Daily Devotional For Friday, November 15, 2024

It is Fantastic Friday and you are almost to the weekend. We are making our way through the most famous and best sermon ever preached or taught – Jesus’ Sermon On The Mount. You can read this entire sermon in Matthew chapters 5, 6, & 7. We have already been through chapters 5 & 6 and are in the middle of chapter seven with Matthew 7:13-14:

 “Enter through the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the way is broad that leads to destruction, and there are many who enter through it. (14) For the gate is small and the way is narrow that leads to life, and there are few who find it” (NASB).

As you can tell, Jesus makes it clear that there are two gates: one is broad and leads to death and destruction. The second one is narrow and leads to life. New Testament scholar Bruce B. Barton explains why one gate is so narrow:

“This gate leading to life is narrow not because it is difficult to become a Christian but because there is only one way and only a few decide to walk that road. Believing in Jesus is the only way to eternal life because he alone died for our sins and made us right before God. The road is hard because true discipleship calls for sacrifice and servanthood” (Source: Bruce B. Barton, The Life Application Bible Commentary, “Matthew,” p. 135).

Most people choose comfort and convenience over sacrifice and sanctification. They want the road that seems easier to them. The truth – there is nothing easy about being a disciple of Jesus Christ. There is a cost, a sacrifice that is worth it. Jesus made it clear in Luke 9:23, “If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross daily and follow Me” NASB). Self-denial and being willing to “crucify” anything that attempts to keep you from following Jesus completely is required.

New Testament scholars Holsteen and Svigel write this:

“Two gates. In the first set of paired alternatives, Jesus ruled out the view—popular today — called pluralism. Pluralism can be defined as “the view that all religions include some truth and that there are many paths to God. Christians are saved through following the Christian path, Buddhists through following the Buddhist way, Muslims through faithfulness to Islam, etc” (Source: Nathan D. Holsteen and Michael J. Svigel, eds., Exploring Christian Theology, vol. 2, Creation, Fall, and Salvation, p. 255).

Pastor and author Chuck Swindoll writes this:

“In opposition to this viewpoint, Jesus noted that the popular gate through which many enter is a wide and broad way that “leads to destruction” (7:13). The great twentieth-century Christian thinker and author C. S. Lewis, Swindoll says that Lewis describes his walk along the wide, broad path in his youth: “I was soon (in the famous words) ‘altering “I believe” to “one does feel.” ’ And oh, the relief of it!… From the tyrannous noon of revelation I passed into the cool evening twilight of Higher Thought, where there was nothing to be obeyed, and nothing to be believed except what was either comforting or exciting” (Source: C. S. Lewis, Surprised by Joy: The Shape of My Early Life, Reissued ed., p. 72). “Think about it. When someone has a “broad mind” and runs with sophists equally as “bright,” they will only be impressed with opinions of the learned, scholarly achievements, academic credentials, deep thoughts, and nuanced articulations. To that person, any talk of a small gate leading to a narrow way that only a few will find sounds absolutely ridiculous and naïve” (Source: Charles R. Swindoll, Swindoll’s Living Insights New Testament Commentary, “Matthew 1-15,” Vol. 1A, p. 134).

Jesus reminds His hearers and readers of Proverbs 14:12, “There is a way which seems right to a man, But its end is the way of death” (NASB). Jesus, near the end of His ministry, said this to His disciples in John 14:6, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but through Me” (NASB). The Apostle Paul, writing to his understudy, Timothy, Paul reminded Timothy of this in 1 Timothy 2:5, “For there is one God, and one mediator also between God and men, the man Christ Jesus” (NASB). The Apostle Peter, speaking to a group of Jewish religious leaders in the Book of Acts, said this to them about Jesus in Acts 4:12, “And there is salvation in no one else; for there is no other name under heaven that has been given among men by which we must be saved” (NASB).

Yes, the Gospel is offensive and it is intended to be. If all paths lead to heaven, then how in the world are you to know with certainty that you have gone through the right gate that led up to that path? You couldn’t know. New Testament scholar Bruce B. Barton adds this insight:

“Wide” versus “narrow” may refer not only to the majority versus the minority but also to relative levels of difficulty or ease. “Narrow” in v. 14 comes from the verb [θλίβω, thlibō], meaning “to experience trouble or difficulty and to press or crowd close against, press upon.” “Broad” comes from the Greek New Testament word [πλατύς, platus], which can have overtones of prosperous.” 

So, what is the application for us from this? Scottish New Testament scholar William Barclay, gives us these points to remember in the difference between these two ways:

• “It is the difference between the hard and the easy way. Once the eighteenth-century Irish statesman Edmund Burke made a great speech in the House of Commons. Afterwards, his brother Richard Burke was observed deep in thought. He was asked what he was thinking about, and answered: ‘I have been wondering how it has come about that Ned has contrived to monopolize all the talents of our family; but then again I remember that, when we were at play, he was always at work.’ Even when a thing is done with an appearance of ease, that ease is the product of unremitting toil. The skill of the concert pianist or the champion golfer did not come without sweat. There has never been any other way to greatness than the way of toil, and anything else which promises such a way is a delusion and a snare.
• It is the difference between the long and the short way. Very rarely, something may emerge complete and perfect in a flash, but far often greatness is the result of long labor and constant attention to detail. No one ever arrived at a masterpiece by a short cut. In this world, we are constantly faced with the short way, which promises immediate results, and the long way, of which the results are in the far distance. But the lasting things never come quickly; the long way is the best way in the end.
• It is the difference between the disciplined and the undisciplined way. Nothing was ever achieved without discipline; and many athletes and many men and women in other fields have been ruined because they abandoned discipline and let themselves go. The poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge is the supreme tragedy of indiscipline. Never did so great a mind produce so little. He left Cambridge University to join the army; he left the army because, in spite of all his erudition, he could not rub down a horse; he returned to Oxford and left without a degree. He began a paper called The Watchman, which lived for ten issues and then died. It has been said of him: ‘He lost himself in visions of work to be done, that always remained to be done. Coleridge had every poetic gift but one—the gift of sustained and concentrated effort.’ In his head and in his mind he had all kinds of books, as he said himself, ‘completed save for transcription’. ‘I am on the eve’, he says, ‘of sending to the press two octavo [the book’s form] volumes.’ But the books were never composed outside Coleridge’s mind, because he would not face the discipline of sitting down to write them out. No one ever reached any eminence, and no one having reached it ever maintained it, without discipline.
• It is the difference between the thoughtful and the thoughtless way. Here we come to the heart of the matter. None of us would ever take the easy, the short, the undisciplined way, if we only thought. Everything in this world has two aspects—how it looks at the moment, and how it will look in the time to come. The easy way may look very inviting at the moment, and the hard way may look very daunting. The only way to get our values right is to see not the beginning but the end of the way, to see things not in the light of time but in the light of eternity” (Source: William Barclay, The Daily Study Bible Series, "Matthew," pp. 222-234).

As we wrap up, remember this: the narrow gate is more of a “Who” than a “what.” The narrow gate is Jesus. We can see this even in Jesus’ own words in John 10:9, “I am the door; if anyone enters through Me, he will be saved, and will go in and out and find pasture” (NASB). So, how does one enter through this narrow gate? Jesus tells us a few verses later in Matthew 7:21,  “Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father who is in heaven will enter” (NASB).

New Testament scholar Douglas Sean O’Donell writes this:

“Yes we are saved by grace through faith, but that faith is never alone. It works. It obeys. It endures. It perseveres, not perfectly but persistently. What is taught in James 2 is likewise taught here. It is not enough to say “I believe in God” or even “I believe in Jesus” (the “Lord, Lord” talk of our text). We must walk the talk. A saving faith is a doing faith. Therefore, the word “does” does matter! “The one who does the will of my Father …” Our Lord is not separating our evangelical decision (faith alone) from our ethical endurance (the perseverance of the saints)” (Source: Douglas Sean O’Donnell, Preach The Word Bible Commentary, “Matthew,” p. 194).

Tomorrow we will wrap Matthew 7:13-14 up by looking at why this gate is so narrow and why so many people do not enter it.

Questions To Consider

1. True discipleship is hard. It involves sacrifice. There is nothing easy about it, but by all appearances in most churches, discipleship has been limited down to church attendance and ministry involvement. This is not discipleship, at least not according to Jesus. Read again above Luke 9:23. What does that mean for you personally and why?
2. In Matthew 7:13-14, Jesus says there is a narrowness to salvation, heaven and having a relationship to God. Why do you think this bothers so many people? Why do you think so many people, even “Christian people,” ignore this, make excuses about it and choose to even play it down?
3. Take a moment and read Proverbs 14:12, John 14:6, 1 Timothy 2:5, and Acts 4:12 again. They are located above. What do all four verses have in common? What is their common theme and how does that impact your own life and why?
4. Which of the 4 reasons Scottish New Testament scholar William Barclay gives demonstrates the difference in these “two ways.” Which one do you most readily identify with and why?
5. Why must a “saving faith" be a “doing faith”?

Scripture To Meditate On: Proverbs 15:9-10, “The way of the wicked is an abomination to the Lord, But He loves one who pursues righteousness. (10) Grievous punishment is for him who forsakes the way; He who hates reproof will die” (NASB).

Prayer To Pray: “Dear Jesus, please help me to continue to choose the narrow gate and the narrow way. I can be stubborn at times and my stubbornness can affect others in their willingness to choose the narrow way (gate) or the broad way (gate). I never want to be responsible for causing someone to stumble in their walk with Christ. I need You Jesus. Please help me bring You glory so that others do as well. I love You Jesus. In Jesus’ name, Amen!”

I love you Southside!--Pastor Kelly