Listen to the Signs Matthew 12:38-42

It's hard to argue against the fact that the most well -known

Symbol in the world is the cross you can go just about anywhere in the world and see a cross

The place where you expect to find crosses is on church buildings. In fact yesterday Eric and Derek put one on our

Steeple or cupola, whatever you want to call it. So take a look at that But you will find it crosses in numerous places everywhere

You'll find them at grave sites on the side of the road to mark a loved one lost You'll find them on necklaces even on the necks of those who aren't committed

Christians And I'm willing to bet that the most common or one of the most common tattoos is a cross

This most famous symbol comes from the most influential man in the history of the world

Jesus Christ, but before Christ came on the scene

The cross was a symbol that represented something different than what we are used to today

The cross was a symbol of justice and Humiliation for criminals in the

Roman Empire and as Men, these criminals were hung on this cross.

It was a warning to the entire Roman Population that if you do a serious crime, this will happen to you

That's what the cross represented for hundreds of years until Christ came on the scene and he was crucified unjustly

When people all over the world today see the cross no one would say that it symbolizes this negative common connotation of justice and humiliation

But the cross has the most positive Connotation that of the greatest example of love

Jesus went to the cross Willingly as an act of love on behalf of sinners in John 10 10 10 18

Jesus said no one takes my life from me, but I'd lay it down of my own accord

He came to this earth on a rescue mission to save sinners and anyone who believes in him will be saved

When you see the cross That's what you should think But it became a fashion

Interesting enough, but that's what the cross means He came on a rescue mission to save sinners the symbol of the cross is a message and it is a message that the world must listen to and Whenever someone sees it, this is what they should think about Now this morning

Jesus talks about the main message of him coming to this earth and he communicates this as a

Rebuke to his greatest earthly enemies these enemies We've seen over and over again as we've gone through Matthew the

Jewish leadership the very ones who would put him on that cross We once again see him put them in their place

So this time I encourage you to turn in a Bible with me to Matthew chapter 12 verses 38 through 42

This is where we are in our sermon series through Matthew We've been at this for about a year and a half

If you use it a red Bible in the pews is on page 972 The sermon is titled listen to the science listen to the science

I'm going to get begin by reading this text. These are the words of G Or these are the words of Matthew, but we'll also see the words of Jesus But it's all the

Word of God Then some of the scribes and Pharisees answered him saying teacher.

We wish to see a sign from you But he answered them an evil and adulterous generation seeks for a sign

But no sign will be given to it except the sign of the

Prophet Jonah For just as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the great fish

So will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth the men of Nineveh Will rise up at the judgment with this generation and condemn it for they repented at the preaching of Jonah and behold

Something greater than Jonah is here The Queen of the South will rise up at the judgment with this generation and condemn it

For she came from the ends of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon and behold

Something greater than Solomon is here. Here's our big idea

Understand that you have all the information you need to believe

Understand you need you have all the information you need to believe and we're gonna see two instructions

Why from Jesus, but before we jump in let's look at where we were one week ago.

We looked at Jesus use the analogy of a tree to explain how to spot healthy people from unhealthy

Just as you can spot a healthy tree You can spot Healthy people from unhealthy people a good tree is going to bear good fruit and a bad tree is going to bear bad fruit

We can know some things about one's heart through their words as Jesus said out of the overflow of the heart the mouth speaks words reveal

The depths of one's heart and we heard Jesus say something very sobering in our text a week ago.

He told us that Every person will be judged for our words

The unbelievers words will show him or her to be guilty and their future will be in hell

On the other hand the believer will lose reward for every careless word that we have spoken

The message we were to take away is that our words matter more than we know far more than we know it reveals who we are and Jesus will judge us based on our words

So we must live in light of this Now this leads us back to our text We're gonna begin by looking at verse 38

Then some of the scribes and Pharisees answered him saying teacher. We wish to see a sign from you

Now we once again see the scribes and Pharisees in this ongoing conflict between Jesus and the

Jewish leaders to remind you the Pharisees were a powerful sect of Jews that had lots of influence among the common people and the scribes were much like the

Pharisees They were also a very powerful people, but they were the teachers of the law They were the ones who taught the people publicly if you were to go to a synagogue in the first century

The scribes were the ones who would teach you if people had a question about the

Bible They were the ones who could answer their questions supposedly

But three times in Matthew Jesus called them blind guides They were supposed to lead them to truth

They were supposed to lead them to the pasture, but they would lead them the wrong way And as Jesus has this confrontation with the

Jewish leaders He desires to point the people away from them and to him

He wants to point people to the truth because he is the truth

John 14 6 Anybody know it? I am the way the truth and the life

No one comes to the Father except through me as the

Jewish leaders are trying to silence Jesus they are pointing people away from the one who is the truth as Those who are trying to point people away from Jesus the

Jewish leaders asked Jesus a question with this motivation So we know that this is not a pure honest

Question there's motive there is evil motive behind it

They don't want to find out that he really is the Messiah They want to disprove

That he is before the people and this is a public conversation that they're having the crowds are present they're observing

Jesus and the Scribes and the Pharisees have this conversation and The Scribes and the

Pharisees want to say he's not the Messiah. He's a false Messiah follow us follow our religious system

But as we've already seen The Jewish leaders could not deny the miracles that Jesus was doing but they

Irrationally believed that his power came and not from God but from Satan remember if Jesus is from God Then they're not and in their minds that can't be possible because they were the teachers of the law

They were the models for the people. They were the ones who had the answers and this guy is opposing them

He can't be from God Now it might seem silly to us that they asked for a sign

Haven't they been paying attention? That's all he's been doing. He's been teaching. Yes, but he's been doing all these miracles.

So why do they ask for a sign? It's interesting here.

They're not asking For the kind of signs that he's already done releasing people from demonic possession

Healing a blind man healing a deaf man Making a lame man walk healing a woman who is

Broken with her and overwhelmed with her disease. That's not what they're asking for here

They're asking that he perform an even more extraordinary sign

Because once again against all evidence, they do not believe he is the

Messiah, but a pretender And it's interesting in the first century there there were

Messiah Messianic pretenders people who came on the scene saying follow me. I'm the

Messiah I'm the one the Old Testament's been predicting and of course time would tell that they were a phony and they're saying

Jesus is one of them and They want him to perform a greater sign.

Now, where do I get this Matthew 16 one tells us this in Matthew 16 one in that passage the

Pharisees and Sadducees. Okay, so these are still the Jewish leaders They asked

Jesus to show them a sign from heaven Okay a sign from heaven

It makes sense that in our passage the Pharisees and scribes are asking Jesus to perform a celestial sign

That the whole world Would be able to see now heaven in the Bible can either mean the place where God dwells or it can be the sky

It can be the atmosphere can be outer space so when they say heaven a sign from heaven what they're saying is that the whole world will be able to see it and If he did this sign this would prove without a doubt that he is the

Messiah sent by God To perform a cosmic miracle would be greater than any miracle.

He has performed to this point in Jesus ministry all the miracles he performed were done for a handful of people to see and Even at his baptism when

God the Father's voice came from heaven. It was not a miracle for everyone to see only a handful of people were there, but if he causes an eclipse or the earth to stop

Rotating or to do some other extraordinary sign from heaven

This would prove that he is the Messiah according to these

Jewish leaders as They challenged Jesus crowds of Jewish people are listening the

Pharisees and sad and scribes Want to win the people over to them and away from Jesus and by asking him to perform a great sign

They believe they will succeed because irrationally they don't believe he's the

Messiah Even though all the evidence points to that and as the people were standing there

They would be saying these are the experts in the law. They must be right. Let's see him perform a sign in the heavens

Let's forget about what he's already done But what people who understand the

Old Testament know is that nowhere does it say that the Messiah? Would perform a sign in the heavens at his first coming

Jewish tradition said That it that that would happen. But of course Jewish tradition was largely false.

And so that's why they're looking for him to perform this sign But the Old Testament never said that he would perform a sign from heaven but what many

Jews failed to see is that Jesus fulfilled Old Testament prophecies one by one and Now these

Jewish leaders are asking Jesus to do something that the Old Testament never predicted he would do

For example Matthew 11 5 tells us the Old Testament predicted that through the Messiah The blind would receive their sight the lame would walk the lepers would be cleansed and the dead would be raised

He did all of this But what they are asking the Messiah Jesus to do

He was not to do at his first coming that there would be signs in the heaven at his second coming But but this would come from God the

Father not from the Messiah and as they asked this question

We know that the question is not coming from a place of humility But with the motivation to turn people away from Jesus to them and by the way, we know what it's like to get a question that is

Insulting and to get a question that is sincere and humble, right? sometimes people ask you a gotcha question and you're thinking

I'm not gonna answer this because You have a false motive behind this question But if someone asks a sincere question, we want to answer that question

But that's not what the Jewish leaders are doing here Let's see what they say at the beginning of verse 38 or what

Jesus says here But he answered them an evil and adulterous generation seeks for a sign

Jesus calls them evil and adulterous Now the word generation can mark a group of people who live in a certain time of history, right baby boomers

Millennials in our day But it can also describe of people in general And what

Jesus is describing here is the hardness of heart that largely describes the nation of Israel All the way back to Moses the nation of Israel made a covenant with God to obey his commandments

It's called the Mosaic Covenants And as you read the Old Testament, what you see is that they broke this covenant over and over again in Several occasions in the

Old Testament God spoke of his relationship with Israel in terms of a marriage covenant in Isaiah 50 verse 1 the

Lord said where is your mother's certificate of divorce with which I sent her away? Behold for your iniquities you were sold and for your transgressions.

Your mother was sent away You also see the marriage analogy in the whole book of Hosea That book focuses on the spiritual adultery of Israel The people who stand before Jesus are just like their forefathers, right?

The apple doesn't fall too far from the tree They are adulterous

Spiritually and Jesus is not afraid to tell them this Now the Jews in the first century did not have the metal images of Baal and Molech like their forefathers

But after the Old Testament was written these idols were replaced with different idols at the heart is an idol factory if one idol goes away a new idol will come in and Our hearts are meant to be filled only by God, but but idols are more than glad to fill that heart

The new idol of the Jewish leaders was man -made Traditions, it looks religious.

It looks so holy. It looks so spiritual And yet God hates it

And think about how many churches today are just going through the motions just going through the motions God hates it

He doesn't receive that worship That's what they did

That's what they were engulfed in The new idol was man -made traditions during this period between the

Old Testament and the New Testament about 400 BC to the first century AD Invented their own

System of works this works righteousness system that if we do these works will be pleasing to God and Yet they went against what the

Old Testament taught that people are saved by grace alone through faith alone in God alone

It's always been that way and yet they invented this works righteousness system, and they invent these man -made traditions they put these burdens on people and God hates it and that's what

Jesus is going after and that's their idol. They don't want to give that up Because if they follow him they have to give it up.

They don't want to give up their idol and They walked away from God even though they thought they were following him

Now these scribes and Pharisees whom Jesus calls evil and adulterous asked him for this cosmic sign and he says

Nope Not doing it We say well he could he could just confirm it without a question right here into Jesus says no

Not doing it he says no not because he can't do it he could do it

He most certainly could he has infinite power he says no because it was not

God's will God decides what information people need to receive not man

Right he's the giver of Revelation Not the book yes, yes the book of Revelation, but but the whole

Bible the 66 books of the Bible he gives us what we need to know and They had received plenty of information as to who

Jesus really was and He will not bend to them He will not bend to these evil and adulterous people if they will not receive the revelation that he has already

Shown everyone through his words and his actions then another sign won't do anything

But Jesus tells them what they need to believe in the second half of verse 39 in verse 40 he says this very interesting

Okay an evil and adulterous generation seeks for a sign but no Sign will be given to it except the sign of the

Prophet Jonah For just as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the great fish

So will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth as we see what

Jesus said Let me first note this Okay, and you might think why am

I even saying this because this needs to be said Jesus believes that Jonah was really swallowed by a whale

Okay It's settled Okay, so why are there all these professors in colleges and seminaries who say that Jesus wasn't swallowed by a whale and why are these?

schools employing these people I Mean, I mean I'm saying this it's an obvious answer

I mean if I'm a president of a seminary if I'm a president of a college and if I find out that someone doesn't believe That Jonah was swallowed by a whale

You're getting the axe Okay, this really happens in the church.

There is such thing as academic corruption and sadly it's found in many places And what you learn reading the

Gospels is that Jesus is conservative. In fact, he's very conservative

He believes all the Old Testament stories even the ones like this that seem the most unlikely

That's interesting. I don't know if you watch the news this week Jason and I were talking about this yesterday There was a man off the coast of Massachusetts that was swallowed by a whale

He's scuba diving for lobsters all sudden everything turned black whale swallowed him for 30 seconds and then spit him out so it happens and It can happen because God can do whatever he wants, but it's interesting what

Jesus does here He takes these so -called experts in the Old Testament to this very well -known story in the

Old Testament And this might be kids favorite Bible story right Jonah on the whale you learn from a young age

The Hebrew in Jonah literally says great fish, but but there's really only one fish that can swallow a human, right?

It's a whale. So it's it's okay to say Jonah in the whale Now we know the story of Jonah in the whale

God commands his prophet Jonah to preach to a people He strongly dislikes a people he hates the people of Nineveh a

Gentile people Jonah's a Jew he sent to these Gentile people. He doesn't want to do it

He flees from God. He flees from his task And what happens a storm comes a huge storm comes on the sea

There's nothing they can do to get out of it. And he tells them he tells the captains of the boat

He says the reason this storm is happening is because of me If you throw me overboard the storm will cease and that's exactly what happened.

He's thrown overboard he falls into the water a whale comes and Swallows him up Jonah spends three days and three nights in the belly of the whale before he preaches to Nineveh and They repent.

I mean you can think of a more interesting three days than anybody in human history, right? Three days or three nights in the belly of a whale

Now when we hear the words three days and three nights, this should ring a bell in our heads. Okay, what does this sound like?

Jesus tells us in the second half of verse 40 he compares his

Experience to Jonah's Jesus says so will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth

Now in the Old Testament, there are two types of prophecies Okay, there's there's predictive on one hand and then there's analogical

On the other hand another way to say analogical. It's a picture. It's a picture of something

Predictive prophecies say something very specific and literal about Christ in his work

For example, Micah 5 2 said that he would be born in Bethlehem and he was born in Bethlehem on the other hand an analogical prophecy or a picture

Prophecy is when a person or event foreshadows Christ The story of Jonah and the whale teaches much but one thing it teaches is

Pointing the head to what Jesus would experience just as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the whale

So the Son of Man will be three days and three nights in the tomb Now Jesus was put in the tomb on Friday and rose early

Sunday morning as we think about the chronology of Jesus time in the Tomb you might say that's not technically three days and three nights

It's not What we must understand is that the Jews have ways of talking just like we have ways of talking.

I Was at a track meet on Tuesday Sierra you here? Yeah, I think I see you there. She was gonna track me too on Tuesday.

Okay, we left at 1230 We didn't get home till 11 So what I'm telling people

I was at a track meet. I'll say I was at the track meet all day But technically it wasn't all day it was only half the day but we'll we'll say that we'll use that in language

Nobody says you were wrong, right? In the Jewish world if one described parts of three days, they would use the full expression three days and three nights

But what Jesus is saying here is is that what happened to Jonah is similar to what is going to happen to me?

And this is the only sign you need Jonah spent three days in the whale and Jesus spent three days in the tomb

Jonah was spit out on the shore and Jesus was raised out of the tomb

Nineveh listened since they knew Jonah was a prophet from God and People are to listen after Jesus resurrection

Knowing that he is the greatest prophet and Messiah from God You see the similarities

What Jesus is telling the Pharisees? Everyone in the world and everyone in this room is this is the only sign you need

You need to believe the testimony of Scripture He would die and rise again and the people would come to know what the sign of Jonah was

The sign of Jonah is the gospel That Jesus died and rose again

What everyone needs to do is believe this sign and be saved it is the reliable testimony of Scripture that needs to be believed as we think about the testimony of Scripture and The burying that the

Bible must have on every human's life no exception This brings to mind a parable that Jesus told in Luke 16 the story of the rich man and Lazarus in This story the rich man

Enjoys all the luxuries of life and a poor man lived near his gate and he ate the crumbs

That fell from the rich man's table both men died Lazarus the poor man was taken to heaven while the rich man was taken to hell as Lazarus was in heaven and the poor man in hell.

There was a chasm. They could not be passed between the two men and And they were able to speak with each other and as the rich man is in hell

He is able to speak with Abraham Abraham and Lazarus are together in heaven and The rich man asked

Abraham to send at Lazarus back from the dead to his family and what he says if He preaches to them and tells them about this horrible place and how not to come to this horrible place they will believe and what

Jesus says is So piercing he says this They have

Moses and the prophets Let them hear them Then the rich man responded no father

Abraham, but if someone goes to them from the dead they will repent Abraham said to him if they do not hear

Moses and the prophets neither Will they be convinced if someone should rise from the dead?

The amount of facts is not the problem But what is the problem as my old pastor used to say the heart of the matter is what?

The heart is the matter Why do why do people who believe in God even debate atheists?

It's almost it's it's almost a futile cause because because you're not addressing the main issue

Okay, you want to talk about it? Does God exist? Let's not even talk about that. Let's talk about your heart Let's talk about why you're not believing that God exists.

That should be the debate if One does not believe the testimony of Scripture then he or she will not believe even if a dead person appears

They go on how many people in the world do not believe the Bible The Bible tells of a dead man who was raised from the dead who lives forever and his name is

Jesus And anytime see someone sees the symbol of the cross

It should remind them of this it should tell them it communicates this and yet most of the world does not believe

Sometimes you hear people say just give me an audible voice. Just show me a sign from heaven just send a dead man to tell me about the afterlife and Yet their

Bible sits on their shelf collecting dust and Jesus is saying to them I'll give you something open up this book and start reading

Jesus answers these people no sign will be given except the sign of Jonah No sign will be given except for the testimony of Scripture If one doesn't believe the very credible testimony of the

Bible Then one's heart is where the Pharisees heart was and the scribes the people he's talking to here

This person will not believe and to say there is not enough evidence is a lie when

I was working security while going through seminary a Man, I worked with was always learning about the big questions of life.

His family were Christians But he delayed and delayed and delayed at becoming a

Christian When I stopped working there, he still wasn't a Christian He was always learning about the meaning of life

But to that point he had not yet committed to Christ and it made me think of this verse from 2nd

Timothy 3 7 that some people That describes many Always learning and never able to arrive at a knowledge of the truth

Okay, always learning never able to arrive at the knowledge of the truth at some point You have to make a decision if you understand the smallest piece of truth

You know enough and that small piece of truth is to believe the gospel

That Jesus died and rose for sinners and whoever sincerely believes in him has eternal life now and forever

As x 1631 says believe in the Lord Jesus and you will be saved

There is much to learn in the Bible. Yes Think of how much we're scratching the surface reading this book

And we should always be learning and growing but to enter heaven what you need to know is

I am the sinner I need a Savior and Jesus is that only Savior a child can understand that My four -year -old daughter is

Learning this she could communicate the gospel to a certain extent She understands the sign of Jonah When she hears the name

Jesus, she knows the main idea about his life and she often says the words Jesus died for our sins

She hears it from from Brianna and myself. She hears it from Children's Church She knows the sign of Jonah Now as we live in this world long enough the fact that the

Bible is true is undeniable The fact that we need Christ is undeniable and many of you understand this

But if you don't my my plea to you is that you would and that you would believe

At this point Jesus had done numerous miracles to the Jewish people But the sign of Jonah would be the last miracle this is the message that he wanted to communicate to the world

But that was not the sign the Jewish leaders wanted they explained away his other miracles as satanic and they were looking for any excuse to say he was a false

Messiah and The fact that he did not do what they wanted led them to remain in their unbelief

But if they were sincerely seeking him they would not have asked for another sign but would have humbly considered what he had already done and That and that would have been the road to repentance, but they didn't want that But as they asked this question their heart is very hard and we know from our last sermon

Remember Jesus told them your sins that will not be forgiven their hearts are at the point of no return

It's unpenetrable at this point and by asking questions like this

They're showing where their heart is No way is Jesus granting their evil requests and even if he did perform a sign, they still wouldn't believe

Understand that you have all the information you need to believe the first instruction why from Jesus is that the testimony concerning Christ is enough

Okay, so the first point was much longer today than the second point, but here's our second point The second instruction why from G from Jesus we must understand

That you have all the information you need to believe is this The example of the eager puts the hard -hearted to shame

The example of the eager puts the hard -hearted to shame Now the second point is much shorter than our previous point, but here

Jesus drives home our main idea That we have all the information we need to believe But he does something very interesting in verses 41 and 42

He points to two examples from the Old Testament of Gentiles Okay, Gentile is a non

Jew two examples of Gentiles who put these Jewish leaders to shame.

Let's read this the men of Nineveh Will rise up at the judgment with this with this generation and condemn it

For they repented at the preaching of Jonah and behold something greater than Jonah is here The Queen of the

South will rise up at the judgment with this generation and condemn it For she came from the ends of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon and behold

Something greater than Solomon is here Okay, so these two parties

Nineveh and the Queen of the South also known as the Queen of Sheba Do the opposite of the scribes and Pharisees when truth is put right before their eyes

What Jesus does is first point to Nineveh I already explained to you briefly the story of Jonah After refusing to go there.

The Lord sent Jonah back to Nineveh to call them to repent And what we remarkably see in that story is this

Gentile City? when preached to repents They repented the preaching of Jonah and what

Jesus says here is that the final judgment will go well for Nineveh Because they repented but it won't go well for you because you will not repent at my preaching

They repented from the preaching of an ordinary Old Testament prophet Jonah, I mean,

I mean frankly a pathetic one a lot of times they they repented at his preaching But now the

Messiah the Son of God The one who's eternally existed the one who will rise from the dead the one who will return to the earth

He stands before them and what did they do they? reject his message

That's why he says Something greater than Jonah is here. They repented as a thought something far less than me and they repented

But I'm far greater than Jonah and they won't repent Jesus also mentions in verse 42 the

Queen of the South in Scripture She's known as the Queen of Sheba and her story is found in first Kings chapter 10 verses 1 through 13

The Queen of Sheba was very wealthy yet. She traveled 1 ,200 miles to the north she was from Arabia She traveled 1 ,200 miles to the north to Jerusalem to see

Solomon his greatness and God's wisdom That that that came from Solomon by the way, by the way 1 ,200 miles that's here to New York City Before planes before trains before vehicles

It took her weeks, maybe months to get to Solomon, but she wanted to see this man for him herself and One greater than Solomon was in their midst and they would not listen to him

Jesus is pointing out the folly of these hard -hearted Israelites and commending these

Gentiles From the Old Testament who responded the right way when the truth was put right in front of them

The hardness of heart of the scribes and Pharisees is a sad story But there were some

Jews who were willing to listen to Jesus and his message and some believed They were not unwilling

Like these were they did not keep asking for science like these Jews But chewed on the truth that was put before them

In the first century the evidence that one was truly following. God was simple. Does one believe in Jesus?

Clearly as we've just seen the scribes and Pharisees did not but other Jews were much more willing

For example in Luke 2 is Simeon and Anna were Jews who believed in Jesus John the Baptist We know about his story the twelve disciples minus Judas There were other

Jews as well most clearly seen in the book of Acts where thousands believed when they were called to repent and believe in Jesus in John 13 20

Jesus said whoever receives me Receives the one who sent me to receive

Jesus is to receive the father if you don't have Jesus you don't have the father But the

Pharisees and scribes Showed they were not true followers of God because they rejected his son

Jesus in our day many people say they believe in God But what it comes down to is what do you do with Jesus if you don't have

Jesus you don't have God This is why when we share the gospel with people we need to say do you believe in Christ?

It is not enough to say do you believe in God? It's too vague The only true

God is the Father Son and Holy Spirit and the only way to God is through Jesus Christ For the willing in the world the testimony of Christ and the testimony of Scripture is enough

They believe the sign of Jonah, which is the good news Eight years ago.

I went on a short -term missions trip to Macedonia, which is right next to Greece in southeastern Europe On this trip.

I met many wonderful Christians About it is that you feel like you know these people you've never met these people before in your life and yet you have this deep bond as brothers and sisters in Christ One of the men

I met I remember asking him how he came to faith in Christ. This is not a place Where there are many

Christians I? Remember him with a smile. He told me he said

I heard the gospel and it was the best news I ever heard And he's still walking with the

Lord to this day and he's being greatly used by God He didn't hear much. But what he heard about Christ and his great need for him.

He knew to be true. So he believed He responded the right way when he heard the truth and he is a heaven -bound man and think about this right two weeks from now

Lord willing we'll be outside and We're gonna have a lot of people here to Celebrate the 140th anniversary of our church and people are gonna hear

The gospel and that's what they need to hear and if they don't they're gonna go to hell

I've been knocking on doors all this week and People are everybody's in a different place, right?

but we know what everyone's deepest problem is people need Jesus and And that's and that's why we want all these people to come we want them to hear the gospel and May the

Lord lead many to believe in his son that day So to summarize our sermon

Understand that you have all the information you need to believe when we've seen two instructions why from Jesus in this text

The first is that the testimony concerning Christ is enough And the second is that the example of the eager puts the hard -hearted to shame

So may we give Jesus The praise that he is due as God's Messiah is

God's only Son who accomplished the mission of salvation that his father gave him The humble hearts that believe

Christ is the only Messiah and the only Savior will be the ones who are in heaven one day while the proud like the

Pharisees and scribes who went their own way and Not God's way will be forever lost now next

Sunday Jesus will once again discuss the evil generation that stands before him these

Jews that he lived among And it's interesting. He's gonna talk about his family and he's gonna tell us

Those who are truly our family and so it'd be very interesting to look at I look forward to do that with you next week

Let's bow our heads in prayer father in heaven

We thank you Lord for your revelation we wouldn't know who Jesus is what he has done in this world without the

Bible and Yet you have graciously given us this book. It's the best -selling book every single year people have access to it and You're calling people everywhere to believe the sign of Jonah to believe in the

Lord Jesus and be saved Thank you for this information that you have made known to us May we treasure it?

May we live for it? May we use it to share? With those you've placed in our life in Jesus name