The Sign of Jonah

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I watched an interview this last week with a lady who years ago came to the shocking realization that her boyfriend was a wanted criminal. And the crimes that he had committed had been on the news, and the police had, in their search for this man, had released details here and there about who they were looking for. They didn’t know exactly who they were looking for, but she realized it’s him. He’s the guy.

And so she called the police in one of these communities where they were looking for him and said, I know who you’re looking for. Because you’ve said, here’s the guy’s name. Because he had introduced himself to one of the victims. Why you would do that?

He did. He introduced himself by name. She said, I’ve seen the composite sketches and they look like him.

You even said you’re looking for somebody who drives a certain vehicle. And he drives that kind of vehicle. Not to mention that his crimes were committed in multiple states, multiple cities, and his travels lined up with what, I mean, the timeline lined up perfectly for him to be in all those places.

She said, my boyfriend is your guy. Unfortunately, they just said, well, we’ll look into it, and they didn’t. Now, that’s not an indictment on law enforcement as a whole, but in this case, I feel like they dropped the ball, right?

Because it was right there in front of him. She had all this evidence. I had all these reasons to say, this is the man.

All these signs point to this being the man. And for whatever reason, I don’t know if they had their own theories about who had done this or somebody that they liked for it. I don’t know what their reasoning was.

But they looked at all these signs and said, no, I don’t think so. And so they missed their man for quite some time. Sometimes people will present us with evidence.

They’ll present us with signs pointing in the right direction and we’ll miss it. Now, this is not a great comparison, admittedly, between a criminal and Jesus, but a lot of people have done the same thing with Jesus. All the signs are there pointing, saying, this is the man.

This is the one. This is the one you’ve been looking for. And for whatever reason, people will look at the signs and say, nah, it can’t be him.

People do it every day. People did it even in Jesus’ day. They looked at all the signs.

Everything was there, pointing in the direction of Jesus being the one that God had promised for thousands of years, of Jesus being the Messiah. And people looked at it and said, I don’t feel like it’s him, so we’re going to keep looking. And they missed their man.

It led to them missing him. Today we’re going to be in Matthew chapter 12, and we’re going to look at an instance of this happening. People looking at all the evidence and saying, I’m still not convinced, I don’t think it’s him, in spite of all the evidence that was there.

We’ve been looking through some of the pictures in the Old Testament that point to Jesus. And one of the ones we’re going to look at today is the story of Jonah. Because Jesus himself said, if you look at that story, and again, it’s not just a symbol.

It’s not just an allegory. I believe the story of Jonah is something that really happened in history. And yet God orchestrated history in such a way that Jesus could say, this points to me.

This was there for you to understand as an object lesson of what the Father was doing in my life. So once you’re there with me in Matthew chapter 12, if you’ll turn there in your Bibles, or if you don’t have a Bible, it’s on your screen. If you’re using our digital bulletin, you can click on it right there.

But if you would, once you get to that passage, if you’d stand with me as we read from God’s Word together, if you’re able to stand. We’re going to start in Matthew chapter 12 and verse 38 as we look at this particular picture. We’re going to look at verses 38 through 42.

It says, Then some of the scribes and Pharisees answered, saying, Teacher, we want to see a sign from you. But he answered and said to them, An evil and adulterous generation seeks after a sign, and no sign will be given to it except the sign of the prophet Jonah. For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the great fish, so will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.

The men of Nineveh will rise up in the judgment with this generation and condemn it, because they repented at the preaching of Jonah, and indeed a greater than Jonah is here. The Queen of the South will rise up in the judgment with this generation and condemn it, for she came from the ends of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon, and indeed a greater than Solomon is here. And you may be seated.

So the Pharisees and scribes came to Jesus and they asked for a sign. They came to him, they said, teacher, we want to see a sign. They weren’t just asking for him to show him any sign.

They were looking for a sign to confirm that he really was who he claimed to be. At this point, he has made waves in Galilee and in Judea by claiming to be the Messiah. And not only that, but by claiming to be the Son of God.

Those two are not necessarily connected in their minds because they were looking for a human Messiah. And so it was a tall enough bar for Jesus to claim to be the Messiah, but on top of it, he says he’s not just a human Messiah, he is the Son of God. And so they came to him saying, we’re looking for a sign.

And Jesus’ response was to tell them how wicked they were. And I think sometimes this may be part of where we get the idea, we misinterpret this, and we get the idea that it’s bad to ask questions. It’s bad to look for evidence.

We should just have blind faith. Guys, there’s people all over the world who have blind faith in the wrong things. Jesus dealt in evidence all the time.

The apostle Paul dealt in evidence all the time. God, throughout the Old Testament, as he gave signs, he was presenting evidence, pointing to who he is. In the scriptures, God doesn’t seem to have a problem with people asking questions.

He created us as inquisitive beings. We want to know things. But there’s a difference between asking God questions and questioning God.

One says, I want to know more. One is a challenge to his authority. It’s why Job went from being fine when he was trying to deal with his suffering and try to understand it, to not being fine and being on the receiving end of some pretty harsh questions from God when Job began to say, how could you let this happen to me?

It’s no longer about God, I’m seeking to understand. It’s acting as though God has done something wrong. People came to Jesus all the time and asked him questions.

Are you really who you claim to be? They were honestly seeking the truth. But these Pharisees and scribes came to Jesus with a challenge to his authority.

They weren’t seeking evidence so they could know. They were challenging his authority and his claims. That’s why he called them an evil and adulterous generation. And that to us might seem like a strange way to respond, but it was a statement that was deliberately provocative.

He was saying one of the harshest things that he could say to them to call them evil and adulterous. Remember, the Pharisees prided themselves on how well they lived up to the Old Testament law. They believed that they were the most righteous people around because at least outwardly they followed the law.

Inwardly, they were just as much in rebellion against God as anybody else, if not more so. But outwardly, they kept the Ten Commandments. And so for Jesus to say, you’re adulterers, that would have been shocking to them.

That would have irritated them and enraged them a little bit. But now he’s got their attention. And the point he’s trying to make is that he’s not saying they cheated on their wives.

He’s saying they had been unfaithful to God. They called them an evil and adulterous generation, saying that they had been unfaithful to God. They turned their backs on him.

He said this in verse 39. And then he pointed to the kind of signs that God had already provided. Because we might look at this as more of an honest question if they were looking for signs because there never had been any.

If Jesus had just shown up on the scene and said, here I am, I’m the Messiah, it’s probably excusable that they would say, can we see some ID? Can you show us some evidence of that? I would want to see some evidence.

But that’s all Jesus had been doing throughout his ministry. He’d been demonstrating by everything that he said and everything that he did that he was God’s anointed one. That wasn’t good enough for them because they didn’t want to believe that he was God’s anointed Messiah.

So what they’re basically doing at this point is asking him to perform on command. It’s very similar to somebody today who says, I’ll believe in God when he creates a rock so big that he can’t lift it. You ever heard that?

Anybody ever said to you, or you’ve heard the question asked, can God create a rock so big he can’t lift it? They think they’ve got us trapped because we say that God can do anything. And if God can do anything, he can create a rock so big he couldn’t lift it, but then he should be able to lift it.

I think we need to be careful in how we say that. God can do anything that’s consistent with his nature. God can do anything that God would do.

Because the Bible tells us God can’t lie. You know that? There are some things God can’t do.

God can’t lie. God can’t sin in any way, shape, or form. And I’d submit to you, God as a God of order and a God of logic isn’t going to do illogical things.

So the whole idea of creating a rock so heavy it can’t be lifted, that’s not something God would do. So we’re dealing with the wrong kind of question. But they were coming with that sort of attitude.

When God does the thing I want God to do. When God bows down before my whims and my intellect, then I’ll believe in God. And so Jesus rightly challenged them on that.

He pointed them to the kind of signs that God had already provided. And we see from what he said that God has a history of restoring his messengers to life. That’s one of the things that God has done throughout history.

Not every time he sends somebody, but he has a history of doing this to validate the message of that messenger. One of the times he did this was with Jonah. Jonah, Jesus said in verse 40, was in the belly of the whale.

It says the great fish. I know by tradition we say whale. Some translations say whale.

My understanding of both the Greek and the Hebrew word is that it means a great big thing that lives in the water. Beyond that, more specifically, I don’t know. Something big lived in the water and swallowed up Jonah.

It might have been a whale, might have been a great big fish, I don’t know. But whatever it was that swallowed him, he was in the belly of it for three days. And as far as anybody knew, Jonah was dead.

And by the way, if we want to say, well, I believe in Jesus, but some of those stories from the Old Testament are just too far out there to believe. Jesus believed them. Jesus doesn’t give any indication that this was just a fairy tale.

He said, like it happened to Jonah, it’s going to happened to me. For three days, Jonah was in the belly of this whale, and as far as anybody knew, he was dead. I mean, we don’t usually survive being swallowed by large creatures, right?

It’s never happened to me, thankfully. Hopefully, I can always say that. But as we read the story of Jonah, as we read the story of Jonah, we look at this as a punishment.

Jonah didn’t go where God told him to, and so God had him swallowed up by the big fish, by the whale. You could look at that another way and say that that was God’s protection. Because the other men on the ship threw him out into the water.

God could have just left him there to drown. Instead, God picked him up like some big aquatic uber and delivered him safely to shore. Granted, it’s not the way I would have picked to get back to shore, but God kept him from drowning and delivered him back.

By the time Jonah was ready to repent and say, okay, God, I’ll go where you want me to go, and I’ll preach your message in Nineveh, God delivered him there. And this man who, as far as anybody knew, was dead or should have been dead, God caused the big fish to spit him out on the dry land. On top of that, I’ve heard that the Assyrians, the Ninevites, served a fish god, and so somebody being spit out by this creature would have gotten their attention.

I don’t know that that’s true, but that’s one thing I’ve heard, and if so, that’s another interesting element of the story. But notice the connection he’s making here. He’s saying Jonah was as good as dead for three days and three nights.

It would have been understandable for anybody to have written Jonah off as he’s gone forever. And yet by the power of God, poof, he was back. And he said the same thing is going to happen to him.

God made that animal spit him out on dry land so he could go and preach the message of God’s holiness and God’s justice to the people of Nineveh so that he could go and called them to repent. And Jesus said, the only sign you’re going to get. Jesus was not interested in tap dancing for them, performing on their command.

He said, the only sign you’re going to get is the sign of Jonah that I’m going to be in the grave. I’m going to be in the belly of the earth for three days. And then God is going to cause that grave to spit Jesus out just like the whale spit out Jonah so that men might be called to repent.

That’s the only sign. It’s the only sign you’re going to get. Now, why did Jesus tell them in verse 39 that the sign of Jonah was the only that they were going to get.

It’s because it’s really the only sign they needed. They had already rejected every other kind of sign he could possibly have given them. Up to this point, Jesus gave plenty of evidence to confirm his identity.

If they wanted signs pointing out that Jesus was the Messiah and the Son of God, they weren’t lacking for any signs. Those signs were there if they were willing to look. But these men didn’t lack belief because they lacked signs.

They lacked belief in spite of the signs that Jesus had already given them. A simpler way to put that is they didn’t believe because they didn’t want to believe. You might say, well, what other signs has he given to confirm his identity?

I’m glad you asked. Some of the things that Jesus had already done to demonstrate who he was, there was the authority of his teaching, the supernatural authority of his teaching, as a matter of fact. People were constantly saying he doesn’t preach and teach like other people.

He doesn’t talk to us like a mere man. In Matthew 7, 28 and 29, it says, the people were astonished at his teaching, for he taught them as one having authority and not as the scribes. Now the scribes could, as far as they understood it correctly, could stand there and teach on the basis of the authority of God’s Word, like any Bible teacher does today.

I don’t have any authority of my own, it’s just the authority of God’s Word, and any authority I might have is gone if I deviate from it. Jesus had his authority because he’s the God who inspired that work. And people picked up on that and they realized there’s something different about this.

The crowds noticed that there was something completely different about him and the way he taught and the authority. Then we have some miracles that he performed. Like in John chapter 2, the transformation of the water into wine.

And Jesus did that in public. I know not everybody there at the wedding feast knew that it was Jesus who had done it, but it’s not just him and his disciples in the back room. There were servants, there was Mary.

People word started to get out. This was a miracle that was done in front of other people. Then in Mark chapter 1 and Luke chapter 4, we see the public exorcism of demons from a man in the Capernaum synagogue.

Jesus went to worship services one Saturday, and there was a man there possessed by Satan. And in front of everybody in the synagogue, for then the large town of Capernaum, Jesus cast out the devil from that man. And people witnessed it, and they were amazed.

And by the way, as I go through this list, understand I’m not telling you these are all the things that happened throughout Jesus’ three years of ministry. These are the things that are recorded in the four gospels just up to this point, very early in Jesus’ ministry when they came to him looking for a sign. There was more that came after this.

This is just what happened up to this point. So there was the exorcism of the demon from the man in the Capernaum synagogue. There were 11 healings, 11 publicly recorded healings up to this point.

He healed a nobleman’s son in Capernaum in John chapter 4. He healed Peter’s mother-in-law in Matthew 8, Mark 1 and Luke 4 He healed a leper in Galilee in Matthew 8, Mark 1 and Luke 5 He healed a paralyzed man in Capernaum in Matthew 9, Mark 2 and Luke 5 He healed a woman with a blood disorder in Matthew 9, Mark 5 and Luke 8 He healed two blind men at the same time and a mute man along the same road in Matthew chapter 9 He healed a crippled man at the pool of Bethesda in John chapter 5 He healed a man with a withered hand in Matthew chapter 12, Mark chapter 3, and Luke chapter 6. And he healed a Roman centurion servant in Capernaum in Matthew chapter 8 and Luke chapter 7.

That was just before this time. And then on top of that, he had raised two people by this time from the dead. The daughter of a man named Jairus in Matthew chapter 9, Mark chapter 5, and Luke chapter 8.

And the son of a widow in the village of Nine in Luke chapter 7. That’s a lot of evidence pointing to Jesus being who he said he was. I don’t know what kind of sign they were looking for, what kind of miracle they were looking for, but here we’d seen Jesus exhibit power over the material world in changing water into wine.

We’d seen Jesus exhibiting power over the spiritual world, casting out demons, power over sickness 11 different times, 11 different healings, power over even life and death as he raises people from the dead. Tell me a sign Jesus could have performed that doesn’t fall into one of those categories. And for them, that still wasn’t enough.

Jesus said, the only thing left is for me to rise from the dead. And when followers of John the Baptist came to make sure that Jesus was the Messiah, Jesus told them, look at the evidence. Look at the things I’ve done in Matthew 11 and Luke 7.

Jesus didn’t say, well, here’s another sign for you. He said, look at the things I’ve already done and you’ll know. And now these men, these Pharisees, they wanted him to perform on command like he was some kind of circus animal in order to prove himself.

Excuse me, Jesus has done plenty to prove himself. And if they’ve rejected all the evidence up to this point, what was there that was going to convince them? They were still unconvinced because they didn’t want to believe.

And nothing was ever going to be good enough for them because the evidence didn’t really matter to them in their search. He promised to them the ultimate sign, the resurrection, not just that he was going to raise somebody else up, but that he himself was going to raise himself from the dead, and they rejected even that. His resurrection was the ultimate proof of who he was, and they rejected even that.

That tells us that there was no evidence that was ever going to convince them. Not because the evidence was bad or missing, but because they had already decided what they believed, and nothing was going to convince them otherwise. And so he said, that’s the only sign that’s left.

And I’m thankful that he went ahead with that sign so that others of us could believe, so that our sins could be forgiven. But he went through with it knowing that that group right there, even that wasn’t going to be enough to convince them. And he warned them there are going to be consequences for rejecting the truth in spite of the evidence.

He warned them they couldn’t go on forever rejecting the evidence and rejecting the truth and expect that there would be no consequences, expect that there would be no problem with that. Jesus compared them to the Ninevites in verse 41 and to the Queen of Sheba in verse 42. The Ninevites were the people that Jonah was sent to preach to and didn’t want to preach to because they were scary.

That’s the way I heard it preached for years and years. Reading that again came to a different conclusion, and then I heard Chuck Swindoll preach on this, and I think so if Chuck Swindoll and I agree, we’re probably right, but I think it was prejudice against the people of Nineveh because he was angry when they repented. He didn’t want those people to be right with God.

But he went and preached to them anyway, and they repented. This pagan nation, this brutal group of people, and they were known for their brutality toward everybody that they conquered. This brutal group of people with their pagan gods and their child sacrifice at the preaching of Jonah, they realized how wrong they were, and they repented.

They changed their minds and sought God. Jesus said, even they repented at the preaching of Jonah. These hardened pagans who are supposedly so far from God, even they repented at the preaching of Jonah.

And he said, there’s somebody here in your midst who’s greater than Jonah and you still will not believe. That’s quite an indictment to these people who were so religious and supposedly such close followers of God. He said that they wouldn’t repent when these pagan Ninevites would.

And then the queen of Sheba had come to seek out Solomon and discuss issues of trade and discuss issues of wealth and she was so overwhelmed by what she saw as the wealth at King Solomon’s court and the wisdom that he had. And she began to glorify God. Not glorify Solomon, but glorify God over all that God had done to bless Solomon.

And Jesus said, this pagan queen came and humbled herself before God as a result of hearing from Solomon. He said, there’s one in front of you who’s greater than Solomon and still you won’t believe. That’s why he said these pagan nations are going to stand up and condemn them at the time of judgment.

These who were supposedly so enlightened and so close to God, they were rejecting all of the evidence because it didn’t take the form they wanted it to. Because it didn’t conform to what they wanted to believe. These people who thought they had it all figured out didn’t want to believe.

So they rejected the evidence. And he said these people that you look at as foolish are wiser than you. And when the judgment comes, they’re going to be in a better position than you are.

Jesus said that these men would fall into judgment and that even the pagans that they pitied in this life would pity them in the life to come. Now, we’re already condemned. As human beings, we are already condemned to judgment just by default, not because of our unbelief primarily, but because of our sin.

We talked a few weeks ago when I talked to you about the bronze serpent that Moses had built. That Jesus said that those who don’t believe are condemned already. Not because we failed to believe.

Before we ever hear the name of Jesus, we’re already sinners. And that sin separates us from God. They were already condemned because of their sin.

Just as much as the Ninevites were, just as much as the Queen of Sheba was, they were already condemned as sinners just as much as I am. The difference is that where those turned and believed what God said, they would not. They God and His forgiveness.

They continued rejecting the only way that God has made for us to be right with Him. Not because there was no evidence, but because they didn’t like the evidence. So what we can take from this for our lives today is that some of the things that we tend to do are not going to lead us any place we want to go.

The things that we tend to do like demanding that God prove Himself over and over by our standards. Well, when God does this, then I’ll believe. Or even if we know he’s real, even if we know Jesus is real, well, when he does this for me, then I’ll repent.

Then I’ll take him up on that offer of salvation. When he does this, we expect God to jump through these hoops for us. Almost like God works for us.

I’ve heard people go through a time of severe trauma or disappointment and say, well, I just don’t believe God anymore because I went through this. And with all due respect to people’s suffering, because I’ve been in some of those situations too where it would have been easy to say, I’m not doing this anymore. The idea that we no longer believe in God or want to repent because He doesn’t do things the way we want Him to, because we can’t make sense of why things work the way we want them to work, why they don’t work the way we want them to work.

Listen, there’s a few things we need to be aware of. First of all, we shouldn’t want to worship a God who works for us. If He works for us, He’s subservient to us and He’s not worth worshiping.

But on top of that, the idea that, well, He didn’t do everything I wanted Him to, so I don’t believe in Him. My children don’t do everything I want them to do. I still exist, right?

A lot of people don’t do the things I want them to do. Everybody in Washington, everybody in Hollywood, basically everybody does not do what I want them to do. I’m not alone in this universe.

They were saying, we’re not going to acknowledge you as who you are unless you do what we want you to do. Folks, God doesn’t have to operate according to our standards. He doesn’t have to prove himself according to our standards.

He’s already given us an enormous amount of evidence. I spent a month with you going over the evidence for the resurrection. That alone demonstrates the reality that Jesus Christ is God.

Stop looking for a God who does what you say. Stop looking for a God who jumps through your hoops. You don’t want to worship a God that works for you.

We want to worship the God who created us, or we should want to worship the God who created us, who sustains us, who He sets the standard, and He knows better than we do right and wrong and what’s best for us. A God who can care for us. A God who can watch over us.

A God who’s worthy of our worship. And a God like that doesn’t jump through our hoops. But a God like that was gracious enough to give us evidence that He’s there and that He cares about us.

And the best evidence we have of that is Jesus Christ. That Jesus Christ came and demonstrated who He was in all these ways. Jesus Christ came and showed us how much love God has for us. that He, when we were unworthy, when we were wicked sinners not deserving of God’s love, that He would die in our place, that He would take all the punishment that we deserved, that He would bear all the penalty of our sins, that He would suffer under the full weight of God’s wrath towards sin.

He would do all of that for us, shedding His blood on the cross and dying, and then He would prove it by rising from the dead three days later. what greater evidence could we need that there is a God who loved us and offers his forgiveness what greater evidence could they need this morning if you find yourself where the pharisees found themselves saying well now I’ll believe when God does this for me when God comes through in this area of my life for me then I’ll believe then I’ll trust Jesus then I’ll get right with God folks what he has already done to prove himself what Jesus Christ has already done to give us the evidence of who he is, is far better than anything we could ever expect him to do. Him dying on the cross to pay for my sins in full and rising again to prove it does far more for me than him working out some little circumstance that I’m upset about this week.

And I don’t say that without compassion for what your struggles are, because I go through some of them too. I talked to somebody this week that I said, I had a moment this week where I prayed about something. I’d been praying about it.

I’d just finished praying about it. And then the opposite happened. I looked at God and I was tempted to say, is this even on?

Do you hear me? And then I was reminded he doesn’t, I can ask him for things, but as a loving parent, he doesn’t always give me everything I ask for. And what he’s already done to prove his existence and his love to me is greater than that piddly little situation ever could be.

Folks, Jesus Christ has proven himself. Just like the Pharisees, the greatest sign we could ever have, the only sign we truly need is the sign of the prophet Jonah that Jesus Christ was in the grave three days later, and by the power of God, the grave spit him out because it couldn’t hold him. And if you’re waiting for some incredible sign to come crashing down out of heaven in order to believe Jesus Christ and get right with God, guess what?

It’s already there. Jesus died for you and rose again three days later to prove it. If you’ve never trusted him as your savior, it’s as simple as believing that you’ve sinned against God and need a savior.

Believing that Jesus Christ suffered, bled, and died to be that savior, rose again three later to prove it, and then asking God’s forgiveness because He’s promised it.