There is an acronym which has been flying around more frequently than I remember in the past. It was created sometime in the 90’s, so it has been with us for about thirty years. I am referring to “GOAT” which has come to represent the “Greatest of All Time.” A certain rapper made it popular, but it apparently originated with the wife of the boxer Mohammed Ali. Ali had a mouth on him, and after winning some big bouts he began shouting, “I am the greatest.” Mrs. Ali subsequently formed a company which she called “G.O.A.T.,” taking her husband’s words one blasphemous step forward. And now we have GOATs in several different areas of society – especially in sports and music.
I used the word “blasphemous” a moment ago, because the “Greatest of All Time” is the Lord Jesus Christ. Christ Jesus shall be proven to be the greatest of all eternity.
We read, a few minutes ago, a few verses from Luke 11. That chapter, along with our text from Matthew 12, combine to give us a picture of an event and lesson from the life of the Lord Jesus. It appears that the Pharisee’s request for a sign, was followed by the shouts of an enthusiastic woman. She lifted up her voice, making everyone around her hear: “Blessed is the womb that bare thee.” To that Jesus replied, “Yea rather, blessed are they that hear the word of God, and keep it.” Among THE most important things in anyone’s life, is to hear and apply what God says in the Bible. There are consequences for failing to listen to the bell clanging at the railroad crossing. But there are far worse consequences for not heeding God, when He says, “Repent for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand,” or “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved.”
After saying, “blessed are they that hear the word of God, and keep it,” the Lord reached back to the Pharisee’s request for a sign from heaven. Luke 11:14 tells us – “And he was casting out a devil, and it was dumb. And it came to pass, when the devil was gone out, the dumb spake; and the people wondered. But some of them said, He casteth out devils through Beelzebub the chief of the devils. And others, tempting him, sought of him a sign from heaven.” It wasn’t that the scribes and Pharisees refused to acknowledge that a man had been miraculously delivered. They wanted proof that this was a sign “from heaven” rather than from some other source. “Prove to us that what you did wasn’t empowered by the Devil.” That was when Christ Jesus said that they were part of an evil and adulterous bunch of people. “Adulterous,” not referring to sexual immortality, which may have been true, but to spiritual adultery. These people, like so many in our own generation, were worshiping God’s of their own imaginations. Oh, they would never call it “worship,” but, for example, they were elevating their opinions and intellects over the Lord and His word. They were saying, “Yea, God hath NOT said.” Anything which is considered more important than God, becomes an idol. And that is why Jesus said, “Yea rather, blessed are they that hear the word of God, and keep it.”
Then the Lord added, “If you want a sign, how about the sign of the prophet Jonah? “Jonah spent three days and nights in the belly of a whale before being spit out on the shore below Ninevah. “If you want a sign, consider the Queen of Sheba who came a great distance to experience the wisdom and splendor of Solomon. “Behold, standing before you is someone greater than either Jonah or the Queen of Sheba.” He implied – if you refuse to listen to me, while honoring them, you prove yourselves to be idolaters. At that point He could have properly said, “I am the greatest of all time.”
Behold, a greater than SOLOMON is here.
What exactly was the greatness of King Solomon? The first thing that comes to minds is his wisdom. Without a doubt Solomon was a genius. Some have it; most don’t; He did. I Kings 4:30 tells us that Solomon’s wisdom excelled all the children of the east, including the Egyptians. The following verse names people noted for their genius, but Solomon was wiser than all of them. When the famous Queen of Sheba finished her visit to Jerusalem, she confessed that she was amazed. She said to Solomon, “Thy wisdom and prosperity exceedeth the fame which I heard” – I Kings 10. “Blessed be the Lord thy God which delighted in thee, to set thee on the throne of Israel; Because the Lord loved Israel for ever, therefore made He thee king, to do judgment and justice.” II Chronicles 9 adds, “And all the kings of the earth sought the presence of Solomon, to hear his wisdom, that God had put in his heart.” Solomon wrote 3,000 proverbs, more than a thousand hymns. And he was an astute botanist. Furthermore he had the ability to govern the most magnificent kingdom in the Middle East. Do you remember his wisdom in solving the problem with the two women who claimed the one baby?
Despite Solomon’s wisdom, Christ Jesus is greater. A stream cannot rise higher than its source, and the source of Solomon’s genius was his God. If you’ll remember, as he succeeded his father David, he prayed for wisdom. And God granted his request. I think it is interesting that the first few chapters of Solomon’s Proverbs highlight and glorify “wisdom.” But in reading Proverbs we see that wisdom is not simply the proper application of knowledge. It has a life of it is own. And that life is from Heaven itself. The wisdom of which Solomon speaks is a manifestation of God. And as Paul explains, “Christ Jesus (is made) of God unto us WISDOM, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption.”
During His forty-two months of ministry, and undoubtedly for thirty years before that, Jesus never lost an argument or made a verbal mistake. He never misspoke. When He prophesied, He never failed to accurately predict or describe His subject. And when He looked into the past, His interpretation and explanation was always perfect, even when the rest of the world looked at it differently. He wisely applied every event and every lesson with wisdom that astounded noted scholars, even at the age of twelve. Christ Jesus was greater than Solomon – the greatest of all time.
Another way in which Solomon was great, was the incredible wealth which his reign brought into Israel. (For some reason, since time immemorial, money has been used to measure “greatness.” King Solomon was great in his wealth, and in his ability to make others wealthy.) The Bible says that he caused silver to be as plentiful as stones in Jerusalem. His ships brought gold, silver, ivory and even apes and peacocks into Israel. His china may have come from china, but his drinking cups and cutlery were made of gold from Ophir. Luke 12 alludes to the beauties of his clothing. His palace, built with the cedars of Lebanon, was one of the finest buildings in all the world.
Oh, but the Lord Jesus is greater. “Every beast of the forest is His and the cattle upon a thousand hills.” His seamless robe was transformed before the eyes of His three disciples, becoming the robe of righteousness He wears now and shares with His servants. Solomon built a glorious temple which was eventually destroyed, but Christ Jesus has gone to prepare eternal, heavenly mansions – not for Himself, but for us. Solomon brought wealth into the nation of Israel, but Christ has made believers like you and me to be infinitely more wealthy.
When Solomon had finished the construction of Jerusalem’s temple, he dedicated it to God – with an unbelievable number of sacrifices. Can you imagine how much blood there was after the slaughtering of 22,000 oxen and 120,000 sheep? Sadly, all those sacrifices could do little for the sinful condition of the people of Israel. “For it is not possible that the blood of bulls and of goats should take away sins” – Hebrews 10:24. But the blood of the Greatest Sacrifice has proven to be infinitely satisfactory. “Neither by the blood of goats and calves, but by (Christ Jesus’) own blood, he entered in once into the holy place, having obtained eternal redemption for us.” “Forsamuch as ye know that ye were not redeemed with corruptible things… But with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot”– I Peter 1.
Without a doubt, King Solomon was a great man, but he was nothing before the King of kings and Lord of lords. Christ Jesus is the absolute greatest of all time. Without the least bit of pride or contradiction, He said, “Behold, a great than Solomon is here.” The sad thing is – the idolatry of it is – more people are interested in the wisdom of Solomon, the genius of Elon Musk and the power of Donald Trump than they are in the Greatest of all.
Christ Jesus is also greater than JONAH.
In my opinion there are two things which set Jonah apart; two things make his name great. The first was his unique experience with the whale – the great fish. I know people laugh at the thought that he was swallowed by some sea animal, and that he lived inside that thing for seventy-two hours. I will let those idolaters laugh, while pointing out that Jesus declared it to be true. I would rather be criticized while standing beside the Son of God – the greatest of all time – than to flow down stream with the intellectual tide into the Lake of Fire. I am not going to deny God the miraculous power to keep a man alive inside a whale, a vacuum, a furnace or anything else, just because I’ve not seen it or experienced it myself. Anyway, to spend three days and three nights in the belly of a whale certainly sets a person apart.
You might say that Jonah was as good as dead, but then he was restored to life. “So shall the Son of man be 3 days and 3 nights in the heart of the earth,” before returning from the grave. The Jews demanded some proof that Jesus was some sort of special person with heavenly authority. They ignored Christ’s miracles of healing, food multiplication, and His deliverance of others from death, while demanding “real” proof. They wanted heavenly evidence – not earthly. That is when Jesus called them an evil and adulterous generation. And He refused to immediately satisfy their idolatrous wishes. But He did promise even more, if they would only be patient, while hearing the Word of God and keeping it.
But DID they listen to God’s word, when they took the Son of God and gave Him to the Romans? Did they listen to the Lord as they watched the fulfilment of Isaiah 53 in Jesus’ beatings and crucifixion? And what did they think when after three days and three nights Jesus’ tomb was found empty? Did they immediately cry out, “Our Lord and our God?” The city of Ninevah probably heard what Jonah had experienced, and when they listened to his message of coming judgment, they repented in dust and ashes. But when Jesus came out of the grave, unbelieving Israel did their best to manufacture explanations and excuses. “Behold a greater than Jonah is here.”
Jonah preached a powerful message to the wicked Assyrians in Ninevah, but in comparison to Christ it was merely the voice of any other of His prophets. However, in Jesus “NEVER a man spake like this man.” Jonah brought a huge city to its knees before God. But even though at Christ’s teaching and preaching, people’s hearts burned within them, Jerusalem refused to repent. It was the power of the greatest of all time, who gave Peter the ability to preach so forcefully on that great and famous Day of Pentecost. But Jesus, “came unto His own, and his own received him not.” Christ fed the heathen people of Gadara, but the people of Jerusalem refused the living bread and the water of life served up by their own Messiah. The Jerusalemites were true idolaters, refusing to “hear the word of God, and keep it.”
Something we shouldn’t ignore is that Jonah and Solomon, despite their greatness, were sinners before God. I don’t need to enumerate how they both disappointed their Saviour. But Jesus Christ is infinitely greater. He was BORN without sin, because of His miraculous incarnation without a human father. And He LIVED without sin, even demanding that His enemies find proof of His sins against the Father. Then He DIED without sin, except for those sins of ours that He willingly took upon Himself. “He did no sin neither was guile found in His mouth” – I Peter 2:22. “Behold, a greater than Solomon and Jonah is here.”
And furthermore, He conquers sin in others. He spoke to the man who was lowered by his friends into the room before Him, saying – “Son, be of good cheer, thy sins be forgiven thee” – Matthew 9. Parents may say those words to their disobedient children, but it is not with the same meaning as Jesus. And priests may believe they can forgive sins, but they have no Biblical authority to think so. And then there is the Lord Jesus – the greatest of all time. When some of the Jewish lawyers called Jesus’ hand on His words, “Son, thy sins be forgiven thee” – “Jesus knowing their thoughts said, Wherefore think ye evil in your hearts? For whether is easier, to say, Thy sins be forgiven thee; or to say, Arise, and walk? But that ye may know that the Son of man hath power on earth to forgive sins, (then saith he to the sick of the palsy,) Arise, take up thy bed, and go unto thine house. And he arose, and eparted to his house. But when the multitudes saw it, they marvelled, and glorified God, which had given such power unto men.” Those people could have said, “Behold a greater than Aaron is here.”
And after Jesus’ resurrection – following Jesus’ picture of Jonah’s restoration – Peter said, “Him hath God exalted with his right hand to a Prince and a Saviour, for to give repentance to Israel, and forgiveness of sins” – Acts 5:31. And Paul declared – “Be it known unto you therefore, men and brethren, that through this man is preached unto the forgiveness of sins” – Acts 13:38. Paul had been called by God to magnify the Greatest of all Time, by listening to Jesus’ and becoming – “a minister and a witness both of these things which thou hast seen, and of those things in the which I will appear unto thee; To open (people’s) eyes, and to turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan unto God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins, and inheritance among them which are sanctified by faith that is in (Christ – the greatest of all time) – Acts 26.
“If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgiven us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” Christ Jesus is the greatest of all time for many reasons, but one of the most important is because He can create forgiveness for you and for your sins. There is no one else who can do that. “Neither is there salvation in any other, for there is none other name under heaven, whereby we must be saved.”
Shortly after Jesus’ comments about Himself in the light of Solomon and Jonah, the leadership of Israel began to take steps to rid themselves of Christ and His words. They tried to kill Him. They had no intention of “hearing the Word of God, and keeping it.” They had no intention of acknowledging that Christ is greater than Solomon. They had no intention of turning from their feeble plans for self cleansing and self salvation.
That was their choice, but you do not have to join them. You don’t have to look to others and think – “Now there is someone who is a great preacher, a great religious leader, a great saviour.” There can be only one GOAT – greatest of all time. He is Jesus Christ, Jehovah, the Lord and Saviour. Bow before Him now, before you are forced to bow before Him while hearing the words of your eternal condemnation. Put your humble faith in Him before it is eternally too late.
The Bible says, “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved.” Those Jerusalemites needed that forgiveness and salvation from sin, just as you and I need it. They turned away, but you don’t need to. Please, I beg of you, “Repent before God and believe on the Lord Jesus Christ.”