The Two Paths of Life – Dr. Charles Stanley
The Two Paths of Life – Dr. Charles Stanley
God’s Messages 💌
Today…….I am asking all my prayer warriors to say a prayer that may help others. So many people are hurting right now. Many are struggling with finances and need jobs. Some are facing foreclosure and don’t even know how they are going to make it from week to week..
Many are lonely. . Many are heartbroken. . Many are facing sickness and health is fading. . Some are dealing with difficult family members. Many have lost HOPE.. Tonight, let us put our prayers and faith together decree and declare breakthrough over our families. Financial miracles WILL take place. Jobs WILL be found. Our Bodies WILL be made whole & sickness WILL flee. Marriages and relationships WILL be restored. Family members WILL find Jesus. Heartbreaks WILL be healed. JOY WILL be restored and HOPE WILL be found. In Jesus Name. Amen!!!!!! Keep God First…….
You have chosen a path after this point.
If you keep walking the path that you’re walking,
where will it lead you? Will it lead you where you really wanna go?
Where you thought you were going to be by this time in your life.
So it’s so very important you listen carefully because Jesus just cut
it down. They’re only 2.
Today on in touch, the 2 paths of life.
The choices you and I make today determine our tomorrow’s.
That’s why we have to be careful what kind of choices we make in life.
For some people, they make very, very important choices carelessly.
They somehow don’t look beyond today and they don’t look beyond tomorrow. They don’t look beyond the future.
Realizing they’re always consequences to decisions we make.
Would you not agree that probably all of us have made decisions we wish we could
remake, that, uh, decisions made that we probably regret
If we knew what the consequences were, we would never have made that decision.
If we knew where it was going to lead us, we would never make that decision.
So how do you how do you make those choices anyway?
Do you make those choices on the basis of
your the influence
of others, for example, you make those choices in the basis of money or your health Or what what is it, some maybe the opportunity?
Uh, where where does the will of god fit into how you make choices in life?
And I say, again, it’s so very important because we live with them.
In fact, we’ve made choices of what, uh, road are we gonna travel in life And the truth is the path you’re living today is the path upon which you have chosen to walk out your life.
You started back younger a long time ago, and you’ve been on this path so long.
Uh, did you make a decision? Well, that’s how I want my life to work out.
That’s the path I want to live in.
That’s what Jesus said, or did you just sort of find yourself drifting into it?
Well, Jesus is crystal clear about the kind of path we should walk on.
And he is very clear when it comes to making contrast to make it so clear so we know exactly what we can expect.
So I want you to turn to the sermon on the Mount.
5, 6, and 7 chapters of the book of Matthew.
And, uh, once in a while, you’ll find some of your friend who will say now, I don’t believe all the Bible, but I believe the sermon on the Mount.
Well, what that tells you is that they haven’t read it.
Jesus in the sermon on the Mount, in the seventh chapter to, uh, just a couple of verses I want us to read here.
And I want us to explain them before we, uh, get into, uh, further message.
But look at if you will, the thirteenth verse of the seventh chapter.
He says And the word he uses enter here is a command.
He commands us enter through the narrow gate. Now watch this. Through the narrow gate.
Now skip down to the fourteenth verse, where it says the gate, for the gate is small and the way is narrow that leads to life, and there are a few who find it.
For go back now, enter through the narrow gate for the gate is wide and the way is broad that leads to destruction.
So we’re talking about 2 different gates here.
And you have to skip down to see what you want he’s talking about.
So enter the narrow gate, uh, this gate, the gate is small and the way is narrow that leads to life and there are few who find it.
And then, uh, back again, now enter through the narrow gate, then we change the gates for the gate is wide, and the way is broad, and it leads to destruction and there are many people who enter through it.
So what Jesus is simply saying is this, there are only 2 ways to live.
That is we walk the path of righteousness walk the path that’s godly, or we walk the path that’s full of destruction and ruin in a person’s life.
And if you’ll think about it, All of us have chosen a path.
And the path that you and I are living on today is the path that we’ve chosen.
Now you may not have sat down and said, this is the path I’m going to choose, but you chose 1.
You may have found yourself may be influenced in that way or somebody convention persuaded you or whatever the situation.
You’re walking on the path that you’ve chosen. Now the question is this, where is he gonna lead you?
If you keep walking the path that you’re following, where are you going to end up?
You said, well I don’t know.
Don’t you think it’d be wise before you chose a pathway in life to ask yourself the question?
Where will this lead me? What will this get me? How will I end up?
What’s the what’s the final stage of my life? Where am I gonna spend eternity?
You should ask them very sobering questions.
And if you’re on a path today that you wish you were not on, I’ll show you how to get off of it.
If you’re on a path and don’t know why you started it, maybe you’ll find out today.
The important thing is this, you’re walking on a path. You’ve chosen that path.
It has consequences, good or bad, depends on which path it is.
And I want you to listen carefully to this message. It’s interesting in this passage.
For example, if you keep going, you’ll you’ll notice he talks about good trees, bad trees, He talks about, uh, the fruit and so forth and talks about, uh, good foundations and bad foundations.
So When you look at all this, listen to what he says.
He talks about 2 gates, narrow and wide, 2 ways narrow and broad.
2 destinations, life and destruction, 2 groups, few and many. 2 kinds of trees, good and bad.
2 kinds of people who profess faith in Christ, the sincere and the false, 2 kinds of builders, wise and foolish.
2 kinds of foundations rock and sand, and 2 kinds of houses secure and insecure.
And you’ll see that Jesus makes it very, very clear. 2 choices. That’s it.
I have 2 choices in life. So you have chosen a path up to this point.
If you keep walking the path that you’re walking, where will it lead you?
Will it lead you where you really wanna go?
Where you thought you were going to be by this time in your life.
So it’s so very important you listen carefully because Jesus just cut it down. There are only 2.
There’s a path of righteousness, godliness, there’s a path that that leads to destruction, and a path that leads to eternal life.
You say, well, I decide, uh, I’m just gonna go along on this path and change my mind out there somewhere.
Maybe you can,
maybe you can’t. Maybe you will, maybe you won’t. Very important. You listen carefully.
So let’s look at this first path. And, uh, he calls it the Broadway.
So when you look at that, uh, he talks about the wide gate. Now what is he talking about?
He’s talking about that lifestyle and that pathway.
If you choose that wide, then, uh, you can have all kind of diversities of beliefs.
You can believe most anything in the world you want to believe, all kind of philosophies and opinions, and people have all kind of religions and and everything seems to be fine.
And you have your religion. I have mine. But on the path we walk, we don’t criticize each other.
We choose what we believe in life, Uh, we don’t, uh, talk about Jesus necessarily or the Bible.
We just enjoy life and move on on the broad path.
And it’s a place of freedom, and we don’t worry about consequences. That’s the broad wide path.
This is a path he says that’s crowded. And that is he said many are in this path.
And if you’ll look around you, for example, today as a follower of Jesus, in some circles you find yourself in, you have to look for the believer.
You have to find the Christian.
There was a time when most people in this country believed in the lord Jesus Christ, believe the word of god.
That’s no longer true. There are many people in this country who do not even know who Jesus is.
You’d be surprised to people. When you talk about Jesus, they’d say, and I was, uh, talking to someone the other day, And I said, do you have a Bible?
Uh, if I’d have been a bet man, I’d have bet sure he had 1 or 2 or 3 bibles.
And at this point in his life, he said no.
Listen, this is no longer the Christian nation it used to be.
Jesus and the word of god and the Christian does not have the place we used to have.
And what mean what that means is that people have stopped listening to the word of god they have decided to walk a certain way, and that crowd’s getting larger and larger all the time.
They wanna be able to do what they wanna do when they wanna do it. As they wanna do it.
And, uh, they think in their crowd, they’re the strongest and on and on they go.
That’s the broad way. The broadway is ungodly. It’s undisciplined.
It a it allows all kind of things.
You can drink all you wanna drink, gamble all you wanna gamble.
You have all of sexual immorality, you can have it your way. That is, uh, no.
It’s just they they call this the the freeway. It is not the freeway.
Jesus called it the way of destruction. But people today want freedom.
They say I want freedom to do what I wanna do, go where I wanna go.
I don’t want anybody telling me what I can do and what I can’t do. Fine.
That that’s that’s the path. That’s the crowded path. That’s that’s the broad way. That’s the way of the ungodly.
And so if that’s what you want, you can have it.
And Jesus is not going to say to you, no, you can’t do that.
If you wanna live a life that’ll end in destruction, you wanna live a path, walk a path where you’ve got freedom to do what you please.
You tell your parents to forget it. You know what?
Uh, you’re at this point in your life and they’ve raised you.
And now you are free to do what you wanna do.
You can have all kind of sexual affairs you wanna have, drink all you wanna drink, live like you wanna live, party like you wanna party, and all the rest and say, well, that that’s the path I choose. I just wanna warn you.
That path will lead you ultimately to being eternally separated from god.
And the Bible calls the place HELL, hell. I know you don’t like to hear, you don’t wanna hear it.
That’s not what you wanna hear. I’m not here to tell you what you wanna hear.
I’m here to tell you what Jesus said. It depends on where you wanna end up in life.
And it depends on what rules you wanna live by. Maybe you don’t wanna live by any rules.
You don’t want anybody telling you how to live your life.
You have enough money, enough property, enough this, enough friends, and all the rest.
You can’t get anything in the world you want.
But the 1 thing I know you don’t have is you don’t have any peace and a real joy and you have absolutely no security whatsoever.
You could lose everything you have in a split second. You have no assurance.
You you have nothing that you can be confident about.
So you’re living on a path that is a path of destruction.
You’re living on a path that Satan walks. And he encourages others to walk the same path.
The path of freedom, the path of liberty, now you can do what you wanna do when you wanna do it is nobody else’s business, But yours, yes, there is.
You cannot live apart from the knowledge of almighty God.
He knows where you’re headed, why you’re headed there, and he will do his best to keep you off that path, change paths, But if you insist on living that kind of life, you will end up with the consequences that that pathway provides.
Then I think it’s the way of darkness.
You see, uh, if you’ll think about it for a moment, go back to proverbs chapter uh, 4 for a moment.
And, uh, let’s look if you will in the nineteenth verse.
Because you see, if you if you’ll think about this, isn’t it interesting that bars and places like that?
And I guess night clubs haven’t been into any, but the way the world operates, isn’t it interesting that they cut the light down real low that it’s real dark.
You know what? That’s scriptural.
Listen to this. The way of
the wicked is like darkness. They’re walking in darkness because they have shut Christ out of their life.
And when you shut Christ out of your life, Uh, you you’ve got to made your problem.
So look if you will on to John that same. John 03:16. This is the same chapter of John 03:16.
People say Well, I believe in John 03:16, for god so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that whoever believes in him would not perish but have everlasting life.
We’re coming back to belief for a moment. But listen to what in the same chapter people.
So I believe Jesus said that. Well, let me tell you something else Jesus said.
This is the judgment that delight has come into the world speaking of himself, and men love the darkness rather than light because their deeds are evil.
For everyone who does evil hates delight and does not come into delight for fear that the deeds will be exposed.
And this is just a clear teaching of the word of god.
Jesus is, I’m the light of the world. Now watch this.
And he says now when he leaves, you and I are the light of the world.
So that our life is to be a light in the darkened world, a darkened community, wherever you live, a darkened household, you can be a child of god in a household, and everybody else in there is lost.
He says, when he left, we’re the light. And he says, the unbelieving world hates the light.
And I was listening to this atheist on television the other day, and he was being interviewed.
And I thought to myself, I felt sorry for him because he couldn’t answer any question. What do you believe?
Well, You know what? If if if you’re an atheist, what do you believe?
Well, I, I don’t believe I’d ought to have my rights. Well, you have all the rights you want.
But what’s gonna happen when you die? You don’t believe in god? Will you get there?
And wait till you start breathing your last breaths.
You’re gonna want somebody to tell you the truth and tell it to your fast.
All the stuff that you and I hear. We don’t believe in Jesus. We don’t believe in the Bible.
And now, for example, I hear there are eighth churches. So I’m gonna say, what are y’all saying?
What do you talk about? Who’s the leader? What hope do you have? What assurance do you have?
What’s your purpose? In other words, just getting together to do what?
And so Jesus said it’s very clear. There are only 2 paths.
And no matter how you how you classify 1 path or how you decorated.
You can’t decorate it to the point that god accepts the pathway of the wicked.
He does not And you see, it’s also a way of disappointment.
You can’t tell me that anybody is living in sin.
Absolute disobedience to god and who’s happy and contented because it is absolutely a contradiction of emotions.
You cannot live in ungodliness.
You cannot live in deliberate willful sin, knowing that you’re sinning, and you can say, well, I don’t believe it’s a sin.
Yes, you do. Yes, you do. You know the Bible says it’s a sin. Yes, you do. No.
It’s a sin. You’re trying to convince yourself.
It’s not Listen, you’re trying to change god’s mind about what he absolutely, totally, completely condemns.
You’re not gonna change the mind of god about that. He hates sin.
That doesn’t hate the sinner, but he hates sin because of what it does to his children.
He hates sin because of what it’s doing to you. On the path that you have chosen.
That path, the Bible says, he says it’s the path that leads to listen.
Not only disappointment, it’s the pathway that leads to destruction.
And he asks a question in Mark the eighth chapter. Look at that for just a moment.
Dave chapter of Mark beginning in verse 34.
And he summoned the crowd with his disciples and said to them, look at this.
If anyone wishes to come after me, as to follow him, he must deny himself, take up his cross and follow me.
Listen. To become a believer is more than just saying I believe in Jesus.
You can believe in a lot of things.
We have to be clear about what he means about belief.
Then he says, and whoever wishes to save his life will lose it.
But whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospel will save it.
And then he asks this question, I want to challenge you to answer.
What does it profit a man or a woman to gain the whole world and forfeit his soul.
What does it profit a man? For what will a man give in exchange for his soul?
What’s the answer to that? Listen to me carefully.
And I say this not because I’m being critical, but because I’m being honest and biblical. You are foolish.
To live out the path that you’re walking on in absolute disobedience to god, which he says is a path of destruction, denying the presence of Christ, denying the word of god, criticizing and persecuting believers, in order to fulfill whatever those desires are in your life, thinking that somehow 1 of these days, it’s gonna get better.
It’s not going to get better. It’s going to get worse because you’re going to be more and more captivated.
And you’re going to be more and more imprisoned by your habits and your sin and your disobedience to god.
Jesus never spoke anything but the truth.
And what he’s doing in this passage is warning us there are only 2 paths, not 3, but 2 paths.
And he says in this passage that it is a way of destruction, disappointment, darkness, it’s the broad way.
It’s the wide way. It’s the way of the ungodly. Then he says, there is another path.
And and listen to what he says in this passage now. He says enter through the narrow gate.
And how does he say about that?
For this gate is small and the way is narrow, that leads to life, and there are few who find it.
That is comparatively there’ll be few Christians compared to the world’s population, few Christians.
It is our job to get the truth of the knowledge of Christ to everybody on the face of this globe, and that’s what we’re attempting to do, and succeeding at it by the grace of god and the power of god and the work of the Holy Spirit, and many many missionaries, and many many people who are preaching the gospel in every language possible all over the world.
But we’ll always be outnumbered. And what he’s simply saying here is this. This narrow way is just that.
It is the narrow way. And that is, in the narrow way, you don’t have a mixture.
Well, a little bit of this religion, a little bit of that religion.
A little bit of this is okay and a little bit of that’s okay.
You don’t have a mixture of lifestyles. You don’t have a mixture.
Of, uh, attitudes about god, and I believe in this god or that god or the other.
This is the way that Jesus calls all of us to follow.
And when you see that he says it’s narrow, it requires discipline.
If you live a godly life, there’s some things you won’t allow in your life.
And I see parents, for example, who are allowing everything imaginable in their life and in their household, and then they get all upset because their kids get on drugs, and they get on, uh, drinking and sex and everything else.
And you want to ask the parents, well, what what kind of pattern did you set in your home?
What kind of language did you talk about?
Was every 30 fourth word in your in your family a curse word because you just want to be smart And I hear people use words that I would not repeat.
You you’re misused in the name of Jesus, but he is not a word of profanity.
He’s the son of god. The holiest name that there is.
So the narrow way, he says it’s the way of the few.
Jesus said 1 time to his disciples, will you 2 walk away?
His crowd got so small he had just a handful of people following him because they didn’t like the idea of discipling and, uh, your life, your crucified life on the cross, and being obedient to god.
And so you think about this. If you wanna get a crowd, you appeal to the crowd.
What appeals to the crowd, freedom, liberty, have your way. Do it as you please, and everybody enjoy life.
Enjoy life for the moment. But that’s it. It’s so deceptive.
And yet the narrow ways is it’s the way of the few. Few there be that find it.
It’s the way of wisdom, for example. Go back to proverbs again, the fourth chapter. And look what he says.
The narrow way is the way of wisdom. How do you wanna how do you wanna live your life?
How do you wanna walk it out? You wanna walk wisely.
The whole book of proverbs is all about had to live out our life wisely.
Listen to this fourth chapter of proverbs and the tenth verse. He says, hear my son and accept my sayings.
And then, look, watch this, and the years of your life will be many.
I have directed you in the way of wisdom. Look at that. This is what God is saying.
He says, I’ve directed you in the way of wisdom, whether you heard it or not, whether you chose it or not is the path you choose.
I have directed you in the way of wisdom. I have led you in upright paths.
When you when you walk, your steps will not be impeded or hindered.
And if you run, you will, listen, he says, you will not stumble. Take hold of instructions.
Do not let go. God listen, guard her for she is your life.
Do not enter the path of the wicked and do not proceed in the way of evil men.
It can’t be any clearer. There’s a path of wisdom, righteousness, holiness, godliness, It’s a path.
It’s a I didn’t say anything about being easy. There’s nothing easy about living a godly life.
But I’ll tell you 1 thing.
When it comes to what our heart desires, our soul cries out through a peace and joy in heaviness and confidence and assurance and eternal life, and true genuine friendships and all the rest.
That’s the path. Few there’ll be that find it. On the other path, crowds.
You don’t see all the lights and all the glamour on the narrow path, but it’s the right path, a path of wisdom.
And it it’s the path of following Jesus. Listen to what Jesus said.
I am the way the truth and the life no 1 comes to the father, but by me.
Oh, they see. That that’s being narrow minded. It is. It’s very narrow minded. Listen.
Jesus said I am the way the truth and the life no 1 comes to the father, but by me.
Somebody says, well, I don’t believe he’s the only way. Well, let me ask you a couple of questions.
Number 1, if he’s not the only way, how you who’s gonna deal with your sin?
You say, well, my sin’s not so bad. That’s your opinion.
Holy god says your sin’s evil and wicked and vile in his eyes.
What are you gonna do with your sin? Well, I’m just gonna confess it.
Did you know that confessing sin is not what removes the penalty of sin from your life?
You said, well, I go to church and confess my sin every week.
I’ll bet you contest the same thing every week also.
Confessing your sin does not remove it watch this carefully.
When Jesus came to this earth, as the virgin born son of god.
He came sent by the father.
He came sent by the father for the primary purpose of laying down his life on the cross shedding his blood as the ultimate final sacrifice God prophesied out all the way back to the beginning of time.
He laid down his life on the cross, in order for god to be able to forgive you of your sin.
He paid your price. The Bible says that god said the soul that sent it, it shall die.
If there’s no crucifixion, no shedding of blood, There’s no payment for your sin.
This is why the cross is so precious to all of us who believe us. We understand what it is.
It is the symbol of god’s awesome love and payment for the sin of mankind in order for god to be just in order for god to be truthful.
He had to pay our sin debt himself.
Jesus Christ, the son of god, laid down his life on the cross, that satisfied the requirements of god for the penalty of sin.
Therefore, when you trust him as your personal savior, more than just confessing, yeah, I believe in Jesus.
When you trust him as your personal savior, you’re surrendering your life to him.
And you are accepting his forgiveness, not on the basis that you’ve confessed.
You’ve you have accepted his forgiveness on the basis. Jesus died and paid the penalty.
This is why confess confess confess confess confess confess confessing.
You can confess till the day you die, and it’s not gonna do you a
better good.
Until you’re confessing that Jesus Christ is the son of god, the savior of the world, your only hope And he came as a sacrifice in order for you to be forgiven by almighty god.
And on the basis of that, Jesus Christ being the son of god.
Jesus Christ being god in the flesh for those 33 years, he was on the on the earth.
When you trust him as your savior, that means you’re giving up your old way.
You’re surrendering your life to him. That’s the narrow path. That’s the narrow gate.
That’s where the few are because most people want to have religion and liberty.
They want freedom to do anything they want to do, and then go to their god and say, lord, I in Jesus name, forgive me, or whoever they’re praying to.
So I ask you a question. When you confess your sins to god. Do you simply say, lord?
I’m asking you to forgive me in in Jesus’ name or however you say it. Amen.
Or why should he forgive you?
In other words, if you, uh, if you just have a guilty feeling, and you know you’re going to do it again tomorrow, that’s not gonna faschen.
That’s no repentance in that. What did Jesus say? He says, he says, accept the man be born again.
What does that imply? What does that say? There’s gotta be a change.
A new birth is is a new life.
And Paul said, if any man be in Christ, trusted Christ as savior, you’re a new creation.
Old things have passed away behold things have become new.
Because now you have Christ living on the inside of you, enabling you, showing you what is right and giving you the power to live a godly life.
There are only 2 paths. And the path that you’re living today will determine what happens tomorrow.
And I don’t say any of these things to be critical. I’m saying because you need to understand.
Jesus Christ, the son of god will be the 1 every single 1 of us stands before, kneels before, stretched that before, whatever, when we stand in the judgment.
All the stuff that you hear people tell you was gonna be like this.
He says it is appointed unto man once to die and after this, the judgment. There is no escape.
When you and I stand before him, if we have been washed in the blood of Jesus, having trusted him as our savior, surrendered our life to him.
We’re gonna be able to stand before him freely. Only the love of god will be there.
If you reject the son of god, listen to think about this. You reject the only hope you have.
You reject the son of the almighty god who created this world in his atmospheres and everything around his.
You reject him. Whatever your reason for rejecting him, you’ll stand before god and give an account.
And having heard the truth of the gospel, what will you say?
Well, you know, I’ll tell people here’s here’s what I’m gonna say. I’ll tell you what you’re gonna say.
Nothing. You’re not gonna say anything. Listen.
We don’t any of us know how it’s gonna be, but when I think about before Jesus, I wanna stretch out my face on the floor and bury my nose in the carpet.
Just thinking about lying before righteousness, holiness, such glory that Jesus Christ, if listen, if he hadn’t laid aside his glory before he came, uh, nobody would have seen him.
Because the radiance of the glory of perfect purity and righteousness is so bright. Nobody could have seen him.
Nobody could have touched him. Nobody could have felt him.
Nobody could have the eyes would not conceive of it. Sin is sin.
Sin is darkness. And this is what he’s saying. Sin is darkness.
And there are people who say, you know, I just believe somehow that I’m going to get there.
And every once in a while, I’ll hear people say, um, um, well, I I know I’m not perfect and But but I believe somehow, ultimately, we’re all gonna get to heaven.
Let me just say this to you. There is not 1 single bit of reason.
Let blown scripture. There is no reason.
You mean to tell me you think that you’re going to get to heaven with your sin and disobedience and rebellion toward god.
That you’re living a sinful life, that you’re violating the 1 principle after the other, 1 commandment after the other, and somehow 1 of these days, we’re just gonna all get there because God is a god of love.
Let me tell you why you’re not gonna get there.
Uh, you know why you’re not gonna get there because he is a god of love.
If god allowed you to get to heaven, violating his law, violating his principles, if if if he let you get by with that, that wouldn’t be love.
That would be falsehood on the part of god. Everybody is not going to heaven.
There’s only 1 way according to the word of god.
And the reason we do our best to get the gospel to the whole world, we want everybody to hear it.
We want everybody to know the truth. Somebody says, well, uh, what about those folks who’ve never heard?
I’m always listening to that. Let me say 1 word. First of all, that’s not your problem.
Your problem is you’ve heard it. You hear it. You know it. That’s the issue.
Don’t shift it off to somebody else.
And so all this reasoning that goes on, Jesus said I am the way the truth and the life.
No 1 comes to the father, but not me. And I want you to listen to what Jesus said.
In John 08:12, Jesus said to them, I am the light of the world, he who follows me Look at this.
Are you listening to amen? He who follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.
If you’re following Jesus, you’re not gonna walk. You’re not gonna be walking the Broadway.
You’re gonna walk the narrow way as he says in the scripture here.
Where the and he says, few there will be defined.
Now in light of these 2 ways, the broad and the narrow, How do we explain the carnally minded christian?
Now, what’s a carnally minded christian? A currently minded christian is what Paul says in the fleshly.
Cardly minded means that, for example, all of us have some bit of naturalness in us.
That’s why you still have the capacity to sin.
A person who’s walking in the flesh, a person who’s walking in in in the naturalness a person who’s doing what their desires call for them to do.
And so every single 1 of have sinned and asked god to forgive us and cleanse us, and he has.
And all of us will sin at some point in our life.
Go to Galatians chapter 5 And I got a couple of passages I want you to look at.
And, uh, all those have the capacity to sin against him.
But listen to what Paul says, uh, in verse 16 of the fifth chapter.
But I say walk by the spirit. Follow the spirit be obedient to the spirit who’s within you.
And you will not carry out the desires of the flesh.
There’s never gonna be a time when there’s no desire within you whatsoever.
Or when the desires are there.
For example, you and I can, we can say no to those desires that Satan throws against us and taught us.
We have the power to say no.
He says, I say to you, walk by the spirit, and you’ll not carry out the desires of the flesh.
For the flesh that is that naturalness within us sets its desires against the spirit and the spirit against the flesh For these are in opposition to 1 another so that you may not do the things that you please, that is the flesh.
So we have the spirit of god within us to enable us to overcome temptation and being disobedient to god.
Now watch this carefully. I believe it’s not.
You and I may we we may sin here, Cindy or something, but, uh, you know, a person who’s given themselves over to sin on an ongoing continuing basis.
You say, well, were they saved? Well, I had to ask that question. Okay.
Let’s go back to, uh, that passage we read in the beginning, the seventh chapter of uh, Matthew again.
And look if you will in this, twentieth verse, back to Matthew 7 verse 20.
Now I’ll tell you something interesting.
When you for for you who are listening, the wisest thing you could do is to take your Bible with you when you sit down to watch, uh, in touch Uh, when you listen to radio and a pastor, whoever he may be gives you a passage of scripture.
Watch this carefully. It’s 1 thing for you to hear it. It’s something entirely different for you to see it.
Listen to what he says.
So then He says, here’s how you can know the difference between the saved and the unsaved.
So then you will know them by their fruits.
Not everyone who says to me, lord, lord will enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of my father, who is in heaven will enter the heaven.
Many will say to me on that day, lord lord.
Did we not prophecy on your name, in your name, cast out demons, and in your name, perform many miracles very religious.
Listen, these are all religious things going on. So we cast out demons. We did this. We did the other.
And he says, all this in your name. And perform many miracles.
And then I will declare to them I never knew you depart from me, you who do what.
Practice lawlessness. Practice means to do something on an ongoing to continuing basis.
So let me ask you a question.
Is there any sin in your life that you have accepted as a way of life that you practice.
It’s continually a part of your life. You don’t excuse it. You don’t confess it anymore.
It’s just a part of your life, and you’ve rationalized it, and you’ve accepted it as a part of your life.
I’m telling you, you need to ask yourself the question.
Have I ever really and truly been saved with the grace of god?
Now let’s look at this idea of belief for just a moment.
Somebody says, well, I believe in Jesus, what does that mean?
That used to bother me when I first got in the ministry. So I took my Greek Bible.
I started in Matthew. I went all the way through uh, the new testament.
Every time I found the word belief or believe in the Greek, I translated it to see what it says.
Every single time, no exception to believe is a word of action.
If I believe in Jesus Christ, that doesn’t mean I had just given mental assent to it.
I believe and act. And what does that act? I put my life in his hands. I trust him.
I’ve repented my sins. I confess my sins. I repent of my sins. I surrender my life to Jesus Christ.
You can believe a lot of things. You can believe about this and believe about that.
Believe somebody says, well, I believe in him. What does that mean? That you put your trust in him?
Or it can mean a lot of things.
But when you say you believe in Jesus Christ, the new testament word belief is a word of action.
This is why he says, believe on the lord Jesus Christ, and you will be saved.
And I would ask you, do you really and truly have you ever really and truly surrendered your life to Jesus Christ, the son of god, whom he sent into this world, as the only means of set his buying god’s requirement for a for a paying a penalty for sin.
You recall all those sacrifices in the Old Testament, they were they were foreshadowing the coming of Christ.
When he came as the final sacrifice, remember that the Bale in the temple was rent from top to bottom and opened it all up the holy of holies.
Why? Because you and I now have access to god through his son, Jesus Christ.
We don’t have to go through anybody. You don’t have to go through anybody.
Jesus opened the door for you and me to be able to have a personal intimate relationship with god.
But listen to me carefully, when you say you believe in Jesus, you believe what about Jesus?
Do you believe that he’s the son of god?
If you believe that, you will surrender your life to him. Do you believe he was just another man?
That that is a belief that brings you nothing but ultimate destruction.
Jesus Christ is the son of god.
The sacrificial, substitutionary, all sufficient sacrifice for your sins and my sins.
Therefore, if you want to get on the right path, you have to step on the right path by placing your trust in Christ as the crucified savior.
Asking god to forgive you of your sins and surrendering your life to him to follow him all the days of your life.
And let me tell you something else. You can’t straddle a fence on these 2 pathways.
Well, I’m gonna walk over here, and then I’m gonna walk over here. No, you can’t.
There are 2 paths. You’ve chosen 1 already, whichever path that is.
You say, well, how do I get off this path? I’ll tell you.
If you’re willing to acknowledge that Jesus Christ is the son of god.
And you will then acknowledge the fact that god sent him into this world for the purpose of dying on the cross.
In order to shed his blood to to make the payment for your sin and the sin of the world.
You’re willing to believe that Jesus Christ crucified was a sacrificial substitutionary death.
In which, it was for us. You’re willing to believe that he’s the son of god and the savior.
You’re willing to ask him to forgive you of your sins and to repent of those sins.
To turn away from them by the strength and the help and the guidance of the Holy Spirit.
You will learn to turn away from that. You’re willing to surrender your life to him totally.
And believe in that surrender, that confession, that Jesus Christ is forgiving you of your sins, you’re accepting that forgiveness and accepting that he has a brand new life for you, and you’re choosing to walk in that.
He’s takes you right off that old path, puts you on your new path because now you become a new person in Christ.
My friend, believe me. If there were any other way. I would tell you.
I I would tell you. If there’s any other way I would tell you.
But you have to decide whether you believe the word of god or you do
not. So let me just ask you this. You say, well, you know, something
about this Bible that bothers me. And, uh, so let me ask you this.
If you if if if for some reason the Bible bothers you, if you don’t live by this, what are you gonna live by?
I’ll tell you a better question then.
If you don’t die by this, what are you gonna die by?
And where are you gonna spend eternity?
In Jesus’ name, I trust that you’ll be wise enough right now wherever you are.
They ask god to forgive you of your sins, forgive you for your unbelief, forgive you for walking the path you’ve been walking.
But give you for the sin in your life, but give you for all the excuses you’ve made, and all the attempts you’ve made Be quieten your own stinging conscience and tell him that you’re surrendering your life to him.
And today, you wanna become a child of god right now. You can.
This is the only way.
And the god who wrote this Bible will be the god who judges you and me 1 of these days.
That’s why you better stick with the book.
Father, how grateful we are for your love for us.
I think about how many people are traveling a path that’s the path of destruction.
They have lots of encouragement.
To keep following that path, but I pray that the gospel of Jesus will so penetrate their hearts.
They can no longer even live with themselves following
in that path, and they’ll make the decision to step across to the path that you have for them.
It’s narrow Only as many people there, but it’s the way of eternal life, and we praise you for it in Jesus’ name.
Hey, man.
Following the path of Jesus Christ requires discipline Through the strength of the Holy Spirit, believers have the power to say no to sin.
At InTouch dot o r Learn more about god’s love for you and the encouragement his holy word promises.
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Come on guys.
Let’s go. Gonna be late. Mom, is my hammer in my bag? I think so, honey. Bye, mom.
I forgot to take the dog out. That’s okay.
Lovey.
Look you back. Have a good 1.
How?
Dad.
Done.
Have we tried the drill?
I’m with you, buddy. K.
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Well, god is not only holy, but he is an awesomely creative god and reveals himself in different ways.
And, uh, most Sundays, I’ll show you, uh, photograph, not every Sunday.
And, uh, the 1 I wanna show you today It was so cold and we were dressed very, very warm.
It was so cold. We got back in the vehicle. It’s about 2 or 3 times.
And it rained on us and we got back in, got back out.
And, uh, we sort of wanted to leave, but I thought, no, we can’t leave.
Every time I’ve ever left, I was sorry.
So I just said, lord help us to be able to stay here and all of a
sudden this is what we saw.
The heavens declare what the glory of god.
And, uh, you know, oftentimes people will leave just before the glory shines.
That’s why you have to be patient.
We’d be a patient with god, patient with ourselves, patient with others and certainly patient with nature.
And so I thought you might like that this morning, and I’ll tell you just encourage me.
Naturally that does because when I’m photographing, I’ve you can mark this down.
I got you in mind
because I like to show them not to say, look at me, but to see, what god’s up to.
Leading people worldwide into a growing relationship with Jesus Christ and strengthening the local church.
In touch with Doctor. Charles Stanley is a presentation of in touch ministries This program is made possible by the grace of god and your faithful prayers and gifts.
If you keep walking the path that you’re walking,
where will it lead you? Will it lead you where you really wanna go?
Where you thought you were going to be by this time in your life.
So it’s so very important you listen carefully because Jesus just cut
it down. They’re only 2.
Today on in touch, the 2 paths of life.
The choices you and I make today determine our tomorrow’s.
That’s why we have to be careful what kind of choices we make in life.
For some people, they make very, very important choices carelessly.
They somehow don’t look beyond today and they don’t look beyond tomorrow. They don’t look beyond the future.
Realizing they’re always consequences to decisions we make.
Would you not agree that probably all of us have made decisions we wish we could
remake, that, uh, decisions made that we probably regret
If we knew what the consequences were, we would never have made that decision.
If we knew where it was going to lead us, we would never make that decision.
So how do you how do you make those choices anyway?
Do you make those choices on the basis of
your the influence
of others, for example, you make those choices in the basis of money or your health Or what what is it, some maybe the opportunity?
Uh, where where does the will of god fit into how you make choices in life?
And I say, again, it’s so very important because we live with them.
In fact, we’ve made choices of what, uh, road are we gonna travel in life And the truth is the path you’re living today is the path upon which you have chosen to walk out your life.
You started back younger a long time ago, and you’ve been on this path so long.
Uh, did you make a decision? Well, that’s how I want my life to work out.
That’s the path I want to live in.
That’s what Jesus said, or did you just sort of find yourself drifting into it?
Well, Jesus is crystal clear about the kind of path we should walk on.
And he is very clear when it comes to making contrast to make it so clear so we know exactly what we can expect.
So I want you to turn to the sermon on the Mount.
5, 6, and 7 chapters of the book of Matthew.
And, uh, once in a while, you’ll find some of your friend who will say now, I don’t believe all the Bible, but I believe the sermon on the Mount.
Well, what that tells you is that they haven’t read it.
Jesus in the sermon on the Mount, in the seventh chapter to, uh, just a couple of verses I want us to read here.
And I want us to explain them before we, uh, get into, uh, further message.
But look at if you will, the thirteenth verse of the seventh chapter.
He says And the word he uses enter here is a command.
He commands us enter through the narrow gate. Now watch this. Through the narrow gate.
Now skip down to the fourteenth verse, where it says the gate, for the gate is small and the way is narrow that leads to life, and there are a few who find it.
For go back now, enter through the narrow gate for the gate is wide and the way is broad that leads to destruction.
So we’re talking about 2 different gates here.
And you have to skip down to see what you want he’s talking about.
So enter the narrow gate, uh, this gate, the gate is small and the way is narrow that leads to life and there are few who find it.
And then, uh, back again, now enter through the narrow gate, then we change the gates for the gate is wide, and the way is broad, and it leads to destruction and there are many people who enter through it.
So what Jesus is simply saying is this, there are only 2 ways to live.
That is we walk the path of righteousness walk the path that’s godly, or we walk the path that’s full of destruction and ruin in a person’s life.
And if you’ll think about it, All of us have chosen a path.
And the path that you and I are living on today is the path that we’ve chosen.
Now you may not have sat down and said, this is the path I’m going to choose, but you chose 1.
You may have found yourself may be influenced in that way or somebody convention persuaded you or whatever the situation.
You’re walking on the path that you’ve chosen. Now the question is this, where is he gonna lead you?
If you keep walking the path that you’re following, where are you going to end up?
You said, well I don’t know.
Don’t you think it’d be wise before you chose a pathway in life to ask yourself the question?
Where will this lead me? What will this get me? How will I end up?
What’s the what’s the final stage of my life? Where am I gonna spend eternity?
You should ask them very sobering questions.
And if you’re on a path today that you wish you were not on, I’ll show you how to get off of it.
If you’re on a path and don’t know why you started it, maybe you’ll find out today.
The important thing is this, you’re walking on a path. You’ve chosen that path.
It has consequences, good or bad, depends on which path it is.
And I want you to listen carefully to this message. It’s interesting in this passage.
For example, if you keep going, you’ll you’ll notice he talks about good trees, bad trees, He talks about, uh, the fruit and so forth and talks about, uh, good foundations and bad foundations.
So When you look at all this, listen to what he says.
He talks about 2 gates, narrow and wide, 2 ways narrow and broad.
2 destinations, life and destruction, 2 groups, few and many. 2 kinds of trees, good and bad.
2 kinds of people who profess faith in Christ, the sincere and the false, 2 kinds of builders, wise and foolish.
2 kinds of foundations rock and sand, and 2 kinds of houses secure and insecure.
And you’ll see that Jesus makes it very, very clear. 2 choices. That’s it.
I have 2 choices in life. So you have chosen a path up to this point.
If you keep walking the path that you’re walking, where will it lead you?
Will it lead you where you really wanna go?
Where you thought you were going to be by this time in your life.
So it’s so very important you listen carefully because Jesus just cut it down. There are only 2.
There’s a path of righteousness, godliness, there’s a path that that leads to destruction, and a path that leads to eternal life.
You say, well, I decide, uh, I’m just gonna go along on this path and change my mind out there somewhere.
Maybe you can,
maybe you can’t. Maybe you will, maybe you won’t. Very important. You listen carefully.
So let’s look at this first path. And, uh, he calls it the Broadway.
So when you look at that, uh, he talks about the wide gate. Now what is he talking about?
He’s talking about that lifestyle and that pathway.
If you choose that wide, then, uh, you can have all kind of diversities of beliefs.
You can believe most anything in the world you want to believe, all kind of philosophies and opinions, and people have all kind of religions and and everything seems to be fine.
And you have your religion. I have mine. But on the path we walk, we don’t criticize each other.
We choose what we believe in life, Uh, we don’t, uh, talk about Jesus necessarily or the Bible.
We just enjoy life and move on on the broad path.
And it’s a place of freedom, and we don’t worry about consequences. That’s the broad wide path.
This is a path he says that’s crowded. And that is he said many are in this path.
And if you’ll look around you, for example, today as a follower of Jesus, in some circles you find yourself in, you have to look for the believer.
You have to find the Christian.
There was a time when most people in this country believed in the lord Jesus Christ, believe the word of god.
That’s no longer true. There are many people in this country who do not even know who Jesus is.
You’d be surprised to people. When you talk about Jesus, they’d say, and I was, uh, talking to someone the other day, And I said, do you have a Bible?
Uh, if I’d have been a bet man, I’d have bet sure he had 1 or 2 or 3 bibles.
And at this point in his life, he said no.
Listen, this is no longer the Christian nation it used to be.
Jesus and the word of god and the Christian does not have the place we used to have.
And what mean what that means is that people have stopped listening to the word of god they have decided to walk a certain way, and that crowd’s getting larger and larger all the time.
They wanna be able to do what they wanna do when they wanna do it. As they wanna do it.
And, uh, they think in their crowd, they’re the strongest and on and on they go.
That’s the broad way. The broadway is ungodly. It’s undisciplined.
It a it allows all kind of things.
You can drink all you wanna drink, gamble all you wanna gamble.
You have all of sexual immorality, you can have it your way. That is, uh, no.
It’s just they they call this the the freeway. It is not the freeway.
Jesus called it the way of destruction. But people today want freedom.
They say I want freedom to do what I wanna do, go where I wanna go.
I don’t want anybody telling me what I can do and what I can’t do. Fine.
That that’s that’s the path. That’s the crowded path. That’s that’s the broad way. That’s the way of the ungodly.
And so if that’s what you want, you can have it.
And Jesus is not going to say to you, no, you can’t do that.
If you wanna live a life that’ll end in destruction, you wanna live a path, walk a path where you’ve got freedom to do what you please.
You tell your parents to forget it. You know what?
Uh, you’re at this point in your life and they’ve raised you.
And now you are free to do what you wanna do.
You can have all kind of sexual affairs you wanna have, drink all you wanna drink, live like you wanna live, party like you wanna party, and all the rest and say, well, that that’s the path I choose. I just wanna warn you.
That path will lead you ultimately to being eternally separated from god.
And the Bible calls the place HELL, hell. I know you don’t like to hear, you don’t wanna hear it.
That’s not what you wanna hear. I’m not here to tell you what you wanna hear.
I’m here to tell you what Jesus said. It depends on where you wanna end up in life.
And it depends on what rules you wanna live by. Maybe you don’t wanna live by any rules.
You don’t want anybody telling you how to live your life.
You have enough money, enough property, enough this, enough friends, and all the rest.
You can’t get anything in the world you want.
But the 1 thing I know you don’t have is you don’t have any peace and a real joy and you have absolutely no security whatsoever.
You could lose everything you have in a split second. You have no assurance.
You you have nothing that you can be confident about.
So you’re living on a path that is a path of destruction.
You’re living on a path that Satan walks. And he encourages others to walk the same path.
The path of freedom, the path of liberty, now you can do what you wanna do when you wanna do it is nobody else’s business, But yours, yes, there is.
You cannot live apart from the knowledge of almighty God.
He knows where you’re headed, why you’re headed there, and he will do his best to keep you off that path, change paths, But if you insist on living that kind of life, you will end up with the consequences that that pathway provides.
Then I think it’s the way of darkness.
You see, uh, if you’ll think about it for a moment, go back to proverbs chapter uh, 4 for a moment.
And, uh, let’s look if you will in the nineteenth verse.
Because you see, if you if you’ll think about this, isn’t it interesting that bars and places like that?
And I guess night clubs haven’t been into any, but the way the world operates, isn’t it interesting that they cut the light down real low that it’s real dark.
You know what? That’s scriptural.
Listen to this. The way of
the wicked is like darkness. They’re walking in darkness because they have shut Christ out of their life.
And when you shut Christ out of your life, Uh, you you’ve got to made your problem.
So look if you will on to John that same. John 03:16. This is the same chapter of John 03:16.
People say Well, I believe in John 03:16, for god so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that whoever believes in him would not perish but have everlasting life.
We’re coming back to belief for a moment. But listen to what in the same chapter people.
So I believe Jesus said that. Well, let me tell you something else Jesus said.
This is the judgment that delight has come into the world speaking of himself, and men love the darkness rather than light because their deeds are evil.
For everyone who does evil hates delight and does not come into delight for fear that the deeds will be exposed.
And this is just a clear teaching of the word of god.
Jesus is, I’m the light of the world. Now watch this.
And he says now when he leaves, you and I are the light of the world.
So that our life is to be a light in the darkened world, a darkened community, wherever you live, a darkened household, you can be a child of god in a household, and everybody else in there is lost.
He says, when he left, we’re the light. And he says, the unbelieving world hates the light.
And I was listening to this atheist on television the other day, and he was being interviewed.
And I thought to myself, I felt sorry for him because he couldn’t answer any question. What do you believe?
Well, You know what? If if if you’re an atheist, what do you believe?
Well, I, I don’t believe I’d ought to have my rights. Well, you have all the rights you want.
But what’s gonna happen when you die? You don’t believe in god? Will you get there?
And wait till you start breathing your last breaths.
You’re gonna want somebody to tell you the truth and tell it to your fast.
All the stuff that you and I hear. We don’t believe in Jesus. We don’t believe in the Bible.
And now, for example, I hear there are eighth churches. So I’m gonna say, what are y’all saying?
What do you talk about? Who’s the leader? What hope do you have? What assurance do you have?
What’s your purpose? In other words, just getting together to do what?
And so Jesus said it’s very clear. There are only 2 paths.
And no matter how you how you classify 1 path or how you decorated.
You can’t decorate it to the point that god accepts the pathway of the wicked.
He does not And you see, it’s also a way of disappointment.
You can’t tell me that anybody is living in sin.
Absolute disobedience to god and who’s happy and contented because it is absolutely a contradiction of emotions.
You cannot live in ungodliness.
You cannot live in deliberate willful sin, knowing that you’re sinning, and you can say, well, I don’t believe it’s a sin.
Yes, you do. Yes, you do. You know the Bible says it’s a sin. Yes, you do. No.
It’s a sin. You’re trying to convince yourself.
It’s not Listen, you’re trying to change god’s mind about what he absolutely, totally, completely condemns.
You’re not gonna change the mind of god about that. He hates sin.
That doesn’t hate the sinner, but he hates sin because of what it does to his children.
He hates sin because of what it’s doing to you. On the path that you have chosen.
That path, the Bible says, he says it’s the path that leads to listen.
Not only disappointment, it’s the pathway that leads to destruction.
And he asks a question in Mark the eighth chapter. Look at that for just a moment.
Dave chapter of Mark beginning in verse 34.
And he summoned the crowd with his disciples and said to them, look at this.
If anyone wishes to come after me, as to follow him, he must deny himself, take up his cross and follow me.
Listen. To become a believer is more than just saying I believe in Jesus.
You can believe in a lot of things.
We have to be clear about what he means about belief.
Then he says, and whoever wishes to save his life will lose it.
But whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospel will save it.
And then he asks this question, I want to challenge you to answer.
What does it profit a man or a woman to gain the whole world and forfeit his soul.
What does it profit a man? For what will a man give in exchange for his soul?
What’s the answer to that? Listen to me carefully.
And I say this not because I’m being critical, but because I’m being honest and biblical. You are foolish.
To live out the path that you’re walking on in absolute disobedience to god, which he says is a path of destruction, denying the presence of Christ, denying the word of god, criticizing and persecuting believers, in order to fulfill whatever those desires are in your life, thinking that somehow 1 of these days, it’s gonna get better.
It’s not going to get better. It’s going to get worse because you’re going to be more and more captivated.
And you’re going to be more and more imprisoned by your habits and your sin and your disobedience to god.
Jesus never spoke anything but the truth.
And what he’s doing in this passage is warning us there are only 2 paths, not 3, but 2 paths.
And he says in this passage that it is a way of destruction, disappointment, darkness, it’s the broad way.
It’s the wide way. It’s the way of the ungodly. Then he says, there is another path.
And and listen to what he says in this passage now. He says enter through the narrow gate.
And how does he say about that?
For this gate is small and the way is narrow, that leads to life, and there are few who find it.
That is comparatively there’ll be few Christians compared to the world’s population, few Christians.
It is our job to get the truth of the knowledge of Christ to everybody on the face of this globe, and that’s what we’re attempting to do, and succeeding at it by the grace of god and the power of god and the work of the Holy Spirit, and many many missionaries, and many many people who are preaching the gospel in every language possible all over the world.
But we’ll always be outnumbered. And what he’s simply saying here is this. This narrow way is just that.
It is the narrow way. And that is, in the narrow way, you don’t have a mixture.
Well, a little bit of this religion, a little bit of that religion.
A little bit of this is okay and a little bit of that’s okay.
You don’t have a mixture of lifestyles. You don’t have a mixture.
Of, uh, attitudes about god, and I believe in this god or that god or the other.
This is the way that Jesus calls all of us to follow.
And when you see that he says it’s narrow, it requires discipline.
If you live a godly life, there’s some things you won’t allow in your life.
And I see parents, for example, who are allowing everything imaginable in their life and in their household, and then they get all upset because their kids get on drugs, and they get on, uh, drinking and sex and everything else.
And you want to ask the parents, well, what what kind of pattern did you set in your home?
What kind of language did you talk about?
Was every 30 fourth word in your in your family a curse word because you just want to be smart And I hear people use words that I would not repeat.
You you’re misused in the name of Jesus, but he is not a word of profanity.
He’s the son of god. The holiest name that there is.
So the narrow way, he says it’s the way of the few.
Jesus said 1 time to his disciples, will you 2 walk away?
His crowd got so small he had just a handful of people following him because they didn’t like the idea of discipling and, uh, your life, your crucified life on the cross, and being obedient to god.
And so you think about this. If you wanna get a crowd, you appeal to the crowd.
What appeals to the crowd, freedom, liberty, have your way. Do it as you please, and everybody enjoy life.
Enjoy life for the moment. But that’s it. It’s so deceptive.
And yet the narrow ways is it’s the way of the few. Few there be that find it.
It’s the way of wisdom, for example. Go back to proverbs again, the fourth chapter. And look what he says.
The narrow way is the way of wisdom. How do you wanna how do you wanna live your life?
How do you wanna walk it out? You wanna walk wisely.
The whole book of proverbs is all about had to live out our life wisely.
Listen to this fourth chapter of proverbs and the tenth verse. He says, hear my son and accept my sayings.
And then, look, watch this, and the years of your life will be many.
I have directed you in the way of wisdom. Look at that. This is what God is saying.
He says, I’ve directed you in the way of wisdom, whether you heard it or not, whether you chose it or not is the path you choose.
I have directed you in the way of wisdom. I have led you in upright paths.
When you when you walk, your steps will not be impeded or hindered.
And if you run, you will, listen, he says, you will not stumble. Take hold of instructions.
Do not let go. God listen, guard her for she is your life.
Do not enter the path of the wicked and do not proceed in the way of evil men.
It can’t be any clearer. There’s a path of wisdom, righteousness, holiness, godliness, It’s a path.
It’s a I didn’t say anything about being easy. There’s nothing easy about living a godly life.
But I’ll tell you 1 thing.
When it comes to what our heart desires, our soul cries out through a peace and joy in heaviness and confidence and assurance and eternal life, and true genuine friendships and all the rest.
That’s the path. Few there’ll be that find it. On the other path, crowds.
You don’t see all the lights and all the glamour on the narrow path, but it’s the right path, a path of wisdom.
And it it’s the path of following Jesus. Listen to what Jesus said.
I am the way the truth and the life no 1 comes to the father, but by me.
Oh, they see. That that’s being narrow minded. It is. It’s very narrow minded. Listen.
Jesus said I am the way the truth and the life no 1 comes to the father, but by me.
Somebody says, well, I don’t believe he’s the only way. Well, let me ask you a couple of questions.
Number 1, if he’s not the only way, how you who’s gonna deal with your sin?
You say, well, my sin’s not so bad. That’s your opinion.
Holy god says your sin’s evil and wicked and vile in his eyes.
What are you gonna do with your sin? Well, I’m just gonna confess it.
Did you know that confessing sin is not what removes the penalty of sin from your life?
You said, well, I go to church and confess my sin every week.
I’ll bet you contest the same thing every week also.
Confessing your sin does not remove it watch this carefully.
When Jesus came to this earth, as the virgin born son of god.
He came sent by the father.
He came sent by the father for the primary purpose of laying down his life on the cross shedding his blood as the ultimate final sacrifice God prophesied out all the way back to the beginning of time.
He laid down his life on the cross, in order for god to be able to forgive you of your sin.
He paid your price. The Bible says that god said the soul that sent it, it shall die.
If there’s no crucifixion, no shedding of blood, There’s no payment for your sin.
This is why the cross is so precious to all of us who believe us. We understand what it is.
It is the symbol of god’s awesome love and payment for the sin of mankind in order for god to be just in order for god to be truthful.
He had to pay our sin debt himself.
Jesus Christ, the son of god, laid down his life on the cross, that satisfied the requirements of god for the penalty of sin.
Therefore, when you trust him as your personal savior, more than just confessing, yeah, I believe in Jesus.
When you trust him as your personal savior, you’re surrendering your life to him.
And you are accepting his forgiveness, not on the basis that you’ve confessed.
You’ve you have accepted his forgiveness on the basis. Jesus died and paid the penalty.
This is why confess confess confess confess confess confess confessing.
You can confess till the day you die, and it’s not gonna do you a
better good.
Until you’re confessing that Jesus Christ is the son of god, the savior of the world, your only hope And he came as a sacrifice in order for you to be forgiven by almighty god.
And on the basis of that, Jesus Christ being the son of god.
Jesus Christ being god in the flesh for those 33 years, he was on the on the earth.
When you trust him as your savior, that means you’re giving up your old way.
You’re surrendering your life to him. That’s the narrow path. That’s the narrow gate.
That’s where the few are because most people want to have religion and liberty.
They want freedom to do anything they want to do, and then go to their god and say, lord, I in Jesus name, forgive me, or whoever they’re praying to.
So I ask you a question. When you confess your sins to god. Do you simply say, lord?
I’m asking you to forgive me in in Jesus’ name or however you say it. Amen.
Or why should he forgive you?
In other words, if you, uh, if you just have a guilty feeling, and you know you’re going to do it again tomorrow, that’s not gonna faschen.
That’s no repentance in that. What did Jesus say? He says, he says, accept the man be born again.
What does that imply? What does that say? There’s gotta be a change.
A new birth is is a new life.
And Paul said, if any man be in Christ, trusted Christ as savior, you’re a new creation.
Old things have passed away behold things have become new.
Because now you have Christ living on the inside of you, enabling you, showing you what is right and giving you the power to live a godly life.
There are only 2 paths. And the path that you’re living today will determine what happens tomorrow.
And I don’t say any of these things to be critical. I’m saying because you need to understand.
Jesus Christ, the son of god will be the 1 every single 1 of us stands before, kneels before, stretched that before, whatever, when we stand in the judgment.
All the stuff that you hear people tell you was gonna be like this.
He says it is appointed unto man once to die and after this, the judgment. There is no escape.
When you and I stand before him, if we have been washed in the blood of Jesus, having trusted him as our savior, surrendered our life to him.
We’re gonna be able to stand before him freely. Only the love of god will be there.
If you reject the son of god, listen to think about this. You reject the only hope you have.
You reject the son of the almighty god who created this world in his atmospheres and everything around his.
You reject him. Whatever your reason for rejecting him, you’ll stand before god and give an account.
And having heard the truth of the gospel, what will you say?
Well, you know, I’ll tell people here’s here’s what I’m gonna say. I’ll tell you what you’re gonna say.
Nothing. You’re not gonna say anything. Listen.
We don’t any of us know how it’s gonna be, but when I think about before Jesus, I wanna stretch out my face on the floor and bury my nose in the carpet.
Just thinking about lying before righteousness, holiness, such glory that Jesus Christ, if listen, if he hadn’t laid aside his glory before he came, uh, nobody would have seen him.
Because the radiance of the glory of perfect purity and righteousness is so bright. Nobody could have seen him.
Nobody could have touched him. Nobody could have felt him.
Nobody could have the eyes would not conceive of it. Sin is sin.
Sin is darkness. And this is what he’s saying. Sin is darkness.
And there are people who say, you know, I just believe somehow that I’m going to get there.
And every once in a while, I’ll hear people say, um, um, well, I I know I’m not perfect and But but I believe somehow, ultimately, we’re all gonna get to heaven.
Let me just say this to you. There is not 1 single bit of reason.
Let blown scripture. There is no reason.
You mean to tell me you think that you’re going to get to heaven with your sin and disobedience and rebellion toward god.
That you’re living a sinful life, that you’re violating the 1 principle after the other, 1 commandment after the other, and somehow 1 of these days, we’re just gonna all get there because God is a god of love.
Let me tell you why you’re not gonna get there.
Uh, you know why you’re not gonna get there because he is a god of love.
If god allowed you to get to heaven, violating his law, violating his principles, if if if he let you get by with that, that wouldn’t be love.
That would be falsehood on the part of god. Everybody is not going to heaven.
There’s only 1 way according to the word of god.
And the reason we do our best to get the gospel to the whole world, we want everybody to hear it.
We want everybody to know the truth. Somebody says, well, uh, what about those folks who’ve never heard?
I’m always listening to that. Let me say 1 word. First of all, that’s not your problem.
Your problem is you’ve heard it. You hear it. You know it. That’s the issue.
Don’t shift it off to somebody else.
And so all this reasoning that goes on, Jesus said I am the way the truth and the life.
No 1 comes to the father, but not me. And I want you to listen to what Jesus said.
In John 08:12, Jesus said to them, I am the light of the world, he who follows me Look at this.
Are you listening to amen? He who follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.
If you’re following Jesus, you’re not gonna walk. You’re not gonna be walking the Broadway.
You’re gonna walk the narrow way as he says in the scripture here.
Where the and he says, few there will be defined.
Now in light of these 2 ways, the broad and the narrow, How do we explain the carnally minded christian?
Now, what’s a carnally minded christian? A currently minded christian is what Paul says in the fleshly.
Cardly minded means that, for example, all of us have some bit of naturalness in us.
That’s why you still have the capacity to sin.
A person who’s walking in the flesh, a person who’s walking in in in the naturalness a person who’s doing what their desires call for them to do.
And so every single 1 of have sinned and asked god to forgive us and cleanse us, and he has.
And all of us will sin at some point in our life.
Go to Galatians chapter 5 And I got a couple of passages I want you to look at.
And, uh, all those have the capacity to sin against him.
But listen to what Paul says, uh, in verse 16 of the fifth chapter.
But I say walk by the spirit. Follow the spirit be obedient to the spirit who’s within you.
And you will not carry out the desires of the flesh.
There’s never gonna be a time when there’s no desire within you whatsoever.
Or when the desires are there.
For example, you and I can, we can say no to those desires that Satan throws against us and taught us.
We have the power to say no.
He says, I say to you, walk by the spirit, and you’ll not carry out the desires of the flesh.
For the flesh that is that naturalness within us sets its desires against the spirit and the spirit against the flesh For these are in opposition to 1 another so that you may not do the things that you please, that is the flesh.
So we have the spirit of god within us to enable us to overcome temptation and being disobedient to god.
Now watch this carefully. I believe it’s not.
You and I may we we may sin here, Cindy or something, but, uh, you know, a person who’s given themselves over to sin on an ongoing continuing basis.
You say, well, were they saved? Well, I had to ask that question. Okay.
Let’s go back to, uh, that passage we read in the beginning, the seventh chapter of uh, Matthew again.
And look if you will in this, twentieth verse, back to Matthew 7 verse 20.
Now I’ll tell you something interesting.
When you for for you who are listening, the wisest thing you could do is to take your Bible with you when you sit down to watch, uh, in touch Uh, when you listen to radio and a pastor, whoever he may be gives you a passage of scripture.
Watch this carefully. It’s 1 thing for you to hear it. It’s something entirely different for you to see it.
Listen to what he says.
So then He says, here’s how you can know the difference between the saved and the unsaved.
So then you will know them by their fruits.
Not everyone who says to me, lord, lord will enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of my father, who is in heaven will enter the heaven.
Many will say to me on that day, lord lord.
Did we not prophecy on your name, in your name, cast out demons, and in your name, perform many miracles very religious.
Listen, these are all religious things going on. So we cast out demons. We did this. We did the other.
And he says, all this in your name. And perform many miracles.
And then I will declare to them I never knew you depart from me, you who do what.
Practice lawlessness. Practice means to do something on an ongoing to continuing basis.
So let me ask you a question.
Is there any sin in your life that you have accepted as a way of life that you practice.
It’s continually a part of your life. You don’t excuse it. You don’t confess it anymore.
It’s just a part of your life, and you’ve rationalized it, and you’ve accepted it as a part of your life.
I’m telling you, you need to ask yourself the question.
Have I ever really and truly been saved with the grace of god?
Now let’s look at this idea of belief for just a moment.
Somebody says, well, I believe in Jesus, what does that mean?
That used to bother me when I first got in the ministry. So I took my Greek Bible.
I started in Matthew. I went all the way through uh, the new testament.
Every time I found the word belief or believe in the Greek, I translated it to see what it says.
Every single time, no exception to believe is a word of action.
If I believe in Jesus Christ, that doesn’t mean I had just given mental assent to it.
I believe and act. And what does that act? I put my life in his hands. I trust him.
I’ve repented my sins. I confess my sins. I repent of my sins. I surrender my life to Jesus Christ.
You can believe a lot of things. You can believe about this and believe about that.
Believe somebody says, well, I believe in him. What does that mean? That you put your trust in him?
Or it can mean a lot of things.
But when you say you believe in Jesus Christ, the new testament word belief is a word of action.
This is why he says, believe on the lord Jesus Christ, and you will be saved.
And I would ask you, do you really and truly have you ever really and truly surrendered your life to Jesus Christ, the son of god, whom he sent into this world, as the only means of set his buying god’s requirement for a for a paying a penalty for sin.
You recall all those sacrifices in the Old Testament, they were they were foreshadowing the coming of Christ.
When he came as the final sacrifice, remember that the Bale in the temple was rent from top to bottom and opened it all up the holy of holies.
Why? Because you and I now have access to god through his son, Jesus Christ.
We don’t have to go through anybody. You don’t have to go through anybody.
Jesus opened the door for you and me to be able to have a personal intimate relationship with god.
But listen to me carefully, when you say you believe in Jesus, you believe what about Jesus?
Do you believe that he’s the son of god?
If you believe that, you will surrender your life to him. Do you believe he was just another man?
That that is a belief that brings you nothing but ultimate destruction.
Jesus Christ is the son of god.
The sacrificial, substitutionary, all sufficient sacrifice for your sins and my sins.
Therefore, if you want to get on the right path, you have to step on the right path by placing your trust in Christ as the crucified savior.
Asking god to forgive you of your sins and surrendering your life to him to follow him all the days of your life.
And let me tell you something else. You can’t straddle a fence on these 2 pathways.
Well, I’m gonna walk over here, and then I’m gonna walk over here. No, you can’t.
There are 2 paths. You’ve chosen 1 already, whichever path that is.
You say, well, how do I get off this path? I’ll tell you.
If you’re willing to acknowledge that Jesus Christ is the son of god.
And you will then acknowledge the fact that god sent him into this world for the purpose of dying on the cross.
In order to shed his blood to to make the payment for your sin and the sin of the world.
You’re willing to believe that Jesus Christ crucified was a sacrificial substitutionary death.
In which, it was for us. You’re willing to believe that he’s the son of god and the savior.
You’re willing to ask him to forgive you of your sins and to repent of those sins.
To turn away from them by the strength and the help and the guidance of the Holy Spirit.
You will learn to turn away from that. You’re willing to surrender your life to him totally.
And believe in that surrender, that confession, that Jesus Christ is forgiving you of your sins, you’re accepting that forgiveness and accepting that he has a brand new life for you, and you’re choosing to walk in that.
He’s takes you right off that old path, puts you on your new path because now you become a new person in Christ.
My friend, believe me. If there were any other way. I would tell you.
I I would tell you. If there’s any other way I would tell you.
But you have to decide whether you believe the word of god or you do
not. So let me just ask you this. You say, well, you know, something
about this Bible that bothers me. And, uh, so let me ask you this.
If you if if if for some reason the Bible bothers you, if you don’t live by this, what are you gonna live by?
I’ll tell you a better question then.
If you don’t die by this, what are you gonna die by?
And where are you gonna spend eternity?
In Jesus’ name, I trust that you’ll be wise enough right now wherever you are.
They ask god to forgive you of your sins, forgive you for your unbelief, forgive you for walking the path you’ve been walking.
But give you for the sin in your life, but give you for all the excuses you’ve made, and all the attempts you’ve made Be quieten your own stinging conscience and tell him that you’re surrendering your life to him.
And today, you wanna become a child of god right now. You can.
This is the only way.
And the god who wrote this Bible will be the god who judges you and me 1 of these days.
That’s why you better stick with the book.
Father, how grateful we are for your love for us.
I think about how many people are traveling a path that’s the path of destruction.
They have lots of encouragement.
To keep following that path, but I pray that the gospel of Jesus will so penetrate their hearts.
They can no longer even live with themselves following
in that path, and they’ll make the decision to step across to the path that you have for them.
It’s narrow Only as many people there, but it’s the way of eternal life, and we praise you for it in Jesus’ name.
Hey, man.
Following the path of Jesus Christ requires discipline Through the strength of the Holy Spirit, believers have the power to say no to sin.
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Come on guys.
Let’s go. Gonna be late. Mom, is my hammer in my bag? I think so, honey. Bye, mom.
I forgot to take the dog out. That’s okay.
Lovey.
Look you back. Have a good 1.
How?
Dad.
Done.
Have we tried the drill?
I’m with you, buddy. K.
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Well, god is not only holy, but he is an awesomely creative god and reveals himself in different ways.
And, uh, most Sundays, I’ll show you, uh, photograph, not every Sunday.
And, uh, the 1 I wanna show you today It was so cold and we were dressed very, very warm.
It was so cold. We got back in the vehicle. It’s about 2 or 3 times.
And it rained on us and we got back in, got back out.
And, uh, we sort of wanted to leave, but I thought, no, we can’t leave.
Every time I’ve ever left, I was sorry.
So I just said, lord help us to be able to stay here and all of a
sudden this is what we saw.
The heavens declare what the glory of god.
And, uh, you know, oftentimes people will leave just before the glory shines.
That’s why you have to be patient.
We’d be a patient with god, patient with ourselves, patient with others and certainly patient with nature.
And so I thought you might like that this morning, and I’ll tell you just encourage me.
Naturally that does because when I’m photographing, I’ve you can mark this down.
I got you in mind
because I like to show them not to say, look at me, but to see, what god’s up to.
Leading people worldwide into a growing relationship with Jesus Christ and strengthening the local church.
In touch with Doctor. Charles Stanley is a presentation of in touch ministries This program is made possible by the grace of god and your faithful prayers and gifts.
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