Matthew 11:1-12, Be Violent, Dr. Pat Sawyer

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Matthew 11:1-12 Be Violent

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Matthew chapter 11 beginning verses 1 to 12. Hear the word of the
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Lord. When Jesus had finished instructing his 12 disciples, he went on from there to teach and preach in their cities.
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Now when John heard in prison about the deeds of the Christ, he sent word by his disciples and said to him, are you the one who is to come or shall we look for another?
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And Jesus answered them, go and tell John what you hear and see. The blind receive their sight and the lame walk, lepers are cleansed and the deaf hear and the dead are raised up and the poor have good news preached to them and blessed is the one who is not offended by me.
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And they went away. Jesus began to speak to the crowds concerning John. What did you go out into the wilderness to see?
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A reed shaken by the wind? What then did you go out to see? A man dressed in soft clothing?
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Behold, those who wear soft clothing are in king's houses. What then did you go out to see?
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A prophet? Yes, I tell you, and more than a prophet. This is he of whom it is written.
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Behold, I send my messenger before your face who will prepare your way before you. Truly I say to you, among those born of women, there has arisen no one greater than John the
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Baptist, yet the one who is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he. From the days of John the
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Baptist until now, the kingdom of heaven has suffered violence and the violent take it by force.
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May the Lord add his blessings to the reading of his holy word. Our focus today is going to be on Matthew 11, 12, which says from the days of John the
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Baptist until now, the kingdom of heaven suffers violence and the violent take it by force.
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But before we get into this text specifically,
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I want us to take a little bit of a look at verses 1 through 11 that have come before it.
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I'm just going to make some observations about it. Now, it's not going to be all the observations that could be made naturally, but some of these observations are pertinent as we're leading into verse 12.
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So I just want to point out a few of these observations. First of all, verse 1 is likely to be included at the end of chapter 10.
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It starts out chapter 11, but verse 1 really points back to the instructions that Christ gave his disciples in chapter 10.
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You also notice that verse 1 underscores the priority and the promise of preaching and teaching the word of God.
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It was the primary charge of the earthly ministry of Christ, and it should be our church's primary charge.
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Churches are to follow Paul's example in Acts 20, 27, and preach the whole counsel of God.
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Any church or any ministry that downgrades the ministry of the word and the preaching and teaching of orthodox doctrine is actually working against Christ and working against his mission.
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And along these lines, I want to point out something that most of us don't necessarily think about deeply enough,
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I don't think. You know that Jesus is often marveled at.
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He is viewed as special, divine, unique, because of his physical miracles.
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This is what is focused on about him. This is why the world tends to appreciate Jesus, at least on some level, because he did so many significant things that were miraculous.
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He walked on water. He turned water into wine. He raised the physical dead.
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He gave sight to the blind. He gave hearing to those who were deaf.
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He made the lame walk. Now, these things are interesting and powerful, no doubt, but you'll notice in Matthew 10, 1, that Jesus gave all those things to his disciples, the ability to heal the sick and to do miracles.
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What is really astounding, and we see this in terms of Christ's primary ministry, his preaching and teaching of the word of God.
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What is really astounding, however, and what is the more powerful and greater miracle is that Christ raises the spiritually dead to spiritual life.
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Only Christ can regenerate and save the soul. This is orders of magnitude more significant than any physical miracle.
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It is the difference between heaven and hell. The God of the universe became a man to take all the sin of all his people in his person, and then he died the death that we deserved on the cross, pays for it all.
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Propitiation, the wrath of God is satisfied on that cross. And then he's resurrected and he declares us righteous, granting us eternal life, unmitigated joy and holiness for all eternity.
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Now that is a miracle. If you have any acquaintance with your sin and have any understanding that you are undone, there is nothing that we can do to save ourselves.
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The profound miracle is that God raises the spiritually dead, that Christ does this.
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Now we see in verses two through five, John the Baptist is in prison and sends his disciples to ask
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Christ, are you the expected one or shall we look for someone else?
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And Christ tells John's disciples about powerful displays of his ministry, including physical miracles and spiritual ones.
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So the answer is an emphatic yes, that Christ is the expected one, that he is the
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Messiah to come. Now it's interesting, some commentators think that John was having a momentary weak moment in his faith to even ask the question.
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In fact, Matthew Henry, commentator and theologian, thinks this. Others think that John was certain that Jesus was the expected one and was asking for his disciples' sake.
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Matthew Poole thinks this, Poole being another prominent
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Bible commentator and theologian in the 1600s. I think
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John certainly knew Christ was the one because of his previous interactions that they had had.
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But his time in prison and his being unsure as to how things might ultimately unfold put
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John in a position of needing a little bit of reassurance. But he was mainly asking for his disciples who had an allegiance to him and an affection to him, and Christ was gaining a lot of prominence.
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And John's ministry was starting to diminish as he was now in prison.
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And his disciples who loved him dearly were questioning a little bit, is this the
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Messiah truly? Is this where our allegiance should be? And John wanted his disciples and his followers to shift their allegiance to Jesus, the incarnate
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God. And so he was mainly asking for his disciples as they would be sent to Christ in person and hear and see the response in person.
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Now, verse six says, blessed is he who is not offended because of me.
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Now think through that. Jesus is saying in verse six, blessed is he who is not offended because of me.
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This is another way of saying, cursed is he who is offended because of me.
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Are you offended because of Christ? Am I offended because of Christ? See to it that we are never offended.
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See to it that you are never offended because of Christ. In our day, we often hear people say that they wanna be on the right side of history.
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You want to be on the right side of Jesus. If you're gonna be on the right side of Jesus, guess what?
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Ultimately, you're gonna be on the right side of history. But we need to take care that we're never offended at anything that God says, at anything that Christ says, offended of him in any way.
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Remember, the fear of man brings a snare. We want to see to it that we are submitting to Christ and that we're always siding with him.
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Pray to have that kind of courage. It's easy to do that right here in this room. It's harder to do that out in the world at points.
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But it is very, very critical to get what is being said here in verse six. Blessed is he who is not offended because of me.
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Now, verses seven through 11, Christ's strong testimony of John is what we see in verses seven through 11.
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Three times, verse seven, eight, and nine. What did you go out in the wilderness to look at?
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Verse seven. What did you go out to see? Verse eight. What did you go out? Why did you go out?
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Verse nine. This is a reminder to us. When you come to church, when you go hear a preacher, when you go listen to a sermon, why do you go?
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How are you listening? And why are you listening? What is motivating you to be there, to sit under this message, to go hear or see a preacher?
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What is motivating you to come to church? Some people go to church just because others are going. It's the thing to do on a
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Sunday before getting lunch. Often people sit in church and they're just trying to get to lunch.
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That's where their mind is. Some people want to see somebody famous, a preacher, an author who's famous, to see what's the big deal, what's the fuss about.
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Some people want to be able to say that they saw a certain person, that they were there. A lot of people went to see
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John the Baptist because he's stirring things up. What's going on? It's a marvel.
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They want to see, but they're not going for right reasons. If that's the only reason why one is going.
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Some people go and listen to sermons just to be critical. The whole time they're listening to the sermon, they're thinking about, is it theologically correct?
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Is it accurate? Now those things are important and they're in fact important to me. Some of my family will tell you this, but we must go to listen to preaching to ourselves to be challenged, for ourselves to be encouraged.
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Thankfully, obviously many of us go to listen to sermons to understand, to grow, to be corrected, to be encouraged, to respond in faith and repentance.
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But when Jesus is asking the question about why, why did they go out to see
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John the Baptist? What he's pointing to is that we need to take care as to how we listen and how we sit under the ministry of the word of God.
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Now verse seven says, as they went away, Jesus began to speak to the crowds concerning John.
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What did you go out in the wilderness to see? A reed shaken by the wind. Now this is an interesting phrase, a reed shaken by the wind.
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This text reminds us that John the Baptist was not duplicitous. He wasn't wishy -washy.
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He wasn't blown about by every wind of doctrine. He wasn't taken up by every popular cultural trend.
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Is this us? Verse seven and verse eight remind us that John was operating from a standpoint that was more like wartime than peacetime.
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John the Baptist was getting that we are in a battle. We wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against the principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.
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Ephesians six, verse 12. We are not in peacetime. Now look, there are times of peace and refreshing and joy.
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Certainly, obviously, even in the war, we will have joy, but there are times when we do have rest and we are enjoying the good things of God.
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And it doesn't feel so much like we were in a battle, but understand this side of heaven, we are in a war.
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John Piper often speaks about this. Rest will come in eternity. There's a sense in which we need to be on mission for God.
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And that will bring struggle. That will bring working against the spiritual forces of darkness that are at work.
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This will mean being counter -cultural. It will mean swimming upstream often.
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I teach at a secular university. I am continually swimming upstream. We need to ask
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God to give us the grace and the power to double down and triple down on taking the kingdom of heaven by storm and by exerting ourselves for the mission of Christ.
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And there will be joy in this. The joy of the Lord is our strength, in fact. But we can't lose sight of the fact that the goal of life is not this life.
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It is really not. You must set your eyes on heaven. I must.
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We must see that. The end goal is not the now. And anything that is good now that will last, it will be because it has spiritual implications in eternity in view.
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And think about the message that John the Baptist was preaching. It was of weight, had tremendous sobriety attached to it.
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What was it? It was in Matthew 3, 2. Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.
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Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. That message has not changed. Do we understand this?
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Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. Think about how John the Baptist looked. It's mentioned here.
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And how he carried himself in his preaching. His body language matched his message.
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So part of the doctrine in this text here is that Christ's preachers, his preachers, his pastors, indeed all of us who are his people, who are born again here this morning, we should not speak of the serious and weighty things of God in a light, trivial manner.
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At a certain point, this becomes blasphemous. It moves into in the arena of taking God's name in vain.
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When people are flippant and frivolous with the scriptures and make jokes and use a
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Bible verse to help make a joke, this is most often working against how we should be thinking about the
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Word of God. Now there are light things in scripture. Not everything is equally weighty.
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And there are times in a light moment to maybe say something where you're pulling the scriptures in.
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Yes. And where you might even have some levity. I'm not trying to bind up your conscience, but we live in a day where the
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Word of God is not taken seriously. And people are cavalier in their speech.
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Think of the term hell. How often that is used by those in our culture and society, and even some people by the church, in the church.
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And they imagine somehow that God is not so interested in how we use language.
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In fact, you'll hear some people that think that they're getting sophisticated and enlightened, that God doesn't care about our speech.
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He's not intimidated. He's not a prude. It's just semantics.
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It doesn't matter. That's false. Matthew 12, 36, we will be held accountable for every careless word spoken.
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God cares greatly about our speech and has a lot to say about governing our speech. And hell is used so flippantly a billion times a day.
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People curse using that term, or they use it so cavalier. If we could actually peer into hell for four seconds, we would change how we think about that term.
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People are suffering under the wrath of God in hell. Extreme torment. It's forever.
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There's no hope in hell. It's all despair all the way down.
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Brutal. The wrath of God is abiding, powerfully, unmitigatingly.
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And yet we use that term in flippant ways. Why? Why? Because we are far from God in those moments.
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We are forgetting his severity. And we got to keep that in mind.
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Again, Matthew 12, 36, we will be held accountable for every careless and idle word spoken.
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Now, praise God in Christ. We have joy, we have power, we have forgiveness.
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I'm not trying to bring you just a message of gloom and doom, but I am trying to raise the level of seriousness in our minds and our hearts.
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We live in a day in the professing church, in the evangelical church, where our worry and concern is not that we're too serious.
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That is not what is going on. And we need to be circumspect. Now, verse 10 says, for this is he of whom it is written, behold,
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I send my messenger before your face, who will prepare your way before you. This is a direct fulfillment of Malachi 3 .1.
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And this is a reminder that the Bible is not some ordinary book.
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It is a collection of writings over multiple authors, over millennia plus.
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And it coheres from Genesis 1 to Revelation 22.
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It coheres. And there are prophecies that are stated and fulfilled.
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And Malachi 3 .1 is fulfilled right here. Now, verse 11 says, truly, I say to you, among those born of women, there has not risen anyone greater than John the
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Baptist, yet the one who is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he.
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That is profound. Truly, I say to you, among those born of women, there has not risen anyone greater than John the
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Baptist, yet the one who is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he. I am one of those least in the kingdom of heaven.
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And somehow I am designated here as being greater than John the Baptist. How can that be? John was greater than all the
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Old Testament prophets, but John could only preach what would happen, what was to happen, what
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Christ will do. John looks forward. He's looking forward to the cross, but we look backward to the cross.
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We look at history that has happened, the resurrection of Christ. We actually see more clearly than John the
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Baptist in this regard. Those who preach after the resurrection will be preaching what has happened.
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That is us looking backward with more clarity. Our sight is clearer than John's because we see what has in fact happened.
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Now, our main verse, verse 12, it says, from the days of John the
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Baptist until now, the kingdom of heaven suffers violence and the violent take it by force.
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What a powerful verse. But what does it mean? It is enigmatic.
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It's an enigma on some level. It is a little bit difficult to understand what this verse means.
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Again, verse 12, from the days of John the Baptist until now, the kingdom of heaven suffers violence and the violent take it by force.
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This is a perplexing text. It's one of my favorite texts. Now, commentators are not in full agreement about what this text means.
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In fact, if you look at the range of thought, it's pretty wide.
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However, there is some general consensus by the better commentators and theologians that exist.
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For some disclosure, some helpful disclosure, my thoughts on the text are in the same vein as the
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Puritans, Thomas Watson, Matthew Poole, and Matthew Henry, and the reformer,
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John Calvin. I'm persuaded that they are correct. Now, they are not in full agreement, but they largely have synergy and they are in agreement to a notable degree.
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Now, from the days of John the Baptist, John was the forerunner of Christ, preparing his way, emphasizing that Jesus is immediately coming and is in fact here.
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In seeing Jesus in John 129, John the Baptist says, behold, the
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Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. The presence and reality of the incarnated
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Christ inaugurated a time where the felt reality of the kingdom of heaven being at hand was pronounced.
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It was more palatable than ever before. It was immediate. There was a sense, a buzz that was unique.
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Think about it now. Jesus is the second person of the one Trinitarian God. There is one
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God in three persons, God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit. So Jesus, God himself becomes a man.
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It comes to earth and he is present walking around. Imagine that.
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God himself. This reminds us of how pronounced it is that the kingdom of heaven is at hand.
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And it is a heightened time. And the scripture says here that the kingdom of suffers violence from the days of John until now.
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That is that people are attempting to press into the kingdom of God.
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So what does it mean that the kingdom of heaven suffers violence? It means that people are violently trying to get into heaven.
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They're going out to hear John the Baptist and they're clamoring. They're going out to hear
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Jesus. Those who are being saved are desperate to get in.
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They're frantic. The phrase suffers violence in the
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Greek draws on the word beosima. It carries the meaning to overpower, to go after something with great energy, with great enthusiasm and passion, fervently, to be excited and to exert great energy to the point of being violent.
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Imagine pushing someone out of the way to get what you want. You're making the thing that you desire preeminent.
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You got to have it. Is this how we feel about God's kingdom? This gives us the image of pressing in with great power and great effort, being frantic, almost reckless, losing your mind.
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As a metaphor, think about the Titanic, the sinking of the
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Titanic. You're familiar with this. The Titanic, a great ship, a lot of hubris.
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People thought it was impenetrable, that it was not able to sink under any circumstance.
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A lot of pride. Well, you know what happened? The Titanic sank. History tells us that when the
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Titanic sank, when and where it sank, that the average temperature of the water was 28 degrees below freezing.
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Now water is moving around, so we've got ice all around. People are being cast into the open sea.
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Hypothermia is setting in immediately. People are frantic, and there are life rafts, and people are trying to get into the life rafts.
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Now think about this. People are pushing people out of the way, pulling people out of the way, trying to get into that life raft.
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They got to get in. That is their view. It's unacceptable to them that they won't get in.
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They're pulling people out of the way, pushing people out of the way. They're being reckless.
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They're feverish to get in, literally. They're not being calm and measured.
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They're not waiting their turn. No, they're aggressive. They're violent. In a certain sense, the kingdom of heaven is approached this way by those who accurately see their need.
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They are desperate and determined to get in. The kingdom of heaven is suffering violence, and the violent are taking it by force.
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This should give you hope. If you want to go to heaven, you will.
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If you want God, you will have him. If you make it your desperate desire to have
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Christ, you will have him. The kingdom of heaven suffers violence, and the violent take it by force.
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They do attain it. They do get it. There is no one in hell that is saying to God, well,
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I wanted to go to heaven. I really did, but you didn't let me in. No. Now maybe you don't feel this.
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Pray to feel it. Pray to have it. But let's pause for a second and ask, what kingdom or kingdoms are you trying to get in?
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Is it the kingdom of heaven, or is it the kingdoms of this world? What earthly, worldly kingdoms are you trying to make sure you attain?
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What are you giving your life to? I have to ask myself this question all the time.
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It could be a host of things that you're giving your life to relative to this world. Do you long to be a pro athlete, a celebrity entertainer, a brilliant scientist, a wealthy banker, a stockbroker, a sought after speaker, a renowned author, a successful attorney, an intrepid business owner, a nationally known chef, a real estate mogul, or a thousand other things rooted in this world?
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Are you chasing the kingdoms of the world that offer money, fame, prestige, sex, comfort, security?
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Even if you haven't made it yet, is that your fantasy? Do you daydream about this all the time?
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What will be your end if you attain the kingdoms of this world or stay in a state of perpetual longing for them?
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Perhaps you simply just are trying to earn an honest living and take care of your family, provide for your children.
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In a certain sense, that's a good thing, no doubt. But if this is your supreme focus, if this is your ultimate end, you're missing it.
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You've lost the plot. Your focus is still the kingdoms of this world.
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Your God is still the God of this age and it cannot save you or ultimately yield maximum joy and flourishing in this life.
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The world is passing away and all its kingdoms, literal and metaphorical, all its lusts and pleasures are passing away.
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1 John 2, 17. What does it profit a man to gain the whole world and lose his soul?
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Mark 8, 36. Is it truly worth it? Oh, unconverted friend, at some point you must abandon making the kingdoms of this world your idol and your life's supreme pursuit and turn your eyes to heaven.
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If you are feeling any conviction of sin, any concern in your conscience, any concern in your conscience at all, any circumspection about the direction of your life, then don't delay.
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Today, press into the kingdom of heaven by calling upon Christ to be saved. The Bible says that all who call on Christ will be saved.
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This is part of the message in Acts. For those of us who profess to be Christians but are wrestling with assurance and are perhaps, and this is related, are in a prolonged losing battle with some serious sin, you must double down and triple down on taking heaven by force.
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Do you see your desperate need of Christ? And are you determining to have him at all costs?
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Are you being diligent to make sure of your calling and election?
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2 Peter 1, 10. Are you working out your salvation with fear and trembling?
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Philippians 2, 12. If you're not feeling the gravity of this, start praying to feel the gravity of this.
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What do you do if what I'm saying to you is not resonating? Or if it's resonating on some level, but you're thinking,
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I just don't feel this. I feel dead. I'm in a season of where I just feel far from God.
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Or I don't know God at all, but I don't want him. But some of this is registering with you, the importance of it.
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Then you need to start praying, God, help me see the gravity of my situation.
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God, make me on fire for you. God, take away my deadness. And look, it's going to be hard for you even to pray that.
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So write it down. Actually sit down at your kitchen table and write these things out.
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And then set your alarm five times a day and let your alarm go off. And you go read that prayer.
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You say, God, make me feel this way. Give me the passion for you that I don't have. Begin to do that.
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God will answer those prayers. I know it. I experienced seasons of deadness and I pray these prayers.
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God comes. Look, whosoever comes after Christ will find him.
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You will not seek hard after God and not have him. You can take his word for it.
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All who call on the name of Christ will be saved, who truly and genuinely call. So you keep doing it.
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Now let's not get it twisted. All this talk about the kingdom of heaven suffers violence and the violent taken by force.
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We're taking heaven by force. We don't want to get it twisted. Salvation is all of God from beginning to end.
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God is sovereign. You cannot earn your work or work your way into the kingdom of heaven. God is sovereign in salvation.
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Salvation is by grace alone in Christ alone through faith alone. It's by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone, alone, alone, alone.
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But when God grabs hold of us and regenerates us, justifies us and begins to sanctify us, we become alive and active.
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We run after the good works that God has prepared for us in advance to do, Ephesians 2 .10.
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We are predestined to be conformed to the image of Christ, Romans 8 .29. We're predestined to be conformed to the image of Christ.
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God has determined that we will be conformed to the image of Christ. He who began a good work in you will complete it until the day of Christ Jesus.
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We begin to pursue hard after peace and holiness without which no man will see the Lord, Hebrews 12 .14.
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We are desperate for the forgiveness of Christ and to be out from under his wrath, to be remembered by him in his kingdom.
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The Puritan Thomas Watson says that the violence in the text is a holy violence. And you want to think about this violence in a sense metaphorically.
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Now there is a sense where there's some physicality to this. The throngs are coming around Jesus. They're just trying to touch him in his garment if they can.
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They got to get near him and they're taking physical action to do it. But this violence is a holy violence.
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And Thomas Watson, the Puritan, wants us to think about this holy violence in three primary ways.
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Number one, resolution of the will. Number two, vigor of affections. And number three, strength of endeavor.
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To the saints, if you fear that you are not saved, get aggressive in your prayers for the salvation or confirmation of your salvation and keep what
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Watson says in mind. Again, Watson's directive about the verse in giving holy violence to the kingdom of heaven is one, resolution of the will.
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Number two, vigor of affections. And number three, strength of the endeavor. So number one, determine, set your will, set your mind like flint that you will have heaven and the righteous blessing and righteous answers to your prayers.
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Number two, bring your affections into it, your emotions. Let God see your passion for him, his kingdom, and the righteous answers to your prayers.
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Be energetic and exuberant, emotionally engaged, shake your cool off, get uncomfortable.
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Let those emotions go. We live in a world where certain aspects of our culture are into toxic masculinity, toxic masculinity.
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This notion that men never cry and should never show their emotions. They're just tough all the time.
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Real toughness often brings real emotion. Brokenness before God is strength.
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So get emotional with God going after him. Number three, don't give up. Continue the endeavor.
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Keep asking, keep seeking, keep knocking, be relentless. This is how we should approach our
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God. We should be assailing the throne of grace. And we can, you can,
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I can. We first need to apply Watson's directives to prayers for ourselves.
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And then secondly, we need to apply his directives to prayers for others. We need to be praying for our salvation and for God to grant us increasing measures of the fruits of the spirit,
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Galatians 5. Increasing measures of joy in God and the things of God. Remembering that the joy of the
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Lord is our strength, Nehemiah 8 .10. And pray to be increasingly sold out and useful for the mission of Christ.
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Remembering that every promise is yes and amen in Christ, 2
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Corinthians 1 .20. Do we understand that? Every promise is yes and amen in Christ.
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This is what we have. This is ours if we were born again here this morning.
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Second, we need to apply Watson's directive to the prayers for others, the salvation of our family, our friends, celebrity influencers, national leaders, our politicians, revival in general.
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And we also need to be praying for our fellow believers, praying for their growth in the mortification of their sin, in the fruits of the spirit for them, in their joy in the
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Lord, in their peace in Christ, to pray for their usefulness in the kingdom.
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My wife has recently over the last year been leading Bible studies. It's a part of my prayer for her, praying for God to grow her in her understanding of the mission of Christ on her life.
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Now that's simple, right? Praying for my wife. But at times I have to like definitely remember it, almost schedule it.
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Now I love her deeply. It's not hard, but we can get caught up and distracted with life so easily.
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We need to be about praying for our brothers and sisters and praying partly for the expansion of their influence and impact on the kingdom.
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We need to be praying that about ourselves. So this gets to the question of prayer.
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Are we praying in keeping with the directives and with the spirit of Matthew 11, 12, that vigor, that aggressiveness?
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Are we doing that? Is that what our prayer life is about? For too many of us, it's not even close.
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The prayer ministries at many churches, including evangelical and fundamentalist churches are often weak if we are honest.
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Now, obviously there's some churches out there and hopefully yours is one of them that is taking prayer seriously with aggressiveness, with vigor, with joy, with passion.
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But most churches are not this way. Look, it's much easier to take down and pick up chairs, to set up and take down chairs for a service.
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It's much easier to direct traffic in the parking lot of our churches.
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It's much easier to greet people at the door, to visit a hospital in someone that's sick, to cook a meal for a family in need, to give some money, even witness to strangers.
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This is easier. All these things are easier than 30 to 45 minutes to an hour of undistracted in your mind praying, going hard after God.
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I fear that some of us don't pray because we're not truly exactly sure that God is.
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And look, we can have weak faith and be saved. Lord, I believe, help my unbelief. Yes.
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But we need to move forward from that. We need to get that God is, and we have got to lay everything before him.
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Now, these other things that I mentioned are obviously important. Making a meal for a family, greeting people at the door, supporting
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God's kingdom with our resources, our time, our talent, and our money. Yes.
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These things are all important. But if they are not galvanized by prayer, they will be hollow and they will have less strength than they otherwise would have.
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Many churches talk about praying more than they actually pray. Let's not let that be us as a church or as individuals.
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Matthew Poole commenting on our text, Matthew 11, 12 says, quote, they are not lazy wishes or cold endeavors that will bring men to heaven.
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Again, they are not lazy wishes or cold endeavors that will bring men to heaven.
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We must assail the throne of grace with unfortunate passion. As we see in the parable, the persistent widow and the unjust judge in Luke 18, she kept coming after the judge.
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She had to have release. And the judge finally said, okay, okay,
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I'll do it. Now, God doesn't have that demeanor with us. She's given us an analogy though to persist, to go hard after God.
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We must be like Jacob when he righteously wrestled with God in Genesis 32. Remember that?
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He had to have the blessing. He wasn't going to let go until he had the blessing. Is that you?
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Is that me? We must get that we have not because we ask not. We have not because we ask not.
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And when we ask and we don't receive, we got to keep asking, keep asking. Now I know it's true that at a certain point,
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God may tell us no. In fact, God often says no because he's always answering us either with yes or no.
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He's never ambivalent to us. But if he's saying no to that prayer, he will supply what it takes to live with the no.
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And sometimes the no is what's best. He doesn't just say no and leave us.
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It's the opposite of that. When God is saying no to me, he's right next to me. He's right with me.
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But he's recognizing that what is best for me, because he always has my good in view as a believer, is the no.
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And he'll give me the strength and the power and the ability to live in the no with strength, with joy, with contentment.
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It might take a minute, an hour, days, weeks to get there, but he's committed.
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He plays a long game with us. So we are to seek, seek, seek.
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We're to ask, ask, ask, knock, knock, knock, ask, seek, knock. Go hard after God, Matthew 7, 7 and 8.
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Remember, we're exhorted, commanded even, to cast all our cares upon God.
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Why? Knowing that he cares for us, 1 Peter 5, 7. Cast all your cares, all of them.
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Be anxious for nothing. In everything, make supplication to God. Philippians 4.
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John Calvin remarking on Matthew 11, 12, and particularly the last phrase, the violent take it by force.
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That is the kingdom of heaven. The violent take the kingdom of heaven by force.
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Remarking and commenting in his commentaries on this text, he says, quote, a vast assembly of men is now collected as if men were rushing violently forward to seize the kingdom of God and receive not only with eagerness, but with vehement impetuosity, the grace which is offered to them.
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He continues, let us learn from these words, what is the true nature and operation of faith.
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It leads men not to give a cold and indifferent assent when God speaks, but to cherish warm affection towards him and to rush forward, as it were, with a violent struggle.
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Do you see and understand what Calvin is saying here? David Brainerd, the great missionary to the
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Native American population in his diary was resolute and he said, if God will work, who can hinder?
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If God will work, who can hinder? We must approach God this way, knowing that as his born again people, he always has our good in view,
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Romans 8, 28. And we of ourselves can't do nothing. We can do nothing.
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We have to be grafted into him. We can do nothing in our own strength.
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It says we can do nothing in our own strength. And since it is absolutely true that if God will work, who can hinder?
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We have got to be going after God to work. We must beseech our
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God with expected passion, knowing that our heavenly father is the judge of all the earth.
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And what does the scripture say? The God is judge of all the earth and he will do right, Genesis 18, 25.
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So we need to continue to go to him and go to him and go to him with our righteous prayers.
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And when we go to him with prayers that are conditioned by the word of God, that are consistent with his will, as we see it in the
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Bible, we can have confidence that he will grant those prayers. As we close,
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I want us to see another example of how God wants us to pray and seek him aggressively.
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The type of prayer he wants from us and responds to. And then I want to give you an example from my life as we close in this regard.
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So if you have your Bibles here, turn to Psalm 34, verse 6.
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Psalm 34, verse 6. Psalm 34, verse 6.
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It says, this poor man cried and the Lord heard him and saves him out of all his troubles.
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Psalm 34, verse 6 again. This poor man cried and saved and the
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Lord heard him and saved him out of all his troubles. This poor man cried and the Lord heard him and saved him out of all his troubles.
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So this word for cried in our text, in the Hebrew, is
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Q -A -R -A in the transliteration. Kara.
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That's the word for cried. This poor man cried and the
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Lord heard him and saved him out of all his troubles. That word for cry, the Hebrew, it carries the freight of a roar, like a lion roaring.
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It means to call aloud, as if to get someone's attention.
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And the freight of the word also carries the notion of you're calling out to a specific person, not just anyone indiscriminately.
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You have someone in view that you're calling out to. And this poor man cried and the
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Lord heard him. He's crying out to the Lord. Is that how you approach God in your prayers?
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Now obviously God hears us when we pray silently in our mind. And there are times to do that, obviously.
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All the time, almost. And there are times to pray in a tone of voice that is softer, not loud.
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Of course. But do you know anything of our text in Matthew 11, 12, in anything of our text here in Psalm 34, verse 6, where the violent are taken heaven by force.
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Thomas Watson's book, taken heaven by storm. And where you're calling out to God, you're crying out to him, in a sense you are roaring.
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You are yelling out to get his attention. And you're doing this with tears.
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You're showing him that you're serious about his business and about him delivering you, helping you, granting you what you need and what you're praying for others.
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And I'll close with this. Here's the example in my life. Praying for the souls of my kids and my dear wife, that they would be truly saved.
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And my wife is saved. My kids are saved. But when my kids are in the womb, I'm praying, God, you must save my kids.
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You've got to save my kids. Do not let me have any children that you do not save.
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I've prayed that for my grandkids. I don't even have any. I've prayed it for my great -grandkids, my great -great -grandkids, my great -great -great -grandkids, 10, 12 generations down the line.
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God, let me have none of those people in my life, part of my family that you do not save. I cannot abide it.
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And for my kids, Hannah, my daughter, Patrick, my son,
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Nicholas, my son, on my knees, in my bathroom, in my bedroom, in my den.
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God, you must save my kids. You must save Patrick. You have to save Hannah.
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You must save Nicholas. Oh, God, make sure my wife is saved. And come to him in tears, begging him,
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God, you must give me this blessing. I cannot live without that.
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I must have it. You must save them. Do you know anything about this?
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I know I sense this is, I know I'm abrupt, I'm being strong here. It gets a little bit awkward.
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We've got to get a little bit awkward with God. Have you ever really laid it out before him?
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You go to God that way? God, you must save me. There are times I wrestle with assurance.
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My remaining sin is so great. And I'm like, God, if I'm self -deceived, save me now.
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God, I believe I'm saved. I trust you I'm saved. Make sure I'm saved. Do you go after God that way?
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And I'm the worst sinner I know, but I have these moments. And I begged and begged and begged and begged and begged and begged and begged.
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God, save my kids. God, make sure my wife is okay. Their soul is safe.
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Do you go after him that way at all? Do you know anything of it? And look, at times I'm way too cold in my prayers.
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I'm going through the motions, and I don't even feel like praying. I'm not some standard bearer here. But do you know anything of this?
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God has saved my wife. God, save my kids. Save them pretty early.
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They're walking with Christ. I sleep at night. And if you've got family members here that you love dearly and they're not saved, go after God this way.
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There is hope in that. They have breath in their lungs. They've got air in their lungs.
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They're still here with you. Pray. Go hard after God. There's a sense in which you were standing in the gap for others.
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Before my kids were saved, they didn't know God. So they weren't going after God, but I was going after God for them.
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They were gonna have to go through me to get to hell. I wasn't gonna let that happen on my watch.
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God willing. God is sovereign in salvation. We've covered this. But go after God like this.
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The kingdom of heaven suffers violence, and the violent take it by force. They attain it. They have it.
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They get it. They take it. It's theirs. God will not let you down.
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God loves this kind of praying. He's not intimidated. He's not thrown off guard. He's not jeopardized.
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He's not worried. You are not as intense as he is. No matter how hard you go after him, you are not embarrassing him.
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He's not going, oh wow, never seen anything like that. He spoke the worlds and the universe into existence.
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He knows about power. He took all the sin of all his people upon himself and died and resurrected himself.
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He can do anything. He can handle your passionate prayers.
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Read the Psalms. They're full of them. Go hard after God, and you can trust that he will answer you.
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It's my prayer that our text, Matthew 11, 12, the kingdom of heaven suffereth violence, and the violent take it by force, that that will become powerful to you, and that you will walk in the strength of it.