Matthew 11 - Part 4

 

Read Matthew 11

You don’t have to be a biblical scholar to understand that you do not want to be on the receiving end of a sentence that begins:  Woe unto you…

There’s a big dose of woe unto you coming for the Scribes and Pharisees in chapter 23, but the words of the present chapter are directed at the weary and worn out people who should have repented.  They were for the sheep without a shepherd.

The Hebrew people knew their history, especially places such as Sodom and Gomorrah.  Those people got what they had coming to them, but Jesus compared the cities of the region that had seen his miracles and not repented to these infamous cities.  In fact, he said that if the miracles that he had done in Galilee had been done in Sodom, the people of Sodom would have repented.

Sodom would still be standing.  Lot’s wife might have become a pillar of a godly community instead of a pillar of salt.

Many received Jesus as the Son of God. They understood him to be the Messiah.  They knew he was the greatest man that God had ever sent.

Many would not see and would not repent.  Jesus noted that the evidence would have been convincing enough for evil Sodom, so it should have been more than enough for you who profess to be godly people.

God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world but to save the world through him, but some loved the world and its ways too much.

I’ll wrap up this short section where I began.  You don’t have to be a biblical scholar to understand that you do not want to be on the receiving end of a sentence that begins:  Woe unto you…

Be thankful that we have not seen, yet we have believed.

Amen.