Matthew
chapter 21 shows a major
shift in the overall emphasis and focus
of Jesus Christ’s words. In this chapter, He rode into Jerusalem as the long-awaited King of Zion's
daughter and was rejected. From this point onward his focus was upon
the
judgment that Jerusalem had sealed to her own fate.
Everything He said after this was, for the most part, either a parable
about
the loss of the Kingdom by Israel and the reception of it instead
by the church, or warnings for his followers concerning departure from
the
faith.
The forfeiture of the opportunity for Jerusalem and Israel as a nation in the overall plan
of God was tragic. The issue of that "generation" (people living at
that time) of people who rejected Jesus brings to mind many statements
Jesus
spoke before Matthew 21 that deal with the same warning of judgment.
After a situation where Jesus cast a demon spirit out of a man that
caused the
person to be blind and dumb, scoffers questioned his authority and
source of
the ability to do so (Matt 12:22-30).
Some even claimed he was of the devil!
Jesus informed them that it was impossible for satan
to work against his
own house and be the cause of a devil’s expulsion out of a
person. Then He made
a statement that hinted at the futility of anyone standing against
Himself by
saying, "Or else how can one enter into a strong man's house, and spoil
his goods, except he first bind the strong man? and then he will spoil
his house.
He that is not with me is against me; and he that gathereth not with me
scattereth abroad."
Jesus was able to overcome the strongman of the house when he cast out
the
demon spirit from the man because He was stronger than the strong man. The reason He then spoke
of those who are not
with Him are those who are against Him, was to imply that His greater
strength
than the strong man would also be manifested against His enemies. It would be more than a
devil that would be
cast out in times to come. This
is a
vital bit of information to notice.
It was in this last statement that
Jesus implied the
destruction of Jerusalem
due to its aversion to accepting
His Messiahship.
When we reach verse 38 of the narrative, we find a Pharisee asking Him
to come
good for His strong claims about Himself. He wanted a sign that would
vindicate
His claims for their need to not be "against" Him. Matthew
12:38 KJV Then
certain of the scribes and of the
Pharisees answered, saying, Master, we would see a sign from thee.
It was at this juncture that Jesus
began a fascinating
discourse involving two situations from Israel's past, recounted in the
Old
Testament, that actually speaks volumes, and makes profound
predictions, about
the ultimate judgment of obliterating satan's kingdom and anyone
associated
with the devil who stood against Christ. This included the eventual
razing of Jerusalem to the
ground forty years later.
Matthew
12:39-41 KJV But he
answered and said unto them, An evil
and adulterous generation seeketh after a sign; and there shall no sign
be
given to it, but the sign of the prophet Jonas:
(40) For
as Jonas was three days
and three nights in the whale's belly; so shall the Son of man be three
days
and three nights in the heart of the earth.
(41) The
men of Nineveh
shall rise
in judgment with this
generation, and shall condemn it: because they repented at the
preaching of
Jonas; and, behold, a greater than Jonas.
He spoke of
Jonah's sign as the
only sign to be given to that adulterous generation. As Jonah was three
days
and three nights in the belly of the whale, the Son of man would be
three days
and nights in the heart of the earth. Jesus explained that the people
of
Ninevah, to whom Jonah preached after having escaped the whale,
repented at
Jonah's message. They would rise up in judgment against Jerusalem,
because
their experience would
condemn the generation of Christ's day due to the ability to repent at
the
message of a prophet the likes of Jonah, whereas that generation had
Jesus
Christ minister to them -- one far greater than Jonah -- and they would
not
repent.
Matthew
12:42
KJV The queen of
the south shall rise up in the
judgment with this generation, and shall condemn it: for she came from
the
uttermost parts of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon; and,
behold, a
greater than Solomon is here.
Jesus then
spoke of the Queen of Sheba who traversed much
of the planet to see the glory of Solomon, and the people to whom Jesus
spoke
were across the street from Him, so to speak, and would not give any
glory to
God in accepting Christ's word.
As it turns out, these two examples of Ninevah's population and the
queen of
Sheba, and what particularly happened to each of them, is closely
associated
with the earlier experience the blind and mute man had when delivered
of the
demon. It actually sheds great insight as to the degree of wickedness
in which
the generation of Christ's day had stooped.
It is no coincidence Jesus spoke of
Sheba
and Ninevah
after having cast out
the demon spirit. The
specific
conditions of not being able to speak and being blind are directly
related to
the examples from the Old Testament.
The details of a comparison between Jonah's characteristics with those
of
Christ's, as well as that between Ninevah and the Jews in Christ's day
is
astounding. Consideration of both contrasts is important.
Jonah spent the same amount of time in the whale's belly that Christ
spent in
the tomb. But the reasons for that duration of time are alarming. Jonah
was
there due to his refusal to preach to Ninevah. He actually wanted
Ninevah to
receive God's wrath, and for that reason fled to Tarshish by boat --
the
opposite direction to which Ninevah was situated. We learn in the third
chapter
of Jonah that the prophet knew Ninevah would likely repent and God
would spare
them his wrath should he preach to them.
Jonah
3:10-4:2 And
God saw their works, that they turned from their evil way; and God
repented of
the evil, that he had said that he would do unto them; and he did it
not. But
it displeased Jonah exceedingly, and he was very angry. And he prayed
unto the
LORD, and said, I pray thee, O LORD, was not this my saying, when I was
yet in
my country? Therefore I fled before unto Tarshish: for I knew that thou
art a
gracious God, and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness, and
repentest
thee of the evil.
He actually said he fled to Tarshish since he knew God was slow to
anger and
was extremely forgiving. Knowing that Ninevah's cry of repentance would
turn
the Lord to cease from destroying the people as He said He would, moved
Jonah
to to ensure Ninevah be destroyed by having refused to go and preach.
God
prepared
several things to deal with Jonah.
He prepared a wind and storm to rock the ship
in which Jonah sailed, in order for the ship-hands to eventually throw
the
prophet of God overboard. Once overboard, God prepared a whale to
swallow the
man of God. This was for the purpose of shaking Jonah to return and
preach to
the kingdom
of Ninevah.
The reason Jonah was in the belly of the whale was due to his refusal
to see
Ninevah spared. Contrast
this with Jesus
and why He was three days and nights in the tomb.
Jesus went into the tomb because He wanted
Israel
to be saved
from sin. He prayed
for the Father to forgive the people of Jerusalem
while He
hung on the cross, for
they knew not what they did.
God’s
dealings and preparations for Jonah did not stop
once Ninevah was saved. He
prepared a
gourd to grow supply a large set of leaves to shade the prophet in the
hot sun
as the prophet watched to see if judgment would come.
He then prepared a worm to kill the gourd and
watch Jonah’s complaint in order to make a point to the
miserable prophet. God
said the entire kingdom did not know what
they did, either -- or as God put it, "that cannot discern between
their
right hand and their left hand (Jonah 4:11)," and yet Jonah was more
upset
over the loss of a plant that grew up and died in one day, than for all
those
people.
What a miserable prophet! After
God
saved Ninevah, he still set out to deal with this prophet and to
correct his
attitude and disposition.
Jonah 4:10-11 KJV Then said the LORD,
Thou hast had pity on the gourd, for the which thou hast not laboured,
neither
madest it grow; which came up in a night, and perished in a night: (11)
And
should not I spare Nineveh, that great city, wherein are more than
sixscore
thousand persons that cannot discern between their right hand and their
left
hand; and also much cattle?
And
this is
how Jonah, who wrote of his own miserable
attitude and behavior, ended his own book! What a way to end a book of
the
Bible. It leaves you stunned! Thank God for the obvious humility Jonah
manifested in even recounting such an experience of his antics and
God's rebuke
to him. But the effect leaves one reeling!
On the other
hand, Jesus was willingly killed, when He
could have called legions of angels to stop the work of the cross and
plunge Jerusalem
into fire.
Christ was buried
because He wanted to save those for whom He died. Jonah
was in his counterpart experience
because he did not want the people saved. Jonah was "entombed"
because he did not care, while Jesus cared so much He gave His life.
Everything
about Jesus compared to Jonah was greater. “A
greater than Jonah is here.”
Ninevah’s salvation was only of one city
to
be freed from wrath-fire. Israel,
and the
world’s salvation, was
from a hell where the fire is not quenched. Jonah was only a stubborn
prophet.
Jesus was the All-loving Son of God -- God manifested in flesh,
Himself. Jonah
was displeased with Ninevah’s repentance and God’s
salvation. Jesus was
overjoyed with mankind’s repentance and salvation. In fact,
it was Jesus Who
said that all the angels rejoice over one soul who repents.
Think of some inhuman people whose acts and violence are beyond
imagination in
the degree of their depravity. A couple of years ago I heard that David
Berkowitz committed his life to Jesus while in prison. This was the man
who
called himself the son of Sam and went on a killing spree, whom the
devil
allegedly spoke to and directed through the medium of a dog. Some could
be quite
angry at the thought of God forgiving such a man, and perhaps sneer at
the
thought of such a claim from a murderer. How could the cost of innocent
people's lives be forgiven at the hands of such a man? But how much
more
innocent and sinless was Jesus Christ? Yet Jerusalem
slew the
holy Lord, Himself, on a
cross, and the Lord called out for their forgiveness! There was far
more evil
allowed into the hearts of the nation who slew Jesus Christ two
thousand years
ago, than the depravity of a people of Ninevah to whom Jonah was sent
to
preach.
Ninevah
was
indeed wicked.
History recounts that the king erected a pyramid of
skulls in the
kingdom center taken from those whom he murdered at his whim. It is probable that Jonah
felt these people
should not be spared regardless at the event they might repent. He simply did not want
them spared. “Kill
them all! Do not
even give them the chance. If
they were to be destroyed in forty days,
do not even inform them, and give them a chance to repent. Just do it,
Lord!” Jesus
said the Jews of His day were more
wicked than that.
I
must say
something at this juncture. Some claim the Jews
of all ages since are to blame for that day two thousand years ago, and
that
the acceptance of Christ's blood upon the heads of them and their
children
implies the guilt of Jews of all generations ever since. That is not
true, and
is completely unfair. Jesus
spoke of
that generation -- the people living at that time -- as being
responsible.
Ezekiel told the world through his prophecy that God would never more
allow the
proverb to be stated again in Israel
-- the
fathers have eaten sour
grapes, and the children's teeth are set on edge. Basically, the word
said that
the children shall not be held accountable for the sins of their
fathers.
Ezekiel distinctly said this would not hold true any more in "Israel!"
Ezekiel
18:1-4 KJV The word
of the LORD came unto me again,
saying, (2) What mean ye, that ye use
this proverb concerning
the land of Israel, saying, The fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the
children's teeth are set on edge?
(3) As I live, saith the Lord GOD, ye
shall not have occasion any
more to use this proverb
in Israel.
(4) Behold,
all souls are mine;
as the soul of the father, so also the soul of the son is mine: the
soul that
sinneth, it shall die.
So
the Jews
of every generation since, regardless of their
troubles, have never been judged by God due to that act of the
forefathers in the
crucifixion of Jesus, no matter what anybody has claimed. This is another reason
dispensationalism’s
claim that blindness is upon national Israel
to this day
due to the sins of
their forefathers is simply not true. It can’t be true
according to Ezekiel 18.
However, Jonah’s miserable attitude was the sort that Ninevah
faced, and they
still repented at his message. As
hard-hearted as Ninevah in all her atrocities were, the entire kingdom
repented
at the preaching of a far less prophet than Israel
witnessed in
Jesus Christ. This
implies that the entire nation of Israel
was meant to
accept Christ as
Messiah. Jesus
Christ's sinless and
ultimately innocent spirit bore a "prophetic word" that far
overshadowed that of Jonah's.
Jonah
begrudgingly preached. Jesus lovingly preached. Israel
rejected the
loving Son of God
who gave His life to save them. Ninevah accepted the preaching from a
practically good-for-nothing prophet who had more love for a plant than
scores
of thousands of heathen souls!
The Queen of the south came from the uttermost part of the world to
hear and
see Solomon’s glory. When you read Sheba's account of asking
Solomon hard
questions, and relating how the half of what the actual situation in
his
kingdom was not told to her, we see another set of contrasts presented
against the
two thoughts of Israel's wickedness and Christ's glory.
Jesus
was not
only greater than Jonah, but also greater
than Solomon. The magnificence of Solomon's kingdom awed a contemporary
of his
from Sheba
who ruled
across the world. It would
have been one thing to awe a servant who was not used to the lap of
luxury and
royalty, but to hear a queen speak of this in the degree she did was
another
thing altogether.
Notice the details of Sheba's
witness.
1Kings 10:1-13 And when the queen of Sheba heard of the
fame of Solomon concerning the name of the LORD, she
came to prove him with hard questions. And she came to Jerusalem with a very
great
train, with camels that bare spices, and very much gold, and precious
stones:
and when she was come to Solomon, she communed with him of all that was
in her
heart. And Solomon told her all her questions: there was not any thing
hid from
the king, which he told her not. And when the queen of Sheba had seen
all
Solomon's wisdom, and the house that he had built, And the meat of his
table,
and the sitting of his servants, and the attendance of his ministers,
and their
apparel, and his cupbearers, and his ascent by which he went up unto
the house
of the LORD; there was no more spirit in her. And she said to the king,
It was
a true report that I heard in mine own land of thy acts and of thy
wisdom.
Howbeit I believed not the words, until I came, and mine eyes had seen
it: and,
behold, the half was not told me: thy wisdom and prosperity exceedeth
the fame
which I heard. Happy are thy men, happy are these thy servants, which
stand
continually before thee, and that hear thy wisdom. Blessed be the LORD
thy God,
which delighted in thee, to set thee on the throne of Israel: because the
LORD loved Israel for ever,
therefore made he thee king, to do judgment and justice.
And she gave the king an hundred and twenty talents of gold, and of
spices very
great store, and precious stones: there came no more such abundance of
spices
as these which the queen of Sheba gave to king
Solomon. And the navy also of Hiram, that brought gold
from Ophir, brought in from Ophir great plenty of almug trees, and
precious
stones. And the king made of the almug trees pillars for the house of
the LORD,
and for the king's house, harps also and psalteries for singers: there
came no
such almug trees, nor were seen unto this day. And king Solomon gave
unto the
queen of Sheba all her
desire, whatsoever she asked, beside that which Solomon gave
her of his royal bounty. So she turned and went to her own country, she
and her
servants.
There were people all around Jesus in the land of Israel. They did
not have to travel any
length of land at all to hear Jesus and see His wisdom. And here we
have the
Queen of Sheba having traveled across the then-known world to see
Solomon, and
Jesus was far greater than Solomon! The generation to whom Jesus
preached was
so uninterested in the true glory of God, they could not walk across
the street
to eagerly hear Jesus, but only came to Him to mock Him and tempt Him. When faced with
the glory of His power in
casting out demons, they were so stubborn they attributed it to the
power of
the devil.
Everything about Jesus was greater than Solomon. Sheba saw
Solomon’s house. Jesus’s
house is the CHURCH comprised of the lively stones of living souls. Sheba saw
ministers of Solomon and
their apparel and their ascending and descending until there was no
spirit was
left within her. Jesus had ministers who soon performed miracles and
wonders
and cast out demons in His name, and speak in other tongues.
A Queen is going to stand up in the day of judgment, after all of
Ninevah
condemns Israel of Jesus’ day, and confirm that generation of
Israel's
condemnation. How much more
would Sheba have
traveled, if Jesus were in
her day? How much less of her spirit would be left if she saw what
Jesus had
and did and said? But the evil in the generation of Jesus’
day was much greater
than that of Solomon’s day.
Then things change and Jesus made a speech that forms part of the same
conversation, rebuking Israel for their
rejection of Him, but
does not seem to fit the picture. Upon
careful consideration, though, it does fit indeed!
Matthew 12:43
KJV When the
unclean spirit is gone out of a man,
he walketh through dry places, seeking rest, and findeth none.
He
spoke
about a demon cast out of a man that wanders in
dry places. The demon is able to return and check out the house from
which it
was cast. It sees the house swept and garnished, but that is all. So,
it says
it will return with seven others more wicked than itself to re-enter
the house
and fortify itself greater so as to ensure it not be cast our again.
Then Jesus
said the last state of the man is worse than the first. And He packed a
powerful punch in the last phrase He made:
Matthew
12:45b KJV …Even
so shall it be also unto this wicked
generation.
The “generation” was more wicked than Ninevah,
having not accepted God’s Word
from Christ. That
generation’s
stubbornness was manifested so greatly in refusing to accept their
Messiah who
came to them (John 1:11),
whereas a
Queen traveled across
the then-known world to come to see a lesser glory than Solomon. Then Jesus stated that
“generation” would
experience the return of a devil with seven devils worse than itself,
making
the last state more severe than the first.
He spoke of demonic possession as the first state,
with the generation
ending with a degree of demonic possession that would make the former
seem
mild! Think of the
implications.
Why
did Jesus
say this?
Remember that the whole conversation started after he cast out a devil
and
people mocked. In a conversation about Israel’s rejection of
Jesus, and in a
conversation in which Jesus refers to Sheba’s and
Ninevah’s acceptance of men
who were far less glorious than the Lord, Jesus actually implied that
He came
and cleaned house free from the devil! During
His ministry, Israel
was
“swept clean and garnished.” Satan
was cast out of the land due to Christ’s
Light and Word. The
people had equal
opportunity to be freed from the hindering effects of satan's effects
when
Jesus ministered. Christ
broke up a
funeral procession and raised the dead to life.
He healed the sick and cast out demons.
He preached such truth until the people could not
resist his
authority.
In
comparing
that generation to a house, we find an
inference that He prepared and garnished Israel
to be a
special house for His
Spirit. A veritable
HOLIEST OF HOLIES,
when afore they were lost in as much sin as the rest of mankind were. In effect, the devil was
cast out of the land
and held back from Israel,
just as
Christ described the
state of a demon cast out of a man to wander in dry places.
Notice, though, that the man just previously delivered of demons was
set free
from two distinct things. Blindness and being mute and dumb. In other
words, he
formerly could not see nor speak to the devil within him.
Interestingly enough, when Jesus referred to Ninevah, He said that the
specific
thing Ninevah did as a result of Jonah’s message of doom,
which Israel
refused to
do, was to speak! When
we repent, we call upon the name
of the Lord. We confess with our mouths and
exclaim that our hearts are truly sorry and want the will of the Lord.
However,
Israel
would not speak these words. Jesus
cast the devil
out of Israel
in order for
The
muting force of the devil was cast out of
Israel, and they
had all the chance in
the world to see God’s glory and cry out in response!
Aside from being mute, the demon caused the man whom it possessed to
have
previously experienced blindness. In
Jesus's reference to Sheba, the
distinct thing she is
written to have responded with was an emphasis about what she saw. Watch for this detail in the
scripture below:
1Kings 10:4-7 And when the queen of
Sheba
had seen all Solomon's wisdom, and the house that he had built, And the
meat of
his table, and the sitting of his servants, and the attendance of his
ministers, and their apparel, and his cupbearers, and his ascent by
which he
went up unto the house of the LORD; there was no more spirit in her.
And she
said to the king, It was a true report that I heard in mine own land of
thy
acts and of thy wisdom. Howbeit I believed not the words, until I came,
and
mine eyes had seen it: and, behold, the half was not told me: thy
wisdom and
prosperity exceedeth the fame which I heard.
Speaking was emphasized in conjunction with Ninevah's reactions to
Jonah's
preaching:
Jonah 3:5-8 So the people of Nineveh
believed
God, and
proclaimed a fast, and put on sackcloth, from the greatest of them even
to the
least of them. For word came unto the king of Nineveh, and he
arose from
his throne, and he laid his robe from him, and covered him with
sackcloth, and
sat in ashes. And he caused [it] to be proclaimed and published through
Nineveh
by the decree of the king and his nobles, saying, Let neither man nor
beast,
herd nor flock, taste any thing: let them not feed, nor drink water:
But let
man and beast be covered with sackcloth, and cry mightily unto God:
yea, let
them turn every one from his evil way, and from the violence that is in
their
hands.
Sheba
emphasized
what she saw, and we are told that
Ninevah was directed to "cry mightily". Speak. Lift up the voice and
holler to the Lord!
1. Cry mightily to God.
2. See His great wisdom and glory!
The devil was cast out of Israel
so Israel could speak
and see in response
to observing God’s glory! Jesus
cast out
the demon and swept the house and garnished it. He prepared them. But
they would
not bring Him inside and dwell with them. They rejected
Jesus’ entrance and His
Spirit into their lives.
Matthew 23:37-38 O Jerusalem, Jerusalem,
thou that killest the prophets, and stonest them which are sent unto
thee, how
often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen
gathereth her
chickens under her wings, and ye would not! Behold, your house is left
unto you
desolate.
Jesus spent three days in the earth and the Gospel was preached after
He resurrected.
3,120 were saved in that City of Jerusalem, according
to Acts chapter 2. And
as years past, the devil who was cast out came back. It saw
Israel’s
rejection of Jesus. It left and
went and got itself seven more spirits greater than itself (seven is
the number
of completion in the Bible). It made its mind up that Israel
was not
going to be ransacked of
his wicked influence and taken from it again! In AD70, Israel might
have
thought Rome's crushing hand was strong against her in the decades
before, but
satan returned causing her blindness and refusal to glorify God to such
a
degree that God judged her and nobody was able to so much as reconvene
a nation
called Israel until AD 1948. What
happened in Jesus’ hypothetical picture of a man delivered of
demons, becoming
worse than the first state, happened with that generation.
What a lesson for all the generations of the world ever since! We ought
to give
God glory and open our eyes quite widely to every bit of glory the Lord
can
possibly offer for us to see. Cry mightily to the Lord. Put a "No
vacancy" sign up on our lives, due to having allowed the Lord to fill
our
lives with His Spirit and presence, leaving no room for anything from
the devil
to enter in any form. We ought not reject anything God could ever show
to our
eyes, and should never hold back cries of praise to Him. A lot of us
were open
enough to walk away from the teachings of Dispensationalism and
futurism, but
we ought to ensure we will always remain open for correction to the
Lord.
Revelation reveals the degree of demonic possession that the New
Babylon,
Jerusalem, experienced after having evil returned with seven devils
more worse
than itself, when we read:
Revelation 18:2 KJV And he cried mightily with a strong voice, saying,
Babylon
the great is fallen, is fallen, and is become the habitation of devils,
and the
hold of every foul spirit, and a cage of every unclean and hateful
bird.
Jesus explicitly said that generation of His day would experience the
very
thing described in his story of a devil who returned and made the last
state
far worse than the first. Notice the last sentence of the scripture
below.
Matthew 12:43-45 KJV When the unclean
spirit is gone out of a man, he walketh through dry places, seeking
rest, and
findeth none. (44) Then he saith, I will return into my house from
whence I
came out; and when he is come, he findeth it empty, swept, and
garnished. (45)
Then goeth he, and taketh with himself seven other spirits more wicked
than
himself, and they enter in and dwell there: and the last state of that
man is
worse than the first. Even so shall it be also unto this wicked
generation.
Sandwiched between words describing demon possession we find a rebuke
to the
very generation of Israel
who rejected
Him and called for
His blood to be their heads. And Revelation recounts the demonic
possession of that
entire generation.