We are going to continue this morning with our study of the book of Matthew and chapter 11. Looking at the responses to the message of Jesus as the Messiah. We begin chapter 11 with the believer’s doubt. In doing so, we looked at the question of John the Baptist as he was languishing in prison; “are you the Expected One?” We saw that the doubt described in Scripture is one that can only take root in the heart of someone who believes the message but in facing difficult circumstances and sufferings begins to question. It is something that grips the hearts of all believers at sometimes in their lives. But something that we are commanded to overcome through prayer, through understanding of God’s word and his promises, and by looking at the Lord’s provision in the past.
Last week, we looked at Christ’s tribute to John. Making it clear to his listeners as well as to all those who would come after that even the greatest of men can doubt. We saw how John was a man of conviction and dedication to the gospel, and how his position as the Herald of the Messiah made him the greatest man ever born.
This week we will begin to look at the next response to the message of John the Baptist and the message of Jesus; the response of indifference. At the end of last week we saw the phrase in verse 15 “he who has ears to hear, let him hear.” This was a common phrase of Jesus calling all those who heard is message to respond. The revelation of God is always given with a response in mind. It is not a message that can be responded to with a common phrase we hear today “that is great if it works for you.” A common response to anyone’s religious beliefs, a response of dismissal. “Whatever you believe, if it makes you feel better, helps you be a better person, then that is great go ahead and believe that.” Paul says in 1 Corinthians 15 that if the message of the gospel is not true, “if we have hoped in Christ in this life only, we are of all men most to be pitied.”
The reason why some people are dismissive with the gospel message is because it is not presented correctly, it gets distorted by either the moralistic gospel or the prosperity gospel. The message becomes distorted to tickle the ears of its listeners and when it is inconsistencies are made plain, even unbelievers recognize it for what it is. When they truly understand the gospel message that Scripture demands they react either positively and acceptance of Christ as Lord or with violence and persecution against the messenger. What you see most often however is a response of indifference, a dismissive response which demonstrates that they did not take the time to listen to it to begin with. And so, Jesus calls out the response of indifference, the dismissive response in the conclusion of his tribute to John the Baptist. “He who has ears to hear, let him hear.”
Let us read our passage for this morning, Matthew 11:16-24 as we see the dismissive attitudes of the people. If you have your Bibles, I encourage you to follow along as I read. Matthew 11:16-24.
“But to what shall I compare this generation? It is like children sitting in the market places, who call out to the other children, and say, ‘We played the flute for you, and you did not dance: we sang a dirge, 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, ‘Behold, a gluttonous man and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners.’ Yet wisdom is vindicated by her deeds.
Then He began to denounce the cities in which most of His miracles were done, because they did not repent. ‘Woe to you, Chorazin. Woe to you, Bathsaida. For if the miracles had occurred in Tyre and Sidon which occurred in you, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes. Nevertheless I say to you, it will be more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon in the day of judgement than for you. And you Capernaum, will not be exalted to heaven, will you? You will descend into Hades; for if the miracles had occurred in Sodom which occurred in you, it would have remained to his day. Nevertheless I say to you that it will be more tolerable for the land of Sodom in the day of judgment than for you.”
We see in this section is two different forms of dismissive attitudes. The first is the response of criticizing the messenger. It is the attitude of “I do not want to listen to you, I do not care what you have to say because I do not like you; you are not popular, you are not important, you are not entertaining.” It is to dismiss the message out of hand by finding some fault with the messenger. The second is the response of sheer indifference. To walk right on by the message and the messenger without even taking the time to engage, not giving it a second thought. Both are dangerous responses, both leave the individual in unbelief and so Jesus warns all those who are within earshot of the danger they are in.
As he is concluding his tribute to John, he begins with the response of criticism. “But to what shall I compare this generation?” This was a common phrase for the rabbis of Jesus’ time, it was a way of introducing a metaphor. “What is this person like? What is the situation like?” “It is like children sitting in the marketplaces, who call out to the other children and say, ‘we played the flute for you, and you did not dance; we sang a dirge, and you did not mourn.”
I do not know if you have ever seen groups of kids playing together, I quite literally grew up at summer camp. From June to August it was crazy. I never had time to be bored in the summer because as soon as I was too old to attend camp, I started working there. Seven days a week before almost 3 months. There was not a lot of downtime because groups of kids without structure tend to go nuts. But in the downtime you would often see one or two kids trying to get the others up and participating in a game of whatever kind. Let us play tag, let us play kickball, something, anything. There is always a few holdouts and that is the job of the counselor, to get them involved. But the children sitting in the marketplace did not have adult supervision. Their parents were involved in the buying and selling, they were working and so the kids could just run free and were responsible for entertaining themselves.
That is the picture that Jesus creates, he is calling the generation of Israelites listening to his message a bunch of finicky children. These are the kids who refuse to play anything. You offer them something and they just sit with her arms crossed with a grumpy look on their face. “Do you want to play tag? No, it is too hot. Do you want to play kickball? No, I do like that game. Do you want to put some music on and dance? No that’s silly.”
There some people who do not want to play no matter what the game is. No matter how you approach them they just do not want to participate, they would rather sit and grumble by themselves. They are always going to find fault with any suggestion, always ready with an objection but never with a solution, because in the end, they are simply unwilling to participate, unwilling to be satisfied. That is how Jesus describes this generation, no matter what the game is, no matter who the messenger is they just do not want to listen.
John the Baptist came neither eating nor drinking, he came in the style of an Old Testament prophet. He lived out in the desert with the camel hair robe and eating locust and wild honey. He called the people out away from the decadence of society, from the comforts of civilization to meet with God in the wilderness like Moses calling the people out of Egypt. He called them to repentance and reminded them of their commitment to the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
He was the kind of prophet that reminded the people of the Old Testament and instead of accepting him and his message, what did the people say? How do they respond? “He has a demon!” John came in a funereal mode, the second “game” Jesus offered in verse 17 “we sang a dirge, and you did not mourn.” He was austere, dressed in black, in morning, having no normal social relationships, living as a recluse and hermit. He came preaching a harsh message of judgment and condemnation. He called the religious elites snakes and talked about how the acts was coming to chop down the tree of Israel. He cried out for repentance and for the people to live out the fruit of that repentance. Think back to Matthew chapter 3.
And the people just responded with “Ah, he’s crazy.” They often associated irrational or different behavior with madness and demon possession. Think back to the demoniac in chapter 8. He does not fit with society and so he must be crazy, he must have a demon. They dismissed his message out of hand. Instead of seeing his lifestyle as a rebuke to their indulgence, their preoccupation with comfort and wealth, they just ridiculed him.
On the other hand, following John came the Son of Man. “The Son of Man came eating and drinking, and they say, ‘behold, a gluttonous man and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners!” When Jesus came with the same message, “repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand,” he came and preached and taught in all of the cities of Galilee. He traveled from town to town, he went to banquets in people’s homes, attended social activities. He was at weddings and funerals and at special events. He went into the synagogue to preach. He shared life with the people.
He came in a wedding mode. He came to be a part of the lives of the people. Think back to chapter 9 and the questions of the disciples of John. After Jesus attended the banquet at the house of Matthew, in verse 14 we read “then the disciples of John came to him, asking, ‘why do we and the Pharisees fast, but your disciples do not fast?” John the Baptist came in an attitude of mourning, mourning over sin, mourning and fasting, but what was the Lord’s response? “The attendance of the bridegroom cannot mourn as long as the bridegroom is with him, can they?” Essentially, Jesus was saying “you do not fast at a wedding, the Messiah is here, and it is a celebration, not a time for mourning.”
Jesus came in a very different manner than John the Baptist did. John came as an Old Testament prophet, separated from society out in the wilderness and they called him crazy, they called him demon possessed. Jesus came in a very opposite manner with the same message, Jesus came eating and drinking, being a part of people’s lives, being a part of society and they said “behold, a gluttonous man and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners!”
They accused him of being a man of excesses. A glutton was someone who ate all that they could whenever they got their hands on it, and in the time of Jesus wine had a lower alcohol content then what you find in most wines today so in order to become intoxicated you had to drink a lot. Their real accusation was in him being a friend of publicans, tax collectors and sinners. He came and sat at the banquets with Pharisees and scribes but he also sat with hurting and needy people. He did not discriminate but preached the truth to everyone who would listen.
The message was the same. John and Jesus both preached the same gospel. “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” But they came in very different ways. Jesus first accuses the crowds of simply being critical. There is nothing that could be done to please them. When people do not want to listen to the truth they will always easily find an excuse for not listening. I have heard all kinds of excuses throughout the years. “I like Jesus, that I cannot stand being around Christians.” “Christians are all a bunch of hypocrites.” “Religions just about getting your money.” They do not even try to be consistent in their criticism. People often and up criticizing the same person or the same institution for completely opposite reasons. When people are determined to make no response, to dismiss the gospel without ever truly interacting with that they will remain stubbornly unresponsive no matter what invitation is made to them. No matter who makes it or how it is made they will always find some reason to not come out to play.
Jesus and this first criticism in verse 19 with “yet wisdom is vindicated by her deeds.” The truth has a way of becoming known. Back in chapter 7 Jesus made a similar point when talking about false prophets when he said “every good tree bears good fruit, but the bad tree bears bad fruit… You will know them by their fruits.” In that instance he was talking about false prophets, but here as addresses the false accusations against himself and John the Baptist he indicates the other side of that statement. Good trees will bear good fruit. The righteous, divinely empowered wisdom of John and Jesus and the message that they preached will produce righteous deeds that result in repentance, forgiven sin, and redeemed lives.
I like the way John MacArthur words it, he said “through the centuries, the church’s detractors have found it easy to criticize its people and its work. Yet they are hard-pressed to explain how so many lives have been changed from wickedness to righteousness, from despair to hope, from anger to love, from sadness to happiness, and from selfishness to self-giving by the power of Christ.” Ultimately, the wisdom of the divine message is justified by what it produces.
In verse 20 there is a rather poignant upsurge in the criticism of Jesus toward the indifference and dismissive attitudes of the people who heard his message. He goes from something of a frustrated comparison to outright condemnation. None of this is out of a hurt pride at being rejected or maligned but rather a divine mercy, warning his hearers of the fate that awaits them.
“Then he began to denounce the cities in which most of his miracles were done.” Jesus is speaking generally to the cities of Galilee that had witnessed the myriad of miracles. Hundreds, thousands of miracles to the point where he had essentially banished disease from the area. Over and over again we have seen in Matthew Jesus healing all kinds of diseases and casting out demons; even raising the dead. Everything that has been going on was completely unprecedented in history and yet his message was treated with so much indifference. And so we see the wrath of the Son of Man. We have seen the mercy and compassion in the many miracles of Jesus. We have seen his unbiased love as he spends time with the tax collectors and sinners. But now as he denounces the cities we begin to see his holy anger, his righteous wrath.
Jesus had performed mighty miracles in these villages and had given them overwhelming evidence of the divine backing of his ministry and message but in their indifference, they had not repented. He calls out a number of the cities by name, “woe to Chorazin, woe to you Bethsaida!” In the Old Testament we see a number of common introductions to oracles or statements from God. If they are positive, they begin with the phrase “blessed is the… whomever.” We saw these of course in the beatitude, blessed are the poor in spirit, blessed are those who mourn, blessed are the gentle. The word “woe” is the opposite of that. It was a curse, a promise of doom or of judgment.
Jesus calls out these two villages, both were towns in the area of Galilee. Not particularly small by the standards of the time. But now both are completely destroyed, nothing more than ruins. Of course Jesus was not warning the streets and buildings, but the people who lived in them. These were merely examples of the whole area that heard and saw the ministry of Jesus. They represented the good Jewish communities that were there. People who would have seen themselves as upstanding, righteous Jews and yet Jesus says to them “for if the miracles had occurred Tyre and Sidon which occurred in you, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes.”
In the minds of the Galilean Jews, Tyre and Sidon were wretched cities. They were only a few miles away and had been port cities of the Phoenicians. They were a terrible people even by the standards of the time. They were often called “the sea people,” sailors and conquerors and slavers. The cities were deep into Baal worship and terribly immoral. In Jeremiah they are prophesied against and denounced for the wretchedness within them and the evil they had brought upon the people of Israel.
And yet the Lord says that if he had visited those cities and they had seen his ministry they would have repented in sackcloth and ashes. In other words, you are worse than they are. The smug, self-righteous, moralizing Jewish people who went about their daily routine with none of the vileness of Tyre and Sidon yet they were worse off because they were unable to perceive God in their midst. Tyre and Sidon would have repented in sackcloth and ashes, they would have been broken over their sin.
Jesus goes on to say, “Nevertheless I say to you, it will be more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon in the day of judgment than for you.” At the final judgment, when you stand before the great white throne, when all of the dead throughout all of history come to stand before the throne of God and be judged before eternal judgment, what is meted out against the inhabitants of Chorazin and Bethsaida will be more severe than that of Tyre and Sidon. How could that be the case? Why will these Jews be worse off than the worst of sinners?
Well first off, I have set it in the past but let me remind you again. There will be a gradation of punishment and reward in eternity. There are going to be degrees of punishment in hell. It is all bad, but it goes from bad to worse. John Gerstner said “a sinner in hell, were he able would give the whole world if his sins could be one less.” One sin is enough to condemn you to hell for eternity but there will be a difference in the suffering between individuals who were there. Scripture does not detail how it will be different. People have tried to imagine different pictures, Dante’s Inferno is one such imaginative walk through hell. I do not think it will be quite like that, but there will be a difference in the levels of punishment in hell. That is why we can trust in God’s justice in eternity. The vilest of men, the murderers and rapists, will experience greater levels of punishment for eternity.
Why then would it be worse for the people of Chorazin and Bethsaida? Why would it be worse for the people of Capernaum? Jesus goes on to accuse Capernaum, the city that served as his headquarters in verse 23-24. “And you Capernaum, will not be exalted to heaven, will you? You will descend to Hades; for if the miracles had occurred in Sodom which occurred in you, it would have remained to this day. Nevertheless, I say to you that it will be more tolerable for the land of Sodom in the day of judgment, than for you.”
If you were to name the worst city in our country you might think of Los Vegas, a city built on debauchery. If I were to ask you over the worst cities in all of world history, we would see in Scripture a clear pointing to the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah as the high point for mankind’s evil. No other cities in history have been destroyed by divine wrath like they were. There have been floods and earthquakes and natural disasters, there have been wars and devastation brought by mankind, but only Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed by fire and brimstone falling from the sky. Sodom was the city of homosexual rapists. In Genesis 19 we read about its destruction. The men of that city were so debauched that they saw 2 angelic beings and their first thought was to ravage them. Nothing could stop them; nothing could placate them. They were struck with blindness and all it did was make it harder for them to break in the house.
And yet what the Lord is saying here is that if Sodom had seen the miracles of Jesus and heard His message they would have repented. It will be more tolerable for the men of Sodom then for Capernaum in the day of judgment. Why? Because the worst sin is not sodomistic rape, the worst sin is that of a blind self-righteousness in the face of a clear presentation of the Gospel of God. Rotten, wretched, vile sinners tend to feel their guilt. Self-righteous people will not see it no matter what you do, no matter how you show it to them.
Capernaum never rioted against Jesus, they never tried to kill him like the people of Nazareth, they did not crucify him like the people of Jerusalem. What makes their eternal punishment worse than Sodom, what makes the people of Chorazin and Bethsaida worse than that of Tyre and Sidon?
Indifference to the message of Jesus. They just did not care. They were content with their self-righteous lives and His divine ministry meant nothing to them because they were self-satisfied, complacent in whatever form of self-righteousness they lived by. They had access to the Old Testament, all of the prophecies and promises leading up to the coming of the Messiah and what they would mean, they had Jesus, the Son of God Himself standing in their midst, teaching and preaching, performing untold miracles but they could not care less.
Why will they be worse off than Tyre and Sidon and Sodom? Because when men have that kind of privilege and do not repent, their guilt becomes multiplied. They were just as guilty of sin as those evil cities but they had the message and the presence of God himself and yet there was nothing in their hearts. Hebrews 10 starting in verse 26 says “for if we go on sinning willfully after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there are no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, but a terrifying expectation of judgment and the fury of the fire which will consume the adversaries… How much severe punishment do you think he will deserve who has trampled underfoot the Son of God, and has regarded as unclean the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified and insulted the spirit of grace… It is a terrifying thing to fall into the hands of the living God.”
You have heard the message of Jesus. Many of you have been listening to it the entirety of your lives. You are without excuse. You have received the knowledge of the truth and if you choose to reject it then there is nothing to save you from the judgment that is to come and you will spend eternity with the knowledge of not only your sin but that the gospel was laid out plain before you over and over again and you rejected it, you trampled underfoot the son of God and it is a terrifying thing to fall into the hands of the living God.
This is not an angry warning, it is one laden with love and a cry driven out of mercy. A warning to a beloved child. This statement of Jesus did not come from anger or from a wounded ego, but a righteous wrath from a holy and just God whose heart is broken over the sin of man, the indifference of those who hear His message from His Son. And as we consider it, we must remember that he offers forgiveness and the promise of an eternity of joy with him. I hated having to leave it at this point, I know I am running late already. Because next week we get to look at the other side of Jesus is warning. This was the condemnation, next week is the promise “come to me, all who are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.”