Something Greater
Notes
Transcript
Introduction
Introduction
Back around 2000 BC, the Chaldeans worshipped a god that was half fish, half man named Dagon. It was considered to be the king-god by the Chaldeans and was worshiped in its capital: Ur. It is very likely that Abraham would have at one point worshipped Dagon himself before being called out of Ur to follow the one true God Yahweh.
The worship of Dagon, however began to spread. Not only the small country of Chaldea worshipped it, but as it grew to what we know as Babylon, the whole empire adopted its worship. In fact, Hammurabi declared his success in battle was due to Dagon. Various nations in Canaan adopted the worship of this fish-god, including the sea-faring people of Philistia. You might remember the story of Dagon versus Yahweh in 1 Samuel 5. The ark of the covenant was captured, and was set before the statue of Dagon. In the morning, the Philistines found the statue fallen down as if bowing before the ark. They set it up right only to find the next day that it was bowing again before the ark except this time the hands and the head had been cut off, having been laid to the side.
Assyria adopted the worship of Dagon, and it was from reading their records that we find that Dagon was considered to be the father of Baal. The people of Assyria worshipped Dagon who had begun to not only be considered king of the sea, but king of the land and crops as well. It is believed that the Hebrew word for grain, “dagan” is derived from Dagon which is derived from the Hebrew word “dag” meaning fish.
It was to these Dagon worshippers that Jonah preached his message of destruction. And when he did, the people of Nineveh—the fiercest and most barbaric people of their day—turned from their evil and repented. The king called for fasting from the least to the greatest, including animals, and called on the people to repent.
And what we are reading and studying today is Jesus’s use of this event from nearly 800 years before, to call out the people of his own generation. As fierce and barbaric as the Ninevites were, they were not so filled with pride that they turned away from God’s messenger. The same could not be said about those who heard the words of Jesus.
This morning, we see three types of statements. First we see the accusatory statement. From this comes the explanatory statement, and finally the condemnatory statement. Or we could just say there is an accusation, an explanation, and a condemnation.
Accusation
Explanation
Condemnation
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.
For as Jonah became a sign to the people of Nineveh, so will the Son of Man be to this generation.
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.
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.
An Accusation
An Accusation
The first statement we want to examine this morning is the statement of accusation. Jesus actually had some pretty harsh words to say to the people. And one of the things that we need to understand is that he waited to say them until the crowds had grown.
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.
Jesus didn’t say this when only Peter, James, and John were around. He didn’t wait until he got alone with the twelve. This wasn’t behind closed doors. He actually waited until the crowds grew. He wanted the crowds to hear what he was about to say. He was about to accuse them all of being evil.
“This generation is an evil generation.” That’s quite a statement. The fact that Jesus used the word generation is indicative that he was not just talking about the Jewish leaders. He was talking about the people of Israel as a whole. He considered the people of his day to be evil!
They are seeking a sign, Jesus said. That is the present, active, indicative. Indicative indicates that this was a statement of fact. The active indicates that the people—this generation—were the ones doing the action. The present tense shows that it was continuous. It was ongoing.
Think through all the miracles that Jesus had already performed. How many demoniacs had he set free? How many sick had been healed? How many blind people could now see? How many deaf people could hear and mute people speak? Miracle after miracle. Sign after sign. And it was never good enough!
No matter what Jesus did, where Jesus did it, how Jesus did it, or even when Jesus did it was ever enough! They were asking for more. Remember what we saw just two weeks ago? Jesus had exorcised a demon causing a man to be mute.
But some of them said, “He casts out demons by Beelzebul, the prince of demons,”
while others, to test him, kept seeking from him a sign from heaven.
In our men’s Bible study last week, we were discussing whether or not Joshua was justified in his prayer to God when the small army of Ai beat Israel. And part of the discussion was that he should have known better. He saw what God did in the wilderness. He should have known God’s faithfulness and Israel’s unfaithfulness. He needed only look at what God had done and should have known better.
Gideon was called by God to go up against the Midianites. God had already shown himself to be with Gideon by the angel who consumed his food with fire. But he wanted more. He put out a fleece and asked that it be wet with dew while the ground was dry. When that happened, he asked for more. Let the fleece be dry while the ground was wet. A little later, God had to assuage him again by sending him near the Midianite perimeter and hear the dream of one of their soldiers. And one asks themselves, how many acts of God does it take to convince people that God is strong enough? That God is good enough? That God is faithful enough? That God is just enough? That God is loving and merciful enough? J. D. Rockefeller once made a statement when asked how much money was enough. “Just a little bit more.” That’s our response to “How much does God have to do to show himself faithful?” “Just a little bit more.”
Brothers, sisters. . .at what point do we trust this God of ours? At what point will we be able to rest in his past grace and faithfulness and allow those to be sure signs of his present and future grace and faithfulness?
Most Christians have been taught not to be like Gideon, but many of us act like him just the same. We just are a bit more subtle about it. Our fleeces are more practical. We wait for the sign from heaven before we act. I’ll speak for myself.
Here are things I look for from God before I act. If God wants me to evangelize to this guy, he’ll swing the conversation in a spiritual direction. If God wants me to give to this missionary, then he’ll need to bring more money my way. If God wants me to encourage so and so, then he’ll make sure to connect us somehow. And the list can go on.
Do you remember the very last words of Jesus that we looked at last week? A woman had shouted from the crowd saying how blessed Jesus’s mother must be, and his response was,
But he said, “Blessed rather are those who hear the word of God and keep it!”
So putting it all together: Jesus exorcised a demon and some were asking for a sign from heaven to believe he was the Messiah. Jesus said it was more blessed to hear and do God’s word than to even have born and nursed him. And this generation was evil—always seeking a sign. Do we see what Luke is getting at here? The people won’t do what God is calling upon them to do through his Son; instead they hesitate to keep God’s Word while they wait for a sign.
That’s rebellious! That’s evil. It’s not an act of faith, but an act of defiance.
Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.
for we walk by faith, not by sight.
It isn’t blind faith that we walk by. It is deductive faith that we walk by. Deductive faith is based on deductive reasoning. God has shown himself faithful and gracious and kind and just and holy in this situation and that situation and the situation before then and the time before that. And therefore, I can deduce that in this situation God is going to remain faithful. He does not have to prove himself every single time I am called to do something. I will hear his word and keep it without needing to wait for a sign.
Is that us, beloved? Are we keeping God’s word when it comes to telling others the good news? Are we hearing and doing what God has called us to do when it comes to personal holiness? Are we working our jobs as unto the Lord or are we slacking off because our boss or supervisor is an idiot and not worth our time? Are we hearing what we are to do in our marriages as husbands and wive? Are we hearing what God has to say about singleness? Do we hear and obey God’s Word when it comes to our fellowship as a church? Or are we thinking that God himself needs to show us he wants us to be obedient in this regard.
An Explanation
An Explanation
The second statement that Jesus made was one of explanation. He just made an accusation about how evil his generation was. They were asking—present, active, indicative—a statement of fact that this generation was continually asking for a sign. No sign would be given except that of Jonah. So what does he mean by that?
For as Jonah became a sign to the people of Nineveh, so will the Son of Man be to this generation.
Jonah was a sign to the people of Nineveh. Now let’s contemplate this a moment. Remember that Dagon was a King-god to them. We’re more familiar with Baal, who the Assyrians considered to be the son of Dagon. But the Assyrians believed that Dagon—half fish, half man—was the king-god.
So what happens when Jonah shows up to preach that Yahweh, the God of the earth was giving them forty days and then would destroy the city? Everyone repents. Why?
It would seem from this text that the people, at least in part, repented because Jonah himself was a sign to them. Now, I’m not here to defend whether a person can be swallowed by a big fish or not. People have been eaten whole by aquatic life and have been found to survive. But this only because they couldn’t be swallowed and were spit out soon thereafter.
So the fact that Jonah was swallowed and then spit out was indeed a miracle. And it was this miracle—this sign—that led the people of Nineveh to repent. For Jonah, the giant sea creature was salvation from Yahweh. To the Ninevites, it was a sign from Yahweh.
It was as if Dagon—the fish god—had sought to undo Yahweh’s plan and but God’s plans could not be thwarted. If Paul is correct—and he is—that idols are nothing in themselves, but rather graven images of demons, then it stands to reason that those this demonic sea creature was seeking to destroy God’s prophet, God used it to save him. Thus, the people seeing that their sea-god Dagon was helpless against Yahweh, turned form their evil and turned to Yahweh.
Jesus, in much the same way, would be a sign to this generation. The ultimate sign would not be the healing of the sick or the exorcism of demons or causing the lame to walk or the blind to see. It would be his own resurrection. Though Satan would utilize the Jewish leaders and bring them into cahoots with the Roman leaders to have Jesus killed, God’s will and God’s plan would not be thwarted. What looked like death and defeat would actually be salvation for all who believe.
We tend to think about Jonah’s fish experience being his salvation, but it was also the salvation for the Ninevites in his generation. To the Ninevites, Jonah had arisen from what was a sure-death experience. And because of that, they repented and were saved.
In the same way, Jesus’s resurrection from what was actually a sure-death experience would bring salvation to anyone who would believe. The problem was that this generation was an evil generation.
Stop and think about that for a moment. Everyone who heard Jesus say these words (and remember the crowds were increasing, and so we’re talking about quite a few people), would have been familiar with the story of Jonah. They comparison of their generation to the Ninevites would not have been missed very easily. Jesus’s explanation here would have been sufficient.
But I can imagine it would have been surprising and perhaps infuriating. At this point, Jesus hasn’t necessarily stated that his generation was worse than the Ninevites, but he has at least pointed out that they are just as bad—as they need a sign comparable to that of Jonah. But even that would be pretty offensive.
The Ninevites would have been like the Nazis to us. Imagine Jesus coming in and saying, “No sign will be given to this evil generation except the same type of sign that was given to the Nazis.” At least one person would make the connection and think “Wait! Are you saying we’re as bad as the Nazis?!”
Many people would just stop listening and walk away. Many would probably want to argue. But at this point, no one says a word. And no one seems to leave.
Jesus has a way of opening up our eyes. He exposes our hearts and thoughts to us. He uses his word to speak directly to the heart of issues that plague our lives—issues we may not even know have sunk their claws into us. He did it then, and he does it now through his word.
For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart.
And no creature is hidden from his sight, but all are naked and exposed to the eyes of him to whom we must give account.
This is why it is so vital to dive deeper into the word even when it hurts, even when everything in us is saying “I’m not like that. He doesn’t understand. I don’t think that way. I don’t feel that way.”
The other day I was cleaning out the refrigerator and I found some slices of honey ham. We buy it all the time so I wasn’t sure if it was a newer package or an older one. How does one tell? He opens it and gives it the sniff test. I can tell you, it was old. It was very old.
And the immediate reaction is to get the nose as far away as it can and close it all back up. That’s what we want to do with God’s word when it opens our hearts, exposing the rottenness inside. We get a big old whiff of it and we yank our heads back and we try to close up the exposed rottenness as quickly as we can. That’s information we don’t want to see, smell, or know about. So we pretend it isn’t true.
We may not walk away from the faith. We may not argue with God about what it says. We just say nothing. That’s what the crowd seems to have done. No walking away, no arguing. No nothing. But we also do nothing. We don’t like the explanation. But its truth nonetheless.
A Condemnation
A Condemnation
And that leads us to the third type of statement Jesus made. He made first an accusation, then an explanation, but now we see he makes a condemnation. Technically, he was predicting that others will condemn, but it’s interesting as to who those condemners will be.
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.
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, aka the Queen of Sheba…a non-Jew; So in one fell swoop, Jesus stated that these Jews would be condemned by a Gentile. But there’s more to it then that. She was a woman! A Gentile woman would rise up to condemn them. But even more so, she would rise up to condemn the men. The word “men,” in this text does not mean mankind or humanity. That would be the word “anthropos,” where we get the word “anthropology”—the study of humanity from. This word is “aner.” It strictly means “man.” It only mean a male human. So the men of this generation would be condemned by this Gentile queen. In this male-dominated world, this would have been unbelievable.
But why is she sitting in judgment and condemning these men? Because she went from the ends of the earth, what is believed to be somewhere in Yemen, to hear Solomon’s wisdom. Solomon had expanded the kingdom of Israel to its greatest borders. He was the wisest man ever born. Everyone had heard of King Solomon. The queen of Sheba left her home to journey about 1,400 miles to meet him and sit at his feet and hear his wisdom.
Jesus said, “something greater than Solomon is here.” Something, not Someone. Something. The Kingdom of God perhaps? The kingdom of God is greater than the kingdom of Solomon. It certainly is! The wisdom of God personified in Jesus is greater than the wisdom of Solomon? No doubt about it. Compare anything of Solomon against anything of Christ and you will find that which is in Christ will always be greater than that which is in Solomon. Solomon was but a shadow; Jesus was the substance.
How wonderful it was for the queen to journey 1400 miles to hear from Solomon! How wretched, how evil it is that those who were in the same vicinity of Jesus would not come to listen to him, but only to see and ask for his signs!
But then here’s the kicker because Jesus then implies at this point that yes, his generation was worse than the Ninevites as they would resurrect and judge them and condemn them. In just a few seconds, Jesus would take them from an inference that they are as bad as the Ninevites, to the statement that they were worse. But again, why?
It was simply because they would not repent. They would receive the same sign as the Ninevites: a resurrected man (Jonah being a shadow; Jesus being the substance) and the Jews as a people would not repent, though Nineveh as a whole did. Jonah was but a shadow. He was swallowed by a fish, but he never died. Jesus would be buried in a tomb because he was stone-cold dead. Jonah merely looked to have resurrected; Jesus rose by the power of God.
All the signs and wonders and miracles that Jesus had performed would still be outdone by the sign of the resurrection. Every exorcism, every healing, every formerly lame, formerly blind, formerly deaf and mute, pointed to Jesus being the Messiah! Jesus’s resurrection would be the ultimate sign that he was whom he claimed to be and yet the people would not repent.
How hard it is for a people who think themselves to be the people of God to see their error and turn from their sin and prejudices! It’s difficult enough for those who are not believers, but when you add to it the belief of being God’s people, it gets exponentially harder. Because as God’s people we know. As God’s people we’ve got nothing to worry about. As God’s people we already are doing exactly as we ought. And so there is no need to change.
How deceitful the heart is. How cruel the mind can be. How easy it is to be blinded by our own Christianity.
Does anybody remember Merthiolate? If you never have experienced Merthiolate, consider yourself blessed. I remember I would get a cut or a scrape and it was painful enough to shed tears. And it seemed that if it was painful enough to shed tears, it was painful enough to have Merthiolate. And I’d see my mom coming with the brown bottle and I suddenly it was no longer the pain of the scrape that brought tears to my eyes. It was the thought of what was to come. And I would try to tell my mom I didn’t need the Merthiolate and I’d cover the cut with my hand. But she’d say something like, “I have to put it on. It could get infected and your whole are could fall off.” If And eventually she won, and on went the red liquid and out came the tears as it burned and stung something fierce. And then she would blow on red-dyed scrape and ease the pain. And she was right. I never lost an arm or a leg due to infection.
When God’s Word cuts us. It hurts. It’s painful to see us as we really are. And God says that he can’t leave the wound exposed like it is. But it’s so painful to find that we were wrong or have believed sometime wrong. It’s so painful to see that we must change. Repentance hurts. Whether it is repentance from active sin or passive sin like believing untruth. And so, like a kid we cover the wound and say, “I don’t need the sting of God’s Word to heal.” But we do. Merthiolate never cut me. It only stung to heal me. God’s Word does both the cutting and the healing. It’s that way by design. It’s that way for our good.
Conclusion
Conclusion
As we finish this section in Luke, we’ve seen that Jesus didn’t mince words, did he? He made an accusation about the evilness of the people in his generation. He gave an explanation as to why they would receive the one sign of Jonah. And he showed that the day of condemnation was coming for them, by those they’d least expect: a queen of a foreign nation and a bunch of one-time pagans who called out in repentance.
If you’ve never called out in repentance, called out turning from your sin and turning to God through Jesus Christ, your opportunity is now. As we’ve been seeing over the past couple of weeks: there are two kingdoms, God’s and Satan’s. Until you come to know Jesus as your Lord, you are lost in the darkness of Satan’s kingdom. It’s where we are all born. It’s where we all remain if we don’t follow Jesus out of that domain of darkness and into the kingdom of light.
For we who know Jesus, let us be content with his word; let it do its job within us, exposing and expelling the rottenness within. Let us hold fast to the gospel and preach it to ourselves daily living a life of repentance.