The Narrow Gate

Call to Worship: Psalm 30:4-5 // Prayer

Adoration: We give praise to you, our God. Your anger is short, but your mercy and favor last our whole lives. And so, because we belong to you, we know that our weeping may last for the night; yet, a morning is coming in which all will be changed to joy. In this we see and praise your wisdom and delight in your goodness.

Confession: Yet we are so spiritually dull—so often we miss how your good law reveals your beauty. In our hearts we find your law to be a drudgery, because our sin has clouded our spiritual vision. And so we break your law, and sin against you. Father, forgive us.

Thanksgiving: But you have opened our eyes to see this: your grace and mercy shown to us in Christ. You have opened our eyes to see the glory of your love in Christ, and by his death you have removed our guilt and judgement forever, and replaced it with an inheritance so glorious it is difficult to wrap our minds around it!

Supp: And now, having received a salvation so great, Father, we beg you for help in passing it on to the next generation: we ask that you would equip each father and mother to raise up their children in your law and your gospel; that as they walk among us, they would hear and see the faith of the saints; and that you yourself would give them eyes to see and ears to hear, that they might fly to you for salvation—that our biological sons and daughters would become our spiritual sisters and brothers, giving glory to your worthy name // and we ask this not only for us, but also for the saints of Hinson Baptist: may their hearts overflow with the joy of their salvation, and may that joy be undeniable in the eyes of their children, so that they too chose the eternal joys of Christ above the fleeting pleasures of the world // and may you give our children eyes to see the cheapness of the false hope preached in this age, the false gospel of sexual expression and gender identity; may they see it for what it is, and please, in your grace, equip them with boldness and compassion to bring the gospel to those trapped in that lie // and we beg you for your people in Burma: that you would protect them from the violence that shakes their country, and cause them to shine all the more brightly with the gospel of your love, that through their witness many might turn to you and be saved // And now, as we turn to your Word, please help us to see by it’s light that glorious narrow gate from the teachings of your Son, and to give you the glory…

Family Matters

Next adult SS class series: discipling others!

The breakfast in honor of the sisters in this congregation will be on the Sunday of May 5 (two Sundays from now), and will be prepared by the men. Then on June 9, we’ll have the breakfast in honor of the brothers, prepared by the ladies.

Benediction

Philippians 4:23 ESV

The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit.

Sermon

Read: Matthew 7:13-23

Intro: The Need to Respond + Help Others Respond

So now, we’ve got the Sermon on the Mount. We’ve received Jesus’ teachings, and we’ve even heard how to live out his teachings—with hearts of faith, humility, and love. But what’s the end game here? What’s the ultimate point?

Well, as Jesus brings the sermon to a close (we’ve only got one section left after this) he gives us a command: “Enter by the narrow gate.” And as we’ll see, this is the most important command you could ever follow. “Enter by the narrow gate.” It’s what makes anyone a true Christian. It’s critical for your eternal destiny: you must enter the narrow gate! And so if you are not a believer, or if you’re not sure if you’re a true believer, this command is absolutely critical for you!

But if you already know that you are a believer—you’ve already entered through that narrow gate—this is not a sermon to sleep through. Why? Well if you’ve ever been on an airline flight, you know that part of the safety schpeel where they say, “In the event that oxygen masks drop from the ceiling, make sure that you place your own mask over your mouth and nose and secure it before turning to help the person next to you.” And usually, the picture is of a mother first securing her own mask and then helping her children—and they’re always so calm while they do it, right? That’s realistic. OK. But the point is, the video assumes that the adult will help the child put on the mask and therefore live through the crash-landing.

It is the same for you, brothers and sisters—you have received life/entered through the narrow gate, and your very next action should be to turn and do everything in your power to help others find the narrow gate and enter. But unlike in the airline safety video—where everything is pictured as calm and ordinary and clear—the enemy is always doing his best to hide the narrow gate from those need it. And that means that you need to have an in-depth understanding of what the narrow gate is and how the enemy tries to misdirect people, so that you can be instruments in God’s hands to help people find it.

And this isn’t optional—if you’re a believer, you have a mission to make disciples among the nations. Your King has summoned you on this mission, and so you need to grasp these things so that you can be effective. You need to understand the narrow gate.

And so then, whether you are unsure of your salvation, or whether you are saved, what Jesus is about to teach us is critical: that we must reject false prophets and enter the narrow gate.

The Urgency of the Narrow Gate

[The popularity and danger of the wide gate] Now, entering through the narrow gate is not only important, it is also urgent. Why? Listen to what Jesus says in vs. 13:

Matthew 7:13 ESV

“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.

So there’s this spiritual choice between a narrow gate and a wide gate. And what’s the popular choice? Not the narrow gate—the gate of salvation—but the wide one. The wide gate is the default choice of every man and woman.

Another way to say that is that all of our hearts are corrupt—the whole human race is corrupted. And the choice between the wide gate and the narrow gate is a spiritual choice: the wide gate is the choice to live as I want to live; to play god over my own life. And because our hearts are corrupt by nature, we naturally chose that wide gate, and walk on that wide path.

And it is an easy path to walk. But Jesus explains, it also leads to destruction. And so he summons us to find and enter the narrow gate instead—the gate which leads to life.

OK then. So what is the narrow gate? If it is so critical to find the narrow gate—or to help someone else find it—we need to know what it is!

Do you remember how Matthew summarized Jesus’ whole message?

Matthew 4:17 ESV

From that time Jesus began to preach, saying, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.”

How does a sinner become a citizen of the kingdom?

By repenting.

And Jesus gives us more detail on that in the beatitudes, the opening of this very sermon:

Matthew 5:3–4 ESV

“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. “Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.

This is Jesus’ description of repentance. What’s he saying? If you become poor in spirit—that is, if you humble yourself before God and confess your sin, turning to him for mercy and forgiveness—you have become a citizen of heaven

Or in the second verse there, if you mourn over how you have sinned against God, and confess your sin to him, you will then receive divine comfort, that all your sins have been forgiven

We could sum that up by saying this: to enter the narrow gate is to turn from sin to Jesus, and to trust in him for forgiveness of sins

And we heard from Jesus that the wide path leads to destruction—that is, to eternal condemnation. But the sinner who turns to Christ for salvation is then forgiven for all sin—past, present, and future—and set on the road that leads to glories of eternal life in the kingdom.

But why if this gate and this path lead to life, then why are they called narrow? And why do so few enter them?

One answer is pride: no one wants to say: “God, I have sinned against you. I deserve destruction. Have mercy on me, the sinner.” But that is the only way to enter—with that kind of poverty of spirit, that kind of mourning over your sins. Only folks whose hearts become humble in that way actually enter into the kingdom and gain life.

You could say that their pride is large, and won’t fit through the narrow gate. And they are unwilling to leave it behind.

But another reason it’s narrow is because false teachers of various kinds are always working to obscure it, hide it, or make it seem wrong to the world. And that’s the reason Jesus is about to explain to us in detail: the false prophets who lead away from the narrow gate, and how to spot them.

And to see what Jesus is teaching, we need to notice a pattern that he’s set up here—a three step pattern:

And we’ve already seen the first part of this pattern. It goes: (1) gate, (2) path, (3) destination

So the most fundamental thing about you is which gate you’ve walked through—that determines the path you’re on and the destination you’ll eventually reach. So if you’ve walked through the wide gate—which is the default for every person—then you’re walking on the wide path. And your destination is destruction. But if you’ve entered through the narrow gate, that means that you’re now walking on the narrow path, and your destination is life. So it’s entering the gate that determines the rest of it.

And this is crucial to understand. Because it is very easy to make a mistake here: “Oh, I see that I might be walking on the wide road of sin. So I’m going to try to improve myself, so that I’ll be walking on the narrow road of holiness.” It doesn’t work that way. There is only one way to access the narrow road that leads to life: turning from Sin to Christ. No amount of self-improvement or moral behavior can get you into God’s kingdom. Only poverty of spirit—confessing your sin and turning from sin to Christ—can save you.

So again, the pattern is gate-path-destination. And we’re going to see this pattern repeated in the rest of the passage, and that will help us see what Jesus is teaching.

False Prophets: Those Who Lead to the Wide Gate

***But so this is the great tragedy and danger of false teaching: it leads people away from that narrow gate, so that they never enter into life***

[They are hidden] And so, it seems, being able to spot a false teacher is nearly as important as knowing the gate that leads to life, and knowing how to direct others toward it

But there’s one small problem. False teachers don’t show up with a name tag that says, “Hi, my name is Mr. Wolf, and I was hoping that you’d listen to my message so that I can shipwreck your faith.” Right? They never show up like that.

In fact, it’s quite the opposite:

Matthew 7:15 ESV

“Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves.

So, they are extremely dangerous—they are actually ravenous wolves whose work is to shipwreck the faith of believers and to prevent unbelievers from even finding the narrow gate in the first place.

And yet, they pose as sheep. D. A. Carson explains:

The Expositor’s Bible Commentary, Volume 8: Matthew, Mark, Luke b. Two Trees (7:15–20)

At first glance they use orthodox language, show biblical piety, and are indistinguishable from true prophets

So it’s not just that they try to hide, but that so often they are very good at it. They aren’t just deceptive about the gospel. They’re also deceptive about their own identities, and often quite clever at covering up their true nature.

So, going up against them is much less like a game, and much more like life-and-death combat with a clever and deceptive enemy.

[They can be know… but how?] But: Jesus goes on to teach that they can be recognized and thus defeated. It’s their camouflage that makes them dangerous—when exposed, they lose a great deal of their power.

**When I was on the flight from Uganda to Dubai, I spoke to a lady from Uganda and she told me the prosperity gospel. I summoned up my courage and told her it is a false gospel. She was totally, genuinely surprised… she did not know that there was any version of Christianity aside from that false gospel, or that any Christians believed anything else. Then, on the ground in Dubai, I talked to a taxi cab driver from Uganda, and it was the same experience. The prosperity gospel is totally dominant in Uganda. And most Ugandans, it seems to me, have never even heard that false teaching challenged. So, I suspect that the prosperity gospel's power in Uganda simply because so view voices have exposed it. But when false teaching is called out and exposed, it loses a great deal of its power!

And again, the first step is knowing how to spot a false teacher. So then, how can they be recognized?

Jesus’ basic answer: by their fruit:

Matthew 7:16–18 ESV

You will recognize them by their fruits. Are grapes gathered from thornbushes, or figs from thistles? So, every healthy tree bears good fruit, but the diseased tree bears bad fruit. A healthy tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a diseased tree bear good fruit.

What is Jesus saying? You can tell what kind of tree you have by the fruit that grows on it.

Go to the berry fields next door this summer: you will not find apples hanging from the blueberry bushes, or figs on the marianberry canes! But… if you go over their right now, it might be a bit difficult to tell which patches are raspberries, which are black raspberries, and which are marianberries. Now, I’m sure the expert farmer can tell by looking closely at the plant. But the easy way to know? Just wait till the fruit comes out. Then it will be plain.

But of course, that’s a metaphor. What kind of “fruit” are we looking for from false teachers? The general teaching of Scripture on this can be summed up under two headings: Words, and Works. False words and rotten works.

What do false words sound like? Well, their are so many false gospels out there it wouldn’t work to try and list them all this morning.

Dr. Walter Martin had an illustration he liked to use back in the day: how did experts used to learn to detect counterfeit dollar bills? Fake money posing as the real thing? They spend so much time staring at the real thing, that when a fraud came across their desks, they could easily spot it.

So, how can we learn to spot false teaching? By being soaked in the gospel as taught in the word of God: that way, whenever someone tries to pay us off with a counterfeit gospel, we immediately spot the fraud.

A good, basic place to start is the Apostle’s Creed and the Nicene Creed: these are excellent summaries of the basics of the faith. If someone denies what they teach about God and Christ, there’s a rat in the house. And then, over time, as you grow in love and appreciation for the gospel, you become better and better at spotting the fraud, and even at defending others against it.

But someone might say, “reading, thinking, discernment… those aren’t my gifts… so I don’t think I’m supposed to serve others in this way”—that thought is partially wrong but partially right:

Every believer is summoned to grow in the knowledge of God… no exceptions! Just like introverts don’t get a pass on the great commission, so also no one gets a pass on growing in the knowledge of God.

And yet, the knowledge of God is as much about worshiping and adoring of our savior as it is about knowing facts about him. So as you grow in your love for Christ, naturally, you grow in the ability to spot a false Christ.

And you’re part of a community. So you don’t need to know how to explain what’s wrong with a false gospel… you just need to know how to smell it. Then go grab someone else from the congregation who is gifted in thinking and communicating these things, and face the enemy together.

But I do want to warn you about a couple of prominent false prophets from our own day:

First, their are literal false prophets: they claim to speak for God, but their prophecies regularly fail. Have nothing to do with them, but expose them as false. Moses wrote:

Deuteronomy 18:22 ESV

when a prophet speaks in the name of the Lord, if the word does not come to pass or come true, that is a word that the Lord has not spoken; the prophet has spoken it presumptuously. You need not be afraid of him.

Or, their signs and wonders are real or seem real—but their words are not from God. Moses also wrote:

Deuteronomy 13:1–3 ESV

“If a prophet or a dreamer of dreams arises among you and gives you a sign or a wonder, and the sign or wonder that he tells you comes to pass, and if he says, ‘Let us go after other gods,’ which you have not known, ‘and let us serve them,’ you shall not listen to the words of that prophet or that dreamer of dreams. For the Lord your God is testing you, to know whether you love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul.

Second, there are the false prophets of our culture, who come in so many strains: prophets of sexual/gender liberation—you know their false gospel; prophets of materialism and worldly satisfaction; prophets of the so-called “red-pill” community, or of other power-centric ways of seeing the world… and I’m sure that you could name many more.

And third, their are teachers within the church who twist theology in dangerous ways. They might teach “cheap grace”—that you can be a friend of Jesus and a friends with your own sin at the same time:

Jude 4 ESV

For certain people have crept in unnoticed who long ago were designated for this condemnation, ungodly people, who pervert the grace of our God into sensuality and deny our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ.

Or they might teach legalism—the idea that we are not free in Christ, but still under the frown of God so that we must perform a certain level of holiness in order to have access to him. Paul describes these false teachers:

Galatians 2:4 ESV

Yet because of false brothers secretly brought in—who slipped in to spy out our freedom that we have in Christ Jesus, so that they might bring us into slavery—

If they can make you forget your freedom in Christ, they can control you for your own gain. But brothers and sisters who know that Christ has set them free can only be controlled by God’s Spirit and God’s Word.

Or, they might promise you something that God hasn’t promised. There were prophets who, right after Jerusalem was exiled into Babylon, started telling those exiles that they would return within a few years. But God had promised them a 70 year exile. Those were false prophets! So also we live in exile in this world, with the promise of a future New Creation… yet there are teachers who say to us that we can have our best lives now—a false gospel!

So the bottom line is, you will come to see who they really are as they begin to try to tear people away from the true Christ and his gospel.

So it’s false words. But, it’s also rotten works. Works that hang on that teacher’s life like pieces of rotten fruit. Sometimes it’s so bad you can see it from a distance. But often, it’s not obvious until you get closer in. Or, when you find that the fruit is rotten, you come to see it’s been rotten for a long time. So what does it look like? Unrepentant sin.

Maybe these teachers exploit their followers

Maybe they seem to teach an orthodox gospel… but then justify gross immorality, which essentially denies their followers a chance to repent and enter the narrow gate.

The Expositor’s Bible Commentary, Volume 8: Matthew, Mark, Luke b. Two Trees (7:15–20)

makes the test certain, but not necessarily easy or quick

Or in some cases, you can’t even find an ounce of false teaching in their words… but later it comes out that the whole time they’ve been teaching, they’ve also been living in deliberate, planned-out sin—destroying the lives of the sheep behind closed doors. That’s a wolf, no matter how good his preaching sounded!

[Discerning vs. charitable] Now, a practical problem comes up for us here.

The internet is full of people slinging accusations back and forth. One group may seem to accuse nearly everyone of false teaching. And another group spends a lot of time accusing that first group of being unloving. So how exactly do we apply Jesus’ instructions on false teachers, in our own day?

Some folks take the posture: “It’s a dark day full of false teaching. It’s not a time to be careful or nuanced. It’s a time to stand up boldly and denounce false gospels wherever we see them.” One Christian leader, from this camp, said something along the lines of, “Bold men write history. Careful men write the history books after them.” Hmm. Is that quite right? Was Jesus opposed to being careful?

Other folks take the stance: “Love is a central virtue of the Christian life. Therefore, we must not accuse anyone of false teaching until the false teaching has been clearly demonstrated—we must be careful.” And that sound good, doesn’t it? Here’s the problem: false teachers aren’t honest and they don’t play fair. They wear sheep’s clothing, and they’d like to devour as many sheep as they can before they are outed. So as a shepherd, I can’t take the posture of “not accusing a wolf until he calmly removes his sheep’s skin cloak and straightforwardly tells the world what he is.” Their will be many bleeding sheep by that point.

But—false accusations of “wolf” cause their own version of carnage.

So what do we do? The answer is wisdom. Not trigger-happy accusations, not naive goodwill, but wisdom. Is the issue really a gospel issue? Is he shaking the foundations of faith, or is it a secondary matter? Does he have a pattern of pushing for compromise? Or a track record of faithfulness? And how does he respond to godly calls for repentance? Does he revere the word of God, or prefer human ideas? Wisdom, caution, and a deep knowledge of the gospel will go a long way toward accurate wolf-spotting.

And just to land the plane here: wolf-spotting is not a sport. Look at the pattern here: just as in the previous paragraph, there’s a gate, a path, and a destination.

The gate is the heart reality—the teacher may dress like a sheep, but he’s a wolf. He has a wolf’s heart.

And this leads him to a path—a way of acting: false words and rotten fruit.

And this brings him to a destination—Jesus says in verse 19, about false teachers:

Matthew 7:19 ESV

Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.

False Followers: Walking the Wide Way

**Why is this their destination? Because God is good. He does not let wolves go unpunished.**

**But the dark destination of false teachers is important for another reason: it is also the destination of those who fail to escape their false teachings. It is the destination of teacher and follower alike. And this can be seen in the fact that the third paragraph of our passage today again shows that pattern of gate/path/and destination**

[False holiness] Look at vs. 21:

Matthew 7:21 ESV

“Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven.

So who’s this about? Not false teachers anymore, but anyone—everyone whose life fits the pattern described here.

And what’s the pattern?

Matthew 7:22–23 ESV

On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?’ And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.’

Let me translate that for a modern Evangelical audience: “On that day, many will say to me, “Didn’t we make a decision for you, Christ? And then didn’t we hang out and do churchly things? Go on missions trips? Tithe money? Hold the right views on doctrine and cultural issues?” And then I will declare to them, “I never knew you; depart from me, you who never repented from lawlessness.”

Notice that these folks in vs. 22 are surprised to be rejected by Christ. They had a very sincere belief in Christ, of sorts… but in Jesus’ words, they never entered by that narrow gate of repentance and faith—of turning from dead idols and passion of the flesh to the Messiah who saves.

And so they are sincerely, but only externally religious. They do many things for God, but their hearts are lawless. Ultimately they embraced the false teaching that you can turn to Christ but remain master over your own life—that you can belong to Christ but also to the desires of the flesh.

So, in spite of the religious facade, these folks actually chose the wide gate, and are walking on the wide path that leads to the ultimate destination of the Lord saying to you: “Depart from me, I never knew you.”

Examples

And I know that many of you know folks like this—folks that will claim up and down to be real Christians… yet their lives are defined by their own desires rather than by a thirst for Christ and a love for him.

They have believed a false gospel: that you can turn to Christ without turning from sin.

What is it that such a person needs? A self-deceived false Christian? You. You as an instrument in God’s hands. You to gently but firmly speak the true gospel into their lives: The gospel, as Jesus gave it in Luke 24:47, of, “repentance for the forgiveness of sins in the name of Christ,” which he commanded for us to take to all nations, beginning in Jerusalem

The gospel of poverty of spirit and of mourning over sin—of humility before God—the narrow gate which leads to true life and divine forgiveness.

Conclusion: The Need to Turn

And so, as Jesus begins to close his sermon, he urges us to turn from sin and false teaching to the Son of God who has opened the narrow gate by his blood, that we might enter by that narrow gate. But then, also, for those who have already entered the narrow gate, he gives us the urgency of pointing out the narrow gate to others. And that requires you to understand the narrow gate well enough yourself to be able to direct others toward it

And I want to close with this: if you are not sure whether or not you’ve entered that narrow gate—if you’ve claimed the name of Christ, but that didn’t include true repentance, and a real rest in his grace of total forgiveness—or even if you’re just not sure about it—then please don’t leave that sitting. Nothing is more crucial in this life than knowing that you really have entered by the narrow gate. I am available after the service, as are others in this congregation, to help you walk through that question—either to help you affirm true faith… OR, to help you see what it means to turn from sin to Christ in your own heart, entering the narrow gate and finding the glorious life of God.