Timothy Keller Sermons Podcast by Gospel in Life - The Violent Bear It Away

Episode Date: August 14, 2023

In Matthew 11, Jesus talks about the kingdom of God, and he uses the word “violence.” That’s what the Greek word means. There’s no way around it.  The context is Jesus telling us about John the Baptist, who realized the kingdom of heaven is real. Then Jesus says the kingdom of heaven comes with violence. This bothers us. Isn’t this Jesus? Isn’t this the one who said, “turn the other cheek?” Yes. That’s the reason why Jesus uses this term. Jesus is a communicator. He knows by saying this you’re going to be startled. You’re going to say, “What does that mean?”  Let’s cooperate with him. Let’s ask, what is this holy violence? Let’s look at 1) what it’s not, 2) what it is, and 3) why we need it. This sermon was preached by Dr. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on June 3, 1992. Series: Hard Sayings of Jesus (1993). Scripture: Matthew 11:7-15. Today's podcast is brought to you by Gospel in Life, the site for all sermons, books, study guides and resources from Timothy Keller and Redeemer Presbyterian Church. If you've enjoyed listening to this podcast and would like to support the ongoing efforts of this ministry, you can do so by visiting https://gospelinlife.com/give and making a one-time or recurring donation.

Welcome to Gospel in Life. Jesus was a great teacher, but he had a lot of things to say that were challenging or difficult to understand. In the Bible, we see a number of places where his disciples say, Jesus, this is a hard saying. Today Tim Keller is preaching through one of the hard sayings of Jesus and how we can rest in the fact that while Jesus' teachings aren't always comfortable, He is always good. As John's disciples were leaving, Jesus began to speak to the crowd about John. What did you go out into the desert to see? A reed swayed by the wind? If not, what did you go out to see?

A man dressed in fine clothes? No. Those who wear fine clothes are in King's palaces. Then what did you go out to see? A prophet? Yes, I tell you, and more than a prophet. This is the one about whom it is written. I will send to my messenger ahead of you

who will prepare your way before you. I tell you the truth. Among those born of women, there has not arisen any one greater than John the Baptist, yet he who is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he. From the days of John the Baptist until now, the kingdom of heaven has been forcefully advancing, and forceful men lay hold of it. For all the prophets and the law prophesied until John, and if you are willing to accept it, he is the Elijah who was to come.

He who has ears, let him hear. To what can I compare this generation? They are like children sitting in the marketplace and calling out to others. We played the flute for you and you did not dance. We sang a durch and you did not mourn. For John came neither eating nor drinking and they say he has a demon. The son of man came eating and drinking and they say here is a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners, but wisdom is proved right by her actions.

This is the Word of the Lord. We're looking at the hard sayings of Jesus this month, and the new international translation from which Scotchus read gives us a, as nice a translation of verse 12 as you could possibly get. In verse 12, Jesus says, the kingdom of heaven from the days of John the Baptist until now, the kingdom of heaven has been forcefully advancing and the forceful, take it, the forceful, receive it, the forceful, lay hold of it.

In the older translation, in the authorized version, the older translation, it brings out the harshness and the strangeness of the verse. And the authorized version, Jesus is translated as saying, from the days of John the Baptist until now, the kingdom of heaven's suffrath violence and the violent bear it away. Flannery O'Connor's only novel, I think it was her only novel, was called The Violent

Barred Away. It's taken from this verse. From the days of John the Baptist until now, the Kingdom of Heaven advances through violence. That's what the Greek word means, that's what it means, there's no way around it. The Kingdom of Heaven has always moved forward since the days of John the Baptist are violent and the violent are the ones who lay hold of it. What does that mean? What does that mean? Let's think about it. The context is Jesus telling us about John the Baptist. See, in the beginning, John the Baptist came preaching a message and the message was this, the Messiah is coming to bring in the kingdom of heaven.

Now that's not as esoteric as you might think. Bottom line, the kingdom of heaven means someone is coming to put everything straight, to make the world right again, to write all wrongs. Our fiction is full of talking about some golden age of the past or some future age of the future in which all problems are put straight, all the psychological and social and physical problems are put straight and everyone is happy. And of course, our fiction is full

of talking about an age like that. What John the Baptist message was this, the kingdom of heaven is not fiction. It is real and it's coming. And there is one coming to bring it. And he is not fiction. He is real. It's Jesus of Nazareth.

That was the message of John the Baptist. Now, Jesus turns around, that's what John said about Jesus. What does Jesus say about John? Jesus in this passage is talking to the people about John the Baptist. He says, John the Baptist understood that the kingdom of heaven, this power coming to set the world straight again is not a fiction, it's real.

And once John the Baptist got a hold of it, what did it do to him? It radicalized him. It turned him into someone crying out in the wilderness wearing a hairy shirt. It turned him into someone who had been, you see, it meant everything to him. It radicalized him. It also put him outside of the power structures of the day. Jesus says, you do not go out when you see him. You don't see a person who's a nobleman. He's not someone from the King's palaces.

He's been marginalized. He's been radicalized. He's spiritually intense. Once he realized the kingdom of heaven was real and it was coming, it meant everything to him. It dominated his life. And then Jesus says, look at yourselves. Look at how you listen to the message of the kingdom.

Some of you say, hey, that's very interesting. Thought-provoking. Some of you find it inspirational. And yet, the status quo in your life has not been challenged. Basically, you want to hear about the Kingdom of God and go on with business as usual, that's impossible. And then he turns around and says, from John the Baptist until now, anyone who understands the kingdom of heaven, the kingdom of heaven comes in to your life with a spiritual force. It comes into your life with a kind of violence and only violent people

They hold of it. Now this bothers a lot of folks Is one of the reasons probably why the the translation that we read from takes away the word violent it bothers us Isn't this Jesus? Isn't this the one that said, blessed are the peacemakers? Isn't this the one that said, turn the other cheek? Yes.

And that's the reason why Jesus uses this term. Jesus is a communicator, he's a preacher. And he knows by saying this, you're gonna start to puzzle. You're gonna be startled. You're gonna say, what does that mean? And that's just exactly what he wants. Let's cooperate with him. He wants to surprise you. He wants to startle you. He wants you to ask, what in the world does that mean? Because he wants you to understand what he's getting across. My purpose this morning is

to explain this spiritual violence to you and by God's grace to arouse it in those of you who do not have it, and by God's grace to stimulate it in those of you in whom it's burned low. What is this violence that only is the only way to receive the Kingdom of God. The only way to enter the Kingdom of God and advance in the Kingdom of God, he says, is through forcefulness, is through violence. What is it? Well, it's always helpful if you're defining something to go by way of negation. So let's write it off the bat, say what we can eliminate, what we can say it is not. First of all, he's not talking about physical violence. He's not talking about physical violence. The Bible is so against physical violence. You know the place in the sermon on the Mount

where Jesus says, you've heard it said, thou shalt not kill, but I say unto you, don't even resent somebody. Why does Jesus forbid you even holding a grudge? Why does He forbid you even resenting somebody? You know why? Because it can lead to violence. Human life is so sacred.

Human life is so valuable that anything that even could lead to the abuse, to the weakening, or to the destruction of human life is not permitted. Even resentment is world out, and your reason why is because every human being is built in the image of God. God sees an assault on a human being as an assault on himself. If for some strange reason, somebody built a statue of you somewhere in New York and you saw people pulling it down and stamping on it. And shooting it, wouldn't you take that personally?

I mean, should if Lenin was around, shouldn't he have taken it personally? What people did to his statues? Yeah. And the Bible tells us that because we are building the image of God, God takes it as a personal assault and his own being when you assault someone else. No, the Bible is completely against physical violence. That's not what he's talking about. And not only that, it's not even talking about the formally violent.

There are people who hear Ted Bundy about to be executed before he's executed, he says, I found Christ. I'm born again. The guy who was just hanged in Washington last week. Did anybody hear that? Before he was hanged, he said, I found peace in Christ. And a lot of people say, well, that makes sense. These guys were so violent and their crimes were so heinous and their guilt is so great. I guess they need that kind of howl we have born again stuff just to

deal with their own consciences. That's fine for them, not for us, not for average decent people. No way. If there's one thing that the Bible and history and personal experience proves, is the Christian conversion is not for one type of personality. Yes, of course. The history proves that people of every conceivable class of psychological and social class, every conceivable type of personality have claimed to be born again. You must not say the kingdom of heaven and all that born again stuff is really just for the people who used to be violent, desperate sinners, not at all.

Yes, people from the drags of society have found Christ inside of born again, but people from the cream, people who are simple, people with towering intellects, every region, every race, you can't say that Jesus is talking about the formerly violent or the physically violent, but here's what he's saying. Jesus is saying that Christians are not passive people. That Christianity cannot be received passively. Christianity is a proactive stance toward the universe.

Christianity makes you someone who is characterized by a holy violence, by a spiritual aggressiveness, listen carefully, by a sweet humble spiritual ferocity, by a vehement spiritual sincerity. Now I know, see modern people stare at such terminology,

la way a cow stares at a new gate. We've got no framework for it. A spiritual ferocity, a radical spiritual aggressiveness and intensity, and here's why, because the world believes the only people who are radical and intense and zealous and spiritually aggressive about faith and beliefs are arrogant people. The world believes the, and I'll show you in a minute, why?

The world in its prejudice believes the only people that can be spiritually intense and aggressive, spiritually fero, are arrogant people. But you see, when Jesus was preaching, one thing that he must have seen in my guess is that this is where he got his idea, his metaphor. He would attract tremendous crowds, and it was only a certain kind of person that actually got into hear him. The kind of people that got into hear him were the people who came early, the people who stood in line,

the people who scrambled, the people who were relentless, who were aggressive, who were creative, who climbed and scrambled and ran, and tore through the roof. Remember that one? To get in. And the people who showed up on time,

the people who expected normal conditions in order to hear Jesus Christ. The people who thought that a normal effort was all it was gonna take. The people who were casual couldn't even hear them. My family and I went to the Paul Simon Council last summer, 750,000 people and one of the things we discovered

if you try to get into the Great Lawn, you know around the Great Lawn were the pathways, the paved pathways. So you get onto the Great Lawn, on the pathway and you start to follow the crowds so you realize that the crowd was going away from the Great Lawn, that the crowds were being diverted away, and if you wanted to get into the center to get any kind of decent seat, you had to buck the crowd was going away from the great one. That the crowds were being diverted away, and if you wanted to get into the center to get any kind of decent seat, you had to buck the crowd. You had a dart, you had a think for yourself,

you had to pin your ears back. And not care where everybody else was going and not care what everybody else said, either. And you had to go. And Jesus says, there's a certain kind of relentlessness, a certain kind of hard pursuit, a kind of striving, a spiritual intensity that must characterize anyone who will lay hold of the Kingdom of Heaven. For many in our culture today, Biblical Christianity is a dangerous idea, challenging some of their deepest beliefs. In her book Confronting Christianity, 12 hard questions for the world's largest religion.

Dr. Rebecca McLoughlin explores the hard questions that keep many people from considering faith in Christ. Tackling issues, including gender and sexuality, science and faith, and the problem of suffering, McLoughlin shows that what seems like roadblocks to faith in Jesus can become signposts to a relationship with him. Confronting Christianity is our thank you for your gift to help Gospel and Life share the love of Christ with people all over the world. So request your copy today at GospelAndLife.com slash give. That's GospelAndLife.com slash give. That's gospelandlife.com slash give. Somebody out there saying, now is this the same church that I've been going to? I kept

hearing from you and if you've been here before you've heard up here, that you can't make yourself a Christian, that eternal life is a gift of course, that the only people who become Christians are people who God has come to and has opened their heart that you can't do it to yourself, that God, Spirit, must come in and open your heart and open your eyes and open you to His love and His truth. Absolutely, of course. How do you know, though, that God's Spirit is working in you? Here's how you know.

You get spiritually violent. As Charles Spurge and the great Baptist preacher said, the way you know that the spirit of God is striving with you is that you're striving too. Of course, only the spirit of God can come and open your heart. You do not win the kingdom of God by your striving, but if the kingdom of God is something you're dealing with, if you are truly dealing with the truth, if you are truly listening to the message

like John the Baptist, you become a wild man. That's what Jesus is saying. Let's not try to get out from under it. Let's think about it for a minute. The kingdom of heaven's suffereth violence and the violent bear it away. What are the marks of this holy violence? What are the marks of this spiritual ferocity? Let me just name you a few to make sure you understand, to make sure

we've got an idea about what this means. Let me just give you these. First of all, a person who receives the kingdom of God is marked by a proactive seeking after the truth. Proactive seeker after the truth. There's two kinds of people who are not ferocious when it comes to spiritual truth at all, two kinds. There's no ferocity, there's no spiritual activism when it comes to spiritual truth at all. The one is the busy person. Now listen if the shoe fits. Busy people are very assertive, very aggressive and very intense about their careers. But when it comes to spiritual truth concerns like, is there a God? Can you know there's a God? What is true? What is right? What is good? Is there such a thing as the good in the true?

And is there glory? Can I know that glory? Can I receive eternal life? Those are truth concerns. The busy person says, well, those are interesting, but I could make partners in 10 years if I work hard. So there's a spiritual, there's an aggressiveness about career. there's an aggressiveness about career. There's an aggressiveness about success. There's an aggressiveness about money. There's aggressiveness about appearance. There's aggressiveness maybe even about relationships. When it comes to spiritual truth,

there's a kind of passivity, a kind of sleepiness, and indifference almost. Saying, well, that's nice. I guess I believe that, but there's no hard proactive seeking. The busy person is too busy to ask the big questions to seek after truth and to say, why am I doing all this? Why am I spending all these hours? What am I doing it for? Busy person doesn't do that. The busy person is not a ferocious proactive seeker of the truth. There's another kind of person who's not ferocious when it comes to truth.

And that's the cynic. Cynics are wiser than busy people. Cynics know that they're not going to find that mysterious missing something if they get the partnership, if they land the great marriage, if they get into the size dress they want to get into. The cynics realize that, and what's the cynics say, life is hard than you die. I've given up the idea that you can really find the mysterious missing joy and satisfaction fulfillment in life. Now, and therefore they're hostile to the idea of spiritual truth. They say there are no answers. Now, I'm very

understanding to people who are hostile to truth like that. Usually, they are former busy people who have been disappointed and they've killed the human part of their heart that wanted those things. They think it's the childish part, but it was really the human part that says there really is joy, there really is freedom. See, a Christian reads the stories. A Christian has not killed the hope, and that's why there's that seeking after truth saying, I know there's a way in, a Christian. Reads or watches beauty in the beast and says, you know what there really is.

Someone who came from heaven, they really is a beauty who is willing to leave freedom and joy and become a substitute, become a prisoner, and to love a beast, to love an unlovely creature like me, and turn me into something beautiful. Steven Spielberg has Maggie Smith playing an old, old Wendy, talking to Robin Williams who's a grown-up Peter Panard, doesn't remember his past, and what does she say to him? Peter, the stories are true.

Now Maggie Smith, like Caiaphas, prophesied without knowing it. And what does she say to him? Peter, the stories are true. Now Maggie Smith, like Kayaf, is prophesied without knowing it. She said something that neither probably, neither she, nor Steven Spielberg realize, that's the gospel. A Christian is somebody who's not killed the hope. A Christian is somebody who's still got that spiritual ferocity. It says, there are answers, and I need them. I want them. A Christian is someone who says, the stories are true.

There is a handsome prince who's going to come and kiss us and wake us out of our death sleep. There is a hero who will bring in the golden age. There is a beauty who loves the beast and the beauty. We are going to live forever in a castle. Peter, the stories are true. Why do you think the cynics get so angry when you say you can be born again in no Christ and have eternal life and live forever with

him? You know why? It's a psychological defense mechanism underneath all the intellectual objections they refuse to get excited about truth. The busier excited about their careers and the cynics aren't excited about anything. But the kingdom of heaven suffers violence, and the violent bear it away. You want to know a person who receives the kingdom of God, they come to church, they read a Bible, or they read a book, they may not be Christians yet, but they're scouring things.

They're scouring everything for the truth. I said, there's answers, and I want to know. I want to know if there is a God. If I talk to somebody who's distressed, angry, says, I don't understand why God does this. I don't understand why this is in the Bible. That person is much closer to the Kingdom of Heaven. And the person who says, well, of course,

I've always believed these sort of things. The Kingdom of Heaven suffers violence and the violent take it by force. Here's something else. This holy violence, this spiritual aggressiveness and ferocity is also seen by this characteristic to be a Christian. You've got to be somebody who's willing to buck the flow. Let me tell you, the people don't look at you very nice when you decide, I know how to find a seat, Paul's time. I'm going that way.

And you're not trying to knock them over, but what do they grow at you? What do they grow at you? And Jesus says, look at John the Baptist, because he got radicalized by the kingdom of having in that message, he's an outsider. And anyone who wants the kingdom of God, anyone who wants to follow me, must be willing to take the scorn of other people. Must be willing to take that. Listen, it's different. Some places, Christians, you just snubbed other places,

Christians are just shot. But the principle is the same. Many of you will find that you become a Christian and you show forth this spiritual intensity in your life. That means just humbly to say, I've really found the truth. And you will lose tremendous professional credibility and never get it back in the eyes of a lot of people.

There will be people no matter how brilliant you are and how loving you are and how compassionate and how wholesome they will always be rooting for you to stub your toe. They will see you as a man in a hair shirt crying out in the desert. And Jesus says anyone who will receive the kingdom of heaven and realize its truth is going to us to some people that sometimes look like John the Baptist, you've got to be willing to have people think that you're a wild man. The kingdom of heaven suffers violence, and the violent take it by, take bear it away. They take it, they lay hold of it.

Thirdly, this spiritual violence is not just marked by a proactive seeking after the truth, and a willingness to buck the crowd. It's also marked by a spiritual and aggressive humility. There's nothing more intense than the humility that it takes to become a Christian. You know what it means to become a Christian? The message of John the Baptist was, if you want to receive the kingdom of heaven,

you must do what? Repent. In the greatest story ever told, Charlton Heston is the best John the Baptist was, if you want to receive the Kingdom of Heaven, you must do what? Repent. You know, the greatest story I ever told, Charlton Heston, is the best John the Baptist I've ever seen on the screen. All he ever does is run around saying, Repent, just before they take his head off. You can hear him down the corridor. They don't show it to you. You can hear him off in the dungeon yelling, Repent, whack!

And that's all that John the Baptist was trying to say. He says the only way to the kingdom of God is through radical intense, aggressive humility. The world thinks that if you're spiritually intense, if you think you know God, you must be arrogant. But you see where the prejudice comes? To think that someone who knows God is arrogant assumes that salvation is a prize to be won, not a gift to be received. You know, the football team may be favored all the season to win the Super Bowl, and they

may be undefeated going into the Super Bowl. And the day before the opposition might have lost three of their quarterbacks, but you cannot be totally sure you're going to win the Superbowl till you do. And you're tremendously arrogant, if right before you say, I know we're going to win. Everybody hates those guys they want to seem loose because the Superbowl is a prize to be won. But if you have a gift and someone's given it to you, it's not arrogant to say, I got it.

And John the Baptist and Jesus both say, what it means to be a Christian, the only people who receive the kingdom of heaven are those who have abolished the idea that they are capable of winning the prize. Nobody's good enough. You know, when you first see what Jesus and John are saying, they're trying to say the only people who receive the kingdom of heaven are those who abrogate the idea that it's a prize to be won

and see that it's a gift to be received. And when you first see how deeply you have to repent, you have to say, the problem with the universe is me that I deserve to be lost, I deserve to be cut off. And when you see that that's what you've got to say, it seems like a death, but it's a death that goes into a resurrection. Only the spiritually humble, only the humbly ferocious

receive the kingdom. Do you know today that you're a Christian? Do you know that if you die, God will receive you into his heavenly chambers? Do you know that your sins are forgiven? Do you know those things? If I say to you, are you a Christian and you say, I'm hope, I'm trying, you haven't gotten this radical humility yet.

You still think it's a prize to be one? No wonder you're so unhappy. The kingdom of heaven suffereth violence. This radical spiritual ferocity, this intense humility, and only the violent, bear it away. Lastly, not only do you need violence to get into the kingdom, but you need violence in order to advance in the kingdom. Yeah, Scott already referred to the front piece.

Tozer says, the way you know a person's a real Christian and not just a nominal Christian is that the more they. Tozer says, the way you know a person's a real Christian and not just a nominal Christian, is that the more they get to know God, the more desperately they want to know God. The more they experience his love, the more desperately thirst that they offer his love and therefore, a real Christians find that their prayer life is characterized by a holy violence.

If any of you have really prayed, you know how hard it is to pray. Go try to pray today for two hours, and you will know why Jesus can say the Kingdom of God advances only through violence. You try to pray for two hours, and you'll see how rewarding it is but how hard it is to concentrate,

to keep your focus, to confess your sin, to look and say, these truths ought to be warming my heart, but they're not. Why not? And reflect and go to him and go to him. You pray for two hours. I guarantee you, you'll lose weight. Look at the holy men and women of God in history and you'll see that this holy violence, this boldness, this arguing with God,

this seeking God, like Moses, God's, I want to see your face, I will not do anything unless I can know your presence. That is a mark of the people who are advancing in the kingdom of God. Christian friends, is there that hard pursuit after God's face in your life? Is there that holy violence

about your prayer life? It's so sweet and so hard. Or look at Jesus. Jesus says, how does the Christian get peace? Jesus says, have no anxiety, but consider the lilies of the field, consider the birds of the air, consider how he takes care of them, and think you're more important than they are. Don't you see how Jesus says you get peace in your life by being ferocious with the truth? You argue with yourself. You don't get peace passively. You don't just sort of wait for the peace to come.

You look at your heart and you say, heart, listen to the truth. God cares for you. God loves you. God takes care of the birds in the field, you're more important than they are. Listen, Psalm 42, why art thou cast down on my soul, and why art thou disquieted within me, hope in God? Don't you see that ferocity, that proactivity, that spiritual activism, you take the truth and you talk to yourself about it? You push it in. He said, I don't know what I can do about my bitterness.

I don't know what I can do about my worry. I don't know what I can do about my low self-esteem. I know what the Bible says, but it doesn't seem to affect me. It doesn't seem to affect you. Take hold of the truth. Think about it until it burns you. Mouts you. Conorizes you,

cuts you, heals you, the kingdom of heaven suffered violence and the violent beared away. Don't forget, as we go to the table, in some of you, Mike Goll has been to arouse the violence, the spiritual intensity, which is not there. Don't you see, being a Christian is not a matter, I've just sort of waiting for something to happen. It's not a matter of casual reading of the scripture, a little inspiration every Sunday.

If you find a church that you like nonsense, there has to be a proactive seeking for truth. There has to be a radical humility. You have to see that the kingdom of heaven is something you receive, not a prize you win. There has to be a willingness to buck the crowd. Christian friends, don't you see that many of you lack that ferocity? You're passive with the truth.

You're passive with your prayer life. Look at Jesus. The author and perfect of our faith, the writer of the Hebrew says, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross despised the shame. So let's us cast off anything that's keeping us from staying close to him, from the kingdom of heaven,

I mean, from the days of John the Baptist until now, now is the day. The entry is open now, press in, crowd in, let nothing stop you, be relentless, scramble climb, break up the roof, climb over the tree. Only the violent bearer to weigh. Let's pray. Now Father, as we come to you to receive the bread and the cup. Help us.

Help us to grab hold of your kingdom, even as we grab hold of these elements. We pray in Jesus' name, amen. Thanks for listening to today's teaching from Dr. Keller. If you were encouraged by this podcast, we invite you to consider becoming a gospel and life Monthly Partner. Your partnership helps more people access resources like this podcast. Just visit GospelAndLife.com slash partner to learn more.

This month's sermons were recorded in 1993 and 2016. The sermons and talks you hear on the Gospel and Life Podcast were preached from 1989 to 2017, while Dr. Keller was senior pastor at Redeemer Presbyterian Church.