Transcription
Well, hello everyone. This is Mike Howard and I'm here with Beverly Howard. Hey, we're going to do a Bible study. We're in the 10th lesson in the Gospel of Matthew. Today, we're going to look at Matthew 11:1-6.
Mike Howard: Explore the Bible study. Confronting Doubts. The ministry of Jesus is up and running at full speed. He's chosen the twelve apostles and he's sent them on their first training mission. And now he's established his headquarters around the northern part of the Sea of Galilee. And in that area, he is going to do many miracles and much teaching. As this lesson begins, we're going to see that people are trying to figure out who is this guy named Jesus. That's a question that is pretty important. As a matter of fact, for all of us, even down to this day, the most important question is to find the answer to who is this man called Jesus? Well, let's get started.
What to do with Jesus? It It's all about, according to Matthew, it's all about interpreting the evidence that Jesus brings to his ministry. Some people are going to accept him as Messiah. They'll say, "Yes, he is the Messiah." And that's faith. Some people are going to question who he is and what he's doing. And their question is, is he the Messiah? And that's doubt. And today, remember, today's lesson is confronting that doubt.
Another group of people is going to reject everything about Jesus, especially the Jewish leaders. They're going to declare, "We've seen what he's doing. We've heard what he's saying." and we've decided he is not the Messiah. And that's something I call disbelief. There is a fourth, and Jesus is going to address that in today's lesson, and that's ignoring or dismissing what Jesus says and what he does. And the the point to that is, Jesus, who who is this Jesus? And that, believe it or not, is a fairly normal reaction. And we're going to find out later in the lesson scripturally that we're all in that camp initially. Nobody, no one, no one seeks God on their own. We have to be led by the spirit to the evidence.
So, let me describe the difference between doubt and disbelief. Doubt says, "Hey, I'm I'm open to believing, but something is not adding up." We're going to find that in a really impressive story about John the Baptist right off the bat. Disbelief says, you know, I've decided not to believe. I've just made my decision. I'm not going to believe in this Jesus fellow or in God, and I don't even want to discuss it. I've run into a lot of folks in my life who land in this camp.
Well, let's get started. In verse 11 of chapter, verse one of chapter 11, uh, Jesus, remember from last week, is this is a transition verse from the training mission. Jesus sent out the 12 uh to tell people about the kingdom of God. And now they're back. And so this verse transitions after Jesus had finished instructing his 12 disciples. He went on from there to teach and to preach in the towns of Galilee.
Just a quick aside, a little rabbit chase here. Uh, there is a difference between teaching and preaching. Preaching is proclaiming. It's what Jesus does. He proclaims the kingdom of God. And later on the apostles, after he's risen, will proclaim Jesus as Messiah and the way to salvation. And the way back to God is through our faith in him. Well, that's proclaiming. Once you have received Christ, once you are a believer, once you've been born again, then the responsibility goes to teaching. And that's what he's all about. Teaching his apostles and his disciples about how to be Christians, how to be like him. So, preaching and teaching, two different gifts. I had the church I grew up in, uh, two of my father's cousins, I guess they would be my third cousins, uh, were preachers in our church. Uh, one had the gift of preaching and the other the gift of teaching. Now, after I became a Christian, I really enjoyed listening to the one who taught versus the one who proclaimed. Uh, but before I was a Christian, uh, what convicted me of my sin was the cousin that was the preacher. He proclaimed the hellfire and brimstone, if you know what I mean.
So doubts are caused. Remember the the title of the lesson is confronting our doubts. And we all have had doubts. Uh, if you have never had any doubts about your faith or your uh relationship with the Lord, uh, then God bless you. That's just amazing. I'm I'm happy for you. Uh, but most of us have had to confront doubts from time to time throughout our lives. Well, doubts are caused typically by expectation, frustration. And we're going to find that uh really in capital letters from John the Baptist. Uh, the re I got the the term expectation frustration from a sermon by that title uh preached by Gary Hamrich, who's from the Cornerstone Chapel in Lebanon, Virginia. So if you'd like to look that up on YouTube, it really was a good sermon.
But what about this expectation, uh, frustration? Well, John the Baptist, then, just go back and give you a little background, uh, is the last Old Testament prophet. He was called to herald Messiah's arrival. It that's what, uh, the angel told John's father uh, when he announced that uh, John's mother was going to be pregnant with him, that he was going to be the herald. He was going to be the. And when John was growing up, you have to believe, and this is more of opinion than scripture, that he was really into the messianic prophecies. If you if you know that this is your calling, if you know that this is what your job's going to be, then my my guess is you pretty much, if you're looking through the scriptures, if you're learning uh all the scriptures and the prophecies and everything, you're going to really focus or really pay attention to those u scriptures that are about the Messiah because, you know, you you've got to spot this Messiah when he shows up and you've got to let people know he's the one.
So he was the first to recognize Jesus as Messiah in in John chapter uh one, I think. But he actually rec, Jesus was baptized and he he called, well, I'll get to that. I actually have a scripture slide for that. But he actually realized that Jesus was the Messiah even before he was born. You remember when Elizabeth was six months pregnant and Mary, who had just conceived, came to visit Elizabeth and said the baby within her womb leapt for joy uh when when Mary came to see them because even before he was born, he was a he was testifying that this is the Messiah. So he makes a statement of faith after Jesus was baptized. But in today's lesson, we're going to find out that John the Baptist, the first to point people to Messiah, whose lifetime call was to point people to the Messiah, he's going to doubt. He's going to have doubts. And first, I guess for years when I read this story, I thought, you know, Matthew or Luke, you could have left that out because it's kind of a, it's kind of a downer that here this great man of faith is going to actually have doubts. And well, guess what? There's a real reason here. So, let's get into it.
So, this is background on when John, this is John when John saw Jesus as the Messiah. So right after Jesus was baptized, the next day John saw Jesus coming toward him and said, "Look, it's the lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world." That's the literally the lamb of God, the the sacrifice for sin. Verse 34, this is John chapter 1. "I have seen and I testify that this is God's chosen one." The Holy Spirit told John that the one when he comes out up out of baptism or the one John sees the Holy Spirit come down on in the form of a dove, that is going to be the Messiah. And even though John and Jesus knew each other, they were they were related and they grew up similarly close together. Uh, he didn't know that at until this moment that Jesus was in fact the Messiah. He probably suspected. He goes from that at that moment to this at this moment.
Verse two, chapter 11. When John, John the Baptist, who was in prison at this point, when he heard about the deeds of the Messiah, that's Jesus, he sent his disciples to ask Jesus, "Are you the one who is to come or should we expect someone else?" Now, why would John, who knows in his heart that Jesus is Messiah, uh, he baptized him. He saw the Holy Spirit come down. He He's been told, he knows the prophecies. Why would he at this point wonder if Jesus is the one? Well, let's dig in. It all comes to us through Jesus's answer to John. The by the way, these are John's disciples that have because John's in prison.
So Jesus replied to John's disciples. "Look, go back and tell John what you hear and what you see." Uh, just and the hearing and the seeing is pretty cool here because look what he's about to tell the disciples of John. Tell John this that you have seen and heard these things. The blind receive their sight. The lame are able to walk. Those who have leprosy are cleansed. The deaf can hear again. And the dead are raised. Most importantly, the good news about the kingdom of God is proclaimed to the poor." And we know that that he means the poor in spirit.
Well, in Luke, we don't get it from Matthew, but we do from Luke. In Luke 7:21, while these two disciples are there, Luke tells us that at the very time Jesus, at that very time Jesus cured many who had diseases, sicknesses and evil spirits, and they and he gave sight to many who were blind. Also in John 4:48, uh, he says to people, "Unless I do signs, you will never believe." Well, this is pretty cool. Um, he tells and he he heals these people. He tells these disciples, "Go back and tell John what you've seen and what you've heard." Uh, and that's pretty cool. But I'm sure that John had heard in prison that Jesus was doing these kinds of miracles, these kinds of signs. Why did Jesus give them this particular set of instructions about these particular healings?
Well, remember John was the one who was to pave the way, make the road straight, reveal the Messiah. He knew all of the prophecies, especially from the prophecies, the messianic prophecies of Isaiah. So, let's take a closer look. Jesus said, "Go tell him these things. The blind will receive their sight." Isaiah 29:18. "The lame will walk." Isaiah 35:3-6. "Those who have leprosy are cleansed and the deaf hear." Isaiah 29:18. "The dead are raised." Isaiah 26:19. "And the good news is proclaimed to the poor." Isaiah 61, verse one, first part of the verse. He's pointing John back to the messianic prophecies about him in Isaiah.
But there's a catch. Here's the catch. It comes to us in Isaiah chapter 61, verse B. "The Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is on me." This is Isaiah talking about what the Messiah. By the way, this is the scripture that Jesus read in his church, home church at Nazareth, when he was kicking off his ministry. "The Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is on me. And then, remember the preach the good news to the poor." Well, here's the rest of that verse. "He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted and to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners." That's the verse that John is hung up on. That's the verse that causes John's doubt. Where is he? He's in prison. This is a man that's lived outside his whole adult life. Every night he goes to bed looking up at the stars. And where is he right now? He is in a dungeon in the dark as a prisoner. And yet the verse says that the Messiah will set him free. Well, he's healed the blind people. He's healed the lame people. He's healed the deaf people. The Messiah is supposed to set people free from prison.
Well, you and I know because we've read the rest of the story. The prison that Jesus is talking about is not a physical prison, but it's a spiritual prison. We're all held captive. We're prisoners to sin until Jesus dies on the cross, sets us free, rises from the dead. But he did all these other miracles. Why not this one? Well, it turns out that Jesus chose not to set John free. And John's probably not really happy about it, and it's causing him some problems. But I will say this, in Acts chapter, there are three times in Acts that God actually does set prisoners free. His apostles are locked up. They're set free from jail. Uh, Peter is locked up. Remember the story where he comes and knocks on the door and the servant girl says, slams the door in his face and says, "Peter's ghost is out here." I think Peter, you know, Peter says he's free. And then of course, later on, uh, Paul is is and Barnabas are set free from prison. So in those cases, God did release them from physical prison. But we know that Jesus in that verse is talking about a spiritual prison. And in this particular case, God chooses not to set John the Baptist free, and later he's beheaded. He dies in that prison. So that causes his doubts.
Well, there are a lot of prayers that I've prayed that did not get answered. And I thought, well, you know, you would think that prayer would have gotten answered, and it didn't. So, this is a good example for me and in my doubts. John has got expectation, frustration, and Jesus is going to say, not only to John, but to us, "Don't get yourself wound up when prayers don't get answered. I'm in charge. Don't look at what I'm not doing. Look at what I have done and look at what I am doing. That's way more important." He says it this way in verse six. "Blessed is anyone who doesn't stumble in their faith because of what I do." Just because you're expecting and hoping for something in your life that doesn't happen, don't let that affect your faith. I am working in your life. I have worked in your life and I continue to work in this world. The word stumble is sometimes translated offended, and that means to fall away. Don't don't let this be a stumbling block from your faith. There is an answer to your doubts, and the the doubts will be resolved uh when we get rid of our false expectations.
So, verses 7-15. As the disciples of John leave, John turns to the ones who are there and he praises John the Baptist and his ministry that he's accomplished. He says to them, "John was a prophet, or he is a prophet. He was sent to prepare the way for me, for Messiah." And in Malachi 4:5, he says, "I will send Elijah to prepare the way." And Luke's 1:17, uh, the angel telling John's father, soon to be father, he said, "Look, John, this baby that's going to be born, he will go on before the Lord in the spirit and in the power of Elijah." And Jesus says in these verses that in fact, if you have eyes to see and ears to hear, John is that spirit in the power of Elijah that was prophesied in Malachi. So that's a lesson about resolving your doubt.
And then Jesus moves on to talk about people who don't believe at all. And it's because they're self-focused and not God-focused. So it's a self-centered type of disbelief. He talks about it in verse 16. He says, "To what can I compare this generation?" So he's talking about a whole generation that's alive while he is physically on this earth. What better generation to be in, right? This generation, he says, they're like children sitting in the marketplaces and they're calling out to all the other kids, "We played the pipe for you and you didn't dance." When the pipe was something you do at a wedding, so we played like we're we're playing like we're having a wedding and you didn't dance. And we sang a dirge like you would at a funeral and you didn't mourn. So, we're playing all of these games, God, and you're not doing what we want you to do. And he goes on, verse 17, and he says, uh, verse 18, "For John came neither eating nor drinking, and they said about him, 'He has a demon.' He doesn't eat or drink. He eats like locust, wild locust. He wears camel fur hair jackets." And then the Son of Man, verse 19, he's talking about himself. "He came eating and drinking, and they say about me, 'Here is a glutton and a drunkard. He's a friend of tax collectors and sinners.'" But at the end of the day, what you should be looking at is what John did and what I'm doing. But wisdom is proved right by her deeds. Don't just look at him and say he's weird and demon-possessed. Look at what he's done. He's turned thousands of people back to God through his baptism. Don't just look at the way I eat and drink and who I eat and drink with. Look at the miracles and the signs. Listen to my teaching. Don't judge me by Don't judge this book by the cover. Judge this book by the content.
In verse 20, he says, "Now he's going to talk about," so that talks about people who want God to do what they want God to do as opposed to treating him like God, the creator of the universe. In other words, we think it's silly, but we do it. We We treat God like he's a a genie in a lamp sometimes, and God goes, "That's not going to work real well." And now he's going to turn his attention to people who just can't be bothered. People who ignore him.
Verse 20. Jesus began to denounce the towns, the really the people in the towns in which most of his miracles had been performed because they did not repent. "Woe to you, Chorazin. Woe to you, Bethsaida. For if the miracles that were performed in you had been performed in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes." Let me pause here and kind of tell you what's going on. Chorazin and Bethsaida, along with uh Capernaum, were three big, big, and dirty cities that were right in the middle of Galilee, right on the northern edge of the Sea of Galilee, right where Jesus was doing most of his teaching and most of his works, most of his miracles. And those cities were just too busy and too preoccupied to pay much attention. And Jesus is going, "Don't you know that God in the flesh has come to be close to you and you're not even paying attention to the fact that he's here?"
And then he brings up three cities, two cities, one uh two of them are Tyre and Sidon, and they're located in toward the sea coast of the Mediterranean up north in uh Phoenicia. Uh, and these are bad cities. These are really, really sinful cities. As a matter of fact, Baal worship came into Israel through a lady by the name of Jezebel. Jezebel was a princess of Tyre and Sidon, the king of Tyre and Sidon. And she married Ahab, the king of Israel. And she brought Baal worship in. You remember Elijah had to to fight that. Uh, and they were just evil, evil cities. And yet what he's saying here is in the day of judgment, the people who were ignoring Jesus are going to wind up being judged more harshly than the evil people of Tyre and Sidon. Why? Because the evidence of who God is in Jesus was so close, so very obvious, and yet they couldn't be bothered.
He goes on to say about uh, oh, let's keep going. "But I tell you, it will be more bearable for Tyre and Sidon on the day of judgment than for you in those cities." And then he goes on to Capernaum, his headquarters. This is where he spends most of his time. "And you, Capernaum, will you be lifted to the heavens? I don't think so. You'll go down into Hades. For if the miracles that were performed in you here had been performed in, oh, it's going to get worse. In Sodom, it would have remained to this day." There is no more wicked city in Jewish history than the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah. And he's going to say it's going to go better for the people of Sodom than it will for those who live in Capernaum right here with me every day. And you choose to just ignore me. What you do with Jesus. It's important. But I tell you that it'll be more bearable for Sodom on the day of judgment than for you.
Well, that was pretty tough to hear. Uh, so, one thing that it tells me is when you tell someone about Jesus and they can't be bothered, that's a big deal. What they do with Jesus when there are so many, this is talking about especially in the United States of America, when there are so many Christians and there's so many ways you can hear the gospel and you're choosing to pretend like none of that is important, that is not going to go well for you at the day of judgment.
And now he's going to go to verse 25. "At that time Jesus said, 'Look, I praise you, Father.'" He's going to go right into a prayer while he's doing this. "I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden all of this evidence, all of these things that I've done, from the wise and the learned, the people who think they're wise, people who think that they're learned. And in most cases, they thought they probably were wise and learned, but they were comparing themselves to other people, not to God. That's not cool. He said, 'But you've revealed all of this about your kingdom, about you, about me. You've revealed that to people who come as little children, ready to learn, ready to understand. Yes, Father, for this is what you were pleased to do.'" And remember the scripture where he says he will frustrate the intelligent.
"All things have been committed to me by my Father. No one knows the Son except the Father. This is verse 27. And no one knows the Father except the Son and those to whom the Son chooses to reveal the Father." John 14:8. Philip the apostle, and this is not not his finest hour. He says, "Lord, show us the Father and that'll be enough for us." And Jesus answered him, "Don't you know me, Philip? Even after I have been among you for such a long time, anyone who has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say to me, 'Show us the Father?'" These people were face to face with God in the flesh. And yet they couldn't be bothered, or they were saying, you know, we're smarter. We're more educated. This is an itinerant preacher. And look at these people that follow him around. They're fishermen and tax collectors. So, we choose not to believe.
And Jesus finishes up chapter 11 with this beautiful, beautiful. He says, uh, "You got to reject religion and instead of religion, you got to go with a relationship. Come to me. Come to Jesus for your rest." He says it this way. Remember, he's in he's in Israel. He's talking to fellow Jews. He says, "Come to me, all you who are weary and heavy-burdened, and I will give you rest. I want you to take my yoke upon you and learn from me. So there is a yoke involved here, and for the Jewish people, and we're about to find out which one. For learn from me, for I so it's a different yoke. So I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls."
Well, what yoke is he talking about that is causing them to be weary and heavy laden? Well, what we find out later in Matthew 23:2, "The teachers of the law and the Pharisees sit in this Moses' seat. They tie up heavy, cumbersome, cumbersome loads and put them on your back, but their shoulders, but they themselves are not willing to lift a finger." It's all of the law. It's all of the tradition that they try to put on these poor people. And they're not even in scripture. And yet they're burdening them down. And Jesus says, "I'm going to free you from all of that. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light. Come to me and I will set you free."
So let me summarize quickly. God, God, the creator of the universe, has chosen to reveal himself in Jesus. You remember Hebrews chapter 1, verses one and two. In the Old Testament, we knew what we knew about God from scripture, from the prophets, from the first five books that Moses wrote. But today we have God speaking through his Son. He is fully revealed to us in Jesus Christ. God desires a relationship. You must know someone to have a relationship. If you don't know him, it's hard to relate to somebody, right? Well, guess what? God revealed himself to Israel. And finally, God is revealed in Jesus. You want to know God? You want to have a relationship with God? It's easy. It's in Jesus Christ. It's in what he did, his finished work.
People respond to God in different ways. Some accept God. The Bible is true, believing that Jesus is God's Messiah. Some ignore God. You saw that in how he condemned the three cities. We don't have a need. We don't have a desire. We're very happy with our life without him. So, there's no interest. That that's not going to go well for them. And some reject God. The story of God is not true, deciding there is no convincing evidence for belief. How could you do that? Many people who were atheists, like Lee Strobel and C.S. Lewis, when they were challenged to go look at the evidence of Jesus and his resurrection, they dug into it. Sometimes it took years. But when they finally got to the bottom of their digging, they both decided that the evidence was compelling, and they became Christians. Some doubt God. It's okay with their honest doubts. Remember John the Baptist, Jesus didn't condemn him. Doubting Thomas, he showed him his hands and his feet. The road to Emmaus, they were doubting because Jesus had been crucified, and Jesus led them through the scriptures. The answers are always found to your doubts in scripture. Doubts resolved is faith refined.
How do we apply it? No one seeks God on their own. No one can know God except God reveals them in script. God is revealed in scripture and in Jesus. But once a person hears the good news, they must decide. Accept, doubt, reject. You got a lot of decisions. You'll be able, you will not be able to be intelligent or wise enough to know God. You and I are required seriously to evaluate the evidence of Jesus. And then we are also told we must approach that evidence with an open mind, like a child, willing to believe if we find that evidence to be compelling.
Well, that's it. Confronting doubt. What do you do with this man named Jesus? Pray with me. Father, thank you for Jesus. Thank you for coming to this earth and revealing yourself through Jesus. Wow, how impressive. Father, from what we know, how could we, how could we not have faith in Christ? Father, I pray for those who struggle with doubt. Give them the answers through your word. I pray in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen.
Well, the next two lessons will deal more with what people are saying they're going to do about Jesus or with Jesus. Till then, don't freeze. Take care of yourself. Be careful on the ice. And we'll see you next week. Bye-bye. Bye-bye.