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Advent HOPE Sabbath School

Gabriel Arruda

The Sign of Jonah and God’s Five Step Formula for Victory

Father in heaven, Lord, we're about to get into a topic of tremendous importance.

I ask and pray that you would please fill this room with your holy angels.

I have no doubt whatsoever that the devil is seeking to distract, to discourage, to perhaps even keep those from coming here this evening who intended to come.

I ask and pray that you would work, that you would have power and authority to bring those here who need to be here and to keep us attentive despite the whatever size meal we had this afternoon to keep us listening and keep us especially growing in Jesus.

Please give us your spirit to drive the points home and Lord may this bear fruit in our souls that would last for eternity.

And another question is, why was it a sign?

And how does it relate to gaining complete victory over sin in our lives?

We're going to look into these questions, but let's notice what the sign of Jonah was.

Let's turn in our Bibles to the Gospel of Luke chapter 11.

And our first passage is Luke 11 verses 29 and 30.

And if you don't have your Bibles, We'll have it on the screen.

Verse 29, starting it says, thank you Ordon.

And when the people were gathered thick together, he began to say, this is an evil generation.

They seek a sign, and there shall no sign be given it, but the sign of Jonas or Jonah the prophet.

For as Jonah was a sign to the Ninevites, so shall also the Son of Man be to this generation." It goes on.

Actually, we'll come to this verse in a minute.

What was the sign of Jonah according to this?

Did you notice that Jonah is the sign of Jonah?

Says Jonas was a sign unto the Ninevites.

And so the sign was actually Jonah himself.

The same way, and notice also from this passage, we can understand that the same way that Jonah was to be assigned to Nineveh, Christ was assigned to the Jews.

While some may say, well, it was their preaching, that was the sign.

Verse 32 of the same chapter, 1132, the men of Nineveh shall rise up in the judgment with this generation and shall condemn it, For they repented at the preaching of Jonas, and behold, a greater than Jonah is here." Was the preaching of Jonah part of the sign?

Yes, absolutely, the preaching was involved in the sign of Jonah.

Was that the only part of the sign of Jonah?

Was that the only sign given to the Ninevites?

Because remember, the same way that Christ was to be assigned to the Jews, Jonah was supposed to be assigned to the Ninevites.

So what did both Christ and Jonah do that made them signs to the people of their generation?

Well, let's look at a parallel gospel account.

Matthew chapter 12, verses 38 through 40.

Matthew's going to shed a little bit more light on this question, shed more light on this question as what is the sign of Jonah?

Matthew chapter 12, starting in verse 38, and it says, Then a certain of the scribes and Pharisees answered, saying, Master, we would see a sign from thee.

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 Jonah, the sign of the prophet Jonah.

Goes on to say, for as Jonah was 3 days and 3 nights in the whale's belly, so shall the Son of Man be 3 days and 3 nights in the heart of the earth.

So, was the preaching of Christ, the preaching of Jonah, was that part of the sign?

Yes, sure, absolutely, but more directly, according to Christ's words himself, what was the sign of Jonah?

3 days and 3 nights in the belly of a whale.

And so we know that Christ was 3 days and 3 nights in what he calls the heart of the earth, meaning he was dead, buried, and resurrected in 3 days time.

So Jesus died and he rose again from the grave.

And the same way Christ was to be a sign to the Jews, remember Jonah was to be a sign to Nineveh.

Luke says that Jonah himself was the sign to Nineveh And then Matthew says the sign was the fact that he was 3 days and 3 nights in a whale's belly.

Are you starting to get what the actual sign to Jonah was to the Ninevites?

Have you ever wondered, why did Nineveh repent?

It's this huge, wicked city, and 1 guy goes through and says, God's gonna destroy this city, and the whole city repents.

They start crying and weeping and fasting.

As you read that, did you ever think, really?

Wow, how come we don't have that same results in our evangelistic process?

1 guy goes through this huge, hard, wicked city.

I would love results like that at my meetings.

Why did that wicked pagan city repent so readily?

Well, the words of Christ in both Luke and Matthew give us an insight as to the big reason why they repented that's not even found in the book of Jonah itself?

Could it be that as Jonah was going through that city preaching, the Ninevites somehow knew this man had been swallowed by a whale and was spit out 3 days later and lived to tell about it.

In other words, as Jonah's walking through the city, The Ninevites are looking at this guy and they're thinking, this man was dead for 3 days and his God had power to bring him back to life again.

That would give his message a lot more weight, wouldn't it?

As they're watching this man preaching, thinking, this guy was dead and his God raised him to life.

Jesus told us that the same way he was to be assigned to his generation, Jonah was to be assigned to the Ninevites.

Jonah apparently was put to death and was resurrected as well.

As you read the account of Jonah, It's clear that the men who were on that boat that he was fleeing on Were probably from all different countries and all different parts of the world at that time Because it says when that storm came and was beating on the boat It said all the men went and cried to their gods.

There were many different nations resembled on that boat.

It could be possible that many of those men could have been from Nineveh.

You know, Nineveh, according to the standards of that day and age, was a huge city.

It would be like a New York or LA of Jonah's time.

But friends, somehow the Ninevites knew about Jonah.

Otherwise, how could Jonah, being in a whale's belly for 3 days and 3 nights, be a sign to them if they didn't even know about it?

The fact that he was 3 days and 3 nights in a whale's belly was a sign to the Ninevites.

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The Sign of Jonah and God’s Five Step Formula for Victory

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