Dead End to Hell

I chased Elvis Presley down a two-lane highway in Mississippi one night. The year was 1974, and he was driving a white Cadillac, and I was driving a blue Plymouth Fury III. It was about 2 a.m. I recognized Elvis sitting at a gas station on the outskirts of Memphis that was dark and closed.

I did a U-turn and began following him until we got on a two-lane highway heading towards Mississippi. That's when I quit following him, and I tried to overtake him in my souped-up car with a 440 engine from the muscle car golden era. I got close enough to getting alongside Elvis as we were both going at least 100 miles an hour.

I believe he was in fear for his life, and I wouldn't blame him, but all I wanted to do was just to pull up alongside him to wave at him. But I eventually slowed down because I was the one driving in the wrong lane into head-on traffic, so I let Elvis get away that night as I watched his car fade out of sight beneath that moonlit sky. I used to drag race in high school, and I had no fear of driving in the wrong lane in order to race past another car.

When you're young, you think you're invincible. That's why young people go to war. But like I said, I had no fear of driving 100 miles an hour in the wrong lane on a drag strip of a country road.

God in his mercy preserved my life in my younger crazy days. I still drive too fast today, but at least I stay in the right lane now. But back then, I took reckless chances.

I wasn't much different than most folks today who are traveling in the wrong lane on the road to hell. Jesus said there are two roads in life, a narrow one where he is and heaven is, and a broad road that everybody else is on, where the devil is and hell is. Most folks are on that fast road to hell.

Take a look, friends, at what Jesus has to say about these two roads as seen in Matthew's Gospel in chapter 7 and verses 13 and 14. Enter ye in at the straight gate, for wide is the gate and broad is the way that lead it to destruction, and many there be which go in there at. That's the broad road to hell, friends, that leads to destruction.

Like that wrong way driving on a dark drag strip would have killed me eventually if I kept on that way. The whole world is on that wide road to hell. On that wide road is enough room for all the world religions.

There they travel side by side on a religious road to hell. That wide road has enough room on it for this young generation of lost church kids who grew up in church but never found Jesus. That wide road will accommodate every sex pervert and atheist on the planet with room to spare.

It's a loud road, a boisterous road, a busy road full of greed and lust and lying. The problem with this broad road is the roadside on it, for that roadside reads dead end, because that broad road is a dead end to hell. The other road Jesus describes this way, because straight is the gate and narrow is the way which leadeth unto life and few there be that find it.

This road, friend, is marked by a road sign that reads rest stop ahead. My Bible says in Hebrews, there remaineth, therefore, a rest to the people of God. That road sign on the narrow road reads rest stop ahead for eternal life.

The other sign reads dead end to hell. Now I believe that's pretty close to it. The road you're on, friend, will determine your destination.

You better get out your map, which is the Bible, and you better get familiar with the 66 travel stops in that book that show you the way to heaven. You better be as narrow as your Bible. Jesus is both on the narrow road with you now, and he's waiting for you at the end of that road then.

The devil rides with you on that broad road now, and he waits for you in that dead end to hell. Which road are you on, friend? You better get in the right lane before it's too late. Let us pray.