Jesus, Jonah and Judgement - [Matthew 12]

Well, if I played word association with you, how would you respond if I said Easter? I probably would say something like eggs.

Easter, I'd probably say something like bunnies. I think we had a little bunny here this morning. What kind of animal was that?

What are the kids holding this morning? Maybe you'd say Resurrection Sunday, a new dress.

But would you ever in your wildest dreams have a word association game that would respond to Easter or Resurrection Sunday with the word

Jonah? Whoever thinks of Jonah on Easter? Who would ever tie

Jonah together with the Easter Resurrection Sunday message? Frankly, I'd never think of that, and you'd probably never think of that either.

But do you know who tied Jonah in to the Easter message? The greatest preacher who ever lived,

Jesus Christ. This morning, I don't want you to ever think of Jonah again without thinking of the

Resurrection. I want you to tie them together. Matter of fact, if I had a title today for the sermon, it would be this,

Jesus, Jonah, and Judgment. Welcome to Bethlehem Bible Church.

If you turn your Bibles to Matthew chapter 12, I want you to look at the text that talks about Jesus as he discusses his life and his death.

I'd like to hear from Jesus today. It's going to be a sermon about Jesus and what he says.

It'll be a sermon about God. Frankly, I think God likes sermons about God. If I were

God, I'd like to hear sermons about myself as well to tell about who I am. Matter of fact, that's what creation does, doesn't it?

It extols and promotes and trumpets forth the greatness of God and his holiness, his goodness, his kindness, his righteousness, his graciousness, his wisdom.

But more particularly, more specifically, the Word of God gives us details that creation can't give us.

Oh, you might look at creation and say God has power, but you don't know the details of that power.

You can't know particulars. And Jesus in Matthew chapter 12 gives us some of these as we talk about sin, death, judgment, and resurrection.

I love in Acts 17 where it says, and some of the Epicureans and Stoic philosophers were conversing with him, some saying, what does this idler babbler wish to say?

There's this guy named Paul and he's preaching a bunch of weird things. Others said he seems to be a proclaimer of strange deities because he was preaching

Jesus and the resurrection. Jesus is a masculine word.

Resurrection happens to be a feminine word. And Paul went around preaching Jesus and the resurrection so much, they thought he was preaching about Jesus, a

God, and resurrection, a God -ess. That's the only thing he talked about was

Jesus and the resurrection and these two things must go together. We want

Jesus to tell us the truth because, frankly, who else will tell us the truth? We tend to lie to ourselves.

I lie to myself. I remember growing up somehow thinking everybody else may die, but I'm never going to die.

You ever think that when you were a kid? I thought about it all the time. I thought I've tricked death, elevators going down uncontrollably.

You jump at the end. You know, somehow I could swim farther. Our boat in the Missouri River one time, the engine didn't work and I thought

I could swim to the side and I've got it all worked out. So too, most of us think to ourselves we've got this death thing figured out.

That when we die, unlike people in the Bible and unlike people who have gone before us, God kind of knows us.

He knows where we are and it's okay. I kind of like to sin and God kind of likes to forgive and we'll just work it out together.

But we need the Bible to remind us that we can trick ourselves, that Satan can trick us as well.

So what does the Bible say about life eternal? What does the Bible say about forgiveness of sins?

How can you know when you die you'll stand before God and He will say, welcome, son, daughter, friend?

And Matthew 12 gives us a little insight. And let's look at the passage together,

Matthew chapter 12, verses 38 and following as we look at the topic of Jesus and the resurrection.

Hardy says there are two questions that are most important in the world. Has anyone ever cheated death and proved it?

Second question, is it available to me? So I have good news for you today.

I have great news. If you're not a Christian, you can have all your sins forgiven by Christ Jesus, a work that you didn't accomplish, a death that you didn't die, a wise plan that you didn't invent, and you can stand before God as a son forgiven.

More than that, there's something more needed than just forgiveness. We've sinned in our lives and if we have forgiveness, we kind of just get back to neutral.

We just get back to, well, we're okay, we're sinless. But how would you like to be seen by God as living a perfect life just like Jesus lived?

It's one thing negatively to say, my sins are forgiven. It's another thing for us to say, now when

God sees us, He doesn't see us. He sees Christ's perfect life put to our spiritual bank account, credit to us, placed upon us, and He says, you've lived a perfect life.

That's what we're looking for and Jesus gives us some insight into this very thing. If you'd like an outline today, here's my brief outline.

Four resurrection truths that are designed to make you believe in Jesus Christ. If you're not born again,

I hope this pushes you to believe in Christ. And if you do believe, then I hope it affirms and confirms your faith in Christ Jesus.

Number one, the first resurrection truth. It's not a good thing to want signs from God.

It's not a desirous thing. It's not an attaboy kind of quality.

What happens to people today? I'll tell you what they do. I've been there. If there's really a

God, then may He strike me dead with lightning now. Oh, see, He didn't strike me dead with lightning.

There must not be a God. If there's a God, then maybe He should get rid of all the poor people in the world.

Not get rid of the poor people in the world, sorry, feed the poor people in the world. I'm glad we can edit things from the message.

God, if you're real, then prove it. It's not a good thing.

Let's take a look at this through the eyes of Christ, Matthew 12, 38. It happens today and it happened 2 ,000 years ago when

Jesus was on the earth. Matthew 12, 38, Jesus has already had a run -in or two with the scribes and the

Pharisees, the most religious people on the planet. And these religious people come up to Jesus and they want to push

Him. And it's almost like you have a finger going to your sternum. I don't know if you've ever felt that.

My dad used to kind of wrestle me and then he'd give me the sternum finger treatment.

And you just, what do you want in the middle of that? Well, as a kid, I wanted to flip my dad down and do it to him.

But he was 6 '4 and about 260 and I just couldn't do it. I wanted relief. Here the scribes and the

Pharisees want to put Jesus, the Creator, under their thumbs. Except Jesus turns the whole situation right side up.

Verse 38 of Matthew 12. Then some of the scribes and the Pharisees said to Him, Teacher, we want to see a sign from you.

Oh, you say they were so respectful, Teacher. This isn't respect. This is sarcasm.

Hey, you're not one of us. You're not part of our group. And we let people into our group to teach the

Bible and teach morality. And we haven't let you in. This is very sarcastic. Oh, Teacher, you call yourself...

Here's how we would do it today. Teacher, you're a real teacher.

As far as they're concerned, Jesus can't teach them anything. They think He's a heretic.

They think He's a false teacher. They think He's a liar. And they're mocking Him. Hey, Teacher. They're going to try to disarm

Him by these fake platitudes. Hey, we'd like a sign. Why? To prove that you're the

Messiah? No, because we know you're not going to do a sign in front of us. And it's going to disprove that you are the

Messiah. This is to prove the opposite. These people are doubters.

Hey, we'd like to have a sign. He's already done some signs, even in this chapter, if you read it sometime on your own.

There's been plenty of signs done by Jesus. But you show me a sign seeker, and I'll show you someone who's never satisfied with the signs.

Something bigger, something greater, something more. Oh, that was a nice sign, but I think I'd like a bigger sign.

I remember when I was in North Hollywood, I worked out at Gold's Gym. And I'd run into these people, and they'd say,

Well, I'm studying the Bible, and I think I want to believe it, but I've got a question about this. And so I'd do all my research, and I'd figure out, you know, what the question was and what the answer was.

And I'd show it to them, and they'd say, Hmm, that's true, but now I've come to think of it. I have another question.

I believe if you answer this question, I'd do all my research, I'd give it to them, and they'd say the same thing.

Well, thank you. That's good. But I'm going to just keep going from one to the next to the next, and that's exactly what unbelief does.

Bigger, more grandiose, it's never enough. I'd like some explanations. And Jesus doesn't say,

Good investigative search. Way to go. He doesn't say that. These people want a sign from Jesus.

And by the way, forget these minor signs. How about a comet from the sky? Hey, Elijah, he went up to heaven on a chariot of fire.

Show us something big. Give us some kind of Halley's Comet type of thing. Mark chapter 8, on another occasion, the

Pharisee said that they were coming to argue with him, and they wanted a sign from heaven to test

Jesus. These theological thugs didn't want to say, Jesus, do it so we'll bow and worship you.

They wanted to say, you won't do it, and we'll prove to everyone that you're a fake. Tradition said that demons could perform miracles on earth, but only

God could perform a miracle from heaven. So, Jesus, you did these things with a demon -possessed person, with somebody who can't see, or maybe somebody who can't hear.

You healed someone. But we want something from heaven, tour de force from heaven.

Give us another rainbow from heaven or something, some kind of sky writing that would dazzle us. Hey, Samuel made it thunder down on the

Philistines. Joshua caused the sun to stand still. And you're going to try to heal somebody here?

You're not the Messiah, please. You're not authentic. You're not trustworthy. We've got lots of questions to try to prove it.

They had already said in Mark 3, Jesus cast out demons by the ruler of demons.

Jesus, you do great things because Satan makes you do them. So now, instead of something on earth done from Satan, why don't you have something from God done, and we might believe you're the

Messiah. And like all unbelief, what does it do?

Unbelief says this. I can't believe my eyes. I can't have faith. I can't believe the

Scriptures. I can't believe the universe. I can't believe in anything because I have an immoral lifestyle.

If I begin to believe there's some God who judges me on judgment day, it cramps my style.

I can't do that. So how do you think loving Jesus responds?

Good job. Attaboy, Pharisees. For anyone who wants to use religion as a cloak to deny

Jesus, here's what he says to these sign seekers. Verse 39, But Jesus answered and said, All you need is love.

Sorry. See, the problem in our generation, Jesus is love, isn't he? God is a great

God of love who loves his creation by giving them food and air and children and enjoyment and music and arts.

He just gives and gives and gives. The pinnacle of giving is Jesus dying on the cross for sinners.

He loves sinners. He demonstrates his love for sinners. But God isn't just a

God of love. He has other attributes, too. And Jesus answered and said to them,

If I could only be there to watch this. An evil and adulterous generation craves for a sign.

It's not admirable to want God to prove himself. It's disadmirable. It's unadmirable.

This is how wicked people act, adulterous people. Israel is like the bride.

God was like the husband. And here as Israel goes out and has all kinds of false gods involved with, it's like adultery.

It's spiritual adultery. And Jesus says, You Pharisees, you scribes, you teachers are evil and rebellious, and so are the people you represent.

It's not good. You want me to do something at your beck and call?

I will not. So I have a question for you. Are you the kind of person that says, I'm only going to believe in God if he'll do something?

I'm ready for that big sky writing in the sky. Mike, I am here.

I exist. Number two, as we progress, the second resurrection truth that is designed for you to believe in God, and if you're a

Christian, to rejoice in your great Savior, is not just stay away from wanting signs, but number two, you should be thankful that God in his goodness gave us a great sign for everyone in every generation.

They want some kind of false sign. God could have said no sign given, but he does give a sign that's an important sign, not the kind that they called for, not the kind that they wanted, but a greater, bigger sign, the ultimate sign.

Verse 39, and yet no sign will be given to it, but the sign of what? 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.

You want fireworks, and I'm going to give you a quiet tomb. Jonah served as a sign.

What kind of sign did he serve? Why don't you turn your Bibles to Jonah, and I'd like to preach a little from the book of Jonah.

Let me push the envelope just a hair here. If you don't believe in the literal Jonah, you're not a

Christian. If you don't believe Jonah was swallowed by a sea monster and lived in there for three days and three nights, you're not going to heaven.

You're like, what kind of crazy person are you? Well, I think there's a tie between Jesus' death, burial, and resurrection, and Jonah's entombment in the fish.

By the way, ask yourself the question as we're turning to Jonah. Why do you think the liberals attacked

Jonah? Why do you think they have their big cannon set on Jonah? Because if you get rid of Jonah, you get rid of Jesus.

They're linked together. And so we want to take a look at this true story that Jesus uses to try to tell the scribes, the

Pharisees, and everyone else there's this great parallel and coordination between these two stories.

Both supernatural, both right here in the text. No Jonah, no

Jesus. Real Jonah, real Jesus.

Now what people do with the book of Jonah is they try to say, you know, it's kind of a story.

Ever heard of Gulliver's Travels? Ever heard of Robbis and Caruso? Ever heard of Andromeda the sea monster?

Ever heard of Arian the musician thrown in the sea by sailors who was carried safe to shore on a dolphin? It's like one of those.

It's good for Sunday school. That's what it's good for. Kind of like Hercules who sprang from the jaws of the sea monster.

They like to talk about that. And then you have no real Jonah, no real death, no real fish, no real resurrection, no real anything.

They also like to say that it's an allegory. You'll like this. Jonah is really Israel. The sea is the

Gentile nations. The fish is the Babylonian captivity. And Jonah's regurgitation is the return to Israel during Ezra's time.

See? It's just right there. How about this? George Adam Smith.

We sin against the intention of the author and the Holy Spirit which inspired him when we willfully interpret the book of Jonah as real history.

It's a sin. Is it? Here comes

Jesus, the Messiah. Don't you think he would have looked back and said, by the way, that Old Testament book that you seem to almost worship as God, it was full of errors.

Man wrote it. Moses wasn't even around when he wrote about his death. It's just a big fake.

But what did Jesus do? He affirmed every bit of it. And here we go to the book of Jonah, and I have to just walk through Jonah so you can understand

Jesus' burial and resurrection more. Some people call Jonah the John 3 .16

of the Bible because you're going to see this kindness and this merciful God who saves not the good but the wicked.

Jonah 1 .2. Been waiting all week to preach Jonah on Resurrection Sunday.

We were sitting in the jacuzzi, and I said to the kids, why did Jesus have to be buried? Why would he have to actually be buried?

We talk about it in 1 Corinthians 15. He died for sinners. Then he was raised from the dead.

But what's the buried part? Why bother with the buried part? Well, two reasons. Reason number one is because only dead people get buried.

You don't bury live people, do you? It confirms the death. The wages of sin is death, and Jesus as our sin bearer, we know for sure he's dead if he's buried.

And number two, Luke said it, and I thought he was wrong to start. He said, prophecy? Maybe did you say prophecy?

I don't know if he acted like he knew or didn't know. Prophecy? Is there a prophecy in the Bible that talks about Jesus being buried?

Well, it's interesting that Jonah gives us insight to this very issue. Jesus himself in Matthew chapter 12 gives us instruction.

And here's the message of Jonah, chapter 1, verse 2. Arise. Look at the three commands of God. Arise, go, and cry.

Arise, go to Nineveh, the great city. Cry against it, for their wickedness has come up upon me. I'm the sender.

You're the sendee. With authority, I commission you to go cry against that foreign nation.

And by the way, it'll take you 15 to 20 miles a day to get there. And you'll travel for about a month.

It was a great city because it was prominent. It had a lot of population in it. And it had a lot of sin.

And God knew about the sin, and now he's going to do something about it. These people were arrogant.

They were haughty. And God could have just said, Sodom and Gomorrah, fire and brimstone, done.

Flood, done. Any other kind of way he wanted to destroy. But he didn't.

He sent a preacher there to preach to people who worship fish gods. Ever worship a fish god?

Dagon, the fish god, half man, half fish? Ever write a praise song for the fish god,

Nanshi? I didn't think you did. They spew forth wickedness, but I have great mercy.

I have kindness. I have love for these kind of people. So what do you think Jonah the prophet did? Here is the first case that I know of in the

Bible where God commissions a prophet to go preach to Gentiles. Jonah won three.

But Jonah rose up to flee to Tarshish, not Nineveh. By the way, that's 2 ,500 miles the other way over by Spain, from the presence of the

Lord. So he went down to Joppa, found a ship which was going to Tarshish, not Nineveh, paid the fare and went down into it to go, and then with him to go to Tarshish, not

Nineveh, from the presence of the Lord. I don't care what you say, God. I'm not going to go.

I will not. I'm going to go the opposite way. By the way, if you like to make decisions by signs,

I can't help but talk about this for just a quick moment, just a quick excursus. God, if you want me to make these certain decisions,

I want you to open up all the doors for me and give me great peace. Well, I walk down to the port.

Hey, there's a ship going the exact opposite way. They've got room for me. I've got the exact amount of money.

They're taking off any time soon. It must be the plan of God. I'm sleeping on the bottom of the boat. I have a peaceful, easy feeling.

I'm feeling good. God is in this. I digress. Back to Jonah. He says he's going to flee from the presence of the

Lord. That's not meaning I'm going to get away from God's omnipresence. The presence of the Lord has a little connotation to it, and here's the connotation.

When the king wants to commission an officer, he says, you come into my presence. Now, I'm going to tell you exactly what

I want you to do. Come to my presence. I'll tell you. Now, go. So here comes the prophets into the king's presence, the king of the universe, the king of Israel, and he says, you're my prophet.

Now, you go do what a prophet's supposed to do. And Jonah says, I throw down my walking. I'm going to go

AWOL. I will not do what you ask. I resign as a prophet. Here's your mantle back.

I'm no longer an official minister. One man said, when a person decides to run from the

Lord, Satan always provides complete transportation facilities. But you know what?

If I was Jonah, I would have done it too. The Assyrians were a wicked people.

Do you know what the Assyrians were like? They would, I don't want to get too graphic. After all, it is Easter Sunday morning.

They would basically fillet their enemies, take the skins off, and put it up on the docks.

So when you pulled up to port, and you got off the boat, and you thought, hmm, these are some pretty bad people.

They'd blind people. They'd throw them into slavery. They had pyramids of human heads that would mark the paths of the conquered people.

It would be like God coming to you saying, by the way, I want you to go to the middle of Tehran, Iran, and say,

Allah is a false god, Jesus is the only God. And you'd go, what? Is there a way

I can get to New Zealand sometime soon? But God sovereignly does something.

He's sovereign over nature. And the Lord, Yahweh, this covenant -keeping God, hurled a great wind on the sea.

This is not cold and hot airflow issues. This is hurled.

This is like a pitcher hurls a baseball. This is the same word when Saul hurls a spear to try to kill

David. He hurled the great wind on the sea, and there was a great storm on the sea, so the ship was about to break up.

Great wind, great storm, greatly feared, great fish, greatly displeased, greatly happy.

And the target of this javelin was Jonah. Bullseye.

Then the sea salts. That's what the word is for sailors in verse 5. You ever know what a sea salt is?

A sea salt is somebody who does so much sailing, he's called a what? An old salt. These old sea salts, what?

Became afraid. This is not some normal wind. And every man cried to his own God. They threw the cargo which was in the ship into the sea to lighten it for them.

But Jonah had gone below into the hold of the ship, laying down and falling sound asleep.

Cried out to their own gods, Help! Interceding. And here's

Jonah down on the belly of the ship. By the way, if you want to be in the belly, we'll get you in the belly, but that's just around the corner.

He's in a dead sleep, a fast sleep. Quite in contrast to Jesus' sleep on the Sea of Galilee.

So the captain, verse 6, approached him and said, You're the prophet of God, aren't you? Get busy.

How is it that you're sleeping? We're calling on our gods and we're pagans. Can you imagine when

Jonah was first woken up? When he first woke up, he must have been thinking this is some kind of nightmare.

Get up and call on your God. Perhaps your God will be concerned about us so that we will not perish.

Shaming the prophet to pray. We're praying to Poseidon.

We're praying to Neptune. You pray to that other Yahweh kind of God. And each man said to his mate, verse 7,

Come, let us cast lots so that we may learn on whose account this calamity has struck us. There's something wrong here and we think it's a person.

So they cast lots. And by luck, chance, accident, and serendipity, the lot fell on Jonah.

Man throws the dice and God makes the spots come up, one man said. So what probably happened is

Jonah has joined in the chorus of prayers. You can imagine how loud it was with the wind and the sea.

Sometimes I watch that greatest catch thing with the Alaskan crab and all the waves coming over and the sound.

You can just imagine. And now they're going to cast lots. Just take little bones or little rocks and put little dots on them.

Put it in a little cup and it came right out. I can't believe these pagan sea salts didn't take

Jonah immediately and throw him over. Verse 9,

He said to them, I'm a Hebrew and I fear the Lord God of heaven who made the sea and the dry land. At least he knew what

God was like. You know, the pagans thought Baal, he's the sky

God. Neptune, he's the sea God. And here at least, Jonah says, there's only one

God. Then the men became extremely frightened and they said, How could you do this?

For the men knew that he was fleeing from the presence of the Lord because he had told them, You're fleeing from this God who controls the sea, the dry land, the heavens, the earth.

You're running from him and you're with us. We've got a big problem. You displeased God and now we're paying for it.

So they said to him, What should we do to you that the sea may become calm for us? For the sea was becoming increasingly stormy.

Do something. We don't know about your God. We don't know about your God's rules. But he must be mad.

Get out. And he said to them, Pick me up and throw me into the sea.

Anything is better than going to Nineveh. I'd rather die than do what God says.

Then the sea will become calm for you. For I know that on account of me, this great storm has come upon you.

Anything but Nineveh. Verse 13. However, the men are still compassionate.

And do you know who's compassionate? These Gentiles are compassionate to Jonah. And Jonah's not compassionate to the

Ninevites to give them the message that God forgives the sins of other Gentiles. Even those that fillet people's skin.

They rowed desperately to return to the land, but they could not. For the sea was becoming even stormier against them.

Unsaved sailors having mercy on Jonah. By the way, the word rowed desperately means to dig through.

You ever teach a kid how to paddle in a canoe? You put it down the oar and then dig.

That's exactly what they were doing. Then they called on the Lord. They called on the Lord. Well, if He's the God of the seas and the land and the dry land, let's call upon Him too.

We earnestly pray, O Lord, do not let us perish on account of this man's life. Do not put innocent blood on us, for You, O Lord, has done as You have pleased.

So they picked up Jonah, threw him into the sea, and the sea stopped its raging. Then the men feared the

Lord greatly, and they offered a sacrifice to the Lord and made vows. Well, God's not done with Jonah.

You know what God did? God had another boat come right to the next to the side of this boat. And they went one, two, three, and they threw

Jonah up, and down he went, and he landed in the other boat. And the boat's name was Fish.

You know how you name boats. Actually, that's what some people say. Or other people say this, there was a big whale there, and it was dead.

And you know how dead whales float? So there's a big dead whale floating there. And they threw in Jonah, and he landed right on top of that big bloated whale.

What did Billy Graham say? He said, if the Bible said that Jonah swallowed the fish,

I believe it. You think I messed that up, but I said it the right way.

There's a supernatural God can be involved with people. Of course. And this supernatural

God then did what? Verse 17, and the Lord appointed a great fish. It never says whale.

It's always a great fish, some kind of sea monster, to swallow Jonah. And Jonah was in the stomach of the fish three days and three nights.

Sound familiar? Sound like Matthew chapter 12? Sound like what Jesus said when he was going to die?

And here's this phrase that the Jews used, three days and three nights. It's not 72 hours. It's any part of three days, morning, noon, and night.

Three days. Jonah is attacked because then we get rid of Jesus.

Jesus could have, excuse me, God could have picked any rescue device for Jonah. But why did he pick this fish that Jonah would have to be in its belly for so long?

Because preparing us for Jesus and his death. Jonah begins to pray.

Down in verse 8 of chapter 2, those who regard vain idols forsake their faithfulness. He seems to be waking up.

He talks about how salvation is from the Lord in chapter 2, verse 9. Certainly here temporally, but we know ultimately and spiritually there's a greater picture.

Verse 10, then the Lord commanded the fish and it vomited Jonah up onto the dry land.

And Freethime said, after three days of undigested Jonah, the fish was glad to obey God. He disgorged

Jonah. Now we'll come to you a second time, Jonah, and talk to you.

Chapter 3, verse 1. Now the word of the Lord came to Jonah the second time saying, arise, go, proclaim.

So Jonah arose, went, and get ready to proclaim. Verse 3, Nineveh was an exceeding great city, three days walk.

Then Jonah began to go through the city one day's walk and cried out and said, yet 40 days in Nineveh will be overthrown.

Now just a quick thing, especially if you're a young boy and you're listening. What do you think Jonah's face looked like after three days of gastric juice and acid all over his face and hair?

Can you imagine? Jonah didn't saunter into Nineveh with kind of a three -piece suit and a lapel microphone.

This guy looked wild. And here he's saying, 40 days and you're going to be overthrown?

Sure, you're overthrown. I know

I am, but what are you? Here's what Jonah said, repent or there's complete and utter destruction for you.

How gracious of God even to give the 40 days. They didn't need 40 days, or excuse me, they didn't earn 40 days, they didn't deserve 40 days.

You have 40 days to bow to this great king who makes the sea and the land, who's the only

Savior, the mercy and grace of God even here, repent before judgment. And then wonder of all wonders, by the way, when

I read this I say to myself, the people who are in my life who are the worst sinners, who seem the most unsavable, get put in the right category again right here, it's not about the person's unsavable nature, it's about the

God who saves. Then the people of Nineveh, what? Believed God.

They called a fast and put on sackcloth from the greatest to the least of them. The word reached the king of Nineveh, he arose from his throne, laid aside his robe from him, covered himself with sackcloth and sat on ashes.

Both man and beast must be covered in sackcloth and let men call on God earnestly that each may turn from his wicked way and from the violence which is in his hands, and from the

Hamas which is in his hands. Who knows, verse 9, God may turn and relent and withdraw his burning anger so that we should not.

What a story. Jesus didn't say it's an allegory. Jesus didn't say it's some kind of Gulliver's Travels kind of made up thing.

Jesus said this, there's a sign. Here's the sign. Just as Jonah's in the belly of the fish for three days and three nights, in the bowels of death as it were, that is going to picture my death, burial and resurrection.

Let's go back to Matthew chapter 12, please. And it happens to be coinciding with the mercy and the grace and the offer of free forgiveness, free sovereign grace to all those who will believe in Christ Jesus.

To believe his word, to believe his work, to believe his death, burial and resurrection, to believe he was a sin bearer.

For just as Jonah, Matthew 12, verse 40, 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. You Pharisees and scribes don't deserve any kind of sign, but there's going to be the ultimate sign.

This is the real sign. I could give another sign like I did to Simon and Simeon and Anna or John the

Baptist or the Twelve, but this is the only sign I'm going to give you. Up from the grave I will rise.

The third resurrection truth, so that you'll believe in Jesus, is not just stay away from seeking signs.

It's not just be thankful that God did give a sign in his goodness. But number three, if you reject

Jesus' life in preaching, you're in big trouble. You will have greater condemnation than the

Jesus rejecters. I don't want that. What's the opposite of condemnation? Justification.

I want you to stand before God clothed in the righteousness of another Christ. To be completely forgiven, yes, but more than that, to be treated by God as if you perfectly obeyed.

Remember what Steve Lawson said last week? He said, I preach in the South where the number one thing before people need to be saved from their sins is

I've got to get them lost. Who needs a Savior if you think you're good? Who needs a Savior if you think,

I'm baptized, I've had communion, I come to church once in a while, I'm in good with God. God and I are like that.

We're tight. So here Jesus does something to make them run from judgment so they'll run to Him.

And that's my same purpose today. When you think of Jesus and resurrection, you have to think of judgment.

That's Acts 17. Listen to what Jesus says. This is Jesus speaking. The men of Nineveh will stand up with this generation at judgment and will condemn it because they repented at the preaching of Jonah.

And behold, something greater than Jonah is here. Do you get the point? Jesus said this,

Jonah had wicked Ninevites as an audience. They repented. They believed.

They trusted. They threw stuff on their head and threw stuff down, threw themselves down to the feet of God. God, forgive us.

And you here are listening to a sermon by somebody greater than Jonah.

Jonah's sermon was, repent of your dust. My sermon is, here repent and believe.

And you look at the goodness of God and the kindness of God and certainly the severity of God. But I'm the better preacher than Jonah.

If people repent at the lesser preaching of Jonah, what should you do now hearing

Jesus preach? Answer, believe. And you don't believe. Jesus is preaching forgiveness and they won't repent.

And he says, you know what, on judgment day, people from Nineveh are going to stand there and say, yeah, they didn't listen to Jesus. They should be condemned.

Wow. The Ninevites. Somebody greater than Jesus, greater than Jonah is there.

True or false? Hang in there with me. Listen to this. Jonah had to give a sign before the

Ninevites would believe. Jonah said, you know what, here's my message. Repent.

You've got 40 days to do it. Our justice is coming. By the way, I'm going to make you all float up in the sky, hover about 20 feet up, and you're going to dangle there without strings or anything else.

And when you believe, you can come down. Sure. I believe.

Did Jonah do one sign when he preached for the Ninevites? And Jesus is saying, you want signs from me?

Here's the sign. I'm the Messiah. I offer freely, graciously forgiveness. And now you want to put me under your thumbs and ask for a sign?

These were Gentiles that Jonah was preaching to. You're a covenant people. You should understand who

Messiah is and who he should be. Pharisees and scribes, like the

Ninevites, throw yourself on the mercy and goodness of a

God who saves. That's my message for you today, if you're not a Christian. Throw yourself on the mercy of God.

God, you know everything I've ever done or thought, yet I'm going to believe your word, and your word says that if I look to Christ Jesus, I believe on him.

Jesus pays for all my sins, and you give me perfect righteousness.

I believe that. I believe that because you raise people from the dead. And then Jesus uses another example found in verse 42.

The Queen of the South, Queen of Sheba, Matthew 12, 42, will rise up against this generation. Here comes another witness,

Exhibit 2, if you will, at the judgment and will condemn it, because she came from the ends of the earth to hear wisdom of Solomon.

And behold, something greater than Solomon is here. How far did the

Queen of Sheba travel to hear wise words from a king who wasn't even

God? How far will you travel to hear the wise words of God incarnate who talks about forgiveness and grace and compassion?

On judgment day, Jesus paints a picture. He'll have witnesses. I call the first witnesses to your condemnation.

He didn't believe in me as Messiah. Witness number one, the Ninevites. Witness number two,

I call the Queen of Sheba. That's amazing.

And fourth and finally, as time fleets, the fourth resurrection truth is that if Jesus is such a great

Savior, nothing less than your full devotion will be required. In other words, no neutrality is accepted.

And Jesus is going to talk about how religion can't save. Just a quick story before we get into the passage.

I used to have to go door to door to evangelize. Have you ever done that? You should. My father would say it puts hairs on your chest, young man.

So you pull up to the curb, and first of all, you try to parallel park, and then you park like eight feet away from the curb because you're so nervous about what you're going to do, you lose all your sense to parallel parking.

Then you get out, and you're usually with somebody else, and you go, would you like to go first today? Kind of the gracious,

I'm such a godly person, you can go first today. And then your friend goes, how about this?

I'll knock first, you talk first. You get all this stuff figured out. So I remember the first time

I did it. Los Angeles, California. Not home.

See you later. We tried. God's sovereign. Have mercy upon whom he'll have mercy.

And a dear grandma came up.

I thought, this is going to be so easy. She said, she's going to offer me sugar cookies.

And even though they're made with margarine, they're going to be good because she's like my grandma. She said, hi, how are you?

And I said something probably stupid, but I'm just trying to think of anything. Hi, we're with Grace Community Church, and we have a concert, an outreach concert.

And all of a sudden, she takes a screen door and she slams it. Yeah, that's a good thing.

She takes a cymbal, and I was shocked that she had a cymbal in the house. No, she slammed the door, and I thought, that's like my grandma.

Kind, moral, good in the eyes of the community.

Certainly a far cry from some kind of heathen Ninevite. But see, this moral person thought,

I'm so good, I don't need to be better. I don't need to be perfect. God grades on a curve.

God would never condemn me because there's Hitler, Dahmer, and Stalin over here.

I'm better. And what she forgot was, morality is damning. What she forgot was, perfection is required to go to heaven.

One sin, undone. How many chain links, if you have ten chains holding you over a fire, how many of those ten links need to be compromised for you to fall in?

Just one. That's exactly what James 2 .10 says. I couldn't believe it when she slammed the door and said, basically,

I was saying this. How would you like to know about having all your sins forgiven freely in Christ Jesus, from a loving and merciful

God? Yes, holy, but kind and good. Would you like to have your sins forgiven? You know what her answer was because of her morality, because of her goodness?

I'm going to do it again. Whack! All right. 0 for 1.

Next door. You know the only two words

I thought of when it came out? Besides, I'm dead. That's two words. Here's what

I thought. Hell's angel. I was told when you were a kid, if you touched a hell's angel's fender of his motorcycle, it was like a razor blade and it could cut you.

I thought, I'm so dead. The hell's angel has come. To the door.

And I said, hi, we're with Grace Community Church, and we're talking about salvation and forgiveness of sins, and we have an outreach concert where our pastor will preach, and we'd love to have you come, and I hope you have a good day.

He goes, hey, guys, why don't you come on in? You want a beer? What's the difference?

The one lady didn't think she needed a savior because she thought she was good. She wasn't comparing herself to a thrice holy

God. A God so holy the angels who are holy blush. She didn't need a savior.

This other man knew. I'm a sinner. I'm a harlot spiritually, and I'm not going to try to justify myself.

And Jesus here in Matthew chapter 12, and we must end, basically says morality can clean up on the inside, but show me a person who's moral, and then they want to get better.

It will only make them worse. And he uses an interesting way to go about it, and I'll just have to be brief.

Verse 43, 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, it finds it unoccupied, swept and put in order.

The demon's out. Demon comes back. Nothing else is put in place that's good like Jesus, to use the spiritual analogy.

So then what does it do? When morality cleans up its own house, it's worse than before, verse 45.

Then it goes and takes along with it seven other spirits more wicked than itself. They go in and live there, and the last state of that man becomes what?

Worse than the first. And then we know Jesus is talking about the same subject, because early on to the

Pharisees, he talks about the evil generation, and now he ends this thought with the same way.

That is the way it will also be with this evil generation.

Pharisees, you want to clean up your life? It's only going to make things worse. So Jesus comes and says,

I'm going to give you a sign. I'm going to be buried, and then I'm going to raise myself from the dead.

My Father will raise me, the Spirit will raise me, and I will raise myself, and that will prove two things.

One, I am God, and two, there's a judgment coming. That's Acts 17.

I'm God, and judgment is coming. If God the Father judged Jesus the

Son for sins he didn't ever commit, don't you think he'll judge you? Or do you think he won't judge you?

Friends, you will live forever. Someplace you'll live forever, either in the presence of God in heaven or in the presence of God with his justice and unmitigated wrath in hell.

Why wouldn't you choose heaven? Why wouldn't you choose Christ? Why wouldn't you come and believe and say,

I've lived for myself long enough. I can't make myself better and clean up my own life. It's only going to be worse. I will trust in Christ.

I'm going to turn my back on this relationship that puts me in the same camp of people that are worse than Ninevites.

And Jesus says here, Pharisees, take me or leave me. There's no middle ground, no neutrality.

Commitment to Christ Jesus is essential. What about you?

Are you the kind of person that says, you know what, if God proves himself, I might believe? More likely,

I think you're kind of the person who was like me for many years. I thought, I just like to sin. It's kind of fun.

And who wants to have a God to answer to? Frankly, I loved it when my father went out of town for the weekend because then

I could live like I wanted. But there's a day to stop sinning.

There's a day for judgment. There's an accounting day. And wouldn't you rather have

Jesus pay for all your sins than for you to pay for them forever in hell? The offer today of the gospel is this.

Jesus died on the cross for sinners like you. God confirmed his death by raising him from the dead.

God confirmed his perfect sacrificial atonement by raising him from the dead. And then Jesus says, believe, repent.

Why wouldn't you come? Come unto me, a great God who has a yoke that's not heavy and a burden that's not unbearable.

Next time you read Jonah, I want you to think of two things, Jesus and judgment.

And for us as Christians, we'll sing this next song remembering that God judged

Jesus instead of us. Hallelujah. Let's pray. Thank you, Lord, for our time where we learn from your word.

Thank you for Jesus, the great Savior, the great preacher, the great atoner. And it's just wonderful to see how he interacts with people.

And, Lord, we're thankful for the majority of us today. You've turned our hearts. You've made us born again.

You've made us alive in Christ Jesus. And we get to see Christ's beauty for all that it is and for all who he is.

For others who are here today, Lord, would you draw them? Would you give them minds to understand, ears to hear?

And we realize it's not through persuasive words. It's not through some kind of airtight sermon.

It's through your spirit who works through the word. And, Lord, I pray today you would do something in the heart of this building that will last for eternity for Christ's sake.