The sign of Jonah

The sign of Jonah

“Then some of the Pharisees and teachers of the law said to him, “Teacher, we want to see a miraculous sign from you.” 
He answered, “A wicked and adulterous generation asks for a miraculous sign! But none will be given it except the sign of the prophet Jonah.  
For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of a huge fish, so the Son of Man will be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.  
The men of Nineveh will stand up at the judgment with this generation and condemn it; for they repented at the preaching of Jonah, and now one greater than Jonah is here.  
The Queen of the South will rise at the judgment with this generation and condemn it; for she came from the ends of the earth to listen to Solomon’s wisdom, and now one greater than Solomon is here. 
 “When an evil spirit comes out of a man, it goes through arid places seeking rest and does not find it.  
Then it says, ‘I will return to the house I left.’ When it arrives, it finds the house unoccupied, swept clean and put in order.  
Then it goes and takes with it seven other spirits more wicked than itself, and they go in and live there. And the final condition of that man is worse than the first. That is how it will be with this wicked generation.”
Matthew 12:38-45
Here the Pharisees and teachers wanted to see miraculous signs from Jesus. To which Jesus basically said no.
Instead he said they would only see the sign of Jonah who had spent three days in the belly of a big fish. This being a reference to Jesus spending three days in the tomb before rising again.
(Note that Jesus was according to Jewish reckoning of the day, actually three days in the tomb as they considered part of the day as a day. So using that way of reckoning Jesus was in the tomb part of the first day all of the second and part of the third, three days in all.)
He notes that “The men of Nineveh will stand up at the judgement with this generation and condemn it; for they repented at the preaching of Jonah”
“The Queen of the South (the queen of Sheba) will rise at the judgement with this generation and condemn it; for she came from the ends of the earth to listen to Solomon’s wisdom.”
The reason being, he Jesus is greater than Jonah or Solomon.
He goes on to say,
 “When an evil spirit comes out of a man, it goes through arid places seeking rest and does not find it.  
Then it says, ‘I will return to the house I left.’ When it arrives, it finds the house unoccupied, swept clean and put in order.  
Then it goes and takes with it seven other spirits more wicked than itself, and they go in and live there. And the final condition of that man is worse than the first. That is how it will be with this wicked generation.”
Simply put Jesus is saying that a person who gets his life in order who casts out the evil from his life but fails to put anything else in its place, in other words accept Christ into their life, the evil will return twice as bad.
He notes that this is how it will be for the entire generation.
Today our society is taking God out of the picture. It is trying to eliminate God from our way of life.
In doing so I believe it is removing a moral compass.
Abba Hillel Silver wrote,
“Faith in God is the strongest bulwark of a free society.  Human freedom began when men became conscious that over and above society and nature there is a God who created them...who fashioned them in His likeness, and that they are, therefore, possessed of intrinsic and independent significance and are endowed, as individuals, with original and irrevocable rights and authority.”
God and the Bible lay down a moral compass for us to live by. They teach us how to live with and treat our fellow man.
Jesus said,
“The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.” 
                          John10:10
To take God out of our society is to leave a vacuum than will ultimately lead to the down hill spiral of our society.
Think about it.