The NXR Podcast - August 11, 2025


THE SERMON - Judgment and Hope ｜ Matthew 11_16-24

Topics
wisdom proves itself
Hosted by
Joel Webbon Harrison Smith Antonio Griffith Dale Partridge Wewsley Todd Calvin Robinson
Mentioned
Galilee Luke Bethsaida Pharisees Sidon Pastor Joel Noah Tyre William Barclay Matthew Poole John Kim MacArthur Redeemer Gomorrah Nineveh Peter Sodom Trump King Paul
THE FRIDAY SPECIAL - Nominal Christianity And “The Blessing Of Hypocrisy” THE LIVESTREAM - Universal Suffrage, Racism, & Antisemitism

Episode Stats


Length

58 minutes

Words per minute

153.27

Word count

8,982

Sentence count

414

Harmful content

Toxicity

23

sentences flagged

Hate speech

38

sentences flagged


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

Pastor Joel talks about the role of the baptist ministry in the life of Jesus and how it relates to the cities where most of his mighty works had been done, and why he is justified in doing so.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Toxicity classifications generated with s-nlp/roberta_toxicity_classifier .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
Topics generated with Qwen2.5-3B-Instruct.
Hosts, guests, and mentioned names generated with spaCy (en_core_web_sm), reconciled against Wikidata.
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00:00:26 Good morning.
00:00:30 Will you stand for the reading of God's word?
00:00:36 As is our custom, after we read, I will say this is the word of the Lord,
00:00:40 and I would invite you to say thanks be to God all together.
00:00:46 Our text this morning, as Pastor Joel said, is Matthew chapter 11, verses 16 through 24.
00:00:53 It says this,
00:00:56 But to what shall I compare this generation?
00:00:58 It is like children sitting in the marketplace and calling to their playmates.
00:01:03 We played the flute for you, and you did not dance.
00:01:05 We sang a dirge, and you did not mourn.
00:01:09 For John came, neither eating nor drinking, and they said, He has a demon.
00:01:14 The Son of Man came, page turn, eating and drinking, and they say, Look at him, a glutton
00:01:21 and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners.
00:01:24 Yet wisdom is justified by her deeds.
00:01:28 Then he began to denounce the cities
00:01:30 where most of his mighty works had been done
00:01:32 because they did not repent. 1.00
00:01:35 Woe to you, Chorazin! 1.00
00:01:37 Woe to you, Bethsaida! 1.00
00:01:38 For if the mighty works done in you 0.97
00:01:40 had been done in Tyre and Sidon,
00:01:42 they would have repented long ago
00:01:44 in sackcloth and ashes.
00:01:46 But I tell you, it will be more bearable
00:01:49 on the day of judgment for Tyre and Sidon
00:01:51 than for you.
00:01:52 And you, Capernaum,
00:01:54 will you be exalted to heaven? 0.90
00:01:56 you will be brought down to Hades for if the mighty works done in you had been done in Sodom 0.86
00:02:02 it would have remained until this day but I tell you that it will be more tolerable in the day
00:02:09 of judgment for the land of Sodom than for you this is the word of the Lord
00:02:14 all right you may be seated there's quite a lot in this text and so we're going to jump right in
00:02:21 And because there's quite a lot in this text, I made a decision to go a little bit outside
00:02:27 the text and give us even more information today.
00:02:29 I'm going to give a little bit of an extended introduction as we get into it.
00:02:33 And the reason for that is this passage in Matthew 11, the whole chapter, is really a
00:02:39 turning point in the book.
00:02:41 It's kind of a funnel or an hourglass, if you will, where the ministry that Jesus has
00:02:46 been conducting so far has been in one way in a particular kind of tone or tenor and coming out
00:02:54 of Matthew 11 it's going to change quite substantially and if we're not careful when
00:02:59 we read Matthew 11 it can be very easy to think man Jesus is being really arbitrary really petty
00:03:06 he's really like making a big deal out of nothing and so I want to preserve us from that idea that
00:03:13 would creep in and cause us to doubt the justice of God and the justice of Christ.
00:03:19 In order to understand this passage well, we need to hold two things in mind, and I'm going to
00:03:25 explain them briefly. They're all based on the argument that Matthew is making in the book of
00:03:30 Matthew so far, okay? And what's going to happen by the end of this section is Jesus is going to
00:03:36 end up pronouncing severe judgment on the people of this region. And for us to understand why he
00:03:44 is justified in doing this, these are the two things that Matthew has been developing over
00:03:49 the entire book. And we need to understand these two things. The first of these is the structure
00:03:57 of the book of Matthew so far. And the second is how Matthew in this chapter highlights the
00:04:03 importance of john the baptist ministry so let me briefly explain that first one the structure in
00:04:08 the book of matthew so far the key point for our passage today is found in verse 20 where it says
00:04:15 that he began to denounce the cities where most of his mighty works had been done matthew goes out
00:04:22 of his way through the whole book his order of events is a little bit different than some of the
00:04:27 other accounts. Matthew's going out of his way to show that Jesus' ministry up to this point,
00:04:34 he's about a year and a half into his ministry, about half of his ministry. And so far, Jesus has
00:04:39 focused almost exclusively on the towns and villages around the Lake of Galilee.
00:04:46 And Matthew really wants us to understand that Jesus spent a disproportionate amount of time of
00:04:53 his ministry in this region. So when you look at what's happened in the book of Matthew so far,
00:04:58 we see in Matthew 4, Jesus settles in Capernaum, that's the town there in the Galilee, and begins
00:05:04 to minister in that area. Matthew 5 through 7 is the famous Sermon on the Mount, but that was
00:05:10 delivered, his great kind of magnum opus sermon is delivered right there in the Galilee region.
00:05:16 In Matthew 8 and 9, we see a series of healings and miracles in Capernaum, in the countryside
00:05:22 around Capernaum and then in Matthew 10 we saw that Jesus sent his disciples out into Israel yes
00:05:28 but mainly focusing on the area right there in the Galilee region and then Matthew 11 we have
00:05:35 to understand this in the chapter Matthew 11 1 the first verse in this chapter says when Jesus
00:05:42 had finished instructing his 12 disciples he went on from there to teach and preach in their cities
00:05:47 this in their cities is the towns and regions in the galilee area he's confined himself to the
00:05:54 northwest the whole time almost exclusively he made one trip down to the south for a passover
00:06:00 but most of his time has been in this region and matthew wants us to understand that jesus spent a
00:06:08 lot of time with these people not only that but the way he ministered was very free very open
00:06:14 very cordial, back and forth. He was not critical up to this point. It was a very convivial and
00:06:21 congenial type of ministry. But like I said, coming out of Matthew 11, when you read on in the book,
00:06:29 it's like the hourglass, and it opens up again underneath chapter 11, Jesus' ministry changes.
00:06:36 It becomes more antagonistic, even in this region. The Pharisees begin to say worse and worse things
00:06:42 about him, to blaspheme him. He says in chapter 13 that he begins to speak in parables that are
00:06:48 hidden. And he says the reason he does that is because the hearts of the people in the Galilee
00:06:54 are hard. So the chapter serves as a really key hinge for the book. And the pivot point of this
00:07:03 whole shift is the last verse that Pastor Joel preached on last week, verse 15, where Jesus says
00:07:10 this, he says, he who has an ear, let him hear. It's as though he's saying, this is the line in the
00:07:18 sand. I've ministered in this region for a long time in a particular way going forward. If you're
00:07:23 going to listen, great. And if not, we're going to change tactics here. So we see how much
00:07:30 importance Matthew puts on this. We have to understand this. Jesus spent years in the homes
00:07:37 and businesses and social events of these people, preaching and doing miracles.
00:07:44 It was an incredible amount of time with the very Son of God ministering to them.
00:07:49 And Matthew wants us to understand that this was one of the greatest privileges
00:07:53 that could have been given to a region or a people or a city in all of human history.
00:07:59 So that's the first pillar that Matthew has for his argument.
00:08:03 Jesus gave them a lot of time.
00:08:05 The second pillar is Jesus' comments about John the Baptist in the last section that we studied last week.
00:08:13 Remember that what's happened so far, Jesus' teaching about these things,
00:08:17 happened because John the Baptist sent some disciples to ask Jesus some questions.
00:08:24 In verse 7, we saw that it says this,
00:08:27 As they went away, in other words, after Jesus answered those questions,
00:08:31 As they went away, Jesus began to speak to the crowds concerning John.
00:08:36 This is very interesting because Jesus could have answered John's questions,
00:08:41 let his disciples return, and that would have been the end of it.
00:08:45 But as they're leaving, it says Jesus turned to the crowds
00:08:48 and began to speak to them concerning John.
00:08:54 You see, this was on purpose.
00:08:57 John and the people's response to John the Baptist becomes a litmus test, a dividing line
00:09:03 to determine which people are understanding and soft to Jesus and which people are hard
00:09:09 and are rejecting Jesus. How do we know that? How do we know that this dialogue about John
00:09:16 was such a decisive point? Well, Luke records the same event, the parallel account,
00:09:24 but he gives us an interesting historical detail that Matthew doesn't include and I want us to take
00:09:29 a look at it here for a minute. So this is Luke chapter 7 and I'll read it for you. It's going to
00:09:36 sound very similar to Matthew but he's going to throw in one extra detail. So this is Luke 7 28
00:09:41 through 30. Same story. Jesus says, I tell you among those born of women none is greater than
00:09:47 John yet the one who is least in the kingdom of God is greater than he. Sounds exactly like Matthew 0.99
00:09:52 11 11 that we studied last week but then luke adds this when all the people heard this and the
00:09:59 tax collectors too they declared god just right having been baptized with the baptism of john
00:10:08 but the pharisees and the lawyers rejected the purpose of god for themselves not having
00:10:13 been baptized by John. What does this mean? Well, in Matthew 11, 13, Jesus says this about John. He
00:10:24 says, for all the prophets in the law prophesied until John. In other words, Jesus is reinforcing
00:10:33 John's ministry. John was the last, the final, the greatest of the Old Testament prophets who was
00:10:40 preaching repentance and the coming Messiah. That was the job of the prophets in the Old Testament.
00:10:47 Repent, Messiah is coming. Repent, Messiah is coming. And John was the last one in this line 0.91
00:10:54 of centuries of prophecy. Like the prophets of old and even the law itself, John called for this
00:11:05 kind of repentance and obedience. But on top of that, John served as a bridge out of the old
00:11:11 covenant into the new covenant. He did not just say, repent or be destroyed, right? You think of
00:11:18 Jonah and various prophets in the Old Testament. That was the message. Repent or God's going to
00:11:23 destroy you. No, what John said was, repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. The kingdom of
00:11:30 heaven is right around the corner. That's why you, Israel, need to repent. In other words, John 1.00
00:11:37 showed the true purpose of repentance, which is that repentance is the doorway into the kingdom
00:11:43 of God. And the reason that this is important in our context is that many people in the Galilee
00:11:50 region, especially the sinners and the people who would have been rejected by the establishment,
00:11:57 ruling establishment, had actually gone down to John when he was preaching. Now, this was
00:12:03 a long journey. It was about 100 miles, four to six days of traveling and walking,
00:12:09 just one way. Then you're down there for a while, listening, being baptized, and then going back up
00:12:15 to the Galilee. Many had gone down to here, and Jesus reminds them of the message that they had
00:12:21 heard a hard message of repentance not a soft message of ease so jesus is saying you yourselves
00:12:32 the crowd that's sympathetic to him you yourselves know that john testified about me and they agreed
00:12:39 that god was right through the testimony of john that jesus was the prophesied one and so what john
00:12:47 is doing is Matthew is showing that John applied the weight of all of the prophetic testimony in
00:12:53 the Old Testament, centuries, millennia, and he focused it. Before then, when a prophet would
00:12:59 prophesy, a Messiah is coming, a Redeemer, a Deliverer is coming, it was just kind of open
00:13:04 and out there. Who is it? We don't know. When will it be? We don't know. What John did was he took
00:13:09 all of that, that massive amount of prophetic authority, and he focused it like a magnifying
00:13:16 glass right onto the person of Jesus. So no longer was it a mystery. This Redeemer, this King,
00:13:24 this Messiah, it was here. And many who were sympathetic to Jesus had heard John's message
00:13:31 and believed. But in Luke, it says the Pharisees and the lawyers rejected. They did not accept
00:13:37 the testimony of John the Baptist. And so that's the second pillar. Why is Jesus justified in
00:13:45 condemning these people. First of all, Jesus spent a great amount of time preaching to them.
00:13:52 And second of all, the testimony of John the Baptist himself confirmed the weight of the
00:13:58 Old Testament prophecy had finally landed. Jesus, the Lamb of God, was here.
00:14:09 And so with all of that in mind, let's turn to our text today.
00:14:15 don't inhale liquids
00:14:25 alright, so the first point
00:14:37 it'll pass in just a second
00:14:38 verse 16, Jesus says this
00:14:42 he starts with a question
00:14:44 And he says, to whom shall I compare this generation?
00:14:48 This is not a, like, Jesus is not perplexed.
00:14:52 It's not like he's saying, I have no idea.
00:14:54 What he's saying is, oh, thanks, man.
00:14:57 Try it again.
00:15:03 Jesus is actually just introducing, he's going to give an analogy.
00:15:06 He's like, well, what can I tell you to explain this generation of people?
00:15:10 and so he's going to give a little mini parable a little mini story but keep in mind that what
00:15:16 he's trying to do with the story is explain the generation that he is preaching to in this region
00:15:23 well what does he mean by the word generation it's possible that he means all of the people
00:15:30 in the region you could make the case that even those who had gone down to john the baptist and
00:15:34 been baptized they've come back they haven't changed and so it's possible that he's talking
00:15:39 about every single one of them i don't think that's the case i think it's a majority of them
00:15:44 obviously if he's saying the generation you don't say the generation and then actually i was just
00:15:49 talking about five percent of them no it's a majority of the people in this area it's a lot of
00:15:53 them but verse 19 gives us a clue verse 19 um in it the people who are criticizing jesus criticize
00:16:03 him for spending time with the tax collectors and the sinners. These are the same people in Luke's
00:16:11 account that agreed with Jesus about John, or agreed with John about Jesus. And so I think what
00:16:17 we actually have here is the influence of the religious leaders and Pharisees. They were down
00:16:23 in Jerusalem, but they always sent envoys out to challenge Jesus. And because they had the power
00:16:29 and the establishment, I think a lot of people in the region
00:16:33 were siding with these religious leaders and rulers.
00:16:38 They were on their team.
00:16:40 And so a lot of the people in the Galilee,
00:16:42 in spite of the fact that it was remote,
00:16:44 were on the side of the Pharisees and the religious leaders.
00:16:50 But there were some, these sinners and tax collectors, who weren't.
00:16:53 They were the minority, the remnant, if you were.
00:16:56 these are the people this is why it's important these are the people who
00:17:02 wanted to virtue signal to the positions of power back in jerusalem in fact we see in that story
00:17:08 that they seem to be repeating talking points right it seems like the pharisees are the ones
00:17:14 who came up with these lies about john the baptist and these lies about jesus and they
00:17:18 spread all the way out and even in galilee these people are just repeating the talking points oh
00:17:23 yeah, Jesus is this, John is this. These are the unthinking followers who cast their lot in with
00:17:30 the establishment because it's easier, they don't want to ruffle feathers, and they're tired of this
00:17:34 troublemaker, Jesus. And so what is the story that Jesus gives? It's a very short story, but it's very
00:17:44 interesting and a bit confusing to our modern ears. He says this generation, and again, I'm saying 1.00
00:17:51 that's the religious leaders and the majority of the people in the area who are casting their lot
00:17:56 in with these religious leaders. He says, this generation is like a bunch of kids in a marketplace.
00:18:02 At the time, villages and towns had an open central area called the Agora, and it was open for
00:18:09 community use, but often, like maybe once or twice a week, they would do a market there.
00:18:14 So the parents and the farmers would come in, they would set up a little shop, a little stall,
00:18:17 and they would sell things out of it and while they're selling things the kids I mean this is
00:18:22 like the best day of the week for the kids they're running around with all their friends that they
00:18:26 haven't seen for the whole week they're playing they're saying hello and like kids in every
00:18:31 period of time in history the kids mimicked human interaction that they saw their parents do
00:18:37 now we don't know if this was a real game they were playing or if Jesus is giving us a hypothetical
00:18:42 and it doesn't matter. But in the story, Jesus said, oh, this generation, it's like the kids 0.75
00:18:48 that run around the marketplace here. He's probably speaking in the marketplace right then.
00:18:52 It's like the kids that run around whenever the market is out playing games. And they play these
00:18:57 games, and they play a happy game where they're pretending to have flutes, and maybe it's a
00:19:03 wedding or something like that, right? Maybe they get a boy and a girl, and they parade them around.
00:19:07 They say, oh, the bride, and oh, the groom, and they go to all the stalls, and the parents are
00:19:11 saying oh how cute that's great and they're playing wedding but there's a second group of kids
00:19:17 who are grumpy and upset and just cantankerous and they're sitting off to the side they want
00:19:24 nothing to do with the games something's got them in a bad mood and so the happy playful kids
00:19:30 they go over to them they say hey come come play the wedding game with us and the grumpy kids say 0.98
00:19:37 no that's stupid only babies play wedding games or whatever i don't know what they said they're 0.99
00:19:42 just grumpy cantankerous they don't want to join in the fun so the the happy cheerful kids they say 1.00
00:19:50 okay well they don't want to be happy we'll play a different game let's play let's play funeral
00:19:56 right now we think that's a really weird morbid thing to play but at the time the two big events
00:20:01 the public events in the public life of these towns were weddings and funerals and funerals
00:20:06 or a big event because they would have mourners go through the streets crying out loud. There would
00:20:11 be wailing. There would be a big, you know, like a big crowd that would gather. And so the kids
00:20:16 decide, okay, you don't want to play wedding. You're in a bad mood. We'll play funeral. And
00:20:20 maybe, you know, they would lead one of them around and they would wail and cry and, you know,
00:20:26 have this fake kind of song that sat a dirge. And they say, let's play that. And the grumpy kids say,
00:20:33 no the other one was too fun but that one is too sad we're not going to play what's the point of
00:20:42 this the point is no matter what the kids the happy kids tried to do the grumpy kids were not
00:20:50 going to join in all they were going to do was offer excuse after excuse after excuse they were
00:20:56 going to criticize and criticize but what they were not going to do was join the game and this
00:21:02 is what Jesus compares that generation to. Endlessly critical, trying to not only not
00:21:09 participate in the game, but derail it. You guys shouldn't even be playing that game. It's dumb.
00:21:14 Come and sit with us and be boring. The implication here is that no matter what game the happy kids 0.99
00:21:23 came up with, the grumpy kids were going to say no. They weren't even going to consider it.
00:21:28 so what does this mean well jesus describes that the happy game like the wedding represents
00:21:37 jesus and his ministry and the sad funeral game is represented by john the baptist and the way
00:21:43 he did his ministry he says john came in sackcloth and ashes in funeral mode as it were you think
00:21:51 about his hair there is his clothing the camel hair which was rough and coarse like sackcloth
00:21:57 And he lived in the desert. He was dirty all the time, like someone who's put ash on them.
00:22:02 And even he lived out in the wilderness. And so in a sense, his own life was a separation,
00:22:08 almost like death is. He was not with his family. He lived alone out in the wilderness. And John
00:22:13 came in funeral mode. His austerity and his severity was to represent and to call people
00:22:19 to the kind of sadness you would feel at a funeral.
00:22:23 We are undone. We are sinful.
00:22:26 We must weep and mourn over our sin.
00:22:31 And what the Pharisees and the people who are parroting back their talking points say is,
00:22:36 that guy doesn't even eat and drink. He eats locusts.
00:22:40 He's not even with people. He's just a downer.
00:22:44 And then they resort to insulting him. 0.96
00:22:46 They say he's even possessed by a devil.
00:22:49 and so then jesus adds that he represents the happy children or the children who are
00:22:58 or happy represent him jesus came and notice in in verse 19 he refers to himself as the son of man
00:23:05 he came as a man to interact with humanity he john the baptist was detached and separated
00:23:12 and severe jesus came as a man and lived among the people he went to weddings he went to places
00:23:18 of employment he went to their funerals he ate in their homes he walked with them in the
00:23:22 countryside he participated with them and his message largely he did call people to repent
00:23:27 but it was also one of joy the kingdom of heaven is here the bridegroom is here celebrate and rejoice
00:23:35 unlike john's austerity he was joyful he was approachable he came in wedding mode
00:23:46 and again i think it's important here i can't prove this from the text it just um as i've as
00:23:53 i've read it over and over i think that you can make this case i think it's not just jesus and
00:23:58 john the baptist i think the the story represents the children and so there's even people who
00:24:03 followed john the baptist in the galilee region who are going to the rest of the region saying
00:24:08 guys john said repent we need to be really serious about that and to those people the rest of the
00:24:15 Galilee is saying, no way, man, that guy's demon-possessed.
00:24:17 I can't get behind that.
00:24:19 And then there's other people who are following Jesus.
00:24:22 They're the happy children, and they're calling to the people around them and saying, guys,
00:24:25 Jesus has the most incredible teachings you've ever heard.
00:24:29 Come and hear him.
00:24:30 And the same hard-hearted people are saying, no way. 0.99
00:24:34 He's a glutton and a drunk.
00:24:36 The only reason he's going to those weddings and those parties with you guys is he's covering 0.96
00:24:40 a raging alcoholism.
00:24:43 And what's more than that, he even is friends with sinners and tax collectors.
00:24:48 That guy is no good. I'm not joining into that.
00:24:52 And you notice they're even arguing conflicting things.
00:24:55 They're saying John was neither eating nor drinking, but Jesus is drinking too much and eating too much.
00:25:05 Now it's true that the lies that they told about John and especially about Jesus are offensive and are sinful,
00:25:11 but they're not the root of the problem. The root of the problem is that their hearts are so hard
00:25:16 that they're not going to engage the argument. They're not going to engage the issue head on
00:25:22 at all. There's nothing that can be done to convince them they have prejudged the whole
00:25:27 situation and they want to stay in their sin and they want to stay comfortable and they want to
00:25:32 stay in the good graces of the religious leaders. I don't know if this is sounding familiar at all.
00:25:36 this is a pattern that's repeated throughout history there are many many people and we need
00:25:43 to know this as we're evangelizing people or you have friends or family members and you're
00:25:47 you're giving the gospel to them there are going to be a lot of people who are just so hard that
00:25:53 no matter what you say it's not about the argument they're going to say go pound sand and they're 0.97
00:25:59 going to come up with all sorts of slanderous or even stupid trivial reasons and you're going to 0.98
00:26:04 say, that makes no sense. That's the point. It doesn't make sense, because what they're doing 0.99
00:26:09 is rejecting the call of the Holy Spirit. That is the most illogical, insane thing that you can do.
00:26:16 And so when you're doing that, none of your reasons or motivations are going to make any sense.
00:26:25 That's the sin here that Matthew is exposing in this section. These are people who have a lying
00:26:32 criticism that really covers a heart that is completely unwilling to even consider the teachings
00:26:37 of Jesus. I think it's no coincidence that they, in the text, seek to justify themselves.
00:26:49 That theme runs through this whole story. Who is right? Remember the people in Luke 7,
00:26:54 they justified God. They said God is right. Here these wicked people of this generation are saying
00:27:02 we are right and the question of who is right determines who has to change. If God is right
00:27:07 I must change. If I am right I don't have to change and in fact as blasphemous as it sounds
00:27:14 the implication is God must change. 1.00
00:27:17 what's really interesting about this is that while the pharisees themselves obviously openly
00:27:28 opposed jesus you get the sense that the people in the region were not necessarily
00:27:33 openly hostile to jesus they liked the fame that jesus brought to the region
00:27:39 they appreciated the miracles some of them probably had a family member or a cousin who
00:27:45 was healed by Jesus but they had no intention of actually learning from Jesus or of repenting
00:27:53 they were using him while at the same time offering talking point after talking point
00:28:00 from the Pharisees about why he had no right to make any sort of claim in their lives
00:28:06 as I said we see this in our time as well the commentator William Barclay says this
00:28:15 about this pattern. The plain fact is that when people do not want to listen to the truth,
00:28:20 they will easily enough find an excuse for not listening. They do not even try to be consistent
00:28:26 in their criticism. They'll criticize the same person in the same institution from quite opposite
00:28:31 grounds and reasons. If people are determined to make no response, they will remain stubbornly
00:28:37 and sullenly unresponsive no matter what invitation is made to them.
00:28:45 When you see in someone's life constant criticism, constant belittling, constant nitpicking of reasons that are not valid, what you know is that you're dealing with someone who has a hard heart.
00:29:02 And Jesus understood this, and he's been in this region for so long, and because Jesus practices what he preaches, he at this point decides not to cast his pearls to the swine anymore.
00:29:15 So we see that one of the biggest tells that someone is a swine or a pig is that all he can ever do when faced with the truth is criticize, challenge, and nitpick.
00:29:25 And all of these are done in a way that makes himself look good.
00:29:29 Brothers and sisters, this is such a deadly, deadly temptation.
00:29:32 We all face it.
00:29:34 When we face conviction, when we hear something in the word, or someone says something to us, confronts us on something,
00:29:41 it is so easy for our first response to be i must justify myself i must explain away
00:29:50 that valid critique from god's word or from my brother or sister in christ
00:29:54 i might even resort to well you you do this and you did that last week it's so easy for us to
00:30:02 have this heart in ourselves as well we want to be right we want to be right and that is deadly in
00:30:09 the eyes of Jesus. Excuses and criticisms are the fortresses that the proud retreat into.
00:30:19 Let us not be like that, brothers and sisters. Jesus takes this very seriously, so seriously,
00:30:27 in fact, that he issues a warning in verse 19 against this kind of person. He says to the crowd,
00:30:36 again the crowd largely sympathetic with him it's a soft warning it's a soft rebuke but he turns to
00:30:42 the crowd and he says you kind of imagine he's kind of somber he says the generation is like
00:30:47 this and then he turns to the people that are listening to him and he says wisdom is justified
00:30:53 by her deeds wisdom is justified again that word who is right who will be shown to have been right
00:31:02 Will it be the people that side with the Pharisees or the people that sided with Jesus?
00:31:08 Matthew Poole says this about that comment.
00:31:11 Wisdom is justified by her children.
00:31:12 The children of wisdom are the wise, those who understand.
00:31:17 The Savior means that though that generation of Pharisees and fault finders did not appreciate the conduct of John and himself,
00:31:25 yet the wise, the candid, those who understood the reasons of their conduct would approve and
00:31:31 do justice to it. In other words, those who weep at their sin like John the Baptist called for
00:31:38 and cling to Christ for salvation like Jesus called for are the children of wisdom. And it's
00:31:45 as though Jesus is turning to these people who are listening to him and saying, you just wait
00:31:50 and see they are going to be sorry they're going to regret it because wisdom will prove itself in
00:31:58 the end this is a quiet threat but it's very serious because usually by the time we get to
00:32:08 the point where wisdom is proven right it's too late it may be the judgment seat of christ
00:32:14 where those who were wise and trusted christ are elevated to eternal life and those who rejected
00:32:20 him, in this case, and sided with the Pharisees, are damned. The time when wisdom proves itself
00:32:26 is often too late for the person who rejected it.
00:32:33 So that's the first terrible reaction. It is criticism by the hard-hearted.
00:32:40 But there's a second one, and for them, Jesus has even stronger words.
00:32:43 this is indifference by the unrepentant jesus gives a mild not mild it's not mild in any way
00:32:53 but it's more subtle warning in verse 19 but immediately as if to prove his point he transitions
00:33:00 in verse 20 and utters some of the most severe and strong condemnations that we find anywhere in
00:33:06 the bible he's talking to the crowd and he says again kind of quietly that's how i imagine it
00:33:13 just wait, they're going to find out. But then it's almost as though he turns and he looks out
00:33:20 over the whole countryside or the whole city. Maybe he extends his arms to indicate the entire region
00:33:28 and he raises his voice. He was speaking in that reserved teaching mode. Now he raises his voice
00:33:35 in anguish and anger, and he says, woe to you, Chorazin, woe to you, Bethsaida, woe to you,
00:33:43 Capernaum. A woe is a pronouncement of judgment. It's not a warning. This is not a warning that
00:33:55 Jesus is giving. One more time, and I'm going to get you. No, that's not what's going on here.
00:33:59 A woe is a formal discipline. 0.86
00:34:02 It's covenantal language. 0.79
00:34:07 It's the loud thunder of the gavel, bang,
00:34:11 as the judge issues his sentence to the guilty man.
00:34:18 Well, who is the guilty man in this story?
00:34:21 Specifically, Matthew says it's these three towns, right?
00:34:25 Chorazin, Bethsaida, and Capernaum.
00:34:27 A lot of commentators think that they're just representative of the whole region because Jesus had been in the entire region ministering and doing miracles.
00:34:38 So either way, it's these three cities and probably the entire region on the northwest side of the Galilee.
00:34:49 This is a massively important passage.
00:34:51 it's huge because while jesus is not condemning all of israel yet he's condemning an entire region
00:34:59 with strong covenantal language this is the first step that we see in god's divorcing of israel
00:35:09 this is the first step in god in jesus saying you're done it's been decided woe to you judgment
00:35:19 is here and it is not going to back off and again we would be tempted here to say
00:35:30 man that's awfully harsh right jesus condemns these entire towns and cities
00:35:36 isn't isn't god like in the old testament didn't he condemn and wipe out really wicked places like
00:35:44 threatened to wipe out Nineveh or Sodom and Gomorrah.
00:35:48 Jesus is saying that about these towns?
00:35:50 Man, what's going on here?
00:35:53 We have to understand something very, very important here.
00:36:00 God hates sin,
00:36:03 but God especially hates indifference.
00:36:10 Say that again.
00:36:11 god hates indifference towards himself this is well established in the bible let's look at just
00:36:19 a couple of examples matthew 7 26 is the parable of the the man who builds his house on the rock
00:36:25 in the sand and jesus says everyone who hears these words of mine and does not do them will
00:36:31 be like the foolish man he'll be washed away why he heard the words and he said take it or leave it 0.78
00:36:37 No big deal. In Matthew 24, Jesus references the generation of Noah. And he says, for as in those 0.96
00:36:45 days before the flood, they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage until
00:36:49 the day when Noah entered the ark. Noah was preaching the entire time he was building the ark
00:36:55 and the response of the people was not, Lord, save us. It was, oh, let's go to a wedding.
00:37:02 let's go eat let's go get some food yeah noah says we're all gonna die
00:37:06 indifference matthew 22 4 through 5 this is the parable of the wedding guests who were invited
00:37:16 and didn't come jesus says again he sent other servants saying tell us who are tell those who
00:37:22 are invited see i've prepared my dinner my oxen and my fat calves have been slaughtered and
00:37:27 everything is ready. Come to the wedding feast. And notice this sentence. But they paid no
00:37:33 attention and went off. You see, God hates indifference. Why does God hate indifference
00:37:44 so much? Indifference is the opposite of faith. Indifference is the opposite of faith.
00:37:54 faith is when you hear something you take a particular action before the promised results
00:38:02 have happened so when the sinner hears of god's judgment he takes result he takes action
00:38:09 before the judgment is there that's faith it hasn't happened yet but he believes it
00:38:15 When the man of faith hears the offer of salvation, he's not indifferent.
00:38:24 Instead, he turns to Christ and clings to him.
00:38:28 Faith does not ignore what God says.
00:38:32 And that's largely what the people in this region did.
00:38:36 Jesus preached, he did miracles, and they simply did that.
00:38:44 Neat.
00:38:45 Got to go plant some crops.
00:38:50 Sometimes the greatest reason for judgment
00:38:53 is not that someone did something evil.
00:38:55 Of course, that's a reason for judgment.
00:38:57 But sometimes the greatest reason for judgment
00:39:00 is that someone did not do something.
00:39:04 You imagine someone driving down the road,
00:39:06 going in his lane perfectly at the speed limit,
00:39:09 not speeding, not swerving,
00:39:12 observing all the traffic laws,
00:39:14 driving down the road,
00:39:15 And up ahead of him about a block, a child runs out into the street.
00:39:22 The man sees this child, and he has plenty of time to put on his brakes or to swerve out of the way.
00:39:30 And he just keeps going.
00:39:35 It's not going to count for him to say, Your Honor, I didn't do anything.
00:39:39 I just kept in my lane like I'm supposed to. 0.94
00:39:42 The judge is going to say, You wicked man. 0.70
00:39:44 You should have gone around. You should have stopped. 0.93
00:39:48 And that's what Jesus is saying here.
00:39:50 I preached to you for years, and it should have had an effect on you.
00:39:56 And you just continued with life as normal. 0.56
00:40:03 You see, this indifference in these towns was worse even than the sin of ancient pagan cities.
00:40:14 At the core of Jesus' condemnation of these cities is the fact that they ignored.
00:40:20 They were indifferent.
00:40:23 They shrugged their shoulders.
00:40:26 And Jesus says something to these towns and cities that was utterly devastating, totally offensive.
00:40:33 He says in verse 21 that if the miracles that he had done in those cities in the Galilee,
00:40:40 specifically here, Chorazin and Bethsaida.
00:40:44 If Jesus had done those miracles in Tyre and Sidon,
00:40:47 they would have repented in sackcloth and ashes.
00:40:50 In other words, they would have acted the way John the Baptist called for them to,
00:40:54 with his camel hair and his severity. 0.98
00:40:59 In the mind of the Jews in the Galilee region especially, 1.00
00:41:03 these were the worst cities imaginable, Tyre and Sidon. 0.99
00:41:06 they were actually not far from there they were on the sea just a few miles from where these these
00:41:13 towns were there were two towns of the Phoenicians the Phoenicians were a seafaring people they took 0.86
00:41:26 over much of the Mediterranean they were ruthless and cruel and barbaric and these two towns on the
00:41:32 Mediterranean were towns where sailors would put into port. And we all know the reputation that
00:41:38 that kind of city has, full of debauchery and immorality, fights, violence, all sorts of things. 1.00
00:41:48 Not only that, these two cities, Tyre and Sidon, were centers of Baal worship. They were strongholds 1.00
00:41:55 of the worship of this false god. They were immoral. They were pagan. They were heathen. And 0.93
00:42:00 god actually did end up destroying them in isaiah 23 ezekiel 26 27 and 28 we learned that these 0.99
00:42:10 phoenician cities were extremely proud they were greedy they were cruel 0.94
00:42:16 in jeremiah 25 and 47 we see that the phoenicians these two cities were selling 0.98
00:42:25 were capturing Israelites and selling them they were also capturing them in Amos it says they
00:42:33 were capturing Israelites and selling them to the Edomites and so in this region of Israel 0.63
00:42:40 to say Tyre or Sidon would have been to conjure up the worst sort of behavior possible the most 0.89
00:42:49 revolting wicked deserving of judgment cities and lifestyles imaginable
00:42:56 and jesus says listen you cities if i would have preached and done the miracles there
00:43:05 they would have repented but you all you are stubborn of heart and you continue in your sin
00:43:12 and in fact he goes so far as he says it would have been it would be better for them on the day
00:43:19 of judgment are they being judged yes as pastor joel said last week but there will be a much
00:43:24 more severe penalty for these cities in galilee you see god hates indifference he hates it and
00:43:34 that's why he saves the harshest criticism for the city of capernaum this is the town where jesus has
00:43:41 made his home, his base of operations, the town that had the most access to Jesus, which he spent
00:43:49 most of his time in. Capernaum was well off. It was beautiful. It was by the sea. It was peaceful.
00:43:56 It was really idyllic in many ways. That northern area of the Galilee is where a lot of the wealthy
00:44:03 Roman politicians and soldiers would go and spend time. It was absolutely stunning. They would have
00:44:10 out a sense that they were uniquely blessed by God for their prosperity and the beauty of their
00:44:15 setting. He did miracle after miracle after miracle there. He healed the nobleman's son.
00:44:22 He healed the demoniac. He raised Peter's mother-in-law. He healed the paralytic that 0.93
00:44:28 the friends lowered down through the roof. He healed blind men, cast out demons, healed the
00:44:33 centurion's servant from a distance and even with all that miraculous power and testimony they did
00:44:41 not change. Jesus says that because they were unwilling to change and respond they were harder
00:44:51 and more wicked and more vile than the city of Sodom itself. This comparison to Sodom was a
00:44:59 stunning insult. I mean, guys, you have to realize how much of a slap in the face this was. Sodom was
00:45:06 the city in the Old Testament that was not, it wasn't conquered by foreign armies. God himself
00:45:12 rained fire and brimstone on the city for its wickedness. And Jesus says, you think you're
00:45:21 going to ascend? No, you, Galilee, are going down to Hades. If Sodom would have had the witness that
00:45:27 you have, they would still be around. In other words, they would have repented and they would 0.90
00:45:31 have followed God. This would have been a full-hearted repentance, pervasive and profound.
00:45:40 So why is this sin of Galilee, of Capernaum, so much worse than the sin of these ancient cities?
00:45:50 So what MacArthur says about this, he says, what makes them worse? Indifference. The sin of these
00:45:56 flourishing places was not violence. It wasn't the sin of sensuality. It was just indifference.
00:46:03 There's no record that they opposed Christ or mocked him or ridiculed him. They just didn't
00:46:08 pay any attention to him. His doctrine produced no change in their lives. Self-satisfied,
00:46:14 complacent, whether in the form of pharisaic self-righteousness or popular indifference,
00:46:19 is condemned by Christ as the grossest of evils.
00:46:24 On the outside, they were eminently respectable, 1.00
00:46:27 but hell will be hotter for them than for the Sodomites. 1.00
00:46:33 As Pastor Joel said last week, 1.00
00:46:36 the greater the grace, the greater the responsibility.
00:46:41 And they had the grace of the Son of God himself
00:46:45 living and preaching and working in their midst,
00:46:48 and they had the grace of all the teachings of the Old Testament,
00:46:51 not in mystery, but with pinpoint focus,
00:46:55 pointing directly at Christ.
00:46:59 And if we're not careful, we can be paralyzed by this.
00:47:02 We hear the great of the grace.
00:47:03 I've received a lot of grace.
00:47:05 I've received a lot of teaching and that can paralyze us.
00:47:08 Oh, what do I do?
00:47:10 Am I just getting more and more judgment
00:47:12 every time I read my Bible, you hear a sermon?
00:47:14 Don't fear.
00:47:16 God is working in you.
00:47:18 When he teaches you something, he's going to give you the strength to work out your salvation with fear and trembling.
00:47:27 But it should humble us and sober us.
00:47:31 God is not messing around. 1.00
00:47:34 It's easy for us to look at this story and say, oh, they were so foolish. 1.00
00:47:40 And they were absolutely fools who earned condemnation. 1.00
00:47:47 What they did was a greater evil than Tyre and Sidon and Sodom. 1.00
00:47:51 But the knife cuts both ways.
00:47:54 There are many, many in our own land who have heard the gospel more clearly than John presented it.
00:48:02 There are pastors who have gone to seminary who shrugged their shoulders at the demands of Christ on his church.
00:48:10 There are many who can say, perhaps even like President Trump possibly,
00:48:15 that they've seen direct intervention, miraculous intervention in their life,
00:48:20 saved from a bullet, or saved from a car accident, or saved from some sort of calamity.
00:48:25 And in the moment, they can say, that was God's miraculous dealings to me.
00:48:30 And then they can shrug their shoulders and move on with life.
00:48:38 And God will judge that indifference. He hates that sort of indifference.
00:48:42 and this applies to us as well this applies to us christians as well
00:48:48 much has been made of romans 11 in the last few years
00:48:52 but in the middle of that passage remember paul uses the example of israel and part of that starts
00:49:00 right here in this passage as a warning to the christians in rome so i'm going to read 0.96
00:49:05 what he says in romans 11 and it applies to us as well as we think all those foolish jews in 0.98
00:49:12 the Galilee region. Be careful. Romans 11 20 through 22 says this so do not become proud but 1.00
00:49:20 fear for if God did not spare the natural branches neither will he spare you. Note then the kindness
00:49:28 and the severity of God. Severity towards those who have fallen but God's kindness to you provided
00:49:34 to continue in his kindness. Otherwise, you too will be cut off. In Matthew 11, we see that Jesus
00:49:44 is initiating the process of cutting off the unbelieving branches, and yet the warning extends 0.88
00:49:51 to us. That's how Paul uses it. We must not be proud, for God can cut us off as well, whether
00:49:57 as a hardened individual who heard the gospel or even as an entire nation who rejected God.
00:50:04 how do we run the risk of demonstrating this kind of hardness because we must avoid it at all cost
00:50:13 first by simply not repenting
00:50:18 i know there are probably some of you either who listen online or who even come every week
00:50:26 you go weeks and months and maybe even years listening to the gospel proclaimed
00:50:32 Sunday after Sunday after Sunday.
00:50:36 And yet you shrug your shoulders
00:50:37 and you walk out and you go on with life.
00:50:40 You've heard the truth over and over and over,
00:50:43 but it has no effect on you at all.
00:50:46 And friend, if this is you,
00:50:48 I have to tell you,
00:50:49 this is the most dangerous position you can be in.
00:50:54 There's nothing more dangerous
00:50:55 than to hear the truth of the gospel
00:50:57 over and over and over
00:50:59 and for it to bounce off of you every single time.
00:51:02 how hard must a heart be to reject the blinding sunlight that flashes on it every single week
00:51:14 it's as though that kind of person walks in you know those eclipse glasses that you wear
00:51:19 to look at the sun you have one of those over your heart so that the light of the gospel cannot
00:51:24 penetrate and if that's you I plead with you to repent this is the day for it not
00:51:35 next Sunday not the following Sunday this is the day remember Jesus ministered
00:51:41 in these cities for years but finally there came a time and he drew his line
00:51:46 He said that's it. Woe to you cities. Do not assume that next month or next year
00:51:56 you will be more likely to repent. The reality is you will probably be less
00:52:01 likely and less likely and less likely. Second, even Christians can be tempted by 0.98
00:52:12 this we hear christ speaking to us from the word we read or we come to church he commands us to do
00:52:21 something or to stop doing something we hear it clearly but we just move on and here's where this
00:52:29 is really heinous other things become more important to us than obeying christ brothers and sisters
00:52:39 there is nothing more important than obeying christ when christ speaks to you through the word
00:52:45 the most dangerous thing you can do is shrug it off i'll get around to it not that big of a deal
00:52:52 to go on with your life as if the king of the universe had not said anything to you
00:52:58 remember indifference is the opposite of faith and god hates it
00:53:03 and third we'll probably wrap up here
00:53:08 notice that these three cities did not only disregard jesus teaching but in verse 20 they
00:53:17 they disregarded his mighty works the miracles that jesus did should have caused them to be full
00:53:26 of thanks and praise and worship to god but for the majority of them that's not what happened
00:53:31 they saw a blind man healed or a lame man healed they go oh that's a neat trick i wonder how he
00:53:36 does that well off to the bakery
00:53:39 often often when people are in a terrible situation they call out to god and god is kind
00:53:49 and he often intervenes and then immediately we forget that that was god's direct hand in our
00:53:56 lives we move on with our life we forget to give him the credit and the honor and the glory and i
00:54:04 don't know why it is i've thought about why i tend to do this maybe it's because we don't like to
00:54:09 admit that we were helpless and once we're out of the situation yeah i had that i was okay we don't
00:54:14 like to admit that we were helpless maybe it's just kind of humbling to be physically and verbally
00:54:20 grateful to God. I struggle with this sometimes as a father, right? I like to be the head honcho.
00:54:26 I don't like to put myself on my knees and say the Lord has been so gracious. I like to get the
00:54:32 credit. I was, I had a good plan, right? I had a good plan. When the Lord does something incredible
00:54:38 in your life, you need to mark it and remember it, and it should stir you to worship and thanks
00:54:45 and praise to him don't neglect the workings of the lord in your life or the life of your family
00:54:51 discipline yourself to express gratitude and thanks and praise so that you do not end up
00:54:57 like these cities who could see the work of god routinely and just say oh yeah yeah yeah that was
00:55:04 kind of neat and if we do these things we will keep ourselves from hardening because it is a
00:55:12 terrible, horrifying thing to have and to maintain a hard heart. In fact, it is so bad
00:55:21 that God cut Israel off for it, starting with this picturesque, beautiful, peaceful city
00:55:29 on the northwest shore of Galilee. In your notes, I had one more point, and I'm just going to read
00:55:37 what I had written in the notes
00:55:39 because Matthew's story
00:55:41 continues. The very next word
00:55:44 after this section is
00:55:46 on the wrong page
00:55:48 at that time
00:55:51 on the heels
00:55:53 of Jesus declaring that these cities
00:55:56 have woes coming upon
00:55:57 them. The very next
00:55:59 thing that Jesus says is come to me
00:56:01 all you who weary
00:56:03 and are heavy laden.
00:56:05 the woes are not the final word this is what we're going to get into next week
00:56:10 the woes are not the final word in matthew's narrative the woes are the climax of mounting
00:56:16 unbelief in the galilee but they are followed immediately by the offer of rest to signal
00:56:22 that condemnation is never god's last word to the repentant were the towns going to be judged yes
00:56:30 there was no going back on that and yet still the kindness of christ turns to the people who
00:56:36 are listening to him and says if you are still hearing my voice but have not come to me come
00:56:44 find rest for your souls which are weighed down so strongly by sin it's not too late if you have
00:56:51 heard and heard and you say i'm hard of heart it's not too late if you have been living in a sin
00:56:58 pattern it is not too late come to christ and find rest from sin for your souls
00:57:05 and that's why we continue to cast the seed even as it's discouraging to look around at our
00:57:13 generation which is so wicked and so likely to side with the evil and wicked authorities that
00:57:20 are in power the soft positions of power we continue to cast the seed of the gospel out
00:57:25 longing that even our wicked generation, destined likely for judgment, would still hear Christ's
00:57:32 message and that many in our generation would repent and believe. Let's pray.
00:57:39 Gracious Father, we want to take seriously the fact that you judge. You are a God who is long
00:57:49 suffering. Your patience is great, and your anger is slow to kindle. And yet, Lord, we pray that we
00:57:58 would not mistake that for casualness towards sin. We want to be people in our own lives who treat
00:58:05 very seriously the idea of taking you seriously. We pray for our generation, our town, and our city,
00:58:12 and our nation, that you would soften their hearts, that they would repent, and that they would turn
00:58:18 to you with true repentance like John the Baptist called for, not fake repentance that just kind of
00:58:24 appeases the moment. Lord, we pray for true repentance starting in our own lives and extending
00:58:29 through our church and our city and our nation. And pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.