"The Sign of Jonah"

Hi there, this is Lon Solomon and I'd like to welcome you to our program today. You know it's a tremendous honor that God has given us to be on stations all around the nation bringing the truth of God's word as it is uncompromising and straightforward. And I'm so glad you've tuned in to listen and be part of that.

Thanks again for your support and your generosity that keeps us on the radio. And now let's get to the Word of God. We're here in Luke chapter 11 verse 14. Jesus was driving out a demon that was mute.

And when the demon left, the man who had been dumb spoke and the crowd was amazed. But some of them said, by the elves above, the prince of the demons, he's driving out other demons. And others were testing him by asking for a sign from heaven. Now I'm going to do something that we don't do very often and that is I'm going to tell you that in Matthew's gospel, we have the very same account, but we have some slightly different details that Matthew gives us. And I want us to work out of Matthew's account of this because there's some things he tells us Luke doesn't that I think help us understand better what's going on. Now I want you to turn back to Matthew chapter 12. If you're using our copy of the Bible, it's page 690, Matthew chapter 12, the very same incident, very same happening, but recorded by Matthew instead of Luke.

Look at Matthew chapter 12 verse 22. They brought to Jesus a man who was demon possessed, who was blind and mute. And Jesus healed him so that he could both talk and see.

Okay, this is the same guy now, right? Now, and all of the people were astonished. We saw that in Luke chapter 11. And they said, Could this be the son of David?

So what does that mean? Well, in the Old Testament, we know that the Messiah, Isaiah chapter 11 was to be a descendant of David, that the Messiah, Micah chapter 5, was to be born in David's city, that the Messiah, 2 Samuel chapter 7, was to sit on David's throne and rule forever. And so the name son of David became another title or another name for Messiah. In Matthew chapter 22, Jesus asked a crowd, What do you think about the Messiah?

Whose son is he? And they spoke up and said, Well, of course, he's the son of David. So what these people are really asking is, Is this man, Jesus Christ, the one who just did this miracle, could this man really be the Messiah of Israel? And that's what they're asking.

Now, who are they asking that question? Well, they're asking their rabbis, who was part of the crowd and were listening. And the rabbis respond.

Look, verse 24. But when the Pharisees, the religious leaders, the rabbis heard this, they said, It's only by Beelzebub, the prince of the demons, that this fellow's driving out demons. The religious leaders of Israel, the rabbis, had to answer the people's question. The people said, Look, look at the miracle he just did.

Could this man be the Messiah of Israel? The rabbis had to answer that. And the people were smart enough to know that you can't walk around and do the miracles Jesus did unless there was something supernatural that was driving you.

So what options are there? Well, there's God, he's supernatural, and there's Satan, the devil himself. So which of the two forces supernaturally is giving Jesus the power to do his miracles? That was their question.

All right? Now, the rabbis, if they admit that it's God that's giving Jesus the power to do his miracles, well, then we got a problem, don't we? Because if Jesus is doing it by the power of God, then Jesus is telling the truth. And if he's telling the truth, then he's the Messiah. And if he's the Messiah, that means that every one of those rabbis ought to get down on their knees and humble themselves and agree to follow him and obey him and serve him. But those rabbis weren't about to do that. So they can't say he's from God because they can't deal with the implications of that.

You with me? So they say, well, you're right, there has to be a supernatural power behind what Jesus is doing, and they say it's the power of Beelzebub, which is another name they used in that day for the devil. He's doing it by the prince of the demons. He's doing it by the power of the devil himself. It's very important for us to understand, friends, what's going on here, that these rabbis are not just opposing Jesus Christ for themselves.

They were doing that, but it's far more serious than that. Their sheep are asking them, as the shepherds of Israel, Rabbi, is this our Messiah? Rabbi, should we follow this man? Rabbi, is this the one we've been looking for and waiting for?

Should we serve and obey him? And in response, the rabbis say, no, he is not. He's a fraud. He's an imposter.

He's a fake. You should not follow him. You should not listen to him.

Don't pay attention to a word he has to say. He's not the Messiah. And so there are thousands of souls hanging in the balance. You know, many times when Jesus was opposed by the rabbis, he just walked away, said, eh, and walked away. But he's not going to walk away from this one because there are too many souls hanging in the balance.

People are listening and people are watching. So he turns and he confronts them. Jesus turns and first addresses this charge of the rabbis that he's casting out demons by the power of Satan.

And he says, now, fellas, just use your head, would you? I mean, let's just use some simple logic here. Think about the Roman Empire for a minute.

If Caesar went around killing all of his local governors who were out there doing his dirty work, how in the world could his empire survive? And so now you say I'm Satan and I'm walking around casting out my own demons. Fellas, think.

You know, think. That makes no sense at all. Why in the world if I was Satan would I go around casting out my own demons who were out there serving me and doing my dirty work for me? Now why would I do that?

That makes no sense whatsoever. Fellas, that dog won't hunt. And you've got to face that. So what other options do we have here? Well, the only other option we have is down in verse 28. Jesus said, but if I drive out demons by the power of the Spirit of God, well, that's the only other option. And Jesus says that's what I am doing. I am doing my miracles by the power of the Spirit of God. I am the true Messiah of Israel.

If that indeed is true, then the kingdom of God has come upon you and you're staring the kingdom of God right in the face when you look at me because I'm exactly who I claim to be. Do you understand what he says to them? He goes on to say in verse 29 or again, how can anybody enter a strong man's house, meaning Satan, and carry off his possessions unless he first ties up the strong man? Then he can rob his house. In other words, the reason I'm able to go around and cast out Satan's demons is because I'm stronger than he is.

I entered his house, tied him up, said he can't do anything to stop me and now I can go around and wreck his house. So you need to understand you're dealing with somebody who's even stronger than Satan himself. Now these are the claims that Jesus makes for himself and he makes them without apology. I think there are some pretty incredible claims, you know that?

And Jesus demands them that the rabbis and the people listening deal with them. Now so far this morning I've been real good. I haven't mentioned football, I haven't mentioned the Super Bowl, but did you see when the Bills won the AFC game that they held up that big poster that was in the newspaper? Did you see the big poster they held up? Remember what it said?

It said, We're Back, Deal With It, America. Did you see that poster? You know the guys who made up that poster won two free tickets to the Super Bowl, they were having a contest in Buffalo. They said you could come up with the most clever poster if they won the game. And those guys won two tickets to the Super Bowl with a poster that said, We're Back, Deal With It, America. When I saw that poster I thought, this is kind of like what happens here with Jesus Christ.

It's as though Jesus Christ unfurled a banner right over top of him that said, I am the Son of God, now deal with it, Israel. I don't know what the fans in Buffalo want the rest of America to do to deal with it. I'm already rooting for them because I'm ABD.

You know ABD? Anybody but you got it. So I'm already rooting for them. But Dallas is going to kill them guys.

I'm going to have to eat it next week. Dallas is going to mash them. You don't even watch it. Dallas is going to murder these guys. The point is, what do they want us to do to deal with them being back to four Super Bowls?

I can't help it if they're going to lose four times in a row. What am I supposed to do? But you know what? There was something that Jesus wanted Israel to do to deal with it. It was very simple. Jesus wanted them to accept him as their personal savior. He wanted them to surrender to him as their personal Lord and he wanted them to embrace him as the Messiah of Israel.

That's what dealing with it meant for Israel. Now did they do it? Did the rabbi suddenly go, oh gee, you know, you're right. It is kind of illogical what we said, isn't it? Oh, you must be the Messiah. Is that what they did?

Not on your life. Look at verse 38. Then some of the Pharisees and the teachers of the law said to him, now teacher, we want to see a miraculous sign from you to prove you're the Messiah.

Now time out. What was wrong with the one he'd just done about five minutes before that? He just did one. Just healed a guy that was blind and couldn't talk.

What was wrong with that one? Do you really think that these rabbis were sincere? Do you really think if Jesus had done another miraculous sign right then and there that they would have fallen on their knees and suddenly said, oh, you're right.

You are the Messiah. Oh, you're right. Do you really think they would have done that? No way.

You don't really think that, do you? What were they doing? Well, they were stalling. They were playing political games. They had a whole crowd that was watching and Jesus had just shot their wad full of holes and they didn't know what to say.

So they're just trying to buy some time. These people aren't interested in believing. Friends, if these guys were really interested in believing in Jesus Christ, Jesus had done so many miracles already, they'd have been already in his camp. These people weren't interested. Miracles don't convince anybody of anything unless their heart's open to believing.

You can do all the miracles you want. If somebody doesn't want to believe, they're not going to believe. If you're not interested in listening, no amount of signs in the world is going to convince you to listen. These rabbis weren't interested in listening and no amount of miracles in the world was going to convince them. Jesus knew that.

That's why he answered them the way he did. Look at verse 39. Jesus said, a wicked and adulterous generation asks for a miraculous sign. After all the signs I've already given you and you want more?

No. Jesus said, I'm only giving you one more sign and that's the sign of the prophet Jonah. For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of a huge fish, so the Son of Man, meaning himself, will be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. But Jesus said, you're not going to listen to that either. So verse 41, the men of Nineveh are going to stand up in judgment with this generation and condemn you guys for they repented.

They changed their mind. They turned back to God when Jonah came and preached to them after the fish spit him up. But somebody far greater than Jonah's here, Jesus Christ, and you guys aren't even listening to him. Now what's Jesus talking about the sign of Jonah, three days and three nights in the heart of the earth?

Well, you know what he's talking about. He's talking about his resurrection. Jesus said, Jonah spent three days and three nights in the belly of a fish in the same way I'm going to spend three days and three nights in the grave. You say, you don't really believe Jonah did this, do you? Absolutely.

And given more time, I'd explain to you exactly why. But if Jesus is wrong about this, he's wrong about everything else. And I know he wasn't wrong when he changed my life 21 years ago. If Jesus Christ is who he says he is, he knows all about Jonah.

Yeah, I believe it happened. Absolutely. And then the Bible says Jonah emerged alive and well three days later. Jesus says, so am I. So am I. I'm going to give you guys one more sign, Jesus said, and it's going to be the Big Daddy of them all.

If there was ever any doubt before, there's not going to be any doubt now. I mean, I've gone around dealing with germs and blindness and paralysis and turning water into wine. But really, that's piddly stuff compared to what I'm going to do. I'm going to conquer death right in front of your eyes. And then I'm going to convince you I'm really who I said. But you guys, even then, you're not going to believe, Jesus said. But you know what I like when I look in the Bible? I like that Jesus Christ says that he's the master of death. I like that Jesus Christ says that he's not powerless over death. That's what he was telling these people.

He was saying, I'm going to prove to you guys that I'm who I say because I'm going to beat the one thing nobody has any power over. And that's death itself. Jesus said, John Chapter 10, I have the power to lay my life down. So do you.

You could take a bunch of pills or go sit in your garage with the car on. But then he said, and I have the power to take my life up again. Now, hold on. That's where you and I and Jesus part company, because you don't have that power.

And neither do I. But he said he did. And he proved it with the sign of Jonah. He proved it when he rose from the dead. He said to these guys, I'm going to give you the most awesome sign imaginable, fellas. I'm going to rise from the dead. And yet you're still not going to believe me. And he left that crowd standing there saying, OK, what are you going to do about it?

I'm sure when he rose from the dead, many of those people who heard him speak remembered what he had said. But what did they do about it? That's the end of our passage. But it leaves us with the question. So what? Have you been noticing what's going on in our culture these days? You say, well, yeah, well, what are you talking about? Have you noticed everybody wants to be in neutral about everything?

Have you noticed that? We are becoming PC land, where in PC land, nobody has an opinion. Nobody has a conviction. Nobody takes a stand.

Nobody cares about anything. Everybody takes middle of the road. Everybody walks right down the middle.

Nobody says anything to offend anybody, even if it's right. Everybody wants to be neutral. Everybody wants to have no opinion.

Everybody doesn't want to get involved. And everybody wants to have no comment. No matter what you ask anybody anymore, it's no comment.

Well, what do you think? No comment. Well, how about no comment?

I think that that's probably pretty soon going to be the first thing that our kids learn. Would you like a banana? No comment.

How about a cookie? No comment. I mean, what's happening to us? Americans, we don't want to take a stand on anything. We don't want to declare on anything. We don't want to take a position on anything anymore.

Everybody wants to walk down the safe middle of the road and just have absolutely no opinion. Now, when it comes to Jesus Christ, will that work? Can you be PC about Jesus Christ? No, not with what he claimed. Listen to what he claimed. He claimed he was God in the flesh. He claimed that he was the one and only true way to have a relationship with God. He claimed that his blood shed on the cross was the one and only true payment for sin. He claimed that he was the one and only true door into heaven, and if you didn't enter by him, you didn't get in. And he claimed he was going to rise from the dead to prove everything else he claimed was true.

Now, folks, if he rose from the dead, if he really is telling the truth about all those other things he claimed, then there is no place to be neutral about Jesus Christ. And that's exactly what he says to these people. What response does he want from these people? Well, look, verse 30. Look with me at verse 30. Jesus said, He who is not with me is against me, and he who does not gather with me scatters.

Now, look at that again. He who is not avowedly, openly, unashamedly with me, where does Jesus say you stand? You're against him. And if you're not out there gathering with him actively and deliberately, what are you doing?

You're scattering. Do you see what Jesus said? Jesus said there is no neutral. There is no neutral.

You're either for him, or if you decide you're not for him, you've decided you're against him. There's no neutral, not with the claims Jesus made for himself. And if you're here and you've never cast your lot in with Jesus Christ, then, dear friend, you need to understand that pleading neutrality when you face God is not going to work. Say, well, God, I mean, at least I wasn't against you.

I was kind of middle of the road, neutral, not going to work. And it doesn't really matter whether you think you're against Jesus Christ or not. What matters when you and I get into eternity is what God thinks, and this is what God thinks.

This is it. You're either for him, or you're against him. You know, some of us here have been coming and listening for a long time, and we've been mulling it over in our mind and saying, do I really want to do this? Do I really want to believe in Jesus Christ?

Is this really for me? We've never decided to take that personal step of faith. We're still thinking about it, thinking about it, thinking about it. You know, that approach reminds me of what T. Boone Pickens said, the great industrialist. He said the greatest problem in America is summed up by this statement.

Ready? Aim, aim, aim, aim, aim. What's our problem? Sooner or later, if you're going to make something happen, what do you have to do? You got to pull the trigger and what?

You got to fire. Thank you in the back. I appreciate that.

Thank you. Yeah, of course. And spiritually, when it comes to our relationship with Christ, there are many of us here who have the attitude of ready, aim, aim, aim, aim, aim, aim, aim, aim, aim. And some of us are going to go to our grave aiming. But you see, when you face Christ and you say, God, I spent a whole lot of time aiming, doesn't matter.

The point is, did you fire? Did you step across the line and say, Christ, I'm with you. I'm for you.

Actively, deliberately, unashamedly, I'm in your camp. I'm for you. That's what God's looking for from your life, from my life, from these people's lives. And if you've never done that, if you've been coming here a long time and just thinking about it for a long time, friends, I hope you'll step across the line because thinking about it is not what God's interested in.

He wants you to make a decision and he wants you to be for him. And you know what? There are many of us here who as Christians who still need to hear this challenge because we've stepped across the line and said we want Christ as our savior.

Yes, sir. We want to trust him to pay for our sins. But when it comes to our personal life, we're still sitting on the fence in terms of Christ being the Lord of our life. You know, I used to think I was the Lord of my universe. I lived the first 20 years of my life being the Lord of my universe.

Then at 21 years of age, Jesus Christ convinced me that he was the Lord of the universe. And he also convinced me there was not enough room in this universe for two lords, not enough room for two of us. So one of us had to abdicate. Guess who wasn't willing to abdicate?

Not him. He owns the universe. He's not abdicating. What he wanted me to do is abdicate. Well, I'll tell you, for me at that point, 21 years old, it wasn't that hard a decision. I've been the Lord of my life for the first 20 years and I had screwed my life up so bad that it wasn't even a hard decision to make. I turned my life over to Christ at that point. Friends, to let Jesus Christ be the Lord of my life, to let the word of God and the will of God be the Lord of my life was the best decision I ever made in my life.

The last 20 years since then have been the best 20 years of my life. You know, that's a decision many of us here need to make. When it comes to our business ethics, when it comes to our sexual habits, when it comes to our personal integrity, when it comes to our money and the words that come out of our mouth, God has a deliberate active will for every one of those things. You can't be neutral on those things. You're either in line with what God says, deliberately committed to what God says, obeying and submitting to what God says and trying to live it as best you can or you're not. But there's no middle ground. You can't be neutral.

Being neutral means you've not embraced what God says and you're doing it your way and you're still the Lord of your life. I don't have any Christian bumper stickers on any of my cars. You say, why not? I don't have any fishes on my car.

You say, why not? The answer is I'm too bad a driver to have any of those things on my car. That's the honest to God truth. I would do more damage to my reputation and a reputation of Christ with bumper stickers on my car than you can possibly imagine.

Now I'm not proud of that, but it's true. I'm not the greatest driver in the world. I've even gotten letters from the governor reminding me that driving is a privilege, which I'm going to lose if I'm not careful. In Washington, even if you're a good driver, you can be a good driver and people still get mad at you. I mean, you don't have to do anything wrong. I've been driving down the road, minding my own business, doing nothing wrong.

Had people ride by, yell nasty things and make nasty gestures at me and I'm trying to figure out, I don't even know what I did. So I got no bumper stickers on my car, no fish on my car. But if I ever put a bumper sticker on my car, I'll tell you one that I would put on.

It says this, I saw it the other day. It says, if God is your co-pilot, you need to switch seats. Is that a good bumper sticker?

I love that bumper sticker. If God is your co-pilot, you need to switch seats. Because God's not long to be your co-pilot, what's He long to be?

The pilot, that's right. So can I be the co-pilot? Can I be the navigator? My advice to you is go on in the back and be a passenger. It's the best thing you can do. Just stay out of the cockpit and let Him fly the airplane and you just follow and you'll be the best thing that could happen to your life.

And friend, if that's going to happen, it's not going to happen by osmosis or by accident. You and I are going to have to make a deliberate decision to step off the throne to abdicate as Lord of our life and let Jesus Christ have that position. The question is, are you willing to do it?

Have you done it? If Jesus Christ is who He says He is and if the sign of Jonah is true, then what other option makes any sense? But let me just remind you, even if you're a Christian, when you get to heaven and God says, well now about your business ethics and about your sexual habits and about your personal integrity and about your money and about those things that came out of your mouth, you say, up God, I was neutral. Now it won't sell.

That dog won't hunt either. It's either I'm for you Lord or I made the decision I'm going to run my life my way. There's no middle ground. What decision have you made?

I hope you've made the right one. Let's bow together in prayer. Dear Father, thank you for making the issue so crystal clear for us this morning. Thank you for reminding us that the way we can know that you are who you say you are is because you did something no religious leader ever claimed to do, much less did. Rise from the dead and conquer death. And Lord Jesus, I pray that you would help us to take to heart your words that whoever's not for you, they're against you.

There's no middle ground with Jesus Christ. Thank you for speaking to our hearts this morning. Change our life by what we've heard. We pray this in Jesus name.

Amen. You've been listening to So What with Dr. Lon Solomon. So What is an outreach of Lon Solomon Ministries. To listen to today's message or for more information, visit our website, lonsolomonministries.org. Thank you for your support. If you would like to contact us, please visit our website or call us at 866-788-7770. We hope you will join us next time when Lon seeks to answer one of life's most important questions, So What.