Hanningfield Green
Lawshall
Bury St Edmunds
Suffolk
IP29 4QD
Matthew Ch7: V’s13 - 29
When we come to Matthew Chapter 7: verses 13 & 14 we are coming to the end of the Sermon on the Mount, which began in Chapter 5, and it is coming to a climax in these two verses; “Enter by the narrow gate, for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and there are many who go in by it. Because narrow is the gate and difficult is the way which leads to life, and there are few who find it.” This is what is known as a gospel application as there are two gates, two ways, two destinations and two groups of people and the remainder of the chapter is simply an expansion of these two verses.
Jesus has been looking at the full meaning of the law which showed that its demands where humanly impossible. He was showing them that every avenue of human merit was closed off and leaves us solely dependent on nothing but divine grace for our salvation. And He concludes at the end of this sermon with a clear calling by drawing a line between the way that leads to destruction and the way that leads to life.
From the time we were old enough to make any decision, life has become a matter of constant decision-making. Every single day of our lives we make decisions, about what time we get up, what we will wear, what we will eat, where we will go, how we will get there and what we will do when we arrive. And these are only the easy decisions that we have to make! If anything, life has been taken up with having to make decisions and depending on what choices we make along the way will determine our outcomes whether they are good or bad! So, one can say that having choices is good for us as it promotes independence but on the other hand making the wrong choice leads to serious consequences. I’m sure that each one of us have looked back at some point or another and said if only I had done that and made that different choice.
And this is exactly the point that Jesus is clearly stating to us, and He does it so that we seriously consider the choice that He is referring to, as this is the ultimate choice. In fact, this is our final choice; a choice that not only determines time, but a choice that determines eternity. Jesus brings the whole thing to a climax by offering a choice. Two gates which brings the individual onto two roads, which lead to two destinations which are populated by two different crowds. He is bringing us to the ultimate decision as in life there is always options to choose from, but this crucial and final eternal choice is the choice that God is speaking of and is indeed warning us of.
Throughout the bible God has been concerned about the choices that people have to make and time and again He has given them a choice and warned them to consider their decision. For example, God confronted the children of Israel through Moses in Deuteronomy Ch30:15-20. God gave to the people of Israel the ultimate choice, life or death, good or evil, and called for a decision. Joshua, who was called to follow Moses as the leader of the people of Israel reminded them in Ch:24 of all that God had done for them to bring them into the Promised Land and then he challenged them in verses 14 & 15. “Now therefore fear the Lord, serve Him in sincerity and in truth, and put away the gods which your fathers served on the other side of the River and in Egypt. Serve the Lord! And if it seems evil to you to serve the Lord, choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods which your fathers served on the other side of the River, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you dwell. But as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.”
Elijah on Mount Carmel called for a decision in 1 Kings, Ch18:21, when he said: “How long will you falter between two opinions? If the Lord is God follow Him: but if Baal, follow him.” In John, Chapter 6, we read that many followed Jesus, many called themselves disciples, but in verses 66 - 69, it says; “From that time many of His disciples went back and walked with Him no more.” So even through Jesus’s ministry some chose to walk away, and some chose to stay!
Through the Sermon on the Mount Jesus has clearly defined the principles and standards of living in His kingdom and they are not easy. And now He gives us the choice to either enter it or stay out of it, that’s the choice He wants every man to consider but even more than this as He demands a response. And here Jesus comes to the heart of every man’s destiny. Choose life in Me or choose death through Satan, is what Jesus is essentially saying in Matthew 7:13-14.
This is the climax to which He has been moving towards throughout this entire sermon, to bring this crowd of people and surely us to the point where we respond.
And the choice is utterly clear-cut; there are only two choices, the narrow gate, and the narrow way, or the wide gate, and the wide way, that’s it. There are no other alternatives.
All the way through the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus is contrasting true religion by His standards, and false religion by the Pharisee’s standards. The contrast is between divine righteousness and what that demands, in contrast to human righteousness and what that demands.
Both roads are marked this is the way to heaven, simply because Satan doesn’t mark roads this is the way to hell as that’s not very deceiving and there-fore against his nature. But he does mark his road as the easier way!
Tragically, most of humanity is on the road of human achievement, believing they can reach the highest plain of potential destiny because of their capability, through their own good works and good deeds. That’s the contrast. Jesus is saying, “Look, there are two roads marked ‘to heaven.’ One is the narrow, compressed road of divine righteousness. The other is the broad road of human righteousness.
And the whole purpose of the Sermon is to bring them to where He began the sermon. “Blessed are the poor in spirit, blessed are they that mourn, blessed are the meek, blessed are those who hunger and thirst after righteousness.” In other words, He starts out where He wants to end up, with people who are broken in spirit, mourning over their total sinfulness, meek in the face of God and his law, and hungering and thirsting for what they know they don’t have but desperately need, the righteousness of God.
The Pharisee in Luke 18:11 prays, “God, I thank you that I am not like other men,” and he continues by stating all that he does or doesn’t do, and all through that prayer he never expresses one need to God, simply because he never thought he had a need because of his self-righteousness. Yet in the corner is the man pounding on his breast, saying, “God, be merciful to me, a sinner.” Jesus said, “That man went home justified, not the other one.” Jesus wants to bring mankind to a point where he realises his utter inability to please God in his own flesh. And in desperation with a broken spirit, meek and mourning, he cries out for righteousness from God.
The Jews, of course, thought they were righteous. They thought they were on their way to heaven, but Jesus forces them to rethink, and to make a decision based on their choice, and it’s the same choice that every one of us has to make.
Now, as we come to verses 13 -14, the choice is made clearer and the remainder of the chapter just stretches this thought out and illustrates it. There are two gates: the wide and the narrow. There are two ways; the broad and the narrow. There are two destinations; life and destruction. There are two kinds of travellers; the few and the many. There are two kinds of trees; the good and the corrupt. There are two kinds of fruit; the good and the bad. There are two builders; the wise and the foolish. There are two foundations; the rock and the sand. There are two houses, and there are two elements to the storm that He discusses. In other words, a clear-cut decision is what Jesus is asking for at the climax of this sermon. What He wants is action, response, and He forces us to a decision.
We can see many contrasts in these verses, and the First one is two gates. “Enter in at the narrow gate, for wide is the gate.” Then verse 14, “because narrow is the gate.” Twice Jesus mentions the narrow gate, but only once does He mention the wide gate. Two gates and both roads seem to point to salvation. Both roads point to God. Both roads point to glory. Both roads point to blessing. Both roads point to heaven. But both roads however do not lead you there. But, before you get on either road, you have to choose which gate that you are going to go through.
So, the narrow gate comes first in verse 13 and Secondly, it states that you must enter. There’s a sense of urgency here that demands a point of action. Jesus had been teaching them through the Sermon on the Mount a very narrow way of life as their way had all kinds of tolerance for sin. They had all kinds of laws beyond the law of God, and standards beyond the standards of God. They had in fact invented a system that was manmade and was far-reaching. And Jesus said, You’ve got to get rid of this and you have got to get rid of that and He narrowed it and narrowed it down, until by the time He came to Chapter 7:12, He had presented to them a very refined and confined approach to living to the glory of God.
Jesus says you must enter this narrow way on my terms if you are going to be in My kingdom. He is demanding immediate action. It is not enough to listen to preaching about the gate, it is not enough to admire the ethics, you’ve got to enter it. You cannot enter the kingdom He says, unless you come on these terms. Yes, He says there is a wide gate, but He doesn’t tell you to enter that one, because it leads to destruction. You can’t stand outside the narrow gate and admire it, you’ve got to go through as it is the only way to salvation.
Thirdly, you must enter alone. If you study the term “narrow,” you get the idea that it’s a very narrow gate. In fact, many commentators say that the best expression of this in a contemporary way would be a turnstile.
The Jews believed they we’re in the kingdom together, as they all came through together, based on their Abrahamic heritage, based on Jewish ancestry, based on circumcision. And equally even today there are people who think that they are on the right road to heaven. It isn’t enough to say, I was born in a Christian family, and I’ve been in the church all my life or I’m okay as I go to church every week. Salvation is individual, it is exclusive and intensely personal. It admits only one at a time.
Fourthly you must enter with great difficulty. Surely, we hear all the time that getting saved is easy. All you have to do is just believe.
The only thing is that it isn’t as easy as that. Because they must come through the narrow gate. It is very difficult to be saved because Jesus tells us at the end of verse 14, regarding the narrow gate, and regarding the narrow way, “Because narrow is the gate and difficult is the way which leads to life, and there are few who find it.” Not only is it narrow. Not only is it difficult. But the first implication surely, is that you’re not even going to know it’s there unless you’re looking for it! The Old Testament prophet Jeremiah said, “You will seek Me and find Me when you search for Me with all your heart.”
It became apparent to the disciples that not everybody was responding as they thought they should to Jesus’s ministry, (doesn’t that sound familiar), for they say in Luke 13:22, “Lord, are there few who are saved?” And Jesus answers their question, but He also gave them the answer to their next question if they had asked it. The first questions answer was yes there are few, their next question would have been why? To which the answer would be, “Because you must strive to enter in at the narrow gate.” And the word strive is to pursue passionately as there are many – as opposed to the few – who will seek to enter but won’t be able to enter.
It’s difficult to get saved, Jesus says, because you have to be seeking, and there are many who may be seeking, but when they come to the door and find out what it costs to enter, they are not willing to do that.
Fifthly, you must enter with nothing. You can’t get through this turnstile with any luggage. It is the narrow gate where you strip off all of self, or you cannot get through it.
Do you remember the rich young ruler in Luke 18, who came to the gate searching. And finding Jesus, he said, “What shall I do to inherit eternal life?” And Jesus quotes commandments from the Old Testament, to which the rich ruler replies, “All these things I have kept from my youth.” So Jesus goes straight to the heart of the problem, and said, “Go take everything you have, sell it, and give it to the poor.” He was trying to get through the gate with the baggage of his self-righteousness in one hand and all his money in the other, and he couldn’t get through, and the Bible says, “He went away sorrowing.” He had sought, but he wasn’t willing to be selfless. He wasn’t agonizing over his sin, and he wasn’t willing to be stripped of everything that is necessary to enter through the narrow gate.
The Sixth point is you must enter remorsefully. You must come through with a heart that is repentant over sin, turning from sin to serve the living God. Charles Haddon Spurgeon said, “You and your sins must separate, or you and your God will never come together. No one sin he said may you keep.” We must turn from sin to God, there must be repentance.
And Finally, you must enter with utter surrender to Christ. Salvation is not an addition to your life but a transformation of your life. Salvation is marked by a changed life.
Two gates, two gates lead to two ways. What are the two ways? There is the broad way, verse 13, and there is the hard way, verse 14. That’s exactly what it says in Psalm 1: 1 - 3, “the way of the godly,” verses 4 and 5, “the way of the ungodly,” and the result in verse 6, “For the Lord knows the way of the righteous, But the way of the ungodly shall perish.” Surely, we don’t need to say much about the broad way; it’s obvious by contrast. The wide gate will allow everybody to enter together. You can bring all your baggage, all your sin, and your lack of commitment to Christ to the gate of self-indulgence and Satan will usher you in.
Once you come in the wide gate, it’s easy living and all the desires of the fallen heart are fed on that road, and it is called, in Ephesians 2:2, “the course of this world,” but the utter tragedy of it all is revealed in Proverbs 14: 12-16, “There is a way that seems right to a man, but it ends in death.” Because it’s the broad way.
But entry is through a narrow door that leads to a very narrow way. The requirements are great, and strict, and refined, and clear-cut, as it must be the desire of our heart to fulfill those, knowing full well that when we fail, God will chasten, and then God will wonderfully and lovingly forgive, and set us on our feet again, because Christ Himself has borne our sins.
Now, when you make your choice, remember there are two destinations and Matthew: 7 states that there is the broad way that leads to destruction, and there is the narrow way which leads to life. There’s the way of life and the way of death, as scripture has declared through Jeremiah, Joshua, Elijah, Moses and Psalms. And Psalm 1 states that “The godly enter into blessing, whilst the ungodly perish.”
There’s the way of life and the way of death. And as John Bunyan said, “The entrance of hell is from the portals of heaven.”
What a shock it’s going to be for many as they have made the wrong choice or perhaps not having made a choice at all, because by making no choice they unfortunately have made the wrong choice, as they haven’t put their trust and faith in Jesus as their Saviour.
What a shock it’s going to be for them as the broad way narrows down into a terrible pit. While the narrow way on the other hand is going to open up into the fullness of an unspeakable, everlasting loving fellowship of joy and bliss with God that we can’t even imagine.
Yes, the way is narrow, but I’m happy to announce that it is wide enough to take in the chief of sinners. But first you have to choose the gate, then you have to enter the narrow gate alone, with difficulty, with nothing but a repentant heart which is in utter surrender to Jesus Christ.
You cannot escape this eternal choice. But the choice is yours, so please consider the destination because you’re going to spend forever there.
