Exposition of the Gospel of Matthew (Matthew 11:16-19)

February 9, 2021

(How Israel Rejected Jesus)

Questions to be answered in this study

1. Where did the first significant division take place in the gospel of Matthew?
2. What event created the division?
3. What were the three primary reasons Israel rejected Jesus as the Messiah?
4. How could Israel and the events of today be compared to the events of the tower of Bable?
5. What is the difference between the Kingdom of God and the Kingdom of Heaven?
6. What did Jesus mean when He said, “He that has ears to hear, let him hear”?
7. What did Jesus mean when He said that “wisdom is vindicated by her deeds?”
8. What do our deeds reveal about us?
9. Why is it not feasible to compare drinking today with wine in the Old and New Testaments?
10. How does the number of Jewish believers today compare with those of the Gentiles?
11. Why is the term religion not a good term today?
12. How many languages are there today due to the tower of Bable?

Introduction

We are not there yet, but when we come to chapter 12, we will see Israel’s formal rejection of Jesus. Because of this rejection, there is a significant division between chapter 12 and chapter 13. It is difficult to understand why Israel would be so blind as to reject their promised Messiah when there was so much evidence that He was their true Messiah. Matthew recorded things that Jesus said and did that could be nothing less than empowered by God in heaven.

It is not hard to understand rejection at times. A wife constantly beaten by her husband has every right to reject him. However, there was no logical or acceptable reason for Israel to reject Jesus. There was no flaw in His teachings and no tangible evidence that He was not the Messiah.

However, Matthew sums up three reasons for the rejection: First, the hard hearts of the people; second, the false teachings of their leaders, the scribes, and the Pharisees. Later in chapter 12, we see the third reason: Jesus refused to recognize the rabbinical instructions because they were false.

In the last chapter of the narrative, Jesus rebuked the crowds for following John and Himself for the wrong reasons, which He summed up in verse 14. He said if they had believed John, he could have been their Elijah, and the Kingdom would be theirs; this was a reference to the Old Testament, where Elijah would return before the establishment of the Kingdom. John announced Christ’s first coming, and Elijah will announce His second coming.

Their rejection of Jesus and His Kingdom robbed Israel of receiving the Kingdom in their day. The present is an intermission period stretching out for nearly 2,000 years from the time of Christ, in which God calls out His church. When the church age ends, Jesus will return and set up the millennial Kingdom.

In the final verse, verse 15, of the previous chapter of the narrative, Jesus said, “He that has ears to hear, let him hear.” That means some refused to hear, but some will, and those are the ones to which Jesus is turning His attention. 

Now Matthew records Jesus’ words that gives some comparisons to Israel’s rejection:

Matthew 11:16-19, “But whereunto shall I liken this generation? It is like unto children sitting in the markets, and calling unto their fellows, 17And saying, We have piped unto you, and ye have not danced; we have mourned unto you, and ye have not lamented. 18For John came neither eating nor drinking, and they say, He hath a devil. 19The Son of man came eating and drinking, and they say, Behold a man gluttonous, and a winebibber, a friend of publicans and sinners. But wisdom is justified of her children.”

Jesus begins by asking, how could He compare this generation of Israel? Then He gives a comparison; at that time, while the parents shopped, the children would play pretend games, and if a child refused to play his part, it spoiled the game, so their peers put pressure on them to fulfill what was expected of them. In the comparison Jesus was using, the crowd was treating Him and John like children who broke the rules of their game of pretending. When the flute was played, they didn’t dance, and as they sang the funeral dirge, they didn’t mourn.

The game was designed so that when the leader initiates an action, others are expected to respond in a certain way. The game’s object was for the leader to catch the others unaware and perform the wrong response. For example, when they pretended to play the flute, the correct action was to dance, etc. So, the comparison Jesus is making is the Jewish crowds are like the complaining children who want everyone to play by their rules. Jesus and John, in the crowd’s minds, we’re like those children who refused to go along with their game of pretend. The rabbinical system was like a vast game of leaders and followers. The game had many rules that often changed and were sometimes contradictory, which kept the followers confused.

From Matthew, we have learned some about how the scribes and the Pharisees continually added to the law of Moses until the law was hardly recognizable. Over time the new rules were codified in the Mishna, which replaced Scripture as Jewish guidebook. So, by the time of Jesus, Judaism had become a religious system of artificial rules and laws, in some cases contrary to the Scripture. The big problem was the people had come to believe it was God’s way for them. The rabbis were in it for their gain, as some preachers today that tell their television audience to send their money to them, and God will bless them.

In verse 18, Jesus describes John as a man who fasted and refrained from drinking wine to commit himself entirely to his ministry. On the other hand, Jesus did not fast often and did drink wine; whether fermented or not cannot be proven, and if it were fermented, it would be mild compared to today’s alcoholic drinks. The point is that the Pharisees did not accept either John or Jesus regardless of what they did.

If people today want to us drinking wine in the time of the Old and New Testaments as a reference to make drinking acceptable, they are wrong. Here is just one biblical reason: “It is good neither to eat flesh, nor to drink wine, nor any thing whereby thy brother stumbleth, or is offended or is made weak” (Romans: 14:2). There are many today who are offended by those who drink. Another reason for not making a comparison is the circumstances have changed from the first century; today alcohol has become an enormous drug problem in our society causing many issues including death.

When Jesus and John refused to dance to their flute or mourn at their funeral dirge, they accused them of ruining it for everyone. Jesus’ association with sinners was to lead them to peace and a saving knowledge, and for that, the so-called righteous were critical. The hypocritical Pharisees were a roadblock to heaven. Jesus was facing the opposition and the crowd’s hardened hearts. So, Jesus met a tremendous challenge in winning over the people, but that He did, not Israel as a nation but a remnant, and as a result of that remnant, the world today is receiving the gospel’s good news. Israel has always had a remanent who believed, even up until today. There is a more significant percentage of Jewish believers based on population than there are of gentiles.

Judaism had become a false religion ruled by the Pharisees, consisting of artificial rules, rituals, and creeds, which led its followers away from God rather than to Him. Today the very word religion has become a misguided term. In many cases, it is an attempt to lead men to God in a way other than laid down by Scripture, using a set of rules, creeds, and rituals. Religion becomes a game of pretending if it does not include faith in Jesus as Lord and savior. It is not a matter of our searching for God and finding Him; it is a matter of God reaching out to us through His Holy Spirit and inviting us to be a part of His eternal Kingdom. 

Many religions today lack the presence of God, therefore, are nothing more than religious clubs. For some reason, people like to try to find their way to heaven. As far back as the tower of Babel in Genesis 11:5, men were ignoring the Bible and creating their way to heaven: “And they said, Go to, let us build us a city and a tower, whose top may reach unto heaven; and let us make us a name, lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth. 5And the Lord came down to see the city and the tower, which the children of men builted” (Genesis 11:4-5). 

Any devised way to God other than that designated by Scripture is as ungodly as those who built the Tower of Babel hoping to reach heaven. God’s response to the foolish ways of man in that day was, He scrambled the language, and thus we have the answer as to why there are so many different languages in the world today. The Tower of Bable resulted in approximately 7,117 known languages spoken by people around the world. The same thing that happened at Babel happened to Israel. They had tried to establish their way to God. So, their false religion stood in the way when Jesus came and began to preach the truth. Instead of realigning with Jesus and the truth, they stood with the false teachers and their false path to the Kingdom of heaven.

No matter how hard man tries to build their way to God, only a relationship with God through His Son, Jesus Christ, will solve the problem of sin. Jesus paid it all with His death on the cross. Would God have sacrificed His own Son had there been another way? Jesus offered Israel a better way, a real relationship with God and heir to the Kingdom of heaven, and eternal life, but they rejected it. Have you ever tried to talk to someone in a cult? They, like Israel, have become brainwashed into a false religion, and it is nearly impossible to pull them away and introduce them to the Kingdom of Heaven. So it was with Israel.

John the Baptist said, “Repent ye: for the kingdom of heaven is at hand” (Matthew 3:2). What is the difference between the Kingdom of God and the Kingdom of heaven? The Kingdom of God refers to all of God’s creation, and the Kingdom of heaven is a specific place; at His second coming, Jesus will set up the world Kingdom, which will last for 1,000 years and leads into the heavenly age and the Kingdom of Heaven.

God’s way of salvation is by grace through faith (Ephesians 2:8-9).God’s way means turning away from self-righteousness, salvation by human works, acts of baptism, or anything in opposition to true salvation. Some are always unwilling to do things God’s way; that is why Jesus said unto them,“He that has ears let him hear.” Some had ears to hear and did accept Jesus.

The Pharisees made up their own rules and laws, changing them to meet their needs from time to time, and passing them down from generation to generation. The Christian principles based on Scripture never change. They are given to enhance our relationship with God and others. When leaders contradict the meaning of Scripture, we are not to follow them but turn away to that which is according to the Word of God. The Holy Spirit never leads us in the wrong direction. Jesus said that “their deeds vindicate wisdom;” that is, deeds reveal whether a person is directed by wisdom or not. Wisdom is of God and comes from God to those who seek it. Some say they trust in God, but their actions prove the opposite. You can’t trust in God for the outcome and then worry about what it will be. It is one way or the other. It is either trusting God or trusting self. 

What do you suppose the crowd saw in Jesus and John? They saw the genuine way they lived, sinless in Jesus’ case and upright in John’s case, honoring God above all things and expressing love to others. The crowd did not use wisdom. Therefore, their deeds revealed their trust in that which was false, blocking the way to God’s heavenly Kingdom and the rejection of their Messiah. Sometimes people are gullible and fall to the wrong views of false leaders who are of the devil, as were the Pharisees.

When Jesus talked to the Samaritan woman at the well, the woman was interested in getting her rules right, but Jesus was interested in getting her relationship right. A person trapped in false religion is concerned about the rules more than the relationship with God, so they become myopic. They can’t see the forest for the trees. The religious world is often caught up in rules and rituals, but true believers worship God in spirit and truth. It is not what you know or do but who you know and what you are. We were not renewed in Christ to be religious as was first-century Israel, but we are committed to a relationship with God through His Son, Jesus Christ, and to Him to make us into the person He created us to be.