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SERMON TOPIC: The broad road and the narrow road

Speaker: Ken Paynter

Language: ENGLISH

Date: 18 December 2015

Topic Groups: SALVATION, HELL, FUNERAL

Sermon synopsis: The funeral service of Marion Greene.

Matthew 7:13-14 Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that to life, and only a few find it.
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2 Timothy 4:7. I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.

The Lord knows us intimately.

David was known by God in his mother’s womb.

Psalm 139:13-18.

For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb.

I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well.

My frame was not hidden from you

when I was made in the secret place,

when I was woven together in the depths of the earth. Your eyes saw my unformed body; all the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be. How precious to me are your thoughts, God! How vast is the sum of them! Were I to count them, they would outnumber the grains of sand.

We are all faced with death.

None of us can say that we will be alive tomorrow.

James 4:13-16.

Now listen, you who say, Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money. Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. Instead, you ought to say, If it is the Lord’s will, we will live and do this or that. As it is, you boast in your arrogant schemes. All such boasting is evil.

Hebrews 9:27.

And as it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment.

Your appointment with death.

Marion made the decision to acknowledge Christ as her Lord, not just with her mouth, but with her life.

There are many who profess to know Christ and may even be involved in Church/ Christian activity, but they don’t have a personal relationship with Jesus, they are just religious.

Isaiah 29:13.

The Lord says: These people come near to me with their mouth and honour me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. Their worship of me is based on merely human rules they have been taught.

There are only 2 roads.

We live in a world in which people are told that all roads lead to heaven and that most people are good and that God is the father of all, but the Word of God paints a very different picture.

Matthew 7:13-14.

Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that to life, and only a few find it.

The road of worldly pleasure.

The 4 lane highway to hell.

The road of worldly pleasure.

2 Timothy 3:1-5.

But mark this: There will be terrible times in the last days.

People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money,

boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, without love, unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not lovers of the good, treacherous, rash, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God having a form of godliness but denying its power. Have nothing to do with such people.

The road of worldly pleasure.

1 Corinthians 5:9-13.

I wrote to you in my letter not to associate with sexually immoral people not at all meaning the people of this world who are immoral, or the greedy and swindlers, or idolaters. In that case you would have to leave this world. But now I am writing to you that you must not associate with anyone who claims to be a brother or sister but is sexually immoral or greedy, an idolater or slanderer, a drunkard or swindler. Do not even eat with such people. What business is it of mine to judge those outside the church? Are you not to judge those inside? God will judge those outside. Expel the wicked person from among you.

The road of human intellect.

Romans 1:18-22. The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of people, who suppress the truth by their wickedness, since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse. For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools

The road of human intellect.

1 Timothy 6:20-21.

Timothy, guard what has been entrusted to your care. Turn away from godless chatter and the opposing ideas of what is falsely called knowledge, which some have professed and in so doing have departed from the faith.

Isaiah 55:8-9.

For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the LORD.

As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.

The road of human intellect.

1 Corinthians 1:25-29.

For the foolishness of God is wiser than human wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than human strength. Brothers and sisters, think of what you were when you were called. Not many of you were wise by human standards; not many were influential; not many were of noble birth. But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. God chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things and the things that are not to nullify the things that are, so that no one may boast before him.

The road of good works.

Will you say to God “I’ve lived a good life”? Luke 18:9-14.

To some who were confident of their own righteousness and looked down on everyone else, Jesus told this parable: Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee stood by himself and prayed: God, I thank you that I am not like other people robbers, evildoers, adulterers or even like this tax collector.

I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get. But the tax collector stood at a distance. He would not even look up to heaven, but beat his breast and said, God, have mercy on me, a sinner. I tell you that this man, rather than the other, went home justified before God. For all those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.

The road of Religion.

There are prophets, miracle workers and those who have cast out demons will not all go to heaven

Matthew 7: 21-23.

Not everyone who says to me, Lord, Lord, will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. Many will say to me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name and in your name drive out demons and in your name perform many miracles? Then I will tell them plainly, I never knew you.

Away from me you evildoers!

The road of Religion.

Will you say “I believed in God”?

James 2:18-20.

But someone will say, You have faith;

I have deeds. Show me your faith without deeds, and I will show you my faith by my deeds.

You believe that there is one God.

Good! Even the demons believe that and shudder.

You foolish person, do you want evidence that faith without deeds is useless

The road of Religion.

Will you say “I have my own religion”?

Galatians 2:21.

I do not set aside the grace of God, for if righteousness could be gained through the law, Christ died for nothing!

If we could be righteous through any other religion, Jesus died for nothing.

We do not reach Christ through righteousness, we reach righteousness through Christ!

There are only 2 roads.

Then there is the narrow road of grace.

John 10:7-9

Therefore Jesus said again, Very truly I tell you, I am the gate for the sheep. All who have come before me are thieves and robbers, but the sheep have not listened to them. I am the gate; whoever enters through me will be saved. They will come in and go out, and find pasture.

John 14:6.

Jesus answered, I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.

There are only 2 roads.

The dying thief on the cross chose the road of grace.

The 4 things he did to get onto the road of grace.

He acknowledged he was a sinner.

He accepted responsibility for his sin.

He acknowledged the Lordship of Jesus Christ. Galatians 2:21.

He confessed with his mouth. John 12:42. Romans 10:9-10.

Aren’t we all “Children of God?

We are not automatically children of God, we have to be Born into God’s family.

John 8:44.

Jesus said of the Pharisees… “You are of your Father the Devil”

2 Corinthians 6:17,18.

Come out from them and be separate, says the Lord. Touch no unclean thing, and I will receive you and I will be a Father to you and you will be my sons and daughters says the Lord Almighty.

Aren’t we all “Children of God?

It is up to us to make the decision and to turn from our sin to God.

John 3:1-5.

There was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews.

This man came to Jesus by night and said to Him, “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher come from God; for no one can do these signs that you do except God is with him.” Jesus answered and said to him,

Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the Kingdom of God.

Nicodemus said to Him, “How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter a second time into his mother’s womb and be born?”

Jesus answered, Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the Kingdom of God.

Christians should not be afraid of death.

Christians should not be afraid of death.

Hebrews 4:14-15.

Since the children have flesh and blood, he too shared in their humanity so that by his death he might break the power of him who holds the power of death that is, the devil and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death.

In fact the Christian walk starts with a burial.

Colossians 2:12.

Having been buried with him in baptism,

in which you were also raised with him through your faith in the working of God, who raised him from the dead.

Galatians 2:20. I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me.

The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.

Paul did not fear death.

Paul did not fear death.

Philippians 1:20-26.

I eagerly expect and hope that I will in no way be ashamed, but will have sufficient courage so that now as always Christ will be exalted in my body, whether by life or by death.

For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain. If I am to go on living in the body, this will mean fruitful labour for me.

Yet what shall I choose? I do not know! I am torn between the two: I desire to depart and be with Christ, which is better by far.

Marion Greene.

Psalm 116:15.

Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his faithful servants

1 Thessalonians 4:13-18.

1 Thessalonians 4:13-18.

Brothers and sisters, we do not want you to be uninformed about those who sleep in death, so that you do not grieve like the rest of mankind, who have no hope. For we believe that Jesus died and rose again, and so we believe that God will bring with Jesus those who have fallen asleep in him. According to the Lord’s word, we tell you that we who are still alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will certainly not precede those who have fallen asleep. For the Lord himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will be with the Lord forever. Therefore encourage one another with these words.

Isaiah 57:1-2.

The righteous perish, and no one takes it to heart; the devout are taken away, and no one understands that the righteous are taken away to be spared from evil. Those who walk uprightly enter into peace; they find rest as they lie in death.

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