[Why should we strive?]
III. I now come to the third question: why should we strive? Answer—
1. Because the thing you are here exhorted to strive for is worth striving for; it is not less than for a whole heaven and an eternity of felicity there. How will men who have before them a little honor, a little profit, and a little pleasure strive? I say again, how will they strive for this? They do it for a corruptible crown, but we are incorruptible. Methinks this word heaven, and this eternal life, ought to make us strive, for what is there again in heaven or earth like them to provoke a man to strive?
2. Strive because otherwise, the devil and hell will have you. He goes about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour. (1 Peter 5:8) These fallen angels are always watchful, diligent, and unwearied; they are also mighty, subtle, and malicious, seeking nothing more than the damnation of thy soul. O thou that art like the artless dove, strive!
3. Strive because every lust strives and wars against thy soul. “The flesh lusted against the Spirit.” (Gal 5:17). “Dearly beloved, I beseech you,” said Peter, “as strangers and pilgrims abstain from fleshly lusts, which war against the soul.” (1 Peter 2:11) It is a rare thing to see or find out a Christian that indeed can bridle his lusts; but no strange thing to see such professors that are “not only bridled, but saddled too,” yea, and ridden from lust to sin, from one vanity to another, by the very devil himself, and the corruptions of their hearts.
4. Strive because thou hast a whole world against thee. The world hated thee if thou be a Christian; the men of the world hate thee; the things of the world are snares for thee, even thy bed and table, thy wife and husband, yea, thy most lawful enjoyments have that in them that will certainly sink thy soul to hell if thou dost not strive against the snares that are in them. (Rom 11:9)
The world will seek to keep thee out of heaven with mocks, flouts, taunts, threats, jails, gibbets, halters, burnings, and a thousand deaths; therefore, strive! Again, suppose it cannot overcome thee with these. In that case, it will flatter, promise, allure, entice, entreat, and use a thousand tricks on this hand to destroy thee and observe many that have been stout against the threats of the world have yet been overcome with the bewitching flatteries of the same.
There ever was enmity betwixt the devil and the church and betwixt his seed and her seed too; Michael and his angels, and the dragon and his angels, these make war continually. (Gen 3, Rev 12) There hath been great desires and endeavors among men to reconcile these two in one, to wit, the serpent’s seed and the woman’s seed, but it could never yet be accomplished. The world says they will never come over to us, and we again say, by God’s grace, we will never come over to them. But the business hath not ended in words; they and we have also added our endeavors to make each other submit, but endeavors have proved ineffectual, too. They, for their part, have devised all manner of cruel torments to make us submit, as slaying with the sword, stoning, sawing asunder, flames, wild beasts, banishments, hunger, and a thousand miseries. We again, on the other side, have labored by prayers and tears, by patience and long-suffering, by gentleness and love, by sound doctrine and faithful witness-bearing against their enormities, to bring them over to us; but yet the enmity remains; so that they must conquer us, or we must conquer them. One side must be overcome, but the weapons of our warfare are not carnal but mighty through God.
5. Strive because there is nothing of Christianity got by idleness. Idleness clothes a man with rags, and the vineyard of the slothful is grown over with nettles. (Prov 23:21, 24:30-32) A profession not attended with spiritual labor cannot bring the soul to heaven. The fathers before us were “not slothful in business” but “fervent in spirit, serving the Lord.” Therefore, “be not slothful, but followers of them who through faith and patience inherit the promises.” (Rom 12:11, Heb 6:12)
“Strive to enter in.” Methinks the words, at the first reading, intimate to us that the Christian, in all he does in this world, should carefully heed and regard his soul—I say, in all that he does. Many are for their souls by fits and starts. Still, a Christian indeed, in all his doing and designs which he contrived and managed in this world, should have a special eye to his own future and everlasting good; in all his labors, he should strive to enter in: “Wisdom [Christ] is the principal thing; therefore get wisdom: and with all thy getting get understanding.” (Prov 4:7) Get nothing, if thou canst not get Christ and grace, and further hopes of heaven in that getting; get nothing with a bad conscience, with the hazard of thy peace with God, and that in getting it thou weakens thy graces which God hath given thee; for this is not to strive to enter in. Add grace to grace, both by religious and worldly duties; “For so an entrance shall be ministered unto you abundantly into the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.” (2 Peter 1:8-11) Religious duties are not the only striving times; he thinks so is out. Thou mayest help thy faith and hope in the godly management of thy calling and mayest get further footing in eternal life by studying the glory of God in all thy worldly employment. I am speaking now to Christians that are justified freely by grace, and am encouraging, or rather counseling them to strive to enter in; for there is an entering in by faith and good conscience now, as well as our entering in body and soul hereafter; and I must add, that the more common it is to thy soul to enter in now by faith, the more steadfast hope shalt thou have of entering in hereafter in body and soul.
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