Let's turn together to Matthew
chapter 7. We're nearing the end of the Sermon on the Mount,
and so as the sermon draws to a close, I'm finding there some of the most significant
words that are in the sermon. Especially, we will find this
next week when we move into verses 15 and following, but this week
I want to focus just on these two verses here in Matthew 7
verse 13 and 14. We're also going to be turning
to Luke chapter 13 and read there, which is the same words. Look
at this with me in Matthew chapter 7 verse 13. Jesus said, "'Enter
ye in at the straight gate.'" The word straight is what's written
in the King James Version. I don't know if you happen to
have another version, but it's not a word that we're really
familiar with. We don't use it that often, but it's used in
geography a lot. You look on a map if you're in
school when you get to about the third or fourth grade, you'll
read about the Strait of Magellan or the Strait of Hormuz or the
Strait of this and the Strait of that. It's a narrow passageway
between two pieces of land or several pieces of land through
which ships can go. And here Jesus says to enter
in at the straight gate, the narrow, the compressed, the squeezed
together, pinched down gate. It's very tiny. The entrance
there is difficult. That's what he's saying. 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. That always surprised me when
I was a child, to hear those things. The way to destruction
is wide. And many go in that way. That's what Jesus is saying here.
But the way, the narrow way, the straight gate, the tiny way,
is a way that we are supposed to go. So he says, verse 14,
because straight is the gate, and narrow is the way, which
leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it. Many go the
wide and broad way, few go the narrow and the compressed or
straight way. Go now to Luke chapter 13 and
look at this same thing there. Same kinds of words. In verse
23, Jesus is teaching and someone asks Him a question. Then said
one to Him, Lord, are there few that be saved? Sometimes when
people ask you questions, you want to answer them directly,
don't you? I don't like it when I hear questions asked of politicians
and they don't answer them. That's frustrating. Can't you
just answer a simple question? No, they're very crafty and subtle. They won't answer them directly
because that would incriminate them, make them lose some of
the popularity that they're trying to achieve. But here, someone
asks a question that's really not correctly asked. It's inappropriate,
really, for them to ask it this way. But they asked it, and it
was put there for our learning. I'm glad they asked it. He says,
Lord, are there few that be saved? Sometimes you ever think about
that. I wonder if there's anybody except a few that I know. I wonder if there's like a hundred
people, or a thousand maybe. How many? You might wonder those
questions. So they asked him, Lord, are
there few that be saved? And he said to them, notice he
didn't give a number. The first word he said was, strive
to enter in at the straight gate. For many, I say unto you, will
seek to enter in and shall not be able. You see that? The Lord says here in answer,
are there few that be saved? It's like his answer is, he's
answering that question, but he's answering it in two ways.
First of all, you're asking the wrong question. you strive. It's not you thinking about whether
there be few that be saved. Your job, your business, is to
strive to enter in at the straight gate. For many, I say to you,
will seek to enter in and shall not be able. Strive." And so
when we hear the word strive, we naturally think of doing something,
working hard. And the word actually means to
agonize. And so we wonder, what do these
things mean? This straight gate, this compressed
gate, it's so narrow that you can't hardly get through. It's
such a narrow passageway. And it's a narrow way. It's not
the popular way. The way to life is not popular. If everyone believes something,
you can write it down, it's not the right way. Because it says
the way is narrow and few there be that go in. in that way. It's a narrow gate. It's a compressed and tiny thing. Remember when Jesus was speaking
to the rich young ruler, the disciples asked him, after the
rich young ruler left, Jesus said, one thing thou lackest,
go sell everything you have and give to the poor and you shall
enter into life. And he went away sorrowful because
he had much riches. And the disciples said, who then
can be saved? And remember the parable that
Jesus gave, the comparison, he says that it's harder for a rich
man to enter into heaven than it is for a camel to go through
the eye of a needle. Again, these pictures that Jesus
draws with his words, if you've ever, as a child, I learned to
sew for my mom. And it's not just a womanly thing
to do because men in the olden times had to sew all the time.
And I remember making leather chaps for the front of my pants
so I could walk through the weeds without getting my legs all cut
up and I felt like Daniel Boone or somebody. But I remember the
tiny little eye of a needle. I can't even get thread through
them now because my hands either are not too steady enough or
my eyes are not good enough. But it's, can you imagine a camel
going through the eye of a needle? That's a narrow way, isn't it?
It's a compressed and tiny thing. How small does one have to be
to enter into heaven? The way is so narrow that there's
only one way to get in. And it requires us to be so small
that we cannot bring anything of our own with us. That's how
narrow the way is. And I want you to go with me
to see how narrow this way is. Because this is the question,
what is the narrow way? What is the narrow way? What
is the broad way? When Jesus was speaking these
words, most people were in the broad way. And yet, He was speaking
to the Jews. They had the law. They believed
that keeping the law and trying to please God by what they did,
and their thinking that they understood the law would make
them acceptable to God. They thought that if they were
Jews, they were already in. They thought that if they were
circumcised, it gave evidence to their being God's people.
But Jesus says, no, there's few, there's few. It's like a remnant.
Have you ever, remember when you're, maybe again, when I was
a kid, my mom would go to a rummage sale. Or she'd go buy remnants
at the store for clothes. And a remnant is just what's
left over after you cut off the part that you want to use for
your dress or your clothes or whatever you're making. The remnant
is the scraps that are left over. And that's what God's people
are compared to, being a remnant. It's just the little tiny part
that's left over. So what is the narrow way? There's
few that go in that narrow way, and there's a lot of people that
go in the broad way. And the broad way leads to destruction,
but the narrow way leads to life. Well, here's what the Bible says
about the narrow way. The narrow way is so narrow that
it's just one way. It's the Lord Jesus Christ. Look,
I want you to go with me to several scriptures. I know that you probably
have seen these before, but look at them in light of the question,
what is the narrow way? Look at John chapter 14. In John 14, verse 5, Thomas asked
Jesus this question. Thomas was a disciple, He was
later an apostle. He was chosen by the Lord Jesus
Christ. There's no doubt that he was
saved. In John chapter 20, later on,
he fell down on his knees and he cried out, my Lord and my
God." So we know that Thomas was a believer. In verse 5 of
chapter 14, Thomas asked Jesus, Lord, we don't know, we know
not, whether thou goest, and how can we know the way? Jesus
had told him, I'm going away, I'm going to my father's house,
and he said, and in verse 4, Jesus says, and where I go, you
know, and the way you know. And I can imagine the question
that came up in the disciple's mind, what way are you talking
about? I don't know Can I walk outside and follow you somewhere? You're going to be leaving us?
I want to follow you. If I tie myself around your waist,
will I not leave you? Will I find the way that way?
How will it happen? And Jesus says, when he asked
this question, how can we know the way? We don't know where
you're going. How can we know the way? And Jesus said to him,
he answered both questions, where he's going and the way. He says,
I am the way. Isn't that simple? What's the
way? Jesus is the way. I am the truth. I am the life. No man comes to the Father but
by me. There's one way. There's one
place we need to be. It's to the Father. How do we
get there? It's through the Lord Jesus Christ.
That's the only way. The broad way, therefore, is
everything else. Everything other than Christ.
The narrow way is Christ alone. Christ alone is the theme of
Jesus' Sermon on the Mount, isn't it? In this sermon, two ways
are set side by side in contrast. One is the religion of men. The
other, and that religion, by the way, the religion of men
is outward. The other way is the Lord Jesus Christ. And when
we walk in the way of Christ, it's inward. It's inward. It has to do with what's going
on on the inside. And when God does His work in
us, He causes us to look to Christ for us. We look to Him for everything,
to God. We look to Him for everything
from God for us. It says in Hebrews 11.6, He that
cometh to God, must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder
of them that diligently seek Him." How do we seek Him? By
faith. We look to Christ alone. We seek
from Christ everything that we need, and we receive from Christ.
That's the way. He is our way. He's the way to
the Father. And every blessing of God is
only found in Him. In the Sermon on the Mount, it's
mentioned several times. Remember in chapter five, in
verse Verse 6, Jesus said, "'Blessed are they that do hunger and thirst
after righteousness.'" And in verse 17, He said, "'I am come
to fulfill the law.'" And then in verse 33, He said, "'Seek
first the kingdom of God and His righteousness.'" In chapter
6, 33. So, all these things teach us
that the righteousness that we thirst for is found in the Lord
Jesus Christ. The righteousness that God requires
of us has to be from Him. It can't be from us. That's the
message of the Sermon on the Mount. The Lord, in the Sermon
on the Mount, describes to us a holiness that God requires
of us as Christ's disciples. A holiness that we cannot, in
ourselves, meet in any way. And yet, in looking to Christ,
we see that all God requires is met for us and And not only
that, but He gives to us His own Spirit so that in our souls,
in this life that He creates in us, we actually do believe
Him. And we actually, in believing
Him, we actually do love Him. And so we walk in this faith,
in love to God, and in doing so, God gives us that grace not
to fulfill it, but to walk in it nevertheless." And so that
might seem like a contradiction, but it's not. You know that if
the Lord has saved you, you know you do hunger and thirst after
Christ's righteousness. Like Paul, you desire to be found
only in Him. And like it says in Matthew 5
in the beginning, we're poor. We have nothing in ourselves.
and we need everything from Him. We mourn over our sin. We've
been made to submit to the righteousness of God in Christ. We're meek.
We bow to the Lord Jesus Christ. All these things are the fruit
of God's Spirit. We proclaim that mercy can only
be found in God, in Christ, and we obtain that mercy and desire
it for others. So all the things described in
Matthew and this Sermon on the Mount are there in the Lord Jesus
Christ. That's the first thing. But there's
several things about the broad way that seem to be prominent. But before I get there, I want
to take you to a few more scriptures besides John chapter 14, verse
6, where Jesus said, I am the way. Look now also at Luke chapter
24. Because when I was at the dentist
this last week, or this week, yeah it was last week, The dentist is not a believer. He goes to the Mormon church,
but he unsuspectingly asked me a question. Maybe unsuspectingly
because he didn't expect the answer. He said, so what are
you teaching now in your church? And I said, well, In John 6,
539, it says, Jesus told the Pharisees, you search the scriptures,
for in them you think you have eternal life, but they are they
that testify of me. So there's only one thing we
can teach, and it's the Lord Jesus Christ, what He's done,
where He is. The scriptures are all about
Him. Look at Luke chapter 24. Jesus had risen from the dead.
The women who saw that He had risen from the dead went and
told the disciples. They were in disbelief. And two
were on the road to Emmaus. They were confused. They were
talking between themselves. And Jesus appears and walks alongside
them. And He says, Why are you so troubled? And they asked Him, Where have
you been? Haven't you been around Jerusalem?"
And Jesus asked them, tell me about what's going on. And they
told him all about what happened to the Lord Jesus Christ. How
he was taken by the soldiers, taken to Pilate. Pilate delivered
him to the Jews. The Jews delivered him to the
soldiers. The soldiers and the Jews crucified
him. He was buried and he rose again the third day. And they
said, but we trusted in verse 21 that he is the one that should
have redeemed Israel. And it's been, this is the third
day since these things were done. And then they told him, all these
women came and told him all that had happened. That they had gone
to the tomb, had seen a vision of angels, and that the angels
said that he was alive. So they were much perplexed.
And then in verse 25, Then Jesus said to them, Luke 24, 25, He
said to them, O fools, and slow of heart, to believe all that
the prophets have spoken. What did the prophets speak?
This is what they spoke. Ought not Christ to have suffered
these things and to enter into His glory? And beginning at Moses
and all the prophets, He expounded unto them in all the Scriptures
the things concerning Himself. What is the narrow way? It's
the Lord Jesus Christ. Where, is this a new way? No. God has testified of the
Lord Jesus Christ from the beginning. From the beginning of time and
from the beginning of the book. Jesus says in Hebrews chapter
10 and Psalm 40, in the volume of the book, in the head, in
the beginning of the scroll, all the way to the end, it's
written of me. I come to do thy will, O God.
And look over at verse 44, the same chapter, Luke 24, 44. He
said to them, These are the words that I spoke
to you while I was yet with you, that all things must be fulfilled
which were written in the Law of Moses and in the Prophets
and in the Psalms concerning me." Remember what Jesus said
in Matthew 5, 17, that He would fulfill the Law and the Prophets,
that it would all be fulfilled? Here He says, that's what's been
done. Now that I'm risen from the dead, all things must be
fulfilled which were written in the Law of Moses. the prophets
and the Psalms concerning me. Then opened he their understanding,
that they might understand the Scriptures, and said to them,
Thus it is written, and thus it behooved Christ to suffer,
to rise from the dead the third day, and that repentance and
remission of sin should be preached in his name among all nations,
beginning at Jerusalem." What a word. Isn't that a wonderful
thing? Didn't the Lord Jesus say in Hebrews chapter 1 through
His Apostle, in these last days God has spoken to us in His Son? And didn't He also say in 2 John
1-9 that to go beyond Christ, to go beyond the doctrine of
Christ, is to transgress? And didn't he also say in 1 John
5, 20, that the Son of God has come and has given us an understanding
that we may know God. We cannot know God apart from
Him. And we know, in knowing Him,
we know God. Jesus said, if you've seen Me,
to Thomas, you have seen the Father. He doesn't mean seeing
that He has two ears and hair and hands and legs. Every man
has those things. He means seeing him with a perception
of faith given to him by the Spirit of God to understand that
the one standing before him was the promised Messiah. The one
to whom God in eternity gave a people to save. He came to
save those people. He actually saved them and He's
risen again to give and administer that salvation to them. This
is the faith of God's elect, and this is in seeing Him we
see God Himself. Look at another verse. Look at
1 Corinthians. 1 Corinthians. One time someone
sent me an email and asked me several questions. How often
do you take the Lord's Supper? What do you do about church discipline?
There were several questions. None of them had to do with the
Gospel directly. And my answer ultimately to every
question was, we preach Christ and Him crucified. I wasn't trying
to be smart. That's the truth. That's the
only thing I know. And look at 1 Corinthians 1,
verse 17. Paul said, "...for Christ sent
me not to baptize, but to preach the gospel, not with wisdom of
words, lest the cross of Christ should be made of none effect.
For the preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness,
but to us." Notice, not to us which are lost, because the same
person who wrote me said, well, you preach the gospel if you
think the congregation you're preaching to is lost. But to
the others you preach something else. No, he says, to us which
are saved, it is the power of God. For it is written, I will
destroy the wisdom of the wise, and I will bring to nothing the
understanding of the prudent. Where is the wise? Where is the
scribe? Where is the disputer of this
world? Hasn't God made foolish the wisdom of this world? For
after that in the wisdom of God, the world by wisdom knew not
God, it pleased God. by the foolishness of preaching,
to save them that believe. For the Jews require a sign,
and the Greeks seek after wisdom." Those are different ways, aren't
they? That's the broad way. A sign. Wisdom. But we preach
Christ, crucified. Unto the Jews, a stumbling block.
Unto the Greeks, foolishness. They're happy to go that way.
But unto them which are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ,
the power of God, and the wisdom of God. Because the foolishness
of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger
than men." Do you see that? What a word! God's foolishness
is wiser than men, and His weakness is stronger. And what is the
foolishness of God? Isn't it what men perceive to
be foolishness, the cross of Christ? What is His weakness?
Isn't it what men perceive to be the weakness, the ignominy
of the cross, the shame of the cross? Isn't that the very power
of God? Paul says in Romans 1, chapter
1, verse 16, the gospel is the power of God unto salvation. The power of God. We don't appreciate
that, do we? So much. We hear about the creation
of the world. We hear that God commanded and
things were just created. The Eternal Spirit, God Himself,
He doesn't have arms and legs and He doesn't use some kind
of cosmic dust to make things. The power of His Word created
the world. How much more in our salvation? God's glory is so guarded He
will allow man to have none of it. And in the creation of this
world, man was neither there. He didn't offer advice. He provided
no help. He couldn't constrain God. He
couldn't guide Him. He didn't assist Him or cooperate
or coordinate with Him. God did it all by Himself. And
it's even more so in our salvation. It's God's wisdom. It's God's
power. It's God's purpose. It's His
will. It's His word. It's His work. He's the one who's
faithful to complete it. He's the one who does it all.
This is our God, the Lord Jesus Christ, by Himself, purged our
sins and accomplished our salvation. That's a narrow way. There is
salvation in no other. Peter told them in Acts chapter
four, there's no name under heaven given among men whereby we must
be saved. These are the things that we,
we love this, don't we? Don't God's people relish in
this? I heard a song one time, it's
a narrow way, this one-lane road to life. It's not a superhighway
and the traffic is light, but the company there is nice. The company on this road is nice.
I like that. Because those who are on this
way, you know what they think? They don't think there's this
way and that way and what do you think? No, no. They know.
Christ is my only hope. He's my only answer for my sin. He's all my desire. I'm looking
for Him. I'm waiting for Him. I want to
be conformed to His image. This is what the Lord Jesus Christ
is to us. But the broad way presents many
obstacles. The broad way misinterprets and
construes the truth of God. So I want to think with you a
few points here which both the broad way tends to put forward
in error, but in contrast we see the truth of the gospel and
so we hold more tightly to the narrow way. This is the way God
works in our lives. He shakes the things that can
be shaken so those things that cannot be shaken might remain.
And in the broad way, I know that there's many, many errors.
The number of errors in the broad way are without count. But they can be grouped into
categories. And I've seen in my own experience
that the broad way talks about things in error. that sound good
to people. People gladly accept what the
broad way teaches. And the broad way teaching sounds
good to the natural man. It says in Proverbs, I think
it's around chapter 14. He says, there is a way that
seemeth right to a man, but the ends thereof are the ways of
death. And that's exactly what Jesus is saying here. The broad
way seems right to men. It's foolishness. The narrow
way seems foolishness to men, but the broad way seems wise
to the Greeks. It's good to the Jews. They see
the sign there. If you can show me that you've
been healed, well, I know that God must have healed you. That's
the broad way. That's the broad way. I remember
talking to a friend at work I knew for many years, and I wanted
to try to explain the truth of the gospel to him. He got very
emotional about someone who was healed. And he was someone who
hadn't grown up in church. But because he believed that
this actually happened, there was no persuading him away from
it. The outward sign of someone being
healed to him seemed like a miracle that couldn't be denied. And
that indicated that whatever the people talking about, by
whom this person was healed, must be telling the truth. But
this is the very trap that God warns us to avoid. And so the
Broadway comes up with signs, they come up with philosophies,
like we just read in 1 Corinthians 1. But there's some things about
this broad way, I think, that are fundamentally held to by
religion. Because the broad way is the
way of man's religion. When we think about religion,
we think about, well, there's people in the Catholic Church,
and there's people in the Baptist Church, and there's people in
the Jewish synagogue, and all these other places. But the world
pretty much is not religious. That's what we normally think,
right? That would be wrong. The world fundamentally is religious. The only difference is that they
worship idols versus worshiping the true and living God in Jesus
Christ. There's really only two religions.
There's the truth of Christ and there's idolatry. All men who
don't worship Christ worship idols. They worship a false God. Now, they may have created that
God. Imagine that. They can't actually create a
God. They can't create God, but they can create things like they
think God is. So in the Old Testament, men
would make little things, everything from hemorrhoids out of golden
things, and mice, and statues, and all kinds of things. And
Nebuchadnezzar made something, I don't remember, it's like 70
feet or 70 cubits tall. They make all these images. And
those things, in the Old Testament, we think, oh, well, yeah, that's
the way we'll expect to see idols in the New Testament. So we go
to the Catholic Church, and we see these statues of Mary, and
we see statues of quote-unquote saints, and we imagine, well,
they must be idolaters, but everybody else pretty much is not. That
would be a wrong conclusion. Everything that is not worshipping
God in Christ is worshipping an idol. It's an idolatrous thing. And men do this. Read Romans
chapter 1. We imagine gods. We worship and serve the creature
more than the Creator who is blessed forever. We do this in
our heart. We make idols in our heart. Someone used to say frequently,
Jesse used to say frequently, our heart is a factory, an idle
factory. And he was right. That's the
way we are. We think this way. So I mention that at the outset
because the broad way is full of these false doctrines. But they come very sneakily. They come very craftily and subtly
along the way. So we don't recognize them. And
it isn't, and here's the strange thing, it isn't until we know
the truth that's in Jesus that we can even see what's on the
broad way. Because we live in it, we grew
up in it. We breathe and drink iniquity like water, it says
in scripture. We drink iniquity like water.
We think wrong, we do wrong, we say wrong. We can't do anything
but that. And so, it's hard for us to recognize
it. But until we know the truth, then our eyes are opened. And
then we can see. Then we can see. But until then,
we can't. And when we have our eyes, how
do we know they're open? When we see Christ as everything.
And so anything that denies the Lord Jesus Christ has got to
be on the broad way. And this is one category, therefore. The first category I've put down
here is the broad way doesn't do this. Because the truth of
the matter is, is that in the narrow way, God acted in eternity to save His people
from their sins. And His acts in eternity determined
who would be saved, how they would be saved, how He would
get glory in their salvation. This is the fundamental theme
of Scripture from beginning to end. Creation is the painting
that depicts the reality of God's salvation. The family on earth
reflects the family in heaven. God our Father, Christ our Savior,
the husband of His bride. We are the children of God. All
these things, creation itself, the light, the land and water,
all the things that are separated indicate that God separates the
truth from the error, His people from the world and all this.
So, One thing that's denied first and foremost, though, is that
God, in eternity, appointed His Son. And He appointed His Son
to save those that God gave to Him. And it was God's gift of
His people to Christ that secured their salvation, and that guaranteed
that God would never condemn them, but would justify them.
that He would sanctify and redeem and bring them to glory as His
sons. This was done in eternity. This
is denied by those on the broad way. That salvation is an eternal
act of God in Christ to God's glory on behalf of His people. The sins of His people in eternity
were transferred to the Lord Jesus Christ. He stood as their
surety. He acted as their covenant head,
their husband. He obligated himself, all their
debt, and they received all the blessings that God promised to
Christ for fulfilling His law. This is what it means in Ephesians
1-3 when it says, God has blessed us with all spiritual blessings
in heavenly places in Christ. And then I'll take you to this
verse, 2 Timothy. 2 Timothy chapter 1. Again, you know these things,
but it's important that we revisit them because we're on this way.
And on this way, we deal with our own weakness over and over. We find our own inadequacy, our
lack, our entire emptiness before God, our spiritual poverty and
our depravity in ourselves. And we come to God in the guilt
of our conscience and all these things in order to have the gospel
applied to us fresh, and again, to know where our hope is and
our faith is. 2 Timothy 1.9, it says, In verse 8, Paul says to Timothy,
Be not thou therefore ashamed of the testimony of our Lord.
Don't be ashamed of what Jesus said. That's what he's saying.
Nor of me, his prisoner. Why am I in prison? I'm in prison
because I'm telling what Jesus has said. But, he says to Timothy,
be thou a partaker of the afflictions of the gospel according to the
power of God. Now that is what it means when
I read earlier in Luke 13 verse 24, Jesus said strive to enter
in. It means to agonize. Be a partaker
of the afflictions of the gospel. Because when we hold to Christ,
we have to abandon everything else. And everyone who isn't
on that way is going to think you're crazy. You're a nut. You're
wacko. You have adopted some kind of
strange religion that nobody believes. Who do you know believes
that way? Nobody. You're right. I haven't
found anybody else yet. I don't know why, but I can't
let it go. This is what I believe in my
heart and soul. It's a narrow way. And he says,
Be thou a partaker of the afflictions of the gospel according to the
power of God, verse 9, who hath saved us and called us with a
holy calling, Not according to our works, but according to His
own purpose and His grace which was given us in Christ Jesus
before the world began. When was God's grace given to
us? Before we had a being. Before we existed. Then how could
God give us something before we were even there? God is God. Remember what he told Abraham
before he had any children? He said, your name means father
of many nations. Do you know what Abraham did
when he heard that? He believed God. I'm a father of many nations. He had no children. How could
he possibly be a father of many nations? Because God calls those
things which be not as though they were. And Abraham believed
Him who calls those things which be not as though they were. This
is the fundamental truth. What God says, what God wills,
what God thinks is reality. That's the truth. What does it
say in Hebrews 11.1? Now, faith is the substance,
that's the reality of things hoped for, the evidence of things
not seen. Why? Because faith hears what
God says and counts true, counts true what God has said, even
though with physical eyes and tangible measuring instruments,
it cannot be perceived. It can't be understood. The natural
man, the things of the flesh, cannot receive the things of
the Spirit of God. They're foolishness to us. They're
received only by faith. There's a narrow way and there's
one gate through which the blessings of that enter into our soul.
And that gate is faith. Faith in Christ. Faith in God's
Word concerning what God did in Christ before the world began. And I'll take you to a couple
of others just so you're rejoicing in this. Look at 1 Peter 1. 1 Peter, after the book of James,
chapter 1, he says, verse 18, For as much as you know that
you were not redeemed with corruptible things, you weren't bought and
freed from bondage with things you can touch as silver and gold
from your vain conversation, received by the tradition from
your fathers, but with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb
without blemish and without spot, who verily was foreordained before
the foundation of the world, but was manifest in these last
times for you, who by Him do believe in God, that raised Him
up from the dead and gave Him glory, that your faith and hope
might be in God. Now, seeing you have purified
your souls in obeying the truth through the Spirit. What was
this obedience he's talking about here? It was the obedience of
faith, who by him do believe in God. You see that? Verse 21.
Now he says, seeing then you have purified your souls in obeying
the truth through the Spirit unto unfeigned love of the brethren. This is such a compact verse
you almost have to unpack it. God preaches the gospel to us. The Spirit of God persuades us
of it, makes us understand it. We embrace it. And in doing so,
we bring things that cannot be seen or known near. We take eternal
things and we apply them to ourselves to the peace and joy of our heart
by God's grace. It doesn't make them happen.
But it brings them to us in our experience, so we know what God
has done, and we enter into the eternal truth of what Christ
has done for us. And that's called, in here, in
this verse, it's called purifying your souls. Our souls, our conscience
is washed in the blood of Christ, in our own experience, when we
believe Him. But we were washed when Christ
died for us. Then he says in verse 23, being
born again. That's what this experience we're
talking about here, is being born again. Not of corruptible
seed, not of an earthly father, but of incorruptible. And what
is that seed? The Word of God, which lives
and abides forever. We're born when we are given
the Word of God by the Spirit. All flesh is as grass. All the
glory of man is the flower of grass. The grass withereth, the
flower thereof falleth away. But the word of the Lord endureth
forever, and this is the word which by the gospel is preached
to you." Do you see? The narrow way is the way that
says salvation was ordained, was purposed, was designed, and
put in place by God the Father in Christ for his people to God's
glory before the world began. The Broadway denies this. The Broadway says, no, God, He
knows everything, so He looked down into the future. And he
saw what would happen as if somehow there's a sovereign being that
controls what's going to happen called, I don't know, history. And he looks down this tunnel
of history yet to occur, and he sees that people, certain
people, are going to believe him. And he makes his choice
of them based on what they're going to do. This is entirely
the broad way. It makes salvation dependent
on man's action. God is held hostage to what man
has yet going to do. It makes all of God's activity
circling around and centered on man. And this is the broad
way. The broad way is all about men.
It's about God waiting for men to do something. Waiting to see
what they're going to do, either in advance or at the time when
he tells them, do this, and he has to wait to see if they're
going to respond. This is all the broad way teaching.
Our salvation was established in eternity. Aren't you thankful? Do you know why this is a good
thing for us? Well, first of all, because it
glorifies God and does not glorify man. Secondly, remember what
it says in Romans chapter 9, "...for the children being not
yet born, neither having done any good or evil, that the purpose
of God, according to election, might stand." That's why. He
said to them, Jacob have I loved, Esau have I hated. God's purpose,
that's what's important. It's not about you, it's about
Him. And you know why it's a good
thing that it's about Him? Because, what did Jesus say? There is none good but God. If it was about you, what kind
of a mess would we be in? What kind of a mess would you
be in? If it was left up to you, You can't choose God. You don't
even know God. You can't see Him. What are you
going to do to lay hold on Him? What kind of counsel will you
give Him? Our choices are nothing but sinful. God can only do right. His choice can only be good.
His choice is eternal. His choice cannot fail. His choice
will not go back. His choice will save. All God
chooses, He saves. And none but God chooses are
saved. This is the truth of the narrow
way. And this is the only way men can be saved. This is the
truth of the Gospel. And that's why Jesus said to
His Father in His prayer in John 17, verse 1 and 2, He says, glorify thy son, that thy son
also may glorify thee, as thou hast given him power over all
flesh, that he should give eternal life to as many as thou hast
given him." Out of all the flesh that you've given in power over,
how you're going to glorify yourself is by glorifying your Son, enabling
Him to give eternal life to as many as you've given to Him.
That's what God did in eternity. That's what Christ fulfilled
in time. That's the narrow way, and it's denied by all on the
broad way. God's Word doesn't fail. If we
understood that, we would have so much confidence. God's Word
doesn't... And we know it doesn't fail,
don't we? In creation, when God said to the light, come out!
Show yourself! He didn't say it like that. He
just said, let there be light. But when He did that, was there
light to command? Well, there was, but we couldn't
see it. We didn't know it. But when God
spoke, it had to obey. The nothingness out of which
things came, they just had to come. Because God's Word cannot
be resisted. God's Word will always do what
He says. So in Isaiah 55, God says the same thing. He says,
My Word shall not fail. It will accomplish the thing
whereunto I send it. His Word is like a messenger.
He just goes and does what He wants it to do. And that's what
God's Word does. Just like in creation, no one
could help God, so it is in salvation. No one could help God. Just like
in creation, no one was there to tell God how to do it. He
didn't ask us for our advice. Even so in salvation, He doesn't
seek our advice. He knows that that advice would
be totally unhelpful. evil. So why would he seek our
advice? Besides, we have no wisdom to offer. We're totally stupid
when it comes to salvation. I know that sounds like a crass
word. Someone I was teaching one time in Sunday school told
me afterwards, you know, don't use the word stupid. I teach
my kids not to say stupid. That's okay. Go ahead and keep
teaching your kids not to say stupid. But when it comes to
describing us before God, we're stupid. And it's appropriate. Just like Paul said, everything
I could bring myself was dung. Now, you don't go around talking
about things like that at home. But when it comes to our standing
before God, we're stupid and we're nothing, nothing in ourselves. We're like, God says, you're
like the poison of asps that's under your lips. You're full
of cursing and bitterness and the way of death and all these
things. So, we can't degrade ourselves too far before God.
That's what we are. That's the first thing that's
on the narrow way, is that God in eternity saved His people
in Christ. And then the second thing, and
I think this is the one that's more prominent, is that the denial
that occurs on the broad way by every religion in the world,
but is affirmed and held to with tenacity as with a death grip
on the narrow way is that the efficacy, the accomplishments
of what Jesus did on the cross in his life and in his death.
What Jesus did, what He actually did, not what He made potential,
but what He actually accomplished, is denied on the broad way, but
it is the only truth by which we're saved on the narrow way.
If Christ died for you, You will stand before God in glory as
His Son. If Christ died for you, you have
no sin. If Christ died for you, you are
clothed in His righteousness. You may not know it yet, and
you can't claim it until you believe Him. But when Christ
died, God justified His people. I like to say that. I believe
that. The Bible teaches it. And that's
more important. Look at Romans chapter 4. What Jesus did on the cross,
He actually did. I refer you back to Leviticus.
I'm not going to turn you there, but I refer you back to Leviticus
while you're turning to Romans 4. Remember what the priest did
on the day of atonement. He went in, he made atonement,
and he came out, and atonement was made. That parallels what
Christ did. When he rose from the dead, atonement
was made. And what was the... substance
of the atonement made. It was the putting away of sins.
It was the reconciling of men to God and God to them. Propitiating,
satisfying God. This was done on the cross. When
He had by Himself purged our sins, He sat down. He wouldn't
be seated on Heaven's throne if He hadn't actually purged
our sins from us. And He did that before He rose
from the dead. His resurrection was the proof
of it. Look here at Romans chapter 4. Verse 25. I'll just jump right
to the verse. "...who was delivered for our
offenses and was raised again for our justification." We could
make that the entire sermon right there. Why did Christ suffer? Why did God deliver Him up into
the hands of cruel and wicked men? Why did He deliver Him up
to His own justice and plunge the sword of His justice into
His Son? for our offenses. Our offenses. Not all offenses
in all the world. He didn't die for angels. And
He didn't die for the seed of Adam. He took on the seed of
Abraham. Remember Hebrews chapter 2? He
took on the seed of Abraham. And who were they? Those are
the ones in the covenant of grace. All for whom Christ died, just
like all whom Adam represented when he took that fruit from
the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and ate it. Eve
gave it to him, but he ate it. In his eating, in his sin, all
in him died at that time. Even so, when Christ obeyed His
Father, when He yielded up Himself to death, even the death of the
cross, obeying in His heart, with love to His Father and for
His people, and laid His life down for them, That obedience,
that sin payment, was the obedience and the sin payment of everyone
for whom he died. All of my sins, before I had
a being, before I ever committed them, were laid on Jesus in eternity. He was the Lamb slain from the
foundation of the world. He was the one God foreordained,
as we just read in 1 Peter 1.20, that His blood would be my redemption. And here it says, He was delivered
for our offenses. Our offenses. He didn't die for
sins in general. And He didn't die as one whose
blood was infinitely virtuous to pay for all the sins of all
the people in all the world and only those who believe make it
virtuous for them. That's the Broadway teaching.
The Bible says He died for sins. The sins of His people. He shall
save His people from their sins. They were constituted His. Justice
demanded an exact payment for every sin that all of His people
ever committed. He made satisfaction to God's
justice. There was a full remitting of
our account before God. And then He says, and He was
raised, and if we, I'm sorry, He was raised again for our justification. Jesus didn't die as a private
person. He didn't die like we die. If
I die, it's because of my own, you know, my own body fails,
my own sins. But when Jesus died, He died
for the sins of His people. And when He was raised, He was
raised because God justified Him with them. That was the reason
he came. He didn't come to pay for his
own sins. He didn't have any. And he didn't
come to establish a righteousness of his own. He had righteousness.
But he came for the righteousness of his people. And that's what
happened here when God raised him from the dead. God's raising
him from the dead was, think of it as this, the sentence handed
down by the judge and the execution of that sentence. When the sentence
was handed down, first of all, the sentence, the decision of
the court was made that based on the evidence, this one is
justified, this one is righteous, this one has met every demand
of the law. And that evaluation was made
by God on the death of Christ. But when God raised Him from
the dead, it was the pronouncement, the proclamation that He justified
His Son and all for whom He died. And this is the justification
of His people. So it says in Romans 5, 9, we're
justified by His blood. Justified. When Christ was raised,
we were justified in Him. Now this is just one aspect.
It also says in Hebrews 9, 12, that He entered once into the holy
place, having obtained eternal redemption for us. He already
obtained it. It's obtained. He already purged
our sins. We're already justified. And
our faith is given to see that. Faith doesn't make things happen.
Faith relies on what is true. God says it, it's true. Christ
did it, it's true. Faith believes that and receives
it. So when we're justified, we're justified because of what
God thinks of what Christ did. And our believing it is receiving,
in our experience, the benefits of that proclamation. It's like
the man who sits there in the courtroom. Or maybe he's down
in the jail, in the dungeon. He's not even in the courtroom.
He doesn't have to be there. The judge evaluates the crimes
committed, or the obedience rendered. And the judge pronounces the
verdict, makes the decision. And the bailiff goes down into
the dungeon and tells this man, you're justified. But the justification
happened before. It was a decision already made
by the judge, based on the evidence. God examined what Christ did
and justified His people. The proclamation of that is the
preaching of the gospel to us in our ear and in the court of
our conscience. We hear it and we receive it
as our own. But the matter, the substance,
the ground, the foundation of our justification is what Christ
did. He actually did do for His people what He said He would
do. He saved them from their sins.
Those two things, and there's many other things we don't have
time to get into, are the things that distinguish the narrow way
from the broad way. The things that are of Christ
and the things that are not of Christ. Don't go beyond Christ. Don't look for another. Don't
think to add to what He's done by your own obedience, or by
your own sincerity, or your own experience, your own mysticism,
or whatever it is, your own adding philosophies. not even your growth
in grace can add to the satisfaction of Christ. He perfected his people
by his one offering. Is that enough? It's enough for
God. It rejoices my heart. It's everything
in my salvation, what Christ did. Let's pray. Lord, we pray that we would be
found on the narrow way. Help us to recognize the difference
between the false and the true. Help us to see and look to our
Lord Jesus Christ. Help us to be persuaded in our
minds that you purposed and sent him and he accomplished what
you told him to do. And having accomplished and finished
it, he sat down and is glorified. and rules to dispense all that
He accomplished and to which you rewarded Him. And He didn't
do it for Himself, but for the glory of God for His people.
And this is the marvel of it. When we see our Lord Jesus Christ,
He was so selfless, He's so humble to empty Himself. And when we
learn of all of His love and grace and mercy and kindness
toward us, we're just astounded. And then we learn that when we
see these things in Him that we're looking at the very heart
of God Himself. And we have suddenly learned
that now we know God. And how could we have known Him
without Him coming and doing these things and revealing Himself
to us both in His Word and in our conscience. So we pray, Lord,
apply these things to us for Jesus' sake. Make them our own.
Help us to own our sin and have that as the backdrop of everything
in our lives to see the glory of God so that we know that You
didn't save us by what You found in us, but because of Your eternal
purpose and grace which was given us in Christ before the world
began. And You received from Him everything, and now You tell
us that the fullness of the Godhead is bodily in Him, and we're complete
in Him. And this is the way, this is
the complete way. In a sense, it's the very broad
way because nothing can possibly be added to it and we have all
things in Him. But in another sense, we could
never have found it had you not put us in this way. And we would
never know it unless you saved us from our sins. Thank you,
Lord, that your salvation is regardless of what we are in
ourselves in spite of us. And it requires your grace and
doesn't require our work. In fact, we have to abandon all
that we are. And thank you for your mercy
and grace in Christ, for being so good and so faithful and so
wise. In Jesus' name we pray, amen.