The Sermon on the Mount: The Narrow and Wide Gates

In the twentieth of his series on the Sermon on the Mount, Pastor Shane deals with a difficult passage about the choices we make and how it impacts our eternal destiny. Click here for the recording of this 7/27/25 Service, and you can fast-forward to 26:02 to get to the start of the sermon.

Our text comes from Matthew Chapter 7.13-14

13 Enter through the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the way is broad that leads to destruction, and there are many who enter through it.

14 For the gate is narrow and the way is constricted that leads to life, and there are few who find it.

Introduction

• Apostasy, in the context of the US Church is the abandonment or renunciation of Christian faith by individuals or groups who were previously considered Christians- a decisive turning away from core Christian beliefs and practices

• Apostasy is a voluntary and conscious abandonment of Christian faith, often involving a rejection of core doctrines and a departure from the Christian community. 

Causes of apostasy

• unbelief, or rejection of biblical truth

• persecution, suffering

• false teachings

• a decline in spiritual commitment 

Examples

• Theological liberalism

• The social gospel

• Compromise with secular culture

• Fragmentation and division

What I have witnessed in the US church since June of 1981

• The rise of the worship experience in church simultaneous with the decline of biblical preaching

• Along with this, a division over music styles

• Moral cowardice in the pulpit (as a preacher, I can either do my job, or keep my job, but I can’t do both)

• The rise of therapeutic moralistic deism

• The rise of consumers and the decline of contributors

• Postmodernism and the death of objective truth

v13a

• Jesus admonishes his listeners to enter through the narrow (stenos- constricted, straight) gate

• a gate (pule) was an entry point into a town or a house, something with which his audience would have been familiar

• This is the one the hearer needs to enter

v13b

• The gate is wide (platus- broad, spread over a wide space, flat, level)

• The way (hodos- road) is broad, spacious

• This path leads to destruction, (apōleia- destruction, ruin, waste)

• There are many who enter through this gate

v14

• The gate is narrow and the way is constricted that leads to life (zoe, eternal life)

• Few find (heuriskō- discover, obtain) this

Some questions when approaching a text like this

1. do you believe it to be literally true?

2. Are you a universalist? (all will be saved)

3. Are you an annihilationist? (all will be destroyed)

4. Are you a therapeutic, moralistic deist? (there is a god, who generally wants me to be good and happy)

5. Upon what do you base your decision?

6. Choose wisely- you will spend eternity with the consequences of your choice

Practical application

1. You and I make choices in response to the Bible every day

2. Life choices have eternal consequences

3. Far too many people live only in, and for, the moment, not thinking about eternity and the big picture

4. Many choose a pleasant lie about their own spiritual condition rather than the painful truth