Are You Looking For a Sign?
Matthew 12:38-45
So many people are looking for signs. Lord give me a sign to show what you want me to do. Lord give me a sign to show me what you want me to do. Lord give me a sign to get out of bed this morning. We are so busy searching for signs we can’t see the truth.
There is frequent evidence of Christians blindly following their impulses and feelings under the claim of following “the Lord’s leading.” The classic illustration is the apocryphal story of a farmer who had become restless at his work. One day he saw a strange cloud formation that spelled out the letters “GPC.” He took this as a message from God: “Go Preach Christ!” So he sold his farm and took to the road as a traveling evangelist. After several weeks his wife wondered whether he had been mistaken. “Perhaps,” she suggested one morning at breakfast, “GPC really meant ‘Go Plow Corn.’” How often have I heard people say I have prayed to God to reveal himself to me if He was real? I have prayed that He will give me a sign if I need His salvation. Why people use the excuse that there is no God since He want show signs. People have built religions and cults around supposed signs from God. People who seek signs will follow those who say they have a special method of communicating with God and that they see signs from. Some people are so desperate to see a sign from God they see Mary in a stain on a wall or a piece of cheese and think it is some miracle.
People convince hundreds even thousands that they are a prophet of God because of signs they supposedly are able to perform or have witnessed. People flock to them because they seek some sign. The can not accept that faith and faith alone saves. They can not accept the fact that what is required is absolute faith in something you can not see, touch or hold but for us who know something about this faith we know that you can feel it. They want physical assurances that Jesus can do what He claims to do. They deny Christ and His deity. They deny His sacrifice on the cross because they call for a sign.
Even today just as in the time of Jesus we have people want to see a sign. Why? I don’t know. It is a mystery to me. Maybe they refuse to believe in something that they can’t see. If they can’t touch it, taste it, or see it, it is not real in their thinking. Now I did not say that can’t feel the Holy Spirit dealing with. At sometime during their life I am sure the Holy Spirit called to them but they denied the call because they could not see, touch, or taste it.
Satan tries to discourage us so that we will not see the truth. The devil decided to have a garage sale. On the day of the sale, his tools were placed for public inspection, each being marked with its sale price. There were a treacherous lot of implements: hatred, envy, jealousy, deceit, lust, lying, pride, and so on.
Set apart from the rest was a harmless-looking tool. IT was quite worn and yet priced very high.
"What is the name of this too?:" Asked one of the customers, pointing to it.
"That is discouragement," Satan replied.
"Why have you priced it so high?"
" Because it is more useful to me than the others. I can pry open and get inside a man’s heart with that, even when I cannot get near him with the other other tools. It is badly worn because I use it on almost everyone, since so few people know it belongs to me."
The devil’s price for discouragement was high because it is still his favorite tool, and he is still using it on God’s people.
38Then certain of the scribes and of the Pharisees answered, saying, Master, we would see a sign from thee. 39But he answered and said unto them, An evil and adulterous generation seeketh after a sign; and there shall no sign be given to it, but the sign of the prophet Jonas: 40For as Jonas was three days and three nights in the whale’s belly; so shall the Son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. 41The men of Nineveh shall rise in judgment with this generation, and shall condemn it: because they repented at the preaching of Jonas; and, behold, a greater than Jonas is here. 42The queen of the south shall rise up in the judgment with this generation, and shall condemn it: for she came from the uttermost parts of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon; and, behold, a greater than Solomon is here. 43When the unclean spirit is gone out of a man, he walketh through dry places, seeking rest, and findeth none. 44Then he saith, I will return into my house from whence I came out; and when he is come, he findeth it empty, swept, and garnished. 45Then goeth he, and taketh with himself seven other spirits more wicked than himself, and they enter in and dwell there: and the last state of that man is worse than the first. Even so shall it be also unto this wicked generation.
Here in God’s word we see a perfect example of those who want to see a sign. These scribes and Pharisees have seen Jesus heal the sick; they have seen Him throw demons. And the still wanted Him to show them a sign that would prove He was the Messiah. They had actually seen the signs and they still refused to believe. How about today? Many sit on the pews all across America every Sunday. The preacher preaches the Gospel. The Holy Spirit moves. Their feet are shuffling. They want to walk down to the alter. They want to tell the world they accept Jesus. But not today. No I need a further sign, more proof that what I am feeling is real. And every Sunday it gets easier and easier to deny the call until one Sunday there is no longer a call. The Holy Spirit no longer is striving with you. Jesus is not longer striving with you. There will come a time that He will not longer search you out. There will come a time where your decision will be final.
Jesus said that there shall be no signs given except the sign of Jonas. As Jonas lay 3 days in the belly of the whale so shall the Messiah lie 3 days in the grave. As Jonas was spit out of the whale’s mouth alive so to would the Messiah arise resurrected. That is the only sign any of us will get.
One day the men of Nineveh are going to judge this generation because they repented when Jonas preached to them. And today the Gospel which is greater than Jonas is being preached and people refused to listen to it and repent. They want to remain in the cesspool of sin that they are whaling in. They think they are having so much fun while they are actually miserable. They know what they need to do but they are unable to because they just can’t put their faith in something they can’t see, touch, or taste. Look at our nation today abortion, adultery, alcoholism, drug addiction, murder, rape, are all on the rise. T.V. makes adultery look attractive. There is no commitment taught. Relationships are temporary and something you should not expect to be long term.
The danger of looking of for a sign is that while you are searching for the sign you will miss the truth. The truth of the death, burial and resurrection of our Lord and Savior. What is so marvelous about the Bible is that it was written over thousands of years by people who never knew each other yet the theme holds true throughout the Bible from Old to New Testament. The theme is this in the Old Testament it was pointing to Jesus and the New Testament is showing of Jesus. The whole book is about Jesus and His sacrifice on the cross for our sins.
That is why the men of Nineveh and the Queen of the south shall rise up in judgment because Jesus came and paid our sin debt. A debt that not a single one of us could ever pay in full. No longer are we to be under the domination of sin. Christ has broken the slave chains of sin. He has broken them and thrown them away. Sin no longer has any control over us. The only way that sin can affect us now is if we choose to sin. Have you ever noticed that the worst sinner there is a backsliding Christian? Once their hours has been cleaned and set to order and we allow sin to dominate us we tend to become the worst the worst. Often times we will have to reach the very bottom of the barrel before we will look back up and reach out to Jesus to lift u s above the waves of sin.
That is what happens too many today. We lose brother and sister’s everyday because we don’t think our Christianity is important. We don’t live our lives for Jesus. We get caught up in the world and worldly thing. That person could have dressed better to come to church. And maybe so but will that make them worship better. Is that something you need to worry about while you are at service? Was it something Jesus worried about? I seem to recall He talked to the naked and the clothed. He just wants them to come just as they are.
Many brothers and sisters have placed too much of an importance on things of this world and they have fallen away. They may still come to church. They may be still teaching Sunday school in church across the nation. But they have become more concerned with the appearance of someone, or tradition, or ritualism. Whenever worldly values supersede eternal values we are once again walking in sin.
We must never forget that Jesus calls us to be His servant. He calls us to abandon the world. He cleans us up and places our house in order. No longer are we to walk in the slums of sin. We are to be a light that all are to see.
What about you? Are you that light? Are you a beacon that draws the lost to salvations shore? Or are you the one who the world calls too. Are you drawn back to sin? Have you reached the bottom if the barrel and the only place you have to look is up? Is Jesus calling you back? Is He reaching out toward you this morning? Are you sinking beneath the waves of sin? If you are reaching out for His hand He will meet you? Are you looking for a sign? Don’t look past the death, burial, and resurrection. Don’t turn your back on the Holy Spirit call. Tonight the Spirit is moving in someone. You feet are wanting to move but your head says follow the sign of your feet. Come and get that salvation Jesus is not ashamed of you we are not to be ashamed of Him. Don’t put the call off. If the Spirit is working on you don’t hesitate, don’t put it off. Just answer His call come, come now as we sing.
