"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:
Because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way,
which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it."
(Matthew 7:13-14)
Narrow is the way that leads to life, as Jesus Himself pointedly taught. We all know the expression so well, do we not? But... do we ever stop to really focus upon that word narrow, and consider exactly just HOW narrow the way is? Do we make any sort of measurement in our mind's eye? Do we take it to be something purely subjective, and accordingly to be only as "narrow" as we would personally and comfortably give a thumbs-up to, a stretchable breadth that we can soulishly pull wider than it truly is? MUCH wider, perhaps? And by means of such cavalier manipulation, do we render it - though only in the imagination! - hugely easier to walk than it really is? Friends, we can delude ourselves if we so wish to, but no amount of blissful self-deception can alter reality. Are we ready and willing to look reality in the eye, though? Make no mistake: our eternal destination depends on it!
I am much motivated to aver here, to anyone prepared to receive these words, that the narrow way that the Lord has set before us to follow is no wider than a tightrope, one strung between earth and heaven and above the yawning Abyss. It is the fixed strand of divine high-wire that is the holy Word of God, His ultra-thin line that we either in obedience wisely walk, or we in rebellious folly would pretend is not that narrow and its doctrines can be redefined at will! Could I humbly suggest that the prophesied great Falling Away from the Faith in the Last Days could perhaps be seen as the inevitable tragic outcome of a mass refusal to tread the tightrope before us, in all its actual and unalterable slenderness, with most choosing to plant their feet instead away from the wire on the mere nothingness of an illusory width? Falling, for them, is a foregone conclusion.
We hear much talk of revival, of a mighty End-Times harvest of souls, even bringing in the Kingdom by human effort. Such hype is the empty unScriptural chatter of those who are not on the narrow way, however loudly they might claim to be, but in apostate freefall. Did not Jesus declare that there would not be many, but FEW who find the way of life? Did He not also give us very great food for thought when He asked the loaded rhetorical question, "When the Son of man cometh, shall he find faith on the earth?" (Luke 18:8). Somehow, I rather think that He's not expecting to see very many folks at all faithfully balancing on that scorned tightrope...
One last question to close with. Will you be one of that small number?
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