Enter the Small Narrow Gate
Tom Shrader concludes his study of the Sermon on the Mount by examining Matthew 7:13-27, where Jesus commands His listeners to enter the narrow gate that leads to life rather than the wide road leading to destruction. Shrader emphasizes that salvation comes exclusively through Jesus Christ, drawing on John 14:6 and Acts 4:12 to reinforce that there is no alternative path to God, and that this is objective truth regardless of personal opinion or religious preference. He also warns against false prophets who offer easier but deceptive messages, and closes by calling listeners to build their lives on the rock of Christ's words rather than the shifting sand of self-made religion.
“Man cannot come to God in any way that man himself devises but only in the one way that God himself provides.”
— Tom Shrader
Series: The Sermon on the Mount
Recorded: 2005 at East Valley Bible Church
Duration: 50 min
Themes: salvation, narrow gate, false prophets, eternal life, evangelism, truth, obedience, warning, seeking salvation, doubting the faith, new believer, questioning truth, spiritually lost, young adult, raised in church but unsaved, exploring christianity
Scripture: Matthew 5:3, Matthew 5:13, Matthew 5:17, Matthew 5:21, Matthew 5:22, Matthew 5:27, Matthew 6:19, Matthew 6:21, Matthew 6:24, Matthew 6:25, Matthew 7:1, Matthew 7:12, Matthew 7:13-14, Matthew 7:15, Matthew 7:16, Matthew 7:20, Matthew 7:21, Matthew 7:24, Matthew 7:26, John 10:10, John 14:1-6, Acts 4:12, 1 Timothy 2:5, Jude 4
Theological Themes: soteriology, exclusivity of christ, false teaching, sermon on the mount, biblical authority, sanctification, repentance, christology
Full Transcript
Closing the Sermon on the Mount
Open your Bibles, if you would, please, to Matthew chapter 5. We are going to close out our study of the Sermon on the Mount, which is part of our study of the life of Christ. This is the greatest message ever preached by the greatest preacher that ever lived.
Remember what we started back in chapter 5, verse 3 — Jesus' teaching to these multitudes that are gathered, to His disciples as well. He said, "Blessed are the poor in spirit," and there is that picture, that description of what the Christian life should be like, what a Christian begins to look like.
Salt and Light in the World
He says, now that you understand this, verse 13: you are the salt of the earth, you are the light of the world. The idea there is that we are to go into the world. We are not to create some sort of a Christian ghetto, and we can easily do that — Christian music, Christian concerts, Christian radio, Christian books, Christian magazines, Christian, Christian, Christian, Christian — and we can miss the fact that God has called us to go into the world.
There is nothing wrong with us being together. That is part of what we celebrate today; as a body we come together and we certainly fellowship with other Christians. But He has placed us in this world to be salt and light, to evangelize, to go and make disciples, and that begins right here in Gilbert, in the valley, and just moves out from there.
We want to make sure that in our lives we have a constant flow of contact with unbelievers. Jesus prays the night before He dies, "Father, just as You sent Me into the world, now I am sending them into the world," and He asked the Father to send the Holy Spirit so that in the midst of this, they might be that salt and light.
The Heart Behind the Law
Verse 17, still in chapter 5: "Do not think I have come to abolish the law." He then talks about their history and introduces a whole series of contrasts. Look at verse 21: "You have heard it said" — and then verse 22: "But I say to you." That is the pattern you see all the way through verse 48. Here is what you have been taught, here is what these religious folk have said, but I am saying to you, it is a different issue.
The contrast that perhaps demonstrates this best is in verse 27 of chapter 5: "You have heard that it was said that you should not commit adultery, but I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart." Jesus was saying, listen, you are running around claiming you have not killed anybody, not stolen, not committed adultery, not done any of these things — but here is the problem: your compliance is totally external. Your heart is not right.
Giving, Praying, and Fasting
He then moves into the practices we associate with the disciplines of the church — giving, praying, and fasting. He said, when you give, and when you pray, and when you fast, do not do it like these hypocrites do. Here is what He is saying: you can go through this whole process of what we call worship, you can be part of this church, you can be teaching a Sunday school class, you can be going through all these things — but you can be doing the right thing for the wrong reason. That is what these men were doing. They were giving and they were praying and they were fasting, but they were doing it for entirely the wrong reasons.
Treasures, Priorities, and Anxiety
Then comes the great challenge in verse 19 of chapter 6: "Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust will destroy them and thieves will break in and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven." Do not lay up treasures on earth — why? Because it is temporary. Lay up for yourself treasures in heaven, because there is an internal aspect to this.
Matthew chapter 6, verse 21 — and understand that we took weeks on all of this, so we are just hitting the highlights here. God has given you resources: time, energy, effort, money. Wherever you are investing those resources, that will give you a very clear view of where your heart is. Wherever you are spending your time, your energy, your effort, and your money, that is what is really, truly, honestly important to you.
Give me your calendar and give me your checkbook, and I can pretty much tell you what is really important to you. That people have a hard time getting to church at 10:30 in the morning on time, but can get in line a half hour early for a midnight showing of Star Wars, says something. It says what is really important to them.
Serving One Master
He then says in verse 25, do not be anxious — do not be anxious about your life. Not that there are not things to be concerned about, but do not be anxious, because you have already declared that Jesus is Master. Did you see that in verse 24? "No one can serve two masters." You cannot serve God — the agenda of God, the priorities of God — and also serve the priorities of the world. When I understand that Jesus is Lord and I begin to follow Him, He is going to take care of me. I do not need to worry.
Two Gates, Two Ways, Two Destinations
About what we are going to eat, and what we are going to wear, and where we are going to live — this is not a license to be lazy, not a license to be apathetic. It is an understanding that God is going to take care of those things. Then what we looked at last week: chapter 7, verse 1, the verse that virtually even our culture knows. People who could not spell Bible, could not find a Bible in a bookstore, still know Matthew 7, verse 1: "Judge not, lest you be judged." We tried to unpack that last week to see what it really means. Does it mean we never make any judgments, never use any discernment? No, that is not what it means. There are certain areas of sin that obviously we have to judge and deal with, and we are going to find another example of that today.
By way of moving us toward the end of this section, look at chapter 7, verse 12: "So whatever you wish that others would do to you, do also to them, for this is the law and the prophets." If you go back to chapter 5, verse 17, you see that this marks the close of that section. Really, from Matthew chapter 5, verse 17 through Matthew chapter 7, verse 12 is this discussion on how we are supposed to live.
What Must We Do to Go to Heaven?
Jesus answers here what has to be the most important question you and I have to deal with in our lives. He basically answers the question: what do we have to do to go to heaven? My instinct was that if there was a God and if there was a heaven, to go there you had to be good. That is the universal assumption. That is the description of the world we live in. If you went down to Fashion Square today and interviewed a hundred people — asked whether they believe there is a heaven, and a hundred said yes — and then asked what you have to do to go there, by far the most prevalent answer would be: be good, do good.
But if you start asking follow-up questions, that person is usually in trouble. How good? What is good? Good according to whom? Who is the final determining factor on what is good? Is it simply to be sincere? Is it to believe something and hold to it so tightly that you are willing to die for it? The hijackers on September 11th were sincere — they laid down their lives. You cannot dispute that. They were willing to stake everything they believed on that flight into that building. So if sincerity, tenacity, and commitment are the measures, those men would rank highly by that standard.
So maybe it is not just "be good." Maybe it is not just a matter of conviction. Maybe we need to understand who is making the rules — and that matters enormously. The Creator God of the universe, I believe, has spoken to us and told us what we need to do to go to heaven. It is all through this book. But today we look at a very condensed picture of it.
The Command to Enter
Look at chapter 7, verse 13: "Enter by the narrow gate, for the gate is wide, and the way is easy that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many. For the gate is narrow, and the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few."
This could get a little confusing because Jesus uses the picture of both a gate and a way. Are we supposed to enter by this gate to find this way, or do we find this way to enter this gate? I believe the idea of the gate and the idea of the way are interchangeable here. But first, here is what I want you to see: this passage begins with a command. Do you see it? Enter. That is the command. Enter. This is a demand on your action. This is not an invitation. We have grown accustomed to gatherings where, at the close, there is an invitation. This is not an invitation. This is a command: do it, enter.
John MacArthur writes this: "'Enter' is in the aorist imperative tense, and therefore it demands a definite and specific action. The command is not to admire or to ponder the gate, but to enter it." All sorts of questions pop up when we start talking about heaven and this way — what about people who never hear this? What about those who hear it very differently? What about, what about, what about? But what we want to look at today is what God says and how it relates to you. And here is what He says: enter. It is a command.
Two Gates, Two Demographics
Jesus then begins to define what it is we are supposed to enter. You have two gates: a wide gate and a small gate. You have two ways: a broad way and a narrow way. You have two destinations: one leads to destruction, and one leads to life. And you have what I would call two demographics: the wide, broad way that leads to destruction has many people on it, and the narrow, small way that leads to life has very few who find it.
William Hendrickson writes this: "Our Lord does not follow the method that is used by certain self-styled revivalists who speak of getting saved as being one of the easiest things in the world. Jesus, on the contrary, pictures entrance into the kingdom as being on one hand most desirable, yet on the other hand not easy at all. The entrance gate is narrow. It must be found. And apparently there are few that find it."
What Jesus is talking about is the road to life — eternal life, to be sure. Heaven and hell would be the classic terms we would use. But it is also the essence of life here. Jesus says in John 10:10, "I have come that you might have life" — have life.
The Narrow Gate and the Two Roads
Jesus's call to us is to search for life, and to have it abundantly. Curious about how people think about this, I went to Google and typed in, "What do I need to do to go to heaven?" The Google God had the answer, apparently, and there were all sorts of interesting things. I found a particularly interesting comment by a man whose name I could not pronounce — about twenty consonants and a vowel. He was writing about whether Buddhists go to heaven.
He said, "I had the good fortune of speaking about Buddhist afterlife to a number of Christians. One of the things that prompted me to investigate Buddhist afterlife was giving a talk at Central Juvenile Hall. A Catholic girl said that I was going to hell because I didn't believe in God and Jesus. After some reflection, I had to agree with her. If I were a Christian and thought like a Buddhist, I'd probably go to Christian hell." I haven't got the foggiest idea what that means. But what he ultimately says is that there's a Buddhist heaven and a Buddhist hell, a Catholic heaven and a Catholic hell, a Baptist heaven and a Baptist hell, and a Methodist heaven and no hell — just kidding, just kidding, can't be thin-skinned.
That is what he is saying, but that is not what Jesus is saying here. Jesus is not saying, pick your religion and then I'll let you know whether you go to their heaven or their hell. He says, here's the deal — it's real simple, it's not confusing, it's pretty easy to understand. There is a road that leads to destruction and there is a road that leads to life. What He seems to have in mind is that the road leading to destruction is very appealing: it's a broad way, it's an easy way, and lots of your buddies are on it.
What Most People Believe About Heaven
I always wondered how many people go to heaven. For thirty years I lived somewhere between believing there's a God and not knowing if there's a God, but I ultimately concluded that pretty much everybody goes to heaven — except Hitler, and your ex-wife, and maybe somebody else — but everybody else is in, somehow. That makes sense, right? And as I said, that is the dominant view. Most people believe pretty much everyone gets there. What do you have to do? Be good. How good? Just try hard. Just be sincere.
I don't have any problem explaining that view, but if you take it through consistently, then you're going to see those hijackers in heaven when you get there. Because they were certainly sincere, they believed, they thought they were doing a good thing — and who are you to say it isn't good, if you want to go down that road? That is the postmodern thought. I'm reading a book right now by a punk rock singer, and it is amazing to me to try to think that this worldview is coherent. It's like nailing jello to a wall, because you can't get anything declared right or wrong — it's all so subjective.
So is that really the way it is? I don't think it is. I don't think Jesus is saying here, create your own reality. Create your own picture of heaven, close your eyes, project yourself in, and however you get there is irrelevant. That is not what He says. He is very specific: there is this narrow gate, and it is non-negotiable.
John Stott writes this: "There are not many roads to heaven but there is one. There are not many religions but there is only one. Man cannot come to God in any way that man himself devises but only in the one way that God himself provides." That is what we believe. Jesus Himself makes that claim not just here but throughout His teaching.
John 14: Jesus Says Goodbye
I want to look at one of those passages and offer a little encouragement as we do. Turn to the right — we're going from Matthew to John's Gospel, the fourteenth chapter, John chapter 14. Someone was telling me the other day that their group is breaking up for summer and asking whether I had a book to recommend. Here is a great study: if you want something for the summer, study John chapters 14, 15, 16, and 17. Here is Jesus, knowing He is going to die the next day, saying goodbye to the people He has been more heavily invested in than anyone else on earth.
Think with me for a minute. Let's say you knew you were going to die tonight. What would you do? I would call my mom and dad back in Davenport. And ultimately I would want to sit down with Susan and Hayley and Tyler and Sarah and Timmy, and I would want to talk to them. I would not say, "What do you think — can the Suns handle the Spurs?" I'm not minimizing that; I'm just saying that at that point it simply is not on the list. "How about those Diamondbacks? Isn't it hot?" I'm not going down that road.
I would talk about life and relationship. I would talk about the things that are serious, the things I most want to communicate, knowing that whatever I said in that moment would be absolutely tattooed onto their brains and they would remember it all their lives. That is exactly the moment Jesus has here. He knows He is on His way out, and He has things to say to them.
"Let Not Your Heart Be Troubled"
Look at where He starts, verse 1: *"Let not your heart be troubled. Believe in God, believe also in me."* He says, I am on My way out of here — do not be worried. Why does He say that? Because He knows they are going to be worried. He knows this is scary. He understands what life is like. He understands that He has been with these men in intimate relationship for three years, and they are about to watch Him suffer and die.
Don't Let Your Heart Be Troubled
Jesus knows His disciples are going to be questioning. He knows that these next three, four, five days and the rest of their lives are going to be very, very tough. Even once they resolve the issue of His death, and then His resurrection, and then His ascending into heaven, they still have to deal with what it means to live as a follower of Christ. So that is a great message to us: don't let your heart be troubled. Not because life isn't scary — life is scary.
He says, "I'm going to give you the secret to being able to handle all those things. I'm going to send you a helper. I'm going to send you the Holy Spirit." And then He says this, and to me it is great: "Let not your heart be troubled. You believe in God, believe also in Me. In My Father's house are many rooms. If it were not so, I would have told you. And that I go and I prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to Myself, that where I am, you may be also. And you know the way where I'm going."
Thomas says he doesn't have a clue — not even a fog of one. He says, "We don't know the way." And Jesus gives him the answer, there in chapter 14, verse 6.
A Place Prepared for You
But first, consider the question: why should you and I not be troubled in this world? Do you see His answer? "I'm going to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I'm going to come and get you and take you to this place."
I get out of here on Sunday night and home about 7:45. Every Sunday when I come in, Sarah and Timmy are there, sometimes Tyler and Haley are there, and Susan's there, and they're all watching Extreme Home Makeover. They love that show. And every week, I come in just as they're saying, "Move the bus." All of a sudden the cameras are on these people and their eyes are big and they're saying, "I can't believe this. This is incredible. This is awesome. Thank you so much."
And especially when the kids get a room that's been made especially for them — their trophies, their soccer balls, the things they care about, the whole room designed exactly for them. Then there's always the one special room Ty has designed. He says, "I designed this for you. This is your sanctuary. This is your retreat. This is your refuge." Most often it seems to be for somebody with a lot of kids and a lot of noise in their life. Here is your master bedroom, the office, and all that goes with it.
Now put that picture together and get this in your mind: Jesus is going to die, and one day He is going to greet you and say, "Pull away the bus. I've got a spot for you. I built this place for you. It's designed for you. There's your stuff. And look who's over there in the gathering area — there's Larry, and there are all these other people." Don't let your heart be troubled. Why? Because ultimately that is our destination. That is what He is saying. We are going to slug it out together. Life is going to be tough. We are going to have mountaintop experiences and valley experiences, hard times and good times, learning to live with a lot and learning to live with a little. But here is the deal: He is preparing a place for us.
The Narrow Way
And you know the way. Thomas says he doesn't have a clue. And Jesus says, "I am the way, the truth, the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me." That is the verse that takes us back to Matthew chapter 7 and entering by the narrow gate.
The language is important. Jesus does not say, "I am a way, but there are a bunch of them. I am a truth, but truth is relative and there are a lot of those. I am a path to life, but there are others." No, He does not do that. He uses the definite article. He eliminates all other possibilities. Jesus says that if we are to go to be with the Father, there is but one way, one truth, one life, and it is through Him. There is no other way.
Now, the teaching that says there are many ways may be very comforting, and it is probably a little easier to sell. Not only is it easier to sell, it is probably easier to listen to. The problem is very simple: it is not true. It is not the message of Scripture.
Peter delivers a powerful message that Luke records in Acts chapter 4, and Peter says this: "There is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven that has been given among men by which you must be saved." Paul writes to Timothy: "There is one God, one mediator also between God and man, and that is Christ Jesus." There is a narrow gospel, a narrow way. There is only one gospel.
What Religion Cannot Do
It is not up to your imagination or my imagination to try to come up with a way to reach and appease a holy God. The problem is very simple: you and I have sinned. Our sin has separated us from God. We have all sinned and fall short of the glory of God. God's standard is not like yours and it is not like mine. It is not subjective. It is precise. God's standard for entrance into heaven is perfection, and all of us fall short. There is absolutely nothing we can do to remedy that situation.
That is what all religion is. I can explain religion in one simple sentence: a sinful man trying to reach up and appease a holy God. That is what religion is. This is not about a religion. This is not about what we do or what we accomplish.
The Terms Are His, Not Ours
This is about Jesus Christ, who He is and what He has done. I come to Him on His terms, His way, or I do not come at all.
Billy Graham was preaching in Australia, and after the crusade was completed, a letter to the editor appeared. Let me read it to you. "After hearing Dr. Billy Graham on air and viewing him on television and reading reports and letters concerning him and his mission, I am sick of the type of religion that insists my soul and everyone else's need saving, whatever that means. I have never felt that I was lost. Nor do I feel that I daily wallow in the mire of sin, although repetitive preaching insists that I do. Give me a practical religion that teaches gentleness and tolerance, that acknowledges no barriers of color or creed, that remembers the aged and teaches the children of goodness and not of sin." Here is the concluding sentence: "If in order to save my soul I must accept such a philosophy as I have heard recently preached, I prefer to remain forever damned."
That is hardcore. "I'll just stay in my sin rather than accept that truth." But here is the thing — "I have never felt that I was lost." That is precisely why, when you hear preaching or teaching or sharing that does not include sin, it will never lead anyone to real salvation and repentance. Because what are you saving yourself from? What are you being delivered from? What are you being rescued from?
The gospel means good news, and it is good news, but it is preceded by what we perceive to be bad news — a realistic understanding of who we are, which is that we are sinners. It is important that we get that view of sin from God, not from ourselves, because I tend to give myself the benefit of the doubt. I tend to look around and say I am not as bad as her, I am not as bad as him. But God said if you have sinned, if you break a law, you break the law, and the remedy for that is Jesus Christ and Him alone.
The Narrow Gate by the Numbers
Not everyone goes to heaven. Even as a Christian, I had this idea that maybe what God does is something like the PGA Tour — 140 players entered, He takes the top 70 and ties, and half the people get in, and that seems reasonable enough. But remember the statistic we used at Easter? Eighty-one percent of people in this country say they are Christians. When we define Christianity in just its most basic biblical context, that number drops from 81 percent — do you remember? — to seven percent. Seven percent.
Now that starts to line up. Now it sounds like a very narrow gate that is not heavily traveled. And here was my conclusion: if I am smart, I am looking to enter the small, narrow gate that leads to life and the path traveled by very few. That is what I am looking for.
Truth Does Not Depend on Our Opinion
This is an objective truth, and it really does not matter what you think or what I think. Our opinion does not change the truth. There is an old bumper sticker — I have not seen it lately — that says "God is my co-pilot," which drives me nuts. But I saw one the other day that said, "If God is your co-pilot, move over," which made a little more sense, because it is past time for Him to get into the captain's seat.
People say, "God said it, I believe it, that settles it." No — it is irrelevant what you believe. God said it, that settles it. When I was someone who denied Christ and rejected the doctrine of the truth, that did not change the truth. So it is important for us to get our arms around that.
My Heart Breaks for You
Now, right against all of this, one final thing. I know some of you love that hard, narrow material — it is true and you are with it. But if you are sitting here thinking, "Man, I don't know, that is tough," my heart breaks for you, my friend.
The very first time I heard this, a couple had invited Susan and me over to their house for dinner. Their objective — which I did not understand at the time — was to share the gospel with us. So we finish dinner, we are at dessert, and they start in: Jesus is the only way, and so on. It set me off like a rocket. The little lady beside me was done, we were out of there. I grabbed my brownie — I was not about to leave my brownie — and out the door we went.
So if you are sitting here thinking "ouch," my heart aches with you. I understand exactly how you feel. But I am begging you to go beyond your feelings and into the truth. I am begging you to stop, listen, and think clearly.
If you want to raise sincerity as an issue, I will show you sincere people — sincerely wrong people. Hell has in it Baptists and Catholics, and I presume people from East Valley Bible Church, and people who have walked aisles at Billy Graham crusades. Hell is filled with people like that. This is about an intimate relationship with the creator God of the universe, entered down the path and through the gate that He dictates, not the one I might choose.
"I'm Glad It Works for You"
Now hear this — and this especially applies to some of you who became Christians as adults. Your life has changed. You used to drink and do drugs and mess around and steal and cheat and lie and all the rest of it, and now you do not do those things — as much, anyway. There has been a difference. So someone looks at you and says, "Something is different here." And you say, "Let me tell you what changed my life. It was Jesus. It was my intimate relationship with Him."
And here is what they will say. Finish the sentence: "I am happy that you found something that works for you."
it's bitter and it's terrible. I said, really? She said, yeah. I said, I'll try it. And I did. And she was exactly right. It looked like an orange. It had the right color, it had the right shape. But when you cut it open, it was terrible. It was bitter. It was not what it appeared to be. And that's exactly what he's talking about here. You've got to cut the fruit open. You've got to look at what's inside. You can't just look at the exterior.
The Narrow Gate and the Question of Truth
The issue isn't that I found something that works for me. The issue is I found the truth. I'll find Christians who say, "I've put Jesus Christ in the test tube of my life and it works." That's a bad argument. There's a guy over here who's put an orange peel behind his ear, stands on one foot, and it works for him. He's going to say, "This works for me, that works for you — it all works." Does the Christian faith in fact work? Sure it works. It works because it's true. The issue is that it's true, not that it works. That is a very important distinction, and we want to grab hold of it.
Beware of False Prophets
It is not at all a surprise to me that Jesus would say right after that, in verse 15: *"Beware"* — watch out, look out. Who are we looking out for? *"False prophets who come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ravenous wolves."* He said, here are these people. They are described in Scripture as false prophets, false apostles, false brothers, false teachers, false speakers, false witnesses. Jesus warns us all through Scripture: watch out for these people.
He says, "I want you to enter by this gate, don't be misled, and I want you to hear this truth — don't you be misled by these people." He describes them as wolves: merciless, ferocious animals, clever, out to destroy. Can I go back to Matthew chapter 7, verse 1 — "Judge not lest you be judged"? It seems to me that right here what He is saying is, you had better be doing some serious judging. Don't confuse judgment with discernment. He is not saying, listen to everybody who speaks and just pull that little nugget of truth out of there and embrace them. He is saying, watch out for these false prophets. They are dangerous.
I will tell you, I believe the best way to identify a false prophet is to familiarize yourself so well with the real thing that when the false thing comes along, you see it right away. This room right now has in it a dozen, a dozen and a half, two dozen, maybe more people who know this Scripture better than I do. I know that. You know the Greek and some of the Hebrew and you can navigate your way all the way through. And if you want to come up afterwards and ask me questions, I'm not going to pretend otherwise. But I'll tell you what — you are not going to slide any false doctrine by me. I may not be able to answer every question you have and put it all in perspective, but you bring that false teaching in here and I can identify it in a nanosecond. I'll tell you why: I know the real thing. That is what He is saying.
The Real Enemy of the Church
Watch out for these people, and understand something. If you read my mail, you would think the enemy of the church today is the ACLU, Hollywood, television, and the gambling industry. But that is not what He says. He says it is the false prophets who are in the church. That is what Jude says in Jude 4 — *"certain persons have crept in unnoticed."* They are in pulpits and Sunday school classes. They are on the internet and on television. They are all around. They are false prophets in sheep's clothing, trying to come off as though they are one of you, trying to come off as though they are in a position of authority. And indeed in some instances they are in a position of authority, but they do not speak from authority because they speak from their own mind, from their own heart.
And they are persuasive. How do you take people who are in San Francisco — you are Jim Jones — and move them all the way down to South America and then get them to drink the Kool-Aid? How does that work? I'll tell you how it started. It started when he went in and found a group of people who were down and out, disenfranchised, people nobody cared about. He loved them and cared for them. He put schools in, gave them clothes, cleaned them up. He became accepted by the hierarchy of the city of San Francisco. And then, right in the middle of all of that, you slip false teaching in among the people. That is how it works.
Most false teachers come, I think, as men of love. "We love you, man. Life's tough. We're slugging it out together. Just do the best you can. I know you've been beaten up and abused by a church that told you there's only one way — a narrow way and a hard way — but come on, it's 2005. Let me tell you what's really loving." But really loving is not glossing over somebody's sin. Really loving is saying, "Listen, you are a sinner, and your sin has separated you from God, and the only remedy is Jesus." Real love is what Jesus does right here — He tells them the truth.
Identifying False Prophets by Their Fruit
How do I identify these false prophets? Look at verse 16: *"You will recognize them by their fruit."* Look at verse 20: *"You will recognize them by their fruit."* And verses 16 through 19 are all about fruit. He says here is the deal: a cherry tree produces cherries, not grapes. A rose bush produces roses, not tulips. So look at the fruit. And the fruit isn't necessarily just a large crowd — you have to go a little deeper than that. You have to cut it open.
Susan and I moved about two years ago, but in the house we were in for a long time, we had in the backyard a huge tree with thousands of oranges — and I am not exaggerating. I know every time I say this people think it's an exaggeration, but it is not. Thousands of oranges. The limbs would just sag under the weight. The first year we moved in, I picked one and brought it inside to cut it open. Susan said, "You can't eat that." I said, "Why?" She said, "It's an ornamental orange." I said, "What do you mean?" She said, "It's for decoration." I said, "Decorating an orange tree? That doesn't make any sense." She said, "You can't eat that, Tom. It's bitter and it's terrible." I said, "Really?" She said, "Yeah." I said, "I'll try it." And I did. And she was exactly right.
It looked like an orange. It had the right color, it had the right shape. But when you cut it open, it was terrible. It was bitter. It was not what it appeared to be. And that is exactly what He is talking about here. You have to cut the fruit open. You have to look at what is inside. You cannot just look at the exterior.
The Fruit of False Teachers
If you want an orange, I have an orange here. She cut the orange, and there was the orange I could get in a store. But when I cut that ornamental orange, it was absolutely rotten. You could not eat it. That is how it is with some of those false teachers. They look pretty good on a tree. They look pretty good with all the trappings, but once you cut them and see what is really inside, you get a clear view of who they are. They come in all sorts of forms. They come with all sorts of doctrine, all sorts of pet doctrine. Beware.
The Terrifying Words of Judgment
Verse 21 contains what has to be about as frightening a set of words as you could possibly hear. Jesus says, "Not everyone who says to Me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of God." He is talking about the day of judgment. "On that day many will say to Me, 'Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in Your name and cast out demons in Your name and do mighty works in Your name?' And I will declare to them, 'I never knew you. Depart from Me, you workers of lawlessness.'"
He is describing a group of people, and I cannot read into this fully. I do not know if these people are simply self-deceived, whether they thought they were fine and suddenly find themselves at the end saying, "Wait a minute, what is this?" They are pointing to their works — casting out demons, prophesying, doing all these things. And Jesus says, "I never knew you." He is not speaking intellectually. He is saying there was no intimacy of relationship. There was no personal relationship. Depart from Me.
I find these words terrifying. They had never had that intimate relationship with Him. They were self-deceived. And the fruit they produced — even if others had not detected it — He had.
Building on Rock, Not Sand
Verse 24 says, "Everyone then who hears these words of Mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on a rock." Then look at verse 26: "And everyone who hears these words of Mine and does not do them will be like a foolish man who built his house on sand." If I am going to build a house, I do not want to build it on sand. I want to build it on a rock. When the storm comes, when the difficulties come — just the practical things of life, but ultimately the judgment of God — the house on the sand is going to cave. The house on the rock is going to stand.
The Crowd's Incomplete Reaction
Now, if you consider all these words, I do not know how many weeks we have been in this. A dozen, maybe? Jesus sat down and taught all of this in a single teaching to these people. Look at their reaction. "When Jesus finished these sayings, the crowds were astonished at His teaching, for He was teaching them as one who had authority, and not as their scribes." He was not quoting other people. He was saying, "This is Me." And their reaction was amazement.
Let me be clear about something: that is an incomplete reaction. It is not enough to sit here today — fast-forwarding now to East Valley Bible Church, this day in May 2005 — and walk away saying, "Wow, that Jesus, He was quite a preacher. That was an amazing truth." It is not enough to listen and be dazzled. You need to respond.
Entering the Narrow Gate
How do you respond? You enter by the narrow gate. That means there is a point in time — and it may be today for you — where you understand who you are, you understand your sin, and you understand that all of your attempts to appease God are absolutely useless. He is angry over your sin, and there is nothing you can do on your own to satisfy that.
If we sat and talked one-on-one and I asked what you were doing, you might say, "Well, I am doing this and this and this. I am being good." And I would ask you: How good? Who is good? Have you ever sinned even once? Have you ever told a lie? Have you ever driven 56 in a 55? Jesus said that if you break the law, you break the law — you are guilty. The remedy is to come to Him, to believe that Jesus is who He said He was, and to plan your life and your death accordingly.
How do you know if you really believe? One of the ways you know almost instantaneously is that your view of yourself, of God, and of the world begins to change. It may take a while for behavior to fully line up, but you will see it right away. You will see your sin. You will catch yourself in it. Your life begins to change. What is truly important to you begins to change. Your agenda changes. The way you think changes.
Living as a Steward
Consider what it means to be a steward. I hear people say all the time, "I have these things. God has blessed me." Let us work through that carefully. What you have, God has given you. You could not do anything without Him. If everything you have is a gift from God — and by everything I mean your life itself, your time, your energy, your effort, your money — then you have an obligation to Him for how you handle these things. You are a steward, not an owner.
If I reached into my back pocket and pulled out a bill, we commonly say, "This is my money, this is my dollar." But in reality what we are saying is that this is God's dollar, which He has entrusted to me. Whether it is God's dollar entrusted to me, or God's hour entrusted to me, it is God's resource.
Stewardship of What God Has Entrusted
If God has entrusted time, energy, and effort to me, then I am responsible for how I invest those things according to His agenda. So the question is not, "What do I want to do with my life?" but "What do I think God would have me do?" If we are talking about money, it is not how much money do I give to God, but how much of God's money do I keep?
When it comes to time, I am simply amazed by what I see. I have never seen a Star Wars movie — I am probably not the right person to ask, and I cannot even understand what order you are supposed to see them in anymore. But I am amazed that people will go out at midnight, buy tickets in advance, show up early, pay twenty-three dollars for a Nestle's Crunch, and watch the thing. I cannot believe these are the same people who tell me they are too busy and cannot get to a service on time. Maybe we need to start scheduling all our services at midnight on a Wednesday, because apparently that is when everybody has discretionary time they want to invest.
Here is the point: you can do whatever you want to do, if you truly want to do it. That is what He is saying. "If you really love me, you will obey my commandments."
The Mark of Genuine Love for God
If you are not obeying His commandments, you need to stop. I am not here to judge your heart — that is something for you to examine now. But if you are living in disobedience to Him, then according to Him, you are not loving Him.
Does that mean we never sin? Obviously not — we all sin. But when we do sin, we are broken over it and repentant. The attitude He is warning against is the one that says, "Oh, that's fine — I've got this covered. I remember reading somewhere that if I confess, He will forgive me, and He has to, so I'm confessing it." That is exactly what He is speaking against.
A Warning Against False Teachers
When you enter by that narrow gate, when you take communion, when you confess that Jesus is Lord, your life should manifest that truth. And you must watch out for those who are out there telling you there is a way other than through Jesus Christ, because they are lying to you. Whether they are themselves deceived or whether they are sinister in their intent, it really does not matter — the effect is the same. They are dragging you away from the one true God.
This is great truth, and we should not be surprised by it. The greatest sermon ever preached was delivered by the greatest preacher who ever lived — the Sermon on the Mount, taught by Jesus Himself. We continue our study in the life of Christ and will pick up right there next Sunday.
Closing Prayer
Father, help us see this truth. Let it change and transform our lives. God, we love You, because You first loved us. We pray, Father, that as individuals and as a church body, East Valley Bible Church would be a place where we are salt and light in the midst of a very crooked and perverse generation.
In this quest to live in this world, God, let us not become bitter, angry, or harsh. Though we know the truth, may we live and present that truth in a way that is loving, kind, and gentle — because the condition of the messenger does matter. Father, let us live in a way that brings honor and glory to You. We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.