Today on Real Life Radio. You and I, physically, even spiritually, of our own spirituality, which could be dangerous, cannot cause us or make us to be obedient to that command. It takes the power of the Holy Spirit in your life to live out that truth. You can't, I cannot do it. Are you with me?
This is real life. Welcome to Real Life Radio with Pastor Jack Hibbs. I'm David Jay, thanking you for joining us today as we listen, learn, and are challenged by God's Word, the Bible. Looking for real answers in real time? JackHibbs.com is your go-to destination for resources on faith, world events, and everything in between.
Explore Happening Now, where Pastor Jack Hibbs takes a timely, no-nonsense look at today's biggest issues, blending biblical insight with the latest headlines.
Now, whether you're curious about the world around you or you want guidance on a personal level, Pastor Jack has you covered. And by the way, don't miss the Real Life Network. It's packed with relatable, family-friendly content that really speaks to everyday challenges and triumphs, offering something really valuable for every member of your family.
Now, if you're new to the faith, you want to refresh your perspective, start with that tab that says, Know God, an accessible, welcoming space to learn and reflect and find your footing.
Now, whatever your path, JackHibbs.com has the tools and the insights and the encouragement that you need. Tune in, log on, find something real. Once again, the website jackhibbs.com. On today's edition of Real Life Radio. Pastor Jack continues his series now called The Parables of Jesus and a message titled Parable of the Two Gates and Two Ways, and this is part two.
A parable is a picture story that's painted by Jesus that makes the truth crystal clear. In this parable, Jesus is teaching us a deeper meaning of a remarkable eternal truth. You see, Jesus spoke this parable after the Sermon on the Mount, bringing to light that the gospel is eternal and unchanging and not negotiable.
So we really need to make sure that we're on the right path by looking towards the one narrow gate that leads to eternal life.
So today, Pastor Jack teaches that we need to keep our eyes on heaven. All are welcome to receive the grace, the love, and forgiveness found in the gospel of Christ. but not based on our own interpretation. Jesus is the only way to heaven and the only way to a life full of joy and peace right here on earth.
Now, with his message called Parable of the Two Gates and Two Ways, Part 2, here's Pastor and Bible teacher Jack Hibbs. Matthew 7, 13 and 14, we learned this in verse 13 last time. Enter by the narrow gate, for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction, Jesus said. And there are many, not a few, who go in by it. Verse 14, because narrow is the gate and difficult is the way which leads to life, and there are few who find it.
Listen, jot this down. Vitally important. We have to remember this. that Jesus preached The perfect, unadulterated gospel. He said, well, of course.
No, no, wait. Jesus preached The gospel. And any attempt by us By an evangelist, by a pastor, by a preacher. by anyone. By any one of us like a sheep.
to change that. Is an abomination to God and according to the Bible, warrants the wrath of God. You do not tamper with this truth, you don't change one word. In the truth of God. You see, man, that's serious.
You betcha, it's serious. Number one, notice as we. Both recap and Learn this. John 12:49, you can mark it down in your margins of your chapter there in Matthew 7. Jesus said regarding doctrine.
Jesus said regarding the gospel. For I have not spoken on my own authority. But the Father who has sent me Listen to this, who gave me or commanded me what I should say and what I should speak, verse 50, and I know that his command is everlasting life. Therefore, whatever I speak, says Jesus, right? Just as the Father has told me?
So I speak, meaning we have no license at all to change that. Jesus said, Everything I spoke, I spoke as the Father told me to speak. Is that amazing? Is that awesome?
So, if the Son of God here on earth was given orders from his Father in heaven, Then, how much more should we be obedient? And last time in part one, we saw this regarding this parable. Number one in verse 13 was make sure that you're on the right path. Remember that? This very serious gospel, or I should say this parable concerning the gospel, judges our hearts, and that's a good thing.
We can discern right now tonight to make sure that you and I are on the right path. And we looked at three things. Number one, we learned in verse 13, Jesus says, enter by the narrow gate, and we learned that we were to keep our eyes on heaven. Remember that. Keep our eyes on heaven.
And we got into the details of why that's important. Just because people who say they're Christians deny the existence of hell doesn't make hell go away. Because there are those in religious circles who say, well, you can pick and choose parts of the Bible, doesn't make it right. Keep your eyes on heaven. There are those who say everybody gets to heaven in the end.
Remember, we talked about how all roads lead to God, people will say. And though that is uh Politically correct in the mind of this current world that we live in, it is absolutely theologically incorrect. And God's word is eternal. And we are to keep our eyes on heaven. Church, remember?
Heaven is our home, it's where we're going, it's the target, it's in our sights, and it should motivate everything that you and I do and say. And how we live. The second thing we saw last time was this: that we should stay away from strangers. We learned that in verse 13. In the latter part, there, or the middle part, I should say, enter by the narrow gate.
And the strong implication of Jesus is that there are other gates that you are being told about, there are other gates. That you are being lured towards or put forth to consider. And Jesus says: look for the narrow gate.
Now this is awesome because it just drives people crazy. Because it's so restrictive. Remember that? We talked about it. It's just so, so fine, like hairline, fine.
Exactly. And so you and I are to be judging ourselves. Are we in our lives literally walking, heading for that path? That keeps our eyes on heaven. As the world comes knocking from every angle, we have our eyes fixed on heaven.
and the fact that we're not going to listen to false doctrine. And thirdly, last time we looked At verse 13, at its end, where it says, And there are many. And we had you circle the word many, many who go in by it. Do Not, do not, don't do what everyone else is doing in this world. Oh, come on, it's the bulk, it's the most.
Oh, everybody's doing it. We're all in this thing together, so let's just give it up, forget it, let's. Embark upon this thing. And the Bible, Jesus says, don't do that. Don't do that.
And listen, I want to encourage you before we go any further. You and I, physically, even spiritually, of our own spirituality, which could be dangerous, cannot. Cause us or make us to be obedient to that command. It takes the power of the Holy Spirit in your life to live out that truth. You can't, I cannot do it.
Are you with me? Why are you guys so quiet? Are you okay? I'm beginning to think I need to go pastor a Pentecostal church. All right, guess in my old age, my ears are not working so well, and you sound extra quiet.
of lights but I'm telling you right now, it is absolutely amazing to realize that and to be reminded that the world is going headlong. Toward hell and celebrating every moment as it goes. You can't turn on a program or hear music or a commercial. without being offended. Have you noticed that?
I'm offended. I'm offended watching the show that I wanted to watch. All I wanted to do was to watch these cute little bears, and they're going through the Yellowstone and the Mummy Bear, and it's so sweet. And then the commercial comes and just absolutely offends one assault after another. If I don't wear this kind of perfume, or I mean perfume.
Well, see, that's another kind of offense that's going on. If I don't wear this kind of cologne, and by the way, how it's strange. You know, to buy cologne now, they have to have almost naked people in the commercial. And then, you know, I I'll never be able to own that car if I don't buy that kind of perfume. And I'll never get that kind of girl unless I have this kind of situation going on.
And it's just one evil thing after another. And here I am watching, you know, the Disney Channel and all that stuff. is offending me and so Don't do what everybody else is doing. Oh come on, come come to happy hour. You're the only one holding out.
Stand strong! And if you're not strong, which really none of us are strong. That is when our strength really comes into play because God says, I'll take it from here, I'll be your strength. You know?
So you remember that? And uh I said something before we get into the closing part of this message. I said something last time. That uh kind of shocks some of you. 'Cause I heard about it.
In the You told me about it in the Foyer after service. And it was this. I said last time, you can go and look at it online to confirm this, but I said that, for example, Churches marquees that are out in front of churches will often say, all are welcome. And I said that that was a given. Of course you're welcome.
But what Christianity says is that all are welcome to receive the grace and the love and the forgiveness of sins based upon what Jesus Christ's gospel is all about. Everyone's welcome. Listen, the gospel welcomes everyone to do what? to be forgiven. To have a brand new life given to you.
Listen, I'm gonna upset. I figured if I upset some of you last time, I'm just gonna finish it off tonight. If you are preaching a gospel. Or going to a church, or maybe you're watching or listening right now, and you go to a certain kind of a ministry that says you can be a Christian and have no change go on in your life. You can be a Christian and you can just live like you normally live, and it's all good.
That is not the gospel. That's not the God we know. It's not the Bible we've read. It's impossible. Thank God He changes our lives.
And this is almost something that people want you to apologize for these days. God changes our lives. And believe me, I knew me before. You knew me? And you, believe me, you would not have wanted to know me before.
You knew me. It's a big deal. Listen, there's people that I went to school with. They can't, but they see online, they see on the web that Jack is a pastor? Oh, there's no way.
I gotta come see this. And I'm serious? And they'll come up. In fact, there's a, I don't want to embarrass them. I'll look somewhere else right now, but there's a guy that I even grew up with who now goes to this church.
He couldn't believe it. And so he came, and he's been coming for years. And that's a miracle. Because if you would have known me beforehand, you would have said, hey, no way. And I thank God God changes lives.
Now we get into verse 14, which is the concluding argument of the parable of the two gates. And number two is this: give yourself totally to God. You said, man, that's obvious. Is it really? Will you mark it down?
To give yourself totally to God. Absolutely essential.
So tonight I trust that that's your desire. Verse 14, because narrow, circle of the word narrow Bible student, is the circuit of the word gates. And circle the word difficult is the Circle the word way. Which leads to circle it, life. And there are, go ahead and circle that word, few who find it.
Narrow, gate, difficult way, life, few. Jesus is remarkably pounding home in eternal truth. And he he's he's He's done everything. To get us to grab it. And the challenge to us tonight is: have we grabbed it?
Maybe I should rephrase that. Have I grabbed it? Have you grabbed it? Because this is Absolutely essential. Listen, there's no way around this.
Is church, listen, is the gospel free? Yes. But did it cost God everything? Yes. Grace cannot be cheap when it costs God his all, right?
By God's grace, the gospel is free. Heaven is free to you, free to me, by God's grace. You're listening to real life with Pastor Jack Hibbs. You know, to hear more episodes and maybe catch up in the series, just go to jackhibbs.com. That's jackhibbs.com.
And for now, let's get back to our teaching. Once again, here's Pastor Jack. Heaven is free to you, free to me, by God's grace. Okay? He paid Everything.
So it can be free for us. We could not contribute. to the payment of it. It is of such value. That Jesus says Number one, That way or path to it is narrow.
Secondly, the world is pulling on a broad basis. at you constantly. In other words, it's almost as though you and I are walking. On a fine, thin line. While the world is bombarding us and we're not supposed to be distracted.
But we are distracted in life. Thus, the admonition to be totally given over to God. Number one, this way. Why? Because He, the Lord, is the only door we have to get into that place.
The narrow way is through Him. And we know this, but my hope tonight is that for all of us, it translates into extremely practical godly living. And can't I can't I say this, that godly living should make you happily excited. Please hear me because some of you kind of recoil. Oh, godly living.
I mentioned the word holiness. Oh, God, holiness. It's not that you're against it, it's just that it conjures up so many ugly thoughts in your mind about keeping rules. If you break one of those rules, out you go. Who wants that?
Who needs that? Nobody, it doesn't help you. Or a long list as Book. Requirements are unfurled in front of you and it's like, oh man, where do I start? God's not in that.
He doesn't do that. Jesus Christ is a door, is the door for a reason. First, look at the word narrow, because narrow is the gate. The word narrow, we talked about it last time because it appears strongly in these two verses, is that amazing Greek word sthenos. And it means to slip through or to pass narrowly by something, to squeeze through a restriction or to pass through an opening with or within an obstacle, to just get by.
That there's a massive, as it were, wall and there's an opening. And Jesus is trying to get his listeners to see, narrow's the way. Listen, does that kind of concern you a little bit? It should concern you. Jesus says, narrow is the way.
Listen, I'll give you an honest, honest reality check on this, which we all know of. You might see, for example, at a church service, Or at a crusade, you might see 10 or 100 or 1,000 people come forward. And we know now over the years, for example, of Billy Graham's ministry, who's got all these years of able to track people, that there's less than 25%, less than 25% of them over 40 years or something like that, actually are Christians. The vast majority of them went forward emotionally. They thought, whatever, I don't know, I'll try it.
Tried some shoes on, I'll try Jesus on, we'll see. whatever or they're very excited and oh And then they slip away, cares, concern, ridicule, whatever, and they stop. And people want to apologize for that. Maybe you see people go forward at a harvest crusade, and then three years later, the person's not walking with Jesus at all. Give it up.
And you want to apologize for that. Did you know that's biblical? It doesn't make us happy, but it's biblical. The very Parable of the sower of the seed. Not many receive.
The only ones who in this room Watching right now. In the church, In the world, that will go into heaven are those who have Jesus as their door. Say, man, that's narrow. That's what I'm talking about. And the word gate here, pule is the word.
It means, listen, a leaf. That joins together with another leaf. Watch this. That makes up a Opening. It's an interesting word, a wing or a part of a folding or bifolding, or we would use the word accordion-type door or entrance within a fence or a gate.
So here you have a gate, and then you have this almost louvered or hinged gate, and it may take up four panels to make up this gate. Are you with me? Jesus, the word Jesus says here that the gate is not the whole gate, the gate is just a panel. It's so narrow. He said, Jack, you're not encouraging me much.
Yes, I will if you'll hang on. Believe me, this is a reality, reality check that we need to have. The word completely requires of us that if we're going to go through. There can't be stuff stuck on us of this world. It won't fit.
It's not going to make it. That opening is so narrow that there's no room. For us to have all of our deities and trinkets and things attached to us. Think of it. I don't want to get too much into this.
You can. No, don't look at this. But the ancient Greek games, the wrestlers. The wrestlers went into their Olympic wrestling match naked. You say, man, that's kinky weird, man.
They were so committed to winning that they figured out that if I'm wearing something, my opponent can grab onto that and hang on to it and use my clothing or whatever it might be to use against me. And Destroy me. And so they strip down. To be as efficient as possible in their Combat. That's a radical thing, radical commitment.
And John chapter 10, verse 7, regarding Jesus being our only door. Then Jesus said to them again: Most assuredly, I say to you, I am. What? The door, definite article, the. Immediately, Jesus, watch, this is so.
It's fun. Jesus, by his statement, a go and me, definite article, the door. I am. The self-contained eternal God. And the door.
Isn't that awesome? And He is the door, not a door. Jesus, that one Statement by Jesus: I am the door. removes all other offers of Entrance into heaven. Did you hear that?
Well, I kind of believe in a Jesus that's kind of Wrong one.
Well, I kind of like a Jesus that's this way. Wrong one. My Jesus is this way, wrong. Listen, I'm not saying you're wrong because I'm saying you're wrong. Jesus says you're wrong.
Seven times in John's Gospel, Jesus says, It's the same title of the one where when Joshua, who we read recently in our Bible reading together as a church, When Joshua said, hey, Who are you? Are you for us or for the enemy? He saw this very unusual man standing. On the battlefield. And he said, No.
What a neat answer. Are you for us or them? Who are you? No. Tyasha was like It's called a Theophanes.
It's a preincarnate appearance of Christ in the Old Testament. Happens a lot. He says, I have come. and I am captain of the Lord's host. Oh mama.
You know what that word means? Captain of the Lord's host, I am the commander of the armies of heaven. Pastor and Bible teacher Jack Hughes. Here on Real Life Radio. With a message called Parable of the Two Gates and Two Ways, Part 2.
Thanks for being with us today. You know, this message is part of Pastor Jack's series called The Parables of Jesus. It's a series that highlights the teachings of Jesus while he was here ministering on this earth and will continue on the next edition of Real Life Radio. Yeah. Everybody, we want to introduce you to what we're calling our summer bundle.
It's two great books, and you're going to want to get them for the little ones in your life. The first book is called Prayers and Promises for Kids. It's a great resource to not only teach your children about the promises of God, but how do we take those promises and pray them into our lives? You're going to find this a great resource to develop a prayer life with your child. And then the book, The Red Coats Are Coming, written by our own Nancy Sanders, who attends our church.
It is a great, great book. It is featured by Adventures in Odyssey and the wonderful people at Focus on the Family, Prayers and Promises for Kids, and The Red Coats Are Coming. They're two children's books that are very powerful. Get a copy of both these books as we bundle them for the month of July. That's The Red Coats Are Coming and Prayers and Promises for Kids.
A couple of great books available as a bundle for a gift of any amount at jackhibbs.com. That's jackhibbs.com. Hey Christian, I'm speaking to you. Listen to this. You and I are not allowed to give up.
I have to confess, many times in my life, I've thought about giving up. But God has put people around me in life they wouldn't let me do that, and I'm here to tell you you're not allowed to give up either. God's not done with your story. He's still writing it. He loves you.
And he's going to complete it. Father God, in Jesus' name, may we not get in the way of what you're wanting to do if we wiggle, if we try to jump. Lord, hold us tight. Because you And you alone have the words of eternal life. In Jesus' name.
Amen. This program is made possible by the generous contributions of you, our listeners. Visit us at jackhibbs.com. That's jackhibbs.com. Until next time, Pastor Jack Hibbs and all of us here at Real Life Radio wish for you solid and steady growth in Christ and in His Word.
We'll see you next time here on Real Life Radio.
