Takes longer every day. So we are continuing in our series of messages from the gospel according to Matthew. And this morning we find ourselves again in Matthew chapter 11, page 970 of your pew Bibles, if you're using those to follow along. And again, I urge you to have God's word before you as we not only read it, but even as we work through the text so that you're able to refer back to it. We'll be looking at verses 16 through 30 as our text for this morning. And if you are able, would you please stand with me out of reverence and respect for the reading of God's inerrant, infallible, and inspired word. Then he began to denounce the cities where most of his mighty works had been done. Actually, I'm going to back up. But to what shall I compare this generation? It is like children sitting in the marketplaces and calling to their playmates. We played the flute for you, and you did not dance. We sang a dirge, and you did not mourn. For John came, neither eating nor drinking, and they say, he has a demon. 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. Then he began to denounce the cities where most of his mighty works had been done because they did not repent. 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. But I tell you, it will be more bearable on the day of judgment for Tyre and Sidon than for you. 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. But I tell you that it will be more tolerable on the day of judgment for the land of Sodom than for you. At that time, Jesus declared, I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that you have hidden these things from the wise and understanding and revealed them to little children. Yes, Father, for such was your gracious will. All things have been handed over to me by my father, and no one knows the son except the father, and no one knows the father except the son, and anyone to whom the son chooses to reveal him. Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and learn from me. For I am gentle and lowly in heart and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light. This is the reading of God's word. May he bless it to our hearts this morning. Please be seated. So in the previous passage we looked at last week, we found John the Baptist through his disciples expressing his doubt whether Jesus really was the Messiah, the Christ, or not. And Jesus instructed John's disciples to go back to him and tell him what they heard and saw, but he actually instructed them in how he wanted them to tell him. And in doing so, he quoted from Isaiah chapter 35 and from Isaiah chapter 61, demonstrating that he was indeed doing exactly what God had said he would do when he came to judge the wicked and to save his people. He talked about that passage from Isaiah 61 of the Spirit of God resting on him and anointing him to preach the good news to the poor. John is the one who baptized him and saw that spirit descending on him like a dove. And he ended that passage with this sort of enigmatic phrase, he who has ears to hear, let him hear. indicating, suggesting to those who were listening that not everyone would be able to hear and understand the things he was saying, that only some among them would be given that divine help to be able to do so. And so we find in our text today, as we move on in this, that Jesus continues to address the crowds that are around him. Notice he He's going to ask them questions, address their response, but he's going to first then harshly criticize them for a lack of genuine response to his ministry. And then immediately on the heels of that, he's going to turn around and humbly entreat them to come to him in repentance. So we're going to look at this text under three basic headings. The first is going to be wanting. verses 16 and 19. The second is going to be woe in verses 20 to 24. And the third is going to be welcome in verses 25 to 30. So we'll look at wanting first. And when I use the word wanting, I'm going to do so in the sense we actually found it in some of the singing and reading we were doing already this morning. Not wanting in the sense of I want something, but wanting in the sense of I'm lacking something. I'm in need. There's something that should be there that is not. I will not be in want because the Lord is my shepherd. I won't be in need of things. Well here, the people that Jesus is speaking to are found wanting, lacking something. And what they're lacking has to do with the response that they have had toward the ministry of both John the Baptist and Jesus. We know that because as Jesus talks to them about this, he brings up both John the Baptist and himself. And he brings them up in connection with one another and with the people's response to them. Remember, he's just clarified to them who John the Baptist is. And then he's made it clear who he is to John the Baptist, and then he's made it clear to the crowd who John the Baptist is. But by doing so, I pointed out to you that he was actually making clear who he was. If John's the forerunner of the mighty one who's to come behind him, guess who I am? I am the Messiah, the mighty one who follows behind him. Obviously, that's the point of what he's been saying. And since John the Baptist has been arrested, Along with doing all the amazing miracles he's been doing, Jesus has been preaching the gospel of the kingdom of heaven to these people, both the crowds that follow him and all the places to which he has gone. And he's preaching that just as John the Baptist preached about the kingdom of heaven to the people before him. The question is, what has been the response of the people to the ministry of both of these God-ordained men? Well, in order to get their attention as he speaks to them now, Jesus uses sort of a parable-like approach to them. As he says, ask a question, to what shall I compare? Notice the phrase, this generation. You're going to hear that phrase again throughout this book. It essentially every time has a negative connotation, fairly mild in some sense in this one, but it is going to get progressively stronger and more critical as Jesus goes on through his ministry. To what shall I compare this generation? And he says, I will compare you to little children, essentially, who are playing make-believe in the market with each other. One group of children, we've all seen this, right? One group of children want to play, let's dress up and play a wedding. We're going to play music and everybody's going to dance. And they start to play the music and there's some kids over here on the side, they're saying, I don't want to play music and dance. I want to do something else. All right. Well, then we'll sing a dirge and we can all pretend we're at a funeral. Well, then there's another group over here. Well, I don't want to be at a funeral. That's not how I want to play. We played the flute for you. You didn't dance. We sang a dirge. You didn't mourn. What's wrong with you? See, in one sense, we could look at this as if the idea is that the people liked John the Baptist when he came. They were attracted to him. They tried to play with him, if you will, to play along with him. But over time, John the Baptist just turned out to be too sober, too ascetic, too withdrawn from all the good things in life, too serious-minded, too focused on Repentance and judgment. I mean, that's all we heard from him. And so Jesus says, so they end up saying of John the Baptist, he's got a demon or something going on here. On the other hand, I come along and I sit down, the son of man, and I actually sit at the table and I eat food with you and I drink with you. And you might say, we sort of enjoy feasting and all that together. And instead of saying, oh, finally, here's somebody we can play with, you turn around and say, look at him. He's a drunkard and a glutton. You can't seem to play with either one of us. You're not satisfied. That is one way that we could look at this. It could also be seen, though, that it is John the Baptist, perhaps, who has been calling them to mourn, right? Repent. The ax is laid to the root of the trees. The trees are going to be cut down and burned. You need to repent before God. The Lord is coming and you're not ready. On the other hand, it could be Jesus who's coming saying, the kingdom is here. Celebrate. Look at all the miracles I'm doing. Enjoy the benefits of the kingdom. And yet, In terms of response, the people aren't responding to either of their ministries the way that they should. How is it that they are supposed to be responding to the ministries? Well, Jesus makes it pretty clear for us When you look at verses 18 and 19, talking about John eating and drinking, he's got a demon, Jesus, the son of man, eating and drinking, look at him, he's a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors. But the original complaint is that they, when you look down below that, is that they see all of his mighty works and they do not do what? Repent. Repent. And notice how Jesus ends this by saying, yet wisdom is justified by her deeds. Vindicated is the idea there, proven true wisdom by her deeds. Now again, this could apply to John the Baptist and Jesus. You guys think he's a demon and I'm a drunkard and a glutton, but the truth is before God, we've been acting in true wisdom and it will be proven before God. On the other hand, you've been observing all of this, listening to all of this, participating in all of this, and you are not responding as you should and your want or lack of wisdom will be demonstrated as a result of that. And so we have that first approach of Jesus pointing out to the people that they are wanting, they are lacking in their response of repentance to the ministries of John the Baptist and himself. We come next to woe though. And you look at verses 20 to 24, and you find Jesus' tone in speaking to the crowds really sharply, critically, harshly changes here. This is not the typical Jesus that we've been listening to over the last many chapters as we've been going through. Then as soon as he talked about those things, he began to denounce. And that word denounce means that he began to heap shame on them, insults on them. He began to denounce the cities where most of his mighty works have been done. Now, again, we have to be careful to understand he isn't actually denouncing the cities. He isn't condemning the buildings. He's not the building inspector condemning the buildings. The cities are the people who live there. Just like if you think in the New Jerusalem, the city of Jerusalem is coming down from heaven isn't gonna be an actual structure that floats down from heaven. It's the people of God who are going to be coming down, who make up the city of Jerusalem, the New Jerusalem. So he's criticizing the people who've been living in these cities. Khorazin and Beseda are two cities that were in very close proximity to Capernaum itself. Maybe within an hour or two or three walking distance from Capernaum. Capernaum, on the other hand, is the place where Jesus lives, right? Remember when he left Nazareth and came into Galilee, he went to Capernaum and made his home there. And so that's where he's been living. And that's where most of his ministry has been focused. And therefore probably most of his miracles have been done in and around the city of Capernaum. And as I pointed out a few moments ago, while the lives and ministries of John the Baptist and Jesus have been vindicated before God as deeds of wisdom done, and again, remember what wisdom means in scripture. What is the beginning of wisdom according to scripture? The fear of the Lord, right? It's the fear of the Lord that is the beginning of wisdom. John the Baptist and Jesus have been ministering out of and in that fear of the Lord but the people have not been responding in fear of the Lord. They have not been seeing their need to repent and coming to do that. They are being denounced by Jesus because of their lack of response to the ministries and the message that they have been hearing. Remember that woe is not just, you should be unhappy. Woe is a word that means doom, calamity, and disaster. Woe is what is pronounced whenever Nebuchadnezzar is coming toward Jerusalem with his mighty army that is going to literally level the city and the temple to the ground and carry the people off into exile. Jesus is looking at these three cities and declaring woe, disaster, calamity upon them. Now he talks about Tyre and Sidon here and Tyre and Sidon are not cities in Israel. These are coastal cities. They're Gentile pagan cities up in the northeast of Israel. They are Cities of great commerce. They're a great deal of wealth, great deal of influence politically. Places that saw themselves as impregnable, couldn't be taken over or defeated. But they're also places that are known for their idolatry and their wickedness against the people of God. Part of their Wealth came from slave trade and some of the slaves that they sold were people of Israel and Judah. And they sold them deliberately, the Bible says, to get them away from those borders so they could have control in those areas. And so you find Tyre and Sidon throughout the Old Testament as objects of prophecies of God's doom, calamity, and disaster going to come on these cities for their wickedness. It's also notable, by the way, that most of us know about Jezebel, right? The queen wife of King Ahab, probably the most wicked woman in the history of Israel in general. It's interesting to note that Jezebel is the daughter of the King of Tyre and known as a Sidonian. Does that help you understand the picture of Tyre and Sidon in God's eyes? And by the way, Jezebel, what she's known for is being the one who worked as hard as she could to get rid of the worship of God and Israel and replace it with the worship of Baal, right? She thought she had one prophet to get rid of, yet Elijah, and she was determined to have him killed. And so you can see then that Tyre and Sidon are not places that stand well in God's eyes, nor in the eyes of the people of God at this time. And remember, again, what Jesus said, wisdom is vindicated by her deeds. Are you acting according to wisdom? And what Jesus is saying here is, what have been the deeds of you people who live in these cities of Chorazin and Bethsaida? Well, what their deeds have been is that they have been more than happy to receive all the blessings and benefits of the kingdom that Jesus has poured out on them by doing miracles all over the place and healing their people, casting out demons, even raising people from the dead, and they are just thrilled to death to be able to have all those things happening to make their lives better. But what they've not been doing is listening to and obeying the preaching of Jesus. Remember everywhere Jesus went to do miracles, he is first said to be doing what? Preaching and teaching. And what he has been preaching and teaching from the very beginning, when John the Baptist was arrested and he began his ministry in chapter four, verse 12, as he had been preaching, repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. And so that is Jesus' fundamental message to the people as he's preaching and teaching. And what he's saying is, you're not repenting. That's the whole point of what I'm doing here. When he talks about what Tyre and Sidon would have done if they had had all these miracles done in them, repenting in sackcloth and ashes, he doesn't mention Nineveh here, but if you know the story of Jonah, When Jonah finally does obey God and go to Nineveh after God has him swallowed by the great fish or whale and spit out on land, when Jonah finally goes there, he goes into Nineveh reluctantly because he doesn't want these people to be saved. He goes into Nineveh and he walks a day or two's journey into the city and all he does is walk around saying what he really wants to happen. 40 days and God is gonna bring disaster on this city. He doesn't, give them any encouragement with anything else, he brings them the message of impending doom. And what's the response? Well, in Jonah chapter 3, particularly I think verse 6, you find that when the king hears about this, he takes off his royal robes, he puts on sackcloth and sits down in ashes, and he orders the entire city to do the same thing. Even, not just the people, he says even the animals. will fast and have sackcloth on them. We are gonna demonstrate utter repentance for our wickedness to avoid this judgment from God. Nineveh did that. Jesus is saying Tyre and Sidon would have done it if I'd done the miracles over there, but guess who hasn't done it? Chorazin and Bethsaida, the people of God, have not done what's required. Luther, since we're around the time of the Reformation and the 31st of October is sort of Reformation Day, Luther in, I think it was his first thesis, proposed this and stated this, that when our Lord Jesus Christ said to repent, he meant that the entire life of the believer should be one of repentance. Not just repentance, done, I'm gone. Our entire life is one of repenting over sin because we continue sinning and we continue needing grace. They're not even beginning the path, let alone carrying out the life of repentance. And then he comes to Capernaum. And Jesus really singles Capernaum out. And again, this is because I think Jesus was living right there. He was there much of the time. He did most of his mighty works there. And he asked them, will you be exalted to heaven? Now again, remember the goal of all the Jews was to be with God. And so it might just be a reference to that. Although the problem they have is, Will you really be since you're not showing any repentance to make you fit for it? Jesus said, will you be? It could also be that remember in his ministry through the miracles and the preaching, he has been setting the kingdom before them. He's been showing it to them. It's here. This is the beginning of it. And what they've been saying is, eh, we'll take the miracles, but the kingdom, not so much. No repentance. And so Jesus says, would you be exalted to heaven? No, in fact, where you're going to be is you're going to be in hell, in Hades. He says, if I had done all the mighty works I've done in this city, in Sodom, guess what? Sodom would still be standing today. Now, Sodom was the epitome of the most wicked place that the people of God ever knew of, and of God's wrath and righteous judgment on that. Jesus is saying those people, if I'd done this, they would have repented. They would still be here. And guess what? You haven't. You're worse than Sodom. You're worse than Sodom. And in the judgment, Tyre and Sidon are going to be in a more favorable position than Chorazin and Bethsaida. And Sodom is going to be in a more tolerable position than Capernaum. Why is that? Well, it's the idea of what we call proportional judgment. Tyre and Sidon are going to deserve the judgment that God brings on them and Sodom deserved the judgment God brought on it. The reason they will be in a, not a good position at the judgment day, but a better position than these places is because they didn't have Jesus Christ in the flesh, standing there, preaching and teaching to them and doing all the miracles to prove who he was. And so we will be judged by the light that we have. Chorazin, Bethsaida, and Capernaum had the brightest light you could imagine. And they walked around wearing sunglasses. They refused to see the light. Just as a side note, by the way, this part of Jesus' ministry here is probably exactly what John the Baptist had been looking for and didn't think he was seeing enough of and why he was questioning who Jesus was. He thought there should have been more of this. Now it's interesting. This is a powerful, actually, if you think about it, it's a terrifying statement of impending divine judgment. But notice what happens next. At that time, suddenly Jesus turns and begins to pray. And it seems like he's praying publicly. It seems like in the middle of this, he stands and lifts his eyes to heaven and begins to pray to Father. And the prayer he makes is a prayer of, it's a prayer, your translations might say praise God, others might say thank God. The word can mean either or both. It's the idea that he's praising and thanking God for what God has done. but look carefully at what he's saying God has done. He's praising and thanking God because God has hidden, hidden these truths from the wise and understanding and he has revealed these things to little children. Jesus is thanking and praising God for hiding the truths of the kingdom from some people who think that they are wise and understanding and they know everything. You could remember, go back maybe to Jesus earlier when the Pharisees are criticizing him for sitting with tax collectors and so on. And he says, you know, well, people don't have any need of a position. I came to call sinners to repentance. That's really what Jesus is saying again here. You've hidden these things from those people who know everything. At least they think they do. And what you've done is you've revealed them to little children, people who are sort of immune to this worldly knowledge and thinking that they've got it all, but are ready and able to learn. And so Jesus is praising God for this, for hiding and revealing. And notice his opinion of this isn't that God in hiding things from people is being arbitrary and uncaring and mean-hearted, mean-spirited. He says, I thank you and praise you. Why? Because this is your gracious will. Gracious will. God is actually showing His grace in what He is doing here. Now, Jesus doesn't go into this, but remember, the reason that's true is God doesn't owe a single human being anything. We are all sinners and deserve nothing except His wrath. He doesn't owe us anything good. Anything we receive good from Him is nothing but pure grace. Pure grace. And so Jesus is thanking and praising God because this plan of His to hide and reveal is a demonstration of His gracious will, His good pleasure and His intention. Now, verse 27 is a powerful verse, powerful verse. It is in one sense an explanation of what it is that God has hidden and revealed. Notice Jesus says, all things have been handed over to me by my father. All things. Now, all things is general, but it's also comprehensive. All things as in nothing is left out. All things. Who is capable of handling all things? Keep that in mind. All things have been handed over to me by my father. That means that he is the one who has been appointed by the father. What does the word Christ or Messiah mean? The chosen one of God, the one who has been anointed, chosen, appointed by God. Also, he is the one who, well, again, we should stop and look at the words he uses. All things is general and comprehensive, but guess what? No one is. It's also comprehensive. No one knows the father. None of us can know the father. There's only one exception to no one knowing the father. And who is that? It's the son. Now that word know here doesn't mean just being aware of and having some cognitive awareness that the father is there and who he is. That word know means to totally know, to fully, completely know. It implies an intimate relationship between the people who know each other in this sense. No one knows the father except the son and no one knows the son except the father. This reciprocal, deep, intimate relationship with each other, but there's also an exception to who knows the Father except the Son and who? Those whom the Son chooses to reveal him to. See, the Son and the Father, by Jesus' statement here, are set apart in this unique relationship that no other beings participate in. Angels, people, no one else. He has condemned these cities for not knowing him, knowing who he is and responding with repentance. And here he's pointing out that no one can know who he is except the father and those, and nobody can know the father except the son and those whom he, the son Jesus chooses to reveal him to. What this points out is that he alone, Christ alone, is God's chosen mediator to stand between God and people. None of us down here can know him up here without the Son who mediates that knowledge. That's what Jesus is saying here. You find that same thing again. in the book of Hebrews that he is the only mediator between God and man. It is, notice, his will is what grants people access to the Father. Who can be a gatekeeper for God? That's another thing for us to think about. But I want you to notice, Jesus isn't just like other prophets who come to the people of God, say you're a bunch of sinners and you need to return to God. You need to turn back to God. He is saying that, but he's doing it in a different way. Notice what his message is. Come to who? Come to me. Wait a minute, the Father is up there. Isn't that who we're supposed to? Come to me, Christ says. You who are weary and heavy laden. Now, those phrases talk about burdens and toil and work and labor, and it might refer to just the troubles of this life. It might refer to the struggles we have trying to deal with sin in this life. It also might, and I think very well may, refer to those who are struggling under the yoke, because Christ talks about a yoke in a minute, under the yoke of the law. The idea that the law is the way to be right with God and to be knowing God and in that intimate relationship with him. I do the law, and if I do it well enough, I'm righteous before God and I get to know him and be in relationship with him. And that is a struggle. Again, talk to Martin Luther about what a struggle that was. I can't be right before a holy God. And Jesus says, those of you who are laboring and are heavy laden, come to me. Come to me. He talks about my yoke. Again, a yoke It can just be an instrument to make it easier to carry burdens. You put it on your shoulder, it distributes the weight. But yoke was generally seen as a symbol of servitude, slavery. You put a yoke on somebody, it's your yoke. Notice it's his yoke, not theirs. It's you're in service to me. It's discipleship. It's committing yourself to Christ. My yoke is easy. It's kind. I'm not oppressive, I'm not a tyrannic dictator. And notice the burden that my yoke is going to impose on you is not going to be impossible to carry, it's going to be light. We can think about why that burden would be light, it's because Christ has already carried the burden for us by the time he finishes his ministry, and what we have to do is receive it by faith. We don't have to do it all. He's done it for us. But notice, we understand that God is, notice is again, in my prayer earlier, I talked about God being justice, knowledge, truth, all those things at all times in the same degree. God is knowledge. God is truth. Not that he has them. He is those things. And so if you want true knowledge, the scriptures always point us back to God. But notice what Jesus says here, not only come to me, but come to me and learn from me. Again, another of the roles of God being assumed by Christ here. In the Old Testament, God is the one who promises to give his people rest. Do you see that ultimately in the promises to the people of Israel as they come out of Egypt and they're going to go to the promised land where they will find rest after all their wandering in the wilderness? typical pointing forward to us as well. But the point here is that God is the one who gives people rest. Psalm 23 that we read this morning points to this idea of God giving rest. Exodus 33.14, God explicitly says, I will give my people rest. Jeremiah 6.16, I would give you rest. Psalm 62.1 talks about the rest that God would give. And over and over again through scripture, but notice here who says that I am going to give you rest. Jesus, come to me, take my yoke upon you. I will give you rest. The role of God throughout the whole Testament is being assumed again by Christ here. Although notice again, it's only going to be those that Christ chooses to reveal the father to who are going to be able to receive that rest. But notice that isn't what he says as he makes this invitation. He doesn't stand up and say, okay, I know there's only certain ones of you out there are gonna be saved, so you know who you are, I'd like you all to line up over here on this side, the rest of you. He stands up and says, come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden. I will give you rest, not just physical rest, notice, rest for your souls. Arms open wide. Although there is a sense, even though I'll give you rest, we still have to take his yoke upon us. We still have a role to play in that. It doesn't just get granted to us. There has to be obedience and faithfulness. So we look at this and how to apply it to our day. After all, we don't live in Bethsaida or Chorazin or Capernaum. We're not looking out our windows waiting for fire and brimstone to pour down from heaven and destroy everything. But the analogy or parable that Jesus uses about the children in this text I think is important and it's condemning. This isn't intended to be a kind, pleasant story Jesus is telling, make us all feel good at the end. He spoke this in a negative way to this generation, the one he was talking to and dealing with in that day. And yet the truth is that the truths in that parable speak to all people in all times. After all, isn't the basic charge in that parable, if you wanna call it that, that God or Jesus just isn't dancing to our tune? We didn't want somebody that was just gonna be a mourner all the time. We didn't want somebody who was just gonna be a party all the time. We wanted you to be what we want you to be, and you wouldn't do it. So we're just not gonna have anything more to do with you. Take our ball and bat and go home, as children do, some adults do. Isn't that also how Satan got to Adam and Eve in the garden? Didn't he come to Adam and Eve and say, you know that God, did he really say that? Is that really what he said? Because in a sense, you don't really have to deal with him. If you eat from that tree, you be him. You won't need him anymore. You'll be God's yourselves. Forget him. Isn't that the basic message? And isn't that also the problem in our day? People are not satisfied with what God has said, with what God has required, and so they are constantly trying to get God to dance to their tune, right? We see it today in all kinds of areas. Gender. God has people born male or female, but people don't want to accept it, do they? No, that's not who I am. I tell you who I am, and you can listen to it, and affirm me in it, or you're a hateful, unloving, rotten, bigoted person. The same is true in terms of sexual behavior and sexual desires, right? It's the same issue going on with that. And it's also true in terms of the idea that people are guilty of sin and need to repent. Nobody wants to hear that message anymore. Churches are intentionally cutting that all out of their sermons and their teaching because if they keep it up, people don't come. They don't want to hear that. They want God to dance to their tune. See, we must hear God, we must obey God, and we must respond to God in all things. All things absolute, no exceptions. Which leads us to a second point of application. What happens when we don't? What is God's response when we don't repent and dance to his tune if you want to follow with Jesus' parable? Well in this text we hear Jesus, the one who later in this text describes himself as gentle and lowly. We hear him, but remember the gentle and lowly is to those who are submitting to his yoke and taking it on themselves. We hear him instead forcefully calling down woe, disaster, calamity, absolute mayhem on these three cities. Why? It wasn't because they were violently opposed to the gospel. It wasn't because they were raising up mobs with pitchforks and chasing Jesus and disciples out of town and threatening to hurt them or kill them, even though Jesus had predicted that's eventually going to happen. What was the reason he was calling for this? Some might say it's simply because they didn't repent of their sins. No, it's not simply because they didn't repent of their sins. It is only because they didn't do what they are required to do, see themselves as sinful creatures in need of a savior and repent of their sins and receive God's offer of salvation in the kingdom of heaven. See, This terrible, complete judgment and destruction he's calling for is due to them because their response is lacking. They don't have repentance. And how does that apply to us today? Well, in the same way, nobody today wants to be told they're a sinner and needs to repent. You tell people they're sinners and they get downright offended. Every thought, every desire, every behavior in our culture and society now, no matter how ungodly, unhealthy, and immoral it is, has to be strongly affirmed by everybody or your hateful, bigoted, unloving people. And so yes, although Jesus was speaking here to this generation that's right in front of him, guess what? That generation recurs every generation. Every generation. And so what Jesus warns of applies to every generation. Woe is coming to you if you don't repent. That's the message. But that leads us to a third kind of outlook on this. Did you notice that Jesus at that time didn't then lift his eyes to heaven and pray and say, Father, all right, it's time. Pour out fire from heaven and consume these three cities and all the people in them, they deserve it. He'll have a couple of disciples later on who want to do that to a couple of places. But Jesus doesn't do that here, does he? He does lift his eyes and pray. But no, what he does is he thanks the Father because his will and his purpose are gracious. Gracious, not hateful. And in demonstration of the fact that God's purpose is gracious, Jesus essentially turns to these unrepentant sinners, spreads his arms open wide, and invites them. pleads with them, invites them, come to me. Even with the threat of disaster on you, come to me now. Gently, humbly, sincerely inviting them to come and repent and find rest for their souls. But why does he put that in terms of them needing to know the Father? What does knowing the Father have to do with coming and finding rest for their souls? Well, Jesus actually makes that explicitly clear in another prayer of his later in his life. In John chapter 17, his high priestly prayer near the end of his life, just before he's betrayed, he begins that prayer by again, thanking his father. And his father also in that prayer has given him something. He's given him the people that he's to save and In that prayer, he says something. He says, Father, the hour has come. Glorify your son that the son may glorify you since you have given him authority over all flesh. Everything's been turned over to me. What is that authority? To give eternal life to all whom you have given him. That's the authority Christ has. That's the rest. Come to me and I'll give you rest for your soul, eternal life with him. But he goes on to say something else. And this is eternal life, that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you sent. You see, this prayer is already in seed form in the prayer Jesus gave in our text. The Son knows the Father, the Father knows the Son. Nobody can know them except through the Son. You need to come to me and repent, and you'll receive rest, which is eternal life to all those that the Father has given to me, because everything has been turned over to me. See, the greatest need of sinful fallen people is to truly know and to be in a loving relationship with the Father, so that we might receive the blessing that, believe it or not, He has desired for us from the very beginning. Do you remember what God promised Adam before Adam fell? If you don't eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, guess what? You'll be able to eat from the tree of life, and that means you will live forever with me, and so will all of your descendants. Eternal life in the presence of God. Adam threw that away to be God himself. All the way through God has been promising exactly that. Jesus is the one God has appointed to reveal God to us and to bring us into that knowledge, that relationship with Him. He alone is the mediator that stands between God and men, the only way to God, contrary to what everybody wants to hear today. And no one, no one, again, I've been pointing out these idiosyncrasies, who can know the infinite God truly and fully? Any of us? Any human being at all? Only God has the capacity to fully truly know the infinite God and yet Jesus says, no one can know the Father except to the Son. What is he saying about himself? What is he saying about himself? But he is the only way to God, but he is so much more. And listen to what he said in verse 27. Just look at it. Think about the fact that from the beginning of creation, God established six days where he labored and a seventh day for what? Rest. God had been calling his people to rest from creation. We resisted as much as we possibly can. He's been calling us to it, that eternal rest. Remember part of the curse was that man was going to labor and toil through all of his life. Jesus declares, if you come to me, if you're heavy laden, I'll give you that rest that God has been promising. See, we don't know who the people are specifically. The father is chosen and given to the son. We don't know those who are actually going to be given the spiritual ability to be able to see and understand these things. And so what we do is we do exactly what Jesus did. We take the gospel and we proclaim it to everyone. God will call his people in that process. And when he does, we need to take Christ's yoke upon us and come to him and learn from him so that we can receive that rest as well. Let's pray. Father, we come to you thankful for the goodness, the graciousness of your will and purpose that we see in this passage, the fullness of it that is in Christ, the one who is the exact imprint of your nature, the radiance of your glory. We pray that you would help us to hear this text and see there is condemnation for those who don't repent and turn to you. But in your grace, there is this wide open invitation for people to turn to you yet in repentance and come and receive eternal rest. We pray that you would work your grace in people's hearts this morning and cause that to be true. In Christ's name we pray. Amen. And so as we continue in our worship of God and prepare to take up the tithes and offerings, let's turn in our hymnals to hymn number 629, sing our hymn of response, kind of focused around knowing Jesus and the Father. What a friend we have in Jesus. We'll stand together for the last verse, if you're able.