Matthew 7:13: “Enter ye in at the strait gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat:” The highway to Hell has few honest way markers and many false ones. Though it is one way, it has been given many names along its vast expanse. It is made to appear in a multitude of unique ways for an endless number of individuals bent on charting their own personal path through life. It is a broad way of deceit. The majority of humanity travels this route in the footsteps of the majority that came before them lock in step with the masses without realizing they are synchronized, conformed, and confined more than any puritanical Christian ever could be. The broad way provides only the illusion of variation without the substance. All the various expressions offered are beneath the surface anthropocentric, and self-reliant. They all place the weight of responsibility squarely upon our shoulders, and that immense weight only hampers one’s ability to move freely. We are less ourselves as we seek ourselves. The more we look to ourselves the more our true individuality fades under pressures to be more than we are made to be.
The Vice of Broadness
This is the picture the God-Man paints for us of the state of our race. Unrivaled insight speaks with authority to a truth we could not hope to see otherwise. It is the following of self, the denial of God’s truth revealed in the Bible that is the dreaded lockstep of the masses. It is immorality, rather than morality which confines the soul to a prison of conformity. It is the way that seems wide that destroys all those who walk it.
When true believers are criticized for being in lockstep, it is at best the pot calling the kettle black. It is displacement on a large scale. It is a facet of the grand delusion that afflicted us all. We cannot believe their claims, we must believe that claim made by the Greatest Authority.
It is the few who willingly submit themselves to the boundaries of a narrow way that find an abundance of life. It is those who accept a definite morality who travel most freely. It is the followers of Christ who are most unique in this world. It is after all the singular person of Christ that actuates the faith and the singular revelation of the Bible which informs it. It is the narrowness of the Way that sets it apart from all others.
It seems incredible, but it makes perfect sense when we consider that this the way which is the designed by our Creator to bring life. The Creator calls us back to Himself by grace through faith in Christ, re-aligning us to the reality of our total dependence on Him. He is most glorified by this total dependence, and as He is glorified, we are actualized. When His glory is our focus, we ourselves gain. It is the precise focus that sets Christianity apart.
This distinction ought to be embraced, championed, and touted before the world as a wonderful distinction. We ought not to try to make the way wider, for that broad way leads only to destruction. The narrow must remain narrow, as narrow as the person of Christ and work of Christ. The narrow way must remain precisely and intently focused on the glory of God revealed to us by the wonderful revelation of His gospel as unfolded in Scripture.
The situation is ironic, but more than this it is tragic. We were all part of the tragic procession and would be still if not for the grace of God. Therefore, we have not only to maintain the narrow way but also to announce it by deed and by words to everyone that by all means some may find it and live. More than that we must hold the narrowness for our own good. More still, we must hold the narrowness for the glory of God.
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