Matthew 12:38-42 - The Sign of Jonah

Introduction

There is a story in the Old Testament about a prophet named Jonah. Jonah was a prophet to the people of Israel during the reign of Jereboam II (2 Kings 14:25), and he was given a message from God. But this message was not to his own people, the Israelites, but to Nineveh, one of the great cities of a rival nation called Assyria.

The message was simple, Nineveh was going to be destroyed by YHWH for their wickedness. Now, Jonah knew something about his God that led him to run away from the task set before him. He knew that God was merciful and would forgive even the wicked city of Nineveh if they would only repent, or turn away, from their wickedness.

The thought of them actually doing so was too much for Jonah and so he devised a scheme: if I don’t go and tell them to repent, then they won’t repent and God will destroy them. So he boarded a boat and sailed the opposite direction.

Well it didn’t take long for Jonah to learn that you can’t run from God as a great storm raised up and nearly destroyed the boat they were on. The sailors cried out to all their gods to save them and no god intervened. Finally they confronted Jonah and he confessed his flight from the will of his God, YHWH.

He told them the only way to save themselves is to toss him overboard and to their credit, they tried anything other than that. But when it became clear that they could not overcome the God who created the sea, they eventually threw Jonah overboard.

The storm stilled, but then a great monster of the sea came and swallowed Jonah whole. For three days and nights, Jonah was in the belly of that creature and by his account seemed to have repented of his rebellion and submitted to will of the Lord. The Lord then had the great creature vomit Jonah out on the beach and Jonah walked the rest of the way to Ninevah.

Once he made it to the great city he Jonah 3:4-5 he called out, “Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown!” That was it! That was his message to the Ninevites, and they did something incredible.

5 The pagan people of Nineveh believed God. They called for a fast and put on sackcloth, from the greatest of them to the least of them.

And the King commanded them to do this, saying:

9 Who knows? God may turn and relent and turn from his fierce anger, so that we may not perish.”

10 When God saw what they did, how they turned from their evil way, God relented of the disaster that he had said he would do to them, and he did not do it.

Over the past couple months we have been studying the many different reactions to Jesus that people give throughout this section of Matthew and this morning we have gotten to a new group, the scribes, who are lumped in with the Pharisees. When they are confronted by Jesus’ works and teachings, what is their response?

Matthew 12:38–42 ESV

38 Then some of the scribes and Pharisees answered him, saying, “Teacher, we wish to see a sign from you.” 39 But he answered them, “An evil and adulterous generation seeks for a sign, but no sign will be given to it except the sign of the prophet Jonah. 40 For just 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. 41 The men of Nineveh will rise up at the judgment with this generation and condemn it, for they repented at the preaching of Jonah, and behold, something greater than Jonah is here. 42 The queen of the South will rise up at the judgment with this generation and condemn it, for she came from the ends of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon, and behold, something greater than Solomon is here.

The Scribes Response to Jesus: Demanding signs(38-39)

Signs from God are generous gifts, not something to be performed on command

But even more importantly, look at the passage directly before this one!

Jesus just cast a demon out of a man, he’s performed this and other miracles in front of Pharisees multiple times

He has given many signs!

The problem is, that they are not recognizing them as signs! There are some people that no sign will convince and God is not going to degrade himself into being some pet sign monkey just to try to appease people who are opposed to him. He’s not going to do it!

And there are many today who do the same thing! They so desperately want to see Jesus do tricks for them that can make them feel like he’s the real deal!

“Well if God would do this for me, then I would believe in him”

Can you imagine saying something like that to your spouse, kids, or parents and not sounding like an entitled brat?

“Well if you would just buy me a car, then I would love you, or then I would believe you love me.”

It doesn’t work that way! Life doesn’t work that way!

There are others who see signs in things that are not signs because they think if they are not constantly seeing signs, then God (or a loved one) is not with them.

They see a demon behind every bush, they look to the clouds for images, they expect the music in church to bring them a sort of ecstasy every week, and when it doesn’t they start to question whether God is with them!

There are others who will notice numbers and attach significance to them. If their bill comes out to $7.77 they think that the favor of God is on them. Alternatively, if it is $6.66 they immediately add a pack of gum or they fear risking the wrath of God.

They’ll assign Bible verses to specific numbers and when they pass that number on a street sign they’ll say, “Oh Lord, you are giving me a sign!”

They turn everyday occurrences into omen seeking!

But perhaps a little closer to home would be the idea that a specific bird or animal is a sign...

In Leviticus 19:26, it says, "You shall not interpret omens". Deuteronomy 18:10-12 says, "Let no one be found among you who interprets omens... Anyone who does these things is detestable to the Lord".

Jesus says it is an evil and adulterous generation that looks for signs

Like a spouse who looks for signs of unfaithfulness in their covenant partner so that they will feel justified in cheating

But God has already given many signs if we’re willing to see them

The Signs God Gives (39-40)

The Word of God, both the written Word in the Bible and the Living Word in Jesus himself, is the first and greatest sign that God could give

When we ignore the works and teachings of God by ignoring his recorded Word, we are willfully closing our eyes to the greatest sign we could ever ask for

And if you’re finding yourself having trouble trusting the Bible as the word of God, can I recommend to you a resource in our resource center? There is a little tract just out our main doors that is called “Why Trust the Bible?” and it goes into a lot more detail than what I can do this morning on why the Bible is trustworthy and true.

If we write Jesus off as “just a good teacher” and do not believe he truly is the son of God, who defeated death on the cross, then we put ourselves in a position like the Pharisees where no sign will ever satisfy our demands for proof.

So then, the sign that Jesus offers to the Scribes and Pharisees is what he calls “the sign of Jonah.”

But hang on a second, Jonah didn’t do any great signs and wonders, did he? No.

And the meaning behind this sign has actually been debated, primarily because Luke is less clear than Matthew on the meaning.

Some people argue that it was simply the proclaiming of the message of judgement that was the sign of Jonah.

And that definitely makes sense. That was all he did in the city of Ninevah and it was all that was required for the people to repent

And listen, the faithful proclamation of God’s Word, is a sign! God raises up his people to cry out his word so that people will see the sign he has sent!

And this is why preaching must be driven by the Scriptures! Not by whatever topic a pastor wants to speak about or a church wants to hear about!

We can go decades hearing sermon after sermon, completely missing the signs that God has put in his word because we like to jump in and out all over the place, ripping verses out of their true context.

We work through the Scriptures, verse by verse, because God intended for them to be read and understood in relation to the other verses around them!

And when we jump around to this verse and that verse, it makes it really easy to conveniently focus on the verses that address the world’s sin, but skip over the verses that call out our sin.

But Matthew makes something clearer in verses 39-40

Matthew 12:39–40 ESV

39 But he answered them, “An evil and adulterous generation seeks for a sign, but no sign will be given to it except the sign of the prophet Jonah. 40 For just 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.

Jesus tells them that he will give them one great sign. Just as Jonah was in the belly of the fish for three days and nights, so will he be in the belly of the earth for three days and nights.

Jesus is foretelling his death and resurrection. This is the sign he will give that he truly is one with the Father.

We cannot just jump over this fact.

If we are Christians, we believe that Jesus physically overcame death itself and rose again. If Jesus did not raise from death, all our faith is in vain.

Paul says exactly that in

1 Corinthians 15:14 ESV

14 And if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain.

Jesus has offered signs to those who will open their eyes to see them.

The very fact that you’re here this morning hearing his word is proof of that. This is your sign to trust Christ and believe that he is who he says he is!

The Worthy Ones (41-42)

The position of the Jews (in Jesus’ generation) - They think they are in a position of power and favor because of their heritage

BUT They are in a position of receiving Judgement

Nineveh will Judge them

Because they repented when presented with the truth, Israel dug in their heels and saw no need for repentance

The Queen of Sheba will Judge them

Because she sought out the supernatural wisdom of the Lord in Solomon, while the people who were supposed to be God’s representatives on earth refused to do so when God himself was before them

And I think we get so dangerously close to being just like the Pharisees of Jesus’ time.

We put pride in the fact that we have a heritage of being in church every sunday. We think we can just rest on our laurels and stop proclaiming the gospel message because we’re Americans and “America is a Christian Nation”. We look at the way churches are struggling and we just say “Well, it’s because of those liberals.” And all of these have differing measures of truth.

But something is very wrong with us when we are primarily looking at the Bible and seeing other peoples failure to follow the Lord so much more than we are seeing our own failure to follow the Lord. We’re acting in a foolishly, sinfully, judgmental way.

Jesus confronts all of us, not just those people out there.

And the calling of the pastor is to help people, specifically the members of the local church, see where Jesus confronts them and then to lead them to the hope of the gospel.

We should hear things that offend our sensibilities in biblical sermons, but then if that sermon is rightly exposing the meaning of God’s word, then we should be willing to submit that part of our lives to the Lord.

The people that does not continue to drive deeper into the Word of God, seeking Christ’s reformation on their hearts and actions, making them into a new people who can stand unashamed before the throne of God, will die in judgement.

The Greater Prophet and King (41-42)

Jesus has already at the beginning of chapter 12 said that something greater than the Temple is here, meaning himself.

He continues this theme by saying that the one who is greater than the prophet Jonah, and greater than King Solomon is here.

Jesus is the True and better Adam, offering us life as a new kind of Humanity that is no longer bound by sin.

He is the true and better temple, through his willing sacrifice of his body and blood, taking on the sin of his people and bearing the wrath of God against that sin, therefore granting us the ability to come into the presence of the Father without fear of taking on the just judgement for our rebellion onto ourselves

He is the true and better prophet, willingly proclaiming the will of the Lord, in fact, being the very Word of God in the flesh. Every word Jesus said is the exact Word of God.

And he is the true and better King, who rules with true wisdom, justice, and love for his people, and who will one day lead us into life everlasting, free from the ravages of sin.

You can trust him. And I plead with you to do that today. Turn from your rebellion against him, whether that is something that is obvious and external like the ways we dress, or if that is something internal like unrighteous judgement and refusing to address and resolve issues that have arisen like Christians are supposed to do.

Confess your sin, repent of it, and run to the only one who can save you from destroying yourself in your rebellion. He has offered you signs as warnings. Run to him.

Transition to Confession

Take a moment now to do just that.

Prayer of Confession

Song of Response

Scriptural Assurance

Romans 5:6–8 ESV

6 For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. 7 For one will scarcely die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die— 8 but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.