Right Way in a Wrong-Way World

Right Way in a Wrong-Way World

“Right Way in a Wrong Way World”

(Matthew 7:13-14)

Rev. Todd A. Linn, PhD

First Baptist Church Henderson, KY

(5-20-07) (AM)

  • Take your Bibles and open to Matthew, chapter 7.

This morning we are looking at the latter portion of the Sermon on the Mount, the sermon proper being Matthew chapters 5-7, so we’re looking at a couple of verses leading to the conclusion of Jesus’ sermon, verses 13 and 14.

  • Please stand in honor of the reading of God’s Word.

13 ” 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.

14 “Because narrow is the gate and difficult is the way which leads to life, and there are few who find it.

  • Pray.

 

Introduction:

 

On the outskirts of particular town there was a big old hickory tree located inside a cemetery alongside the fence of the cemetery.  One day two boys were filling up a bucket of hickory nuts as they sat down by that tree.  One of the boys said, “One for you, one for me.  One for you, one for me,” and as he was counting out the hickory nuts a few of them spilled out and rolled down toward the fence.

 

Now another boy was riding along the road on his bicycle.  As he passed, he thought he heard voices from inside the cemetery.  He slowed down to investigate.  Sure enough, he heard, “One for you, one for me.  One for you and one for me.”  Well he just knew what it was.  He said, “Oh my!  It’s Satan and the Lord dividing the souls at the cemetery.

 

He jumped back on his bike and rode off.  Just around the bend he met an old man with a cane, hobbling along.  The boy said, “Come here quick!  You won’t believe what I just heard.  Satan and the Lord are down at the cemetery dividing up the souls.”

 

The man doubted what he’d heard but figured he’d teach the boy about lying and so he hobbled over to the cemetery.  Standing outside by the fence they both heard the voice: “One for you, one for me. One for you and one for me.”

 

The old man whispered, “Boy, you’ve been telling the truth!  Let’s see if we can see the devil himself.”  Shaking with fear, they peered through the fence, yet were still unable to see anything. The old man and the boy gripped the iron bars of the fence tighter and tighter as they tried to get a glimpse of Satan.

 

At last they heard, “One for you, one for me; one for you and one for me.  Now, let’s go get those nuts by the fence, and we’ll be done.”  They say the old man beat the boy back to town!

 

It’s a silly old story but a reminder that, like hickory nuts being divided between two boys, people often may be divided into two groups.  At the grocery store some people prefer paper sacks and some prefer plastic.  Using a card, some choose credit, some choose debit.  Some see a glass half-full and others see a glass half-empty.

 

In Matthew chapter 7, from verse 13 to the end of the chapter, Jesus concludes His Sermon on the Mount with a series of contrasts between two groups of people: those who go through the wide gate, and those who go through the narrow gate; those on the broad path, and those on the narrow path; those who bear good fruit, and those who bear bad fruit; a man who builds his house upon the sand, and a man who builds his house upon the rock.  People often may be divided into one group or another and one of them is the right group and the other is the wrong group.

 

So as we back up and look more closely at verses 13 and 14 we find Jesus’ teaching about the right way in life and the wrong way in life. The right way is the way of the narrow gate that leads to the narrow path and the wrong way is the way of the wide gate and the broad path.  So everyone may be divided up into one category or the other.  Every person in this room, every person listening to this message, every little boy and little girl, every young person, every mom and every dad, every person in Henderson county, every person in the world is either going the right way or the wrong way.  I hope that by the end of the message every one of us will be following Jesus on the right way that leads to life.

 

Now we’ll take a few minutes this morning and talk about each of these ways.  There are some truths for us to learn about the right way and the wrong way and as we follow the order of the text, we learn first some:

 

I.  Truths about the Wrong Way: (13)

 

Jesus says, “Enter by the narrow gate,” which is the right way, but Jesus then immediately contrasts the right way with the wrong way.  The wrong way is the way of the wide gate.  He says, “Wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and there are many who go in by it.”

 

So there are a couple of reasons why Jesus tells us that the wide gate represents the wrong way to go in life.  The wide gate, or the broad way, is first the way of deception.

 

B) It is the way of Deception

 

Now I don’t usually use a lot of sub-pointing in my sermon outline, but you’ll see a little of that here.  The wrong way is the way of deception.  It is deceives us into thinking that it is the right way.  Now there are two ways the wrong way is deceiving.  First the wrong way is:

 

1. Deceivingly Pleasurable

 

Jesus is contrasting the wide, spacious gate with the wide, roomy path with a path that is very narrow, constricted, and confined.  So the wrong way is a way that is easy to walk.  It is deceivingly pleasurable.  It seems right to us because it is so easy to go this way.

 

Solomon warns in Proverbs 14:12, “There is a way that seems right to a person, but the end of that way is the way of death.”  That’s a striking warning because the Scripture says that this wrong way seems so right.  How can anything that is so roomy, spacious, comfortable, and easy be so wrong?  But Jesus warns us that the gate is wide and the path is broad that leads to destruction.  The wrong way is deceivingly pleasurable.  But not only is the wrong way deceivingly pleasurable, the wrong way is also:

 

2. Deceivingly Popular

 

The wrong way has many followers.  Look at the last part of verse 13, “There are many who go in by it.”  The wrong way has many followers while the right way, last part of verse 14, has “few who find it.”

 

Never judge the truth of Christianity by the number of people actually following Christ.  I understand that Islam is now the fastest growing religion in the world.  Someone may say, “Well, isn’t that evidence that I should not follow Christ alone?  Look at how many people are going this way over here!  What about that?”  Wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and there are many who go in by it.  It is deceivingly popular.

 

Jesus says in John 14:6, “I am the way, the truth and the life.  No one comes unto the Father except by Me.”  Any religion that does not accept that very exclusive statement, that very “unpopular” statement by Jesus is a religion that takes you down the wrong path.

 

But you don’t have to go to Islam to illustrate the wrong way of religion.  You don’t have to go to Buddhism or Mormonism or other “isms.”  Much of the wrong way of life is wrapped up in our own culture right here in America, deceiving people who claim to be followers of Christ into following something else.

 

You can turn on the television set for example and see and hear about all kinds of wrong ways to live.  And the problem is the deception of it all.  No one advertises: “Hey, this is the wrong way!”  Rather, they deceive people into thinking that there’s nothing wrong with their way at all.

 

So you turn on Oprah, for example, and you see a book by Rhonda Byrne titled, The Secret.  This book has enjoyed several weeks as the number one book on the New York Time’s Bestseller List of hardcover books on advice.

 

And what does the author teach in this incredibly popular book?  A self-centered and self-absorbed way of living.  All you need do, according to the author, is just practice “the law of attraction.”  Train your mind to attract health, wealth, whatever relationship you want, however much worldly success, just by training your mind to put out thoughts that work like a magnet to attract the stuff you want.  The book ends by telling you things like, “The sun rises and sets for you.  The stars come out for you.  You are the master of the universe,” and so forth.  It’s a new age religion and nothing more; a very self-absorbed, self-centered heresy.

 

But you know what?  A lot of people are reading that book.  And someone says, “Isn’t that because there’s some truth to it?  Isn’t that evidence that it’s a good book?”  The wrong way is the way of deception.  It is deceivingly pleasurable and deceivingly popular.

 

This is why it is particularly important for our young people to get this down.  Don’t be deceived into believing something or doing something just because “everybody’s believing it” or “everybody’s doing it.”  Truth is “everybody” (whoever they are) can be wrong!  When you are in school, particularly from middle school onward, high school, and college, you hear what a lot of people believe and do.  And sometimes a teacher or professor will ridicule you for what you believe.  You may be in the minority.  You may feel like “everyone’s against you” because you believe what the Bible teaches.  Stick with the Bible.  God will honor that.  Never, never, never turn your back upon God’s word.

 

The wrong way is the way of deception.  It is deceivingly pleasurable and deceivingly popular.  It is the way of deception.  But not only is the wrong way the way of deception:

 

B) It is the way of Destruction

Jesus says, “Wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to—what?—to destruction.”

 

Again, recall Solomon’s words in Proverbs 14:12, “There is a way that seems right to a person, but it ends in the way of death.”  The broad, easy, pleasurable, popular path ultimately leads to death.

 

The wrong way is the way that ultimately leads to hell.  Hell is a place where people go who traveled the wrong way of life.  The Lord says through Jeremiah in Jeremiah 21:8, “I set before you the way of life and the way of death.”  People who die and go to hell are those who were going the wrong way of life.  They may have been deceived into thinking they were going the right way because the wrong way is deceivingly pleasurable and deceivingly popular.  It is the way of deception and it is the way of destruction.

 

So this is the wrong way.  And the wrong way is the way each of us goes by default, automatically.  We’re born into a “wrong-way world.”  We come into this world with a natural bent to go down the wrong path.  That’s really what sin is.  Sin is our natural inclination to go the wrong way, often finding the wrong way a very pleasurable way.  A person hears all this narrow-minded preaching of the gospel as rather extreme and says, “Look, I’m okay.  I don’t need to follow this Bible the way so many do.  I’m okay.  I’ll be alright when I die.”  Hear the warning of the Lord Jesus: “Wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction and there are many who go in by it.”

 

The wrong way ends in death.  So we enter into this world with the stain of sin and that sin inclines us toward the wrong way.  What must we do?  Well, we must go the right way, of course!  We must “go against the flow,” and “swim against the tide.”  And so we turn to that now.  We have seen some truths about the wrong way.  Now let’s learn some:

 

II. Truths about the Right Way: (13a, 14)

 

Jesus begins in verse 13 with, “Enter by the narrow gate.”  So the first characteristic we see about the right way is that:

 

A) It is the way of Decision

 

We must make a decision, a choice, to go the right way in life.  Now again, remember that we are naturally going the wrong way in life.  So Jesus tells us to change course, to change direction.  How many of you have heard the word “Repent?”  That word means to change course, to change direction.  We change our thinking and we go in a different direction.

 

So we’re going down the wrong way of life and Jesus tells us to enter into the right way of life.  The way of life is the narrow gate and the narrow path.  But we must make that choice to enter.  Salvation is not automatic.  We don’t just die and then go to heaven.  Salvation is not automatic.  What is automatic is that, because of our sin, we deserve hell.  Without Christ we die and our souls spend eternity in hell unless we enter into the narrow gate and follow Christ.

 

And you and I will not get to heaven by being born to good people.  Your mother and your father cannot get you into heaven.  You’ll not get into heaven because someone in your family is a preacher.  That won’t do.  You must personally choose to follow Christ.  The way of life is the way of decision.  Secondly:

 

B) It is the way of Difficulty

 

Jesus says, “Narrow is the gate and difficult is the way which leads to life.”

 

The King James Version has the word “strait” there for the word narrow.  It says, “Strait is the gate and narrow is the way” and so we often hear about walking the “straight and narrow path,” but the Old English word in the King James is not spelled s-t-r-a-i-g-h-t, but s-t-r-a-i-t.  The word does not mean “straight” like an arrow is straight, it is the word strait like “the Straits of Magellan,” the narrow passageway of South America that’s very difficult to navigate.  Strait as in “Strait-Jacket,” the thing they put on a person so that it’s difficult to move.

 

That’s what Jesus means when He refers to the right way as the way of the “Strait Gate.”  It is the narrow gate, the difficult way which leads to life.  The right way is the way of difficulty.

 

So don’t assume that because you’re facing difficulties in your Christian walk that there’s something wrong with you or that God is angry with you.  Remember that because of the Fall we live in a “wrong-way world,” a world after the Fall of Man in Genesis chapter 3.  We live in a world that is “Post-Eden;” a “wrong-way world.”  So because of the fallen nature of this world, we will have many difficulties.  The loss of jobs, relationships, and loved ones is often simply owing to the fact that we live in a world that has been out of sync since Genesis 3.  If someone says, “Come to Christ, become a Christian and you’ll never have any troubles,” you call that person a liar!  What makes it different for the Christian is that you and I because of Christ and because of God’s grace, we can get through the difficulties knowing God will care for us.

 

But the Christian life is often a difficult life to live.  Jesus said in John 16:33, “In this world you will have tribulation; you will have trouble, but be of good cheer because I have overcome this world and it’s troubles.”

 

The context suggests that the difficulty about which Jesus is speaking is perhaps most closely associated with the difficulty in living in accordance with God’s words, difficult in the sense that His commands, while not burdensome, may nonetheless challenge us to consider whether we will truly follow the Lord Jesus.  He had preached some “difficult” things earlier in His Sermon on the Mount, difficult things such as His commands about anger, lust, and divorce.  I’ve sat across the desk from men who claimed to be Christ-followers but, upon hearing our Lord’s words about divorce, found them too difficult to follow.

 

And so we may also understand the strait, narrow, difficult way in terms of following doctrine.  Truth is, by nature, very narrow.  I mean 2+2 can only equal 4, every single time.  If I jump off a building and flap my arms the truth of gravity means I’m just going to look funny until I hit the ground.  Truth is very narrow.

 

I remember once visiting for a church before I was in the ministry.  I and some people from my Sunday school class were out visiting one afternoon.  It was much like FAITH we have going on here.  We visited this one guy and when I was sharing about the gospel this guy accused me of being very narrow minded.  I said, “Well Jesus said, ‘Narrow is the way that leads to life!’”

 

And it’s true.  Truth is, by nature, very narrow.  I mean, spiritually speaking, you can be so broad-minded that your brain falls out of your skull.  Truth is narrow.  Jesus taught a very narrow salvation.  Again it was Jesus who said in John 14:6, “I am the way, the truth, and the life.  No one comes unto the Father except by Me.”  That is a very theologically narrow statement.

 

Paul said in 1 Timothy 2:5, “There is one God and one mediator between God and men; the man Christ Jesus.”

 

And in Acts 4:12, the Bible says that “salvation is found in no one other than Jesus for there is no other name under heaven given among men whereby we must be saved.”

 

Someone has suggested that the narrow gate is also a bit like a turnstile.  At the graduation at Robard’s stadium the other night, I passed through a turnstile to enter into the stadium.  How do you pass through a turnstile?  One person at a time!  We get into heaven the same way.  We don’t get into heaven in groups.  We go in one at a time, dropping of all of our own prideful righteousnesses at the gate.

 

Nothing in my hand I bring

Simply to Thy cross I cling

 

 

The narrow way is the way of decision and the way of difficulty.  Thirdly the narrow way:

 

C) It is the way of Deliverance

 

Jesus says the narrow way is the right way because it is the way that leads to life.  It is the way by which God delivers us from our sins.

 

Conclusion:

So here’s the question this morning: If God were to divide us into one group or another , which group would you find yourself in?  You’re either saved or lost.  You’re either on the road to life or the road to death.

 

COPYRIGHT DISCLAIMER: The text contained in this sermon is solely owned by its author. The reproduction, or distribution of this message, or any portion of it, should include the author’s name. The author intends to provide free resources in order to inspire believers and to assist preachers and teachers in Kingdom work.