Please take your Bibles this morning and turn to Matthew 7. Last week we looked at verses 13 and 14, and we're returning there because we were not finished with looking at those two verses. But I want to take a moment and read those two verses and just bring you back up to where we left off as we begin our study this morning. Jesus says in verse 13, 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. But the gate is small and the way is narrow that leads to life and there are few who find it. John MacArthur said, Satan continues his efforts to make sin less offensive, heaven less appealing, hell less horrific, and the gospel less urgent. There are many people who sit on the sidelines. They hear the truth. They hear the gospel, maybe even go to church, and they sit there week after week after week and hear the gospel. But they find no urgency in it. Yes, not everyone who is in church is saved. We know that. Jesus says that there are tares among the wheat. We do our best to try to make sure that the terrorists don't become a part of the church, but it's very difficult, especially when a person is self-deceived. Because a person can say, well, I'm saved. I remember that day. I remember that opportunity when I walked an aisle, when I prayed this prayer, and then when I got baptized and I joined the church. And if you'll notice that all those things are external. And what really needs to be looked at is not those external things, but the internal change in your heart. Because if there is no internal change, if there is no transformation, then none of that mattered. And none of that meant anything. And yet at the same time there are many who are on that wide road that leads to destruction and yet those who find the narrow road or the narrow gate and enter it are few, are very few. Now last week as we looked at Matthew 7, we said that there are two gates. And we heard the two gates in verses 13 and 14, the narrow gate and the wide gate. And there are two ways that are presented in those verses. You have the broad way and you have the narrow way. So two gates, two ways. When you read this section that we just read, we find that there is a problem. The problem is making sure that you enter the right gate. And why would I say it's a problem? Well, here's the problem. Look at verse 15. Beware of false prophets. They're false because they're preaching a different gospel. They're false because they're preaching lies. There is only one gospel, and even the Apostle Paul said, if anyone else comes to you and preaches a different gospel, let them be anathema, let them be accursed. And it's very difficult to spot them, but yet Jesus says that you will know them by their fruit. So you have to look at their life, you have to listen to what they say. And once you determine that they're false, then you need to get away from them. Notice what he says also in verse 15, they come to you in sheep's clothing. I pointed out last time, it's not the clothing of the sheep, it's the clothing of the shepherd. It's the shepherd's garb that they're wearing that disguises them. But he says, but inwardly they are ravenous wolves. So they may look like shepherds, or as the text says, they may look like sheep, but inwardly they're wolves. And what are wolves? Wolves are ready to devour the sheep. And as I just quoted, Satan continues that effort and how he devours the sheep or how he seeks to devour anyone is to continue to make sin less offensive, heaven less appealing, hell less horrific, and the gospel less urgent. But when I read verses 13 and 14, don't you hear the urgency? Well, especially in verse 13, because the word inner is a command. See, it is a command to obey the gospel. When you hear the gospel of Jesus Christ, you're calling people to repent and believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. You're calling them to confess Christ as Lord. That's a command. And by the very fact that we find in verse 21 that not everyone who says to me, Lord, Lord, when entered the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of my father is in heaven, that makes it even all more urgent and all the more important that we make sure that we get the gospel right. These false prophets are preaching a different way. They're over there at the wide gate. But yet they're telling the people that are at the wide gate that this is the narrow gate. This is the way to heaven. And there are religions out there doing the same thing. There are cults and isms, and they're out there saying, we know the way, we know the right way, but yet they're not following Christ. They're not saying Jesus alone. Even the Catholic Church says, Jesus plus the Ten Commandments. They got the Jesus part right, but they got the Ten Commandments part wrong. It's Jesus plus nothing. You can't earn your way to heaven. You can't come in on your own merits. You're coming in on the merits of Christ. If you think you could come on your own merits, then the cross meant nothing. Then Jesus' death on the cross was futile. But as I said, you have false prophets, and they're there showing a different way. And you're going to know them by their fruit. They are bad trees that bear bad fruit. But the biggest fear, of course, is those who follow that way, thinking that all the time that they've been on the narrow road, thinking that they went through the narrow gate, and then they wake up in hell. And then finally, at the judgment, because they have been in hell until the judgment, and they're standing before the great white throne judgment, and they're going, Lord, Lord. They're in shock that they've been in torment all this time because they believed that they were saved. They believed that they knew Jesus, but Jesus said, no, what you knew was sin. You embraced sin. You were never willing to let that go. And because of that, verse 23, I will declare to them, I never, you hear that? Never knew you. Which means that they never knew Him. Depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness. To me, those are the most haunting words of all of Scripture. especially to the person, as we see from this text in verse 22, who is religious because they were prophesying in His name, they were driving out demons in His name, they were performing miracles in His name, but then to find out at all that time they were lost. Now, I don't believe that the driving out of demons or the miracles that they were doing were real. They were counterfeit. You have to enter the narrow gate. You must enter it. There is no other way to heaven than through the narrow gate. There is no other way to heaven than through Jesus Christ. John 14, 6, Jesus said, I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father but through me. People telling you that there are other ways, you need to correct them fast. Because there is no other way. So you must enter. And you must enter the narrow gate. And you must enter the narrow gate alone. You can't bring all your baggage in there, just like we talked about last week, the turnstile. It's very difficult to carry a lot of things as you're going through a turnstile. And if you've never been through one, I wanna encourage you to go find one. They're all downtown. So I don't go downtown, I understand. Very clearly, I don't like going down there either. But it's very difficult to walk through a turnstile with all your stuff. In fact, if you have even just one or two things, you're gonna kinda hold it to you when you walk through it. And the door is moving. But yet, on each side of the turnstile, there is a wide door. And that's the door you go through with all your stuff. But see, to come to Christ, you've got to drop all your stuff. You've got to quit holding on to your righteousness. You've got to quit saying that I'm good enough to get to heaven, because none of us are good enough. The Bible says that our righteousness is as filthy rags. We're never good enough. And that's why we don't come in on our goodness, we come in on Christ's goodness. That's why we can't work for our salvation because our work is not accepted. We come in on the works of Christ. We come in on the merits of Christ. We come in on the righteousness of Christ. We come in trusting Him. We come in on what He has done. What He did was perfect. It was a perfect sacrifice. And the proof of that was God raised Him from the dead. Let me say a few more things about the narrow gate. Not only must you enter the narrow gate, And not only must you enter the narrow gate alone, but you must enter the narrow gate unencumbered. Unencumbered. Like we just said, you can't enter the narrow gate with a lot of baggage. You come alone stripped of everything. And so think about this, that the narrow gate then is the gate of self-denial. Self-denial. Let me illustrate that by having you just to go forward to chapter 19. Matthew chapter 19. And there is a story here. about a man who desired to have eternal life. We refer to him as the rich young ruler. He was rich, and he was young, and he did rule in some type of capacity. And it says in verse 16, And someone came to him, came to Jesus, and said, Teacher, what good thing shall I do that I may obtain eternal life? Now if you notice, the Jews were in a works system. And so for the gospel to come along and to hear that you can't work your way into heaven was really monumental. It was devastating to them. And you hear this young man saying, what good thing shall I do? He was thinking of merits. What can I do to earn heaven? What can I do to earn eternal life? And Jesus said, why are you asking me about what is good? There's only one who is good, but if you wish to enter into life, keep the commandments. Now I want you to notice, He plays off His words. To tell somebody to keep the commandments is to drive them to the place to where they eventually will realize they can't. I'll be honest with you, just a few minutes reading the Ten Commandments, I realize in my own life I can't keep these on my own. There's no way. We have so many things in our life that take the attention of our hearts. God doesn't get full attention all the time. In fact, Revelation chapter 2 calls that leaving your first love. Happens all the time. One minute you're fully devoted to Him. Next minute, something's got your attention. Something's got your heart. Something's pulling you in a direction that's not toward Him. And your love is now divided to where you're not loving the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength. You're loving yourself at that point. But if you wish to enter the commandments or wish to enter into life, keep the commandments. And so He said to him, verse 18, which ones? And Jesus said, you should not murder, you should not commit adultery, you should not steal, you should not bear false witness, honor your father and your mother, and you shall love your neighbor as yourself. So He quoted the last half of the Ten Commandments. And then if that didn't get him, the last of the last, which is not one of the Ten Commandments, but it is summed up in what he says, you shall love your neighbor as yourself. That really shows where your heart is, if you're willing to put others before yourself. Well, it says in verse 20, the young man said to him, all these things I have kept, what am I still lacking? He wasn't willing to make that honest determination to do that soul-searching to admit that He has not kept the commandments. And so Jesus said to him, if you wish to be complete, here's where He hits him, go sell your possessions and give to the poor and you will have treasure in heaven and come follow Me. So he deals with his work's righteousness, and the man's not willing to go there. He's not willing to examine his work's righteousness against God's righteousness. If you compare yourself to God, you'll find that you fall woefully short. But if you're comparing yourself to everyone else, you're saying, well, I'm not as bad as them. But see, they're not the standard. God is. You have to compare yourself to Him. That's why in Matthew 5.48 we hear Jesus say in the Sermon on the Mount, you shall therefore be perfect even as your Father in heaven is perfect. Who are we comparing ourselves to? So if you want to be complete, if you want to have eternal life, if you want to be saved, now deal with the God in your life. In this case, it was his possessions. This man was rich. That would be like telling the richest man on the earth, give away everything you got. Give away billions and billions and billions of dollars that you have and come and follow Jesus. That's essentially what he said. Whatever it is that's in your life that is in the way, stopping you from following the Lord Jesus Christ, you've got to get rid of it. Hence, repent. That's why the call to salvation is a call to repentance. You're repenting from yourself, from your sin. You've got to forsake yourself. You've got to deny yourself. You've got to take up your cross and you've got to follow Jesus. And if you're not willing to do that, you cannot be His disciple. In essence, if you're not willing to do that, you cannot be saved. This is why I asked the question last week and I ask it again this morning. Which gate did you enter? So you have to enter the narrow gate unencumbered. You need to strip off self-righteousness and sin or you can't go through. You're carrying all that baggage and it will not make it through the narrow gate. You gotta drop everything. Not only must you enter as a command, not only must you enter the narrow gate and enter the narrow gate alone and enter the narrow gate unencumbered, but you must enter the narrow gate repentantly. You cannot go through the narrow gate unless your heart is repentant over sin. You remember at the baptism of John the Baptist when he was baptizing people and they were coming to him and it says they were confessing their sins and being baptized. To me, that certainly does away with any idea of infant baptism because babies can't confess anything, right? And even as they begin to grow up and they're little toddlers, they don't even know half the time if what they're doing is right or wrong other than you applying pain to the southern hemisphere to remind them that that is wrong, right? But over in Matthew 3, we hear Matthew tell us that at the baptism that there were some Pharisees and Sadducees, these religious leaders, and they were observing the baptism. When John the Baptist saw them coming to his baptism, he said to them, Brood of vipers, who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? Therefore bear fruits worthy of repentance. And that tells me right there that coming into the narrow gate is running from the wrath of God. You need to be saved from God. Have you ever thought about it like that? That's what our salvation is. We're being saved from the wrath of God. The word repentance, the Greek word is metanoia, refers to the change of mind. of those who have begun to abhor their errors and misdeeds, and have determined to enter upon a better course of life, so that it embraces both a recognition of sin and sorrow for it, and a hearty amendment, the tokens and effects of which are good deeds." That's a really good definition. It's very interesting. It came from Joseph Thayer. Joseph Thayer had some pretty bad problems in his theology. I just hope that he did what this said. This definition that He gave. But metanoia or repentance is talking about a radical conversion. It is a radical transformation of nature. It is a definitive turning from evil. It is a resolute turning to God in total obedience. That's what God is after. J.C. Ryle says, a holy man will endeavor to shun every known sin and to keep every known commandment. The passion of your heart is holiness. The passion of your heart is Christ, His righteousness, not yours. And you have to turn from sin, like the Thessalonians did, to serve the living and true God. It says in 1 Thessalonians 1, 9, For they themselves declare concerning us what manner of entry we had to you, and how you turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God. If you'll notice there that they turned to God from their idols. That's what it means to repent. You're turning from your idols. You're turning from your sin. You're turning from yourself. And you're turning to God. Charles Spurgeon said, you and your sins must separate or you and your God will never come together. No one sin you may keep, they must all be given up. They must be brought out like the Canish kings from the cave and be hanged up in the sun." You have to be willing to depart from your sin. You have to be willing to embrace Christ and Christ alone and His righteousness, not yours. That's part of the narrow gate. You have to enter it. You have to enter it alone. You have to enter it unencumbered. You have to enter it repentantly. And next, you must enter the narrow gate in utter surrender. Utter surrender. You have to come through the narrow gate in total abandonment to Christ. In John 8, 31, Jesus said to the Jews who believed in Him, He said, If you continue in My Word, you are My disciples indeed. That is total surrender. continuing in the Word, continuing in Christ. See, salvation is not an addition to your life. It's a transformation of your life. You cannot follow Christ in your self-righteousness. You must abandon it to follow Christ. Notice with me in Luke 18. We have two men who come into the temple Two men come in to pray. One was a tax collector, the other one was a Pharisee. And before Jesus told this parable, He said in verse 9, He told this parable to some people who trusted in themselves that they were righteous and viewed others with contempt. And here's the example He gives. Two men went up into the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee stood and was praying this to himself, I thank you that I am not like other people, swindlers, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector." Can you just hear the pride? Can you see it? I fast twice a week. I pay tithes of all that I get. Those were things he was supposed to do, and he's boasting in it. But Jesus turns to the tax collector, he was standing some distance away, was even unwilling to lift up his eyes to heaven, but was beating his breast saying, God, be merciful to me, the sinner. Now let me ask you, which one entered the narrow gate? Pharisee or the tax collector? But Jesus gives the answer. Verse 14, I tell you, this man, that is the tax collector, went to His house justified rather than the other. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but he who humbles himself will be exalted." That's the man that was saved. It's just like the two thieves that were on the cross with Jesus. Jesus is in the middle and He had one on each side of Him on the crosses. And you remember for a while there they're both joining in the insults. Then all of a sudden, one came to his senses. And he begins to tell the other one that Jesus hadn't done anything wrong, but we have. And he begins to account for his own sin. That's where it all begins. You've got to own up to yourself. You've got to own up to your sin. You've got to take responsibility for it. You don't say, I can earn heaven or I deserve heaven. No, it's the other way around. You deserve hell. I deserve hell. All of us deserve hell. We don't deserve forgiveness for what we have done. Adam didn't deserve forgiveness. God told him of every tree in the garden you may freely eat, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, you shall not eat of it. For in the day that you eat of it, you shall surely die. Now he did die. Him and Eve both died when they took of that forbidden fruit and their eyes were opened. And they began to hide from God, which was something they had never done before. That was showing a death that took place. They now had a death to their relationship with God. Now they were afraid of the Creator instead of walking with Him and fellowshipping with Him in the garden that He had created for them. You get over to Genesis chapter 5. And it says they died. In fact, in chapter 5, that's the cemetery chapter. A whole lot of people died. And it just keeps saying, so-and-so lived this many years and they died. So-and-so lived this many years and they died. And it just keeps doing it all through chapter 5. And all of that is a commentary of chapter 3. They took of the forbidden fruit and they died right then, spiritually. Right then, their relationship with God was no longer. Right then, it was broken. They had no outside environment to influence them other than Satan. And I'll be honest with you, that's enough. You cannot follow Christ in your self-righteousness. You have to abandon it and follow Christ. So there are two gates. The narrow gate, you must enter it. You must enter it alone and unencumbered and repentantly in an utter surrender. And now notice the wide gate. Go back to Matthew 7. He says, the gate is wide and the way is broad that leads to destruction. It leads to destruction. Notice those two things he says. He says it's broad. It's very spread out. It's very spacious. It's very roomy. It is the broad way. Everyone can enter this gate together. You don't have to enter this one alone. There's nothing individualistic about it. There's no self-denial expected. You can bring all your baggage. You can bring all your immorality. You can bring all your lack of repentance. You can bring your lack of commitment to Christ. This is the gate of self-indulgence that welcomes all kinds of sins. You don't have to let anything go. As I said last week, this is the gate everyone has entered. This is the road everyone is on who is born coming into this world. Also about this gate, it's very deceptive. Since it's mentioned with the narrow way, it's presented as a way to heaven, but it is the wrong way. Proverbs 14, 12 says, there is a way that seems right to a man. But its end is the way of death. We think we know the way, but we're dead. We're dead in trespasses and sins apart from Christ. How can we know the way? Even the disciples asked Jesus, how can we know the way? And that's when Jesus said, I am the way. Look to me. This is the way that leads to destruction. That gate is wide, the way is broad, and it leads to destruction. Now, I want you to notice, destruction is not annihilation. Some people believe that when they die, they go back to the elements and they cease to exist. Death ends everything right there. There is no afterlife. There is no heaven. There is no hell. In fact, that's really the way man would want it. Unless you have found Christ. Aren't you thankful that Christ took all your sin? Aren't you thankful that He drew you to the narrow way? That He is there at the narrow gate? But yet, notice the world we live in. The culture. Notice how it's continuing to spiral down. And notice even the churches that are supposed to be proclaiming the narrow way are now proclaiming the broad way. Because they're telling people that we need to just love. We just need to love everyone. We need to just accept everyone. And let's put up our rainbow flags. And let's hug everyone and have group therapy. All that's going to do is get you in hell. Because that's the white gate. Now I want you to notice in verse 14, he talks about the two ways. He says that there is the broad way and again there is the narrow way. And I think as he's telling us about the two gates and the two ways, he's just again reminding us that there is only one way and there's only one gate, but yet both are presented as being the way. The broad way is the way with no boundaries. The broad way, according to Ephesians 2.2, it's called the course of this world. The broad way is led by Satan, who is, according to John 14, 30, the ruler of this world. But the narrow way is difficult. It's constricted. It's a very difficult way because you have to walk with your eyes open. The path is narrow. It's hemmed in on both sides by the chastening hand of God. And if you step off either side of the path, you end up getting wrapped on your spiritual knuckles, as one commentator says. The requirement is great. It's strict. It's clear-cut. There is no room for deviation. You must desire in your heart to fulfill those requirements, knowing that if you fail, God will chasten you, lovingly forgive you, and set you on your feet again. It's, again, difficult and constricted. Do you think it's easy being a Christian? It's not. Some people think it's a bed of roses, but really, in many cases, it's a highway of thorns. Remember, Paul said we must go through many tribulations. So it's difficult, it's constricted, it requires you to count the cost before you enter it. The other gate doesn't require that. This gate, you must be willing to deny yourself and take up your cross and follow Christ. You must be willing to exchange your life for His. You must be willing to turn from your sin. You must be willing to hate your father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters and yes, even your own life to have Christ. Again, it's difficult. It's difficult. As I asked you last week, was it difficult to give up your life? We all have things in our life that we had to give up to come to Christ. Was it easy? So which gate did you enter? Did you enter the narrow or the broad? If you say narrow, did you count the cost? Have you been stripped of your self-righteousness? If not, then you entered the wrong gate. And I call you and urge you with all passion to repent and surrender your life to Christ, who paid your fine, took your sentence of death on Himself. Because you and I broke God's law, we're subject to the punishment that God has decreed, which is the second death, which is hell. But when you surrender your life to Jesus, believing and trusting in His atonement for your sin, God's righteousness is applied to you and your fine is paid in full. But beware of this. John Owen said, Satan's greatest success is in making people think that they have plenty of time before they die to consider their eternal welfare. We always say we got time. How can you say that? How can you say that you have time? Time's not promised to you. Right now we could say you're living on borrowed time, right? But at any time, your life could be required. And how you are in this life is what you will be in the next. So if you're here today and you're without Jesus, and you die today without Jesus, you go into eternity without Jesus. And you're not going to heaven. You're going to hell. You only have this life to make things right. And the only way you're going to make things right is enter through the narrow gate. If anything, call upon the Lord to show you the narrow gate. Like I said last week as we closed out, I'll say it again this week as we close. We've all heard enough information to damn us for all eternity. We've heard everything we need to hear in order to be saved. Everything. And so I call you to examine your heart. Examine your life. Examine your desires. Do you desire God above all things? Do you desire Christ? Do you long to obey Him? Do you love Him with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength? Do you love your neighbor as yourself? See, if you do, then that's showing that He has changed your desires, that He is in control of your life, that you have surrendered your life to Him. But if none of those things are true, it's showing that you have not given up your life, you're still holding on to your life. But you need to give it up, because that's the only way you're going to have Christ, is to give up your life. So as we pray now, would you take that moment and examine your heart and see if you truly are in the faith? And if not, would you call upon Him to save you? Would you confess Him as your Lord, believing in your heart that God raised Him from the dead? Let's pray. We pray, Heavenly Father, that You would speak to every heart in here as they look to see the evidence to show whether they're saved or not. And Lord, I pray if the evidence comes back and it's pointing to the fact that they're not saved, that they will do something about it right now by pleading and calling on Your mercy and crying out for Your forgiveness. I believe, Lord, what your servant Paul Washer said, that if you don't fear God, you're stupid. I agree with that so much. You are the one we are to fear. And I pray that we'll do that with all of our heart today. We pray all this in Jesus' name. Amen.