Matthew 11:16-20 - Wisdom is proved right by her deeds

11:16-19

Jesus then uses an analogy to describe the reaction of the people, using a well known ditty. Dance music was played, but nobody danced. Funeral music was played, but nobody mourned. In short, people are never happy! We have probably all encountered instances of this in our churches! So John the Baptist came, living in a very austere manner, and he was accused of having a demon. Jesus, the Son of Man, came, eating and drinking, and He was accused of being a glutton and a drunkard. He was accused of being a friend of tax collectors and sinners (presumably in the sense of approving of them, as He actually was a friend of tax collectors and sinners). “Wisdom is proved right by her actions”. Often there is no point trying to win a war of words, just let reality play out and true wisdom will become clear.

11:20

“Then Jesus began to denounce the towns to which most of His miracles had been performed, because they did not repent”. Oh dear me! How this offends our distorted picture of Jesus! First of all, if we think that people seeing miracles and healings will mean they come to believe, then this verse rides a coach and horses through that notion. Now this does not mean that there should not be miracles, that would be an equally wrong inference, but the idea that miracles will guarantee salvations is deeply flawed. But most of all, the idea of Jesus denouncing towns is abhorrent to most of us! Well, Jesus did denounce the towns.

Jeremiah 23:34-40 - I will bring on you everlasting disgrace

23:34-36

Claiming a message is from the Lord is not something to be done lightly, for if someone is making it up then God will punish that person, along with his household. The people were still using language that sounded devout enough, talking about messages from the Lord. God calls a halt to this nonsense. Today spokespeople for the sin-affirming churches will often use Biblical language, but in reality they are spouting the most unbiblical rubbish, and rubbish that is offensive to God and harmful to people.

23:37,38

The false prophets were forever asking of Jeremiah “What has the Lord spoken?”, though quite why they did this is something of a mystery, for they never paid any attention to his words. They claimed their own “prophecies” were messages from the Lord, when they were not. They did this even after God, through Jeremiah, had told them not to. The stubbornness of a sinful heart knows no limits.

23:39,40

The false prophets had forgotten God, therefore He would forget them. Likewise, Jesus said if we deny Him, then He will deny us. The false prophets would be cast out of God’s presence, along with Jerusalem. Everlasting shame would be their destiny.

Matthew 11:13-15 - Whoever has ears, let them hear

11:13,14

Both the prophets and the Law prophesied. Note that the Law prophesied. We know Elijah, Daniel, Isaiah and the rest prophesied, but the Law also prophesied. The Law looked forward to Christ and the new covenant. Hebrews, in particular, majors on this aspect of the Law. Mal 4:5 prophesied the reappearance of Elijah. Jesus identifies John the Baptist with Elijah. Now John was not a reincarnation of Elijah, but was like Elijah. This is a warning against over literal interpretations of Old Testament prophecies. We are most prone to do this with the apocalyptic books and passages (Daniel, Revelation).

11:15

“Whoever has ears, let them hear”. Most people do not have ears to hear. The truth can be proclaimed, but it will pass right over them, or get mangled into something completely different. We need the Holy Spirit to open our minds to comprehend the truth. 

Jeremiah 23:30-33 - I am against those who prophesy false dreams

23:30-32

God is against the false prophets, the peddlers of myths and fantasies. It is not a battle of ideas. God is God, He is the living God, He is the truth, indeed the way, the truth and the life. The false prophets teach things that are false and that are therefore harmful. To base your life upon a lie is a harmful thing to do, and teaches others to base their lives on a lie. So God actively opposes the false prophets. God had not appointed the false prophets and they were a positively harmful influence on the people.

23:33

The false prophets and priests, and the people, thought that they could still inquire of the Lord. This was despite the fact that they had no interest in following His word (so what was the point of Him giving them any more words?). The only message that God gives them is that He will forsake them. We may well find this offensive, but that is a reflection on our own poor spiritual state. If a people repeatedly reject God, then He will reject them. And this is not an “Old Testament concept”, on several occasions Jesus spoke about denying people who denied Him.

Matthew 11:11,12 - No one greater than John the Baptist

11:11

John the Baptist was the greatest of the Old Testament prophets. Now greatest here probably refers to the message that the prophet was bringing. All the Old Testament prophets looked forward to the Messiah, but at a distance of hundreds of years. John spoke about the imminent coming of the Messiah. Now the kingdom of heaven was near, it was at hand. So whoever is in the kingdom of heaven is greater than John, even the least such person. What Jesus is saying in all this is that they needed to realise what was happening. There is a natural tendency to look at things, to interpret them, in terms of what things used to be like. Things were different now.

11:12

This verse is difficult to translate. The NIV has the sense of “violent me have been raiding it”. Likewise ESV has “and the violent take it by force”. Most translation have this, with the meaning of opponents attacking the kingdom. However, they also have a footnote with an alternative translation “the kingdom has been forcefully advancing”. Now John was in prison and would soon be beheaded. So Jesus could be talking about the persecution of the kingdom. However, that does not seem to fit the thread of what Jesus is talking about here. He wants people to see how God’s plan is unfolding, so the margin translation seems better. The kingdom has been forcefully advancing.

Jeremiah 23:25-29 - Is not my word like fire?

23:25-27

God mocks the false prophets. They prophesied lies, ostensibly in the name of the Lord. They said “I had a dream!” (in a rather different context than we are used to associating this phrase with. But they were lying prophets. Their words were just delusions of their own minds. They may well have sounded credible, and sounded as if they were convinced of the truth of their own rhetoric. Likewise today many of the sin-affirming church leaders may well sound very confident. This does not detract from the fact that they are talking unbiblical rubbish. 

23:28,29

God is dismissive of the false prophets and their “dreams”, let them tell their dreams, the figments of their own imaginations. But let the ones who hear the true word of God proclaim it faithfully. For the products of man’s own mind are worthless, they are not based on truth and will ultimately come to nothing. The word of God, on the other hand, is the word of God and it is powerful. For us it means we must stick to the word of the Lord, even if society mocks or directly attacks.To proclaim and live by the word of God is the most sensible way to live.

Matthew 11:7-10 - What did you go to see?

11:7

John the Baptist had had a big impact, he had drawn many crowds to himself, though then pointing them to Jesus. Jesus now teaches the people, so that they can understand John aright. This was a bigger problem than we realise, for even in Acts 19:1-7 Paul met a group who only knew about John. Jesus is getting the crowds to look at themselves, to question their own thinking. He asks them what they went out in the desert to see? For the desert was where John did most of his ministry. They did not go out to see a reed swayed by the wind. This could just be saying that they went out to see John, not to observe the desert vegetation. Or it could be looking ahead to the conflict there would be between Jesus and the religious leaders. Jesus would not “sway in the wind”, and neither should His followers.

11:8-10

So they did not go out to the desert for a nature trip, what then did they go to see? A man dressed in fine clothes? No, it would be an odd place to go to see such a man, one would go to a palace if that is what you were after. They went to see a prophet, and not just any old prophet. This was the prophet spoken of in the Old Testament who would prepare the way for the Messiah.