Sermon preached on Sunday, April 15, 2012 at Garden Valley Chapel during our morning worship service based on Matthew 7:13a.

We reach a great CLIMAX in the "greatest sermon ever preached by the greatest preacher who has ever lived" - a climax that is stated in these two verses.

I invite you to stand in the reading of God´s Word. Read Matthew 7:13-14.

It is here where our Lord begins to bring his sermon to a close - the beginning of the end of his Sermon on the Mount.

James Montgomery Boice calls it "a long, although significant, postscript."
It is here where He presses upon his hearers to make a choice, make a decision.

After spelling out the Character of the Kingdom in the Beatitudes (5:1-12) and giving his disciples the two convicting metaphors of salt and light (vv. 13-16) to illustrate how they are to function in the world or manifest such Kingdom Character in the world, Jesus explained that he requires a righteousness that surpasses that of the scribes and Pharisees (vv. 17-20).

He then gives a true account, a true exposition of the law from the topic of murder to that of love (vv. 21-48), which is a relentless examination of what this surpassing righteousness is like.

Then He gave specific instructions about giving, praying, fasting, materialism, worry, and how we relate to others (6:1-7:12).

Now arriving at verses 13 and 14, our Lord says in effect,

"There, I have given you the character of this kingdom which I am forming. That´s it. There is My purpose. What are you going to do about it? What are you going to do with it? There is no point in listening to this Sermon if you are not going to do anything about it. Let him who hears, truly hear."

Here He calls for a verdict.

You cannot listen to the Sermon on the Mount and simply admire it. Admiration without action is deadly.

God in Christ is not asking you to commend His sermon, but to carry it out.

Conviction without commitment will dull one´s spirituality.

"So what are you going to do about it?"

This Sermon is practical; it is meant to be lived. It calls for a choice to be made. It calls for a decision to be made.

Though life is comprised of seemingly endless choices, this is the most pivotal of all choices. This is the ultimate choice.

If Spurgeon were preaching, he would tell you "do not stand hesitating ...If we would be saved we must swim against the stream, we must bear the cross and deny ourselves: this is not the popular course and never will be, but gracious souls choose it."

This was the call of God in Christ throughout His earthly ministry - a call to action. In preaching about the Kingdom, it was a call for a choice to be made.

The choice is between the one and the many - the one right and the many wrongs, the one true way and the many false ways.

There are not many roads to heaven, but one. There are not many good religions, but only one. Man cannot come to God in any of the ways that man himself devises, but only in the one way that God Himself has provided.

All roads do not lead to Rome!

Listen in as Pastor David Torres preaches part one of a two-part message titled, "One Way."