How many of you all remember
that television show? I think it was broadcast on public,
on PBS, The Joy of Painting. And Bob Ross, the guy with the permed
head of hair. would spend a half an hour showing
aspiring painters how to paint primarily landscapes. But he
would begin always with a blank canvas, and in his hand had the
artist's palette, and he would tell you what colors to put on
there. I always kind of liked that because
the names were kind of cool. Alizarin crimson. You ever hear
that before? Alizarin crimson. That's just
fun to say. Phthalo blue. Burnt ochre, I think was another
one he used. Of course, he always had black
and white. But artists always start with
gathering together the materials they want to use. in order to
make their work of art. Now, I don't claim to be an artist,
but in a similar fashion, let's look at several scriptures, at
least two, to start with, which will figure into the message
that we will preach. Now, the first one we've already
heard. I asked Brother James if he would read that for our
opening scripture, that passage in Luke. where it says strive
to enter in by the narrow gate or narrow door. But look over
here at Matthew chapter seven. Matthew chapter seven. And we'll look at verse 13 and
14. The Lord Jesus says, enter through
the narrow gate, for wide is the gate, and broad is the road
that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate, and narrow
the road that leads to life, and only a few find it. And then turn over a few pages
to Matthew chapter 11, verse 12. From the days of John the Baptist
until now, the kingdom of heaven has been forcefully advancing. and forceful men lay hold of
it." Or that could read that the kingdom of heaven is taken
by force, and forceful, violent people take it. Now let's look back
at Luke chapter 13. Now this message began with an
online conversation I had with someone who believes that the
King James Version, and only the King James Version, is the
inspired Word of God. He even considered the new King
James Version to be, I believe he used the word demonic. And
so I challenged him on that and asked him to give me some examples
of demonic changes that were made between the King James Version
and the new King James Version. And he gave a couple, I can't
remember what they were now. Well, I answered them. I showed
them how that the New King James Version did a better job at those
scriptures that he had mentioned. Now, when the King James was
first translated, the way they translated it may have worked
very well, but languages change, including English. In fact, the
King James, which was initially published in 1611, If you ever
got a copy of that in your hands, you would have some difficulty
reading it. The King James that most people use today was an
edited version put out in 1769 because the language had changed
some. Well, imagine how much has changed since then. But the new King James version
had put out some, had made some changes, and of course he thought
that that was demonic. Well, he never would respond
to my answers to anything he threw out there, supposedly showing
that the New King James was some kind of demonic translation.
He would simply put out another supposed demonic thing. And then he finally pointed to
the way that the New King James Version handled Matthew 7.14,
where it says that narrow, in King James it says narrow is
the gate and straight is the way that leads to eternal life.
Now when we think of the word straight, we think straight as
opposed to squiggly. But that's not what it meant
back then. Straight was essentially kind of narrow, or as it is most
often translated, that same word used in other places in the scripture,
troubling, difficult. And that's the way the New King
James Version handled it. It says, narrow is the door and
difficult is the way. that leads to eternal life. And
he said, but Jesus said that his yoke was easy. But the new
King James says that the way is difficult. I didn't answer
him. I'd already answered two or three
of his challenges, and he never would respond to what I said. And when I didn't answer for
a day or two, then he said, well, you didn't answer me on that
one, and I think we all know why. And I thought, I mean, I
was very tempted to answer that little comment. And I would have
said, well, I know why, but I don't expect you know why. I have set
before you some challenges to what you said, and you have not
bothered to respond to them. You simply throw up something
else. So I'm convinced you're not interested in actually debating
what you have, your proposition. They call those trolls, and I'm
kind of a sucker for them, because I have a belief that if you reason
with people, they will, if your argument is reasonable, they
will see the reason of it and maybe change their opinion. But
let me say, I've been on Facebook since 2008. I don't know if I've
changed anybody's opinion about anything. Trolls just like to
irritate people and start a fight. And so I didn't answer him. But
that did set me to thinking about this business of entering the
kingdom of God and what the Lord Jesus had to say about it. I have no problem with the way
the new King James handled it, for the way to the kingdom is
difficult." Now, that does not mean, you
see, that he wasn't understanding the different ways in which our
Lord was speaking. When he said, my yoke is easy,
well, that's true. You know, a yoke pairs two animals. and says, take my yoke upon you.
My yoke's easy. Why? He does all the pulling. You just walk along beside him.
His yoke is easy because it is not burdened as the old covenant
was with massive amounts, 600 and some various laws and whatnot
that you had to be careful to keep. Not only that, I believe that
he was comparing his message with that of the Jewish leaders
of the day, and particularly the Pharisees, who not only would
lay upon the people the burdens of the law as spelled out in
the scriptures, they made them even worse and added who knows
how many more laws. But he says, my way is easy. But when he spoke of the narrow
gate or door and the difficult way that leads to eternal life,
he was not talking about what God imposes upon men, but what
men impose. That is the difficulty of the
way. Now anybody here who is a believer in the Lord Jesus
Christ knows what the Lord means when he says the way is difficult.
Our Lord made many promises. And I remember when I was growing
up in church, you know, one of the songs we'd sing, all the
promises in the book are mine. Well, here's one from the Lord
Jesus. In this world, you will have trouble. You know, people
say, name it, claim it. Well, I don't hear anybody wanting
to claim that particular promise from the Lord. Being a friend
of the Lord Jesus Christ in this world means you are an enemy
of the spirit who holds the majority of the world in darkness. And
by their association with him, you are enemies of everyone who
doesn't believe Christ. Now, through the years, through
the generations, that enmity has expressed itself in various
levels. The Christians of the first century
suffered a lot of persecution. Then it kind of eased up. And
then the men who rose up in the 15th century and whatnot, you
know, challenging the dominant religion of Europe initiated
what history calls the Reformation, and that started once again persecution
against those who were willing to walk the narrow way, the straight
and narrow as people say, were willing to walk according to
the truth of God as contained in the scriptures, in particular,
the truth of God about how it is that sinners are saved and
made right in the eyes of God, those people began to suffer
persecution. Some of them, and it's appalling. Men would ever do this to other
men, much less that men who claimed to be representing the will of
God would burn people alive at the stake. That's horrible. It's difficult to varying degrees
for the person who, by the grace of God, has entered in through
the narrow gate walks that narrow passage, that difficult passage
through this world, believing God. For one thing, it's difficult
to keep believing, is it not? It's difficult when, you know,
when we first heard the gospel and God opened our eyes and and
gave life to our dead spirits that we might see and understand
and believe the gospel. When it first came to us like
that, we were filled with joy, joy unspeakable. Though we tried
to speak it, did our best. And at that time, we thought
it was always going to be just like it was in the very beginning. And we thought that we would
never have spiritual struggles. We didn't realize what struggles
and distractions the world would lay before us. And as time went by, we found
out the way is difficult. And sometimes, There have been
occasions where people who have at least professed to be walking
that way and were trying to enter the kingdom of God by that way,
they quit. Now the truth is they had never
come in through the narrow door. But they tried to believe the gospel. And outwardly, everybody thought
so. Even the apostles were deceived by some who said they believed,
acted a lot like they believed, and later proved they didn't.
There was a man named Demas who was a helper with the apostle
Paul. But you know, the longer Paul
preached, the more trouble he got into. And I believe it's
in 2 Timothy, which would be the last letter that Paul wrote,
the last letter in the scriptures. And Paul is in prison, and this
is a Roman prison, a dungeon. Not like the prisons we have
for criminals today, where they're given three square meals. I mean,
it's still prison, but at least, you know, you got a place to
sleep, a place to eat. It became trouble to walk that
narrow way, and Paul said some of the saddest words that could
ever be found in Scriptures. Demas has forsaken me. having loved this present world. It started costing too much. I hear Americans talk about persecution. I want to say, you have no idea. I know some have suffered the
loss of family and friends, and that's sad. These people, They were losing all their property,
having it stolen from them. They were being hounded from
city to city. And some of them were captured. And according
to some things written in history, Nero even had some Christians
dipped in tar and lit them to be torches. We who are believers of the Lord
Jesus Christ in the United States of America, the worst we're getting
so far is some insults and contemptible looks. But the way is difficult, the
inner struggles. Because Paul says that the flesh
wars against the spirit and the spirit against the flesh. And
the believer whose spirit has been made alive to the things
of God, who desires the things of God, wants to do what God
would have us do. is in constant warfare with the
flesh that hasn't been changed in the least bit, still thinks
like it used to think, still values things in the way that
it used to value them, and it's like a civil war inside
a single person. And neither side is ever satisfied. It's difficult. And the difficulty of this is
also demonstrated in Luke chapter 13 when the Lord says in verse
24, make every effort to enter through the narrow door because
many, I tell you, will try to enter and will not be able to. Now this answer from our Lord
came as a response to the question, are only a few going to be saved? Because the Lord, while in the
beginning of his ministry multitudes followed him, the more clearly
he declared his message, the fewer that followed him. And there would come a time Probably
not too long after what we see here in Luke 13, when even his
choice disciples would forsake him. So someone said, well, are only
a few going to be saved? And we might ask that, because
we've been here for a long time. Now, I know we live in a religious
town, and that at least as far as their older statements of
faith are concerned, when it comes to matters of salvation,
we would agree with them. And we cannot judge the hearts
of others. But there are good many who have
heard what we preached and say, we don't preach the truth. Well, that means one of two things.
We don't preach the truth. Well, actually, one of three
things. We don't preach the truth, neither of us preaches the truth,
or they don't preach the truth. John said, he that is born of
God hears us. Now, if we're preaching the same
message as did John the Baptist, anybody born of God would hear
it and say, yep, that's the truth. So if we are telling the truth,
and of course I think we are, I wouldn't preach this if I didn't
believe it to be the truth, someone says that's not the truth, what's
that mean? They're not born of God. Now
I'm not judging them on that matter, they're judging themselves. By their own words they have
rejected the truth of God. Are only a few going to be saved
in all this time that we've been together? We actually have less
people sitting in the pews than we did at first. Some have grown
up and moved away. Some, since it was a new church
when we started, they were curious and would come for a while and
then go away. I remember when Brother Henry
Mahan came the first time. Of course, that probably had
something to do with the crowd that we got. But we had 70. 70, and we were regularly having
50 and 60 people on a Sunday morning. Not so anymore. We had hoped
it would be different. We prayed that people would come
and listen and God would open their hearts to hear and they
would rejoice in Christ with us. That's not been the case. So we might ask, Lord, are only
a few people going to be saved? And our Lord, who always knew
what the right question was, even when other people didn't,
answered this way. You make every effort to enter
the kingdom of God. The issue is not how many will
be saved. That's God's business, isn't
it? I can't determine whether or
not anybody will be saved. God, who has ordained all things
that will come to pass in this universe, in our world, He knows. He knows everything that will
happen because He ordained everything that's going to happen. But that's
not our business. He said, don't be, our Lord was
implying, don't concern yourself whether it shall be few or many
or somewhere in between. You make every effort to enter
through the narrow door. It's very easy to get caught
up in thinking about everybody else and whether or not they're
saved and never honestly, from the heart, considering one's
own need of a Savior. When I preach to you, when anybody
sent of God preaches to you, they're not preaching to the
person sitting next to you. That should not be your attitude. They're not preaching to someone
who you saw walked in, and maybe they don't come very often, and
you're thinking, oh man, I'm glad they're there to hear this.
If God sends one of his preachers to preach where you are, the
message is to you. And it's for you to hear it,
try to understand it, and to take action on it. There is a
kingdom. The only way in is through a
narrow gate. Does that mean only a few will
get in? That's irrelevant to each one of us. The question
is, will I get in? Will I enter in by the narrow
gate or the narrow door? The word could be either way. hinting at how difficult this
is, that word or that phrase in the New International Version
that we use here, make every effort. The Greek word that's
translated by that phrase, we get our word agony or agonize
from it. And it was used in those days
to speak of those who trained for sporting events. Now, I've
never been any good at anything having to do with sports. Part of it is I don't have a
particularly competitive nature, which sports is all about competition. I don't have a lot of discipline.
If you're going to be good at something, it's going to take
some work. And those people that make it
to the top I get tickled when I hear people
talk about, like in baseball, some guy in the major leagues.
And they say, no, he's no good. What do you mean? He's in the
major leagues. He may be the worst player in the major leagues,
but he's in the major leagues. And it wasn't easy getting there.
There's a lot of practice involved. There's laying aside things that
you might otherwise do and might have enjoyed doing. It requires
some sacrifice. if that's what you want to do.
I didn't care to. I just enjoyed playing games. But he says here, agonized to
enter that narrow gate, showing that it cannot be entered without
a great deal of effort. Now, it's not the gate's fault.
That gate is wide enough for any sinner that wants to go through. Why must we agonize to enter
that narrow gate? Because that narrow gate that
leads to eternal life is so narrow, you can't bring anything of yours
through it with you. It's kind of like when you want
to get on the plane. You've got limitations on what
you can bring with you. Well, here's the limitations
on this narrow gate. Nothing of yours is allowed through. You've got a couple of suitcases
of all your good works that you're going to try to bring through
there. You're going to come up to that gate and say, I'd like
to come through. And the person at the gate's saying, well, go
ahead. and you walk through and boom, those suitcases make you
too wide to go through that narrow gate. Your righteousness, your sense
of self-respect, all the works you've done that
you think were pleasing to God, you try to carry those through
with you, you won't fit. charitable works, I'll have you
know, I give X dollars to such and such a charity. And sometimes
I go to homeless shelters and dish out food in the cafeteria
line. Well, good. I'm glad you're willing
to help out. But you can't go through that
narrow gate carrying that. In fact, as Brother Maurice Montgomery
once pointed out, I thought it was kind of funny, he said, you
can't even get through that gate with your clothes on. Descriptions often refer to a
person's clothing as in terms of that being their righteousness
or that which they think attracts the eye of God. It's interesting
that when Adam and Eve sinned, it says, and they knew they were
naked. You mean up to that point they
didn't realize they weren't wearing any clothes? No, they understood. It's just that that sin deprived
them of what was pleasing to God in them. And it was like all at once finding
yourself naked out in public. And we dress ourselves up in
what we think is glorious. Now, it's not so much a pattern
in this congregation, but in many churches, every Sunday morning,
the people, when they get up to get ready to church, put on
their finest clothes. And they come to church and they
want everybody to notice their nice clothes. And the reason that you need
nice clothes to be noticed, at least for most of us, if we weren't
wearing pretty clothes, there wouldn't be anything pretty about
us. We put on the nice things to make up for what we are naturally.
And people do that in the presence of God. They wrap themselves
up in what they think is good. They put on their, quote, Sunday
best, and parade in front of God and say, see me? Like that
Pharisee who says, I thank you, God, that I'm not like other
men. I do this, and he puts on a shirt. I do that, puts on a
pair of pants. And I don't do this, and that's
his nice jacket on the outside. And then he puts a nice little,
some kind of jewelry on or whatever. Just keeps adding all these,
and I'm not like that guy over there, wearing those nasty clothes. If you're going to get through
this gate, you're going to go through naked,
spiritually naked. John said if we confess our sins,
he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins. We wear physical
clothing. cover up what we do not want
exposed to public gaze. And we put on spiritual clothing
to cover up what we don't want exposed. Now it's a good idea we do that
around people. It's not healthy for people to
know all about us. to know all the sinfulness that
is within our hearts and minds and how it's broken out in actions. I don't want to know yours. But when we are in the presence
of God, if we would desire that He clothe us in a
glorious robe of His righteousness, We're gonna have to be willing
to stand before him naked as we are. And then the Lord will cover
us. And he will cover us with a covering
that even he can't see through. Until the day when he clothes
us with a righteous nature of our
own, not one that we worked for. He just makes us to be like his
son, the Lord Jesus Christ, in every aspect of our being. And then we will be, as the phrase
say, naked and unashamed, because there won't be anything to be
ashamed of. But if you would get through
this gate, you have to go without your own clothes, willing to
receive what clothes are given you on the other side of the
gate. And I'll tell you, no one but God can do the stripping
that is necessary to accomplish that. Men will not do it on their
own. When you find people who are
always trying to look humble, excuse me, and tell you what
horrible sinners they are, normally what they're doing is
trying to sew together some clothes of their humility. And the Lord's
gonna see right through that. We cannot come to him boasting
about anything about ourselves. We confess what we are, sin from
the top of our head to the soles of our feet. Our lives are not mixtures of
good and bad in the sight of God. God, the holy one, God,
the impeccably righteous one, has never beheld good. in any man since Adam sinned." I say not any man, one man, the
man Christ Jesus, no one else. Whatever we would have that he
sees and is pleased with, we're going to have to get it from
him because nothing we produce is pleasing to him. That's how narrow that way is. The Lord said, if any man would
be my disciple, let him first deny himself, take
up his cross, and follow me. Denying ourselves, that's impossible
for us until the Spirit of God does a work of grace in us. We
just won't do it. And even after that, we're going
to wrestle with this denial of ourselves. And by that, he wasn't
saying, you know, yeah, you deny yourselves. You're not going
to be able to have as much fun as you used to do. And you can't
go out and eat out or whatever people think is inappropriate
for Christians. He's not talking about that at
all. He means denying everything about yourselves, your will,
your righteousness, Your good works, your way. And nobody does that. And nobody does that apart from
the irresistible work of the Holy Spirit. And therefore, as they approach
that narrow gate, they can't fit. There's too much to get
through. What really attracted my eye was this statement. I tell you, many will try to enter and will
not be able to. Try to enter what? of the kingdom
of God. And the only way to enter the
kingdom of God is through this narrow door along that troublesome
way. Now many will try to enter the
kingdom and not be able to. And the reason they won't be
able to is because of this narrow gate. As we read earlier back
in Matthew, our Lord put it this way, broad is the way, or wide
is the gate, and broad is the way that leads to destruction. And one reason that there are
many who will try very hard to enter into the kingdom of God
and not be able to is because they're on the wrong way. They
went through the wrong door. They're on the broad way. I forget,
once I was going to preach for Brother Todd's church in Lexington,
Kentucky. And I wasn't real familiar with
the town, and so I was kind of wandering around. I kind of knew
where he lived, but it was going to take some searching to find
it. And I went by a place. It was a Baptist church on Broadway
Avenue. And the name of the church was
Broadway Baptist Church. And I said, somebody should have
thought about that before they gave themselves that name. And I've got a feeling it was
a very apt name for that church. I say this, I hope not just to
make a funny or something like that or to pat ourselves on the
back because we got no We got no reason to be patted on the
back. This is a sad reality. Most of what passes for Christianity
in the world in our day is just different lanes on the Broadway
that leads to destruction. When we named this church, I
said, let's not put a denominational name on it, even though our doctrine
is essentially Baptist. But it's not like we open up
a Baptist confession of faith to find out what we're going
to believe. We've only got one thing that tells us what to believe,
and that's the scriptures. But there's a Baptist lane on
the broad road of destruction. There's reformed lane. There's
a Catholic lane, Methodist lane. There's Hindu lane. There's atheistic
lane. There's all kinds of lanes. And
it's full of people. And they may fight with one another.
about what lane you ought to be in, but every one of them's
on the same road. And it leads to destruction.
And everyone that's on that broadway that leads to destruction thinks
they're on the correct way that leads to life. And they may put
a lot of effort into walking that way, but they still will fail to enter
the kingdom of God because they would not listen to what the
scripture said and instead use their own wisdom and understanding.
Well, you know, I think that God, you know, he's going to
weigh your good deeds and your bad deeds. And if your good deeds
outweigh your bad deeds, let him in. Or others say, well,
you just got to make a decision for Jesus. They reduce faith
down to just this one-time event that happens normally at the
end of a protracted invitation, and you pray the sinner's prayer.
And from then on, they'll say, yeah, I'm going to heaven because,
you know, back there on such and such a day, I asked Jesus
into my heart. Well, I firmly believe whosoever
shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. But those
who call upon the name of the Lord unto salvation don't do
it just once. Calling on the name of the Lord
becomes what they do the rest of their lives. Well, some of them don't. They strive to enter in, but
they're unable to. because they never find that
narrow door. That's what our Lord said, few
there be that find it. Why don't they find it? Mostly
because of spiritual ignorance. They don't realize it's a narrow
door. They think that in this world
that the way to eternal life is going to be something with,
you know, imagine like the gala opening or whatever of a Hollywood
movie as they used to do it with these big lights scanning the
skies and attracting attention to where it is. They believe
that the narrow gate that opens into the difficult way to eternal
life, they believe certainly the posts are golden. The gate
is made of silver, and they keep looking for that. They don't
realize it's in some out-of-the-way place. It's obscure. It can't be found unless the
Holy Spirit of God shows it to you. I remember when I came here
in the little group that was trying to start, about half of
the adults didn't even profess to be saved. And I really poured on the coal.
In gospel preaching, some of you may remember that. And it
was six months before we had our first baptisms, people that
realized that the gospel is truly, as the scriptures say, and we're
given grace to believe. Now, it's not like I preached
one thing for five months and then said, you know, we're not
getting any converts this way, let's try something else. I was
preaching the same thing. Why is it all at once? Some people
began to say, because all at once the Spirit of God did something
he had not done up to that point, and that was open their eyes. I preached to you this morning,
and I certainly hope you believe this. I certainly hope you find
blessedness in this. And if you've never called upon
the name of the Lord that you start doing so today, I pray
that you will agonize to enter in through that narrow gate.
But here's one thing I know, my preaching won't make you do
it. My preaching as a human being,
falling on the ears of another human being, just so many words
until the Spirit of God makes that gospel the power of God
unto salvation in your heart. Well, we're kind of out of time. I'm
not out of words yet, but that's no surprise to you, is it? But let me make sure that I get
this point across, because sometimes I preach, and I know, I mean,
you've all been with me 35 years, and you already know the things
I say that might give a proper context, or have said that give
a proper context to what I'm saying today. But the way of
eternal life is very simply faith in Christ and Christ alone. Jesus Christ came into this world,
he is God, manifested in human flesh. He's the eternal Word,
who was with the Father before the world began, through whom
God created the world, he is God, and yet it says, and the
Word became flesh. A great mystery, but he had to.
Because he's coming here to save us. He's coming here to save
his people. And if he's going to save them, he's got to unite
themselves, unite himself to them. Got to become one of them. And he became a human and lived
a life without sin. No sin in what he did. No sin in what he desired. No sin in any thought he ever
had. Have you ever had the slightest
moment in your life like that? Our Lord's entire life was that
way. And as the spotless one to whom no legitimate charge
could be laid, that made him a suitable sacrifice. Remember
how in the old covenant when they choose a lamb for the sacrifice,
it's got to be spotless. Why must he be spotless? Because
he's going to bear our spots. And he can't have any spots of
his own. And he bore, in Isaiah 53, he
says, for the transgression of my people was he stricken. And
all the sins of God's people were collected there. All we
like sheep have gone astray, and the Lord has laid on him,
and that translation laid on him means caused to meet together
on him. The iniquity of us all. Who's
the us he's talking about? God's wandering sheep. They were all laid on him, charged
in his account. charged him his account so thoroughly
that when God, the just judge of all, did not see them as our
sins laid on a substitute, he saw them as the Lord's sins. And he visited his wrath on him
to the full measure. Now we talk about God's wrath,
but not a one of us has ever experienced it. Our Lord experienced the eternal
wrath of God for a host of people that no man can number. And if
I read the scriptures right, he got it all done in about three
hours. And when he bore those sins and
the wrath of God fell on him for those sins, Those sins were gone. When he came out the other side
of his experience of the wrath of God, he didn't bear any sin. Justice had been satisfied. God's
wrath had been appeased. And the message goes out simply
like this. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ,
and you will be saved. That's simple, but very difficult. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ,
and then walk the straight and narrow. And when they say that,
they prove they don't even know what the straight and narrow
is. Because to them, the straight and narrow is a real straight
and narrow moral life. If I could walk the straight
and narrow in that fashion, I wouldn't need a savior. But this narrow way is made up
of Jesus Christ. And while it's a difficult passage
through this world for the one who walks that passage, it leads
to a wonderful place. And not one battle you fight.
Not one exertion you exert, not one distraction you lay aside
will mean anything to you when you are unable to open your
eyes and see Christ, to see His glory, His beauty
and majesty. You will think, why did I ever
even consider that it was really that hard? And all that is freely given
to everyone who believes, just believes. I don't mean that that's
easy. I mean, that's all that they're
doing. They're trusting Christ and him
alone. Well, may God make this a blessing
to us.