“We need to remember what our Lord has proclaimed about the broad road. He tells us that it leads to destruction. Jesus was never one to say that we should go along to get along. He was saying for us to follow Him in the way to righteousness, not the world and their folly. Given what He has said, do you really want to be someone who goes along and gets along?”
One of the greatest pulls on true Christians on this side of glory is to go along with the crowd. It’s very seductive to do so because those in the crowd are saying how right and just it is to go with the crowd. We see this today in the hot topics like gay marriage, or transgenderism. Yet, as believers, we must declare that the Bible is our guide to our beliefs, practices, and lives. What the crowd believes is really quite foolish given what Jesus told us about those on the broad path.
Here are His words:
“Enter by the narrow gate; for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and there are many who go in by it. Because narrow is the gate and difficult is the way which leads to life, and there are few who find it.” (Matthew 7:13-14)
Heidi and I were reminded of this reality when we went to the Texas A&M game this past Saturday. After the game, we were standing in line to take the bus back to where our car was parked, when we overheard a woman telling her young daughter that when she got older, she could marry whomever she wanted to marry. She told her daughter that marriage was not contingent on the gender of her intended partner, but upon her own happiness. This was a woman who has bought into the lie that marriage is based upon one’s happiness, not obedience to the LORD. She is on the broad way that leads to destruction.
Please note, that the woman seemed like a very nice woman. Her daughter was rather cute and the people they were with all seemed very nice. The broad way that leads to destruction is populated with people who are very nice. We tend to assign those on this road as being exceedingly and abundantly wicked, and reserved for the worst among us. But that is part of the problem. The road to destruction is not populated with those who are Hitler-like. It is populated with moms and dads, sisters and brothers, neighbors and coworkers. It is ordinary people who give a godlike thought in their minds a wink and a nod, but never come to saving faith in the midst of their niceness. Because they are nice, they see no real for a Savior, because they never see that they lack any manner of holiness at all before a holy and just God. The road to perdition is not hard to enter onto at all. In fact, we are all born into this legacy of being on the broad way. It comes to us quite naturally.
Then the mother clarified, that her daughter could not marry her, since their love for each other was not the same love that is found between those who marry.
Heidi and I both wanted to turn around and say, “why not?” Given that the mother’s standard was the girl’s own happiness, why can’t she marry her mother?
Give our culture a few more years along with the rudderless winds of the sexual revolution, and these questions will be arriving before us soon enough.
This is why we need to remember what our Lord has proclaimed about the broad road. He tells us that it leads to destruction. Jesus was never one to say that we should go along to get along. He was saying for us to follow Him in the way to righteousness, not the world and their folly. Given what He has said, do you really want to be someone who goes along and gets along?
The world, and the broad path that it provides for us, is headed toward destruction because the broad way is opposed to God and His word. Just the very idea that the little girl can grow up and marry whomever she pleases is in conflict with the word of God. Jesus declared to us that marriage is between one man and one woman in Matthew 19. To stand opposed to this declaration of marriage is to stand against Christ and His Father. I know there are those who couch gay marriage in the context of love, and the Father wanting us all to be happy, but that is not found in Scripture. In fact, our happiness is not the goal at all. Our holiness is God’s goal for our lives, at least for those of us in Christ. Holiness comes at a much greater cost than happiness does on this side of glory. But happiness on this side of glory comes at a much greater cost for us on the other side of death for it leads to our eternal destruction.
The world stands opposed to His truth, calling His truth backward and bigoted. Yet God has declared to us what is best for our well being. The world, and it’s god, stand opposed to God’s declaration and spit on Him and us at every opportunity. I can only imagine what would have happened had Heidi and I turned around and told that mother and child that marriage was to be between one man and one woman only. The lesbians in front of us would have started screaming at us, and the mother would have called the police. OK, maybe over the top. Yet such a response would not be surprising. Remember the unbeliever stands opposed to the God of Scripture, because He declares to us that we are sinners deserving eternal destruction. The world cannot accept this, for in their quest to be happy and marry whomever they please, they think themselves little gods. This is why all their niceness fails to impress the living and true God. Their desires to be little gods and carry out that in their lives is an offense to our Creator.
As the cultural war continues it’s onslaught against Christ and His word, we are going to find the second part of what Jesus said more and more true: “Because narrow is the gate and difficult is the way which leads to life, and there are few who find it.” We need the reminder that the broad way truly does lead to destruction just as our LORD told us it would. We need to be grateful we are on the narrow path, even knowing that it will be very difficult while we are here. It is far better to suffer on His narrow road that leads to life, than it is to blithely join the crowd on the broad road to destruction.
Timothy Hammons is a Teaching Elder in the Presbyterian Church in America. This article appeared on his blog and is used with permission.