Exposition of the Gospel of Matthew – Matthew 11:16-19

Written by Jimmie Burroughs

(How Israel Rejected Jesus)

Questions to be answered in this study

Our purpose for studying the gospel of Matthew or any other portion of Scripture is to learn so that we might grow closer to God; God gave us the Bible for our learning. “For whatsoever things were written aforetime were written for our learning,” Romans 15:4. It is amazing how little most church members know about the Bible. I know this to be true for I’ve been associated with church members for a very long time. I had a deacon friend once that amazed me of how little he knew about the Bible and it showed in his life because he was a very critical and disgruntle person who finally dropped out of church.

1. Where did the first major division take place in the gospel of Matthew?
2. What event created the division?
3. What were the three primary reasons Israel rejected Jesus?
4. Why did Jesus compare John to Elijah even though John said he was not Elijah?
5. What did Jesus mean when He said, “He that has ears to hear, let him hear”?
6. Why did Jesus liken Israel’s generation unto children sitting in the market place?
7. What was the difference in Jesus’ lifestyle and that of John?
8. Are the Jews today more or less inclined to salvation than the gentiles?
9. How is the tower of Babel to be compared to first century Israel and to many today?
10. What did John mean by, “Repent ye: for the kingdom of heaven is at hand”?
11. What is the difference in the Kingdom of God and the Kingdom of Heaven?
12. What did Jesus mean when He said in verse 10 “wisdom is vindicated by her deeds”?
13. If our actions are not a litmus test for our salvation, what is?

Introduction

We are not there yet but when we come to chapter 12, we will see the formal rejection of Jesus by the nation Israel. Because of this rejection, there is a major division that takes place between chapter 12 and chapter 13. In today’s study we see the approach to that.

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. All through our study of Matthew, we have witnessed the things Jesus has done and said that could be nothing less than empowered by God in heaven. It is not hard to understand rejection at times. A wife who is constantly beaten by her husband has every right to reject him. However, there was no acceptable reason for Israel to reject Jesus. There was no flaw to be found in His teachings. There was no tangible evidence that He was not the Messiah.

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 Pharisees. Later in chapter 12, we see a third reason, Jesus refused to recognize the rabbinical teachings. Why? because there were false.

In our last study Jesus rebuked the crowds for following John and Himself for the wrong reasons, which He summed up in verse 14 by saying 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 them of receiving the kingdom in their day. The time we now live in is an intermission period stretching out for nearly 2,000 years, in which God is calling out His church. When this time comes to an end, Jesus will return and set up the millennial Kingdom.

In the final verse, verse 15, of our last study, Jesus said, “He that has ears to hear, let him hear.” Some refused to hear but there was some who would and those are the ones Jesus is turning His attention to. So, now Matthew begins to explain the consequences for rejecting Jesus, in Jesus’ own words:

Matthew 11:16-19 ¹⁶“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, to what could He compare this generation of Israel?

In Florida, where I was staying once, they blocked of a street and set up a farmer’s market each weekend and people came there to buy fresh fruit and vegetables. In Israel, this was a common every day event. So, Jesus uses this comparison that was so familiar.

While the parents shopped, the children would play pretending 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.

The comparison Jesus was making is, 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 were expected to respond in a certain way. The object of the game was for the leader to catch the others unaware and therefore performing the wrong response. For example, when they pretended to play a flute the correct response was to dance, etc.

When some refuse to go along, the game was spoiled. 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, were like those children who refused to go along with their game of pretend. The whole rabbinical system was like a huge game made up of leaders and followers. The game had many rules that often changed and were sometimes contradictory, which kept the followers confused and tripped up.

In our study of Matthew, we have learned some about the way the scribes and the Pharisees were continually adding to the law of Moses until the law was hardly recognizable. Over time the new laws were codified in what is called the Mishna, which replaced Scripture as their guide book. So, by the time of Jesus, Judaism had become a religious system of manmade rules and laws, in some cases contrary to the Scripture. The big problem was, the people had become to believe it was God’s way for them. The rabbis were in it for their own gain like some preachers today who 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 in order to commit himself fully to his ministry.  On the other hand, Jesus did not fast often and did drink wine, whether fermented or not cannot be proven.

But the point is that the Pharisees did not accept either John or Jesus. If people today want to try and use this as a reference to make drinking acceptable, they are wrong. Here is just one 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.

The circumstances have changed from the first century until today when alcohol has become a huge drug problem in our society. Jesus’ association with sinners was in order to lead them to a saving knowledge, and for that, the so called righteous were critical. When Jesus and John refused to dance to their flute or mourn at their funeral dirge, they accused them ruining it for everyone.

The hypocritical Pharisees were a roadblock to heaven. Jesus was facing their opposition as well as the harden hearts of the crowds. So, Jesus faced a tremendous challenge in winning over His people, but that He did, not Israel as a nation but a remnant.  Israel has always had a remnant who believed, even today. There is a larger percentage of Jewish believers based on population than there is of gentiles.

Judaism was a false religion ruled by the Pharisees, made up of manmade rules, rituals and creeds, which led it followers away from God rather to Him.

The very word religion today has become a bad term. In many cases, it is an attempt to lead men to God in a way other than laid down by the Bible, using a set of rules, creeds and rituals.

Religion becomes only a game 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 are lacking the presence of God, therefore are nothing more than a religious club. For some reason, people like to find their own way to heaven. As far back as the tower of Babel in Genesis 11:5 men were ignoring the Bible and trying to find their own way to heaven:

Genesis 11:4-5, 4“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 builded.”

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 to heaven. God’s response to the foolish ways of man was, He scrambled the language, thus the answer as to why we have so many different languages in the world today. There are currently 7,117 known languages spoken by people around the world.

The same thing that happened at Babel had happened to Israel. They had tried to establish their own way to God. So, when Jesus came and began to preach the truth, their false religion stood in the way. Instead of realigning with Jesus and the truth, they stood with the false teachers and their false way to the kingdom of heaven.

No matter how hard man tries to build their own way to God, only a relationship with God through His son, Jesus Christ, will solve the problem of sin. Jesus paid it all by 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. Have you ever tried to talk to someone in a cult? They have become so brain washed into a false religion, and it is near impossible to pull them away.

John the Baptist came saying, “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 time at the second coming when Jesus will set up the millennial Kingdom for 1,000 years.

Repent means to turn away from unrighteousness, salvation by human works, acts of baptism or any other thing is in opposition to God’s way of salvation by grace through faith, Ephesians 2:8-9. There are always some unwilling to do things God’s way; that is why Jesus said unto them, “He that has ears let him hear.”

The Pharisees made up their own rules and laws, changing them to meet their own needs from time to time, and passed them down from generation to generation.

There are Christian principles based on Scripture that never change. They are given to enhance our relationship to God and others. When leaders controvert 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. That is why Jesus said in verse 10 that “wisdom is vindicated by her deeds.” Our deeds reveals whether we are directed by wisdom. Wisdom is of God and comes from God to those who seek it. Some say they trust in God but by their actions prove the opposite is true. You can’t trust in God for the outcome and then worry about what the outcome will be. It is the one way or the other. It is either trusting God or trusting self. Which will it be? Our actions are not a litmus test for our salvation but proof of our faith.

What do you suppose the crowd saw in Jesus and John? They saw the genuine way in which they lived, sinless in Jesus’ case and upright in John’s case, both honoring God above all things and expressing His love to others.

The crowd did not use wisdom. Therefore, their deeds revealed their trust in that which was false and blocked the way to God’s heavenly kingdom and resulted in their rejecting their own Messiah. Sometimes people are gullible and fall to the false views of false leaders who are of the devil as were the Pharisees.

When Jesus talked to the Samaritan woman at the well, the women was interested in getting her rules right, but Jesus was interested in she getting her relationship right. A person trapped in a 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 we who worship God do so in spirit and in truth. It is not what you know or what you do, but it is who you know and what you are. We were not renewed in Christ to be religious as was first century Israel, but we are to be committed to a relationship with God through His Son Jesus Christ and committed to Him to make us into the person He created us to be.