Only the violent take it by force (1)

Mt 11 “¹²And from the days of John the Baptist until now the kingdom of heaven suffereth violence, and the violent take it by force. ¹³For all the prophets and the law prophesied until John.”  So let no man deceive himself, without violence no one will enter the kingdom of heaven. Without violence Israel might not possess the Promised Land. Yet God had told Abraham:

Ge 12 « ⁷Unto thy seed will I give this land. » The Lord had told him, and Isaac, and Jacob several times (Ge 15:18; 17:8; 24:7; 26:4, 35:12; 48:4). When God recalls the promise to Moses, he says however that he had sworn to give this land to Abraham's descendants (Dt 34:4). God had sworn to give this land to Abraham's descendants, but there was no question that the seed takes possession without fighting.

God's ways do not change, we find the same announcement by the Lord in the New Testament: Lc 12 « ³²Fear not, little flock; for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom. »  It pleased the Father to give us the kingdom, without us having to ask for it: He freely gave us from His will. But to come into possession of this kingdom which is freely given to us, it takes fair game. Israel left the land of Egypt toward the Promised Land, the land flowing with milk and honey. After a long walk in the desert and the people had approached the country, Moses sent twelve men, one from each tribe of Israel to prospect the land. Their prospection report confirmed that the land actually flowed with milk and honey. But the same report also noted that the land was occupied by more powerful nations, cities being fortified seemingly to be impenetrable, guarded by giants in whose eyes the Israelites seemed to be grasshoppers (Nb. 13).

In Luke 17:20-21 Jesus Christ our Lord said that he was himself the kingdom of God among the people. The kingdom of God was among us and would return to enter into us (Jn 14:17). The kingdom of God is received into the heart. However, as was the Promised Land, our heart is not an unoccupied land. Our heart has occupants of two dimensions, as we have also understood that sin has two dimensions.

The occupants of the first dimension are the teachings, traditions, and other doctrines contrary to the kingdom. They are giant occupants, enemies not easy to dislodge. For example, the kingdom of heaven knows one Lord, one God and Father who is above all and through all and in all. But when explorers travel across the land (the heart), they find in the giant occupant, Trinity which is neither Jewish nor Biblical nor Christian. And this giant, we must recognize, is very rooted in and fortified with bars which are not easy to unlock. And so is it with other false teachings that have invaded the heart of man.

The occupants of the second dimension are the lusts of the flesh: Mc 7 “²¹For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders, ²²Thefts, covetousness, wickedness, deceit, lasciviousness, an evil eye, blasphemy, pride, foolishness.”  Since the enemy entered - and this happened in the Garden of Eden - the heart of man has been occupied by these giant enemies. Why are all the thoughts of the heart of man only evil daily, as found by the Lord (Gen. 6:5)? Because it is the very nature of the occupants that populate his heart.

Thus the twelve spies, except Joshua and Caleb, in the sight of this sad fact, desisted and discouraged all the people: Nb 13 “³¹But the men that went up with him said, We be not able to go up against the people; for they are stronger than we. ³²And they brought up an evil report of the land which they had searched unto the children of Israel, saying, The land, through which we have gone to search it, is a land that eateth up the inhabitants thereof; and all the people that we saw in it are men of a great stature. ³³And there we saw the giants, the sons of Anak, which come of the giants: and we were in our own sight as grasshoppers, and so we were in their sight.” These men had quickly forgotten the powerful arm that brought them out of Egypt.

In Egypt where they had gone out from, the enemy was just similarly giant and, except the strong arm of the Lord who crushed their enemies, they would not have freed themselves from the hand of Pharaoh. And in the Promised Land, they still face huge enemies they need to dislodge in order to possess the land. So to say, the fight is not over. When they shook while trapped between the Red Sea and Pharaoh's chariots, what did God tell them? Ex.14: “¹³Fear ye not, stand still, and see the salvation of the LORD, which he will show to you to day: for the Egyptians whom ye have seen to day, ye shall see them again no more for ever. ¹⁴The LORD shall fight for you, and ye shall hold your peace.” Who brought about the circumstances of this impasse? the Lord God of hosts! And who involved Israel in the deadlock that He Himself had caused? still the Lord God of hosts! and who then delivered Israel from this impasse? still the Lord God of hosts! Amen!

Joshua and Caleb had engraved in their memory this achievement of the strong arm of the LORD, and the other evidence of the power of the arm of the Lord, as they had experienced in the desert. By this faith, Caleb made ​​this statement to the people:  Nb 13 “³⁰Let us go up at once, and possess it; for we are well able to overcome it.”  Joshua and Caleb had faith in God, they knew that it is by violence that God had snatched them from the hand of Pharaoh, and that, therefore, it is also by violence that He would give them possession of the land flowing with milk and honey. They did know that the Lord is not a God of truce, but of sword, as the Lord signified it so well: Mt 10: “³⁴Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword.” Everyone from among the people who were cowards, who did not want to fight, could not possess the Promised Land. And similarly, all those that marvel to see the size of the enemy and stop there, instead of facing him by faith and in the name of the Lord, all of them are cowards who shall not possess the kingdom.

86 times in the Bible, the God of Israel is called the Lord God of hosts (i.e. of fighters), and zero time in the Bible He is called the LORD God of civilians. Indeed, civilians are only there to either applaud or criticize but in feebleness, passivity, and eventually cowardice. But a better trained soldier with commando mind goes to the battle field with one objective summarized in this alternative: either he beats the enemy and takes over the land, i.e. he returns alive, or he dies on the battle field. Capture is excluded from the target of a commando fighter. Cowardice is excluded too. As for us, we are the soldiers of the cross, having received our training , not in Israel or the United States or Kotakoli or any other renowned instruction center on earth, but in Jesus Christ of Nazareth. He is the man of sorrows, acquainted with grief. He never flinched neither before demons nor disease, nor before any question from his opponents, nor even before death.

The world has a saying that says "Life is a struggle." Anyone who tries to avoid fighting, he avoids living. It is the same in the kingdom; anyone that avoids fighting avoids eternal life and is excluded from the kingdom. There was even a scholar who taught his like this: "There is no avoiding war; it can only be postponed to the advantage of others." [Nicolas Machiavelli] - The Prince. The explorers who chose the path of cowardice to cause the people to follow same disqualified themselves.

If God wants us to fight, it is not to see us fail or become ridiculous; it is because he wants to give us a share in the victory of Christ. 1Co 15 “⁵⁷But thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.”  If God sets before us giants and more powerful enemies than us, he wants our triumph to be more radiant and glorious. Indeed, he who kills a small enemy, his victory is a little glory and he who kills a giant enemy, his victory is giant. Now at least for us one thing is certain, defeat is not in our camp if we ever keep faith in Him. 1Jn 5 « ⁴For whatsoever is born of God overcometh the world: and this is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith. ⁵Who is he that overcometh the world, but he that believeth that Jesus is the Son of God? » Therefore, he who does not want to fight, the same declines sharing in the victory and the glory of the Lamb.

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