“Someone asked him (Jesus), “Lord, will only a few people be saved?” He answered, “Strive to enter through the narrow gate, for many, I tell you, will attempt to enter but will not be strong enough. After the master of the house has arisen and locked the door, then will you stand outside knocking and saying, ‘Lord, open the door for us.’ He will say to you in reply, ‘I do not know where you are from.’ And you will say, ‘We ate and drank in your company and you taught in our streets.’ Then he will say to you, ‘I do not know where you are from. Depart from me, all you evildoers!”

I think our world today, the media and many human rights groups would be very dissatisfied with Jesus’ answer. The world is expecting that all people will somehow be saved and pass into eternal life for one major reason – God must be a “nice” God. It is not nice to judge people and to refuse them admittance based on some personal criteria. God must be tolerant with all people, especially since he created them that way. People’s feelings would be hurt if he did not accept them as they are and welcome them into his eternal home. More and more we believe in and worship this “nice” God who is able to see the good and “giftedness” of every person. Of course, this nice God would need a great big, wide-open door for all people to crowd through and enter into his house. Jesus today cautions us to not be presuming that the door to God’s house and eternal life is going to be a great big door, or that it will be wide open, rather, he advises us to strive to enter through the narrow gate. He is preparing us for the possibility that the door to the Father’s house, the gate into heaven, is going to be a narrow gate and that we might one day find that it is closed.

Now one thing that Jesus may have failed to understand is people’s rights. Many people come knocking on the closed door to the Father’s house claiming their right to enter. In our world today of course we can claim a right to almost anything. If I want it, it is my right to have it. I know it is my right because I would be sad to not have it. People would claim to have a right to full and equal access to the Father’s house. The Father cannot discriminate against my rights based upon a little evildoing that was also my right to do in privacy for my own pleasure without hurting anyone.

In our world today we have largely substituted the revelation of the mercy of God for the niceness of God and the revelation of the justice of God for our human rights claims. We are not comfortable saying that God is merciful and just. We want instead to insist that my God is nice and respects everyone’s rights. What is missing in this scenario? What is missing is love and truth. You don’t have to love someone to be nice to them and you don’t have to love someone to respect their claim to rights. However, God’s mercy and justice are founded in love and truth. There is your narrow gate. The entrance into the narrow gate is an invitation to come to a personal knowledge of Jesus Christ through a call to discipleship and a commitment to a new life lived in the light of love and truth that Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit offers.

We can count on the mercy of God to forgive those who seek forgiveness but I would not bank on his “niceness” for it is still a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God. God is not nice and tame but he is good. And those rights and demands that you are going to insist upon, humble yourself before the Lord and he will raise you up and justify you in his grace. It pleases God to give you the kingdom, just enter in before the door of your life closes, you don’t have forever.