Matthew 7:13, 14  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.

 

Jesus is extending an invitation to you, but it is a very exclusive invitation.  It does not exclude anyone who wants to enter the narrow gate, but He does exclude people who enter the broad gate.  The only thing that both of these gates have in common is that they are both marked “Heaven.”  However, they actually lead to very different paths.  One leads to eternal life, the other to eternal destruction.

 

In our world, people claim that there are many roads that lead to Heaven as though all religions will lead to the same place.  Jesus corrects that thinking by stating plainly that there really are only two ways and their destinations are as different as Heaven and Hell.

 

The broad gate is the popular one.  You will be following the crowd if you enter this gate.  It opens to an expansive road where there is plenty of room to believe as you like.  Like the gate, this road is very inclusive.  It is so broad that it accepts all religions as the same.  You can pick and choose what you want in your religion here.  You can also continue in your own selfish ways and live in disregard of God when you want.  If you think you are good enough to go to heaven, you will find much company here.  But the ease and freedom of this way is all deceptive.  This easy path leads to destruction.

 

The other gate that Jesus points to appears to be narrow and restrictive.  This gate leads to a road where there are boundaries and restrictions that come from God.  Jesus says, “I am the way, the truth, and the life: no one comes to the Father, but by me.”  Jesus is the only way to salvation, and He makes no apologies for the narrowness of His gate.  If a doctor had only one sure-fire remedy for a fatal illness, would you refuse it thinking his solution too narrow?  Yet people reject Jesus Christ’s invitation because it seems too narrow and exclusive.  But the Bible is clear that “there is no salvation in any other, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.”

Pastor Randy Fox