“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” (Matt 7:13-14).
The gate to enter the kingdom of heaven, the Lord’s church, is strait – narrow and restricted. The way is narrow, confined by belief in and obedience to the truth of the gospel. The company is few, but the reward is eternal life in heaven. The one who enters and travels this way is a Christian.
The gate is wide and the ways is broad that leads to eternal punishment in hell. The company is “many” – it’s a crowd.
A crowd or a Christian, which will it be for you?
The way to please God and be saved eternally has always been traveled by the few.
In the days of Noah, the wickedness of man was great in the earth, “but Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord,” for “Noah was a just man, perfect in his generations. Noah walked with God” (Gen 6:8-9). One man and his family – eight souls – saved by water in a “world of the ungodly” (2 Pet 2:5).
In the days of Israel spying out the land of Canaan, two men – Caleb and Joshua – stood out among the twelve spies, as well as among the multitude of Israelites, as men who trusted the Lord to bring them safely into the land of Canaan. The crowd wanted to stone them with stones (Num 14:6-10).
While the crowd of the Jewish council unjustly condemned Jesus to death, one of the council members stood out. Joseph of Arimathea, “a good and just man…had not consented to their counsel and deed,” and he “was waiting for the kingdom of God” (Lk 24:50b-51). He had courage to ask for the body of Jesus, take it down from the cross, wrap it in linen, and lay it in a new tomb.
Perhaps the crowd invites you to go camping on Sunday. But you are a Christian, and you know that you are to “consider one another in order to stir up love and good works, not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together as the manner of some, but exhorting one another, and so much more as you see the Day approaching” (Heb 10:24-25). You are to assemble with the saints on the Lord’s day. The crowd says come with us. The Christian answers no.
Or the crowd invites you to a party with drinking. But you are a Christian, and you know that the Bible condemns more than just drunkenness and excess of wine; it condemns social drinking in I Peter 4:3 in the word translated “drinking parties”. And the wisdom of God teaches us to “not look on the wine when it is red, when it sparkles in the cup, when it swirls around smoothly” (Prov 23:31). And following the wisdom of God is not optional but commanded – Eph 5:15-17. The crowd says come. The Christian answers no.
The crowd invites you to the dance, but you know that dancing is licentiousness – which includes indecent bodily movements and unchaste handling of males and females. And you know that licentiousness is a work of the flesh (Gal 5:19), “and those who are Christ’s have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires” (Gal 5:24). The crowd says come. The Christian answers no.
Christians do not follow the crowd but instead follow Christ and thereby “shine as lights in the world” (Phil 2:15).
A crowd or a Christian. Which will it be for you?
-Larry Jones