Welcome to a year of reading Richard Sibbes together! The reading plan for the entire year can be accessed here. I encourage you to stick with us, allow yourself time to read, and soak in the riches of this gifted and prolific Puritan preacher. You will be edified and encouraged.
If you have trouble with how Sibbes used words, check out the Lexicons of Early Modern English for definitions from the period.
Summary/Engagement
Violence and the Gospel are not terms often joined together these days. Unless one is reading about the Crusades, or perhaps the Inquisition, or the persecutions of the Reformation, Christianity is most often associated with peace. Yet here our author said that man pursues the kingdom of heaven by violence in his interpretation of Matthew 11:12.
Let’s be clear, he does not mean that folks pursue God through harming other people. He does mean that Christians pursue God with effort, passion, zeal, and action. Those that come to an understanding of their position as sinners before a Holy God, and having been shown the “excellency of heaven” and the kingdom, pursue Christ with violent affection. There is no passivity to the soul illuminated by grace to comprehend the gospel.
When Peter preached the first Christian sermon at Pentecost, men were “cut to the heart” at what they heard and crying out “What must we do to be saved?!” I can almost hear the despair, heartache, and agony ringing in my ears as the Holy Spirit worked on the hearts of the crowd. They didn’t come weakly to Christ. Their passions were aroused for him. They knew themselves to have crucified the Lord of Glory and sought reconciliation with Christ and deliverance from the wrath of God. There was no folding of the hands, idle chatter, and clock watching to see if the preacher was over among those who were redeemed that day. There was a “violent” striving after God.
“God will have this violence and striving, as a character of difference, to show who are bastard professors and who are not: who will go to the price of Christianity, and who will not.”
Application / Further Discussion
Truly as Solomon said in Ecclesiastes, there is nothing new under the sun. Nominal Christianity and false professions were a problem in 17th century Stuart England as well. Sibbes strikes hard at the hearts of those who treat God not with holy violence but with shameful neglect and indifference.
“What ‘violence’ is this, now and then to hear a sermon, now and then to read a chapter, now and then to utter a yawning prayer between sleeping and waking, perhaps when thou knowest not what thyself sayest? How then wouldst thou have God to regard it?”
Heaven is not for those who do not want it. Those with no zeal or joy for Christ, his kingdom, his word, and for time spent in prayer might be so because they have no desire for God. These are hard words, but necessary words. Christ is the Lord of Glory, ruler of heaven and earth, Son of God, Savior, Creator of all things, and worthy of all worship and honor and praise. Can we approach worship, his word, or even communicating with him in a constantly neglectful way? Is that evidence of the redeemed heart?
The thoughts are probing and open dark doors in our hearts we would perhaps desire be left closed. Yet, let his questions and observations do some heart surgery. Listen to Paul’s exhortation to the Corinthian church; “Examine yourselves, to see whether you are in the faith. Test yourselves. Or do you not realize this about yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you?—unless indeed you fail to meet the test!” 2 Cor. 13:5
We are saved by grace through faith in the life, death, and resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ. Yet as James noted, that faith is shown by the accompanying works. To use our author’s words, accompanying violence. The Soul fixed on God will violently pursue him, desperately smashing through barriers and sins to be united with him. The Savior of your soul is due complete devotion, total submission, and unquestioned obedience.
So let me ask, do you give Christ his due?
Are your affections and passions fixed upon Jesus or on the perishable things of this world?
Are you running after him with all you’ve got, or do you pick him up when you feel like it and put him down just the same?
“Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one receives the prize? So run that you may obtain it. Every athlete exercises self-control in all things. They do it to receive a perishable wreath, but we an imperishable.” (1 Corinthians 9:24–25)
Run that you may obtain him. Run with violent passion for Christ.
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Last week, we read “Christ is Best.”
Next week, we’ll read chapters 1 and 2 of Glorious Freedom.
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