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He plainly pointed out that there are two roads in life. One is broad—lacking in faith, convictions and morals. It is the easy, popular, careless way. It is the way of the crowd, the way of the majority, the way of the world. He said, "Many there be that go in thereat." But he pointed out that this road, easy though it is, popular though it may be, heavily traveled though it is, leads to destruction. And in loving, compassionate intolerance he says, "Enter ye in at the strait gate … because strait is the gate and narrow is the way which leadeth unto life."

His was the intolerance of a pilot who maneuvers his plane through the storm, realizing that a single error, just one flash of broad-mindedness, might bring disaster to all those passengers on the plane.

Once while flying from Korea to Japan, we ran through a rough snowstorm; and when we arrived over the airport in Tokyo, the ceiling and visibility were almost zero. The pilot had to make an instrument landing. I sat up in the cockpit with the pilot and watched him sweat it out as he was brought in by ground control approach. A man in the tower at the airport talked us in. I did not want these men to be broad-minded, but narrow-minded. I knew that our lives depended on it. Just so, when we come in for the landing in the great airport in heaven, I don't want any broad-mindedness. I want to come in on the beam, and even though I may be considered narrow here, I want to be sure of a safe landing there.

Christ was so intolerant of man's lost estate that he left his lofty throne in the heavenlies, took on himself the form of man, suffered at the hands of evil men and died on a cross to purchase our redemption. So serious was man's plight that he could not look upon it lightly. With the love that was his, he could not be broadminded about a world held captive by its lusts, its appetites and its sins.

Having paid such a price, he could not be tolerant about man's indifference toward him and the redemption he had wrought. He said, "He that is not with me is against me" (Matt. 12:30). He also said, "He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life, and he that believeth not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abideth on him" (John 3:36).

He spoke of two roads, two kingdoms, two masters, two rewards, and two eternities. And he said, "Ye cannot serve God and mammon" (Matt. 6:24). We have the power to choose whom we will serve, but the alternative to choosing Christ brings certain destruction. Christ said that! The broad, wide, easy, popular way leads to death and destruction. Only the way of the Cross leads home.

The popular, tolerant attitude toward the gospel of Christ is like a man going to watch the Braves and the Dodgers play a baseball game and rooting for both sides. It would be impossible for a man who has no loyalty to a particular team to really get into the game.

Baseball fans are very intolerant in both Milwaukee and Los Angeles. If you would cheer for both sides in Los Angeles or Milwaukee, someone would yell, "Hey, make up your mind who you're for."

Christ said, "Ye cannot serve God and mammon … no man can serve two masters" (Matt. 6:24). One of the sins of this age is the sin of broad-mindedness. We need more people who will step out and say unashamedly, "As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord" (Josh. 24:15).

Jesus was intolerant toward hypocrisy.

He pronounced more "woes" on the Pharisees than on any other sect because they were given to outward piety but inward sham. "Woe unto you, Scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites!" He said, "for ye make clean the outside of the cup and of the platter, but within ye are full of extortion and excess" (Matt. 23:25).

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October (Web-only) 2008, Vol. 52