The Narrow Way

 

Enter by the narrow gate; for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and there are many who go in by it. Because narrow is the gate and difficult is the way which leads to life, and there are few who find it. Mathew 7:13-14

I can remember as a younger Christian and a young preacher; I use to think that the church needed to keep up with the culture and make itself more relevant for the times.  I had all these big ideas and even bigger visions that we should come up with new ways of presenting the Gospel and new and inventive ways to attract teens and young adults. I said that preachers needed to lighten up on the preaching and preach more encouraging messages and lay off all the hellfire and brimstone stuff.  Society is changing, people are changing, and the church needs to keep up with the culture.

That was my thinking when I first started preaching 20 years ago.  Well, guess what, the church has latched onto that kind of thinking.  We have changed to keep up with the culture and all the new trends.  We have huge mega churches full of smoke and light shows, we have loud rock music on big stages, we have preachers that look like they came straight from an 80’s boy band complete with the wild haircuts and ripped jeans.  

We have youth ministers showing secular films to the teenagers.  We have young women and girls wearing cloths to church that they shouldn’t wear anywhere let alone in God’s house.  I see men and boys wearing shorts and ball caps to church. When I was growing up, the preacher would have sent these people home to change cloths.   He would have called them out from the pulpit.   I saw it happen a lot when I was growing up.  But you don’t see that anymore. No, you see preachers scared to death that they’re going to offend someone and lose a few members

We have lost all respect and all fear of God.  The church may be more relevant, but in the process of making the church fit in, we have all but removed Christ from the equation completely. 

Yes…we have changed, we have become friends with the world.  Gone are those great men of God that preached the truth without apology.  The Surgeons, the Edwards’, the Sundays, the Muller’s.  Gone are the days of true discipleship, it’s all about numbers now.  Get them in, get them saved, record it, and move on to the next project.

When you take a look at American Christianity, it is based more upon a godless culture than it is upon the Word of God. And so many people are deceived, and so many young people are deceived, and so many adults are deceived into believing that, because they prayed a prayer one time in their life, they’re going to Heaven. And then, when they look around at others who profess to know Christ and see those people just as worldly as the rest of the world, and they compare themselves to those Christians, nothing troubles their hearts. There is little to no conviction of sin. They think, well, I’m the same as most in my youth group. I’m the same as most of the other members in my church.  I watch things I shouldn’t watch on television and laugh about the very things that God hates. I wear clothing that is sensual. I talk like the world. I walk like the world. I smell like the world; I love the music of the world. I love so much that’s in the world, but bless God, I am a Christian and I know I’m going to Heaven when I die.

Why am I a Christian? I don’t look any different than most of the other people in my church. I still do all the same things I used to do.  I still hang out at the same places I used to.  I still listen to the same music, watch the same movies, and dress the same way I always have.

Why am I a Christian? Because there was a time in my life when I prayed and asked Jesus Christ to come into my heart.

I want you to know that the greatest heresy in the American protestant church is that, if you pray and ask Jesus Christ to come into your heart, He will definitely come in. You will not find that in any place in Scripture. You will not find that anywhere in church history until about 50 years ago. What you need to know is that salvation is by faith and faith alone in Jesus Christ. And faith alone in Jesus Christ is preceded and followed by repentance,  a turning away from sin, a hatred for the things that God hates and a love for the things that God loves, growing in holiness and a desire not to be like Britney Spears or some other Hollywood star, not to be like the world, and not to be like the great majority of American Christians, but to be like Jesus Christ! 

Notice what the passage says.  It’s not just the gate that’s narrow, it’s the way also. The way is narrow.  And few will find it.  I think a better translation would be that few will find it and stay on it.  They will not stay on the narrow path because it costs them too much.  They have to give up their sin.   That’s why they won’t stay on it, because they love their sin more than they love God. And they have been taught by preachers and Sunday School teachers that if they prayed a prayer at some point then they are saved and going to Heaven and it’s just not true.

Let me tell you something folks, if you’re a true born-again Christian, there will be some changes in your life.  Maybe not over night, but there will be changes.  You will find yourself beginning to love the things that God loves and hating the things He hates.  If you’re not seeing any change in your life.  If your sin doesn’t bother you, if you feel no conviction in your heart, you need to go back and ask God to save you because there is a very real chance that you’re not truly saved.  

Listen to what Jesus says…

Not everyone who says to me, Lord, Lord, will enter into the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven.  Many will say to me on that day, Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name and in your name cast out demons and, in your name, perform many miracles. Then I will declare to them, I never knew you. Depart from me, you who practice lawlessness.  Mathew 7:21-23

Those words of Jesus should send a chill up your spine. You should be asking yourself if you are in fact, doing the will of God.  You should be examining yourself to make sure that Jesus knows you.  Make sure that there are changes occurring in your life, in your habits, in your thinking.  

You want to know what burdens my heart more than anything else.  It’s not lost people that simply don’t care about the things of God.  It’s people who profess to be Christians and are deceiving themselves or they have been deceived by some preacher or evangelist.  

The Bible says, “For all have sinned and come short of the glory of God”, and you have no idea what that means, that we were born radically depraved and God hating, that we would have never sought God, never come to God. We have rebelled against God, broken every law. It’s not just an issue that you have sinned. The issue is you’ve never done anything but sin. The Bible says in the prophets that even our greatest works are like filthy rags before God. And because of that, you know what we deserve? The wrath of God. The holy hatred of God.

You say, “Now, wait a minute. God doesn’t hate anybody. God is love.” No, my friend. You need to understand something. Jesus Christ taught, the prophets taught, the apostles taught this that apart from the grace of God revealed in Jesus Christ our Lord, the only thing left for you or me is the wrath, the fierce anger of God because of our rebellion and our sin.

People are always quick to point out, “No, God cannot hate because God is love.” And I tell you God must hate because God is love. You see, I love children; therefore, I hate abortion. If I love that which is holy, I must hate that which is unholy. God is a holy God. That’s something that the Americans have forgotten. Many of the things that you love to do, God hates. Did you know that?

You pray for revival. You’re going to have a youth meeting; you want God to move, but before you go there you watch programs on television that God absolutely despises. And then you wonder why the Holy Spirit hasn’t fallen on a place and why you have to create false fire and false excitement. Because God’s not in it. God is a holy God and the only way you and I could ever be reconciled to a holy God is through the death of God’s own Son when He hung on that tree.

Now listen to me, if you’re saved, you’re not saved because the Romans and Jews rejected Jesus. You’re not saved because they put a crown of thorns on His head. You’re not saved because they ran a spear through His side, and you’re not saved even because they nailed Him to a cross. Do you know why you’re saved if you are saved? Because when Jesus Christ was hanging on that cross, He bore your sin. The sin of God’s people and all the fierce wrath of God that should fall upon you fell upon His only begotten Son. Someone had to pay that price. Someone had to die. It was God the Father who crushed His only begotten Son. According to Isaiah 53, it says, “It pleased God to crush Him.”

That’s the Gospel in a nutshell.  The just wrath of God demands a sacrifice to pay for sins.  It demands that we pay for our sins with our life.  But, instead of God giving us what we deserve, He came to earth in the person of Jesus Christ and sacrificed Himself to pay the debt that we owe.  There is no better way to explain the Gospel.  God sacrificed Himself for us.

So, examine yourself spiritually today and be sure that you are truly born again. Are there changes taking place in your life?  Are you losing interest in the things you used to love doing and are you becoming more interested in the things of God that you used to hate and find boring?

You say you know Jesus, but the better question, the more important question is: does Jesus know you?

God bless…