And His Own No.10 The Only Sign Needed

Let's pray. Our heavenly father, we are gathered here this morning as your children and we acknowledge you as our father, our loving father. We thank you for your love.

We thank you for who you are. And we thank you that you understand every need that is represented here this morning. So Lord, we acknowledge our need of you.

We need thee every hour. Lord, as we worship you and praise your name, as we bow our heads this morning, we ask you to meet our every need. There are those who are here this morning who have been wounded by the enemy.

Their hearts are crying out. They are troubled because of sin. Lord, we thank you that you are willing to forgive, to cleanse us from all sin, no matter what, how big that sin is.

There is no sin bigger than your blood can cleanse. So Lord, cleanse us. Touch that heart which has been wounded.

Touch that heart that is weeping from within. Heal that wound, spiritual wound. And Lord, we know there are some people who are discouraged who may be here this morning.

Lord, touch them so that they may know that all is well when you steer our lives, when we give you the throne in our hearts. You are the Prince of Peace and you can even calm a stormy sea. So Lord, touch that person who feels discouraged so that he may know there is hope in you and the future is bright so long as we hold on to him who holds our future.

Lord, there are those who are sick. We pray that you will touch them and heal them because you are the great physician who heals all our diseases. So we thank you, Lord, that we can come to you for healing.

Your hand is as strong today as it has always been. Your power to heal, your power to save is still real today as it has been in the past because you are the same yesterday, today, and forever. Lord, we want to pray for those who may be feeling sad and who are sorrowing, perhaps because a loved one has been taken home or because a dear one is very seriously sick.

We ask that you will comfort them because you are the great comforter who has come for our sake. And we thank you that we are not alone. You are always with us wherever we are.

Some of us may be going through difficulties of every kind. Lord, you know each one of us, so we pray that you will really comfort us and know that there is no problem, no difficulty that is beyond your ability to solve. And even that which you don't solve, you provide grace for us to live through it.

So we thank you, Lord. And Lord, there may be families which are going through difficulties, family problems. And we know the enemy wants always to attack us at the family level.

Lord, please touch those families and heal them. We know you are able to unite us as a family and to reconcile because you are one who reconciled us at the cross of Jesus. So Lord, we really bring every need before you and we thank you that we can gather as a family of your children with the assurance that we belong to you because your word says as many as received him, to them he gave the authority to become children of God.

And we thank you that in Jesus we have become your children. And because of that, we have inherited your kingdom with Jesus. So thank you, Lord.

And we realize that we are not alone in your family. There are many other people who love you here in this country of Great Britain, people who love you in Africa, people who love you in Europe, people who love you in America and in the Far East, everywhere in the world. We pray that your spirit will move around the world, touching lives, uniting people's hearts.

We are sickened by the way things are going in the world today. The conflicts, the crimes and all these things which are happening tend to discourage us and to confuse our hearts. But we look up to you, the one who governs the affairs of men, that you will order peace and stability, especially in your people who believe in you, who have committed their lives to you.

May they continue to witness that Christ is the answer for our every need. May you help your church to shine as light in a dark world. May we proclaim Jesus while there is still time.

We know there are many who haven't had the opportunity to hear about Jesus, to realize that Jesus saves. May we use every opportunity to proclaim Jesus and to lift him high so that all people may see him, so that he may bring hope to the hopeless, so that he may bring light to those living in the dark, so that he may bring courage to those who are fearful, so that he may bring liberty to those who are bound. Lord, we thank you that even today we still can proclaim Jesus in many parts of the world.

So give us that willingness, that sense of urgency to proclaim your word to those who haven't heard about Jesus. Now Lord, we thank you. We know that there are many other needs which we may not even remember, but you know them all.

We pray for countries which are torn by conflicts and civil wars, people in Ethiopia, people in Somalia and Sudan and many parts of the world where there are conflicts and people's lives are being destroyed each day. We ask that you will bring peace in those troubled areas. Lord, we do thank you that we can commit the whole world which is in your hand and you can, we know you are able to meet all these requests which we ask you and we thank you that we have a God who hears our prayers, who listens as we meet together, who is interested in our lives, who loves each one of us as we are and we know that each one of us is precious in your sight so that you are concerned about everything that we go through.

We thank you that you are a caring God, a loving Father. So we thank you and we commit this whole service to you as we continue praising you that you will be with us, you will bless us, may this be the day that we can look back and say surely we have met with God on this day. In Jesus' name we pray, Amen.

This morning's reading comes from Matthew chapter 12 starting at verse 38 going through to verse 45, Matthew chapter 12, the sign of Jonah. Then some of the Pharisees and teachers of the law said to him, teacher, we want to see a miraculous sign from you. He answered, a wicked and adulterous generation asks for a miraculous sign but none will be given it except the sign of the prophet Jonah.

For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of a huge fish, so the son of man will be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. The men of Nineveh will stand up at judgment with this generation and condemn it for they repented at the preaching of Jonah and now one greater than Jonah is here. The queen of the south will rise at the judgment with this generation and condemn it for she came from the ends of the earth to listen to Solomon's wisdom and now one greater than Solomon is here.

When an evil spirit comes out of a man it goes through arid places seeking rest and does not find it. Then it says, I will return to the house I left. When it arrives it finds the house unoccupied, swept clean and put in order.

Then it goes and takes with it seven other spirits more wicked than itself and they go in and live there. And the final condition of that man is worse than the first. That is how it will be with this wicked generation.

This is the word of the Lord. Well we have our eyes open then on the word of God and we come to this passage in which we have some very interesting teaching from our Lord in regard to the sign of Jonah, the queen of Sheba and a haunted house. I thought the last comment would make some of you look up and it did.

But it is quite true. This is one of the most wonderful chapters or these two chapters that we have been looking through consecutively on a Sunday morning from time to time. Because they speak, the 11th and the 12th chapter, they speak of our blessed Lord as he has his disciples with him and also in his company are an increasing number of people some of whom are not exactly for Jesus of Nazareth.

Our Lord echoes the invitation he has given previously in the 28th verse of the 11th chapter. To all sinners come to me all you who are weary and burdened and I will give you rest. Take my yoke on you and learn from me for I am gentle and humble in heart.

And you will find rest for your souls for my yoke is easy and my burden is light. And I would like to couple that with as a sample of the wonderful sensitive teaching of our Lord, the 20th verse of the 12th chapter, a bruised reed he will not break and a smoldering wick he will not snuff out. That means that if you feel totally inadequate and utter failure and no right to be here at all then the Lord Jesus has got room for you.

This church is nothing but a bunch of failures and if you tell us that we need a crutch to go through life then we would gladly agree. But it's not a crutch that we have, it's a saviour, the blessed Lord Jesus. Now not everyone responds to the message of Jesus, not today nor yesteryear, in the way that he wants.

And amongst that growing company of people who followed him as he makes his last push towards Jerusalem where he's going to be done to death, there are his enemies. And so in the 38th verse of the 12th chapter, share others, the person alongside you, their Bible if you haven't got one yourself but check me out because what's important is what comes from scripture not what comes from me. We read, then, then some of the Pharisees and teachers of the law said to him, teacher, we want to see a miraculous sign from you.

I blush for the human race. When I hear that particular request coming from these men, here are the religious establishment, the Pharisees, the scribes, and they come to Jesus with a feigned respect, teacher, we want to see a miraculous sign from you. You know full well, those of you who've been following these addresses Sunday by Sunday, that actually what these people had in their hearts was none other than murderous intent towards the Lord.

Look at the 14th verse, same chapter, the Pharisees went out and plotted how they might kill Jesus. Why did they do that? Well, for many reasons, but the apex was that just prior to this comment in the 14th verse, our Lord had healed a man with a shriveled hand on a Sunday, or rather the Jewish Sabbath, the Saturday. And then from the 22nd verse, you read how they propelled in front of our Lord, not these scribes and Pharisees, but the ordinary people who clung to the coattails of Jesus, a man who was in bitter straits, a demon-possessed man, and our Lord spoke to the demon, rebuked it, and the man was made whole.

You see then what I mean by blushing for the human race, when these so-called friends of Jesus at the moment come along with this request, teacher, we want to see a miraculous sign from you. Treachery reaches its absolute in the human breast. It did here, it did when Judas kissed our Lord Jesus.

And maybe it's present amongst some of you who do not have in your heart that humility of spirit and that repentance that causes you really to need the power and the forgiveness of the Lord in your soul. You see, our Lord can do nothing with a person who is not repentant. That's why I started off, not to make you feel comfortable, but because it is the summary of the gospel that our Lord can cope with your failure.

He can cope with the things that you have done that are wrong. That one thing Jesus cannot cope with is that treachery that does not recognize within the heart of the individual his own sinfulness and hypocrisy. Let not conscience make you linger, nor of fitness fondly dream.

All the fitness he requireth is to feel your need of him. These men didn't. Thus they were hypocrites of the first degree.

They asked to see a miraculous sign, although they have seen other signs and wonders which our Lord has done. I want to tell you something, that an unhealthy preoccupation with signs and wonders runs counter to the teachings of Jesus. We have with us today South Africa, some roaming evangelists in Tanzania, and certainly in our own country.

Those who put such a premium on signs and wonders that they go along and they announce their signs and wonders before they happen, and they draw a crowd as a result. And I tell you that this is completely inverting what the gospel record says of the ministry of Jesus. He never performed a miracle.

To satisfy the idle curiosity of Herod, nor these men from the Sanhedrin, our Lord Jesus wants you to seek him for himself. Not that he does not have the power to miraculously demonstrate his unique abilities, that he does in those days, I, and I believe today. But in our concern for the miraculous, let's have a biblical pattern.

A wicked and adulterous generation asks for a miraculous sign, and our Lord disabuses these people from Jerusalem with their false notions as to why he has come. And he holds them spellbound as he takes them often as he does into the Old Testament. First of all, to the prophet Jonah, and then to the queen of Sheba, to a Jewish prophet preaching to non-Jews, to a non-Gentile, a non-Jewish queen who comes to Solomon.

And Jesus is going to teach them, his enemies, and you and me, something of the unique authority that belongs to him. But notice, first of all, he goes to the scriptures to affirm his teaching. I'm always a little apprehensive about William Barclay's commentaries being stopped in Bible bookshops.

On the basis that that man, though he has many insights into the word of God, tends to feel that he can pass judgment on the historicity of the scriptures and sometimes point out where they are in error and where he, of his superior wisdom, has a greater understanding. Jesus never did that. Our Lord spoke of Jonah as a literal man, who is sent by God into Nineveh to preach a word of pending judgment, but merciful pardon to those non-Jews who will listen to what the reluctant prophet has to say.

So reluctant was Jonah to embark in the ministry that he went down to Thomas Cook's or its equivalent and got a ticket going the wrong way as far as God's will was concerned. There are many Jonas. We've all known what it is to buy that ticket.

And so what happened? God in his sovereignty, who ultimately gets his way one way or another, he has Jonah housed in a sort of fishy hotel for a short period. And when the fish has a bout of indigestion in a very disgraceful fashion, he disgorges Jonah, who then does what God wanted him to do in the first instance. And incidentally, as far as the will of God is concerned with Christians, it's much better to be submissive.

Now when Jonah got to Nineveh, he started to preach. But this is the point of our Lord. As Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of a huge fish, so the Son of Man will be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.

Our Lord is set for Jerusalem. He knows what is there. He knows of Pontius Pilate.

He knows of Herod. He knows of the murderous intentions of the establishment there. He knows that he will die.

But after three days, he will be raised from the dead. No greater sign has ever been given in this world than the resurrection of Jesus Christ, the sign of Jonah, inverted commas, so to speak. Time magazine, I've mentioned this before, some of you will have to forgive me on the reference, but it's a repeated reference, but it's worth narrating for those of you who were not present.

Some years ago, circulated journalists in the United States and they said, from Time magazine, choose one man who you'd like to interview and tell us what your question would be. One question, one man. They all opted for Jesus.

The question was, did you return from the grave? It was a sensible question because if Jesus was not back from the grave, then we have no faith. If Jesus Christ was not raised, says the Apostle Paul, writing to the Corinthians, then your faith is hollow. Your faith is in vain.

But on the third day, the stone is rolled away. There is no body. Mary Magdalene hears whom she takes to be the gardener speak her voice, and when he spoke her voice, she recognized who he was.

It is none other than Jonah, Jesus, who's been brought back from the bowels of the grave. Now, says our Lord, homing in on this point, the men of Nineveh will stand up at the judgment. He doesn't say with fear and trembling as he had in respect to the citizens of Sodom and Gomorrah when he mentioned them in the previous chapter, but the men of Nineveh will stand up at the judgment.

Stand up in a comfortable fashion. Stand up with amazement. Why? Well, they repented.

They repented when a reluctant prophet went to preach to them, where here is Jesus, not reluctant, who's in the midst of the Jews, and he's preaching to them about the kingdom, and they don't want to know. Jonah did not wish to go to Nineveh, but a voice from heaven said, who have I and who will go for me? And Jesus said to his father, I'll go. Jesus, superior to Jonah, with obedience comes to this world.

Jonah's message was one of cautious judgment. Forty days will pass and Nineveh will collapse, and the implication is, though he believed that God could spare the people of Nineveh, he didn't expect that there would be mass contrition and repentance. But when Jesus comes, he comes not with a message of judgment, for his is not to judge the world, but to save the world.

Now put that lot together and you'll understand his comment to these scribes and Pharisees and all the other people who are eavesdropping. The men in Nineveh will rise up in the judgment with utter astonishment, and they will say, we believed when we had a far inferior prophet than you people here in Israel heard. Therefore, yours will be the greater condemnation.

Has it not been told you that when you hear the message of the evangel proclaimed, it brings with it to you a sense of great responsibility? Sodom and Gomorrah more tolerable. There are degrees of punishment. The men of Nineveh, they'll stand up.

They repented. Oh yes, I know Nineveh eventually did crumble, but that was 150 years after Jonah had been in his mission of evangelism. It says, our blessed Lord, as he moves from the Jewish prophet Jonah to the Gentile queen Sheba, she too will rise up at the judgment with this generation.

Why? Well, you recall the story. It's a wonderful story. One Kings chapter 10 will tell you.

You can refresh your memory later on today if you read it through. She's heard of the wisdom of Solomon, this great son of David. Distilled wisdom fell from his lips, but she came many miles to hear.

She pushed her way across the barren deserts in order to listen to a man who had an unusual anointing of the spirit of God. But these Jews hardly needed to move more than a couple of miles to hear Jesus. And however great Solomon was, his wisdom pales into utter insignificance when compared to the distilled wisdom of the blessed Lord Christ.

She came and she brought her presence because she honored the one to whom she would go to receive advice. They came with their slurs and their slander and their conniving and their malevolence. So our Lord says on the day of judgment, when this generation stands before the Holy God, the queen of Sheba will rise up along with the people of Nineveh and they will direct their criticisms at those who listen to greater than Jonah's and greater than Solomon's and refuse to respond.

You see, the problem, my friend, today is that many of us have such a wrong idea of the mercy and the compassion of God. Though he is merciful and compassionate and loving, he also brings sinners to book. That's why Hebrews says it's a fearful thing to stand in the presence of the living God.

Our God is as a consuming fire. We don't like those scriptures and I can understand why. I never like to preach on judgment and hell and that sort of thing.

Why not? Well, I'm a human being. I love to think of a glorious future. I love to think of the grace and the pardon and the magnificence of the love of our God and all these things are right, but to preach them without sounding a warning note, I cannot do.

Why not? Well, I'm trying to expound scripture. Here is the blessed Lord. This generation, this generation, this generation, four times, five times within the compass of just a few verses.

He speaks words of warning to the people who are listening to what he has to say and do not make a response. Now, if the gentle Jesus does this, how much his ministers reflecting what he had to say ought to speak his word with his intonation and his pleading and his warnings today. Your Cavalier, in your attitude to this gospel, yes, he's a friend of sinners, loves Redeemer, plead for me.

There's no one here who needs Jesus from Nazareth more than I need him. I need thee, oh, I need thee every hour, I need thee. Oh, bless me now, my Savior, I come to thee.

There's safety under the canopy of our Lord Jesus Christ, but outside, oh, my friend, I tremble, I tremble for the man, for the woman who is outside, the pardoning grace of Jesus Christ, the men of Nineveh, Sheba will rise on that day for they live before the year of our Lord Jesus and they will say to people in the 20th century, you had such a sharper understanding of the gospel, the sign of Jonah, three days in the belly of the earth and then raised in the power of an endless life. All this has been placarded before you, yet you did not believe. We believe with lesser information.

How great, therefore, is your condemnation. The Old Testament condemns the people of the New Testament era for their intransigence. And so the beloved Lord takes you to the parable of the haunted house.

I do not know what you think about demonism. I hope you'll come and listen to Andrew Bryant. He did an outstanding paper at the assembly of the free churches in Keister a year or so ago and I've invited Andrew to come and give that paper here.

Many of you will know Andrew from the time that he was with me. He'll be speaking about demons and demonology. Here is our Lord.

Our Lord, mind you, and he talks about the powers that there are in this world. He does it in a parabolic sense and yet there is a literalism there. When an evil spirit goes out of a man, it goes through places seeking rest and does not find it.

Then it says, I will return to the house I left. When it arrives, it finds the house unoccupied, swept clean and put in order. Then it goes and takes with it seven other spirits more wicked than itself and they go in and live there and the final condition of that man is worse than the first.

To whom is Jesus directing those words? Well, you've got to bring in reluctantly the conclusion he's speaking of his hearers. He's speaking of this wicked generation. He's speaking particularly of the children of Abraham who have rejected what he has to say and ultimately by the cross of Calvary they will say crucify him, crucify him.

It's as though seven other devils slipped into the land and the Romans came with their jackboot and the Jews are dispersed throughout the world with all the horror of what was to follow down the generations, the people that rejected the Christ who came for them and outside the grace of God and his promise of restoration there will be no hope. But you see it's not just the historical application that you have to make because our Lord will speak most clearly about evil spirits. One of the great men of God who I've had the privilege of sitting under as a student and one of the most humble is a man called Dr. Donald Guthrie.

He has written an outstanding theology, a prece of the teaching of the New Testament in terms of the ministry of our Lord and the content of the gospel. He says this, the synoptic gospels are so full of exorcisms of demon-possessed people that no true estimate of the ministry of Jesus can be given without taking full account of evil spirits. Jesus came into a world in which the adverse activities of evil spirits was everywhere acknowledged.

All the cases of demon possession in the synoptic gospels are seen as specific instances of satanic activity. He goes on, these instances in all of which the removal of the demon also removed the physical features associated with the possession might be identified with known medical or psychiatric conditions. Because of this it has been thought possible to explain the accounts of demon possession by regarding it as a first century mode of expression which has now become outdated.

It is not surprising that demon possession has been a subject for demythologization but the question arises whether the mere substitution of medical terminology is a sufficient explanation of the many instances of demon possession in the synoptic gospels. And he goes on, modern rejection of the synoptic exorcisms is not based on a study of the text but rather on a priori considerations. Medical science classifies in accordance with well-defined scientific principles which make no allowance for spiritual forces as explanation of physical phenomena.

Belief in demons and their harmful effect on human life is excluded but this in itself is no conclusive proof that demons do not exist. To describe the activity of demonism in medical terminology in effect is no answer to the ravages of sin and Satan in the lives of individuals and in the lives of nations today. Martin Lloyd-Jones, perhaps a conservative figure in evangelicalism to some degree, talks about millions of demons.

The Bible says the whole world lies in the lap of the evil one. Jesus speaks of this demon who is expelled from a house. By house he means the heart of someone and if there is anything that is painful for a demon apparently it is to live just in the atmosphere and not to inhabit the being of an individual.

So the story which Jesus tells as you go back to it, when it arrives, when it returns, it finds the house unoccupied, swept clean and put in order. Then it goes on and takes with it seven other spirits more wicked than itself and they go in and live there. What is our Lord referring to? Oh my friends, I tell you some of us in our refined cerebral evangelicalism do not want to come to terms, one with the power of the Holy Spirit as far as revival goes or with the manifestation of evil in all its literal nakedness.

Our Lord is saying this, that it is possible for a demon to enter into the life of an individual and cause him or her to do this or that, to damage themselves, to act in a way which is utterly illogical and inhuman. So on Wimbledon Common a woman is sacked upon in the eyes of a small child and done to death in such a damnable fashion. So we have the pathetic pictures coming across from Somalia and what was Yugoslavia of children dying.

We have the resources to resolve the problem. If it was a question of oil we would be in there like a shot. We are not there.

How do you explain this? Is there any rational explanation that allows us in the 20th century for children in effect be doomed to genocide? You say you speak extravagantly but who can stand up, I ask you, who can stand up and argue with these things? You see there are circumstances in our world today that are utterly inexplicable at a psychological level. Now I don't understand all about demonism. The whole notion scares me but I've been out in Africa and India as well as in this country I've known people rise under the power of the devil.

I've also known people set free by the power of the living God. You see our Lord is saying this, it is not sufficient for a house to clean itself. It is not sufficient for a person to ask for forgiveness of sins.

He, she has to be filled with the power of the Holy Spirit, controlled, possessed by the authority and the power and the dynamism of the Holy Ghost and as a result of that he, she is enabled to take their way through this life without falling foul of the ravages of the power of the evil one. I'd love to say a great deal more in this area but I do adjure you in the name of the Lord and I'm sure that Matt especially would come along and give testimony to this. Recognize the power that there is in evil itself, the potency, the way that witchcraft and black magic, the tarot card, the so-called innocent horoscopes, the whole paraphernalia of the new age movement witness the way that it has covered this country in the last decade.

If you do not realize these things then what papers have you been reading, where have you been going? Do you not recognize that the Lord Jesus said at the end time prior to his coming, words which are enlarged by the Apostle Paul as he writes to Timothy, that there will be a greater activity in the whole area of the occult. So our Lord makes it very clear that it is not just a question of preaching immorality, it is not just a question of a person evacuating themselves for a moment or two of wrong thoughts and wrong action, the individual needs to be filled with the power of the Spirit, responding to the message of the gospel. This was the problem with the Jews, they did not respond to the message of our Lord Jesus and in that generation great punishment followed in a most unusual fashion.

Now I close my remarks. I do not want what I have said to frighten you and yet in one sense I do. You see over against the power of evil is the superior power of the Son of God.

The sign of Jonah, three days, three nights in the valley of the well, our Lord is raised in the power of an endless life, what has he done on the cross? He has defeated Satan, he has made it possible for sins to be forgiven, he has despoiled principalities and powers, he has shown in effect who is the boss and he discharges to his church, Christian people like you and me, the power of his Spirit to fill their lives not to make them immune from the temptations of the evil one but to enable them to overcome when he releases the damnest of temptation against us. So I bring this message to its conclusion. Our Lord has in his entourage those who are clinging to his every word, those who want to learn from Jonah, the Ninevites, the Queen of Sheba, but there were also those who were intransigent, fooled, fools and it is the same today as it was then.

Here is the message of the beloved Christ, the sign of Jonah. Do you see it? Have you responded? Have you had your sins forgiven? Do you know what it is to be filled with the power of the Spirit? Not just some mental thing but something that hits you right in the depth of your psyche? Some emotion that confirms what your heart is, what your mind is also registering? We have lived in many years the Christian church and down many generations and decades but there never has been a time when we have needed to know more. The power of the Holy Spirit to offset the evil powers that there are in this world today and our Lord Jesus offers such is part of the package deal of the gospel.

Let's bow our heads in prayer. Loving God and Father, we come before your throne. Ours too is an evil and adulterous generation.

Many of us have heard and have preferred other gods. Many of us have put other things before you and ultimately we know that we have to stand before you at some judgment whether or not we like to accept it. Lord, we pray that we may have learned.

We thank you for the positive, tender nature of the first part of what we have been discussing. Thank you for the story of Sheba and of the Ninevites and of your love in Old Testament times and your even greater love through our blessed Saviour. Thank you for the warning that it's either Christ or Satan, a darkness or light, life or death.

Lord, you make it so plain, enable us to be sensible, to reach out and to grasp you and to appreciate that the greatest sign that the world could ever long for was granted the day when Jesus came back from the dead and offered forgiveness, restoration and healing to all who'd been captive and mauled by the evil one. Thank you, Lord God, for a greater than Jonah. Thank you for a greater than Solomon.

Thank you for one who's greater than a temple. Thank you, beloved God, for your conquering Son, our Saviour. And all the people of God said, Amen.

Amen.