4/23/06                                   Staying on the Narrow Way                       

Matthew 7:13-14

[13] “Enter through the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the way is broad that leads to destruction, and there are many who enter through it. [14] For the gate is small and the way is narrow that leads to life, and there are few who find it.”

Jesus begins the final summary of the SOTM relating to all that He has said before in the last three thoughts.  Today, we will look at the first, the idea about what it means to be on the right “highway to heaven.”  Next week we will look at the two trees or the two confessions and then lastly, we will look at the two expressions of discipleship.

In verses, 13 and 14, Jesus makes us aware that there are not many roads to heaven, but one. There are not many good religions, but only one. Man cannot come to God in any of the ways that man himself devises, but only in the one way that God Himself has provided.  When a person responds to the Holy Spirit’s quickening of His heart from spiritual death to spiritual life, he has the ability to respond in faith.  It is this faith that places him in the narrow way. 

Jesus chose one of the most common metaphors of His day to draw the attention of His listeners.  The Middle East of Jesus day did not sport a “Bullet Train,” nor did they have SUV’s or a super highway.  People in Jesus’ day traveled by foot or if they were people of wealth they might have a burro, camel or horse to ride.  The countryside had well traveled routes and then there were the more inconspicuous sheep trails.  He contrasts the heavily traveled roads with those who migrated through the country on the less known paths.  Animal paths are typically narrow and rough.  The thoroughfares between major points of interest are wider.  Jesus takes these two passage ways to open up truth about the way of the Christian life.

Jesus has been giving God’s standards throughout the sermon, standards that are holy and perfect and that are diametrically opposed to the self-righteous, self-sufficient, and hypocritical standards of man—typified by those of the scribes and Pharisees He has shown what His kingdom is like and what its people are like—and are not like.

Our lives are filled with decisions—what to wear, what to eat, where to go, what to do, what to say, what to buy, whom to marry, what career to follow and on and on. Many decisions are trivial and insignificant, and some are essential and life-changing. The most critical of all is our decision about Jesus Christ and His kingdom. When God calls us to Himself, gives us the faith to believe, grants us forgiveness, mercy and grace, it is not totally unconditional.  There is the expectation that we will live in accordance to the life that He has called us to.  This truth will be unpacked and fleshed out in even more detail in the following passage of scripture.  In receiving the love of Christ, there is a way that God commands for us to live.  This “way” of life, and its opposite, is paralleled by the two ways spoken of in our verses today.

Before man ever sinned, God made His choice by providing the way of redemption. Then He showed us how we are to live.  From this perspective it is quite natural to see how Jesus could have referred to Himself as the “Way.”  The many facets of His life are to be reflected in us: our attitudes, our actions, our motivations, our desires, our longing, etc.  What His “way” was, is the pattern of what our is to be.

The contrast Jesus makes is not between religion and irreligion, or between the higher religions and the lower ones. Nor is it a contrast between nice and upright people and vile and degraded ones. It is a contrast between divine righteousness and human righteousness, all of which is unrighteousness. It is a contrast between divine revelation and human religion, between divine truth and human falsehood, between trusting in God and trusting in self. It is the contrast between God’s grace and man’s works.

There have always been but two systems of religion in the world. One is God’s system of divine accomplishment, and the other is man’s system of human achievement. One is the religion of God’s grace, the other the religion of men’s works. One is the religion of faith, the other the religion of the flesh. One is the religion of the sincere heart and the internal, the other the religion of hypocrisy and the external. Within man’s system are thousands of religious forms and names, but they are all built on the achievements of man and the inspiration of Satan. Christianity; on the other hand, is the religion of divine accomplishment, and it stands alone.

Don’t be mistaken by the way of man.  Jesus was saying, “I am not calling you to a new way of looking at the old.  I am not trying to cram into old wineskins this new teaching.  It is totally new.”  The law given through Moses, though divine, was not a means of salvation but rather a means of showing man’s need for salvation. "By the works of the Law no flesh will be justified in His sight," Paul explains; "for through the Law comes the knowledge of sin" (Rom. 3:20). The law came to show us our sinfulness and guilt before God, and to show us that we are incapable in ourselves of keeping God’s perfect law.

When self-righteous, ego-centered man saw that he was sinful by the law’s standard, he simply set the law aside and devised standards of his own. He invented new religions that accommodated his shortcomings and that were humanly achievable. By meeting his own attainable standards, man, therefore, considered himself righteous. That is what the rabbis and scribes had done in regard to their traditions. They lowered God’s standards, raised their own estimates of themselves, and felt they had achieved a righteous standing with God (Rom. 10:3). And that is exactly the type of self-ascribed righteousness that Jesus declares resembles the passengers on the broad way.

A look at the gates:

Enter is in the aorist imperative tense, and therefore demands a definite and specific action. It also gives it the fullness of completed action.  The gist of Jesus’ command is this: Because you have entered through the narrow gate, this is what life is to be like…and that is a not a personal prerogative.  Having been purchased by My blood, having been redeemed by my death, I call you to your own death-of-self and I call you to live according to my Life.”  Jesus says, “once entering through the gate your life is to be lived-out in the narrow way.”  

Jesus proclaims a narrow gospel because He said, "I am the door; if anyone enters through Me, he shall be saved’ (John 10:9). Jesus’ gospel is narrow because "there is salvation in no one else; for there is no other name under heaven that has been given among men, by which we must be saved" (Acts 4:12), and because "there is one God and one mediator also between God and men, the man Christ Jesus" (1 Tim. 2:5).

It is the gate of self-denial, through which one cannot carry the baggage of sin and self-will. When we sing, "Nothing in my hand I bring, simply to Thy cross I cling," we are testifying to the way of the gospel. The way of Christ is the way of the cross, and the way of the cross is the way of self-denial. "If anyone wishes to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me. For whoever wishes to save his life shall lose it; but whoever loses his life for My sake shall find it" (Matt. 16:24-25).

Jesus confronted the rich young ruler who sought eternal life.  As his response proved, that man’s desire to rule his own life and to hold on to his earthly wealth gave evidence of self-righteousness and self-deceit in denying his true state of sin, because if he had in his heart truly kept all the commandments as he claimed, he would surely have kept the greatest commandment—which is to love God with all one’s heart, soul, and might (Deut. 6:5). Thus he would have followed Christ with total commitment. The issue with that young man was very simply a matter of lordship. Jesus confronted him on the matter of life control. One who comes to salvation yields control to Christ whether that means he gives up all or is allowed to keep all and receive more. Salvation turns sovereignty over to Christ.

To love God with everything we have is to jettison self—self-confidence, self-achievement, self-righteousness, and self-satisfaction. "Unless you are converted and become like children," Jesus said, "you shall not enter the kingdom of heaven" (Matt. 18:3). The mark of a child is dependency, utter dependency for everything he has. Saving faith is not merely an act of the mind; it counts the cost (Luke 14:28); it is also a stripping of the self and crying, as did the tax-gatherer in the Temple, "God, be merciful to me, the sinner!" (Luke 18:13). The narrow gate means that those who enter do so stripped of all they possess, rather than adding Jesus to their accumulated treasures. Salvation is the exchange of all that we are for all that He is (see Matt. 13:44-46). And as He did for Job, the Lord will give back much more.

The narrow gate demands repentance. Many Jews believed that simply being a Jew, a physical descendant of Abraham, was sufficient for entrance into heaven. Many people today believe that being in a church qualifies them for heaven. Some even believe that simply being a human being qualifies them, because God is too good and kind to exclude anyone. Those who preach a gospel of self-indulgence preach an utterly different gospel than Jesus preached. The gate of pride, of self-righteousness, and self-satisfaction is the wide gate of the world, not the narrow gate of God.

Most people spend their lives rushing around with the crowds, doing what everyone else does and believing what everyone else believes. But as far as salvation is concerned, there is no security in numbers. If every person in a group is saved it is because each of them individually has been energized by the Holy Spirit, to trust Christ.

A look at two ways:

The two gates lead to two ways. The gate that is wide leads to the way that is broad; and the narrow gate, which is small, leads to the way that is narrow. The narrow way is the way of the godly, and the broad way is the way of the ungodly—and those are the only two ways in which men can travel. The godly person delights "in the law of the Lord, and in His law he meditates day and night. And he will be like a tree firmly planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in its season," whereas the ungodly "are like chaff which the wind drives away" (Ps. 1:2-4).

The way that is broad is the easy, attractive, inclusive, indulgent, permissive, and self-oriented way of the world. There are few rules, few restrictions, and few requirements. All you need do is profess Jesus, or at least be religious, and you are readily accepted in that large and diverse group. Sin is tolerated, truth is moderated, and humility is ignored. God’s Word is praised but not studied, and His standards are admired but not followed. This way requires no spiritual maturity, no moral character, no commitment, and no sacrifice. It is the easy way of floating downstream, in "the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, of the spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience" (Eph. 2:2). It is the tragic way "which seems right to a man," but whose "end is the way of death" (Prov. 14:12).

A West Indian who had chosen Islam over Christianity said his reason was that Islam "is a noble, broad path. There is room for a man and his sins on it. The way of Christ is too narrow" It seems that many preachers today do not see that issue as clearly as that unbelieving Muslim.

The way that is narrow, however, is the hard way, the demanding way, the way of self-denial and the cross. Stenos (narrow) comes from a root that means "to groan," as from being under pressure, and is used figuratively to represent a restriction or constriction. It is the word from which we get stenography, writing that is abbreviated or compressed.

The kingdom is for those who come to the King in poverty of spirit, mourning over their sin, and hungering and thirsting for His righteousness to replace their own (Matt. 5:3-4, 6). It is for those who want the kingdom at any cost, who will sell all they have to buy that great treasure and that great pearl (Matt. 13:44-46). It is not for those want a cheap and easy way to assure heaven, while continuing to live their own selfish and worldly lives on earth. Jesus only saves those for whom He becomes Lord. Sadly, most people think that heaven can be obtained on much easier terms than those prescribed by Christ.

As Paul expressed it in Romans 7:14-25, it should be the desire of our hearts as Christians to fulfill every command and requirement of our Lord, even though we know that we will fail. But we also know that "if we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness" (1 John 1:9). And the gracious God who saved us because we could not fulfill His law in our own power knows that, even after salvation, we still cannot fulfill His law in our own power. The great difference is that in Christ we not only have a Savior but a burden bearer. He helps us carry all our burdens, including the burden of obedience. "Take My yoke upon you, and learn from Me," Jesus says, "for I am gentle and humble in heart; and you shall find rest for your souls. For My yoke is easy, and My load is light" (Matt. 11:29-30).

The person who says yes to Christ must say no to the things of the world, because to be in Christ is to rely on His power rather than our own and to be willing to forsake our own way for His. It can cost persecution, ridicule, and tribulation. In His last instructions to His disciples, Jesus several times reminded them of the price they would pay for following Him: "Because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you. Remember the word that I said to you, ’A slave is not greater than his master.’ If they persecuted Me, they will also persecute you’ (John 15:19-20); "They will make you outcasts from the synagogue" (John 16:2); "Therefore you too now have sorrow" (16:22); and "In the world you have tribulation" (16:33).

A look at the destinations

Both the broad and the narrow ways point to the good life, to salvation, heaven, God, the kingdom, and blessing—but only the narrow way actually leads to those. There is nothing here to indicate that the broad way is marked "Hell." The point our Lord is making is that it is marked "Heaven" but does not lead there. That is the great lie of all the false religions of human achievement. The two very different destinations of the two ways are made clear by the Lord (cf. Jer. 21:8). The broad… leads to destruction, whereas only the narrow… leads to life. Every religion except Christianity, the only religion of divine accomplishment, follows the same spiritual way and leads to the same spiritual end, to hell. There are many of those roads, and most of them are attractive, appealing, and crowded with travelers. But not a single one leads where it promises; and not a single one fails to lead where Jesus says it leads—to destruction.  Apōleia (destruction) does not refer to extinction or annihilation, but to total ruin and loss. It is the destination and destiny of perdition, hell, and everlasting torment. "The way of the wicked will perish" (Ps. 1:6).

A letter written to a Melbourne, Australia, daily newspaper expresses clearly the attitude of a person on the broad road to destruction.  “After hearing Dr. Billy Graham on the air, viewing him on television and reading reports and letters concerning him and his mission, I am heartily sick of the type of religion that insists my soul (and everyone else’s) needs saving—whatever that means. I have never felt that I was lost. Nor do I feel that I daily wallow in the mire of sin, although repetitive preaching insists that I do. Give me a practical religion that teaches gentleness and tolerance, that acknowledges no barriers of color or creed, that remembers the aged and teaches children of goodness and not sin. If in order to save my soul I must accept such a philosophy as I have recently heard preached, I prefer to remain forever damned.”

Every person who will come to Jesus Christ can come to Jesus Christ. "All that the Father gives Me shall come to Me, and the one who comes to Me I will certainly not cast out," Jesus assures us. "For this is the will of My Father, that everyone who beholds the Son and believes in Him, may have eternal life; and I Myself will raise him up on the last day" (John 6:37, 40).