A WIDE GATE:  A POOR CHOICE
Matthew 7:13-14

Friends, all journeys have to have a beginning.  And so, Jesus instructs us to start at the gate.  He first shares with us about a wide gate.  This is an enticing gate.  This is an alluring and appealing gate.  This is a gate that tells you to enter and to bring along all your baggage with you, so you don’t have to leave anything behind.  “You mean I don’t have to give up any of my bad habits?”  Absolutely.  “You mean I don’t have to change my lifestyle?”  Positively.  “You mean all I have to do is believe?”  Yes, that is correct. 
See how alluring that is?  I am promised a ticket to heaven without having to give up anything here on earth.  Hey!  I can’t lose, or at least that is what others want me to think.

The pathway that begins at this gate is an easy one.  There is room on it for diversity of opinions about God, about sin, and even about salvation.  It is the road where everyone is right and no one is wrong. There is room on it for a relaxed morality.  It’s motto is:  “Live the way you please; after all, that is the way God has made you.”  Therefore, anything goes!

So, where does this pathway that begins at the wide gate end?  Although the entrance at the wide gate may be marked, “The Way to Heaven” and those upon the pathway may encourage us in that direction, there is a huge surprise at the end of the road!  Listen to what Jesus says elsewhere about the terminus of this road:

And His winnowing fork is in His hand, and He will thoroughly clean His threshing floor; and He will gather His wheat into the barn, but He will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire (Matthew 3:12).

And if your hand or your foot causes you to stumble, cut it off and throw it from you; it is better for you to enter life crippled or lame, than having two hands or two feet, to be cast into the eternal fire (Matthew 18:8).

Then He will also say to those on His left, “Depart from Me, accursed ones, into the eternal fire which has been prepared for the devil and his angels”  (Matthew 25:41).

Friends, the final destination of the pathway entered through the wide gate is that of eternal conscious torment and separation from God.  Although the decision to enter at the wide gate is an easy one to make, its consequences are catastrophic.  Yet how sad are the remarks of Jesus that many enter through this gate.  How I trust that you have made the decision to enter by the narrow gate.  That gate will be the subject of our next study together.

Father, It is so sad to think of the number of people who have chosen to attempt to get into heaven on their own merits.  The wide gate and the broad pathway have such appeal for so many.  Lord, may our testimony be bright and clear and consistent as we try to rescue many of them from that pathway that leads to destruction.  For this we will give you thanks in Jesus’ name.  Amen.

 

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