Biblestudy: Matthew (Part Sixteen)

Matthew 10:34-11:30
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John W. Ritenbaugh (1932-2023)
Given 20-Jan-82; 79 minutes

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Remember earlier in chapter 10, the subject was the appointment of the 12 apostles. And then following that, in His commission to these people and telling them where to go and what to do, He began very forcefully to get onto the subject of persecution.

That subject is still continuing here in verse 34 and He is beginning to focus in on an area in which everybody who is a servant of God has the possibility of receiving persecution. Not everybody is an apostle, not everybody is an evangelist, not everybody is a minister, but every one of us is a member. And we have the possibility of having persecution come from these areas.

Now, I hope that you have not received very much of this, and maybe you will not have any in the future. And of course, this is a generality—it does not mean that everybody is going to face it from this area.

But He says in verse 34,

Matthew 10:34-39 "Do not think that I came to bring peace on earth. I did not come to bring peace but a sword. For I have come to 'set a man against his father, a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law'; and 'a man's enemies will be those of his own household.' He who loves father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me. And he who loves son or daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me. And he who does not take his cross and follow after Me is not worthy of Me. He who finds his life will lose it, and he who loses his life for My sake will find it.”

Again, it shows that Christ is very honest in regard to those who are going to follow Him. Very often you will hear politicians, or people who are trying to sell you or others on a certain adventure; maybe even in the area of investing money; they generally have quite grandiose ideas about what is going to be accomplished, and it is going to maybe entail a few difficulties, but everything is going to be pretty good.

But it seems as though with Christ to a very great extent, He warns that those that are going to follow Him that they are going to have a great deal of trouble. And this trouble is going to come from the people that you would like most to be able to receive some comfort from.

Luke 12:51 is a parallel account. The reason I want you to see it is because he changes a word that helps to clarify.

Luke 12:51 “Do you suppose that I came to give peace on earth? I tell you, not at all, but rather division.”

Put this together with Matthew the 10:34-35, but especially 34, you see the word that was changed was “a sword.”

Christ has not called us literally to take up arms and fight. So obviously the word sword here in verse 34 is to be understood symbolically as an instrument which divides.

Now, what is it that really divides? What is it that causes families to be driven apart by coming in contact with or following Christ? In Revelation 1 this picture of Christ as He appeared to John in a vision, says:

Revelation 1:16 He had in His right hand seven stars, out of His mouth went a sharp two-edged sword.

A mouth, of course, is that instrument that we speak through, and that sword is symbolic of His Word.

Now notice it is two-edged. It cuts in both directions. In Hebrews 4, verse 12 it says,

Hebrews 4:12 For the word of God is living and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the division of soul and spirit [that is, body and mind], and of joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.

When you begin to put this verse together with Matthew 10:34 you see that the instrument that divides the family apart is the Word of God.

The reason that it divides is because of other people's reaction to it. Now, to the one who is called, the reaction is willing acceptance and joy, peace of mind; one recognizes truth and rejoices in having it.

But if the person's mind is set in another direction, then the Word of God becomes something that is very cutting; a revealer of a person's motivations—his attitudes. And, unless the attitude toward the Word of God is right, it is something that rebukes, admonishes, and causes the person pain and rejection of the Word.

Now, who do they take that out on? Well, they take that out on the person who is accepting it, and begin to ridicule them for being so dumb, stupid, or whatever.

That word in Hebrews 4:12 where it says “discerner,” is kritikos. This is easily recognizable in English. It is the same word from which we get our word “critic,” such as a music critic, an art critic, or someone like that.

Well, what does a critic do? A critic looks at a work and he evaluates it. He says: This is good; this is not so good; this is terrible. And maybe a critic also gives advice on how a design of a building, or the structure of a poem, the wording of a novel, the characterization of personalities within a novel, he might give suggestions on how those things could be improved.

Well, that is what God's Word does. It gets right down to the nitty gritty of a person. It reveals to Him through evaluation what that person's character is like; what his attitudes ought to be. And so that is why Paul said that it divides apart even to the joints and marrow; it gets way down inside of your very being from which your actions emanate and criticizes them—it says: This is okay; this is not so good; this needs to be improved; this is terrible; you [had] better change in this area, and here is how you can do it.

Well, it is very easy to become offended at the Word of God. We are going to see that in the next chapter where Jesus almost sort of makes a little prayer about that very thing. I think more people have been offended by God's Word than have accepted it.

Now, how many people know about the Sabbath that are not keeping it? How many people will openly reject it and ridicule it? You see, there is far more who will reject it and ridicule it than who will accept it. And because it is a critic of what they are doing, they will come up with justifications.

Because of their rejection of God's Word, the persecution comes upon those who are keeping it. And so it causes a division within families, because they are the ones who are most concerned about you—you are breaking up all of their happy reunions. You got together at Christmas and Easter, and now, here you are not there anymore with all of your children. And so it is just not the same as it used to be.

You see, when you begin to respond to God's Word, you are actually beginning to, in a very easy way, accuse them of having taught you wrong. And they take offense at it. Even though you do not intend it to be that way, there are people who take offense at it.

The problem here, of course, is the response to the Word of God, and it is, Jesus warrants, going to come between members of a family.

Now, in verse 37, He lays down a challenge to you and me. We have got to put Him first. You will find that all through this section here in Matthew 10 and 11 that there are periods of instruction that are interspersed with admonitions to be totally committed. And that is what He does here. He says, “Look, you’re going to have persecution, and that persecution is most likely going to come from the family.” Then He gives advice on how to be strengthened against that persecution. You have got to put Him first, that is, he that loves father and mother more than Me is, is not worthy of Me.

Matthew 10:37-38 “He who loves father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me. And he who loves son or daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me. And he who does not take his cross and follow after Me is not worthy of Me.”

You have got to take up your cross and follow after Me. (I mentioned a parallel verse in the sermon last Sabbath in Luke 14:27. And I will get to something here in just a minute about that word cross.)

And then He says,

Matthew 10:39 “He who finds his life will lose it, . . .”

There is a comparison made here. Finding and losing. Finding compares to that which is carnal; losing compares to that which is spiritual. Following Christ is a spiritual act; remaining in the world and following its pursuits, and thus receiving deliverance from the burden of following Christ, is equated with finding your life.

Now, we can stretch this out a little bit further because He uses it at least three different times and each time it appears in a somewhat different context. If you look at it in Matthew 16, you will find that it is very plainly and clearly used in a situation where one is presented as a way to get, and the other is a way to give. I mean, this finding/losing comparison. So for a person to find his life is the selfish way, and for a person to lose his life is a giving way.

So what He is saying here, in short, His concluding statement in verse 39 is that if you want to give your life selflessly, you are going to end up finding it. If you selfishly want to get life, in the end you are going to end up losing it.

Now, the only way to achieve that what you really want (and what you really want is that spiritual way and eternal life) is to commit yourself wholeheartedly.

Back in verse 38 He mentions the word cross again.

Matthew 10:38 “And he who does not take his cross and follow after Me is not worthy of Me.”

Again, by comparing other scriptures, you will find that there are three words that are used for carrying something. The one word is “burden,” the other word is “cross,” and the final word is “thorn.”

Now, you will find that they are used consistently in the same way. A burden, in the biblical sense, is the inevitable load that one faces just simply from being alive. You know, the load of life. That is about the best way I can think of—the thing that everybody's going to have. If there is a depression, we go through the depression. If there is inflation, we go through inflation. If there is a terrible rainstorm, we go through the rainstorm; everybody goes through it. It does not matter whether you are a carnal or spiritual, it does not matter whether you have God's Spirit or not. If there is an earthquake, everybody is affected. So those are the normal burdens of life.

The thorn is used in the sense of an affliction that generally only comes on one person at one time. For instance, Paul had a thorn in the flesh, and it was an affliction that specifically came to him.

Now, in this case, the afflictions may not always be the same within a congregation. Some might be afflicted with poverty at some time in their life; others may be afflicted with the pain of disease; others may be afflicted with some other problem.

The cross is always used in a sense of self-denial. It cuts across the other two and is especially applicable in those situations that come upon you, specifically, as a result of being a Christian.

Matthew 10:40-42 "He who receives you receives Me, and he who receives Me receives Him who sent Me. He who receives a prophet in the name of a prophet shall receive a prophet's reward. And he who receives a righteous man in the name of a righteous man shall receive a righteous man's reward. And whoever gives one of these little ones only a cup of cold water in the name of a disciple, assuredly, I say to you, he shall by no means lose his reward."

One thing that you want to make sure in interpreting these three verses here, is that the reward goes to a person who does what he does because he recognizes that the person he is serving is a servant of God. I do not mean that he would deny the same service to somebody who was not a servant of God, but I want you to see that it is a service that is performed for one of God's representatives with the knowledge that person is a representative of God.

See, he that receives a prophet in the name of a prophet, he knows that person is a prophet, and the implication is a prophet of God, not just any old prophet, but he knows that he is a prophet of God, and that he will receive a prophet's reward.

Now, let us say, that the prophet Elijah is going to be rewarded with a tremendous position in God's Kingdom. That he is going to be over all of the educational features of the government in the World Tomorrow. Now, does that mean if you give a cup of cold water or serve the prophet that you are also going to be over all the educational systems in the World Tomorrow? That does not make logical sense, does it. How could two men occupy one position? That is not logical at all.

But what he is driving at here is that the person who serves this person knowingly is going to share with that person that reward. It is not that he is going to receive exactly the same one, but he is going to share in that reward.

Let us begin to draw this a little bit more finely. In the entire context of the chapter, we find that He is talking about service in the work of God, is He not? He is talking about apostles; He is talking about what He wanted the apostles to do. And He is talking about the persecution that is going to come upon the apostles as a result of their doing this work. Then slowly, as we progress toward the end of the chapter, he begins to draw others who are not apostles into the persecution. Anybody can receive persecution from their family as a result of following Christ. That is not limited to an apostle.

You see, now you and I are a part of the picture; you and I are supporting the work of the apostle. We are fulfilling a responsibility within the work. That is why it is understood in verses 40-42 that you know that this person that you are serving is a representative of God, and that you are in the process of giving your life over to that service. He that finds his life will lose it, and he that loses his life will find it. Loses his life for what? For the same cause as Christ did. And Christ's representative is the apostle.

What He is telling us very specifically is that as a result of our service to the apostle, we are going to share in his reward. This is why Gerald Waterhouse goes around saying, “We are going to do this.” Once we can determine what Mr. Armstrong is going to do, then we, because we are working in the same work, are extremely likely to be involved in exactly the same work, because we are going to share in his reward.

Now, as best has been able to be determined, they feel that since he has come in the spirit of Elijah, that he, along with John the Baptist will be assisting Elijah. And Elijah, we feel very strongly, based upon the little bit of evidence there is in the Scriptures, plus what Mr. Armstrong is doing, will be responsible for the educational systems in the World Tomorrow. So what are you going to be involved in? If you are sharing the prophet’s reward, you are going to be involved in education.

Now, as Mr. Waterhouse said, that is no mean task. That is probably the single most important department in the government of God, because it is the one that is going to make all the other ones work.

You see, you could give Abraham and David and those people who are going to be involved, let us say, in direct rulership, you could give them power and they could rule. But what good is it if they are ruling over people who do not know what direction they are supposed to head with their lives, and do not know how to implement the things that are being told to them?

So you see, just understanding this principle that it is going to be a great, wonderful responsibility. We are going to probably be working with more people on a personal relationship than any of those others. That is going to be an invaluable work in educating the great hordes of people, the great numbers of people who are going to be added to the government of God later on. (Hordes: maybe that is not a good word. Sounds like China, or Manchuria, or something like that.) So we are going to share in that very important principle to understand.

Now, please understand, too, that what is being done is not just a passing kindness. It is a work.

Matthew 10:40 "He who receives you receives Me, and he who receives Me receives Him who sent Me.”

You see, we have received Mr. Armstrong as God's representative, and in so doing, we have received God. Now we received him as God's apostle. And as a result of that, we have responded and joined him in the work. It is not just a passing nicety that we have done for him, like give him a drink of water. We have joined him in the work. As a result, then, we are going to share in his reward.

Now, He draws it even more finely down to a righteous man. And then from there He goes on to say the little ones. The little ones here, of course, are the lay members in the church. He is talking the acts of service that we do for one another. God will not forget those acts of service, as it says back in Hebrews 10, our labor of love. We will receive a reward for those things. So He draws it all the way down to you and me, the little ones are the children of the faith. He shows that we should respond to these people very warmly, graciously, and wholeheartedly.

Let us go on to chapter 11.

We will sort of give you a title for this chapter. We have given you titles for the other ones, so that we can keep you on course. Actually, I guess we could put here as the subject, John the Baptist, because he occupies a great deal of the lessons that are taught here. He goes on to something else toward the end. But we will just say for the sake of making it simple, that the subject material here is John the Baptist.

Matthew 11:1-6 Now it came to pass, when Jesus finished commanding His twelve disciples, that He departed from there to teach and to preach in their cities. And when John had heard in prison about the works of Christ, he sent two of his disciples and said to Him, "Are You the Coming One, or do we look for another?" Jesus answered and said to them, "Go and tell John the things which you hear and see: The blind see and the lame walk; the lepers are cleansed and the deaf hear; the dead are raised up and the poor have the gospel preached to them. And blessed is he who is not offended because of Me."

We find from Matthew 4:12 that John's ministry had already ended. John paid the price for being willing to tell the truth. What had occurred was that Herod Antipas, who was the king, or the Tetrarch as it says in the Bible, somebody who had been appointed king by the Caesar, had come into the area, and he had taken away or seduced his brother's wife and he was now living in adultery with this woman. And apparently everybody knew it, but nobody wanted to point the finger at the king. But John did. And of course, you can read that in other areas that John did. Of course, we know that he eventually lost his head for that.

Now, he had been put in prison and held there for a while. And apparently, I do not really know how long of a period of time there was between chapter 4 and chapter 11, but enough of a period of time that while John was sitting there in prison, he began to have thoughts regarding Christ. And so he came up with this question.

Now, I think we need to ask, why would somebody like John the Baptist have a question like this? Here he was, Jesus’ cousin, and apparently to some degree anyway, a witness of at least a small amount of Jesus preaching. At least he knew Him as someone who was a member of his family who was brilliant in terms of biblical understanding, because Jesus really did not begin His formal ministry until after John was put in prison.

But yet whenever Jesus appeared to him, and John baptized him, John knew immediately who it was, and the words that came out of his mouth were, “Look, I need to be baptized of You.”

Now, there is a little bit of a catch there because it is apparent really that God gave John the Baptist a sign as to which one was going to be the Messiah. Of course, that was the dove that came down and rested on His shoulder. And then John knew that this was the One who was the Messiah. Maybe, if it had not been for that, he might not have known either.

Here are four reasons that it might be possible why John would ask this.

Number one, he was pretty sure he was going to lose his head. Does not a person who knows he is going to lose his head want to know that everything is right between him and God? And so it is quite possible that he just wanted to make sure.

Number two, maybe he did not have any doubts at all. Maybe he was asking the question for the sake of his disciples. Maybe they had been questioning him about things, and he said, “Look, go ask Him for yourself, and tell Him that I sent you. Then you will hear it out of His own mouth. That is a possibility.

Number three (maybe this one is a little bit far out, but it is just a possibility. I think maybe this is the weakest one of the four.), perhaps it was the question of a man who was really just beginning to understand the import of what he had been a part of. I mean, the far-reaching understanding. Remember it says that until John the law was preached, meaning that John did not preach the gospel. It ended with John. So now maybe the real impact of what he had participated in was just beginning to dawn on him, and what a unique place in history that he occupied, and what an important role he had fulfilled: Here was the very Messiah! And he was just beginning to appreciate it, having had a lot of time to meditate in prison.

Number four (this might be the strongest one), and that is, it is entirely possible that John misunderstood Jesus’ mission. You know that the Jews were all looking for a conquering Messiah who was going to come and kick the Romans out, and establish the government of God in Judea, and then would follow the things that are written in Isaiah 11 and Isaiah 35, and other things of that nature. We would have the beginning of the Millennium after the Messiah returned and put down all foreign rule.

So he, too, could have been a victim of a misunderstanding of the Scriptures and he wanted to clear that up, and was maybe impatient to see the setting up of the kingdom. You know, even Jesus’ apostles, after being with Him for three and a half years, listening to Him teach and preach, they still said in Acts 1, “Is it time, now, to set up the Kingdom?” Surely John could have misunderstood too. I think that is a very strong possibility.

Now in verse 6, this was the verse I mentioned earlier, that it is easy to get offended at the Word of God. And I think maybe this gives us an indication, maybe that fourth reason might have been the one, because he says, “And blessed is he who is offended because of Me.” Is it possible that he recognized in John the impatience of somebody who misunderstood, and was beginning to become offended because Christ was not setting up the Kingdom? Maybe John was beginning to think that this was not the Messiah after all. Maybe he had followed the wrong one, or understood the wrong things, and was beginning to have some bitter feelings? I think that is certainly a possibility. I know from what I read in other parts of this very same book that one of the reasons that the Jews put Jesus to death was because they misunderstood. They thought that they were looking for a conquering hero to come, rather than a Savior. And so they were offended.

In John 6, and in John 8, are two very clear examples of how easily one can become offended at the Word of God.

In John 6 Jesus preached about how He was going to have to shed His blood. Then He symbolically mentioned how that unless a person drank His blood, and ate of His flesh, that person had no part in Him. And when He was done saying that a whole bunch of people left Him. That is when He asked His disciples, “Do you also want to go away?” because these others had become offended at what He said.

I know from my own personal experience that my dad read those scriptures, and he got offended by them, because he told me about it. He could not understand it. I mean, he was as carnal as a jackrabbit.

In John 8 it begins talking about how Jesus was talking away there. And while He was talking, it says many of the Jews believed on Him. But the conversation continued. The first thing you know, those same Jews that believed on Him were picking up rocks to throw at Him, and kill Him. They took offense when He told them that they were sons of Satan. That was the Word of God and they took offense at it.

Now, God's ministers do not ever call you sons of Satan, but it is easy to get offended at something that we say; hopefully what we say is true. I am not going to say it is going to be as true as what Jesus said, but I know that I have gotten offended at what some ministers have said, had to repent of it, because I usually found out they were right, and I did not know any better.

Let us go on to verse 7.

Matthew 11:7-11 As they departed, Jesus began to say to the multitudes concerning John: "What did you go out into the wilderness to see? A reed shaken by the wind? But what did you go out to see? A man clothed in soft garments? Indeed, those who wear soft clothing are in kings' houses. But what did you go out to see? A prophet? Yes, I say to you, and more than a prophet. For this is he of whom it is written: 'Behold, I send My messenger before Your face, who will prepare Your way before You.' "Assuredly, I say to you, among those born of women there has not risen one greater than John the Baptist; but he who is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he.”

That was an extraordinary tribute! I do not know what greater tribute could be given to any human being to say what He did about John the Baptist. I know I would be mighty pleased for my Savior to say that about me, because that would put me right up there. I would really be in the eyes of my God as one of the great ones who have ever walked on the face of this earth.

Do not misunderstand though. He did not say that John the Baptist was the greatest. He said that there was none greater. He used a comparative, not superlative. He used a comparative which leaves room to understand that he was on the same level as Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, David, Samuel, and the other prophets. You see, he just said there were none greater. It does not say that John the Baptist was the greatest, there was just none greater. So he very diplomatically ranked him on the same level as the other great men of God. But still, that is extraordinary.

That puts him greater than Alexander the Great, Peter the Great, Catherine the Great, and even greater than Ronald Reagan, or maybe Franklin Roosevelt. But at any rate, he was a great man, John the Baptist was.

Let us think about John the Baptist for a minute. Here is our Creator saying that there was none greater. There were prophets of God—men of God—who had done mighty miracles. Elijah was a man who did many miracles; Elisha did even more than Elijah did. Yet John the Baptist never did one miracle. There is no miracle attributed to John. He never healed anybody; never raised anybody from the dead; no fire came down out of heaven; he did not make iron float; did not part the waters of the Red Sea; he did nothing, except that he was an extraordinary preacher. He was a man who was gifted with his tongue. He powerfully and effectively preached, and led the way to Christ.

Now that ought to tell you that greatness is not measured by the miracles done. God does not measure greatness that way. He measures it in terms of character, in terms of righteousness. Do not always be looking for a man of God to do miracles, because he may not; miracles are something that can be done by Satan the Devil through men. You can read that very clearly out of the same books as I can: Revelation 13, II Thessalonians 2, and in Deuteronomy 13, how that God warned through Moses, even way back then, not to be misled by miracles. We should not expect miracles from a prophet of God, because of and by itself, it is not a sign. That would include the apostles as well, because here we have a man who was on the level with all of the other great men of God, and he never did a miracle. You know, Abraham never did a miracle either; neither did Isaac; neither did David. Most of the men of God did not do miracles—just a very few like Elijah and Elisha; Isaiah did one or two—there were some healings involved with Isaiah.

So do not be misled by those things, because miracles are not a proof of and by themselves. What God told Moses was, “Does he teach the keeping of the commandments?” That is the thing that has to be looked at.

Here was this great personage who lived at the same time as these people to whom Jesus was speaking. This great personage, of course, was John the Baptist. These people were familiar with him. And so Jesus began firing these questions. Well, what did you go out to see? It is very interesting that word “see” is the Greek word for theater. And it is almost as if He was saying, “Were you going out looking for a show?” There are a lot of people who do that. They go from one traveling evangelist to another. They want to see what kind of a show he is going to put on. “So, were you people going out to look at a bit of theater, here?” So He starts asking them more pointed questions? “Well, did you go out to see a reed blowing in the wind?” A reed was really nothing more than a common piece of grass; a tall grass, somewhat like the swamp grass that we have around here, used for decorative purposes.

But there is another mystical meaning to it, because it is used biblically to indicate somebody who is a vacillating person; that every time the wind blows, it leans in the direction that the wind is going in. So if the wind blows in this direction, it leans this way, if the wind blows in that direction, it leans that way. Well, everybody knows that John the Baptist was not that way. Every indication was that John the Baptist was a hard bitten (I mean, that is the approach you seem to get) person who lived out in the desert who was accustomed to all kinds of hardship; he did not vacillate one bit. He had a backbone made out of steel. That is the impression you get. So you did not see a reed blowing in the wind, somebody who was changed by every opinion that came down the road.

Then the next thing He said, “Well, did you go out to see a man who was dressed real nice? What did you expect when you got out there?” He said, “John the Baptist was not dressed that way. If you want to see people dressed real nice, you go to see a Cordier (I guess you call it or a courtier), somebody who is a “yes” man for the king. And he just kind of follows the king around, and he is real fawning in his attitude toward the king: always saying, “Yes, Lord! That’s a good idea! Yes, Lord! That’s a great idea! I’ve never heard anything so funny! That’s a great idea! That’s a fine idea! Let’s put it into practice right away!” You see, somebody that always agrees with you.

Well, apparently John the Baptist did not agree with very many people.

Finally, He said, “Did you go out to see a prophet? Well, you saw more than a prophet.”

What He meant here was a unique individual who had a message from God. “Before the coming day of the Lord, I will send My messenger before your face.” He was saying, “Look, this man was unique.” That is why He drew attention to that.

And so He said, “Look, this was the Elijah to come.”

Now, for all of John's greatness, Jesus said, “He that is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he.” That for all of John's human greatness, for all that he achieved on earth in preparing the way before Christ, and the work that he did for God before the Jews there, that anybody who is born again into the Family of God is greater than John the Baptist. Any spirit being in the Kingdom of God is greater than the great John the Baptist.

There is also another little lesson there. It says, he that is least in the kingdom of heaven. It shows that there is going to be rank in the kingdom of heaven, that some will be greater than others. And of course, this is confirmed by I Corinthians 15, that we will all be brothers and sisters, we will all be the same in God's Family, even as we are the same in the human family. We are all human beings. But even as there are some who have greater power and authority, here, there will also be some in the Kingdom of God who have will have greater power and authority.

Matthew 11:12-15 “And from the days of John the Baptist until now the kingdom of heaven suffers violence, and the violent take it by force. For all the prophets and the law prophesied until John. And if you are willing to receive it, he is Elijah who is to come. He who has ears to hear, let him hear!”

Now turn with me to Luke 16. And in verse 16, it says:

Luke 16:16 "The law and the prophets were until John. Since that time the kingdom of God has been preached, and everyone is pressing into it.”

This is Luke's account of the same general phrase. It is not exactly the same, though. And because it is not exactly the same, it very likely changes the meaning of it somewhat. The phrase uses the same words except that it interchanges a couple of them. And in so doing, we have slightly different modifiers. That is why it does not appear the same in the English, even though the same general words are used.

In Luke 16:16 the force of the verse is that it is going to take a great deal of energy for a person to make it into the Kingdom of God; that we are going to have to expend a great deal of effort. From this, we can derive the meaning that it is not the people who are well intentioned, or well meaning who are going to be in the Kingdom of God. it is those who are desperate to attain it, who have a desperation about them, “I have got to make it” approach, who are willing to expend the same kind of effort as if their very life depended upon them climbing the mountain that they are hanging on, you might say. And so they are willing to hang by their fingernails and crawl their way to the top. Now, that is the direction of the words in Luke 16:16.

Matthew 11:12 uses the same general words, but the phraseology is changed a little bit. And in so doing the force of the verse is that the Kingdom of God itself suffers violence. Remember the chapter preceding, He was talking about persecution. Now, here in this chapter, we are talking about John the Baptist. And John the Baptist was a representative of that Kingdom. What was John the Baptist doing at that time? Well, he was languishing in prison, and he was about to have his head chopped off. And so, our representative of the Kingdom of God was about to be dealt with very violently.

Now, we can go back to that parable in Luke 20 of the man who owned the vineyard, and how that he loaned it out to some people who rented it. And he kept sending his representatives, and the representatives kept being rejected. Finally, he said, “Well, I will send my son and they will hear him,” and they killed him.

Of course, that vineyard was the earth. And God rented it out, as it were, to us. The representatives that He was sending were the prophets. And the prophets all were treated roughly, and many of them were put to death. And so, the representatives of the Kingdom of God kept being rejected and being killed. That is why He is saying that from the days of John the Baptist until now, the kingdom of heaven suffers violence.

It just continues that way, because right on out, Jesus of course, was killed; the apostles were killed, all except John. The church of God has been persecuted violently in many cases in its entire history.

And then, when he says, “For all the prophets and the law prophesied until John,” He simply means that the prophecies show this, that the prophets of God were persecuted people, and prophesy of the violence that is going to be done to God's representatives.

And then in verse 14,

Matthew 11:14-15 And if you are willing to receive it, he is Elijah who is to come. He who has ears to hear, let him hear!”

That was something that was directed mostly at those people within hearing distance, because if John was Elijah, He was saying, “Who am I?” He was saying in an indirect way, “I am the Messiah.” And if you have ears to hear you better listen close.

Matthew 11:16-19 "But to what shall I liken this generation? It is like children sitting in the marketplaces and calling to their companions, and saying: 'We played the flute for you, and you did not dance; we mourned to you, and you did not lament.' For John came neither eating nor drinking, and they say, 'He has a demon.' The Son of Man came eating and drinking, and they say, 'Look, a glutton and a winebibber, a friend of tax collectors and sinners!' But wisdom is justified by her children."

He is still talking about, or teaching with John the Baptist in the forethought of the words. Now John the Baptist was an entirely different personality than Jesus. He was apparently a man who had spent a large number of years in the desert; a hardened, hard-bitten personality; a man who was rough, if I can put it that way.

I sometimes get the picture of a mountain man. You ever seen any pictures of any mountain man from out in the Old West? I do not think John was quite that extreme, but he certainly was not a man who was accustomed to the delicacies of, we will just call it refined living. He did not court the favor of kings, and he was not a man who apparently ever owned very much. And it is quite possible that he was even dressed very roughly.

Now, in addition to that, his personality—everything that he was—projected entirely the opposite almost of Jesus; that he projected the background from which he came.

Jesus, on the other hand, was a person who was accustomed to crowds; He apparently was a man who was gregarious; outgoing; loved to have a lot of people around Him; loved to be involved in parties [groups]; was a friend of people from the bottom of society to the top of society. Everybody recognized that He was a man who ate good meals and drank good wine.

So we have a very distinct clear-cut contrast between these two men of God, who lived and worked in the same area at roughly the same time. Of course, John preached, and then he stopped, and then Jesus picked up, but it was all within the same generation. So the same people who listened to Jesus, also listened to John and they could make a comparison between the two.

Now, what did Jesus say here? He said that man is perverse. He is saying that no matter what God does, He can send all different kinds of personalities, but you just cannot please men. If you send somebody who is gregarious and friendly, people say, “Well, what does He want? What’s He out to get? How come He’s associating with those people? Look at that guy! He’s going to dances; he’s drinking wine; He cannot be a man of God. No, Nazarite would do anything like that. Well, look at that fellow! He’s working on the Sabbath! He healed that person!”

Now here comes old blood and guts, John the Baptist, and you see, they found fault with him. He was too rough; he was too hard; his voice was too hard; he shouted too much; he could not be anybody; he grew up out in the desert; look at his clothes; look how rough they are; he eats locusts.

What He is saying, is, “Look, if you want to find fault, you can find fault.” And that is the way man is. He looks at things negatively.

It was so obvious with Jesus that this is the way man is, that Jesus could do a miracle and people hated Him for it! That is how perverse man is.

You know, the same thing is happening to us. We tell people that they ought to be keeping the commandments of God, and they do not like it. They will fight with us over it, because all we want them to do is to keep the commandments and they will find reasons for not agreeing.

Matthew 11:19 “But wisdom is justified by her children.”

What He is saying there is that God is wise beyond our ability to understand, and God is backing man into a corner in every aspect of life. And when this thing is all done, you are going to see how God has tried everything; He has tried everything that man could come up with in reasons to reject the Word of God. And God is going to say, “Well, I tried this here. I tried that there. I did this thing over here. I sent this kind of personality. I sent that kind of personality. I sent shepherds, I sent farmers, I sent princes, I sent somebody who was born of a virgin. And no matter what I did, you rejected it.” And you know what? Events are going to prove God right!

That is what He means. Wisdom, that is, the way that God has chosen to do it, and that was wisdom, is going to be justified by what it produces, see what we produce as children, or by the fruit that it produces.

And the way God did it is going to, in the end, produce a lot more fruit.

I will tell you, when this thing all comes to pass, there is going to be an awful lot of weeping and gnashing of teeth, and deep, deep repentance. People kicking themselves in the seat of their pants for coming up with these stupid objections.

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.

You see, this follows right on the heels of what He just said. “You people,” He said, “cannot be satisfied. You are perverse. No matter what God does, you find fault with it.” And so then from there, He just extended it out into a curse against these cities:

Matthew 11:21-24 "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. But I say to you, it will be more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon in the day of judgment than for you. 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. But I say to you that it shall be more tolerable for the land of Sodom in the day of judgment than for you."

Now, all three of these cities were grouped in one area on the western and northwestern shore of the Sea of Galilee. Capernaum was the southernmost of these cities, and it is obviously the city from which Jesus conducted His ministry. It was His headquarters, not Jerusalem, Capernaum. That is why it says that “who are exalted to heaven.” The very seat of the government of God on earth, which was represented by Jesus Christ, was in Capernaum. There they have God in the flesh, right in their midst, and they rejected it. Now Chorazin was a city about an hour's walk away, north and east of Capernaum. And then Bethsaida was about another hour's walk away, situated right at the mouth of the Jordan River where the Jordan emptied into [began from] the Sea of Galilee. [It empties into the Dead Sea.]

Believe it or not, these two cities saw more of His mighty works than all the others. It says most of His mighty works had been done there. Do you know that there is not one thing recorded in the gospels about what He did there? I believe that it has been purposely left out. And yet most of His work had been done there. Most of His miracles, the healings, casting out of demons, making lame people walk, in addition to that a great number of sermons and evangelistic campaigns that He held in those areas. And yet, you know what? They did not repent!

Now where it says, “Woe,” you might think that it is the cry of a bitter and angry person. But really the word is better translated into English, “Alas!” It is actually a wail, or a cry of sorrow, because of their rejection of the tremendous gifts that they had received. It is the kind of cry that a person makes when he cannot quite figure out why he is being rejected.

It is not that He is bitter. All He is trying to do is serve. And here are your best intentions, and all your best motivations are being turned down and rejected. It is sort of like unrequited love. That is why He felt like, “I can’t figure it out. Why are they doing it?” Well, it is part of this perverseness.

Let us start figuring out what was their problem. This has a very vivid and powerful application to you and me. Even though it does not say it here, do you know what He is saying? He says, “to whom much is given much is required.” Here was Capernaum, which was the very base of His operations. Here was Chorazin and Bethsaida in which most of His mighty works had been done. Nobody on earth ever saw anything like those people did. They had been given more insight into the character and nature of God than any other people had ever been blessed with in all of the history of man. And in that sense, they received more than anybody else.

Well, to whom much is given much is required. So what they were doing is forgetting their privilege. Another way of putting it is that they were indifferent to their privilege.

Let us turn that into something spiritual because it has application: Is there any record anywhere that the people of Chorazin or of Bethsaida drove Jesus out of their city? No, there is no record of them doing that. But neither did they accept it. They accepted His miracles, but they did not accept His message—did not accept Him or His message. So apparently, they did not persecute Him and neither did they crucify Him. They simply disregarded Him, they neglected Him.

Here it begins to get very personal, because Paul says in Hebrews 2 that we better be careful that we do not neglect so great salvation. And then he goes on to say about two verses later that this is the very thing that ancient Israel did. They neglected it. They just let it dissipate away.

Now, if we follow that principle out, what we find very clearly spelled out in Revelation 3 is a people who are just like that. Did the Laodiceans reject Christ? They did not reject Him, but neither were they for Him either.

What did Jesus say to those people? He said, “I would rather that you be cold or hot than the way you are—just kind of floating along in the middle, just kind of drifting.”

Here is a people, the Laodiceans who have the privilege of knowing the truth of God. They have everything that they need for salvation and yet they are neglecting. They are not crucifying Christ. They are not rejecting Him. They are disregarding. That is the Laodicean’s problem. They are just, “Ho-hum. Come see, come saw.” You see, they are not really desperate for the Kingdom of God.

You see, here we have come to another admonition, but the only way we are going to make it through this thing is to put forth the effort to do it. And we better not be like Chorazin. There are no people on the face of the earth that have received more in spiritual gifts and understanding than we have.

Now, do we fit the description of Chorazin, Bethsaida, or Capernaum? We have been exalted to heaven! Nobody has what we have. Nobody knows what God is working out on this earth but us. Nobody has God's Spirit to work with but us. We have so much more than anybody else—any other religious organization on the face of this earth—of the things that really matter, eternal things; spiritual things; truth.

Are we going to be like Chorazin or Bethsaida, and just kind of let it slip through our fingers through neglect? You see, we will not fight Christ. We are more likely just simply to disregard Him, and just let it drift away.

So back to what I said earlier about that verse there in Luke 16:16. It is not the well intentioned, it is not the drifters who are going to be in the Kingdom of God. It is going to be those who are desperate about getting there, that are willing to make the violent efforts necessary to be there.

Matthew 11:25-27 At that time Jesus answered and said, "I thank You, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that You have hidden these things from the wise and prudent and have revealed them to babes. Even so, Father, for so it seemed good in Your sight. All things have been delivered to Me by My Father, and no one knows the Son except the Father. Nor does anyone know the Father except the Son, and the one to whom the Son wills to reveal Him.”

What we are dealing with here are two different kinds of people—the wise and the prudent, and the babes.

Now you and I are babes because God, as it says, has not called many of the wise out of this world. This is not in any way any kind of a putting down by Jesus of people who have intellectual power, of great mental capacity. But what He is putting down here is intellectual vanity—people who are taken with their position or their accomplishments. They are very deeply involved, really wrapped up in it. As a result, they have a great deal of pride regarding it.

Those people are the most difficult of all peoples to turn aside from the direction in which they are headed, because they are so wrapped up in their specialty, their specific area of expertise, they tend to be narrow people. They are like a ship that you cannot get turned around very rapidly like the Queen Mary; very ponderous about turning from one direction to another.

What God has chosen—He has deliberately done it at this time in His work—to work with people who are not deeply set in the direction of their life. And so, God has tended to call people who are in the middle area of the social scale—the middle and lower areas. He has tended not to call people who are the top strata. And neither has He tended to call people who are from the very bottom either. The people on the very bottom are just as bad mentally and attitudinally as the people at the very top. It is just that they are going in different directions. But the people in the middle are able to make adjustments, to change their minds; their minds are more pliable, more easily worked with, more agreeable, more acceptable; and not only that, they are capable actually of greater accomplishment in a shorter period of time, simply because their capacity has not really been reached yet.

And so, these are the people—the babes of the world—that God has chosen to work with. I will tell you, we need to thank God for that because He could have chosen others, but He chose to do it this way. You see, that no flesh with glory in His sight.

And when it is all over, the people who were at the top are going to recognize, “Hey, we didn’t build such a good world, did we? We didn’t do such a good job. It came to a crashing end.”

The people in the middle—us—are going to recognize, we did not do anything. We were just alive, and God called us, and He made something out of us! If we had been left on our own, nothing would have been accomplished.

And the people on the bottom are going to know they did not do anything either, because they were not doing anything when times were good.

So it is going to all work out to God's glory. You can be thankful; you were kind of in the middle. Mr. Pleshette used to always say that we were the cream of the crud. Pretty descriptive. You see that was right. We are the top of the crud.

Matthew 11:28-30 Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For My yoke is easy and My burden is light."

This labor here does not mean the kind of work that a person does to earn a living. It does not mean what a housewife does in the operations of her home. It has to do with the pursuit of spiritual values; of the pursuit of truth; that people who are really burdened with that. And there are a lot of people who do seek truth. I do not know whether they are entirely honest in it. But they do seek that. And so people become exhausted, because anybody who tries to use their mind in the pursuit of the true values, eventually recognizes that it is virtually impossible. It is futile to come up with a good system.

And so really this is instruction for you and me, that we should come and look at Him, “Come to Me.” If you want to know how to become unburdened, then look at Christ's life. That is what He is talking about. “Come to Me, all you that labor,” who are burdened with this pursuit, “and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you.”

This phrase, “take my yoke” is a Hebraism; it is an idiom that they used that means “to come and be submissive to” because they used oxen as a beast of burden, as a draft animal for pulling plows. And in order to do these things, they attached a yoke upon their necks and by the yoke, they gave them both guidance and a certain amount of weight of pulling the wagon or whatever it was that the oxen was pulling, was on the yoke.

Now, a yoke could be either roughly made, or tailor-made. He is talking here about a yoke that is fitted exactly for you. It is as if you are the beast of burden, you are the oxen.

What Jesus is promising here is this: “If you come to Me and you will submit to Me” (here comes that admonition again to be totally committed), that is, take My yoke upon you, I am not going to relieve the burdens of living. You are still going to have to live in this world. The load is still going to be there, but I am going to show you a way of living that will remove the difficulties that the others in the world have to face.”

Now, this tailor-made yoke has something to do with that, because if the yoke did not properly fit the oxen, then it would chafe them, and they would get big calluses, and big scars on their shoulders as a result of the yoke rubbing them where it should not have rubbed.

Apply that to you and me. It is as though Jesus is saying, “Everybody on earth is carrying a burden. Everybody has a yoke on them, but some people's yokes do not fit. And as a result, the burden they are carrying seems to be a great deal heavier than it is, because it is wearing away at them, and they are chafing, and maybe they are bleeding (I was talking symbolically) they are getting all calloused up, and it hurts for them.”

Now, “If you come to Me,” He says, “I am going to fit a way of life to you that even though you are going to be burdened, it is not going to hurt you like that. You will still have to carry a load. But your yoke is going to be tailor made for you.”

You can get very specific about this, because does He not say back in I Corinthians 10, “I'm not going to give you any burden that is greater than you can stand.” He will fit your life to your capabilities. And what you are capable of bearing, that He will put on you. But He will give you nothing that will destroy you in the meantime. So he says, “For My yoke is easy and My burden [comparatively] is light.”

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