Oy Vey
Matthew - Masterclass • Sermon • Submitted • Presented • 33:27
0 ratings
· 8 viewsWoe to the Unrepentant Jesus gives the prophetic "woe" to cities that have been given every reason and opportunity to repent... and haven't done so. They will be judged by the truth that they know (or should know). This is a message of judgment on our own nation... just in time for the election. How many chances have our cities had to hear and repent? And yet true believers are few, the name of Christ and the Bible itself is an unopened election prop... and the day of judgment is coming. Our call is to continue the mission, salt and light in the city.
Files
Notes
Transcript
Matt 11:16-22.
Jesus speaks a word of “woe” over his generation and his home cities. Woe for every excuse, woe to those who reject the King and His Kingdom… and the Day of Judgment is coming. We are surrounded by “hard and impenitent” hearts. Our role: to be a prophetic voice leading the way to repentance… and walk the path of love towards the cross.
Jesus feels the prophetic pain of it… he isn’t shy about saying it… but what does he actually then do? He serves. He loves. He preaches and teaches and heals. He goes back to Capernaum again and again. He isn’t done.
And ultimately, he lays down his life for them, and us, and all the world.
Kids These Days
Kids These Days
Logan successfully navigated to Milton, WI. From the DIA to Ohare, Chicago… to the bus station to find the right bus, all the way out to Janesville, WI.
He did awesome. Kind of a right of passage.
Compared to how hard it was “when I was your age.”
I remember, a young adult, in the airport at Seattle and waiting 6 hours… because they changed the meetup location and nobody told me. Payphone and trying all the numbers I knew until reaching someone who could get through to someone else.
KK has a better one… flying out to Ukraine and navigating the airports, buses, trains… signs, where there are signs, in Russian. Made it. And made it back!
Kids these days. They don’t know how good they have it. :D
Jesus does some generational complaining.
Jesus doesn’t actually complain about “next generation...” the up and coming young whipper-snappers.
He complains about “this” generation.
This Generation
This Generation
16 “But to what shall I compare this generation? It is like children sitting in the marketplaces and calling to their playmates,
17 “ ‘We played the flute for you, and you did not dance; we sang a dirge, and you did not mourn.’
The petulant child who REFUSES to play. The children invite them to play wedding games, funeral games, children have been “getting married” on the playground for millennia.
But… “NO, NO, I won’t play!”
18 For John came neither eating nor drinking, and they say, ‘He has a demon.’
19 The Son of Man came eating and drinking, and they say, ‘Look at him! A glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners!’ Yet wisdom is justified by her deeds.”
What this exposes is that the “objections” to Jesus are just excuses.
They have decided ahead of time for other reasons that John is bad or Jesus is a threat… and then go looking for more persuasive “reasons.”
I love this meme in politics. They present a quote as from Biden or Harris or from Trump… from the “other guy” and let people rant…
Then they reveal that it’s “their guy” and watch them backpedal.
Choose a lane! When the truth is, it isn’t a problem that John fasts and Jesus feasts...
The problem is that they both are calling you to repentance!
“Wisdom is justified by her deeds.”
Or, as Forest Gump put it
“Stupid is as Stupid does.”
“Wisdom is justified by her deeds.” (Some manuscripts, “by her children”)
Don’t look at all the rhetoric, all the excuses. Look at the outcome.
In this case… all the people rejecting the message of BOTH John the Baptist and Jesus, the Messiah.
20 Then he began to denounce the cities where most of his mighty works had been done, because they did not repent.
Here comes the Woe!
No, not that Woah.
Woe
Woe
Jesus is about to go Old Testament prophet here. The “woe” formula.
Woe is a word we don’t hear much in most circumstances. In Greek it is an expression of pain, like “OW”… or a state of intense hardship or distress...
But it picks up the Hebrew word “Oy.” Seriously. As in Oy Vey, a Yiddish version of the Hebrew Oy. Woe, anguish, but not just something that unfortunately occurred, but something that will happen to you as a right and just punishment.
Woe to the cities who should know better.
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.
22 But I tell you, it will be more bearable on the day of judgment for Tyre and Sidon than for you.
What did “Tyre” and “Sidon”
Tyre and Sidon
Tyre and Sidon
Peninsula along the Phoenician coast. Well, was an island until Alexander the Great built a causeway to it to conquer it.
Sidon is the Mother City of Tyre, even older than it. The two cities are often leading the city-state resistance against Egypt historically. Sidon and its people are mentioned in Homer’s Odyssey.
Huge, Powerful, Nearby cities. Not a part of the boundaries God draws for Israel… often denounced by prophets as one of the foreign nations.
They are Canada… scary foreign people to the North.
The Gospel according to Matthew 2. Unrepentant Cities, 11:20–24
We should not miss the point that Jesus knows how the people of Tyre and Sidon would have reacted had they had the privilege that the cities of Galilee had had. This perhaps has relevance to the problem of those unreached by the gospel.
What did Chorazin know? Near Capernaum, this is a town Jesus would have visited and ministered in often.
Bethsaida, similarly, home to Philip, Andrew and Peter. It is where Jesus healed a blind man, and he fed the 5000 nearby.
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.
24 But I tell you that it will be more tolerable on the day of judgment for the land of Sodom than for you.”
Hades - literally the name of the Greek god of the dead, but it translates “Sheol” in the LXX.
Sheol was the sphere of the lingering and shadowy continuation of existence of the dead.
There are these hints to what exactly is happening to folks who are dead before the final judgment… but Jesus’ point here is not to picture an in-between state for those awaiting judgment… but to say “it’s going to be BAD!” for these particular folks ON the day of judgment.
Sodom
Sodom
“More tolerable for the land of Sodom?”
What does that actually tell us about the Day of Judgment???
You remember the story of Sodom and Gomorrah? God said he was going to destroy these two cities because they were SO evil. And he sends the angels to go get Lot, Abraham’s nephew out, and the whole town gathers because they want him to send out the new guys so they can rape them.
That’s literally where our word “sodomize” comes from.
So many levels of wrong.
And Lot offers up his virgin daughters… and they call him the righteous one. Maybe by contrast!???!! Wow.
“Judgment and wrath he poured out on Sodom.” (Not a lot of worship songs that mention Sodom, for some reason.)
God smote them with “fire and brimstone.” A scar on the land, the place God punched so hard it went below sea level… the land is dead, we call it “Dead Sea..” That’s Sodom.
And “worse for Capernaum than Sodom???”
Capernaum
Capernaum
Here’s Capernaum now. Woe indeed.
What did Capernaum know?
13 And leaving Nazareth he went and lived in Capernaum by the sea, in the territory of Zebulun and Naphtali,
This was Jesus “home city.” Home base. He healed the centurion’s servant there, and many more, taught in the synagogue.
If anyone got the “most Jesus”… it had to be Capernaum. The most teaching, the most miracles, the center of the action. From Capernaum, to Jerusalem, everything in between was a way spot. This was Jesus’ home for his years of ministry.
Woe.
Words of prophetic judgment. These people should know better. They have seen the signs, they have heard the truth, they have no excuses. Not real ones.
I don’t think the day of judgment is going to be great for the land of Sodom. Sodom and Gomorrah was destroyed in this life because of their unrighteousness.
To be frank, my starting assumption is that the unrighteous go to hell, to torment and/or destruction… and that “levels” of torment or destruction are poetic inventions of Dante’s Inferno and the like.
But there is some comparative language here… and I prefer to take Jesus literally whenever possible. In short… it’s going to be bad. And it’s going to be “worse” for those who should know better. Who had more opportunity.
Sometimes this is phrased as “they shall be judged by the truth that they know.”
Most of that idea, the longest exploration of it, anyhow… is out of Romans 2. But the conclusion is not that “people who never heard of Jesus get in for free.” It is that all men know enough to be held accountable… and that the Jews in Rome know more so they will be held more accountable… because they should know better:
It is Paul speaking a prophetic “woe” over the people of Rome.
Word to the Romans:
5 But because of your hard and impenitent heart you are storing up wrath for yourself on the day of wrath when God’s righteous judgment will be revealed.
If we take Jesus literally here… and I think we should… it is worse to hear the the truth of Jesus and reject him than the sins of Sodom and Gomorrah.
How’s that for your “levels of sin” comparison chart?
Doesn’t match mine, to be honest. But I won’t argue with Jesus. Woe? Woe.
So… what would Jesus say if his hometown were, say… here?
Woe! to Thornton. To Northglenn. To Westminster and Broomfield!
Woe to America, the Beautiful!
America
America
There are many many reasons to be thankful for the United States of America. Beautiful freedoms, life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
Ridiculous economic prosperity, opportunity, no end of reasons to be thankful to be born when and where we are.
There may come a day and place where we are legit persecuted for our faith… that day is not today… and we thank God for it.
This is not about imagining a persecution complex.
But there is a word of judgment on our nation.
People here have received the blessing of God. More than perhaps any other place or time in history, people have opportunity to have heard the gospel of Jesus Christ.
To see the signs and wonders.
Woe to all Americans who hear the Word and respond with pride, with self-centered self-congratulation.
5 But because of your hard and impenitent heart you are storing up wrath for yourself on the day of wrath when God’s righteous judgment will be revealed.
Brandon turned me on to Matt Chandler’s current series on “Empire.” It’s awesome. A prophetic word. America is an “Empire” and we can only give our allegiance to one Kingdom. King Jesus and His Kingdom. Alone. Always. First. Foremost. Only.
And the political narrative seeks to use “Jesus-y” words to manipulate you for their own power and profit.
Not the donkey, not the elephant, but the Lamb of God.
We do and should have that prophetic voice. The apostles pick up that and take the prophetic ministry with them on the mission. There’s “woe” to come, John to the seven churches.
And one “woe is me” in the whole New Testament. We’ll see that in a bit.
So what do we do, though?
It’s tempting to say “I’m out.” I’m done. Woe to you and be out.
Jesus and Capernaum
Jesus and Capernaum
Is he just “over it”. No matter what chronology you go with for Jesus’ ministry… he keeps going back to Capernaum. He keeps serving there. He does more teaching there, more testimony, more miracles. Here’s one coming up:
24 When they came to Capernaum, the collectors of the two-drachma tax went up to Peter and said, “Does your teacher not pay the tax?”
And he has Peter catch a fish, open the mouth of the fish, find a shekel, and pay the tax with the shekel.
Is Jesus done with Capernaum? No. He keeps up the Mission. He keeps serving. He keeps loving. He keeps paying taxes, even.
He didn’t get a vote… but I bet if He did He would vote… to the very best of his ability.
And the vote is coming.
I won’t tell you what to vote, or who to vote for. I will tell you how to vote.
In the midst of Capernaum, with corrupt leaders, political and religious, with all kinds of lies and deception and hypocrisy floating around… we are on mission.
You want to hear the only self-directed “woe” in the New Testament? Here it is:
16 For if I preach the gospel, that gives me no ground for boasting. For necessity is laid upon me.
Woe to me if I do not preach the gospel!
How should we vote? To bring the gospel. To proclaim the Kingdom, to heal every disease and every affliction, to help the harassed and helpless.
With our ballot in one hand, and our Bible in the other.
I’ll tell you right now, if you are a Christian, you are a third party voter. No one else gets your allegiance.
And then you decide. If you end up voting one side of the ticket all the way down because you prayerfully considered every candidate and policy.
Our goal is not to pay less at the pump or to bring down the price of groceries… except if, sincerely, that is your best considered strategy for feeding the hungry.
We should have RADICAL care for the immigrant of every description, the poor wherever we find them, the helpless and the hurting… God has LOTS to say about who is a “person” and what “identity” is. Person-hood and Identity are defined by Him and no one else.
In whatever ways we can, with every power and authority given to us, with every dollar given to us, with every moment of time on this planet living in whatever worldly Empire we live in...
Let us serve the Kingdom. Let us repent and lead the way to repentance. Let us love and lead the way to love… all the way to the cross of Jesus.
Woe to those who don’t see and don’t hear. Woe to me if I don’t.
Salvation to those who do.
This little light of mine, I’m going to let it shine.
