Matthew chapter seven verses thirteen and fourteen is where we'll be this morning. Matthew seven thirteen and fourteen. But before we read that this morning, there is a poem that I like that I think sort of goes along with the message. Poem written by a man named Robert Frost, one of a few poems not set to song that I particularly enjoy reading. It's called The Road Not Taken and it would seem to work well as an introduction to our message.

However, I'm not very good at reading poetry which is why I don't read a lot of poetry in the services. So, I'm going to ask miss Judy and she's gonna come up here and read the poem for us this morning. Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, and sorry I could not travel both, and be one traveler, long I stood and looked down one as far as I could to where it bent in the undergrowth, And took the other as justice bear and having perhaps the better claim because it was grassy and wanted wear. Though as for that, the passing there had worn them really about the same. And both that morning equally lay on leaves no step had trodden black.

Oh, I felt I kept the first for another day, not knowing how way leads on to way. I doubted if I should ever come back. I shall be telling this with a sigh somewhere ages and ages hence. Two roads diverged as a wood in a wood and I. I took the one less traveled.

And that has made all the difference. Thank you, miss Judy. Now, whether Robert Frost had knowledge of the scriptures which I suspect he had some. I do not know nor whether whether he meant any way to allude to Matthew seven but as you'll see in a moment, the do two do have a bit in common. We are faced with a choice, as this little poem says, between two paths.

One which was more heavily traveled, and one which is not. And being as he could not, choose both and we cannot either. He chose the one less traveled by and he said, that made all the difference. Indeed, there are two paths we'll see here in Matthew chapter seven from the word of God. One, that leads to eternal life and one that leads to eternal destruction and indeed whichever choice you make will make all the what?

We'll all make all the difference in your eternity. Matthew seven thirteen and fourteen. Enter you in at the straight gate for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leadeth to destruction and many there be which go in there at because straight is the gate and narrow is the way which leadeth unto life and few there be that find it. Let's go to the Lord in prayer once more. Thank you Lord for your word today.

May you bless it. May you use it in our hearts. If there be one here today that's has yet to make this choice, to trust you as their Lord and savior to take the narrow road over the broad way. We pray Lord today would be their day of salvation. Help them to understand and to see what you did for them and what you will do for them.

If they will repent and trust you as the Lord and savior of their life today. In Jesus name, we do pray. Amen. The setting of the verses I just read from Matthew seven is an important one. Jesus Christ is preaching a sermon.

Matthew chapter five through seven record this sermon. It's often called the Sermon on the Mount because it takes place on a hill overlooking the Sea Of Galilee in Northern Israel. He is speaking first of all to his disciples but he's also speaking to a crowd that has gathered round. This particular portion in Matthew seven is leading to the conclusion. The conclusion.

Which path are you going to choose? Are you going to choose God's way? Are you going to choose man's way? Are you going to choose as he will later say in Matthew seven to place your eternal faith upon the foundation of God's word, Jesus's words, or on the shifting sand of men. The choice is for you to make.

It is for you to make today. It was for them to make then. God has given us a free will to choose and we must choose and we will be held accountable by God for the choice that we make. The primary purpose or theme of this sermon is concerning that choice. We can trust in our insufficient righteousness or good works to procure favor with God or we can humble our self as sinners and repent before a holy and loving and merciful God and trust Jesus Christ to save us, to change us, and to give us everlasting life.

The choice is yours to make. Just a couple weeks ago, I had to take off fairly suddenly fly to Virginia, to drive to Wisconsin for to take my parents to my aunt's funeral and then come back. And then just a couple days later to drive up to Greenville to get David from school. And I I enjoy driving. I don't as much enjoy flying but I enjoy driving.

So, it wasn't that much of a a trial for me. I I really enjoyed it. Enjoyed time with my parents But as you were driving, you have to make choices. We drove through several cities including Charleston, West Virginia. We drove through Indianapolis, Indiana.

We drove through Chicago. I drove through Atlanta to go back up to Greenville. In regards to these big cities, there are often several choices you can take in order to get through around the city to the destination you're trying to get to. Some of them are filled with traffic going straight through. I used to go straight through Atlanta all the time because it was there were so many lanes and if you hit it in the middle of the day, you could just sail through especially if you could get in the HOV lane they called it.

If you had more than one person and and I like what you kind of weave through the the skyscrapers as you go through Atlanta. I enjoyed that ride but recently, there's construction and and going through Atlanta just isn't a choice. It's all jammed up. If you look on your GPS, it's red all the way through. So, I had to find a different route.

There are other busy roads that go around. There's a beltway that goes around most of these cities that you can take but it's often just as bad as the one that goes straight through these days or you can take little smaller road. Excuse me. You can take little smaller roads that go further out to get you around the city. Some were toll roads and others were free to travel.

Choices, choices. Sometimes, I made the right choices. Sometimes, I made the wrong one. Fortunately, made the right one rather than going around Chicago. We just went straight through and that ended up being a good thing for when we hit Chicago but choices, choices.

In regards to life and eternity, there are also choices which must be made. Christ speaks of them here. There are two paths we see laid here before us in this passage. Let's look a little closer at the illustration Christ used to see how it applies to you and to me. There are two paths.

There is the broad way and there is the narrow way. Let's talk about the Broadway first. The Broadway is by far the busiest pass, bustling with traffic or excited people. Some seemingly confused and others very confident. Some loud and some quiet.

Some in a great hurry. Others just drifting along in no great hurry at all. We call them Sunday drivers. When I'm trying to get to church on Sunday morning, I get behind a Sunday driver who just doesn't care if they ever get where they're going or not. The entrance to the Broadway itself is wide.

Kinda like the interstate going through Atlanta. It accommodates an immense crowd which daily passes through, heading down this busy path. It seems most everybody is taking the Broadway, so it must be the right one. At least that's what we often think. Besides, the Broadway is a nice looking road.

It's newly paved, and it appears to be all downhill. And indeed, it is all downhill. If it is like our roads today, there are many lanes to choose from and many different sites to see along the way. As we drove up to Chicago, we drove through a portion of Indiana. I think it was the other side of Indianapolis that I hadn't hadn't driven in decades and when you got to Indiana when I was a kid and when when I was, I grew up in the mountains in Virginia and so, we lived in the mountains and enjoyed mountains.

It gave you something to look at as you were, you know, traveling by. And get to Indiana and it's just what? Flat. Kinda like what? Florida and except there's something different in Indiana.

There's cornfields. So, I remember as a kid traveling through there and just miles and miles and hours of cornfields. It's like, boy, this is really boring. Nothing but cornfields. No mountains, just flat.

But I sound, I I saw something I'd never seen before this trip and there's these tall things. They were white. They were about 100 feet high and had blades on them that were about 50 feet long and they were called windmills and we traveled one time for 15 miles on the interstate through these giant windmills. It was a sight to behold. We're not going to get into the politics of windmills this morning, okay?

But but it was different to see and a sight I won't soon forget. During the on this Broadway, like that interstate, there are different lanes, there are many different sites, many who travel there on have different destinations which they wish to get to. Some may be on foot, others on bikes, some are driving sports cars, some are in smart cars, others prefer noisy trucks with big wheels. That would be the teenage boys at Keswick Christian School that I hold the sign for in the morning. Some can afford expensive vehicles while others just have to to make do.

But in Christ's illustration, regardless of their plan destination or the vehicle or the lane they chose or whether they are confident or timid and confused, they're all on their way to the same destination, to the same destruction. That's what he tells us here in verse 13. The Broadway leads to destruction. Their chosen path will end suddenly and their doom is sure and if they continue, if they continue on, though they may not see or though they may not believe it around the bend, the road comes to a sudden end. And it goes over a cliff they will plummet to their death eternal death, and a place called the Lake Of Fire.

That is the broad way that leads to destruction but there is a what? There is another way. The narrow way. When we read in verse 14 here, the straight gate, it doesn't mean straight. If you'll notice in King James, it's spelled different than the way we spell straight.

The word straight there is another word for narrow. Two different Greek words for narrow used here in this passage. The gate is narrow. It is small. It's not wide and expansive like the gate on the Broadway.

And the way itself is narrow and not quite as appealing to human nature as the Broadway is. The narrow path at some point turns off the Broadway like a Y in the road beckoning you to make a choice. As you approach the only true exit off this doomed highway of death, you notice an old, small, wooden gate leading to what appears to be a dirt path. It doesn't seem all that appealing as you sail along and indeed, it's easy to pass by without a second thought. Despite the sign over the gate you saw which said, the way of life.

If you do slow down enough to take a closer look, you notice that there are few people going that way and from the outside looking in, the past seems a bit rugged and difficult unlike the big, smooth, downhill Broadway. The narrow way promises life and it warns you of dangers of the Broadway but well, no one's going that way. Certainly, everybody can't be wrong. And there's someone standing at the gate. With whom you must converse before heading down that that path, the gatekeeper.

It seems that he's demanding a toll to take that route while the big highway, well, it's free to all. So, why bother? Indeed, many who hear the gospel passing or go to church a couple of times or have a friend who's a Christian only see what they believe to be a restrictive religion that only denies them the pleasures they seek and so they they zoom on down the highway, on down the Broadway, past it sadly, missing out on the greater pleasures of life that come only in Christ Jesus. Missing out on the freedom. Freedom from the slavery of sin.

And eternal life to come. What is the point of Christ's illustration and what is the point this morning, my friend? It's just more than a quaint poem or a neat illustration. What Christ recorded here in his word, what he said on this hill, in Galilee two thousand years ago is the truth. In life, you only have two choices.

You can stay on the Broadway which leads to death and hell and eternal destruction or you can get off on the narrow way what leads to eternal life and joy. In Jesus Christ. There's really only two choices. Though the enemy wants you to think that there are many choices, many paths you can take. There's really only two and they lead to much different places.

There is God's way. There's God's way. Meaning, the way he has made and the only way that he accepts. It doesn't matter what man thinks. It doesn't matter what your neighbor thinks or your college professor thinks.

It only matters what your creator thinks. It only matters what your creator has provided and revealed to us. He is the only one who chooses the way to come to him. He has chosen that in Jesus Christ. His way is through repentance and faith in Jesus Christ, the sinless son of God who left heaven's glory, who humbled himself and became a man and a servant.

He became obedient unto death even the death of the cross. And he did that for you and me. He died on that cross for the sins of men and women like you and me. He is the gate. He is the gatekeeper.

He is the narrow way. He is the only way to eternal life. John fourteen six, Jesus say it, unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life. No man comes to the father but by me. In John three sixteen, we read, for God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that whoso believes in him should not perish but have everlasting life.

There's your two ways, either perish or have everlasting life. God's way is through his son, Jesus Christ, who sacrificed himself. Why would he do such a thing? If there were other ways. Why would Jesus suffer so if there were other paths that led to heaven and eternal life?

But there is no other path. And that's why Jesus came and suffered in our place. That through repentance and faith in him, we might be forgiven, saved, welcomed into the family of God and onto the narrow path that leads to life. This is God's way and then there's the other way and that's that's man's way. Live for the moment.

Earn a lot of money. Experience all the pleasure. Just ignore the consequences. Just ignore the existence of God or eternity to come or attempt to swage assuage God's wrath by by doing good works. Try to offset the bad with the good.

Or maybe offering some kind of sacrifice to gain peace with false gods or worship idols devised by the mind minds in the hands of men. Doesn't matter which of these lanes you choose on the Broadway, they all lead to the what? They all lead to the same place. You might choose the lane of self righteousness that you know, I'm good enough when the Bible says you're not. For all have sinned and come short of the glory of God.

You might choose the the balance way. Well, if I just do good, more good works than bad, God will certainly let me in. Bible says, if you're guilty in one point as far as God's concerned, you're guilty of what? You're guilty of all. You might you might decide, well, you know, take the path of some other religion and certainly, if I'm just sincere enough, that's all that matters.

Well, it won't be all that matters when you stand before God someday and he looks into the book of life and he doesn't find your name because the only way to get there is through whom? Is through Jesus Christ. It doesn't matter which lane you take. If you're on the Broadway, it still leads all to the same place. Some just get you there a little faster than others.

Proverbs fourteen twelve says, there is a way which seemeth right unto a man but the end thereof are the ways of what? Death. Death. You see, there's God's way and there's man's way. It's our choice.

It's your choice. Which path you want to take? Make sure you take the right one. Jesus described a place we often refer to it as hell. It is a place of perpetual torment.

It is a place of darkness and yet unquenchable flames. A brimstone, meaning molten lava. Where there will be constant wailing and gnashing of teeth as a result of unrelenting pain. This is a place called hell or as John refers to it, the Lake Of Fire. A place from which there is no escape.

If your name is not written in the lamb's book of life. For remind us in Revelation 20 and whosoever was not found written the book of life was cast into the lake of fire. Please, I beg you today, choose the way of life. That is the way that God has made. That is the way that Christ opened for us by his death on the cross and that is the only way.

If you would stop to look closer and drove up to the gate, you would have noticed the gatekeeper. A gatekeeper with what? Scars in his hands Where men drove nails to pin him to the cross of Calvary. Might be reminded of the verse but God commended his love toward us and that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us, for you. Isaiah put it this way but he was wounded for our transgressions.

He was bruised for our iniquities. The chastisement of our peace was upon him and with his stripes, we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray but the Lord hath laid on him, that's Jesus, the iniquity of us all. You would notice that the gatekeeper is not taking something from those who pull up to the gate. Instead, he is offering them something.

You know, it's sad that so many people in life that get a glimpse of the gospel or glimpse at the church or the glimpse of Christianity or God's word. They only see the restrictions. They only see what they think are things that God doesn't want them to have, doesn't want them to do. They don't recognize that what Christ did is not to take something away from us. It's to give us something that we could never have.

But by the grace of God, eternal life. Forgiveness. Life in Christ. Freedom from the slavery of sin that those on the Broadway are bound to. You notice that he is not taking, he is giving.

A ticket to heaven at the other end of the road which is free. Why is it free? It's free because the price was paid but it's not paid by you. It was paid by the one who hung on that cross and suffered there for your sins and mine. Yes, there is a price to be paid to get on the Broadway, on the narrow way.

There is a price to be paid for heaven but you can't pay that price. You do not have the righteousness required to pay the penalty. But Jesus Christ did and he paid it for you and me on the Cross Of Calvary. For the wages of sin is what? Death.

But the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ, our Lord. For by grace are you saved through faith and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast. It's not your work, it's whose work. It's God's work. It's Jesus's work.

It's the work that he did on the cross of Calvary. It's the work that he did when he rose again from the dead. It's the work that he does in our life as he sits there at the right hand of the father, an advocate on high. And receives us and advocates for us who come to him by faith and gives to us everlasting life. You would notice that the path ahead is narrow and a bit rough.

But it's lined with gold bricks, refreshing streams, beautiful fruit trees, leading to a glorious mansion in the hills above. The man at the gate not only offers you entrance free of charge but he offers and he promises to all who enter that he will go with them on the journey and never again leave them alone. For he has said, I will never what? Leave thee nor forsake thee. His name is Jesus.

He offers you this morning this gift and this life and beckons you to turn from your sin. Enter through the gate the grace of God and Jesus Christ the Lord. The way that God has made for you. He pleads but the choice is yours. He will not force.

He will only invite as we do so today. John three sixteen, for God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting life. For God sent not his son into the world to condemn the world but that the world through him might be saved. For he that believeth on him is not condemned. But he that believeth not is condemned already.

Because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten son of God. You see? There's only two what? Only two choices, man's way or God's way and which way have you chosen? Romans ten nine and thirteen.

That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, shall believe in thine heart that God has raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. For whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be saved. I did that when I was nine years old. I haven't been perfect since then. Far from it.

But I have a perfect savior. Who gave his life for me. He always keeps his promises and I know that he will keep his promises to me. And if you're here today and you've never trusted Christ as savior, he hung on that cross for you. He rose again and intercedes in heaven and beckons and invites you to come.

He wants to save your soul and forgive your sins. Which path are you on today? Are you sure? Because one day, nothing else will matter. Only which one of these paths you took.

And I ask you, we all do today out of love, the love of Jesus Christ, that if you are unsure, We sing a hymn of invitation in a moment. Would you come? I'll meet you down here. I'd love to show you from God's word how you can be saved and know it. Let's pray.

Dear heavenly father, thank you Lord. For your word that tells us, reveals to us the way that leads to heaven. Lord, it also warns us of the way that leads to destruction. Lord, I pray if there's one here today that's still on that road. Lord, you love them, you died for them, you'll save their soul.

If they will trust in you today. Lord, I pray they will make that choice. That they would come and trust Jesus Christ alone as the savior of their life. And Lord, I pray for us who know you that are confident of our place on the road that leads to life. I pray as we walk that road that we would remember about all those people that we pass by that are still on the road leading the other direction.

Lord, that we might be burdened for them, that we might take time to share with them that there is a better way. There is a way that leads to life. And we can tell them about it. Lord, I pray that we would. In Jesus precious name.