153 - Something Greater Than...

You pick up your Bible and wonder, is there more here than meets the eye?

Is there anything here for me? I mean, it's just words printed on paper, right? Well, it may look like just print on a page, but it's more than ink. Join us for the next half hour as we explore God's Word together, as we learn how to explore it on our own, as we ask God to meet us there in its pages.

Welcome to More Than Ink. So you know, sometimes we think of the story of Jonah as just a fairy tale, but Jesus seemed to think it was fact. It was fact, and in fact, he inserted it in his conflict with the Pharisee. What was that about?

Yeah, and why Jonah of all things? Let's find out. Join us today on More Than Ink. Well, good morning and welcome. This is More Than Ink, and I'm Dorothy. And I'm Jim. And we've been talking about Jesus, about what Jesus said about sin, about the unforgivable sin.

Yeah. One thing that God will not forgive, and that is refusing to recognize the work of His Holy Spirit, the blasphemy against the Holy Spirit. So where we pick up today in Matthew 12, we're starting in verse 33, but we left off with that statement that Jesus said, you know, if you're not with me, you're against me. If you don't gather with me, you're scattering.

And whoever speaks against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven, either in this age or in the age to come. So that's what we just were talking about. And so Jesus, we're going right on in this passage, like without even taking a breath.

He just presses right on. Yeah, let me add something to that. We're talking about the fact that Jesus says, you're either with me or you're against me. This kind of spiritual binary, there's no in between. And I might remind you that in a lot of popular culture right now, a lot of people want to adopt this view that there's many ways to God, that there's like a spectrum of ways of spirituality. But Jesus is very clear here. There's actually not.

It's a binary. You're either for Him or against Him, and He defines the entire spiritual world. Because He is the way, the truth, and the life. He's the way to God. Now there may be many ways to Jesus, right?

You can come toward Jesus from a lot of different directions, but once you arrive at Jesus, He is the decision point. He is the dividing sword. Well and it makes sense, because Jesus is fully God and fully man. He's the Creator. And so when the Creator Himself comes in and enters into His creation as a man, He's the dividing point for everything else. From that point, it doesn't matter what all the man-made religions say. It's really all about the Creator Himself making an appearance among us. He came to tabernacle, to dwell among us so that we could see Him.

So that sets the binary of all spiritual reality. So what do you do with Jesus? Well today we are in chapter 12.

You can follow this. We're at verse 33, and He's going to continue on His response to the Pharisees who last time we were here were very actively against Him. In fact, they were conspiring to figure out how to destroy Him. And so He's had this confrontation with them, and He continues to make commentary on their opposition to Him. Okay, and He's going to talk about good trees and good fruit and bad trees and bad fruit, which He had already opened that idea and used that picture back in the Sermon on the Mount, back in chapter 7 of Matthew.

So you can go back and look at that. He's not saying anything new here, but it's very pointedly applied to the spiritual leadership that He's talking to. Think about the Pharisees now as we enter into verse 33. Are we ready to read? Shall I read? Yeah, go ahead.

Okay. So, either make the tree good and its fruit good, or make the tree bad and its fruit bad, for the tree is known by its fruit. Stop there for just a second. That's a great metaphor. The fruit identifies the tree.

It totally does. You know what kind of tree it is by what's grown on the branches. Right. And it produces fruit that's determined by its nature, and it cannot change that. So He's saying, you either make, if you make good fruit, you're a good tree. If you make bad fruit, you're a bad tree. That's just kind of, we know this. And He said back in Matthew 7, you cannot, a good tree will not produce bad fruit, and a bad fruit can't produce, a bad tree can't produce good fruit.

Right. So He's talking quite pointedly at the Pharisees here, the bad fruit in their lives. And so He goes on pretty directly. Oh my gosh, look at this. And He says in their face, you brood of vipers.

Oh my gosh. How can you speak good when you are evil? See, there's the fruit not matching the nature. For out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks. The good person out of his good treasure brings forth good, and the evil person out of his evil treasure brings forth evil.

I tell you on the day of judgment, people will give account for every careless word they speak, for by your words, you will be justified, and by your words, you will be condemned. Oh. Wow. Wow. You're brood of vipers.

You're brood of vipers. Okay. So this is name-calling. Well, yeah.

And this is not the first time He'll use this phrase about them. No, that's right. Yeah. Brood of vipers. And by the way, that's not a bad translation. Brood actually just means offspring.

A whole bunch. So you're the offspring of snakes, is what He's saying. Which is interesting. That is. Right? Because the original liar, the original seducer of mankind was pictured as a snake. Right.

In the Garden of Eden. Right. He's basically saying, you are the offspring of Satan in the Garden of Eden. You are leading people astray right here.

You brood of vipers. But He's called them a bad tree, making bad fruit. Yeah. Right?

And He says, for out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks. Right. Right. What you are full of is evidenced by what comes out your mouth.

Yeah. So the nature of the good tree, the bad tree, well, the bad tree is their heart. They have bad hearts. And the fruit out of their lives is bad words. In fact, they just, the last time we saw them, they were calling Jesus from Beelzebul, from the devil. Right.

Well, there's some bad fruit right there. That's pretty evident. Okay, but there's some interesting stuff here when He says, on the day of judgment, first of all, there is a day coming. There is a day. Right? When people will give account for every careless word, every useless, unprofitable, rotten word. Rotten word. Right. Right. But then He says, for by your words, you'll be justified.

By your words, you'll be condemned. Well, it's interesting because if you look into these words, there's two different Greek words at work here. So the first one, when He says every careless word, that word is the less common word, arama. It means the substance, the reality behind what you're talking about. Yeah.

Right? The heart of it, yeah. But by your words, your logos, your intelligent communication, you'll be justified or shown to be right or you'll be condemned. So it's just another way of saying what's in your heart, the substance of what's in your heart is communicated by what comes out your mouth. Right.

What is your reality? Right. And that's what you talk about. Well, and in a very strong implication, too, He says you'll be condemned. That's a courtroom term. Mm-hmm. And what you do in courtroom is you bring witnesses to testify with their words one way or the other.

Right. They're going to speak. And He says, you know what? Your own words will testify against you. Your own words will show the true nature of your heart. It'll show whether you're a good tree or a bad tree based on the very words that will bring back up in court and you'll be condemned by those. So I thought God judges us on the basis of what we do, not what we say.

Right. But here, Jesus is making this very tight connection between what comes out your mouth representing who you really are inside, which of course is what you do. And later on in His ministry, when they came to Jesus and said, what do we do to be doing the works of God? This is in John 6. He said, this is the work of God that you believe in the one whom He has sent. These guys clearly did not believe.

They were so determined that He couldn't be the Son of God that they refused to see the reality that was in front of their face. And that is the basis on which they will be judged. So it is true that you'll know the tree by its fruit. And we used to have small fruit trees on our land and really you plant these trees, they all look pretty much the same even after they put on leaves after the winter.

And we had a bunch of varieties of apple trees and they all pretty much do look the same. And so we understand this without seeing the fruit, you really can't tell about the hidden nature of the inside of the thing. And I really like that picture because our hidden nature inside of us many times is even opaque to us, we don't understand, until some kind of horrible word comes out of our mouth and we're thinking, man, am I twisted and messed up inside. That has, you know, I can really identify with this because there have been times when I did not know I felt something or thought something until it came flying out my mouth.

There it is. And then I was utterly shamed at what I had said. I know.

I know. And so Jesus is trying to give us a clue that not only He understands who we are based on the fruit of our lips, but we can understand who we are based on the fruit of our lips. And there's many times we say stuff and even after it's coming out of our mouth, we're wishing we can pull it back into our mouth, but we can't, you've launched it already.

But it is so indicting in terms of what our hearts are like. And sure enough, that fruit will determine, not determine, they'll reflect who you are. The New Testament has a great deal to say, actually Proverbs does also, about our words and our speech.

So let me just plop a couple of other references out here if you're interested in reading more about this. You might go to James chapter 3, 2 to 12. You might look at Ephesians 4, 29 and 30, where Paul actually says, the kind of fruit we speak may grieve the Holy Spirit that is within us. Colossians 4, 6 also talks about the fruit that comes out of our mouths.

So you might just go and look at those. And I might remind you too, in a positive sense, Paul said in Romans 10, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart, which is what's reflected, that's the fruit and the nature, then that God raised him from the dead, you'll be saved. But there's something about the fruit of your heart coming out in terms of confessed words, which is just a really big deal.

And there seems to be this concreteness about the words that indicate a concrete reality of the heart. Yeah, yeah. Well, let's push on. Okay.

Yeah, let's do. We'll go into funny territory as he continues to spar with the Pharisees, verse 38. Okay, so verse 38, some of the scribes and Pharisees answered him saying, Teacher, we wish to see a sign from you. Okay, wait a minute. What have they been seeing?

The blind seeing, the deaf hearing, the lame walking. Makes me laugh every time. 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. Okay, so here's two more of these greater than statements where Jesus had said a couple of chapters back, something greater than the temple is here. What do you make of this reference to Jonah? They ask him for a sign and he's saying basically, I am going to be your sign.

I am your sign. Just hold on to your seats, watch this, because I'm going to be put into three days, three nights into the heart of the earth. Well, that's clearly buried and yet that's not going to be a final thing. But with Jonah, the same thing, Jonah, he went out and served the Ninevites, his enemies, his hostile enemies, and he went out and served them by his words, good fruit, speaking about the forgiveness of God. Well, the Ninevites repented, but he ended up going into the belly of the whale, in a sense, dying himself.

That was first, right? Jonah, when he went to minister to preach to the Ninevites, was in essence himself raised from the dead, because he had spent three days in the belly of a fish and then got barfed up and surely that changed his appearance. So he was, in a sense, dead and rose, and then people, the Ninevites repented and were saved.

Yeah. Well, there's the picture. Jesus says, this is greater than what happened to Jonah, what I'm going to do. And if the Ninevites responded based on Jonah, then how come you guys aren't responding based on what you're seeing with me?

Why are you asking for a sign? Wicked Gentiles in another nation entirely, way outsiders from Israel. Yeah, nasty, nasty people, but he's really making this contrast. Look, the Ninevites responded, how come you're not?

And look at what you've seen. Well, and then he uses the example of the Queen of the South, right? The Queen of Sheba who comes to hear the wisdom of Solomon. Again, we have a picture of an outsider coming from far away to hear what Solomon has to say. She responded. He says, something greater than Solomon is here, the wisdom of God is standing incarnate in front of you.

Yeah, yeah. And if you want to read that story, it's actually very short, it's in 1 Kings 10. And Queen of Sheba, she's a queen from Africa, from Ethiopia probably, and she hears statements and descriptions of what's going on in Israel with Solomon and his wisdom and what goes on. And she just can't believe it. So she travels up to Israel, she visits Solomon, she says, I'm here to ask you some hard questions. And he gives her a tour, he doesn't hide anything. And she says, man, I haven't been told the half of it.

This is just incredible. So her response is really quite dramatic, and she praises Solomon for his wisdom, and he talks about who God is. Well, if the Queen of Sheba responded to great Solomon, and yet, you're not willing to respond to me, but something greater than Solomon is here.

What's your guy's problem? What does that say about you? Exactly. Exactly. But something greater than Solomon is here.

That's really pretty out there. Jesus says this in response to them saying, God, you know, give us a sign, give us a pointer, show us a... Yeah, yeah, yeah. Perform on demand. Right. Right.

Give us the kind of miracle we want. Right. Right.

And he says, you know, later on in his ministry, he said, even if someone rises from the dead, they wouldn't believe. They won't believe. Right. Because they have determined that he can't possibly be the one. And that's exactly the sign they're going to get.

Right. And it will not be persuasive to them. It will not. In fact, even in their asking for the sign right here, I think this is kind of a mocking thing in a sense. I mean, they want to have their arms twisted behind their back to be forced to believe he's the Messiah. That will never happen.

God will never force that. They're looking for some kind of miracle that suits their purposes. Right. And how it is that what he's been doing up to this point has missed their gaze, I don't know. Well, he's been ministering to the poor and the needy and the broken.

Yeah. But it does remind me, even at the crucifixion, you know, they say, you know, let them come down from the cross. Save himself. And we will believe in him. We will believe in him if he comes down from the cross, which he clearly can do.

But then, you know, in the three days and three nights, he'll rise from the dead. Did that convince them? No. So in a sense, this isn't really a wholehearted request. But still, he doesn't say, I'm never going to give you a sign.

He's saying, I am your sign. Watch. You know, it's interesting that you should make reference to calling him to come down from the cross because that actually was compelling for Nicodemus and for Joseph of Arimathea. Because, remember, they're the ones who went to Pilate and asked for the body.

They were unafraid to be identified with him at that point, by the time he was crucified. That's interesting to me. Yeah. Yeah.

Pretty fascinating. So they ask for a sign. And he says, I got one coming for you.

But Jesus knows it's not going to be persuasive. So look where he goes. He's coming back to talk about unclean spirits now again. Yeah.

43. Matthew presents this all of a piece. It's part of the same conversation. So verse 43, Jesus says, when the unclean spirit has gone out of a person, it passes through waterless places seeking rest, but finds none. Then it says, I'll return to my house from which I came. And when it comes, it finds the house empty, swept, and put in order. Then it goes and brings with it seven other spirits more evil than itself, and they enter and dwell there. And the last state of that person is worse than the first.

So also will it be with this evil generation. What is he talking about? First off, it's interesting. This is not the principle idea. But it's interesting that he gives great power to the fact that spirits can actually occupy us like a house. And that's not just some kind of hocus pocus stuff.

We're talking real things here. So when we talk about Jesus himself as being fully man and fully God, fully vested with the Holy Spirit inside, that's not really a foreign concept to have a spirit, the Spirit of God inside you. And later on, Paul himself will say, it's Christ in you, the hope of glory. So God's Spirit does indeed live within us. And they were acquainted with people in whom an evil, unclean spirit had taken up residence and Jesus had been casting them out right and left.

And he did it just last time we were together. But it's interesting that he seems to be indicating here that it's possible for a demon to be cast out and without it being replaced by a Holy Spirit, you're in a worse condition than you were before. So just return. Yeah, there's kind of a displacement thing in a sense. You can chase the Spirit out. But unless the Holy Spirit's there filling that space, you're vulnerable to just having them return.

And this also, he's talking about this evil generation. In a way, he's talking in a bigger picture as well about the fact that Jesus himself has come into this culture, into this society. And he'll have, for the short term, a cleansing effect in many ways, especially with the cleansing of the demons from people and stuff. But in the culture itself, here is God himself, the Holy Spirit manifest, boom, right there in their midst.

And for a short period of time, something like the chasing off of a demon and someone goes away. But then can it be that when Jesus is gone, after he dies, he's resurrected, is it possible that the effects that Jesus had during his three years of ministry will actually become much, much worse for the nation of Israel? So in a way, it's sort of like he's saying to the Pharisees who he's been battling with, I'm here for a while and I have a cleansing effect even on you guys. I have an effect here because I'm holy.

But when I'm gone, things are really gonna fall apart because you rejected who I am. And it makes me think of what happened in 70 AD some years later. So Jesus does have a short-term effect of cleansing, but for those who are really doubtful about who he is, the aftermath by you denying who he is is gonna be so much worse later on. So you are interpreting this generation as a chronological generation, that period of time when Jesus was in ministry.

I think you can do it both ways. I think so too, because very often we find that the term generation biblically means not just a chronological period of time, but a characteristic of a group of people who all are generated from the same source. The generation that is evil, that is, we talked about the binary again, you're either for Jesus or you're against. Well and he had called them a brood of vipers, right, those who were generated from the evil one or from that source of a liar, an unbelieving liar. So I really do think in a larger sense, Jesus for a while during these three years of ministry really does push out Satan's ability to cause death and destruction, because he's there.

Yeah, because he just reverses it at every turn. Right, but then when he's gone, people who don't recognize who Jesus is, who are on the wrong side of that spiritual binary, it's just gonna get so much worse after he's gone. I think that's sort of what he's saying right here. But I mean the literal reality is, yeah indeed, a demon can occupy someone, and if the Holy Spirit doesn't take over that space in the interim, the demon just comes back and says, great, we'll just start all over again. Okay, so let's talk for just a second about how this can be true of us in this age, right? We can, it's possible for a person to experience some deeply religious experience, something they've said, I've had a God encounter, right? But if it does not go on to produce in them a repentance and a genuine turning toward God, there will not be this, as you said, a displacement of the evil by the Holy Spirit taking up residence.

We know that that only happens by faith in Christ. So he's talking not only about just having some sensational supernatural experience, but having it yield in you a saving faith. Right, where the Holy Spirit is resident inside you. And Paul himself writes and says, when you have a genuine conversion experience, a born again experience, then the Spirit of God is in you. He takes up residence in you.

Right, right. So there's that defensive posture that the Holy Spirit takes. And that's actually what Jesus said about the Holy Spirit. He said, he's going to be with you and he's going to be in you. Be in you, yeah, yeah.

Well, we only have a few minutes left, so we should, let me read for us in 46. So while he was speaking to the people, behold, his mother and his brother stood outside asking to speak to him. Well, that's interesting.

Yeah, it is. And he replied to the man who told him, well, who is my mother and who are my brothers? And stretching out his hand toward his disciples, he said, here are my mother and my brothers, for whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother. Okay, so first of all, his mother was around and his brothers. Yeah, that's right. Right, so this is clearly, we're in Galilee. This is where his family lived, and they can't get access to him, so they come and try and get into the crowd. Knocking on the door.

But isn't that interesting? Is he dissing his mother and his family by what he says? He's not. No, he's not. He's not. But he uses the opportunity to say, all of you who believe in me and who subject yourselves to the will of God, you're my family.

Right. And in the ancient idea, a family had a father and a mother and the kids, and the kids were just presumed to be workers in the father and mother's business and what they do. So if you follow the will of your father, you're a family. But he says, now I'm redefining who the father is.

It's not my father, Joseph. It's my father and brother. So what makes you brothers and sisters, co-workers in this joint adventure, well, if you have the same love for the father that I do, then you're my brothers and sisters. That makes us a family.

That's what it is. So he's not really repudiating Mary and his brothers. In fact, John's gospel says that all of his brothers disbelieved who he was. Until after the resurrection. Until after the resurrection. So they're knocking on the door right here. It's kind of... Well, because Joseph is not in the picture at this point, so he's the head of the family.

Doesn't. That's exactly right. And it's possible that they have some familial need, like, oh, well, we can't do anything without the firstborn.

That's right. Right? And it's all speculation at this point, but I always imagine whether they're knocking on their door saying, I think this whole thing's getting out of hand. I think we need to have... Come home.

We need to have them come home and go back to the carpentry bits or something. Because I know the brothers are not believing right here. Mary knows who he is.

But they're clearly a little disturbed. And so Jesus takes the opportunity to say, there's nothing wrong with family, but I want you to know that my Father is the Father in Heaven. And that defines the new idea of a family. And even for us in this day right now, that does as well.

Even in Christian congregations and stuff like that, we see each other as family members because we all have the same Father. As we become born again. Yes. Born into a new family.

In Christ when we come to believe in Him. Right. Right. Yeah. So it's really just a...

It's just a beautiful picture. But a lot of people misinterpret this and say, see, family connections don't mean anything and he hates his mom and his brothers. Well, there's no indication of that at all.

No, no, no. He's just taking the opportunity to say that he is going about his Father's business. And remember that thing when he's 12 and he goes back. He stays at the temple and his parents go home. He says, well, I was just doing my Father's business.

Well, wait. Isn't your Father Joseph? No. Father in heaven. Well, and he redefines family as anyone who does the will of my Father. Yeah.

Well, we know that it's God's will that not any should perish, but that all should be saved. Right. So if we come to acknowledge God as our Father and Jesus as the savior He's sent, then we become part of the family of God. Right.

Right. And we're back to this sort of spiritual binary again, too, because Jesus says, if you're with me, you know, you're for me. And so you will actually be doing the same things I'm doing in terms of gathering people together into the kingdom of heaven that, that, that makes you part of that family. So here he is saying it the same thing all over again.

How does that happen? Well, next time I guess we come back, you come to chapter 13 next time. I think. I love Matthew 13. It's full of parables.

It's really great. So I'm Jim and I'm Dorothy and you're not going to want to miss this next time on More Than Ink. There are many more episodes of this broadcast to be found at our website, morethanink.org. And while you're there, take a moment to drop us a note. Remember, the Bible is God's love letter to you. Pick it up and read it for yourself and you will discover that the words printed there are indeed more than ink. What was that about? What was that about?

Okay. This has been a production of Main Street Church of rhythm city.