Introduction:
To receive the light that is God’s revelation — to receive the light of truth — makes for true joy wherever it is received, but also makes for tremendous judgment wherever it is rejected.
TRUE JOY WHEN RECEIVED.
TREMENDOUS JUDGMENT WHEN REJECTED.
AND WHAT IS FRIGHTENING ABOUT THAT TRUTH IS THAT MOST HUMAN BEINGS ARE NUMB TO IT.
Most people (and in some ways ALL people) find ourselves insensitive to the privileged opportunities we have received in the form of knowledge from God.
Exposure to truth imparts responsibility.
ESV James 4:17 So whoever knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, for him it is sin.
WE DESPARATELY NEED TO UNDERSTAND THAT:
We understand sins of commission, but we rarely consider sins of omission.
We think about what we have done, but do we think about what we have not done with what we have been given.
Exposure to the truth is both a tremendous blessing and a weighty responsibility.
To be left without truth is a judgment.
To refuse truth results in judgment.
It results in greater judgment than if we had never encountered the truth.
This is what our Lord teaches in the verses we have arrived at today.
Our Lord has described a foolish generation.
They have met with the kingdom of heaven.
It has been announced by an Elijah, the King’s messenger, John the Baptist.
It has been offered by the King Himself, Jesus of Nazareth.
But they have proven to be like sinful stubborn children playing wedding and funeral in the marketplace.
They cannot be pleased.

John came in funeral mode, and they slandered him.
Jesus came in wedding mode, and they slandered him.
They pretend that their problem is in the messengers, when in reality they simply hate the message.
BUT IN THE END, WISDOM WILL BE PROVEN TO BE WISDOM.
The rightness of wisdom is proven in the end.
IT IS THAT END THAT JESUS NOW SPEAKS OF.
What will it be like for the generation that refuses the kingdom of heaven?
What will it be like for those who meet with truth and reject it, and slander it?
IT WILL BE WOEFUL.
This morning we begin considering three woeful results when truth is refused. We will consider the first one this morning, and the other two tonight.
• REFUSING TRUTH RESULTS IN GUILT (vs.20)
And what we must bear in mind as we talk about this, is the fact that God’s truth comes to people who are ALREADY guilty.
In fact, God’s truth comes to sinful mankind offering deliverance from that guilt. So, that when the truth is rejected, the guilt is CONFIRMED.
ESV John 3:18 Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God.
ESV John 3:19 And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil.
Jesus is now “denouncing” some specific cities.
ὀνειδίζω
② to find justifiable fault with someone, reproach, reprimand, w. acc. of
The cities are at fault, and Jesus is citing their faults, and His reproofs of them are entirely justified.
NOTE: BEWARE THINKING THAT ALL CORRECTION IS UNKIND. BEWARE THINKING THAT ALL REBUKE IS UNKIND.
Correction, that is godly, truthful, justifiable, needful, is compassion.
Rebuke, that is godly, truthful, justifiable, needful, is compassion.
ESV 2 Timothy 4:2 preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, and exhort, with complete patience and teaching.
In fact, our Lord is mixing warning with compassion throughout these verses BY USING THE WORD “WOE.”
You see compassion in the word “woe.”
Leon Morris — “‘Woe to you’ is not a grim call for vengeance, but an expression of regret (many translations render it as JB, “Alas”; GNB has “How terrible it will be”); it combines warning and compassion.”
You see the same thing when Jesus weeps over Jerusalem and declares the destruction that city will suffer because it was blind to its time of visitation.
ESV Luke 19:41 And when he drew near and saw the city, he wept over it, 42 saying, "Would that you, even you, had known on this day the things that make for peace! But now they are hidden from your eyes. 43 For the days will come upon you, when your enemies will set up a barricade around you and surround you and hem you in on every side 44 and tear you down to the ground, you and your children within you. And they will not leave one stone upon another in you, because you did not know the time of your visitation."
• WHAT CHARACTERIZED THE SELECTED CITIES
The cities Christ reproves are those who have received the greatest demonstrations of His confirming signs.
“Most of His mighty works” had been done in these cities.
ἐν αἷς ἐγένοντο αἱ πλεῖσται δυνάμεις αὐτοῦ (wooden: In which were done the many miracles of His).
Christ mentions three cities in these verses.
• CHORAZIN