Opening Prayer
Lord, lead us on the right path to eternal life. Amen.
Text: Matthew 7:12-14
“Therefore, whatever you want men to do to you, do also to them, for this is the Law and the Prophets. Enter by the narrow gate; for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and there are many who go in by it. Because narrow is the gate and difficult is the way which leads to life, and there are few who find it.”
Devotion
Our own will must die, our flesh and blood must be killed and put to death. First they must get their deathblow in regeneration, and then they must daily be nailed to the cross more and more firmly. For the unbridled thoughts of our own wisdom always strive against the truth, and the carnal lusts of our conceit strive against love. Your own opinion of yourself is completely contrary to God’s Word, and your own will is directly against God’s holy will. You think there is no God, or, if there is one, that either He is careless or winks at everything, or He is cruel and bloodthirsty. Concerning yourself you think that you are righteous if you do the best you can, and you think salvation is sensual enjoyment. Your desire is earthly things, and your will is selfishness and wicked inclinations. Such thoughts are a lie, and such desire is sin; therefore the old man must die, and both your thoughts and your will must become new. The teaching of the Word about the living, holy, righteous, and so incredibly loving and merciful God, about your sin and unrighteousness, about grace in Christ and justification through faith, about the mystery of regeneration and the Spirit’s work of sanctification in the believers, in short, truth in Christ, must be apprehended by you in such a way that you receive it with willing heart and hold on to it, knowing that it is more than anything in life and death. And what is still alien to your natural sense: loving God above all things and your neighbor as yourself, that must become true within you and rule in your life and conduct. To acknowledge yourself wicked and lost, to submit your thoughts and will to God’s Word, to receive mercy for everything and to believe without seeing; to lose self-righteousness and self-piety and life in order to become righteous, alive, and blessed in Christ; to know nothing and to have nothing of oneself, but to have everything in Jesus, – this is the narrow gate which few find. And in daily repentance to live only by God’s grace, to deny one’s own will, gladly to practice love for His sake, in spite of the resistance of the flesh; always to mortify self-will and patiently to follow the Lord, taking up one’s cross, – this is the narrow way, which few find. Are you going this way? God Himself works in us both to will and to do, so that the impossible becomes possible by His grace. – Or are you following the many on the broad path to destruction? Do it no longer! O for Jesus’ sake, do it no more!
Closing Prayer
O Lord God, You have opened for us the gate of life in Your Son, our Lord Jesus. – Lead us through this gate, that He may be for us the Way, the Truth, and the Life. Amen.
Hymn
To walk in sin fomenting
Is Satan’s chosen way;
That path brings just lamenting
For those under its sway.
Deceitful, lustful way,
Farewell to all your taunting,
Though others choose your vaunting,
To you I will say: “Nay.”
The right way I shall favor
That leads to heaven’s land,
And there I shall endeavor
To walk as best I can.
And mortify my flesh,
My sinful lust forsaking
And persecution taking,
To live among the blest.
Brorson: O kjære Sjæl, som vanker L 498:3-4 tr. DeGarmeaux;
tune: Von Gott will ich nicht lassen (ELH 465); alternate hymn: “Come, follow Me” ELH 422