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The sermon teaches that the kingdom is entered by a faith made urgent and active by God’s grace, not by passive religious respectability. Genuine Christians are spiritually awake, burdened over sin and souls, persistent in prayer, and willing to endure opposition. Spurgeon sharply warns that lukewarm profession may resemble Christianity outwardly while lacking the life of the Spirit. The message strongly emphasizes human responsibility and earnest seeking while locating the source of all true spiritual life in divine grace.
Theological center: Salvation is entirely initiated and accomplished by divine grace, yet genuine grace produces earnest faith, prayer, perseverance, and evangelistic zeal.
Applications: Seek Christ with earnest urgency · Pray and strive for salvation · Labor earnestly for souls · Reject lukewarm religion
Primary texts: Matthew 11:12 · Revelation 3:16 · Acts 14:22
“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. 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 Savior preached did the same scene occur. 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 keep without hearing, if it were possible—were extremely earnest to get near enough to hear Jesus. So intense was their desire to hear the Savior that they pressed upon Him, insomuch that they trod one upon another! The crowd became so violent to approach Him, that some of the weaker ones were cast down and trod upon. Now, our Savior, when He witnessed all this struggling round about 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 would 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 Savior. He saw them press and crowd and throng and thrust and tread on one another, in their anxious desire to get at 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.” “But,” says one, “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 teaching of the text. “But,” says one, “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 whereby 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, an…