“If I could only see a miraculous sign, I’d believe in Christ.” Maybe that’s the way you feel today, and it’s certainly what the scribes and Pharisees said (verse 38). But in this chapter alone, Jesus had already restored a man’s withered hand and cast out a demon from a man who was blind and dumb – so what more could they want to see? That’s why Jesus said He would show them the sign of the prophet Jonah: just as Jonah got a new lease on life after being trapped in a fish’s guts for three days, Jesus would walk out of His tomb on the third day, alive from the dead. And the facts of the cross and the empty tomb should still be a sufficient foundation for our faith: for what other miracle could top the Resurrection of Christ?

“If I could only hear a direct word from God, I’d follow Jesus.” In times of confusion, it’s easy to think that way. But let’s face it: the scribes and Pharisees had the Son of God standing right in front of them, but they still didn’t listen to Him. And we have the divinely inspired record of the words Jesus spoke and the deeds Jesus did: we call it the Holy Bible. Surely we should be as obedient to the Word of God as the ancient Ninevites were to the preaching of Jonah, as impressed with the wisdom of Scripture as the Queen of Sheba was with the words of Solomon.

“Yes, I’ll follow Jesus, but first I need to get my act together.” The ancient scribes and Pharisees were convinced that they could save themselves by observing all the details of the Law of God. But Jesus warned them that no matter how clean and orderly they tried to make their lives, they were powerless to keep their worst problems at bay. And the same thing is true for us: for neither miracle, nor voice, nor self-help regimen can do anything about the death that always results from our foolish attempts to remain apart from Christ.

So, will we believe the sign of the empty tomb? Will we submit our lives to the authority of the Living Word of God? Will we acknowledge Jesus as our King and enthrone Him as Lord over our lives? Or will we remain under the power of sin and death?

Matthew 12:38-45 (NASB)

38 Then some of the scribes and Pharisees answered Him, saying, “Teacher, we want to see a sign from You.”
39 But He answered and said to them, “An evil and adulterous generation craves for a sign; and yet no sign shall be given to it but the sign of Jonah the prophet;
40 for just as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the sea monster, so shall the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.
41 “The men of Nineveh shall stand up with this generation at the judgment, and shall condemn it because they repented at the preaching of Jonah; and behold, something greater than Jonah is here.
42 “The Queen of the South shall rise up with this generation at the judgment and shall condemn it, because she came from the ends of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon; and behold, something greater than Solomon is here.
43 “Now when the unclean spirit goes out of a man, it passes through waterless places, seeking rest, and does not find it.
44 “Then it says, ‘I will return to my house from which I came’; and when it comes, it finds it unoccupied, swept, and put in order.
45 “Then it goes, and takes along with it seven other spirits more wicked than itself, and they go in and live there; and the last state of that man becomes worse than the first. That is the way it will also be with this evil generation.”