Jesus described the heart of the unbeliever of his day by comparing them to children at play. Nothing would satisfy them; they were always finding fault.
“To what can I compare the people of this generation?” Jesus asked. “How can I describe them? They are like children playing a game in the public square. They complain to their friends,
‘We played wedding songs,
and you didn’t dance,
so we played funeral songs,
and you didn’t weep.’
For John the Baptist didn’t spend his time eating bread or drinking wine, and you say, ‘He’s possessed by a demon.’ The Son of Man, on the other hand, feasts and drinks, and you say, ‘He’s a glutton and a drunkard, and a friend of tax collectors and other sinners!’ But wisdom is shown to be right by the lives of those who follow it” (NLT Luke 7:31-35).
Regardless of the ministries of God’s people, the unbelieving will find fault. If a man of God deprives and secludes himself, he is a fanatic, narrow minded and self-righteous. If one assimilates himself into the society in which he ministers, then he is no different from them. The Jews were determined to receive no message from God; nothing was going to change that.
The plain truth is, that the natural heart of man hates God. The carnal mind is enmity against God. It dislikes His law, His Gospel, and His people. What they really disliked was, not so much God's ministers, as God Himself. The natural man will always find some excuse for not believing and obeying. Like the children who are never satisfied, the carnal mind will find repentance too strict and the doctrine of faith and grace too easy for it! John the Baptist goes too much out of the world! Jesus Christ goes too much into the world! The Jews justified remaining in their sins - or so they thought. But they are only deceiving themselves.
The people of today are really no different. The unbeliever that is opposed to the word of God will always justify his own failure to respond to God’s call to repentance. Jesus is telling us that though the vast majority of the Jews were hardened and unreasonable, some were not. Although the majority saw no wisdom in the ministry of John the Baptist and Jesus Himself, there were a chosen few who did. Those few were the "children of wisdom." Those few, by their lives and obedience, demonstrated their full conviction that God's ways of dealing with the Jews were wise and right, and that John the Baptist and the Lord Jesus were both worthy of all honor. In short, they "justified" God's wisdom; and so proved themselves truly wise.
My prayer is that you will be a “child of wisdom.” God loves each and every one of you - the wise and the unwise, and He is calling out to you both. Some will continue to justify their own unbelief and remain lost in their sins, and others will hear the word of God, believe and surrender their hearts to Jesus, and live with Him for all eternity.