Two Gates-Choose One - Part 1

Today on Fellowship in the Word, Pastor Bill Gebhardt challenges you to become a fully functioning follower of Jesus Christ. You see, you have to seek the kingdom of God. You have to find the gate. That's up to you. You see, that's your choice. Now, after he goes through all that, it's interesting that he also says that there is a wide gate. Boy, it's really wide.

And it's easy. In fact, it's the way we were all one before he came to Christ. And it covers a multitude of philosophies and ideas. It covers all the religions of the world. All of them. You see, it covers every possible religion in the world.

Every philosophy of life that you could possibly have. Thank you for joining us today on this edition of Fellowship in the Word with Pastor Bill Gebhardt. Fellowship in the Word is the radio ministry of Fellowship Bible Church located in Metairie, Louisiana. Let's join Pastor Bill Gebhardt now as once again he shows us how God's Word meets our world.

No one likes to be told what to do. And if you don't believe me, I'll just give you a few words. Vaccine. OK, vaccine. Masks. Social distancing.

It's amazing. We don't like to be told what to do. We want a choice. In that particular way, God is very supportive of that. God is all about you and I having choices. You find it everywhere in the Word of God.

Deuteronomy 30. I have set before you this day life and good or death and evil. Therefore, you choose life so that you may live. It's a choice. That's your choice. In Joshua 24, choose this day who you will serve. It's your choice. As for me and my house, we'll serve the Lord. In 1 Kings 18, Elijah, saying, How long will you halt between two different opinions? If the Lord be God, follow him.

If it's Baal, you follow him. But you have to choose. Over and over again in the Word of God, God says choose. And he wants to make this about as clear and sobering as something possible. We make lots of choices.

But what I want to speak about today is probably the most important choice of your life by miles. So I want you to open your Bibles to Matthew, chapter seven, and we're going to look at verses 13 and 14. We are coming to the end of the Sermon on the Mount, and I said it's a very, very disturbing sermon, especially for the people who were alive when Jesus spoke it, because almost everything Jesus said in the sermon is not at all what they were ever taught. It's not what they were taught by their parents or their grandparents.

Everything he's talking about is diametrically opposed to the things that they were taught. If you remember, right in the beginning of the sermon, he said to them, if your righteousness doesn't surpass that of the scribes and Pharisees, you'll never get into the kingdom of heaven. And I said, I think that people gasped when they heard that, because they viewed the scribes and the Pharisees as the single most religious group in their country. And they said, how in the world could I be more righteous than a scribe and Pharisee? So Jesus started the sermon, he dealt with the Beatitudes, and he said, well, blessed are or happy are the people who are poor in spirit, people who see themselves spiritually bankrupt. He said they could be happy. Blessed are those who mourn over their sin.

All of these are internal things. He goes on after that and says, blessed are the gentle with other people. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for God's presence in their life. He said, blessed are the merciful who are merciful to others. And he said, blessed are the pure in heart, their motives are pure, the peacemakers who make peace between man and God. And happy are those when they're persecuted because of their beliefs. Then he went on and told his disciples, and these are just fishermen from Galilee, you're the salt of the earth, you're the light of the world.

And I could imagine the rest of the audience is, wait a minute, these are just fishermen. Why is he calling them the salt of the earth and the light of the world? And then he took on this idea that the most important thing in your life is the inward reality and not external things at all. So he attacked the hypocrisy of the Pharisees. He said, when you pray publicly to be heard, that's hypocrisy. He said, when you give to people and want everyone to know what you give, that's hypocrisy.

You see, when you fast and try to make yourself look decimated, that's hypocrisy. So he goes through this whole sermon. Last time he talked about we need to love people. And you love people by not judging people with the idea of the things only God can judge you of. And then also that we have to treat everybody, including our enemies, the way we want to be treated, which was called the golden rule. A lot of people, and especially even completely non-Christian people, philosophers, have read this sermon and said, we admire the ethics of the sermon.

Well, let me explain something. Jesus didn't want anybody's admiration. He's not looking for an admiration. He's not looking for you to say, wow, that's interesting.

That was really well said. He doesn't care. What he's looking for is a choice.

That's what he's after. So when he gets here to the end of this, he's going to start talking about you have to choose. He said there'll be two gates.

There'll be two ways. There's two destinations. There's two trees.

There's two kinds of fruit. There's two builders. There's two foundations.

There's two houses. He said you have to choose. You must. And so he says this starting in verse 13. What's interesting is he starts out and he says, after all this, enter through the narrow gate. For the gate is wide and the way is broad that leads to destruction. And there are many who enter through it. He starts out by saying, here's the choice.

And it's not even a choice in a sense. The word enter is a commandment. It's an aorist imperative in the Greek. I command you. It's aorist tense.

It's point action. I command you right now, make the choice. I command you to enter the narrow gate.

It's interesting. You can command someone to enter. Jesus says, yeah, but it's because I realize what's at stake here.

There are two gates. And then he goes on after that and he says, for the gate is small and the way is narrow that leads to life. There are only a few who find it. I hope by the end of the morning you feel the way I did. When I deal with this passage and this whole week of dealing with this passage, it's sobering. This is not like, oh, I got a little biblical insight.

This isn't like that. This deals with the destinies of human beings. These are very, very profound words. There's no wiggle room in it at all.

None. And Jesus is the one saying it, the Son of God. And so he makes this statement.

And if you just read it at the surface, you know what he's saying. One of the criticisms that you often get as a Christian when you talk to someone is how exclusive Christianity is. It's extremely exclusive. And that's not popular in America. America is a pluralistic culture. America is real simple in this. When you're in America, you say, well, everybody's opinion is the same. That's pluralism. Or you could say it this way. All the roads will lead you to heaven.

They all work. That's pluralism. Jesus is saying that's not true. You see, I can remember in a philosophy class at the University of Pittsburgh when a professor said to me, who liked to needle me quite a bit in philosophy, he said, so you're saying that the only way to ever have eternal life is Jesus Christ. And I said, well, I'm not really saying that because I don't have that authority. But I said the Son of God who's my Savior, he said it. So if you have a problem, you have a problem with his words. But don't say you have a problem with my words.

I'm just telling you what he said. You see, that's an important thing. What was interesting is we had several doctoral students at the University of Pittsburgh in that class I was taking in philosophy. And at break time, two or three of them come up and wanted to talk to me about that. They were very interested. They were the typical philosophy kind of students.

Pony-haired guys with little wire glasses, brilliant guys, very abstract in their thinking. And they said, tell me again what grace means. What does that mean that you're talking about grace? But you see, it is exclusive. And it's not exclusive because I want it to be. Look, if it were up to me, we'll all go. You see, but it's not up to me. It's not for me to say at all.

So it is, in a sense, very, very exclusive. Now, it's interesting that if God would have said in the Bible, there are 101 ways to go to heaven. I preach them all. I preach all 101 ways.

There's all kinds of ways you can go. But he doesn't say that. I'm very different from that. If we've mistaken here with simply one verse, I want you to hold your place here and go with me to a couple of verses. The first one is the book of Acts, chapter 4, and verse 6. The book of Acts, Peter's preaching, Acts 4, verse 12.

Peter's preaching, and he says this. And there is salvation in no one else. For there is no other name under heaven that has been given among men by which we must be saved. No other name.

Just him. There's no one else. No one else ever named by which we must be saved. It's not Socrates. It's not Confucius.

It's not Muhammad. There's no name given among men except that name, the name Jesus Christ. Now, turn with me to John, chapter 14, and verse 6. Now, remember, this is Jesus is going to go and be crucified the next day.

The disciples are upset. And so he said, don't let your heart be troubled in the beginning. And he says, I'm going to go and prepare a place for you so that where I am, you'll be also. But as he moves down there, Thomas says to him, Lord, we do not know where you're going. How do we know the way? And that's when Jesus said in verse 6, I am the way, the truth and the life. And then these words, no one comes to the Father but through me. Now, if Jesus is who he claims to be, the son of God, he's made this extremely clear. In fact, when Paul writes to Timothy in 1 Timothy 2, 5, he says, there's one God, one mediator. Between God and man, the man Christ Jesus. So you have one name, one way, one truth, one life, one mediator, one gate. It's pretty redundant. There's just one. See, that's the point that he's making.

So we can go back now to Matthew 7. And so what does he say here? You must enter. Singular. You have to enter alone. You have to make the choice alone.

This is your choice. You don't get to go in in groups. You don't get to go in because your family's in. No one gets in as a group. You only get in. And notice what he said. He said the gates narrow.

And it's kind of an interesting thing, the word stenos, and it means very tight, very small. Some of you after the service may even go to a Saints game today. How do you get in? One at a time. You have to go through the turnstile.

You can't say, no, there's a group of us. We're all going in. Each one of you, click it, go through. One at a time. That's what Jesus is saying.

One at a time. You have to choose, and you go in by yourself. You see, and if you go in, it doesn't mean your husband's in, your children are in.

It doesn't mean any of that. Every person has to go in on their own. Every person has to make that particular choice. That's what Jesus Christ is saying.

That's the choice that you have to make. See, the Pharisees saw it very different than that. The Pharisees thought their whole group goes in. In fact, the Pharisees would say, we're children of Abraham. You know what that means? We all go in.

The whole group goes in. And Jesus rebukes that. That's not true at all. In fact, that's why he said to them earlier in the sermon, if your righteousness doesn't exceed a Pharisee's, you won't even see the kingdom.

You'll never get in. And so the Pharisees were completely wrong about that. There's something else that he says near the end of verse 14. He says, and there are few who find it. What in the world does that mean?

The word find is harusco, and it means intentional looking. You have to look for it. You don't go through the kingdom gate accidentally.

All of a sudden, I was on this side. Next thing you know, I'm over there, and that's it. You have to find it.

Earlier in the sermon, he said, remember when it dealt with all the things we worry about, and he said, you want to stop worrying? Seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all this will be added to you. But you have to seek it. You see, you have to seek the kingdom of God. You have to find the gate. That's up to you. You see, that's your choice. Now, after he goes through all that, it's interesting that he also says that there is a wide gate. Boy, it's really wide.

And it's easy. And in fact, it's the way we were all on before he came to Christ. And it covers a multitude of philosophies and ideas. It covers all the religions of the world, all of them. You see, it covers every possible religion in the world, every philosophy of life that you could possibly have. And there's a reason for it. Hold your place with me. Go back to Proverbs chapter 14 and verse 12, Proverbs 14 verse 12.

Solomon writes this, but it covers everything. There's a way which seems right to a man, but its end is the way of death. There's a way that seems right. And there's all kinds of different ways that people think, oh, this would be right. That's what religion does. You see, the idea of religion is what can man do for God that God was so impressed that on the basis of man's actions, he'll get to go to heaven. And all the religions have a different to-do list and all of them a different way of possibly doing this. And that's why you have such tremendous religious diversity in the world. Literally, there have been thousands of religions in the world, all of them sort of seeking the same thing, but all of them based on the same idea. What can man do?

You see, what do I need to do? And there's religion that is within Christendom, and there's religion outside of Christendom, but they're everywhere. And by the way, in America right now, I think one thing no one would call America. We're not a religious nation. We're not really steeped in religion, but we're steeped in something else. We're steeped in what I called earlier pluralism, a certain form of morality.

Talk to almost any American and offer them the gospel of Jesus Christ and what that means. And what's he going to tell you? They all tell you the same thing. They all believe, as a group, that I'm fine because God's going to grade on a curve. That's the way this works. Look, I'm not Hitler. You see, I'm not a serial killer. I'm a pretty good guy. And so God will look down at his infinite wisdom and say, yeah, that's a pretty good guy, and I would never condemn that guy.

There's a few people that need condemned, but not most people. Most of them are pretty good people. Now, you can talk to, and guess what? If they talk to their friends, what do their friends say?

Same thing. We're all good people, and God's going to allow all the good people in when our based on our behavior. But what's the word of God say? There's none righteous, no, not one.

What? None. There's none righteous, no, not one. All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.

All. The wages of sin is death. Wait, wait, what? See, and they thought they handled the law well enough that the law would allow them to go in.

The rich young ruler. Jesus said, what do I have to do? What do I have to do to be saved? And Jesus said, do the law. He goes, I've done it.

Wow. That's why James in the book of James wrote and said, if you violate one part of the law, one element, you're guilty of the whole law. So whether you had one million violations of the law or one, you're guilty. Jesus took it further. He said, you say in the Sermon on the Mount, he did, you say that thou shall not murder. I say, if you've ever been angry, you're a murderer. You say thou shall not commit adultery. But I say, if you've ever had lust in your heart, you are a sinner. So Jesus said, if you've ever had a sinful thought, you're a sinner.

James said, if you ever violated one aspect of the law, you're guilty of it all. So how many good people are there? You see, God's not going to grade on the curve. And if that's what you believe, it's going to be a sad reality, a really difficult one for you, because he's not grading on the curve.

He's absolutely holy. You see, he doesn't grade on the curve. It's not going to work that way.

No one's good enough. Even the agnostics and the atheists, I remember reading an atheistic writer, and he said this, if there is a God, I don't believe he could ever condemn me to hell. If there is one. Because it's pretty clear that he didn't create enough evidence for me to believe in him. And so that's his fault, so he'd never condemn me to hell for that.

But did God say in Romans 1 he created enough evidence? Didn't he say they're without excuse because I gave them consciousness? They have a conscious of right or wrong within them, and I gave them creation without. So he said they're without excuse. You see, and almost everybody believes that. They're either involved in a religious group or a moral group or a philosophical group, and you say, hey, we're going to be all fine.

It's going to work well that way. One commentator wrote this, he said, there have always been but two systems of religion in the whole world. One is God's system of divine accomplishment, the other is man's system of human achievement. One is the religion of God's grace, the other is the religion of men's works. One is a religion of faith, and the other is a religion of the flesh. One is the religion of a sincere heart and the internal, and the other is a religion of hypocrisy and the external. Within man's system are thousands of religious forms and names, but they're all built on the achievements of man and the inspiration of the devil himself.

Christianity, on the other hand, is the religion of divine accomplishment, and it stands alone. That's true, but that's bothersome to us. We don't really like that.

We want it a different way. So he also says there is a wide path. You'll notice back to Matthew 7, he said, the way is broad that leads to destruction, the gate is wide. It's like, wow, it's easy to be on this path. You can be on there with all your friends and all your family and the culture.

It's an easy thing to be on, but its end is catastrophic. And I don't know about you, but that really bothers me. Do you understand the scope of this? When someone gives the gospel, and I hate when this happens, you're not trying to get someone to come over to your side of an argument. You're not trying to get someone to join your church.

That's not what you're trying to do. You're dealing with the eternal destiny of a human being. That's what you're dealing with. Where are people going to be forever? You see, where's that going to happen? And in our heart, it's exactly what we want.

Let me illustrate this to show you how much you want it and I want it. I've been here a long, long, long time. I've been involved in countless funerals. Some people in the church, lots of people out at the church, some people at the court, some people way out on the periphery. I've never been to one funeral, ever, where there was an assurance that's given that the deceased is now in heaven.

Not once. Now that's some coincidence, isn't it? By the way, think about it for yourself. Think of the people you've known and loved and died. They're all in heaven, aren't they? You see what I mean, how we think about this.

Why is that? Because we want them to be there. It's emotional to us. I don't want to condemn anybody. You see, so we, it's an amazing, Jesus said few and many. But ironically, the few are apparently all of us. And everybody we ever knew are involved with the few.

You see, that's a really difficult thing for us. You've been listening to Pastor Bill Gebhardt on the Radio Ministry of Fellowship in the Word. If you ever miss one of our broadcasts, or maybe you would just like to listen to the message one more time, remember that you can go to a great website called OnePlace.com. That's OnePlace.com, and you can listen to Fellowship in the Word online.

At that website, you will find not only today's broadcast, but also many of our previous audio programs as well. At Fellowship in the Word, we are thankful for those who financially support our ministry and make this broadcast possible. We ask all of our listeners to prayerfully consider how you might help this radio ministry continue its broadcast on this radio station by supporting us monthly or with just a one-time gift. Support for our ministry can be sent to Fellowship in the Word 4600 Clearview Parkway, Metairie, Louisiana 7006. If you would be interested in hearing today's message in its original format, that is as a sermon that Pastor Bill delivered during a Sunday morning service at Fellowship Bible Church, then you should visit our website, fbcnola.org.

That's fbcnola.org. At our website, you will find hundreds of Pastor Bill's sermons. You can browse through our sermon archives to find the sermon series you are looking for, or you can search by title. Once you find the message you are looking for, you can listen online, or if you prefer, you can download the sermon and listen at your own convenience. And remember, you can do all of this absolutely free of charge. Once again, our website is fbcnola.org. For Pastor Bill Gebhardt, I'm Jason Gebhardt, thanking you for listening to Fellowship in the Word.