Grantsdale Community Church
2026-04-05 The Sign that Changed Everything
  • Introduction: Read the Text, Then Read the Room
    April 5th 33 AD. Our text this morning is Matthew 12:38–42. This passage lands with particular force today, because today is the EXACT day the sign arrived.
    The main point can be stated plainly: The resurrection of Jesus Christ, is the one sufficient, divinely-appointed sign, that validates His entire person and work.
    You see, Jesus didn’t come to produce signs. He came to be the sign.
    And yet, amazingly enough, there’s a certain kind of unbelief that never runs out of demands. It is the kind of unbelief that stands before a burning bush and asks for documentation.
    The scribes and Pharisees in Matthew 12 were men with that kind of unbelief.
    They just watched Jesus cast out demons and heal a blind and mute man. He adeptly traversed every trap they had set for him. Now they stand before him, with their arms folded and say: “We want to see a sign.” The Light of the World was standing right in front of them, and they ask Him to light a lamp.
    As we go through this passage we’re going to look at four aspects of what is said:
    The Demand
    The Sign Itself
    What Jesus Claims
    What the Sign Proves

    The Demand

    vv. 38–39; Luke 11:29
    First, we have to feel the incredible weight of the moment in order to understand what the Pharisees are demanding and how Jesus replies. Matthew 12 records a rapidly escalating conflict.
    We see, two Sabbath controversies, the Pharisees plotting to destroy Jesus, and an accusation that He casts out demons by Beelzebul, an accusation Jesus methodically destroys.
    Then, as if none of the this had happened, the scribes and Pharisees step forward, in textbook narcissistic form, and make a demand as if they are the divine.
    Matthew 12:38 CSB
    38 Then some of the scribes and Pharisees said to him, “Teacher, we want to see a sign from you.”
    The Greek word translated “sign,” within this context, isn’t merely a sign on the road, the Pharisees want a validating miracle that authenticates the messenger.
    Jesus provides an answer,
    Matthew 12:39 CSB
    39 He answered them, “An evil and adulterous generation demands a sign, but no sign will be given to it except the sign of the prophet Jonah.
    The demand itself is not inherently wicked. Moses received signs. Isaiah offered Ahaz a sign. So, why does Jesus call it evil?
    Because the Pharisees have already seen more than enough. They have watched Jesus perform the very works Isaiah 35:5-6 associated with the coming Messiah. The blind seeing, the deaf hearing, the lame walking, recorded in Matthew 11:4–5.
    They’re not asking due to insufficient evidence. They’re asking because they have already decided no matter what they aren’t going to believe. They want a sign they can control, on their terms, meeting their standards.
    If Jesus had parted the Jordan River before their eyes, they would have asked for His credentials. Who do you think you are?
    Jesus diagnoses the condition precisely. He calls them evil and adulterous, a term the Old Testament prophets used for Israel's covenant-breaking as in Hosea 1–3 and Jeremiah 3:8.
    The parallel passage in Luke provides a fuller understanding,
    Luke 11:29 CSB
    29 “This generation is an evil generation. It demands a sign,
    The Greek word translated “demands” here, in this context, means, a holy demand of God. It’s not just a demand, it’s a divine demand that makes it evil adulterous.
    The one who demands a sign as entertainment, as leverage, as proof that he is the one in control, that man will receive no word from heaven.
    When Herod met Jesus at his trial, he hoped to see a sign. He got total silence.
    The man who spent his life collecting wives and killing prophets, finally had the Son of God in front of him, and received nothing.
    But here is the grace in Matthew 12: Jesus wasn’t silent, He answered the Pharisees divine demand. He gave them a sign, the sign they and all of humanity needed, just not the one they wanted. Not one they could control.
    Instead, Jesus gave them Jonah.

    The Sign Itself

    Jonah was an eighth-century prophet called to preach repentance to Nineveh, the capital of Israel's worst enemy Assyria.
    Instead of faithfully preaching, He ran. He boarded a westbound ship and was thrown overboard by sailors who were understandably furious by his storm causing disobedience.
    And if that weren’t bad enough, he was swallowed by a giant fish.
    Three days and three nights later, he was vomited out alive and begrudgingly went and preached to Nineveh. If you are looking for a hero with a spotless record and a can-do attitude, Jonah is definitely not your man.
    He is the prophet who required multiple calls and three days and nights in a fish’s belly to complete his divine mission. Nineveh’s whole population repented, which incidentally made Jonah furious. But that is a sermon for another Sunday.
    Jesus says, “I will give you the sign of Jonah.”
    Matthew 12:40 CSB
    40 For as Jonah was in the belly of the huge fish three days and three nights, so the Son of Man will be in the heart of the earth three days and three nights.
    The point of this comparison is not the fish, not the preaching, not the disobedience. It is three days and three nights in a place of death, followed by emergence back to life. Jesus is saying, Jonah points to His own burial and resurrection.
    Two phrases deserve attention here. First, “three days and three nights” is a Semitic expression, it’s not necessarily a precise and literal 72-hours.
    An event taking place on any portion of a day, even if it were just one minute, counted as a full day in Jewish reckoning.
    Second, “the heart of the earth” does not simply mean buried six feet under. The Jews viewed the “heart” of something as the very core, its innermost reality.
    Jesus is saying: “I will descend to the very core of death.” He’s not talking about a near-death experience. There was no resuscitating Him. He fully descended into the deepest core of death.
    And this prophecy was spoken in advance, to the very people who would orchestrate his execution. And later in Matthew 16:4, when the Pharisees again demand a sign, Jesus gives the same answer verbatim.
    He says it twice, word-for-word. This isn’t some offhand remark, it’s a deliberate declaration. The sign is the emergence from death. It’s not the fish, not the desperate prayer from inside the belly, and it’s definitely not the preaching.
    Jonah's sermon was only five Hebrew words. What made it credible, was that Jonah, the man delivering it, had perspectively emerged from death itself.
    Jesus is saying the sign that validates everything, is the Son of Man actually emerging from the heart of the earth, literally emerging from death itself.

    What Jesus Claims

    (vv. 41–42) Greater Than Jonah, Greater Than Solomon
    Jesus says neither the Ninevites, nor the Queen of Sheba demanded any signs from Jonah or Solomon. Jesus says, this evil generation has something greater than Jonah and Solomon standing right in front of them. And yet, they demand a sign as if they’re God themselves.
    Look at verses 41-42,
    Matthew 12:41–42 CSB
    41 The men of Nineveh will stand up at the judgment with this generation and condemn it, because they repented at Jonah’s preaching; and look—something greater than Jonah is here. 42 The queen of the south will rise up at the judgment with this generation and condemn it, because she came from the ends of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon; and look—something greater than Solomon is here.
    Two distinct witnesses, one verdict:
    Jonah arrived with no miracles, no credentials, no visual aids, and one very short sermon, just five Hebrew words we translate with seven:
    Jonah 3:4 CSB
    4 “In forty days Nineveh will be demolished!”
    The entire population of Nineveh repented, including, per Jonah 3:8, the livestock! The Ninevites were so convicted that they even dressed their livestock in sackcloth. They were extraordinarily repentant and seemingly uncertain about where repentance ended.
    And the Queen of Sheba. She heard a report about Solomon's wisdom and traveled from southern Arabia to Jerusalem, months of dangerous desert caravan travel, one way, just to hear one man speak.
    She didn’t send some diplomat to report back, she came herself, at great personal cost. And when she, arrived her response was to worship the God of Solomon: “Blessed be the LORD your God” (1 Kings 10:9).
    And the Greek word translated “something greater” here, points to God’s whole work in Jesus Christ. His sending the Son, the provision for salvation, the New Covenant and a new kingdom.
    Jesus is saying He’s not just a stubborn Jewish prophet sent to Nineveh and He’s greater than the wisest king in Israel's history.
    What Jesus claims, would be like you or I announcing that we are better at our job than all the people who ever held it, in the history of the world, combined.
    If the claim is false, it is the most breathtaking display of arrogance in human history. But if the sign of Jonah is true, if Jesus actually rose on the third day, then it’s not arrogance. It’s the simple, verifiable truth.
    And those who reject it will stand condemned at the last judgment by the Ninevites and a queen whose faith put theirs to shame.

    What the Sign Proves

    This passage forces us to ask: “What does the sign of Jonah actually prove?”
    The New Testament consistently provides that answer in four ways.

    It proves Jesus' identity

    Paul writes in Rom 1:4 that Jesus,
    Romans 1:4 CSB
    4 was appointed to be the powerful Son of God according to the Spirit of holiness by the resurrection of the dead.
    The resurrection is God glorifying Jesus and crowning Him King of kings. Look, God doesn’t just say, “you know, Jesus made really some good points, so I think I’ll resurrect Him, but I’m going to keep my options open.”
    God resurrecting Jesus vindicated him entirely. Every claim Jesus made about his identity, Son of God, Lord of the Sabbath, Judge of the living and the dead, all of it, was ratified in one decisive act.

    It proves the atonement is complete!!

    Paul says in,
    Romans 4:25 CSB
    25 He was delivered up for our trespasses and raised for our justification.
    The empty tomb is the receipt. And the Pharisees couldn’t recognize the very receipt they were demanding when they got it.
    Death no longer held any claim on Jesus, because there was no further payment due. He walked out of the tomb as proof that the debt has been paid in full.

    It authenticates everything Jesus said!!

    Look at,
    Matthew 28:6 CSB
    6 He is not here. For he has risen, just as he said. Come and see the place where he lay.
    Jesus predicted his resurrection three times in Matthew’s Gospel, each time increasingly more specific, (Matthew 16:21; 17:23; 20:19). The disciples, bless their hearts, didn’t fully grasp this until after it happened.
    That’s why they were hiding behind locked doors on Sunday morning. They should have been waiting at the tomb with coffee and a welcome-home banner.
    But, the angel spoke to the women on Sunday morning, the words were unmistakable: “He is not here, for he has risen, as he said.”
    As he said!! Every word Jesus ever spoke was authenticated in that moment. If He is right about the resurrection, He is right about everything, about judgment, about salvation, about Himself, and about us.

    It prove Jesus is the firstfruits of the new creation!!

    Paul says in,
    1 Corinthians 15:20 CSB
    20 But as it is, Christ has been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep.
    In the Old Testament harvest calendar, the firstfruits were the very first collection of the harvest, offered to God, as a pledge of the full harvest yet to come (Leviticus 23:10–11).
    Jesus' resurrection is not merely a personal vindication. It is the initial offering to God for the full resurrection of all who belong to him, yet to come.
    The sign of Jonah is the sign of a New Covenant beginning, one in which the grave is no longer the final word. It’s merely a waiting room.
    Read correctly, this text does not allow us to remain spectators. Verses 41–42 explicitly elicit a response. It’s about the contrast between those who responded to lesser light and those who refused to respond to greater light, the Light of the World.
    The sign of Jonah doesn’t allow us to partake in a detached online spiritual browsing. Something we are way too fond of today. Too many Christians look at Jesus the way we might look at homes online that we can’t afford.
    We just click through the pictures with admiration but have absolutely no intention of ever making an offer.
    The Ninevites heard the word of God and believed. They didn’t ask Jonah for his seminary degree. They simply believed and repented. The Queen of Sheba came at great peril and personal cost, heard Solomon speak with wisdom and worshipped the God who gave him that wisdom.
    Both responded to lesser light with wholehearted faith. And Jesus says, “I am something greater.” This Easter morning, the sign has been given, the tomb is empty.
    Paul recounted 500 witnesses who had seen the resurrected Jesus, at the same time.
    1 Corinthians 15:6 CSB
    6 Then he appeared to over five hundred brothers and sisters at one time; most of them are still alive, but some have fallen asleep.
    Paul says, 500 saw the resurrected Jesus at the same time. Most are still alive, go ask them yourselves. The disciples testified with their lives, not just metaphorically but literally. Men do not willingly die for things they know are fabricated lies.
    The church has proclaimed His resurrection for two thousand years. The question before us today is the same one put before the scribes and Pharisees.
    Will we recognize the sign of Jonah?
    We can maintain a careful distance, preserve our unbelief, make more demands on our own terms. But, Jesus has told us where that posture leads.
    Or we can do what the Ninevites did: hear the word of God, believe it, and repent. Even if we think our animals must repent with us!
    The sign has been given! Not because we earned it, not because we show up in our Easter finest. But because God, in his mercy and grace, appointed it.
    Conclusion: As He Said
    Ater this exchange with the Pharisees, Jesus would continue teaching, healing, and heading to Jerusalem, marching toward the cross.
    He would be arrested in the Garden of Gethsemane and stand before Pilate, a man who asked, “What is truth?, while Truth was standing right in front of him.
    Jesus would be flogged, mocked, and crucified. Laid in a borrowed tomb, sealed and guarded by Roman soldiers. For three days it appeared that the sign had failed.
    The disciples scattered and hid behind locked doors. The soldiers at the tomb? Well, they had no idea they were protecting the most significant piece of real estate the world will ever know.
    Everyone had given up!!
    But, come Sunday morning, the stone was rolled away. Not to let Jesus out, but to let the witnesses in. An angel calmly sat where the body had been, as if sitting in the empty tomb should have been expected.
    The angel’s message was given, to terrified women, trembling in the early morning: “He is not here, for he has risen, as he said” (Matthew 28:6).
    Those three words, as he said! Jesus proclaimed, the Son of Man will be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. The angel confirms: “he has risen, as he said.”
    The sign that was promised, the only sign heaven will give, was delivered exactly as announced, at God’s appointed time.
    It was delivered to the world. Including the very people who demanded a sign, but couldn’t recognize it if it hit them in the forehead.
    This is Easter Sunday. It’s not a spring festival. It’s not just some cultural occasion that feeds a robust chocolate bunny industry.
    Easter is the day the sign of Jonah was given, to this evil generation, to us, to the world.
    The Ninevites repented at the preaching of a seasick, reluctant prophet, who smelled like fish, and delivered a five-word sermon. His resume would raise questions for any pastoral search committee.
    The queen came from the ends of the earth to hear Solomon’s wisdom from God and without question worshipped.
    Will you recognize the sign of Jonah?
    Jesus Christ, crucified, dead and buried, has risen from the dead on the third day. His death fully atones for sin. His word is true. His one promised sign kept.
    The sign has been given. He is risen!

      • Matthew 12:38ESV

      • Matthew 12:39ESV

      • Luke 11:29ESV

      • Matthew 12:40ESV

      • Matthew 12:41–42ESV

      • Jonah 3:4ESV

      • Romans 1:4ESV

      • Romans 4:25ESV

      • Matthew 28:6ESV

      • 1 Corinthians 15:20ESV

      • 1 Corinthians 15:6ESV

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