Sermon On The Mount

The Narrow Way

Professor: Dr. R.J. Rushdoony

Subject: Conversations, Panels and Sermons

Lesson: 20-25

Genre:

Track: 20

Dictation Name: Sermon on the Mount – 20

Location/Venue:

Year: 1980

Oh Lord our God who art Lord of heaven and earth and all things therein whose purposes govern history and whose hand holds all things we come to Thee rejoicing that Thou art the Lord, that Thou hast called us, that Thou has given us such great and glorious promises in Christ and in Thy word. Give us joy in Thy service, make us strong in Thy word by Thy Spirit and send us forth always as more than conquerors through Christ our Lord. In His name we pray, Amen.

Our scripture this morning is Matthew 7:13-14 and our subject: The Narrow Way. Matthew 7:13-14.

“Enter ye in at the strait gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat:

14 Because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it.”

In our previous meeting we dealt with the golden rule and we saw that although the golden rule in a variety of forms appears in any number of cultures its meaning in all other cultures is very different. Our Lord makes it clear that what the golden rule represents is the summary of the law and the prophets. ‘for this is the law and the prophets’ He declares. When we come to the next two verses again we have verses that have similar echoes in antiquity. It was an ancient and a very common teaching device to speak of the two ways, the way of life and the way of death. The question of course was how the culture viewed the two ways. Thus [unknown], a disciple of Socrates said, and I quote:

“Seest thou not a small door and a pathway before the door in no way crowded for only a very few travel that way since it seems to lead through a pathless rugged and stony track. That is the way of true culture.” Unquote.

For [unknown] as for Socrates the two ways definitely had a class distinction, not a moral one. Maximus of [unknown] around 150 B.C., a philosopher, said and I quote:

“There are many deceitful bypasses most of which lead to precipices and pits and there is a single narrow, straight and rugged path and few are they who can travel it.” Unquote.

Jewish rabbis used the two ways method, it was very popular in Christian circles and we have an entire book from the early church written about the two ways, the Didache. But of course the Old Testament speaks of the two ways also. Jeremiah 21:8 declares:

“8 And unto this people thou shalt say, Thus saith the Lord; Behold, I set before you the way of life, and the way of death.”

Now when our Lord uses this teaching device, the two ways, He is not confirming the wisdom of the ancient world. He is not saying what Maximus and others of antiquity had to say. He takes the two ways concept and adapts it for His own purposes. He uses a familiar teaching device to make a very different point. First of all He speaks of the two ways immediately after the golden rule. As a result it is absurd to speak about the two ways without reference to the golden rule.

“Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them: for this is the law and the prophets.”

The broad way for many is ‘do in others before they do you in’. Knife them before they knife you. Conflict is seen as basic to the universe rather than God’s order. It’s a dog eat dog universe people say, not God’s universe. The broad way, in other words, denies the golden rule and it pursues a very contrary course.

But second the broad way is seen as the way of toleration and freedom. To follow Christ and do it too strictly, to take the law literally and faithfully is held by many to be rigid and narrow. Keep your options open and your mind free, some people will say. The broad way is presented as intelligence and rationality and taking the narrow way of God’s word is decried as wrong. The straightness of the gate, the narrowness of the way means no personal options, no choices, no smorgasbord religion, this is the way walk ye in it. That’s the straight and the narrow way. We have a reference in the Old Testament to the broad way although it appears in the English as the void way in 2nd Chronicles 18:9. We see that King Ahab is seated in the broad way or in the threshing floor. It can mean the broad way, the void place or the threshing floor. And there the false prophets are giving him the kind of thing he wants to hear. When Miciah appears and tells him that the judgment of God is upon him Ahab is angry and says this man can only speak evil of me. He wanted not the truth, not God’s straight and narrow way but a broad way of possibilities whereby evil can prevail. Now our Lord says straight is the gate and narrow is the way that leadeth unto life and few thereby that find it. They do not look for it, they want the liberal, the easy way. And to say that narrow is the way means literally pressed in is the way, it’s like walking through a rocky gorge where your path has stone walls on either side. The narrow way, thus, is the way of strict adherence to the whole word of God.

The way whereby we live no options to ourselves we do not say ‘I can pick and choose what I want to obey here’. It’s up to me whether or not I’m going to take everything in the Bible seriously and keep every item of the law. Men have a knack for rationalizing things, this morning I was reading about some of the first missions to Africa, Portuguese missionaries, Catholic, and how they not only were readily corrupted but they used the bible to justify themselves. Thus they very quickly took up with the native women on a wholesale basis. When a visitor on a later date rebuked one such priest who had six women he justified himself from the bible. He was after all a husband of only one wife which is what the bible required, the other six were concubines and so they did not count. Of course that’s the kind of rational that the courts use today as they play games with the constitution but the bible says straight is the way. This is the way, walk ye in it. The broad way is moreover the way of parasites, now our Lord is not here making an obvious statement. When we encountered the broad way and the narrow way, the two ways in many pagan usages they are trite, what they say is here is the broad way, that’s the way of murderers, of thieves, of bad people, and here is the good way, the narrow way of all us good people. Our Lord makes no such usage. Because what He has been talking about is hypocrisy, Phariseeism and His point is except your righteousness exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees you are in trouble. The righteousness of the day was the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees so His two ways are on the one hand the broad way of Phariseeism, of hypocrisy, of being outwardly conformed to what is good, of going to church because that’s what expected of you rather than the narrow way of saying as for me and my house we will serve the lord.

I will believe and obey the every word of God. Just recently I read in an article by Gerhart Niemeyer his account of the crisis of civilization and he said our civilization is Christian in origin, it is still a Christian civilization in that everything in its framework that is at all worthwhile and good is of Christian origin, whether people want to admit it or not. And he said you have a minority of dedicated Christians and then you have a number of dedicated humanists, Marxists, revolutionaries who are determined to overturn and destroy that order. They said then you have a third element: those who live in the order, accept the order but not the faith that makes the order. He goes on to say and I quote:

“If other countries have managed to escape civil war until now it is because of the existence of a third element, an urbanized middle class committed to neither the Christian tradition nor the ideologies and occupying most leading positions in society. one may describe them as a class of [unknown] people. They have rejected the Christian assumption of man’s fallen nature and thus have a little or no sense of the reality of evil. Conversely they feel no need for God’s salvation and manage to put their whole trust in efforts of human enlightenment which must be called their ultimate hope. For about a hundred years these people have lived on the leftovers of Christian moral capitol.” Unquote.

Niemeyer then goes on to cite an example at the meeting of the advisory council of the national institute of law enforcement and criminal justice. A gathering of distinguished men from all over America. At this gathering Walter Vernes [sp?] raised a question: they had gathered to say how are we going to deal with crime and Walter Vernes raised the key question: why not commit crimes. Why not commit crimes?

And there was an embarrassed silence. They had no faith that said crimes were wrong but they were judges, they were attorney generals, they were lawmakers and it was their business to be against crime. But they did not know why and that’s the predicament of the world today and that is what our Lord is talking about, He has just been talking about the evil of hypocrisy, the hypocrite is one who pretends to be good but has no real allegiance to goodness. And the sad fact is that most people if you ask them ‘why not commit crimes’ would give you at best if you press them a vague humanistic answer that would have little sense to it. This is the broad way, the way of non-commitment. It is the way of death. The straightway our Lord says leadeth unto life. The word however is literally leadeth away unto life, leadeth away from death unto life. The straight gate is at the beginning of the road, the straight gate is declaring that Christ is Lord and giving him total allegiance with all our heart, mind and being and then walking the narrow path, His word, going neither to the right nor to the left but staying with it. Then our Lord goes on to say: “By their fruit shall ye know them.” This will be the test whether they walk the broad way or the narrow way. Let us pray.

We thank Thee our Father for Thy word and Thy word is truth. Thou hast called us to the narrow way, to the way of Thy word which is the way of life. Make us ever zealous in Thy word so that we may walk as Thou hast called us and go from strength to strength from life to everlasting life. Grant us this we beseech Thee in Jesus’ name, Amen.

Are there any questions now about our lesson? Yes?

[Question Unintelligible]

[Rushdoony] It does mean straight in our sense, now the interesting thing is that in the pagan examples the broad way is also a bad one, rocky and precipitance, but our Lord doesn’t present it that way. The gate is wide and the road is a wide and easy one. So while our Lord makes emphatic that the straight gate leads to a narrow path the idea in the other is not that it is winding in our Lord’s presentation but broad, the people that walk it like the Pharisees say well this is what scripture says but this is how you take it. So you have a lot of leeway in terms of interpretation. Thou shalt not commit adultery but this and that don’t count. In other words the, what was actually said, thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s wife, in other words adultery, was with your neighbor. If she lived a couple miles away she wasn’t your neighbor’s wife, then it was legitimate. That was actually held by some. Now that’s the broad way. That was the kind of license that many rabbis were taking with scripture and ministers are doing today and priests as well and of course the broad way we see exemplified by our courts, the supreme court especially. They stretch the interpretation of scripture so that the, the constitution so that the constitution today means whatever the court says it does. The language has no bearing, it’s just a pretext. Theirs is a broad way, broad in terms of stretching the meaning to mean anything they want. Does that help with that point?

[Question] Rush this is an attack then not just on apostate men but also on those who compromise the word.

[Rushdoony] Exactly, exactly, because you see on the Sermon on the Mount from beginning to end He is dealing with people who say they are in the kingdom, people who are religious leaders and so he is showing that there is a falsity in this pretended faithfulness to the Lord and the straight and narrow way. He didn’t labor the obvious in other words, He didn’t say murder is bad and adultery and theft and false witness are bad. That’s the kind of thing that cheap preaching leads to. You labor the obvious and the obvious doesn’t need that kind of stressing. Any other questions or comments? Yes?

[Question Unintelligible]

[Rushdoony] Well after the collapse of the Roman Empire what happened was a dramatic and thorough going decentralization of life. It did not happen overnight but it very definitely moved in that direction almost from the very day of the fall of Rome. Instead of centralization at the top where everything in daily life was controlled by the emperor and the bureaucracy the local unit became basic. So that what happened with the collapse of Rome was that Christians began to develop the implications of scripture. Now scripture says the family and the local unit was the basic areas of government. You had a dramatic change in perspective. The family began to govern itself, the local town, the lord and his manor. Well as time went on of course with the pagan ideal also surviving among many people especially the educated the feeling on the part of many was that there had to be a roman emperor and so the so-called Holy Roman Empire was developed. The idea being there should be a unified political order.

And that dream has haunted and tortured man ever since then and of course it’s a dream that spells the return to tyranny. Now as various local areas became stronger and lord’s established themselves over a growing domain they became kings over other lords and the Holy Roman Emperor was by election increasingly those who were not in the lines of the emperors or not commonly chosen began to develop the power of their orders into strong national states but first of all strong centralized states. So what you have seen is a battle that is not yet over between the dream of a centralized order as against a decentralized order. Let’s examine exactly the way it would be if we had a more Christian order. You might call it feudal, not in the same sense of the old feudal order but in this sense: the family would be a self-governing unit, it would not be governed by the state, it could control inheritance, property, children and more. A business firm would be like a feudal barony or empire, it would be its own governing agency, not governed by an outside agency. Every school, similarly, would be its own governing agency. Now this kind of decentralization would mean that in terms of a free situation the good would progressively prevail, a poor school or a poor business would go down the drain. But you would have a decentralization which would be most productive of social order and freedom. We had that kind of radical decentralization in this country into the 1850s, since the 1860s we have had a progressive centralization so that we are getting a tyrant state in Washington as well as in the state capitols.

[Question Unintelligible]

[Rushdoony] Yes. Question is how did the question of royal blood develop. Well in pagan antiquity the king could be a god or his office could be divine or the entire people or state could be divine. Those pagan ideas lingered, than as Europe was Christianized many political thinkers took the pagan ideas and added to them aspects of scripture. They took the idea of the anointing of the kings and the kings therefore as types of Christ and a Messiah to come without taking God’s condemnation of monarchy, of course. So that kings came to be regarded as sacred in the pagan sense with the bible used to justify it. Now of course that idea gained even greater currency with the reformation because the reformation also marked and the counter-reformation the triumph of a variety of national states. Spain used the counter-reformation to strengthen itself against the Vatican even as the German princes did, using Lutheranism. As a result you had the doctrine come fully into its own with the modern era. However you also had with the rise of the Huguenots and the Protestants a counter attack on the entire idea. And the puritans wound up beheading a sacred king. When Charles II came to the throne those who had participated in the trial and execution of Charles I were tried and no evidence of the crimes of Charles I was permitted in the hearing because the court began with the statement that kings are a species of divinity and that nothing they do can be challenged. So the only question was whether or not they had been parties to the trial and execution and for this they were executed. However with the so called glorious revolution in England a generation later when James II was driven from the throne the doctrine of divine rights of kings was transferred to parliament.

So it is still with us in a variety of forms, Roseau revived this pagan doctrine to the enth degree as did Marx, the dictatorship of the proletariat. So it is a continuing and very, very powerful form of paganism. Yes?

[Question Unintelligible]

[Rushdoony] People went along with it because there was enough paganism in their outlook still surviving that they held to such a doctrine. Yes?

[Question Unintelligible]

[Rushdoony] Oh I suspect most of the people in England do want pomp and circumstance of the royal wedding, on the other hand there’s this to be said whether we agree with it or not the money will come from the assets of the royal family. In a sense the crown is the prisoner of parliament. Some time back within the past century the assets whether in stocks and bonds or lands or of any sort belonging to the crime were taken over by Parliament to be administered by Parliament and the royal grants of an allowance set regularly by parliament. So whether we agree or not with how the crown got that wealth Parliament today says what they are going to spend. And if two hundred million is going to be spent on the wedding of Prince Charles it is because Parliament is allowing them that much out of their own funds. Now they are wealthy prisoners of parliament, the royal family, but their properties and incomes are more controlled then we are by the IRS. I think a slave is a slave whether he is king or a commoner. Parliament rules. Well if there are no further questions we will continue our studies on the Sermon on the Mount two weeks hence.