OUR FATHER WHOSE SON WAS THE CHIEF CORNERSTONE THAT THE BUILDERS TURNED AWAY

The Lord Jesus spoke to the Pharisees about their blasphemy of the Holy Spirit and how their words would condemn them on the day of judgement and in response to the unbraiding they received, the discomfitted pharisees then felt that the hearsay stories of Jesus' miracles were not enough for them and so they wanted to see a miracle with their own eyes so that they could judge whether Jesus was worthy to school them the way He was.

38 Then some of the scribes and Pharisees answered, saying, “Teacher, we want to see a sign from You.”

39 But He answered and said to them, “An evil and adulterous generation seeks after a sign, and no sign will be given to it except the sign of the prophet Jonah. 40 For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the great fish, so will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. 

41 The men of Nineveh will rise up in the judgment with this generation and condemn it, because they repented at the preaching of Jonah; and indeed a greater than Jonah is here.

42 The queen of the South will rise up in the judgment with this generation and condemn it, for she came from the ends of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon; and indeed a greater than Solomon is here.

The answer Jesus gave to their request for a supernatural sign was an epic revelation of the momentous grandeur of the mission of salvation that He, the Messiah, had come to fulfill.

The pharisees' request for a sign was denied but they were alerted that there would be one pivotal sign that was available to them and that was the sign that the story of the prophet Jonah foreshadowed.

Just as Jonah went down into the depths of the sea in the belly of a great fish for three days and three nights before rising again, the Son of Man would descend into the heart of the earth for three days and three nights.

This sign, that was the death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus, was the only sign that would be given to the evil and adulturous generation.

Unbeknownst to the pharisees, they were going to play a part in the events that the Lord Jesus was describing and the fact that that they missed the day of their visitation was going to be the basis for a historical condemnation against them.

Jonah went to Nineveh with no signs and yet upon his preaching, the whole city repented in ashes. In contrast, One far greater than Jonah had come to them with healing in His wings and that generation did not repent but instead demanded signs be performed before them.

The queen of Sheba is also going to condemn that generation because she arduosly travelled a great distance to come hear the wisdom  of Solomon and even though One greater than Solomon was among them teaching wisdom,  instead of troubling themselves to learn from Him, they demanded a sign.

All the figures of history who hungered and yearned for God on the basis of faint traces of the workings of the Spirit of God will rise up to condemn the generation that had the Son of God, powered by the Spirit of God, moving around in their midst.

Have mercy on us O God.

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