Preached July 2,1989, evening service New Winchester Missionary Baptist Church Danville, Indiana
Dr. Arthur G. Ferry, Jr., Pastor
An assistant to former Ohio State coach Woody Hayes once
told how he and another coach were looking out a window one day
and saw Coach Hayes slowly easing into the last empty space in
the parking lot, barely wide enough for a car. But he couldn't
get out of the car once it was parked. There weren't more than
four inches alongside and he couldn't open either door. A moment
passed, and then he backed the car out. Now, as they stared in
disbelief, Hayes got out of the car, walked to the rear, planted
his hands on the trunk and slowly, grimly, pushed the car back
into the space. We aren't told how he got back into the car
later. Maybe the cars on either side moved.
I suppose if you are determined, no space is too narrow.
Except one. Jesus says in our lesson for today, "Strive to enter
by the narrow door; for many, I tell you, will seek to enter and
will not be able...."
THE DOOR THAT LEADS TO LIFE IS A NARROW ONE.
That is the
first thing we need to see this morning. In Matthew's Gospel the
matter is stated even more starkly. This time Jesus speaks of a
gate rather than a door. "Enter by the narrow gate; for the gate
is wide and the way is easy that leads to destruction..."
Someone has diagrammed the narrow gate and the wide gate
as two open-ended triangles. One triangle is like a teepee with
no base. The open end represents the "wide gate" which appears
to lead to freedom: anything goes, anyone can come in. But the
freedom is an illusion. As a person moves on through life, the
walls close in--like the two standing sides of the triangle.
The other triangle is like a V. The point at the bottom
represents the narrow gate. Once we enter that gate, we discover
that life opens up for us more and more, until finally we reach
the "end" and find it is eternity in the freedom and grace of
God! (1) One of the great truths of life is expressed here. The
door to life is a narrow one.
FOR EXAMPLE, EDUCATION IS A NARROW DOOR.
There is a lot
of concern about education nowadays. Jaime O'Neill is a college
teacher in Washington. He decided to give his students a basic
facts test; not trick questions, mind you, but a simple test to
illustrate to his students that they needed to get serious about
learning. Here's what he found from a survey of college
students.
"Ralph Nader is a baseball player. Charles Darwin
invented gravity. Christ was born in the 16th century. J. Edgar
Hoover was a 19th-century president...The Great Gatsby was a
magician in the 1930's. Franz Joseph Haydn was a songwriter who
lived during the same decade. Sid Caesar was an early Roman
emperor. Mark Twain invented the cotton gin...Jefferson Davis
played guitar for the Jefferson Airplane. Benito Mussolini was
a Russian leader of the 18th century; Dwight D. Eisenhower came
earlier, serving as a president during the 17th
century...Socrates (was an) American Indian chieftan...."
The professor goes on, "My students were equally creative
in their understanding of geography. They knew, for instance,
that Managua is the capital of Vietnam, that Cape Town is in the
United States, and that Beirut is in Germany... Camp David is in
Israel, and Stratford-on-Avon is in Grenada. Gdansk is in
Ireland...Belfast was variously located in Egypt, Germany,
Belgium and Italy. Leningrad was transported to Jamaica;
Montreal to Spain."
Many schools are in crisis. I like what comedian Joe
Hickman said, "At first I wanted to be a cop, but you have to be
6'1", know karate, and carry a gun. Then I thought I'd be a
schoolteacher, but you have to be 6'1", know karate, and carry a
gun." Maybe it's not that bad yet most places, but we do have
problems in our schools. Each of us has a stake in education. In
today's world we need all the educated leaders we can develop.
Education is one of those narrow doors that lead to
limitless horizons. The more education you have, the greater your
options. It is one of those crucial paradoxes of life. A young
man quits school because he wants to be free. At first it's
great! No studies. Sleep late. Earn money. As time passes,
however, he is consigned to that increasingly narrow band of jobs
reserved for the unskilled. He has entered the inverted teepee
that gets narrower all the time.
If he had stayed with his studies just a little bit
longer--if he had made it through the narrow door of
education--he would have had a world of opportunity. If he still
wanted to work at a low-paying unskilled job, he could. However,
now he would have the freedom to choose. Education is a narrow
door that leads to almost limitless horizons.
PHYSICAL FITNESS IS ALSO A NARROW DOOR.
You might not
expect that in a sermon. We usually put our emphasis on the
spiritual in church. But the body we inhabit is a gift from God.
It is not to be abused by neglect or by chemicals. How marvelous
this piece of machinery is, but like any piece of equipment it
must be used properly. Like education it is a matter of freedom.
Neglect or abuse of the body is a wide door that narrows quickly,
if we are not careful. Many of us could be as fit as many
twenty-year-olds on up into our 60s and 70s if we entered the
narrow door of fitness. Instead we become couch potatoes. We eat
too much. We drink too much. And the road grows more and more
narrow.
We become like one poor fellow who always wanted to look
like a Greek god. As time went on, however, he looked more like
a Greek restaurant.
One doctor came up with what he called a miracle diet
pill. He explained to an overweight patient, "These pills are not
to be swallowed at all. You just spill them on the floor twice a
day, then you pick them up and put them back on the shelf one at
a time."
We laugh because it hurts so much. Meanwhile our physical
world grows ever more narrow. We get winded when we climb one
flight of stairs. We become spectators rather than participants.
Physical fitness is a narrow door with an almost limitless
horizon.
THERE ARE MANY NARROW DOORS.
Marriage is one of those
doors. We start off thinking variety is the spice of life. And
when we are young and courting that is the way it ought to be.
But there comes a time in our life when we narrow our choices to
one special person, because we know that in a good marriage,
there is a growing happiness, contentment, compatibility.
In business there are numerous narrow doors. Honesty.
Dependability. Hard work. We know that eventually there is a
pay-off behind each one.
Narrow doors--limitless horizons. Jesus said, "Strive to
enter by the narrow door; for many, I tell you, will seek to
enter and will not be able."
Jesus was talking about a very specific door, of
course--the door of the Kingdom. There are two things we need to
see this morning about that important door.
FIRST OF ALL, IT IS
WIDE ENOUGH FOR ALL WHO WOULD TO ENTER.
There is nothing
exclusive about the Kingdom. Who we are, what we've done, where
we come from--none of that matters.
There is a story about a little girl who had a large
collection of dolls, of every description. It was obvious that
her dolls brought her much pleasure. A visitor asked her which of
her dolls was her favorite. "Just a moment," she said as she
rushed into another room. In a moment she was back with a doll
that would have been rejected by Goodwill. One of the eyes was
off, the cloth hair was hanging by a single thread, the dress was
worn and dirty, one shoe was missing. The visitor was surprised.
"Why do you love this doll so much?" she asked. The little girl
answered shyly, "Because if I didn't nobody else would."
The love of God is something like that. It is available
to everyone. There is no snob appeal to the Gospel. The Kingdom
is big enough for everybody.
HOWEVER, THE DOOR TO THE KINGDOM IS A NARROW ONE.
Grace
is free, but it is not cheap. There are some choices that must be
made. There was once a man who lived in Northampton, England, who
would attend Anglican Church one Sunday and the Methodist Church
the next. The people of the Anglican Church invited him to join
their church, and the Methodist people invited him to become a
member of theirs, but he could never make up his mind. When he
died, his wife wanted his body buried in the Anglican churchyard.
Church officials didn't think this was quite right. If you visit
this churchyard today, you will find his body buried so that half
of it is inside the fence and half outside.
Whether you are an Anglican or a Methodist is not a
matter perhaps of eternal significance. But the decision to
follow Christ is. There is a cross to shoulder and there is the
burden of sin to be left behind. There is hatred and animosity to
be shed and love and acceptance to be taken up. Meaninglessness
and despair are to be no more. They are replaced with direction
and positive faith.
Van Varner, editor of bGUIDEPOSTS, tells of a summer drive
he and his godson David were taking in the Rocky Mountains. When
they came to a sign that read "Continental Divide," David
commented, "This is the great watershed. From here the waters
flow either toward the Atlantic or the Pacific." The decision to
follow Christ is that kind of decision. It is either/or--not
both/and.
Walter Anderson, editor of PARADE magazine interviewed
John Ehrlichman for a job as a writer immediately after
Ehrlichman's involvement in the Watergate scandal and his
subsequent stay in prison. Anderson decided to throw caution to
the wind and ask Ehrlichman a very pointed question.
"There's not a city you can enter," he said, "not a cab,
a hotel, a school, a theater, a store you can visit in which
someone might not hold you in contempt. Your very name can
inspire revulsion in almost every nook and cranny from coast to
coast. How can you live with this? Why have you not taken your
life?" Anderson wanted to understand how any person could
survive such terrible public shame. John Ehrlichman, after all,
had been a trusted aide to the President of the United States.
His fall--going from the White House, where he wielded enormous
power, to the prison in which he served his time--had been steep,
complete and humiliating. What kept him alive?
"I thought about dying," Ehrlichman said. "Actually, I
thought about it a lot...I had to decide for myself whether to
live or to die. That was the choice. No one else could pull me
out of self-pity. If I couldn't live with the truth that many
people will never accept me as a person, If I have to depend on
others for my self-esteem, then I must choose death. If I wanted
to live, I had to quit my depression. I had to say my life had
value, and I had to mean it. I chose life."
John Ehrlichman's voice had been soft until his last
sentence: "I chose life." Anderson said he would never forget
those words or the voice in which he spoke them. It sounds
like this time, perhaps, John Ehrlichman has chosen wisely.
The decision to follow Christ is a decision to choose
life. "Strive to enter by the narrow door..." The door to life is
a narrow door. There are many of these doors. Education, physical
fitness, marriage. We encounter these doors in our work and in
our leisure. But the most important door of all is the narrow
door of the Kingdom. The Kingdom is big enough for all to enter.
But some choices have to be made. But, like the other narrow
doors, the horizons are limitless, eternal. Why not choose the
narrow door? Choose life.
