We want to believe that Christianity is destined to fail, that the remnant will always be the smallest group, and that Satan will always have the upper hand in history. But Jesus did not teach that. Jesus taught a victorious kingdom. A Kingdom that He Himself will build and the gates of hell will not prevail against it (Matthew 16:18).

When Jesus spoke of the narrow way that leads to life and the broad way that leads to destruction (Matt. 7:13-14), He was not freezing the Kingdom of God into an eternally fixed condition—where the faithful would always be a pitiful, struggling minority, and the wicked would always be the triumphant mass. No, He was speaking to His own generation—a generation that, by and large, was about to rush headlong into destruction.

And what was that destruction? The same one He had been warning about all throughout His ministry—the destruction of Jerusalem in A.D. 70 (Matt. 24:2, Luke 19:41-44). In that first-century moment, the way of life was indeed narrow—so narrow that only a handful of disciples, a remnant within Israel, were truly finding it. The vast majority of Jesus’ contemporaries—especially the religious leaders—were on the broad road, the well-worn path of rebellion against God, and it would lead to their ruin.

But was Jesus saying that the Kingdom itself would always be like this? That His way would always be small, unnoticed, and weak? Not at all! He explicitly tells us that the Kingdom starts small but does not stay that way:

The mustard seed begins as the smallest of seeds, but it grows into the largest of garden plants (Matt. 13:31-32).

The leaven is hidden in three measures of flour, but over time, it leavens the whole lump (Matt. 13:33).

The rock cut without hands in Daniel 2:34 starts small but becomes a great mountain that fills the entire earth.

Think about the history of Christianity.

In the first century, the narrow way was scarcely more than a footpath. A few hundred believers, most of them persecuted, clung to Christ in the midst of a hostile Roman and Jewish world.

By the second century, the way had widened. Thousands upon thousands were coming into the faith, even while emperors raged against them.

By the time of Constantine, Christianity had so thoroughly spread that the great empire which once crucified our Lord now professed Him as King.

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