Notes of Faith March 18, 2025
Too Bad?
Enter through the narrow gate.
Matthew 7:13, NIV
Is the gate of salvation too narrow for some sinners who truly repent? Perhaps they’ve committed unspeakable crimes and hideous sins. Or perhaps you yourself have thought, “I’m too bad to be saved.”
J. C. Ryle wrote: “No sinner was ever turned back, and told he was too bad to be admitted, if he came really sick of his sins. Thousands of all sorts have been received, cleansed, washed, pardoned, clothed, and made heirs of eternal life. Some of them seemed very unlikely to be admitted. You and I might have thought they were too bad to be saved. But He that built the gate did not refuse them. As soon as they knocked, He gave orders that they should be let in.”1
Paul said, “‘Jesus came into the world to save sinners’—and I am the worst of them all. But God had mercy on me so that Christ Jesus could use me as a prime example of his great patience with even the worst sinners. Then others will realize that they, too, can believe in him and receive eternal life”
(1 Timothy 1:15-16, NLT).
Christ can take the most sin-laden, selfish, evil person and bring forgiveness and new life.
Billy Graham
1. J. C. Ryle, Consider Your Ways (London: Ipswich, 1849).
Matthew 7:13-14
13“Enter through the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the way is broad that leads to destruction, and there are many who enter through it. 14“For the gate is small and the way is narrow that leads to life, and there are few who find it.
Having free will and making choices according to our sinful nature is what leads to our eternal judgment. Coming to Christ, trusting by faith in His work of redemption brings forgiveness and blessed eternal life in His presence! Let us have a pursuit of following Jesus, clinging to Jesus, imitating Jesus in all things that we might enter through the narrow gate of salvation! All may enter who by God’s grace and gift of faith believe in Jesus. There is no sin that God will not forgive except the sin of unbelief…which is blasphemy of the Holy Spirit who speaks the truth of God to all mankind. The Spirit says, “Come” that you might be saved!
Pastor Dale