Sermons

Introduction

Good morning. So, I had the great idea to get back in the book of Luke. So, we need to get back in the book of Luke. We need to get back in the book of Luke. But I didn't realize that I was going to be the one getting in the book of Luke. So, I thought, "Well, huh. It's been a few weeks. Where did we leave off?" And I looked at chapter 7, verses 31 through 35, and I thought, "Well, I need an after-foot mint because I am teaching what looks like, on the surface, a very interesting passage. When you first read it, you might think to yourself, "Whoa, what is this talking about?" But I think if you stick with me and you stay in this text here, you're going to see there's some profound truth in here, as obviously there always is. All of Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching and training and rebuking and righteousness.

So, if you have your Bible, open to Luke chapter 7. Since it's been a minute, I am going to start us in verse 24 to get some context. We're going to be looking at verses 31 through 35 in chapter 7 of Luke, but I want to give us a running start so that we can get a little bit more context for our passage this morning. So, if you have your Bibles, open to Luke chapter 7, look at verse 24.

"When the messengers of John had left, He began to speak to the crowds about John, 'What did you go out into the wilderness to see? A reed shaken by the wind? But what did you go out to see? A man dressed in soft clothing? Those who are splendidly clothed and live in luxury are found in royal palaces! But what did you go out to see? A prophet? Yes, I say to you, and one who is more than a prophet. This is the one about whom it is written, "BEHOLD, I SEND MY MESSENGER AHEAD OF YOU, WHO WILL PREPARE YOUR WAY BEFORE YOU."' – verse 28 – 'I say to you, among those born of women there is no one greater than John; yet he who is least in the kingdom of God is greater than he.' When all the people and the tax collectors heard this, they acknowledged God's justice, having been baptized with the baptism of John. But the Pharisees and the lawyers rejected God's purpose for themselves, not having been baptized by John."

Now our text this morning, verse 31: "To what then shall I compare the men of this generation, and what are they like? They are like children who sit in the market place and call to one another, and they say, 'We played the flute for you, and you did not dance; we sang a dirge, and you did not weep.' For John the Baptist has come eating no bread and drinking no wine, and you say, 'He has a demon!' The Son of Man has come eating and drinking, and you say, 'Behold, a gluttonous man and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners!' Yet wisdom is vindicated by all her children." Let's pray.

[Prayer] Dear Heavenly Father, we thank You for the privilege of being here on this beautiful Lord's Day and the opportunity to hold Your word, the very revelation of God in our hands, to have it in our own language, to hear it preached. We thank You for this passage that You've ordained for us to teach and learn this morning. And we pray, Father, that Your Spirit would do a great work in teaching and imparting truth through me and through each one of us, that we would listen with attentive ears, that we would have attentive hearts. Might there be one here this morning who will have their life transformed by the person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ? He is the only Savior given among men by which we must be saved. And we'll ask it for Your glory and in the name of Christ. Amen. [End]

Title of the message this morning is "Not the Messengers, But the Message. Not the Messengers, But the Message." And I've broken it into two parts. The first is verse 31 through 34, "children of folly." Verses 31 through 34, "children of folly." And the second is the last verse, verse 35, "children of wisdom." "Children of folly" and "children of wisdom." And so, since it's been a bit since we were in the book of Luke, I want to give just a little review and some context.

We're in the middle of Jesus' Galilean ministry, which began in the middle of chapter 4, and Luke will take the Galilean ministry and he will write about that from the middle of chapter 4 to almost the end of chapter 9. And in chapter 9, verse 51, Luke provides a pivot verse for us. Before He begins His journey to Jerusalem – Jesus, that is – Jesus is going to be moving south, as He has been here in chapter 7. He's going to continue to move south as He moves to Jerusalem. And in chapter 9, verse 51, Luke writes this – and I'm using the New King James because I like that translation of this verse better.

Luke 9:51, "Now it came to pass, when the time had come for Him" – Jesus – "to be received up, that He steadfastly set His face to go to Jerusalem." I like that verse because the translation that Luke gives there is that He was resolute in His desire to go to Jerusalem. Jesus Christ came to die, and He came to go to Jerusalem and give Himself as a ransom for His people. And so that's going to be the next section of the book of Luke.

But we've seen here in the book of Luke, chapter 7, a number of things in Jesus' ministry just in this chapter. You'll remember that back in chapter 7 of Luke, verses 1 through 10, we saw the healing of the centurion's son, the healing of the centurion's son. That took place in Capernaum. Now we see in that healing the power of our Lord, that He has, like the centurion, authority, but He has authority over all things, because, as the book of Colossians tells us, He created all things. We see that He has authority. He has authority over all things. And we also see that by a fiat command, He simply spoke the word, and the servant was healed, much like He spoke the universe into existence.

And then in verses 11 through 16, we see in chapter 7 that Jesus raises the widow's son in the town of Nain. Now again, He's moving south. Capernaum is further north; Nain, further south; ultimately, Jerusalem will be well south of that. And we see here in the healing of this widow's son, the compassion of our Lord. He, being an only son, understood the devastation of this widow who had lost not only her only child, but her means of provision through this child. And so having compassion, He showed love to this woman, tremendous love as He saw the devastation of this funeral procession coming toward Him. And we also see the restoration power, as well as the resurrection power, of our Lord Jesus Christ.

If you're here this morning and don't know Christ, you are deaf, dumb, and blind in your sins. But the good news of the gospel is that Jesus Christ can give you new birth. He can raise you spiritually from the dead.

And then in Luke chapter 7, verses 17 through 23, we saw that John had a crisis of faith. John the Baptist, the greatest man born among women had a crisis of faith, and he sends some envoys to Jesus from jail where he is to Jesus to say, "Are You the One that we expected as the Messiah?" And we see in Jesus' words in return, that He provides encouragement. If you're here this morning and need encouragement, Jesus Christ can provide encouragement. Paul writes in 2 Corinthians chapter 1, 'He is the God of all comfort."

And so, He comforts John the Baptist. We see that He provides John with hope. He says, "John, I am the One. You have hope in the Messiah because I am He." And He uses Scripture to embolden John's faith. He says, "You tell John that the deaf hear, the blind see." And so, He gives him Scripture to encourage and undergird his faith.

And then, the verses we just read in Luke chapter 7, verses 24 through 30, we see Jesus praises John. He provides John with tremendous condemnation, as I said earlier. He says that he is the greatest man born among women. No higher praise, perhaps, can be given.

But the direct context for our text this morning is really in verses 29 and 30, just preceding this. Remember, when you're studying your Bible, context is everything. It's not the only thing, it's everything in interpretation. And so, in Luke chapter 7, verses 29 and 30, we read this, read this again: "When all the people and the tax collectors heard this, they acknowledged God's justice, having been baptized with the baptism of John." Now, here's our immediate context for this morning, verse 30: "But the Pharisees and the lawyers rejected God's purpose for themselves, not having been baptized by John." And we see here the stiff-necked rebellion of the religious elite to not only the Lord Jesus Christ, but to John the Baptist.

Children of Folly

And so, we'll look here at verse 31. Our first section is "children of folly, children of folly," verses 31 through 34. Look at verse 31. Jesus says, "To what then shall I compare the men of this generation, and what are they like?" I want you to notice that He is providing a comparison here, and He says, "I," using the personal pronoun because Jesus is the one who's speaking. He's using a common rabbinical phrase, a Hebraism, it's called, where they would often start the rabbis with, "How can I compare this?" or, "To what do I liken it to?" It's a phrase that we still use to this day.

And Jesus, as the speaker – and He's been speaking since verse 22 – is now speaking personally as an earthly analogy to impart a spiritual truth. Jesus is using an earthly analogy to impart a spiritual truth. It's very similar to a parable. "Parable" means to simply throw alongside for the purpose of comparison. Jesus as the master teacher often did this when He was making a delineation of truth.

And so, He says, "To what shall I compare" – note – "the men of this generation?" Now, that word "generation" is instructive because that Greek word is the word genea, genea, and it's where we get the derivative of the English word "genealogy." Now, the reason it's so instructive is because this word "generation," as it's used in the context of the book of Luke, is almost exclusively in a pejorative or negative sense. It's used in a negative, pejorative sense.

For example, in Luke chapter 9:41, Jesus says this: "You unbelieving and perverted generation," – same word – "how long shall I be with you? How long should I put up with you?" And then later in Luke 11:29, it says, "As the crowds were increasing, He" – Jesus – "began to say, 'This generation is a wicked generation; it seeks for a sign, and yet no sign will be given it but the one of the sign of Jonah.'" And so you can see in both uses, He's using it in a condemnatory sense. In fact, the apostle Paul even uses it in that sense in the book of Philippians 2:15 where he says this: "The children of God who live in the midst of a crooked and perverse" – here's the word – "generation." And so Jesus is not mincing words here with the use of this word.

Now, I want you to notice here in verse 31 that He's not referring obviously to everyone in Galilee; it's not a universal phrase that He's referring to these men. He's also not referring to everybody in the crowd standing around Him. He is reserving this primarily for the religious leaders, those in verse 30, who are rejecting His message and the message of John.

Now, think about this. Jesus Christ, the God-man, fully God, fully man, the only mediator between God and man, the only man given among men by which we must be saved, no greater man walked the earth. And He has just said in the preceding section that John the Baptist is the greatest man born among women. And so we have the two greatest men on the earth, perhaps, obviously in Jesus, yes, the greatest men that ever walked the earth. And they're also the only two preachers at the time. And yet their message was being outright rejected. It's not the messengers. These are the perfect messengers giving a perfect message. It's the rejection of the message.

And so, we see that as we've learned throughout the Gospels that these two men, John the Baptist and Jesus, have very different styles, very different lives. And so we know that John the Baptist was rugged and he was outspoken. Jesus was, although firm, many times gentle and soft-spoken. John lived in the seclusion of the desert away from people. Jesus lived among the people. He could not have been more among the people – in the cities, in the towns, at banquets, at parties.

John ate locusts and honey. Jesus attended banquets and weddings, and probably drank wine and ate the typical foods of the day. John's disciples fasted. Jesus' disciples did not fast. John was the greatest born among women, but he was still a man like us, nothing but dust. Jesus was the God-man, fully God, fully man. We have no record of John ever in the Gospels performing miracles or healings or wonders. And yet, we see throughout the Gospels Jesus doing that. In fact, John says, "If the books of the whole world filled all the things that Jesus did, they still wouldn't contain all the facts."

And so, just in chapter 7, we saw the miracles that I talked about earlier of the centurion's servant being healed, the widow at Nain's son being healed; and so these two men could not be more different in many ways. But they had one thing in common, one very important thing in common. Despite their differences, they had a common message. Despite their differences, they had a common message. I want you to hold your finger in Luke and turn to the book of Matthew.

Matthew chapter 3. Matthew chapter 3. This is a very instructive two chapters that Matthew gives us here on this point. Matthew chapter 3, look at verse 1. Matthew chapter 3, verse 1: "Now in those days John the Baptist" – there's the context – "came preaching in the wilderness of Judea and saying," – listen carefully, verse 2 – 'Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.'"

Now I want you to look over at chapter 4 – same book. Matthew chapter 4. Look at verse 17. Matthew 4:17, "From that time Jesus" – there's the context – "began preaching and saying, 'Repent, the kingdom of heaven is at hand.'" You can go back to Luke 7.

Two men, two styles, one message, and they both received the same rejection. Their message was, "The kingdom of God is at hand." Jesus Christ is on the scene. "You need to repent of your sins." That's the negative, moving away from sin. Faith is the opposite side of that same coin, moving toward the Lord Jesus Christ. You have faith in Christ, positive; you repent of your sin, negative. It requires both. And they both preached the exact same message.

And now, the parallel passage to the one we're studying this morning in Luke 7 is found in Matthew 11. You don't need to turn there, but it's interesting. In Matthew 11:16, there is not recorded this second phrase or this second question as there is here in verse 31, where Jesus says, "To what shall I compare this generation, and what are they like?" Luke is the only one who records that. And he probably does so to sharpen the contrast as he's writing.

Now, Jesus is now going to illustrate by way of an analogy – remember the earthly analogy to give a spiritual truth. He's going to illustrate by using two children's games, neither of which the children in the analogy want to play. Okay, look at verse 32: "They are like children who sit in the marketplace and call to one another, and they say, 'We played the flute for you, and you did not dance; we sang a dirge, and you did not weep.'"

Now, later, Jesus is going to talk about this same use of the word as "child" here, the derivative of this word "children," in Luke chapter 18, verse 17, a very famous phrase, you know it, where Jesus says, "Unless you become like a child, you cannot enter the kingdom of heaven." He's talking there about dependence. He's talking there about God having to perform the sovereign work. A baby can do nothing for themselves, God must do it all. Salvation is of the Lord. And so we need to have the humble heart of a child if we are to enter the kingdom of heaven. There is no pride moving in through the narrow gate to heaven. And so He's talking about here these children as He was later in Luke 18.

Now, it's obvious that this is not a child as in an infant, this is a child who's old enough to express saving faith, but it still has the idea of the need for moral instruction. So, He's saying these Pharisees and scribes are like children who are recalcitrant. It's a word my father used to use. Some of you younger people in here may not be familiar with it. They're stiff -necked, they're disobedient, they're brats, if you will.

And He said, "These children who sit in the marketplace and call to one another to play these games." This was the marketplace, or the agora, as it was known. This was the place of commerce. This was a place where the towns in the middle of the towns would come together and they would perform commerce, they would perform trade, there would be all kinds of finance taking place there. Well, when the days were not used for that, they would be empty and they would be broad, and so the children had plenty of room to run around and play their games.

And if you remember, in Luke chapter 2, one of the very few places we have in the Gospels that give us a small glimpse of Jesus as a child in chapter 2, no doubt, Jesus as a child would have played in the agora, He would have played in the marketplace. And so Jesus as the master teacher would always use things that were appropriate for His audience or things that He had done Himself.

And so, He says here that they were in the marketplace and they say this: "We played the flute for you, and you did not dance; we sang a dirge, and you did not weep." And so, the first game that He's talking about here with the flute and a dance is a joyful scene as at a wedding. You see that? It's a joyful scene as if they're playing a wedding game. Weddings are a place of joy. They're a place of merriment, of music.

And the second one, He says, "We sang a dirge, and you did not weep." This is a picture of a funeral. This is a picture of a funeral, weeping and a dirge. This Greek word for "weep" means "to wail loudly." It means "to have great sorrow." And so, we have a picture of tremendous contrast: the wedding and the funeral. The flute pictures the children, inviting the others to join in the game, the other children refuse, and they do not dance. Despite the playing of the flute, they will not play along, they will not dance. And so, the joyful occasion of the wedding doesn't work, so then the children try the solemn occasion of a funeral and they play funeral, as kids are apt to do, play grown up – I used to do it with my brother and sister all the time growing up. And so they try a funeral, and yet that doesn't work either.

And so, what's the Lord's point? Why is He using this analogy? Well, the lesson, in short, is because it was evident that the Jews were determined to receive no message from God at all. Their pretended objections were only a cloak to cover over their hatred of God's truth. What they really disliked was not so much God's messengers, John and Jesus, but God's message, and the reason was because they hated the God of the message. Warren Wiersbe says this: "The leaders rejected God's word through John and Jesus, and the leaders were childish rather than childlike." Well said.

John and Jesus, they did not follow their tune, they didn't do it their way, they didn't play by their rules, and so they had no time for them. This generation wanted things their way, not God's way. Charles Spurgeon says this: "These children could not agree as to what game they would play. They would agree to nothing that was proposed." And that was the point of the Savior's analogy, that there are multitudes of men who always quarrel with any kind of ministry that God may send to them. "It's easy to find fault when you want to do so. Any stick will do to beat a dog, and any kind of excuse will do to allow your conscience to escape the message of an earnest ministry. Our Lord told the people that this was the way they were acting towards Himself and towards John the Baptist."

Look at verse 33, Jesus continues, "For John the Baptist has come eating no bread and drinking no wine, and you say, 'He has a demon!'" John's diet, as I mentioned earlier when we were contrasting the two men, was a diet that was very contrarian. Mark Becker, who's an ultimate foodie, would not have had John the Baptist's diet, okay? He ate locusts and honey. He wore camel's hair. He's a good cook, by the way – Mark is, not John the Baptist.

He wore camel's hair and had a leather belt. He was living in the desert. We learned that in Matthew chapter 3. Earlier in the book of Luke, we learned it as well. He did not eat bread or drink wine as more normal people did in that day. This was the irreducible minimum, if you will, of societal norms. You remember in the Olivet Discourse, Jesus recounts the men of the generation in Noah's day. He says, "They were eating and drinking, they were marrying and giving in marriage." Why does He say that? Because He's saying, "They were going on about their lives just like they would normally." We have the same today. People trample the Bible. They eat, they drink. They get married, they're given marriage. Nothing wrong with those things. But they have no idea that there's a judgment coming.

And so Jesus in the Olivet Discourse uses this as a common phrase to say, "This is what normal people do." John was not anything of a normal person, he was the forerunner, a prophet that was sent to prepare the way for the coming King, the Lord Jesus Christ. So, John's message – here's the point – was somber like a funeral described in the illustration. Do you see that? John was the living embodiment of the children playing the dirge, the children playing the funeral march. His emphasis was on the need to repent. It was on the fiery judgment of hell. We saw that back in chapter 3 of Luke. Go back and look at that. this afternoon in chapter 3, it talks about his message and what it was. He was the original preacher of hellfire and brimstone – John was. He would not be invited to many pulpits today if he were alive.

He condemned the religious elite as a brood of vipers, Luke 3:7, and yet John was incredibly humble. Even in his condemnation, he was humble. In the book of John, we see in the book of John, chapter 1, verse 27, he says he's not even worthy to unloose the sandal thong of Jesus' foot. That was, by the way, the most menial task of a slave in the day. He says, "I'm not even worthy to unloose the sandal strap from the Lord Jesus Christ."

And later in chapter 3, he says, "He" – Christ – "must increase, and I" – "John must decrease." Boy, we all need that, don't we? Jesus Christ needs to increase in our lives, and we need to decrease in our lives. We need to become invisible, and we need to elevate the Lord Jesus Christ. That was John's goal. Remember when his disciples came and said, "John, behold, the One you baptized, all the people are going to Him," and that's when he said that, "That's the way it needs to be. He should increase, and I should decrease." He wasn't about a following.

So, the crowds initially did flock to John. They came out to the desert to see this odd thing that they heard about, this oddball that was out in the desert. And he had throngs of people listening initially; he began to baptize these people. But soon his popularity plummeted, and it got so bad that eventually they said, what? "He's got a demon! He's such a kook. This guy has a demon." And so they began to write him off.

John MacArthur said this: "The people's motive for so labeling John was their hatred of his message. Their hearts were hard and impenetrable, causing them to reject the divine diagnosis of their condition that He proclaimed. Being proud and self -righteous, they hated John's condemnation of them as sinners desperately in need of repentance and forgiveness. They attacked John's person in order to justify the rejection of his message." And again, I go back to the theme of the message this morning: not the messengers, it's the message.

You know, when we started Trinity Bible Church back in January of 2018, really because of tyranny of the urgent, we didn't have men to fill the pulpit. We didn't have a man that we could look to like most churches do. And so after seeking godly counsel with one, being John MacArthur, the idea was hatched that the Lord was calling this work to begin and that they would dispatch men to help us preach each Sunday.

Well, there's a lot of benefits to that. Number one, you don't elevate a man and you have one ear to tune to just one man every Sunday, you get to hear a number of different men. And so you begin to realize that although these men have different styles – and we all have our favorites and we all have those, "I'd rather listen to him than him." That's a human nature. But one of the things you learn very quickly is that" I'm there on Sunday to hear the message. I'm not there to hear the messenger." I hope as big as I am, I'm invisible this morning because the message is what has the power, not the messenger. Paul said that, the greatest preacher perhaps that ever lived in that time. He says, "My words are not eloquent. My visible presentation is not eloquent. In fact, they make fun of me." But he had powerful words from the Lord God because faith comes from hearing and hearing by the word of God.

Look at verse 34: "The Son of Man has come eating and drinking, and you say, 'Behold, a gluttonous man and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners!'" Just as the crowd had turned on John, Jesus says, "Now look, they're turning on Me." While John was an ascetic, Jesus came as a "normal person," – and you can understand the use of how I say that. He came eating. He came drinking. He mingled. His first miracle was done in John chapter 2 in Cana, which was a miracle at a wedding.

And so, what's wonderful here, implicit in this text, is we see the humanity of the Lord Jesus Christ, that He was truly very man of very man. We see in the Scriptures Him sleeping. We see Him getting tired. We see Him drinking. We see Him thirsting. We see the humanity of our Lord. And we see that here implicitly in this text of Him eating and drinking.

And notice the phrase that He uses of Himself in the very beginning of verse 34. Look at verse 34: "The Son of Man." This was the favorite phrase of our Lord. He loved using this title most about Himself. This was the most frequent title that he used, and it comes straight from Daniel 7:13. He is the Son of Man, Perfect man and perfect God – the One, the only One, who's uniquely qualified to stand between God and man and reconcile them.

Hebrews 2:14 talks about this when it says, "Therefore, since the children share in flesh and blood, He Himself" – Christ – "likewise also partook of the same, that through death He might render powerless him who had the power of death, that is, the devil." In other words, if you're going to come save people who are in flesh, you need to become flesh yourself. Thus, the virgin birth; thus, the perfect life that He had to live; thus, the perfect death that He had to die. And you also have to have a vicarious death, which means you have to satisfy the wrath of God. Only God can satisfy God. And so, Jesus Christ had to be God, and He had to be man to reconcile us to God.

In fact, the Pharisees and scribes went so far as to label Jesus as a glutton, obviously, an excessive eater. And they also said He was a winebibber – some of your translations have, which is simply an excessive drinker. So, He was a drunk, and He was a glutton – obviously, completely false. No doubt, Jesus' first miracle, as I mentioned a second ago, in Cana led to this criticism. You can almost hear that. the Pharisees and scribes in the backdoor meetings going, "Yeah, did you hear what He did at Cana? He made all this water into wine. Can you believe it? He's such a winebibber." I mean, you could almost hear them taking this wonderful miracle and turning it to the negative. It only added to their condemnation.

And unlike John in the wilderness, Jesus' focus was on the surrounding towns and villages. And I have to think that going as a peripatetic preacher to the surrounding towns and villages only added to His critique. Could you imagine how many more people He had to be critical of Him? And so, He was a man of the people. It says in Mark 1:38, one of the keystones to that book. It says, "He said to them, ' Let us go somewhere else to the towns nearby, so that I may preach there also; for that is why I came," not to do miracles, but to preach the kingdom of God to as many people in the surrounding towns.

And so, we have the contrast of John, who was antisocial; Jesus, who was very social, and He mingled with all levels of society, including tax collectors and sinners, and all this did was outrage the religious elite and the religious hierarchy. It didn't matter if it was John one way or if it was Jesus the other way, they were outright rejected in both.

Luke 15:2 say this: "Both the Pharisees and scribes began to grumble and say, "This man receives sinners and eats with them." If you're here this morning and you know the Lord Jesus Christ, I'm guessing you're very happy, you're very glad that Jesus receives tax collectors and sinners because you are one, and I am one, and you're on your way to wisdom if you understand that. The Pharisees and scribes were the righteous. They had, as Jesus said, no need of a physician because they weren't sick. One commentator writes this: "Brethren, if the church begins to lose its care for and its power of drawing outcasts and sinners, it has begun to lose its hold on Christ."

And so, I think we need to stop and ask ourselves, "Are we like Christ in this regard? Are we – are you, am I – a friend of tax collectors and sinners, of those who are not like you or like me?" James talks about this, being preferential to people who are more homogenous to us. Jesus was the master at being involved in people's lives. He was in the world but not of the world. He was the quintessential example of it.

As I was studying this, I came across a story about a famous preacher who his name is of no consequence. He and his wife went on vacation to Hawaii – and if you've been to Hawaii, you know the time change is obviously significant. We've only been once. But you typically end up waking up early in the morning, especially when you first get there. And so, as would expect, this man got up at three o'clock in the morning, couldn't go back to sleep as he was still on Central Time. He went down the street to a coffee shop about 3:15, and he went in, and he was all by himself. He ordered a cup of coffee, and pretty soon four or five women came in.

Well, it was pretty obvious about 3:30, these four or five women were prostitutes, and they had begun discussing and had finished applying their trade, and one of the women had talked about, as he overheard, a birthday coming up, that she was lamenting, turning 27, and nobody would care, and there would be no fanfare, and she was sad about getting older. And he hatched a plot, and he went up back to his wife, and they got together with a couple people in the town, the owner of the coffee shop, and the next morning, about 2:30 or 2:45, they prepared the entire coffee shop because the women always came every morning, and they got everything ready for a party for this young girl. And as she and her friends walked in, they yelled, "Surprise! Happy birthday!" And the woman obviously began to break down in tears, was overwhelmed by the kindness, and the man was actually able to share the gospel with those prostitutes. And I sat there in my chair as I read that story, and I thought to myself, "Would that be something that I would do? Would I look down my nose at them or what I show them the love and kindness that Jesus did?"

So, what a great illustration of what our Lord did. And so, here we have a picture of Christ and His divine love. We have divine love on display, not just His humanity, but His divinity here in love. It's the Son of God coming into a sinful world, and yet – hear me clearly – remaining unstained. He was sinless, but He made Himself to be sin in order to take our sins, the great exchange of His righteousness to us and our sin to Him.

Alexander McLaren says it wonderfully when he says this: "I suppose there is nothing more striking in the whole wonderful and unique picture of Jesus Christ drawn in the Gospels than the way in which two things which we so often think to be contradictory blend in the most beautiful harmony in Him: infinite tenderness and absolute condemnation of transgression. For I do not know of a harder thing: perfect purity and perfect love for the impure." And that's what Jesus had, perfect purity, but He was absolutely perfect in His love for those who were impure. And we saw that earlier in the book of Luke where He touched the coffin of the widow's son. That was something that would make Him unclean. But as the Great High Priest, He could overrule that. And so we see there, His perfect love.

Children of Wisdom

And finally, we come to the second part of our lesson, verse 35, "children of wisdom." Look at the transition here, verse 35, "children of wisdom." You see the word "yet." Always look for the "yets," "buts," and the "therefores." "Yet" – this is a term of contrast, as Luke is now moving to the children of wisdom as opposed to the children of folly who had earlier rejected John and Jesus. This is the contrast that he's drawing here, and he's saying that, "Yet wisdom is vindicated by all her children." He's personifying wisdom here as a mother who has children. Do you see that? Wisdom is a mother who has given birth to children who are also wise.

Now, what's really instructive – and this is why you need to always look at your cross-references – in Matthew 11, the parallel text, in verse 19, it says, "Wisdom is justified by her deeds," not by her children, but by her deeds. And both give you the clear understanding of what He's saying here. It's how these children live in wisdom, and it's how these children live their lives in terms of their deeds. What did Jesus say in Matthew 7? "You will know them by their fruit," right? And so whether it's children or deeds, the point is the same: these are the righteous generation, the wise generation, those who cling to the words of John the Baptist and the Lord Jesus Christ. And it's the idea that vindication is they're shown to be right, they're shown to be correct, they're proved to be true. They are playing out the truth and the wisdom of the words of Jesus and John the Baptist. That's the idea.

Turn with me to 1 Corinthians chapter 1, 1 Corinthians chapter 1. And while you're turning there, the point is that not all who hear the gospel message reject it. The wise plan of God is proven true by the changed lives and righteous deeds of those who follow the plan of God, that's verse 29. Those who followed John the Baptist, verse 29. God will always have a remnant.

Speaking of the wisdom of God, Paul writes in 1 Corinthians chapter 1, look at verse 18, 1 Corinthians 1:18, talking about the wisdom of God: "For the word of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing." How many people think what we're doing right now is absolute folly? Most of the world.

"The word of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing." And if you're here this morning and think this is foolish, then you need to know you're perishing. That's what Paul says. "But to us who are being saved, it is the power of God. For it is written, 'I WILL DESTROY THE WISDOM OF THE WISE, AND THE CLEVERNESS OF THE CLEVER I WILL SET ASIDE.' Where is the wise man? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has God not made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not come to know God, God was well-pleased through the foolishness of the message preached to save those who believe. For indeed Jews ask for signs and Greeks search for wisdom; but we preach Christ crucified, to the Jews a stumbling block and to the Gentiles foolishness, but to those who are the called, both the Jews and the Greeks, Christ the power of God and" – here it is – "the wisdom of God."

Conclusion

If you're here this morning and know Jesus Christ, the power of the gospel, the power of the cross is incredible wisdom to you. It is God taking a square peg and putting it in a round hole. He is taking a sinner and making them a saint. He is taking something unclean and putting you in heaven, which is infinitely clean. It's the great exchange through the Lord Jesus Christ.

So, the point we need to ask ourselves is, "Are we a child of wisdom, or are we a child of folly? Are we like the peevish Pharisees and religious elite who didn't like the messengers, didn't like the message or the God of the message, or are we children of wisdom?" like Paul writes as we just read in 1 Corinthians. Are we focused on the message, or are we focused on the messenger? This could be no more timely for our church, ladies and gentlemen. Wisdom can only be found in a proper response to God's word.

Yesterday morning I opened up my Grace Gems. I don't know if you have Grace Gems; it's a wonderful devotional. I highly recommend it if you don't do it. You can log on gracegems.org and you can get these daily devotionals. Well, yesterday's was about the conversion of Bishop J. C. Ryle, great preacher. And J. C. Ryle was a child of wisdom, and here's what he says about his own conversion:

"Nothing I can remember to this day appeared to me so clear and distinct as my own sinfulness, Christ's preciousness, and the value of Scripture, the need of being born again and the absolute necessity of coming out of the world. All these things seem to flash upon me like a sunbeam in the winter of 1837, and they have stuck in my mind from that time until now. Others may account for this change as they like, but my own belief is that it was the Bible teaching called regeneration or the new birth. Before that time, I was dead in sin and on the high road to hell. Since that time, I am spiritually alive, converted from a slave of sin and Satan to a willing slave of an adorable Savior with an assured hope of heaven. Nothing to my mind can account for this, but the free and sovereign grace of God to a hell-deserving sinner." And he closes with 1 Corinthians 15:9-10, "By the grace of God I am what I am."

That is a child of wisdom, and that is the vindication of the God of the universe with the children of wisdom. Let's close in prayer.

[Prayer] Dear Heavenly Father, we thank You for this message. We thank You for what You can teach through a simple analogy. These words are so inspired and spiritually powerful that You can say so much in so little. Father, take the loaves and fish of this lesson and multiply them to our ears, our hearts, our minds. We pray for any who are here who do not know Christ, that You would make application of that truth and give them new birth and regeneration as You did with J. C. Ryle. We pray this in Christ's name. Amen.

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