31 - Matthew 18:3

’Verily I say unto you, Except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven.’ -Matthew 18:3. This language was addressed to the disciples. The answer did not at all harmonise with the state of mind in which, on this occasion, they had come to him. No solicitude to know who should enter or be excluded from the kingdom of heaven had troubled their minds; a very different question had occupied them: Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven? A question that has still a good deal of interest for many. It takes generally this form: Who is greatest in the Church on earth? If I am not, is not my minister? If he is not, is not my denomination the greatest? Is not our mode of worship the most seemly and beautiful? Do not the great and the fashionable belong to our Church? In the congregation that I am connected with, am I not held in reputation, looked up to? - not for piety perhaps, but for respectability or wealth; for even the much piety of a poor or obscure man is not worthy of consideration compared with the little piety of one that has social distinction. If honours or offices are given to others before me, this is a thing to be resented and resisted. But such do not come to Christ with their complaints or requests of this kind. Yet it is possible that some do come to Christ, asking to be preferred to others, and advanced to places of influence; they say to themselves, ’We want influence that we may use it for Christ, not for ourselves.’ Let such take great heed that a deceitful heart plays them no trick.

There are doubtless some, however, whose thoughts flow in a very different channel. ’Who is a greater sinner than I have been? Who has had more forgiven him than I have? Who is more indebted to Divine love? Who ought to be more fired with gratitude, who more fully consecrated? Who, more than I, ought to be content with the lowest place, the meanest lot, the greatest privations? Shall I, the chief of sinners, ever be guilty of murmuring in whatever place my Lord may put me? Shall envy ever find a habitation in me? Shall I have anything more to do with pride? Shall I think myself too good to wait upon any Christian brother or sister? Should I not count it an unspeakable privilege to be permitted to do good to any of the household of faith? If Christ has any work from which others would naturally shrink, should’ I not be glad to be assigned to it?’

They who are thus disposed show that they have been converted and become as little children. They came to Christ with a mind that was as a tabula rasa, that he might write his judgments there. They abandoned their old life with all its vain accumulations of imagined merit and human strength, and earthly wisdom, and came to Christ to be fashioned over again. They had tried their own theory of life, and found it issuing in death; crest-fallen and deeply-humbled they came back to the starting-point again, to take up God’s theory and follow that.

There is something very startling in this declaration of Christ. If he had said, ’Except ye be converted and become as the angels of God, ye shall not enter,’ we should not have been so much surprised. But instead of requiring us to put on angelhood, he requires us to put off our humanity as we know it, to put off our manhood, and become as little children, as those that are just on the threshold of life. It is what we have that is our hindrance. How shall a rich man enter into the kingdom of heaven? We must strip ourselves of the spoils of life; must renounce our merit, our works of righteousness, our superiority to others, our wisdom, our strength, our wealth, all in which we have trusted; must be converted from our own goodness; must be as little children, to be educated in the school of Christ. As little children with respect to docility. But mark you, not docility to this or that man, not docility towards a priest, it is docility towards Christ. It is he that is to furnish subjects for his own kingdom, to determine who shall walk with him. We throw overboard what we have learned from men and from our own vain hearts, and decree that nothing shall pass current in the realm of our thoughts and affections but that which bears the stamp of the King. As little children with respect to faith. Not faith in anything that any one calling himself Christ’s shall tell us; but faith in Christ as our own very Teacher. We discard all self-faith. We know that there is no goodness in us; nothing on which we can rely for acceptance with God, or for the conflict of life. As little children confide in parental care, take no thought for the morrow, live by faith, so Christians. As little children with respect to a sense of need. They feel that they are greatly lacking in wisdom and knowledge and strength and courage, that they have everything to learn; so it is with Christians. What can a little child do all by itself in this great selfish world? Can it earn its own bread, put strength into its own little hands, fight its own battles? No, it needs one that has strength, wisdom, love, and invincible patience. So with the converted man; and it is in Christ that he finds this perfect complement of his own insufficiency. He needs to be taught the art of so praying as to obtain the fulfilment of the promises; an art not acquired in a day. He needs to be taught to recognise the approach of the tempter, and see through all his disguises. He needs to be taught to speak to his fellow-men in such a way as to win them to Christ. He feels that with reference to all that constitutes true manhood in the sight of God, with reference to the fruit of the Spirit and the armour of God, he is but a babe, and has a vast amount of progress to make. If any man be in Christ, the same is a new creature; old things are passed away, and all things are become new.