“Strive to enter in at the strait gate: for many, I say unto you, will seek to enter in, and shall not be able.” Luke 13:24
STRAIT (not the word “straight”) = restricted, confined, to God’s way.
THE ANSWER: “Jesus saith unto him, I AM the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.” John 14:6
You may say, “But surely everyone understands this, don’t they?” WRONG!!
On the matter of going to heaven, people are still relying on things such as: “Well, I try to be a good neighbor and help out where I can; I try to make a difference with what I have to do with.” And “Well, I believe there are good people in all religions – and as long as we are sincere and do the best we can, what else is there?”
But none of these and many other ideas even acknowledge that there is such a thing as a strait gate. Rather, it is as if no gate is needed to get into heaven, but that it lies before all of us, and all we have to do is just walk our own way right into heaven!
Let us consider the possibilities of any going to heaven apart from the strait gate.
The access to heaven is only by the strait gate, or it isn’t. That gate is either strait, or it isn’t. Christ either told the truth, or He lied. This writer is going to say, let Christ be true and all who do not accept His message are the liars. The fact is, no one is in heaven, is going to heaven, or will go to heaven except by the strait gate.
God’s Word is clear – “There is none righteous, no, not one. For all have sinned and come short of the glory of God.” (Romans 3:10, 23) “Flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God.” (1 Corinthians 15:50) Thus, we see that the strait gate is not any of the ways of man, because no man has the righteousness or the means to make the strait gate. If man could make it, it would not be strait (only available by God’s means.)
Even before sin entered the human race, mankind was not an heir of God’s heaven and there was no possibility of any man going there by any right or means of his own. Since man had no way to go to heaven before sin, how much less after he sinned and came under the condemnation of sin!
So, God provided the strait gate. God was not willing that sinful man perish, so HE SENT HIS ONLY BEGOTTEN SON to earth to not only die for our sins that we perish not, but to also offer Himself to God for us to be made acceptable to God by His Divine righteousness and person. Thus the strait gate, man going to heaven, by way of God having accepted Christ’s offering for him – a joint heir with Christ! This is unto all, but only upon them that believe in this way.
SHARING
