WWUTT 2001 If Miracles Had Been Performed in Sodom (Matthew 11:20-24)

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Jesus said, woe to you Chorazin, woe to you Bethsaida, woe to you

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Capernaum, for if the miracles had been performed in Sodom that had been performed in you, it would have remained to this day when we understand the text.

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This is When We Understand the Text, a daily study of God's Word that we may be filled with the knowledge of His will.

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For questions and comments, send us an email to whenweunderstandthetext at gmail .com.

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Here's your teacher, Pastor Gabe. Thank you, Becky. We're back to our study in the Gospel of Matthew, Chapter 11, and picking up where we left off last week.

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So I'm going to read verses 20 to 24 out of the Legacy Standard Bible. Hear the word of the

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Lord. Then Jesus began to denounce the cities in which most of His miracles were done, because they did not repent.

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Woe to you, Chorazin, woe to you, Bethsaida. For if the miracles had occurred in Tyre and Sidon, which occurred in you, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes.

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Nevertheless, I say to you, it will be more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon in the day of judgment than for you.

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And Capernaum, will you be exalted to heaven? You will descend to Hades.

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For if the miracles had occurred in Sodom, which occurred in you, it would have remained to this day.

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Nevertheless, I say to you, that it will be more tolerable for the land of Sodom in the day of judgment than for you.

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So consider what we're reading here following what Jesus had just preached at the conclusion of His message about John the

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Baptist. That's what we studied last week in verses 1 through 19. He issued this rebuke to the

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Pharisees beginning in verse 16. He said, but to what shall I compare this generation? It is like children sitting in the marketplaces who call out to the other children and say, we played the flute for you and you did not dance.

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We sang a dirge and you did not mourn. So it doesn't matter if the will of God is done with much singing and dancing or with much mourning and tears.

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The Pharisees' hearts were hardened against it and they would not receive it. So Jesus goes on to say, for John came neither eating nor drinking, and they say, he has a demon.

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The son of man came eating and drinking, and they say, behold, a gluttonous man and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners, yet wisdom is vindicated by her deeds.

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So this was the rebuke that Jesus made of the Pharisees. And then we go straight from that into these woes to the unrepentant cities.

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He denounces the cities in which most of his miracles were done. And we have listed here three present day cities and then three cities that came into judgment, sort of, because Tyre and Sidon, or at least

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Sidon was still standing at this particular time, Sodom is mentioned and we know that Sodom was completely wiped out.

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But those three cities where Jesus had gone and presented his miracles, Chorazin, Bethsaida and Capernaum.

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These are the cities to whom he gives these woes. So in verse 21, woe to you,

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Chorazin, and woe to you, Bethsaida, for if the miracles had occurred in Tyre and Sidon, which occurred in you, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes.

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Now, it's not that Jesus is saying that no one from those cities ever repented.

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We know that can't be the case because Peter and Andrew and Philip came from Bethsaida, according to John 1.

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So these men from that city obviously did believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and followed him.

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And there may have been some others that did so as well, especially after Pentecost and the gospel goes out.

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And then there were still people alive who remember the miracles that Jesus had done. They hear the gospel is preached by the apostles, and then they become believers.

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They fear God and they follow Christ. That's very likely, but that doesn't mean the whole city came to repentance.

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The character of that city was still one that was in rebellion against God. And you would have known a person from that city as being sinful, not someone who feared

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God and followed Christ. So Jesus says, woe to you, Chorazin, woe to you, Bethsaida.

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These were cities. They were all kind of located together, Chorazin, Bethsaida, and Capernaum.

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So right there along the Sea of Galilee. Eventually Bethsaida became known as the town

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Julia, who was named after the emperor's daughter. So it didn't always remain as Bethsaida, but they were kind of right there grouped together with one another.

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Bethsaida, in fact, means house of hunting or a house of game. So because of its position near the

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Sea of Galilee, then it was probably known as a place where people liked to fish or even went out and hunted.

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And that may have been its attraction to Philip the Tetrarch, who came to that city and therefore renamed it

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Julia. Now these other two cities that are mentioned here, Tyre and Sidon, those are names that you probably recognize, especially if you're familiar with the book of Isaiah, for it's to these cities that Isaiah issues his woes and says that the judgment of God is going to come upon them.

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And indeed it does. These were Phoenician cities. Sidon was actually located in the tribe of Asher, according to Joshua 19.

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So Asher occupied that particular territory, but they were never able to claim the city of Sidon, which is only like 20 or 30 miles away from Tyre.

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It wasn't very far. Sidon being the smaller of the two, nonetheless, Sidon was still known for great wealth.

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There was a lot of trade, a lot of merchants that came there. People from Sidon were known for being skilled navigators.

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And it still would have been in existence at the time of Christ. Jesus doesn't say that the city had been wiped out.

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He just says that if the miracles that had been performed in you had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes.

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So these are cities that have always been in rebellion against God, and they continue to be in rebellion against God, although Tyre was not at all what it was before.

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So Tyre had been conquered by a number of different people. It was destroyed at one point by Nebuchadnezzar with a siege that had taken place over 13 years.

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And then after Nebuchadnezzar, Tyre kind of rebuilt. They rebuilt on an island that was away from the shore.

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It was never quite the splendor that it was before, but they nonetheless were able to kind of regroup, rebrand themselves, still became a city of opulence that people would come to and wanted to do trade with.

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It was a very capital city in that particular sense. And being built on this island with these high walls, they thought, well, now we're totally invincible.

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Who could come against us? You'd have to go from the mainland to us and then breach our walls.

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Well, Alexander the Great managed to do it, and he did so by building a land bridge that went out to the city of Tyre, and then he waged a siege against it for five months.

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It took the king of the Babylonians 13 years, but it only took

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Alexander about five months, and it fulfilled a prophecy in Ezekiel that was said in Ezekiel 26, 21, you shall be built no more, you shall not be sought for, or you shall be sought for, and yet you'll never be found again.

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So that was the case with Tyre. That city was completely wiped out. And Jesus said of Tyre that if the miracles that had been done in Chorazin and Bethsaida had been done in Tyre, well, then they would have repented.

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But Jesus said in verse 22, nevertheless, I say to you, it will be more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon in the day of judgment than for you.

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Now I'm going to make a particular point about that. We'll come back to that here in a moment. First of all, verse 23, and Capernaum, will you be exalted to heaven?

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Now Capernaum is referenced as the city that Jesus came from, like being his hometown.

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Could have been that his mother and brothers and sisters lived there in Capernaum. We know that he was born in Bethlehem.

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He lived and grew up in Nazareth. But at this particular time, that may not have been where he lived anymore.

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So he comes to Capernaum, and yet the people don't believe in him there.

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They don't believe in his miracles there. And so he says, will you be exalted to heaven?

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Now that could be that he's saying that to Capernaum, because the one who came down from heaven came to you, so will you be exalted to heaven with him?

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And he says, no, you will descend to Hades. You will be destroyed.

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Those of you who did not believe will go to the grave and even go to hell. For if the miracles had occurred in Sodom, which occurred in you, it would have remained to this day.

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Now that is quite a harsh comparison. Jesus is saying of Capernaum that you are as bad as Sodom, and Capernaum during this time was probably not known for the unnatural lusts and desires that Sodom was known for.

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Yet Jesus says you're just as bad as they are, because they would not repent of their sin, fear

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God, and come to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ as Savior. So you will be destroyed, and you are just as bad and will face the same kind of judgment as Sodom.

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Sodom did not have these miracles that were testified to them that they would have had that opportunity to repent.

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You did see those miracles. The Son of God actually came to you, and yet you did not believe.

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Had Sodom had that opportunity, it would have remained to this day. Verse 24,

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Nevertheless, I say to you that it will be more tolerable for the land of Sodom in the day of judgment than for you.

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And that would have been deeply offensive to say something like that, to say that Capernaum was every bit as bad as Sodom, even though they were not guilty of the same homosexual lusts and desires that Sodom was infamous for.

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So, coming back over this particular section, 20 -24, this is a section that is loved by Mullinists.

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You know what Mullinism is. It is a system of theology attempting to reconcile divine sovereignty and human freedom.

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God can be sovereign and be in control and over everything, and we can still have our human freedom at the same time.

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So, trying to draw these two views together. It was devised by Luis de

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Molina, who was a 16th century Jesuit priest, and said that prior to creating the world,

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God knew what we would do in any given circumstance. So God created those circumstances, and he put people in them, knowing in advance the decisions that we would make so that his purposes are ultimately achieved through our free will actions.

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That's Mullinism in a nutshell. And the most famous Mullinist among professing

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Christians today is William Lane Craig, the apologist, famous debater. And Craig said the following about this concept of Mullinism.

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By his middle knowledge, God knows all the various possible worlds which he could create and what every free creature would do in all the various circumstances of those possible worlds.

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For example, God knew that Peter, if he were to exist and be placed in certain circumstances, would deny

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Christ three times. So by a free decision of his will, God's will,

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God then chose to create that world in which Peter would deny Christ three times.

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This is what God needed to happen, so he created that world in which Peter would deny

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Christ three times. But the real problem with this particular viewpoint is that the only decision

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Peter can make is the one that God knew he would make being put in those particular circumstances.

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So Peter does not really have free will in this scenario. He can only do what

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God knew Peter would do in those circumstances. He can't make any other choice but the one that God created those circumstances for and put

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Peter in them to make that particular choice. So it's all an illusion. It's really, you know, any attempt to try to dismiss that God really is sovereign over all of his creation, that he is in control of everything, that he decreed the end from the beginning, as said in the book of Isaiah, and nothing happens outside of his will.

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But Mullinists love to use this particular passage in Matthew 11, 20 to 24 to say, see, this is an example of how

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God could have created this world in which he knew that if miracles had been performed in Tyre and Sidon and Sodom, then they would have repented.

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So God knows the potential outcomes that could have been. And that's certainly true. God knows all the decisions that we could have made and the results that could have come about by those decisions that we made.

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God certainly has that kind of knowledge. But I don't think that's the argument that's being made here. I think that's totally off the point, in fact.

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Jesus is not presenting some sort of apologetic that God knows all the potential outcomes that could have been done, but he just settled with this particular circumstance to bring about this particular outcome.

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That's not the argument Jesus is making. In fact, I think it's pretty clear that what he's saying here is hyperbole.

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So he's not saying that if the miracles had been done in Tyre and Sidon, well, yeah, then they definitely would have repented.

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He's being hyperbolic. He's demonstrating the hardness of heart of Chorazin and Bethsaida.

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He's not trying to say that Tyre and Sidon could have definitely repented. He's trying to say

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Chorazin and Bethsaida should have repented. There was enough that had been given to them that they had seen matter -of -factly the

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Son of God, the prophesied Savior, had come to them, and yet they did not believe.

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What if that Savior had come to Tyre and Sidon? They would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes.

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He's making a comparison between these two cities that pride themselves on being godly.

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The Pharisees that Jesus had just rebuked in verses 16 to 19 were likely from synagogues in these particular cities.

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And so it should have been that these cities knew who came to them. If those teachers had been teaching what

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God's Word had said, what the prophets had prophesied, then they would have known

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Jesus is the Christ, and they would have repented in sackcloth and ashes.

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But they did not repent. Their hearts remain hardened against God. They are the blind leading the blind.

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These miracles were done in you. You should have known, and yet you didn't know.

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You are just as bad, if not worse, than Tyre and Sidon, because Tyre and Sidon didn't even have the opportunity to see these things.

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You did. So the judgment that comes upon you will be greater. Hence Jesus saying in verse 22,

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And as I just mentioned a moment ago, same goes for Capernaum, who's being compared to Sodom and how offensive that would have been.

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For Capernaum to be compared to such a wicked city. Will you be exalted to heaven? No, you will descend to Hades.

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How was Sodom destroyed? With fire and brimstone from heaven. For if the miracles had occurred in Sodom, which occurred in you, it would have remained to this day.

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Nevertheless, I say to you, it will be more tolerable for the land of Sodom in the day of judgment than for you.

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And again, Jesus being hyperbolic here. He's not saying that if I had come to Sodom, they definitely would have repented.

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No, their evil was so great. God's judgment was definitely coming upon Sodom and he made no mistake there.

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And Sodom would even be a testament to people from that point on, as it continues to be a testament to this day of the judgment of God that comes upon the wicked.

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Capernaum here, it's being said of them, they're just as wicked for they saw the signs and did not believe.

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And my friends, what we have today in the Bible is the prophetic word more fully confirmed the way that Peter says it in 2

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Peter 1. So we even have those things that had been prophesied.

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We have those things having come to fulfillment. There were miracles that performed that testified to these things.

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The gospel is clearly detailed, instructions on what a

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Christian should do, how a Christian should live. All of those things are given to us in the

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New Testament and more. And yet there are people to this day that do not believe.

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They scoff at the Bible. They mock it. They claim that it is not the word of God. And the judgment that will come upon them will be even greater than the judgment that Jesus is saying would come upon Chorazin, Bethsaida and Capernaum.

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We have God's word confirmed, given to us in the

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Bible and how plentiful it is, especially in a country like this in the United States of America, where the average

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American has three Bibles in their home, yet they're not reading God's word to hear about their sin and the judgment that will come against sin.

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They don't turn from it to the Lord Jesus Christ. To be forgiven of their sin.

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And because people have the word of God so clearly laid out for us here and don't read it nor do what it says, the judgment that comes upon them will be even greater than the judgment that came upon Sodom.

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And so you have the word of God. What do you do with it? Not just being hearers of the word as said in James 1, but you do what it says.

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You know Jesus Christ who is revealed to us in the scriptures. You know what he expects of us.

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As Jesus said to his disciples in John 14, 15, you will show me that you love me when you obey my commandments.

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So let's love God, love his word and do what he says, knowing the favor of God that we gain through Jesus Christ our

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Lord. Whoever does not love the Bible does not love God. Let's finish with prayer.

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Heavenly Father, we thank you for what we've read here and I pray that it serves as a warning to us that the word of God has been clearly proclaimed.

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It has been confirmed so that we have no reason to doubt what has been written here and know that it comes from God.

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The way to eternal life has been given to us, has been shown to us through Jesus Christ our

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Lord. So teach us to turn from our sin to repent and come to Christ and live.

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Teach us to live today in a way that is pleasing and honorable to you and it's in Jesus name that we pray, amen.

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Thank you for listening to When We Understand the Text with Pastor Gabe Hughes. If you'd like to support this ministry, visit our website www .wutt

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.com and click on the Give tab in the top right corner of the page. Join us again tomorrow as we continue our