The Only Sign We’ll Ever Need

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Transcript:

We’re going to be in Matthew chapter 12 and look at a few verses there. Another instance where Jesus has a run-in with the Pharisees. We’re going to talk about the signs that they were looking for.

We hear a lot of this, and you may have even at some point in your life have said something like this, that you were looking for a sign from God, that you were looking for God to prove himself in some way or another. And we’re not talking necessarily about, for example, the story of Gideon. Gideon didn’t doubt God.

Gideon didn’t doubt God existed. Gideon didn’t doubt that God was true to his word, but I think the story of Gideon, when God told Gideon to go do something, I think Gideon’s question was whether or not he heard God correctly. I don’t think it was doubting God.

I think it was doubting himself and his own understanding, so he would put out the fleece, and that’s become a phrase that’s been used in our culture, or used to be used in our culture, about testing to make sure we understood God correctly. He put out the fleece asking God for a sign if it was wet and then if it was dry and so on and so forth in order to figure out whether he’d heard God correctly. But there’s this tendency now in our culture to ask or to seek after a sign whether God is who he says he is or whether he can do what he says he’ll do.

We’ve all, I’m sure, heard the phrase, well, Well, you know, people have said in order to try to disprove God, well, God couldn’t make a rock so heavy. Excuse me, I’m trying to figure out what words to say. God can’t make a rock so heavy he can’t lift it, as though to try to limit God and say, well, you know, he can’t really do everything.

That’s absurd just on the face of it. But I’ve even heard people say that they would believe in God when he could make a rock so heavy he couldn’t lift it. No, you wouldn’t.

No, you wouldn’t. First of all, that’s irrational to even say make a rock so heavy he couldn’t lift it. I have a friend who says, yeah, God would make a rock so heavy he couldn’t lift it.

And then he’d lift it because he’s God and he can do anything. And I think, well, he’s probably on to something there. But, you know, the Bible says there are some things that God can’t do.

I know we don’t like to think in those terms. God can’t lie, though. God can’t sin. God can’t deceive us.

There are some things God can’t do. I have said God can do anything that’s consistent with his nature. You know, God is a God of perfection and justice, so he can’t lie.

He can’t sin. I believe that, you know, I believe in reason within reason. I believe in logic, and I think that logic and how we understand the world flows from the fact that God is a God of order, and God is a God of, you know, the Bible says he’s not the author of chaos, and so I think for God to do anything illogical would be inconsistent with his nature, and even more than that, ladies and gentlemen, if we’re looking for signs, this idea, and I’ve even heard this from college professors, well, I would believe in God if he could lift, if he could create a rock so large he couldn’t lift it.

No, no they wouldn’t, and neither would eye because quite frankly, I like to think of my God, the God of the Bible, as not being some magician who does parlor tricks just because we command him to. Ladies and gentlemen, the God of the Bible doesn’t stand around at our beck and call and give us signs just because we ask for them. And the Bible makes it clear that he has already given us all the evidence that we need in order to believe in him.

The problem is that as human beings, we look at the evidence differently, and I understand that. I have a very good friend from the church I formerly pastored in Fayetteville, Brother Ted, who came. Once a month, we would have what we call the senior saints.

The older people in the church would get together and have lunch, and they would have a speaker. And they wanted me to be the speaker every time, which I cannot. I’m not saying this facetiously.

I cannot imagine why. They heard from me three times a week. I kept saying, surely there are better people, more interesting people you all would rather hear from.

but we went through a series on explaining why the Gospels were trustworthy and talking about some of the evidence that there is for the trustworthiness of the Gospels and why they’re not just fairy tales. And he came up to me afterwards, after one of the meetings, and said, you know, God has given ample evidence for those who choose to believe. He said, and there are those who are inclined to believe, and the evidence is sufficient for them.

There are those who don’t want to believe, and they’re not going to believe no matter what. And I thought, well, that’s an interesting point. and come to find out it squares with what Jesus had already said.

In Matthew chapter 12, he talks about the signs that people were looking for, the signs that people wanted in his day, just as in our day, in order to prove that he existed. And the Pharisees, ladies and gentlemen, came to him seeking some kind of proof that if he would just do X, Y, and Z, it wasn’t that they doubted God existed. The Pharisees believed in God, but they doubted that Jesus Christ was sent by God.

They doubted he was the Messiah. They doubted he was the Son of God. And so, in that sense, they doubted God the Son.

And they’re saying, well, if you would just give us such and such sign, then we’ll believe. And Jesus basically tells them, no, you won’t. And I don’t think there’s anything wrong sometimes with asking God for confirmation.

Not that we doubt him, not that we doubt what he’s told us to do, but like Gideon, did I hear you right? God, am I on the right track? Did I understand this correctly?

I don’t think there’s anything wrong with from time to time asking God for confirmation. But we fall into a very dangerous trap when we start asking God to prove himself. Because God has already given us everything that we need in order to believe in him, in order to trust him.

Now in Matthew chapter 12, starting in verse 38, it says, Then certain of the scribes and of the Pharisees answered, saying, Master, we would see a sign from thee. And I’ve read this passage numerous times, numerous times even in preparation for this message, but as I was reading it again last night, it struck me really for the first time. The Pharisees and scribes called him master.

Now, I don’t think there’s anything in here that tells us the Pharisees and scribes, at least this particular group, believed in him. And yet they call him master. Now, that was a title that we would equate with rabbi or teacher.

You know, for somebody in that day, for them to be their teacher, look at what the disciples did. Jesus was their master or their rabbi. They gave up everything.

They dropped their fishing nets and left them behind and went and followed him. and walked with him for three years as he taught. For somebody to be your teacher meant you lived under their teaching.

You lived where they lived. You did what they told you to do. And for them to call him master, I was struck by that because these are clearly people who don’t believe in him.

What it seems like they’re doing, though, is not admitting that they believe in him, not admitting that he’s a good teacher, but trying to flatter him, sort of trying to butter him up. But they don’t realize he’s Jesus and that’s not going to work on him. So they said to him, Master, we would see a sign from thee.

And we know from context from other places in the Gospels where it talks about this event, that they were looking for a sign in the heavens. Now they had just seen all sorts of signs from Jesus, but they wanted something different. He answered them in verse 39 and said unto them, An evil and adulterous generation seeketh after a sign, and there shall be no sign given to it but the sign of the prophet Jonah.

For as Jonah 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 Jonah, and behold, a greater than Jonah is here. He says, The Queen of the South shall rise up in judgment with this generation and shall condemn it, for she came from the uttermost parts of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon, and behold, a greater than Solomon is here.

So he talks to them about this desire that they had after signs. They came not seeking a sign that God existed, not seeking confirmation because they believed and wanted to make sure they got it right. They came seeking a sign that Jesus was the Messiah because he was teaching that he was, he was claiming to be sent by God, and they flat out didn’t believe it.

And they didn’t believe it because they didn’t want to believe it. So they came seeking a sign so he would prove that he was who he said he was, And they had seen all kinds of earthly signs already. If you go back through the previous several chapters, you see that Jesus had done healings.

Jesus had done miracles. We’ve got the feeding of the 5,000. We’ve got all sorts of things that Jesus had done and Jesus had taught that pointed them to the fact that this was no ordinary man just claiming to be the Messiah.

And yet they chose to ignore him. If you go back even in this chapter, you go back even in this chapter, and we’re not going to go through the whole thing, But you’ve got the story starting in verse 9, where he healed the man on the Sabbath. It says, And when he was departed thence, he went into their synagogue, and behold, there was a man which had his hand withered.

And they asked him, saying, Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath days that they might accuse him? This is a, we know that the Pharisees and scribes were there because this is a trap they had set up. They were constantly trying to outfox Jesus, outmaneuver him, get him to do something wrong so that they could accuse him so that they can have him arrested or killed or whatever they wanted to do.

But folks, he’s God. Jesus is God the Son. Jesus knows the law.

Jesus knew the law better than all of them because not only had he grown up studying it, but before he was born of Mary, he was there when it was written. And on top of that, he’s God the Son and can’t sin. So they bring him in and have him look with compassion.

Obviously, Jesus would have been moved with compassion on this man who had a deformed hand. And they said, they start asking him legal questions. These were not loving, compassionate people.

These are not the sort of people we’d want to go to church with or live next door to. They believed a lot of the right things, but they had no compassion, no love. And they said, so, they’re using this man to make a point.

They said, so is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath days? Because if he said no and left the man alone, well, then they could accuse him of not living up to the love and compassion he taught. If he said, sure, I’ll go ahead and heal him, then they’ve got him.

He’s breaking the law, working on the Sabbath. But it says in verse 11, And he said unto them, What man shall there be among you that shall have one sheep, and if it fall into a pit on the Sabbath day, will he not lay hold on it and lift it out? How much then is a man better than a sheep?

Wherefore it is lawful to do well on the Sabbath days. Then he said to the man, Stretch forth thine hand. And he stretched it forth, and it was restored whole like as the other.

So what he tells them is every single one of you, if you owned a sheep and it fell into a pit on the Sabbath, you would go out and rescue it. You wouldn’t consider that to be work. That would be doing something good.

And obviously you can do something good on the Sabbath. And so he tells the man, stretch out your hand. What I find interesting is they talk to Jesus about healing on the Sabbath as though it were work for him.

Folks, again, he’s God the Son. He didn’t even have to get in there and do surgery on the man. He didn’t even have to touch the man.

He just said, stretch out your hand. The man stretched out his hand in faith and he was healed because Jesus told him he would be. So they’d seen this miracle.

Folks, that is not something that happens every day. To be told, to tell someone, stretch out your hand when it’s deformed, when it’s withered. And he stretches it out and suddenly it’s good.

I mean, it’s as good as anybody else’s. It’s as functional as anybody else’s. That doesn’t happen every day.

And you know the other people standing around were mesmerized by this because it doesn’t happen every day. And we know that because people were constantly flocking to Jesus in order to be healed. We see a few stories right after this where Jesus heals some other people.

Folks, the Pharisees and scribes were intimately acquainted with Jesus’ miracles because they saw it. They saw them happen. That was part of the reason they hated Jesus, that he developed this big following.

And they had seen miracles and wonders happen because they had set him up to fail. And then they were there when he succeeded. And because of this, in verse 24, they began to accuse him.

And when the people were healed, and in verse 22, he cast out a devil. And in verse 24, it says, but when the Pharisees heard it, they said, this fellow doth not cast out devils, but by Beelzebub, the prince of the devils. So they look at Jesus and say, okay, sure, you know, we can’t convince the people that he’s not a miracle worker.

We’re willing to go along with that. This man has some powers. This man has some strength.

There are some signs, obviously, of some supernatural working here. We don’t dispute that. But we think he does it by the power of the devil.

And Jesus has a really great response about why would the devil cast himself out? And that’s where the phrase comes from, that a house divided against itself cannot stand. That didn’t originally come from Abraham Lincoln.

That was from the Lord Jesus Christ. But he has this great exchange with the Pharisees and basically points out how foolish they are. Why would the devil cast his own self out? Said all that to say this, to make this point.

They knew that he did miracles. They got to the point they didn’t even dispute that he had supernatural powers. They just claimed that the signs that he was performing were proof that he was in league with the devil, that he was in cahoots with the devil.

So when they come to him saying, we want to see a sign, when they come to him in verse 38 and they say, Master, we would like to see a sign from you. What they’re asking for is a sign in the heavens because it says elsewhere that they were looking for a sign in the heavens. And they had this mistaken idea that somehow in the sky the devil would be less powerful.

Now the Bible calls him the prince of the power of the air. that somehow he couldn’t make lightning and things like that appear. And what they’re looking for are signs like what they saw with Moses, because they said, okay, if there’s a sign in the heavens, that’s going to be more valid proof from God.

If you look back at Exodus 20, if you want to turn there, you can. We’re just going to look at about three verses. But Exodus chapter 20, in the same passage where it talks about God handing the Ten Commandments to Moses on the tablets, it says, starting in verse 18, and all the people saw the thunderings and the lightnings and the noise of the trumpet, and the mountain smoking.

And when the people saw it, they were moved and stood afar off. And they said unto Moses, Speak thou with us, and we will hear. But let not God speak with us, lest we die.

And Moses said unto the people, Fear not, for God has come to prove you, and that this fear may be before your faces, that ye sin not. There are so many examples in the Old Testament where Moses and people like him had had signs accompanying them in the heavens. that Moses would go up on the mountain to speak to God, and there would be lightning, and there would be thunder, and there would be rumblings from the mountain, and the people thought, that’s not something you can fake.

And so the Pharisees, when they say they want a sign in the heavens, they’re basically telling Jesus, prove to us that you’re as good as Moses. Prove to us that we should be listening to you the way we listen to Moses. Prove to us with the signs directly from God in the heavens, in the sky, that demonstrate that you are who you say you are.

Never mind that he’s already demonstrated this in all its clarity that the regular people saw it and understood. Because they said, no, no, that’s the work of the devil. Show us something like Moses.

If you’ll give us just the sign we want to see, then we’ll believe him. And ladies and gentlemen, as I’ve said earlier, this happens in our society today with non-believers who will say, God, if you’ll do this, then I’ll believe you’re real. Okay, why are you talking to somebody you don’t believe is real in the first place? That would be a question I would have.

But if you’ll just do this, then I’ll believe you’re real. Or we as Christians sometimes, I think, get to the point where we really are doubting that God can do what he says he’ll do. Well, God, I know you said this in your word. If you’ll just show me, if you’ll just give me this sign, then I’ll believe.

Folks, it doesn’t work that way. Jesus makes it clear that God has already given us every sign we will ever need in order to believe in him. Don’t get me wrong.

I’m a believer in evidence. I believe evidence is important. I have spent too many years studying apologetics, which is not the study of how to apologize, but how to make the case for Christianity.

That there is evidence that backs up our beliefs. There is evidence in archaeology. There’s evidence for the resurrection.

As a matter of fact, if y’all still have me here prior to Easter, I mentioned it last Sunday night, I may do a study on the resurrection and how we have proof of it. But folks, there’s all sorts of proof and there’s all sorts of evidence, but it’s all secondary. we shouldn’t just say, well, because science can prove, because archaeology can prove, then I’ll believe.

Jesus told Thomas, blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed. We already have all of the sign that we need, and we’re either going to be convinced by it or we’re not. And ladies and gentlemen, the sign that God has given us is Jesus Christ himself.

Jesus taught that these people had seen the signs, they’d been given the signs, and that they wouldn’t believe even if He gave them everything they wanted to know. We see another place where he talks about this in the story of Lazarus. Now, I don’t know if it’s the same Lazarus as the one he raised from the dead, but Lazarus being in Abraham’s bosom after he had died, and a rich man being tormented in the flames and the fires of hell, and the man looking up at Lazarus and saying, Send someone back to warn my brothers, and being told they have the word, they have the law, the prophets, they have God’s word.

If they haven’t believed by now, nothing’s going to convince them. Nothing’s going to change their mind. And folks, I don’t tell you all these things this morning so that we’ll give up trying to present Christ to people because if they haven’t believed by now, nothing’s going to change their mind.

That’s not what I’m saying. But what I’m saying is if we are looking for some kind of special sign, if we’re looking for God to just spell it out in the sky for us in those trails that the airplanes leave, I’m real. If we’re waiting for him to put a neon sign on the moon that says Jesus is the Son of God. Folks, we can look for God to send whatever sign we want him to send, but if we’re not convinced by his word, if we’re not convinced by his Holy Spirit, if we’re not convinced by the person of Jesus Christ, there’s nothing that’s going to be more convincing.

That is the ultimate evidence. And so we’re going to look this morning at some reasons why Jesus isn’t the only sign we’ll ever need. Again, don’t give up on trying to talk to people that you know and love about Jesus Christ just because they haven’t believed yet.

But let’s not leave people expecting a sign from God when he’s already given us the best sign he could. First of all, and these are the things Jesus says of himself, Jesus’ wisdom compels us to believe that he speaks for God. When you look at verse 42 and it says, The Queen of the South shall rise up in judgment with this generation and shall condemn it.

For she came from the uttermost parts of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon, and behold, a greater than Solomon is here. What Solomon is known for from the Old Testament is his riches. Jesus didn’t have any riches to speak of.

Solomon was the one who had, I believe, 400 wives and 800 concubines, something like that. Big numbers. I don’t remember the exact numbers right now, but certainly more than I could deal with, certainly more than any sane man could deal with.

I’ve always said I didn’t understand polygamy because what sane man could handle more than one? But he’s known for his riches or his multitude of wives. Well, Jesus didn’t have a multitude of wives.

He’s known also for his wisdom. Solomon was known for his wisdom. Solomon is known for other than Jesus Christ being the wisest man who’d ever lived.

And the reason for that is because he wasn’t just born wise. He wasn’t just that smart. He asked God for wisdom and God granted him wisdom.

Solomon didn’t just have wisdom. He had wisdom given to him by God. God told Solomon, ask for anything you want and I’ll give it to you.

And Solomon said, I want wisdom to be able to rule over the people well, to rule over your people well. And God gave it to him. And then on top of it, gave him the riches and everything else that he could have asked for.

Jesus here invokes Solomon who had been given God’s wisdom and says of himself, one even greater than Solomon is here. Now he’s not talking one greater in wealth and greater in prestige. He’s talking about greater in wisdom.

And he says, because of that, the queen of the south, the queen of Sheba, who came from the far ends of the earth in order to hear Solomon, to meet him, she will rise up in judgment. She will rise up in judgment over the people of that generation who were looking for this sign from God. Now, that doesn’t mean that she’s going to somehow get to sit on the judgment throne and take God’s place.

But that means her testimony of one who believed the wisdom of Solomon stands in stark contrast to these people who had even greater wisdom and yet rejected it. We look at the wisdom that Jesus had. Jesus was even wiser than Solomon.

If you don’t believe me, people, some of the wisest minds of our time and of times before us, are still studying the sayings of Jesus, trying to uncover all of the wisdom that’s there. We can study these words in red, and not that they’re the only words in the Bible that matter, But we could study these words that are in red in our Bibles, these words that were uttered by Jesus, and there’s incredible wisdom there that we can spend our entire lives dedicated just to studying the red letters and never come to the end of it, never exhaust all the wisdom that’s there. The greatest minds that have ever lived over the last 2,000 years have not begun to scratch the surface of the substance that there is in the words that were spoken by Jesus Christ, the things that were taught by Him.

When you look at the Sermon on the Mount, Matthew chapters 5, 6, and 7, where he gives the Beatitudes and says, Blessed are the poor in spirit. Blessed are the meek. These were things that they didn’t hear all the time.

He wasn’t just repeating what somebody else had said. This was direct revelation from God. When he said, you’ve heard it said, an eye for an eye.

But I tell you, if someone strikes you on one cheek, turn the other cheek also. This was revolutionary stuff. Folks, that’s not human nature, is it?

Even as Christians, somebody does us wrong and we want to get back at them. Folks, I’m not too spiritual to admit I have that thought sometimes. Boy, I wish I could just tell you exactly what I think about you.

And even though I’m pointing at you, I don’t mean y’all. But sometimes that happens. Oh, I really would just love for you to get what’s coming to you.

And I would love to be the one to give it to you. But folks, that’s not what Jesus taught. It’s contrary to human nature.

It’s contrary to all the wisdom of the world. Entire books have been written on how to out-scheme your enemies and get exactly what you want. And that’s not what Jesus taught.

He taught something far wiser and far more revolutionary that if we’d live our lives by it, we’d be better off. And so for all these years, and he managed to outmaneuver every theological trap they set for him. Like when they asked him, is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath that we just talked about?

Folks, he taught seemingly simple truths. But they’ve captured the imagination and confounded the intellect of the world’s greatest minds for 2,000 years. A wisdom greater than that of Solomon.

And they rejected it. And because of that, he says, basically at the last days, at the final judgment, when you’re called to give an account for why didn’t you believe? And you say, well, we didn’t know.

He says the Queen of the South basically is there saying, are you serious? I believed Solomon in his wisdom and you had greater wisdom available to you. Folks, we read through the Gospels.

We read the things that Jesus taught and see the way that he lived them. I try very hard, but I’ll admit, I do not always live up to the things that I teach. I’m human, how could I?

But I try. So many people don’t live up to their ideals and yet look at the things that Jesus taught and we see in the letters in black how he lived up to them. And we read through these and we study these and we see the wisdom of Jesus.

And it’s not like any other human wisdom. And it gives us good reason to believe that he speaks in wisdom given to him by God, that he speaks for God. So Jesus’ wisdom compels us to believe that he speaks for God.

Second of all, Jesus’ preaching convicts us to turn and seek God. A lot of people have preached a lot of messages or given a lot of speeches trying to convince people to do things. And yet Jesus would present simple spiritual truths in ways that turn people’s lives upside down.

He talks about the people of Nineveh just as he talks about the Queen of the South. He says in verse 41, The men of Nineveh shall rise in judgment with this generation and condemn it, because they repented at the preaching of Jonah, and behold, a greater than Jonah is here. Jonah was sent to Nineveh, if you recall the story.

He didn’t want to go, and so God had him swallowed up in the belly of a great fish. He ended up going to Nineveh. I would imagine three days inside a fish’s belly would convince us to do just about whatever God wanted us to do.

So he goes to Nineveh and proclaims this message that in so many days, because of their wickedness, because of their idolatry, because they’d rejected God, God was going to destroy the city. He was going to wipe out the city. And he went preaching righteousness and judgment to the people at Nineveh.

To my recollection, he doesn’t even tell them you need to repent and turn back. He just said, it’s a done deal. God is going to destroy your city. And you know what?

Because of the preaching of God’s righteousness and God’s judgment, the people turned back. The people turned to God. The people repented.

If I recall, they were so distressed that they tore their garments and they put on sackcloth and they rolled around in the dirt. Ladies and gentlemen, they were overcome with grief over their sin. And Jonah was mad.

He was mad about it. He said, these people have done such abominable things. He was looking forward to God whooping up on them.

He was looking forward to God destroying them and their city. He said, what kind of trick is this that they would turn and repent? I mean, God, how could you let them get by with that?

Not realizing that God’s mercy applies to all of us. We better be careful before we start whining that life isn’t fair or life isn’t just. I don’t want God to give me what I deserve. Do you?

I’d much rather have the mercy than the justice. But the people, their attitudes seem to be whether we had a promise that if we turn back, he’d spare us or not, we’re going to turn back and we’re going to trust God and we’re going to do what’s right because we’re so convicted over this sin. That takes an awfully convicting message for people to say, I’m not even concerned about what’s in it for me.

You can talk to just about anybody, well, you can talk to crowds of people about heaven and hell, and you can describe the horrors of hell, and you can describe the grandeur of heaven and convince somebody to walk an aisle because, well, I don’t want to go there. I want to go to heaven instead. But to preach not at all on heaven and hell, but just to preach on the righteousness of God and have people repent because it’s the right thing to do and because they’re broken over the way that they’ve disobeyed God.

That’s an awfully convicting message that Jonah took to the people. And yet Jesus says one has come that’s even greater than Jonah. Jesus was able to look at things that had happened, a tower that had fallen and killed some people, and said, unless you repent, you will likewise perish.

Just as they perished, so will you unless you repent. Jesus was able to preach in such a way that it turned the lives of his twelve disciples upside down. Jesus was the greatest preacher who ever lived.

Because, as I’ve learned over the last few years, preaching really is just about bragging on Jesus. Brother started preaching, he said, well, if all else fails, just brag on Jesus. That’s good advice.

It’s good advice. Just brag on Jesus. And you know who knows Jesus better than any of us or all of us?

Jesus. So he was pointing people to the redemption that he offered. And by his preaching, by the words that are written and read, he still convinces men that he is the I am, that he is the one that was sent by God to save us from our sins.

And if the people were willing to listen to a disobedient sinful preacher like Jonah. And yet these pe