When the crowds were increasing, he began to say, “This generation is an evil generation. It seeks for a sign, but no sign will be given to it except the sign of
Jonah. 30 For as Jonah became a sign to the people of Nineveh, so will the Son of Man be to this generation.
31 The queen of the South will rise up at the judgment with the men of this generation and condemn them, for she came from the ends of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon, and behold, something greater than Solomon is here.
32 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. 33
“No one after lighting a lamp puts it in a cellar or under a basket, but on a stand, so that those who enter may see the light.
34 Your eye is the lamp of your body. When your eye is healthy, your whole body is full of light, but when it is bad, your body is full of darkness.
35 Therefore be careful lest the light in you be darkness.
36 If then your whole body is full of light, having no part dark, it will be wholly bright, as when a lamp with its rays gives you light.”
Just as Jesus responded to those who accused him of driving out demons by the power of Satan in vv. 17-26, now he addresses those who were asking him for a sign. What
they were asking for, demanding really, was a show of some kind to verify His authority. We read earlier in v. 16 that the demand for a sign was a form of a “test.” It is doubtful that this was a serious inquiry or that if He had done something truly stupendous
at this moment that it would have made any difference, they had seen any number of miracles at this point, anyway: After all, Jesus made that clear that this was an “evil generation.”
Just as Jonah was given an experience of deliverance from death, a type of resurrection, as proof of the Lord’s commissioning the prophet, so Jesus will give them
a sign…the resurrection. This is the sign of Jonah. The point was made more clear when Jesus said that if the things done in the villages of Galilee had been done in Tyre and Sidon those pagan cities would have repented long ago. These two Gentiles, the Queen
of Sheba and the Ninevites, showed reverence for the words of Yahweh’s king and Yahweh’s prophet, but the Jews were haughtily rejecting their own Messiah!
We often refer to the gospel as ‘good news’, which of course it is, God’s grace to rescue sinners is good news indeed! However, woven into the story of salvation and
the deliverance of God, is…well…a lot of bad news; the stubborn refusal of proud human beings to accept the gifts of God, the corruption of human life by sin, and the judgment that awaits those who will not believe and repent. This unhappy truth is also found
in the Bible from beginning to end. Whole swaths of the Bible are intended to shine a bright light on the dark side of life and to warn the human race of the judgment to come. That is to say, that in, under and around the good news of the gospel we find the
bad news of man’s sickness and refusal to listen to where the remedy is to be found.
There is, permeating the Scriptures, picture after picture of men and women so given over to themselves, their own pleasure, their own view of the world that they
seem to be impervious to even the suggestion that they are in rebellion against God. And we find the same thing was happening in our text. We do not find any overt idolatry in this case, but no matter what Jesus did, no matter how many miracles he performed,
no matter how authoritative his teaching, these folks found their objections to be more substantive than what was happening, who was standing right in front of them. They were not merely needing a little light to see, they were completely and totally blind.
Perhaps you have heard the story of the man who thought he was dead…he was convinced that he was dead. Nothing his family or friends could say had disabused this man
of the conviction that he was dead. But then his psychiatrist hit upon a plan he thought might work. He asked the man if dead men bleed and the man agreed that they did not. But the doctor did not stop there. He put the man to reading books about death and
the circulatory system and articles about the effect of death on the circulation of blood. Again, and again the point was driven home: dead men do not bleed. Then one day in the doctor’s office he put the question to the man once more: do dead men bleed? The
man admitted that he now knew they did not. Then the doctor suddenly picked up a pin from the table, stepped over to his patient and poked him in the arm. The blood immediately began to ooze. The man’s face went white and he cried out: dead men do bleed!
A funny story meant to illustrate a desperately unfunny truth: the willfully blind cannot and will not see, no matter how bright the light.
Here is what I find unnerving in our reading this morning: Jesus as much as handed these men and that generation over to their unbelief. He didn’t explain to
them the error that he found in their request. They didn’t deserve an explanation, not that anyone deserves any kindness from the Lord, including us! Nonetheless, Jesus is not found pleading with them to forsake their unbelief and sin so as to be forgiven.
It wouldn’t have done any good. It would have been a case of casting pearls before swine, as he once put it. He accused them of their unbelief, compared them unfavorably with the Ninevites, notorious pagans, and with the Queen of Sheba and then prophesied
their doom. “The men of Nineveh will rise up at the judgment with the generation and condemn it.”
Sin and rebellion can become so fixed in a man’s mind, so incalcitrant is his heart, that there is no use suggesting or calling him to see clearly…he simply cannot.
One minister put it this way: In our modern American sentimentalism we are accustomed to think that Jesus would press the unbeliever, would seek to win him until the bitter end. But it was not so. It was very plainly not so in the history recorded in the
four Gospels. We are reminded how much like the OT prophets the Lord Jesus could be, so stern, so categorical. As gentle and winning as he often was, he was as often pure steel. As Hosea had put it in his day and as Jesus did in his, a refusal to give answer
to God, to listen and heed his word, protracted over time, can at last cause the Lord to withdraw from that person, or that generation of his people, to leave and never to return.
This might not be what we want to hear or even what we want to believe. However, we know this is true with other things: addiction to alcohol or tobacco can do great
damage and to the point that it can never be reversed. The lungs, the liver, are beyond repair, even if they stop smoking and drinking. It is true in the spiritual realm as well. Folks may be physically alive, but have become spiritually and eternally, already
dead.
What are we to make of such a solemn and sobering truth as we find it in Scripture this morning? Well, a couple of things to keep in mind:
First, give thanks to God and to the Lord Jesus Christ. In His great mercy, He has come to you BEFORE such a state became yours. Perhaps He has led you gently and
you see quite clearly what you would be and where you would be without Jesus. For others, He has had to be someone “rough” with you…you did not see. For many, even those in the church, in fact, especially those in the church, the Lord has had to take severe
mercies to get you to see clearly; your sin, your hiding, the distractions of your life that were keeping you from seeing clearly…well…from seeing clearly…you.
God, as we have said, often knocks over all your blocks that you have so carefully arranged. And now, you see why and while hoping you never have to go through that
again, you realize you have learned what could only have been learned by going through such difficulty, sorrow and pain. And, you are oddly thankful. We have to realize just how close we were to being like the folks in the text. How easily we could have hardened
into our own arrogance and self-reliance, thinking that we know…But God! But God in His mercy has opened our eyes!
Second, if we really and truly see what our sin was/is, where it wants to take us, to such a hard heart as to soundly reject the teachings of our Savior, then we will
want nothing to do with such behaviors, thoughts and desires. When those temptations come, when evil dresses up as good, and comes knocking at the door of our hearts, asking for a polite entrance, we will see it clearly for what it is and put it to death!
We will not accommodate it, we will not domesticate it, we will not lessen it. We will see if for what it is, what it desires and we will seek to be done with it, completely!
Let us vow with those Christian brothers and sisters we live life with to take the utmost care of God’s gift of salvation, protecting and guarding it from even the
faintest beginnings of the deceit of sin and unbelief. And, let us celebrate the life that is ours in Christ Jesus…freedom from sin! We were blind, but now we see!
Prayer: Father of mercies, I praise You for Your mercies without which I would be reveling in the muck and mire of my sin and rebellion, thinking that I know, thinking
that life is in my own hands! Thank you for opening my eyes to see the truth of life, eternal life, that is found only in Jesus Christ, the Savior of the world! Keep me alert to the deceits of sin and evil that I might stand against them and in the power of
God the Holy Spirit, conquer and defeat them, to the glory of Jesus Christ, my Savior, my Lord, my elder Brother and my Friend, Amen!
Hymn: Jesus What a Friend for Sinners