The Two Paths of Life

Welcome to the In Touch Podcast with Charles Stanley for Wednesday, June first. Today you'll hear a description of the two paths of life and how you can be sure you're on the correct one. The choices you and I make today determine our tomorrows. That's why we have to be careful what kind of choices we make in life. Would you not agree that probably all of us have made decisions we wish we could remake? That there are decisions made that we probably regret?

If we knew what the consequences were, we would never have made that decision. So, how do you make those choices in a way? Do you make those choices on the basis of the influence of others, for example? You make those choices on the basis of money or your health. Where does the will of God fit into how you make choices in life?

And I say again it's so very important because we live with them. In fact, we've made choices of what road are we going to travel in life. And the truth is the path you're living today is the path upon which you have chosen to walk out your life. You started back yonder a long time ago and you've been on this path so long.

Did you make a decision? Well, that's how I want my life to work out. That's the path I want to live in. That's what Jesus said.

Oh, did you just sort of find yourself drifting into it? Well, Jesus is crystal clear about the kind of path we should walk on. And He is very clear when it comes to making contrast, to make it so clear so we know exactly what we can expect. So, I want you to turn to the Sermon on the Mount, five, six, and seven chapters of the book of Matthew. Just a couple of verses I want us to read here. Look at, if you will, the thirteenth verse of the seventh chapter.

He says, and the word He uses into here is a command. He commands us, enter through the narrow gate. Now watch this, through the narrow gate. Now skip down to the fourteenth verse where it says the gate. For the gate is small and the way is narrow that leads to life and there are few who find it. Go back now, enter through the narrow gate. For the gate is wide and the way is broad that leads to destruction. So, we're talking about two different gates here.

And you have to skip down to see which one He's talking about. So, enter the narrow gate. At this gate, the gate is small and the way is narrow that leads to life and there are few who find it. And then, back again now, enter through the narrow gate, then we change the gates.

For the gate is wide and the way is broad and that leads to destruction and there are many people who enter through it. So, what Jesus is simply saying is this, there are only two ways to live. That is, we walk the path of righteousness, walk the path that's godly, or we walk the path that's full of destruction and ruin in a person's life. And if you'll think about it, all of us have chosen a path. And the path that you and I are living on today is the path that we've chosen. Now, you may not have sat down and said, this is the path I'm going to choose, but you chose one.

You may have found yourself maybe influenced in that way or somebody convention persuaded you or whatever the situation. You're walking on a path that you've chosen. Now, the question is this, where is He going to lead you? If you keep walking the path that you're following, where are you going to end up?

You say, well, I don't know. Don't you think it'd be wise before you chose a pathway in life to ask yourself the question, where will this lead me? What will this get me? How will I end up? What's the final stage of my life? Where am I going to spend eternity?

You should ask them very sobering questions. And if you're on a path today that you wish you were not on, I'll show you how to get off of it. If you're on a path and don't know why you started it, maybe you'll find out today. The important thing is this, you're walking on a path. You've chosen that path.

It has consequences, good or bad, depends on which path it is. And I want you to listen carefully to this message. It's interesting in this passage, for example, if you keep going, you'll notice He talks about good trees, bad trees.

He talks about the fruit and so forth, and talks about good foundations and bad foundations, rock and sand, and two kinds of houses, secure and insecure. And you'll see that Jesus makes it very, very clear. Two choices, that's it. I have two choices in life. So, you have chosen a path up to this point. If you keep walking the path that you're walking, where will it lead you? Will it lead you where you really want to go?

Where you thought you were going to be by this time in your life? So, it's so very important you listen carefully because Jesus just cut it down. There are only two. There's a path of righteousness, godliness. There's a path that leads to destruction and a path that leads to eternal life. You say, well, I decide I'm just going to go along on this path and change my mind out there somewhere. Maybe you can, maybe you can't.

Maybe you will, maybe you won't. Very important you listen carefully. So, let's look at this first path. And He calls it the Broadway. So, when you look at that, He talks about the wide gate. Now, what is He talking about? He's talking about that lifestyle and that pathway, if you choose that. Then you can have all kind of diversities of beliefs. You can believe most anything in the world you want to believe, all kind of philosophies and opinions. And people have all kind of religions and everything seems to be fine.

And you have your religion, I have mine. But on the path we walk, we don't criticize each other. We choose what we believe in life. We don't talk about Jesus necessarily or the Bible. We just enjoy life and move on, on the broad path.

And it's a place of freedom and we don't worry about consequences. That's the broad, wide path. Jesus never spoke anything but the truth. And what He's doing in this passage is warning us there are only two paths.

Not three, but two paths. And He says in this passage that it is a way of destruction, disappointment, darkness, it's the broad way, it's the wide way, it's the way of the ungodly. Then He says there is another path. And listen to what He says in this passage now.

He says, enter through the narrow gate. For this gate is small and the way is narrow that leads to life and there are few who find it. That is, comparatively, there'll be few Christians compared to the world's population, few Christians. It is our job to get the truth of Christ to everybody on the face of this globe, and that's what we're attempting to do, and succeeding at it by the grace of God and the power of God and the work of the Holy Spirit and many, many missionaries and many, many people who are preaching the gospel in every language possible all over the world.

But we'll always be outnumbered. And what He's simply saying here is this, this narrow way is just that. It is the narrow way. Listen to this fourth chapter of Proverbs and eleventh, tenth verse. He says, hear My Son and accept My sayings, and the years of your life will be many. I have directed you in the way of wisdom.

Look at that. I have directed you in the way of wisdom. I have led you in upright paths. When you walk, your steps will not be impeded or hindered. And if you run, you will, listen, He says, you will not stumble. Take hold of instructions, do not let go.

Guard her, for she is your life. Do not enter the path of the wicked and do not proceed in the way of evil men. It can't be any clearer. There's a path of wisdom, righteousness, holiness, godliness. It's a path that's, I didn't say anything about being easy. There's nothing easy about living a godly life.

But I'll tell you one thing. When it comes to what our heart desires, our soul cries out for peace and joy and happiness and confidence and assurance and eternal life and true genuine friendships and all the rest, that's the path. Few there be that find it. On the other path, crowds. You don't see all the lights and all the glamour on the narrow path, but it's the right path, the path of wisdom. And it's the path of following Jesus. Jesus said, I am the way, the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father but by Me. Somebody says, well, I don't believe He's the only way.

Well, let me ask you a couple of questions. Number one, if He's not the only way, who's going to deal with your sin? You say, well, my sin's not so bad.

That's your opinion. Holy God says your sin's evil and wicked and vile in His eyes. What are you going to do with your sin? Well, I'm just going to confess it. Did you know that confessing sin is not what removes the penalty of sin from your life? You say, well, I go to church and confess my sin every week. Confessing your sin does not remove it.

Watch this carefully. When Jesus came to this earth as the virgin-born Son of God, He came sent by the Father. He came sent by the Father for the primary purpose of laying down His life on the cross, shedding His blood. As the ultimate final sacrifice, God prophesied all the way back to the beginning of time. He laid down His life on the cross in order for God to be able to forgive you of your sin.

He paid your price. The Bible says that God said, the soul that sinned it, it shall die. If there's no crucifixion, no shedding of blood, there's no payment for your sin. This is why the cross is so precious to all of us who are believers.

We understand what it is. It is the symbol of God's awesome love and payment for the sin of mankind. In order for God to be just, in order for God to be truthful, He had to pay our sin debt Himself. Jesus Christ, the Son of God, laid down His life on the cross.

That satisfied the requirements of God for the penalty of sin. Therefore, when you trust Him as your personal Savior, it's more than just confessing, yeah, I believe in Jesus. When you trust Him as your personal Savior, you're surrendering your life to Him. And you are accepting His forgiveness, not on the basis that you've confessed it. You have accepted His forgiveness on the basis Jesus died and paid the penalty. This is why confess, confess, confess, confess. And you can confess till the day you die, and it's not going to do you a better good. Until you're confessing that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, the Savior of the world, your only hope, and He came as a sacrifice in order for you to be forgiven by Almighty God. And on the basis of that, Jesus Christ being the Son of God.

Jesus Christ being God in the flesh for those thirty-three years He was on the earth. When you trust Him as your Savior, that means you're giving up your old way. You're surrendering your life to Him. That's the narrow path.

That's the narrow gate. That's where the two are because most people want to have religion and liberty. They want freedom to do anything they want to do and then go to their God and say, Lord, in Jesus's name, forgive me, or whoever they're praying to. So, I ask you a question. When you confess your sins to God, do you simply say, Lord, I'm asking you to forgive me in Jesus's name, or however you say it?

Amen. Well, why should He forgive you? In other words, if you just have a guilty feeling and you know you're going to do it again tomorrow, that's not confession.

That's no repentance in that. What did Jesus say? He says, except a man be born again. What does that imply?

What does that say? There's got to be a change. A new birth is a new life.

And Paul says, if any man be in Christ, trust in Christ as Savior. You're a new creation. Old things have passed away. Behold, things have become new. Because now you have Christ living on the inside of you.

Enabling you. Showing you what is right and giving you the power to live a godly life. There are only two paths. And the path that you're living today will determine what happens tomorrow. You need to understand, Jesus Christ the Son of God will be the one every single one of us stands before, kneels before, stretched at before, whatever, when we stand in the judgment. All the stuff that you hear people tell you is going to be like this, He says it is appointed unto man once to die and after this the judgment. There is no escape. When you and I stand before Him, if we have been washed in the blood of Jesus, having trusted Him as our Savior, surrendered our life to Him, we're going to be able to stand before Him freely.

Only the love of God will be there. If you reject the Son of God, listen to, think about this. You reject the only hope you have. You reject the Son of the Almighty God who created this world and its atmospheres and everything around us. You reject Him.

Whatever your reason for rejecting Him, you'll stand before God and give an account. And let's look at this idea of belief for just a moment. Somebody says, Well, I believe in Jesus.

What does that mean? To believe is a word of action. If I believe in Jesus Christ, that doesn't mean I had just given mental assent to it. I believe in act. And what is that act? I put my life in His hands.

I trust Him. I repent of my sins. I confess my sins. I repent of my sins. I surrender my life to Jesus Christ. And I want to ask you, have you ever really and truly surrendered your life to Jesus Christ, the Son of God, whom He sent into this world as the only means of satisfying God's requirement for paying a penalty for sin? You recall all those sacrifices in the Old Testament, they were foreshadowing the coming of Christ. When He came as the final sacrifice. Remember that the veil in the temple was rent from top to bottom and opened it all up to Holy of Holies.

Why? Because you and I now have access to God through His Son, Jesus Christ. We don't have to go through anybody.

You don't have to go through anybody. Jesus opened the door for you and me to be able to have a personal, intimate relationship with God. But listen to me carefully. When you say you believe in Jesus, you believe what about Jesus? Do you believe that He's the Son of God? If you believe that, you will surrender your life to Him. Do you believe He was just another man? Then that is a belief that brings you nothing but ultimate destruction. Jesus Christ is the Son of God.

The sacrificial, substitutionary, all sufficient sacrifice for your sins and my sins. Therefore, if you want to get on the right path, you have to step on the right path by placing your trust in Christ as the crucified Savior, asking God to forgive you of your sins, and surrendering your life to Him to follow Him all the days of your life. And let me tell you something else. You can't straddle the fence on these two pathways. Well, I'm going to walk over here and then I want to walk over here.

No, you can't. There are two paths. You've chosen one already, whichever path that is. You say, well, how do I get off that?

I realize I'm in the wrong, how do I get off this path? I'll tell you how. If you're willing to acknowledge that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, and you're willing to acknowledge the fact that God sent Him into this world for the purpose of dying on the cross, in order to shed His blood, to make the payment for your sin and the sin of the world, you're willing to believe that Jesus Christ crucified was a sacrificial, substitutionary death. In other words, it was for us. You're willing to believe that He's the Son of God in the same way that He is the Son of God in the Savior. You're willing to ask Him to forgive you of your sins and to repent of those sins, to turn away from them by the strength and the help and the guidance of the Holy Spirit.

You're willing to turn away from that. You're willing to surrender your life to Him totally. You're accepting that forgiveness and accepting that He has a brand new life for you and you're choosing to walk in that. He takes you right off that old path, and He takes you right off that old path. He takes you right off that old path. He takes you right off that old path. He takes you right off that old path. He tells you a new path because now you become a new person in Christ.

My friend, believe me, if there were any other way, I would tell you. But you have to decide whether you believe the Word of God or you do not. So, let me just ask you this. If you don't live by this, what are you going to live by?

I'll tell you a better question than that. If you don't die by this, what are you going to die by? And where are you going to spend eternity? In Jesus's name, I trust that you'll be wise enough right now wherever you are to ask God to forgive you of your sins, forgive you for your unbelief, forgive you for walking the path you've been walking, forgive you for the sin in your life, forgive you for all the excuses you've made, and all the attempts you've made to quieten your own stinging conscience and tell Him that you're surrendering your life to Him, and today you want to become a child of God, right now you can. This is the only way. And the God who wrote this Bible will be the God who judges you in me one of these days.

That's why you better stick with the Book. Thank you for listening to The Two Paths of Life. If you'd like to know more about Charles Stanley or In Touch Ministries, stop by intouch.org. This podcast is a presentation of In Touch Ministries, Atlanta, Georgia.