Well, hello everyone and welcome back. This is our daily devotional for Monday, October 27th, 2025. And I hope that it finds all of you doing very well with a very good start to your work week. Now y'all, if you were with us yesterday, or if you tried to live stream, you'll know that the live stream cut. And if you were with us yesterday, you'll know that we had sort of an emergency situation come up in our worship service where someone had a medical emergency and that forced us to move everybody next door to Providence Hall. I did not bring the camera with me over there to stream the very short service we ended up having as we focused on God's sovereignty and the fact that he holds us and he keeps us and he watches over our goings and our comings and how there is only one who can condemn us and that is Jesus Christ. And instead of condemning us, he is seated at God's right hand, interceding on our behalf. Now, that was our focus yesterday. And y'all, again, if you were here, I'm sorry about that situation, but the individual who had the medical emergency is doing much, much better, and we are really grateful for that. So thank you for your prayers, and thank you also for your versatility yesterday. Also, we had a trunk or treat yesterday, big day at Old Providence. But y'all, it's a new week, lots of new opportunities, including the opportunity, you know I say it every Monday morning, Sunday morning is a Monday morning decision. Go ahead and start planning. to be a regular part of a Bible-believing church somewhere. We would love it if it were Old Providence. Now, that being said, it's good to be back with you. Remember where we are? We're just making our way through God's Word. We're right there in the Sermon on the Mount, Matthew 5-7. that portion where Jesus sat down on the mountainside and began to teach, and he deals with all sorts of things. In fact, when we were together yesterday, or I should say Friday, Jesus focused on what has commonly been called the golden rule. about doing unto others as you would have them do unto you, but also how this sums up the law and the prophets, the idea of loving your neighbor as yourself. We fast forwarded to when the Pharisees tried to catch Jesus in a trap to ask him which is the most important commandment. And the whole goal was for him to say, oh yeah, don't murder people. So they could say, oh Jesus, so you're saying don't murder people, that's important, but it's okay to just steal from one another. It's okay to lie, okay to have idols, et cetera, et cetera. Now, of course, Jesus was wise, wisest amongst all the men that have ever lived, wisest man that has ever lived or will ever live. He knew what they were doing. And so he summed up all of the law and the prophets. That's what we saw. That's at the end of verse 12. Law and the prophets is referring to all the commands of scripture up to that point. And so we see this beautiful blanket statement that pretty much everything, take the 10 commandments for instance, they can be broken down into the vertical relationship and the horizontal relationship. Love God with everything in you, love your neighbor as yourself. Pretty much everything is covered that way. But now today, we are moving along in Matthew chapter seven, almost at the end of the Sermon on the Mount, and we come to a curious little section. It's just two verses, verses 13 and 14 is where we are today. And that's a good thing because maybe you can tell and maybe you can't. I am not feeling very good. I'm not my normal chipper self. And so my voice is a little precarious. It's a good thing today that our passage is small. Small, but so important, y'all. Ooh, so important. Why? Well, let's pray, and then we'll dig in. Our God and our Father, we thank you for this time that you've given to us, and we pray that as we come to this curious, curious little section, that you would give us wisdom. Help us to see the truth of your word, and help us to ensure that we have gone through the narrow gate, being Jesus Christ, your Son and our Savior. Father, don't let us follow the world. Instead, Let us be transformed by the renewal of our mind. And we pray it all in Jesus' name. Amen. All right, y'all, so just now in my prayer, one of the things I like to do is pray scripture. God wrote it. It's one of the best ways you can pray. But maybe you caught a little reference that I used right there, and it comes actually from the book of Romans in chapter 12. And it's something that I read not too terribly long ago to you, although I read it in a different context. But do you know, in all the world, you're doing one of two things, right? One of two things is happening to you constantly. And it's, you're either conforming to the world or you're being transformed. Romans chapter 12, verse one. Therefore, I urge you brothers, in view of God's mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God. This is your spiritual act of worship. And then listen to it, verse two. do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind." And then he goes on to talk about, then you'll be able to tell what God's will is, et cetera, et cetera. The reality is you are doing one of two things. You are conforming to the world, or you are being transformed by the renewal of your mind, by the power of the Holy Spirit, informed by the by really the word of God in all of its totality. But you're either conforming to the world or you are being transformed. Now, the reason that I start with that today is because Jesus presents a situation where you're either gonna do one of two things. Just like Romans 12, either you're conforming to the world or your mind is being transformed. In the same way, Jesus said, Matthew chapter seven, verse 13, 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 leads to life, and only a few find it." So just like you're either being transformed by the renewal of your mind or you're conforming to the world, either you have entered through the narrow gate and are on its straight and narrow path, or you have entered through the broad gate. with the broad way. The narrow gate leads to life, the broad gate leads to destruction, to quote again verse 13. Did you ever read the Pilgrim's Progress? There's a lot of imagery from Pilgrim's Progress used, or excuse me, Pilgrim's Progress uses this imagery right here in the story of Christian as he makes his way towards the celestial city. But what is Jesus really talking about here? Well, y'all, what he's doing is he's laying out one of two paths. And he's talking about the idea of worldly salvation, or he's talking about the idea of real salvation. What is worldly salvation? Worldly salvation says, oh, well, you can believe pretty much whatever you want. Lots of names for him. We call him God the Father. There are those that call him Allah. There are those that call him Yahweh. It's the simple understanding that you are either abiding by the world's philosophy and the world's theology as it concerns Jesus Christ, or you have a biblical understanding of who Jesus is. Jesus uses this language quite a bit of the way and the gate and that sort of stuff. John 14, 6 is a prime example of what Jesus said about himself. Jesus said, I am the way, the truth, and the life, and no man comes to the Father but by me. Now y'all, there are those that would view that different ways. Some might even make the accusation that that is a very narrow view. And that would be correct, because it points to the exclusivity of Christ. And that's what he's doing here. He's laying the groundwork right here in the Sermon on the Mount. He doesn't give them specifics. He doesn't talk about what it looks like to go through the broad gate, but he does say where the broad gate leads to, and that is to destruction, and where the narrow gate leads to, and that is to life itself, through him. As he continues to build, he's going to continue to talk about his own exclusivity. You know what that word means, to be exclusive is to be singular, it's to be limited. When it comes to salvation, as it relates to Jesus, you either have worldly, I've said it before, you either have worldly ideas or you have biblical ideas. Worldly ideas is that religion is nice, but you know we all have different ideas different different presumptions But we're all just gonna make it to heaven eventually and and Christians happen to believe that Jesus is the Savior Muslims believe it's by following the way of Allah The Mormons and Jehovah's Witnesses have their thing over there where you got to live perfect lives and but it's all really the same God's Word does not leave you that option And you can call it closed-minded, you can call it narrow, you can even call it backwards. But you can't get more exclusive and more narrow than Jesus when he said, I am the way, the truth, and the light. And before you have the opportunity to say, yeah, but there's many ways, many truths, and many lies, Jesus gives the qualifier, the capstone statement, no one comes to the Father but by me. That's what Jesus is really getting to here. that the only way you will have salvation is by placing your faith in Him. Because look, what it comes down to is a matter of payment. Either you pay for your sin, or Jesus pays for your sin. Jesus pays for your sin when you place your faith in Him. When He is Lord of your life, when you have trusted in Jesus Christ alone, you are justified. That means you are declared just by God the Father, because all of your sin is placed on Jesus, and it's paid for by Him having hung on the cross, and in turn, all of His righteousness is placed on you, or you will have some other idea of salvation. doesn't matter what it is, because every other idea of salvation that isn't faith in Jesus Christ alone, saved by the blood of the Lamb alone, anything aside from that ultimately is a matter of you paying for your sin. And here's the thing, you will without Jesus, but you'll never stop paying, and you'll do so in hell for all eternity. And y'all, you can call that narrow if you want to, but I call it the Bible. I call it the idea of scripture. Now, the beautiful thing is, is that this is a free gift. The wonder of it all is that we do nothing to earn it. We don't have to work our way into God's favor. We don't work our way to God. God worked his way to us through Jesus Christ. But we are still told to enter, verse 13, enter through the narrow gate. That means you can have an understanding of your salvation based on so many things. You can think that maybe you've done more good things than bad things, as if there's some cosmic scale somewhere out there in the cosmos that measures your good deeds versus your bad deeds. And if you got more good than bad, you get into heaven. That makes no sense whatsoever. And even if it did, your bad deeds would far outweigh your good ones. Because remember, sin isn't only what you've done, it's what you've left undone. It's also the inclination of your heart. And our hearts are desperately wicked. We can't even know them. I mean, that's just the fact of the matter. So maybe you're relying on your works to save you. Maybe you're relying on church membership to save you. Maybe you're relying on a baptism to save you. Maybe you're relying on money to save you. Maybe you're relying on not your works, but how awful other people are. Let me tell you something, when you stand before God one day, you're not gonna be able to say, well, you know, Lord, I might've done this, but look at this person over there, look at how much worse they are. The answer to that sort of mentality is, okay, then you'll be in hell with them. But y'all, either you have lived a holy, complete and perfect life or you haven't. I know that I haven't, I know that you haven't either, whether you'll admit it or not, and you probably would. But y'all, if you're unholy, the only means by which you can ever become holy again is through Jesus. Narrow is the gate. All these other ideas of how you might be saved, that's broad. but that road leads you to destruction, whereas Jesus leads you to life. So make sure that you are trusting in him. Let's pray. Our God and our Father, we thank you so much for this time and for this opportunity to enjoy you. We thank you for the exclusivity of Jesus, that he is the only way, the only truth, and the only life. Forgive us when we've relied on something else. Instead, let our focus be on you. And I pray it all in Jesus' name. Amen. Well, I'd like to thank you all for being a part of this time. Lord willing, we'll be back tomorrow morning at six o'clock if my plague here doesn't get any worse. But Lord willing, we will see you again very soon. Until then, have a great Monday or whatever day it happens to be. Take care.