Forceful Men

I think what Jesus is doing here for us is drawing a comparison between the self-satisfied Pharisee on the one hand and the desperate sinner on the other hand. The Pharisee was willing to stroll toward heaven satisfied that his self-righteousness was all that was required to gain entrance. But Jesus made it clear that those men would never reach heaven. They were, in fact, rejecting the God of heaven even as Jesus spoke.

But there were others who because of their sin and helplessness were charging ahead toward salvation. These were desperate and forceful men that were forcefully laying hold of the kingdom. They were willing to do whatever it took, make whatever sacrifices were necessary to enter into the kingdom of heaven. Like the man of brave countenance that John Bunyan wrote about, these were shouting "Set down my name, sir!" and they were fighting their way into the kingdom of heaven.

III. So What Does All of This Mean For Us?

It has been said that our favorite hypocrisy is to make a choice and then to refuse to pay for it. We have a word for that -- it’s called credit! Thanks to credit, I can go to the store and pick out something I want, and then not have to pay for it now. In fact, some stores go so far as to say, "Come in and buy our furniture and make no payments until April 2001!" But how many people do you suppose have gotten themselves into severe financial difficulty because they made a choice that they were not really willing to pay for?

But this truth applies to far more than just financial matters; it applies to all of life. It is indeed hypocritical for us to choose something and then be unwilling to pay the price for it. We may choose to have a slim physique, but are we willing to pay the price for that? We’ve accomplished nothing if we say, "I make the choice to lose weight," and then not be willing to pay the price of diet and exercise. If that’s the case, you really haven’t made the choice at all.

Rudyard Kipling once said that if anyone did not get from life what they really wanted, it was because either he didn’t really want it or because he began to quibble about the price. Now, that may be an overstatement, but I think there’s a great deal of truth there. We must be willing to pay the price for what we want.

The price for the Christian life is high, and Jesus wants us to count that cost as part of our decision to follow him. In Matthew 10, Jesus warned his apostles not to think that their job as evangelists was going to be easy. He wanted them to see the cost of being his disciples:

"Do not think that I came to bring peace on earth. I did not come to bring peace but a sword. For I have come to set a man against his father, a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law. And a man’s foes shall be those of his own household. He who loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me. And he who loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. And he who does not take his cross and follow after me is not worthy of me. He who finds his life will lose it, and he who loses his life for my sake will find it." (Matthew 10:34-39).