272 A MAN'S TRUE LIFE
riches to increase, he felt it to be a religious duty to make the disposal of his money a matter of earnest and most careful solicitude. There was placed in his hands a mighty power for good or for evil, and he felt himself under obligation to God and man to spare no pains in using it to the best advantage for the Church and the world. ^
* E. Hodder, Life of ISamiiei Morley, 285.
Thf Narrow Door.
ST. LUKE— J 5
Literature.
Bourdillon (F.), The Parables Explaitied and Applied, 169,
Burton (J.), Christian Life and Truth, 22.
Darlow (T. H.), The Upward Calling, 46.
Farrar (F. W.), Eternal Hope, 90.
Hamilton (J ), Faith in God, 177.
Howatt (J R.), The Children's Pulpit, 84.
Kirk (J.), Sermons, 153.
Laidlaw (J.), Studies in the Parables, 193.
Laing (F. A.), Simple Bible Lessons, 213.
McCombie (W,), Sermom and Lectures, 207.
Murray (W. H.), The Fruits of the Spirit, 463.
Selby (T. G.), The Strenuous Gospel, 184.
Shepard (J. W.), Light and Life, 153.
Walker (J.), Essays, Papers, and Sermons, 323.
Wilson (J. H.), The Gospel and its Fruits, 51.
Christian World Pulpit, x. 161 (T. de W. Talmage) ; xiv. 397 (A. Scott) ;
xvi. 309 (H. W. Beecher) ; xxxv. 29 (A. S. Brooke) ; Ixi. 241 (G. C.
Morgan). Complete Preacher, ii. 267 (F. W. Farrar).
The Narrow Door.
Strive to enter in by the narrow door : for many, I say unto you, shall seek to enter in, and shall not be able. — Luke xiii. 24.
This solemn warning was provoked by a very simple inquiry. One disciple ventured to put into words the question which often rises up, unbidden, in the hearts of us all : " Lorrt, are there few that be saved ? " What could be more natural and innocent to ask ? Yet in Christ's ears the question sounded almost frivolous, and He rebuked it by grave, stern sentences which drove home on the questioner's conscience the urgency of his own salvation. Our Lord could never tolerate the theological speculations in which men dissipate their religious earnestness and fritter away their spiritual energies. When we go to Him with our eager questionings about the future, He always brings us back to the unspeakable seriousness of our own present. When we ask Him about the end of the world and the date of the judgment day, we hear Him answer :
" Let your loins be girded about, and your lamps burning ; and ye yourselves like unto men that wait for their Lord." " What I say unto you, I say unto all, Watch." And so also when we speculate over the destiny of those heathen multitudes who have lived and died without the true Light, the New Testament straightway recalls us to our personal accountability: "This is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light." " Walk as children of light." And again, when we strive to peer into God's final secrets and to forecast the latter end of all souls, we are arrested by these piercing, heart-searching words, and bidden to strive to enter by the door.
Let us ask — ^
I. What Door is This ?
IL How are we to Enter ?
•75
276 THE NARROW DOOR
What Door is This?
The door to which Christ refers is the entrance into His Kingdom. By this figure He places before His hearers the great alternatives of life, and summons them to decision. There are two gates, two ways, two goals, two sides of the throne, two kinds of foundation for the house we build : and we have to make our choice between them. We can go in at the strait gate, or at the wide gate, but not at both. We can travel in the broad way, or the narrow way, but not in both. We can build on the rock, or on the sand, but not on both. We shrink from making this decisively plain to ourselves, that the decisiveness of our action or inaction may also remain veiled ; but it is implied even in this foolish question ; it is emphasized in our Lord's answer ; and it is the one conviction without which thought on this subject is fruitless. The ideas we have formed of salvation and perdition, of life saved and life lost, of the bright banque ting-hall and the outer darkness, of heaven and hell, may be erroneous enough ; but there can be no reason for thinking of such things at all, and as little profit in it, unless we feel that in the very nature of the case these are alternatives which for ever exclude each other. Christ's answer bears directly on this, and is wholly plain and practical. " Strive to enter in by the narrow door."
1. This is a narrow door. In the Authorized Version it is called a " strait gate," and the term " strait " is, of course, quite a different word from "straight." Straight means that which is not crooked; strait is an old-fashioned word meaning narrow. We find the same word used by our Lord in Matt. vii. 13, 14 ; and there He explains fully what the strait gate means. " Strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life." The strait gate and the narrow way mean the way of eternal life, the way of salvation, the gate or entrance to the Kingdom.