“Never Satisfied!” – FBC Morning Light (10/25/2024)

Well, a good Tuesday morning to you. I hope your week got off to a good start yesterday. Just a reminder that tonight at 7 o 'clock is our final session in our

Eternal Issues Bible Conference, the Heaven Tour. Brad Zockel has been our speaker these couple of days and delivered several good messages on the subject of heaven, and we'll be closing with a message tonight.

I hope you can make it 7 o 'clock at our church if you're in the Sauk Valley area. We'd be more than happy for you to come and visit with us.

Well, this morning we're reading in Matthew chapter 8, a few verses there, 17 verses in Luke chapter 7, then jumping to Matthew 11 and reading most of that chapter, and then back to Luke chapter 7, reading verses 18 to the end of that chapter.

Well, I want to focus on just a few verses in Matthew chapter 11. One of the challenging things for those of us who have given our lives to the preaching of the

Word is we've discovered that there are some people, and thankfully in my experience of 40 -some years, they've been relatively few who are never satisfied with what you have to say.

Either you're not preaching enough about hell, or you're not preaching enough about heaven, or you're not preaching enough grace, or you're preaching too much grace, or you're not preaching enough of the law, or you're preaching too much of the law, and on and on you can go.

Some people are just never happy. Fortunately, again,

I thank the Lord that that's not been the case in where I'm serving today, but I have experienced it in the course of my life, and so did

Jesus. That's the thing. It's nothing new. It's nothing new for 21st century preachers.

This has been around since Jesus and John the Baptist. This is what Jesus deals with in chapter 11, verse 16 and following.

He says, To what shall I liken this generation? It's like children sitting in the marketplaces and calling to their companions and saying,

We played the flute for you, but you didn't dance. We mourned to you, and you did not lament.

What's that little ditty talking about? This very thing. Here are the children playing in the marketplaces, and there are some kids, and they're not going to get along, and the one kid screams out to the other kid,

Hey, we played the flute for you. How come you didn't dance? Maybe he starts to dance a little jig, and then they say,

Hey, we played a mournful tune for you. How come you didn't lament? In other words, there's some people who just are never satisfied.

Jesus goes on to apply that to his own ministry and that of John the Baptist. He says, For John came either eating or drinking, and they say,

He has a demon. The guy who has a very limited diet, he has a demon.

But the Son of Man, speaking of Jesus himself, he came eating and drinking, and they say,

Look, a glutton and a wine -bibber, a friend of tax collectors and sinners. Again, some people are never satisfied.

They don't like how John the Baptist is living, implying that they think he ought to be one who eats and drinks.

But then Jesus comes, and he eats and drinks, and they complain about him, implying that he ought to be like John the

Baptist. Some people are never satisfied. But Jesus isn't worried about that, because he says at the end of verse 19,

Wisdom is justified by her children. In other words, what

Jesus is saying there is that the truth of the Word that both

John the Baptist was preaching and what Jesus was preaching, John the Baptist in his austere lifestyle,

Jesus in his manner of relating to people, anywhere and in any circumstances, that the truth of the gospel, the truth of the

Word, will be absolutely clear. Wisdom will be justified of her children.

There's one other point I wanted to make in verses 25 and 26, and Jesus says here,

I thank you, Father, he's praying to the Father, he says, I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that you have hidden these things from the wise and the prudent and have revealed them to babes.

Even so, Father, for so it seemed good in your sight. The point

I want you to get here is that it is God who in his grace sovereignly reveals the truth as he sees fit, hiding it from some.

Why? I don't have an answer to that question. That's not my place to answer that question.

This is the work of God, hiding it from some, but making it clear to others.

My only response to this is not to charge God. Who am I to charge God? He is the sovereign one.

Who am I to charge him? No, my response to this is, oh, Father, thank you for being so gracious to me that I would see and could see.

I could be blind, living my life in darkness and blindness, utterly having the truth of the gospel utterly hid from my eyes, and be like the generation that's never satisfied with anything that the preacher says.

If God has graciously opened your eyes, give him thanks for that. Praise him for that today.

Our Father and our God, we do thank you for your sovereign grace, and thank you for the way that you, for your purposes, open blind eyes to see and understand the truth.

Thank you for the eyes that you've opened who are listening even today, we pray in Jesus' name.

Amen. Have a good rest of your Tuesday. Come tonight at seven o 'clock if you can, hear this last session on the heaven tour.