Four Warnings: Two Gates (Matt 7:13-14) 1 of 4

Jesus ends the Sermon on the Mount with four warnings. This is the first.  


Matthew 7:13-14   13 "Enter through the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the road is easy that leads to destruction, and there are many who take it.  14 For the gate is narrow and the road is hard that leads to life, and there are few who find it. 

Luke 13:23-24   23 Someone asked him, "Lord, will only a few be saved?" He said to them,  24 "Strive to enter through the narrow door; for many, I tell you, will try to enter and will not be able. 


Strive to enter through the narrow gate.  Strive means to make great efforts to achieve or obtain something ... to fight vigorously or to struggle.  But to strive for something, you have to know the goal - what it is you are striving for.  Jesus describes the goal as finding and entering a narrow gate.  Not only is finding the gate hard, but entering it is hard too.

And how do these words mix with Jesus' words just a bit earlier in his sermon that say,   "Ask, and it will be given you; search, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened for you.  For everyone who asks receives, and everyone who searches finds, and for everyone who knocks, the door will be opened" (Matthew 7:7-8)?  Quite a bit of striving (asking, finding, knocking) going on, but these verses seem to say everyone rather than just a few seekers will find and enter the door.

Although these teachings seem to contradict one another, I believe that Jesus is differentiating between the many who pursue knowledge of and control over God (especially seeking ways to gain God's blessings) and the few who are willing to become God's servants.  There are many who seek God's blessings, but few who desire to ask, find, and knock on the door as servants seeking to do the will of God.  We tend to either pursue false gods or we pursue God through rules, theology, and good works (ways to control God's blessings) rather than giving ourselves as servants to God.

Christianity has gotten confused especially here in the Bible belt.  No sidewalk evangelist has ever come up to me and asked, "Would you like to know for sure that you are serving God with your life today?"  Instead, the standard phrase is always, "Would you like to know for sure that you are going to heaven if you died tonight?"   One question demonstrates entering a right relationship with God where one will serve God with their life - the other offers a way to control God often through praying a single prayer that will guarantee a ticket to a place called heaven where every wish will be granted after you die.

Jesus said to them, "Very truly, I tell you, I am the gate for the sheep... I am the gate. Whoever enters by me will be saved, and will come in and go out and find pasture (John 10:7-9).


Jesus is the gate and he is also the way we enter.  But we come in - go out - and find pasture.  We follow him.  It is in following him that we find life in the here and now that matters.