mean it?” Yes, I do, the men were spiritually dead. I have seen the minister preaching, without a particle of life, a sermon, which is only fresh in the sense in which a fish is fresh when it has been packed in ice. I have seen the people sit, and they have listened as if they had been a group of statues — the chiselled marble would have been as much affected by the sermon as they. I have seen the deacons go about their business just as orderly, and with as much precision as if they had been mere automatons, and not men with hearts and souls at all. Do you think God will ever bless a church that is like that? Are we ever to take the kingdom of heaven with a troop of dead men? Never! We want living ministers, living hearers, living deacons, living elders, and until we have such men who have the very fire of life burning in their souls, who have tongues of life, and eyes of life and souls of life, we shall never see the kingdom of heaven taken by storm. “For the kingdom of heaven suffers violence, and the violent take it by force.”
7. Frequently complaints are made and surprise expressed by individuals who have never found a blessing rest upon anything they have attempted to do in the service of God. “I have been a Sunday School teacher for years,” one says, “and I have never seen any of my girls or boys converted.” No, and the reason most likely is you have never been violent about it; you have never been compelled by the Divine Spirit to make up your mind that they should be converted, and no stone should be left unturned until they were. You have never been brought by the Spirit to such a passion, that you have said, “I cannot live unless God bless me. I cannot exist unless I see some of these children saved.” Then, falling on your knees in agony of prayer, and putting forth afterwards your trust with the same intensity towards heaven, you would never have been disappointed, “for the violent take it by force.” And you too, my brother in the gospel, you have marvelled and wondered why you have not seen souls regenerated. Did you ever expect it? Why, you preach like one who does not believe what he is saying. Those who believe in Christ, may say of you with kind partiality, “Our minister is a dear good man”; but the careless young men that attend your ministry, say, “Does that man expect to make me believe what he only utters as a dry story, and to convince me when I see him go through the service with all the dulness and monotony of dead routine?” Oh, my brethren, what we need today in the churches is violence, not violence against each other, but violence against death, and hell, against the hardness of other men’s hearts, and against the sleepiness of our own. In Martin Luther’s time, truly the kingdom of heaven suffered violence. The whole religious world was wide awake. Now, I fear for the most part it is now sound asleep. Go where you may, our churches have come to be old established businesses. They do not care to expand themselves. We must have new blood, no, we must have new fire from heaven to fall upon the sacrifice or else, like Baal’s priests, he may cut and hack our bodies, and distract our minds in vain; there will be “no voice, nor any to answer, nor any that regards.” The sacrifice shall lay unburnt upon the altar, and the world will say our God is not the living God, or surely we are not his people, “And you shall grope at noonday, as the blind gropes in darkness, and you shall not prosper in your ways: and you shall always be oppressed and spoiled, and no man shall save you.” Violent men, then, are those who take the kingdom of heaven by force.
8. II. Now, BRING THESE VIOLENT MEN FORWARD, AND LET US ASK THEM WHAT THEY ARE DOING. When a man is very earnest, he ought to be ready to give a reason for his earnestness. “Why now, sirs, what is all this strife about? why all this earnestness? You seem to be boiling over with enthusiasm. What is going on? Is there anything that is worth making such a stir about?” Hear them, and they will soon convince you that all their enthusiasm and striving to enter the kingdom of heaven by force, is not a whit more strong than reasonable.
9. The first reason why poor sinners take the kingdom of heaven by force is, because they feel they have no natural right to it; and, therefore, they must needs take it by force if they would have it at all. When a man belongs to the House of Lords, and knows that he has a seat there by prescriptive right and title, he does not trouble himself at the time of the elections. But there is another man, who says, “Well, I should like a seat in the House of Commons, but I have no absolute right to it. If I get it, it will be by a desperate struggle.” Do you not see how busy he is on the election day! how the carriages rush around everywhere; and how earnest are his supporters that he may stand at the head of the poll and win the day! He says, “I have no absolute right to it; if I had, then I would just take it easy and walk into my seat at the proper time.” But now he labours, and strives, and wrestles, because without so doing he does not expect to succeed. Now, look at those who are saved; they have no right to the inheritance they are seeking. What are they? Sinners, the chief of sinners; in their own esteem the vilest of the vile. Now, if they wish to obtain heaven they must take it by force, for they have no right to it by birth or inheritance. And what else are they? They are the poor ones of this earth. There stands the rabbi at the gate, and he says, “You cannot come in here; this is no place for the poor to enter.” “But,” he says, “I will”; and pushing the rabbi aside, he takes it by force. Then, again, they were Gentiles too; and Jews stood at the gate, and said, “Stand back, you Gentile dogs, you cannot come in.” Now, if such wish to be saved, they must take the kingdom of heaven by storm for they have no rights to assert. Ah, my fellow men, if you sit down and fold your arms, and say, “I am so good I have a right to heaven,” — how deceived you will be. But if God has convicted you of your lost, ruined, and undone condition, and if he has put his quickening Spirit within you, you will use a bold and desperate violence to force your way into the kingdom of heaven. The Spirit of God will not lead you to be submissive in the presence of foes, or fainthearted in the overwhelming crisis; he will drive you to desperate labour that you may be saved.
10. Ask one such man, again, why is he so violent in prayer; he replies, “Ah, I know the value of the mercy I receive. Why, I am asking for pardon, for heaven, for eternal life, and am I to get these with a few yawns and sleepy prayers? I am asking that I may wear the white robe, and sing the never ending song of praise; and do you think that a few poor supplications are to be enough? No, my God; if you wish to make me tarry a hundred years, and sigh, and groan, and cry through that long century; — yes, if I might only have heaven at last, all my prayers would have been well spent; no, had they been a thousand times as many, they were well rewarded if you would hear me at last. But,” he says again, “if you want to know why I am so earnest, let me tell you it is because I cannot bear to be lost for ever.” Hear the earnest sinner when he speaks. You say to him, “Why are you so earnest?” The tear is in his eye, the flush is on his cheek, there is emotion in every feature, while he says, “Oh that I could be far more earnest; do you know I am a lost soul, perhaps before another hour is over I may be shut up in the hopeless fires of hell! Oh, God, have mercy on me, for if you do not, how terrible is my fate. I shall be lost — lost for ever!”
11. Once let a man know that hell is beneath his feet, and if that does not make him earnest, what would? No wonder that his prayers are importunate, that his endeavours are intensely earnest, when he knows that he must escape, or else the devouring fire will lay hold on him. Suppose now, you had been a Jew in the olden time, and one day while taking a walk in the fields you had seen a man running with all his might. “Stop!” you say, “stop! my dear friend, you will exhaust yourself.” He goes on, and on, with all his might. You run after him. “Pause awhile,” you say, “and rest; the grass is soft, sit down here and take your ease. See, here I have some food and drink; stop and refresh yourself.” But without greeting you he says, “No, I must get away, away, away.” “Why? why?” you say. He is gone so far ahead, you run after him with all your might; and scarcely able to turn his head, he exclaims, “The city of refuge! the city of refuge! the manslayer is behind me.” Now, it is all accounted for; you do not wonder that he runs with all his might now. When the manslayer is after him, you can well understand that he would never pause for rest until he has found the city of refuge. So let a man know that the devil is behind him, that the avenging law of God is pursuing him, and who can make him stop? Who shall endeavour to make him suspend his race until he enters Christ, the city of refuge, and finds himself secure? This will make a man earnest indeed to — dread “the wrath to come,” and to be labouring to escape from it.
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