was given a longing I could not turn away from. I must gain the satisfaction of finding him. I must escape from the judgment to come. We become like Christian in Pilgrim’s Progress: ‘Now, he had not ran far from his own door, but his wife and children perceiving it, began to cry after him to return; but the man put his fingers in his ears, and ran on, crying, Life! life! Eternal life! So he looked not behind him, but fled towards the middle of the plain.’
Some assume they are Christians. They can distinguish true and false religion, and have been told that if they believe the right things and receive Jesus into their heart, they are saved. But it may not be true, and this text tells you what you can do about it and what has gone wrong. You may say, I have always believed; I attend worship – surely I will do better than those who were not converted at all. Not necessarily. We will be judged by our light. If you have been given the privilege of hearing the truth, and yet you have dealt so lightly with God and never truly been converted, then your position is worse. The door must be assailed by those with feelingful desire; they would force their way if they could. Not that we have power to get in. We face iron doors barred against sinners. Nevertheless God will throw open those doors to those who are earnest. But if we sit languidly and look at the door once a week, they will never be opened for us. That longing and desire for God is all part of the true pressure. It is the opposite of apathy, indifference or only slight desire. None have been converted without having this at some point. It is not some little prayer: ‘I want to be forgiven; come into my heart.’ Not that all should prostrate themselves and moan; the text is not describing that. The Spirit may make it like bodily pain, but the other extreme is impossible. We must have felt our uncleanness. ‘I am going to repent and go on pleading until I know, until I feel God has heard. I will know when he hears.’ We cannot just repent of a few sins and fail to see how wretched we are. We must see there is no good in us at all until we are forgiven. Some express the gospel this way: ‘Wouldn’t you like to put your hand in hand of Jesus? There is one little problem: your faults. You are a victim of this thing called sin which makes you miserable. Just say a little prayer.’ No, we must be labouring and heavy laden. We have to grasp this. All sin must be washed away. We must have a desire to understand also.
What about witness? How will we win the people of Britain? By waiting only? No, you cannot as a Christian go and live a quiet little life, a comfortable life. Everything about it is vigour and energy. The Spirit moves me to wage war on Satan’s kingdom, and against my sinful ways. There have been people who went a little too far in ‘violence’, for instance, Charles Finney. He formed the view that you have to find the method which most moves the people. This directly leads to results. That was not right. Others say, we don’t believe in cause and effect; we won’t do anything to win people except pray. That is the opposite extreme. Christ speaks of violence, effort, energy. Not of course hate or physical violence. In our land those churches of any size and those who work, visit the community or conduct some other form of outreach. Those who don’t work but only pray God will bring in from neighbourhood are shrinking, even though they are godly people. Work, application, service. God will bless us not in direct proportion to what we do, but in view of it. You cannot say, ‘If we visit three times as many doors, three times as many will be changed’, but you will see God blessing you as a church when you try to reach those who are lost.