Matthew 7:13-23

Summary: As Jesus comes to the close of the Sermon on the Mount, he employs a group of images in the latter half of chapter 7 (gates, roads, wolves, trees, fruit, houses), all intended to drive home that he and his teaching demand a decision–the most important decision of our lives. A narrow gate and a hard road mean that people do not end up there by accident but by a deliberate decision to follow him, no matter the cost. The road is also fraught with the danger of false prophets (vv.15-20) and false confessions (vv.21-23), but the unparalleled hope of the hard road is that it leads to life.