the exceeding wickedness of willful impenitence.

Our Lord declares that it shall be more tolerable for Tyre, Sidon, and Sodom in the day of judgment than for those towns where people had heard His sermons and seen His miracles but had not repented.

There is something very solemn in this saying. Let us look at it well. Let us think for a moment what dark, idolatrous, immoral, and profligate places Tyre and Sidon must have been. Let us call to mind the unspeakable wickedness of Sodom. Let us remember that the cities named by our Lord – Chorazin, Bethsaida, and Capernaum – were probably no worse than other Jewish towns, and at all events, were far better than Tyre, Sidon, and Sodom. And then let us observe that the people of Chorazin, Bethsaida, and Capernaum are to be in the lowest hell because they heard the gospel and yet did not repent, because they had great religious advantages and did not use them. How dreadful this sounds!

Surely these words ought to make the ears of everyone tingle who hears the gospel regularly and yet remains unconverted. How great is the guilt of such a man before God! How great the danger in which he daily stands! Moral and decent and respectable as his life may be, he is actually more guilty than an idolatrous Tyrian or Sidonian or a miserable inhabitant of Sodom. They had no spiritual light; he has, and neglects it. They heard no gospel; he hears, but does not obey it. Their hearts might have been softened if they had enjoyed his privileges. Tyre and Sidon would have repented. Sodom would have remained to this day. His heart under the full blaze of the gospel remains hard and unmoved. There is but one painful conclusion to be drawn. His guilt will be found greater than theirs at the last day. Most true is the remark of an English bishop: “Among all the aggravations of our sins, there is none more heinous than the frequent hearing of our duty.”

May we all think often about Chorazin, Bethsaida, and Capernaum! Let us settle it in our minds that it will never do to be content with merely hearing and liking the gospel. We must go further than this. We must actually repent and be converted. We must actually lay hold on Christ and become one with Him. Until then we are in dreadful danger. It will prove more tolerable to have lived in Tyre, Sidon, and Sodom than to have readily heard the gospel in our free country today yet still died unconverted.

—J.C. Ryle, ‘Expository Thoughts on Matthew’