Good evening, and welcome to EBible Fellowship’s Bible study in the book of Genesis.  Tonight is study #35 of Genesis, chapter 24, and we are continuing to look at Genesis 24:48:

And I bowed down my head, and worshipped JEHOVAH, and blessed JEHOVAH God of my master Abraham, which had led me in the right way to take my master's brother's daughter unto his son.

We had decided to spend some time reviewing and thinking about what the Bible calls “the right way.”  In order to understand “the right way,” we also have to think about “the wrong way,” and last time we went to Matthew 7:13-14, which spoke of a wide gate and a broad way that leads to destruction.

We started to discuss some of the “ways” people may go.  You know there are actually thousands of “ways” that could be classified as wrong.  They are the false ways and the ways that lead to destruction, but they all fit into the definition of the “the broad way.”  That is why God only outlines two specific ways, the broad way and the narrow way.  There is the narrow way of the true Gospel, and we will look at that later on, but within the broad way you can have everything under the sun and practically everything you can think of, and the world allows much diversity when it comes to the broad way.  They do not like to speak against any one way – every way is fine.  It is the world’s mindset that you can get to heaven if you are a Muslim, or if you are a Catholic, or if you are a “good person.”  It is varied and open and, yet, it is all wrong.  Not one of them is going to get to heaven on that way; that is the way that leads to destruction.

We started to talk about atheists, secularists and those that say they are agnostic.  They may say, “There is no God.”  They are trusting in that hope.  It is something that they lean upon, and they firmly believe.  You know, I am intentionally using the language of faith, hope and trust because that is the language of the Bible when God speaks of trusting Him, having faith in God, believing on the Lord.  It is the same language when applied to this belief that there is no God, so it is a “religion.”  It is a religion for those that are anti-religion, and they think they have found a way to get out from under this whole idea of serving a Deity.  You just say, “There is no God.”  But that itself becomes a “religion,” based on the same principles of faith and belief, and so forth.  We were talking about that. 

There is atheism, but there are other “ways” of the world like philosophies and ideologies that people follow and that they think are good.  It is the “new morality” today to follow ideologies that have nothing to do with God or are contrary to God and the Bible on point, after point.  And, yet, these people are what the world would define as a “good person” if they believe in these things.  But, no, these things are not going to get anyone to heaven.  That is obvious.

There are more traditional ways of the world, like its numerous religions that people also follow, and these religions set up gods of wood and stone, and they deck them with gold and silver, and then they bow down to them.  It is certain that these are no gods because they come right out of the imagination of man’s mind.  It is a man’s mind that thought of carving the wood into an image and decking it with gold and silver, so that “god” has no life.  It has no ability or power to save, and it will not.

Let us look at a couple of verses that speak of the ways of the world, or this “broad way.”  We will look at a couple, but there are many more.  It says in Psalm 1:1:

Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful.

So there is a “counsel of the ungodly,” just as there is a “counsel of the godly,” but the counsel of the godly would be the Bible.  The counsel of the ungodly would be all the philosophies and ideas that man has, and this is the way of man, the way of sinners.  Then it says in Psalm 1:6:

For JEHOVAH knoweth the way of the righteous: but the way of the ungodly shall perish.

The latter would relate to the broad way that leads to destruction.

Or, it says in Psalm 119:29:

Remove from me the way of lying: and grant me thy law graciously. I have chosen the way of truth: thy judgments have I laid before me.

This is one of the better descriptions of what a “broad way” really is, and what the “narrow way” truly is.  The broad way of man is the way of lying.  We have to keep in mind that since the fall, man is a natural liar.  The Bible tells us that the heart of man is desperately wicked and deceitful above all things.  To be deceitful is to lie.  This is because when faced with the option of keeping God’s true commandment back in the Garden of Eden, man chose the lie.  God had said of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, “Thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.”  But then Satan came along, the father of lies, and he said, “Ye shall not surely die: For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods.”  Then man chose to believe the lie over the truth.  It was the first sin, transgressing the Law of God and he made his first offer of worship at the throne of that which was deceitful, as he believed the lie.  He trusted in the lie.  He had faith in the lie.  And that has been the character of man ever since.  The “way” of lying sums up this world.  It sums up the educational system.  It sums up the entertainment industry.  It sums up the politics of the nations.  It sums up the scientific arena when they speak of the “big bang” and evolution as if they know truth, but they do not have the slightest idea.

It is all the “way of lying,” and it is one of the reasons that in this Day of Judgment as God is bringing judgment upon the world, He is shaming the world on this point, again, and again, and again.  For example, the news media, which is the mouthpiece of the world, had long had a trusted reputation for integrity and speaking the truth, although they always had biases and slanted the news in times past.  But they were always upheld as a highly moral organization.  And what is it today and over the last few years?  They have gotten the label of “fake news.”  And what is fake news?  It is lying news or lying reports. 

When we declare what the Bible says, that is a good report – that is telling the truth of the matter.  But the world has a way of lying, and God is exposing the lies, the hypocrisy and the deep-down deceitfulness of the world’s institutions in every imaginable area you can think of.  The report of scandals are coming at a rapid rate on a daily basis.  But listen closely and you will find that what is at the core of what is being exposed is the “way of lying.”  It does not matter what area it may be, whether entertainment, government or science, it is the way of lying.  It is the broad way that has covered the world and that the world has hidden behind.  Before God began exposing these things during the final judgment of mankind, there was always the appearance of well doing.  These various industries always put forth a good front, and they were not too deeply questioned, but no longer, as God brings them to public shame as part of His overall judgment.

So there is the way of sinners, the way of the ungodly and the way of lying.  We are told in Proverbs 4:14-18:

Enter not into the path of the wicked, and go not in the way of evil men. Avoid it, pass not by it, turn from it, and pass away. For they sleep not, except they have done mischief; and their sleep is taken away, unless they cause some to fall. For they eat the bread of wickedness, and drink the wine of violence. But the path of the just is as the shining light, that shineth more and more unto the perfect day.

Here, it is called “the path of the wicked” and “the way of evil men.”  Notice how in verse 17 it is related to “bread of wickedness” and “wine of violence,” just like the true Gospel is likened to bread and wine, but it is the gospel of the world.  It is the pathway that they opted for and have chosen, and decided to walk down.  And it is not true.  It is not going to bring their desired hope.  It is going to bring destruction.  They will be eternally destroyed at the end of this Judgment Day, and they will cease to exist and be no more.

God’s people, however, will enter into that glorious life and the glorious new heaven and new earth, and we will enjoy living forever.  We will show forth by our very eternal life as we continue to worship God in perfect bliss.  We will show forth the fact that the way we have traveled (and the way that God put us on and caused us to proceed, endure and make it through) was the right way.  And eternity is the testimony of that fact.  But I am jumping ahead because we have not started to talk about the “narrow way.”

Again, we know there are false ideologies like atheism and secularism.  There are false religions, and a false religion is any religion that sets up an idol or any religion that makes reference to the Bible, but does not trust the whole Bible, such as Judaism and the Muslim religion.  The Jews accept the Old Testament, but reject the New Testament, but remember what God said in Revelation 22:18-19:

For I testify unto every man that heareth the words of the prophecy of this book, If any man shall add unto these things, God shall add unto him the plagues that are written in this book: And if any man shall take away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part out of the book of life, and out of the holy city, and from the things which are written in this book.

So whether a religion adds or subtracts, it is the same result – they will lose their part in the book of life.  They will not live forever, which means they will be destroyed.  So whatever your religion is and no matter how much truth you may have in your religion…and anyone that accepts the whole Old Testament would have a good amount of truth because it is 39 books of the Bible, which is the majority of the books.  But, unfortunately, it is not going to help you because you have taken away the other 27 books, and God will take your part out of the book of life; that is, you will be destroyed.  And that qualifies your religion as part of the broad way that leads to destruction.

The Muslim religion speaks well of Jesus, so they would not be so quick to do away with the New Testament.  I know from having some direct dialogue and even a few debates with some Muslim teachers, when you get into a discussion with a Muslim believer about whether Christ is God, they deny that Jesus is God.  Then when you point out verses from the New Testament, like the book of Acts or one of the Epistles that God moved Paul to write, they will critique Paul and refuse to accept him as someone God used to write the Bible, so they are rejecting portions of the Bible, and we are never to do that.  We have to come to the Bible humbly, and we have to believe and bow down ourselves before God and His entire Word, all the Bible and all 66 books, and all Scriptures within those 66 books.  And, again, often the Muslim religion violates Revelation 22 and the verses we just read, so that is not “the right way.”  You cannot get to heaven by denying that Jesus Christ is Eternal God in the flesh.  There must be confession that He is God in the flesh, and He is the LORD and God, and those religions that are not confessing that truth are not “the right way” and the narrow way that leads to life.

So we have, in general, looked at “the broad way.”  We could go on for days, listing all the erroneous pathways of man, but we are just hitting some of the high points, and this would lead us, finally, to the “Christian Church.”  And I am putting that in quotes because throughout the history of the New Testament churches and congregations, there has always been a mixture of true and false and of wheat and tares; that is, there was a true church corporately, as Christ was in the midst, but various denominations fell away by adding or subtracting from the Word of God.  They became other gospels that were completely under the wrath of God, even during the church age. 

Then, finally, at the time of the end, God came in judgment because the churches had instilled many “high places” and false teachings.  You know, God is always the God of truth.  He is never the God of lying.  That is the broad way, not His way.  So God wanted 100% truth at the time of the end as He opened up His Word and He revealed the true teaching of the Bible (in so many areas), and He also revealed that judgment had begun at the house of God.  So He judged the entirety of the Christian Church – all congregations and all denominations, big and small, and even individual “house churches.”   Any church that was part of the corporate church came under the judgment of God, and God ended His relationship with them.  He turned them over completely (100%), to be ruled by Satan, and Satan took his seat as the man of sin in the temple, showing himself that he was God.  He is the father of lies, and the churches were made into his image.  And now the whole Christian church world in this time have all been given over to lies.  It is all the “way of lying” and none of it can lead anyone into the kingdom of God.  It is not “the narrow way,” although it had been a part of that way over the 1,955 years of the church age.  An individual seeking to do God’s will and follow that right way or right path would have been led to a church and could have entered into the kingdom of God via sitting under the teaching of the pastor, elder and deacons as they followed the truth of the Bible in their congregations.

But in 1988, the church age ended, and God judged the congregations.  He later issued forth the command to come out of the churches, and that is where things are left at this time, as the Lord’s people remain outside of the churches and congregations.  And we are not to go back in.  If you find yourself on the housetop, do not go back into the house.  If you are out in the field, do not turn back to take your garment.  Remember Lot’s wife.  It all emphasizes the same truth – when you come out, do not go back.  Going back would be disastrous because that is now the broad way that leads to destruction.  I do not care if it is Presbyterian or Catholic or Pentecostal, because they all lead to destruction.  It does not matter if they talk about free will or Calvinism or election or Arminianism.  None of it matters because the churches are all part of that broad way.  You might as well go get a Buddhist statue, deck it with gold and silver and bow down to it, and then go to your local Reformed Church, because they are one and the same.  They lead to the same destination, which is destruction.