Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread,"
What Jesus in Matthew 7:13, 14 said about choosing to go in the wide gate that leads to eternal death, or the narrow gate that leads to eternal life, is that the majority of earth's inhabitants take the wide gate and only "few ... find" the narrow gate.
Why is the right "gate" so "narrow"? Is God trying to shoo people out of the path that leads to eternal life by making it as difficult as possible? Many youth think so; and often the "few" who think they have "found" the right path congratulate themselves for their good judgment and self-discipline. The way they talk and act about the "narrow way" actually turns thoughtful people away from it.
Does the Lord stand by indifferently and let uninformed people wander into the wrong path? Why do nearly a billion people get shooed into Hinduism? And nearly the same number, to Islam? And why is nearly the whole world becoming "as it was" before the flood of Noah? Does God care? Is He doing anything effectiveto help? What will the final judgment say?
Proverbs 8:1-10 graphically represents God (that is, the Holy Spirit) making massive "media" appeals to humanity, crying out, shouting on top of the highest buildings of the cities, in the freeways and streets, attracting attention at all the traffic lights, pleading, "My voice is to the sons of men." The Peterson version (The Message) or paraphrase is vivid: "Lady Wisdom's ... taken her stand at First and Main, at the busiest intersection. Right in the city square where the traffic is thickest, she shouts, 'You--I'm talking to all of you, everyone out there on the streets! Listen, you idiots,--learn good sense! You blockheads--shape up!'"
Personally, I'm not wise enough to know exactly how the Holy Spirit is "shouting" like this, but for sure, in the final judgment it will be very clear that God did everything He possibly could to keep you from drifting into the wide gate that leads to eternal death. Why? Because He truly loves you!
-- Robert J. Wieland
From the "Dial Daily Bread" Archive: June 24, 1998.
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