In this fact we find the truth of our Lord’s words verified:  “The children of this world are wiser in their generation than the children of light.”  The word GENERATION in this place means state or condition from which proceeds a given manner of life, and daily attention to business.  The men of the world are active as to their works, and watchful as to their interests.  This watchfulness and activity is what our Lord calls their wisdom, and in its degree it exceeds that of the children of light.  Our minds and wills act as freely in choosing the things of religion, and doing the duties connected therewith, as they do in the things that belong to this life only.

But we must not forget that every one who enters in by the narrow gate is but a child in experience when he first enters.  He is but a lamb.  But the Good Shepherd and Father go with him, leading him and feeding him.  Like Enoch, he walks with God.

The text does not say that the narrow way is life; but that it leads unto life.  To my mind it is clear that whenever the “sinner forsakes his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts,” he then and there enters in by the narrow gate.  This is repentance.  He returns to the Lord by the narrow way:  and the Lord is life.

It may well be asked why the gate and the way are narrow.  The narrow gate is the TRUTH of God’s Word as it is first found and loved:  and the narrow way is the same TRUTH as it is followed and obeyed.  Truth is always a straight or narrow track, because any departure therefrom, either to the right or left, is error and falsity.

Jesus says:  “I am the door:  by me if any man enter in, he shall be saved.”  This door is just as narrow as the gate.  He also says:  “I am the way.”  As such, he is so narrow that, as the prophet represents, it is as if a fire of destruction were on the one hand and a flood of wrath on the other.  Ah, Brethren, the truth can never be made to bend.  It is as the builder’s line to the foundation; and as the plumb line to the column.

To such as walk in the narrow way our Lord says:  “I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish.”  Is not this encouraging?  It is to be in the Lord, and the Lord in us.  It is to be a live and fruitful branch of the true Vine.  It is to be a son of God, an heir of God, and a joint heir with Christ.  It is, when the coil of mortality is laid aside, to shine as the sun in the kingdom of our Father in heaven.

It would afford me much joy to find some here to-day ready to enter in by the narrow gate.  Do I hear some one say:  “I feel that I ought to leave the broad road that ends in destruction, but I cannot”?  It is true, you can of yourself do nothing.  If left to yourself you would never draw another breath; you would never again move your hand or foot.  But for the life-supporting power of the good Lord you would instantly be a dead man or woman in every sense.  Do not forget that in God you live, and move, and have your being.  This is as certainly and as literally true of every man’s natural life as of his spiritual life.  God is constantly present with you; for without him you can do nothing.