Matthew 16:1-12 The sign of Jonah

Matthew 16:1-12

                                                                                          The sign of Jonah

I am sure we are all familiar with the story of Jonah…… or at least we all remember a story about a guy who got swallowed by a big fish.

By the way Jesus talked about Jonah as though it was historically accurate, and so I will so the same.

Let me just quickly jog your memory about Jonah.

The story of Jonah all started when God told Jonah to do something.

God told him to go to the city of Nineveh and preach judgement against it.

God had seen all the evil things the Ninevites were doing and he was going to bring judgement down upon the city. Enough was enough, judgment was coming.

However, Jonah didn’t want to go to Nineveh, he didn’t like the Ninevites and so he knew that if he warned them, that there was a chance the Ninevites could repent and God would spare them………..for Jonah knew that God was gracious, compassionate and slow to anger.

Jonah didn’t want the Ninevites to be spared, he knew they were evil and besides, Jonah knew it would also have been scary to go to the city of Nineveh.

And so instead of Jonah, obeying God and going to Nineveh to warn them of God’s coming judgement, he went the opposite direction to Tarshish. He hoped on a boat and ran away from God.

Of course, you can’t run away from God, since God is everywhere, from the highest of the heavens to the lowest parts of the earth- God is there.

And so as Jonah was sailing away from where God told him to go, God sent a storm, the sailors threw Jonah overboard, after Jonah confessed that it was probably his fault for the storm, since he was trying to run away from God.

Jonah was thrown overboard, the storm stopped and God sent a big fish to swallow Jonah.

Jonah was in the belly of the big fish for 3 days, before eventually the big fish vomited Jonah back on to the land and as soon as Jonah was back on dry land, God told Jonah again- “Go to Nineveh and preach against it”

“I told you to do something, and you need to do it”

Jonah reluctantly went to Nineveh, preached the shortest sermon in history “Yet forty days, and Nineveh will be overthrown” and as a result, the whole city of Nineveh from the king to the servants, repent, turn from their evil, turn to God and God spares them.

That is it- Jonah obeyed God, warned the Ninevites, the Ninevites repented and believed and they were saved.

Jonah didn’t have a 5 year plan which he had to work through, He didn’t have a list of Key performance indicators that he had to meet, nope, he just faithfully, although reluctantly obeyed God, and God saved Nineveh.

Jonah didn’t have to perform any miracle to prove to the Ninevites he was sent from God. In fact he may have been quietly hoping they didn’t believe he was sent from God, so they didn’t repent, so God would not spare them.

Jonah didn’t pray down fire from heaven, Jonah didn’t pray down rocks from the sky, in fact as far as we know, Jonah didn’t give them any proof that he was a messenger from God, he just spoke the word of God “Yet forty days, and Nineveh will be overthrown”, and the people of Nineveh  heard, believed and repented.

God did not destroy Ninevah.

No wonder Jesus told us in Matthew 12:41, that the people of Nineveh will be amongst God’s people in eternity, who bring judgement on the earth, since they repented at the preaching of Jonah.

The Ninevites didn’t need proof that Jonah was sent from God, they didn’t demand that he did a neat trick, they just believed God’s words through the person of Jonah.

Perhaps the Ninevites had heard the story of Jonah before he preached to them.

Perhaps they had heard that Jonah had been in the belly of a great fish for 3 days before vomiting him out. Perhaps they had heard the story, trusted it was true and therefore trusted that what he had to say was true also.

Now, let us compare the Ninevites responses to Jonah, with the Pharisees and Sadducees response to Jesus, who is far greater than Jonah.

Remember this conversation between Jesus and the Pharisees and Sadducees was hundreds of years after the story of Jonah.

Look at Matthew 16:1-4 with me:

And the Pharisees and Sadducees came, and to test him they asked him to show them a sign from heaven. ² He answered them, “When it is evening, you say, ‘It will be fair weather, for the sky is red.’ ³ And in the morning, ‘It will be stormy today, for the sky is red and threatening.’ You know how to interpret the appearance of the sky, but you cannot interpret the signs of the times. ⁴ An evil and adulterous generation seeks for a sign, but no sign will be given to it except the sign of Jonah.” So he left them and departed.

Now, just for a bit of important context, the pharisees were a Jewish faction and the Sadducees were another Jewish faction.

The Sadducees had a strong emphasis on the written law and were heavily involved in politics, they worked with the Romans as much as possible.

The pharisees had a strong emphasis on the oral and written law and the tradition of the elders. They were more reluctant to bow to the knee of the Roman emperor, and so they considered the Sadducees as “sell-outs”.

The Sadducees and Pharisees often worked against each other, but in this particular case, their common hatred for Jesus overshadowed their differences and so both groups came to Jesus and demanded that He show them a sign from heaven.

They wanted proof that Jesus came from God.

They wanted proof that Jesus was the Messiah, God’s king, the saviour of the world, the one whom God had been promising for years.

These Pharisees and Sadducees could interpret the weather, they knew a good day was in store, weather wise, if the sky was red at night and they knew the weather was going to bad if the sky in the morning was red.

The pharisees and Sadducees could not only read the weather, but they could also read the scriptures and they could interpret them. They knew God had promised a Messiah to come, they knew He would be a son of David, but unfortunately, they couldn’t recognise that Messiah who stood before them that day – they were blind.

Now, it is reasonable for us to assume that these Pharisees and Sadducees had already heard about the miracles that Jesus had already done, the feeding of the 5,000, the turning of water into wine, the calming of the storm, the healing of the paralytic….heck….they may have even witnessed them with their own eyes.

But that wasn’t enough for these Pharisees and Sadducees, they didn’t trust these signs, but sadly, more importantly, they didn’t trust that Jesus was sent by God to bring God’s message to the world, the same message that Jonah brough to the Ninevites, - “repent and believe”

Unlike the Ninevites who trusted the words that came out of Jonah’s mouth, they didn’t trust the words of Jesus, or if they did trust him, it didn’t bring them to repentance and belief. They rejected his words.

Jesus knew that it didn’t matter if He kept showing the pharisees and Sadducees sign after sign, miracle after miracle, it wouldn’t have made any difference to their stubborn and cold hearts.

And so he gracefully left them with one sign, one sign that that they had to either trust or not, and that sign was Jesus himself, who stood before them.

Look at verse 4 again with me:

An evil and adulterous generation seeks for a sign, but no sign will be given to it except the sign of Jonah. So he left them and departed.

In Matthew 12:38-42 Jesus made it clear that he compared his life with Jonah. Just as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the great fish, so the son of man (that is Jesus) be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.

Jesus died and three days later he came back to life- just as he said he would.

Just as Jonah was the sign to the Ninevites, Jesus is the sign to the pharisees, to the Sadducees, in fact to the world.

Jonah performed no miracles and yet the Ninevites, repented and believed.

Jesus performed many miracles and yet the pharisees and Sadducees did not repent, they did not believe.

Friends, Jesus Christ came from heaven to earth, at just the right time, was born by the virgin Mary, He lived, He died on a cross to take the penalty for our sin, to give us life and three days later he rose again. Now, He sits at His father’s side in heaven, and he has given us his Holy Spirit, and one day he will bring us to our eternal home.

Friends, the life, death and resurrection of Jesus is the bedrock of our faith, it is the bedrock of Christianity, it is on that firm foundation that our lives are built upon.

If we do not trust that firm foundation, the life, death and resurrection of Jesus, then our lives are on loose footings.

And sometimes in our desperation for a sign, in our desperation to feel good, in our desperation to have all our achievement boxes ticked, we can easily let the lies of the devil creep in and destroy that foundation.

This is the lesson Jesus was teaching his disciples and also us, when he warned them and us, to watch out and be aware of the leaven of the pharisees and Sadducees. The leaven of the pharisees and Sadducees was a metaphor for the teachings of the Pharisees and Sadducees as Jesus told us plainly in verse 12.

As we know the leaven or perhaps better to call it, yeast, is an ingredient which is mixed in with the whole dough that makes the bread rise. It effects the whole bread, but you wouldn’t know it was there until the bread arose.

And so Jesus was saying that we must be aware of these false teachings, because often they go un-noticed until it is too late, and sadly they destroy the whole loaf.

Now, as I mentioned before, the pharisees and Sadducees often had opposing views when it came to the government, or when it came to the traditions of the elders, but one teaching they did have in common, is that they both rejected Jesus as the promised Messiah, the saviour of the world.

Friends, let us be aware of teachings that do not have the life, death and resurrection of Jesus central to our faith.

Let us be aware of groups who demand that the true gospel is only received in the hearts of people if and only if it is accompanied by a miracle of healing, or a miracle of some sort…….this simply isn’t true.

It is false and sadly, just like yeast, it can destroy the whole gospel as people seek physical healing rather than Jesus. Instead of resting in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus, they rest in a physical healing, which will not sustain them eternally.

Let us be aware of groups who demand that the true gospel is only received if you follow certain rules and regulations………that simply isn’t true. Those good deeds become like yeast which destroys the whole gospel.

I think one particular trend that we have to watch out for and be aware of today, is the yeast of the political arm. Let us be aware of groups who demand that for you to live out the true gospel, you must be part of a certain political party.

Those political connections become like yeast which destroys the whole gospel.

On the other hand, we have to be aware of those groups, like the Pharisees who almost make your non-allegiance to the government a pre-requisite for receiving the gospel. The yeast of non- government compliance can destroy the whole gospel.

Friends, let me encourage you again to consider Jesus.

Consider who he is and what he has done.

He is the Messiah, the king who sits on God’s throne, the saviour of the world, he came to this earth, he lived, died and he rose again.

He died for your sins, he loves you, he wants you to spend eternity with him.

I pray that is enough for you.

I pray you may build your life upon Him.

I pray that you won’t let the distractions of this world overtake your simple trust in Jesus, your simple trust in his word.

Karl Bath was a great theologian who wrote volumes of books on theology, and one day when he was asked at a Chicago university of how he would sum up his volumes of work on the bible, he said this…….and remember he said this to university professors, to upper echelon….He said that if he could sum up his volumes of work on theology and all the hours of study of the bible, he would sum it up like this…..

“Jesus loves me, this I Know, for the bible tells me so”

Friends, when all is stripped away, I pray that you may rest on this truth, this promise, Jesus loves me this I know for the bible tells me so

Let us pray