Criticism and Indifference
Published by Stanley Pouw in 2013 · 17 February 2013
Our Lord wants people to respond to His message. And so one of the things that Jesus commonly said was, “He who has ears to hear, let him hear." We also find our Lord saying that even from heaven in Revelation 2 and 3 in the letters to the churches He repeatedly says: "He who has ears to hear, let him hear."
In other words, the Lord wants men to react to what He says. But while calling He knows that most people do not listen. It is basic to biblical truth that men are given a choice when confronted with the truth of God, to hear it, to believe it, to act on it, or to reject it.
And now in Matthew 11 and 12 we see the various responses to Christ. Now we have already seen that one of the responses is honest doubt. John the Baptist believed and yet he had some doubt. And so the Lord dealt with that in the first fifteen verses. Some other responses to Christ are much more serious.
Jesus now is going to talk about rejection, a superficial kind of amazement. And He is going to talk about blasphemy later in chapter 12. But in our section tonight He is going to speak of two other responses to Christ that are very common. The first is criticism and the second is indifference.
One talks about what men do and the second one talks about what men don't do. And a person can be damned to hell just as much by what they do not do as by what they do. When you look ahead to the great white throne judgment it is certain that some people are going to say - I never did anything against God. And that is their fault. They did nothing.
And so Jesus asks a question in Matthew 11:16, "But to what shall I liken this generation?” I called for this generation to hear, but they do not hear. The majority of them were not interested in listening to Jesus Christ, even though His miracles were beyond question convincing that He was from God.
And then Jesus describes all the negative ways in which that generation responded to Him. The first one He talks about is criticism. What characterized them was they were just critical, no matter what He did or what He said, they criticized it. There was no validity in the criticism; they were just looking for something to pick on.
And there are people like that today. No matter what the message is, no matter what is done by the church or those who represent Christ they will always criticize it, because they are not seeking truth. They will not acknowledge their sin and they are not interested in a Savior and so they just sit back and criticize.
So Jesus begins by saying, “How can I illustrate what this generation is like?” And then He says in Matthew 11:16-17, "It is like children sitting in the market places and calling to their friends 17 and saying, we have played music for you and yet you have not danced; we have mourned for you and yet you have not lamented.”
The idea was that the marketplace is like the town square and children would like to play games to imitate what their parents did. And one of the popular make-believe games they played was "Wedding," and another favorite was "Funeral," because both were public social events. So many kids would join in but there were some kids who didn't want to play.
Now the principle of the parable of Jesus is very clear. There are some people who just do not want to participate no matter what the game is, right? They will criticize the wedding and they will criticize the funeral. Nothing satisfies them. Now, Jesus says that is like this generation. They are like children who are just critical.
Now look at Matthew 11:18, and here comes the application, "For John came neither eating nor drinking, and they say, ‘He has a demon.” Now what is that? John came in an austere mode. He came preaching the message of judgment and condemnation. John talked about an axe chopping at the root of the tree. He cried out for repentance and asked to see the fruit of repentance.
And you know what they said of him? He has a demon, he is possessed. They hadn't had a prophet in 400 years and they could see that he was great. He had the power of personality to attract them. And they basked in his light for a season. But the critics among them finally just said - Ah, he's nuts. Instead of seeing his life style as a rebuke to their indulgence, they just ridiculed him.
On the other hand, look at Matthew 11:19, “The Son of Man came eating and drinking.” In other words, He was the opposite of John. He came and got into the flow of social life. He had meals with people and dwelt in their homes and attended the social activities. He was in their synagogue. And He walked from village to village. And He was in the boat and He was a part of their life.
And so, the Lord came in a very different way than John did and hear what they said further in verse 19, “Look, a glutton and a winebibber, a friend of tax collectors and sinners!’ You see, because Jesus mingled they criticized that, and because John didn't mingle, they criticized that.
Just so you know, the word "glutton" is a person who always ate a lot. And they said He was a winebibber which means He was a drunkard. By the way, what the Lord did drink was wine mixed with water, which would stimulate about as much as our tea and coffee. But the point is that He came in the normal flow of life.
But they went beyond that and they said, “a friend of tax collectors and sinners!” Because He came mixing with all kinds of hurting, needy people, sharing their sorrows and their joy, they said He was no good. And because John came living in the desert, fasting, looking different and eating different food, they said he was crazy and demonic.
And the point of the whole deal is that they were just always critical. There was nothing that could be done that could please them. It's a bad response, because, the end of Matthew 11:19: "Wisdom is justified by her children." The best interpretation is "Wisdom is justified by her works."
In other words, you can criticize whatever Jesus or John does, but in the end the truth will justify itself by what it produces. You can criticize Christ, but how do you explain the people whose lives He has changed, right? You can criticize the church but explain why the church has had the impact it has had on the world.
Truth or wisdom ultimately is justified by what it produces, and that is an unanswerable argument. The wisdom of John the Baptist which insisted on repentance and the wisdom of Jesus which insisted on salvation was shown to be justified by what it accomplished in the hearts and the lives of the people who believed. And that is testimony to the truth.
Some people are just critical. And we all have met them. They are not even looking for the truth. They just want to find everything wrong with Christ and Christianity and that's a tragic response. Because in the end, the truth will be justified by what it produces. Now, we've seen the response of criticism, now let us see the response of indifference, what men didn't do.
It is so important to realize that what people don't do is enough to condemn them. In Matthew 7:26-27 Jesus said, “But everyone who hears these sayings of Mine, and does not do them, will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand: 27 and the rain descended, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house; and it fell. And great was its fall.”
And then in Luke 17:26 - 27 it is written, “And as it was in the days of Noah, so it will be also in the days of the Son of Man: 27 They ate, they drank, they married wives, they were given in marriage, until the day that Noah entered the ark, and the flood came and destroyed them all.” And the Lord says it will be the same way now.
There were many critics who stood around the boat that he was building in the middle of the desert, about the 110th year, and said, "The guy is crazy. He is building a boat in the desert. And he is talking about rain, what is rain?" No one had ever seen rain. And then there were the people who just went on eating and drinking and marrying and giving in marriage, who did not care, until it rained. By then it was too late, the door was shut.
And the Lord says it is going to be the same way. Now those passages illustrate the indifference of men toward God, but not as aptly and as powerfully as does this following verse in Matthew 11:20, “Then He began to rebuke the cities in which most of His mighty works had been done, because they did not repent.”
The gentleness of verse 19 is gone now. They have had the fullness of the Galilean ministry with all of its miracles, they've seen enough to know, forgiving sin, casting out demons, raising the dead, and all others. And now they still have not repented and so He moves to the statement of His judgment.
This is the wrath of the Lamb, as gracious as the Son of God is in His friendship with sinners, so fierce is He in His denunciation of those who will not acknowledge their sin. It is holy anger. It is holy fury that you see in this passage.
Now, Jesus mentions the cities, in which most of His mighty works were done. Now this would be the Galilean cities, where His ministry had taken place. The city refers to the people who lived there. And the reason He began to condemn them was because His mighty works were done in their presence but they did not repent.
When people have that experienced all that and still do not repent, their guilt becomes aggravated and they are more guilty then if they never heard or saw a miracle at all. It is far better for you to know nothing about Jesus Christ than to know something about Him and reject Him. Hebrews 10:26 says, there is greater punishment to the one who knows of Christ and tramples His blood under his feet than to one who never knew.
And I say that because God said that because God cares about you. He says in Luke 12:48, “For everyone to whom much is given, from him much will be required; and to whom much has been committed, of him they will ask the more.” One commentator said, "Every hearer of the New Testament truth is either much happier or much more wretched than the men who lived before Christ's coming.”
Now Jesus gives us two illustrations of indifference in the cities of Galilee. First, Matthew 11:21, “Woe to you, Chorazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida! For if the mighty works which were done in you had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes.”
A woe is a curse. Chorazin was a little village in the hills two and a half miles north of Capernaum. It is now extinct, just ruins are left. And then there was Bethsaida out in the plain of Gennesaret, above the Sea of Galilee. It was the hometown of Philip, Andrew and Peter. And Jesus had done many miracles in that little village.
But look what He says, "For if the mighty works which were done in you had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes." In the minds of a Jew, they were the two most wretched cities were historically. They were Gentile, pagan, heathen societies. And God destroyed them.
In other words, Jesus says you are worse than they are. For a Jew to be told that he is worse than a Gentile is the absolute worst in that society. And then He added this in Matthew 11:22, “But I say to you, it will be more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon in the day of judgment than for you.”
What is the day of judgment? Jesus has in mind the great white throne final judgment when all the dead of all the ages are brought before the throne of God to be judged for their eternal punishment. And He says, the judgment of the people of Chorazin and Bethsaida will be more severe than the judgment of Tyre and Sidon.
That tells us there are degrees of punishment in hell, brothers and sisters. And the more severe hell belongs to those who knew the Lord Jesus Christ and still walked away from Him, more severe than the most immoral people who didn't know Him.
But it becomes even worse. A second illustration in Matthew 11:23-24: “And you, Capernaum, who are exalted to heaven, will be brought down to Hades; for if the mighty works which were done in you had been done in Sodom, it would have remained until this day. 24 But I say to you that it shall be more tolerable for the land of Sodom in the day of judgment than for you.”
What is He saying is that Capernaum was the guiltiest of all. That little fishing village is now in ruins. This was the home of Jesus during His Galilean ministry and where the Lord did so many miracles. He healed the centurion's son. He healed the demoniac in the synagogue. He healed Peter's wife's mother and there was the paralytic that was carried through the roof that He healed.
And the people of Capernaum had this illusion that they were prosperous and they were saying, "We're just going to be exalted to heaven." They were so self-righteous. But Jesus says, "You will be brought to hell." There would be an eternal punishment on the souls of the inhabitants.
They are already incarcerated in a place of torment, even now. But final sentencing awaits the great white throne and they will be severely sentenced for what they did not do. If somebody asked me: what is the worst city in human history? You might answer Sodom. I mean, what other city did God rain fire and brimstone on?
Jesus says revise your list. Now it is Capernaum. Did they have a homosexual problem? Not that we know of. Did they attack God's people? No, they just ignored Jesus, that's all. They were indifferent.
You just can't ignore Jesus Christ and think that it just changes how God feels about you. You simply bring deeper guilt on yourself. Do you know what is the worst of all sins that blinded Capernaum? They thought they were already righteous. Self-righteous people will not admit it. And yet theirs is the severer judgment.
That's why throughout the New Testament our Lord forgave prostitutes and said woe to you, Pharisees, because they had no need of Him. Well, what makes them worse? Indifference. They did not openly opposed Christ, nor ridiculed Him, they just didn't pay any attention. Please don’t make the same mistake, let us pray.