Lo, I am with you always

The strait gate--a sermon to children I. THE GATE. You have gone to another part of the country to spend your holidays, or to visit friends. There is a noble castle in the neighbourhood, with beautiful grounds, trees and shrubs and flowers, and lakes with swans and all sorts of water-fowl, and other attractions which I cannot describe. You have heard much about the place, and have been told, if ever you are within reach, to be sure to go to see it. Bat when you go, the very first thing that meets your eye is the gate. That stands between you and what you so much desire to see, and your very first question is, “How am I to get in? How is the gate to be passed? Whom shall I get to open it for me?” The first thing with which you have to do is--the gate! Or, there is to be some special treat for children, nearer home. It is a gala-day. Crowds of young people in holiday dress, and all merry and in high spirits as can be, are hurrying along. All are pressing forward to a common meeting-place. You follow the crowd. You would like to get in. As they come up, they show their ticket of admission, and pass on. And as you look in wistfully after them, your thought is--the gate I the door t How could I get in? Now, it is just so with other and higher things. As to all that is good in God’s house and kingdom here, and all that is good in God’s heavenly kingdom and home yonder--the great question with each of us is, “How shall I get at it? How shall I get in?” The great question is, about the gate--the door. Now, I might get many answers to the question, “What is thegate?” Some might answer, prayer is the gate, quoting such a passage as that, “Ask, and ye shall receive; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you;” or, “Whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.” Some might say, faith is the gate: “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved.” Some might say, repentance is the gate: “Except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish.” Some might say, conversion is the gate: “Except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven.” Some might say, regeneration--being “born again”--is the gate: “Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.” All these are correct, so far as they go. But I believe the best of all answers to the question, “What is the gate? “ is--Christ. Christ is the gate. So you find Himself saying, “I am the Way; no man cometh unto the Father but by Me.” And again, “I am the Door; by Me, if any man enter in, he shall be saved.” And again it is written, “ Through Him we have access,” or entrance. I shall try to explain to you how Jesus is the Gate, the Door, the Way. If you had offended some one, and he were to say that he would have nothing to do with you, would hold no communication with you except through me; that he would not listen to your application for pardon, except as it came through me; that I was the only person to whom he would listen, as seeking help for you, then I would be your “way”--“your door”--so far as he was concerned. And just so, I cannot get access to God the Father, except as coming through the Lord Jesus--in His name--making mention of Him. He is the only Mediator between God and me. I shall suppose you to be in prison, sentenced to lie there for months, or years, or for a whole lifetime, on account of some crime or for debt, or, it may be, condemned to death. I offer to take your place and become the prisoner in your stead, undertaking, as your substitute, to lie there for you as long as you should have lain, or to die for you, and you accept my offer, change places with me, and are set free. If you were asked, how you got out, you would say that you got out through me; that I opened the door for you; that I was your door out. Now that is what Jesus is and does. II. THE STRAITNESS OF THE GATE. It is called the “strait” or narrow gate. That does not mean, as we have seen, that there is any gate of wood or iron, and that it is so small that your bodies can hardly get through, push as you will. It just means that the way of salvation is difficult--is hard--that entering in by Christ as our door of salvation, our way of life is, in many views of it, very difficult, though, in other respects, it is most simple, most easy. I might speak of “the strait gate” in other matters. For instance, you have, in some way, been misbehaving, and you cannot bring yourself to say you have done wrong, to confess your fault, and own yourself sorry for it, and promise never to do the like again. You are shut up in your room. You hear your mother’s footstep in the passage. You saw the tear in her eye, as you not only did the wrong, but refused to acknowledge it; and as you hear her at your door, and know that she is waiting there for the needed confession, it is as if a voice within cried out, “Yes; do it!” but your pride, your temper, your high spirit, will not let you, and you don’t. It is a “ strait gate.” 1. There must be the giving up of your sin. You cannot come to Christ without this. You must let your sins go. Here is a narrow entrance. A blind man comes up to it with a great bundle on his back. It would let him in, but it will not let in his bundle. Either he must let go his load, and leave it behind him, or else he must stay outside with it. Now, your sins are just such a bundle. And then they have got such a hold on you--they so cling to you--they seem a part of your very self! To give them up is like leaving an arm behind you, and that is not easy. These dear sins of yours!--who shall tell what the giving of them up is?--forsaking your badhabits, bad companions, bad books--those silly, exciting, polluting novels, and story books, and tales, which used to have such an attraction for you; renouncing your bad tempers, pride, vanity, love of dress, indolence, resentment, talebearing, selfishness, greed, and such like things. Oh, it is hard to part with these!--it is a “strait gate.” Ay, the gate is so strait, that it will not let in one consciously spared sin; and it is often one--just one--that keeps people out. They will not give it up, and the straitgate will not let it through. 2. There must be the giving up of your self-righteousness--your own goodness. By that, I do not mean that you are to cease to do any good thing that you have ever done--that you must give up doing good, just as you must give up doing evil. But I mean, that you must no more trust to your good-doing than to your evil-doing as a ground of acceptance with God. At a funeral one day I heard a minister thank God on behalf of an old saint, that, “by God’s grace, she had been enabled to give up self--sinful self and righteous self.” Now, the giving up of sinful self, as we have seen, is difficult enough; but it is not nearly so hard as the giving up of righteous self. 3. You must enter in at this gate alone. Part of the “straitness” consists in the solitariness of it. The crowd do not go that way--they do not like it. And it is not easy to differ from other people in anything. It is not easy even to wear an article of dress unlike our neighbours. It requires a great deal of courage even to do that. Now, one must be very much alone in entering this gate. Hence one of the difficulties of it. There are two remarks, however, which I must make here, by way of encouragement, and as so far an offset to the straitness of which I have spoken. The first is, that although the gate is strait, it is open--always open. You don’t need to open it: it is open already. The second is, that though the gate is always strait, it is not so strait for children. Children can get in at small openings more easily than older and bigger people can. III. The need of ENTERING IN. It is not enough to know about it, to think about it, to promise, to intend, to resolve. None of all these will do. You must enter in. There is a ship at sea, beating about--the wind blowing hard, the waves breaking over it. A leak is discovered--all hands are at the pumps; the water is making; darkness comes on; guns of distress are fired. There are piteous cries for help. At length, yonder is the harbour! The cry bursts forth from a hundred voices, “The harbour! the harbour! Yonder are the lights! Listen! don’t you hear the voices?” And yet they may sink in sight of the harbour, at the very mouth of it, almost in, knowing all about the entrance. And next morning it will be all the sadder to see the ship lying at the very harbour’s mouth--touching it--a wreck, and all on board perished. They did not “enter in.” IV. The need of STRIVING, in order to enter in. That is to say, there must be earnestness, thoroughgoing earnestness--throwing ourselves with our whole heart into it, resolving never to give up, but with God’s help to win the day. And now let me ask one or two questions ere I close. 1. Are you striving? If such earnestness is needful, if the kingdom of heaven suffereth violence, if without this there is no hope, no chance of being saved--what are you doing in order to be saved? Are you striving? 2. Are you letting anything keep you back? A man who had climbed up a tree overhanging a river, lost his hold. As he was falling down he caught hold of a twig, by which he hung. A boat put off for his rescue, and came alongside, just beneath him; but there he still hung, and save him they could not.. Their cry was, “Let go the twig, or we cannot save you!” and only when he let go was salvation possible. Perhaps you are holding by some “twig,” some sin, some fancied goodness, refusing to give it up. I would leave this word to ring in the ear of such: “Let go the twig! Let go the twig! Let nothing keep you back!” 3. Are you putting off? You have no security for to-morrow. No day is yours but to-day. What a bitter thought it will be, that you might have entered in, and you would not, and so are for ever shut out I ( J. H. Wilson, M. A. )