A Sign Seen (Luke 11:29–36) from South Woods Baptist Church on Vimeo.

On June 3, 1944, Nazi Germany Field Marshal Erwin Rommel was in Paris, France. Though Hitler was hesitant to give clear authority to anyone other than himself, Rommel was, in many ways, the German equivalent of General Eisenhower. On this June day, however, Rommel traveled to Paris to buy shoes for his wife Lucie’s upcoming birthday. While there, he conferred with Field Marshal Gerd von Rundstedt. They, seeing the rainy and windy weather forecasts ahead and the probable tumultuous tides, agreed together, on June 3, 1944, that “there is still no sign that the invasion is imminent.”[1]

Of course, they couldn’t see everything. Some of the things they might’ve seen, they didn’t. And what they did see, they misinterpreted.

In the passage Pastor Phil preached a couple weeks ago, after Jesus delivered a mute man from a demon, some in the crowd responded, He casts out demons by Beelzebul. What they saw, they misinterpreted. Luke records that others, even right after Jesus’ miracle, to test Jesus, kept seeking from him a sign (Lk. 11:15–16). Things they should’ve already seen, they’d not yet beheld.

Jesus addresses this “seeking after a sign” in today’s text. We’ll study it under three headings:

1. The Sign 2. The Superiority of the Sign 3. The Visibility of the Superior Sign

1. The Sign (v. 29–30)

v. 29, When the crowds were increasing, he began to say, “This generation is an evil generation.” Nothing will correct your understanding of Jesus better than actually reading the Bible. While no one’s more loving and compassionate than Him, at the same time, no one knew and spoke the unvarnished truth like Him either. He didn’t flirt with flattery. Luke’s juxtaposition should be noted: the crowds increased; Jesus called those flocking toward him evil.

Why would He do so? Surely this is partly in response to those characterizing His kingdom work as the effort of a demon in verse 15. But more explicitly here, He asserts, “This generation is an evil generation. It seeks for a sign.”

You might wonder, “What’s so bad about seeking signs? Didn’t Jesus just say, ‘Seek, and you will find’?” (Lk 11:9) It’s important to note the motive Luke assigns to their seeking a sign. Luke makes clear back in verse 16 that they asked for the sign, to test Him (Lk 11:16). What they’d already seen hadn’t convinced them. They’d actually misinterpreted it. Who’s to say they wouldn’t do the same again were He to given them another sign? David Gooding writes that to give one at this point would have been “admitting that their doubts about the moral quality of his previous miracles were reasonable.”[2] It was a test.

As we’ve pointed out throughout Luke’s Gospel, Jesus wasn’t merely doing party tricks in the Galilean hills. He demonstrated His authority over the demons, over disease and over death as object lessons of His rule. When He calmed the storm and when He told Jairus’ daughter to stand, He did it so that people might know who He was. In the text we studied last time, Jesus made one of His clearest statements concerning the “why” behind His miraculous deeds, 11:20, But if it is by the finger of God that I cast out demons, then the kingdom of God has come upon you. He did these things to point to the Kingdom and to His rule as that Kingdom’s King.

And He’d done these “signs” in front of many in these crowds. Yet scores remained in unbelief. In short, their desire for a sign was not also a desire for Him.

We know all kinds of people who want God to do things, but don’t want God.

Jesus continues, v.29, This generation is an evil generation. It seeks for a sign, but no sign will be given it except the sign of Jonah. What they mean by “sign,” Jesus won’t agree to. But there is a sign He’s already given, is giving, and will give. Verse 30: For as Jonah became a sign to the people of Nineveh, so will the Son of Man be to this generation. What He means by that will be further explained in the f[...]