I think that is a terrible interpretation of that passage. Or with the original writing.
What other way would you like it to read? It says what it says…..”many will seek to enter” on their own term, “but will not be able”…..entry is on God’s terms, so there will be no excuses accepted.
God will not alter his word or standards to suit those who might be offended by them.
Few there be that find it? Meaning a sincere search is met with zero results?
Look at the events of the past and tell me when God ever closed his eyes to the disobedience of his people?
Even going back to Noah’s day, tell me what excuses they had to offer to God once the water began falling from the sky?
Noah had been a “preacher of righteousness” for the decades it probably took him to build that enormous structure from scratch with no modern tools or technology….only with the detailed instructions that God gave him. Did he complain that the task was too hard or that he might need some divine help in its construction? No! He was told how to save himself and the children not yet born to him. He had three sons who grew up and married, gaining the assistance he required to complete the mammoth task. So only 8 souls out of that entire crooked generation survived because they ignored Noah’s warning.
We are again in a judgment period, before Christ’s coming to judge mankind, and God has been sounding the warning about his coming “day of vengeance” now for a very long time…..only those who come on board the only “ark” of salvation there is in our day, will survive “the end” that is coming. What did Peter say corresponded to Noah’s ark?
1 Peter 3:18-22…
“For Christ died once for all time for sins, a righteous person for unrighteous ones, in order to lead you to God. He was put to death in the flesh but made alive in the spirit. 19 And in this state he went and preached to the spirits in prison, 20 who had formerly been disobedient when God was patiently waiting in Noah’s day, while the ark was being constructed, in which a few people, that is, eight souls, were carried safely through the water.
21 Baptism, which corresponds to this, is also now saving you (not by the removing of the filth of the flesh, but by the request to God for a good conscience), through the resurrection of Jesus Christ. 22 He is at God’s right hand, for he went to heaven, and angels and authorities and powers were made subject to him.”
Just as these ones were carried through water to safety by following God’s direction, so Christ’s disciples are carried to safety by the waters of their baptism.….which is a dedicated relationship with God, through his mediator, Jesus Christ.
There are “wheat and weeds” growing together in this world and only the wheat are going to be saved….BECAUSE they did as they were told, and removed themselves from “Babylon the great”. (Rev 18:4-5) If we have not identified “Babylon the great” it is because we don’t want to change our minds about what is truth to us. You speak of a “sincere search” but how sincere is it when we are actually searching for a comfortable fit with our
own ideas about what is truth? Is God behaving in a way that “we” must approve?
Original Babylon was the springboard for all false religious ideas to spread out into the whole world.
This ‘greater‘ “Babylon” is the devil’s world empire of false religion, catering to all religious tastes and desires…..Christendom is the most reprehensible part of this empire because she alone claims to worship the true God…but like Judaism before her, she has apostatized to become an enemy of the God she claims to serve…dishing up all manner of false religious beliefs, adopted from paganism, and passing them off a “Christian“ doctrines….and currying friendship withe the world by supporting the conflicts and bloodshed of the nations. She is the weeds of Jesus parable….if we have not identified this religious harlot, we will not be moved to abandon her.
As if God is making sport with our souls?
Sport? There is no sport with a God who requires complete obedience to his commands. He is not a sentimental God because justice has nothing to do with sentiment….justice is administered without sentiment…..when mercy is merited, God will be merciful, but where clear directives are ignored or treated as of no consequence, he will have no compunction in acting to complete his purpose.…with us or without us….he would prefer that all would comply with his laws and principles, (2 Peter 3:9) but mankind has never been able to do that. Sin has always gotten in the way, but only because they did not restrain it. We are given the tools to conquer sin, but they are useless unless we implement them.
God does not need us….we need him to keep living……and he alone sets the standard for the life he has gifted to us.
"Oh... you were SO close. Too bad. Maybe next time.
Oh wait, there won't be a next time. Ha, ha ha..."
That is sadly true…there will not be a
next time, if we do not get it right,
this time.…but God is not laughing.
We have been given ample time to show God who we are, and what is in our hearts. He is sending a judge who can read exactly what is going on inside us…and what controls our thoughts and actions.
This is why there will not be a “next time”….if we have not changed the condition of our hearts to accept the truth when we heard it, being confronted with the final judgment will only force a selfish change of mind, when God has given all of us ample time to have a change of heart.
What did Jesus tell his disciples when he sent them out to preach his message of the kingdom of God?
Matt 10:11-14…
“Into whatever city or village you enter, search out who in it is deserving, and stay there until you leave. 12 When you enter the house, greet the household. 13 If the house is deserving, let the peace you wish it come upon it; but if it is not deserving, let the peace from you return upon you. 14 Wherever anyone does not receive you or listen to your words, on going out of that house or that city, shake the dust off your feet.”
It is the heart response of the hearer that indicates whether they are “sheep or goats”….there is something in the message that strikes a chord, and they want to know more, so his disciples were to stay and teach these “worthy” ones……but if they were turned away, they were not to labor the point, but just to “shake the dust off their feet“ as a way to show that the people were not worthy of their time or attention. They then moved on to the next house (Acts 20:20) in the hope of finding the sheep-like ones….the lost and confused who were humbly searching for the truth. They did not judge the message by the negative things they heard about the messengers…
John 15:18-21….
”If the world hates you, you know that it has hated me before it hated you. 19 If you were part of the world, the world would be fond of what is its own. Now because you are no part of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, for this reason the world hates you. 20 Keep in mind the word I said to you: A slave is not greater than his master. If they have persecuted me, they will also persecute you; if they have observed my word, they will also observe yours. 21 But they will do all these things against you on account of my name, because they do not know the One who sent me.”
Again we are in a situation where the world alienated from the true God, does not KNOW him. (John 17:3)
Like it or not….it is a salvation issue.