Pressing into the Kingdom

The law and the prophets were until John: since that time the kingdom of God is preached, and every man presseth into it. LUKE 16:16

The Enfield sermon ends by telling sinners to run. It does not say how. Edwards had answered that question years before, in Northampton during the awakening of 1734 and 1735. He took a single phrase from Luke’s Gospel, that every man presseth into the kingdom, and drew from it a plain doctrine: “It concerns every one that would obtain the kingdom of God, to be pressing into it.” Pressing into the Kingdom of God is a pastor’s counsel to people who are awake but not yet at rest.

What pressing means

Edwards took the word apart with his usual care. To press into the kingdom, he said, is first a matter of strength of desire: salvation wanted above everything else, so much that other concerns are pushed to the edges. It is, secondly, firmness of resolution. Desire without resolve comes and goes with the weather, and he quoted the psalmist to show the two joined.

One thing have I desired of the LORD, that will I seek after; that I may dwell in the house of the LORD all the days of my life. PSALM 27:4

Thirdly, it is greatness of endeavour, the effort that desire and resolve naturally produce. And fourthly, it is the breaking through of opposition. The very word implies a crowd, a narrow door and people in the way. If the road were clear there would be nothing to press against. The seeker meets his own reluctance, old habits and the voice that says it cannot be done, and goes on.

And from the days of John the Baptist until now the kingdom of heaven suffereth violence, and the violent take it by force. MATTHEW 11:12

Strive to enter in at the strait gate: for many, I say unto you, will seek to enter in, and shall not be able. LUKE 13:24

His reasons are the ones we would apply to any lesser danger. The need is extreme, because outside the kingdom there is no safety. The opportunity is short and its end unknown. The way is hard, and most who try it half-heartedly give up. And the prize is worth infinitely more than anything we already chase with diligence.

Distress is not the same as seeking

One passage in this sermon deserves to be far better known, because it shows Edwards at his most pastorally shrewd. He observed that people may be in very great anxiety about their souls and still not be pressing into the kingdom at all, because their energy has gone into turning over their own condition rather than going to God. They torment themselves with questions about election or unpardonable sin, and mistake the torment for progress. We are not to judge a seeker’s hopefulness by the size of his distress, Edwards said, “for many persons have needless distresses that they had much better be without.” He added that this is often the case with those overrun by melancholy, and that the adversary of souls takes great advantage of it.

From a revival preacher in the middle of a revival, that is remarkable. Edwards did not regard anguish as a spiritual achievement. The question is not how troubled you are but which way you are facing.

Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. MATTHEW 11:28

But is it in my power?

Edwards anticipated the obvious objection, and his hearers raised it. You tell us to desire strongly and resolve firmly, they said, but we cannot manufacture desire. We try, and our minds wander, and our earnestness drains away. His answer holds together the sovereignty he preached everywhere else and the effort he urged here. It is true, he conceded, that no one is ever thoroughly engaged in this business except by the influence of God, “but God influences persons by means.” Hearing the truth, praying, watching the heart and turning from known sin are the channels along which that influence ordinarily runs. A man cannot make himself thirsty; he can walk towards the well.

Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure. PHILIPPIANS 2:12–13

The second objection was subtler: if we labour hard, shall we not start trusting our labour? Edwards turned it on its head. “There is ordinarily no kind of seekers that trust so much to what they do, as slack and dull seekers.” The half-hearted seeker rests in his small religion because he has never tested it. The earnest one soon finds the vanity of all he does, and is driven off his own righteousness faster than anyone.

Here the reader must be careful, and Edwards’s own tradition has been divided about it. The New England ministers developed a doctrine of preparation, in which the unconverted were expected to pass through a season of seeking and conviction before they could hope for grace, and at its worst this turned the door of the gospel into a long corridor. Edwards was more careful than many; he told his hearers that God would use His sovereign pleasure about the time when, and that some would be brought in quickly. But the apostles never told anyone to seek for months before believing. They said believe, and they said it now.

Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved. ACTS 16:31

The right use of Edwards’s sermon is not to put a waiting room between the sinner and Christ. It is to refuse the indifference that never gets up and walks to Him at all.

Now is the season

The last third of the sermon is an appeal, with the urgency of a man watching a door he knows will not stay open. God was pouring out His Spirit on the town. Edwards pleaded with the awakened, the unawakened, the young and the old not to let the season pass, and he put the choice in one sentence that his hearers cannot have forgotten: “if you sit still, you die.”

Seek ye the LORD while he may be found, call ye upon him while he is near. ISAIAH 55:6

Behold, now is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation. 2 CORINTHIANS 6:2

He meant it for the unconverted, but the principle does not expire at conversion. Among his directions was to forget the things that are behind, not dwelling on what has been done but setting the mind wholly on what remains to do, and it is the apostle’s rule for the whole Christian life.

Forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus. PHILIPPIANS 3:13–14

Many Christians who would never deny the gospel have simply sat down. Nothing is wrong with their doctrine. They have stopped pressing. Edwards would ask them what he asked Northampton: whether they suppose that a thing worth everything can be had while they wait for it to become convenient.

FOR REFLECTION AND ACTION

1. Name what you most earnestly desire this year. If the kingdom of God is not near the top, admit it, and ask God to change the order.

2. If you are anxious about your soul, ask which way you are facing. Turn the energy of self-examination into one plain act of going to Christ.

3. Identify one means of grace you have neglected, such as Scripture, prayer, the Lord’s Table or the company of believers, and take it up again this week.

4. Write down the one thing most likely to stop you pressing on. Decide now what you will do when it comes.

5. If you have been waiting for a better season to take God seriously, recognise that the waiting is itself a decision, and end it today.

A PRAYER

Lord, I have wanted You in a lazy way, the way I want many things I never get up to fetch.

I cannot make myself hungry for You. But You have given me the means, and I can walk towards the well. Meet me there.

Keep me from mistaking my anxiety for seeking, and my comfort for faith. Turn my face towards Christ and keep it there.

Now is the accepted time. Let me not sit still. Amen.