The Sign of Jonah | Jesus' Powerful Warning to Religious People

**SPEAKER_1** (0:00)
Today, we're gonna pick up in Matthew chapter 16, in the Kingdom Revelations series. I've entitled this one, Those Who Do Not Learn, which honestly could be the title for a lot of the series that we've gone through in the chapter of Matthew. Matthew has an overwhelming amount of time where Jesus is attempting to teach his disciples, his apprentices. At the same point in time, you have the crowds, the random people who are doing life out there. Then you have the religious leaders. You have the Pharisees and the Sadducees. You also have the Essenes. There's multiple different groups at that point in time. And here we pick up in Matthew chapter 16 But real quick, I want to talk about where we left off last week. Where did we leave off last week? Jesus does another massive miracle of feeding the 4,000. He had already done the feeding of the 5,000, but he feeds the 4,000. Both are interesting miracles because one was done in Jewish territory, it was done to the house of Israel. And then the last one is done in a Gentile territory. Remember, we think of now, like when we think of people, we're Okies. So when we think of people from Texas, we like to joke about people from Texas, and we like to have fun about people from Texas, and we like to do those types of things. But the reality is, is we don't really have any real issue with people from Texas. It's just a joke. We just joke. That's not how first century Judaism interacted with the Gentiles. They didn't joke about, oh, they're from Texas. It was like, no, they're from Texas, and they walked to the other side of the road. They would not fellowship with each other. It was a big ordeal. You didn't cross the Red River unless you had to cross the Red River. So we culturally don't have the same engagement with people and think the same way of people that they did in the context of the Bible. And here we pick up in Matthew chapter 16, and we see the signs, miracles, healings among the Jews and the Gentiles. Yet previously, as Jesus says, I only came for the lost sheep of the house of Israel. A lot of times people will say today, well, that must mean that we're all the lost sheep of the house of Israel. No, this was a specific time and a specific thing that was taking place. The difference between the Jews and the Gentiles today, I mean, it's become a little bit more of an issue recently, right? A little bit more of an issue with some of our podcasts and our conservative talk show hosts that talk about Israel and stuff like that. But the reality is, is there's an awful lot of people who love Israel and they love the Jews and the Jews love the Gentiles. There's Arabs that live in Israel. There's Israeli Arabs that are citizens as a part of Israel. A little bit different than the cultural context of the time we're looking at. Yet both the crowds and the religious leaders wanted something from Jesus. They both had witnessed his power. They both had seen the miracles, but they both came with two completely different heart postures. The crowds had come hungry, broken, and desperate. Now, as a guy, I don't have any problem admitting when I'm hungry. I do sometimes have a problem admitting when I might be broken or I might be desperate. But the religious leaders came skeptical, demanding, and they were determined to test Jesus. One approached Jesus with faith. I believe Jesus can do things. The other said, Jesus, I'm demanding you to do things. And that's an unbelief that we see with the religious leaders. We also can see Jesus continually refocusing his disciples on the mission. So all of us in America, we probably should constantly be trying to refocus our lives on the mission of Jesus Christ. Because if Jesus had to do that to the disciples who actually got to see him in the flesh, how much harder is it for us in the 21st century to stay on mission with Jesus? They had become weary, they wanted to move on, yet Jesus had repeatedly invited them to see beyond their immediate circumstances and participate in something that was eternal. And now Matthew in the start of chapter 16 brings us another confrontation. One day the Pharisees and the Sadducees came to test Jesus, demanding that he show them miraculous sign from the heavens to prove his authority. Sounds familiar, right? One day the Pharisees showed up again and didn't remember or didn't care about the lame, the dead, the healings, the blind, the simple fact that everybody had cheddar biscuits from red lobster when there was only three left. Like all these miracles that were happening pushed away. I demand a sign. Back in Matthew 12, the same religious leaders had demanded a sign as well. And now after these countless deliverances, miracles, and healings, they still expected Jesus to do it again. Yet the issue was not a lack of evidence.