The Sign of Jonah

Welcome to God's Word for You, a ministry of Sharon R.P. Church in Morning Sun, Iowa. Check us out online at www.sharonrpc.org. We pray that this message will be a blessing to you and that the Lord will use it to transform your faith and your life. I must apologize for the long delay in my return. but it is a delight to know your pastor. I've seen him at presbytery meetings, at synod.

I didn't turn this off, did I? Okay. I touch things electronic and they go, they go strange. Okay, so I'm a dangerous person around any kind of electronics. I pastored a small, community church for 22 years and the second week that I got there the sound system blew out and it was an old tube system and never replaced it during that entire time. I was able to be heard by the congregation. So I can't speak loud but I do appreciate the microphone. It's a good tool.

Please turn with me in your Bibles to Matthew 12. In Matthew 12, I'll begin my reading with verses 38 through 41. There's an interesting story behind this passage that I chose to preach to you on this morning. It was one that was chosen for me when I was a seminary student. And I was assigned to translate the passage from Greek into English and to give an exegesis of the verses. And I presented that before Presbytery. And I had a teaching elder stand up and ask me a question that I did not adequately answer. Because when I dealt with this passage, I made a mistake in interpretation that I think that he justly pointed out to me, and I have corrected that so you won't hear it this morning. This is the Word of God to you.

Then some of the scribes and Pharisees answered, saying, Teacher, we want to see a sign from you. But he answered and said to them, An evil and adulterous generation seeks after a sign, and no sign will be given to it except the sign of Jonah. For 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 in the judgment with this generation and condemn it, because they repented at the preaching of Jonah, and indeed a greater than Jonah is here.

Let's look to God in prayer. Father, we thank you that you have preserved your faithful word all of these millennia, that we can rely upon the accounts that we have here of Jesus Christ, of what he taught and what he did. And Father, as we come to this passage this morning, I ask that you would open our hearts and minds to the message that you have for us here. For this is a very grave warning that you gave to the people of that particular generation. and this warning is appropriate for our own generation that can justly be described as an evil and adulterous generation. Help us, Father, to embrace the truth that we have in Jesus Christ and in His death, burial, resurrection and ascension to your right hand. In his name we pray. Amen. The sign of Jonah.

These people were wanting a sign from Jesus because we're told in the New Testament that the Greeks wanted wisdom. They wanted some clever, fascinating thing to be said that they can think about, that they can ponder. And we see that over and over again in the book of Acts. People with whom the Apostle Paul shared the gospel. And they said things like, well, we'll talk to you later sometime about that. We'll think about it some more. The Jews of Jesus' time wanted signs, and in particular, the Pharisees. Those were the people that confronted him here. I don't know if you're familiar with that.

Pharisees and Sadducees, you've heard of those terms? I think sometimes we put them in certain categories that could be misleading, because we think of the Pharisees as rather conservative, because after all, they did believe in the resurrection of the dead, that one day God would raise everyone from the dead. They believed that. The Sadducees, on the other hand, who were so influenced by the Greek culture of their day, had come to not believe in the resurrection. And so we might think of them as conservative and liberal in their approach, modernist.

But that wasn't entirely the case. because the Sadducees were strict about divorce and the Pharisees were very loose about divorce. The Pharisees were the ones who believed that they not only based their beliefs on the scriptures, but the tradition of the fathers. Jesus often speaks against that, against the tradition of the fathers.

It's very much a part of theirs. And they were the ones who had that foolish teaching that a man could, and this was one of the rabbis actually said this, divorce his wife if she burned the toast. Now that sounds ridiculous. But the reason they came to that conclusion was that that's what they wanted. They wanted to be able to change. to change partners like at a dance. Dance with one girl and then the next thing you know you're dancing with another girl. And they were very loose in that. So when Jesus accuses them here of being an evil and adulterous generation, it means that quite literally that they were guilty of adultery. Because Jesus told them, you can't just simply divorce one woman in order to marry another.

They weren't good folk, none of them. And they were opposed to Jesus and they really were not genuinely asking here for a miracle, but rather they were sort of mocking him. as if he was some kind of miracle worker or he could entertain them with something. And that is not Jesus. Jesus performs miracles, but never for show. How many times in the Gospels do we see Jesus healing someone and then telling them, don't tell anybody about it? Not like the modern day faith healers that we've seen in our country on television and radio and so forth. who brag about the number of people that they've healed and want to make a big show of it. Jesus wasn't that way at all. But he does say something fascinating to them. This shows the grace of God in such a wonderful way. These wicked men who come with these evil intentions and no intention of really wanting to believe Jesus, he tells them, No sign will be given to this generation 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. They were familiar with Jonah. I trust that everyone here is familiar with Jonah. I can remember Jonah when I was the age of some of these younger, especially the youngest ones over on this side, going to class and seeing a picture of Jonah. In fact, I saw one recently and I really think it's misleading.

Because in the picture, you have Jonah and the sailors have lifted him up and they're tossing him overboard. That's what calmed the sea. And Jonah has a pleasant look on his face, not a look of terror. And right there in the sea, right on the surface, There's a great big fish that is grinning. And it doesn't look like an evil grin. It doesn't look like, oh, dinner. It looks like a friendly smile.

But that's not what we have in Jonah. And that's why Jonah is so appropriate for a sign for Jesus being dead for three days. Turn back to Jonah. I want to look a little more carefully at that account that was read earlier. The verse just before chapter 2, verse 17 of chapter 1 said, And the Lord appointed a great fish to swallow up Jonah. And Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights. And then we have Jonah's prayer. I think Jonah's got a lot of bad press.

I've heard some radio preachers talk about how terrible the man was and later on the story there's when he's sitting under that vine and the vine dies and he's all upset about the dead vine and yet he was looking forward to God sending fire down on the city and destroying all of him.

And God points out that there are many animals and children in this community who are not engaged in the wickedness of the city. And after all, Jonah's preaching did bring them to repentance. The thing that I want to say on Jonah's behalf is that I believe this book was written by Jonah. And I admire a preacher who's willing to admit his faults. And that's what this book is. It's an admission of Jonah's fault in disobeying the Lord.

When the Lord called him to go to Nineveh, he didn't want to go there. He later tells us the reason he didn't want to go there was he was afraid that if he went there, they would repent. And then God wouldn't destroy them. Nineveh was a wicked city. So Jonah learned a great lesson here and he wrote it down. And this chapter two in particular, only Jonah would know what he prayed when he was in the belly of the fish. Listen to what he says here. I called out to the Lord out of my distress and he answered me out of the belly of Sheol. Sheol, the grave. That's how he's describing it. That was the term in the Old Testament, Sheol.

And in the New Testament, you have the term in Greek, Hades. And I know that that is translated many times by the word hell. And when we think of the word hell in modern English, we think of particularly the place of eternal punishment. But Hades was not the place of eternal punishment. It was simply where the dead go. And Sheol was also that way in the Old Testament. It was a place where the dead go, but the dead didn't all go to the same location.

Jesus tells a parable about Lazarus and the rich man. And the rich man goes to hell, a place of torment. But Lazarus goes to a place that Jesus describes as Abraham's bosom. When Jesus died on the cross, he told the repentant thief, today, not tomorrow, not sometime in the future, today, you will be with me in paradise.

He wasn't talking about where the thief's body went, because in all likelihood, the thief's body was taken out and dumped in the city, dumped and burned. That's what happened to prisoners that were executed. That's what would have happened to Jesus if he had not had those who came and asked for his body to properly bury it.

Jesus' body was placed in that grave. But where was his spirit? The answer to that was it was in the place where those who died in faith were. That's where he was for three days. He was genuinely dead. And Jonah here in describing his condition was, he was assuming he was dead.

Think about it. So he didn't know the rest of the story at that point, how the story ends. If you had been thrown overboard into a stormy sea by sailors who were terrified, would you expect to survive it? I don't think so. They didn't wear life jackets back then on board boats.

And Jonah, when he was thrown into the sea, I'm sure that he thought to himself, I'm dead. And then when Jodus sinks to the bottom of the sea, it's what he describes here, is sinking to the bottom of the sea. When he sinks to the bottom of the sea, He's convinced, I'm really dead.

There's no way out of this. The passage there, look at it. It says, the waters closed over me. Verse five. To take my life, the deep surrounded me. Weeds were wrapped around my head. At the roots of the mountains, I went down to the land whose bars closed upon me forever. He hit the bottom of the Mediterranean Sea. That's a long ways down.

And then great. God prepared a fish and the fish swallowed him. I'm saved. Not really. If you were swallowed by a big, huge fish, would you imagine that that was your salvation? I don't think so. I think you would imagine that you had become his dinner. Right? So, twice did. Now, I had an experience some years ago. I'm going to share with you. And why I can so identify with Jonah and the way he felt about this.

He's traveling down the highway. My wife was driving. I was sitting in the passenger seat. And the left rear tire blew out on the vehicle. And it was highway, it was two-way traffic. The vehicle veered over into the lane, the oncoming. There was a semi headed right for us. I looked up and saw the man's face. I always imagined that if I ever ran into him at a truck stop in the future, he would recognize me and I would recognize him. He had a terrified look on his face. And I thought to myself, I'm dead.

And just then my wife, for no particular reason at all, grabbed the steering wheel and jerked it sharp to the right. And you would think, oh great, we didn't hit the semi, we're fine. No, we went into one of those ditches, one of those deep, you have some around here I think, but there in Kansas we've got some ditches. that the road is almost up to the height of the ceiling in here like that. You can't see the road when you're in the bottom of the ditch. It's so deep.

We rolled over into that and I was looking at the window and I was seeing the ground right in front of me and the thought that crossed my mind at that point was, I'm dead. The vehicle landed right side up, facing the opposite direction from which we had come. Neither my wife nor I could get out of the vehicle because the doors were jammed. We had to wait until they came with the jaws of life and got us out. We didn't get, other than scratches from glass, we didn't get any harm from it.

Two of her children were in the back seat. And her children were, compared to my kids, were very pale looking. You've seen people who look pale? Those two kids looked white as a sheet. And you've heard people talk about something like that. And I immediately looked back and I saw that the back window had popped out of the vehicle. And I told those two, get out, because I could smell gasoline. I didn't know what was going to happen beyond that, but they got out. Everyone, we were taken to hospital. We're all fine. We recovered from it. But it was that kind of experience where I really was convinced that I was dead, that I was going to be dead. That was it. And just by the way, my life didn't flash before me. Or maybe it was I hadn't had an interesting enough life to do that. But I didn't have that experience where my life flashed before me.

I remember being in a recovery group one time and one of the things that they mentioned in the recovery group was a joke. We would share jokes in the group. One of the jokes was a codependent, if you're familiar with that term, someone who's dependent on someone else who has a bad habit like someone who's married to an alcoholic and enables them and depends on them. And the joke is that a codependent thought he was dying and someone else's life flashed before his eyes.

I genuinely believe that Jonah felt he was dead. The little verse that says, before this, he was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights, God didn't tell Jonah in advance, hey buddy, you're only gonna be in here three days and three nights. That first night came and went, the second night came and went, the third night came and went, and he had to have wondered why the juices in that fish's belly had not begun to dissolve him. And there are some who believe that it actually bleached his skin and made his preaching later a little more impressive when he showed up white as a ghost. I don't know if that's true or not.

The account does not tell us that, but the way he describes this whole situation, that verse three, that he was in the heart of the seas, Then we turn back to Matthew chapter 12. Jesus says that the son of man will be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. Jonah's grave would have been the sea, and that's why it's described that way. But Jesus is telling them that his grave is going to be on earth. Three days and three nights, they would have understood perfectly well that He was telling them, I'm going to be dead, but only for three days. Well, did they receive the message? Did you ever wonder about things like that? When you hear Jesus say something to someone, that's the only sign you're going to get is the sign of Jonah. Did they receive the sign of Jonah? Turn over in Matthew to chapter 27. And beginning with verse 62.

Jesus has died. They've laid his body in the tomb. And Matthew 27, 62 says, next day, that is after the day of preparation, the chief priests and the Pharisees gathered before Pilate and said, sir, we remember how that imposter said while he was still alive, after three days I will rise. Therefore order the tomb to be made secure until the third day, lest his disciples go and steal him away, and tell the people that he is risen from the dead, and the last fraud will be worse than the first. Pilate said to them, You have a guard of soldiers, go make it as secure as you can. So they went and made the tomb secure by sealing the stone and setting a guard. Chapter 28 Now after the Sabbath, that's Saturday, toward the dawn of the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to see the tomb.

And behold, there was a great earthquake, for an angel of the Lord descended from heaven and came and rolled back the stone and sat on it. His appearance was like lightning, and his clothing white as snow. And for fear of him, The guards trembled and became like dead men. But the angel said to the women, do not be afraid, for I know that you seek Jesus who is crucified.

He is not here, for he has risen. As he said, come see the place where he lay, and then go quickly and tell his disciples that he has risen from the dead, and behold, he is going before you to Galilee. There you will see him. See, I have told you." So they departed quickly from the tomb, with their fear and joy, and ran to tell his disciples. And behold, Jesus met them and said, Greetings. And they came up and took hold of his feet and worshipped him. Then Jesus said to them, Do not be afraid.

Go and tell my brothers to go to Galilee, and there they will see me. Verse 11 While they were going, behold, some of the guard went into the city and told the chief priests all that had taken place. And when they had assembled with the elders and taken counsel, they gave a sufficient sum of money to the soldiers and said, tell the people his disciples came by night and stole him away while we were asleep. And if this comes to the governor's ears, we will satisfy him and keep you out of trouble. So they took the money and did as they were directed. And this story has been spread among the Jews to this day.

They did receive the sign. The soldiers saw the empty tomb. They did not see Jesus as far as we know. There's no account here of them seeing Jesus himself, but they saw the empty tomb. They felt the earthquake. They saw the angel. The tomb was open not to let Jesus out, but to show that he was gone.

And they had these eyewitnesses who came and told them this story. And get this right, to tell that story was dangerous because they failed as guards to keep that tomb closed. And at that time, the punishment for such an act was death. These men would have been executed for their failure there as soldiers. And the chief priests to whom they had come knew what had happened.

You know, I've heard that thing, well, I grew up in Kansas and the bordering state is Missouri. My dad was born there. The show me state. And this attitude of seeing is believing. And I'm here to tell you that that's not true. I think everyone here has seen some things on TV that you don't believe. I hope so. Because not everything that appears there is true. Seeing does not bring faith. Miracles in and of themselves do not create faith. God, God gives faith as a gift.

These men had the evidence. And what did they do with the evidence? They bribed the soldiers to tell a different story. See, if they thought this was just a fairy tale and it was ridiculous, they would say, oh, come on, you guys have been drinking too much and you've imagined these things. That's not what happens here. They bribe them and then they assure them that if the governor hears about it, they'll take care of it. They'll see to it that no bad harm comes upon them. They got the sign. The wicked and adulterous generation received the sign from God and still did not believe.

Back to Jonah chapter two in verse nine. There's a little phrase in there. And I use the ESV. I don't know whether you noticed that when I was reading from my own Bible, It's a little bit different than the New King James. I have a great deal of respect for the New King James. I like it especially at the end of verse 9.

What does it say? What's the last phrase of verse 9? If you know it, go ahead and say it out loud. The very last phrase. In Hebrew, it's just two words. Salvation. is what? The Lord. The verb is placed in there for our English speakers so that we understand it, but there's no verb there in the Hebrew. It just simply says salvation of the Lord. It's a simple sentence, isn't it?

I remember one time when it was college student at Geneva College, there was a student who came up to me and he had heard a rumor that I was a Calvinist. And of course, it was true. I do believe those things. And he said something to me because he was not of that opinion. He had the opinion of free will and that you make your own decisions.

And God's just waiting for everybody to decide what they want to do. It's nice, the reading of the catechism about God's providence. God's not standing around waiting to see what's going to happen. But he said to me, almost kind of in a mockingly sort of fashion, he says, oh, salvation is of the Lord. I said, yeah, that appears more than one time in the scriptures. And I said, the amazing thing is if you take the position that God is the one who draws you, God is the one who converts you, God is the one who gives you faith that you then exercise in trusting him.

If you take that position, you don't have to qualify the sentence at all. You don't have to say, salvation is of the Lord if you happen to be of an inclination to want it. Salvation is of the Lord if you just happen to be someplace where they regularly preach the gospel and you get to hear it. No, it's absolute. Salvation is of the Lord. It's all of the Lord from beginning to end. There's nothing that we contribute to our own salvation.

And the same was true of Jonah. Jonah was as good as dead in that fish. And the Lord spoke to the fish and it vomited Jonah out upon the dry land. Have you ever been vomited by grace? Jonah was vomited by the grace of God. And when he landed on that dry land, I don't know how he felt. I felt great when that vehicle landed right side up.

And then when they came with the jaws of life and broke those doors open, and my wife and I both were able to get out of there, I felt great at that, but I hadn't spent three days there. Jesus goes into the grave, his physical body and his spirit, Three days. I'd refer you to the larger catechism. And in it, question 50, if my memory serves me, speaks of where Jesus was during those three days. Maybe you've wondered that.

You knew where his body was. His body's there in the grave. until he was raised and then the body is no longer in the grave. But where was he? He was dead. And it was part of his humiliation. The humiliation of Jesus Christ started when he was conceived of the Virgin Mary. He came from eternity. He came from heaven to earth and suffered those 33 years.

But his humiliation was not over when he died on the cross. It continued when he existed as the saints of the old covenant existed after their physical death. And it wasn't until the third day that his spirit was taken from there. And his exaltation begins with his resurrection with his ascension to the right hand of the Father, and it's not over yet, he's coming back again, physically, in that same body, to this earth, his resurrection body, a body that will never die. And when he comes, he will raise the dead. This is the Jesus that we believe in. This is the Jesus that everything that he taught us is true. And if you want to know about Jesus right now and what he's doing and what he's soon going to be doing, read the book of Revelation.

Read it with new eyes. I've been teaching that in the adult Sabbath school class in Sterling. We have a Pastor Brian there too, a young man, I think a little bit younger than your pastor, but with a young family. And when he asked me what I wanted to teach on, I said the book of Revelation. He said, oh, you're a brave man. And I said, I preached through that entire book before to that little community church.

And one of the things that I discovered about the book is it is what it says it is. The book begins the revelation of Jesus Christ. That is what the book is. Don't go looking into it trying to figure out dates and events because that's not what the book is there for. It's to show us the glory of Christ right now in heaven. and it's to show us the glory that is to come when He returns. He will come to judge the earth in equity. Equity. I've heard that term thrown around recently. And it's not the same as equality. Some people confuse the two. It's not.

If everyone here were treated equal, When we go down to the dinner that we're having here, it would be like I was a part of a large church at one time in Kansas City, 500 people, and we had a church dinner and I thought, oh great, potluck. No, it was catered. Everybody got the same plate. We just sat there and we all ate the exact same food.

That's equality. Equity. is when each person is treated justly. That each is treated justly. And as I often told the congregation there in Castleton, and I think they could all recite it in their sleep, that I wanted to assure them that there will be no one in hell who does not deserve to be there and that there will be no person in heaven except for Jesus who deserves to be there.

It is by the grace of God. It is by trusting in Christ and his perfect obedience and his perfect sacrifice that we can rejoice in our salvation. Let's look to God in prayer. Father, we thank you for salvation, that salvation is of the Lord. But we recognize that if it were left to us, we would never come. We would never see the light. We look about us in this world of darkness and we see many who are running to and fro and participating in such an evil and adulterous generation and unaware of where this will ultimately lead them, blinded, dead in their trespasses and sin, and father, so were we before your spirit. opened our hearts and minds, enlightened us, and you gave us the very gift of faith so that salvation is not of works, that no one can boast, that the only thing that we have to boast in is the cross of Jesus Christ and His glory. and His soon coming.

In Jesus' name we pray. We pray that the message would be used by God to transform your faith in your life this week. If you'd like to get more information about us, feel free to go to the website, SharonRPC.org. We'd love to invite you to worship with us. Our worship time is 10 a.m. every Sunday at 25204 160th Avenue, Morning Sun, Iowa, 52640. May God richly bless you this week.