Daily Devotional For Friday, February 9, 2024

Have you ever wanted proof of something? In today’s devotional, the very same Pharisees and religious leaders who have personally seen Jesus do miracles such as give sight to the blind, hearing to the deaf, ability to speak to the mute, raised a dead child, heal a slave of a Roman Centurion, and cast out demons, now ask Jesus to do a miracle. Makes you wonder, “Why, after personally seeing Jesus do these others?

 Read Matthew 12:38-42, “Then some of the Pharisees and teachers of the law answered Jesus, saying, “Teacher, we want to see You work a miracle as a sign.” (39) Jesus answered, “An evil and adulterous generation seeks for a sign, but no sign will be given to it except the sign of the prophet Jonah. (40) Jonah was in the stomach of the big fish for three days and three nights. In the same way, the Son of Man will be in the grave three days and three nights. (41) On the Judgment Day the people from Nineveh will stand up with you people who live now, and they will show that you are guilty. When Jonah preached to them, they were sorry and changed their lives. And I tell you that someone greater than Jonah is here. (42) On the Judgment Day, the Queen of the South will stand up with you people who live today. She will show that you are guilty, because she came from far away to listen to Solomon’s wise teaching. And I tell you that someone greater than Solomon is here” (ESV).

Jesus’ answer almost seems intentionally to be misleading? Jonah? Queen of the South? People are sinful and lost without Christ and many times, that is not always so apparent. There are people who are “good” people by our culture’s standards and the world would say, “Certainly that person will go to heaven!” Not necessarily. This is even more true of those who attend church. We assume they are saved and going to heaven when they may well be lost and going to hell. We see how kind they are and all the good works they do and we assume they are saved. This makes it hard for us to see how inherently sinful they really are. 

Many religious people will have an external sense of righteousness that is a veneer over their lostness. If you want to know for sure, just observe how they respond to the Gospel and to Jesus Christ. In Jesus’ day, the Jewish people would have said that the religious leaders with their piety, rule, rituals and regulations were saved due to their religiosity. We may be able to hide our sin from others for a while, but we can never hide it from God. Up to this point, the religious leaders have kept up their great facade of tolerating this young miracle working rabbi who was popular with the people — especially the socially outcast ones — lepers, the woman with an issue of blood, and the dead. 

Look at 2 Timothy 3:2-5, “For people will be lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, (3) heartless, unappeasable, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not loving good, (4) treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, (5 ) having the appearance of godliness, but denying its power. Avoid such people” (ESV). See verse 5? — “. . . having an appearance of godliness but denying its power.” That was the religious leaders in Jesus’ day and that is some people in the church today also.

By the time we get to our passage today where the religious leaders ask Jesus to do a miracle, their hearts were already hardened against Him with the most extreme hatred. We read in a previous devotional this in Matthew 12:4, “But the Pharisees went out and conspired against him, how to destroy him” (ESV). They wanted Jesus off the planet. And the more the religious leaders attempted to trap Jesus, the more He exposed their foolishness, their hypocrisy, their self-righteousness, their ungodliness and their antagonism to help on the Sabbath. 

Our passage today begins with, “Some of the Scribes and Pharisees  . . .” Meaning, an AD Hoc group had been selected and elected to confront Jesus. Their question for a sign or miracle on the surface seem legit. They first address Jesus as “Teacher.” The Greek New Testament word is [διδάσκαλος, didaskalos]. The Greek is written to let the reader know they said this sarcastically. It was sarcastic because they were trying to find a way to “destroy Him.” They had no respect for Jesus at all and considered Him a false teacher. 

For them to say, “we want a sign from You . . .” they were demanding officially Jesus prove Himself to be the Messiah. Yet, as with some sarcasm, you can say it in a way that seems courteous and respectful. The request was made so they could prove to the people Jesus was a false Messiah — an blasphemous imposter. After all, the Scribes and Pharisees were the experts on the Old Testament Law and prophecies about the Messiah. Though we are not told what “sign” they demanded, the Greek text implies it had to be a sign on a big scale.  For example: The Mediterranean Sea having a tsunami, an inactive volcano erupting or all the graves in a cemetery open up and the dead walk out alive. It was that kind of sign. We read this in Matthew 16:1, “And the Pharisees and Sadducees came, and to test Him they asked him to show them a sign from heaven” (ESV). A sign from heaven would be on such a scale and be so spectacular that might have involved something with the celestial bodies such as the sun, or the moon or the stars.

Even today, people want signs that prove Jesus is Who He claimed to be. Maybe they wanted to see if Jesus, if He was the Messiah, would fulfill Joel 2:31,”The sun shall be turned to darkness, and the moon to blood, before the great and awesome day of the LORD comes” (ESV). Maybe like with the devil in the wilderness, they wanted Jesus to do what the devil tempted Him to do so that they would see the fulfillment of Psalm 91:11-12, “For it is written:“‘He will command His angels concerning you, and they will lift you up in their hands, so that You will not strike your foot against a stone’” (ESV). Maybe they wanted to see legions of angels descending from heaven. We are not sure, but whatever the sign was they wanted, it had to involve the heavens.

The sign Jesus gave these religious leaders was verse 39, “An evil and adulterous generation seeks for a sign, but no sign will be given to it except the sign of the prophet Jonah. ” (ESV). Jesus accused the religious leaders of being adulterers. Though these religious leaders represented the nation of Israel, which had wandered away from God, God’s Word and obedience to God more times “than Carter has pills.” In the Old Testament Law, adultery was punishable by death. They had pursued other false gods and committed all kinds of lewd, sinful  and immoral acts — even offering their own children as sacrifices to the the Baal god Molech. 

Jesus made it clear — He would not perform a miracle on demand. Jesus could have easily performed it. The “sign of Jonah” Jesus refers to in Matthew 12:39, is about when Jonah refused to go preach to the city of Nineveh and tried to run from God on a ship to Tarshish. God causes a huge storm to come nearly sinking the boat and the only way the men realized they could save their lives and ship was by throwing Jonah overboard. 

You know the story. Jonah was in the stomach of some huge sea creature — possibly a whale for 3 days and 3 nights. It was miraculous he survived but God had Jonah where He wanted him. Can you imagine being in a stomach of a whale that long? All those gastric juices and the stench of rotting and digesting fish? Whew! You’d need more than some air freshener or scented candle to mask that smell. Jonah’s experience mirrored Christ’s death and in the grave for 3 days and 3 nights. Did you notice something important here? Jesus believed in the literal story of Jonah. If there was ever a time to correct the Old Testament scrolls with a different story line, this was the time. 

Now when we read passages like this we are prone to read them from our perspective today. Of a 24-hour day.  The phrase “three nights and 3 days” to come people pose a problem the with New Testament account of Jesus death and burial. Jesus died and was buried Friday night but rose Sunday morning. We say something similar. We get asked, “How long did you visit your family on Saturday. We were there for the day.” We do not necessarily mean 24 hours. We mean some part of that day. Jews considered any part of a day was understood to be as the whole day. Jesus simply generalized as we do today.

And unfortunately, many of the Jewish leaders and Jewish people did not believe the sign of the Resurrection either. They did what Jesus said they would do in Luke 16:31, “He said to him, ‘If they do not hear Moses and the Prophets, neither will they be convinced if someone should rise from the dead’” (ESV). Jesus was speaking of Himself here. When word began to spread that Jesus has resurrected in 3 days just like He said, we read how the religious leaders explained in Matthew 28:11-15: 

“While the women were on their way, some of the guards went into the city and reported to the chief priests everything that had happened. (12) When the chief priests had met with the elders and devised a plan, they gave the soldiers a large sum of money, (13) telling them, “You are to say, ‘His disciples came during the night and stole Him away while we were asleep.’ (14) If this report gets to the governor, we will satisfy Him and keep you out of trouble.” (15) So the soldiers took the money and did as they were instructed. And this story has been widely circulated among the Jews to this very day” (ESV). 

It all comes back to money again, doesn’t it? In those days a Roman solider who fell asleep at his post was executed. So, the religious leaders tell these Roman soldiers as they tell their lies, they will bribed with money the higher ups to keep them alive. Then to really ruffle the feathers of these religious leaders, Jesus said that the people in Nineveh that repented from Jonah’s preaching would judge the religious leaders on the day of Judgment and condemn these very religious leaders. It is obvious Jesus had not read Dale Carnegie’s book, How To Win Friends and Influence People.

When Jonah preached to these very sinful, pagan, evil, wicked, corrupt and idolatrous Gentile Assyrian Ninevites, they repented. Look at Jonah 3:5-6, “And the people of Nineveh believed God. They called for a fast and put on sackcloth, from the greatest of them to the least of them. (6) he word reached the king of Nineveh, and he arose from his throne, removed his robe, covered himself with sackcloth, and sat in ashes” (ESV). That’s a revival. In those days, covering oneself with ashes was a sign of repentance and sorrow. What a slap in their faces.

Then Jesus made a reference to the Queen of the South, also known as the Queen of Sheba. To Jews in that day, Sheba was at the end of the earth. She traveled over desert to hear the wisdom of Solomon. She too, another non Jew would judge these religious leaders on the day of Judgment, condemning them for rejecting the Son of God who have been sent to save them. Jesus said to them, “On Judgment Day, you are gong to be condemned even by the faith of Gentiles.” Knock out for Jesus here. The religious leaders considered Jews God’s chosen people and thus this gave them an advantage with God. Oh no, just the opposite. It gave them a responsibility to recognize, accept and believe God’s Messiah when He came.

Questions To Consider

1. I hope you have never been in the stomach of a whale, but has God ever had you in an inescapable place to get your attention? If so, what was it. How long did it take for you to get God was not going to release you until you repented or changed or relied on Him?
2. Put yourself in Jonah’s shoes inside the stomach of a whale. If that were you, what would you be feeling, seeing, hearing, smelling and experiencing?
3. Do you ever want God to do some kind of sign or miracle to prove something to you? If so, what is it and why?
4. Who do you know is very religious or very active in a church that it is hard to know if they are really saved or are they just trying to earn their salvation by works?
5. How do you personally know a person is a genuine Christ follower — someone who is abiding in Christ? How does the world and other Christians know you are a genuine Christian who abides in Christ.

Scripture to Meditate On: Matthew 22:37, “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind’” (ESV).

Prayer To Pray: “Dear Jesus, I do not want to be a hypocrite like the religious leaders. I want to be a committed, abiding in Christ, self-denying and taking up my cross daily Christian. God, if there is any area of my life where I am running from You as Jonah tried, please do whatever is necessary to get my attention. I love You too much to allow this to continue. Thank You for loving me, dying on the cross for me and coming out of the grave for me. Just like Jonah, I want You to use me to share my faith in You to others. I do not want to be just a church member. I want to be a Christ follower. God, please forgive me when I live or think I need some kind of sign from You to continue with You. Your Word is enough for me. Just like Jonah surrendered to You, so do I do. Just like the Queen of Sheba came to learn wisdom from Your servant Solomon, I want to learn wisdom from You and others who are godly. I love You Jesus!In Jesus’ name, Amen!”

I love you!, Pastor Kelly