WWUTT 2011 The Sign of Jonah (Matthew 12:38-42)

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The Pharisees said to Jesus, we want to see a sign.

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Jesus said an evil and wicked generation asks for a sign.

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No sign will be given to it, except the sign of the prophet Jonah.

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When we understand the text.

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Many of the Bible stories and verses we think we know, we don't.

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When we understand the text is committed to teaching sound doctrine and rebuking those who contradict it.

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Visit our website at www.utt.com.

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Here once again is Pastor Gabe.

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Thank you, Becky.

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We're back to our study in the Gospel of Matthew.

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Still a little bit of chapter 12 to finish up.

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I'll begin by reading verses 38 to 50 out of the Legacy Standard Bible.

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Hear the word of the Lord.

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Then some of the scribes and Pharisees answered and said to Jesus, Teacher, we want to see a sign from you.

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But Jesus answered and said to them, An evil and adulterous generation eagerly seeks for a sign, and yet no sign will be given to it but the sign of Jonah the prophet.

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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.

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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.

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And behold, something greater than Jonah is here.

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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.

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And behold, something greater than Solomon is here.

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Now when the unclean spirit goes out of a man, it passes through waterless places seeking rest and does not find it.

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Then it says, I will return to my house from which I came.

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And when it comes, it finds it unoccupied, swept, and put in order.

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Then it goes and takes along with it seven other spirits more wicked than itself.

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And they go and live there.

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And the last state of that man becomes worse than the first.

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That is the way it will also be.

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With this evil generation.

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While he was still speaking to the crowds, behold, his mother and brothers were standing outside seeking to speak to him.

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Now someone said to him, Behold, your mother and brothers are standing outside seeking to speak to you.

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But Jesus answered the one who was telling him and said, Who is my mother and who are my brothers? And stretching out his hand toward his disciples, he said, Behold, my mother and my brothers.

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For whoever does the will of my father who is in heaven, he is my brother and sister and mother.

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So we have three sections of this closing portion of Matthew chapter 12 that goes again from verses 38 to 50.

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And you probably picked up on those three sections.

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We start with the sign of Jonah.

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And that goes from verses 38 to 42.

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Then you have Jesus telling about the unclean spirit and how the last state of the person is worse than the first.

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That's verses 43 to 45.

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And then last of all, we have this narrative with someone coming to Jesus and saying your mother and your brothers and your sisters want to talk to you.

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And Jesus saying it is the one who does the will of my father who is in heaven, who is my brother and sister and mother.

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So those are the three portions of this closing section of Matthew chapter 12.

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And all of this points to who really is of Christ.

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The one who believes in and accepts the sign of Jonah.

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The one who does not have the evil spirit that comes back upon him.

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The one who does the will of his father who is in heaven.

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These are those who belong to Christ.

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The rest belong to a wicked and crooked generation.

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So in verse 38, some of the scribes and Pharisees answered Jesus and said to him, Teacher, we want to see a sign from you.

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Now, of course, they don't really want to see a sign.

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They're not actually asking Jesus to prove that he is who he says he is.

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They don't believe him.

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They wouldn't believe him even if a sign was done in their midst because signs have been done in their midst.

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There have been signs.

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There have been plenty of miracles that have been performed.

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In fact, we just read earlier in the chapter about Jesus healing a demon-possessed man who was blind and mute.

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And after he healed him and restored his vision and his speech to him, the Pharisees said, well, Jesus is only able to do this because he has a demon.

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So they saw the signs.

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They didn't believe that this man was truly from God, even though they know that such signs can only be done by someone who is from God, yet they deny it.

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So Jesus doesn't answer their challenge.

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He's not going to produce some kind of sign from heaven, whatever version of this sign they want to see manifested.

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But he answered and said to them in verse 39, an evil and adulterous generation eagerly seeks for a sign, and yet no sign will be given to it but the sign of Jonah the prophet.

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Now, there's the statement Jesus makes, and then he backs this up with three Old Testament references here.

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He quotes from Jonah.

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He references the Ninevites, who will judge this generation, and the queen of the south, who will judge this generation.

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So that's in verses 40, 41, and 42.

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Now, we understand what Jesus means by referencing Jonah.

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The sign of Jonah will be given, the sign of Jonah the prophet, for he explains it in verse 40.

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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.

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Now, I love that translation, in the belly of the sea monster, because there's always that debate over, was Jonah swallowed by a fish, or was he swallowed by a whale? And a whale is a mammal, it doesn't qualify as a fish.

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I would say that's just a semantic argument.

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How do we know that the Hebrews were qualifying such animals in such ways? We think of animals in those ways, but a creature of the sea is a fish to a Hebrew one way or the other.

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So what difference does it make whether it was a whale or a fish? But here, the actual translation is sea monster.

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So it was just a great beast of the sea of some kind that had swallowed up Jonah.

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There's also debates about whether this creature really inhabited the sea.

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Was this actually an animal that lived in the sea, in the Mediterranean, which is where it would have been when Jonah had tried to flee to Tarshish to get away from the responsibility that God was giving him as a prophet to go to Nineveh and telling the people to repent? Jonah didn't want to go to Nineveh.

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So he boards a boat, he's headed for Tarshish, and that's when the big storm came up.

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He told the sailors, the only way you can save yourselves is to throw me into the sea, because this storm has come upon you.

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God is bringing judgment, since I am running from the Lord.

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They resisted throwing him overboard at first, but then ultimately recognized it's the only way we're going to be able to be saved.

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So they throw Jonah overboard, and a fish comes along and swallows up Jonah.

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The storm stops, and the sailors praise God, because he delivered them from that catastrophe that had come upon them because of Jonah's sin.

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But God, even merciful to Jonah, has the sea monster swallow him up.

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So was this creature really of the sea? Was this a native of the Mediterranean Sea? Or was this a creature God had manifested for that particular moment to take Jonah back to the shore and barf him up on land so that he would go to Nineveh and do what God had told him to do? We don't know.

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I think you can go either way with it.

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Did God miraculously cause this creature to exist and swallow up Jonah? Or did God miraculously cause this creature that already existed to come along and swallow up Jonah? Either way, it's a pretty miraculous occurrence that happens here in the Scripture.

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Now, there are people out there, and I've heard this from many liberal theologians multiple times over the years, that they will argue whether or not the story of Jonah is really a true story.

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Or is it something that's like a fable? Because you have the fish, that's an animal.

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Fables tend to deal with animals.

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Is it a myth of some kind, a Hebrew myth, that conveys this prophet Jonah resisted obeying God and God caused this fish to swallow him up? Like, was it somewhat of a true story, but it was embellished upon and there's extra details that have been added in there, so on and so forth.

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Because Jesus references Jonah, we know that he was a historical figure and this story really happened, even the case with the fish, or the sea monster, as it's described here in verse 40.

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Even that creature existed.

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Even that part of the story is true.

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Because Jesus references it as true.

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Now, Jonah is not just mentioned in the book of Jonah, he's also mentioned in Kings as a prophet who was alive during that time.

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So he is written down in the historical record.

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This is not just a myth.

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But Jesus goes even further than referencing Jonah as a historical figure.

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He even mentions the sea monster as a real historical occurrence.

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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.

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And there will be those liberal theologians who will say, you don't really have to believe those stories from the Old Testament.

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You just need to believe that Jesus rose from the dead.

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That's one of Andy Stanley's platform presentations.

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When he says, yeah, all that stuff in the Old Testament, kind of hard to believe.

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But all you have to do is believe that Jesus would rise from the dead.

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And if a man who rose from the dead says it's true, then it must be true.

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Well, he says that Jonah is true.

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And so therefore, yeah, you kind of have to believe that the story of Jonah really did take place.

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It really did happen like that.

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It's not just Hebrew mythology.

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We're reading historical record.

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A historical account of something that really did happen to a man who really did exist.

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If Jonah is just a metaphor, if it's just an allegory of some kind, then so is Jesus' resurrection.

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Because Jesus ties his resurrection to Jonah being three days and three nights in the belly of the sea monster.

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But if that didn't really happen, then how can we be sure that Jesus' resurrection really happened? How can we be sure that he really died and really rose again? Or is that just something metaphorical? As we get to that later on in Matthew, that must be metaphor because the story of Jonah was metaphor.

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Now, Jesus ties what he is going to do to something that really happened.

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Something that really happened, and so therefore, something that's really going to happen.

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He is going to die.

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He is going to be buried in a tomb.

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And he is going to come back to life on the third day.

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As Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the sea monster, so it will be with him.

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Which is coming up not too many months from now.

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What are we at? Like 16 chapters left to go in Matthew before we read about that.

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Or 14 or 15 chapters before we get to the crucifixion and his burial and his resurrection.

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Now, the other part of this in verse 40 is the literalness of saying that Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the sea monster.

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So if he's literally in the fish for three days and three nights, then Jesus must literally be in the tomb for three days and three nights.

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And because of that reference, there are some out there like the Hebrew Roots Movement that will claim that Jesus was actually crucified and buried on Wednesday, Thursday or possibly Wednesday, to fulfill, therefore, that he was in the tomb for three days and three nights.

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It couldn't possibly have been Friday.

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Even though when you read John and you do the math on what John lays out, it's unmistakable, it's undeniable that Jesus was crucified on Friday and he rose again on Sunday.

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But how can we say that that's true if Jesus says that he's going to be in the heart of the earth for three days and three nights? Well, to a Hebrew, that really didn't matter.

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The specificity of 24-hour days were not literal to the Hebrew's lexicon.

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A day was a day.

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So for Jesus to be in the tomb Friday, Saturday, and rise again on Sunday, that's three days.

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That's how the Hebrew calendar system worked.

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And even saying three days and three nights doesn't add any more literalness to it.

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It's just saying the same thing twice, really, like a parallelism.

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It's just saying it's going to be three days, three days, three nights, and that's how long Jesus is in the tomb.

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We tend to think of calendar days just a little bit different because we measure everything by 24-hour days.

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We also consider that the next day starts at midnight, where for a Hebrew, a day ended at sundown and the next day began.

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So you have, on Friday, sundown, and that begins the Sabbath.

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And then Sabbath, sundown, that begins the next day.

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So we're expecting Jesus rises from the dead on Sunday morning at dawn.

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The day doesn't officially begin until dawn.

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No, the day began at sundown on Saturday, so it's already the third day.

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This is how Hebrews think of things.

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You have to think of it like a Hebrew.

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You can't think of it in the sense of the way that we apply a 24-hour timeline to days in our Western world, modern-day thinking.

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There are other cultures around the world that measure days in different ways.

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And so we understand this the way a Hebrew understands this.

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Three days and three nights is not three 24-hour days that include those three nights.

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It's just simply saying three days.

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That's really all that's being stated there.

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And emphasizing that to such a degree that it's said two times.

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So three days and three nights in the belly of the sea monster.

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That's how long Jesus was in the tomb.

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Buried Friday, in the tomb Saturday, rises again Sunday morning.

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There's three days.

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So then in verse 41, Jesus goes on to talk about the judgment that will be upon this generation because they did not believe, because they did not accept the sign of Jonah.

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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.

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And behold, something that is greater than Jonah is here.

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Now, of course, Jesus is saying the greatest sign that you will possibly receive is going to be Christ dying, being buried, rising again from the dead, the sign of Jonah.

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That's the sign that I'm giving to this generation.

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And as I said earlier, it doesn't mean that he didn't give them other signs.

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We've seen signs even in this very chapter that they refused to believe in.

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So Jesus says, here's the sign.

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And it's either going to be for your deliverance, because you'll believe in it, you'll repent, and be saved.

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Or, it will be for your judgment.

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Because Jonah was in the fish for three days and three nights.

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He got vomited back up on the land.

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He goes to Nineveh, bleached completely white from the gases in the sea monster's stomach.

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I don't know if that's really the way it was or not, but he probably didn't look very good after that whole venture in the belly of a great creature.

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And he shows up looking ghastly to Nineveh, and he's telling them to repent.

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What would you do? I saw a guy looking like that who had been in the belly of a big fish for three days saying, repent or God's going to destroy you.

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I would probably repent.

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Nineveh listened to the preaching, and they repented.

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So here's Jesus coming back from the grave.

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If the people do not repent, the Ninevites, those that repented in that day, will stand up to condemn the Jews who did not believe.

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They'll stand and condemn anybody who did not believe.

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There are going to be Ninevites on the day of judgment that will be with us as our brothers and sisters in the Lord, who we will dwell with for all eternity.

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Can you imagine that? And those Ninevites are going to stand on the day of judgment and condemn those who didn't believe the gospel.

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They believed the message of repentance when Jonah came and preached to them, but there are many others who will not believe even though the word of the gospel has been proclaimed to them.

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And so the Ninevites become judges in that sense.

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Now, that was a very offensive thing to a Jew, to a Hebrew at that particular time because Ninevites were an awful pagan people.

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I mean, they were terrible, and they treated the Jews horribly.

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The Ninevites were known for incredible torture, to degrees that I won't go in.

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I won't detail those things on this program because I think we have families that listen and do their devotions with this podcast.

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So I'm not going to detail some of the horrible tortures that the Ninevites would put even the Jews through.

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But the Jews wanted the Ninevites to be judged because of how barbaric they were.

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And yet, in that day, the Ninevites who repented at the word of Jonah will be the judges of the Jews who did not believe Jesus when he rose from the dead.

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They will stand up at the judgment and condemn this generation because the Ninevites repented at the preaching of Jonah and behold, something greater than Jonah is here.

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As Jesus says in Luke 16, telling the account of the rich man and Lazarus.

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The rich man goes to a place of fiery torment.

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Lazarus goes to Abraham's bosom.

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He goes to paradise.

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The rich man begs for relief.

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Abraham says, it's not going to come.

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There's a chasm fixed between you and us.

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We can't go over there, and you can't come over here.

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And so the rich man says, well, send somebody back to my brothers and tell them about this awful place so that they will repent.

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And Abraham says, they have Moses and the prophets.

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Let them hear them.

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The rich man says, no, but if somebody comes back from the dead, then they'll believe it.

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Abraham says, if they do not believe Moses and the prophets, neither will they believe if someone should come back from the dead.

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So if the people refuse to believe that the story of Jonah is real, why would they believe that Jesus actually died and rose again from the dead? That being said to those teachers out there who say, see, all you have to do is believe that Jesus died and rose from the dead.

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And that's really all you have to accept.

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You don't have to accept the whole Bible wholesale.

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Really? You don't have to accept the whole word of God as actually being true? You don't have to accept that Jonah is a real person and he was really swallowed up by a big creature of the sea and regurgitated on the dry land and went and preached to the Ninevites and they repented.

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You don't have to believe that when Jesus said it really happened.

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If you don't believe Moses and the prophets, neither will you believe if someone should rise from the dead.

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And so Jesus saying something greater than Jonah is here.

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And he goes on to explain the queen of the south.

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This was the woman that was from Sheba, the queen of Sheba.

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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.

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And behold, something greater than Solomon is here.

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Jesus teaching even greater than the wisdom of Solomon.

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For he preaches a message of repentance, a message of the kingdom, a message of eternal life for all those who will put their faith in him and so be saved.

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And so Jesus demonstrating here, those who are really with him, those who believe the sign of Jonah, and they repent, they are saved.

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They belong to the Lord through faith in Jesus Christ.

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And we're going to read more about this when we look at the next section, verses 43 to 45, about the unclean spirit that goes out of a man and passes through waterless places seeking rest.

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That's going to be what we pick up tomorrow.

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Heavenly Father, as we finish this section today, as we've been studying in Matthew 12, I pray that we hear the good news of the gospel.

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It is very simply by faith in the Lord Jesus Christ that we are saved.

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And if we are saved, if we have come to faith and believe, then teach us to walk in your ways, that we may know the instructions that you have given according to your word, the whole word, not just the parts that we like, but Genesis to Revelation, it's all the word of God.

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As you said through the prophet Isaiah, this is the one to whom I will look, he who is humble and contrite in spirit and who trembles at my word.

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Deliver us from our sins, help us to walk in your righteousness and bring us into your heavenly kingdom.

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We pray in Jesus' name.

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Amen.

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Pastor Gabe is the author of several books and Bible studies, available in paperback or for your e-reader.

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For titles and more information, visit our website at www.wutt.com.

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Join us again tomorrow as we grow together in God's word, when we understand the text.