Entering the Kingdom

Jesus Christ Is Lord!
9 June 2010

Tim D’Annunzio
timvote.com

Do you understand the strait gate and the narrow way? Matthew 7 describes it before and after mentioning them. The word strait here means that it is restricted because of the obstacles restricting the passage; and narrow here means to crowd, and is also translated afflict, trouble and tribulation.

The obstacle?

Matthew 23: 13
But woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye shut up the kingdom of heaven against men: for ye neither go in yourselves, neither suffer ye them that are entering to go in.

2 Thessalonians 1 and Acts 14 describe this way that we will enter in.

Acts 14: 22
Confirming the souls of the disciples, and exhorting them to continue in the faith, and that we must through much tribulation enter into the kingdom of God.

2 Thessalonians 1
1Paul, and Silvanus, and Timotheus, unto the church of the Thessalonians in God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ:
2Grace unto you, and peace, from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
3We are bound to thank God always for you, brethren, as it is meet, because that your faith groweth exceedingly, and the charity of every one of you all toward each other aboundeth;
4So that we ourselves glory in you in the churches of God for your patience and faith in all your persecutions and tribulations that ye endure:
5Which is a manifest token of the righteous judgment of God, that ye may be counted worthy of the kingdom of God, for which ye also suffer:
6Seeing it is a righteous thing with God to recompense tribulation to them that trouble you;
7And to you who are troubled rest with us, when the Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven with his mighty angels,
8In flaming fire taking vengeance on them that know not God, and that obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ:
9Who shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of his power;
10When he shall come to be glorified in his saints, and to be admired in all them that believe (because our testimony among you was believed) in that day.
11Wherefore also we pray always for you, that our God would count you worthy of this calling, and fulfil all the good pleasure of his goodness, and the work of faith with power:
12That the name of our Lord Jesus Christ may be glorified in you, and ye in him, according to the grace of our God and the Lord Jesus Christ.

Isaiah 45, Psalms 5, Philippians 2

Psalm 1
1Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful.
2But his delight is in the law of the LORD; and in his law doth he meditate day and night.
3And he shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water, that bringeth forth his fruit in his season; his leaf also shall not wither; and whatsoever he doeth shall prosper.
4The ungodly are not so: but are like the chaff which the wind driveth away.
5Therefore the ungodly shall not stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous.
6For the LORD knoweth the way of the righteous: but the way of the ungodly shall perish.

Those who trouble us talk the talk but the actions don’t match their words. They traduce and destroy. And as with Cain you will know them by their mark, by their fruit.

In the Name of
Jesus Christ My Lord
Thank You My Father