Two Gates by Emma Hildreth Adams

Pacific Press Publishing Association · Mountain View, California · Jun 6, 1911

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 38, No. 22.

Two Gates

By Emma Hildreth Adams

READER, step back a few paces, and study these gates.

One of them stands upon a rugged hilltop. It is a "strait gate." Above its arch gleam the momentous words, "UNTO LIFE." They are words of intense import to mankind; words of meaning unfathomable to human readers. They open a vista without bounds, into the eternal future.

The road leading to the gateway is "narrow," rough, steep in some places. It winds through dense thickets of test and trial; through close tangles of struggle and effort; through gloomy clusters of pain and sorrow; through thick patches of attempts at well-doing, and sad failures; through dark clumps of sudden, thoughtless yielding to evil.

And yet, it is a way of such influence, such uplift, that at every mile the traveler may make headway in moral power, in mental might, in spiritual force. But at every step, effort of a high type is in demand. Before the gate is reached, there is call for the traveler's supreme endeavor, for his utmost steadfastness, for character true, unfeigned, uncounterfeited.

But the gateway gained, success unimaginable awaits him; for it opens into LIFE — life real, life nobler, more potent, more blessed, than we can now conceive. "Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love Him." 1 Cor. 2: 9.

Moreover, notwithstanding the disheartening thickets, tangles, and patches, this ascending roadway contains remarkable attractions. Here and there may be plucked the exquisite flowers of patience, gentleness, kindliness, and that royal bloom FAITH, opening out daily more regal, more radiant, as the struggler approaches the gateway. Read Hebrews 11.

Then, too, this narrow, arduous avenue to the hilltop is bountifully lighted by day and by night. From those two short words glowing over the gateway, streams a glory, a splendor, which illuminates even the starting-point, at the busy valley in the distance. Less brilliant at the starting-point, the light deepens, intensifies, as the climber urges his feet toward the realm of peace, of glory, of beatitude, inside the gate.

The Wide Gate

At the other gate one's interest does not wane, but changes, differs immensely. The circumstances vary vastly. The conditions are the reverse. Instead of a cheering, animating ascent from the beginning of the roadway thereto, there is a slope, a descent, an incline, steep at some points, with never an upward trend. The way is broad and alluring, but halts, ceases at a large, open, inviting gateway, closed neither night nor day. "Wide is the gate, and broad is the way," are the words that fell from the lips of the divine Master during that matchless sermon delivered on a mountainside.

Two words, as in the other case, but fearfully suggestive in their import, are inscribed above this gate — "To Destruction." Sufficient light illumines them to publish to the crowding, urging multitude which throngs that way, its certain danger.

Strive to Enter In

Many in that doomed company never heed these startling words. Scores do not even glance at them. Hundreds fail to realize that, when a thing reaches "destruction," that ends its existence. Thousands of uninstructed believers in intrinsic immortality, assured that the term means simply death — the ending only of the present phase of being, and the stepping out upon another and higher plane of existence — rush on to the absolute total extinguishment of life.

When Christ, the mightiest of human word painters, touched the first gate, 1900 years ago, with His brush of fadeless dyes, He left gleaming above it the stimulating, encouraging sentence, "STRIVE to enter in at the strait gate," thus publishing to all the race with which He had allied Himself, the inspiring possibility of entering thereat.

Nor was this needless urgency, nor prodigal use of counsel. While Christ knew that eternal LIFE is the gift of God through faith in the Saviour's great sacrifice of Himself, yet He well understood that winning the imperial prize would cost man's utmost efforts at upright living, at that most remunerative of all work — character building. Therefore He added His reason for the advice — "Because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, that leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it."

Every day there may be seen many illustrations of the fact that before the vast assembly of mankind, are set forth numerous attractive prizes, true recompenses, worthy compensations, for noble striving, for arduous endeavor in the race of life; and yet, how few, compared with the vast multitude of men and women, make the effort absolutely necessary to attain the regal climax, to reach the acme of the struggle!

This lamentable fact also Christ well understood; and hence with gracious forethought, mercy, and love He gave to every person before whose eyes or into whose ears the momentous words should fall, the ringing advice and warning: "Enter ye in at the strait gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat."

In this great trial day, when millions of our rushing race seem to take no thought for the final consequence of conduct, these salutary words might well be set up before the doorway of every home, and in all byways and highways for human feet.

But how shall one hold himself in the narrow way, that he may enter the strait gate and find LIFE? The Word of God contains countless directions for securing this supreme result. Notice a few of them.

Prov. 3: 1, 3, 23: "My son, . . . let thine heart keep My commandments: . . . bind them about thy neck; write them upon the table of thine heart. . . . Then shalt thou walk in thy way safely, and thy foot shall not stumble." Prov. 7: 1-3: "My son, . . . keep My commandments, and LIVE. . . . Bind them upon thy fingers, write them upon the table of thine heart."

Moses, the "friend of God," in his masterful review, before Israel's great host, of the laws, statutes, and commandments which God delivered to him on Sinai, urged them with intense fervor, to obey these laws, that they might LIVE. "Thou shalt . . . talk of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way. . . . Thou shalt bind them for a sign upon thine hand, and they shall be as frontlets between thine eyes."

No safer policy of life-insurance can man carry, in these stressful days, than the unswerving resolution to live out daily the straight principles of the Word of God. "That thou mayest love the Lord thy God, and that thou mayest obey His voice, and that thou mayest cleave unto Him: for He is thy LIFE, and the length of thy days."