Turn with me in your Bibles to Luke’s Gospel, chapter 16 and verse 16.
The law and the prophets were until John:
from that time the gospel of the kingdom of God is preached,
and every man entereth violently into it.
And turn also to Matthew’s Gospel, chapter 11 and verse 12.
And from the days of John the Baptist until now the kingdom of heaven suffereth violence,
and men of violence take it by force.
Heavenly Father, we thank You as we come into Your presence this evening, as we have sought to worship You this night, that when we turn to Your Word, You have made available to us all the energies and power, all the grace and wisdom, of our Lord Jesus in the person of the Holy Spirit.
And we want to avail ourselves of that anointing, both for my speaking and our hearing, that, Lord, this time may not be misspent, neither in vain; but, Lord, we may meet with Thee and receive from Thee.
So together, Lord, by faith, we stand into all that provision that You have made for us for this night. Make this time live with Your presence, with Your working, with Your speaking, Lord. And we shall give to You all the praise and all the glory, in the name of our Messiah, the Lord Jesus. Amen.
I think you all know that the theme of this time is Thy Kingdom Come. My responsibility in this theme has been the gospel of the kingdom.
We have already had two times on this matter of the gospel of the kingdom. I sought to introduce the subject in that first time, and now, in the second time, we have spoken about the grace of God as the foundation of that kingdom.
It is not on our pedigree, or on our natural qualifications, or our knowledge, or our zeal, or our devotion; but all God’s dealings in this kingdom, from our introduction to it right through to our being brought to the aim and objective of it, are by the grace of God.
Now, this evening, I want to take this matter one step further. I want to start with this very strange statement of the Lord Jesus about the kingdom of God suffering violence, and men of violence taking it by force.
It must seem to many people who think of Jesus as gentle, meek, and mild, a very strange statement. They might almost wonder whether someone misquoted it or misinterpreted it.
But here we have it not only in Matthew’s Gospel, but also in Luke. The way Luke records it is that every man entereth it—that is, the kingdom of God—violently.
Now, I find this very interesting, because there is a common, and I think erroneous, idea about the gospel, very prevalent in Christian circles, both evangelical and charismatic: that the gospel is really a very simple matter. It is just something to do with the forgiveness of God and a kind of conversion.
But actually, the gospel of the kingdom is infinitely more. When we look at the Acts of the Apostles, we find a very interesting thing. We find this phrase again and again: “Paul preached the kingdom of God,” always preaching and teaching the kingdom of God.
We discover that this good news—the gospel, the good news of God’s kingdom, of God’s kingship—is far more than merely being forgiven. That is the initial thing.
But the fact of the matter is that this gospel, the presence of this kingdom of God, the preaching of this kingdom of God—the presence and preaching of the kingship of God—always challenges people.
There is no way that the kingdom of God can be present or preached and not challenge men and women. It confronts us. It confronts us with reality. It confronts us with eternal reality. It forces us to decision.
Now, that is the gospel of the kingdom. It is not merely to do with salvation, nor even only accepting the kingship of God, the kingship of the Lord Jesus. It is also a question of our kingship: of our being educated, trained, disciplined, and brought by spiritual growth to the place where we can administer the will of God, where we can come to the throne of God.
This is the good news of the kingdom of God. Therefore, this matter of the gospel of the kingdom has very much to do with character—lasting, eternal, genuine character.
It has very much to do with experience: real and genuine experience of God. It has very much to do with growth—spiritual growth to maturity. Genuine growth to maturity, not just growth in the head, in academic knowledge, in a kind of theology, but growth within our very being, both in experience and in character.
Now, that leads me to look at this matter in three ways, all of which are related.
The first thing I want to underline tonight in this matter of the good news of the kingship of God is the required violence.
The required violence. Violence is required if you and I are going to reach the goal of God’s kingdom. If you and I are going to come to the end of the law, if you and I are going to realize the very significance of the gospel for us, then you and I are required to exercise violence.
Please look at these Scriptures. In Luke 16:16, the gospel of the kingdom of God is preached, and every man enters into it violently.
I do not think this means that your new birth is violent. What I believe it means is this: you can only enter into the kingship of God in experience.
You can only have that character of kingship produced in you and me, which will bring us to the throne of the Lamb, bring us to the throne of God, only if you and I are prepared to be violent.
Now, we have to be violent, not with one another, as is so often the case in Christian circles, but violent with oneself. This word violence is interesting, because most of us mollycoddle ourselves. We wrap ourselves up in cashmere and silk. We beautifully care for ourselves.
What we feel others should go through, the way they should be disciplined, is something quite different from the way that we look after ourselves. But every man can only realize the end of the gospel, the goal of the gospel, if he enters into this matter violently.
Look again at Matthew 11:12:
The kingdom of heaven suffereth violence,
and men of violence take it by force.
Now, there is no getting away from this. It is not as if somehow or other this word violence has very unfortunately got into the record and should not really be there. We are told quite clearly: the kingdom of heaven suffers violence. This kingship of God suffers violence, and men of violence take it by force.
No amount of theological acrobatics will enable us to get out of this matter. Here there is a required violence. Only those children of God, born of God’s Spirit, who are prepared to be men and women of violence, can take this kingship of God.
It has to be taken by force, apparently. Please listen carefully: apparently it is not enough to believe in the kingdom.
Every child of God that I know who has had a real experience of the Lord Jesus believes in the kingdom. But there are very few children of God I know who have kingship in their character.
Now, why? It is not just a matter of sitting there apathetically, almost indifferently, impartially, saying, “I believe this. I believe in the coming kingdom. Thy kingdom come. Oh, it is going to be wonderful when the Lord comes, when the Messiah comes, and His reign extends to the ends of the earth. How wonderful, how marvellous it will be.”
It is not just a question of believing in some kingdom. It is a matter of taking some kind of action.
It seems to me, if I am honest with myself—and I am sure it is the same with you—that there is a deep resistance to the kingship of God. Even though we are saved, even though we are born of the Spirit of God, even though we believe in the Word of God, still there is within us a deep resistance.
Unless you and I are prepared spiritually to use violence with ourselves, there is no way forward. There is no way you and I are going to enter into the kingship of God. There is no way you and I are going to come to the throne of God. There is no way that we are going to submit to the discipline of God, to the education of God, to those tribulations and afflictions that will come our way in God’s school of kingship.
We have to be violent with ourselves. The goal of the gospel, the aim of God for His kingdom, will never be realized without such violence on our part.
Now, I want to take you to a few other Scriptures, so that no one has any excuse in this matter. I want to take you to one of the letters of the Apostle Paul, the Philippian letter, chapter 3, to a reasonably well-known verse, verse 12.
Not that I have already obtained, or am already made perfect:
but I press on, if so be that I may lay hold on that for which also I was laid hold on by Christ Jesus.
Now, I think this phrase, “lay hold on,” is a very interesting phrase. I imagine that most of us do not really think of it in the way that we ought to think of it.
Actually, in Greek, it is a word for the policeman arresting a criminal. That is the way it is used. The old King James Version used the word apprehend.
When you apprehend someone, this is not just getting to know them, as some people imagine. To apprehend him is when a hand is laid on your shoulder and you are arrested by an officer of the law. You are apprehended.
Now, that is old English. Very sadly, of course, here in the United States, when you seceded from England, you also seceded from the English language.
I always remember when I first came to the United States many years ago, a little caption in the New York Times: “English is the language which divides the United States from the United Kingdom.”
Well, here we have it: “That I may apprehend that for which also I was apprehended by Christ Jesus.” Let us put it another way: that I may arrest that for which I also was arrested by Christ Jesus. Let us put it another way: that I may lay hold on that for which I also was laid hold on by Christ Jesus.
I thank God that in my little life, the Lord Jesus took hold of me violently. He took hold of me when I had no idea of Him, or what He was, or Who He was, or anything. I had never even read the Scripture when I was twelve years of age. I had never been to synagogue, nor to chapel, nor to church. But I remember that day when the Lord Jesus took hold of me.
When He first took hold of me and I saw the Lord, I had no idea what it all meant. I somehow knew He was alive, He was real, He was the Messiah, and He was the Saviour. That is all I knew.
I had no idea that when He took hold of me, it was for a purpose. It was years afterward that I began to discover that it is not just to be drab little, anemic, colourless Christians sitting in rows in meetings, looking at one another, waiting until we grow toothless and blind, and wondering whether we shall be transported into some heavenly kingdom where we shall be part of an eternal choir forever and ever and ever.
This kind of gospel that has been preached, which has brought this whole matter into disrepute, is so sad. It is so limiting. It is so destructive.
It is absolutely true: there is nothing more wonderful than to be forgiven. There is nothing more wonderful than to know your sins cancelled, blotted out as a thick cloud. There is nothing more wonderful than to be saved, to be delivered from the power of darkness and transferred into the kingdom of God’s dear Son.
But, my dear friend, that is not the end of the matter. God has a purpose.
Could it be that for some of us there will be regret—missed time, lost opportunities? We never, by violence, laid hold on that for which also we were laid hold on. We were saved, but we had not reached the end of the Lord.
Now, my dear friends, this, I think, is an amazing subject. When I read the Apostle Paul, I find it so unbelievable. This greatest of all our rabbis, this man who spoke of himself so clearly in this testimony—the most remarkable testimony, I think, in the Bible.
This man who said that to be a Jew was, in every way, to have value, but here in this testimony he said, “I count it all loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord.”
Here is a man who is not just preaching a truth; he is manifesting it. Here is someone who has truly exercised violence with himself. He is laying hold on that for which also Christ Jesus laid hold on him.
My dear friend, I think that is worth a lot of reflection and meditation.
It is not only there. I can take you to the first letter of the Apostle Paul to his son Timothy, chapter 6 and verse 12. Here we read these words:
Fight the good fight of the faith,
lay hold on the life eternal, whereunto thou wast called.
Now, note it. It is not just coasting along. It is not just being carried along. It is not just drifting in some kind of spiritual relaxation, some passive current of the Spirit of God, just being passively carried along by the power of God.
Here is the word of the apostle, at the end of one of his last letters to his beloved son in the faith, Timothy: “Fight the good fight of the faith. Lay hold on life eternal, whereunto thou wast called.”
In other words, what the apostle is saying is this: “You, my son Timothy, stand to lose everything but your salvation if you do not fight the good fight of faith, if you do not lay hold on that life eternal to which you have been called.”
I sometimes wonder whether many of us do not experience resurrection life, eternal life, the life of God in the Lord Jesus, because we do not lay hold on it.
We seem to think we are the recipients of eternal life and that is all that matters. But we have to lay hold on it. We have to, by faith, stand into it. We have to fight the good fight of faith.
Many Christians, as we have already made reference to, are fighting another kind of fight. Very often it is a fight with one another. Everywhere I go in Christian work and in fellowships, I find people fighting with one another. Oh, it is not a good fight; it is fighting the bad fight.
This is a fight of faith. Fight the good fight.
This is not just a one-off matter. If you look in the same chapter, 1 Timothy 6:19, we have exactly the same thing again:
Laying up in store for themselves a good foundation against the time to come,
that they may lay hold on the life which is life indeed.
Laying hold on the life which is life indeed.
Turn back again to yet another reference in the first letter of Paul to the Corinthians, chapter 9 and verse 26.
I therefore so run, as not uncertainly;
so fight I, as not beating the air:
but I buffet my body, and bring it into bondage:
lest by any means, after that I have preached to others,
I myself should be rejected.
He, of course, is not talking about salvation. He is talking about an inheritance. He is talking about the kingship. He is talking about the throne.
He is saying here, in this unbelievable little window into his heart, “I do not run in an uncertain way. I am quite clear as to what the goal is. I do not box”—that is the word in Greek—“I do not box the air. I am doing it in a way that I am bruising my body. I am actually disciplining my body.”
This is the same thing, is it not? This whole matter of violence.
If you go to the Gospels, this is all encapsulated in one little statement that has always intrigued me. Do you remember when Jesus said that it was impossible for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God? Then He used an unbelievable illustration.
He said it is as impossible to push a camel through the eye of a needle as for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God.
I always think camels are most extraordinary creatures. I have a fondness for camels. I always remember a brother who told me, “A camel is a horse put together by a committee.” I do not agree. I think the camel is one of the most remarkable creatures in the world. When people tell me this creature evolved, I just cannot believe it. I can only believe that Someone with immense humour created the camel.
Here is the Lord Jesus talking about a camel—not the Bactrian camel of China and Central Asia with two humps, but that great dromedary camel, the one-humped camel. Can you imagine trying to push that camel through the eye of a needle?
Some people say this eye of the needle was a little door in one of the gates of Jerusalem, used to take camels in when they came late, but that they had to take everything off the camel to allow it to go through. You can discount it. No Jewish merchantman will ever leave his goods outside of the city wall. You can forget that altogether. It is absolute nonsense.
As if he would take the camel inside and leave the goods outside! You are so stupid. Having transported them hundreds of miles, now he leaves them outside where brigands and robbers are.
The fact of the matter is, you take a little needle, and you see the eye of a needle, and you see a camel with that wonderful face. You could not even get the snout of a camel through the eye of a needle.
Can you imagine all the humour of the Lord? Can you imagine people getting a camel, pushing it and pushing it and pushing it, trying somehow to get it through that eye of the needle? It is impossible.
Then the Lord brought home the punch line: no more can a rich man enter the kingdom of God, or the kingship of God, than a camel goes through the eye of a needle.
Now, we immediately think, “Oh, we know what the Lord is talking about. He is talking about riches,” because it comes just out of the story of the rich young ruler. Jesus said, “There is only one thing you lack: go, sell all that you have, and come, follow Me.” And he turned away sorrowful.
But Peter and the other apostles understood something far more than just the question of a literally rich man, because Peter said—and apparently the others assented with him—“Then, Lord, who can be saved?”
Peter was not a rich man. I have stood in Capernaum by the Lake of Galilee, by Peter’s little home. They discovered it some years ago. That little home was literally from here to those steps. It was the first house church in Galilee. It was there that Jesus stayed, in one little tiny room. He was not a rich man.
It is possible that Matthew, Levi, was a rich man because he was a tax collector. Most of them were pretty wealthy because they took bribes on the side and became quite wealthy. John came from a very good family, but Peter and Andrew were very poor.
Here is Peter saying, “And who can be saved?” He had understood something. It was not just a matter of wealth. Apparently, it was self-sufficiency: any trust in yourself, whether it is in your intellect, whether it is in your ingenuity, whether it is in your resources, whether it is in your personality, whether it is in your background, whether it is in your pedigree, whether it is in your property, whether it is in your professional status.
It does not matter what it is. If you trust in those things, it is impossible for you to come into the kingdom of God.
Now, do you understand what it means? The kingdom of heaven suffers violence, and men of violence take it by force. There is something within us that resists this kind of thing.
“Why should I let go of my intellect? Why should I let go of my ingenuity? Why should I let go of my natural resources? Why should I let go of my pedigree? Why should I let go of my professional status? Why should I let go of my money, if that is what I trust?”
It needs violence.
Now, that leads me to the second thing I want to say. I want to talk, as this matter has to do with the gospel of the kingdom, about the inescapable cost.
This is the complement to all I said yesterday morning about the grace of God. The Lord Jesus did everything required for you to enter the kingdom of God, and that foundation of His finished work and of His grace remains forever.
There is no way to enter the kingdom of God, no way to progress in the kingdom of God, no way to reach the throne of God, but by that grace of the Lord Jesus.
But, my dear friends, it would be entirely false of me if I were to leave you with an idea that the gospel does not cost. This is the missing note in modern gospel preaching.
Whenever the Lord Jesus preached this gospel, wherever He preached it, though He healed the sick and raised the dead and cleansed the leper, He confronted men and women with the inescapable cost of the kingdom of God.
You can be saved, but, my dear friend, listen to me: you can be saved, you can be born of the Spirit of God, but you will not move a step or two in that kingdom unless you are prepared for the cost.
The Lord Jesus spoke of following Him. Somehow or other, in this modern kind of gospel preaching, it seems as if it is a better world. You come to the Lord Jesus and you will be whisked along, almost catapulted along by some great force. You will not have to do anything. You will not have to pay anything. You will just be taken right away through to the throne of God.
My dear friends, it is not true, for the Lord Jesus said:
If any man would come after Me,
let him deny himself,
and take up his cross,
and follow Me.
This was not some elite luxury experience for special faith. This was His gospel. This was all to do with the grace of God, which alone can save us, which alone can cancel our sins, which alone can build us to a place where we are justified in the sight of God.
But then, if you and I are going to come to the goal of that gospel, to the end of the Lord in the kingdom of God, then you and I have a price to pay.
What is that cost? I suggest it is you. It is your self-life, my self-life.
If that self-life of yours, that self-life of mine, is left untouched, unbroken, undisciplined, uncrucified, it will be our undoing. We can never reach the throne of God unless that self-life is dealt with.
Take a few Scriptures. Look at Mark 8:34-35.
And He called unto Him the multitude with His disciples, and said unto them,
If any man would come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me.
For whosoever would save his life shall lose it;
and whosoever shall lose his life for My sake and the gospel’s shall save it.
Now, the Lord Jesus used that word: self-life, soul-life, if you like—however you like to put it. The psyche, that life. If I hold on to it, I lose it. If I lose it, I find it.
This is the inescapable cost that is involved in the gospel of the kingdom.
Look again at Matthew 16:24-25.
Then said Jesus unto His disciples,
If any man would come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me.
For whosoever would save his life shall lose it:
and whosoever shall lose his life for My sake shall find it.
Take Matthew 10:38-39.
And he that doth not take his cross and follow after Me, is not worthy of Me.
He that findeth his life shall lose it;
and he that loseth his life for My sake shall find it.
Look again, if you are not convinced, at John 12:24-26.
Verily, verily, I say unto you,
Except a grain of wheat fall into the earth and die, it abideth by itself alone;
but if it die, it beareth much fruit.
He that loveth his life loseth it;
and he that hateth his life in this world shall keep it unto life eternal.
If any man serve Me, let him follow Me;
and where I am, there shall also My servant be:
if any man serve Me, him will the Father honour.
Here we find in the gospel of the kingdom that the Lord Jesus preached—will you notice that Mark tells us it was not just an inner circle of very special, elite, superior disciples, but He brought the whole multitude together—as if the Lord Jesus was saying, “This is the gospel of the kingdom.”
If you and I want not only to enter into the kingdom, to see the kingdom, but to reach the throne of God, then you and I are going to have to face the cross.
It is not very popular in these days, when the whole of our generation talks about rights, to understand that the inescapable cost of following the Lord Jesus means the voluntary sacrifice of your rights.
Let him deny himself,
take up his cross,
and follow Me.
You must understand that we have the wisdom of hindsight. We know that Jesus died on the cross, so we look back at these words of His in the light of what happened on the cross. But can you imagine those disciples?
It was a very common sight in Jerusalem to see those sentenced to death by the Roman authorities carrying the crossbeam, with their sentence hanging around their neck. Or, if they were slightly more wealthy, a servant would go before them carrying it.
But anybody carrying a crossbeam was already sentenced to death. They had the sentence of death within themselves. They had no more rights. They were on their way to execution.
Jesus takes from that kind of picture and says, “Settle it in your heart. If you are going to understand the gospel of the kingdom, the good news of the kingship of God, if you are going to come to that kingship yourself, if you are going to come as one of His sons to glory, if you are going to come to His throne and sit with Him in His throne, then you have got to settle this matter of rights.”
This is what it means to deny yourself. It does not mean all that heavy kind of religious piety, which is just a question of dressing in dark clothes and looking morbid and miserable, singing slow hymns like a funeral march, and having your head permanently bent down with your eyes on the ground.
That is religion. That is religion. That is not the cross of our Lord Jesus.
The cross of our Lord Jesus is the way by which He brings us into life—life, and more life, and even more life. The Lord Jesus never spoke of His crucifixion without, in the same breath, speaking of His resurrection. He never spoke of losing your life without finding your life. He never spoke of going down without saying that God would lift you up in the end.
My dear friend, here is the inescapable cost of the gospel of the kingdom.
I want to suggest to you that our problem is very simple: we cannot trust. You see, when the Lord says to me, “Now, you have got a very vibrant self-life. You have got a self-life which you love. I have noticed from the day you were born that you have loved it very much.”
“You have looked after it. You have cultivated it. You have made it as educated and sophisticated as you can. You love it. It is your darling.”
“Now, I want to tell you that if you hang on to that self-life of yours, that you love so much, you are going to lose it. But if you will lose it for My sake and the gospel’s, you will find it.”
Now I say to myself, “How long, Lord?” You see, if I could place it on the altar and just take it back—put it on, and off quickly, and take it back in an instant—that would be all right, Lord. It would be over in an instant, like one of these new dental appointments, you know—so quick.
But, my dear friend, once you have let go of that life of yours, there is no telling how long the Lord will leave it down there. Do you understand?
Then comes the thought: maybe, if I let go of my life for His sake and the gospel’s, He will forget me. He will forget me altogether. He will go off to the great people, like Watchman Nee and the really great people who made their mark. He will think of them, but me—He might forget in the business of the kingdom.
So I think, it is better for me to hold on to it. Better, as we say in an old English saying, “Better the devil you know than the one you do not.”
I hold on to that life of mine because it is safe with me. I am in charge of it. I know exactly—I know all its faults and failings—but if I hang on to it, it will be all right.
My dear friends, you hold on to your life, you lose it. It turns to ashes in your hands. That life that you thought would be so interesting, so vibrant, decays, corrupts, and in the end brings you almost to the place of suicide. Even as a believer, you are so in despair over your own self-life.
No wonder you and I need to exercise violence. There is no other way.
But it is not just that. You cannot exercise violence if you do not have faith. You must really trust the Lord that He wants the best for you, and He is going to do the best for you.
I have pointed out to some of you before, but it needs to be pointed out again, that these words of our Lord Jesus in Mark 8 and Matthew 16 were prefaced by a most remarkable incident.
In both cases, Jesus began to tell them that He would go up to Jerusalem, be rejected by the chief priests, be crucified, and on the third day rise again.
And Peter, dear Peter—Peter gets all the blame for being impulsive and impetuous, but in actual fact the Scripture tells us that all the others said the same. But nobody ever thinks of that. Poor old Peter was one of those people who always opened his mouth and spoke for the rest, and then the rest kept quiet and could all disappear. Peter was left there, always in trouble.
Peter says, “Lord, never! We are not looking for some Messiah that is going to be crucified, executed on a Roman gibbet. Never! We will not allow it. I will stand there myself, Lord. I will not allow a person to lay a hand on You.”
These are very sweet sentiments, faithful sentiments, loyal sentiments, and they brought a quite uncalled-for response from the Lord Jesus:
Get thee behind Me, Satan:
thou art a stumbling-block unto Me:
for thou mindest not the things of God,
but the things of men.
Now, my dear child of God, if you came to me with such a problem about your self-life, and you were saying, “No, I am not going to do that. I will never go that way. That is not the gospel. That is not the gospel for me. My gospel is all joy and peace, and fullness, and satisfaction. I do not like this thing you are talking about,” and I said to you, “Get behind me, Satan,” you would go to the elders and say, “I think that was the most terrible thing that any visiting speaker in Richmond has ever said.”
It is one thing for me to say, “I think you are thinking negative thoughts,” or, “I think that is wrong thinking.” That is quite pleasant. Or even if I said, “Now, be careful. I think Satan is manipulating your mind,” even that is nicer.
But to look straight into your eyes and say, “Get behind me, Satan”—that is the most terrible thing. Here was a child of God. This child of God, only a few moments before, had said:
Thou art the Messiah, the Son of the living God.
And Jesus had said to him:
Blessed art thou, Simon Bar-Jonah:
for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee,
but My Father Who is in heaven.
He had revelation. He was devoted to the Lord Jesus. He had followed the Lord Jesus. He had given everything up to be with the Lord Jesus. And now Jesus said to him, looking into his eyes, “Get behind me, Satan.”
Dear child of God, if you and I have an uncrucified self-life, it is the playground of Satan. No matter how noble it is, no matter how cultured it is, no matter how beautiful it is, no matter how educated it is, it is the playground of Satan.
There is no way that you and I will reach the throne of God with that unbroken self-life. Satan will see to it. He will let us go a certain way, and then he will play on our circumstances, play on our emotions, play on our feelings, until he has destroyed us.
That is why Jesus said, “You do not mind the things of God; you mind the things of men.” In Matthew’s version, it is put like this: “You are a stumbling block to Me.”
Oh, my dear friends, how many servants of God do I know—I pray to God I am not included—who are stumbling blocks to their own ministry, stumbling blocks to the fulfilment of the very ministry and work God has given them to do.
I know them all over the world: people who have yearned to see something happen, people who long to see God work, and are themselves, without hardly knowing it, the stumbling block to everything that God wants to do.
The cause is unbroken self-life.
Will you suffer me a little longer on this matter? I remember when the Lord met with Moses and was going to send him to Pharaoh. He said to Moses, “What is that in your hand?” And Moses said, “A rod.”
Now, what was that rod? Those of you who know your Bible will remember that wonderful psalm written in King David’s youth when he was but a lad:
Thy rod and Thy staff,
they comfort me.
Moses had been a shepherd for forty years. So often, just near where I live, we see the shepherd with his rod.
It was as if the Lord said, “What is that?” And Moses said, “It is the emblem of my work, Lord. It is my rod. I could not do anything without this rod.”
Actually, this rod God was going to use all through Moses’ life. It was the rod that he lifted up over the Red Sea when it parted. It was the rod that he pointed at the rock when water came out of it. This rod—God used it.
It was an emblem, and then God said, “Throw it on the ground. Lay it down. Lose it.”
Moses threw it down, and in an instant that inanimate piece of wood became a viper—a Sinai viper, in Hebrew. This is the most poisonous of the sand snakes.
Moses, who had lived forty years in the wilderness, let alone forty years earlier in Egypt, the moment he saw it, fled from it. You do not throw a snake down on the ground without it getting a bit angry, especially a sand viper or a horned viper.
There is Moses, running. The Lord says, “Moses, come back.”
Moses turned. “Now, Moses, take it up by the tail.”
I share your horror of snakes. But the one thing you never do is take up a poisonous snake by the tail. Anyone who lived in the desert for forty years knows that. You just do not do that. If you do, it will come out and sting you.
What an extraordinary thing the Lord said to Moses. Throw that rod down. It became a snake. I can imagine Moses saying, “My goodness, I have had that thing beside my bed for the last forty years. I have had it inside my robe, sometimes in cold weather. I have done all kinds of things with it. I had no idea it was a poisonous snake.”
And now the Lord said, “Take it up by the tail.” I can imagine Moses saying, “Lord, do You really mean it?” And the Lord said, “Take it up by the tail.”
Moses was a man, and a man’s man. I know he was the meekest of all men on the earth, because people imagine that means he was weak. But he was a hero of the Libyan campaign, a hero of the Ethiopian campaign, decorated by Pharaoh. He was a man’s man.
I can imagine that inside, if I know anything about it, he quaked. But outwardly he went forward and he took the tail. Instantly, it became a rod again.
This was the rod by which every one of the plagues of Egypt was brought, and the Red Sea was parted.
Now, my dear friend, do you begin to understand something? He that loses his self-life shall find it, and he that holds on to it, or seeks to preserve it, will lose it. That poison will kill you if you hold on to it.
The only way you and I can come to the throne of God is by laying down the self-life. This is the inescapable cost.
I do not know why, but so often in Christian circles, especially in recent years, there has been almost a dichotomy between the work of the cross and the work of the Holy Spirit, as if these two works are in opposition.
As if an experience of the Holy Spirit is all power, all fullness, all gifts, all joy, all ecstasy; and the cross is all affliction, all heaviness, all brokenness, and all darkness. But, my dear friend, it is not so.
I read the words in Matthew 3, and I find them very interesting. John the Baptist described the heart of the Lord Jesus’ ministry as baptizing in the Holy Spirit, just as he described the heart of his own ministry as baptism in water unto repentance.
I indeed baptize you in water unto repentance:
but He that cometh after me is mightier than I,
Whose shoes I am not worthy to bear:
He shall baptize you in the Holy Spirit and in fire.
I wonder why that is so often forgotten: “He shall baptize you in the Holy Spirit and in fire.”
Now, let us get it clear what he means:
Whose fan is in His hand,
and He will thoroughly cleanse His threshing-floor;
and He will gather His wheat into the garner,
but the chaff He will burn up with unquenchable fire.
Can you get this clear? This grain has a husk and a kernel. It is the same grain. It has a husk and a kernel. The kernel is the value. The chaff is the rubbish.
When the Holy Spirit does His work in us, God gets the grain and Satan gets the chaff. He burns it up.
Why is it that we do not understand this in the work of the Holy Spirit, as if the cross can work apart from the Holy Spirit? May I put it this way? The work of the cross is a work. The Holy Spirit is a Person.
It is the Holy Spirit Who takes the work of the cross as fire and burns up everything that is not of God—the chaff—and gathers everything that is of the Lord to be kept and guarded forever.
Now, dear child of God, if you begin to understand this, then you will understand the inescapable cost.
I firmly believe in experience of the Holy Spirit. There are those who have experience of the Holy Spirit right at their new birth, and I thank God for that. I am myself persuaded that the term baptism in the Spirit covers the whole work of the Holy Spirit: both His indwelling and His anointing, His indwelling and His empowering, if you like.
But the fact of the matter is, in these days of superficiality, these days of cheap decision, these days when there is a gospel preached which sounds more like a presidential election campaign than a call to repentance, there are very few people who understand anything about the Holy Spirit when they are saved.
Just as we did not understand the cross when we were saved, we have to, by the blessed ministry of the Holy Spirit, step by step, come into our understanding.
I can well remember when I first understood that when Christ was crucified, I had been crucified. What a revelation it was. And I can remember the first time I ever understood that the Holy Spirit was in me and upon me.
It has been one of the greatest joys in my own little life to get to know the Holy Spirit as a Person.
I shudder when I hear people speaking of Him as “it,” in the same way that I find it so hard when Jesus is spoken of as a commodity—an “it,” a life, a food. Of course Jesus is life. Of course Jesus is food. But He is a Person: a Person to come to know, a Person to discover, a Person to experience, a Person to walk with.
Here, then, is the inescapable cost of the gospel of the kingdom. There is no way to follow the Lord Jesus without the cross. There is no way to know the work of the Holy Spirit and be safe unless we are prepared for the cost.
Lastly, I want to speak about something I am very nervous even to touch upon. I tell you why I am nervous: because our brother Watchman Nee once spoke about it in a way that I cannot improve upon.
But it seems to me that one cannot talk about the gospel of the kingdom without touching on that amazing incident when that dear lady brought the most precious thing in her home and household, broke it, and anointed Him.
In the ancient days, in every Jewish home, people thought a lot about death. In the Jewish tradition, death is always an enemy, never a friend. I must say, that is how I view it.
This lady, as far as I can see, was not a wealthy lady. But she had what was sold in those days: an alabaster vessel. We have some of these now in the Israel Museum and the Rockefeller Museum in Jerusalem.
They were just about that wide, and they had a stone alabaster stopper, sealed with some kind of glue. You bought this to keep for when a relative died, or when you died. Then it was broken and used.
Poor people did not have the money suddenly to go out when someone died and buy a whole pound of liquid nard. So they would buy it on a good day when they had a little money, or sometimes a husband would bring it home as a gift. Sometimes a relative who came into a little windfall would buy it and give it to his sister or brother to be kept in the home.
This was always stored. Even the alabaster vessel itself was very, very valuable, especially in a poor home.
In Matthew 26 and Mark 14, we have an amazing story told. There were all kinds of people in and out, talking with the Lord Jesus, with quite a lot of business going on. Suddenly this lady appeared with her alabaster cruse.
I do not know how she broke it. She would have been careful; she did not want to get splinters in it. But she probably struck it on something, perhaps on the stone floor, and then poured it quickly into a bowl.
While Jesus was still talking, she began to anoint His head and His feet. And the disciples were horrified.
Judas in particular was the most horrified of them all. He said, “This is terrible. Terrible, Lord, stop this woman. Do You realize what she has done? She has taken the whole wages of a whole year and wasted them in this stupid act.”
Of course, they said, “We could have used this on evangelism, and then we could have used this on the poor.”
And Jesus said:
Ye have the poor always with you;
but Me ye have not always.
This woman hath wrought a good work upon Me.
She hath anointed Me for My burial.
Now, my dear friend, have you got it? Of all the eleven apostles, of all those disciples, this dear, almost insignificant woman—according to Matthew and Mark, we do not even know her name—was the only one who understood that Jesus was going to the cross.
She wanted to do something. Do you not see it? She wanted to do something that was supreme worship. She wanted to express an identification with Him, a union with Him, an understanding with Him—if you like, a standing with Him.
She wanted to enter into His sorrow in some small way and be with Him.
The rest sat at their meal. They were satisfied. They had no idea Jesus was about to die. They discussed little theological details. I have no doubt, if I know anything about believers, they talked about this little point and that: “What did He mean by this? What did He mean? I think He meant this.” “No, I do not think so.” “What did Moses say? What did Jeremiah say? What did Ezekiel say?”
So the discussion went backwards and forwards. They were totally unaware of the shadow of the cross. But this one little lady, by the Spirit of God, understood.
You must understand our culture. In Jewish culture, women are very free. They are not like in some other cultures where women are bound. Women have a very remarkable position in the household.
But they cannot push their way in when the men are present. Do you begin to understand? She could not just come in and say, “Lord Jesus, I would have a word with You. I understand where You are going. I want You to know I am with You.”
She could not do that. And so, into her heart came an idea: “While they are all talking, I will take my alabaster cruse and I will bring it, and I will break it. They will not understand, but He will.”
This is the character that comes to the throne. This is the kind of person that the Spirit of God has dealt with and made sensitive.
The Spirit has given them an understanding that the others never have. Their heads can be filled with theology. Their heads can be filled with Scripture. Their heads can be filled with all the activities so necessary in the life of the church and the work of God. But this woman—she had a heart that understood.
I say that is the sacrificial worship which has to be the end of the gospel.
I think of the Apostle Paul in that marvellous word:
I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God,
to present your bodies a living sacrifice,
holy, acceptable unto God,
which is your spiritual worship.
Here was this dear sister, this dear lady. She had never been to seminary. She had probably never been to school. Yet she understood more than the whole eleven apostles put together.
If none of them stood with Him in the hour of His need, she stood with Him. That is the kind of person the Lord wants to share His throne.
Now, I have to say, I am not like that. I imagine many of you have to say of yourselves, “Oh, I wish to God that I could be like that—that the Spirit of the Lord could so deal with me, so deal with me in my routine life, so educate me, so discipline me, so train me, so bring me to the place where I give up my rights.”
That I can express fellowship with the Lord in a moment of tremendous need in Christ.
I have been very nervous to bring this up because I do not think anyone could ever put it more clearly, more powerfully, more beautifully than Watchman Nee when he spoke about waste.
My dear friend, many Christians are, by their nature, bureaucrats. They have a precision within them. They know exactly how much time to give to God and how much time not to give.
They can be so precise. My dear friend, devotion is always extravagant.
You can never worship the Lord in a precise way, in a bureaucratic way. Real worship is the pouring out of the heart.
There is within it an extravagance that nobody but the Lord Himself can understand.
So here is the gospel of the kingdom. Do you know what the Lord Jesus said about this little lady?
Wheresoever this gospel shall be preached in the whole world,
that also which this woman hath done shall be spoken of for a memorial of her.
It is as if the Lord was saying, “I do not just want people saved. I do not even just want people spiritually educated. I want people who are in love with Me.”
And, dear child of God, whether you are the man or whether you are the woman, that finds you and it finds me out.
Here, then, is the gospel of the kingdom.
Lord, we want to thank You for that saving work that You have done in our lives, in bringing us into a real experience of Your grace and of Your power.
But, Lord, forgive us that so often we hesitate when it comes to the cost. We do not know, Lord, sometimes how to take hold of that grace of Yours to enable us to follow the whole way.
We do not know, Lord, sometimes how to take hold of that grace and that power that You have made available to us, so that, Lord, we can give up all right to ourselves, take up the cross, and follow You.
Help us, Lord, by Your Holy Spirit this night. Minister to each one of our hearts, that every one of us in this place this night may be enabled to say, “Lord, I will follow You, no matter what the cost, no matter what the way. I will follow You. I trust You.”
And Lord, when we think of this lady and how she brought that alabaster cruse filled with that precious liquid spikenard, Lord, there are many of us that have such alabaster cruses hidden away somewhere in our lives, and we have never been prepared to break them.
We are almost afraid, Lord, of extravagance. We are almost afraid, Lord, of too much devotion, as if somehow we will become fanatical, weird, or undone.
Lord, by Your Spirit work in all our hearts, and make us people who are worshippers in spirit and in truth, those who can present their bodies a living sacrifice, wholly acceptable unto You.