-- Sunday, 8/7/11 -- THE NARROW GATE - Matthew 7:13-14

[J.R. & Bonnie Ricks]

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THE NARROW GATE – Matthew 7:13-14  

 

“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.”

 

Many people mistakenly take these verses to mean that it’s difficult to become a Christian.  In fact, many people believe that it HAS TO be difficult.  Otherwise, it’s not real.  After all, our world says, “Anything worth having is worth working for” and “There’s no such thing as a free lunch.”  In other words, in their minds, salvation is only worth having if we have to work for it.  And when someone tries to explain that salvation is only real if it is free, they accuse Christians of “taking the easy way out”, even ridiculing the idea that the only thing we have to do to obtain salvation is to accept it.

 

That very attitude is what makes the gate to salvation so narrow… because people don’t believe (1) that faith in Jesus is the only way, and (2) that anything can be that easy.

 

In John 14:6, Jesus says, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”  That’s it.  There is only ONE way to achieve Heaven – through faith in Jesus, period.  He is the only one who paid for our sins in full.  He is the only one qualified to pay for all sin.  Why?  Because He is the only one who is perfect… perfect in His fulfillment of prophecy, perfect in His sinlessness, perfect in His status as God the Son… the only one able to be the perfect Lamb of God.  And because there is only one way to Heaven, that makes the “gate” very, very narrow.

 

On the other hand, “wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it.”  The road to destruction – the road to Hell – is full of those who refuse to believe that there is only one way to Heaven… full of those who give lip service to there being only one way, but who try to achieve Heaven through their own “good works”… full of those who insist that something as important as eternity could not possibly have only one way, convinced that there are many roads to God.

 

The difference in the size of the two gates is confirmed by the fact that the Bible gives us dimensions for Heaven (the New Jerusalem - Revelation 21:16-17), but there are no measurements for the size of hell – most likely because it is so full of so many who reject Jesus’ narrow gate.   

 

Remember, God is not trying to win a popularity contest.  He doesn’t care how “unfair” we might think His chosen means to Heaven is.  The truth is, not one of us is capable of being perfect enough to stand in God’s presence without the covering of Jesus blood. Our “good works” are nothing more than “filthy rags” to God when they’re done without Jesus (Isaiah 64:6).  He gave Moses the Law to illustrate how impossible it is for anyone to achieve perfection, and then He gave the world Jesus, to make it possible for anyone who will believe to spend eternity with Him.

 

If you haven’t turned to Jesus and accepted His free gift of eternal life, don’t you think it’s time to do so?  Remember, with God, there is only one way… and you’ll find Jesus waiting at that narrow gate with His arms open wide and saying, “I love you this much.”

 

 

All Bible quotes contained in these devotionals are from the New International Version 1984 (NIV1984), unless otherwise specified.

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