The Dancing and Mourning of the Children in the Marketplace—and the Gospel
“And the Lord said, Whereunto then shall I liken the men of this generation? and to what are they like? They are like unto children sitting in the marketplace, and calling one to another, and saying, We have piped unto you, and ye have not danced; we have mourned to you, and ye have not wept. For John the Baptist came neither eating bread nor drinking wine; and ye say, He hath a devil. The Son of man is come eating and drinking; and ye say, Behold a gluttonous man, and a winebibber, a friend of publicans and sinners! But wisdom is justified of all her children.” (Luke 7:31-35)
These are children, the men of this generation, who take their activities and themselves very seriously. Then, as now, they had their own thing going, and were so far from being open to light from heaven, that they responded petulantly, being easily annoyed, to the messengers of truth sent by God to them. And the gist of their response? “You will not join in with us. ‘We have piped unto you, and you have not danced. We have mourned to you, and you have not wept.’ ”
Here is rejection of God, indeed! Here is revealed a great lack of the fear of God. In our generation, too, as in the Lord’s when here on earth, we find many playing at religion as they see best. They are sitting in the marketplace, advertising and trolling for converts. They call to one another—they recognize one another and view each other as competitors, with equal opportunity to gain listeners.
When God sends His servants to them and to the souls they attempt to attract, they respond with scalding criticism. They don’t care for any of them—John the Baptist or the Son of Man or any other man or woman taught of the Holy Ghost. They find fault with all. They complain of how their efforts are unrecognized or respected.
Most natural children have a sense of being children, of not being adult, a sense of the reality of their immaturity and childlikeness. But now and then, we find some so caught up in the imagination of their play that they seem insulted when an adult does not recognize their version of reality. A few will put their childish games on the same level as adult reality. “This [really] is my house. I must cook this meal so my child can have something to eat.” The adult looks at the doll and sees it as a doll. The adult looks at the play house and sees it as the plaything that it is. The adult looks at the “food” and sees it as only the product of imagination. The adult looks at the child and sees the child as a child. There may be some value in the play for the child as a child, but when the child begins to insist that this is reality and puts the childish play on the same level as adult reality, then the adult recognizes the child is being a child, and that the child has no appreciation of the reality of adult life.
Think of it! Men playing at religion. Jesus said to the woman at the well, “Ye worship ye know not what.” (John 4:22) Oh, that men would put away their childish things! That they would seriously and humbly hunger for truth and spiritual reality! That they would drop the air castles of religious imagination, inspired by fleshly assumptions and fleshly conditioning, and abhor the deadly simplicity of arranging things as they see best, rather than being led into all truth by the Holy Ghost. Most people are proving they are playing at religion. “And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God.” (Romans 12:2) This renewal from above and the transformation which comes from the renewal is necessary for the proving of what is the will of God.
Now, in the fear of God, we must be sober-minded (realistic) about the children playing in the marketplace and calling to one another. We must see this activity for what it is. We want no part of the net of the man that flatters his neighbor (Proverbs 29:5); yea, “a flattering mouth worketh ruin.” (Proverbs 7:21) When all things are examined and exposed on the great Final Day of Judgment, we want to have the testimony of the apostle Paul, “neither at any time used we flattering words, as ye know… God is witness.” (1 Thessalonians 2:5) We are not of the same spirit as those dancing and mourning in the marketplace, calling to one another, for our hearts have been taught of true worship and pure religion by “the same anointing [that] teacheth you of all things, and is truth, and is no lie, and even as it hath taught you, ye shall abide in him.” (1 John 2:27) Therefore, “as we were allowed of God to be put in trust with the gospel, even so we speak; not as pleasing men, but God, which trieth our hearts.” (1 Thessalonians 2:4) “But I certify you, brethren, that the gospel which was preached of me is not after man. For I neither received it of man, neither was I taught it, but by the revelation of Jesus Christ.” (Galatians 1:11-12) We dare not enter into this irresponsible, untaught-of-God approach to sacred things. Jesus did not enter into it. John the Baptist did not enter into it.
These people are there—right in the marketplace. God has suffered their presence in the chief place of concourse, in the openings of the gates. Immortal human souls are exposed to their influence and enticement. God has positioned Wisdom there, too, in the form of the Holy Ghost, who strives with and shines light upon every man that comes into the world; and God has permitted wisdom-not-from-above to tempt and offer many inducements. The many ways of less-than-true-worship are permitted to persuade and deceive. Thus God has ordained a filtering of the human race, separating the precious from the vile, proving the hearts of men, trying and pulling upon the reins of the soul. Reaping as we have sown applies here; so does justice and fairness.
In the marketplace, the Father seeks those who will worship Him in spirit and in truth (John 4:23-24). How many worshipers are not true worshipers! How narrow is the way and strait the gate! How few there are who find it! How many seek to enter in, but cannot! How many turn from the way into which the Spirit of God prompts, saying, “This is a hard saying, who can hear it?” (John 6:60)
Therefore the backslider in heart is filled with his own ways.
Therefore cunningly devised fables are invented and amazingly intricate and deceptive dances—full of meaning and symbolism to the inventors, but not of the Lord’s devising. A dance: spiritual activity in physical form. Some are ridiculous; some are lewd, immoral and wicked (such as the dance of the daughter of Herodias, the adulteress, before the adulterer, Herod—which brought about the murder of John the Baptist); other dances are interpretative and sophisticated, ballets and operas of human imagination and dreaming—choreographed high-mindedness. Others are very orthodox, full of Pharisee discipline—stern, even grim. Human interpretations of life, expressing exuberance and grief.
Some of these childish dances are new and freshly devised, while others are nearly as old as mankind. For there are many, many who do not wish to think or ponder on the path of their feet, and they adopt such mantras as:
“It was good enough for Father,
And it’s good enough for me.”
This avoids the all-important question: Does God approve? This path requires the swallowing of an enormous assumption, namely, that one may worship as one pleases, that one has a right to use one’s existence as one sees fit to do in religion. It flies in the face of, “Examine me, O Lord, and prove me; try my reins and my heart.” (Psalm 26:2) Thus said David in the court of Saul, the man who was rejected of God, but continued to dance and mourn as he, Saul, saw best in the marketplace. When this man Saul called to David to join in the king’s way of life, the man of God replied, “I have not sat with vain persons, neither will I go in with dissemblers. I have hated the congregation of evildoers; and will not sit with the wicked.” (Psalm 26:4) Nor did the God-fearing man say this in vain, for the Lord helped him and made a way for him. He did not have to participate in the “dance” of the wicked king; God had something better for him. The same pressures of the people were around David and against him as Saul experienced; the same Philistines were against him, but the outcome of David’s life and administration was entirely different from the outcome of Saul’s life and administration.
There is nothing childish in the response of mankind to the gospel in one respect. “We will not have this man to reign over us.” (Luke 19:14) “He hath a devil.” (Luke 7:33) “Behold a gluttonous man, and a winebibber, a friend of publicans and sinners!” (Luke 7:34) Here is rebellion; here is rejection; here is slander. Men love their own ways so much that they reject the gospel out of hand—many seem to give hardly any serious consideration to the voice of the Spirit of God or to the solemn warnings of the Word of God. They lightly dismiss profound truth—which they will face again at the Day of Final Judgment. We read nothing of serious consideration on the part of Dives about the example of Lazarus, put before him right at his very gate—until in hell he lifted up his eyes, being in torment. But until then, Dives danced and mourned as he saw fit, while Lazarus followed the way of God.
“And this is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. For every one that doeth evil hateth the light, neither cometh to the light, lest his deeds should be reproved. But he that doeth truth cometh to the light, that his deeds may be made manifest, that they are wrought in God.” (John 3:19-21)