Sermon on the Mount
“The Two Roads”
<<You Take the Low Road, & I’ll Take the High Road,
I’ll get to Scotland Before You >>
Matthew 7: 13, 14
Introduction
Loch Lomond
Song written about a dark time in England, the Jacobite uprising in 1745 which ended in defeat in 1746 in the battle of Culladen –
The Jacobite Highlanders were taken prisoners & systematically killed – One son in each family was allowed to be spared.
The story goes, there were to brothers in the Invararey jail, one said to the other, “I will stay to be killed & buried. I’ll take the High Road and be in Scotland before you”
The heads of the executed rebels were exhibited in all the towns between London & Edenborough in a procession along the “High Road”, (the most important road) while the relatives of the rebels walked back along the “Low Road” – the ordinary road traveled by the peasant’s & commoners.
There are other reasons given for the song & also meanings to the terms taking the High Road & Taking the Low Road –
About a little under two-thousand years ago Jesus, beginning His conclusion to the Sermon on the Mount also talked about “two roads.”
He begins by saying, “Enter by the narrow gate, some translations like the KJV say “straight”. Both mean the same thing.
These words have never been welcomed, and they are particularly offensive to the twenty-first century ears.
I don’t think that people like to be considered as being narrow, especially, “narrow minded.”
We don’t really want to be narrow & self-righteous like the “check-list carrying Pharisees –
We don’t want to be inflexible & narrowly dogmatic in matters were Scripture is silent and/or not clear.
On the other hand, we believers should embrace the narrowness that Jesus recommends. Jesus tells us that there are only two roads, if you permit me, there’s the High Road, & then there’s the Low Road –
One leads to life & the other leads to destruction – There is no middle ground, no middle way, no short cut. You all know the old saying, ‘All roads lead to Rome, yes true, but there is only one road to life. The epilogue to the Sermon on the Mount is about getting on the right road, the correct road, & staying on it! One can say that this is the most important part of the Sermon on the Mount.
Road to Destruction (V13)
Jesus pictures for us a large entrance to a city that opens onto a broad boulevard; let’s call it a six lane highway; the interstate running into Atlanta. Wide, spacious; easy to locate, no traffic jams, you can change lanes to get to the right off ramp.
Then there’s the gate, and because of it’s size there is no limitation as to the baggage you can bring with you. Bring everything, don’t leave anything behind; all that can fit into and as many of the Bekin’s or Mayflowers moving semi trucks. In addition, what you personally carry - What is implied here is the idea that this road, this interstate, is so wide, so broad that there are no boundaries on what one thinks.
Personal views make no difference whatsoever – C. S. Lewis, in his autobiography says this is how his early experience was; he writes: “I was soon (in the famous words) altering “I believe” to “one does feel” and oh the relief of it . . . From the tyrannous noon of revelation I passed into the cool evening twilight of ‘Higher Thought’, where nothing was to be obeyed & nothing to be believed except what was either comforting or exciting.”
If your thing is nature, if you worship mother earth, well that’s okay; If you are into transcendental meditation, that’s okay. You can be into the old “I’m okay, you’re okay”, that’s fine.
You can be like John Lennon’s & Paul McCartney – “He’s a real nowhere man, Sitting in his nowhere land with nobody; Doesn’t have a point of view knows not where he’s going to . . . He’s as blind as he can be, Just sees what he wants to see . . .
And the song goes on – The road has plenty of room for everybody as long as one’s thinking doesn’t turn into value judgments.
You can compare philosophies, but for you to say one is better than the other is anathema.
The relative is absolute, & the absolute is relative –
Other than meaning-less, thought-terminating statements about the good of the majority or the consensus of the people, which you hear just about all the time from radio pundits, the broad roadway imposes few boundaries on conduct. There is absolutely no effort needed to stay on the broad stretch.
There was a story told during recurrent flight training about a Braniff pilot during a flight that when he was informed by air traffic control center that he was flying just left of the center line; his reply to the controller was, “son, I’m not exactly performing brain surgery up here.”
The airways are 10 miles wide, 5 miles to either side of the centerline. The broad stretch of road, the broad interstate, even the 10 mile wide airway can give a false sense of freedom & independence.
Jesus says that thought it is the wrong road, “those who enter by it are many” – It’s a heavily traveled road, it’s the Low Road from the song – You are never alone on the wide interstate, which leads to destruction.
If my memory serves me right, didn’t Abercorn extension end where now if just pass the Savannah Mall? I seem to recall a sign and barricade.
If you didn’t heed the sign, you kept going & went into the river. – So it is with the wide road, it comes to the edge of the abyss, at that wide gate & stops, but not the traveler –
Claudio Fernandez, friend and fellow aviator in Panama with the same airline; experienced, had over 18,000 flight hours. On March 16, 1998 on flight from Panama City to Puerto Obaldia, when just 54 miles from destination, 20 minutes, he went off route a little, and slammed the aircraft forty feet below the peak of a mountain. Ten people were killed. The co-pilot was a young 20 year old daughter of another pilot with the airline, Scarlett Martinez. Pilot error was the finding of the investigation. Complacency can keep one on that wide road, on that wide airway, off the centerline –
The Road to Life
Then there is the road to life, v.14, “the gate is small and the way is narrow that leads to life, and there are few who find it.
Jesus gives us a picture of a tiny gate, how about a tiny entrance way, a sharp turn like turning into here or our neighbors drive; even better, trying to find Debbie’s entrance off Quacco at night in the rain. Blink and you’ll miss any of them.
The road, like Quacco, never widens no matter how long you travel on it. You can’t bring any baggage with you. Try turning a 50’ 18 wheeler into our drive entrance.
It’s like boarding an airline and being told you can’t check any baggage nor have any carry-on baggage either.
It is a small gate & very few are willing to shed what is necessary to get through it.
We have to come to God with bare hands, holding nothing!
One enters the narrow gateway, the entrance to life & then find the roadway stays narrow –
One thing about Jesus, He is upfront about the roadway staying narrow – He doesn’t lure anyone with any kind of false assurance that it will be tough at first but eventually it will widen –
The truth is those who follow the road, those who follow Him, have to take up the cross daily & suffer for & with Jesus: (Mark 8:34).
Yet, in Matthew 5:10 He said:
The road isn’t only narrow, it does impose boundaries on what we believe & think – But it isn’t repressive – Far from it!
One finds that it enhances logic & aesthetics & science – Our thoughts about God & truth are enlarged & confined. Truth isn’t left up for a vote to the tyranny of a democratic consensus.
Those who follow Christ will not & may not believe what most people believe – Those who follow that narrow road aren’t going to be popular for their beliefs.
There are certain concepts of God out in the world that are true, others are; certain views are degrading and other are exalting.
The Biblical vision of God goes way beyond any vision dreamed by anyone that is traveling on the wide, broad, road – It is absolutely electrifying.
Here is God who isn’t confined by nature but is above it; He holds everything together by the word of His power; who is our Father but also became a man in order to redeem us –
That narrow road gives to us an incredible, a spectacular, immense conception of God. So too then, our thoughts on salvation are narrow – Jesus said:
Those who have preached, witnessed salvation through Christ alone have exhibited the same narrowness.
Listen, we are to love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might.
We do not put anyone else, anything, to be equal to or above Him.
Conclusion
The narrow way is completely fulfilling – It provides freedom & joy & leads to eternal life -
There is no abyss at the end of the narrow road –
The opening line of the conclusion of the Sermon on the Mount is a command. He says in Luke 13:24 - Strive to enter through the narrow door; for many, I tell you, will seek to enter and will not be able.
It’s not just enough to listen about the “gate” – You have to enter through it.
No middle ground, there’s no neutrality – You’re either on the broad wide road leading to destruction, or the narrow road leading to life.
You won’t go through the narrow gate unawares or by accident, you have to go through it purposely.
You decide; no one can do it for you.
Moses said to the people in Deuteronomy 30:19 -
In like manner Joshua exhorted the people in Joshua 24:15 -
Peter declaring the gospel in Acts 2:38 -
Let me ask you, which road are you on? It is written in John 10:9 that Jesus said - I am the door; if anyone enters through Me, he will be saved, and will go in and out and find pasture.
You have to enter in; the question is; will you?
