https://resources.ccphilly.org/SAM770

PROLOGUE: Jesus tells the people that the way to God is like narrow gate, many will try to enter but not all will get in. The way is narrow because there are no other alternatives, not because God doesn’t want all to come.

Luke 13:22-31

The Narrow Door

²² He went on his way through towns and villages, teaching and journeying toward Jerusalem. ²³ And someone said to him, “Lord, will those who are saved be few?” And he said to them, ²⁴ “Strive to enter through the narrow door. For many, I tell you, will seek to enter and will not be able. ²⁵ When once the master of the house has risen and shut the door, and you begin to stand outside and to knock at the door, saying, ‘Lord, open to us,’ then he will answer you, ‘I do not know where you come from.’ ²⁶ Then you will begin to say, ‘We ate and drank in your presence, and you taught in our streets.’ ²⁷ But he will say, ‘I tell you, I do not know where you come from. Depart from me, all you workers of evil!’ ²⁸ In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth, when you see Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and all the prophets in the kingdom of God but you yourselves cast out. ²⁹ And people will come from east and west, and from north and south, and recline at table in the kingdom of God. ³⁰ And behold, some are last who will be first, and some are first who will be last.”

Lament over Jerusalem

³¹ At that very hour some Pharisees came and said to him, “Get away from here, for Herod wants to kill you.”

NOTES TYPED FROM JOE’S TEACHING

 He has set his face like a flint to go to Jerusalem.  That realization is coloring everything he does and says. Within a few months he will be gone. Crucified, risen, descended.  He will satisfy all the just demands of the law in his death.  He is heading towards Jerusalem. Everything he says is set in that context.  He had said things they had never heard.  Things the self-religious Jews had never heard nor ever expected. They thought that were the inheritors of all the promises of God. They felt entitled to all God had because they were Abraham’s genetic children and they were headed towards a kingdom and banquet because of their bloodline. Jesus says, no, this is by faith, not birth.  He is being straightforward with them now. He knows his time is short.

If we could see him and hear the tone of voice, we might understand why this man stops him and says “are you telling me only a few will enter in?”  The world thinks it is an authority on who will enter heaven. “all roads lead to heaven, I am a good person….”  But no one goes to the authority who does know and determines who will go.  People turn God into a universalist. All roads will lead to God.  They are right…but not the way they want to be.  All will stand before him, either in the blood of Jesus or in the cloak of their own righteousness.  Those not found in the book of life will be cast into the lake of fire.  When you get before God you want to stand before him as savior, not as judge.  God is not inclusive or broad.  He will offend our fallen sensibilities. 

The man who asks this is a Jew.  He heard the voices of the religious leaders, but he has the need to come to Jesus to hear the truth.  He understood reality was standing in front of him. “²² He went on his way through towns and villages, teaching and journeying toward Jerusalem. ²³ And someone said to him, “Lord, will those who are saved be few?””

Today we are all without excuse because Jesus said when he went away the Holy Spirit would come, and He would convict (convince) the world of sin and of righteousness and of the judgment to come.  Of sin because they believed not in Him. 

Jesus answers: And he said to them, ²⁴ “Strive to enter through the narrow door. For many, I tell you, will seek to enter and will not be able.”

Jesus says basically, don’t speculate about who will be saved and who won’t. That is none of your business. It is your responsibility to strive to enter in the proper way.  Don’t worry about everyone else. What is going to happen in your life.  There is a narrow gate…earlier he had said enter the straight gate, same word, narrow. (Matt 7:13-14 ¹³ “Enter by the narrow gate. For the gate is wide and the way is easy^[a] that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many. ¹⁴ For the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few.).  Sometimes we don’t remember that few are going to find the way because we are part of the Christian community, and it seems like everyone is saved…that there are a lot of people who are saved.  And there will be many who will come, but in light of all the people who have lived throughout human history it is still few compared to the many.

He is not saying striving will help you to get in, he is saying strive (with earnestness, with genuineness) to find the entrance to the kingdom. The way is not narrow to exclusion, it is narrow in its exclusiveness. Not to exclude others. All who do come must enter through that narrow gate.  Be genuine in the desire to enter in, to understand how to enter.  The very exclusiveness of the way in is what makes it simple. There is one way to be saved, not a multitude of ways.  People, because of their sinful nature, want to make up their own rules about how to get to heaven.  If we were going to Kalamazoo we wouldn’t get into the car and say, it doesn’t matter which road I take because they all lead to Kalamazoo.   Here we are talking about eternity.  You don’t score in a football game by almost getting into the end zone. You don’t win a game by almost scoring.  If I go to the drug store, I want to know that they know what they are doing. You don’t want the Pharmacist to say, hey, we have these pink pills or these blue and yellow ones, why don’t you try these? We don’t want to go to surgery and have the surgeon say, hey, I took a few other things out while I was in there. We want them to operate by the rules. In an airplane you must land somewhere, not anywhere. You don’t want your pilot saying, I am going to try one of those Hudson River landings. Yet, when it comes to eternity, people don’t want any hard and fast rules. 

¹⁴ For the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few. ²⁵ When once the master of the house has risen and shut the door, and you begin to stand outside and to knock at the door, saying, ‘Lord, open to us,’ then he will answer you, ‘I do not know where you come from.’

There is an inevitable limit to opportunity to be saved. There is an open door that will one day be shut.  When that door is shut there is no later, there is only too late. Like Noah’s ark.  There were 120 years and then one day the door was shut and once it was shut that was it, it was done.  Foolish and wise virgins…once the door was shut there was no getting in. IN the Jewish culture you had the right to do that. If you had a feast that started at a certain time, and you decided to lock your door at a certain time then those who came after that did not get in.  (JOE DOES A GOOD JOB OF DESCRIBING ALL THE OTHER DOORS)

²⁶ Then you will begin to say, ‘We ate and drank in your presence, and you taught in our streets.’ ²⁷ But he will say, ‘I tell you, I do not know where you come from. Depart from me, all you workers of evil!’

Everyone says they want justice. But, justice plus sin equals judgment. We don’t want justice, we want mercy. Jesus said you are either for me or against me. You either accepted me or you rejected me. 

 ²⁸ In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth, when you see Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and all the prophets in the kingdom of God but you yourselves cast out. ²⁹ And people will come from east and west, and from north and south, and recline at table in the kingdom of God. ³⁰ And behold, some are last who will be first, and some are first who will be last.”

Jesus nails salvation down to pure truth and truth is unyielding and impatient.  That’s why it is truth.  Israel received the oracles of God. They and they alone out of the whole world. They had Jerusalem, the only place sanctioned for worship. In the days of Jesus there were 40,000 rabbis, 22,000 priests.  In the center of those 22,000 priests were the Aaronic priests. In the middle of them was the Sanhedrin. In the middle of the Sanhedrin was Nicodemus and yet Jesus remarks with awe that Nicodemus did not know the truth of being born again.

QUESTION:

1. This hard line in the sand gives us an urgency to proclaim the gospel. How does the looming hard line in the sand of the end times affect that urgency?
2. What part of this teaching struck your heart the hardest? Why?