What To Do With This Jesus?

Psalm of The Day: Psalm 128

Psalm 128 ESV

A Song of Ascents. Blessed is everyone who fears the Lord, who walks in his ways! You shall eat the fruit of the labor of your hands; you shall be blessed, and it shall be well with you. Your wife will be like a fruitful vine within your house; your children will be like olive shoots around your table. Behold, thus shall the man be blessed who fears the Lord. The Lord bless you from Zion! May you see the prosperity of Jerusalem all the days of your life! May you see your children’s children! Peace be upon Israel!

Scripture Reading: Jonah 2:7-9

Jonah 2:7–9 ESV

When my life was fainting away, I remembered the Lord, and my prayer came to you, into your holy temple. Those who pay regard to vain idols forsake their hope of steadfast love. But I with the voice of thanksgiving will sacrifice to you; what I have vowed I will pay. Salvation belongs to the Lord!”

Sermon

Good Morning Church! I was Glad when they said to me let us go and worship in the house of the Lord!

Well first and foremost it is joy and pleasure to be back here with you all today. I have missed the fellowship, and the joy of being here and I am glad to be back.

A while back I was watching a debate between a believer and an atheist (i do not remember who it was between in particular, that detail is gone to the pits of history) and the christian asked the atheist what I thought was a very telling question. I don’t know if it won him the debate in any sense of that word, but I think that it did show the heart, to those who would open their eyes, it showed the heart of unbelief. It came in the closing time of the debate and the christian asked the atheist, OK, I have given you all sorts of evidences, So let me just ask you this: what would it take for you to believe in God, for it seems like you do not have a rational basis or your disbelief, and rather you are convinced of that and seeking to prove it.

And the atheist thought and said: heres what it would take. Being an evidentilist I would need absolute evidence, absolute proof. So something like A bright angelic being with a clear aura must come down appear to me over my morning cup of tea and tell me, in no uncertain terms that he is God and I should listen to him. If that were to happen, if this God you claim exists were to show up in front of me THEN I would believe. The Christian’s response was what made this so beautiful, and telling, and why i wanted to start with this story today. No you would not, He said, you would think like I would think if that happened to you, you would assume you were hallucinating.

And heres the point, when someone refuses to believe, there is no amount of evidence, no great sign, NOTHING but NOTHING that would change there heart apart form the work of the Holy Spirit. WE sort of fundamentally know this to be true and Jesus teaches us that this is true. In our passage that we will read for today, Matthew 12:38-45, the pharisees show that their heart is right in lie with the atheist in that debate. They claim they want a sign to believe, but really they are filled with so much hate and doubt, that no sign would ever be good enough. and Jesus lets them have it. Lets read our passage today

Read Matthew 12:38-45

Matthew 12:38–45 ESV

Then some of the scribes and Pharisees answered him, saying, “Teacher, we wish to see a sign from you.” 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. 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. 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. 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. “When the unclean spirit has gone out of a person, it passes through waterless places seeking rest, but finds none. Then it says, ‘I will return to my house from which I came.’ And when it comes, it finds the house empty, swept, and put in order. Then it goes and brings with it seven other spirits more evil than itself, and they enter and dwell there, and the last state of that person is worse than the first. So also will it be with this evil generation.”

These are the words of the Lord for us this morning, Lets begin with a word of prayer

PRAY

SO I just want to highlight the context here, to sort of justify rading this passage the way that I am. The Pharisees have so far seen Jesus: Cleanse a leper, raise the centurions daughter, heal Matthew 8:16

Matthew 8:16 ESV

That evening they brought to him many who were oppressed by demons, and he cast out the spirits with a word and healed all who were sick.

Probably they didn;t see him calm the storm, so lets give them a pass on that one, but cast out the demoniacs, heal a paralytic they had a front seat to because they got mad that Jesus forgave his sins. Healing blind men, healing a mute man and here in this very chapter they have JUST seen him heal the man with the wither hand and cast out the demons and heal this demon possessed blind mute man from last week.

And they come up to Jesus, after ALL of that and say: OK, you say that you are the messiah, why don’t you go ahead and prove it. We want to see a sign. I imagine the guy JUST healed of his blindness and muteness is like sitting behind them and he like sheepishly raises his hand as if to say, OK Jesus you want me to say something now… but No. Jesus refuses. ad the reason why is pretty clear. Jesus has already performed many miracles before the Pharisees, and interestingly enough, if we look back the Pharisees are not the only ones who have come to Jesus with this question: are you really the messiah?

John the baptist sent his disciples to ask the same sort of question. And Jesus response was to say, just look. Look at all the things that I have done. The blind receive sight. Look at these miracles. And if we remember, and this is key, for John the Baptist and his disciples that was enough. They needed, lets put it this way, they had belief and needed some support. and SO Jesus says I did offer support. and their believing eyes could see those signs. the Pharisees, on the other hand, with their eyes of unbelief could not see these. and so no sign will ever be good enough.

In fact the sign they JUST saw… They just saw Jesus cast out he demon and heal this blind mute man and instead of praising God they slandered the Holy Spirit. So why should he perform and especially significant miracle, a ‘sign’? Just like in the debate with the atheist, Jesus knew that there was no quote-unquote sign that he could perform to shatter their hard hearts. so he says, NO signs for you. you are adulterous and evil. Here adultery is probably speaking specifically of idolatry. For in the OT, and sort of the Pharisaical language, idolatry equals adultery. You serve false Gods, you are NOT righteous, you are evil and I will not, to quote from other of Jesus’ words, cast these pearls before swine. Jesus was not some dancing trick performing monkey for them, and he wasn’t having it. No sign for you… EXCEPT.

Except the sign of Jonah. And this is where we need to spend some time. This is the one sign given to the hard hearts, this is the sign that is given to the Pharisees, it turns out I would say it is the sign given to all people so lets look at THE SIGN

The SIGN

no sign will be given to you except for the sign of Jonah. verse 40

Matthew 12:40 ESV

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.

What is the sign of Jonah? put simply and as clearly as I can it is Jesus rising form the dead. Matthew and Jesus they leave no room for sort of interpretation… No, he is clear. We are all familiar with the story and if we think of Jonah there are a lot of crazy things that happen in that story. The sign of Jonah, well there was a sign given to Jonah, it was a tree that got eaten by a worm, is that this? No that is not the sign of Jonah? it is this: Jonah three days and nights in the belly of the whale. Jesus three days three nights in the belly of the earth, and he will rise again.

This is, for Jesus the first unambiguous prediction of his death and his resurrection. There has been other passages we have looked at so far that we see them and think, oh, he is definitely alluding to the fact that the will die. Seems like Jesus is heavily implying that he is going to die and rise again. But here it it is plain as day. To be in the heart of the earth is not that jesus is going spelunking. He is not going to explore some caves and come back after three days, this means he is dead. As a modern sort of idiom, instead of talking about being in the heart of the earth, we could talk about being six feet under. It is clear what Jesus is talking about he will be dead.

So what is beautiful here, what we need to first understand, is that though Jesus is saying you will get no sign EXCEPT this EXCEPT is huge. For what Jesus gives to them as a sign is the greatest miracle the universe has ever seen. Even more incredible than Jesus raising the centurion’s daughter a few chapters ago, or raising Lazarus from the dead, Jesus himself will raise from the dead. By the power that is at work within him as God, through the working of the spirit and the command of the Father - the Triune God, perfectly raises Jesus from the dead.

There is no greater miracle, no greater source of hope and no greater sign the universe needs to see. So our first note is that in some sense Jesus refuses to give them a sign, but in another, and in the most important he offers them the greatest miracle the world has ever known. But we also should note, that as we look at history, Jesus was speaking the truth about these people when he called them an adulterous and evil generation. For no sign will be given them that is good enough for them. Even this, the sign of Jonah that is given them still they will deny. Still they will seek to cover it up. still they seek to deny the power at work with Jesus. Even when he raises from the dead, the tomb is empty, and their hearts are heard. They still will not believe. So that is the first thought.

The second thought i would like to think a bout is why exactly is it the sign of Jonah that Jesus would choose to Give. Why Jonah, why describe it this way? why not just say, hear’s the deal I will raise from the grave after you all kill me? Jesus will continue to perform, more miracles as we go through Matthew, we still haven’t gotten to probably his most famous one, feeding the 5,000. there are miracles still to come, so why hone in right here and right now? Why this idea of the sign of Jonah?

The biggest thing to see is that the idea of being delivered from death becomes the most authoritative stamp that a prophet, a messenger from God, could have in their life. And so if we dive deep into the Jonah story, Jonah was offered, if you will, as a sacrifice. The sailors are clamoring on the boat, They are taking him away from Nineveh. Jonah is like, I know God wants me there, but hey boat that is going the complete opposite direction, can I hitch a ride? so they are heading along and this great storm arises. the sailors are freaking out and Jonah says, Guys I know what is happening. I am sorta disobeying God… not sorta, like literally blatantly and obviously ignoring God’s will for my life. SO as long as I am on this boat you all are kinda doomed. And so Jonah is thrown overboard as a… not as a sacrifice… sort of illustratively and emotively as a sacrifice to save the lives of the sailors. He is offered up to death. You are thrown into the storming tempest of the sea, you have no life jacket, you are going to die. but yet Jonah is delivered. In the belly Jonah cries out to God not knowing what his future may hold and he is delivered.

Jesus is delivered unto death, not as am image or a picture of a sacrifice but as the sacrifice for our sins. but anyone could just get on a cross and die the Romans killed thousands of people with the cross, it is NOT just that some guy died on a cross that shows us we should believe in him. It is his being delivered from death, his Resurrection is what gives us assurance that his death had saving power. So the reason that this picture is so important is because it becomes not just a sign for those who don‘t believe. OK you want a sign, I will raise form the dead. But for those who do believe we need this sign just as much to steel our hearts, to remember and to KNOW that Jesus can save, he can deliver, if he can be delivered from death how much more can he raise my dead heart.

I want to end here by noting that one of the reasons the sign of Jonah is so important is because it becomes for us a tie back to the Old Testament and we find these often of what we would call a type of Christ. And so I would like to share what Spurgeon wrote of this miracle and this sign and why it is so appropriate and beautiful that this would be the sign that Jesus would give.

The great sign of our Lord’s mission is his Resurrection, and his preparing gospel of salvation for the heathen. His life-story is well symbolized by that of Jonah. They cast our Lord overboard, even as the sailors did the man of God. The sacrifice of Jonah calmed the sea for the mariners; our Lord’s death made peace for us. Our Lord was a while in the heart of the earth as Jonah in the depth of the sea; but he rose again, and his ministry was full of the power of his Resurrection. As Jonah’s ministry was certified by his restoration from the sea, so our Lord’s ministry attested by his rising from the dead. the man who had come back from death and burial in the sea commanded the attention of all Nineveh, and so does the risen savior demand and deserve the obedient faith of all to whom his message comes.

The reason this sign is so important is that it becomes for us the source of every good thing that we have. the sign of Jonah, given to this adulterous and evil generation, for them it is a call to believe, and ultimately becomes another millstone around their neck. That they would see this and not believe is a huge problem. But for those who will believe, who will trust in this sign of Jonah. it becomes the full fount of life. he who raise Chrsit from the dead, how can he not also with him do all things? How can we doubt the power at work within us when we have seen the sign of Jonah, Ad what we have seen the sign of Jonah in is the persona and work of Jesus Christ.

The PERSON

Jesus says you will see the sign of Jonah and then begins to reflect on who he is. and this is what I do not want to let us miss here. and why this picture is so beautiful. OK you will be given the sign of Jonah, but who is giving you this sign, it is JESUS, that is the person, but what does he say.

Matthew 12:41–42 ESV

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. 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.

WITH SOME EXTRAPOLATION!

Jesus is “a greater than Jonah”. If you were to read one of my favorite translations… If I want an OLD translation, and I I want to struggle through some difficult old English I don't go to KJV i go to the Geneva translation of the bible, mostly because I am a nerd, there is really no difference in the two, but it is filled with some crazy spellings and obscure words you have never heard. But in this passage in particular I appreciate how they translate what is going on here because it is pretty close to a word for word translation. So instead of saying “something greater than Jonah or something greater than Solomon is here” they say: A GREATER THAN JONAH IS HERE. And a greater than Solomon is here. It identifies the person of Jesus as one who is… we could ask it this way, what is Jesus? he is a greater than Jonah. He is a greater than Solomon. What stands before you is a greater than… if we remember our context. He is a greater than the temple. that was the issue at work in some of the sabbath healings. he is a greater than David, because Davids men ate the bread that no one was supposed to eat and his disciples have the same sort of rights. He is a greater than the priests, because they can work on the sabbath and not profane it and so can I and my disciples. So Jesus is a greater than Jonah, greater than Solomon greater than the temple greater than David greater than the priests sort of person. That is the person who will give them the sign of Jonah.

This is an extraordinarily bold and in some ways, Jesus can’t say this and get away with it, unless he is right. I tried to rack my mind, what would be, how could I say something so outlandish. and this is the only thing I can think of and even this does not come close to the boldness of Jesus.

One of my heroes of the faith, I have quoted him already today, Charles H. Spurgeon. The great prince of preachers, I love Spurgeon. I have said in the past that I want to be like Spurgeon when I grow up. To state that a little differently, I hope, that at the end of my life you’d say something like, you know, he had the heart of Spurgeon. The heart to care, to teach those under his care, the heart to preach God’s word in season and out of season, a teachers heart. I hope, I don’t think I am there yet, but I hope that by the end of my days you sort of add them all together and think well, you can see shadows and sort of… its not a great comparison, because we don’t want to talk bad about Spurgeon… but you can kinda squint and see some similarities. With that being said, to say the sort of things Jesus is saying would be like me standing up here in this pulpit and say: How blessed is Grace Bible Church? For standing here before you today is a Greater than Spurgeon. How would you describe yourself, I am a greater than Spurgeon type of guy.

If I were to say that I would sound pompous and arrogant and you should have my sanity checked. But Jesus says he is a greater than Jonah and a greater than Solomon. So not only is he a greater Prophet, he is also the wisest king, he is greater than all. So great because he is God. This is why he can give us the sign of Jonah, this is why he can save. WE must see the person at the heart of this passage. then listen very keenly and with open ears and an open heart to THE PARABLE

The PARABLE

Jesus ends this sort of sing of Jonah issue, which is really the end of this whole working on the sabbath a tree is known by it’s fruit all of these things we have talked about the past three sermons in Matthew with a parable.

Matthew 12:43 ESV

“When the unclean spirit has gone out of a person, it passes through waterless places seeking rest, but finds none.

Here’s the picture, I want to sort of walk us trough this parable. There is a demon, an unclean spirit at work in a person. And it leaves. It is not cast out, not forcibly removed, it just goes out of a person. And in doing so it passes through the waterless places, it walks down the Rio grand, it is in the desert, seeking rest. WE have to note that rest has been an important point. this has been sparked by debate on the SABBATH, the day of rest, which comes right after chapter 11 - come to me and I will give you REST. Rest is a key thought here. so the demon goes to the desert looking for rest and finds none.

Matthew 12:44 ESV

Then it says, ‘I will return to my house from which I came.’ And when it comes, it finds the house empty, swept, and put in order.

The unclean spirit leaves a person wanders around finds no rest and has an idea… I know what i will do I am going to go back to whatever this person’s name is… back to Jimmothy… I am going back to Jimmothy. And when it comes back he finds the house, to read it again: empty swept and put in order. This person the demon left so they tidied up their life, their house, their body, THEM, was put in order. So what happens Verse 45

Matthew 12:45 ESV

Then it goes and brings with it seven other spirits more evil than itself, and they enter and dwell there, and the last state of that person is worse than the first. So also will it be with this evil generation.”

The spirit is like, hey, not only is this house good for me to find rest it is now clean and tidy, fully adorned, it is awesome they bought a new TV and they have a comfy couch. Hey seven of my most evil friends you come live with me too. and so now this person has eight evil spirits living within them and that is a worse problem than the one they had before.

What is going on? How do we understand this parable? a couple thoughts.

One: It is probably unwise to look at this one parable and develop an entire doctrine and theology of demons based on this one parable. And I say that because people have done that. They tie this one to the one we looked at last week the binding of the straw man and this becomes a treatise on binding the evil sprints or they will come back and you will be worse and this becomes the whole theology on spiritual warfare, theses two ideas become, for some, all that scripture says about how we face demons, and that is just not right. The purpose of this parable is to highlight the danger facing, as this parable ends with, the danger that faces this evil generation. So what is this parable doing. I would argue that it is showing us the danger of two evils.

The first evil is a sort of hardened unbelief. Because if you will refuse to belief, your two options are: One you have the one unclean spirit, and maybe he never leaves, (that's actually the better option for you!) because if you will not come to faith, if you will not believe your two options are the one evil spirit living inside you or the one evil spirit and his seven evil friends. That’s a real problem.

But the real issue, and what Jesus is fully trying to illustrate is that when you see this sign, when you know this person, halfhearted repentance will not cut it!

The absence, if we pay attention to verse 43, the evil spirit leaves, but the absence of the evil spirit does not equal repentance and redemption and restoration. the demon just leaves. And when he comes back the house is clean, but there is no good tenant that has taken up residence. And so it is as if someone has heard the hope of the Gospel, they have heard the good news of Jesus Chrsit, and they have decided that living a good life sounds great. But I will not surrender my life to Chrsit. I will not make him Lord. I will not repent of my sins. I will not believe in Jesus as the only hope that i have in Life or death, I will try and do this on my own, in my own strength and might. I will clean my own life up.

and I have seen as a pastor countless times, I mean truly I have just seen as a human being living on this earth countless times where people who have SEEMED to get their life cleaned up and in order, they have SEEMED to conquer some sin, some drug addiction addiction, some pornography addiction, some sin in their life, it seems from the outside that they have conquered it but in reality, that evil spirit has just left for a season, wandering waterless places. And when it returns for this person it is worse.

I want to end with this thought. If I were to try and summarize this parable with one thought, this whole section in one thought it would be this: See the sign of Jonah, see your risen savior, and in your risen savior see The person of Jesus Chrsit, the greater than Jonah, greater than Solomon, greater than David king of heaven. And this parable at the end drives this home. you have seen this: now here are your two options: ownership by the devil, or ownership by God.

and ownership by the devil cannot just be dropped, it must be replaced, by ownership by Chrsit. The issue in this parable is that when the demon comes back the house is empty, Jesus is not sitting on the throne of this persons heart to just completely mix metaphors here for a second.

Romans chapter 6 starting in verse 15

Romans 6:15–16 ESV

What then? Are we to sin because we are not under law but under grace? By no means! Do you not know that if you present yourselves to anyone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin, which leads to death, or of obedience, which leads to righteousness?

Here’s Paul’s point: you are a slave to WHATEVER you present yourself to. If it is evil and the devil you will be a slave to that and you will die, but if it is to Jesus and righteousness you will be a slave to that

Romans 6:17–18 ESV

But thanks be to God, that you who were once slaves of sin have become obedient from the heart to the standard of teaching to which you were committed, and, having been set free from sin, have become slaves of righteousness.

the option is NOT slave to sin free to do whatever I want, the options are slave to sin or slave to righteousness. Here is the heart: when the sign of Jonah is given to your heart and you see your resurrected savior and in seeing him you see the second person of the trinity, the son who proceeds from the father the one who is light and life, our Lord and savior, the WORD became flesh, when you SEE him you must SERVE him. Halfhearted repentance will not work. you are either, to quote from last week, you are either with Jesus or you are against him. Will you serve him?

Lets Pray!