Brat – A child, especially a spoiled or ill-mannered one.

In this parable He identifies His generation as brats, impossible to please, impossible to satisfy, belligerent, and all of those things we just mentioned.

These words of Jesus are directed at the people who are surrounding Him at the moment in which He spoke. He describes those people as brats. And while they are the immediate object of His words, the principle here is timeless. And there have been and there are and there will be brats by this kind of definition in every generation. He is speaking of people who respond to the gospel like a brat. The message of God to sinners about repentance, faith, forgiveness, salvation, does not receive from them the response that it should. And we know in the context of this particular chapter, since back in Luke 7:18 John the Baptist has been the main topic of discussion, so it really features Jesus talking about John the Baptist. And, of course, at this particular point in the history of the gospel there are only two preachers. There is John the Baptist and there is Jesus. The twelve have not yet been sent to preach, but there is John and there is Jesus.

 

So there are essentially two gospel preachers in the world, two that are preaching repentance and faith and forgiveness and salvation. But whether or not it has been the preaching of John or the preaching of Jesus, the men of this generation have given the same essential response and that’s that intractable, recalcitrant, obstinate, bratty kind of response.

 

The effect of these religious leaders was significant. They basically turned a populous who had affirmed their trust in John as the true prophet of God away from John. They effectively turned a populous who saw the miracles of Jesus, the wonders that He did, and heard His teaching, and saw Him cast out demons, and even raised dead people, they turned the people away from Jesus as well by their powerful influence. And ultimately in the end they got the whole population to scream for the blood of Jesus and have Him executed. Nobody seems to have minded either that Herod Antipas chopped John’s head off.

 

This is a tremendously important passage because this is Jesus’ own assessment of His generation. And what does He say? He says they’re basically brats. They’re like spoiled children who can’t be satisfied, who refuse to be satisfied. And all of this was the influence of the religious leaders, the scribes and the Pharisees, who were self-righteous. And because they were self-righteous they thought.

 

So Jesus confronts them and describes them as brats. And I…I just would remind you that Jesus never hesitated, neither did John the Baptist for that matter, to label people. I know that’s sort of not politically correct today in a tolerant environment, but it’s amazing how many pejorative terms are used to describe people by Jesus and John. When the religious leaders came down to the Jordan River to meet with John, he greeted them with this, “You snakes! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come?” And in Luke’s record it would indicate to us that he even went…he even used those terms to extend even beyond the scribes and the Pharisees and to embrace all the people who were under their influence. And then after that description of them he further said to them, “You are nothing but chaff for burning.”

 

What Jesus said is even more extensive. Jesus called these self-righteous people hypocrites, blind, sons of hell, fools, robbers, self-indulgent. He said they were unclean tombs, outside whitewashed and inside dead men’s bones. He called them snakes. He called them vipers. He called them murderers. And all of that in one speech in Matthew 23. So by comparison, “brats” is mild but it really does open up insight for us.
Why? Why did they say it? Very simple, they hated his message. They hated his message. Please, folks, understand this, they hated his message. Their hearts were hard, impenetrable. They rejected the divine diagnosis of their true condition. The Pharisees and the scribes, they would not accept the fact that they were snakes, that they were chaff, that they were sinful, that they needed to repent. They hated to be called sinners and they hated the fact that there was forgiveness for those who were wretched. They hated the message of sin and grace. They hated it. It was the message they hated, but they attacked the man and they attacked his style to justify their rejection of his message. They said he’s a maniac. He’s a madman. He’s demented. He’s demonic. They made his style the issue because they hated his substance. That’s why I subtitled this message “Style or Substance.” When people don’t want to receive the truth, very often, in order to justify their rejection of the truth they will attack the style of the preacher. So many preachers fall for that and they think that if they’re going to be able to be received by people, they’ve got to change the style. They’ve got to be slick, suave, and glib, and acculturated somehow. And they’ve got to be up-to-date with the vernacular of thinking in their society.  ~ John MacArthur