Greater Than Jonah

Text: Matthew 12:38-45

Place Preached - (Mississauga International Baptist Church)

Date Preached - (04/28/02)

Introduction:   

What do you require before obeying God?

What does it take to convince you that God’s Word is true and it is imperative that you live by it?

Do you have enough evidence of God’s truth to make you accountable?

Here is a group of religionists – they are seeking signs from heaven.

Matthew 16:1  The Pharisees also with the Sadducees came, and tempting desired him that he would shew them a sign from heaven.

They had already received plenty of signs on earth  ie. Miracles of Christ.

What they wanted was some visible miraculous manifestation from above.

“Let’s see comets with a message, lightning bolts from the sky, handwriting in the clouds.”

Matthew 12:39  But he answered and said unto them, An evil and adulterous generation seeketh after a sign;………..

1 Corinthians 1:22  For the Jews require a sign, and the Greeks seek after wisdom:

They had already seen sufficient proof of Christ’s claims to deity and kingship, and messiahship.

As we saw in Matt. 16 their request was a temptation.

Isaiah 7:11-12  Ask thee a sign of the LORD thy God; ask it either in the depth, or in the height above.

12  But Ahaz said, I will not ask, neither will I tempt the LORD.

Jesus said “An evil and adulterous generation seeketh after a sign”

This is a spiritual paradox – These men seeking a sign yet spiritually and morally they were adulterous and evil.

There is obviously a spiritual application in all this.  There is a parallel in our lives.

And it is……

Now Christ points them to the prophet Jonah vs.39

Christ places accountability upon them based on what Jonah represents.

Jonah is a picture of Christ, of Our Calling, and Our Commission.

We too have an accountability based on these truths!!!

Nineveh was accountable!  What about us?  How much more us??  They had Jonah – We have Christ and the Scriptures!!

READ vs.41

I. Jonah is a Picture of Christ

A. In His Death, Burial & Resurrection

There is the same time frame involved (Three days and three nights).

Jonah’s experience itself was a sign to Nineveh.

This is the Gospel – LOOK UP & READ I Cor. 15:3-4

B. In His Substitutionary Sacrifice

Jonah – One for a few

LOOK UP & READ Romans 5:6-8

Christ – One for many, or one for all.

John 11:50  Nor consider that it is expedient for us, that one man should die for the people, and that the whole nation perish not.

1 Peter 2:24  Who his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree, that we, being dead to sins, should live unto righteousness: by whose stripes ye were healed.

1 Timothy 4:10  For therefore we both labour and suffer reproach, because we trust in the living God, who is the Saviour of all men, specially of those that believe.

II. Jonah is a Picture of our Call

A. Call to Salvation - General

What was Jonah’s Message – “Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown.” Jonah 3:4

They had 40 days – The Jews of Christ’s day had to forty years before the destruction of Jerusalem by the Roman emperor Titus.

Acts 17:30  And the times of this ignorance God winked at; but now commandeth all men every where to repent:

Jonah’s reputation was tarnished, he was not much too look at, not an intimidating figure, and he did not even want to be there.

We may not use the messenger as an excuse for our disobedience.

B. Call to Service - Specific

God’s call upon Jonah – Jonah 2:1-2

1. Disobedience brings chastening (Jonah 1&2)

LOOK UP & READ Heb. 12:5-6 & 11

2. The God of the second chance. Jonah 3:1-2

III. Jonah is a Picture of our Commission

EXPLAIN – Israel’s commission.

Not unlike ours, but the nations were to come to Israel.

God commanded Jonah to go to Ninevah and preach to them about their sinfulness and call them to repentance.

This is the only time in the OT where Israel is commanded to actively pursue the Gentiles.

God’s Covenant with Abraham mentioned that through Abraham’s descendants God would bless the nations.

But no Israelite is ever commanded to go to the nations and tell them about God. They were to have a passive witness.

The Gentiles were supposed to see the difference between their society and Israel’s and be attracted to it.

God’s plan for Israel to evangelize.

Micah 4:2  And many nations shall come, and say, Come, and let us go up to the mountain of the LORD, and to the house of the God of Jacob; and he will teach us of his ways, and we will walk in his paths: for the law shall go forth of Zion, and the word of the LORD from Jerusalem.

God’s plan for the church is quite different.

Mark 16:15  And he said unto them, Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature.

God had never before asked of any prophet what He asked of Jonah.

NOW for the first time a Jew is sent to preach to the Gentiles.

EXPLAIN the Great Commission of the NT church.

APPLICATION: Many a church sits at the crossroads of it’s city or nation and waits for the lost to find them!! How sad!!!

Jonah was all the Ninevites had!!

And he was sufficient for that God-appointed task!!

(ILLUS:  Naaman’s Healing)  SEE II Kings 5:10-12

We are all this world has.  And we have all this world needs.

2 Corinthians 4:7  But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellency of the power may be of God, and not of us.

LOOK UP & READ Romans 10:13-17

A. The Channels of God’s Word

God’s Word came from God through Jonah to the King of Nineveh.  Then through the King’s servants to the people.

God has ordained frail human instruments to be the channels of communicating His precious Word to this old sin-cursed world.

I don’t understand it, but I believe it!!

B. The Instrument of Change.

God’s Word vs.1

Jeremiah 23:29  Is not my word like as a fire? saith the LORD; and like a hammer that breaketh the rock in pieces?

LOOK UP & READ Psalm 119:9-11

1 Peter 1:23  Being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God, which liveth and abideth for ever.

Romans 1:16  For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek.

Conclusion:     (Review)

JONAH – A picture of Christ, Our Calling & Our Commission

If Nineveh was accountable to God, what about You and I?

If Jonah was accountable to God, what about You and I?

There is a greater than Jonah, a greater than Solomon!!  Jesus is His Name!!!

We can look back at Calvary, We have the Scriptures, We have God’s blessed Holy Spirit!!!