Now, I remind you that William Shakespeare was a contemporary of the men who were authorized to translate our King James the Bible. It is said that Shakespeare lived from 1564 to 1616, dying shortly after the publication of the Authorized version of the Bible. Why is it that Shakespeare is hard to read while the Bible is much easier – especially for the child of God? Is it only because the Bible has a Teacher who is infinitely better than my Miss Deny who taught me Shakespeare in high school grade? Why isn’t the vocabulary in the Bible as difficult as in “Hamlet” or “A Midsummer Night’s Dream?” The Bible is sometimes described as “Shakespearian English,” but I’m not sure that is really accurate. The Bible is “Biblical English.”
And something else to consider is that the Bible, which is actually 1,500 years older than Shakespeare, is as real and modern as it was in Jesus’ day – even more modern than the writings of the Bard – Shakespeare. Sure, many of the social details are a different, but the themes are precisely the same as they are today. Some of them could be found on the front page of the “Spokesman Review” or the “Coeur d’Alene Press.” If not on the front page then on the lifestyle and religious pages of those newspapers. And the words of our morning scripture are an example of just that sort of thing. What Christ says of HIS generation could be repeated about OUR generation.
I would like to use three words to capsulize these five verses – “temerity,” “similarity” and “verity.”
Let’s start in the middle with the SIMILARITY between our generation and Jesus’ generation.
We live in an evil and adulterous generation – an evil and adulterous society. Going back to Shakespeare, I find that reading his work is usually easier than listening to it. Sometime the set, the costumes, and the flow of the play helps, but I am slow of ear and slower of mind. On the other hand, if have the words right in front of me so that I can think about them and digest them I can understand them more easily. And similarly, in reading the Bible, sometimes slowing down and making note of what is said – and not said – helps us to grasp important thoughts. For example in this case, notice that Christ didn’t say, “THIS is an evil and adulterous generation.” Although He was certainly talking about those people tempting Him to work more miracles, He left the door open to talk about the people of any generation. Each and every generation which denies revelation of God and seeks for new signs, is an evil generation. By the way the Greek words “genea” is usually translated “generation,” but also as “time, “age” and “nation.” In other words any group of people which seek for signs and miracles over the Word and words of God is evil and adulterous.
Does it take a Shakespearian scholar to define the meaning of “evil?” I don’t think so – at least not in this context. The word “poneros” (pon-ay-ros’) is often translated “wicked” as well as “evil.” Those two words make understanding what Christ said pretty easy. That Greek word is not translated other ways, as the word “evil” sometimes is in Hebrew. But interestingly, the root word for “poneros” (pon-ay-ros’) refers to “labor” or very “hard toil.” Strong defines it to mean “full of labours, annoyances, hardships. “Pressed and harassed by labours – bringing toils, annoyances, perils.” In other words, in Greek, “evil” speaks of working in such a way as to cause pain and trouble.
“Then certain of the scribes and Pharisees answered, saying, Master, we would see a sign from thee.” Let’s say that the Lord had performed a hundred miracles thus far in His ministry. We could make a list of those which we’ve seen in Matthew, and it would be quite impressive. Many of them were spectacular miracles. How can those miracles be ignored? It would take WORK to deny the testimony of the man with the withered hand. How could anyone gainsay the healing of the paralytic who was dropped through the ceiling? It took work on the part of those unbelievers to deny the obvious and then to demand more of the same. “He answered and said unto them, An evil and adulterous generation seeth after a sign.”
Don’t we live in a society which works hard at being evil? I know that wickedness comes naturally, but at the same time it is often earnestly sought and desired. It is not true of everyone, but just like many who strive to be rich, others strive to be wicked. They may not call it “wickedness,” but that is what it is. They may call it “entertainment” or the “hospitality industry,” but God calls it “evil.” They may call it “graciousness,” “friendliness” or even a “disease,” but God calls it “drunkenness.” Our society researches, finances, and issues contracts and licences for the promotion of evil. It may take several wicked generations to get society to approve of homosexuality, but wickedness is relentless and hard working. Society works hard to create new strains of wickedness, but once it’s functioning, it becomes residual. A good crop of wickedness just keeps producing more and more degraded wickedness. Rarely does it ever die out.
The word “adulterous” certainly could be, but it doesn’t refer to sexual adultery. We are surrounded by immorality – fornication, pornography, adultery – and it is certainly wicked. But in this case, I believe that the Lord is referring to spiritual adultery. When the Lord and the Bible declare that salvation is by grace through faith, then it is spiritual adultery to go to bed with baptism or any other kind of religious ceremony for salvation. When salvation is through the blood of Christ, it is spiritual adultery to make some nice woman a co-saviour with Christ. When someone equates money and material wealth with spirituality, they are wrong – it is spiritual adultery. It is adultery to remove repentance from the gospel and to replace it with a few words of prayer.
Why is it that the world isn’t beating a path to the doorway of the Lord’s churches? It is because the world is filled with harlot churches which offer more than Christ’s church ever could. The world wants once again to see miraculous reasons give up their souls and their Sundays to God. And when some foolish person says that he sees the face of Mary on the back of a road sign, fools say that it is a sign from God and hundreds flock like sheep to worship that sign. When a camera catches a cloud formation which looks like angel wings, the foolish worship the picture. When a religious icon begins to drip with blood, the religious come a-running. But when God’s old book is opened and preached in the fashion for which we have been commissioned, nary a head is turned. When a comet flies by, millions get out their binoculars looking for new-age spaceships to transport them to Nirvana. But when that old-fashioned Bible-thumper says that the living Christ will soon return to His creation, that man is laughed to scorn.
Indeed this is an evil and adulterous generation.
In verse 38, we are reminded of the TEMERITY of this evil and adulterous generation.
Some of the nicer synonyms for “temerity” include “audacity,” “daring” and “boldness.” Some of the not so nice synonyms include “gall,” “nerve,” “impudence,” and “cheekiness.” Temerity involves presumption and pushiness. Ours is a wicked, evil, impudent society.
This entire chapter is filled with sound-bytes of the Twenty-first Century. Each item in this chapter could have been sixty second clips from the evening news. This is not ancient history that should be ignored by educated modern folk. For those who are not aware of such things, Christ is still working miracles and casting out demons. Just as the life of the paralytic was radically changed, or the man with the withered hand, we can guess how our lives would be right now if we hadn’t been touched by Christ so many years ago. Christ is still being criticized by His foes, just as He was in this chapter. And the wicked still attack Jesus’ disciples, just as they did in verse 1. They are still seeking ways to destroy or silence Christ, as they did in verse 14. Some people are still calling our Lord “Satanic.” When one of Jesus’ disciples whispers, “He is the Christ, the Son of David, the Son of God…” that is when His know-it-all, theological neighbors turn up the laughter attack, trying to shame that Christian into silence. In verse 38 the enemy were pretending to be Jesus’ friends, asking Him for proof of His authority. Look at the insincerity and temerity, the nerve of those people. No wonder, Christ had earlier called them a generation of vipers – snakes. Their tongues were forked, speaking good things one moment and evil the next.
Who are these people today? Some of them are standing on pulpits today, denying the virgin birth of Christ, and the testimony of Jonah. They are in institutions which pretend to be places of higher education; they are in government. Ever since I started pastoring, I’ve been getting collect calls from local jails – Calgary, Deming, Post Falls. I’ve gotten close to some of those institutions. And everyone that I have known have had flourishing communities of religious men. But only one of those men have I have seen became a God-serving soldier of Christ when released. There is something about being stuck between a rock and hard-time that makes men cry out: “Master we would see a sign from thee.” Hospitals are another place just like that. Part of the admittance procedure seems to be signing a little card which says, “I am going to become religious while I am in here, in the hope that God will show me His miraculous power.” As I mentioned last week, there is a man described in Luke 16 who actually died and then began pleading for signs from God. “Send Lazarus back from the dead to speak to my brothers about death and Hell.” The reply was basically: “Hey, they have had signs, they’ve heard messages, they have been blessed. If they won’t hear the Word of God, there isn’t a miracle on earth that will get there attention.”
Where do these people get the temerity to ask for more, when they’ve trashed what they’ve already had? Where do we get the temerity to ask for more, when we’ve often consumed so much upon our lusts? “Despisest thou the riches of his goodness and forbearance and longsuffering; not knowing that the goodness of God leadeth thee to repentance?”
In contrast to that temerity, we have an eternal VERITY.
“As Jonas was three days and three nights in the whale’s belly; so shall the Son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. The men of Nineveh shall rise in judgment with this generation, and shall condemn it: because they repented at the preaching of Jonas; and, behold, a greater than Jonas is here. The queen of the south shall rise up in the judgment with this generation, and shall condemn it: for she came from the uttermost parts of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon; and, behold, a greater than Solomon is here.” Behold a greater than Solomon is here.
When Jonah received the call of God to go and to preach judgment in the Assyrian capital, he rebelled. For all intents and purposes, God killed Jonah and buried him in the depths of the sea. But that death was reversed in Jonah’s resurrection – after which he did obey the commission of the Lord. With a reluctant heart, Jonah preached judgment, demanding repentance from a nation of heathen. God miraculously broke those wicked rebellious hearts, and after that the Lord blessed and spared Ninevah from destruction. “The men of Ninevah shall rise in judgment with this (evil and adulterous) generation, and shall condemn it; because they repented at the preaching of Jonas; and, behold a greater than Jonas is here.”
As Jonah was in the belly of that whale for 72 hours, Christ cooled His heels in a Judean tomb for 72 hours – from Wednesday night to Saturday night. Jonah wasn’t actually dead – he was dead only by way of illustration. But Christ was truly dead. As Jonah was spit out by that whale when the judgment of God had accomplished its work, Christ came out of the heart of the earth when His work of redemption was accomplished. Why was Christ in that tomb? Because that was the place where the dead were buried. Why was the infinite Son of God dead? Because He laid down his life as a substitutionary sacrifice for tens of thousands of wicked sinners. There was no other way for mankind to ever stand before God, than for Jesus suffer death our behalf. The men of Ninvevah believed Jonah and repented before Jehovah, trusting Him for mercy. The men of Jesus’ adulterous generation, and the men of our evil generation, have more testimony than Ninevah, but we remain adamant in our pride and unbelief.
“The queen of the south shall rise up in the judgment with this generation, and shall condemn it: for she came from the uttermost parts of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon; and, behold, a greater than Solomon is here.” I Kings 10 describes a visit of the Queen of Sheba. She came from somewhere around Yemen on the southern tip of Arabia. She had heard of Solomon, but she wanted to find out for herself whether the stories were true. Since the Lord Jesus introduces her to us, she must be commendable – but in what ways? Well, she was a queen in her own realm, but that didn’t make her too proud to investigate God’s king. And in her own realm, she was apparently noted for her wisdom, but that was only relative. She was a foreigner and really didn’t have any right to query the king of Israel – she had no invitation. But she came and she exposed all her own weaknesses – “she told him all that was in her heart.”
The queen of Sheba tested Solomon’s wisdom and found him to be infinitely superior. She said, “Happy are thy men, happy are these thy servants, which stand continually before thee, and that hear thy wisdom.” She came with enormous gifts, so Solomon wasn’t slow to show her his wealth, which far exceeded hers. She stayed in Jerusalem long enough to study Solomon’s day to day activities, including his worship. She was greatly impressed with it all.
And what was the result? She confessed her previous unbelief. She acknowledged the magnitude of all that she saw. She gave all that she had brought. And she went home a changed person. But what would it have been like, if she had actually met the Christ Solomon represented?
“Behold a greater than Solomon is here.” It is one thing to rule over the lives of thousands – it is another to rule over their hearts – as Christ does. It is one thing to have hundreds of people bowing down and serving, but it is another to be worshiped. The wisdom of Solomon was profound and proverbial in its magnitude, but it can’t be compared to the omniscience of the Son of God. “Behold a greater than Solomon is here.” Solomon received that woman’s gifts and gave her gifts in return, but they pale in the light of the blessings of Christ. The Queen of the South listened to the wisdom of Solomon, humbled herself and believed all that she had heard. She confessed that “the half had not been fancied.” Ah, but how would she have responded if she had the privilege of meeting Christ? I don’t know the answer to that question, but I do know what the Saviour said, “The queen of the south shall rise up in the judgment with this generation, and shall condemn it: for she came from the uttermost parts of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon; and, behold, a greater than Solomon is here.”
I’m going to project my cynical nature into I Kings 10 and say that out of the hundreds of people who attended the Queen of Sheba there were many who did not go away sharing her opinion of Solomon. That is the nature of life. Only those touched by the elective grace of God will respond to the general grace of God. Every generation of man is wicked and spiritually adulterous, but there will be people, like the Queen of Sheba and the King of Assyria, who will be touched by the Lord. Our generation is evil and adulterous, but by the grace of God not necessarily everyone. YOU do not have to die under the hand of the death angel – you do not have to spend eternity in the flames of the Lake of Fire. Repent – like the people of Ninevah. Humble yourself as did the Queen of Sheba. And then believe the testimony that the Word of God has about the Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ. “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved.”