The Spurgeon Series 1859 & 1860. Charles H. Spurgeon
rely upon the finished work of Christ? If so, this is more than human nature ever taught any man; this is a height to which human nature never climbed. The Spirit of God has done that, and he will never abandon what he has once begun, but you shall go from strength to strength, and you shall stand among the bloodwashed throng, at last complete in Christ, and accepted in the beloved. But if you have not the Spirit of Christ, you are not his. May the Spirit lead you to your room now to weep, now to repent, and now to look to Christ, and may you now have a divine life implanted, which neither time nor eternity shall be able to destroy. God, hear this prayer, and send us away with a blessing, for Jesus’ sake. Amen.
Holy Violence
No. 252-5:217. A Sermon Delivered On Sunday Morning, May 15, 1859, By C. H. Spurgeon, At The Music Hall, Royal Surrey Gardens.
From the days of John the Baptist until now the kingdom of heaven suffers violence, and the violent take it by force. {Matthew 11:12}
1. When John the Baptist preached in the wilderness of Judea, the throng of people who pressed around him became extremely violent to get near enough to hear his voice. Often when our Saviour preached a similar scene occurred. We find that the multitudes were immense beyond all precedent. He seemed to drain every city, every town, and every village, as he went along preaching the word of the gospel. These people, moreover, not like our common church and chapel goers, — content to hear, if they could, and yet more content to stay away without hearing, if it would be possible, — were extremely earnest to get near enough to hear anyway. So intense was their desire to hear the Saviour that they pressed upon him, insomuch that they trampled on each other. The crowd became so violent to approach near him, that some of the weaker ones were pushed down and trampled. Now, our Saviour, when he witnessed all this struggling to get near him, said, “This is just a picture of what is done spiritually by those who will be saved. As you press and throng about me,” said Christ, “and thrust one another, with arm and elbow, to get within reach of my voice, even so must it be if you wish to be saved, ‘For the kingdom of heaven suffers violence, and the violent take it by force.’ ” He pictured to himself a crowd of souls desiring to get to the living Saviour. He saw them press, and crowd, and throng, and thrust, and trample on one another, in their anxious desire to get near him. He warned his hearers, that unless they had this earnestness in their souls, they would never reach him savingly; but if they had it, they would certainly be saved. “From the days of John the Baptist until now the kingdom of heaven suffers violence, and the violent take it by force.”
2. “But,” one says, “do you wish us to understand, that if a man is to be saved he must use violence and vehement earnestness in order to obtain salvation?” I do, most assuredly; that is the doctrine of the text. “But,” one says, “I thought it was all the work of God.” So it is, from first to last. But when God has begun the work in the soul, the constant effect of God’s work in us is to set us working; and where God’s Spirit is really striving with us, we shall begin to strive too. This is just a test by which we may distinguish the men who have received the Spirit of God, from those who have not received him. Those who have received the Spirit in verity and truth are violent men. They have a violent anxiety to be saved, and they violently strive to enter in at the narrow gate. Well they know that seeking to enter in is not enough, for many shall seek to enter in but shall not be able to, and therefore they strive with might and main.
3. I shall this morning, first, direct your attention to these violent men. Look at them. Secondly, we shall show their conduct. What makes them so violent? Are they justified in this impetuous vehemence? We shall next rejoice in the fact, that they are sure to be successful in their violence. And then, I shall endeavour to arouse in your hearts, by the help of God’s Holy Spirit, that holy violence, without which the gates of heaven will be shut in your teeth, and you will never be able to enter the pearly portals of Paradise.
4. I. First then, LET US LOOK AT THESE VIOLENT MEN. Understand that what they are, they have been made by divine grace. They are not so naturally by themselves. But there has been a secret work of grace in them, and then they have become violent men. Look at these violent men, who are violently in earnest to be saved. You will observe them when they come up to the house of God; there is no yawning with them, no listlessness or inattention, no imagination that if they only sit in the place for the hour and a half which is regularly allotted to divine worship, they will have done enough. No; they hear with both their ears, and they look with both their eyes, and all through the service they have an intense desire that they may find Christ. Meet them as they go up to the house of prayer, and ask them why they are going there. They know very well what they are going after. “I am going there to find mercy, and to find peace and rest to my soul; for I am in anguish about sin, and I want to find the Saviour; I am in hopes that being in the way the Lord will meet with me, so I am about to lay myself down by the side of the pool of Bethesda, in the hope that the Holy Spirit will stir the pool and enable me to step in.” You do not find these people like most of modern hearers, critical, or else careless. No; they are wide awake to see whether there is not something to be had which may be a balm to their wearied spirits, and a cordial to their troubled hearts. Note these violent people after they have gone home. They go to their bedrooms and they begin to pray; not that prayer between sleeping and waking that some of you are used to attend to, not that drowsy supplication which never gets beyond the ceiling of your bedroom; but they fall on their knees and with a holy anxiety they begin to cry, “Lord, save or I perish; oh Lord save me; I am ready to perish, Lord; I beseech you, stretch out your hand and rescue my poor soul from that destruction which now haunts my spirit.” And see them after they have prayed, how they turn over the Word of God. They do not read its chapters as if the mere looking at the letters was enough, but they read just as Watts says in his hymn,
Yet save a trembling sinner, Lord,
Whose hope, still hovering round your word
Would light on some sweet promise there,
Some sure support against despair.
And down they are on their knees again. “Oh Lord speak to my soul through your word! Lord help me to lay hold on the promise, enable me to grasp it! Oh, do not let my soul perish for lack of your help and your grace.” And then see these violent men whom God has really made in earnest about being saved. You will not find them leaving their devotions in their closets, or in their house of prayer. Wherever they go there is a solemn earnestness upon them, which the world cannot understand. They are seeking after Jesus, and they will not rest nor can rest until they find him. Their nights are disturbed with dreams, and their days are made sad with their partings after the blessing — without which they cannot live, and without which they dare not die.
5. My hearer, have you ever been one of these violent men, or are you so now? Blessed be God if this holy violence is in your spirit: you shall take heaven by force yet; you shall take it by storm, and carry the gates of heaven by the battery of your prayers. Only persevere with importunity; still plead, still wrestle, still continue to strive, and you must at length prevail. But ah! my hearer, if you have never had a strong unconquerable anxiety about your soul, you are as yet a stranger to the things of God. You do not understand that victorious violence without which the gates of heaven can never be stormed. Some of us can look back to the time when we were seeking Christ. I myself could easily wake up in the morning then. The first ray of light that came my room would awaken me to take up Baxter’s Call to the Unconverted that lay under my pillow. I believed I had not repented enough, and I began to read that. Oh! how I hoped that would break my heart. And then I would get Doddridge’s Rise and Progress of Religion in the Soul, and Allen’s Alarm To The Unconverted, and read them. But, still, I think I might have read them to this day, and not been a whit the better, if I had not something better than alarm, in remembering that Christ came into the world to save every sinner who was willing to cast himself upon his blood and righteousness, and take him at his word, and trust God. Have you not seen many — and are there not many among us — men who have said “I must have mercy, I must have it: it is not a thing which I may have, or may not have but I am a lost soul if I do not have it?” And when they have gone to pray they have seemed