The Broad Way and the Narrow Way

   Enter by the narrow gate; for the gate is wide, and the road that leads to destruction is broad with plenty of room, and many go that way; but the gate that leads to life is small and the road is narrow, and those who find it are few.

— Matthew 7:13-14            

   Throughout this book, I have quoted a number of times from Scott Peck, whose New Age-tinged books have topped best-seller lists in recent years. I find it interesting that Peck chose as one of his titles The Road Less Traveled, for these are the very words Jesus used to warn his followers about the dangers of sin. Take the road less traveled, the Son of God admonished, for the road to spiritual death is wide and well-traveled — a veritable superhighway (Matthew 7:13).

   In fact, the third chapter in the first book of the Bible tells of the four-lane highway to hell that detoured Adam and Eve as they were on their way to God's garden party in Eden.

   The first lane they traveled was doubt.

   The serpent, the most subtle of God's wild creatures and representative of Satan — whom the Bible presents as a personal, wicked entity whose will opposes God — sowed seeds of doubt in Eve's mind: "Did God say, 'You shall not eat of any tree of the garden'?" (Genesis 3:1, RSV).

   "Did God say?" Modern Eves — and Adams, too — have been tricked by the seductive power of these words. Did God

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really say, "You shall not commit adultery"? Did God really mean "love your neighbor as yourself"?

   And so doubt casts an ominous shadow of suspicion over the authority and authenticity of God's Word.

   Certainly a person who claims to have no doubts is either lying or else has stopped thinking. And doubt can be good if it is handled properly: when it either "worries weak ideas into exhaustion or exercises them into greater strength," as Carl Michalson notes in Faith for Personal Crises.1

   But the kind of doubt referred to here, the first lane of hell's highway, is the doubt that causes a person to fall away from God in unbelief. Theologian Paul Tillich called it "total doubt" because it "constitutes a disastrous suspension of the answer to man's deepest need."2 Jesus called it "doubt in the heart" (Mark 11:23).

   To doubt God's biblical Word means that one questions the validity of revelation and whether there can be such things as absolute truth and transcendence.

   "We are, whether we like it or not," wrote renowned sociologist Peter Berger in his celebrated book, A Rumor of Angels, "in a situation in which transcendence has been reduced to a rumor." The theological surrender to the alleged demise of the supernatural defeats itself in precisely the measure of its success . . . . For most people, symbols whose content has been hollowed out lack conviction or even interest."3

   So New Age relativist Kenneth Wapnick, in his interpretation of the channeled "Course in Miracles" material, candidly admits that he "picked and chose" which parts of the Bible he took as valid and which he considered invalid.

   "Some parts of the Bible have the Holy Spirit as their source," Wapnick told Spiritual Counterfeits Project researcher Dean Halverson. "Other parts are from the ego. Any passage that speaks of punishment or of hell, I understand that as being from the ego. Any passage that speaks of forgiveness and love, the unreality of the body, etc., I took as an expression of the Holy Spirit. I did not take the Bible as being totally true or totally false."4

   Halverson: "You reinterpreted it?"

   Wapnick: "Yes. There's no question. That is what I did."

   Did God say?

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   The central theme in the Genesis story of the Fall is distrust. Eve and Adam desired the "knowledge of good and evil" that would make them "like God" — that is, independent from him. And they sought a short-cut, suggest Irving Hexham and Karla Poewe: knowledge "gained by the ritual act of eating rather than through growth and thought. If this interpretation is correct, the story symbolizes the ever-present human desire for magical short-cuts to knowledge and power at the expense of trust and understanding . . . . The Bible presents the Fall as an act of unrestricted self-indulgence based on the impossible desire to be like God. Instead of leading to freedom, it results in bondage."5

   Having once doubted the underlying authority of God, Eve was easy prey for the next onslaught of the serpent: denial. Lane number two of the superhighway to spiritual oblivion.

   "You will not die," the serpent declared when Eve said that God had commanded them not to touch the tree in the middle of the garden, lest they die (Genesis 3:4).

   Have you heard that one lately? I have.

   "It doesn't matter . . . " "It's only human . . . " "It couldn't be very wrong . . . " "God will forgive me, after all, that's his business."

   So the insidious whisper of Satan reaches our ears, too: "Go ahead, you will be like God! You won't die." And we find ourselves moving into the second lane: denying that sin has separated us from God; denying the broken relationship at the primary core of our being; denying death.

   New Agers acknowledge the need for transformation. But the question is: What caused the rupture that requires transformation? Was it sin or "unawakened consciousness"? And what can bridge the gap: God or self?

   The problem is perception, elaborated Halverson in our interview at Denver Seminary, and I was to see that more clearly as I chatted three weeks later with Sportsmind executive Chris Majer in Seattle:

   A question for all of us is what leap of faith are you prepared to take: One, he [Jesus] is the unique Son of God, the one guy created of the Virgin Birth; the other, he is absolutely unique as a master, but there have been lots of others like him. And what are the implications of each? Maybe its safer to take the route that says he's the unique, only Son of God and I don't have to

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worry about living this Christianity stuff because when I die I'll be forgiven and go to heaven anyway. The other way is to say, hey, if he was a guide and I can be just like him, then that creates a potential and I need to be working a whole lot harder to attain that same level of spiritual growth and development . . . .

   It holds together a lot tighter to believe that Jesus was born just like you and me and he was fortunate to learn some of the secrets and the teachings . . . In the desert [he] came in communion with God. But lots of people have been able to have that kind of mastery and experience throughout history. So, maybe there is a point of view that says we are all born with that same kind of ability . . . . When he said to "do works greater than I" — maybe Jesus meant it literally. We're all the sons of God.

   See where I'm going with that?6

   Yep, sure do.

   Only a white line (or should I say a white lie?) away is the third lane: disobedience.

   "So when the woman saw that the tree was to be desired . . . she took of its fruit and ate . . . and gave some to her husband, and he ate" (Genesis 3:6, RSV).

   Basic doubts about God's moral laws and transcendence are raised; a benefit or pleasure is held out; and then, crunch! The "apple" is bitten again. In prideful self-assertion the misdeed is rationalized, justified, and the harmful part denied.

   "Sin is essentially idolatry — giving something other than God the status of God," reminds Douglas Groothuis in Unmasking the New Age. "Idols are best unmasked and then shattered. The idol of the New Age is consciousness itself; cosmic humanism seeks to tap the divine within, to merge with the One. Yet in it all we see what Freud correctly called 'the will of death' . . . for man is not God, the creature is not the Creator."7

   Spiritual blindness leads to a loss of ability to "see" God as a transcendent, personal Creator, and an inability to foresee the consequences of sin and ultimate judgment that it brings, which is the fourth and final lane: death. "Then . . . they knew that they were naked; and . . . the man and his wife

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hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God" (Genesis 3:7-8, RSV).

   And so the Fall of humanity is complete. The result of doubt, denial, and disobedience is not the rosy picture painted by the serpent. It is shame, guilt, and estrangement from God. The inside fast lane brings spiritual death, and the hell-bent victim dismembers bodies and shatters personalities as he or she collides with the hard-rock reality of God's order, dragging others into the twisted wreckage of mind and soul. The transcendent Creator God cannot be disregarded without serious consequences.

   All who fail to grasp God's wisdom injure themselves, says Proverbs 8:36; "all who hate me are in love with death" (NEB).

   The biblical worldview, according to Brooks Alexander and Robert Burrows, is that the rebellion of sin produces death. "Sin fragments, separates, and alienates. It divides us from avoiding God, we soon cannot see Him at all. Sin also divides people, internally, against themselves. And, of course, it divides human beings against one another. It is useless to talk of humanity solving its own problems as long as it is infected with sin; for it is sin's nature to divide people and turn them against one another."8

   In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus said there are but two roads: the Broad Way of destruction and the Narrow Way that leads to eternal life (Matthew 7:13-14).

   But we doubt it. "Is the gate really narrow?" Then we deny it. We turn it around and make it read, "Broad is the way that leads to life and narrow is the way to destruction. Almost everyone will be saved." And then we justify it and disobey it until we find ourselves in the position of the motorist, who, when told that he was on the wrong highway, replied that he knew but that he was making such good time.

   The wrong highway is broad and well marked and easy to find. One need only follow the crowd. And being universally accessible, this Broad Way appears in some form in virtually all religious traditions. Observed Elliot Miller, editor of the Christian Research Journal:

   Those on the Broad Way usually assume that what is natural is also right: that the way we humans are now is essentially how

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we were originally intended to be. Therefore, to be "spiritual" all we have to do — indeed what we must do — is develop our own inherent spiritual potential. As this "natural spirituality" is cultivated, certain phenomena typically follow, including psychic, contacts with spirit entities, and ecstatic or mystical experiences . . . .

   The very universality of these experiences convinces the advocates of mysticism that it is the one true religion of mankind, and the various religious traditions are merely the cultural packages which contain it.9

   In contrast to the Broad Way, the Narrow Way of discipleship is difficult and costly, and it is sometimes lonely. It is no smooth four-lane superhighway, despite efforts of the "prosperity preachers" to feed us a sugar-coated "health and wealth" gospel.

   Jesus said that he, himself, is the Narrow Way, the Way to salvation that must be entered through grace (John 10:7-9; Acts 4:12; 15:11; Eph. 2:8-9). But once inside, one enters a vast realm of spiritual experience and profound encounters with the infinite God of glory (1 Cor. 2:9).

   The essence of the Narrow Way of discipleship is the life of faith. Yet it is not faith in faith itself but faith in a personal God who revealed himself in the person of his Son. Christian faith says, "I am a sinner, unworthy. I have fallen short of God's commandments. I am dust." Yet at the same time Christian faith says, "I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me" (Romans 3:23; Philippians 4:13).

   This paradox of faith found in the Scriptures and along the Narrow Way does not pit faith and reason against each other. "Faith is not a synonym for credulity or superstition . . . . Faith is a reasonable trust," declares John Stott. Knowledge is the foundation of faith: "Because we know that God is trustworthy, it is reasonable to put our trust in Him."10

   Engraved on the inside of our wedding bands, Marjorie Lee and I have a verse from Psalm 32: "I will instruct you and teach you in the way which you should go; I will counsel you with My eye upon you" (verse 8, NASB). This kind of faith, say Hexham and Poewe, is "not a blind leap into the unknown but a confident step into enlightenment about the nature and love of God. Faith is the opposite of doubt and magical power. Faith is to redemption what magic and doubt are to

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the Fall. It frees us of anxiety because it entails our accepting our identity as creatures made in God's image."11

   When people lack faith in a transcendent Creator God, they turn to the magic, rituals, and human devices of the Broad Way to find meaning and empowerment. Soon they deny even the existence of the Narrow Way, as does Shirley MacLaine when she says that it is blasphemous to worship anything higher than oneself, and not to worship the self is to think too little of oneself.12

   But MacLaine may be too easy a target. "How did she get out on that limb?" asks Craig V. Anderson in the Christian Century magazine article, "Pruning Time for Shirley MacLaine?" More than 2,500 years ago, the prophet Isaiah scornfully predicted that in a time of calamity and confusion the Egyptians would dash around consulting a horde of "idols, sorcerers, mediums and wizards" (Isaiah 19:3). "Have we a similar situation today?" continues Anderson. "Old certainties have come unglued; stable families are an exception; our economy is buffeted by worldwide forces; greater wealth has not brought greater happiness; the safety of the air we breathe, the food we eat and the water we drink is in question; existence itself is threatened by weapons our own technology provides. Conditions are indeed favorable for mediums and wizards; one can bank on people's anxieties, and many have."13

   Ever since the Fall, humanity has been "marked by a magical understanding of the world and a desire to manipulate knowledge in a manner indistinguishable from sorcery."14

   Yet both the Old and New Testaments abound in prohibitions against occult involvement and idolatry, along with such activities as astrology and fortunetelling, which confuse the creation with the Creator.15 The apostle Paul links such activity directly to the work of Satan and the "spirit . . . of disobedience" (Ephesians 2:2, RSV); and John exhorts us to "test the spirits to see whether they are from God. Every spirit which acknowledges that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, and every spirit which does not thus acknowledge Jesus is not from God" (1 John 3:1-3, NEB).

   But how can one be sure that the Bible itself is trustworthy? Do we have to take it on faith?

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   Christians hold that the Bible contains the trustworthy divine revelation of an objective God. While the New Age worldview is that language and written revelation are inadequate and meaningless — and ultimately a barrier to experiencing enlightenment and truth — the biblical worldview is that the human language of the Bible is a valid and sufficient way to convey God's message to humanity.

   Christians believe the Bible not because its message is easy to accept, but because there is strong evidence that it is true. Space here doesn't permit an in-depth look at the historical and manuscript evidence supporting the Bible's veracity, but many excellent books on the subject are available. Let it suffice to cite just a few examples:

"[I]t appears that the documents enjoyed the distinct advantage of having the correcting influence not only of the community of faith, but also of hostile community, who would have been delighted to catch the Christian believers making assertions about Jesus that were untrue," theologian John Snyder points out. Citing biblical scholar F. F. Bruce, Snyder

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goes on to assert that "it is no exaggeration" to say that the New Testament text is "far better attested to" than any of the ancient writings by such prominent figures as Caesar, Livy, Herodotus, Thucydides, and Tacitus — as well as the Hindu Vedas and Bhagavad Gita, and the Muslim Koran.18

   Virginia Stem Owens, writing in the Reformed Journal, noted that "the early Christians may not have been any brighter than the average person-in-the-pew today [but] they were, according to historical evidence, a frequently martyred minority who, by turning away from cultural norms of their time, risked both their lives and their religious identities."19

   Biblical authority, then, is based on truth. But the Bible's authority is derived rather than absolute; its authority depends not only on the truth of its statements (where they can be tested) but also on the authority of its writers as men inspired by God," I. Howard Marshall sums up in his slim volume Biblical Inspiration.20

   Many years ago the world's best-known living evangelist went on retreat at the Forest Home Christian Conference Center in the San Bernardino Mountains of Southern California. There, he wrestled with the question of whether he could wholeheartedly believe what the Bible said. As he pondered, he had a life-changing encounter with God. Just a short walk from Forest Falls, where I am now writing this chapter, a plaque is mounted at the foot of a wooden cross at the edge of spring-fed Lake Mears. It attests to Billy Graham's decision "to take the Bible by faith and preach it without reservation."

   In the end, accepting the Bible as the authoritative Word of God is a matter of faith and trust. Our eternal destiny hinges on it.

   Which highway will we travel?

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1. Carl Michalson, Faith for Personal Crises (New York: Scribner's, 1958), 67.

2. Quoted in ibid., 70.

3. Peter L. Berger, A Rumor of Angels (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday & Co., 1969), 120, 26.

4. Halverson, Dean. "A Matter of Course: Conversation with Kenneth Wapnick," Spiritual Counterfeits Project Journal 7, no. 1 (1987): 16–17.

5. Irving Hexham and Karla Poewe, Understanding Cults and New Religions (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1986), 85–86.

6. Chris Majer, interview with author, Seattle, Wash., 21 December, 1987.

7. Douglas R. Groothuis, Unmasking the New Age (Downers Grove, Ill.:; InterVarsity Press, 1986), 90.

8. Karen Hoyt et al., New Age Rage (Old Tappan, N.J.: Revell, 1987), 252.

9. Elliot Miller, "Sufis, the Mystical Muslims," Foreword (Spring–Summer 1986): 22.

10. John Stott, lecture given at All Saints by the Sea Episcopal Church, Santa Barbara, Calif., 14 November 1987.

11. Hexham and Poewe, Understanding Cults and New Religions, 87.

12. "Out on a Limb," ABC miniseries, 18–19 January 1987.

13. Craig V. Anderson, "Pruning Time for Shirley MacLaine?" Christian Century, 15 February 1987, 182.

14. Hexham and Poewe, Understanding Cults and New Religions, 86.

15. Lev. 19:26, 31; 20:6; Deut. 18:9–13; 1 Sam. 28; 1 Chron. 10:13–14; Isa. 8:19–22; 19:3–4; 47:9–14; Jer. 29:8–9; Matt. 7:22–23; Acts 13:6–12; 16:16–18; Gal. 5:19–21; Rev. 9:21; 18:23; 21:8; 22:15.

16. Flavius Josephus, Life and Times of Flavius Josephus; The Learned and Authentic Jewish Historian and Celebrated Warrior, trans. William Whiston (Philadelphia: John C. Winston Col, 1957), 535.

17. Mark C. Albrecht, Reincarnation: A Christian Critique of New Age Doctrine (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 1982), 70.

18. John Snyder, Reincarnation vs. Resurrection (Chicago: Moody Press, 1984), 71; see also F.F. Bruce, New Testament Documents: Are They Reliable? (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1968), 16ff., cited in this text.

19. Quoted in Context Newsletter, 1 April 1987, 3.

20. I. Howard Marshall, Biblical Inspiration (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1983), 119–20.

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