The Sign Seekers: Money Lies and The Great Cover Up

I want you to look today, we've been in chapter 11, and kind of working our way through that. And boy, the Lord's really been present here the last few Sundays, hasn't he? In speaking to us. Chapter 11, verse 16, and then verses 29-32, I want to read those to you today. And others, to test him, were demanding of him a sign from heaven. Can you imagine the audacity of demanding from Jesus a sign from heaven? Well, he speaks about this over in verses 29-32, and I want you to see that.

And as the crowds were increasing, he began to say, this generation, wicked generation, is a wicked generation. It seeks for a sign, and yet no sign shall be given to it but the sign of Jonah. For just as Jonah became a son to the Ninevites, so shall the son of man be to this generation. The queen of Sheba, which is the queen of the south, shall rise up with the men of this generation at the judgment and condemn them, because she came from the ends of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon. And behold, something greater than Solomon is here. Verse 32, the men of Nineveh shall stand up with this generation at the judgment and condemn it, because they repented at the preaching of Jonah. And behold, something greater than Jonah is here.

Now, let's think back a little bit over the context of these passages. You know, we've identified in our last couple of sermons, we've talked about shamers. We've talked about the Pharisees, and the scribes, and those who allied themselves in shaming Jesus for casting out a demon, which they attributed to the power of Satan. We learned how their accusation was illogical, and unstable, and powerless, full of deception and lies. Jesus refused this accusation by telling them that He has cast this demon out by the finger of God. Just bing, and it's done.

Matthew says, by the Holy Spirit of God. His appeal, based on truth, was making a last-ditch effort for them to turn from their wickedness and follow Him. We talked about God's grace, and that in Him dealing with them over this issue, He wasn't bringing condemnation, but was encouraging them to turn to Him in faith. Then He also talks about not just the shamers. Remember when we talked about shamers? How one of eight Satan's number one attacks in our lives is to bring shame. That's exactly what they were trying to do, is shame Jesus.

Try to shame Him for casting out a demon. Then those that would follow Him to shame them, Satan is the accuser of the brethren. His number one attack in our life is shame. Noah, when I asked you last week, I said, have you ever felt shame in your life? Well, I've been there.

We've all felt shame, haven't we? That's an accusation from Satan in our lives, and we need to understand by the word of our testimony in the blood of the Lamb, that has been defeated. We don't stand in that shame anymore. Isn't that good news? We don't stand under that covering of shame. We've been set free. Well, then He goes on and talks about here what we're going to look at today. Sign seekers.

Not just shamers, but sign seekers. We're not only going to identify them today, but we're going to see their wickedness and their destiny. I've entitled my sermon, and you probably think, where did he come up with this? By the end of the sermon, I hope you see where I came up with this. Money lies. The great cover up. So let's look at this passage.

I've broken it down in three parts. The diagnosis, the narrative, and the judgment. Let me just make a general statement about where these sign seekers end up. For over 30 years, I've had constant supervision by my dermatologist because I took 13 treatments of radiation right after I graduated from high school. I had acne in high school, and I went to the dermatologist. Really, there was about one in Lubbock about that time. Dr. Lehman and Mantoo, some of y'all might remember them.

My mother said, is there anything you can do about that acne before he goes off to college? He said, well, yeah, Grace, we can give him radiation. And so they gave me 13 treatments of radiation. Now, I'm going to tell you, it did away with my acne. It disappeared. I should have questioned him, though, when they put lead bags on my eyes and said, wait a second, what are y'all doing? But I went through that, and today I am labeled as a radiation patient.

What that means is I get top priority. When I see something on my skin that's abnormal, I get top priority. They move me right to the front and see me immediately. You know, the wicked generation of skin cancer are basal cells, carcinoma, squamous cells, and melanoma. Now, you don't want to get melanoma because when it moves from the outside to the inside, in most cases, not all the time, but it is a death sentence. I've buried people that have died from melanoma, and it's gruesome. So keep that in mind as to where the destiny of these sign seekers are headed.

This generation is a wicked generation. It seeks for a sign. Now, why would Jesus say that? Let me just break it down in phrases to you. This generation. This generation was referring to the contemporaries of Jesus. His generation.

It was His generation. No other generation had ever lived in the presence of the Incarnate Word. In John 1.14, it says, And the Word, the Word was in the beginning, the Word was God, and the Word with God became flesh and dwelt among us. And we beheld His glory, glory as the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth. Now, hear what I'm saying. For 33 years, the Son of God walked on this earth, revealing the character and the image of God, the mission of redemption for all people, and the vision of His kingdom. He was not slow or shy in revealing all of this.

He had been baptized by John. He had defeated the devil in the wilderness. He immediately made His way to Jerusalem and preached in the synagogue. Then He went to His own home synagogue to preach. In Luke chapter 4, in verses 16-21, it says, And He came to Nazareth, where He had been brought up, as was His custom. He entered the synagogue on the Sabbath and stood up to read. And the book of the prophet Isaiah was handed Him.

And He opened the book, and He found the place where it was written, The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because He has anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to set free those who downtrodden, to proclaim the favorable year of the Lord. And He closed the book, and He gave it back to the attendant. And He sat down, and the eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on Him. And He began to say to them, Today, this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing. Now, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to understand what He's claiming here, does it? It is very black and white.

You know, last week, I talked to you about the red-letter edition. How many of you have the red-letter edition of the Bible? From this point forward, in the gospel of Luke, Jesus begins, He still does some miracles, but fewer miracles, and He begins to teach and make solid claims about Himself. This generation is His generation that this is speaking about here, if you put it in its context. Now, does it overflow to our generation? Sure it does. But specifically here in its context, He's referring to this generation.

It says this generation is a wicked generation. They are full of pollution and perversion. Who were the wicked ones that Jesus was talking about here? Verse 16, And others to test Him were demanding a sign. Now, I ask myself the question, Was it the entire nation of the Jews? I'm going to tell you, I don't think so. For sure they were sinful and living under the curse of sin, and were sheep without a shepherd.

But were they as wicked as those in Sodom and Gomorrah? Maybe. Here's what I think based on verse 16, And others to test Him, they were trying to ensnare Him, to entrap Him, to trick Him. Referring to others were grouped with the Pharisees and the Sadducees and their allies. In Luke 4, 28-30, we just read about how Jesus said His calling and His mission.

Listen how Luke 4 ends up. And all the synagogue were filled with rage as they heard these things. His prophetic words about Himself. And they rose up and cast Him out of the city and led Him to the brow of a hill which their city had been built in order to throw Him down off the cliff. I don't know how He got away it says, but passing through their midst He went away. The scribes, the Pharisees, the Sadducees, the Sanhedrin, and those that would align themselves with Judaism of that day were the wicked generation. They were evil.

This generation is a wicked generation. It seeks for a sign. Verse 16, And others to test Him were demanding of Him a sign from heaven. Now you know when I read that you know what I thought?

Are you kidding me? He just cast out a demon which proved that He was the sovereign Lord over evil. His adversaries in any opposition that would try to prevent His mission of redemption by death on the cross. Now I went back and quickly counted up from chapter 4 through 11 the deliverances from demons, the healings from sickness, and even the resurrection from the dead. Then also feeding the ten thousands and calming the storms. Fourteen. Fourteen signs and wonders were given.

You know most Biblical historians and qualify that Biblical historians report that Jesus pretty well eliminated leprosy and other diseases from Israel's borders. He had cleansed the whole nation of sickness and demons. He worked across that nation. He brought His deliverance ministry, His healing ministry. Miracle after miracle after miracle. And they still want another sign?

John chapter 20 verses 30 through 31. In John's Gospel he writes many other signs. Jesus also performed in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book. Man, I'd like to know the list, wouldn't you? But these have been written that you may believe. Here's the reason. That you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you may have life in His name.

Luke 11, 23. Jesus said, he who is not with me is against me. And he who does not gather with me scatters. Jot these down in your memory. Sign seekers. Are the wicked because they are the opponents of Jesus. Sign seekers simply want a sign without a relationship with Jesus.

Sign seekers are totally self-absorbed with their own gain. Sign seekers seek their own glory and not God's. Sign seekers can never be satisfied because Jesus is never enough. You hear that statement?

Because Jesus is never enough. Now let me say a personal word to you about all of this. There's a whole arm of the church that, sad to say, uses these verses to do away with the miraculous. Anybody that would embrace the supernatural or the miraculous, they would call sign seekers. And maybe they have just cause because of that because sometimes there have been those sideshows, haven't there been? I've been in some of those that were a bit distasteful, you know? And I thought, man, are they abusing the grace of God?

But let me tell you, this passage in its context, I just tried to outlay it in its context. Jesus' concern here is not with the miraculous. It is not with the miraculous. It's with the perversion and pollution of the miraculous. In verse 29, it says, and the crowds were increasing. His concern here is with not sign seekers but truth seekers. You hear what I'm saying?

His concern was with sign seekers, not truth seekers. There are genuine believers and seekers that need a touch of the miraculous and genuine believers that are gifted in the miraculous. Deliverance and healing and other miraculous events did not cease because of the unbelief of Jesus' opponents. I would even go this far to say, I even hate to use the term miraculous or supernatural or divine intervention. We make it appear that it's extraordinary.

You know what I'm saying? Oh, it's extraordinary that God healed somebody. Or it's extraordinary that that person that had been demon possessed with the alcohol addiction for years got set free. In the Old and New Testament, signs and wonders, I'm gonna get out there on a limb, but I'm gonna tell you, they were ordinary. They were ordinary. Believers today, you and I in our lives should walk in the empowerment of the Lord. Of ordinary Christian living.

You see what I'm saying there, James? You see what I'm saying? We walk in the power of the ordinary.

That's who God is. He doesn't just say, oh, I'm just gonna zap down and do a little miracle here. Well, Ashley, remember when you were going through your stuff, the ordinary God worked in your life, we might say in extraordinary ways. But that's ordinary with God. And there's an arm of the church that, because they don't see as many miracles or signs or wonders that they want to, they just want to just write it off and say, well, it doesn't happen today. The night, let me tell you, I guess you'd call me a sign seeker. I stood in the back of a tent revival in Lorenzo on the gin lot, and a guy named CM Ward was preaching and Big John Hall was singing.

They were assemblies of God. The Methodists, Baptists, and Assemblies of God had an annual tent meeting every year on the gin lot at Lorenzo. And I stood in the back. 30 days earlier, I had gotten on my knees, and y'all have heard me talk about that, how I surrendered my life to Christ, and Jesus came in that room, and He came in my life, and He changed my life. And so I'm seeking God during those 30 days. And I'm standing at the back of that tent revival, and there's a bunch of high school youth that are up at the front. And there was a kid that, when I was a sophomore and I was a senior, I was quarterbacking.

He was a backup quarterback on the Lorenzo football team. We were terrible, so we don't need to go there. But he was the quarterback behind me. And he was assembly of God, boy, that had surrendered to preach. And he didn't run in the circles I ran in. And I knew he was a man that loved the Lord. And he's up front up there with all those high school youth that are there that night.

And I'm back at the back, and CM preaches on full-time Christian service. And I'm bowing and thinking, Lord, are you calling me to preach? I'm the last candidate in Lorenzo to ever preach. And there've been lots of Lorenzo people tell you that, too. But I can remember bowing and praying, Lord, if I'm supposed to preach, you send David Vistine back here. And no sooner than I had prayed that prayer, Kate, he was going right on my shoulder. Now, you could call me a sign seeker, but I wasn't seeking for my glory.

I was asking for his glory. Do you see the difference? The scribes, Pharisees, those that would align themselves with them, they were evil, wicked sign seekers. Jesus could have performed, which we'll talk about in a minute, the great sign of the resurrection. They still wouldn't believe. They still wouldn't believe. So I want to say this to you.

We're a part of the arm of the church who affirms divine intervention, miraculous, signs and wonders, ought to be the ordinary posture that we walk in. When I get up in the morning, I ought to expect God to show up. I don't just have to muddle through.

I expect him to be there. And you know what? He's never disappointed me. He's never disappointed me. So I wanted to say that because it's important that you understand that. The narrative here, verse 29, and yet no sign shall be given to it but the sign of Jonah. That's what the narrative is all about.

Verse 30 says, for just as Jonah became a sign to the Ninevites, so shall the sun to this generation. What is the sign of Jonah? Matthew in his gospel explains the sign of Jonah this way.

Matthew 12, 40. For just as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of a sea monster, so shall the son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. You hear that? First Corinthians 15, three through four. For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received, that Christ died for our sins according to scriptures, and that he was buried, and that he was raised on the third day according to scriptures. Jesus is telling the sign seekers, I'm going to give you guys a sign, and it's gonna be the sign of signs, and it's gonna blow your minds, and it's gonna confront you with the reality of eternity. I'm gonna raise from the dead.

I will be resurrected. We are people of resurrection. You've heard it said all your life. We're Easter people. We are people of resurrection because Jesus is raised. I'm gonna live because he lives.

Lastly, the judgment. This blows my mind.

The queen of the south, who we know to be queen of Sheba, if you think about that eastern map over there, she was from Yemen. You've seen that on the map, hadn't you? They talk about it in the news, Yemen.

Yemen was 1,200 miles from Jerusalem. It says that she shall rise up with the men of this generation at the judgment and condemn them because she came from the ends of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon, and something greater than Solomon is here. Resurrection. Solomon had great influence over this Gentile queen. Some say that she even embraced Judaism. Now, when she went back home, she struggled with idolatry, but she might've embraced the idea. I can't tell you.

I don't know for sure, but I do know this. It says, on the day of judgment, she will stand with the righteous and bring her own condemnation of the sign seekers of that generation because of their harshness and hardness of heart and total rejection of Christ. She will be standing with that group. Verse 32, it talks about the men of Nineveh shall stand with the generation at this judgment and condemn it because they repented at the preaching of Jonah, and behold, something is greater than Jonah here. Now, this is a double whammy, isn't it? The queen of Sheba and the Ninevites. Jonah, even though he didn't want to go to Nineveh, he hated the Ninevites.

But you just go read the story how he ended up getting tossed off a ship because it was fixing to sink because he had offended God and they tossed him off the ship and he ends up in the belly of a whale. And this belly turns around. He was going away from Nineveh. In the belly of the whale, he rides back to Nineveh. And he is vomited up on the shores of Nineveh. The Ninevites from Nineveh, the capital of Syria, a Gentile nation, were idolaters and extremely violent to Jews. Repented under Jonah's hellfire and brimstone preaching.

You know, I'm gonna tell you, if we'd heard his sermons, we would not heard one ounce of the love of God. He didn't want to preach that to the Ninevites. He simply said, if you guys don't repent in 40 days, God's gonna burn you up. Now, the Ninevites were harsh, violent men, and they did great destruction to the Jews. And this one guy gets vomited up on the shores and he gets up and preaches and they repented. Now, I've asked myself why the story of that vomit preceded him. That he came out of the belly of a fish.

It's like a resurrection. God has sent a prophet here, one that should be dead. Can you imagine what he looked like? You know, I read what some doctors said about what he looked like. And if you'd spent 40 days in the belly of the whale, you wouldn't look too well. In fact, your skin would. Probably be green, ashy looking.

No, tell him what's your hair look like. He was a foreshadowing of the resurrected Christ. And he preached the gospel of repentance. Is that not what Jesus preached? A gospel of repentance and they repented. And it is mind-boggling because it says these Ninevites will stand with the righteous on the Day of Judgment and condemn these Jewish opponents of Jesus. Now, how do you conclude a sermon like this?

Verse 31 and verse 32. Something greater than Solomon is here. Something greater than Solomon is here. Do you hear what I'm saying there? He's here in this room.

The resurrected Christ. Is here. He knew their thoughts. He read their hearts. Something greater than Queen of Sheba, the Ninevites, Solomon, Jonah is here. The Lord Jesus Christ. Now, I want you to hear this because it says the ultimate destiny and judgment of these rejecters of Christ.

It's a sad picture, but it has application for us. In Matthew 28, the last chapter of Matthew. Verses 11. That's where I want to start reading and I want to read this to you. Now, while they were on their way. This is after the resurrection of Jesus. Okay. Behold, some of the guard came into the city and reported to the priest all that had happened.

Now, they're eyewitnesses. They've been there guarding that tomb and they know Jesus is not there. That he has walked out of that tomb. And when they had assembled with the elders and counsel together. The Jewish Sanhedrin got together guys. They gave a large sum of money to these soldiers. And said.

You are to say his disciples came by night and stole him away while he was asleep. They stole him away while he was asleep. You know, I've told you about when I was at McMurray and I had a six-month long meeting with the chaplain. They're talking about the resurrection of Christ. And it wasn't so much that he didn't believe in a resurrection, but it wasn't this kind of resurrection. He wanted to change it, reconstruct it into kind of like a John F. Kennedy resurrection.

And I remember telling him, brother. If you can prove to me Jesus didn't physically walk out of that tomb. You want to have fellowship with me? Well, I'm going back to about 20 bottles of beer a day. That's where I'm headed. That's where I'm headed. I'm going back to that lifestyle.

You want fellowship with me? You'll find me there. He physically walked out of that tomb. And said, you are to say his disciples came by night and stole him away while we were asleep. And if this should come to the governor's ear, we will win him over and keep you out of trouble. And they took the money and did as they had been instructed. And this story was widely spread among the Jews and is to this day. Dirty money. Dirty money.

The great cover-up, isn't it? Here's the application. God nailed me down in my chair when I was writing this sermon. He said, Cary, how many times have you taken the money of this world? Not just physical money, but the things of this world.

And covered up. And hushed up. About Jesus.

How many times in your life? Have you hushed up? When you should have spoken up. You see that? How many times? Have you been just like the Pharisees and the Scribes and the Sadducees? I'll just shut up, Lord.

I'll just accept. The things you're throwing at me. And I'll just walk in them. And I won't walk in the power of your spirit. I'll just hush up. You know what I'm saying? When you had that opportunity to speak up.

They took that money. In application, how many times did we take? That little lie from the devil.

And it shuts us up. God have mercy on us, huh? God have mercy on us. Well, I want to tell you the great news is. He does. While we were yet sinners. Christ died for us.

He showed his love for us. And while we were denying him. He was claiming us. He still claims you today, no matter what. His claim is on your life. Hallelujah. That's good news, isn't it?

That's good news.