The Sign of Jonah - Beacon Sunday Service: August 3, 2025

Matthew chapter 12, verses 38 to 42. I actually would encourage you to have your Bibles open because we're going to be going through a lot of Matthew chapter 12. But if not, you can just follow along on the screen. And here's a reading of God's word. Then some of the scribes and the Pharisees answered and said to him, Teacher, we want to see a sign from you. But he answered and said to them, an evil and an adulterous generation eagerly seeks for a sign, and yet no sign will be given to it but the sign of Jonah the prophet. 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. The men of Nineveh will stand up with this generation at the judgment and will condemn it because they repented at the preaching of Jonah.

And behold, something greater than Jonah is here. The queen of the South will rise up with this generation at the judgment 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. Let's pray together. Father, would you speak your words to your people to strengthen, to revive, to encourage, to empower. And ultimately, Lord, that your word would be honored in this place. We acknowledge this morning that we are not gathered here to feel anything for ourselves per se, but we're gathered here to reflect together on your goodness and to respond in worship. And so we pray that as we seek to give you the worship and the glory that you're due, that you would move and really minister to your people and help us to be a Christ-like people that ministers well to the generation that is wicked and evil and adulterous around us today.

So we pray for your help to understand. We help, we pray for your help to remember. We pray that you would keep us alert, awake, and sober, not just physically, but especially spiritually. Lord, for your glory and your renown. We pray all this in Jesus' name. Amen. Go ahead and take a seat. So just a little bit before summer, we finished and we concluded our uh eight-month series through the book of Titus. And now we're embarking on a series through two books of the Old Testament, Jonah and Nahum. And Jonah and Nahum are minor prophet bookends of God's dealing with the Assyrian Empire. And that's why we'll be sequentially studying them together. Jonah is a study of a reluctant prophet who is commanded to preach, and he's commanded to preach a message of grace and kindness and repentance, and he doesn't want to do that, right?

Jonah is a story of God's compassion, and it's a patience of God that is highlighted there toward the wicked and undeserving Assyrians. Nahum, on the other hand, is all about God's judgment and doom and wrath that he's gonna pour out upon the Assyrians. So the prophet Nahum, writing about 150 years after Jonah, he foretells the judgment and destruction in Nineveh, which is the capital of the Assyrian Empire. So Nahum's message is the one that Jonah would have loved to have preached. He would not have run away if God told him to preach this. Okay? So Jonah and Nahum, interestingly, are also the only two books of the entire Bible that both end with a rhetorical question. Okay? So Jonah 4 11, should I have no pity?

Actually, though the tone is a lot warmer, right? Should I have no pity, right? And then Nahum 319, also with a rhetorical question, on whom has not your evil pass continually? So both of those books end with rhetorical questions. Two summary rhetorical questions of two prophetic books, two bookends. So these two books are God's dealings with wicked sinners. And in these two bookends, we see both the gracious love of God as well as the holy character of God who has a perfect and a fiery hatred for sin. And as we are a people all too prone to overemphasize one and underemphasize the other, I felt that it would be greatly beneficial to feed off of both of these books. Okay, so and in turn, hopefully our knowledge of God and our affection for God deepens and matures.

Amen. So today uh we're gonna be beginning a new sermon series through Jonah. And though our passage today is from the Gospel of Matthew, consider today's sermon uh as a first one in the Jonah series. Now, when I say Jonah, what comes to mind? Well, what's the scene or the visual that pops up into your thoughts, right? It's a fish, big one, right? Or is it like Jonah walking through and preaching a message of repentance? Is it of like the entire Assyrian capital repenting in sackcloth, which is amazing? It's like a foreigner coming into Washington DC, preaching eight words and everyone repenting. It's crazy that that happens. Or is it a visual of Jonah angrily sitting under a shade and just waiting to see what God will do to the Ninevites?

What is the visual that you have? For many, for me, and for Alex's mom, it's a big fish, right? So the story of Jonah and the great fish, it's one of the most famous stories in the Old Testament. So even many of those who haven't grown up in the church are familiar with the story of Jonah. So Jonah is by far the most familiar of all the prophetic books. It's one of the easiest books of the Old Testament to read, since it's pretty short, and it flows like a children's story. It doesn't read like the other prophets. And it's not to understand too hard to understand why Jonah is the only prophetic book that is found in every single children's Bible. It's not missing from any Bible. It's very fun and it's interesting, and it reads almost like a fictional story with a moral lesson contained in it, and that's how many non-believers will read it.

And it would likely be characterized as a fairy tale even by many Christians had not Jesus himself referred to it as a historical fact. Okay, so the story of Jonah is also widely known among the other religions.

He's twice called Dul Nun, which means an apostle of Allah, the one of the fish.

So Jewish tradition had it that Jonah was the son of the widow of Zaraphath in 1 Kings 17, who was prophesied by Elijah and then later dies, and then Elijah raises him up from the dead. Right? So that's Jewish tradition.

So Jonah is famous. And Jesus referred uh to the prophet Jonah in predicting his death and resurrection. And he called that the sign of Jonah, and we're gonna be looking at that today. So up here, let me, since we already read it, I'm gonna summarize this passage that we read. The scribes and the Pharisees, they demand a sign from Jesus, and in response, Jesus says that their line of questions and their demands betray who they really are behind their religious facades. So the entire generation of the people of Israel, God's chosen people, all of them are hostile and rebellious toward God. This entire generation is evil and adulterous. That's what Jesus says. And the scribes and the Pharisees are at the very front of this facade group leading the rebellion.

So Jesus declares that he actually is gonna oblige this demand, and that there will be only one sign given to them, and it's gonna be the sign of Jonah the prophet. And the testimony of Jonah the prophet is going to spell disaster for this generation of Jews. Because at the great resurrection and judgment, these Jews are gonna be on the outside looking in on God's kindness. There will be weeping and gnashing of teeth, and those men in Nineveh who repented, those wicked Assyrians, they're gonna be on the inside of God's favor condemning this group. Even the queen of Sheba, a pagan queen, she's gonna be on the inside of God's favor, standing up, rising up to condemn this group. So that's what we're looking at, which is super interesting, right?

And so the outline of today's passage, we're gonna be looking first at verse 38 and seeing the context, the situation in which Jesus references the prophet Jonah, because if this is all the snapshot that you have of Jesus, Jesus seems pretty irritated, right? I mean, pretty upset. So I'm gonna walk you through the context. Secondly, we're gonna be looking at what the sign of Jonah entailed. Okay, verses 39 to 40. They were familiar with Jonah the prophet, but they were probably very confused when Jesus calls Jonah a sign. Right? So what is that? And for the third point, we're gonna be looking at the sign significance, and hopefully by the end of the sermon, you're gonna understand why we're gonna be studying through the book of Jonah.

And hopefully you leave here with your spiritual interests piqued and your spiritual appetites longing for more. Okay, so here's the very first point, the situation. Verse 38. Then some of the scribes and the Pharisees answered and said to him, Teacher, we want to see a sign from you. So the scribes and the Pharisees demand some sort of sign. It's not even an ask, right? And a sign is something clearly which shows a supernatural work of God that would authenticate the divine source of his authority. So they wanted Jesus to perform something supernatural, whose source was incontrovertibly the God of Israel. Now, was there a request evil? No, not in and of itself. That request was not evil. They were evil.

So in context, if you have your Bibles open, you'll see it. We see that Jesus had already done a few supernatural things in their presence prior to verse 38. If you have your Bible open, you'll notice that the heading of the section that starts at verse 9, it what does it read? Jesus heals a man on the Sabbath. So the Pharisees themselves, seeing the man inside the synagogue, noticeably had one hand that was normal, one hand that was shriveled. They presented this man to Jesus because they wanted to trap him on the Sabbath. So they deliberately and intentionally brought this man to Jesus, already knowing that Jesus would do the supernatural. So Jesus says to this man with a shriveled hand, stretch out your hand.

And he stretched it out, and it was restored to normal like the other. So pay attention here. But going out, the Pharisees took counsel together against him as to how they might destroy him. But Jesus, aware of this, withdrew from him, or from them from there. And many followed him. And what did he do? He healed many. You guys notice that, right? So you hopefully you notice a few things. The Pharisees, fully aware that Jesus has power, used this as part of their plan to destroy him. Also, not only did Jesus heal the man with a shriveled hand, verse 15, says that many followed after him, and he healed them all on the Sabbath. So by Matthew 12, 15, we see that Jesus had already displayed his supernatural power over the physical world.

You're tracking, right? Later we get to Matthew chapter 20, uh 12, verse 22. Same chapter. Then very shortly afterwards, I'm not gonna read the thing, so just follow with your eyes.

And Jesus doesn't just do one miracle, he doesn't just do the physical, he does three miracles. Jesus exercises the demon, restores the man's uh sight, he restores his ability to speak, and then the crowds are astonished. The commoners in the crowd start asking, can this man be the son of David? Meaning, can he be the Messiah of promise for whom we have been waiting for these centuries? So Jesus' power and authority were not just over the physical, clearly he had spiritual authority over even the spiritual. Hopefully you see this. So the people are astounded, as we all would be, in surprise, surprise, the arrogant and the hardened Pharisees did not like this one bit. And in the very short time, all on the same day, Jesus has publicly performed many miracles, so that it's more than obvious that Jesus was a man with power.

And the Pharisees with supernatural power staring at them in the face, they conclude that this source of power, what does it say in your Bibles, is not of God, but from the ruler of the demons, Beazable. These men blaspheme the Holy Spirit of God by labeling demonic the power of the divine. That's the meaning of that passage. They were not genuinely looking to see if Jesus was truly the Messiah of God, because they had already made up the mind their minds that he was not. They were trying to trap him. And because they were determined to trap him, they demanded a sign. They already had made the decision that he got his power from the devil. So they wanted Jesus to produce something that would prove to everybody without a shadow of a doubt that he was not of the devil.

I mean, it's like people trying to say, prove to me, if I if you can revive Abraham Lincoln from the dead, then I will believe that he was our 16th president. That's like a foolish request. So it's abundantly clear that these scribes and the Pharisees, they're religious experts, they're evil men. They are just themselves deceived and possessed by the demons of their age. So, and having already seen more miracles in one day than most of us would ever see in a lifetime, they say, teacher, we want to see a sign from you. So hopefully you appreciate the context a little bit, right? A person's desire to see a sign is not sinful in and of itself. It's actually both a natural and an understandable response.

We really do need to see it to believe it. And God willingly, throughout the whole Old Testament, provided signs for man, visible, right? So signs gave witness to divine in the Old Testament. You guys, you see those passages. And in the New Testament, signs that weren't just like one offs, but persistent and regularly demonstrated signs were evidence of the apostle's office. 2 Corinthians 12, 12. So again, it's not the request for a sign that was a problem, but this request for a sign was symptomatic of their unbelief. So they weren't asking questions, they were questioning. They were not seeking, they were scheming. Their demand betrayed the unbelief that is in their hearts. So here's an important question.

When a person is determined to live in his sins, to live for himself, when a person's idle in his focus is his own life, and he has no desire to please his creator. What evidence can be provided to such a person to cause him to repent? What strategy, what apologetics argument, what sign can be given to cause such a person to repent? How about if a person comes back from the dead? I mean, books, books are written, right? I went to heaven and I experienced blah blah blah blah. Like, does that cause the skeptic to question the afterlife? Would that change a person's mind if someone were turned from the dead? No. Jesus himself spoke about those concerning, or he spoke already about those who turn a deaf ear, who harden their hearts to the word of God, even if a person comes back from the dead, they would not believe, right?

He uh gives an interesting encounter between a rich man suffering in hell, asking for a drink of water from a godly poor man named Lazarus. Different Lazarus from Martha and Mary's brother. Great. And he asks Abraham, please, then send Lazarus back to warn my family members. I'm gonna start at verse 29. But Abraham said, They have Moses and the prophets, let them hear them. But he said, rich man, no, Father Abraham, but if someone goes to them from the dead, they will repent. But he said to him, if they do not listen to Moses and the prophets, they will not be persuaded, even if someone rises from the dead. So if a person has a deaf ear and a hardened heart towards the word of God spoken through the law, through the prophets, and now for us, the gospel accounts, there is no sign that can be provided for them to change their hearts.

Does that make sense? So in this context, these people will have someone rise from the dead in a few weeks. There's a man named Lazarus. So funny, same name. Jesus made sure Lazarus was dead before he raised him. He waited, he delayed, right? And despite the fact that there were many witnesses to observe this dead man coming out, the King James actually says, Lord, he's thinketh, he's been dead for four days. But Jesus raised him from the dead. The reprobates in that day hardened their hearts in unbelief. Who else raised him? Who else was raised from the dead? Jesus. And many witnessed this. So for an extended period after his resurrection, Jesus made it abundantly obvious that he indeed was raised from the dead.

First Corinthians 15, 5 to 7, he appeared a Cephas, that's Peter, then to the 12. And then he appeared to more than 500 brothers at one time. Most of whom remain until now. Now they're old men. They still, but some of them have fallen asleep. And then he appeared at James, and then the all the then to all the apostles. And that's the I would I would assume not just the twelve, but the larger 70 group of disciples, right? An evil and an adulterous generation eagerly seeks for a sign, but even if a sign is the hardness of their hearts obstruct their being convinced. Unbelievers double down in their unbelief when they're shown proof. Because now they're they want to win the argument, right? They're not cared about the facts.

Unbelievers double down when they are shown proof, and then they ask for more proof. So the scribes and the Pharisees asked for a sign. So that's the situation in the context in which we find ourselves in the text. Now you like why does Jesus respond like this? Well, you can read the rest of chapter 12 and you see why. Second point, what is the sign? Matthew chapter 12, verses 39 to 40. But he answered and said to them, an evil and adulterous generation eagerly seeks for a sign, yet no sign will be given to it but the sign of Jonah the prophet. 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.

So Jesus responds by saying that they will be given a sign. And there's only gonna be one. The Messiah of God, the Son of Man, that's a title that was given to the Messiah in Daniel chapter 7. He will be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. Now, just so that you're not distracted, there are typically a few points that people get hung up on here. This is not in reference to a literal 72 hours. Okay. If that were to be the case, then Jesus would be raised on the fourth day.

He's raised on the third day. So the history, uh both history and the gospel accounts that Jesus was buried late Friday afternoon, and he was raised Sunday morning on the third day. And in other parts of the gospel of Matthew, Jesus repeats that he would be raised on the third day. Matthew 16, 21, 17, 23, 2019. So in Jewish thought, a part of a day was considered to be the whole day. So we don't need to get hung up on the literal three days and three nights. Second hang up, the wording. Jonah is three days and three nights in the belly of a katas. Repeat after me, ketos. Ketas. It's a literally, it's a sea monster. You're like, wait a minute, right? The CSB translates ketos as a huge fish. The ESV calls it a great fish.

The King James translates it as a whale. We see monster, and some people freak out. Like, what? Right? Basically, it's a large but familiar creature of the sea. Some of us would be like, the Bible's wrong. A whale is a mammal, it's not a fish. True. But in those days, they wouldn't have been able to classify a whale as a fish. Okay? So in biblical times, whales were not classified as mammals, so I'm assuming it's a whale. And the second largest whale species is called the it's the fin whale, and they're pretty big. Adult fin whales, minimum are 75 feet long. And guess what? They're found all over the Mediterranean. Okay, so I'm thinking it's a whale. Okay, but the language doesn't give us extra detail.

So the Mediterranean Sea has fin whales and it touches the uh the border of Israel. Alright? So they would be familiar. Jonah spent three days and three nights in the belly of this catas, this whale, this sea monster. Some hang are hung up on the fact that, well, Jonah was alive, and then he was vomited alive. Some people say Jonah must have died in the fish. Either one, the text doesn't specifically say. So whether Jonah was preserved miraculously alive or he died literally and rose again, the text does not say, and either understanding is speculative at best. But I believe that Jonah died in the fish, got partially digested, his skin bleached, and then vomited and resurrected onto the dry ground alive.

And we're gonna get into that when we get into Jonah. Okay? If he's been digested for three days, his skin's gonna be sensitive. And when the sun is coming down on you, no wonder he's angry, right? Uh we'll get to that uh probably in a few months. So what actually happened for three days in the belly of the fish, it's a mystery, and it's super duper interesting. So here's the sign of Jonah. Jesus actually spells it out, but here's a sign of Jonah. Life, death, burial, supernatural resurrection. Okay, and like Jonah, the Son of Man, the Messiah of God, would die, be buried, and supernaturally raised from the dead. That's the sign. And that sign would be eternal. The God of Israel, the one whom the Pharisees and the scribes said that they followed, he would do this sign.

And the apostle Peter, in his first official recorded sermon, described this in his own words. He didn't use the word sign, but he described in his own words, Acts 20, or chapter 2, verse 23 to 24. This man delivered over by the predetermined plan and foreknowledge of God, you nailed to a cross by the hands of lawless men, you put him to death. But God raised him up again, putting an end to the agony of death, since it was impossible for him to be held in the power of death, because God does the supernatural. In Revelation, in Jesus' own words, Revelation 118, I am the living one, I was dead, and behold, I am alive forever and ever, and I have the keys of death in Hades. How do you get a wicked people to turn from their wicked ways?

How do you get a people who worship the created things over the creator to repent? How do you get a people deserving of hell, give them access to be reconciled to God and get them into heaven? You can't. Right? We can't.

No amount of scientific knowledge, no amount of proof can soften a heart and heart. So nothing in this life or in this world can make a dead soul alive. It has to be supernatural. And only the power of the Holy Spirit can do this. If you've been changed, praise God. God has worked in you. You've tasted the Holy Spirit. Okay? So Jesus is Lord. Amen. Christ is King. Hallelujah. He is risen. What would you say on Easter if this was Easter? He is risen. He is risen. He is, what do you say? He is risen indeed, right? Now, if I were a skeptic, if I was an anti-Christian, I can debunk this entire silly Christian faith by doing one of two things. Either one works. One, if I could prove to you that Jesus never existed, easy.

Or if the resurrection never happened, easy. And then Christianity is just superstition, nothing more than wishful thinking. Right? As Paul says in 1 Corinthians, then we would be of all men most to be pitied if the resurrection never happened. So you disprove the sign of Jonah, you discount the entirety of the Christian faith. Too bad it can't be done. And it hasn't been done. Right? It can't be done. It hasn't been done because it is truth. What is so interesting and sad is that in their ignorance and folly, there are people walking around you today who adamantly hold to the position that Jesus never existed. Sin will deceive and harden a person to believing and even justifying even the most ridiculous of things.

And that's what we're living in right now, right? I believe I'm a fox. Oh, I will affirm you. That's a different different sermon. It is impossible to refute that Jesus, the man was a historical person. There are common sense-filled atheists who will acknowledge the existence of Jesus as a historical man because that's irrefutable. But then the next thing that they do is they'll chalk him up to becoming being a good moral teacher, and that his works were exaggerated over time, and that it's just he became more venerated over time. But too bad, most of what was written about him in the scriptures, the original audiences were around to refute if they could. Right? But they believe with enough passage of time, Jesus became this mythological hero, right?

Who's venerated, who's exaggerated. You guys know who C.S. Lewis is? He is such a man. He was born into a Christian home, but later became a very passionate atheist. After many debates trying to debunk the Christian faith of his close friends, there's a guy named J.R. R. Tolkien. You guys know him too, right? Close friend. Hugo Dyson and Owen Barfield. C.S. Lewis converted to Christianity in 1931. So J.R. Tolkien, so Lord of the Rings, produced Line the Witch in the Wardrobe. Alright? So he brought him to faith. After a late-night discussion with Tolkien and Dyson, he concluded, and he had a supernatural realization of the reality of a dying God, and then he converted to Christianity. And C.S.

Lewis, in his book, Mere Christianity, he posed an argument which he dubbed as the trilemma. Okay, remember this, alright? He calls this the trilemma. And in the trilemma, he challenged the notion held by many unbelievers who simply argued that Jesus simply was a good moral figure. The Jews would not have crucified Jesus had he simply been a good moral teacher. Jesus was put to death, C.S. Lewis says, because he claimed to be God publicly. And so C.S. Lewis argued that if Jesus was not God as he claimed, there are only two conclusions you can make of his claims. Jesus is either a liar, knowingly deceiving people, or he's a crazy lunatic. Jesus either knowingly preached false claims or he was crazy and delusional.

So the trilemma is that Jesus can only be one of three things because of what he claimed. He's either a liar, he is a lunatic, or he is in fact Lord. Those are the only three logical conclusions a person can land on about Jesus responsibly. He's either Lord, liar, or lunatic. Jesus proved by his resurrection that he indeed was God, that he was Lord. Now, well, how do you know that happened? Okay, let's look at the resurrection, because some people say the resurrection never happened. But this too is rooted in ignorance and folly. People who tried to disprove the resurrection have become Christian. Because they can't, right? The resurrection of Jesus Christ is also incontrovertible fact. Over the years, there have been many attempts to refute the fact of the resurrection.

Nothing is held up. Nothing has ever come close anywhere to disproving the resurrection. People have tried. Some stubbornly held to the notion that Jesus wasn't fully dead. This became popularized in the 18th century. That he was just mostly dead. It's like Princess Bride stuff, right? He was mostly dead. That he survived the cross. And they call that the apparent death theory or the swoon theory where Jesus fainted because he was in so much pain. And then he woke up in the tomb, and then he just happened to roll the 2,000 pound stone boulder, and then he was like, oh, right? That's what they're saying. And it's easy to say because Jesus is not physically humanly present to refute that, but that's what they say.

So Jesus was clearly dead at the crucifixion. Would you guys agree with that? Well, I mean, you're taught to agree with it, right? Okay, let's think through this together. There were many, many, many, many witnesses. This was a spectacle. Religious, non-religious, friends, enemies, politicians, synagogue leaders, Romans, Jews. The grieving, the exultant. Many people were there to watch him hoisted upon the cross and watch him breathe his last. Those who remained alive on the cross, if they didn't die fast enough, they would always get their legs broken to ensure death, because they would suffocate because they can't push up their body, right? Fulfilling Psalm 3420, Jesus did not have to have his legs broken because the soldiers looked at him, clearly dead, jabbed him with the spear, clearly dead, and they just brought him down.

All four gospel accounts were written while all of the eyewitnesses were still alive. So any falsification of this story could easily have been refuted. So the apparent death theory, which many in the 18th century entertained, is not hard to refute.

He was already in a lot of political trouble. He caved into the pressure, so he had to go all the way to kill Jesus. He didn't want to, as you guys see in the gospel accounts. Pontius Pilate would have made sure that Jesus was fully dead. Secondly, it was very clear that Jesus' dead body was missing from the tomb. Right. So we read that in Matthew 28, 15, the Roman leaders had to pay the clearly bewildered soldiers a large sum of money to say that the disciples came by night and stole the body away while they were asleep. Now let me say something about the soldiers. Children's Bibles make them look like little fuzzy guys, like, hey, right? No. This is the celebrity death of celebrity deaths.

He would have had 16 of the top soldiers in the entire Roman Praetorian Guard guarding this tomb four-hour shifts all throughout the day and night. 12 of them will be sleeping at night, four of them would still be awake. So if they had all 16 of them been sleeping on the job, and the disciples somehow managed to move the 2,000-pound boulder away from the tomb without arousing them awake and just to steal the body away, it would have easily been death for the Roman soldiers. Their incompetence would have cost them their lives. The disciples who had previously been terrified to even be associated with Jesus, who were not even present at the crucifixion, would they risk their lives to go past these 16 soldiers to take the body away?

Nonsense. So this was the uh first recorded historical propaganda fake news. All right, so just you have that. Alright. So they have no reason for Jesus' disappearance. So the Jewish leaders, they make up this lie, but all the Jewish leaders, when the apostles are giving their sermons in the book of Acts, they stay remarkably silent. They don't say you stole Jesus' body. They don't do that. It would have been done if the resurrection truly had been a hoax. There was also the wrong tomb theory, where the disciples went to the wrong tomb. That's super easy to refute. Because the resurrection caused insurrection from the eyes of the Roman government. They could have easily just produced Jesus' body to show the world that he was dead.

But they went to the wrong tomb, some people say. And then with time, there's a group called the Gnostics who said, Jesus never appeared in the physical body.

Or he only came in the spirit. Nonsense. That's why 1 John 1 1 starts with that which we have seen with our eyes, which we have heard, which our hands have touched, this we proclaim concerning the word of God, concerning Christ. First John 1 1. Over time, many false things can be proclaimed, but none of them have held any water. You can't disprove the resurrection of Jesus Christ. And I've only given you a little bit. A person can feign ignorance and lot not look into the facts, but you can't disprove the historicity of the resurrection, because if it could have been done, it already would have been done. Amen.

And every word that proceeds from the mouth of God has either come to pass already or will come to pass. As is Jesus' teaching about the access to eternal life. This is what Jesus said, right? Being God, I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father but through me. So what happens if you reject Jesus? You reject all hope for eternity. You guys tracking? No amount of good works, no amount of giving, no amount of self-denial or asceticism, no amount of success, no amount of churches that you built, nothing can reconcile a person to God. Jesus' perfect life, his sacrificial death on the sinner's behalf, his imputed righteousness is the only way to be reconciled to God. The message of the gospel is super offensive.

Why? It is absolutely and totally exclusive. If the giver of the sign of Jonah is God and he's saying this, there's no other way to get to God. There's no salvation outside of Christ. Not by works. It is completely by the grace of God. Now, most people, especially those who believe that human beings are inherently good, or some people are more deserving of hell than others, they're gonna scoff at this and reject this completely.

I am not like the rapist. I am not like the thief. I am objectively good. They're gonna reject the only way to salvation. And this kind of a person, even if they see a miracle, even if all the evidence is thrown at them in their face, they're going to reject this way of salvation as absolute folly and lunacy. This way of salvation will absolutely be foolish to them. They're too smart for this idiocy. They will claim to be wise and they will reject Christ, and then they prove themselves to be absolutely stupidly idiot, foolish. This is exclusive. For Christ did not send me to baptize, but to proclaim the gospel, not in wisdom of words, so that the cross of Christ will not be made empty. For the word of the cross, God dying, as Suiss, a dying God, as C.S.

Lewis put it, is foolishness to those who are perishing. But to us who are being saved, it is the power of God. We preach the whole gospel as Christians, amen. Amen. We leave nothing out. We add nothing in. And if we preach the entire gospel, starting with God is holy, holy, holy. We're going to be called bigots, narrow-minded, we're going to be called self-righteous, and then we're going to be rejected and then persecuted and killed as well. Why? Because after all, the darkness hates the light with the passion. So Jesus provided the ultimate sign. He proved himself to be God by the resurrection. Then what does this mean for everyone post-resurrection? What does this mean for you and for me?

The men of Nineveh will stand up with this generation, verse 41, at the judgment and will condemn it. Because they repented at the preaching of Jonah, and behold, something greater than Jonah is here. The queen of the South will rise up with this generation at the judgment 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. Faith comes from hearing the word, not by works. So the men of Nineveh, these wicked dudes, they make Al Qaeda look like sissies. They repented. And they repented hard. They repented so hard, they thought that them dressing themselves up in sackcloth and throwing away their idols was not enough.

They even dressed up their horses, their cows, their sheep, their goats in sackcloth. Because perhaps God will save us if he sees how repentant we are that we would even dress up our cattle. So it's a silly scene. Think of just some powerful wicked army repenting hard. But that's what happened. And Jesus says the entire population of them who repented will be judging you.

They offered prayers to Yahweh. They made sacrifices to God. They made a vow to God. They witnessed the power of God. And I like to think that these sailors too got saved. Not any way to know for sure because it's not in the text.

They heard, they believed, they repented, and they were saved. God has always had plans to bring near those who are far away to save and to bless them through Israel. How many of you guys are of Jewish descent? Howard? Okay, that was my guess. Albert, you got part Jew in you? No. We are beneficiaries of someone preaching the gospel. And this gospel through the nation of Israel is what was preached to us. So how are you and I supposed to respond to the sign of Jonah in our day? Let's read Acts 17, 30, 31. Therefore, having overlooked the times of ignorance, God is now commanding men that everyone everywhere repent. Can you come to God without repentance? No. Because he has fixed a day in which he will judge the world in righteousness through a man whom he has determined, Jesus, having furnished proof for all time by raising him from the dead.

This is not insignificant, the resurrection. Paul later summarizes the entirety of his ministry as a ministry of preaching reconciliation to God by repentance. Acts 26, 20. But kept declaring both to the Damascus first, also at Jerusalem, and then throughout all of the region of Judea to the Jews, even to the Gentiles, that they should repent and turn to God and to prove their repentance genuine by their deeds is what other translations will say. Practicing deeds appropriate to repentance. So that brings us to close four very important questions to ask ourselves. First, do you believe in the sign of Jonah? You've never probably heard it put that way before you, right? Do you believe the sign of Jonah?

Do you believe in the resurrection? Romans 10 9. Alright, if you confess with your mouth and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. That's Romans 10.

Being Jesus adjacent does not save anybody. Being born into a Christian home saves you as much as the Jews' ethnic makeup saved these Pharisees and the scribes. Doesn't work. Do you believe the sign of Jonah? Second important question, then. Have you responded appropriately to the sign of Jonah by repenting of your sins? Or did you just add on Jonah? Or the sign of Jonah. A lot of people think today in churchanity that you can continue in your way, but have this get out of hell free card, the person of Jesus, and just add that to your provision, like just your life, and you're saved. No, repentance, everybody preached this in the Bible. So have you responded appropriately by repenting of your sins?

There is a way to know. It's not tears.

That's 2 Corinthians 7.10. That's worldly sorrow. You can weep and wail and feel bad about your sins. That is not necessarily repentance. It is a turning away from your sins and embracing the new life that Christ has given. That's repentance. Third, is there evidence of your repentance in your life? There's a difference between intellectual academic acknowledgement, even agreeing that Jesus is the only way. If you believe that Jesus is the only way, that the Christian faith is the best faith, good. You do well. James 2.19, what does it say? Even the demons believe that. And that freaks them out. They shudder. Why? Because God is holy, holy, holy. And you have to have the blood of Christ covering you.

Not just being church's Jesus. Fourthly, is the sign of Jonah something that you regularly share. That Christ, our atoning sacrifice, lived the perfect life, was crucified, died, and was buried, and then raised to life, so that now you and I have reconciliation with God. He defeated death, not just the consequence of sin, but also the power of sin. He defeated all of that. Because if you have, that's good news. And you can't not have a heart of compassion toward the lost. We're gonna look through all four of these things. All four number ones. I just I just noticed that. They're all important, they're all important. All right? We're gonna look through all of these things as we go through Jonah.

It is not just a little child's story. It is absolutely essential to our understanding of who we are in Christ. So we're gonna go deeper into both Jonah and Nahum. And I'm hoping you're excited for the ride. Jonah is great in our time of grace. But a period of Nahum will come for the world. So I'm hoping that it might take a while. Two books. I mean, Titus was 46 chapter verses. Coincidentally, Jonah is 48 verses. Nahum is 47 verses. I like to pick verses that are average 47 or chapter books of the Bible that are. And Titus took us eight months. So we'll see. Alright. But I hope you're wetting your appetites as we go into Jonah chapter 1, verse 1 and 2 next week. Let's pray together. Father, help us to turn our brains on and keep our hearts disentangled so that they would remain softened for you to feed.

And as you feed your people, help us to grow in humility. Help us to grow in terror and great affection and thanksgiving. But most importantly, help us to grow in great compassion for all those who do not know the way to salvation. And move us to proclaim that there is no hope outside of Jesus Christ, not only by what we preach, but also how we live our lives. Thank you, Lord, for just this new series and pray this in Jesus' name.