Matthew 7:13

AVOIDING THE WAY OF THE MANY

‘Enter ye in at the strait gate,’ etc.

Matthew 7:13

Our Lord here gives us a general caution against the way of the many in religion. It is not enough to think as others think, and do as others do. It must not satisfy us to follow the fashion, and swim with the stream of those among whom we live.

I. The two ways.—He tells us that the way that leads to everlasting life is ‘narrow,’ that ‘few’ travel in it; He tells us that the way that leads to everlasting destruction is ‘broad,’ and full of travellers: ‘Many there be that go in thereat.’ These are fearful truths! They ought to raise great searchings of heart in the minds of all who hear them.—‘Which way am I going? By what road am I travelling?’ In one or other of the two ways here described, every one of us may be found. May God give us an honest, self-inquiring spirit, and show us what we are!

II. The religion of the multitude.—We may well tremble and be afraid if our religion is that of the multitude. If we can say no more than this, that ‘we go where others go, and worship where others worship, and hope we shall do as well as others at last,’ we are literally pronouncing our own condemnation. What is this but being in the ‘broad way’? What is this but being in the road whose end is ‘destruction’? Our religion at present is not saving religion.

III. The little flock.—We have no reason to be discouraged and cast down if the religion we profess is not popular and few agree with us. We must remember the words of our Lord Jesus Christ in this passage: ‘The gate is strait.’ Repentance, and faith in Christ, and holiness of life, have never been fashionable. The true flock of Christ has always been little. It must not move us to find that we are reckoned singular, and peculiar, and bigotted, and narrow-minded. This is ‘the narrow way.’ Surely it is better to enter into life eternal with a few, than to go to ‘destruction’ with a great company.

—Bishop J. C. Ryle.

Illustration

‘Not very long ago I was in the Lake District, and made the ascent of Helvellyn. As I went up Striding Edge I could not help thinking that it was a terrible journey to make. Striding Edge is a long ridge of rock by which you approach the summit of the mountain. The pathway is so narrow that you would suppose it almost impossible to step along it and keep your footing, and when you come to the point along Striding Edge where a stone is placed to commemorate the death of one who lost his life through slipping over the ridge, you suppose that this is indeed a way of peril. But here is the fact, that the difficulty of Striding Edge is of such a kind that, if you keep your head and go quietly to work, there is not a single point where there is any difficulty at all. You go from point to point with one rare view after another, and all the forces of the mountain and of nature seem to be encouraging you along your narrow and apparently perilous way. And when you have once made the ascent, you prefer that way to any other way of approach to the great mountain. It is a narrow rather than a difficult way. It is clearly marked out, but it is not at all hard to follow if you go where the marks of the feet are, and along the path which has been trodden by generation after generation.’