Matthew 12:38-45

Matthew chapter 12 verses 38 through 45. Then certain of the scribes and the Pharisees answered saying, Master, he would see a sign from thee, but he answered and said unto them an evil, an adulterous generation seeketh after a sign. There shall no sign be given to it but the sign of the prophet Jonas. Whereas Jonas was three days and three nights in the whale’s belly, so shall the son of man be. three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. The men of Nineveh shall rise in judgment with this generation and shall condemn it because they repented at the preaching of Jonas. Behold a greater than Jonas is here. The queen of the south shall rise up in judgment with this generation, shall condemn it, for she came from the uttermost parts of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon. Behold a greater than Solomon is here. When the unclean spirit has gone out of a man, he walketh through dry places seeking rest, and findeth none. Then he saith, I will return into my house from whence I came out, and when he has come, he findeth it empty, swept, and garnished. Then goeth he and taketh with himself seven other spirits more wicked than himself, and they enter in and dwell there, And the last state of the man is worse than the first. Even so shall it be also under this wicked generation. May God bless to us his sacred and holy this morning. As we continue our study through the prophet Jonah, I thought it would be wise to take a few minutes to again look at this passage here in Matthew chapter 12, where Christ references Jonah and the son. of Jonah is mentioned. You know, many years ago, the Russian astronaut Jarmon Taitoi said after his return from space, some people say there’s a God out there, but in my travels around the earth all day long, I looked around and didn’t see him. I saw no God nor angels. I don’t believe in God. Many an atheist has demanded that God do some miraculous thing to convince them that he exists. In fact, many people say, why doesn’t God prove his existence by showing himself? Why all this secrecy? Why all this mystery surrounding God? Yet when God was manifested in the flesh, when God did walk among men, we see they still wanted a sign, as we see in our text. In verse 38, the scripture says that the heavens declare the glory of God. God’s existence certainly can be seen easily in creation if man were not so blinded. But you’ll notice that Christ here did not give a sign to his generation as they wanted to prove his deity upon request. He did, however, mention the sign of Jonah, which is past, but still relevant, as he says, for them today in verse 39. As we shall see, this sign is still pertinent today for our own generation. Now, you’ll notice in verse 39, he says, an evil and adulterous generation seeketh after a sign. Why may it be an evil thing to ask God for a sign? Mark? Because they haven’t believed. Okay. They didn’t believe what he said. Right. Anything else on that, Russell? You would probably have to ask what reason that they had, what reason did you ask a sign for? Now, in this particular case, there are probably two. frames of mind you could ask the sign for. But in this particular case, one particular case is Gideon asked for a sign to encourage his faith. But in this particular case, we see that they wanted to avoid belief. They wanted an excuse for their unbelief. Jesus was asked here for the miraculous sign. Supposedly, this was to prove that he was the son of God, that he was the Messiah, But our Lord had just healed a demon-possessed man, and as Russell has mentioned, some of the other miracles that he has performed, this blind, this demon-possessed man was blind and mute in verse 22. It tells us this, and he cast out the demon and heals the man. This certainly was a demonstration of divine power, and what did they say when this occurred? They said, well, he’s doing this by. Satan’s power. He’s doing this by the power of darkness. So did they really want to believe in what they already had seen? They don’t need another sign, is what certainly Jesus is indicating to them. Jesus in refuting this trumped-up charge that he’s doing all this by Bielzeb of the Prince of the Devils, which they said in verse 24, indicates to us that, you know, if Satan’s casting out demons, then he’s fighting against himself. It doesn’t even make any sense. It’s not even logically sound thinking. But they were insincere in the request. You’ll notice in verse 14 of this chapter that the Pharisees went out and held a counsel against him how they might destroy him. They have no intentions of believing in Christ. Their intentions are evil. Their intentions are murderous. And so verses 43 to 45, Jesus indicates that this is a generation that certainly demon possessed themselves. And maybe they clean up the outside in their act, but it will get worse when the demon brings seven more with him. And he says, this is the way it is with this wicked generation. So this is the situation. This is the background. So they were looking for some way to discredit Christ and say you’re not really who you are. This is why he calls them an evil and adulterous generation here. They seek a sign, but they have no intentions of believing. They actually have hatred in their heart for Christ. It’s all a smokescreen here for their unbelief. How might you be guilty of this kind of thinking today. How does this asking for a sign reflect on let’s say first of all, God’s truthfulness? Mark has already really touched on this one. Why would we ask for a sign because we don’t believe what God has already said, right? And I think that you’ve already captured the thought. Some people would like to have a miracle before their eyes, you know, have an angel appear, have the bed levitate up and down, the lights flick on and off or something of that nature. Modern man says, there’s God, let him do something then I’ll believe him. I’ll believe what he has to say. Why doesn’t God prevent earthquakes? Why doesn’t he prevent hurricanes from coming? Why does he prevent natural disasters? Why don’t he prevent people from shooting up, you know, synagogues in Pittsburgh? Whatever the case may be. Modern man often challenges God and says, show us a sign. Show us you’re for real. Give us a world without famine. Give us a world where there’s no high infant mortality rate. Without disaster, without war, without illegal drugs, and so forth. And then, and only then, modern man says he will believe. And God’s answer is still the same. And in evil, an adulterous generation, seeks after sign. What gets conveniently forgotten in the sign business is that the world is in the mess that it’s in because of man’s fault and his depravity. That’s why we have all these evil things that occur in the world around us. Now, what you’re doing here is that you are calling God a liar. The Bible says He that believeeth not hath made God a liar in 1 John 510 if you don’t believe what God says in his word you make him to be a liar how do you treat a liar if someone lies to you then you don’t believe what they tell you give me more proof give me some concrete evidence Are we going to treat God that way? Some people who respect enough to take them at their word you know maybe a family member or close friend or something tells us something we believe them. They’re trustworthy But if we don’t believe their word, then we’re saying that they’re untrustworthy. So basically people are saying, I don’t believe the Bible, the word of God, I want more evidence. How does this reflect on God’s sovereignty? This is asking for a sign reflect on God’s sovereignty. Man doesn’t get to dictate to God. Who are you to reply against God? Who are you to tell God what to do? God is the sovereign God. He does what he pleases in heaven and earth. and man is not in a position to demand anything from God. And God doesn’t always allow man to get his whims indulged here. Besides, God doesn’t need to produce a sign to save you. The Ninevites repented and they believed without a sign. Maybe Jonah, maybe his personal story, but there were no healings that we read about here. There was no fire that fell down from heaven. There was no snow during harvest or something like that that would be odd and unusual. Pharaoh had all kinds of signs, didn’t he? He had plagues falling upon him and, you know, the frogs and the lice and the flies and the flies and the locusts and the hail and the darkness and so forth. And yet he says, who is the Lord and I? should believe him, but I should obey you. He wasn’t convinced he had all the signs in the world. God says to the man, who are you to demand anything of me? Who are you to direct my spirit? Who are you to tell me what to do? So God is sovereign. How does demanding a sign reflect on the idea of perhaps someone acting as an idolater? What is an idolater? Yes. Okay. But what kind of God do they have? Was it made out of? Wood, stone? It’s visible. They want to have a visible God. So what is, how does that, would that relate to demanding a sign? Isn’t the same spirit found in the person who demands a sign? They want a visible God. They want a visible God. They want some tangible evidence of his existence. They want to be able to see something with their sensory organs, their eyes. They want to be able to see something. It’s the same spirit, is it not? I can’t believe an unseen God. So I need a golden calf. I need some kind of image. They won’t believe God’s naked word. We recognize. This is the secret to understanding man’s condition. because if you missed this point, you might think, well, God would just do all these signs. Today, years ago, it wasn’t that far long ago. There were people that claimed that they had, you know, one man claimed or a boy claimed he went to hell. And he was there and he saw what it was all about. And he came, God brought him back. God gave him this visitation. I was teaching a Bible study one time at the health club, and when some of the members were there and I was teaching, and somebody asked me this question. Now, they were Pentecostal. They were into all this sign stuff. And as I addressed this issue of a sign, I said, why would God do this? He doesn’t do this anymore. like he doesn’t act in this manner anymore. And what would tell us that he doesn’t do this? What passage of Scripture would you go to to to tell them that this is not the way God works any longer? Can you think of a passage in this regard? I thought of a passage, and that’s what I used at the time. Well, that’s true, Mom. And that’s really what we’re talking about. Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God. Not by seeing with the visible eye, but by hearing the word taught. I was thinking about the rich man of Lazarus. What happened with the rich man of Lazarus? What did the rich man want? Once he realized he wasn’t going to get out of hell. Once he realized he was going to be tormented and he wasn’t going to be comforted, what was the next thing he wanted? Yes. He wanted to go and get him. And who did he want to tell him? Send Lazarus back, right? Send Lazarus back from the dead. They’ll know him. They’ll recognize him, and then they’ll believe, right? Isn’t that the same thing? Sort of, you know, send somebody back. Tell them what’s like in this next world. Tell them how I’m being tormented. And then they’ll believe in what does God say through Abraham. So what does he say to him? You got the Word of God. That’s all you need. I’m not going to send somebody back. right? And so this is this is what happens. Me and wants something and God doesn’t always get. So when I was talking to the person, people at the gym, I said, this is what God says. He says, believe my word. You know, don’t go out there. Well, if I don’t get a sign, then I’m not going to believe. Well, God could give you all the signs that he gave Pharaoh, and you still wouldn’t believe. Because the heart of man, as Russell was indicating, is deprived. He’s way. I mean, that the sign is. itself is not what saves. It’s the regeneration of the spirit in conjunction with the proclamation of God’s Word that saves the soul. So here we see the idea that the Second Commandment, though, gets violated. That we’re idolatrous in a way if we demand. We have to have a sign. We have to have something visible. If you’re saying, I don’t believe in God, he doesn’t exist like the Russian, astronaut because I can’t see him. Well, God wants true worshippers who will worship him in spirit and truth, not with visible signs, per se. So what God does here is he points you to the truth of the word. You remember in John 8, Jesus said that the Pharisees were of their father, the devil. Here, in verse 34, he says, oh, generation of vipers, how can you being evil speak good things for out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks. Here’s the problem. As Russell has pointed out, man is depraved. He’s in Satan’s power. They don’t need a sign. They need regeneration. That’s what they need. And if you ask for a sign, who’s camping you’re placing yourself in? Who else asked Jesus for a sign? Who asked him to prove that he was the son of God? Satan. If you were the son of God, command these stones to be made right. If you’re the son of God, you can fall off the pinnacle of this temple, and the angels will catch you, and you won’t be dashed against the rock’s blood. If, give me a sign. Now we can get the picture. Look what camp you’re pointing yourself in by demanding this. And the Pharisees were no less hostile to Christ than Satan was. Yes. If you meet the Son of God. Yeah. There’s another, give us a sign. Now, Jesus answers this thing about giving a sign by saying what? When they wanted a sign, what did he tell them? He said, I’m not going to give you a sign, right? But what did he point them to? Didn’t he point them to Scripture? Did he say, read Jonah? This is the only sign you’re going to get. And it’s really, it’s the word of God. Read it for yourself. As he was three days and three nights in the belly of the, whale the son of man will be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. There’s a sense in which we see Jonah, and we’ve talked about this before, foreshadowing Jesus Christ. He’s the suffering prophet, in his case he’s suffering in some ways for his own foolishness. But Jesus is the suffering servant of God. He’s bearing the sins of his people when he’s suffered. But the three days and three nights, of the one is to portray for us the resurrection of Christ in what he went three days and three nights in the heart of earth before he was resurrected. Jesus did miracles before the people here and they didn’t believe. His own generation was wicked and an evil generation. I guess in the story of the Christmas Carol, I guess people wanted to be like Ebenezer Scrooge being worn by his dead partner, Joseph Marley, who has to come back from the dead in chains and shackles and so forth and tell him, oh, you don’t want to, you better rechange your ways you’re going to end up like me. That’s what people want. And God’s not going to give it to them. I was reading in one of Spurgeon’s sermons. He talks about this apparition or appearance that this woman. had seen. He said, here’s the account. He said, not very long ago after preaching in a remote country village, I was earnestly sought for as a spiritual advisor by a letter from a woman who ascribed to me much greater wisdom that I ever claimed to possess. I wondered what her spiritual difficulty was. And when I went to her house and found her very sick, I was saddened to find her the victim of a superstition, in which I feel. her minister had comforted and so confirmed her. She solemnly informed that she had seen something at night at the bottom of her bed. She was in hopes that it was our blessed Lord, but she could not see his head. And as I knew so much of spiritual things, could I tell her who it was? You have to appreciate Spurgeon, appreciate his answer here. I said, I thought she must have hung up her dress on a peg on the wall at the bottom of her bed, and in the darkness had mistaken it for her apparition. Of course, that didn’t satisfy her. I fell at once in her estimation to the dead level of a very carnal-minded man, if not a scoffer, but I could not help it. I could not dally with such ridiculous superstition. I was obligated to tell her it. It was obligated to tell her it was all nonsense. for her to hope for her salvation because she was silly enough to fancy she saw Jesus with her bodily eyes. For the saving site was a spiritual one. As to the question of the supposed apparition having a head or not, I told her if she would but use her own head and heart and meditating upon the word of God, she would be in a far more hopeful condition. So that sort of captures everything we’re trying to say. this morning, right? He sort of lays it out there. So God’s answer to sign seekers is read my word. Read the word of God. Now secondly here, you should consider what the sign of Jonah means today. This is first why it may be an evil thing for you to ask for a sign. And secondly, let’s consider what the sign of Jonah means today quickly here. What do you learn from the sign of Jonah? If you look at the whole situation, with Jonah, what do you learn about God’s holiness, first of all? From the account of Jonah, what can you learn about God’s holiness? What about the city? What does the city tell us? Why did God send Jonah to the city? What was wrong with it? As he said, 40 days, you’re going to be destroyed. So it tells us something about, we hear about Jonah that we should be thinking about what kind of God is there in the world. And he’s a lot. holy God and he’s going to punish sin and he’s not going to allow man to escape in his wickedness. It’s a sign for us today if we would read Jonah, we would see that God is going to bring judgment upon sin. And so while man procrastinates and doesn’t repent and demands a sign, God is sort of stirring up hell and making it seven times hotter for that individual. It’s appointed in the men wants to die, but after that there’s a judgment and there’s a hell that’s coming. It tells us also something about man’s sinfulness, doesn’t it? Nineve it was an evil generation. It was wicked. Why does Jesus call this generation in his day an adulterous generation, as well as an evil generation? Why would he call them adulterous? What do you think that means? What is he alluding to? Yes. really? Yes. They have really turned away from God. Even though they have the religious veneer, they’ve actually turned away from the true God. We know this from the sermon on the Mount on how they changed by their traditions, what God has commanded and what God has said in his law. They’ve adjusted that to their own liking. And they have basically rejected the son of God himself. as he is walking here on earth. So instead of being faithful to God, they’ve been unfaithed, like a wife who is adulterous. And that’s the idea. It’s spiritually adulterous generation. And so they’re not godly. Every thought of the man’s heart is only evil continually. That’s the problem with man. He’s a wicked. And this is the reason why judgment falls upon him. He’s depraved. He’s sinful. And we see also, I think, from the sign of Jonah the need for repentance. What do we find about repentance in the book of Jonah? What does that indicate to us? Okay. What we see is that there is a means of being spared, right? And that is through repentance and faith in what God has said, especially in the Savior. There, you know, the Jews in Christ Day, we see that the problem that they had, they wasted all the spiritual advantages they had. None of it didn’t have these spiritual advantages, but they listened when God’s servant came and preached to them. God opened their hearts to them. They believed. This generation has all these spiritual advantages they have the law of God. They’ve had years of service in the tabernacle, all these things. They’re not believing. and they’re threatened with judgment. And they’ll notice there is a sign that’s given to them. And the sign is that or at least, let’s put it this way, there is a warning given to them. the men of repented at the preaching of Jonah. you had all these advantages, and they and they had the son of God among you, one greater than Jonah and you have not repented. That’s pretty serious warning. One repented and one, and this generation has not, with all the advantages that they have. So you can waste your spiritual advantages and not repent, and it it will just make the damnation of hell even greater. So here we have these kind of things coming out in the story. here about Jonah. And while people may desire some kind of sign from God, God says that really this is an indication of an evil heart. An evil and adulterous generation seeks after a sign. Believe my word. Don’t call God a liar. And so this is the message we would have today in dealing with people. They want signs. God says, believe what I already had told you. We point them to that. Any other thoughts on this before we close this morning?