Which Way to Heaven?

Jesus becomes the crux of every man's destiny. The choice is made at the crossroads of Christ, if you will. Choose life or choose death. Essentially, that's what Jesus is saying here. The narrow gate, the narrow way, the wide gate, the wide way, that's it. There are no other alternatives. Welcome to Grace to You with John MacArthur.

I'm your host, Phil Johnson. Throughout history, it seems every culture and religion has had its own definition of eternal peace that comes after death. But despite the pretty pictures they paint, those philosophies are, well, empty.

The future happiness they promise is nothing but fantasy. So what makes the Bible's promise of heaven any different? Find out today on Grace to You as John MacArthur helps you focus on the glorious home God is preparing for believers and what that can mean to you right now. John calls his current study True Happiness. It's based on Jesus' Sermon on the Mount.

And now, here is John. Open your Bible with me and look together at Matthew chapter 7 verses 13 and 14. Matthew chapter 7 verses 13 and 14. In chapter 7 of Matthew, the Sermon on the Mount, which began in chapter 5, comes to a great crescendo, a great climax. That climax is stated in these two verses. The remainder of the sermon to the end of the chapter simply is an expansion of these two verses.

Listen as I read them. Enter in at the narrow gate, for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leadeth to destruction and many there be who go in that way. Because narrow is the gate and hard is the way which leadeth unto life and few there be that find it. That is a provocative statement by our Lord. That is really the point to which He has been driving in all of the first part of this great masterful sermon. He brings the whole thing to the climax of a decision, a choice.

Two gates which bring the individual to two roads which lead to two destinations which are populated by two different crowds. The Lord then focuses upon the inevitable decision that has to be made regarding that which He has been saying. Someone has well said that all of life concentrates on man at the crossroads.

That's really true. From the time of our life when we are old enough to make an independent decision or any decision, life becomes a matter of constant decision making. Every single day of our lives we make decisions about everything. We decide what time we'll get up or if we'll get up in the morning, what we'll eat, where, where we'll go, what we'll do. Constantly life is a matter of decisions. We just pick roads all the way through life.

And so it is fair to say that life consists of man at the crossroads. Ultimately and inevitably there is a final choice, a choice that not only determines time but a choice that determines eternity. That choice is the one to which our Lord speaks in these verses, the ultimate choice. Now it has always been God's effort to bring man to the making of that ultimate choice.

Always. There's always an option so that there's always a choice. And the choice that is ultimate is the choice that God is most concerned about. For example, through Moses, God confronted the children of Israel in the 30th chapter of Deuteronomy and said this, I have set before thee this day life and good and death and evil. Therefore choose life that thou and thy seed may live. God gave to the people of Israel the ultimate choice, life or death, good or evil, and called for a decision. Joshua who followed Moses as the leader of the people of Israel as they entered the promised land in the 24th chapter of Joshua and the 15th verse said this, choose you this day whom you will serve, whether the gods of your fathers or implied the true God. As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.

Again the choice. Jeremiah heard God say in chapter 21 and verse 8, unto this people shalt thou say thus saith the Lord, behold I have set before you the way of life and the way of death. Elijah on Mount Carmel called for a decision. In 1st Kings chapter 18 and verse 21 he said, how long will you halt between two opinions? If the Lord be God, follow him. If Baal, follow him.

The ultimate choice. In John chapter 6 we read that many followed Jesus. Many called themselves disciples, but in John 6 66 it says that many of them turned their back and followed him no more. And Jesus said, will you also go away? And Peter said, to whom shall we go? Thou and thou alone has the words of eternal life. Peter articulated his choice.

Some walked away and some stayed. Jesus said Simeon, was a child born for the rising and the falling of many. Jesus becomes the crux of every man's destiny. The choice is made at the crossroads of Christ, if you will. Choose life or choose death.

Essentially that's what Jesus is saying here in Matthew 7 13 and 14. And beloved, the choice is utterly clear-cut. There are only two choices. The narrow gate, the narrow way, the wide gate, the wide way, that's it. There are no other alternatives.

None. Now some people might say, well how in the world could Jesus make such a clear-cut issue about religion when there are so many religions facing man? Well there aren't so many either. There's just the true and the false, right? There's just the right and the wrong.

That's as simply stated as I can state it. In fact, all the way through the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus is contrasting true religion, his standards, and false religion, the religion of the day, the religion of man. The contrast is between divine righteousness and what it demands and human righteousness and what it demands. The contrast is between Christ and the scribes and the Pharisees. There's only two.

Now let me add a footnote on that. The contrast here, and I want you to understand this or you'll never understand the passage, the contrast is not between religion and paganism. And I've heard so many people use it that way, that the narrow way is the way of Christianity that goes to heaven, and the broad way is the drunken orgy that's going to hell. It is not a contrast between godliness and Christianity and irreligious people, pagan people, openly lewd and lascivious, godless, immoral masses on their way merrily to hell.

It is not that. It is a contrast in two kinds of religion. Both roads marked, this is the way to heaven. Satan doesn't mark roads, this is the way to hell.

That's not very deceiving. It is not a contrast then between religion and paganism. It is a contrast not between righteousness and declared unrighteousness. It is a contrast between divine righteousness and human righteousness, between divine religion and human religion, between true religion and false religion. The Pharisees' problem is indicated to us in Luke 18, 9 when it says the Pharisees trusted in themselves that they were righteous. That was their religion, and that was inadequate.

Every man makes a choice, and the choice is this. Either you're good enough on your own or through your system to make it to heaven or you're not, and you cast yourself on the mercy of God through Christ. Those are the only two systems of religion in the world. Jesus is saying, look, there are two roads marked to heaven. One is the narrow, compressed road of divine righteousness. The other is the broad road of human righteousness.

You see, the Jews had taught that they could make it on their own. That's why it was so shocking when the Apostle Paul said, by the deeds of the law shall no flesh be justified in God's sight, Romans 3. And Paul said, the law came in order to stop our mouths from any claim to righteousness and to render the whole world guilty before God. The law came to show us our sinfulness. But when self-righteous, ego-centered man saw that he was sinful by the law, he didn't want to face his sinfulness, so he set the law aside, reinvented a new system that accommodated his shortcoming, and then on the basis of the man-made system, affirmed to his own mind that he was righteous.

That's human achievement. The Lord's whole thrust in the Sermon on the Mount is to break the back of that kind of a system, to show them that all the way through, that system doesn't make it. The Jews, of course, thought they were righteous. They thought they were on their way to heaven, on their way to the kingdom, but Jesus forces them to rethink and to make a decision and a choice. It's the same choice every one of us has to make as well.

Now as we come to verses 13 and 14, the choice is crystallized. There are two gates, the wide and the straight. There are two ways, the broad and the narrow. There are two destinations, life and destruction. There are two kinds of travelers, the few and the many. There are two kinds of trees, the good and the corrupt. There are two kinds of fruit, the good and the bad. There are two builders, the wise and the foolish.

There are two foundations, the rock and the sand. And there are two houses and there are two elements to the storm that He discusses. In other words, the clear-cut decision is the whole issue at the climax of this sermon. And I repeat, Jesus does not want bouquets for the ethics and Jesus does not want postponement of the requirements. What He wants is action, response. And He forces us to a decision.

And people, I don't think, have really understood this passage. There are four contrasts I want you to see in these verses. Four contrasts. Number one, two gates. Two gates. Enter in at the narrow gate, for wide is the gate. And then verse 14, because narrow is the gate. Two times He mentions the narrow gate, once He mentions the wide gate. Two gates.

Only two. Both roads, as I said, point to salvation. Both roads point to God. Both roads point to the kingdom. Both roads point to glory. Both roads point to blessing. Both roads point to heaven. Both roads don't go there.

One is self-righteousness and one is divine righteousness. Before you get on the road, you've got to go through the gate. So the gate comes first. Now let's look, first of all, at the narrow gate. And this is basically the crux of the interpretation, so we'll spend a little more time on this. I want to just begin to develop the concept that's involved in this narrow gate. First of all, the first thing I see as I look at verse 13 is, you must enter.

You get that? You must enter. There's a sense of urgency here in this arist imperative. It demands a point of action right now. Do it now. Enter now. This is the time. This is the moment. This is what God is calling for. You must do this.

It is not an option. It is a command, an absolute command. Now the Lord Jesus had been teaching them a very narrow way of life. Their way had all kinds of tolerance for sin. They had all kinds of laws beyond the law of God. They had all kinds of standards beyond the standards of God. They had invented a system that was man-made and far-reaching and all of these kinds of things were part of their system. And Jesus said, you've got to get rid of that.

You've got to get rid of that. This is what it is. This is what it is. And He narrowed it and narrowed it and narrowed it down until by the time He came to chapter 7 verse 12, He had presented to them a very refined and confined approach to living to the glory of God. And they got the picture that it was a very narrow, prescribed way. And Jesus spoke, they say at the end of the chapter, as one having authority. He didn't drag up all the stuff of the rabbis. He just nailed down the specifics. And so they got the picture.

Compared to their system, it was very narrow, very prescribed. And Jesus says, you must enter this narrow way. If you're going to be in My kingdom, you've got to come on these terms. He demanded immediate action.

It is an absolute command without an alternative. It is not enough to listen to preaching about the gate. It is not enough to admire the ethics. You've got to enter it. You cannot enter the kingdom, He says, unless you come on these terms, abandoning yourself righteousness, seeing yourself as a beggar in spirit, as mourning over sin, as meek before a holy God, not proud and boastful, as hungering and thirsting for righteousness, not believing you have it. You have to enter on His terms.

Hell will be full of people who admired the Sermon on the Mount. You must enter. Second point, you must enter this gate. You must enter this gate. Enter in at the narrow gate. He says there's a wide gate, but He doesn't tell you to enter that one because it leads to destruction. You must enter.

You can't stand out and admire it. You've got to go through, and if you're going to be in the kingdom, you've got to go through this gate. Now, that's very narrow, isn't it? I mean, that's very prescribed. People say, you know, Christianity doesn't give room for anybody else.

That's exactly right. We don't do that because we're selfish or because we're proud or because we're egotistical. We do that because that's what God said. If God said there were 48 ways to salvation, I'd preach all 48 of them.

But there aren't. Neither is there salvation in any other, for there is none other name under heaven given among men whereby we must be what? Safe. None other name. Jesus, Acts 4, 12. I am the bread of life. I am the way, the truth, and the life. I am the door.

Anybody who comes in any other way is a thief and a robber. John 10. There is, 1 Timothy 2, one mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus.

Only one. No other name. Christ and Christ alone. It is that narrow.

It is that prescribed. There are no alternatives. You must enter by an act of the will or an act of faith. You have to enter on God's terms through God's prescribed gate. And Christ is that gate.

He is that way. And holy God has the right to determine the basis of salvation and He has determined that it is Jesus Christ and Him alone and that's the way it is. Thirdly, you must enter. You must enter the narrow gate and you must enter alone.

You must enter alone. I see this as implicit in the text. If you study the term narrow, you get the idea that it is a very narrow gate. In fact, many commentators would say that the best expression of this in a contemporary way would be a turnstile. One of those things where you have to go through all alone. The metal is very close and there's a little arm there that you push and you go through.

That's the way it is with a narrow gate. You don't come to the kingdom of Christ in groups. The Jews believe, hey, we're in the kingdom. We're all on the road together. We all came through together based on Abrahamic heritage, based on Jewish ancestry, based on circumcision.

We're all here together. And I think there are people who think that they're on the right road to heaven. They got on when they got to church. They came to church.

We're all in the church and the whole church got on together. There are no groups coming through the turnstile, folks. You go through all alone. Salvation is individual. People never been saved in pairs. Oh, when one believes, it may influence another to believe, but everyone's salvation is exclusive and intensely personal.

It admits only one at a time. And that's kind of hard, you know, because all our life is spent rushing around with the crowd. All of our life is spent doing what everybody else does, being a part of the group, being a part of the gang, being a part of the system around us, being accepted. And all of a sudden, Christ says, you're going to have to come and you're going to have to come through this deal all by yourself. And to a Pharisee, that meant you're going to have to say goodbye to those people and that system and step out alone.

There's a price to pay, a real price. It isn't enough to claim your Abrahamic ancestry. It isn't enough to go back to your circumcision. It isn't enough to say, I was born in a Christian family. I've been in the church all my life. You don't come into the kingdom in groups. You come in an individual act of faith. You must enter. You must enter the narrow gate. You must enter alone.

Listen to this one. You must enter with great difficulty, with great difficulty. Now, I know that shocks some people because we hear all the time that getting saved is easy. All you have to do is just believe, sign the dotted line, walk the aisle, raise your hand, go to the prayer room, whatever. And we have made it easy. The only thing is when we get done, the people aren't on the right road because they didn't come through the narrow gate. Now, without shocking you too much, I believe it's very, very difficult to be saved.

Did you hear that? Let me show you why. It says at the end of verse 14, regarding the narrow gate and regarding the narrow way, few there be that what? Find it. The first implication is that you're not even going to know it's there unless you're what?

Looking. The Old Testament prophet said, You'll find me, says God, when you search for me with all your heart. I don't believe anybody ever slipped and fell into the kingdom of God. I don't believe it's easy. That's cheap grace, easy believism. That's the revivalist approach.

Raise your hand and walk the aisle, sign the card and you're in. Well, I believe. I believe in Jesus. Fine, you're a part of the family. Few there be that find it implies that you got to look for it, but you have to search for it.

Let me take it a step further. Look with me at Luke 13 and I'll show you a verse that'll really shock you. Luke 13, as Jesus in verse 22 is going through the cities and villages teaching, He came toward Jerusalem. As a result of His ministry, it was apparent to the people with Him that not everybody was responding as they thought they should. It's always hard for us to understand why people don't respond to Christ. And so one of them said to Him in verse 23, Lord, are there few that be saved? I mean, it was His observation that not many people responded.

Lord, is it just a few? And He sent unto them and He gave them the answer to the next question, the one they didn't ask. The first question's answer was yes.

The next question would have been why? To which the answer would be because you must strive to enter in at the narrow gate. And the word strive is agonizomai, from which we get to agonize, which is used in 1 Corinthians 9 25 of an athlete agonizing to win a victory, which is used in Colossians 4 12 of laboring fervently, which is used in Paul's letter to Timothy in the idea chapter 6 verse 12 of fighting. In other words, the Lord says it is an agonizing, it is a warfare, it is a fervency that is demanded, a striving to enter in at the narrow gate. And there are many as opposed to the few who will seek to enter in but won't be able.

Now watch this. It's difficult to get saved, Jesus says, number one, because you've got to be seeking. And there are maybe many who are seeking.

But when they find out what it costs to strive to enter, they're not willing to do that. That's a very strong statement. This is Grace to You with John MacArthur, chancellor of the Masters University and Seminary, pastor of Grace Community Church in Southern California.

And John's current study is showing you the path to true happiness. John, when you talk about the high cost of following Christ, that is not a popular message in many churches today, and so I'm curious, what do you think compels so many churches and so many preachers to try to avoid or downplay the hard-to-hear aspects of the gospel? I mean, if the gospel has offensive elements, if it's a stumbling block and a rock of offense, then it is what it is. It's not good when people try to get around that, is it? There are two reasons why people alter the gospel.

Reason number one is because they don't want to offend someone they're trying to reach. You know, I want you to know Christ. I want you to go to heaven and not hell. So I don't want to scare you.

I don't want to chase you away. I don't want to offend you. So I'm going to take out the hard parts that might offend you. The second reason that people alter the gospel is because they believe that the sinner is the one who determines salvation. In other words, I've got to convince him, so I've got to do whatever I need to do to manipulate his will to embrace Christ.

Both of those are profound errors. One, you can't change the gospel. You can't take the hard part of the gospel out, or you've eliminated the gospel. You've got to confront sin, righteousness, judgment, eternal punishment, and it's got to be straightforward. And then you have to completely understand that that sinner can only respond to that offensive message but that glorious message if God opens the sinner's heart.

So when you understand that God is the only one who can save, the only one who can regenerate, the only one who can grant salvation, and he does it when the sinner is enabled to believe the full truth of the gospel, then you're going to approach evangelism in a very different way. And along that line, I want to mention a book called Hard to Believe. It is hard to believe.

It's really impossible to believe. The subtitle, The High Cost and Infinite Value of Following Jesus, supports that. The book examines the corrosion and corruption of the biblical gospel from within the walls of the evangelical church. For too long, God has not consistently been the center of the gospel. Comfort, tastes, felt needs have dethroned God and the hard truths that genuinely lead to salvation. The book is hard to believe.

It asks the questions and answers them. Is the gospel easy to believe? Is the gospel about self-fulfillment or self-denial? Why do churches replace the biblical gospel with an easy-to-believe message?

Those kinds of questions. It's one of our classic books. The title again, Hard to Believe, Order a Copy from Grace to You, is always reasonably priced.

That's right, friend. This is a great book. It clearly lays out the hard demands of the gospel and what it takes to meet those demands to pick up a copy of Hard to Believe for yourself or for a friend. Get in touch today. You can call us at 800-55-GRACE, weekdays from 730 a.m. to 4 o'clock p.m. Pacific Time, or you can shop online anytime at GTY.org. For a fresh perspective on the high cost and infinite value of following Christ, you need to get this book.

Just ask for it by the title, Hard to Believe. Our number again, 800-55-GRACE, and our website, GTY.org. While you're at the Grace to You website, GTY.org, I would encourage you to check out the messages from the Truth Matters conferences over the years, including the 2022 conference that took place at the Answers in Genesis Conference Center right next to the Ark Encounter. And the theme of that conference, Recovering a Biblical Worldview.

You will hear teaching on critical race theory, social justice, gender and sexuality, and other crucial and timely topics. To view those messages or to download any of John's sermons from more than 50 years of his pulpit ministry, go to GTY.org. Now for John MacArthur, I'm Phil Johnson reminding you to watch Grace to You television. It airs this Sunday on DIRECTV Channel 378. Or check our website to see if it airs in your area. And join us tomorrow when John looks at the path to a vibrant, spiritual life and lasting happiness. It's another half hour of unleashing God's truth, one verse at a time, on Grace to You.