The Golden Rule is the Narrow Way — Duane Troyer

Grace be with you all, and peace from God, the Father, and the Lord Jesus Christ. As I was sitting here this morning, I was thinking about this psalm. I had to look up which one it is, but this psalm that talks about worshiping at his footstool.

It's Psalm 99. The first five verses say, The Lord reigns, let the people tremble. He sits enthroned upon the cherubim, let the earth quake. The Lord is great in Zion, he is exalted over all the people.

Let him praise your great and awesome name. Holy is he, the king in his might loves justice. You have established equity, you have executed justice and righteousness in Jacob. Exalt the Lord our God, worship at his footstool.

Holy is he. And I think that's what we're doing when we come together on earth to worship him. Because Jesus said that the Lord sits in heaven and the earth is his footstool. And when people come together here on earth to worship him, they're worshiping at his footstool.

Why don't we stand and pray before we get started. Our great heavenly father, who is holy and who has established justice and equity. Sits in the heavens and has the earth for your footstool. Lord, we come before you and we thank you for this opportunity to just gather here at your feet.

And we praise you and worship you. We pray Lord that you would teach us and instruct us now. Help us to be your servants who are ready and willing to do all the things that you have for us. Be all the things you want us to be.

We just thank you for the Lord Jesus Christ who came and has made all these things possible. And in his name we pray, amen. Alright, I want to look at a few more verses here in Matthew. In the Sermon on the Mount.

I wasn't sure earlier in the week if I'd be having this message this week.

But I guess time went on and I didn't appoint anybody else and so here I am. And I have these, we're just going to look at three verses today. And I think it'll be a slightly shorter message. I thought to fit these next three verses into the last week's message would make it too long.

The Golden Rule and the Two Ways

To try to cram it into the next subject would make that too long. And so we're going to look at Matthew chapter 7 verses 12 to 14. It says, In everything therefore, treat people the same way you want them to treat you.

For this is the law and the prophets. Enter through the narrow gate. For the gate is wide and the way is broad that leads to destruction. And there are many who enter through it. For the gate is small and the way is narrow that leads to life.

And there are few who find it. This verse 12 is a very familiar verse. I hope all of you children have this verse memorized. If not, your parents ought to make that a point or it's least common. To have children memorize this verse, I remember in the one room school house where I went, this was hanging on the wall.

It's called the Golden Rule. And it's sometimes phrased in various ways. Even translations phrase it in various ways. But in everything whatsoever you want men to do to you, do that to them. Here it says, treat people the way you want them to treat you.

And that this is the law and the prophets. Another thing, this is for the children mostly. But one of my uncles once taught me how to remember where this verse is. It's in Matthew 7, 12. And he said, practice this verse 7 days out of the week and 12 months out of the year.

And it stuck with me the rest of my life. It's a law that resonates in all of us. Our children get it. I mean, I can't tell you how many times I've settled some kind of thing with my children. And I just simply had to say, would you want your brother or sister to treat you this way?

And the answer they give reveals what they should have done or should not have done. It especially resonates in its negative form. We'll get to that just a little bit more. But Jesus gave it in its positive form.

Jesus did not say here that don't do to others as you would not be treated. He says, do to others as you would have them do to you. I think the negative form is implied. But I think there is a significance in the fact that Jesus used the positive forms.

Many other religions and philosophers have taught this principle in its negative form. Socrates, Confucius, Buddha. And most religions have a saying, something like, don't do to somebody what would make you angry if they did it to you.

As I looked into this verse, I realized that what Jesus is doing here is not just giving an isolated commandment here. He's actually concluding the main body of this sermon. Notice how he says, in everything therefore.

And remember what I've been telling you about this word therefore. It always means that the person is referring to something that has already been said. In everything therefore, treat people the same way you want them to treat you, for this is the law and the prophets.

And this is the last and final commandment that Jesus is giving here in this sermon. And he says, this is the law and the prophets. This term, the law and the prophets, has been used before here in this sermon.

And if you don't remember it, I can't blame you. It's been many, many months ago that we looked at it. But I think the main body of Jesus' sermon here is sandwiched between when he started talking about the law and the prophets and now he ends it by mentioning the law and the prophets again.

And by the way, in case you're like, just as a way of information, if you're reading through the New Testament, sometimes you'll come across the word law. And it may be talking about God's eternal law, or he may be talking about a law that's eternal, that really is without beginning or end.

But it could be a law that God established with Noah, or it could be a law that God established in the garden, or just the eternal law of God. But whenever I think, based on what I can think of or have read, whenever it talks about the law and the prophets, when it specifically says the law and the prophets, it's always talking about the Mosaic law.

The Sermon on the Mount and Fulfillment of the Law

And so here in this sermon, we're going to go back to Matthew 5. Even sometimes when you just... I know we've been in this sermon for months and months and months, but even sometimes when you just sit down and you read it in one sitting, you kind of don't capture how one thought flows to the other and how this is a deep sermon with many things to think about.

If you read it, there's chapter breaks and all these things. But when Jesus started this sermon... So first, he starts with the Beatitudes, about what the blessings of this new kingdom are, and for whom they are.

What kind of attitudes would bring down the blessings of God. And they're very different than what you would read when you read, for the people familiar with Deuteronomy 28, about how they would be blessed with wealth and power, and they would send enemies to flight, and people would come in one way and scatter ten ways, or they would be the head and not the tail, and all those things.

And now Jesus is talking about, blessed are you when you're persecuted, blessed are you when you weep, blessed are the poor in spirit, and all these things. And so Jesus is starting this sermon already, kind of shaking up the Jewish people's preconceived ideas of how God's blessings work, and then he talks about us being the salt of the earth and the light of the world.

And then here in verse 17 of Matthew 5, he starts in this main body of the sermon, where he says, Do not think that I came to abolish the law and the prophets. I did not come to abolish, but to fulfill.

For truly I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not the smallest letter or stroke shall pass from the law until all is accomplished. And one of the reasons I believe that Jesus said this before he even got started is because he knew that that's exactly what the people were going to think.

They're going to hear him say things that are foundationally shaking to a person who's familiar with the Mosaic law and the prophets, and they're going to think he's come here to destroy this thing. And so he tells them beforehand, Don't think that that's what I came to do.

He is about ready to say things that no rabbi has the authority to say, no other rabbi. He's about to quote the law of Moses and then lay a new law right beside it. Laws that were not clearly expressed in the Torah at all.

He's setting himself up as an authority independent from the law. He's setting him up as a man that has more authority than Moses. That's really a big deal. It's why the thing that he said expected would happen, happened.

Not just in this sermon, it happened through his life. They found him breaking the Sabbath. They tried to test him. Is it lawful to pay toll taxes? What do you do with this woman that Moses said this to?

And all these things. And the apostles of Jesus got accused of the same thing. They got accused of going around teaching people contrary to Moses. So Jesus goes on here in this sermon to teach these various things that those who were familiar with the Mosaic law recognized when he said things like, You have heard that it has been said, and then he quotes the law, and then he says, But I say unto you, and he quotes something different.

He addresses oaths, adultery, the laws of justice, and he gets to the root of these problems. He tells us how to and how not to give alms and pray and fast. He tells us how we should handle money and possessions and what our perspective of these things should be.

He tells us how to and how not to judge others. And these are all subjects that in some form are discussed in the Law and the Prophets. But Jesus here, he's exposing the root of these subjects, he's getting to the heart of them, and he's shedding light on them that makes the former light obsolete or fade away.

He's not destroying it, but it's fading away because of the brightness that he's bringing on these subjects. Reading through the Law and the Prophets, and we have this, like we read through the Law and the Prophets, and we're familiar with Jesus' teachings, and we pick things up that before Jesus came and gave his teachings were even harder for people to see.

It's not saying that people couldn't see them, but it was even harder for people to see. The apostles had a hard time with this until the Spirit came upon them, and God opened up all the sayings from the Law and the Prophets that point to Christ.

Christ Revealed in the Law and the Prophets

Remember when those two disciples, Cleophas, and I don't know if we have the name of the other one, were after Jesus' death, they were walking somewhere, and Jesus appeared, and they didn't know it was him.

And Jesus kind of asked this question, like, what are you so sad about? And they were like, are you the only person that doesn't know what's going on? And they told him about this. Jesus, we thought he was going to be the deliverer.

We thought he was going to restore Israel to its place of authority and its kingdom, bring that kingdom back. And now he's dead. And we've heard that the disciples went to the grave, and he's not there anymore.

And so Jesus starts talking to them. All the way until they get to the next city, he starts talking to them. And then finally, as they want to turn aside, Jesus disappears or something like that. I haven't read this in a long time.

But they realized it was Jesus, and they said, oh, did not our hearts burn as he revealed these things? If there's one place in Scripture that I would have wanted to be, it would have been on that road with those men.

I would have loved to hear Jesus just open up the Law and the Prophets and just reveal all that stuff. Those things fascinate me. But anyway, as you read through the Law and the Prophets, you get glimpses.

You get glimpses of these things. I thought about this this morning. I think it's kind of like reading through the Law and the Prophets is kind of like the light that is in them is somewhat like the light of a firefly that you see at night.

And you get these glimpses, these little sporadic glimpses of light. And it's beautiful. I love watching fireflies. But once you catch one and you have it here in your hand, you kind of get the idea. But once you shine a light on it, it's like, oh, that's what a firefly looks like.

But what happens to that little light that the firefly made? You can hardly see it anymore because of the brightness of the light that you've shown upon it. And that's somewhat how it is with the Law and the Prophets.

When you read what Jesus revealed about it and said about it, that the true light that Jesus brought and is shines in such a way that the light from the Torah and the Prophets kind of fade away. That doesn't mean they're destroyed, though.

So here... Okay, so Jesus is starting this sermon. He begins this main body by saying, don't think that I came to destroy the Law and the Prophets. And then He expounds on the Law and the Prophets. And then here in Matthew 7, 12, He ends it.

He summarizes it all. If I... I don't know this, but my expectation of how Jesus said this verse is like... He's got this Jewish audience, right? And they're marveling at how He's interpreting the Law and the Prophets.

And He ends it by saying, therefore in everything due to others, as you would have others do to you, that's the Law and the Prophets. Of ourselves, we all know our duties. Sometimes, you know, sometimes we're troubled and we're trying to figure out, well, what would Jesus do in this situation?

What would Jesus want me to do in this situation? And very often the answer can be found if we just ask ourselves, well, what would I desire to be done to me if I were in this other person's shoes? If I can put myself in his situation, what would I have done to me?

A repeating theme in Jesus' teachings is that how we relate to others is how we are relating to God. Of ourselves, we know the Law of God. How do we know that it's wrong to slander? Because we don't like it when someone slanders us.

How do we know that we should comfort the sorrowful or encourage the disheartened or lift up the downtrodden or help the needy or not take advantage of another at his expense? Or how do we know that we should offer assistance to someone who's broke down beside the road or not interrupt another person while he's speaking?

Is it not because we don't like when those things happen to us or we like them, the positive ones? We like when people treat us that way? How do we know we should not retaliate? How do we know that we should forgive?

How do we know that we should feed the hungry and clothe the naked and visit the sick and imprisoned and take in the stranger? Is it not because we know, we already know that that's how we would like to be treated if we were in those shoes?

From something as big in the Law or in life, from something as big as why should I not marry another man's wife? To something in life as small as why should I plant this tree under which the shade I will never get to sit?

In all that spectrum, we can reason, well, it's because that's how I would like to be treated. I would not want somebody to marry my wife. And I wish people would have planted trees that I could sit under.

I like trees. I'm not a tree-hugging environmentalist by any means. I'll cut them and use them and so forth and so on. But I really like trees. I both like to look at them, sit under them. And when we moved to the place we're at now, there were some trees, but not very many and not big trees.

And most of them were kind of scrubby trees or not the preferred kind of trees. And so I planted, the first few years I was there, I planted a lot of trees. Oak trees and walnut trees and hickory trees and things I saw as being useful someday.

And Heidi back then was, well, what's that, 10 years ago, she was not very old yet, and she was helping me plant trees one day and she said, it seems kind of odd to be planting these trees that we'll probably never see get real big, but we sure wish somebody would have planted some 50 years ago.

That's it. The children know. Children know that there's this thing that we can do and we can tell by how we wish others would treat us. Children understand this law. Wicked people understand this law.

Even Haman in the book of Esther. Wicked Haman, he understood this law. When the king asked him, Haman, what do you think should be done for a man that the king would like to honor? And Haman thinks, oh, I bet that's me.

That must be me. Here's what I would do. I'd bring in the clothes and the king's horse and all those things, he said. I'd take him through town and say, this is who the king wants to honor. And the king said, there you go.

Poor Haman, he had to do it to his worst enemy. If only that the point is that everybody knows, everybody can relate to this, that this is a good law. And if we do it willingly and without partiality, it is a very blessed thing to live by.

Love of God and Neighbor as Fulfillment of the Law

Jesus said something very similar in Matthew 22 when he said, you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul and with all your mind. And then he says, and the second commandment, he said that's the greatest commandment, and the second is like unto it.

You shall love your neighbor as yourself. When he says the second is like unto it, I think he's saying it's basically the same thing. It's like the two sides of one coin. Love God and love your neighbor.

And then he says, for on these two commands hang all the law and the prophets. Paul said something very similar.

In Romans 13 where he said,.

Oh, nothing to anyone except to love one another. For he who loves his neighbor has fulfilled the law. For this, you shall not commit adultery. You shall not murder. You shall not steal. You shall not covet.

And if there is any other commandment, it is summed up in this saying, you shall love your neighbor as yourself. Love does no wrong to a neighbor. Therefore, love is the fulfillment of the law. Peter and James and John in their epistles all say similar things like that.

When Clement of Alexandria was commenting on this, Matthew 7, 12, he said, Here then is a comprehensive precept and all-embracing exhortation on life. Can you imagine what life would be like if everyone practiced this?

The kingdom of God would be here. Heaven would be here on earth. Can you imagine what family life would be if a husband and a wife would only and always be doing to the other as they would want done to them?

And all the children would always do that. Family life would be heavenly. Well, that's actually what Jesus came to do. He came to bring heaven to earth to restore what was lost when Adam and Eve lost their position as rulers of the earth under heavenly circumstances.

They had a chance and they lost it. And they had to exit this paradise, this place that was full of life and life abundantly. It was the place where the tree of life stood. They had to exit that place.

And there was an angel or a cherubim set there at that gateway with a fiery sword that swung every way guarding the entrance to that tree of life. And Jesus came to restore that. He came to give us access again to that tree of life.

Entering Through the Narrow Gate

And then we might ask ourselves this question, well, if that's so, why? Why does this world continue to get darker and more chaotic and worse? And why is the state around us, the world around us not a paradise restored?

And I think Jesus has the answer to that in the next verses here in the Sermon on the Mount. He says, enter through the narrow gate for the gate is wide and the way is broad that leads to destruction and there are many who enter through it.

For the gate is small and the way is narrow that leads to life and there are few who find it. Jesus is now starting here. He's starting to end this sermon with a series of warnings. Some things to consider as we evaluate and count the cost of such a... of becoming a disciple of such a revolutionary movement.

I think what Jesus is ending this sermon with would be similar to how Moses kind of ends a bunch of commandments that he gives by saying, I have set before you this day life and death. Choose life. Or Joshua, after addressing the people with many, many things, he ends up saying, choose you this day whom you will serve.

And Jesus is ending this collection of commands and teachings with, and this is the first one, there's some more coming in the next message or two that we'll look at, but he's presenting this case and he's saying there's a narrow way, there's a broad way, choose you which one you'll take.

And just know this, the one is traveled by, the one leads to life and it's traveled by very few, and the one leads to destruction and it's traveled by most. These teachings that Jesus has given here are not just a sermon to be read, they're not just a plan to discuss, they're not just unrealistic ideals, they're not unattainable moral precepts, they are not, as the false gospel might say, commands to show us that we can't live up to God's standard, it's a way to live by, it's a road to walk on.

Jesus never said, I am the plan of salvation, he said, I am the way, I am the way of salvation. A way is like a roadway or a highway, it has a purpose, it's to be traveled on. Most people can visualize or can get this analogy between going through life and traveling on a path or a road.

Poets and artists from all walks of life have captured that idea. One of the poets that I appreciate, not because of him being a super spiritual man, but just his poetic, his poetry is Robert Frost, and he has this one poem about two roads diverged in a woods, two roads diverged in a yellow woods, and how he came to that place where these roads diverged, and he looked down one for a long way, and he looked down the other, and he finally took the one less traveled by.

And he ends that poem by saying, I shall be telling this with a sigh, somewhere ages and ages hence, two roads diverged in a woods, and I took the one less traveled by, and it has made all the difference.

I'm going to pass this picture around. You can just look at it and pass it on. It's Jan Luyken, which is the artist of The Martyr's Mirror. Those of you who are familiar with the artwork in The Martyr's Mirror, he has lots of engravings that aren't in there.

Anyway, I came across that picture one time. There's this man, he comes up to the narrow gate, and he's carrying a whole bunch of baggage, and the gate is really narrow. You can tell this man with his baggage is not getting through that narrow gate.

People from nearly all walks of life can understand life as being a pathway. Often it's depicted as there's many roads, and we just need to choose from these many roads the one that fits us, or the one with our name on it, I've heard.

But Jesus, here in the light of eternity, he says there's only two, there's only two. The one is broad, and most people travel on it. The gate is broad, it's easy to find. There's no amount of baggage that doesn't fit through it.

It's constructed by the devil. It appears welcoming, inviting, easy. It's easy to find, it's smooth to travel. What's not apparent, and this by design of the gatekeeper, is that the end thereof is destruction.

The end thereof is destruction. Cyprian wrote, avoid the broad and spacious ways. They contain deadly snares, and death bringing pleasures. There the devil flatters you, so he may deceive. He smiles at you, so that he may do harm.

He entices, so that he may slay you. And as Jesus said here in verse 14, for the gate is small, and the way is narrow, that leads to life. And there are few that find it. It's a small gate, it's a narrow entrance, and it says, few find it.

That means few people even find it or notice it. It actually fits in with what we talked about in the last message about seeking. The good things, the pearls, the good things have to be sought after. They're not evident to the casual observer, and I think many a person walk by this narrow entrance to the real true way to life, and they don't even notice it as something to be considered.

It has so little appeal, and it's traveled by so few people, that most people walk by it and miss it. It is found by few, and it is walked by a far smaller number. Over the years as I've studied church history, and I've noticed that the true disciples of Jesus, those who really, really get the message of Jesus, and they want to conform their way, their life to the way of Jesus, they become the persecuted.

They become the minority, they become the persecuted, and often by others who are professing Christianity. And these people often and frequently in their writings, they make reference, they can really relate to this thing that Jesus said about the way to life is narrow.

The gateway is narrow, the path is narrow, there's not many people on it, it's a despised and rejected way. The early church made lots of mention of it, the Waldensians did, the Anabaptists did really a lot.

They often made reference to this teaching of Jesus. And this morning I looked for this one quote from an Anabaptist writer and I couldn't find it, but he was describing the narrow entrance. And he was saying that this gateway is so narrow that we must press our way through it, we must squeeze through it and leave our flesh hanging on the gateposts.

Just a poetic way of saying that you must deny your flesh to get into this gate. Wolfgang Brandhuber was an early Anabaptist, and he said if you want to return to God, you need to return through the door from which Adam was driven out.

To get in, you will have to leave your flesh, your own will, your lust and your love behind, and you will need to submit to the law in your heart. We must enter through the way, to get to life we must go in the way Adam was driven out.

And that means we must pass through this fiery sword that swings every way. We must let that sword or that word of God that cuts deep into the heart and the soul, we must let that happen. We must let it penetrate.

Do what the word of God needs to do. And that is the way. And just let it convict us of all wrong. Let it have its power. Let it hammer out the iniquities in life. And through letting that happen, and just stooping down to that narrow gate and entering through is the only way that we will ever attain that tree of life again.

Tribulation on the Way to the Kingdom

John Bunyan, when he wrote The Pilgrim's Progress, I'm sure he thought of these verses about the narrow gate, and about the path being narrow and difficult, and few finding it. It's all through his allegory.

In fact, I think that it's possible that Jesus here is even referencing something that was written possibly 500 years earlier. It's not in the Masoretic text. It's not even in some of the Septuagint translations, but it's in 2 Ezra.

I'll just read some little snippets of it to give you an idea of something that I think Jesus would have been familiar with this writing. So Ezra is having this conversation with an angel. And in that 7th chapter, I'll just start here in verse 6.

It says, another example, there is a city built, this is the angel speaking, another example, there is a city built and set on a plain and it is full of good things, but the entrance to it is narrow and set in a precipitous place so that there is fire on the right hand and deep water on the left.

There is only one path lying between them, that is between the fire and the water, so that only one person can walk on the path. If now the city is given to someone as an inheritance, how will the heir receive the inheritance unless by passing through the appointed danger?

He goes on to just talk about more of those things and then Ezra and this angel continue about the subject of, how is it that this is just for so few people? Ezra is saying, why this creation with so many people but only few, only so very few find it.

Ezra says, I answered and said, O sovereign Lord, I said then and I say now, blessed are those who are alive and keep your commandments, but what of those of whom I prayed, for whom among the living is there that has not sinned?

Or who is there among mortals that has not transgressed your covenant? And now I see that the world to come will bring delight to few but torment to many. For an evil heart has grown up in us which has alienated us from God and has brought us into corruption and the ways of death and has shown us the paths of perdition and removed us far from life.

And what now merely for a few but for almost all who have been created? And he answered me and said, Listen to me, Ezra, and I will instruct you and will admonish you once more. For this reason the Most High has made not one world, but two, inasmuch as you have said that the righteous are not many but few, while the ungodly abound.

Hear the explanation for this. If you have just a few precious stones, will you add to them lead and clay? I said, Lord, how can that be? And he said to me, Not only that, but ask the earth and she will tell you.

Defer to her and she will declare it to you. Say to her, You produce gold and silver and bronze and iron and lead and clay, but silver is more abundant than gold and bronze than silver and iron than bronze and lead than iron and clay than lead.

Judge therefore which things are precious and desirable, those that are abundant or those that are rare. And I said, O Sovereign Lord, what is plenteous is the less worth. For what is more rare is more precious.

And he answered me and said, Consider within yourself what you have thought for the person who has what is hard to get rejoices more than the person who has what is plentiful. So also will be the judgment that I have promised.

For I will rejoice over the few who shall be saved because it is they who have made my glory prevail now. And through them my name has now been honored and I will not grieve over the great number of those who perish.

He goes on. He talks a lot about this. I'll just read one more verse. This is the first verse in chapter 8. He said, He answered me and said, The Most High made this world for the sake of the many, but the world to come for the sake of only a few.

But I tell you a parable, Ezra. Just as when you ask the earth, it will tell you that it provides a large amount of clay from which earthenware is made, but only a little dust from which gold comes. So is the course of this present world.

Many have been created, but only a few shall be saved. I don't know for sure, but I think it's very possible that both Jesus and this Jewish audience would have been familiar with that. So where Jesus says this way is narrow here in Matthew 7.

He says, For the gate is small and the way is narrow. That word narrow, the Greek word, is libo, I think. And the word means afflicted or troubled. I think, if I'm not mistaken, it's where we get the word tribulation from.

This way is difficult, but don't lose heart because you consider the end of the way. It's the difference. You know what the difference is between a pilgrim and a tramp? They're both traveling men. A pilgrim is a traveler and a tramp is a traveler.

What's the difference? The one chooses his destination and he accepts the path. The pilgrim knows where he wants to go and he chooses a destination and whatever the path is that leads there, he accepts it.

But what does the tramp do? He chooses his path and he ends up accepting his destination. There's a really, really big difference. In Acts 14, we read this account of how the Jews from Antioch and Iconium, they stirred up the crowds of people against Paul and they stoned Paul and they drug him out of the city and thought he was dead.

And while the disciples were standing around Paul there, all of a sudden, Paul gets up. And what does he do? He walks back into the city. And then, this may be just a little bit later, but Paul encouraged the disciples of Iconium and Antioch.

It says, he strengthened them with these words, through much tribulation we must enter the kingdom of God. Through much tribulation we must enter... He strengthened them, right? He encouraged them. You might think that message is not very encouraging, but it really is when we know where we're going and we've chosen our destination and we hit some real hardships and tribulations and it's encouraging to hear someone like Paul say, yeah, through much tribulation we must enter the kingdom of God.

This is normal Christianity, okay? Few there be that find it. That is really sobering. Really sobering. Especially, I remember this preacher that I would often listen to growing up and I just kind of remember multiple times he would say like, one thing we know for sure is that less than half the people would, based on what Jesus said, less than half of the people would inherit eternal life.