REVIEW
FLIP CHART: SOM’S KEY VERSE, GOAL, MOTTO
“But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness ….” (Mt. 6:33a).
The law sends us to Christ for justification; Christ sends us back to the law for sanctification.
FLIP CHART: Show new “Perfect Righteousness” chart explaining steps to coming to Christ (As a worm, mourning, meek, spiritual hunger/thirst with the result of legal righteousness). Explain: moral righteousness, immediate moral change at conversion, gradual change through life’s challenges and speeding up moral change via CCRC (Concentration, Choice, Reflection and Confession/Thanksgiving). Key verse, “By one sacrifice He has made perfect forever those who are being made holy” (Heb. 10:14).
FLIP CHART: John Stott’s outline of SOM.
TEACHING GOAL: To compare the two gates, roads, travelers and destinations open to people.
JESUS, MY ALL, TO HEAVEN HAS GONE
(Tune: “Sweet Hour of Prayer”, Words – John Cennick, 1743)
Jesus, my all, to heaven is gone,
He Whom I fix my hopes upon;
His track I see, and I’ll pursue
The narrow way, till Him I view.
The way the holy prophets went,
The road that leads from banishment,
The King’s highway of holiness,
I’ll go, for all His paths are peace.
No stranger may proceed therein,
No lover of the world and sin;
No lion, no devouring care,
No ravenous tiger shall be there.
No nothing may go up thereon
But traveling souls, and I am one:
Wayfaring men to Canaan bound,
Shall only in the Way be found.
Nor fools, by carnal men esteemed,
Shall err therein; but they redeemed
In Jesus’ blood, shall show their right
To travel there, till Heaven’s in sight.
This is the way I long have sought,
And mourned because I found it not;
My grief a burden long has been,
Because I was not saved from sin.
The more I strove against its power,
I felt its weight and guilt the more;
Till late I heard my Savior say,
“Come hither, soul, I am the Way.”
Lo! Glad I come; and Thou, blest Lamb,
Shalt take me to Thee, as I am;
Nothing but sin have I to give;
Nothing but love shall I receive.
Then will I tell to sinners round,
What a dear Savior I have found;
I’ll point to Thy redeeming blood,
And say, “Behold the way to God.”
INTRODUCTION:
“Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it.” (Matthew 7:13-14)
To finish up his sermon, Jesus gives four powerful illustrations, all with a goal to pressing his listeners for a decision. All of the illustrations have within them a dire warning: destruction, fire, rejection, destruction. These warnings should encourage a positive response to his sermon. The first illustration is about gates, travel, and destinations.
Mt. 7:13-14 crystallizes our choices concerning the Sermon on the Mount, the previous 2 ½ chapters.
“What is immediately striking about these verses is the absolute nature of the choice before us.” (Stott, 193)
OUTLINE:
1. The Small, Narrow Gate
2. The Wide Gate
3. The Narrow Road
4. The Broad Road
5. The Few on the Narrow Road
6. The Many on the Broad Road
7. The Destination of the Narrow Road – Life
8. The Destination of the Broad Road – Destruction
THE WIDE & NARROW WAYS
I. THE SMALL, NARROW GATE
1. The Gospel message is narrow and exclusive only because our Lord proclaimed it to be so.
2. Total brokenness, humility, spiritual destitution and spiritual hunger are required to get through the gate. (Mt. 5:3-6)
3. Our Lord Jesus is the gate that all must pass through. (John 10:9)
4. Eternal salvation is of such importance that we are challenged to agonize and struggle with all our might to get through the gate.
The parallel verse to Matthew 7:13-14 is Luke 13:24. “Make every effort” is translated from the Greek word for agonize in this verse. A paraphrase of Luke 13:24 might read: “Make every effort, labor fervently, fight, agonize, force yourselves through the narrow door, because many, I tell you, will try (but will not agonize enough) to enter and will fail.”
II. THE WIDE GATE
In one sense all have entered the wide gate at birth. In another sense as individuals contemplate life, see choices, they choose the wide gate. It is “wide,” easy to get through, room for all of our baggage, all of our sins, our ego, no matter how big our ego is, can easily get through the wide gate.
A letter written to a Melbourne, Australia, daily newspaper shares the attitude of many people towards the broad gate:
ILL: 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. (MacArthur, 458)
III. THE NARROW ROAD
We disdain the narrow-minded, admire the all-accepting. C.E. Jefferson writes:
“We often hear [narrow] used in a sinister and condemning sense, we sometimes use it so ourselves. We say, “Oh, yes, he is narrow,” meaning that one side of his nature has been blighted, blasted. His mind is not full-orbed. His heart is not full grown. He is a dwarfed and stunted man, cramped by a defective education or squeezed out of shape by a narrowing environment.” (Hughes, 242)
Jesus holds a very narrow view …. There are only two roads. And the one road he wants us to take is very narrow.
Think of how narrow the “Sermon on the Mount” is. The whole Sermon narrows down the way a person should live.
TABLE DISCUSSION: What statements in the Sermon on the Mount really narrow down how a Christian should live, really make the road narrow?
Our thoughts about God, salvation, affections, and truth are all narrowed. None of these matters is left to consensus. He gives us no options.
The narrowness of the road is due to ‘divine revelation.’ It confines as pilgrims to live as God has shown us to live in Scripture.
“The Kingdom of Heaven was never intended to indulge the ease of the triflers, but to be the rest of them that labor.” (Matthew Henry).
ILL: Many folks prefer a Walmart type of religion that gives all kinds of options and choices. This verse makes us think of Old Mother Hubbard’s cupboard … although not exactly totally bare. There is one thing … a sign saying “Only one way.” And it is a very restricted and narrow way.
It is not just a road of negatives although there are plenty of those. It is also a road of positives, how we should live, “So in everything, do to others what you would have them to do you” (Mt. 7:12). That is very wide “in everything” and very narrow “what you would have them do to you.”
IV. THE BROAD ROAD
We often suggest that a person is at the crossroads contemplating which gate to choose, which road to travel on. These verses indicate that people are just traveling on a broad road.
The reason hell is more heavily populated is that people are born onto this road.
QUESTION: How would you describe the travelers on the broad road? What makes the broad road so attractive?
Is the broad road marked “Heaven?” It is certainly not marked “Hell.” Satan doesn’t mark the broad road, “This is the way to hell.”
READING: The word “broad” means broad, spacious, roomy’ (AG), and some manuscripts combine these images and call this way ‘wide and easy,’. There is plenty of room on it for diversity of opinions and laxity of morals. It is the road of tolerance and permissiveness. It has no curbs, no boundaries or either thought or conduct. Travelers on this road follow their own inclinations, that is, the desires of the human heart in its fallenness. Superficiality, self-love, hypocrisy, mechanical religion, false ambition, censoriousness – these things do not have to be learnt or cultivated. Effort is needed to resist them. No effort is required to practice them. That is why the broad road is easy. (Stott, 194)
The broad road is easy because it is all down hill.
READING: Once you’ve come through the wide gate it is easy living. There is no precipice. There is plenty of room to stroll. There are no rules; no morality is particularly binding. There is room for diverse theology. There is tolerance of every conceivable sin, just as long as you “love” Jesus or are “religious.” There are no boundaries. All the desires of the fallen heart are fed on that road. There is no need for a Beatitude attitude or a study of the Word of God. There is no need for internal moral standards. You can live with a mechanical kind of religiosity that is no more than hypocrisy. The wide way doesn’t require you to have character; you can be like a dead fish floating downstream: you let the current do the work. Ephesians 2:2 calls that road “the course of this world ….” Proverbs 14:12 sums up the tragedy of the broad way: “There is a way which seems right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death.” The wide road has no standards except those made by men to fit into their comfortable system. But Psalm 1:6 warns, “… the way of the ungodly shall perish.” (Tony Capoccia, Bible Bulletin Board)
The broad road is spacious, lots of room for baggage but best of all you are “King of the Road.” You can sing, “I Did It My Way.” You can live life to the fullest. It is your life and you call the shots.
INVICTUS
William Ernest Henley. 1849–1903
Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the Pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.
In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.
Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds, and shall find, me unafraid.
It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.
“There is a way that seems right to a man, but in the end it leads to death” (Proverbs 14:12). The broad road certainly seems right to those who are on it.
You can hear Alan Bates recite this poem at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5pJcwnS1c0I
V. THE FEW ON THE NARROW ROAD
The parallel verses in Luke give the impression that only a few will be saved, travel on the narrow way.
Someone asked him, “Lord, are only a few people going to be saved?” He said to them, “Make every effort to enter through the narrow door, because many, I tell you, will try to enter and will not be able to. (Luke 13:23-24)
Thus the emphasis: “Make every effort, labor fervently, fight, agonize, force yourselves through the narrow door, because many, I tell you, will try (but will not agonize enough) to enter and will fail.”
READING: In Luke 12:32, Jesus looked at His disciples and said, “Fear not, little flock ….” The word “little” is the Greek word micron. We get the word micro from it, which means “something small.” The same word is used in Matthew 13:32 of the mustard seed, which is the smallest of all seeds. There has always been only a few people who seek the way to heaven with all their hearts. There are very few people who agonize over their inability to enter heaven, and are willing to count the cost of walking the narrow way. In fact, Jesus said in Matthew 22:14, “For many are called, but few are chosen.” (Tony Capoccia, Bible Bulletin Board)
Jesus always sought to sort out and narrow down the group that was following him: Large crowds were traveling with Jesus, and turning to them he said: “If anyone comes to me and does no hate his father and mother, his wife and children, his brothers and sisters – – yes, even his own life – he cannot be my disciple. And anyone who does not carry his cross and follow me cannot be my disciple.” (Luke 14:25-27)
VI. THE MANY ON THE BROAD ROAD
You are never alone on the broad road that leads to destruction. There are many on that road.
Most Americans believe in heaven and hell and 80% feel they will be in heaven. They are happy on the broad road and feel it is leading them to eternal life.
There will be many shocked people before the judgment throne of God.
The travelers on the broad road are from every religion, race, creed. The majority are good, kind, sincere people who don’t believe in war, cutting down trees, killing animals, hurting humans etc. Many, in fact most of them, are really good people, decent citizens, fine neighbors, generous and helpful. Of course many are licentious too, all are lovers of self and living for self. But as the norm is, most are not bad people.
VII. THE DESTINATION OF THE NARROW ROAD – LIFE
QUESTION: What descriptors does the Bible use to explain what heaven in like?
What is heaven like?
1. No tears, pain, sorrow, death (Rev. 12:14)
2. No sin (Rev. 21:8)
3. No night (Rev. 21:25)
4. No curse (Rev. 22:3)
5. With the Triune God for eternity (Rev. 21:3; 22-23; 22:4)
6. A glorious city (Rev. 21:11-24)
7. Glorious beyond our ability to comprehend (I Cor. 2:9)
A very small gate, a very narrow path but gigantic promises!!!
One person wrote that life is not more than a – between two eternities, e.g past-future. What are we doing while standing on the -???
VIII. THE DESTINATION OF BROAD ROAD – DESTRUCTION
Matthew 7 tells us that wrong choices deliver “destruction” (vs. 13), “fire” (vs. 20), “rejection” (vs. 23) and “futility” (vs. 27).
“Apoleia (destruction) does not refer to extinction or annihilation, but to total ruin and loss (cf. Matt. 3:12; 18:8; 25:41, 46; 2 Thess. 1:9; Jude 6-7). It is not the complete loss of being, but the complete loss of well-being.” (MacArthur, 457).
The theme of these two verses is similar to Psalm 1 where you have the comparison between the man who walks in God’s presence and the wicked. Here is what the Psalmist says about the wicked.
Not so the wicked! They are like chaff that the wind blows away. Therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the assembly of the righteous. For the LORD watches over the way of the righteous, but the way of the wicked will perish. (Psalm 1:4-6, NIV)
You’re not at all like the wicked, who are mere windblown dust—
Without defense in court, unfit company for innocent people. God charts the road you take. The road they take is Skid Row. (Psalm 1:4-6, The Message)
“But the terrible word ‘destruction’ (terrible because God is properly the Creator, not the Destroyer, and because man was created to live, not to die) seems at least to give us liberty to say that everything good will be destroyed in hell – – love and loveliness, beauty and truth, joy, peace and hope – – and that for ever. It is a prospect too awful to contemplate without tears. For the broad road is suicide road.” (Stott, 195).
What is hell like?
Unquenchable fire (Mark 9:43, Luke 16:24)
Memory and remorse (Luke 16:25; 27-28)
Unsatisfied thirst (Luke 16:24-25)
Frustration and anger (Luke 13:28; Mt. 24:41)
Unspeakable pain and misery (Lk. 16:24-26, Rev. 14:10-11)
Eternal separation (Rev. 21:8; 2 Thes. 1:9)
Undiluted wrath (Rev. 20:15)
What ever hell is like, if there is no literal burning fire, then it is worth than a literal burning fire. There is no torture in hell but the torment is eternal.
CONCLUSION:
Our Lord knew that people would praise this Sermon but not act on what it taught and thus at the end of the sermon he challenges people to enter the narrow gate!
We are not to admire the gate. We are to enter the gate. The narrow gate is nothing more than obedience and this is also the mark of those on the narrow way – obedience.
Hell will be filled with people who have admired the Sermon on the Mount but did not search for and squeeze through the narrow gate.
SO WHAT???
1. The road we are to follow on our path to heaven is a narrow, restricted road based on the special revelation God has given us in His Word.
2. The broad road is easy, attractive and permits me to be the king of the road, the Master of my fate, the Captain of my soul!
3. Those who find the narrow gate and enter it are few in comparison to those traveling on the broad, wide road. There will be millions in heaven but still not a large percentage of the world population.
4. The decision our Lord sets before us are clear and precise concerning the gate to enter, the road to travel, traveling companions and destination. The choices are plain and clear.