Luke 11:37-53 – Learning To Deal With Rejection

It is natural to want to be loved and accepted. We like acceptance. It is lovely to be loved. Rejection is unpleasant. We don’t like rejection.

One might think that if anyone would be loved and accepted, it would be the perfect Son of God, who always did what was right, who never did anything wrong. Messiah was loved and accepted by His God and Father. He stated this when He spoke: This is My beloved Son. I am very pleased with Him.

But, even though Immanuel was sent by God to be welcomed, loved, accepted by the specially prepared people, Messiah was rejected by the majority – especially those who knew the most about our religion, and were the best trained in the Judaism of that day.

We don’t like rejection. We want to be accepted. Our unwillingness to endure rejection is one of the main reasons we are not more faithful servants of God. Like Yeshua, if we are to truly please God, we will be misunderstood, opposed, and rejected. Let’s see how Yeshua responded to rejection, and what we can learn from Him that will help us deal with rejection.

Yeshua had just been opposed by those who accused Him of being a false prophet who got His power from Beelzebub – the demonic lord of the flies. He had been rejected by others who demanded that He prove He was a true prophet of God by doing a great public miracle. They were testing Him, trying to make Him look bad and fail.

These members of the Chosen People were in very serious trouble, because Someone far far greater than Jonah was with us! Someone much greater and wiser than Solomon was among us, and yet we refused to see it and welcome the King Immanuel!

Messiah knew that if we persisted in our rejection, disaster and judgment would surely come. Thank God for such a bold and courageous Messiah, such a wise leader who understood so much, and could tell us where we were wrong; correct us where we needed correction; teach us the truth, graciously telling us what to do to prevent disaster from coming!

Next Luke introduces us to a member of the Pharisees, who were the forerunners of today’s orthodox Judaism. This Pharisee, and others from his group, were so close to God and the Bible, and yet so far! They too had serious errors that not properly dealt with, would lead them to spiritual disaster.

Now when He had spoken, a Pharisee asked Him to have lunch with him; and He went in, and reclined at the table. When the Pharisee saw it, he was surprised that He had not first ceremonially washed before the meal.

This Pharisee was a member of the Chosen People. He was schooled in Bible and the Judaism of his day. In the presence of this Pharisee was the long-awaited Messiah, the Seed of the Woman, the focus of the entire Bible, and the plan of God, and all of the Messianic prophecies! In his home, seated at his table was the Son of David, the King Messiah, greatest Rabbi who ever lived!

What was this forerunner of today’s orthodox Jews concerned about? What became the initial focus of the conversation? Great matters of Torah and prophecy? Was Yeshua the Messiah? Some of Messiah’s profound teachings? How to inherit eternal life? No, something that is not even mentioned in the Torah, something that God never commanded us to do – a man-made teaching about washing before eating!

Knowing the truth, how would you have responded to this Pharisee’s concern about ceremonial washing before eating? Would you have agreed with him and washed for the sake of keeping peace?  After all, a little washing wouldn’t really hurt anyone, right? You were in his house, and should follow his customs, right? Would you have compromised and tried to find some middle ground? Let’s see how Rabbi Messiah responded.

But the Lord said to him, “Now you Pharisees clean the outside of the cup and of the platter; but inside of you, you are full of robbery and wickedness. You foolish ones, did not He who made the outside make the inside also?

One of the problems with the faith of the Pharisees was an over-emphasis on the external things of religion. All too often they were more engaged in religious form than with spiritual substance. They looked good on the outside, while tolerating sin on the inside. While they may have been religiously pleasing to man, who is only able to see the outside, they were not always pleasing to God, who sees us on the inside.

One area in particular that was wrong: their interpretation of Scripture allowed them, in their pursuit of material gain, to take advantage of people – similar to many of the corrupt prosperity teachers of today.

It’s not that God is not concerned about the external forms of religion, and things like cleanliness. But even more important to Him is moral and spiritual cleanliness and true religion at the core of who we are; genuine knowledge of God and His Word; genuine love for God and man. But it was this inner godliness that so many of the Pharisees were lacking – and Messiah knew it. The light that they thought they had was really darkness. But like an astute spiritual doctor, Rabbi Yeshua was able to diagnose the situation. He was able to peer into the darkness of our hearts, understand what was wrong, and graciously give the proper spiritual medicine.

But give that which is within as charity, and then all things are clean for you. Righteous men and women must be givers, not takers, helpers of humanity, not harmers of humanity. It is part of the very nature of love to give, to help, to bless – not to take, not to take advantage of. If it is more blessed to give than to receive, it is far more blessed to give than to unrighteously take. The Son of God knew that Pharisees who were tolerating coveting, needed the antidote of generosity, of giving to others, of tzadakah and charity that comes from a transformed heart that really loves God.

How did Yeshua respond to these wrong emphases, these wrong priorities among religious people? Turning a blind eye so as not to provoke them? Not saying anything in order to get along with them? No. He cared enough to confront them, to correct them, to warn them. He knew that the kisses of an enemy are deceitful, but the wounds of a friend are faithful.

These religious men needed correction – strong, forthright correction. Religious people who are ensnared by false teaching usually need strong words to help them break free of the error that is destroying them, and that is what Yeshua graciously and mercifully gave them.

But woe (trouble is coming, bad things are going to happen, pain and suffering and loss are on the way) to you Pharisees! Why? Again, their religion was emphasizing form over substance, the externals of religion more than genuine spirituality that comes from within. For you pay tithe of mint and rue and every kind of garden herb (the Torah does command Israel to give ten percent of our crops to the priests, but the idea behind the law was the main crops like the barley and the wheat. The Pharisees were supposedly so concerned about keeping each command they wanted to give ten percent even of the very minor things that grew like herbs).

For you pay tithe of mint and rue and every kind of garden herb and yet disregard justice and the love of God; but these are the things you should have done without neglecting the others.

The essence of true religion is loving God and loving other human beings.

To love other human beings, we must treat them fairly. We must help them. We must do what is good and right for them.

To love God the way we need to, our religion must not focus on the mere externals of religion. We need to have a close and intimate and personal relationship with God.

To love God the way we need to, He must be our highest priority. He must come first. We must love Him with the totality of our being, and with all of our resources. There must be total commitment to the Creator, devotion, adoration, priority in love and affection for Him, consuming zeal for God above all other things.

To love God the way we need to, we must humble ourselves before Him. We must end our self-will, and yield to His will. We must break off our rebellion against Him, and submit ourselves to Him, and allow God to teach us in the ways we are to go.

To love God the way we need to, we must love the Messiah that the Father loves and approves of and sent into this world to be mankind’s only Savior.

Not only did many of the Pharisees focus on the external aspects of religion, and miss the substance of true religion – loving God and man, but they also wanted the approval of other human beings. They were motivated by the desire to receive the praise of man – and that is a serious flaw in someone who wants to please God in a godless world.

Woe (trouble is coming, bad things are going to happen, pain and suffering and loss are on the way) to you Pharisees! For you love the chief seats in the synagogues and the respectful greetings in the market places.

In a world that is demonically controlled, the praise of men should not motivate us. Receiving praise from God should! Truly pleasing Him, putting Him first, doing His will, no matter what others may think of us. We should be motivated by the knowledge that one day we may hear the words: You served Me well! You honored Me in difficult circumstances. Job well done. You are to be greatly and eternally rewarded!

Yeshua had more hard words for them. Hard words, but also necessary words, true words, gracious words.

Woe (trouble is coming, bad things are going to happen, pain and suffering and loss are on the way) to you! For you are like concealed tombs, and the people who walk over them are unaware of it.” According to the Torah, anyone who was in an open field and touched a grave was unclean for seven days. He couldn’t worship at the Temple and get close to God until he went through the proper cleansing procedures.

The error in the faith and practice of the Pharisees made them unclean, and a spiritual danger to anyone who had contact with them. They seemed so religious, so godly, so Jewish, so observant, but the truth was that they were leading our people farther away from God, not closer! And, their successors, the Orthodox, Conservative, Reform and Chassidic Jews still are!

Not only was this Pharisee present, hearing these strong, confrontational but true words, but an expert in Torah was likewise present. He may not have been a member of the Pharisees, but religiously he was very close to them. One of the experts in Torah said to Him in reply, “Rabbi, when You say this, You insult us too.”

And we never want to insult or offend anybody, right? Tolerance, and getting along, even if it means not boldly declaring the truth, and compromising a little, is better, right? Wrong! It is better to offend, if by offending we speak the truth in love and give people the correction they need.

But Yeshua said, “Woe (trouble is coming, bad things are going to happen, pain and suffering and loss are on the way) to you Torah experts as well! For you weigh men down with burdens hard to bear, while you yourselves will not even touch the burdens with one of your fingers.

They demanded from the Jewish people strict adherence to Torah observance, but tried to come up with ways around the Laws when it came to themselves. The King who will rule with complete justice accused them of being easy on themselves, not applying the laws evenly and fairly, being inconsistent and hypocritical.

Woe to you! For you build the tombs of the prophets, and it was your fathers who killed them. So you are witnesses and approve the deeds of your fathers; because it was they who killed them, and you build their tombs.

The experts in the Torah were being just like their ancestors who killed the prophets. When the majority of Israel went astray from God and His teachings, the Lord would send us a prophet to confront us and point out our areas of inconsistency, and call us to turn back to God and His ways. Most of the prophets were rejected and killed.

Yeshua told them they were making the very same mistakes. Building nice beautiful tombs for the prophets only emphasized Israel’s repeated failures, and they were doing the very same things – even worse, because He was no ordinary prophet! He was the eternal Son of God sent into this world to save us, and the only Savior. To reject Him and to kill Him could only bring the greatest woes, judgments, punishments and disasters on our nation.

And Yeshua knew that was exactly what would happen! The prophet Yeshua predicted that not only would the majority of Israel reject Him, but they would also reject other New Covenant prophets and the specially chosen emissaries that the Father and the Son would send to Israel.

For this reason also the wisdom of God said (in other words, God has wisely spoken): ‘I will send to them prophets and apostles, and some of them they will kill and some they will persecute, so that the blood of all the prophets, shed since the foundation of the world, may be charged against this generation, from the blood of Abel to the blood of Zechariah (from Genesis to 2 Chronicles, in other words, all of the good men who spoke for God in the entire Bible, from beginning to end), who was killed between the altar and the house of God; yes, I tell you, it shall be charged against this generation.’

Israel had been punished before for rejecting and mistreating the prophets God sent to correct us. Yeshua was greater than all of the prophets put together! And, not only would Messiah be rejected, but His key men – the apostles, and other New Covenant prophets who spoke the truth and did miracles, verifying that God and Messiah sent them, would be rejected and killed.

Even after the majority killed the Messiah, God graciously gave Israel 40 years of opportunities to recognize our mistakes. Great men of God who were mighty apostles and prophets spoke to Israel.

But the majority would not listen. The majority persecuted the apostles and New Covenant prophets.

There would result in a culmination of sin, a culmination of rejection of God, a culmination of judgment.

In 70 AD, a terrible, devastating judgment came. Jerusalem and the Temple were destroyed, hundreds of thousands were killed, tens of thousands sold into slavery, the people were scattered among the nations, there to suffer for almost 2,000 years. It is a judgment that we have yet to fully recover from.

Every generation since that time has been an evil generation and we are still an evil generation. Every generation has been an Messiah rejecting, God-dishonoring, Torah-corrupting generation, which thinks it is pleasing to God and is not.

Yeshua continued to accurately diagnose the situation, speak the truth that could bring correction.

Woe (trouble is coming, bad things are going to happen, pain and suffering and loss are on the way) to you experts in Torah! For you have taken away the key of knowledge; you yourselves did not enter, and you hindered those who were entering.”

These experts in the Torah thought they know more about God, more about Bible, more about how to interpret the Bible than anyone else on Earth. They thought they knew so much – but they didn’t. They had much information, but they were missing the key that would unlock the door to salvation.

What is the key? Genuine love of God and man that is built on the understanding that the Messiah has come! Do you have that key? Have you used it to open the door to the kingdom of God?

How do we respond to rejection? The same way Yeshua did. Speak the truth, educate, inform, clarify, reason, point out the error, warn of the consequences of continued rejection. Be bold. Don’t compromise! Don’t back down, don’t cave in, don’t tone down, don’t wimp out!

Will we be rejected? Yes. Expect rejection – as happened to Yeshua. When He left there, the Torah teachers and the Pharisees began to be very hostile and to question Him closely on many subjects, plotting against Him to catch Him in something He might say.

Yeshua was rejected, but He outsmarted them all, and we can too! Yeshua was rejected, but He was victorious over them all, and we will be too! Yeshua did not die a day too early – nor will we!

Expect rejection by an anti-God, anti-Messiah world. Rejection means that you are probably doing the right things!

Remember – Yeshua was rejected by men, but ultimately vindicated and honored and elevated and rewarded – as will we be – if we courageously endure rejection!