MH 20
Back to A Devotional Commentary on the Gospels
March 20
Matthew 7:12-14. Christ describes the wrong and the right way.
Who can hear our Saviours' golden rule without approving it! And who can hear it without condemning himself! "Do for others what you would like them to do for you." He who has kept the same is a perfect man, and has done all the law and prophets taught. We must confess with sorrow that we have broken it a thousand times, and that we need pardon through the Savior's blood for these manifold transgressions. But though we have transgressed, yet if we desire to please God, we shall find this rule an admirable guide.
God knows our ignorance, and has graciously furnished us with a rule that will apply to every circumstance in which we can be placed. On every occasion we should imagine ourselves to be in the place of our neighbour, and say, (for instance,) "If I were a parent, how would I expect my child to behave towards me; if I were a child, my parent; if I were a master, how would I require my servant to conduct himself; if I were a servant, how would I wish my master to deal with me; if I were suffering pain, what would I desire the healthy to do to alleviate my misery; if I were sunk in poverty, what would I think the rich ought to do, when they beheld my destitution?"
We may go further still, and say, "If I were a perishing heathen, now standing before the bar of God, what would I then think Christians ought to have done for me?" We must, however, ask these questions with this condition—"What would it be reasonable for me to expect another to do for me, if I were in his circumstances?"
How ill can we bear to be examined by this rule! And yet we have behaved far, far better to our fellow-creatures than we have to God.
Our Savior, by his next declaration, has often excited astonishment and anxiety. He declared that the gate of life was strait, and that the way was narrow; by which he meant that men find it difficult to be truly religious. The narrow way is not broader now than it was when these words were first spoken, and still there are but few who find it. And if there are but few who find it, let us never conclude that any practice is right, because many indulge in it. The way in which many walk must be wrong. If we would please God and save our souls, we must be singular.
In the broad way there are many travellers, and there are many paths in which those travellers walk. People of all sorts of character walk in it; the spend-thrift, and the miser; the pleasure-lover, and the self-righteous religionist—and each different kind of character condemns the other. Yet they are all alike in this respect, they do not love God, nor do his will; and they are all hastening (however little they may think it) to the same destruction.
Christians, on the contrary, all walk in the same path. They are all alike in spirit, though some are more excellent than others. They enter in at the same strait gate, that is, they believe in the same Saviour. Though they come from the opposite ends of the world, yet they know each other's minds, and sympathize with each other's feelings. The greatest king and the lowest beggar have a sympathy with each other, if they both love Christ.
Yet this narrow way is little sought. The reason is, men cannot bear the sacrifices which they must make before they can enter in, they do not like to give up their pleasure and their pride. If they would walk in this narrow way, they would find it pleasant. In some places it is steep, and in others it is rough; but the blessed end makes it pleasant. It is a prospect that would make any path pleasant. It is a prospect that grows brighter as the traveller proceeds; it is the prospect of the everlasting hills, crowned with the golden city and the pearly gates. And the Companion makes it pleasant. He is at once the Guard, the Guide, the Friend of all who walk in the narrow way.
And though but few walk in it now, yet in the home to which it leads a multitude shall be found, yes, a multitude without number; for in every age, there have been some who travelled in this path, and in the ages yet to come there shall be many more. The broad road shall not be always thronged. When Satan, who now deceives the world, shall be shut up in prison, then the broad way shall be forsaken, the people shall be all righteous, and none shall say any more to his neighbour, "Know the Lord," for all shall "know Him from the greatest to the least." Our journey may be lonely, but our Father's house shall not be empty. There are many mansions in it, and not one of them shall lack a blessed inhabitant. Then will our divine Lord be satisfied, when he beholds gathered around Him his innumerable family.
And shall the straitness of the gate deter us from seeking to enter in? Or shall the narrowness of the way induce us to turn back? It would be well to go through fire and water to attain such an inheritance. But the sufferings of this way are far less than its consolations, and these cannot be compared with its end. "I reckon," said the apostle Paul, "that the sufferings of this life are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us," (Rom. 8:18.)