Which Way Leads to Heaven?
Published by Stanley Pouw in 2012 · 18 March 2012
Open your Bible and let’s look at Matthew 7:13-14, "Enter by the narrow gate. For the gate is wide and the way is easy that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many. 14 For the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few."
Jesus describes two gates which bring the individual to two roads which lead to two destinations which are populated by two different crowds. From the time of our life when we are old enough to make an independent decision, life becomes a matter of constant decision making. And Jesus after comparing the Pharisee’s ways and the Kingdom ways says to us, now you make a choice!
God is asking everyone to make a choice. For example, through Moses, God confronted the children of Israel in Deuteronomy 30:15 and said this; "I have set before you today life and good, death and evil… Therefore choose life, that you and your offspring may live." God gave to the people of Israel the ultimate choice, life or death, good or evil and called for a decision.
Joshua who followed Moses as the leader of the people of Israel as they entered the promise land was asked by God in Joshua 24:15 to have the Israelites make a choice, "Choose this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your fathers served in the region beyond the River, or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you dwell. But as for me and my house, we will serve the LORD.”
There are two things you cannot do with the Sermon on the Mount. One of them is you cannot stand back and just admire it. Jesus is not interested in applause for His ethics. Jesus is not interested in people who want to just admire the virtues of the ethical statements of the Sermon on the Mount. Jesus wants a decision about your destiny.
The second thing you can't do is to delay it into some prophetic tomorrow. He is demanding a decision now, in this time. I believe there are many people who take the teachings of the Sermon on the Mount and its demands and push them off to the future kingdom.
Jesus demands a response. You know now the qualifications of the kingdom; you now know the standards of the King, what is your response? What is your reaction? That's the issue. Jesus calls for action. He has been moving throughout this entire sermon, to bring people, to bring us to the point where we respond.
And brothers and sisters, the choice is very clear cut, there are only two choices, the narrow gate and the narrow way compared to the wide gate and the wide way, that's it. There are no other choices, none.
Some people might say, "Well how in the world could Jesus make only two choices about religion when there are so many religions facing man?" Well, there aren't that many either, there's just the true and the false, right? In fact, all the way through the Sermon on the Mount Jesus is contrasting divine righteousness and what it demands and human righteousness and what it demands.
It is a contrast in two kinds of religions, both roads marked as the way to heaven. It is a contrast between divine righteousness and human righteousness, between divine religion and human religion, between true religion and false religion. The Pharisees problem is indicated to us in Luke 18:9, "The Pharisees trusted in themselves that they were righteous."
Every man makes a choice. And the choice is this, either you're good enough on your own or through your system to make it to heaven or you're not and you cast yourself on the mercy of God through Christ. Those are the only two systems of religion in the world. Now you may see hundreds of different religious names and terms but in essence there are only two religions in the world.
There is the religion of grace, and there is the religion of works. There is the religion of faith, and there is the religion of the flesh. There is the religion of the heart and there is the religion of external conformance.
Man-made systems of religion that are based upon the thinking that we don't really need a Savior, we have the capability and the capacity to develop our own righteousness just give us a little religious environment, give us a few rules, a few routines, some rituals and we'll crank it up on our own.
That's the religion of human achievement and it comes under myriads of different titles but it's all the same system because it comes from the same source, Satan himself. And he packages it in different boxes but it's the exact same product. On the other hand, the religion of divine accomplishment is Christianity and it stands alone.
You see, the Jews taught that they could make it on their own. That's why it was so shocking when the apostle Paul said in Romans 3:20 that by “works of the law no human being will be justified in His sight.” And Paul said the law came in order to stop us from any claim to righteousness and to render the whole world guilty before God.
The Lord's thrust in the Sermon on the Mount is to show them that their view of everything is wrong and to bring them to where He began the sermon; blessed are the poor in spirit, blessed are they that mourn, blessed are the meek, blessed are those who hunger and thirst after righteousness.
In other words, Jesus starts out where He wants to end up with people who are broken in spirit, mourning over their total sinfulness, meek in the face of God and the law, and hungering and thirsting for what they know they don't have but desperately need, the righteousness of God.
But the Pharisees never understood that message. You hear the Pharisee in Luke 18:11 as he prays; " God, I thank you that I am not like other men," and he says, I do this and I do this and all through that prayer he never expressed one need to God, never one need because he never thought he had a need, because he was so good as he was.
And in the corner is the tax collector pounding on his breast saying, "God, be merciful to me a sinner." Jesus said, "That man went home justified, not the other one." Jesus wants to bring mankind to a point where he realizes his total incapacity to please God, in his own flesh. And in desperation with a broken spirit, meek and mourning he cries out for righteousness from God.
It's the same choice that every one of us has to make as well. After we just studied the Kingdom in verses 1-12, and as we come to verses 13 -14 the choice is clear. There are two gates and two ways; the wide and easy and the narrow and hard. There are two destinations; life and destruction. There are two kinds of travelers; the few and the many.
Now let's look at the narrow gate. First of all, in verse 13 is you must enter. Did you get that? You must enter. It demands a point of action right now. This is the moment; this is what God is calling for. It is not an option, it is a command. And Jesus says; enter in at the narrow gate.
He says there is a wide gate too but He doesn't tell you to enter that one because it leads to destruction. People say, "You know, Christianity doesn't give room for anyone else." That's right. We don't do that because we're proud or we're egotistical, we do that because that's what God said.
Jesus says in Acts 4:12, "Neither is there salvation in any other for there is none other name under heaven given among men whereby we must be saved." In John 10 it says, "I am the bread of life ... I am the way the truth and the life ... I am the door ... anyone who comes in any other way is a thief and a robber."
1 Timothy 2 says, "There is one Mediator between God and man ... the man Christ Jesus." Only one, no other name, Christ and Christ alone, it is that narrow. There are no alternatives. You must enter by the act of the will based on faith. You have to enter on God's terms through God's prescribed gate. And Christ is that gate.
And you must enter alone. In fact, many commentators would say that the best expression of this in a contemporary way would be a turnstile. One of those things which you have to go through all alone, the metal is very close and there's a little arm there that you push and you go through.
Salvation is individual. Everyone's salvation is exclusive and intensely personal. And that's hard, because all our life is spent rushing around with a crowd. All of our life is spent doing whatever everybody else does, being a part of the group, being accepted and now Christ says you're going to have to come through this deal all by yourself.
And Jesus says that you enter with great difficulty. Now that might shock some people. Because we hear all the time that getting saved is easy. All you have to do is just believe, walk the aisle in church, raise your hand and pray, and that’s it. The only thing is, when we get done the people aren't on the right road because they didn't come through the narrow gate. Let me show you why.
It says at the end of verse 14, regarding the narrow gate and regarding the narrow way, "Those who find it are few." The Old Testament states, "You'll find Me when you search for me with all your heart." I don't believe anybody ever slipped and fell into the Kingdom of God. That's the revivalist's approach, raise your hand, walk the aisle, and you're in.
Let me take it a step further. It's difficult to get saved, Jesus says. Number one because you've got to be seeking. And there are many who are seeking but when they find out what it costs to enter they're not willing to do that. Listen, you don't become a Christian in some cheap and easy fashion.
Now this is not what you hear but this is what Jesus said. The Kingdom is to those who seek it with all their hearts. The Kingdom is to those who strive, who agonize to enter it, whose hearts are shattered over their sinfulness. Who mourn in meekness, who hunger and thirst and who long for God to change their life.
One of Satan's pervasive lies in the world today is that it's easy to become a Christian. It's not easy. It's a very narrow gate. You go through all alone and you go through agonizing all the way over your sinfulness. You have to be broken in your spirit.
The rich young ruler in Matthew 19 came to that gate, he really searched. And he found Jesus and he asked, “what do I need to do to enter the Kingdom?” The Lord went right to the heart of the problem and said go take everything you have, sell it and give it to the poor. He came with self-righteousness in one hand and all his money in the other and he couldn't get through the gate and the Bible says he went away sorrowful.
You cannot pass through the gate unless your heart is repentant over sin. When John the Baptist was preparing people to receive the Messiah they were coming and they were being baptized because they wanted to have their sins cleansed. Anyone with a Jewish background knows that preparation for the Messiah involves purging sinfulness.
Finally, you must enter the narrow gate in total surrender to Christ. No person can be regenerated as Christ indicates it here by simply adding Jesus Christ to all their other carnal activities. Salvation is not an addition, salvation is a transformation.
The message of 1 John is that if you are truly redeemed it will manifest itself in a transformed life where sin is confessed, where obedience is part of your new character, and where love is made manifest. Salvation is marked by a changed life. Jesus even said: I can tell My true disciples for they obey My word.
The requirements are great and strict and refined and clear cut. It must be the desire of our heart to fulfill those knowing full well that when we fail God will chasten and then God will wonderfully and lovingly forgive, and set us on our feet again.
In contrast there is the wide gate. We don't need to say much about it it's obvious by contrast. Well, everybody can get in together. Hey, you can bring all your baggage, your sin, all your immorality, your lack of commitment to Christ, you can just come along and go through the gate of self-indulgence.
There are a lot of people who claim to be Christians and they are totally self-indulgent. Pride, self-righteousness, self-indulgence, sins of all sorts are welcome on the broad road. A West Indian who had chosen Islam over Christianity said this; "My reason is that Islam is a noble, broad path there is room for a man and his sins on it and the way of Christ is far too narrow."
You say, "Well, it's a hard and strict and a narrow way, sounds to me like something I wouldn't want." One wonderful thing about it is that all the hardness and all the narrowness and all the restrictions are born by Christ Himself so that “His yoke is easy for us and His burden is light” (Matthew 11:30).
But that does not mean there is no hardship at all. Jesus says, if you're going to follow Me you ought to know that many won’t agree. You can't be my disciple, if you don’t love me more than the rest, even your father, your mother, your wife, your children and your own life. You might have to leave everybody you love and then you're going to have to pick up your cross and live a life for Jesus.
You better consider persecution. In this world you'll have tribulation. A day will come, Jesus said to His disciples, when they think they'll do God a service by executing you. John 16 says, you're going to spend your life running from those who want to kill you. This narrow way may be a very hard road.
And you're constantly trying to deal with your own sinfulness: your pride, your own desires, your own selfish will. Jesus said to Peter follow Me and by the way, Peter, it will cost you your life. Are you still coming on those terms?
Now look at the bright side, oh Lord, by the work and wonder of Your Holy Spirit, may You move on hearts to drive them in the direction of the narrow gate, knowing that at the end that narrowness explodes into the new heavens and the new earth with all its infinite breadth, height, depth and length of unending joys and blessing.
Listen, the way is narrow but I'm happy to know that it's wide enough to take in the chief of sinners. There is no sin that is too big for God to save you. But you have to make that choice, Jesus is calling you tonight. Come, Jesus is knocking at your heart.....