It's Decision Time

Today we need to understand the decis we must make at the crossroads of our lives. We must understand how to choose between life and death. For the decision you make about the gate you enter and the road you travel will det the destiny of your life. So in Matthew chapter 7, verses 13 and 14, Christ says these words: Enter by the narrow gate.

For the gate is wide, and the way is broad that leads to destruction, and many are those who enter by it. For the gate is small and the way is narrow, that leads to life, and few are those who find it. Two verses, one invitation. The rest of the verses in Matthew chapter 7 are an Explanation of this invitation, and we'll talk about that in days ahead. But Christ makes an invitation, He speaks first of all of the declaration.

Second of all of the distinction. Third of the destination. And fourth of your decision. Those are our points this morning. Very simple. Two verses, but it's two verses that are power-packed with what we need to know about life. And death. The first thing I want you to see is the declaration that Christ makes.

He says, Look, there are two gates. There is the broad gate that's very wide and there is the narrow gate that is very small. You must make a choice as to which gate you will ent. For the gate you enter and the road you travel will determine your destiny. Christ makes the contrast between two gates Two roads, two crowds, two destinies. He'll further explain that when he talks about two trees, two builders, and two foundations as you go through Matthew chapter 7. There are two ways in life: God's way or the hell's way.

There's only two ways. You've got to make your choice. And so Christ says, Look. Heaven is not for those who think they're good enough. The Pharisees believe that. Heaven is for those who know they're absolutely no good. And the Pharisees would not come to that point. They would not throw themselves upon God. When they understood his credentials, when they understood what he said when he came to present himself as king, they said, We will not have this king. To rule over us. No way will we subject ourselves to this kind of kingship.

And folks, that's the issue in salvation. Who will you serve? Satan or the king of the world, the Lord Jesus Christ. And so there's a contrast that's presented. As a result of that contrast, point number two: there's a command.

A command that's given. Verse number 13: ent by the narrow gate. That 's the command. This is not an option for you. You must enter in. You see, what Christ has done throughout this whole sermon is slowly but surely strip all the self-indulgent, all the self-righteousness that the Pharisees thought they had. Show them that the only way to get into heaven was to obtain God's righteousness. Unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven, Christ, Matthew 5:2.

So the whole sermon centers around Matthew 5, verse number 20. Their righteousness said, We can make it to heaven. We can do it. We just got to do the right things. God says, no, you can't do enough right things.

You've got to throw yourself upon me and my mercy, and I will grant you entrance into my kingdom. But there's a command. You got to enter. You got to do it now.

And the people, as you read at the end of Matthew chapter 7. We were astounded at the words of the Lord Jesus Christ. They were amazed at his words because he spoke as none had ever spoken before. They hadn't heard that before. And I want to let you know that there are going to be people in this audience today or people who listen by way of tape and they're going to say these words. I've never ever heard that before. Because what Christ gives in Matthew 7, 13 and 14 is so contrary to what they were taught.

And what we're going to talk about today in those exact same verses is so totally contrary to what is taught in most Churches today. If I was to give one evangelistic sermon, I would preach Matthew chapter 7, verses 13 to the end of the chapter. That would be the only evangelistic sermon I would preach. If I had one to give and one day to live, I'd preach that sermon and that sermon only. Because there are many people in churches. think they're on the way to heaven, but they're on the broad road that le to destruction.

Maybe you're here today thinking you're on your way to heaven, but you haven't entered the narrow gate. You've only entered the broad gate, the wide way. And you're following that direction. The command is to enter the narrow gate, which leads us to point number two: the distinction between the two gates.

And I want to spend some time here so we understand this. It's so important. Two gates. One narrow and small, one broad and wide. Both say heaven. You see, Satan is not going to mark the broad road to hell with a sign that says this way to hell. I mean, let's give Satan some credit here. He's not going to do that. He's going to say, this is the way to heaven. Because he wants to get as many people on the broad road as he can so that they are destroyed alongside of him. That's why all the false prophets are there.

See? So let's look first of all at the narrow gates. The sm road and see what Christ has to say. Because Christ said slowly but surely. Taken away all the veneer of religion that the Pharisees had. He had stripped them down as you go through the sermon. This is the way. To be in my kingdom. This is the way to be a child of the king. And this is the way to live like a child of the king. Not your way, but my way. You see, Acts 4:12 says that there is no other name in the heaven given among men whereby we must be saved.

I am the way, the truth, and the life. John 14:6. No man comes into the Father but by me. Christ said, I am the door. Christ says, I in the resurrection.

Christ said, I am Am the bread of life. Christ says, I am the light of the world. He is the door. He is the gate. He is the way in which you enter into heaven. 1 Timothy tells us that there is one mediator between God and man, that's the man, Christ Jesus. And so there's only one way to get to heaven, and it's through Jesus Christ. If there were a myriad of ways to get to heaven, I would spend the book of my life telling you every single way you could get to heaven. But there's only one. It makes life very simple for me.

Hopefully, it makes it simple for you, too. There's only one way to heaven, it's through the Lord Jesus Christ and his atoning work on the cross. And if you don't understand that, then you're on the broad road that leads to destruction. There's only one way that leads into heaven. Now note, the text says, enter the narrow gate. Why? For small, or for the gate is small, and the way is narrow, that leads to life. Verse number 14, and few are those who find it. The narrow gate is very small, mean by way of implication, you can't go to heaven in groups.

You can't go to heaven because your family is going to heaven. You can't go to heaven because your spouse is going to heaven. You can't go to heaven because you're a part of a church that has people going to heaven. You see, that was a Jewish problem. They were part of the Abrahamic heritage. Hey, man, we are the nation of God. We are God's chosen people. We're all on our way to heaven, man. We're going to glory. And that's what they believed. And Christ says, no, it's an individual choice.

You must enter the narrow gate. There's only one way in, and it's a very narrow way. It's a very small kind of way. And you can't go in with other people. You've got to go in by yourself. It's an individual choice. You can't go to heaven because your parents are saved, young people. You go to heaven because you make the choice to be saved. Have you done that? Have you entered the narrow gates? I also want you to understand this. That the way is narrow, so narrow that you can't take anything with you when you go through the gates.

My son and I flew back from Tucson last night and you know when you go through the airport they have those little alarm detectors for guns and bombs and whatever you know and when you walk through those gates you can't take any baggage with you. You got to lay it all aside. They won't let you through the gate with any bags. You've got to put them on the turnstile there. You've got to put them through the little x-ray vision thing. You've got to walk through individually. My son and I can't walk through together.

I've got to walk through first, or he's got to walk through first, then I go, and then someone else follows.

And you got to lay the bags aside in order to get through the gate. Why? Because you can't come into heaven with any excess bags. That's why you can't get there carrying the world, you can't get there carrying your lusts, you can't get there carrying your sin. Listen to what Warren We says in his commentary on Matthew chapter 7. He says, The way of life is narrow, lonely, and costly. We can walk on the broad way and keep our baggage of sin and worldliness, but if we enter the narrow way, we must give up those things.

Here then is the first test. Did your profession of faith in Christ cost you anything? If not, then it was not a true profession. Many people who, quote, trust Jesus Christ never leave the broad road with its appetites and associations. They have an easy Christianity that makes no demands on them. Yet Jesus said that the narrow way was hard. We cannot walk on two roads in two different directions at the same time. You see, people want to get to heaven carrying past relationships, carrying sinful relationships.

Carrying all kinds of sinful baggage from the world with them, thinking that they can add Jesus to their existing lifestyle. Jesus, as one man said, is not an addition, it is a transformation. He transforms your life from what it was to what He wants to make it be. And so the road is narrow. It's only through the magnitude of God's grace and mercy and love that one can be saved. I sat on the board with a man who pastored a church for over 50 years. He was part of a board of probably the most historic church in the West Coast.

And one day we began to discuss about entrance to the kingdom. And he told me that faith was not a gift of God, that you could have enough faith to believe. I couldn't believe it. I said, Ephesians 2:8 and 9 is very clear. Therefore, by grace are you saved through faith, that not yourselves, it is a gift of God. What's the gift? The gift is the gift of faith. But this man actually believed that you could have enough faith to believe to get saved. And I told him, I, You preach a work system. You preach that you can have enough faith to believe, and I'm going say, you have no faith to believe.

That the faith granted to you is a gift of God. That without that granting of the gift of faith, you will never be saved. Salvation is a total work of God. At the end of that conversation, another elder in that same church. I don't know how they got to be elders, but they were. Said this: The difference between what Lance teaches and what we believe is that he believes, and this is a quote verbatim, that salvation is totally a free gift of God and we don't. It's totally the work of the Holy Spirit, and we don't believe that.

And these men still serve as elders of that church. Amazing. Amazing. Now understand this. When you get there, you got to make a choice. Strive to enter. Agonize to get in because few there be that find it. And once you finally get there, few are able to ever get in.

Why are few ever able to get in? Because they want to hold on to the sin. They're not willing to repent of their sin. You've got to count the costs. Have you counted that cost? Have you said, Lord, I want you to take my life and transform my life? The hymn writes it this way: Nothing in my hand I bring, simply to thy cross I cling. That's salvation. Clinging to the cross of Christ, the cross that He would ask you to take up and bear if you're going to follow Him. I bring nothing in my hands because I can't get through the gate with hands that are occupied with sinful baggage.

Can't do it. It was Charles Spurgeon who said these words: You and your sins must separate, or you and your God will never come together. No one sin may you keep. They must all be given up. They must be brought out like the Canaanitish kings from the cave and be hanged up in the sun. That's why there are so many people on the broad road. What se us to point number two of main point number two, that is the second gate.

It's the broad road, it's the wide road. See, on this road, there is no morality, there is no ruler on this road. It's an antinomian kind of lifestyle, a lawlessness kind of lifestyle. Just kind of do as you want. There's no commitment here. Just kind of come and do whatever you want to do. It's okay. Just believe in Jesus and love Him. That's all you got to do. As long as you believe him and love them, you can do anything you want. It's okay. That's the broad road. Proverbs 14: describes it this way: There is a way which seemeth right into a man, but the ends thereof are the ways of death.

Proverbs 30, verse number 12, describe it this way: There is a generation who are pure in their own eyes, yet have not been washed from their filthiness. Judges 21, 25 says that every man did that which is right in his own eyes. That's the broad way. 2 Timothy 3, verse 5 says that at the end times there will be many people who take on a form of godliness but deny its power. Folks, is that not true today? People who claim godliness, who have a veneer of Christianity, who have outward acts, outward trappings, but they deny the power of God working in them.

There is no true transformation of their life, there is no alteration of their character. Everything is just the same. They take a form of godliness, but they deny its power. That's the broad road. Christ said in Matthew 23, verse number 25. They told the Pharisees that they were hypocrites because they concerned themselves with the outside of the cup, but on the inside they were self-indulgent. And they were considerate of the Lord God. That's the second gate.

That's where many people are. Which leads us to point number three: the destination. Very quickly, one leads to hell, one leads to heaven, one to destruction, one to life. Christ simply says, Enter by the narrow gate, for the gate is wide and the way is broad that leads to destruction. If you continue going down the road you're going on. Believing that you have enough faith to save yourself, believing that faith is not a gift, belie that what you have and what you do is of your own, and you can make into heaven, it will lead you to destruction.

It will lead you to be separated from God. The message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing. That's why, whenever you preach the cross of Christ in evangelistic sermons, and people get upset, or when you go to churches, And you preach the cross of Christ, and people are upset that you're commanding them to follow the cross of Christ, it's because they are foolish, because they are already perishing. That's what the Bible says.

The message of the cross is foolishness to those who are per. But to those of us who believe, it's life. It's everything we hoped in. It's everything we wanted. Remember Romans 10, 9, and 10? If you confess with your mouth, Jesus is Lord. And believe in your heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. For with the mouth, confession is made into salvation, and with the heart, man believes what? Unto righteousness. You see, there are many people who believe in the virgin birth, who believe in the atoning work of the blood of Christ, who believe in the infallibility of Scripture, who believe in the id of Christ, and who believe in the second coming of Christ, but are on the broad road to destruction.

Did you know that? You see, if you believe in all those things and it has not altered your lifestyle, you're on the broad road to destruction. You can't say you believe those things and not change your life. If you believe those things, man believes under righteous kind of living. He believes so much that his whole lifestyle changes to follow after righteousness, to follow after godliness, because that's his. Heart's desire now.

That is the narrow gates. That's the one who follows the Lord God. Truly. You see? So clear. So important to understand that we must understand it. Point number two, it leads to life.

That's gate number one, the narrow gate. If one leads to hell, one leads to heaven, right? It leads to life. Oh folks, let me tell you, my heart is grieved when I listen to the radio, when I read books and listen to TV preachers and hear what they teach.

To get people on the broad road that leads to destruction. Folks, may it be that when we present the gospel, we take people to the narrow gates. We help them to understand that they got to give their life to Christ. They got to want their lives to be changed from where it is. A life full of sin that it might understand the trueness of a Savior who came to redeem them from their sin. That's the life. Which road are you on? The broad road or the narrow road? Which gate have you entered? Did you agonize at salvation?

I remember when I gave my life to Christ. For 11 months before I gave my life to Christ, I struggled with giving everything to God. I prayed a prayer one day after church with my parents, thinking that that would get me into heaven. But boy, for 11 months, the Spirit of God worked on me, and boy, I struggled inwardly. Is this what I really want to do? Do I want to give my life to Christ and follow Him and serve Him with all my heart, soul, mind, and strength? I said, No, I don want to do that. And for 11 months, I struggled, I agonized about kingdom entry.

Thinking that I was saved. But if I died between March of 197 and April of 1972. I'd have gone to hell because I was on the broad road that leads to destruction. I went to church. I memorized Bible verses. I taught VBS. I said prayers. I even had my devotions every day. I did all those good things. But inside, I agonized. Until one day I came home and said, I know I'm not saved, mom. And my mom says, You're right, you're not saved. After 11 months of agonizing and wondering whether or not you're really, truly a born-again believer, you're not saved.

I got on my knees, I gave my life to Christ, and I never, ever, ever doubted the security of my salvation from that day forward. I knew I was saved. I said, God, you take it. You ain't got much here, but you take it and do whatever you want to with it. And that's when I knew I was saved. I entered the narrow gate, traveled the narrow road that leads to life. Lastly, there comes the decision. Your decision. What decision do you make? Do you follow the majority? Or do you follow the minority? Few, there'd be the fine the narrow gate, but many are on the Broadway.

Who are the many? Read down further in chapter 7, verse number 23 and 24. Many will say to me, Lord, Lord! We went to church in your name. We sang in the choir in your name. We went to Argentina in your name. We did all these things in your name, God. And God's going to say, What? I'm sorry. I never, never knew you. That's the meaning. That's why this message is so crucial to the church today. The church is full of people who are on the broad road. The minute you say, man, I'm singing in choir, man, I'm working BBS, I'm usher the church, I'm serving communion, I'm doing all those good things, and they're going to get to heaven and wake up and say, God, I'm here.

And God's going to say, who are you? You can say, Who am I? Lord, how can you, Who am I? You saw what I did for you. I did all those good things for you. And God's going to say, Depart from me, ye who practice lawlessness. You loved your sin. You indulged yourself in your sinful lifestyle. Your belief had no effect on your life. I never knew you. What a tragedy. What a tragedy. Don't be on the broad road with a majority. Be on the narrow road with the minority. Be there. Few there be that find it.

Look, no matter how narrow the gate, No matter how narrow the road, it is wide enough to take in the chief of all sinners. Paul says in 1 Tim 1:15 that he was the chief of sinners. Paul knew what it meant to throw himself upon God and his mercy and accept the free gift of eternal life. For by grace he is saved through faith. For the wage of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. That's what it's about. Christ has always called for decisions. Listen to what he says over in Deuteronomy chapter 30, verse number 19.

I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing. Therefore choose life, that both you and your seed may live. And Arthur W. Pink would say in his commentary on the Serm on the Mount: sa faith not only trusts in Christ but follows him. It not only believes God's promises but obeys his precepts. Saving faith is a fruitful thing, abounding in good works. It enables its possessor to endure trials, resist the devil, and overcome the world. None tread the narrow way save those who make vital godliness their chief concern.

the main business of life. Hence we see why it is that the vast majority of our fellow men and women, yea and of professing Christians also, will fail to reach heaven. It is because they prefer sin. To holiness, indulging the lusts of the flesh to walking according to the scriptures, self to Christ, the world to God, the Broadway. To the narrow way. They are unwilling to forsake their sins, destroy their idols, turn their backs on the world, and submit to Christ as Lord. How about you? It's decision time.

Will you choose God's way or hell's way?