You don't. Really get to have a very big
business with massive profits unless you figure out how to
kick back or how to pay lobbyists or whatever else and
that's gone on the whole wide world ever since it began even
in the Bible. We remember that the official
was waiting on people to bribe to get Paul out of jail and you
know, bribery has been one of the ways that that moves, it
gambling, gambling of any sort. It's not, you're taking a risk
is what makes gambling, a sin. It's that your coveting that
which you did not earn. God did not give you and was not
acquired by the means. That God expects you hard work,
labor, Thrift And in charity is how God expects people to
accumulate into keeping to husband and Shepherd their
wealth. But instead we try to hit the
lottery, hit the jackpot and that is a flagrant violation of
the tenth. Commandment in every way.
What's going on out there on the broad Road?
Well, it's the destruction of all personal Integrity.
It is the doing away with all kinds of things.
It's a hatred of humanity. It's headed straight.
The damnation. And if you're on that Broad Road
and your practice in some of these things and you're
comfortable with others, practicing it and you think I'm
way off base and I'm being harsh and critical then you've got the
majority opinion with you because there's many on the
broad Road, there's a whole lot of yet a whole lot of you and a
lot of what people are doing on the broad road is having a whole
lot of energy put into persecuting and and against
those that are on the narrow road, what's going on in the
narrow road, we are to strive to seek to find it, it's pressure
on all sides, it's constricted. There's persecution from the
people on the broad road but it's the following of Christ.
I'll tell you, let me just well, let's see.
I'm out of town Tommy. So I'm going to take one minute.
Can you shorten up your service up here?
So yeah he's already shortened it as much as I think the Bible
in the BC, o will let him, let him shorten it up.
But let me tell you something. Since going on the broad Road
and this includes, I hope our congregation this morning.
We see people on the broad road that are agonizing.
They are in a bit of a straitjacket.
They are following the commands of the Lord, they are seeking
and striving for Holiness. They are mortifying sin in their
life, let not sin, therefore reign in your mortal body, It's
what the scriptures tell us. They're taking up their cross
people on the, on the narrow road or are dying daily.
They're striving and they're working, and they're praying for
sanctification Holiness of Life. They want their speech cleaned
up. They want, have kept clean
speech, and truthful speech, and gentle speech, and loving
speech, and edifying building up speech and they're working at
it, they're keeping their mouths shut when they need to and
they're opening it when they when they need to their work.
Going on those things, they're loving the brothers there in the
fellowship of saints. They're huddled with that little
flock, that that the Lord has called in to himself there on
the narrow road in the narrow road is hard.
It's not necessarily easy. They're seeking to obey the
great commandment of love, the Great Commission of making
disciples, they're practicing and holding the means of Grace
prayer. Under the word of God
Fellowship, preaching, in proclamation of a true gospel,
they're being Salt and Light. They're walking worthy of the
call. They're bearing witness to the
gospel, they're giving forth that thing that matters the
most. If you read the book of
Revelation is the word of their testimony, they're testifying
and that word testifying In testimony, is the word for
witness. It's the word martyr.
What's going on on the narrow road.
Maybe somebody there is going to face For their faith in Christ,
martyrdom. Are you ready for that?