Matthew 11:12

HEAVEN TAKEN BY STORM

‘The kingdom of heaven suffereth violence, and the violent take it by force.’

Matthew 11:12

The preaching of John the Baptist was the point in which that change took place in God’s moral government of the world. His ministry introduced the genius of Christianity. At the same period, and rising from the same cause, another alteration became obviously necessary. The claim for admission into the covenant had hitherto been a national one: it now became a solely moral one. The prize is thrown open to universal competition. The whole world is called to press into the inner sanctuary. The question became only this:—Who loves Christ? Who loves Him most? So Christ laid down the law of the dispensation, under which we are placed, that ‘from the days of John the Baptist until now the kingdom of heaven suffereth violence, and the violent take it by force.’

I. Earnestness the key to progress.—We lay down, then, as our first principle, that earnestness is the soul to our religion, and the key to all progress. What we all want is, effort, stronger, more violent effort, because the promises of God are all to the efforts; and whatever be the signification of the words, ‘the Kingdom of Heaven,’ the rule obtains universally,’ the Kingdom of Heaven suffereth’—i.e admits of, i.e. is subjugated, i.e. yields itself to—‘the violent; and the violent, and only the violent, take it by force.’ We who hold the great doctrine of justification by faith only, are perhaps the more in danger of resting sometimes in an idle religion; and all the while, the great adversary, in his good generalship, seeing the advantage he obtains, encourages such a supposition. But the way is steep: the foe is powerful: the battle is to the death: the nerve must be set: the sword must be brightened: the foot must be firm: the grasp must be sure.

II. There are two ways of taking it.—There is a weak way, and a violent way of doing it.

(a) There is a faith, an educational faith, which we all have. And there is a faith, too, of the Eternal, which cannot rest so long as the hope of a promise has not been appropriated.

(b) There is an inner life of a man which goes on day after day, and without opposition. And there is a life within, full of enmity against contending influences.

(c) There is a prayer which consists in easy, oft-repeated cries. And there is a prayer, which is the out-pouring of thought, too deep for utterance and words.

(d) There is a life—decent, quiet, content to travel the beaten routine of daily duty. And there is a life of love, which burns with a zeal that cannot restrain itself.

All the promises of success are to the ‘violent.’ Why? Because God will always approve and exercise, that he may increase the grace out of which he is forming the glory of wearing the crown.… While everything is of grace, all the promises of God are to the bent mind, and the fine resolve, and the earnest and entire action.

—The Rev. James Vaughan.