*choices, Choices, Choices!*
#19 Sermon on the Mount 11/18/90
Text: Matt. 7:13-14 E.B.C.
CHOICES, CHOICES, CHOICES!
INTRODUCTION
A. One of our most pleasant pastimes, as North Americans, is to make choices. We love to go to the ice cream shop and choose between 39 different flavors of ice cream. Our entire retail industry is based upon the premise that people want selection, they want to choose.
B. Remember that T.V. commercial about the mechanic holding up the ruined fuel pump and saying, "You can pay me now, or you can pay me later. The choice is your's." English poet John Oxenham once wrote a poem about the ultimate choices which man faces.
To every man there openeth
A Way, and Ways, and a Way,
And the High Soul climbs the High Way,
And the Low Soul gropes the Low,
And in heaven, on the misty flats,
The rest drift to and fro,
But to every man there openeth
A High Way and a Low,
And every man decideth
The Way his soul shall go.
C. Jesus said very much the same thing to his disciples when he discussed His Kingdom with them. "You've heard all that I've said about kingdom living, now choose." So, this message this morning is particularly directed at such people - people who have heard a lot about the gospel, who may even consider themselves Christians, but who have never made a clear choice to follow Christ with their whole life.
I. JESUS APPEALS TO YOU TO CHOOSE BETWEEN TWO GATES
A. The One choice is the narrow gate. What is the narrow gate, you ask?
1. Firstly, it is the right gate to enter if you want eternal life. Jesus urges you to enter by the narrow gate for he says to you, "I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father, but through me" (Jn. 14:6).
2. Secondly, it is narrow in that only one can enter at a time. In terms of salvation, their is no strength in numbers. Nowhere in Scripture are we given assurance that we will enter heaven simply because we are Baptist, or Mennonite, or Christian Missionary Alliance. How many times have you ordered something new in a restaurant after you are told that everyone is taking it, only to discover the item is totally dreadful? That is just what we shall discover when we try to find eternal life by opinion polls - that such choices are deadly.
3. Thirdly, it is narrow in that you can only fit through when striped pf all your external baggage. Personal baggage like secret sins, or self-will must be cast aside. if you enter just as the song goes, "nothing in my hand I bring, simply to Thy cross I cling," you have entered the narrow gate.
B. The other choice is the wide gate. What might that be like, you ask?
1. For one, it is the gate by which any religious practice, any set of beliefs, and any form of moral living, will do. This is a gospel which condones self-justification and self-satisfaction.
2. For another, it is the gate through which many are entering. too many people are living their lives doing what everyone else is doing and believing whatever everyone else believes. If the many are saved it is only because they individually believed in Jesus Christ by their own decision.
II. JESUS SUGGESTS THAT FROM THE TWO GATES LEAD TWO DIFFERENT ROADS
A. The road that leads from the gate that is wide is broad. Having made the choice of the wide gate one then can travel on the road of ease. It is an attractive, permissive way with few rules, few restrictions, and few requirements. All you have to do is "be religious." Along this road sin is tolerated, truth is moderated, and humility is ignored. God's Word is praised but not studied, His standards are admired but not followed. This is the way that runs down stream.
B. The road that leads from the gate that is narrow is also narrow. The Greek word for narrow is stenos which means "to groan as under pressure" and is the word from which we get the English word stenography meaning writing which is abbreviated or compressed.
How does this all apply to the narrow way?
1. It suggests that few are those who find it. No one has stumbled into the Kingdom of God or wandered through the narrow gate by accident. Rather, it requires diligent effort. "And you will seek Me and find me, when you search for me with your whole heart" (Jer. 29:13). Half-hearted commitment, half-hearted devotion, or half-hearted Christianity, is not Christianity at all.
III. JESUS SUGGESTS THAT FROM THE TWO GATES LEAD TWO_ROADS WHICH, IN TURN, LEAD TO TWO_DESTINATIONS
A. Please notice that both the broad and the narrow ways point to the same things; to the good life, to salvation, heaven, God, the kingdom, and blessing - but only the narrow way actually leads you to these things. Remember, all false religions or human philosophies promote a similar lie - that they, too, offer the promise of blessing. But God speaks truthfully when he says, "I set before you the way of life and the way of death (Jer. 21:8).
B. The destination of the broad road is utter destruction. This is the way of all religions except the way of Jesus Christ - the way of perdition, hell, and everlasting torment "For the Lord knows the way of the righteous, but the way of the wicked will perish (Ps. 1:6).
C. The destination of the narrow way is eternal life, everlasting heavenly fellowship with God.
IV. JESUS SUGGESTS THAT GOING INTO TWO GATES, TRAVELLING DOWN TWO ROADS, AND HEADING FOR TWO DESTINATIONS ARE TWO GROUPS OF PEOPLE
A. There are the many. They are characterized by the pagans, nominal Christians, atheists, humanists, religionists, Jews, gentiles - every person who has not come to saving obedience in Jesus Christ.
1. In the day of judgement many will claim to be followers of Christ but Jesus says, "many will seek to enter and will not be able" (Lk. 13:24-27).
B. There are the few. Those who will go through the narrow gate and travel the narrow road and are destined for life are very few in number. Jesus said, "Do not be afraid, little flock" k. 12:32),
and "many are called but few are chosen" (Matt. 22:14).
C. But remember, believers are not few because the gate is too narrow, or too small to accommodate more. God's grace is boundless and heaven's dwellings are limitless. He earnestly desires "for none to perish but for all to come to repentance" (2 Peter 3:9).
CONCLUSION
A. Yes, life is full of choices. But none is nearly so important as the choice which you make regarding the options which Christ presents. Every person must choose between two gates, two ways, and two destinies.
B. Perhaps you have already made that decisive choice to follow Christ - that narrow door, that narrow way. If you have, you are fully assured of your destiny. Jesus says, "...the one who comes to Me I will certainly not cast out" (Jn. 6:37).
C. But what about the one who chooses the broad road to destruction. Listen to him speak:
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 which 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 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.
D. This person, and all he represents, also thinks he has chosen the right door, and also has just as much assurance of his ultimate destiny. But sadly, he choose the wrong gate and walked the wrong road.