Kerwin Baptist Church Daily Broadcast

Welcome to the Kerwin Baptist Church broadcast today. Our next story is called, For wide is the gate and broad is the way that leadeth to destruction, and many there be, which go in thereact, because straight is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be, that find it. And this morning, I've just simply got to deal with you about this.

There's just two choices on the shelf. Literally, there are two ways, two destinations, and two gates that these two verses talk about. And I've just got to make that very clear to you because it's literally, listen to me this morning, it's a decision that you have to make. Jesus lays out three choices that literally confront every person that lives. Every person is confronted with these three choices. Yes, you have.

And if you haven't, you are today. These choices must be made, and they are the most important choices you will ever make in your entire life. What you do with these choices when you are confronted with them literally will determine how you live your life, how you will die, and where you will spend eternity when you do die.

These are pretty important choices. Do you know, it used to be when an individual came to church that they would be confronted with these choices. Things used to be made clear, and it used to be at church that preachers were truthful, and they just told it how it was, and they just made it plain, and they didn't come up with some good little story that would make you feel good about Andy Griffith or something.

Then you could go home and get some lunch and just feel comfortable. It used to be that church confronted you. By the way, I still believe that church should confront the individual.

If it doesn't, why go to church? The word does the work. And let me say this. No one is going to force you to make any choices today. No one is going to force you to do anything, I promise you.

Let me give you something even better than that. Jesus won't even force you to do anything. He never has, and He never will. All Jesus has done, He has made things available.

He doesn't have to choose, but He doesn't force. Let's pray. Lord, we love you this morning, and as we share these two verses, I pray you'd make things clear in the hearts of all of us this morning in Jesus' name.

Amen. Number one, I want you to see that there are only two ways. Now, where you wind up in eternity will be determined by the road that you take here on earth. There are only two ways or two roads.

That's the only choice. There are not, listen to me, there are not a thousand different ways to get to God. There's not even ten different ways to get to heaven. There are only two ways.

Now listen to me. It is impossible for you to take the wrong road and end up at the right place. And it is impossible for you to take the right road and end up at the wrong place. And it is impossible for you to choose the broad way and end up in heaven. And it is also impossible for you to choose the narrow way and end up in hell. And I want you to understand that life as we know it is simply a brief stop between two very long eternities.

I don't care how healthy you are or how you eat barley and wheat germ or whatever you eat. That's not going to help you when a car hits you. Why are you laughing at that? That's not funny. Now you don't know whether to laugh or not.

Oh, okay, I'm sorry. Number one, I want you to see that there is a broad way the Bible says. Look if you would at verse 13. Enter ye in at the straight gate for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leadeth to destruction. So there is a broad way these verses make it clear. Now let me tell you what he's talking about here. That word broad here means spacious.

And I know that makes sense to you. Jesus says here that there is a spacious broad road that a person can walk. Now what does he mean by a broad road? The idea here that Jesus is trying to convey is that this broad way is wide open. In other words, anything goes on the broad way.

Let me give you some facts about it. Number one is this. You can do anything you like on the broad way. Because that's what people do on the broad way. And that's what the world does by the way. People do anything they like. You can live like you want to live. You can call all the shots.

You can make all the rules. You can be as religious as you want to be or as unreligious as you want to be. You can go to church.

You can pray. You can read the Bible or you can do none of the three on the broad way. You can do as much or as little as you please on the broad way. And by the way, the broad way encompasses all religions from Islam to atheism. You know you can travel the broad way and not even believe that there's a God. Because the broad way is for everybody. You can confess Jesus if you like or you can not confess Jesus if you like.

You can believe in God or you can not believe in God. You can literally be king of the road in the broad way. When you walk the broad way you make your own decisions and you don't have to answer to anybody. Not only that, you can live life as you want. As you please, you can go where you want to go. You can do what you want to do and you can be what you want to be.

Sounds great, doesn't it? Isn't that what every teenager wants? It's your life on the broad way and you can call the shots. It's an easy way to live because there's no one to please but yourself. That's what the broad way is all about by the way.

Pleasing yourself. The broad way is full of open minded pleasure seekers. Now let me say this while we're saying all the good things about the broad way. There are just a couple things you need to know before you decide to live the rest of your life on the broad way. And by the way, you're going to have a lot of company because the Bible says that the majority of mankind are following on the broad way.

Let me give you a couple things though. Number one, you need to understand that you really aren't in control on the broad way. I want you to understand before you choose that road and by the way, you say well I don't know what to choose. If you've not made the choice, you are already on the broad way.

By not choosing, you have chosen. That's the direction you're going. But I want you to understand first, you're not really in control. You know the Bible says that the folks on the broad way are of your father the devil and the devil is the liar. He is the liar and the father of it. That means this, he's going to fool you.

He's going to make you think you're in control and you're living like you want and there's no consequences and you can do whatever you want to do and you don't have to answer to any preacher or any church or any religion as that's what people like to say nowadays. But I'm here to tell you that you are not really in control like you think you are. The second thing I want you to know is this, is that sin always brings pain and sorrow.

Even if everybody's doing it. It still brings pain and sorrow. What's amazing, the Bible says there is a way which seemeth right unto a man but the end thereof are the ways of death. The broad way. I was doing some research on this and I found out one book was given a study of how families can literally set their legacy. Literally by traveling the broad way and creating that atmosphere, they literally set up for generations to follow to live that way. And there is a family and you might have heard of them, I've never heard of them, it's called the Jukes family. And they did a study on this family and they have literally researched into the history of this family known as the Jukes family. And they're known as literally a criminal family. And what's amazing is that they have had an extended period of hundreds of years of literally paupers, wasteful, insane, prostitution, drunkenness, murder, thievery, everything in this family.

There's been a total of 1200 descendants that have been tracked on this family tree. Over 400 were literally wrecked physically by their sins. Literally they were drunk, they were dismembered, because of committing crimes, were killed during crimes and different things of that nature. 310 were professional paupers.

They literally got money from other people, scandal money, everything, never had anything. Listen to this, 400 obviously were murderers. That's a lot out of 1200. One out of every three. Listen to this, 130 were convicted criminals, 60 were perpetual thieves and pickpockets, numerous of them besides the one I mentioned were murderers. Out of the 1200 descendants, only 20 have ever learned to trade. And 10 of those 20 learned that trade while they were in prison.

Now you tell me that it doesn't affect your family the way you live. That all started somewhere. There's a broad way and there's a whole lot of people on it. The Bible says number two, there's a narrow way and that's your only two choices. There's not like one that's a little bit bigger than the narrow and a little bit smaller than the broad.

There's either a big old broad way and it's amazing how some of the most wicked streets in some of the most major cities in America are called broad way. The Bible says number two, there is a narrow way. Now let me tell you a little bit about something about this narrow way.

The broad way is open and easy and that means obviously that the narrow way is not as big. Now why does God call it narrow? This word narrow in the Greek literally refers to a grape press. It means literally pressing down and constricting. It's the ideal of being constricted.

It also carries the ideal of being distressed, being difficult. The narrow way is literally the exact opposite of the broad way in every area. On the narrow way, you can't bring every sin you want to with you. You can't bring every temptation or maybe going into a ballpark and they have these turnstiles where you have these little metal bars that you've got to walk through. Have you ever tried to maybe load up yourself with a whole bunch of baggage and a whole bunch of suitcases and try to get through one of those like that?

It wouldn't work because you just get stuck. That's what God says. You can't bring a bunch of junk with you on the narrow way. There's some things that you can't bring and you can't just live like you like and you can't just make your own choices and your own decisions. It's restricted.

It's narrow. It's difficult. It literally has the ideal of something that is difficult for you to perform. Some people have this idea that they just can do whatever they want to do in life and God is obligated to do something good for them. As if for some reason that that's what God's supposed to do. Do you know in truth when you walk the narrow way, you're going to expect some difficulty? Because the Bible says that the majority of folks are heading down the broad way and literally that narrow way is literally going the opposite direction at the exact same time. If you put it this way, if you take about 10,000 people and you put them in a 10 foot wide hallway and you march those 10,000 people down that and then you have a line of one individual, maybe 100 people single file and they have to march the exact opposite way as those 10,000 people at the same time. You're trying to get through the crowd that way and the crowd's coming this way.

That's the picture God is painting here. There's this broad way and the whole world is heading down the narrow way. Everybody's going that way, but the narrow way that leads to life is a lot smaller and it's a lot more restricted and it's not as easy to travel because everybody's not going that way. You ever been in a crowded place and you're trying to go against the crowd?

You ever gotten looks from people? It's a narrow way. By the way, our fleshly bodies naturally resist the narrow way. You and I do not like restrictions. Our sinful natures find this narrow way a little bit too tight and constrictive.

That's what our flesh feels. Anybody who ever said living for Jesus is easy never tried it. Because not only are you fighting against everyone else, you literally are fighting against yourself to live for Christ. Anybody who believes that living a separated Christian life that honors God is a simple thing and it's as fun as living on the broad way doesn't know anything about it. The narrow way ends up at a destination far different than the broad way does. And you and I have got to determine. You know what?

Let me give you a couple things just real quickly about this. And I know I've said a lot of things about the narrow way that doesn't make it sound like it's that great. But I'm just being honest with you today. God said it's narrow. God said there's not many people traveling it. And God said it's going to be difficult. But let me tell you something about the narrow way.

When you walk on the narrow way, number one, I want you to know this. It honors God. You can't honor God on the broad way. You can't live like you want and honor God.

The two things are just inseparable. You just can't do them. Second thing I want you to notice this is that it brings God's blessings and power into your life when you walk the narrow way. I've got obviously verses to prove it. And I can't share all of them for the sake of time. But I will give you one. I wish I could be tactful about this.

I wish I could just paint these flowery pictures and we could all just enjoy church. But that's what the Bible says. So there's two ways. Number two, there are only two destinations. There is a broad way and a narrow way. And that is you will end up in heaven or you will end up in hell. But you cannot choose anything else but those two whether you want to or not. That's the way it is.

That's life. Because you and I have a soul. It is a living soul. And that soul will never die.

And it will either live in an eternity in hell or it will live in an eternity in heaven. It doesn't even matter whether you believe it or not. Like I told you before, if you say I don't believe George Washington ever lived. Well you can believe that if you want to.

It doesn't matter. It doesn't change the fact that he did. And dear friend you can say well I don't believe the Bible and I don't believe God. And dear friend I will tell you it doesn't matter whether you believe it or not.

It doesn't change the fact. There is a place called hell that is only one of two destinations that you are headed to. Now Jesus tells us that the broad road leads to destruction. What is he talking about here in destruction? This word destruction literally means to be annihilated, to be forever done with, to suffer loss. It is a place of total and absolute ruin.

It is obviously here speaking of hell. It speaks of the loss that a person can expect when he has traveled the broad road. And when that road ends it ends in hell.

And he will suffer loss beyond any description. Here is the truth I want you to understand. When you were born you were born heading on the broad way because you and I were born in sin. We are natural born sinners. That's why you don't have to teach a baby to lie or to be bad or to do wrong because we all have a sinful nature and we are all automatically on the broad way heading towards hell.

That's just the way it is. What is amazing is on the broad way you can try to do all the good deeds that you can do and try to do all the nice things and be as good a person as you can be. That doesn't make you change directions. That doesn't get you to heaven.

It just doesn't. Whatever religion you might be or whatever beliefs you've had they've got a lot of rituals and a lot of things. Say well you need to do this and you need to do that and dear friend none of those things get you to heaven.

The only way to heaven is through Jesus Christ as your personal savior. Let me mention this. You say well what makes this destruction so terrible?

And I've said this before and you've said this before. I've literally heard people and especially like rock singers and different things and obviously people that have no use for God and just literally spit and make fun of them and all this stuff. And you know comedians nowadays that's the big popular thing is make fun of Christians. Make fun of Jesus. Use His name in vain. Make fun of God.

But let me tell you a little bit of something. Why hell is so wrong. I've heard them say well we're just going to have a big ole party in hell.

They have no idea how ignorant and foolish that is. Now I'm not going to read you all the verses but Mark chapter 9 and Luke chapter 16, the Bible teaches us that hell has an unquenchable fire. There is no fire. There's no way to put it out. That means this, if you would literally, if you could put yourself, build you a big old campfire, and you just run and you jump into it, and you just stay there, not for a year, not for two years, not for three years, not for a hundred years, not for a thousand years, I mean, you will literally burn alive in hell for an eternity.

It will never stop. You say, preacher, I don't believe that. That's just me, why would a God do that?

Oh, let me tell you something. God didn't do that. Satan did that. But God died on the cross for your sins so you wouldn't have to go. It's an unquenchable fire, the Bible teaches. Luke chapter 16 teaches us that there is an unsatisfied thirst in hell. That means this, the Bible says, even gave an instance of the rich man that died and went to hell, and he literally screamed and yelled out if somebody would just dip a little bit of water off the tip of their finger and drop it on his tongue, that he could just feel the drop of a water. But literally, that person in the Bible that said that is still suffering in hell today. You say, preacher, you're mean. Oh, I'm the opposite of mean.

I'm the only one that loves individuals enough right now to tell you the truth. Let me tell you what's mean. It's for a preacher to get up here and just say, hey, you just feel good. Hey, let me just tell you this, you just be a good person and you just come to church and just make yourself feel better about yourself and let you go home to lunch and didn't tell you the truth that you're on your way to hell if you've never been saved.

And in order to find Christ and in order to find salvation, you gotta put your faith and trust in Jesus Christ. That's mean. I'm not being mean today.

I'm being loving. The Bible says in Luke chapter 13 that there will be frustration, extreme frustration in hell, that there will be anger in hell. Luke 16 teaches that there will be unspeakable pain and misery.

Also, Revelation 21, Second Thessalonians chapter one says that in hell you will be eternally separated. That means that you're not gonna be there with your buddy. You're not gonna be sitting there right beside an individual that you're friends with here on earth and you guys are helping each other through the trial. You're not gonna see anybody else. You're not gonna feel anybody else. All you're gonna do is hear the screams of the millions that'll be there in hell. It'll be darkness forever.

You won't see anybody. The Bible says in Revelation chapter 20 that there will literally be undiluted wrath. That means this, everything evil that Satan is, he will unleash it on you. That's hell.

That's one of the destinations. As I was reading through this, I'm gonna try to read this to you. One commentator, as he's going through explaining hell, he literally said this and he wasn't even trying to make a statement, he was just talking as he was going through this. I had to give you this quote. He said this, hell is real. I could never adequately describe hell, but if I were able to exhaust all the vocabulary of English and paint word pictures that could convey the truth of that place, my feeble words could never describe the reality of the horror that awaits everyone headed to that land of the damned.

It is a place from which there will never be deliverance, a place that you will surely go to if you continue down what the Bible calls the broad way. So are you trying to scare me, preacher? No. But it ought to. Yes, sir. Yes, sir.

It ought to. It scares me. I pray every day that my three boys will know Christ, they'll give their hearts to Christ and be saved. I can't even let it enter my mind to think of one of my sons in hell.

The narrow road may be the more costly of the two. There is a place called hell number two. God says there's another destination.

There's a place called heaven. The Bible says while there is that news that the broad way leadeth to destruction and many there be that find it. The Bible also says there is a narrow way that leads unto life. Let me tell you some interesting things about heaven. What is interesting is that just as the broad road has its destination, the narrow road does too. While the other road ends in hell, this destination ends in heaven.

Now, dear friend, I wish I could make it more tactful than that, but that's just the truth of God's word. Everything that hell isn't, heaven is. And everything that heaven is, hell isn't. Bible says in Revelation 21 that in heaven there's no tears, there's no pain, there's no sorrow, there's no death, there's no sin, there's no night. Revelation 22 says that there's no curse. Revelation 21 teaches us that in heaven we will be with God and Jesus for an eternity. Revelation 21 tells us that heaven is a glorious city and that its glories are beyond the description and it literally says that heaven is beyond our capability to comprehend. Get this, hell is so bad that we can't comprehend it. Heaven is so wonderful we can't comprehend it. Yeah. Amen.

Or I would say, my time's about gone. There's two ways, there's two destinations. Where this all starts, the Bible says there's two gates. You enter these gates. When you enter the one gate, it leads to the one road that leads to the one destination. When you enter the other gate, it leads to the other road that leads to the other destination. So literally the choice has to make, I've got to choose one gate or the other.

Only two gates. First I want you to see the Bible says there's a wide gate. And that means this, that there's no real choice. We're born that way, we're born already heading down this road. When a person is born into this world, we're born into sin. Romans 3, 23 says that all have sinned and come short of the glory of God.

Now, let me say this. Notice that the verses teach here that God says that this is the crowded way. Many, many more will find their way onto the broad road than will ever find their way onto the narrow road.

Many, many more will spend in eternity in hell than will ever be in heaven. This is a very sad thing. You know what's really sad about the whole thing? That oftentimes men and women have many chances throughout their lives to change roads. Can I give you some really good news today?

Do you know that everybody in this building has been given an opportunity today to change roads? What I cannot guarantee you is that you will ever have this chance again. Now, but I can tell you, you've been given this chance today through God's sovereign mercy. Like I said, he'll never force you.

I would never force anybody. I don't know your spiritual condition. I don't know if you're saved, if you're lost. I don't know if you're traveling on the broad way or the narrow way.

That's a personal thing and that's a personal relationship between you and God and that's your decision. But I do know if you're in this building today that you finally have the chance, a clear cut chance to change roads. Thank you for listening today. We hope you received a blessing from our broadcast. The Kerwin Baptist Church is located at 4520 Old Hollow Road in Kernersville, North Carolina. You may also contact us by phone at 336-993-5192 or via the web at kerwinbaptistchurch.com. Enjoy our services live and all our media on our website and church app. Thank you for listening to the Kerwin broadcast today. God bless you.