Matthew 7:1-14 (Teaching)

[0:00] Good evening. Good evening. Back in Matthew, in the Sarmann on the Mount, coming up on the home stretch of it.

[0:15] Last week we finished up chapter six, and chapter six was a rather scathing in parts of it.

[0:28] Christ, of course, telling us that we can't serve two masters, and no man can serve two masters, and that telling us not to take thought, not to take thought for the tomorrow, not to take thought of what we're going to eat, or what we're going to drink, or wear, or anything along those lines, and of course making the comparisons that he did to the lilies of the field, and how God closed them, and if he closed them, then what makes us think that he's not going to close us, his own children.

[1:04] So, as I said, it's scripture, really, if you just kind of breeze through it like a lot of folks do, like I do a lot of times. You know, it doesn't really have a whole lot of effect on you, you're just, you know, you're reading it, but if you really think about it, it rakes you over the coals, because all those are guilty of that.

[1:24] Myself not being excluded from that. All of us are guilty of having the thought, having the way of looking at things, of where are you, God?

[1:38] What are you doing, God? And God will take care of his own. That's throughout the scriptures, Old Testament, New Testament. God takes care of his own. And we ended that chapter with Christ telling us not to worry about tomorrow.

[1:54] He says, you know, they're sufficient to the day, is the evil thereof. In other words, tomorrow's going to have its own troubles, you know, we're living today.

[2:05] And that's where we ended chapter six last week. So, chapter seven begins with the verse, and really the first two words of it is the world's favorite verse.

[2:19] When I say the world, I'm talking about the unregenerate world. Those out there that are unsaved, and this is probably the most well-known verse that they have.

[2:31] But more often than not, it's taken way out of the context that it is in. So we'll pick up in chapter seven of the Gospel of Matthew in verse one.

[2:45] Christ says, judge not that you be not judged. And when I said this is the world's favorite verse, and really those two, the two first words of this verse, judge not.

[2:58] Now what tickles me, and I've heard it, I've heard it at work, I've heard it in the stores, I've heard it anywhere at your witness, and I've had it thrown at me, street preaching, door knocking, you know, judge not.

[3:14] What really tickles me is when people say, the Bible says, thou shalt not judge. And my usual reply to that is, show me that and I'll preach it.

[3:25] The Bible does not say, thou shalt not judge. Thou shalt not judge is a very absolute statement, and the Bible does not say that. However, here it does say, judge not that you be not judged.

[3:39] But what Christ is getting at here is caught in the next verses. If we just say this, judge not that you be not judged, and leave it at that, then you know, it's more absolute.

[3:54] But when we see the context that follows this, then we grasp a better understanding of what Jesus Christ is getting at here.

[4:05] Christ here says, judge not that you be not judged, for with what judgment you judge, you shall be judged, and with what measure you meet, it shall be measured to you again.

[4:16] So Christ here says, judge not that you be not judged. In other words, and then he goes on to say this, with what judgment you judge, he shall be judged.

[4:27] In other words, however you're judging someone is exactly how you will be judged. And folks, the only person that can do that is Almighty God.

[4:39] The only person that is able to look at the intents of the heart is God. So with that being said, not only are we to not judge people, we're not to judge the intentions of their heart is what I'm trying to get at.

[5:00] And as well as other things. But Christ saying, with what judgment you judge, he shall be judged. With what measure you meet, it shall be measured to you again.

[5:13] And the only person that can judge and judge absolutely justly and absolutely righteously and absolutely truthfully is Almighty God.

[5:25] Now with this being said, this doesn't mean that Christians cannot pass judgment. We'll get into that here in just the next few verses. We're actually commanded in Scripture to do so.

[5:38] Jesus Christ says, judge not according to the appearance, but judge righteous judgment. So we have to pass judgment of some kind at times. In fact, throughout the rest of this chapter, we see Jesus Christ.

[5:52] And he's talking about the Pharisees. We saw it in the last chapter. He's talking about the scribes and the Pharisees and their ways and how they tried to get men to perceive them.

[6:04] And so Jesus Christ was judging their ways and the way that they were doing things. But he was also talking about the intentions of their heart when he said they do these things so that basically so that men will adore them.

[6:19] You know, they can have the praise of men and he gets into that here in chapter seven as well. So with all that being said on the verse three, it says, And why beholdest thou the moat that is in thy brother's eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye?

[6:35] Or how will thou say to thy brother, let me pull out the moat out of thine eye and behold a beam is in thine own eye? So Jesus here is actually being a little bit sarcastic when he's saying this.

[6:48] He says, why beholdest thou the moat that is in thy brother's eye, which would be a speck or a splinter? What he's talking about there when he says a moat, but he says the moat that is in thy brother's eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye?

[7:05] And if you notice the way that he's phrasing this question here in verse three, he says, why beholdest thou the moat that is in thy brother's eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye?

[7:17] He's phrasing this question in a way that this is bound to happen. It's bound to happen with you and it's bound to happen with me. It was bound to happen with the people that he was talking to.

[7:29] It had happened with the people he was talking to and it would probably continue to happen with the people he was talking to. In verse four, or how will thou say to thy brother, let me pull out the moat out of thine eye and behold, a beam is in thine own eye.

[7:47] I once heard a preacher say that when we read that word behold here in the south, that's the same thing as saying, well, looky here. And that's exactly what it would basically be.

[7:58] He's saying here, how will thou say to thy brother, let me pull out the moat out of thine own eye and look, a beam is in thine own eye. He's saying, look at yourself and this goes right back to what we were talking about.

[8:13] Judge not, lest ye be judged, or that ye not be judged. And he goes on to say in verse two, for with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged. So what he's saying here is don't judge hypocritically.

[8:26] In other words, we need to look in our own hearts and we need to look at our own sin. We need to look at our own selves before we go looking down our pharismical noses at our brothers and sisters that have committed sin as well, folks.

[8:42] We are in no shape to help someone if our own lives are flooded with sin. We are in no shape to pray for anybody. If our lives have unrepentant sin in them, we're in no shape to help anyone whatsoever if we're not penitent with our own sin.

[9:02] So before we go and point out someone else's sin, we need to take a real deep, hard look inside of our own lives and see what sin lies in there.

[9:14] Then once we get that straightened out with God, once we repent of that sin and we're back in good standing and we've got good prayer communication with God, then we can pray for that person, but not only that, just not also indicate here, he says, thou hypocrite first cast out the be-melted thine own eye and then shout thou see clearly to cast out the moat out of thy brother's eye.

[9:40] So this is bound to happen. It's bound to happen that we will see someone that is sinning. The first thing that always pops in my mind when I read these verses, like it for that matter, is the people that go to the church just waiting on the church people to mess up and especially waiting on the preacher to mess up.

[10:00] And they go there with the full intent of it. They go there saying, I'll go for as long as I can, but the first mess up I hear about, the first mess up that I see or that I hear, that I smell or taste or anything else, I'm out of there.

[10:15] And that's the attitude really of the world. That's a very worldly and kernel attitude to have. He says, thou hypocrite first cast out the be-melted thine own eye and then shout see clearly to cast out the moat out of thy brother's eye.

[10:29] He is giving us permission here to judge. To judge. You've got a speck in your eye. You've got a splinter in your eye. I just spent time with God in prayer or I spent time with prayer and prayer with God all night.

[10:44] Let me help you with this. Folks, I think the only place that things like this are brought up in the scripture. I mean, you've got several places that are brought up. One that pops up in my mind is in Galatians chapter 6 and the very first verse of that Paul writes to the churches in Galatians.

[11:03] And he says, if you see a brother overtaken with a fault, ye which are spiritual are the ones that are to help him. You're the ones that are to set him back on track.

[11:14] You're spiritual folks. If we're spiritual and if we're walking with God the way that we should be walking, if we're walking in the spirit and not with the flesh, we should be prayed up with God and we should be repented or we should be in a constant repentance state for our sins.

[11:29] Therefore, we can go to that brother or we can go to that sister and we can help them in their time of need. It's not that we go to them, we grab them by the collar and sling them against the wall and tell them to repent or scream at them to repent.

[11:43] We go to them lovingly. We go to them with meekness. If you go back to the beatitudes, you know, all those attributes that Jesus Christ goes through in the beatitudes in Matthew chapter 5, they could apply very well here.

[11:57] We would have to go with a meek spirit. We would have to go to that person with a meek spirit and tell them in a loving spirit and tell them, look, you've got this in your life and you need to get rid of it.

[12:10] Let me help you get that splinter out of your eye and people will say people must repent of their own sin and this is true. I can't repent of the sins that you've committed and you can't repent of the sins that I have committed.

[12:24] But we can guide a brother or we can guide a sister in penitence toward God and in penitence of their own sin and this scripture here tells us that we can do that.

[12:36] First, cast out the beam out of Thine own eye, then thou shalt see clearly to cast out the moat out of thy brother's eye. So we're told right here in this scripture that we can aid in that.

[12:48] We can't repent for them, but we can go to them in a loving way just as kingdom people should do, go in a loving way and inform them of the problem that's at hand.

[13:01] And a fine example of this would be something that Brother Roger Gray used just this past Sunday night. We're all familiar with the account of David and Bathsheba and the affair that David had with Bathsheba and how sin compiled on top of sin, compiled more sin.

[13:21] And when Nathan the prophet come to David and told him the story they did about the poor man's lamb and how the rich man took it and killed the lamb what did David say? He said, bring them here.

[13:32] He'll be put to death. We'll kill him right now. And this was a person that was unaware of their sin. They become so hardened and they kind of become so arrogant that was part of David's problem.

[13:47] I mean that's found at the beginning of 2 Samuel 11 while his men, because it plainly says it was the time when kings go off to war his men were off to war and where was David at?

[13:58] He wasn't off to war. He had become so arrogant and so haughty thinking I don't have to do this. I'm king. So all this transpired because of pride and just about any sin that you can think of it's rooted in pride somehow and some way.

[14:15] But anyway I'm about to get off course with what I'm teaching here. But Nathan had to go to David and he said, David you've got this in your eye and it wasn't a moat. David had a big log sticking in his eye and wasn't even aware of it.

[14:31] Didn't think that he'd really done anything wrong. But once it was shown him what it was, what did David do? He repented. He repented of his sin.

[14:42] You can read all about that repentance in Psalms 51. You can read a little bit of it there in 2 Samuel. But the Psalm 51 really captures the penitence of David's heart there.

[14:56] But again, verse 5, Jesus referring these people as hypocrites, referring to those that go to others pointing their sin out when they have sin of their own as hypocrites, that Greek word there is hupakratis.

[15:12] And that's the term that was used for actors back then. We all know what actors do. They portray someone or something that they're not. And that's exactly what is being said here.

[15:25] The hypocrite first cast out the beam out of the anona. That applies to me and to you. We got to first make things right with ourselves. Then we can see clearly enough to help our brother or our sister get the moat out of there.

[15:41] Now verse 6, Jesus says, You're not that which is holy under the dogs, neither cast to your poor pearls before the swine, lest they trample them under their feet and turn again and rend you.

[15:55] Well, y'all tell me, how am I supposed to know who's a dog and who a pig is if I'm not casting a judgment of some kind?

[16:07] So that's directly linked with verse 1. Now my Bible's got paragraph markers here, and there's a new paragraph that begins there, but it's directly linked with that.

[16:21] He says, cast, give not that which is holy under the dogs, neither cast your pearl before the swine. This is something we've got to be careful with.

[16:32] It's something I've got to be careful with. When does it become casting your pearl before swine? When does it become giving that which is holy under the dogs?

[16:44] I've heard people use this very verse against street preaching. I've heard people say, well, most of those people that are passing by are lost.

[16:57] Well, that don't mean that they're necessarily a dog or that they're necessarily a pig or that they're necessarily swine. What's a dog for? This ain't phyto that you've got at home that we're talking about here. It's not your companion.

[17:09] It's not what your children play with or what you may have played with as a child. That's not the type of dog we're talking about. This is where hermeneutics comes in to play in scripture.

[17:20] You've got to consider the time that this was written in, who it was written to, what was going on. While some dogs may have been taken in as pets, most dogs were not. Most dogs were wild dogs, and they ran around in packs.

[17:33] Those packs of dogs would do exactly what Jesus is talking about here. They would take things and they would rend them. They would rip them to pieces and rip them to shreds, people, animals, whatever the case was.

[17:46] This is the type of dog that Jesus Christ is referring to here. He's not talking about a family pet. This is the same type of dog that John writes about in the book of Revelation, Revelation 22, when John's talking about those that will gain entry into heaven.

[18:02] He says, blessed are they that keep his commandments, because they'll enter into the gates. But the very next verse, John says, for without are dogs and sorcerers and whoremongers and idolaters and all these other wicked, evil, nasty things, but he throws dogs in that category.

[18:19] This is whom Jesus is talking about here. If I'm not on a street corner street preaching, where Vern is, or anybody's out there giving out tracks or whatever the case is, there's nothing wrong with doing that, because we don't know at that point who the dog is and who the swine is.

[18:37] Who is the dog? Who are the dogs and who are the swine? Well, Jesus tells us who they are here. He says, lest they trample them under their feet and turn again and rend you.

[18:48] These are the ones. They're the ones that will pitch a fit when they hear the gospel. They'll pitch a fit because you give them a track. So what Jesus is saying here, if they pitch said fit, don't force it on them.

[19:03] Leave it alone. At that point, it's obvious the Holy Spirit's on them. One's going to be able to do anything. If they don't want a track, I mean, I can't save them anyway.

[19:15] I'm not saying that I'm able to. But if you give them a track and they tear it up and they throw it in your face or whatever, if they had that happen, let them have it, let them have their way.

[19:27] Don't chase them down. Don't chase them down. Don't cast your pearl before swine. And, you know, people are mocking you. You know, if I'm once again out on the street corner, street preaching or sidewalk or wherever the case is, and people are standing across the street mocking, I don't need to pay attention to them.

[19:48] Because there's plenty of other people coming up and down the street that the gospel can affect. Those people, it's probably not going to affect at that point. You know, maybe it wasn't for them to hear at that time.

[20:01] But there are other people out there that don't act so violently if you'd like to phrase it like that. And those are the ones that we're targeting. We're targeting everybody, granted.

[20:13] But we've also got to be careful with this because of the danger of striking. You know, if we're going to certain places looking for one specific type of individual, and we're preaching a sermon against one specific sin that we know that they're involved in, whether it's prostitution, whether it's homosexuality, no matter what it is, folks, that's striking if we do that.

[20:42] But if we just go and preach the gospel, you go and you preach the gospel, you don't single out anybody's sin. You know, you don't single out the liars. You don't single out the thieves, or the prostitutes, or the dopids.

[20:54] You preach the gospel of Jesus Christ because the gospel of Jesus Christ has all power to save all souls. So we go and we preach the gospel. And if people reject that, they reject it.

[21:07] If they accept that, they accept it. If people act violently toward it, we don't chase them down and cast our pearl before them. Just like, you know, Vernon and I, we've got one house.

[21:20] We were discussing not too long ago that we probably won't visit again as long as we know a certain resident is there because that would be casting our pearl before swine.

[21:32] That was probably the roughest rejection that Vernon and I have had in about 4,000 doors worth of knocking. So we were discussing that just a week or two ago, but that would be casting our pearl before swine.

[21:46] And Christ tells us not to do that. So anyway, on to verse 7, asking it shall be given you, seeking you shall find, knock, and it shall be opened unto you.

[22:00] This is very pertinent, especially in the placement of it. Because in verse 6, I asked you all the question, how am I supposed to know who a dog is and who a pig is if I'm not casting judgment?

[22:13] And even if I do cast that judgment, and I'm still not sure, I think that's exactly why Jesus said this when he did. Asking it shall be given you, seeking you shall find, knocking it shall be opened unto you.

[22:28] So if we're unsure of who a pig is or who a dog is, pray about it. Pray about it before you go back to that person or pray about it before you go to that person.

[22:40] All of us probably got family members that are hostile towards the gospel or friends for that matter, coworkers, whatever the case may be. All of us know people that hate the gospel.

[22:51] I was in that boat at one time. I hated the gospel. I hated the Bible. I hated anything that was godly, anything that was even remotely religious, whether it's Christian or not, I just hated religion as a whole.

[23:04] But it says ask and it shall be given you. Seek and you shall find, knock and it shall be opened unto you. For everyone that asks it to receive it and he that seeketh, findeth unto him that knocketh, it shall be opened.

[23:19] Folks, this is instructions that Jesus has given us here in verse 7 to ask, to seek and to knock. And this is the result of us following those instructions in verse 8.

[23:32] For everyone that asks it to receive it. Folks, there's no lines to read between there. For everyone, everyone that asks it to receive it and he that seeketh, findeth unto him that knocketh, it shall be opened.

[23:48] In other words, we, being born again children of God, being kingdom people, if we go to our Father, our Heavenly Father that we talked about so much last week over in chapter 6, we go to him and we ask, we shall receive.

[24:04] If we seek, we're going to find it. If we knock, it will be opened unto us. This is the very words of Jesus Christ. It needs no interpretation here.

[24:15] Jesus Christ gives us a what and he gives us a why. Here are these verses. Everyone that asks it to receive it and he that seeketh, findeth unto him that knocketh, it shall be opened.

[24:27] Or what man is there of you whom if his son asked bread, will he give him a stone? Or if he asketh fish, will he give him a serpent? If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more so your Father which is in heaven, give good things to them that ask him.

[24:47] So Jesus just told us to ask and to seek and to knock and told us that if we done those things that our heavenly Father would answer us. And y'all heard me say before that, you know, I'm thankful that I've got a God that I can pray to, but I'm even more thankful that the God that I pray to answers those prayers.

[25:09] He hears them and he acts on behalf of his saints. Maybe not in my time, maybe not the way that I want him to, but regardless of how he does so, or when he does so for that matter, my God hears me and he answers my prayers.

[25:28] But Jesus asks the questions here. What man is there of you whom if his son asked bread, will give him a stone? Now bread and stones back in this time, we're not talking about loaves of bread that we go to the store and buy right now.

[25:45] Loaves of bread that they baked back then, they really did look like stones. You know, it's just like when Jesus was being tempted into wilderness and Satan told him, you know, if thou be the Son of God, turn this stone into bread.

[26:02] But they were very similar. But he asked the question, what man of you if your son asks you of something that's going to nourish him, something that's going to sustain him, something that's going to help him, or something that's just going to cause his hunger to cease for a time being.

[26:18] What man of you when his son asks for bread, will give him a stone in return? And no loving father would do that to their child. And he asked the same question about the fish.

[26:31] He said, what if your son asks you for a fish? And who of you would give him a snake instead? No loving father would do that. Folks, and our loving father will not do that to us either.

[26:42] If we ask for bread just as over in Matthew chapter 6 that we went through Wednesday or two ago in the Lord's Prayer, when we pray, give us this day our daily bread.

[26:54] When we pray that prayer, folks, we are saying that with anticipation that God will provide it to us. And we have right to anticipate that because God still got us here.

[27:07] And if he's got us here, he's going to sustain us for whatever purpose it is that he has us here for. He's not going to let his children go to waste out here in this wilderness that we call the world.

[27:19] He will keep us going. I said he may not answer how I want or when I want, but he will answer those prayers. In verse 11 again, Jesus says, if ye then being evil, speaking to everybody present, that word ye is plural, speaking to everybody within ear shot of him, if ye then being evil, folks, that includes me and you too.

[27:45] If we being evil, if we not being perfect like God, not being righteous like God, not being holy like God, if we being evil, if we being imperfect, if we being evil know how to give good gifts unto your children, and all of us should know how to do that.

[28:05] If you don't have children, then if you know how to give good gifts to any children, for that matter, nephews, nieces, cousins, whatever the case is, or adults for that matter, if we know how to do that and we're evil by nature, we're sinful by nature, we're imperfect by nature.

[28:23] If we know how to give good gifts, how much more does our Heavenly Father who knows no evil, who has never sinned, who has never had a wicked thought, who has never done wrong, or had a wrong thought or spoken a wrong word or anything else along those lines, how much more can he do for us if we know how to do it, being evil?

[28:46] How much more so your Father which is in heaven, give good things to them that ask him? Now, we've read not too long ago that the Lord knows what we have need of before we ask, and this is true. This is true. He knows what we need before we ask, but he wants us to ask.

[29:09] God wants communication with us, and that's one of the most amazing things about the God that saved my soul, is that he's powerful enough to speak an entire universe into existence.

[29:25] He's powerful enough to create all the animals, all the fish, all the birds. He was powerful enough, and is powerful enough to take clay, to take dust, and mold man, and breathe into that man the breath of life. He was powerful enough to do that.

[29:42] He's powerful enough to save souls, and this all-powerful and all-knowing and omnipresent God that saved my soul wants to hear from me. Praise God.

[29:56] He wants to hear from me. Little old me down here on this earth, little old sinful me. God wants to hear from his children. That's one of the most amazing things about God.

[30:09] He didn't just save us and say, okay, your soul is saved. Just live out your days, until you can come home with me. No, he came here to tabernacle with his people.

[30:21] He came here to live amongst his people. And thank God in the New Testament, the Holy Spirit came, not only does he live amongst us, he lives within his people.

[30:32] Each one of us have the Spirit of God within us. You've got God in you if you're saved. God's got God in me, and God desired that to come here, to condescend to earth with sinful man, to save sinful man, that he might abide with man and take them forever, to be with him forever, one day after a while. He's an amazing God that we have. And he wants to hear from his children.

[30:58] So even though he knows what we have needed before we ask, we still should ask of him. We should still ask of him. He being our Heavenly Father, he will give us good things, and he will only give us good things. James chapter 1 says, every good and perfect gift comes down from the Father of lives.

[31:16] If it's not good and it's not perfect, it probably didn't come from God. Every good gift and every perfect gift comes down from the Father of lives. Verse 12, therefore all things whatsoever you would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them, for this is the law, this is the law, and the prophets.

[31:37] Most important word in this whole verse is that word, therefore, which puts us back to the things that we've covered, and particularly verses 7 through 11 here.

[31:50] It says, therefore all things whatsoever you would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them, for this is the law, and the prophets. In short, do unto others as you would have them do unto you.

[32:04] What we learned in kindergarten probably is the golden rule stated here in Scripture. And it says, therefore though, so in verse 7, all the way through verse 11 here, we have the instructions to ask and to seek and to knock, and we have the bit that Jesus gives here about the man that would give a, what man would give his stone if he asked for bread, or a serpent if he asked for fish.

[32:41] And then it continues with, you know, if we being evil know how to give good gifts, how much more does our Heavenly Father know how to give good gifts?

[32:53] And he says, therefore, therefore if we know how to do these things, and our God has taught us how to do these things, because God does the exact same things to his children, therefore we should do unto others as we would have them do unto us.

[33:10] Now, how far does this go is the question here? Well, he says that wrapped up in that is the law and the prophets, does he not?

[33:25] Which is a New Testament way of saying wrapped up in that is the Old Testament, the law and the prophets. So everything at the law and the prophets we're talking about is wrapped up in that saying.

[33:37] Well, what's he saying in that? What did the law and the prophets talk about? Jesus said, you search the scriptures thinking that and then you have eternal life, but they are they which testify of me, speaking of the Old Testament scriptures.

[33:52] So the Old Testament scriptures are speaking of Christ, Christ here speaking of not only his Heavenly Father, but our Heavenly Father. And he says, therefore all things whatsoever you would that men should do to you, do you even so to them, for this is the law and the prophets.

[34:13] What does the law and the prophets do? They point it towards Christ. Every bit of it pointed towards Christ. And people will read those 10 commandments and they'll say, how do the 10 commandments in Exodus chapter 20 point towards Christ?

[34:24] There's hundreds, thousands away probably that the 10 commandments point toward Christ. But that's not what we're going to get into tonight. But he says that the Old Testament is wrapped up in do unto others, basically do unto others what you would have them do unto you.

[34:43] And folks, if you consider the law, I mean, just take one for example, thou shalt not commit adultery. I wouldn't want anybody fooling around with my wife.

[34:57] I shouldn't fool around with their wife. Should I not? Or should I? I wouldn't want anybody to kill me. I shouldn't kill them. Should I? Now, the word kill isn't conveying in the sense of defense there.

[35:13] We've got obligations to defend ourselves both biblically and morally to do so. But this is talking about basically premeditated murder when it says thou shalt not kill.

[35:25] But if you consider those, that you got to consider not only those that pertain from me to you or you to me, but those that pertain to God, thou shalt not have any gods before me.

[35:38] I mean, who of us in our natural sense, and I'm talking about our nature, who of us doesn't want to be first outside of Jesus Christ in our spouse's life or in our significant other's life?

[35:54] I want Jesus first in my wife's life, but I want to come in a close second. I think all those could say that. Who of us as far as fatherhood goes, or motherhood for that matter, outside of Jesus Christ, who doesn't want to be number one in our child's life?

[36:15] So we've got to take what's being said here, not only on a person-to-person basis, but on a person-to-God basis. God says, thou shalt have no gods before me.

[36:26] God says, thou shalt not worship a graven image. All these things that pertain to God. And then the last few commandments, of course, pertain to how we treat our neighbors.

[36:37] Notice that none of that is directed at us. It's not about us. It's about God, and it's about how we treat other people. So we need to treat other people how we would want to be treated.

[36:50] Therefore, all things whatsoever you would that men should do to you, do even so to them. Once again, where Jesus says, for this is the law of the prophets, it's the law of the prophets pointing people to Christ, and it did.

[37:05] The entire Old Testament scripture did. That's what I want to do for other people. I want to point them towards Christ. And I'm glad that somebody pointed me towards Christ.

[37:16] I'm glad somebody told me the good news of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Verse 13, enter ye in at the straight gate, for wide is the gate, I'm sorry, for wide is the gate, and broad is the way that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in there at, because straight is the gate, and narrow is the way which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it.

[37:45] So enter ye in at the straight gate, for wide is the gate, and broad is the way that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in there at. And this is another thing that really doesn't need a whole lot of interpretation.

[38:01] I have explained this to people before, though, that the enter ye in at the straight gate, I believe personally that gate that's being talked about here is so narrow that only one person at a time could go through there.

[38:19] But what good would it do if I went in by myself? But praise God, the New Testament teaches that Christ lives in me, and I live in Christ. So if I'm going through that gate, and I'm a born again child of God, then our trust is going through with me.

[38:34] It'll do me no good to go through that narrow gate by myself. It would do absolutely no good. But Jesus here tells us enter ye in at the straight gate.

[38:45] This is a commandment for us to go through the straight gate off of the narrow path. The narrow path leads to that straight gate. He says for wide is the gate, and broad is the way that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in there at.

[39:02] Folks, that's a scary scripture. He says, wide is the gate, and broad is the way. And why is that? Because many there be that go in there at. There's a lot of people on that broad way, on that broad path.

[39:17] But that broad path is leading to destruction, and it's just like Proverbs says. Proverbs says there's a way that same with right on the man, but the end there are the ways of death. The end there are the ways of destruction.

[39:30] There's demise. There's perishing at the end of that way. But this is the attitude that the world has is, I'm going to go my own way.

[39:41] Even if it's a world that quote unquote believes in God, and they quote unquote believe in the Bible, it's an unregenerate world that is trying to be, trying to have religion of some kind, trying to follow Christ somehow.

[39:58] But way down deep, they're not regenerate. These are the, and a lot of those people, or a lot of the people on the broad path fit into that category.

[40:09] They think that they're going to heaven. They think that they're on the right path, but they're on the way that leads to destruction. It reminds me so much of the book of Judges. You know, throughout the book of Judges several times it's mentioned, there was no judge in Israel in those days, and men did that which was right in their own eyes.

[40:28] Why? Or there was no king in Israel in those days. Why? Because there was no king. And men do that which is right in their own eyes now, because they don't have King Jesus over their lives.

[40:41] So they do what's right in their own eyes. And you'll hear people say all the time, I think God will forgive this, and I think God will forgive that. I think God will pardon this.

[40:54] And they're right. God will pardon any sin that you can think of other than blasphemy against the Holy Spirit, and other than completely and utterly rejecting the gospel of Jesus Christ.

[41:07] God will forgive any sin. They are right in saying that, but they haven't repented. They say, I think God will forgive me for going out last week and getting plastered, and I think he'll forgive me again this week for going and doing it.

[41:22] Folks, that's not an attitude of an actual regenerated heart, of a heart that's been taken out, and one of flesh that's been put in.

[41:35] That's the attitude of a carnal mind, an attitude of an unregenerate mind, for that matter. Jesus here is commanding, enter ye in at the straight gate, for why does the gate bring us away that leaves to the destruction of many there be which go in there at?

[41:52] Because straight is the gate, and narrow is the way which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it. And there's been all kinds of people trying to figure out what number this few is that Jesus is talking about here.

[42:09] Well, I thank God it's not one of my elementary school teachers talking about. They taught me that a few is between three and five. Few there be that find it. Folks, it's scary scripture.

[42:21] It's scary to think there's that many people on the broad path, and it's scary to think that there's going to be few people find the straight and the narrow way, and the straight gate, for that matter.

[42:33] But this is the words of the scriptures, the words of Jesus Christ himself. He says, few there be that find it. Many people that think that they have found it. Many people think that their way is the way, and the only way though is the way of the scripture through repenting of your sin and believing on the gospel of Jesus Christ.

[42:55] That is what will put us on the narrow path, and that is what will get us through the straight gate. Because straight is the gate, and narrow is the way which leaves unto life.

[43:08] The other one leads to destruction according to Jesus in chapter, or verse 13. But in 14, straight is the gate, and narrow is the way which leads unto life.

[43:20] And few there be that find it. Scary words from Jesus Christ. But if you preach this out on the street, you preach it in probably a lot of churches, everybody is going to say, I've found that straight way.

[43:36] I know what way you're talking about. It's this way or it's that way. No folks, it's the way of the Bible. Jesus said, I'm the way, the truth, and the life. And no man comes without the Father but by him.

[43:49] So if their way excludes Jesus Christ, and their way excludes repenting of sin, their way excludes the gospel, it's not the right way.

[44:00] And they are on a much broader path than what they think that they're on. We're not going to go any further than that tonight. That gets us about halfway through that chapter. So we'll stop there for this evening.

[44:12] Anybody got any questions or comments on any of that? God bless y'all. I appreciate you.