Passover to Tabernacles - Part Fourteen Feb 20, 2022 by: John Herbert | Series: Passover to Tabernacles Audio Study Notes PDF https://s3.amazonaws.com/cornerstonejax/sermonfiles/T011_20220220.mp3 Refresh A Recap from the Sermon Mt 12:39 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. Today we will begin to look at the sign of the prophet Jonah. The full text of this message can be found by clicking the PDF button. Sunday February 20th 2022 Passover to Tabernacles Part 14 1). Lk 17:28 Likewise as it was also in the days of Lot: They ate, they drank, they bought, they sold, they planted, they built; 29 but on the day that Lot went out of Sodom it rained fire and brimstone from heaven and destroyed them all. 30 Even so will it be in the day when the Son of Man is revealed. We had seen last time that ‘the day when the Son of Man will be revealed’ is rapidly approaching. And we should be clear in our understanding that the events seen in the world around us as this day approaches, are not the fulfillment of prophesy but the setting of the stage whereby the fulfillment of prophecy can begin. a). The Apostle John prophetically gave a dispensational history of the Church, with respect to the Word of the Kingdom, through the seven churches in the Book of the Revelation. And we now find ourselves in that place in the dispensation pictured through the church of Laodicea. b). The next prophetic event that we look for, that must take place before any other prophecy can begin to be fulfilled, is the resurrection/rapture of the Church into Christ’s presence for Judgment. All Christians from this dispensation. c). Because of the work of the leaven placed in the three measures of meal at the beginning of the dispensation, that has led to the Laodicean condition of the Church in which we find ourselves, a mindset has developed within Christendom that we can find exemplified in Peter – 2 Pe 3:3 knowing this first: that scoffers will come in the last days, walking according to their own lusts, 4 and saying, “Where is the promise of His coming? For since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of creation.” The question asked here and the reason for asking it, would find its expression today in, the Doctrine of Uniformity. Simply put, this doctrine teaches that there are ‘natural scientific laws’ that have governed all things from the past to the present, that remain unchangeable into the future. This has taken hold within Christendom through a variety of teachings, all of which basically declare the same thing, all things will continue unchanged, life will go on without interruption, ‘all things continue as they were from the beginning of creation.’ d). We had seen last time though the foolishness of such thinking. The Jewish people have killed their King and in doing so have slain their Passover Lamb, and the nation has been set aside. And we are now in the time when the Holy Spirit is searching for the Bride for God’s Son in the antitype of that seen in Genesis Chapter 24. And through what we have seen in the Scripture, when this search is completed at the end of the two thousand years, two days of this dispensation, the Holy Spirit will take the Bride, along with the rest of the body of Christ, and leave – 1 Th 4:16 For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of an archangel, and with the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. 17 Then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And thus we shall always be with the Lord. 18 Therefore comfort one another with these words. For those ‘caught up together…..to meet the Lord in the air’, who will then experience the events recorded in Revelation Chapters 2-3, how could their lives do anything but change, and change radically? And following the resurrection/rapture of the Church, the world is going to suffer a time of such extraordinary destruction, that all human life would become extinct unless God would shorten those days for the sake of Israel. Uniformity? Hardly. e). So, let’s determine to keep our focus in the right place, because if we have believed Moses, we will also have believed the Lord who is the Word, and we will then organize our lives in the certainty of our immanent appearance at His Judgment Seat, and we will encourage one another to love and good works and so much more as we see the Day approaching. We do not walk by sight in this but by faith. 2). And if we return to the time of the Lord’s first Advent, we will find yet another example of Him drawing the Jews attention to the cataclysmic events and restoration that await their future, a future that is inextricably linked with our own - Mt 12:38 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. On two occasions recorded in Matthew’s Gospel, the Lord referred to ‘the sign of the prophet Jonah’. The first time came in Matthew Chapter 12, and forms part of the dialogue between Jesus and the scribes and Pharisees during which they accuse Him of healing the demon-possessed, blind and mute man on the Sabbath by the power of Beelzebub, the ruler of the demons, rather than by the Holy Spirit. a). The demon-possessed, blind and mute man pictured the Jewish people. They were ‘demon-possessed’ in the sense that – Jn 8:44 You are of your father the devil, and the desires of your father you want to do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own resources, for he is a liar and the father of it. 45 But because I tell the truth, you do not believe Me. They were blind in that they couldn’t see beyond the letter of the Scriptures, and therefore, were unable to see the Christ and unable to recognize the signs that attested to the message and the Messenger, instead claiming to ‘see’ the power of Satan at work in Jesus – Jn 9:40 Then some of the Pharisees who were with Him heard these words, and said to Him, “Are we blind also?” 41 Jesus said to them, “If you were blind, you would have no sin; but now you say, ‘We see.’ Therefore your sin remains. And they were mute because the Jewish people had been called to be God’s witnesses to the Gentile nations but had remained silent – Isa 43:9 Let all the nations be gathered together, And let the people be assembled. Who among them can declare this, And show us former things? Let them bring out their witnesses, that they may be justified; Or let them hear and say, “It is truth.” 10 “You are My witnesses,” says the LORD, “And My servant whom I have chosen, That you may know and believe Me, And understand that I am He. Before Me there was no God formed, Nor shall there be after Me. Acts 1:8 But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be witnesses to Me in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.” The blindness and the muteness should be seen as two parts of the same whole. If the Jewish nation had spiritual sight, they could not have remained silent, and they could not speak apart from having spiritual sight. And the sign given on the Sabbath pointed to the day of the restoration of both. b). And in this blind and mute state, as we see in Matthew 12:38, they ask to see a sign from Jesus, even though the sign just given to them through the healing of the demon-possessed man on the Sabbath was plain to see. And Jesus, knowing that the nation would reject Him, and reject the message and the signs that validated both, declared that only one sign would be left in the possession of the Jewish people - 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. We will remember from Matthew Chapter 12, that it is here that we effectively see the Kingdom of the heavens taken from the Jews because of the blasphemy against the Holy Spirit, with the Lord’s attention then turning to His Church in Matthew Chapter 13, although the setting aside of the nation is not recorded directly until Matthew 21:43. c). From the Lord’s own words, we see that Jonah was a sign for the Jews, a sign which they have yet to see, and a sign that is also a type for us, showing the Christ in death and resurrection. As Jonah was raised on the third day, so would the Lord be raised on the Third Day. d). The Pharisees along with the Sadducees asked for a sign from heaven in Matthew Chapter 16, for which they received a rebuke for their inability to ‘discern the signs of the times’ - Mt 16:1 Then the Pharisees and Sadducees came, and testing Him asked that He would show them a sign from heaven. 2 He answered and said to them, “When it is evening you say, ‘It will be fair weather, for the sky is red’; 3 and in the morning, ‘It will be foul weather today, for the sky is red and threatening.’ Hypocrites! You know how to discern the face of the sky, but you cannot discern the signs of the times. 4 A wicked and adulterous generation seeks after a sign, and no sign shall be given to it except the sign of the prophet Jonah.” And He left them and departed. Again, Jesus told them that no sign would be given except the sign of the prophet Jonah and having said this, ‘He left them and departed’. And this is exactly what the Lord did following His death and resurrection. He left them and departed, and all the Jews had left in their possession, having rejected all else, was the sign of the prophet Jonah. On the one hand validating the resurrection of their Messiah on the third day, and on the other hand, a sign for them and a type for us, of what awaits the Jewish people in what is now the very near future. 3). Jon 1:1 Now the word of the LORD came to Jonah the son of Amittai, saying, 2 “Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and cry out against it; for their wickedness has come up before Me.” 3 But Jonah arose to flee to Tarshish from the presence of the LORD. He went down to Joppa, and found a ship going to Tarshish; so he paid the fare, and went down into it, to go with them to Tarshish from the presence of the LORD. 4 But the LORD sent out a great wind on the sea, and there was a mighty tempest on the sea, so that the ship was about to be broken up. These four verses from Jonah Chapter 1 take us from the creation in Jacob and the purpose for that creation, to be God’s witnesses, to the mid-point in the Tribulation. a). Jonah was commissioned by the Lord to go to ‘Nineveh, that great city, and cry out against it’; just as the Jews have been commissioned to be God’s witnesses to the Gentile nations. b). Nineveh described as ‘that great city’ was one of the cities built by Nimrod – Ge 10:8 Cush begot Nimrod; he began to be a mighty one on the earth. 9 He was a mighty hunter before the LORD; therefore it is said, “Like Nimrod the mighty hunter before the LORD.” 10 And the beginning of his kingdom was Babel, Erech, Accad, and Calneh, in the land of Shinar. 11 From that land he went to Assyria and built Nineveh, Rehoboth Ir, Calah, 12 and Resen between Nineveh and Calah (that is the principal city). And following the destruction of Babel, Nineveh was the primary center of Gentile power of that day. Nineveh then, is used to picture the entire Gentile world, that to which the Jews had been called to be God’s witnesses. The Jewish people, as Jonah did, have rejected this calling and have gone in a completely contrary direction, ‘to flee to Tarshish from the presence of the Lord’. c). To help our understanding of what is presented in Jonah Chapter 1 v3-4, where we see Jonah entering a ship with a mighty tempest following, we will go back to the first time Jesus mentioned the sign of the prophet Jonah in Matthew Chapter 12 and look at some verses that follow on from what He said there – Mt 12:43 “When an unclean spirit goes out of a man, he goes through dry places, seeking rest, and finds none. 44 Then he says, ‘I will return to my house from which I came.’ And when he comes, he finds it empty, swept, and put in order. 45 Then he goes and takes with him seven other spirits more wicked than himself, and they enter and dwell there; and the last state of that man is worse than the first. So shall it also be with this wicked generation.” As we begin here, let’s keep in mind the demon-possessed, blind, and mute man and how this man’s condition formed a picture of the spiritual condition of the Jewish people. So then, as we read these verses concerning ‘an unclean spirit’, we will realize that what Jesus is saying is about the Jewish people and is a continuation of that seen through the demon-possessed man, and the Lord is again using figurative language that needs to be spiritually discerned. These verses should not be taken literally but taken in connection with the sign of the prophet Jonah. Let’s break it down - 43 “When an unclean spirit goes out of a man, he goes through dry places, seeking rest, and finds none. The unclean spirit in this verse pictures the Jewish people and the ‘man’ in which the unclean spirit resides, is the land of Israel. And we know from our previous studies, that because of killing their King, the Jewish people were expelled from their land by the Romans in 70AD. This is what is prophetically pictured in ‘the unclean spirit’ going ‘out of a man’. The Jewish people dispersed among the surrounding Gentile nations. d). The ‘dry places’ are the Gentile nations into which the Jews were dispersed. In the diaspora following AD 70, they find themselves separated from the Word of God, as the heavens are closed to them, hence they are in ‘dry places’ – Ps 63:1 O God, You are my God; Early will I seek You; My soul thirsts for You; My flesh longs for You In a dry and thirsty land Where there is no water. On a spiritual level, we can see the dispersed Jews still seeking the ‘rest’ which God has promised them, still searching the Word, but unable to find it, remaining in a dry and thirsty land because of their unfaithfulness and disobedience. 44 Then he says, ‘I will return to my house from which I came.’ And when he comes, he finds it empty, swept, and put in order. It is the ‘unclean spirit’ who then says, ‘I will return to my house…..’ ‘My house’ and a ‘man’ from the previous verse picture the same thing, the land of Israel. e). Now God had given specific instructions concerning the land in – Le 25:1 And the LORD spoke to Moses on Mount Sinai, saying, 2 “Speak to the children of Israel, and say to them: ‘When you come into the land which I give you, then the land shall keep a sabbath to the LORD. 3 Six years you shall sow your field, and six years you shall prune your vineyard, and gather its fruit; 4 but in the seventh year there shall be a sabbath of solemn rest for the land, a sabbath to the LORD. You shall neither sow your field nor prune your vineyard. This though was something the Jewish people continually failed to do. And this in part had led to the Babylonian captivity – 2 Ch 36:20 And those who escaped from the sword he carried away to Babylon, where they became servants to him and his sons until the rule of the kingdom of Persia, 21 to fulfill the word of the LORD by the mouth of Jeremiah, until the land had enjoyed her Sabbaths. As long as she lay desolate she kept Sabbath, to fulfill seventy years. The nation had not kept the sabbath year for the land for four hundred and ninety years, from the beginning of the times of the kings to the time of the Babylonian captivity. There were seventy sabbath years that were not kept, the number of years of the captivity in Babylon. f). The diaspora of 70AD would also have enabled the land to enjoy its sabbaths once again, a rest for the land that would continue all the while the Jews were separated from the land. While this was in place the land remained ‘empty, swept, and put in order.’ g). And going back to Matthew 12:44, we see that it is the ‘unclean spirit’, the Jewish people, who then make the decision, ‘I will return to my house…’ And this is just what took place in May 1948, when a remnant of the Jews returned to the land by their own endeavors, at the wrong time, apart from their Messiah, under a Zionistic movement, and declared statehood for the nation. h). This is what is pictured by Jonah going down into the ship, to go to Tarshish. And this brief account of Jonah going down into the ship, covers the period of Jewish history from May 1948 to the middle of Daniel’s seventieth week. i). The ship then, is a location apart from the sea. And as the sea represents the Gentile nations, the only place the Jews could find themselves in, apart from those nations, is in the land. Therefore, the ship that Jonah boarded is a picture of the land of Israel, that a remnant of the Jewish people boarded in 1948. 45 Then he goes and takes with him seven other spirits more wicked than himself, and they enter and dwell there; and the last state of that man is worse than the first. So shall it also be with this wicked generation.” The ‘he’ in v45 is the unclean spirit, the Jewish people, who have returned to their land before the time and apart from their Messiah. The ‘seven other spirits more wicked than himself’, again is not literal but rather an amplification of the state of the ‘unclean spirit’ himself. This then is the Jewish people in the land today, which can only result in their situation being seven times worse than it was when they left. The furnace will be heated seven times hotter. j). They have returned to the land contrary to God’s command, still in disobedience and unfaithfulness, apart from their Messiah, and through their presence in the land they are seeking to change the only way that God has established for their restoration. Attempting to accomplish their restoration themselves through liaisons with western nations and military might. k). If we then add into this, the covenant that those in the land will make with Antichrist – Isa 28:15 Because you have said, “We have made a covenant with death, And with Sheol we are in agreement……….. The Antichrist who is the very antithesis of the One true and living God, the full extent of that pictured through the seven other more wicked spirits can be seen. l). The diaspora in 70AD was one thing, but the diaspora that is about to befall the Jewish people in the land today is something else entirely. The last state of the nation will be seven times worse than the first. 3). Jon 1:4 But the LORD sent out a great wind on the sea, and there was a mighty tempest on the sea, so that the ship was about to be broken up. 5 Then the mariners were afraid; and every man cried out to his god, and threw the cargo that was in the ship into the sea, to lighten the load. But Jonah had gone down into the lowest parts of the ship, had lain down, and was fast asleep. Because Jonah had rejected his calling and had fled from the presence of the Lord, the Lord sent out ‘a great wind’, ‘a mighty tempest on the sea’ causing the mariners to be afraid. a). Straight away we will see that Jonah’s rejection of his calling, didn’t just affect him, but the whole sea. Specifically, we are looking here at events that lead to the mid-point in the Tribulation, but it remains true nonetheless, that since the Jewish people returned to the land in 1948, the Gentile nations have become more chaotic, more violent, and continually agitated, with the years preceding 1948 being a foreshadowing of what is to come when the mighty tempest begins. b). The devastating years of WW2 were the result of one man trying to create a Jew free Europe. How much worse will it become when the Antichrist attempts to create a Jew free world? c). There is a wind blowing, but this is not the wind seen in Jonah, but the Jewish nation is asleep to their calling and asleep to that which is going on around them. And the Gentile nations are no better, trying to resolve matters themselves, they, ‘threw the cargo that was in the ship into the sea, to lighten the load’. d). But there is only one solution – Jon 1:6 So the captain came to him, and said to him, “What do you mean, sleeper? Arise, call on your God; perhaps your God will consider us, so that we may not perish.” 7 And they said to one another, “Come, let us cast lots, that we may know for whose cause this trouble has come upon us.” So they cast lots, and the lot fell on Jonah. 8 Then they said to him, “Please tell us! For whose cause is this trouble upon us? What is your occupation? And where do you come from? What is your country? And of what people are you?” 9 So he said to them, “I am a Hebrew; and I fear the LORD, the God of heaven, who made the sea and the dry land.” 10 Then the men were exceedingly afraid, and said to him, “Why have you done this?” For the men knew that he fled from the presence of the LORD, because he had told them. 11 Then they said to him, “What shall we do to you that the sea may be calm for us?”—for the sea was growing more tempestuous. 12 And he said to them, “Pick me up and throw me into the sea; then the sea will become calm for you. For I know that this great tempest is because of me.” Throughout the nation’s history God has used only one way, in two forms, to bring the Jewish people to repentance. He has either removed them completely from the land to deal with them among the Gentile nations, as seen in the foundational type of the persecution in Egypt, and then the Assyrian and Babylonian captivities. e). Or God allowed the Jews’ enemies, the Gentile nations, to come into the land itself and subjugate them within their own land – Judges 2:13 They forsook the LORD and served Baal and the Ashtoreths. 14 And the anger of the LORD was hot against Israel. So He delivered them into the hands of plunderers who despoiled them; and He sold them into the hands of their enemies all around, so that they could no longer stand before their enemies. 15 Wherever they went out, the hand of the LORD was against them for calamity, as the LORD had said, and as the LORD had sworn to them. And they were greatly distressed. 16 Nevertheless, the LORD raised up judges who delivered them out of the hand of those who plundered them. And the latter was the situation at the Lord’s first Advent where the remnant nation was under Roman occupation. f). But, to bring the nation to repentance in that future day only one method will be successful, ‘pick me up and throw me into the sea.’ God has established from the beginning, that His wayward son can only be brought to repentance at the hands of the Gentile nations, the very nations over whom Israel was supposed to, and will one day, rule. g). And Jewish repentance leading to national restoration and blessing for the world cannot be accomplished all the while that national Israel, the unclean spirit, occupies the land of promise at the present time. h). And the Jews themselves, and many Gentile nations, are doing all they can to circumvent that which God has made plain in the Scriptures. But the prophets have spoken, and the types are set. More next time – if we remain and the Lord is willing, and we have prayed. Passover to Tabernacles - Part Fourteen Feb 20, 2022 Speaker: John Herbert Series: Passover to Tabernacles Category: Sunday Morning https://s3.amazonaws.com/cornerstonejax/sermonfiles/T011_20220220.mp3 Download Audio x
Refresh A Recap from the Sermon Mt 12:39 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. Today we will begin to look at the sign of the prophet Jonah. The full text of this message can be found by clicking the PDF button. Sunday February 20th 2022 Passover to Tabernacles Part 14 1). Lk 17:28 Likewise as it was also in the days of Lot: They ate, they drank, they bought, they sold, they planted, they built; 29 but on the day that Lot went out of Sodom it rained fire and brimstone from heaven and destroyed them all. 30 Even so will it be in the day when the Son of Man is revealed. We had seen last time that ‘the day when the Son of Man will be revealed’ is rapidly approaching. And we should be clear in our understanding that the events seen in the world around us as this day approaches, are not the fulfillment of prophesy but the setting of the stage whereby the fulfillment of prophecy can begin. a). The Apostle John prophetically gave a dispensational history of the Church, with respect to the Word of the Kingdom, through the seven churches in the Book of the Revelation. And we now find ourselves in that place in the dispensation pictured through the church of Laodicea. b). The next prophetic event that we look for, that must take place before any other prophecy can begin to be fulfilled, is the resurrection/rapture of the Church into Christ’s presence for Judgment. All Christians from this dispensation. c). Because of the work of the leaven placed in the three measures of meal at the beginning of the dispensation, that has led to the Laodicean condition of the Church in which we find ourselves, a mindset has developed within Christendom that we can find exemplified in Peter – 2 Pe 3:3 knowing this first: that scoffers will come in the last days, walking according to their own lusts, 4 and saying, “Where is the promise of His coming? For since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of creation.” The question asked here and the reason for asking it, would find its expression today in, the Doctrine of Uniformity. Simply put, this doctrine teaches that there are ‘natural scientific laws’ that have governed all things from the past to the present, that remain unchangeable into the future. This has taken hold within Christendom through a variety of teachings, all of which basically declare the same thing, all things will continue unchanged, life will go on without interruption, ‘all things continue as they were from the beginning of creation.’ d). We had seen last time though the foolishness of such thinking. The Jewish people have killed their King and in doing so have slain their Passover Lamb, and the nation has been set aside. And we are now in the time when the Holy Spirit is searching for the Bride for God’s Son in the antitype of that seen in Genesis Chapter 24. And through what we have seen in the Scripture, when this search is completed at the end of the two thousand years, two days of this dispensation, the Holy Spirit will take the Bride, along with the rest of the body of Christ, and leave – 1 Th 4:16 For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of an archangel, and with the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. 17 Then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And thus we shall always be with the Lord. 18 Therefore comfort one another with these words. For those ‘caught up together…..to meet the Lord in the air’, who will then experience the events recorded in Revelation Chapters 2-3, how could their lives do anything but change, and change radically? And following the resurrection/rapture of the Church, the world is going to suffer a time of such extraordinary destruction, that all human life would become extinct unless God would shorten those days for the sake of Israel. Uniformity? Hardly. e). So, let’s determine to keep our focus in the right place, because if we have believed Moses, we will also have believed the Lord who is the Word, and we will then organize our lives in the certainty of our immanent appearance at His Judgment Seat, and we will encourage one another to love and good works and so much more as we see the Day approaching. We do not walk by sight in this but by faith. 2). And if we return to the time of the Lord’s first Advent, we will find yet another example of Him drawing the Jews attention to the cataclysmic events and restoration that await their future, a future that is inextricably linked with our own - Mt 12:38 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. On two occasions recorded in Matthew’s Gospel, the Lord referred to ‘the sign of the prophet Jonah’. The first time came in Matthew Chapter 12, and forms part of the dialogue between Jesus and the scribes and Pharisees during which they accuse Him of healing the demon-possessed, blind and mute man on the Sabbath by the power of Beelzebub, the ruler of the demons, rather than by the Holy Spirit. a). The demon-possessed, blind and mute man pictured the Jewish people. They were ‘demon-possessed’ in the sense that – Jn 8:44 You are of your father the devil, and the desires of your father you want to do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own resources, for he is a liar and the father of it. 45 But because I tell the truth, you do not believe Me. They were blind in that they couldn’t see beyond the letter of the Scriptures, and therefore, were unable to see the Christ and unable to recognize the signs that attested to the message and the Messenger, instead claiming to ‘see’ the power of Satan at work in Jesus – Jn 9:40 Then some of the Pharisees who were with Him heard these words, and said to Him, “Are we blind also?” 41 Jesus said to them, “If you were blind, you would have no sin; but now you say, ‘We see.’ Therefore your sin remains. And they were mute because the Jewish people had been called to be God’s witnesses to the Gentile nations but had remained silent – Isa 43:9 Let all the nations be gathered together, And let the people be assembled. Who among them can declare this, And show us former things? Let them bring out their witnesses, that they may be justified; Or let them hear and say, “It is truth.” 10 “You are My witnesses,” says the LORD, “And My servant whom I have chosen, That you may know and believe Me, And understand that I am He. Before Me there was no God formed, Nor shall there be after Me. Acts 1:8 But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be witnesses to Me in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.” The blindness and the muteness should be seen as two parts of the same whole. If the Jewish nation had spiritual sight, they could not have remained silent, and they could not speak apart from having spiritual sight. And the sign given on the Sabbath pointed to the day of the restoration of both. b). And in this blind and mute state, as we see in Matthew 12:38, they ask to see a sign from Jesus, even though the sign just given to them through the healing of the demon-possessed man on the Sabbath was plain to see. And Jesus, knowing that the nation would reject Him, and reject the message and the signs that validated both, declared that only one sign would be left in the possession of the Jewish people - 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. We will remember from Matthew Chapter 12, that it is here that we effectively see the Kingdom of the heavens taken from the Jews because of the blasphemy against the Holy Spirit, with the Lord’s attention then turning to His Church in Matthew Chapter 13, although the setting aside of the nation is not recorded directly until Matthew 21:43. c). From the Lord’s own words, we see that Jonah was a sign for the Jews, a sign which they have yet to see, and a sign that is also a type for us, showing the Christ in death and resurrection. As Jonah was raised on the third day, so would the Lord be raised on the Third Day. d). The Pharisees along with the Sadducees asked for a sign from heaven in Matthew Chapter 16, for which they received a rebuke for their inability to ‘discern the signs of the times’ - Mt 16:1 Then the Pharisees and Sadducees came, and testing Him asked that He would show them a sign from heaven. 2 He answered and said to them, “When it is evening you say, ‘It will be fair weather, for the sky is red’; 3 and in the morning, ‘It will be foul weather today, for the sky is red and threatening.’ Hypocrites! You know how to discern the face of the sky, but you cannot discern the signs of the times. 4 A wicked and adulterous generation seeks after a sign, and no sign shall be given to it except the sign of the prophet Jonah.” And He left them and departed. Again, Jesus told them that no sign would be given except the sign of the prophet Jonah and having said this, ‘He left them and departed’. And this is exactly what the Lord did following His death and resurrection. He left them and departed, and all the Jews had left in their possession, having rejected all else, was the sign of the prophet Jonah. On the one hand validating the resurrection of their Messiah on the third day, and on the other hand, a sign for them and a type for us, of what awaits the Jewish people in what is now the very near future. 3). Jon 1:1 Now the word of the LORD came to Jonah the son of Amittai, saying, 2 “Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and cry out against it; for their wickedness has come up before Me.” 3 But Jonah arose to flee to Tarshish from the presence of the LORD. He went down to Joppa, and found a ship going to Tarshish; so he paid the fare, and went down into it, to go with them to Tarshish from the presence of the LORD. 4 But the LORD sent out a great wind on the sea, and there was a mighty tempest on the sea, so that the ship was about to be broken up. These four verses from Jonah Chapter 1 take us from the creation in Jacob and the purpose for that creation, to be God’s witnesses, to the mid-point in the Tribulation. a). Jonah was commissioned by the Lord to go to ‘Nineveh, that great city, and cry out against it’; just as the Jews have been commissioned to be God’s witnesses to the Gentile nations. b). Nineveh described as ‘that great city’ was one of the cities built by Nimrod – Ge 10:8 Cush begot Nimrod; he began to be a mighty one on the earth. 9 He was a mighty hunter before the LORD; therefore it is said, “Like Nimrod the mighty hunter before the LORD.” 10 And the beginning of his kingdom was Babel, Erech, Accad, and Calneh, in the land of Shinar. 11 From that land he went to Assyria and built Nineveh, Rehoboth Ir, Calah, 12 and Resen between Nineveh and Calah (that is the principal city). And following the destruction of Babel, Nineveh was the primary center of Gentile power of that day. Nineveh then, is used to picture the entire Gentile world, that to which the Jews had been called to be God’s witnesses. The Jewish people, as Jonah did, have rejected this calling and have gone in a completely contrary direction, ‘to flee to Tarshish from the presence of the Lord’. c). To help our understanding of what is presented in Jonah Chapter 1 v3-4, where we see Jonah entering a ship with a mighty tempest following, we will go back to the first time Jesus mentioned the sign of the prophet Jonah in Matthew Chapter 12 and look at some verses that follow on from what He said there – Mt 12:43 “When an unclean spirit goes out of a man, he goes through dry places, seeking rest, and finds none. 44 Then he says, ‘I will return to my house from which I came.’ And when he comes, he finds it empty, swept, and put in order. 45 Then he goes and takes with him seven other spirits more wicked than himself, and they enter and dwell there; and the last state of that man is worse than the first. So shall it also be with this wicked generation.” As we begin here, let’s keep in mind the demon-possessed, blind, and mute man and how this man’s condition formed a picture of the spiritual condition of the Jewish people. So then, as we read these verses concerning ‘an unclean spirit’, we will realize that what Jesus is saying is about the Jewish people and is a continuation of that seen through the demon-possessed man, and the Lord is again using figurative language that needs to be spiritually discerned. These verses should not be taken literally but taken in connection with the sign of the prophet Jonah. Let’s break it down - 43 “When an unclean spirit goes out of a man, he goes through dry places, seeking rest, and finds none. The unclean spirit in this verse pictures the Jewish people and the ‘man’ in which the unclean spirit resides, is the land of Israel. And we know from our previous studies, that because of killing their King, the Jewish people were expelled from their land by the Romans in 70AD. This is what is prophetically pictured in ‘the unclean spirit’ going ‘out of a man’. The Jewish people dispersed among the surrounding Gentile nations. d). The ‘dry places’ are the Gentile nations into which the Jews were dispersed. In the diaspora following AD 70, they find themselves separated from the Word of God, as the heavens are closed to them, hence they are in ‘dry places’ – Ps 63:1 O God, You are my God; Early will I seek You; My soul thirsts for You; My flesh longs for You In a dry and thirsty land Where there is no water. On a spiritual level, we can see the dispersed Jews still seeking the ‘rest’ which God has promised them, still searching the Word, but unable to find it, remaining in a dry and thirsty land because of their unfaithfulness and disobedience. 44 Then he says, ‘I will return to my house from which I came.’ And when he comes, he finds it empty, swept, and put in order. It is the ‘unclean spirit’ who then says, ‘I will return to my house…..’ ‘My house’ and a ‘man’ from the previous verse picture the same thing, the land of Israel. e). Now God had given specific instructions concerning the land in – Le 25:1 And the LORD spoke to Moses on Mount Sinai, saying, 2 “Speak to the children of Israel, and say to them: ‘When you come into the land which I give you, then the land shall keep a sabbath to the LORD. 3 Six years you shall sow your field, and six years you shall prune your vineyard, and gather its fruit; 4 but in the seventh year there shall be a sabbath of solemn rest for the land, a sabbath to the LORD. You shall neither sow your field nor prune your vineyard. This though was something the Jewish people continually failed to do. And this in part had led to the Babylonian captivity – 2 Ch 36:20 And those who escaped from the sword he carried away to Babylon, where they became servants to him and his sons until the rule of the kingdom of Persia, 21 to fulfill the word of the LORD by the mouth of Jeremiah, until the land had enjoyed her Sabbaths. As long as she lay desolate she kept Sabbath, to fulfill seventy years. The nation had not kept the sabbath year for the land for four hundred and ninety years, from the beginning of the times of the kings to the time of the Babylonian captivity. There were seventy sabbath years that were not kept, the number of years of the captivity in Babylon. f). The diaspora of 70AD would also have enabled the land to enjoy its sabbaths once again, a rest for the land that would continue all the while the Jews were separated from the land. While this was in place the land remained ‘empty, swept, and put in order.’ g). And going back to Matthew 12:44, we see that it is the ‘unclean spirit’, the Jewish people, who then make the decision, ‘I will return to my house…’ And this is just what took place in May 1948, when a remnant of the Jews returned to the land by their own endeavors, at the wrong time, apart from their Messiah, under a Zionistic movement, and declared statehood for the nation. h). This is what is pictured by Jonah going down into the ship, to go to Tarshish. And this brief account of Jonah going down into the ship, covers the period of Jewish history from May 1948 to the middle of Daniel’s seventieth week. i). The ship then, is a location apart from the sea. And as the sea represents the Gentile nations, the only place the Jews could find themselves in, apart from those nations, is in the land. Therefore, the ship that Jonah boarded is a picture of the land of Israel, that a remnant of the Jewish people boarded in 1948. 45 Then he goes and takes with him seven other spirits more wicked than himself, and they enter and dwell there; and the last state of that man is worse than the first. So shall it also be with this wicked generation.” The ‘he’ in v45 is the unclean spirit, the Jewish people, who have returned to their land before the time and apart from their Messiah. The ‘seven other spirits more wicked than himself’, again is not literal but rather an amplification of the state of the ‘unclean spirit’ himself. This then is the Jewish people in the land today, which can only result in their situation being seven times worse than it was when they left. The furnace will be heated seven times hotter. j). They have returned to the land contrary to God’s command, still in disobedience and unfaithfulness, apart from their Messiah, and through their presence in the land they are seeking to change the only way that God has established for their restoration. Attempting to accomplish their restoration themselves through liaisons with western nations and military might. k). If we then add into this, the covenant that those in the land will make with Antichrist – Isa 28:15 Because you have said, “We have made a covenant with death, And with Sheol we are in agreement……….. The Antichrist who is the very antithesis of the One true and living God, the full extent of that pictured through the seven other more wicked spirits can be seen. l). The diaspora in 70AD was one thing, but the diaspora that is about to befall the Jewish people in the land today is something else entirely. The last state of the nation will be seven times worse than the first. 3). Jon 1:4 But the LORD sent out a great wind on the sea, and there was a mighty tempest on the sea, so that the ship was about to be broken up. 5 Then the mariners were afraid; and every man cried out to his god, and threw the cargo that was in the ship into the sea, to lighten the load. But Jonah had gone down into the lowest parts of the ship, had lain down, and was fast asleep. Because Jonah had rejected his calling and had fled from the presence of the Lord, the Lord sent out ‘a great wind’, ‘a mighty tempest on the sea’ causing the mariners to be afraid. a). Straight away we will see that Jonah’s rejection of his calling, didn’t just affect him, but the whole sea. Specifically, we are looking here at events that lead to the mid-point in the Tribulation, but it remains true nonetheless, that since the Jewish people returned to the land in 1948, the Gentile nations have become more chaotic, more violent, and continually agitated, with the years preceding 1948 being a foreshadowing of what is to come when the mighty tempest begins. b). The devastating years of WW2 were the result of one man trying to create a Jew free Europe. How much worse will it become when the Antichrist attempts to create a Jew free world? c). There is a wind blowing, but this is not the wind seen in Jonah, but the Jewish nation is asleep to their calling and asleep to that which is going on around them. And the Gentile nations are no better, trying to resolve matters themselves, they, ‘threw the cargo that was in the ship into the sea, to lighten the load’. d). But there is only one solution – Jon 1:6 So the captain came to him, and said to him, “What do you mean, sleeper? Arise, call on your God; perhaps your God will consider us, so that we may not perish.” 7 And they said to one another, “Come, let us cast lots, that we may know for whose cause this trouble has come upon us.” So they cast lots, and the lot fell on Jonah. 8 Then they said to him, “Please tell us! For whose cause is this trouble upon us? What is your occupation? And where do you come from? What is your country? And of what people are you?” 9 So he said to them, “I am a Hebrew; and I fear the LORD, the God of heaven, who made the sea and the dry land.” 10 Then the men were exceedingly afraid, and said to him, “Why have you done this?” For the men knew that he fled from the presence of the LORD, because he had told them. 11 Then they said to him, “What shall we do to you that the sea may be calm for us?”—for the sea was growing more tempestuous. 12 And he said to them, “Pick me up and throw me into the sea; then the sea will become calm for you. For I know that this great tempest is because of me.” Throughout the nation’s history God has used only one way, in two forms, to bring the Jewish people to repentance. He has either removed them completely from the land to deal with them among the Gentile nations, as seen in the foundational type of the persecution in Egypt, and then the Assyrian and Babylonian captivities. e). Or God allowed the Jews’ enemies, the Gentile nations, to come into the land itself and subjugate them within their own land – Judges 2:13 They forsook the LORD and served Baal and the Ashtoreths. 14 And the anger of the LORD was hot against Israel. So He delivered them into the hands of plunderers who despoiled them; and He sold them into the hands of their enemies all around, so that they could no longer stand before their enemies. 15 Wherever they went out, the hand of the LORD was against them for calamity, as the LORD had said, and as the LORD had sworn to them. And they were greatly distressed. 16 Nevertheless, the LORD raised up judges who delivered them out of the hand of those who plundered them. And the latter was the situation at the Lord’s first Advent where the remnant nation was under Roman occupation. f). But, to bring the nation to repentance in that future day only one method will be successful, ‘pick me up and throw me into the sea.’ God has established from the beginning, that His wayward son can only be brought to repentance at the hands of the Gentile nations, the very nations over whom Israel was supposed to, and will one day, rule. g). And Jewish repentance leading to national restoration and blessing for the world cannot be accomplished all the while that national Israel, the unclean spirit, occupies the land of promise at the present time. h). And the Jews themselves, and many Gentile nations, are doing all they can to circumvent that which God has made plain in the Scriptures. But the prophets have spoken, and the types are set. More next time – if we remain and the Lord is willing, and we have prayed.