Charles Spurgeon Commentary Matthew 11:16-19

"But whereunto shall I liken this generation? It is like unto children sitting in the marketplaces, who call unto their fellows and say, We piped unto you, and ye did not dance; we wailed, and ye did not mourn. For John came neither eating nor drinking, and they say, He hath a demon. The Son of man came eating and drinking, and they say, Behold, a gluttonous man and a winebibber, a friend of publicans and sinners! And wisdom is justified by her works." — Matthew 11:16-19 (ASV)

Our Lord condemns the folly of the age in which He lived. The people would not listen to the messenger of God, whoever he might be, but raised childish objections. Therefore, the Lord likens them to children sitting in the markets, who were asked to play by their companions, but they could never agree upon the game. If certain of the children would imitate a wedding and began to pipe, the others would not dance. And when they proposed a funeral and began to mourn, the others would not lament. They were disagreeable, sullen, and captiously resolved to reject every offer.

Such was the foolish way of people in our Lord’s time. John was an ascetic. He must be out of his mind and under the influence of a demon. Jesus is a man among men and goes to their feasts. He is accused of eating and drinking to excess and associating with the sordid and wicked. There was no pleasing them. So it is today. One preacher, who speaks with elegant diction, is too flowery, and another, who uses plain speech, is vulgar. The instructive preacher is dull, and the earnest preacher is far too excitable. There is no pleasing some people. Even the great Lord of all finds His wise arrangements met with discontent.

Yet wisdom, after all, delivered her teachings by rightly chosen ambassadors. She is justified of her children. Her children recognized the fitness of her messengers, and her messengers, who were also her children, were a credit to her choice and justified her selection and preparation of them. The All-Wise God is a better judge of what a minister should be than any of us are. Well did George Herbert write—"Judge not the preacher, he is your judge."

The varied kinds of preachers are all necessary, and if we would only realize it, they are all ours (whether Paul or Apollos, or Cephas), and it is our task not to cavil at them, but to give careful attention to their messages.

Lord, deliver us from a captious, fault-finding spirit, for if we begin objecting, we are likely to persist. If we refuse to listen to one preacher, we may soon find ourselves quite weary of a second and a third, and before long it may happen that we cannot hear any minister profitably.