For the last two weeks we have discussed our response to the Sermon on the Mount. In many ways the sermon closed with Jesus saying “Therefore, whatever you want men to do to you, do also to them, for this is the Law and the Prophets.” From that point on Jesus is calling for us to respond, to “enter the narrow gate”, to choose the “narrow way”, to make a decision, a continual decision to deny ourselves, take up the cross and follow Him. The decision is about which way we will follow, the broad way that costs us nothing in the moment, we get to keep our reputation, our baggage, our opinions, our ideas and our beliefs but costs us everything in the end because it ends in destruction; or the narrow way which costs us everything right here and right now, we have to surrender our hearts, our minds, our hopes and our dreams, our understanding and our experiences; to get through that gate is like a camel going through the eye of a needle, it seems far too difficult for us but with God nothing is impossible. The narrow way is costly at the beginning, costly along the way but it’s rewards are far greater than its costs because with each step we are promised that our heavenly Father is with us, our heavenly Father will protect us and our heavenly Father will provide for us all because He has chosen to care for us. The truth is, the broad way is where we care for ourselves and the narrow way is where we entrust ourselves to the care of our Father. As the author of Proverbs told us, “There is a way which seems right to a man but its end is the way of death.” The narrow way does not always seem right because it creates pressure, it does not always feel right because it uses discomfort as a tool of transformation but it is always the right way because it is filled with the loving discipline of God and the one way the Bible has given us to be confident of our adoption as God’s children is to be recipients of His discipline, Hebrews 12:8 says that if you are without discipline then you are not sons. Today we begin to find out that the Sermon on the Mount will not change topics or direction again, everything that Jesus will say from this point on is to teach us how to walk the narrow way. Our text today gives us a warning that along the narrow way we will encounter people that Jesus calls “false prophets”; in the context of the Sermon on the Mount I believe we can call them “prophets of the broad way”. The warning is real and it must be heeded, there are going to be people in each one of our lives that have refused the narrow way for themselves and they desire to have us join them on the broad way. They will use God’s name and even God’s Word to attempt to lead from the narrow to the broad. This morning we are going to discuss those people but far more we are going to discuss this condition. The Sermon on the Mount has been all about the condition of our hearts, the surpassing righteousness that God possesses in Himself and requires that His children receive from intimacy with Him. These final words, the calling to respond, the necessity of decision and even the warnings to be careful keep with the focus of the sermon, they apply first to our hearts. As such, today as we discuss the prophets of the broad way we learn that we must never look around until we have first looked within. We will beware the false prophets that live among us by first surrendering any beliefs of the broad way that still attempt to live within us.