Skip to main content

Sign Of Jonah

                 Then some of the Pharisees and teachers of the law said to him, “Teacher, we                   want to see a sign from you.”

He answered, “A wicked and adulterous generation asks for a sign! But none will be given it except the sign of the prophet Jonah. For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of a huge fish, so the Son of Man will be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.  The men of Nineveh will stand up at the judgment with this generation and condemn it; for they repented at the preaching of Jonah, and now something greater than Jonah is here. (Matthew 12:38-41)

 

One of the things agnostics and atheists often demand is some physical evidence that God exists. Usually, they want some highly dramatic bit of silliness, like a giant Charlton Heston standing in Time Square and announcing, “I am God,” then performing 19.2 miracles. In other words, they’re doing exactly what the Pharisees and teachers of the law did when Jesus walked the earth.

I have challenged them with the question of how long they would believe God had indeed revealed Himself to them before they decided that the event was all a figment of their imagination or that they were temporarily insane. I may not have called them liars, but I wanted to. Those who are honest admit that it wouldn’t be long. This is what Jesus was talking about when He challenged the Pharisees and teachers of the law. He told them of a future event that they would not believe, just as the agnostics and atheists would not believe the same event in the past.

But, lest we pat ourselves on the back too quickly, how often do we doubt that God cares for us, or doubt that something is His will? How often do we want some special sign to prove God to us? Over the past couple of days, I’ve found myself thinking about how rebellious my heart it because it refuses to believe God despite the signs He’s given in the past.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

A Virgin?

           Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign: The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and will call him Immanuel. (Isaiah 7:14)           This is how the birth of Jesus Christ came about: His mother Mary was pledged to be married to Joseph, but before they came together, she was found to be with child through the Holy Spirit. (Matthew 1:18)           But the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, you have found favor with God. You will be with child and give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever; his kingdom will never end.”            “How will this be,” Mary asked the...

Higher Thoughts

  “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,” declares the  Lord . “As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts. (Isaiah 55:8-9)           The person with the Spirit makes judgments about all things, but such a person is not subject to merely human judgments,   for, “Who has known the mind of the Lord      so as to instruct him?” But we have the mind of Christ. (I Corinthians 2:15-16) If you read about the ancient gods of the various peoples, you’ll find that they think just like people. In fact, they think just like the sort of people we really wouldn’t want to be around. They think like the most corrupt Hollywood producer or, like hormone overloaded teens with no upbringing.   It’s embarrassing to read. I have a friend who argues that because God is not just like us, He is so vastly dif...

Meditations of the Heart

  May these words of my mouth and this meditation of my heart be pleasing in your sight, Lord, my Rock and my Redeemer. (Psalm19:14)           As I started writing this post, I noted that the meditations of my heart are all over the mental landscape, from a hub where eight superhighways come together to a lunar or nuclear landscape. Do you see my error? The moment I read the word meditation , I think about thoughts. But what’s described here is the meditations of our hearts ; our wills.           While the meditations of our minds may be all over the place, the meditations of our wills tend to be a little more stable by the time we are adults. We no longer tend to want to pursue the ten separate careers we did in any given day as children. Part of this is humble acceptance of reality. We come to understand that we can’t do it all. I think another part of it is disappointmen...