06-02-2024 – “This is a Wicked Generation!”
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June 2, 2024 (AM insert notes)
“This is a Wicked Generation!”
Luke 11:29-32
Read Luke 11:29-30… Luke tells us that the crowds following Jesus were getting larger, and these crowds were made up of mostly common people, but also Religious Leaders (Chief Priests, Levites, Sadducees, Pharisees and Scribes) who were looking for a reason and an opportunity to arrest Jesus and remove Him from influencing the Israelites away from Orthodox Judaism’s sacrificial-ritualist system.
Jesus says those who reject Him are part of the “wicked generation” who seek a sign, but He tells them, “no sign will be given but the sign of Jonah. The men of Nineveh will 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.”
The Jews expected miracles from every true prophet of God; but Jesus had already healed countless numbers of people from every illness and disease, casting out demons, calming the wind and the waves, even raising the dead back to life.
Jesus says His final sign will be the sign of Jonah, who was three days in the belly of a great fish, i.e., Jesus would die for our sins and be three days in a Tomb, only to come out alive, demonstrating, proclaiming, and providing eternal life. As Jonah was a sign to the Ninevites, so is God’s Son to the wicked generation of the last days.
Read Luke 11:31… Jesus says the Queen of the South will stand in judgement against the Jews who reject Him as Messiah. Also known as the Queen of Sheba (1Kings 10:1-10; 2Chronicles 9:1-9), she came to hear God’s wisdom through Solomon and gave him countless riches. This Arab woman came, “from the ends of the earth” (1200 miles SE of Israel, an area now called Yemen). That would be like going from Portland to Tijuana.
Solomon was the wealthiest and wisest man on the earth that time, but Jesus says, in these last days, “One greater than Solomon is here.” What did He mean?
There are many prophecies in the OT foretelling the birth, life, ministry, death and resurrection, of God’s One and Only Son, who would come to save us from sin.
Isaiah 9:6a, “For a child will be born to us, a son will be given to us…” This speaks of God’s divine provision of Jesus Christ, God’s Son, Lord and Savior.
Isaiah 9:6b, “And the government will rest on His shoulders…” This speaks of God the Son’s Ultimate, Universal, and Unilateral Authority on earth.
Isaiah 9:6c, “And His name will be called Wonderful Counselor…” This speaks of God the Son’s Supernatural and Eternal Wisdom.
Isaiah 9:6d, “And His name will be called Mighty God…” This speaks of God the Son’s Sovereign, Eternal Power and Strength.
Isaiah 9:6e, “And His name will be called Eternal Father…” This speaks of God the Son’s Eternal, Intrinsic Nature, as the Creator and Sustainer of Life.
Isaiah 7:14; Matthew 1:23, “the Lord Himself will give you a sign: Behold, a virgin will be with child and bear a son, and she will call His name Immanuel,” which translated means, “God with us.” When Jesus was born, Luke 2:11 records, “today in the city of David there has been born for you a Savior, who is Christ the Lord.” Joseph, at the time of Mary’s conception, was told by the angel Gabriel (Matthew 1:21), “[Mary] will bear a Son; and you shall call His name Jesus, for He will save His people from their sins.”
Jesus is not only greater than Solomon, He is the greatest person who will ever be born, being fully God and also fully man, He alone provides forgiveness for sins and eternal life. His own people, the Jews, rejected Him, refusing to believe in and receive Him; and yet, God shows mercy to all who will receive and believe in His Son, Jesus Christ, who is both Savior and Lord.
Read Luke 11:32… Jonah lived in the late to mid 700’s B.C., during the reign of Jeroboam II (cf. 2Kings 14:25). Israel was plagued by attacks from Syria and Assyria, whose capital was Nineveh, a very large and culturally advanced city located on the east bank of the Tigris River. Archaeologists have estimated that it would take about three days to walk from one side of the city to the other.
Read Jonah 1:1-2… God called Jonah to go preach repentance to Nineveh.
Read Jonah 1:3… Jonah, like the rest of Israel, hated all non-Hebrews and didn’t want them to repent and receive God’s blessings, so instead of heading for Nineveh (550 miles away), he set sail for Tarsus (2500 miles in the opposite direction.
Read Jonah 1:4-10… God brought a great storm upon the ship Jonah was on, endangering all who were on it. The captain and those on the ship realized it was because of Jonah that they were in danger, for Jonah was disobeying his God, running away from doing God’s will.
Read Jonah 1:11-16… Jonah admitted his wrong doing, and told them to throw him into the sea so that the storm would be calmed. The ship’s crew prayed to Jonah’s God, for they feared for their own lives, but did not want to be guilty of Jonah’s death. However, they threw Jonah overboard, then they offered a sacrifice and made vows to God, so as not to incur God’s wrath.
Read Jonah 1:17… God brought a great fish to swallow Jonah, and he was three days and three nights in the belly of that fish.
Read Jonah 2:9-10… Jonah called upon God to forgive him, vowing to complete his given task; so God caused the fish to vomit Jonah up on the land.
Read Jonah 3:1-3… God again calls to Jonah, and this time, Jonah obeys. It takes three days for Jonah to walk through the city of Nineveh proclaiming God’s message. Wow! Three days praying in the belly of a whale, three days preaching in the midst of Nineveh; that was, no doubt, the longest week of Jonah’s life!
Read Jonah 3:4-10… Jonah gives a simple message and the people of Nineveh repent; they call upon God to save them, and God has mercy on them.
Read Jonah 4:1-3… Jonah’s Hebrew heart was so prejudiced against non-Jews, that he didn’t want these enemies of Israel to be saved; he’d rather die than have it known that he had part in the salvation of Israel’s enemies.
Read Jonah 4:5-8… Jonah watches to see if God will really save these Gentiles? God then provides a plant to protect Jonah from the scorching wind and heat, only to then cause the plant to shrivel up. Again, Jonah asks to die!
Read Jonah 4:9-11… Jonah was angry at the plant’s destruction, while not being concerned in the least with more than 120,000 people who would have been doomed to hell without a knowledge of God. Jonah was more concerned about the death of a plant than he was about all those people dying in their sins.
In Luke 11:32, Jesus tells the self-righteous religious leaders of the Jews that, “The men of Nineveh will 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.”
What does Jesus mean, “something greater than Jonah is here.”
Revelation 1:8, “I am the Alpha and the Omega,” says the Lord God, “who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty.” Revelation 1:17-18, “I am the first and the last, and the living One; and I was dead, and behold, I am alive forevermore.”
God’s greatest sign was the death and resurrection of His Son, yet the majority of the Jewish people did not believe in Him (and they still don’t). Jesus said (Luke 16:31), “they will not be convinced even if someone rises from the dead.”
As I taught last week, salvation is made effectual by believing in God’s Son as Savior and Lord (John 1:1-4), “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through Him, and apart from Him nothing came into being that has come into being. In Him was life, and the life was the Light of men.” (John 6:14), “And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us, and we saw His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth.” (John 6:18), “No one has seen God at any time; the only begotten God who is in the bosom of the Father, He has explained Him.” (6:29), “The work of God is this: to believe in the One He has sent.” (40) “For My Father’s will is that everyone who looks to the Son and believes in Him shall have eternal life,” (8:24) “I told you that you would die in your sins; if you do not believe that I am the One I claim to be,” (10:30), “I and the Father are One.” (14:6-7), “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me. If you really knew Me, you would know my Father as well. From now on, you do know Him and have seen Him,” (10-11), “Do you not believe that I am in the Father, and the Father is in Me? The words that I say to you I do not speak on My own initiative, but the Father abiding in Me does His works. Believe Me that I am in the Father and the Father is in Me.” (14:20), “After a little while the world will no longer see Me, but you will see Me; because I live, you will live also. In that day you will know that I am in My Father, and you in Me, and I in you,” (20:30-31), “Therefore many other signs Jesus also performed in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book; but these have been written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing you may have life in His name,” (1John 5:13), “These things I have written to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, so that you may know that you have eternal life.”
1Corinthians 15:1-5, “Now I make known to you, brethren, the gospel which I preached to you, which also you received, in which also you stand, by which also you are saved, if you hold fast the word which I preached to you, unless you believed in vain. For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received, that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that He was buried, and that He was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, and that He appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve”
It is a wicked and corrupt generation that rejects God’s Son. What does a generation like that look like?
2Timothy 3:2-5, “Men will be lovers of self, lovers of money, boastful, arrogant, revilers, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, unholy, unloving, irreconcilable, malicious gossips, without self-control, brutal, haters of good, treacherous, reckless, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, holding to a form of godliness, although they have denied its power; Avoid such men as these.” 12-13, “Indeed, all who desire to live godly [lives] in Christ Jesus will be persecuted. But evil men and impostors will proceed from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived.”
We are living in the last days, in the midst of a wicked generation; but we must put away our prejudices and even give up our comforts, if necessary, in order for people to hear God’s message of hope, love, forgiveness, and salvation.
God has commanded us (Matthew 28:19-20) to take the message of Christ to all people; wherever we are, whatever we are doing, ready and willing to be used by God to share the message of Christ with anyone who will listen.
God is through sending prophets, apostles, and the divine revelation from God to all of humanity that they proclaimed in both written and spoken word.
Hebrews 1:1-3, “In the past God spoke to our forefathers through the prophets at many times and in various ways, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, and through whom he made the universe. The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his being, sustaining all things by his powerful word. After he had provided purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty in heaven.”
Listen! Salvation, the forgiveness for sin and eternal life, cannot be acquired, attained, purchased, or procured through miraculous signs, mystical experiences, ancestral heritage, religious rituals, animal sacrifices, good works, wealth, or power. The only hope we have is Jesus Christ: crucified, resurrected, and coming again!
So that (Romans 10:9-10), “If you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved; for with the heart a person believes, resulting in righteousness, and with the mouth he confesses, resulting in salvation.” In fact (13), “Whoever will call on the name of the Lord [for the forgiveness of their sins] will be saved.”
Pastor Mike Hale
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