From the desk of Pastor Ben

Falling Deeper Into Sin

“An evil and adulterous generation seeks after a sign; and a sign will not be given it, except the sign of Jonah.” And He left them and went away.          (Matthew 16:4)

The spiritually blind, such as the Pharisees, will never see the light because they sink further and further into sin. They think that seeking additional signs will make them pleasing to God, but such experiences and observations merely drive them further away. Jesus refused to grant such sinners any miracles that would feed their wicked, hypocritical desires.

Jesus final sign to the world was “the sign of Jonah,” the great indicator of His victory over Satan’s kingdom through His resurrection. On an earlier occasion Christ declared to some scribes and Pharisees, “An evil and adulterous generation craves for a sign; and yet no sign will be given to it but the sign of Jonah the prophet; for just as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the sea monster, so will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. The men of Nineveh will stand up with this generation at the judgment, and will condemn it because they repented at the preaching of Jonah; and behold, something greater than Jonah is here.”     (Matthew 12:39-41)

Of course, the Jewish elite would reject this final sign as well as earlier ones. God ultimately abandons those who persist in their sin and rejection of His light (Romans 1:24, 26, 28). Stubborn, worldly blindness becomes God’s sovereign blindness — He chooses to leave them behind and focus His blessings on those whose spiritual eyes are open to salvation.

Ask Yourself:
How do you keep yourself from becoming closed off to the freshness of life with Christ? What are some of the signals that might indicate you’re letting yourself grow stale and inflexible, operating out of mere habit rather than from an eager desire to let the Word truly live in your life?