Turn with me, if you would, back
to Matthew chapter seven. Matthew chapter seven. Let's
read the verses that will be our text. Verses 13 to 20. 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. Beware of false prophets, which
come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ravening
wolves. You shall know them by their
fruits. Do men gather grapes of thorns
or figs of thistles? Even so, every good tree bringeth
forth good fruit, but a corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit. A good tree cannot bring forth
evil fruit, neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit. Every tree that bringeth not
forth good fruit is hewn down and cast into the fire. Wherefore,
by their fruits you shall know them." Now, this is speaking of false
religion and true religion, if you want
to say it that way. The message of lies and the message of truth. All
right? And this is speaking of false
preachers and true preachers. All right.
So that's what everything that was named right there. That's
what it's talking about. False religion, false messages, false
preachers, true religion, true messages, true preachers. Okay. Our Lord said right here, we
just read it. Our Lord said that most people
are in false religion, listening to the message of lies. That's
what our Lord said. If you look at verse 13, he said,
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
there at. Most people, And this just desperately needs
to be told. It just has to be told. Most
people are in false religion, listening to false preachers
preach the message of lies. Most people. Our Lord said right
here that very few people experience true worship. A lot of people go into church
buildings, but very few people experience true worship, sitting
under and listening to and believing the message of truth. Verse 14,
he said, because straight is the gate. And if you have a little
center margin in your Bible, you'll see the word because means
how. How straight is the gate. And narrow is the way which leadeth
unto life. And he said, few there be that
find it. Few there be that find it. how
blessed a sinner is if he or she is ever allowed to hear the
message of truth. We realize how blessed we are
if we're allowed to hear the message of truth and believe
it. It's a small number of people
who hear the message of truth. Oh, and it's even smaller who
believe it. Those who are allowed to hear
it and believe it, they don't boast in it. They don't. They're not haughty
about it and arrogant and prideful. They're not. They know that it
was freely given to them and all they can say is, thank God,
He allowed me to hear it. Thank God, He allowed me to believe
it. But for the grace of God, I would be lost in false religion. I tell you the worst kind of
lost to be is when you're lost and you don't know you're lost.
That's the worst kind of lost to be. And but for the grace
of God, all of us would be lost in false religion, just like
the masses of people that are on this earth, the masses of
people. The truth and belief of the truth
is a gift from God. Hearing it is a gift. Believing
it is a gift. Now, he said at the end of verse
14, he said, few there be that find it. Few there be that find
it. But he said in Isaiah 65, I'm
found of them that sought me not. I said, behold me. That's how they find it. They seek him not, and he says
to them, behold me. And they say, when you said,
seek my face, my heart said, thy face will I seek. That's
how it works. He says, behold me. He says,
behold the way. He said, I'm the way. Isn't that
what he said? I am the way. Behold the truth. He said, I'm the truth. Behold
the life. He said, I'm the life. And he said, there are very few
people that have that revealed to them. Look with me at Luke
13. Luke 13, verse 18. Then said he unto what is the
kingdom of God, like the kingdom of heaven, God's people, his
kingdom. And where unto shall I resemble
it? It is like a grain of mustard
seed which a man took and cast into his garden. It's like a
little bitty mustard seed grain that somebody put down into the
earth. And it grew and waxed a great tree and the fowls of
the air lodged in the branches of it. And again, he said, where
unto shall I liken the kingdom of God? It is like leaven, which
a woman took and hid in three measures of meal. It's just like
that small bit of leaven, talking about the kingdom of God. It's
just like that little bit of leaven that a woman put in that,
all that measure of meal till the whole was leavened. Verse
22, and he went through the cities and villages, teaching and journeying
toward Jerusalem. Now watch verse 23. Then said
one unto him, Lord, are there few that be saved? Hearing what
he was saying and understanding what he was teaching them, this
man said, Lord, are there few that be saved? And he said unto
them, strive to enter in at the straight gate. For many, I say
unto you, will seek to enter in and shall not be able. I wish men and women could hear
this and understand this. I wish that they could, but the
only way that that'll happen for any of us is if God gives
us ears to hear. He has to give us a mind to understand. He has to give us a heart to
believe it. May he do that for us today.
I pray he'll do that for us today. I pray that we will be included
in the few who are going to be led to life. People hear this, I didn't title
the message narrow-minded, I thought about it, but people hear this
and they want to know, why are you so narrow-minded? You know,
they hear, they see mega-religion. Who are y'all? Don't you see
them? All right, they see, yeah, who
are we? Forget about us. Not unto us,
oh Lord. But they see mega religion and they hear something like
this preached from a pulpit. And this is their response to
it. Well, that's absolute hogwash. Few are gonna be saved. Do you
see all these churches? I don't believe that. I don't
believe that at all. Ask Noah and his family. Our Lord said, as in the days
of Noah. This is serious. This is serious. This world is full of false religion. This world is full of false preachers
preaching false messages of lies. They are lying on God. Preaching Him much lower than
He is. And they're lying on man preaching
Him much higher than He is. And they're lying on salvation.
They're lying about the way. And droves of people are believing
it. Droves of people. Drowning in
the lies of false religions, false preachers. and it's going
to lead their souls into eternal damnation. It's going to. Our Lord said, enter in at the
straight gate. Listen to the preacher who preaches
the narrow way. And we're about to read Paul
say, if that ain't me, the apostle Paul, if that's not me, listen
to somebody else. He said, though I or an angel
from heaven If we don't preach this way, let us be cursed and
listen to somebody else. Listen to the narrow way. Look
to the narrow way. Enter into the narrow way. So narrow, it all comes down
to one. How narrow are we talking here?
One. One. Go with me to Galatians 1. Let's
read it. Galatians chapter 1. Galatians 1 verse 3. It says, grace be to you, not
works, not man's works, not man's anything. God's grace be to you
and peace from God, the father and from our Lord Jesus Christ,
who gave himself for our sins. It's not what we're going to
do for him. It's what he has already done for us. Verse four
says, who gave himself for our sins that he might deliver us
from this present evil world, according to the will of God
and our father, to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen. That's the gospel. That's the
truth. That's the message. All right.
Verse six. He said, I marvel that you are
so soon removed from him that called you into the grace of
Christ unto another gospel, which is not another, but there be
some that trouble you and would pervert the gospel of Christ. Any alteration. because I've heard this so many
times. Well, my preacher, it's close. He doesn't preach everything
in the Bible. It's close enough. Listen, any
alteration, any deviation, any change, any change from the gospel
that God has written in his own word concerning his own salvation
is a perversion of it. And he said in verse eight, though
we are an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel unto
you than that which we have preached unto you, let him be accursed. As we said before, so say I now
again, if any man preach any other gospel unto you than that
you have received, let him be accursed. For do I now persuade
men or God, or do I seek to please men? For if I yet pleased men,
I should not be the servant of Christ. What he's saying is,
there's only one way and it's God's way, not man's. Verse 11, he said, I certify
you, brethren, that the gospel which was preached of me is not
after man. I didn't receive it of man. I
didn't receive it concerning man. It was of God, concerning
God, Christ Jesus, the Lord. I've quoted this a lot recently
because it needs to be quoted a lot. But there is no other
name under heaven given among men whereby we must be saved. Salvation is in no other Jesus
Christ the Lord. He that hath the Son hath life.
He that hath not the Son of God hath not life. No other. Turn with me over to Ephesians
chapter four. Ephesians 4 verse 4 says, There is one body. That's it. There's one body. It's not this body here and that
body there. It's not, well, there's a body
in heaven and a body on earth. There's one body. There is one
Spirit. Even as you are called in one
hope of your calling, there's only one. There's one Lord. There's only
one faith, one baptism. And it's the baptism of God's
Holy spirit, immersing us into Christ. There's one God and Father
of all who is above all and through all and in you all. People say,
well, you have your beliefs and I have my beliefs. You have your religion and I
have my religion. We'll just agree to disagree
and then we'll all see each other up there in glory. That's not
so. That's just not so, that's not how it works. All of us need
to throw our beliefs out the window. All of us need to throw our religion
out the window, and we need to bow to the truth of the gospel
concerning God, man, and salvation, the one that God Almighty has
written for us in His Word. And this is what I mean by that.
It's not that you need to get rid of your beliefs and side
with me, which is what everybody's trying
to do. Well, why don't you leave your church and come to our church
so you can get rid of your beliefs and take on my beliefs? That's
not it at all. We both need to get rid of all of our sinful,
fleshly beliefs, and we need to bow to the truth of God Almighty. There's only one way. His way. His way. And it's so critical,
this is what He said. He said these false preachers
who are preaching this false religion, the ones who are going
to be hewn down and cast into the fire." He said,
what they are preaching is so close to the truth. These wolves,
as he called them, he said, they're so good and they're so crafty
at disguising their lies. And may the Lord open our eyes
to this. May the Lord help us right now. They are so good at what they
do. A wolf is a very cunning creature. Not dumb like a sheep. Sheep are dumb. Wolves are not. And they are so good at hiding
their lies down inside of words like, Jesus, Lord, the cross. Things like that. They'll tuck
their lies down inside words like that. They're so good at
it, you'd almost think they were sheep. Pleasant. You know? Our Lord said, they are wolves
in sheep's clothing. And He said, beware. Beware. Okay, how can we? How can I know
if I'm hearing the message from a wolf or a sheep? How can I know if I'm sitting
under and believing the narrow way of the truth? or the broad
way of a lie. How can I be aware of this? Our Lord said, you shall know
them by their fruit. You'll know them by their fruit.
You will know the one who preaches the narrow way of the truth or
the broad way of a lie, and you'll know the one who believes. the
narrow way of the truth or the broad way of a lie, by their
fruit. He said you don't get grapes
from thorns and you don't get figs from thistles. Grapes come
from a grapevine. And figs come from a fig tree. And we read something like that
and we think, well, he just kind of randomly grabbed those two
things and said, you know, that doesn't... He didn't do that. Oh, the wisdom of God's Word.
The wisdom of God's Word. What do grapes represent in the
scripture? Especially grapes that have endured the wine press. What does wine, when we drink
wine at the Lord's table, what does that represent? The blood
of the Lord Jesus Christ. What did Adam and Eve try to
cover themselves with after they sinned in the garden? Fig leaves. What tree did our
Lord curse? He said, you're not gonna bear
fruit. The fig tree. This is grace and works. He said it's either going to
be salvation by grace through the blood that Christ freely
gave, or it's going to be salvation by the works that man tries to
accomplish himself. It's going to be one or the other.
He said, you will know the religion. You will know the message. You
will know the man by his fruit. And we naturally, when we see
that, you know, we think, well, what that means is if he doesn't
sin, he's a good tree with good fruit. And if he sins, he's an
evil tree with evil fruit. All have sinned and come short
of the glory of God. You want to look at good deeds?
Don't look here. Don't look here. Every true preacher,
you have true preachers and false preachers. Just focus on true
preachers for a minute. Every true preacher on this earth
is a sinner before God Almighty. Everything he produces in his
flesh is just filth, filthy rags before God Almighty. Every true
believer on this earth is a sinner before God in his flesh. The
deeds of the flesh, that's not what he's talking about. That's
not what he means when he says fruit. Our Lord told us exactly
what he means in Luke chapter six. Go with me there to Luke
six. Alright, this is Luke's account
of our text. Luke 6, verse 43. He said, For a good tree bringeth
not forth corrupt fruit, neither doth a corrupt tree bring forth
good fruit. For every tree is known by his
own fruit. For of thorns men do not gather
figs, nor of a bramble bush gather they grapes. A good man out of
the good treasures of his heart bringeth forth that which is
good, and an evil man out of the evil treasure of his heart
bringeth forth that which is evil. For of the abundance of
the heart Those last three words say, His mouth speaketh. He's talking about the fruit
of our lips. He's talking about the confession
of our hearts, our religion, and our confession of how God
saved us. That's gonna be one of two ways.
It's either gonna be by God's grace, through the blood that
His Son freely gave to put away the dead of our sin, or it will
be by man's works and man's obedience to the law that he's trying to
earn acceptance for himself. It's either going to be grace
or it's going to be works. He said the fruit that will come
is either going to be Christ does it all or man does it all,
one of the two. One way leads to life and the
other way leads to destruction. And there's no mix in the two.
We can't say, well, it's a cooperation between God and man. God said
Christ by himself purged our sins. Not by works of righteousness,
which we have done. Christ said on the cross, it's
already finished. So it's either God's grace in
Christ alone or it's the works of man alone. And God's grace
leads to life and man's works leads to destruction. When the
message of God's absolute holiness and His righteousness and His
justice, when that is preached, And the fact that he's the judge
of the earth and he will by no means clear the guilty when this
holiness is preached. And when the message of man's
absolute wretchedness and his absolute sinfulness and unworthiness
before God, when that's preached, all flesh is grass. All have
sinned. When that's preached, one of
two confessions will be made. Either it'll be, I believe that,
or it'll be, I don't believe that. That'd be the fruit one
way or the other. A tree will be known by its fruit. When the question is asked, what
is your eternal hope before God? What is the way of salvation
that you're clinging to? One of two answers will be given.
Well, I gave my heart to Jesus. That's my hope. You know, I quit
my sinning and I didn't go back to sinning. That's my hope. I was baptized in Kingsport City
tap water. That's my hope. I dedicated my life to Him. That's
what I'm hoping in. And then I rededicated my life
to Him, because I kind of messed it up. And then I re-rededicated
my life to Him. I, I, I. Either that's gonna
be the fruit, or it's gonna be, what's your eternal hope before
God Almighty? He did it all. His blood paid it all. He satisfied
it all. I didn't save myself. He saved
me. Salvation is totally of the Lord.
God's grace started the work. God's grace performed the work. God's grace finished the work. It's gonna be one of those two.
But a tree will be known by his fruit. The truth of God's glory
and His majesty, it creates a humility in God's people. And the truth
of His grace and His mercy, it creates a begging heart to cry
out to Him for these things. That's what it produces. And
it's the same fruit in all of His people. It's the same fruit. Let's end this message, okay?
Listening to some of the fruit of God's people. Just let's listen
to the fruit, okay? This was David's fruit. Have mercy upon me, O God. According to thy loving kindness,
according to the multitude of thy tender mercies, blot out
my transgressions. If you should mark iniquities,
who would stand? Purge me with hyssop and I'll
be clean. He didn't say, this is what I've
done for you. He said, this is what you must do for me. This
is what I'm begging you to do for me. That was David's fruit. This was Isaiah's fruit. Woe
is me, for I am undone, because I am a man of unclean lips. And I dwell in the midst of a
people of unclean lips. For mine eyes have seen the King,
the Lord of Hosts." This was the fruit of a leper who came
to the Lord one time. He said, Lord, if you will, you
can make me clean. This was the fruit of that publican
in the temple. He said, God, be merciful to
me, the sinner. Now the Pharisee there, he had
fruit too. I, I, I. The publican's fruit,
would God be merciful to me, the sinner. This was John the
Baptist's fruit. He said, he must increase, but
I must decrease. That was his fruit. This was
the apostle Paul's fruit. Oh, wretched man that I am. He said, this is a faithful saying
and worthy of all acceptation that Christ Jesus came into the
world to save sinners. And he said, I know that because
He saved me. I'm the chief. Has God revealed to us the truth
of salvation, being in the hands of Christ alone? Or are we still
holding to the lie that man has a part in it with Him? Man has
the ability to help Him. Man has the ability to do it
for Him. We will all be known by our fruit,
and God's people all bear the same fruit. And I want to close
I have time to, I wanna close this message with a poem that
I read to you every now and then. This is our fruit, all right? And I believe this is a very
appropriate word to close on. This is our fruit right here.
This poem is called Christ My All and In All. There is a holy God that I cannot
please. but Christ did. There is a holy law that I cannot
keep, but Christ did. There is a perfect righteousness
that I cannot earn, but Christ did. There is a convicting record
of sin that I cannot erase, But Christ did. There is a great
judgment that I cannot endure. But Christ did. And there is
an eternal death that I cannot rise from. But Christ did. And if he's been made to be my
all and in all, he'll raise me up with him at the last day.
That's our fruit, isn't it? That's our fruit. May God lead
us in the narrow way of Christ, Christ alone. All right, Brother
Eddie, you come.