SUFFERING GAINS

SUFFERING GAINS
NARROW MINDED PEOPLE DON'T BELIEVE SO

"Enter by the narrow gate; for the gate is wide, and the way is broad that leads to destruction, and many are those who enter by it. For the gate is small, and the way is narrow that leads to life, and few are those who find it.” Matt. 7:13-14

The root sense of that word "destruction" is narrowness. "Strait is the gate and narrow is the way that leadeth to life," and life is breadth. The way of sin is easy, the gate is wide open, and the highway is broad. Yes, but watch it, watch it; it is narrowing, until life becomes crushed and cursed. That is always the way of sin. The whole universe is built on that pattern. The way of life is narrow; yes, strait is the gate. Shedding is needed to enter upon the way of life. Narrow the way in the beginning, but mark it, it broadens out into the spaciousness of life.

 If you would possess the Kingdom that includes all kingdoms; if you would live within the Kingdom in which all values are to be finally perfected and realized, you must get through the narrow gate and the straitened way. No man can be a Christian in all the full senses of the word who is not prepared to get to the wicket, and strip, and tramp the straitened way. These are the words of the King, and He knows! He gained His redemptive authority by submis­sion; He yielded Himself to the su­preme authority of His Father, and we read this very startling thing con­cerning Him in the Scriptures of in­spiration. "He . . . learned obedience by the things which He suffered." (Heb. 5:8) That does not mean that He learned to be obedient through suffering; but that He learned obedience experimen­tally through treading the pathway of suffering. To put this in the simplest way, He did not learn to be obedient through suffering, but He learned the full experience of obedience in suffering. Many of us have been taught to obey by the process of suffering. It was not so with Him. His perfect obedience led Him into the profoundest suffering, and thus He experienced the fullest meaning of obedience in that way.