Passage Read: Matthew 11-12
Meditation Verse: 12:45
Thought
Jesus characterizes the generation in which He preached as unbelieving, though there were crowds that followed Him! As many as believed in Him, there were far more who heard but didn't believe, even among those who followed Him around for a time. But this conclusion is more frightening than the rest: The generation that enjoys the preaching of the truth but rejects it becomes seven times more corrupt than before they heard the truth. Whether they hear it and despise it or hear it and ignore it, they are in the same boat: They are going to grow more corrupt.
Application
This is borne out by history, by every post-Christian society. By and large, they don't just lay aside the teachings of Christ, but they come to champion the very things He stood against. It's as if they deliberately want to antagonize Him. There may still be pockets of true believers, but those generations that repented at the preaching of God's Word will rise up in the judgment to condemn those generations that ignored and rejected God's Word. It should be no surprise to me if this and later generations of Americans and Europeans and anywhere else the Gospel has gone become seven times worse than their ancestors before the Gospel reached them. It is a dangerous thing for me to hear and ignore or deliberately reject God's Word.