and that's what I do at keeping time. So this evening, turn with me, if you would, to Matthew chapter seven. Matthew chapter number seven. Just a couple of verses here. We've been trying our very best to work our way through these chapters and verses, and it's taken a very long time, longer than we had anticipated initially, but the Lord knows. And we've come now to verse number 13 and 14 of this chapter is what we want to draw our attention to this evening. The Lord Jesus makes the statement, Enter ye in at the straight gate, for wide is the gate, and broad is the way that leadeth to destruction. And many there be which go in thereat, because straight is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it. Let's pray. Father, thank you, Lord, for your Word. Thank you for your faithfulness, your goodness, your grace, your mercy. Lord, thank you for the Word of God that we're able to read and hear and understand. And Father, I pray that you would help us tonight. Lord, forgive me where I fail you. Fill me with your Spirit. I pray that you grant liberty and option to preach our truth and power. Father, I pray that you would speak to every one of our hearts from the Word of God. Use your Word to accomplish your purpose, Lord, and we'll thank you for what you do in our midst. In Jesus' name, amen. This evening, I want to deal with the thought. I started the title of the message... I started the title at Country Road, Take Me Home, but I didn't figure that would go over to you. At least I'll smile a little bit. But tonight, I want to deal with the thought of the door The door to forever. When the Lord Jesus makes the statement that we read here in these couple of verses, He speaks to us about a couple of gates and a couple of ways that end up in a destination. He speaks to us about a straight gate. And Wide Gate, he speaks to us about a broad way and a narrow way. He speaks to us about a way that ends up in destruction and a way that ends up in life. Now, if you'll remember, This sermon, the Sermon on the Mount, is really the entirety of it. Chapter 5, Chapter 6, and Chapter 7 is describing to us the life of a believer that is submitted to the Lordship of Jesus Christ. Chapter 5 spoke to us about our doctrine. Chapter 6 spoke to us about our devotion. And Chapter 7 really is a very clear direction for life. We have looked at it, and I don't mean to re-preach it, but we've looked at how the Lord Jesus spoke to us concerning the idea of judging one another. That if we're going to judge, that we ought to make sure that we're right before we go to judging others. We've looked at how the Lord Jesus encouraged us to pray confidently. Prayer is something, of course, that should be active in every one of our lives, and how we ought to pray believing God, not that we have some ability to command or demand God to do anything, We are to pray, believing God that he will fulfill his word, that he will fulfill his promise. And as we come into these verses tonight, really what we've read in verse 13 and 14, and really down to the end of the chapter, the Lord Jesus is emphasizing this idea of examination. Really, self-examination. The verses that we've read deal with examining the direction that our lives are going in and then ultimately what is going to come at the end of the road. In the next few verses, from verse number 15, Down through verse number 23, the Lord Jesus is going to deal with this idea of false prophets and how there would be those that would stand before the Lord one day and say, Lord, Lord, have we not done many wonderful works? Have we not cast out devils? Have we not done all of these things in your name? And Jesus responds, depart from me that work iniquity, for I never knew you. And then he talks to us in verse number 24 and verse number 29 about the foundation that our house is built upon. And he uses that as an illustration to speak to us concerning the idea of being prepared for eternity. The Lord Jesus is using in our text tonight an illustration of gates and paths to illustrate the course of our lives for various individuals. Really, it is tonight, if I could simplify everything that I'm going to try to say, it is to say it like this, that there is one path that brings about horror, destruction, and judgment. It is the path that as you go into the broad gate that leads into the broad way that the Lord Jesus said led to destruction. It brings about horror, it brings about destruction, and it brings about judgment. And the other one is that which is the straight gate or the narrow gate is the idea of the word straight. the narrow gate, the narrow way that leads to life. And that path, if you will, leads to what we would call heaven or joy and ultimately is going to lead to the presence of the Lord Jesus. And so really the question tonight that we all have to ask ourselves is this, what path Are you on? I know that seems like a very simple question, but really that's the question that the text is presenting to us is really that of examination. What direction is your life going in? We could describe these two gates and the corresponding pathway after them and ultimately their result in eternity as that which is natural to man and that which is a new and a living way. Now, let's just take them for as Jesus says it. There is what we would call the wide gate and the broad way. Now, how does somebody enter into the broad gate and ultimately follow the broad way or the wide gate and the broad way? The idea of the broad gate and the The White Gate and the Broadway speaks of that which is natural to mankind. Jesus said it, that there are many which go in, there out. We understand that naturally. This speaks of who man is and his natural tendency. And we understand that man naturally, when he is born, that he is bent toward sin. that when He is born and He comes to the understanding of right and wrong, He comes to the understanding of sin, to righteousness and unrighteousness, that because of our fallen nature and because of our own corrupt decisions, that we are bent toward sin. We are sinners tonight because of Adam's transgression. We believe in what the Word of God teaches of the federal headship of Adam. And that's a 50 cent way of saying that when Adam fell, he plunged all of mankind into sin. That's you and that's me. That every one of us inherit a sin nature because of Adam. Because of what Adam did in the garden. When God made Adam and Eve perfect, He made the with a true free will. And they had the ability to choose that which was right and to choose that which was wrong. And when God said the day that they would partake of the tree of the knowledge of the fruit of good and evil, that they would surely die, they chose sin. They chose rebellion. They chose to disobey God. And by that transgression, death entered into the world, and sin entered into the world, and death by sin. We inherit a sin nature because of Adam. We are who we are because of our parents. We could say it that way. The Word of God would tell us that the sins of the father reach the third and the fourth generation. You go back far enough trying to figure out why man's corrupt and why man's depraved and why you're the way that you are and why I am the way that I am. Naturally speaking, it is because in our nature because of Adam. But the problem we have with sin is further than just our nature. We can't look at it and say, well, this is all Adam's fault. All of my sin, all of my iniquity, all of the rebellion against God that I committed, it's all Adam's fault. No, it's not. It's not Adam's fault. It's yours. Yes, we are sinners by nature, but we are also sinners by choice tonight. When you and I are presented with righteousness and unrighteousness, naturally speaking, we desire after unrighteousness. We desire after sin. We are sinners tonight because of who we are, but we commit the sins that we commit because of who we are. Both things are true. You say, well, if I'm going through this wide gate and I'm on this broad way, what is it going to look like? What are you going to find tonight? If you were to look around on the broad way, what are you going to find? Well, I believe on the broad way you're going to find religion. What do you mean you're going to find religion? You're going to find people like the Pharisees of Jesus' day that knew how to walk right. They knew what to say, when to say, and how to say. They knew all of the things that you're supposed to know. They knew all the facts about the Messiah and Jesus and all of that stuff. They knew all of it, but it had never been made real in their hearts. There's religion on the Broadway. There's self-righteousness on the Broadway. What do you mean self-righteousness? That we, as human beings, we have the tendency tonight to look at somebody else and say, well, I'm not as bad as they are. I don't do this. I don't do that. I don't go here. I don't go there. And before it's over, before we even realize it sometimes, we look at ourselves and we say, well, I'm really not that bad. There's self-righteousness on the Broadway. There's temptation on the Broadway. Temptation to rebel against God's command. Temptation to sin. Of course, on the Broadway, there is sin. James would put it this way, and I'm going to paraphrase it. James would put it this way that lust bringeth forth sin. And sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death tonight. There is a reality tonight that sin is real. We understand that sin is very real. And I want to say this as a word of warning to us. And I know a lot of us know this, but we need to be reminded that this world is full of lies. This world is full of wickedness. This world is full of sin. And yes, they may present it, and we may look around and see it as we're missing out on something. And especially to the young people, the world will present things to you like church isn't really what you need, and Jesus isn't really all that important, that really you can just live however you want to. You can go wherever you want to. You can just do whatever feels right. They're going to tell you that it's alright to drink some alcohol. You just have one drink, it ain't going to hurt you. You can try this or try that. It's not that big of a deal. Here's the thing. Those alcohol advertisers don't show you the other side of the billboard tonight. They don't show you the lives wrecked and ruined. They don't show you families ripped apart. They don't show you people that are homeless and jobless because they've wrecked and ruined their lives because of alcohol, the drugs and all of that stuff that the world peddles and pushes. They don't show you lives wrecked and ruined because of the decisions that are ultimately sin that people make. They tell you to just have different kinds of boyfriends, girlfriends, anybody and somebody on the side. They don't show you lives wrecked and ruined by sin. It would startle some of us if we would look at the statistics of teen pregnancies in our country. It would startle us if we look at the statistics of suicide in our country. It would startle us if we knew and look at the statistics of people that say, even young people that say they struggle with depression. What I'm trying to get us to understand is on the broad way, it does not tell us the truth. The truth is not given to us. What I'm trying to say tonight is this. There are consequences for sin. The Word of God is plain that whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap. Tonight. It never reveals to us the truth. It's the ugly truth. And if we're not careful, we can look at the Broadway and the wide gate, and as the Word of God here would tell us, that there's all of these people that are going this direction, and we can look at it and say, well, I've missed out on something. How many grown people do we know that have, where they get up in their 40s and their 50s, and then they start making decisions that make no sense? for somebody in their forties and fifties to make because they didn't get to live out their youth, is what they'll say. I want to be very plain tonight that the end of the road for those that have entered in the wide gate and those that are on the broad way, Jesus is very plain, the end of that road is going to lead to destruction. is going to lead to waste, to eternal ruin. One person defined this word destruction as misery in hell. Those that have entered the wide gate and those that are on the broad way, it is descriptive of the people and the destiny of everybody who does not know the Lord Jesus Christ as their Lord and their Savior. The end of the road for sinners is hell. The end of the road for you, if you do not know Jesus tonight, is hell, is judgment, is wrath, you say. But it's Wednesday night, I know that. And there's a lot of people sitting on a lot of pews in a lot of places that have a form of godliness, but their life has never been transformed by the gospel. And Jesus is playing tonight. He is calling you and He is calling me to examine our hearts and to see whether we be of the faith. He is calling us to examine ourselves to see whether we be on the broad way or the narrow way. Let me go ahead and say this, you don't get to be on both tonight. You don't get to live part of the time on the Broadway, and then jump on over and get on the narrow way, and live in the narrow way, and then when you don't like the narrow way no more, you can get back on the Broadway. You don't get to do that. Jesus has been very plain. We looked at it earlier in these chapters that no man can serve two masters. No man can serve God and mammon. You're either going to love the one and hate the other, or you're going to despise the one and love the other. It's one or the other tonight. He speaks to us about a wide gate and a broadway that's full of sin that leads to destruction and ruin. Oh, there's so many of us that look around and we have the grants, don't we? Time wasted, decisions that are made. I'm glad tonight that Jesus doesn't just end this with, there's a Broadway and a wide gate that's going to end up in judgment, and that's the only hope he got. That's it. That's how a lot of people view God tonight. That's all he is, is a mean man up in the sky that zaps people when he's mad at them. And let me be very plain, God is a God of judgment. You read through the Old Testament, what do you think God was doing? He was judging sin. God hated the sin of one people so much, He caused the earth to split open and swallowed them. Why? Because of their sin. God hates sin. And He is one day going to judge sin. And a lot of people think that, well, I'm getting away with it now. I can just live in the old way now. It's not that big of a deal now. Well, there is coming a payday tonight. The judge of all the earth one day will execute judgment and it is going to be a perfect and a righteous judgment. He speaks to us about a wide gate and a broad way. But He also speaks to us tonight about a narrow gate and a narrow way. We understand that man naturally, so to speak, take the illustration for what it's worth tonight, that naturally speaking we enter into the wide gate onto the broad way. But how does somebody enter this narrow gate onto this narrow way? I don't know about you, but a broad gate and a broad path are a whole lot different than a narrow gate and a narrow path. You've been going down some dirt road that your car fits on pretty good, pretty broad. You can get through there pretty good, then you turn off on what we would call a pig trail. You don't get around too good no more, do you? We understand the illustration. Well, spiritually speaking, how does somebody go from being on the broad way to the narrow way? Well, just as there was a gate for the broad way, so is there a gate for the narrow way. And that door, that gate, is the Lord Jesus. Jesus said it in John chapter 10, I believe, verse number 7. He said that He was the door of the sheep. What Jesus is saying is that He is the only way that we are going to enter into the narrow way. In chapter 14 of John's Gospel, he said, I am the way, the truth, and the life, that no man cometh unto the Father but by me. There's not multiple ways to heaven tonight. It's either Jesus or nothing. The only way that we are going to enter into the narrow way and stay on the narrow way is to be in Christ. When we are born naturally, we are dead spiritually, we experience death physically, and those outside of Christ experience death eternally, and the Word of God says that we are naturally in Adam. It speaks of a position. But when somebody is born again, they are spiritually, here's another position phrase, placed in Christ. The Lord Jesus is playing tonight that the only way that you are going to escape the judgment and the wrath of God that is coming on the broad way is to enter in through Christ on the narrow way. Through repentance and faith. The idea of entering the narrow gate onto the narrow way is connected to the reality that we are commanded by God to believe the gospel. We are commanded by God to repent and believe the gospel. We have no other option. There is no other way tonight but to repent and believe. This isn't a new message, but it's the old message. that we are to forsake our sin, we are to forsake our self-righteousness, we are to forsake whatever it is that we are clinging to, and we are to believe the gospel. What is the gospel? We live in a generation of many Gospels. There's political Gospels, there's health and wealth Gospels, there's religious Gospels that try to give you the answers that you seek. The only true Gospel tonight is what the Word of God tells us. And it tells us this, that Christ died for our sin according to the Scripture. That He was buried and rose again the third day according to the Scripture. And Paul was very plain in Galatians. that if any man or any angel preach another gospel to them at Galatia, or if any man or any person preach another gospel than that, they ought to be accursed. If it is a gospel other than the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ for us and for our sin, then it is a false gospel. Here's the question. Have you believed the gospel? Have you believed the gospel? Not the historical fact that Jesus was a man that lived, that Jesus was crucified, that Jesus was buried, and there's even some historical evidence that Jesus resurrected. People don't have a problem with that. But it's when you start saying that Jesus was perfect, that Jesus was righteous, that Jesus was holy, that Jesus was the Son of God, that died on the cross for my sin, that died on the cross for your sin, when it starts getting personal with people, that He was buried and that He resurrected, that this gospel is the only way that lives are changed, that hearts are transformed, that people are made a new, not just updated versions, but new creatures through the power of this gospel. Have you believed the gospel? Not the historical facts, but that Jesus died for you. That it was your sin that crucified the Son of God. Yes, I understand that God used men to nail the body of the Lord Jesus to the cross that day, but bigger than that, the Word of God tells us that He who knew no sin was made sin for us, that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him. What nailed the Son of God to the cross was my sin and your sin. you are only going to enter into the narrow way through the narrow gate, which is Christ. And you're either still in Adam, still lost in your sin, still on your way to hell, under the judgment and wrath of God, or you're in Christ. And if you're not in Christ tonight, the only hope you have is that God be merciful and grant you repentance and faith in the Son of God. You say, well, what do you find on this narrow way? If I enter into this, through this narrow gate, on this narrow way, what am I going to find? Well, you're going to find redemption. You're going to find that every one of your sins, past, present, and future, have been paid for and forgiven by the Lord Jesus Christ. You're going to find on this narrow way, unconditional love, that God set His love upon you long before the world ever began, and when you were running from God, rebelling against God, He loved you, thank God. He loved us long before we ever started loving Him. He loves us tonight, and He's going to keep loving us. into forever. On this narrow way, you're going to find joy. On this narrow way, you're going to find peace. On this narrow way, you're going to find a purpose. What do you mean? On this narrow way, you're going to understand finally that the purpose that God put you here for is to glorify Himself. You're going to find, if I could say it this way, everything that you long for. Why? Because to enter into the narrow gate, to be on the narrow path is to follow Jesus. And to have Jesus is to have everything that you need and want tonight. You say, what is the end for those on the narrow way? It is this. Wife. Jesus said the end of the road for those on the broad way was destruction and hell. Jesus said for those that are on the narrow way that the end for them is life, eternal life. We don't ever have to die. Death has lost its sting. The grave has lost its victory. Death is nothing more than closing our eyes here and opening our eyes in the presence of God. To exhale here is to inhale in the presence of God. We've got to hope, thank God, that there's a better day coming. We've got to hope that we who have walked by faith, that our faith will become sight, that we really do get to see Jesus, that we really do get to be with Him forever. It's eternal life that's never going to end. You say, well, how long am I going to live for? You're going to live as long as God does. You're going to live forever. But it's not just eternal life. Thank God for that. But it's abundant life. That's what Jesus said. Jesus said, I am come that they might have life and that they might have it more abundantly. The idea of that word abundantly is that it super abounds. It's running over. Remember when you was young and my step-mom's mom would do this. When I'd stay the night at my dad's house on the weekends, it was a treat to go over to their house and get coffee. I don't know who thought it was a good idea to give a six-year-old coffee, but they did. And every time she'd pour a cup of coffee, she'd give you a coffee cup and she'd give you one of them little plate saucer things, whatever that is. And what was the purpose of that? It was so that if that cup ran over, it didn't get all over the floor, it got all over the saucer. God all over the plate. That's the idea of the abundant Christian life, is that God's goodness, God's grace, God's mercy has been poured inside of you so much that it wells over. It gets in the saucer, so to speak. Oh, the end of the way for those on the narrow way is life eternal, but life abundant. You may look back over your life tonight and say, because of your sin, because of your decisions, there's regrets and sorrow, but every one of us that know the Lord Jesus Christ through it all can stand and testify tonight that we have never been sorry, that we trusted Him, that we've never been sorry, that we followed Him, that we'd do it all over again. Why? Because the goodness and grace of God has been following us all the days of our lives. Because the goodness and grace of God has transformed us. Because the goodness and grace of God has kept us. Because God is worthy of our lives tonight. Again, this text is a call to self-examination. To every one of us to examine. What path are you on tonight? What gate are you entering? What gate have you entered into? You say, preacher, I don't know Jesus. I'm on that Broadway. Well, here's what's coming for you. Hell. Judgment. Wrath. Word of God implores men to flee the wrath to come. Run to Jesus for mercy. He's the only one that can forgive you your sins. Beg Him for mercy. Trust Him. as your only hope tonight. You say, Preacher, I'm on the narrow way. Well, I've got good news. You've got eternal life waiting for you. But you've got abundant life while you're here. Oh, we've got grounds to worship tonight. Why? You don't know what's going on in my life, and I don't know what's going on in yours. But this I do know. If we've got Jesus, we've got all we need and all we want. He's enough tonight. Again. It's a door that leads to forever. Either on the broad way that leads to destruction or on the narrow way that leads to life. Let's all stand this evening. I appreciate you listening. I appreciate you being here. We'll be dismissed from the service tonight in a word of prayer.