Introduction

So far as I have divided up Matthew 12, since we first considered Jesus' healing of this demon-possessed man that we came across in Matthew 12:22, this present passage makes up Jesus' third response to the Pharisees' attribution of Christ's miracle to the works of Satan.

Matthew has shown us clearly what happens when the human heart fully closes itself off from God's testimony. And so here, the warning is that unbelief is going to leave this nation at large, the Jewish people, into a worse spiritual position than before Christ's coming. That is the essential closing remark of Christ here. The Jews are about to find themselves in a worse spiritual position than when Christ first came because of their rejection of him.

And to introduce this present portion, I want to tell the brief story of Colin Scott, who in 2016 was hiking with his sister in Yellowstone National Park in the US. There is film footage, not publicly available, but from sister who captured Colin and herself walking off the boardwalk on their hike. They walked several hundred metres up a hill in search of a place where they could find a hot spring to soak in. Colin fell into an acidic hot spring and there perished, all captured by his sister who desperately tried to save him. One article reporting this event said that the report included images of several signs warning people of the dangers of the area, signs that they ignored. We have great sympathy, don't we, for Colin? Yet at the same time, the warning and the danger signs were ignored the moment they left the boardwalk of such a volatile area.

And as far as things go in this present text, this opening verse here in Matthew 12:38 is, I think, akin to the scribes and Pharisees, the religious leaders of Israel, stepping off the boardwalk as a way of saying they are going into territory from which they have been blatantly warned off. The last of these warning signs they ignored was from the previous context in Matthew 12:37: "For by your words, you will be justified, and by your words, you will be condemned." In other words, Jesus has warned the Pharisees that in the final judgement, man's words shall vindicate what is in their hearts. The point is that they, the Pharisees, have verbally ascribed Jesus' work to the works of Satan, and they will be held to account for that at the last day. This is blasphemy of the Holy Spirit. It is unforgivable. And this is the context we are dealing with. And will they listen? No is what we find. Instead, we find them committing the ultimate irony: "Teacher, we want another sign." That's what we find in this present passage. This is perhaps the perfect time for silence on their part, for reflection, for going away to consider all that they are witnessing. But instead, Matthew records this unashamed request for a sign as if Christ were a genie in the bottle that they could rub to summon at their own request.

And we will see that this passage is the final nail in the coffin for Jesus' case against the Jewish religious leaders. And if we read rightly, we will see that Christ is even warning you and me here as well.

The Pharisees' Request

So I have three headings to consider this passage under. First of all, I want to bring to you the Pharisees' request in Matthew 12:38. I should add the scribes in there as well. At this point, we could say the religious leaders have crossed a line in their unbelief, and now it's as though they're ready to go even further. I mean, this is just a devastating example of the phrase "digging your own grave" or "adding insult to injury". They should just stop, but they press on. They should at least be going home with their tails between their legs at this point.So we read again in Matthew 12:38: "Then some of the scribes and the Pharisees said to him, 'Teacher, we want to see a sign from you.'"

The first detail I want to point out to you here is that they called Jesus "teacher". I believe Matthew wants us to take special note of the way the Pharisees, after all that we've already seen, addressed Jesus. And we are to see it as the ultimate sarcastic irony, I believe. They had no interest whatsoever in learning from Jesus, and yet they call him teacher. They had an unteachable spirit with no real willingness to be taught of God.

You see, friends, we must not only hear Christ as teacher, but respond in obedience and belief to what is taught by him, or we are no better than the Pharisees and scribes here. Many today perhaps consider Christ as their teacher. On their Instagram and Facebook bio's, they have "Jesus as Lord", but we are confused by such a statement. They're calling Christ their teacher, but their lives demonstrate otherwise, and they do not do what he says. Remember back in Matthew 7:24, he said, "Therefore, everyone who hears these words of mine and acts on them may be compared to a wise man." So not acting on the word of Christ though you hear it is the opposite of wisdom. It is to become a fool.

To illustrate from the Old Testament, it's a little bit like when wicked King Zedekiah consulted the prophet Jeremiah in secret, asking for a word from God. He wanted to have Jeremiah become his teacher with the word of God. You see, the Babylonians were there to capture Judah and exile the people. Jeremiah told Zedekiah what he must do and to surrender, but he refused to be obedient. Jeremiah said to him, "If you will indeed go out to the officers of the king of Babylon, then you will live. This city will not be burned with fire and you and your household will survive." But the king did not listen. He did not heed God's instructions through the prophet and so suffered the consequences.

You see, brothers and sisters, we must not only consult God and seek his instruction in his word as that king did to the prophet, but we must conform to the word preached. We must conform to the word read. We must let Christ be our teacher in his word. Take the warning of Zedekiah. Take the warning of this example from the Pharisees. And when we come to Jesus, we must come all the way as those who act upon what is written. We must hear Christ as teacher, and we must submit to him as Lord.

But secondly here, a detail to point out is the main point of this verse. They asked the Lord Jesus for a sign. A sign. In other words, another miracle. This is the ultimate irony here: "Teacher, we want to see a sign from you." In other words, show us something else, then we will believe. Prove that you really are the heaven-sent man, the Messiah, and we will believe. Well, Christ has already performed that great miracle from Matthew 12:22 as we've seen. But they didn't accept that, did they? We know at this point that their intentions are in no way honourable. They just wanted more reason to conspire against him and destroy him as they had already conspired. They've already seen the miracles of Christ. They've already seen the signs. But so far in their thinking it has not been sufficient. They wanted signs on their terms.

But this is not how you will find Jesus, friends. If you know your Bibles, God often gave signs at the request of his people, but never did he give signs to indulge unbelief, those in unbelief seeking an excuse. God confirmed Moses' calling, as we've seen, with this promise: "This shall be the sign to you that it is I who have sent you." When Gideon asked for confirmation that God would deliver Israel through him, God answered with a sign of the fleece in Judges 6:36-40. When Hezekiah asked of the Lord, "What will be the sign that the Lord will heal me?", God caused the shadow to move backwards ten steps in 2 Kings 20:8-11. Signs were explicitly denied, however, to those who wished to find some way to excuse their unbelief.

Perhaps the Pharisees thought themselves as worthy of a greater sign from Christ, but Christ believes otherwise. As far as application here goes for us, I think J. C. Ryle gets it when he says "there are many in the church of Christ who are exactly in the state of these scribes and Pharisees. They flatter themselves that they only require a little bit more proof to become decided Christians." Well, this was the very error of the scribes and Pharisees: "Just a little bit more and I'll believe. I just need something else, then I'll believe. Answer these few hazy areas that I still have, then I'll believe." That's sad, isn't it? They deny that the evidence given by God is sufficient reason for them to personally believe in him.

I remember the old debate between William Lane Craig and Keith Parsons. William Lane Craig is a Christian apologist and Keith Parsons a sceptic and atheist. And to summarise what Parsons said to William Lane Craig, he said, "If God appeared to me personally in a vision from heaven and he came down and he says, 'Keith Parsons, why are you not believing in me?', he says, 'William, I would join you in church the next Sunday if God did that to me.'" You see, it is man thinking God is some genie in the bottle he can rub at his command and summon to revel himself. You see, evidence is never the issue, friends. Estranged hearts are the issue, hearts that will not submit to God's law. Man is in utter blindness. Man is revolving around what seems to be an endless expanse of a universe on a pale blue dot around the 1.9 octillion tonne nuclear reactor called the sun. And he is going around it living in this world, and he says, "Just a little bit more evidence for God is what I require." Man's heart is full of foolish and madness. J. C. Ryle again says of these Pharisees, "The truth is that they do not want to be convinced of Christ. They only want to condemn him more."

The Messiah's Rebuke

A second heading is to see the Messiah's rebuke in Matthew 12:39-42. The first detail to consider here is in Matthew 12:39 where Jesus says, "But he answered and said to them, 'An evil and adulterous generation craves for a sign.'" If you know your Old Testament, again, your antennae will go off as you hear the echoes of the unbelieving generation of Israelites in the wilderness for forty years. Deuteronomy 1:35 is where Jesus' words come from. It says, "One of these men, this evil generation shall see the good land which I swore to give your fathers." And then again in Deuteronomy 32:5, "They have acted corruptly towards him. They are not his children because of their defect, but are a perverse and crooked generation."

So Christ is reusing these words from Deuteronomy and he's applying them to this generation, these Pharisees and scribes before him. In other words, the rest that was promised to Israel through the land inheritance was not given to that unbelieving generation who wandered in the wilderness for forty years, the generation that worshipped the golden calf after the giving of the law. And so they wandered until Joshua was raised up after Moses to lead the next generation into the land.

And here Jesus stands before another generation of Israelites in his day, in first-century Israel. And like those in the desert with Moses, they were living in unbelief. And they too will not know the rest that Christ our captain brings in the greater inheritance promised of salvation. And so signs would not help them. Israel saw enough signs, but signs do not deliver a person from their wicked heart.

Think of King Jeroboam in 1 Kings 13:4-6. A man of God, a prophet was sent and condemned Jeroboam's idolatrous altar. Then the altar split in two as a sign of the prophet's words. And then King Jeroboam, it says, stretched out his hand against the man of God and ordered his arrest. And then as he stretched out his hand, it became withered. And even after the prophet prayed that God would heal the hand, Jeroboam still refused to repent. You see, our problem is not evidence. Our problem is not evidence. If we will not repent of our sin before God, we will make ourselves like that generation in the desert, that generation in Jesus' day.

The next detail in this verse here is the main point. And Christ says that there will be another sign that will be given, not at their request, but one that will be performed all the same. And it is the sign of Jonah. If you look with me again at Matthew 12:39: "And yet no sign will be given it, but the sign of Jonah the prophet."

Jesus is here pointing us forward to his own coming resurrection by way of typology. Typology is a way of saying that the features inherent to a person, an event or an object point beyond themselves through shared characteristics and patterns to something else. That's what typology does and the Bible is full of such typology. Think of the first man Adam who Paul says was a type of Christ, that is, a representative head for humanity. Think of the Exodus from Egypt, which was a type of salvation from sin through the greater Moses, Christ. The land of Canaan itself was a type of heaven. The priesthood of Israel, a type of Christ's mediation work. And the bronze staff that Moses put up for the Israelites to look at and be healed pictured Christ being lifted up. These are all examples of typology and it's typology that Christ is drawing upon here from Jonah.

And so he says the prophet Jonah was a type of his resurrection as he spent three days in the belly of the fish. So Matthew 12:40 says, "For just as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the sea monster, so will the son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth."

Now three days and three nights by Jewish reckoning means not a literal twenty-four-hour period, but part of each day. So Jesus' crucifixion took place on the Friday. He was buried on that first day. That's day one. On Saturday is day two, which was the Sabbath. He was in his tomb. And then on the first day of the new week, our Sunday, the third day, he rose again. So Jesus is quoting from Jonah 1:17, which says that Jonah was in the stomach of the fish three days and three nights by the same reckoning. The typology is thus clear.

And to quote myself from our series in Jonah earlier in the year: Jesus is the true and better Jonah, the faithful prophet whose delight it was to walk in his Father's every commandment for the sake of his people. Where Jonah was disobedient, Christ is obedient. When Jonah was thrown overboard and the judgement waters ceased, he pictured Christ entering the judgement waters so that others might be spared. When Jesus was crucified, as Jonah was thrown overboard, it seemed that all hope was lost. Nevertheless, the grave could not hold our Lord nor could the watery grave hold the prophet from God's appointed deliverance. The Pharisees in due course are going to do what the sailors did, aren't they? They're going to throw Christ to the depths. They're going to take him unto his death. But Jesus says that will not be the end of his story. The sign will be given. It was the sign of resurrection. And that is the central jewel of the Christian faith, the great proof of the veracity of God's word confirmed in Christ, his rising again from the dead.

R. C. Sproul says here, "The son of man's rising from the dead is the greatest sign of all that the kingdom has come." Jonah's ministry was certified by the great miracle God performed to save him from the waters. And so too our Lord's resurrection verified his ministry. This is what Christ is speaking of here. Charles Spurgeon says that "Jonah thus commanded the attention of all Nineveh and so does the risen Saviour demand and deserve the obedient faith of all to whom his message comes."

This brings us to our next detail, that Jesus then applies what the sign of his coming resurrection will mean. Now look with me again at Matthew 12:41. It says, "The men of Nineveh will stand up with this generation at the judgement and will condemn it because they repented at the preaching of Jonah and behold something greater than Jonah is here."

This is to give ultimate offence in the Jewish thinking, what Jesus says here. Continuing his allusion to the prophet Jonah, he is saying that at the final judgement, that generation who heard the preaching of God's prophet Jonah and repented and were saved, they will be standing in condemnation over the covenant nation and that generation that crucified Jesus at the final judgement because they did not repent. It is to say that Gentile peoples will stand in judgement over Jews, the ultimate offence in the Jewish mind. Christ confirms without a doubt that the great revival swept through Nineveh at the preaching of Jonah. But the very nation entrusted with the oracles of salvation is now turning up its nose at their fulfilment at Christ's person.

It's very similar to Jesus' earlier teaching in Matthew 11:24: "It will be more tolerable for the land of Sodom in the day of judgement than for you," Jesus says. So Jesus is the greater prophet than Jonah. And his ministry is so much greater than Jonah's, yet it is worthy of even greater acceptance. This generation, Jesus says, has not responded positively at all.

And Jesus is not finished, of course. If we look at Matthew 12:42 now, he says, "The queen of the South will rise up with this generation at the judgement and will condemn it because she came from the ends of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon and behold something greater than Solomon is here."

Christ is taking us back to the book of Kings and to the life of King Solomon. As you know, God gave Solomon tremendous wisdom, knowledge and understanding as no man has ever perhaps had and his fame spread throughout all the known world, itself a form of typology, if you're paying attention. The Bible records that a woman known as the Queen of Sheba, probably from Ethiopia, travelled all the way to hear of Solomon's wisdom, to learn from him. And as we learn in the book of Kings and as Christ confirms here, she came to know Yahweh, the one true and living God, as she travelled to Solomon. The fact that she came to hear Solomon means that she was taught of God and yet here the comparison is a contrast to the Pharisees who refused to hear the one who is greater than Solomon. And so she too, another Gentile, will stand in judgement over them.

Christ is the greatest Solomon. Men and women must come and hear and learn of his words. Spurgeon again puts it here, "Christ commands the attention of the outermost lands," making a comment on Christ's wisdom compared to Solomon's. And so every island in the Pacific, New Zealand to Australia to the Americas to Europe, the whole world must come to Christ to hear the truth and wisdom of God as the world went to Solomon. The sinner must come to hear from Christ because his words are those of eternal life.

We know now of the Pharisees. I've said enough on them perhaps, but what about ourselves? Have we made this journey to learn from Jesus? As the Queen of Sheba went to Solomon, have we journeyed to Christ to learn and hear of the words of God from his lips? Or will others stand up at the judgement who have known us and seen that we have resisted repenting at the preaching of the gospel?

The Queen of Sheba could see what was evident and acknowledge the God of Israel. "Blessed be the Lord your God," she said to Solomon. An indictment against those who with Christ right before them will not believe. And it will be an indictment as well on all who hear this preaching of the gospel, of the wonderful works of God and the resurrection from the dead and the life to come and who want no part of it.

But to those who believe, the sign of Christ taking up life again though he was a crucified man is sufficient for God's full number of the church to be gathered in at the last day.

The Jews' Ruin

A final heading here in Matthew 12:43-45 is the Jews' ruin. This parable is often misunderstood, I think, somewhat confusing perhaps in these final three verses. Read it again with me: "Now when the unclean spirit goes out of a man, it passes through waterless places seeking rest and does not find it. Then it says, 'I will return to my house from which I came.' And when it comes out, it finds it unoccupied, swept and put in order. Then it goes and takes along with it seven other spirits more wicked than itself, and they go in and live there, and the last state of that man becomes worse than the first. That is the way it will be also with this evil generation."

First of all, it's important to understand this is a parable of Christ. He's describing in story form an earthly reality. And it's a parable describing the situation that the Jews, the Pharisees, would enter if they remained in unbelief at the preaching of the gospel of the kingdom. And so it's a parable for us too.

If you think back to the preaching of John the Baptist in Matthew, you'll recall that it was a seemingly kind of revival as he baptised the people consecrating as they consecrated themselves to God for their forgiveness of sins and preparation for the Messiah's coming. And it's probable here that Jesus is simply saying that the repentance was something like a flash in the pan. It was paper thin. It's kind of like a demon being cast out, but then leaving a vacuum, and then more demons come back in. That's the idea of the parable. It's like the people repented. There was a kind of surface-level reform, but then they did not fill that vacuum with belief in Christ who came following John. I think that's the point here.

The idea then is that John the Baptist's ministry brought widespread reform, but because the nation did not receive the Messiah, that swept house so to speak remained empty and its final condition became worse than the first. One commentator puts it this way: "Jesus cast evil spirits out of afflicted people but the Jewish leaders discouraged them from accepting God's help and rule through the person of Jesus. This left them empty and vulnerable to an even greater evil." Christ is saying if you reject me now, you will reject me after I've been raised and your final state will be worse than when you repented at the preaching of John.

As far as application goes, it's rather simple. A little bit of Jesus without coming the whole way will eventually leave you worse off than when you began. And we've seen this a lot, haven't we? Children who are raised in believing homes, for example. Many of you are great admirers of John Piper. A wonderful man of God who's preached the gospel to millions perhaps over his lifetime. He has a son who is a hardened unbeliever who makes videos online mocking Christianity. Their condition becomes worse and worse. Though he has heard the gospel his whole life growing up and rejected the Lord. When you come a little bit of the way but not all the way, you will be eventually found in a worse condition than what you began. The heart becomes hard and callous towards Christ.

It's a reiteration of Christ's message from Matthew 12:30: "He who is not with me is against me." Friends, there is no middle ground with Jesus Christ. To say again, what Jesus teaches us this morning is for us, as it was for others at this different time. The word of God and the message of God are unchanged. By not putting your faith in Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of sins, you will, through having heard the gospel, relegate yourself to that unbelieving and perverse generation who at the judgement in the last day it will be so much worse than if you'd never heard the message at all.

Conclusion

So don't crave for another sign. Don't shake your fist to the heavens saying, "God show me more then I will believe." He has already given sufficient evidence. He has already raised his Christ and the eyewitnesses have recorded it for us in the scriptures. The great sign of resurrection is there. Now the gospel goes forth; believe upon the Son.

1 Corinthians 15:3-4 to close: "For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received, that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures, and that he was buried, and that he was raised on the third day according to the scriptures."

Friends, believe this moment upon the Son.