Woe to the Unrepentant Matthew 11.20-24 October 6, 2013 Introduction: Back in the late 1970 s a documentary was made about a controversial program aimed at juvenile delinquents called Scared Straight. What this program did was allow a group of teenagers who had been in frequent trouble with the law to have a three hour session with a group of inmates serving life sentences. During the session, the inmates would berate, scream at, and terrify them by telling graphic stories of the extremely rough and unpleasant details of prison life in order to scare them straight into turning their lives around before they suffered the same fate. The point of this was to say, Look, if you continue on this path, this is where it leads. This is what your future is going to be like very soon if you don t change and amend your ways. In some ways, that s what Jesus is attempting to do in our passage we ll be looking at this morning. He s warning the towns that he has been ministering in that if they should refuse to repent and believe in him, something terrible awaits them in their near future. It may be unpleasant to hear, but it may be the only thing left that will get their attention. So if you would, please open your Bibles with me to Matthew 11. If you are without a Bible this morning, I d invite you to follow along using one of the hardcover Bibles available in the pew in front of you. We will be focusing our attention on just v. 20-24 of Matthew 11, which can be found in the pew Bibles on pg. 816. Starting in v. 20, Matthew writes, Then he began to denounce the cities where most of his mighty works had been done, because they did not repent. Woe to you, Chorazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida! For if the mighty works done in you had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes. But I tell you, it will be more bearable on the day of judgment for Tyre and Sidon than for you. And you, Capernaum, will you be exalted to heaven? You will be brought down to Hades. For if the mighty works done in you had been done in Sodom, it would have remained until this day. But I tell you that it will be more tolerable on the day of judgment for the land of Sodom than for you. So during our time together this morning, I want us to consider what we can learn about God from this passage. What kind of theological truths can we glean from this warning? In answering that question, there are four observations about God that I d like for us to make. So then, the first answer to the question of What can we learn about God from this passage? is that 1. God demands repentance, not merely admiration. At this point in Jesus ministry, he has spent considerable time in the towns and villages of the region of Galilee. Matthew recorded for us a number of the mighty works he performed while he was in the area: he cleansed a leper, healed a Roman Centurion s servant, calmed a raging storm with a word, drove out demons, raised a young girl from 1
the dead, and restored sight to a couple of blind men. It s clear that Matthew provides just a small sampling of numerous such miracles Jesus performed during his ministry. Those in the region had ample opportunity to witness the power and authority Jesus possessed. Jesus words and works weren t hidden: they were public events seen by people throughout the cities and towns of Galilee over a period of many months. But the healings and exorcisms weren t ends in themselves: they were done so that people might turn from their sins and place their faith in Jesus. The apostle John makes that explicit in the twentieth chapter of his gospel. He says, Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book; but these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name. Jesus wasn t a magician or circus performer who did tricks for the entertainment and applaud of the crowds. The miracles of healing and exorcisms were to demonstrate that Jesus was the promised Messiah, that the power of Almighty God was working through him, and therefore people ought to recognize it, turn from their sin, and follow him. But sadly, far more often than not, the people didn t repent and believe: they came out to see a show, maybe get lucky and be healed of some ailment, and then return to their homes and continue of living life as they had previously. So Matthew writes in v. 20, Then he began to denounce the cities where most of his mighty works had been done, because they did not repent. To repent is to turn away from sin. It s not merely feeling sorry about it, although sorrow is a part of repentance. One can have sorrow over sin and not be repentant: usually it means you feel bad you got caught or because you re now suffering the unpleasant consequence of your sinful behavior. Most anyone feels that way. But true repentance goes beyond sorrow to action; it means you make a 180 degree turn. You stop doing what it is you used to do. You take concrete steps to change your behavior so you don t do it any longer. Most people in Galilee didn t want to do that. They were content with their lives as they were. If Jesus could somehow make it a bit better by healing them of some illness, or at least entertain them for an afternoon, then all the better. But as for actually changing their lives by turning from sin well, that was a bit too much to ask. There s a warning for us in the contemporary church. We like Jesus to be entertaining. We like a Jesus who puts on a good show on Sunday morning: a loud rock band, some strobe lights and a fog machine, a preacher who is relevant and encouraging, who talks about how God loves us just the way we are and wants to bless us with money, health, and success. We want a Jesus who will pamper us, who will give us what we want the way we want it. We want churches that provide worship as entertainment and preaching with the humor of Chris Rock, the charms of Oprah Winfrey, and the practical advice of Dr. Phil. And if we don t get the kind of Jesus we want at the church we re at, we re sure to find it at the larger one down the street. Let me be clear: the worst kind of church you can attend is one that promises everything to you and demands nothing of you. If church is nothing more than a glorified rock concert or pep rally or self-help seminar or comedy club, then you need to make a bee- 2
line to the exit and find a church that s willing to talk about sin, about judgment, about hell, and about repentance and holiness because without that no one will see the Lord. Jesus didn t come to entertain us nor did he establish the church to amuse you: he came to call sinners to recognize their sin, repent of it, and return to God through faith demonstrated in righteousness. As far as we fail to do that and continue to use church as a mode of entertainment rather than a means of repentance, Jesus words here have direct relevance to us. Woe to us if Jesus only amuses us but does not convict us. So that the first observation to make from this passage: God demands repentance, not merely admiration. We re to respond to Jesus by dropping to our knees in repentance for our sins and turning to him in faith for forgiveness. Moving on now, let s turn to the second observation about God that I d like to make from this passage, which is 2. God has knowledge of both actual and possible events In his denunciation of the cities of Galilee Jesus makes a couple of very interesting comments about what one could call alternate versions of history. Look first at what he says in 21, Woe to you, Chorazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida! For if the mighty works done in you had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes. Then skip down to v. 23. And you, Capernaum, will you be exalted to heaven? You will be brought down to Hades. For if the mighty works done in you had been done in Sodom, it would have remained until this day. Jesus is referring to what is known as counterfactuals or what theologians called God s middle knowledge. God knows what would have transpired had a different set of circumstances taken place; in this case, how the people of Sodom, Tyre, and Sidon would have responded had God sent someone to perform miracles there. Now the waters can get really deep here both philosophically and theologically so bear with me for a moment or two. I don t want to get too deep into this subject, but I do think we need to recognize a few important implications here. First, and most obviously, is that God s knowledge is utterly exhaustive. One of the characteristic of God is that he is omniscient, which is a fancy word for all-knowing. It means there s no fact that God is unaware of. For example, he knows the number of hairs on your hair and the precise number of grains of sand on every seashore. Furthermore, God knows the future: he knows everything that will happen from now until the end of time. Now that alone is impressive and a reason to worship him. But beyond just knowing all things actual, whether past, present, or future, God also knows all things potential. God knows what the world would be like if one of the hijackers on September 11 had gotten deathly ill that morning or if Hitler had died in his infancy. He knows what would have happened had you decided to attend a different college, or if you had married that exgirlfriend instead of breaking up with her, or what would have happened if you had left the office ten minutes later or earlier last week. While we can only speculate upon the road not taken God knows precisely what that alternative future would have been like had the circumstances been different. God knows all things, both actual events as well as all the possible events that could have been but weren t. 3
Now one of the implications of this is that our actions cannot be as free as we often assume they are. If God necessarily knows what choices we will make in any given circumstance which is what Jesus is claiming here: had the miracles been performed in Sodom they would have repented then that choice must happen, that is, we are not free to choose otherwise. Like I said, we need to swim in the deep end of the pool, so stay with me here. We assume that we have free will in that we believe no surrounding circumstance or personal disposition will guarantee that a certain choice will be made. That s what is known in philosophy as libertarian free will and which most of you by default believe. While you admit that things can influence you to choose option A over option B, you would say nothing decisively determines your choice. You would claim that in order to be free, nothing can guarantee that you chose A over B because if it did, you wouldn t be free. So many of you would say something to the effect, God sees into the future what we would have freely chosen undetermined by any influences, either externally or internally. But I could just as well have chosen otherwise. But the problem is that such a notion of free will makes what Jesus said here impossible. God can t possibly know what the people in Sodom would have done if they were free in a libertarian sense because by virtue of God knowing what they would do, they would of necessity have to do it. They could not do otherwise. So for example, if God knows you are going to eat a peanut butter sandwich for lunch tomorrow, then you aren t free to choose to eat a ham sandwich instead. If you were free not to, then God wouldn t know what you were going to eat. He could take a good guess, but he really wouldn t know it. The only way this passage works is if we understand free will as choosing to do that which we desire the most. This is known as compatibilism, which means God s sovereignty and man s free will are compatible with one another. Instead of teaching that our wills are free from any determining influence, compatibilism understands our wills as being determined by what we want, by our strongest desires. In other words, to put it simply, you do what you want and what you want determines what you do. Thus God can know decisively what we will do in any given situation because he perfectly knows our heart, our desires, our passions and affections. He can know what we will chose because he knows perfectly what our strongest desire would be in any situation. Thus we freely do what we want (and only what we want) and God perfectly knows what we will do because we can only chose to do that which we desire the most. Now I know that can be a little mind-boggling for you, so if your head is spinning a bit right now, I get it. Don t worry too much about it. I simply want you to see that if God really does know counterfactuals as well as the future, then either we can t be free in the way we usually define it or God can t have true knowledge of our choices. But if we understand free will as choosing what we most desire, then God can be both sovereign in his knowledge and we can be morally responsible for our freely chosen actions that are always determined by our strongest desires. Now under the category of jumping out of the frying pan and into the fire, I want to make a third observation that flows out of what we ve been talking about. So moving on, the third point I d like to make this morning is 4
3. God does not owe revelation to anyone I bring this us because there is a question that can be raised by what Jesus said regarding what would have happened had the miracles done in Galilee been performed in Sodom instead. One can ask, Well, if God knew what would have happened in those cities had he sent them a messenger or prophet to heal and drive out demons and call them to repentance and faith, then why didn t he? That s not an unreasonable question to ask, is it? If God knew they would have responded in repentance, then why didn t he send them a prophet so they could? So how do we answer this question? I don t have an easy answer, but it is an answer and one that I believe is biblical and it s simply that God chose not to. He could have but he didn t and his reasons for doing so are his own. God does not owe anyone his mercy; if he did it would cease to be mercy. The grace of God that reveals himself in a way that those can respond and believe is not an obligation God has to sinful men. A murderer on death row is not owed a pardon by the governor, even if the governor gave a pardon to the man in the cell next to him. God is fully just and altogether righteous if he were to redeem no one and condemn every person who ever lived. It would in no way diminish his character to simply allow men to follow the wicked desires of their hearts until their death and then condemn them to hell for their sin. God owes salvation to no one, nor is he obligated to prove himself in either word or deed to those who have rebelled against him. Now this comes across as a difficult truth, but nevertheless it is the truth. God doesn t save everyone even though he is fully capable of doing so. Perhaps nowhere in Scripture is this made more explicit than in Romans 9. Turn there for a moment with me. I can t get into all the details of this passage, but I think it s sufficient to show us that we dare not question God when he comes to whom he chooses to save and whom he doesn t. Starting in v.18 of Romans 9 Paul concludes his paragraph by saying, So then he has mercy on whomever he wills, and he hardens whomever he will. Paul then anticipates the reaction this teaching will get. If God makes the decision as to whom he is going to save or not, then it seems that God isn t being fair. After all, if we can t resist his will, then how is it that God can still find fault in us? So Paul raises this objection in v. 19. He says, You will say to me then, Why does he still find fault? For who can resist his will? Perhaps that s a question you re asking. If God could have saved the people of Sodom or elsewhere, and yet didn t do it, why are they still punished? If God know they would have responded, why didn t he send someone back then to bring about the repentance he required? Well, Paul answers that question, but he does so with a rebuke. Look at v. 20-23. He says, But who are you, O man, to answer back to God. Will what is molded say to its molder, Why have you made me like this? Has the potter no right over the 5
clay, to make out of the same lump one vessel for honorable use and another for dishonorable use? What if God, desiring to show his wrath and to make known his power, has endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction, in order to make known the riches of his glory for vessels of mercy, which he has prepared beforehand for glory In other words, don t try to judge God. Don t be so foolish to think you can place God in the dock and question him. He is the Creator and we are the created. If he wishes to allow some to perish in order to demonstrate his power and wrath for the benefit of others who he chooses to save, that s his prerogative. We are in no position to sit in judgment over him. God will save those whom he wishes, and if he has other purposes for those who remain in their sins that is God s sovereign right to do so. Salvation is not an obligation; it is a gift and if God chooses not to bestow it on some, we have no ground on which to complain, question, or judge him. With that we need now to move to our fourth and final observation about God that I d like to make from this passage this morning, which is just this 4. God takes into account opportunity in his judgment Look back in your Bibles at v. 22. Jesus says, But I tell you, it will be more bearable on the day of judgment for Tyre and Sidon than for you. And then skip down to v. 24. But I tell you that it will be more tolerable on the day of judgment for the land of Sodom than for you. While we may not understand exactly what this will look like, Jesus and the rest of Scripture make it clear that there are differing levels of punishment in hell and rewards in heaven. Now that s a bit difficult for me to get my head around since it seems that just being in heaven is more than enough reward and that going to hell and suffering eternal conscious punishment for all eternity is plenty bad. I m not clear on how exactly hell is made any easier for some or heaven is less heavenly for those who are saved, but just because I can t figure it out does not mean it s not true. So even if we don t really understand it all, we need to take Jesus at his word here when he says that those who had the greater revelation of Christ physically ministering in their midst will be judged far more severely than those who had significantly less of the truth of God revealed to them. Both will be punished for their rejection of God, whether it be only the vague revelation of him that is available to all in nature (such as Paul points out in Romans 1), or for those living in Capernaum and the surrounding Galilean towns who witnessed the miracles of Jesus and listened to his teaching. Now the application for us as Americans is pretty sobering. The opportunity to hear the gospel, to attend a church, to avail ourselves to Bibles and books and solid biblical preaching is phenomenal. We have churches on practically every corner. We have books available to read and we possess the time and ability to read them. Because of the internet we have access to sermons from some of the best preachers in the world as well as a myriad of resources to help us study the Bible. There is no shortage of 6
available material to help you grow in your knowledge, love, and obedience to Christ. And so what do we do with the unparalleled opportunities afforded to us? We skip church in order to play golf on Sundays, or go up to the cabin, or watch our kids play soccer, or anything else that might get us out of being with the people of God for worship, prayer, and preaching. We use the internet to post comments about what we ate for lunch on Facebook and then spend hours reading posts about the equally inanely uninteresting lives of our friends and acquaintances or play Angry Birds or waste our time catching up on the most recent celebrity gossip. We act as if we re illiterate and books were never invented while we waste away our minds watching some crude sitcom on the 50 inch plasma idiot box in our living room. We have these opportunities to listen to great Christ-centered preaching and read great theological books and be in fellowship with great believers who will challenge you and encourage you and model for you godliness and instead we squander it on our addiction to social media sites, stupid reality television shows, and the cheap thrill of watching people hit a ball into a hole or net or hoop or goalpost. Let us not deceive ourselves: you will give an account of the time you squandered in front of the TV or Xbox or ipad or smart phone or whatever it is that causes you to neglect the opportunities afforded you by being born in such a time like this. Heaven will be less blessed for those of us who have made little of the much given to you and Hell shall be significantly more severe for those who enjoyed countless options to see, hear, and read about Christ and yet refused to do so because they were distracted by the trivial and mundane. Our technology comes with a price: we who do less with more will not escape judgment for our narcissistic squandering of the holy for the sake of indulging ourselves in the profane. Maybe what I just said has rubbed some of you the wrong way because maybe I touched on some sacred cows but it needs to be said. Jesus is pronouncing Woe to you upon those where given much light and failed to see it; how much more so would Jesus say to us, Woe to you America! Had the people of the towns and villages of Galilee been given the opportunity to read the books you can read, listen to the sermons you can listen to, utilize the Bible study resources you have available to you, they would have repented long ago. But I tell you, it will be more bearable on the day of judgment for Sodom and Capernaum than it will be for you America. Those who hear ears to hear, let them hear what Christ would say to us today. Conclusion So how do I conclude a message like this? Maybe I simply need to go back to the beginning and remind us why Jesus had to utter these words to begin with. Jesus pronounced these woes because people refused to repent. They heard the truth. They saw the truth. But they refused to turn from their sin and believe the truth. I can t say how God might have worked through this message this morning. Maybe for some of you there was something convicting in it, about your behavior. Maybe you realize that you ve been squandering the opportunities given to you. Maybe for others of you it challenged your understanding of God and you need to begin to think differently, to allow the God who is to 7
replace the god you imagine him to be. Maybe something else completely tangential to my point came out of left field and hit you like a ton of bricks. No matter what it is, we are responsible for the light given to us. If God has granted you light to see your sin, your false belief, your need to turn and go in a different direction in your thoughts, words, and deeds, then do so. Woe to us if we reject the revelation given to us. So with that, let s close our time together and prayer and commit ourselves to whatever it is God has placed upon your heart. Let s pray. This sermon was addressed originally to the people at Grace Fellowship of Waterloo, IA by Pastor Rob Borkowitz. Copyright 2013. 8