Imagine standing at a crossroads. Before you are two gates.
One gate is wide and inviting, leading to a broad, easy road filled with crowds of people.
The other gate is small and almost hidden, leading to a narrow and difficult path, traveled by only a few people.
Which would you choose?
Jesus spoke about these gates in Matthew 7:13-14, “Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it.”
1. The Wide Gate, the Broad Road, the Fatal Destiny
Our Lord’s solemn warning here shatters all illusions of neutrality. Every soul is on one of two roads.
The wide gate and broad road, represent the way of the world. This path is easy, accommodating, and popular. It is a path where we can hold onto our sins, and ignore the demands of Jesus. It allows for pride, selfishness, ease, indulgence, comfort, compromise, lust, and worldliness. There are no demands to take up our cross and follow Jesus, and no requirements to swim against the tide of sinful culture. It accommodates every fleshly desire, every prideful ambition, and every worldly philosophy. There are no boundaries to restrain the lusts of the heart.
And tragically, it is crowded. “MANY enter through it.” Religious hypocrites walk here. So do those who scoff at truth; and those who presume that they are saved by their infant baptism, or a passing profession of faith; and those who never pause to consider eternity.
This road may glitter with pleasures and success, but it leads to the blackness of darkness forever. “There is a way that seems right to a man, but in the end it leads to death!” (Proverbs 14:12) Hell is the dreadful destination of the broad road: a place of conscious, eternal punishment–the just wages of sin.
What a tragic paradox: a road that seems so pleasant and right, but ends so wrong!
2. The Narrow Gate, the Narrow Road, the Glorious Destiny
In contrast, Jesus beckons His hearers to strive to enter through the narrow gate, and walk on the narrow road. This path demands something radical. It calls for repentance, surrender, and unwavering allegiance to the Lord Jesus. To enter it, we must leave behind the baggage of sin, pride, and self-importance. The narrow road isn’t crowded, because it’s so costly. It requires us to reject the fleeting pleasures of sin and the applause of the world. To walk the narrow road means choosing holiness over compromise, obedience over convenience, and truth over comfort. It’s a road marked by discipline, perseverance, and difficulty. It excludes all self-righteousness, all human merit, all worldly baggage. One must enter stripped of pride, broken in spirit, and trusting in Christ alone.
The road beyond the gate is narrow–it is the way of holiness, obedience, self-denial, and cross-bearing. It is not popular. It is not comfortable. But it is the only path that leads to life–glorious, everlasting life in the presence of God. Few find it, because few are willing to forsake all to follow Christ. Yet for those who do, there awaits an eternal weight of glory that far outweighs the afflictions of the journey.
The narrow way ends in Heaven–a place where sin is no more, where Christ is all in all, and where the redeemed shall dwell with Him forever.
Which road are you on? The end of your path is no mystery–it is plainly revealed in Scripture.
“Make every effort to enter through the narrow door, because many, I tell you, will try to enter, and will not be able to!” Luke 13:24
Spurgeon: It will be an awful thing to have come up to the very gate of Heaven, and to have looked in, and to have seen the feast and heard the music, and then to be shut out! There will be weeping and gnashing of teeth among religious people, as well as among the openly profane! There are thousands who imagine that they are saved, who will awake in eternity to find themselves undone forever!
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