The Narrow Door - Life of Christ Part 46

Now, I'm going to read you a quote, and I want you to see if you can tell me what the speaker's talking about. His name is Ed Webster. Here's the quote. Ah, right. Now, what's he talking about?

What do you think? Mountain climbing. Which mountain do you think?

Oh, sure. What other mountain is there? Mount Everest.

Of course, that's exactly what he's talking about. You know Mount Everest is five and a half miles high above sea level. That's 29,141 feet above sea level. And since Sir Edmund Hillary scaled it for the very first time in 1953, there have been thousands and thousands of people who have tried it. Many of whom have died trying, but only 614 men and women have ever gotten to the top of Mount Everest. Now, what Ed Webster was talking about was something even tougher than just climbing Mount Everest. You say, what could be tougher than climbing Mount Everest? What's tougher is climbing the east face of Mount Everest. The east face is an incredibly treacherous face to climb. And this month, if you've been reading in the paper, an American lady named Sandy Pittman is trying to become the first woman ever to scale the east face of Mount Everest. Now, that face has an ice wall that you have to, you know, beat those little things in and actually climb straight up on the wall.

The only problem is it leans back at a 95 degree angle. Can you imagine going up a wall like that? It has a crevice that you've got to go across.

It's 50 feet wide and 100 feet deep, but the crevice is at 23,000 feet, if you can imagine. And in all of the years, that people have been trying to climb Mount Everest, guess how many people have ever been able to make it to the top going up the east face? This many. Ten. That's it.

Keep your eyes on the paper. See if Sandy Pittman makes it. She's trying this month. Now, the reason I bring all this up is because when I think about the phrase, lots of people try, not too many people make it. What do you think of? I think of Mount Everest.

What do you think of? Maybe you think of becoming a professional athlete. Lots of people try. Not too many people make it.

Or how about winning a gold medal in the Olympics? Lots of people try. Not too many people make it. How about getting Redskins tickets? Lots of people try.

Not too many people get them. And who wants to go to Laurel anyway? That's how I look at it. Right? Right.

Okay. When it comes to eternal life and when it comes to heaven and when it comes to personal salvation, what Jesus is going to tell us this morning is that lots of people are out there trying, but there aren't that many people who are really getting it and aren't that many people who are going to get it. And there's some very definite reasons why. Is it because Jesus doesn't want to give it to people? Absolutely not. Is it because that Jesus hasn't got enough eternal life to go around for everybody in the world?

Absolutely not. There's some other reasons why lots of people are trying and not everybody's getting. And Jesus is going to tell us about it this morning and I think it's going to have an impact on us as we're out there trying to help people become some of those folks that get eternal life. It's important for us to know what Jesus teaches us. So let's begin here in verse 22 of chapter 13.

Let's begin here in verse 22 of chapter 13. Now, when I read this, I thought, you know, it seems to me, if only one person's going to get into heaven, it ought to be this guy's wife for putting up with this arrogant windbag. What do you think? Well, about half of the audience agrees.

Okay. Well, that's good. Now, friends, you got to understand this to understand the real question that these rabbis were asking Jesus. The real question they were asking him was, listen to Jesus. We know that a bunch of us rabbis and a bunch of us pious Jewish people are going to get into heaven. Now, we know that.

There's no arguing about that. What we want to know is how much of the rest of the world, how much of all those Gentiles and all that other riffraff that's out there, how much of them are going to get in. We're not asking about us because we're sure we're going. Understand the question? Now, Jesus answers with a twofold answer. First thing he does is answer the actual question they ask. They ask, are a lot of people going to be saved or a few?

And here's his answer. Verse 24. Jesus said, make every effort to go through the narrow door, because many, I tell you, will try to enter and won't be able to get in. Once the owner of the house gets up and closes the door to the house, he's going to get in. You will try to enter and won't be able to get in. Once the owner of the house gets up and closes the door and locks it, you will stand outside knocking and pleading and saying, sir, open the door for us.

But he will answer and say, I don't know you or where you're from. Jesus compares heaven to a great banquet and the host sent out a whole bunch of invitations. Well, only a few people RSVP'd the way they were supposed to. And so when it came party time, those guys showed up and when the party was begun, the host went and locked the door. Well, all of a sudden, all sorts of people who had not RSVP'd showed up and wanted to get in. And they knocked on the door and they pleaded and they said, sir, please let us in. We know we failed to RSVP. We admit that we really weren't that interested in getting in when the door was open and the party was available, but now that it's closed, we want in. And look what he says.

He says, sorry, fellas, your name is not on the guest list and I'm not letting you in. This past Monday, I went down to the Easter egg hunt down on the White House lawn. You know, did y'all read about that and see it on the news, whatever?

Now, my son, Justin, who's 13, and one of his good friends, Scotty Morgenthau, had the chance to work as volunteers, you know, out on the lawn and whatever. And I had that chance, too. But I couldn't make up my mind where I was going to go, where I wasn't going to go.

You know how you do. So finally, when I made up my mind, I was going. I called up and they didn't need me anymore. They said, sorry, you know, you waited too long. We don't need you anymore.

All right. So anyway, I drove them down and I drove up Pennsylvania Avenue, let them off at Lafayette Park. I said, now you guys go in. And now volunteers were going in the northeast gate.

All the other people had to go in the south gate and the crowd was already collecting, but volunteers got to go in all by themselves, the northeast gate. I said, y'all guys go in. I'm going to go park the car and then I'll be right back. So I went and parked the car and I came back and they were already in and I kind of strolled on up there to the gate and I'm ready to go in and the guard who's standing there at the gate says, sir, could I please see your photo ID? I said, hey, man, sure, no problem. Pulled out my wallet, gave it to him and he's looking at it and I'm looking down at all those poor people standing down there in that huge line down on the south end and I'm just standing there going, man, I sure feel sorry for those guys standing down there. You know, I'm going to go in this gate and they're going to be standing in that long line hours before they get in. The guy broke into my little thing here I was doing and said, I'm sorry, sir, but your name's not on the list.

The only Solomon on the list is a Justin Solomon. I said, well, I know. I said, he's my son. I dropped him off. I went and parked the car. I came back. He's already inside. And the guard said to me, well, sir, he can be inside.

You can't. And I said, what? I said, man, you got to be kidding. This is stupid. He's my son. He can't even sign checks.

I mean, I have to endorse his checks on the back. You can't leave him in there by himself and I'm standing out here. He said, sir, could I ask you, what is your purpose for wanting to come in the White House today? I said, my purpose? My purpose? I want to be with my son. I want to get an Easter egg. I want to have a nice day.

He said, I'm very sorry, sir. Your name's not what? Uh-huh, on the list. That's right. You know, Jesus says a lot of people are going to wait too late to RSVP for heaven, just like I waited too long to RSVP to work in the White House. And as a result, their names aren't going to be on the guest list.

And even though they changed their mind and want to get in, not going to happen. So they asked the question, are few people going to be saved? And what did Jesus answer?

He said, yes. Jesus said, that's the answer to your question. Few will get in. Now, then Jesus goes on to answer another question they didn't ask.

And that is, which few is it? See, they were sure they were going to be the few that got in. Jesus said, I got some bad news for you fellas.

There are only going to be a few that get in, and it's not the few that you think it is. Look what he says, verse 26. Jesus said, then you'll say to me, all the people who were left outside are going to say, well, we ate with you, and we drank with you, and you taught in our streets.

But he will reply and say, I don't know you. And I don't know where you from. And you're not coming in. And there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth there. Jesus said, verse 28, and you'll see Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, your forefathers and all the prophets will be in the kingdom of God.

But you yourselves, you're going to be thrown out. And people are going to come from the east and the west and the north and the south and take their places at the feast in the kingdom of God. All these people that you are saying are the scum of the earth, they're all coming to be part of the kingdom of God. And indeed, there are those who right now you think are last, who are going to end up being first.

And some of you guys who are so sure you're first, you're going to end up being last. In response to Jesus saying, I don't know you, look what these guys say, verse 26, they say, well, we ate with you, and we drank with you, and you taught in our streets. Who are these people? Aren't they the Jewish people that Jesus was standing right there talking to? All these rabbis who he taught in their streets and ate meals with them, but they wouldn't accept him on a personal basis?

Of course, that's who he's talking about. And they were so sure they were going to get in, Jesus said, sorry, guys, I don't know you. We don't have any relationship.

We're not connected at all. Would you notice what Jesus says here about getting into heaven? Getting into heaven is based on knowing the right person on the inside. Do you see that?

Having relationship with the right person on the inside, that's what gets you in. Doesn't matter that they were all around Jesus and heard him talk. That didn't make a bit of difference. Now, you know, I did get into the Easter egg roll, and I got in right through that gate. So you did.

How'd you do that? Well, see, I have a great friend who works inside the White House as a Secret Service agent. Name's George Morgenthauer. And so I said to this guard who wouldn't let me in, I said, look, would you do me a favor?

I'm a friend of George Morgenthauer's. Would you take that little walkie talkie thing you got and call him, and he'll come down here and vouch for me? So he said, stand right here. He walked away, you know, so I couldn't hear him.

Went back to the little shed, talking on the thing. I can hear him talking on this thing. About five minutes later, good old George comes around the corner, man, walks up and says to this guy, he says, he's okay. He said, I know him. He said, I'm not real proud I know him, but I know this guy. And he's fine.

He's okay. Let him in. And you know, this guy opened the gate, let me walk right in.

I didn't have to show my photo ID again. He said, all right, come on in. And I walked right in that gate. And I said, oh, George, God bless you, George. Where have you been, George? God bless you, George.

But friends, you know what? Jesus said, there's only one way to get into heaven, and that's to know the right person on the inside. And that's Jesus Christ himself. Standing there at that gate, who I was didn't matter. My position here at McLean Bible Church didn't matter to that guy. My photo ID didn't matter. My charisma didn't make one bit of difference. I smiled at him.

He didn't smile back at me one bit. Having a nice day? Nothing. The only thing that got me in there is that I knew the right person on the inside. You understand what I'm saying? And that's the only way heaven works, friends. That's what Jesus offered these people who were standing around asking him this question. The Bible says, John chapter 1, that Jesus came to his own people and offered his own people a relationship with him, but his own people were not interested.

They wouldn't RSVP to the invitation. And you know, if you're here this morning and perhaps you've never RSVP'd to Jesus' invitation to let him into your life, the Bible says that Jesus stands at the door of our life and he knocks. And Jesus said, if anybody will let me in, I'll come in and we'll have relationship and we'll be connected. And you know what, friends, the interesting thing is, on that door where he stands and knocks, there's only one handle and it's on the inside.

There's no handle on the outside. You've got to go open the door. You've got to invite him in.

You've got to say, I want that relationship. And if you're here and you've never done that, I'd like to suggest to you that it's pretty important that you think about doing it now before the guest list is finalized and the door is locked and it's too late. Jesus said, it's going to be too late for some people.

They're going to RSVP too late. I hope you'll think about it. Well, that's the end of our passage, but it leads us to ask the question, so what?

You know, I've told you before, if a preacher doesn't tell you so what, he's no good. I mean, so what that this happened 2,000 years ago? What difference does this make for me on Monday morning in my job? What difference? That's what we want to answer. Now, you know how I felt standing there at the White House gate when the guy wouldn't let me in? I thought of some adjectives that described how I felt. Stupid.

That's how I felt. Embarrassed. Dumb. Stranded. Helpless. Silly.

All of those words and probably some others. And you know what, though, friends, if being locked out of the White House is bad, can you imagine how tragic it's going to be to be standing on the outside of heaven, locked out, wanting to get in and you can't get in and is not a thing you can do? I want to tell you something. I wasn't getting past that guy. There wasn't one thing in the world I could do to get past him. He'd kill me before I got past him. And he looked big enough he could do it too.

I wasn't getting past him. Can you imagine how tragic it would be to be standing there and heaven's on the other side of that gate and you can't get in? It makes us sad, folks, but Jesus Christ says right here that this is going to happen to lots and lots of real people.

What's going to happen to them? And to fix this, Jesus came and died on the cross, rose from the dead. He made a way to fix it. And he extends an invitation to the whole world that says, you come to me, accept me as your personal savior. Open the door to me. Establish a relationship with me. Invite me into your life. I'll put your name on a guest list. And when you get to heaven, there won't be a bit of problems. He'll look right down and say, sure, your name's on.

In you go. Now, my question is, why don't more people take Jesus up on his offer? Why don't more people RSVP? You ever thought about that?

What a great offer. Why don't they RSVP? Our job on Earth, by the way, as Christians, if you know Christ, is to help people do that, isn't it? It's not to lay up creature comforts until we've got more than we can use. But our job, the reason Christ left us here is to talk to people in our offices, in our neighborhoods, in our families, wherever, and help them realize they need to RSVP to Jesus' invitation before it's too late. So if we could even understand why people don't, then it ought to make us able to do a better job in helping them. So what are the reasons why people don't? Well, you might not have picked it up, but there are three Jesus told us about right here in this passage. And I want to conclude by telling you about them this morning. Number one, why don't people RSVP to Jesus' invitation?

Number one, because many people have a false sense of security, a false sense of security. Look what the Jews people said right here in verse 26. They said, but we ate with you and we drank with you and you taught right in our streets. What's more, we were God's chosen people. We have a covenant relationship with God. We were the guardians of the Old Testament.

We were the pious of the pious. Jesus, the reason we didn't RSVP is because we didn't think we needed to. We thought we were perfectly fine the way we are and we were secure and on our way to heaven and everything was hunky dory.

And we didn't know we needed to RSVP. We thought we were fine. And when these people finally figured out they weren't fine, it was too late. Now, the world's the same way today. There are people everywhere in the world today who are sure they're fine. But they've never trusted Christ. I used to do open air work down in Alexandria with a good friend of mine named Bob Porter.

Bob's in Roanoke now. We used to go out in Market Square, King Street, wherever we could go and just hand out tracts and talk to people about a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. And if you've never done that, you owe it to yourself to do that just to hear what people say back to you when you say to them they need a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. If I had a dollar for every person who told me about a church that they were a member of or a church where they sang in a choir or a church where they taught Sunday school or a church where their mother was buried in the graveyard, I'd be a rich man today. I want to tell you because I would have invested it. It would have compounded and I'd be a rich man today.

Amazing. I would hand these things out. Ladies would say to me, men would say to me, I'm a member of the Methodist Church. I don't need that. I'm a member of the Baptist Church. I don't need that. Or I'm a member of the Presbyterian Church. I don't need that.

Or I've been baptized as a Catholic. I don't need that. I teach Sunday school.

I don't need that. Unbelievable that these people were relying on being a member of a Methodist Church to get them into heaven. Friends, nothing wrong with the Methodist Church, but being a member of that is not going to get you into heaven. My friend Bob Porter used to say when people used to say, well, I'm a Baptist. He used to say, yeah, but there's a lot of Baptists in hell too, friend. We need to talk about what makes a difference.

Now, he wasn't most popular guy in town, but that's all right. You know what? Going into church doesn't make you Christian any more than going to McDonald's makes you Big Mac.

You understand what I'm saying? And yet there are people who are holding on to that stuff, believing that's going to work for them. They see no urgency to RSVP to Jesus Christ because they've been lulled into a false sense of security by some religion or by some philosophy of life or by some college professor or by sitting in a church week after week.

And they're sure they're fine. Now, what are we going to do to help reach these folks? What are we going to do to help get these folks past this so they really can RSVP to Jesus Christ? Well, the only thing I know is we're going to have to have enough courage as Christians to tell them lovingly, gently. But honestly, what you're trusting is not going to work.

It's not going to work. The Bible says it will not get you in. We need to tell people that being church attenders and being religious and being nice people and helping the environment is not going to get them into heaven. It means nothing.

Only a personal relationship with Christ means something. We need to tell people that, even though it may upset them. I met a gal out in Laphoria who was telling me that when she went to visit her mother, her mother said to her, you can't talk about God at the table.

That's the rule. And she said, then she sat and listened to everybody else talking. They were talking about how they were sure they were going to heaven, but they've never trusted Christ. And she said, finally, she couldn't take it anymore. And she did it. And everybody got so mad at her that her mom drank half a quart of wine and got drunk.

And then her brother, who's schizophrenic, her mom said, if he commits suicide next week, it's your fault and all this kind of stuff. And she said, did I do wrong? And I said, no. You know, I don't know how you did it.

Maybe, I don't know, I can't comment on how you did it, but the idea that you didn't let them go on believing they were perfectly secure when they're not, you're not doing them any favors by letting them think that what they're holding on to is going to work if you know it isn't. You're not helping them. Second, why don't people RSVP to Jesus Christ? Pride. I'll spell it.

P-R-I-D-E. Pride. Now, verse 30 tells us a lot about these people who are asking Jesus this question. Look, it says, indeed, there are some of those that you guys think are last, the Samaritans, the Galileans, the Gentiles, all these people that you kind of go, eh, not those people. They're going to be first. And you guys who are so sure you're first, a lot of you guys are going to be last. Who were the ones that they thought were first? Well, they thought they were first.

They were sure. And their attitude was, hey, all the rest of these poor schmoes in the world may need what Jesus is offering. They may need to RSVP to Jesus, but we don't need to do it. We're perfectly OK. We're the first. We're the rabbis, man. We're the pious of the pious. We don't have to do this stuff.

That's for the rest of the world. The second reason a lot of people don't RSVP to Jesus Christ, friends, is simple, human, arrogant pride, because to accept Jesus's invitation means that a person has to humble themselves. It means a person has to admit that they have a need that they can't fix themselves.

It means they have to confess their own inability and be willing to accept outside help. And the great enemy of that is pride. Now, is this important for us as Christians to know? You bet it is.

You bet it is, because you know what? When we begin praying for these people that God would bring them to Christ in order to answer our prayer, God's got to go to work on their what? On their pride. We need to understand how God goes to work on their pride and be willing to let him go to work on their pride. If we don't understand what's happening, we're going to get in the way. How does God break down people's pride?

I'll tell you how. With failure and defeat and loss and heartache and setbacks. You ever see anybody get humble from success?

It doesn't happen. You know, my father was one of the proudest, most self-sufficient human beings I've ever met in my life. He didn't need God's help. He didn't need Jesus Christ's help. He didn't need anybody's help, and he didn't mind telling you he didn't need anybody's help.

He didn't want anybody's help on anything. Anything. But I'll tell you what. Three heart attacks, two bankruptcies, and one broken marriage later. That man got down on his knees in a hospital room in Charlottesville, Virginia with me and told God that he'd been wrong, that he did need God's help, that he couldn't do it himself, and asked Jesus Christ into his life before he died.

But listen, that was three heart attacks, two bankruptcies, and a broken marriage later. You understand what I'm saying to you? How did God go to work on this man and answer my prayers to lead my father to Christ? God went to work on his pride with defeat and setback and loss and heartache. And you know what? When God goes to work on people we love and people we are praying for and goes after their pride because we're praying for him to do it, if we don't understand what the problem is and if we don't understand what God's trying to do, we're going to get in the way.

The common thing that we do is we begin maligning God and going, How could you do this to me? These are my children. These are my parents. I love you.

What are you doing? And then we'll say things to them like, Oh, I don't understand this. This is so horrible. I can't believe God did this to you either. You're in the way. You're in the way of God answering your prayer. What we need to be doing to people in this situation is loving them, caring for them, not condemning them, being as much help as we can, and at the same time saying to them, Have you figured it out yet? God's trying to teach you you can't do it by yourself.

You need his help. When are you going to figure that out? You ready to pray yet? Don't malign God. God's trying to answer your prayer. This is one of the big barriers. God's trying to deal with it.

Third and finally, what's the third barrier to people RSVPing to Jesus Christ? A false sense of security, human pride, and number three, relativism, which is sweeping our world. Relativism says that there's not just one right way. There's lots of options that will all get you to the same place. And our world is full of that kind of teaching about everything.

That's the way our world's going. But Jesus Christ said, Hey, look what he says. Verse twenty four, make every effort to enter through what kind of door? Uh huh. Did he say wide and broad?

A whole bunch of different options will work. He didn't say that, did he? In fact, in Matthew Chapter seven, listen to what he said. He said, Enter through the narrow gate, for wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction. And lots of people find it, but small is the gate and narrow is the road that leads to eternal life. And only a few people find that.

Friends, when you're dealing with something that's narrow, something that's absolute. This is black and white language we're talking about here. Then precision is crucial. Exactness is crucial. There's no room for every man to do what's right in his own eyes.

There's no room for relativism in this stuff when you're dealing with something precise. A few years ago, I went out, and you know I've told you some of this story, but I had the privilege of landing on the USS Roosevelt aircraft carrier out in the Atlantic Ocean. And I have a good friend who's an admiral, and he always said to him, Hey, Paul, if you really want to ever do me a big favor, I'd love to fly out and land on an aircraft carrier. So he called me, we worked it out, we flew out, we landed, we hooked, you know, I spent the night on the carrier. They launched me off the catapult the next day. Not me, but I mean the plane I was on.

And not me, but I've told you parts about it. What an incredible experience. Well, while we were on the carrier, they said, you know, you guys can go almost anywhere you want to go, except down to the nuclear reactor. I didn't really want to go down to the nuclear reactor anyway. But they said, the ship is yours.

Where do you all want to go? Well, I wanted to go up in the control tower and watch them landing airplanes. And while they were out there, they were doing carrier qualifications, if you know what that is. They had all these pilots, they call them nuggets, who've been training on land over and over and over and over. And this is their first time trying to land on 300 yards of steel in the middle of the ocean. You understand? And so they've got them out there, and day and night, all night long, all day long, they're just landing one set of these guys after the other.

They get to make six runs, and then they have to stop for that day, trying to qualify them so they can go on to the next phase of their training. So I'm up there, and I'm watching, and here comes this Marine pilot landing this F-18. And he lands the thing, and he hooked, and I thought everything was, you know, copacetic. I mean, the guy landed and did all right. And the air boss went ballistic. I mean, just went absolutely livid. I mean, you know, you think the guy in Top Gun was bad.

I mean, he was nothing compared to this guy. Just throwing stuff and cussing, and what had happened is, when the guy landed it, he forgot to throttle up. You know, when you land those things, the minute you touch down, you throttle up and give that thing complete power, open afterburners, everything, and that wire stops you with the throttle wide open. Because, if you miss the wire, you've got to have enough thrust to get up again.

And that's standard procedure. When you touch down, man, you shove that baby forward and you open her wide up. This guy didn't do it. He landed, he caught, but he didn't push the throttle open. And this air boss went crazy. And the guy who had trained him, you know, was up there, he had his six trainees out there, and he blasted this guy, cussed this guy out, and threw the pilot off the aircraft carrier, made him fly back to Norfolk. He said, this is my aircraft carrier, and he's not going to be on it, and threw him off. I couldn't believe it.

I was standing there, my mouth was hanging wide open. I was like, good grief. He's just a young kid. He's a 20-some-year-old kid, you know. I mean, so all right.

So he forgets to push the throttle forward. Big deal. Tell the guy what he did wrong and give him another shot at this, you know. Think of your kids. So I wanted to ask about this. I had enough sense not to ask right then. You understand what I'm saying? But later on, I got the guy who was my host, and I said, man, it just seems like it's a little out of proportion up there. You know what I'm saying? Is the guy having a bad day? I mean, what's going on? He said, you don't understand, man.

You don't understand. Not only could that guy have killed himself, not only could he have put $50 million of your money in the ocean with that airplane, but he could have killed everybody else on that flight deck. You know, what he did was not a little thing. And then the guy, I'll never forget it, this Navy guy said to me, he said, I want to tell you something. He said, there is only one way to land a plane on an aircraft carrier. It is the Navy's way. And if you don't do it the Navy's way, you don't do it at all. He said, you understand that?

I said, yeah, I think I got that now. Folks, getting into heaven is a lot like landing a plane on an aircraft carrier. There's only one right way to do it.

There are not 50 right ways to do this. And we meet people who say things like, well, you know, all roads lead to God. We're all going down different paths, but we're all going to the same place. Well, Jesus never said that. In fact, Jesus said the exact opposite. Jesus said, I am the gate. Only people who come in by me, John chapter 10, get saved. We meet people who say, well, you know, you Christians, y'all are too rigid.

Y'all are too narrow. Y'all are too dogmatic. You Christian people need to lighten up. You Christian people need to broaden this thing out in this one way Jesus stuff out a little bit here. You know, you need to live and let live a little bit.

And we can get real intimidated hearing people talk and say those kind of things to us. But you know what, friends? Jesus said, I am the way, the truth and the life.

Nobody, that's what he said, comes to the Father except through me. That's what he said. Can you imagine a naval aviator coming in for his approach to land on this carrier and radioing in to the air boss and saying, hey, boss, you're being too dogmatic about this whole thing.

You know that. I mean, there are lots of ways to land a plane on an aircraft carrier. I think you just ought to back off, Jack, and let me land this thing my way. Can you imagine that?

I can't. Not after having been up there and seeing what happened when this guy made one little itsy bitsy mistake. If the guy lived, it'd be the last plane he ever flew in the Navy. You understand? There's not more than one way to do it on an aircraft carrier. And Jesus said there's not more than one way to do it when it comes to getting into heaven. A lot of people don't RSVP to Jesus' invitation. You know why? Because they're looking for a broader way to get in.

They're looking for a less rigid way to get in. And we have to be very careful as Christians to remind people in a world that is just consumed with relativism that that's not the way heaven works. It's not the way it works. That there are certain things that are narrow. There are certain things that are black and white. There are certain things that demand precision. Cooking soufflés demands precision if they're not going to be flat as a pancake. You've got to do it a certain way.

Building atomic bombs demands a certain level of precision if you're not going to incinerate half a state. Doing neurosurgery. How'd you like some guy to crack your head open and go, Well, you know, there's lots of ways to do this. Let's just go and look around and see what we can find. We'll figure it out as we go. There are some things in the world that demand precision. Jesus said getting into heaven is one of them.

And we need to be very careful we stand our ground on this. And when people say, Well, what about the pygmies? What about the people who lived in China before Jesus came? I can't answer those questions. Only God knows the answer to that. But I know what Jesus said. I am the way, the truth, and the life. Nobody gets into heaven except through me. And I don't have the authority, and by the way, friend, neither do you, to make any other statement about heaven than that. By the way, if a person knows enough about Jesus to even ask the question, it doesn't matter what God did with the pygmies. This guy's going to have to operate under John 14.6.

So just remind him of that. And when we begin saying things like, Well, you know, maybe you're right. Maybe there is another way in. Maybe God will be.

Maybe there are. You know what we're doing? What we're doing, folks, is we're sanctioning people on the wide road and the broad road that leads to destruction.

We're giving them license to say, Well, sure, that road may be okay. Why don't you try it? Jesus said it isn't okay, and it's a dead-end street.

Don't do that. You're not helping people. You're hurting them. Take a stand for what Jesus said. If you're unpopular, if you look unsophisticated, hey, I'll bet you the guests who were inside were glad they were inside, and it didn't matter whether the people on the outside thought they were unsophisticated because they RSVP'd on time.

You understand? You'll be glad you stood for Jesus Christ. Don't worry about what people think. You're not helping them by telling them things God says aren't so.

Let's conclude. How are we going to help our friends and our loved ones become part of the few that get into heaven that Jesus was talking about? I have three quick suggestions. Number one, lovingly confront whatever false security they've got with the Word of God. Tell them what their trusting's not going to work, and tell them why. Number two, pray for God to smash their human pride so they can RSVP, and when he does it, don't work against him.

Work with him. Love him, care for them, but keep reminding them God's trying to deliver a message to them, that they need Christ. And third and finally, lovingly resist the relativism of this world with the absolutes of the Word of God. You don't have the authority, and neither do I, to change the absolutes of the Word of God.

We're not doing people any favors when we try. Tell them what God said, then leave it with God, and God will take it from there. And I hope that these suggestions will help you become better, better equipped at helping people RSVP out there to Jesus Christ. Let's pray. Dear Heavenly Father, thank you for the Word of God to our hearts this morning. Thank you for teaching us important spiritual lessons that we need to know, not only for our lives, but to be effective in helping other people's lives as well. And Lord, I want to pray that you would use us in the lives of friends and loved ones, relatives, neighbors, co-workers that we have, that we are so concerned don't end up standing outside the gate of heaven wanting to get in, but finding out their name isn't on the guest list. Make us useful in their lives in light of what we've learned here today. Give us the courage we need not to bend and twist and negotiate the Word of God, but to just lovingly and compassionately share it with people and trust the Spirit of God to do His work. Thank you. Somebody did that for us. Help us to do that for others as we try to serve you in this world, and we pray these things in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen.