All right, we're going to continue in our look at the book of Jonah, but actually we're not going to be turning to Jonah. We're turning to Matthew's gospel, chapter 12, where Jesus actually comments on Jonah. I'm going to see what he has to say about Jonah. Matthew chapter 12, And kind of the key verse we're looking at is verse 39. We're going to read more of this. But we're going to look at the sign of Jonah. And starting back at 38, Then some of the scribes and the Pharisees answered, saying, Teacher, we want to see a sign from you. 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. All right, let's ask the Lord to help us in understanding this. Lord Jesus Christ, we thank you, Lord, that you came to shed your blood for our souls. God, we thank you for forgiveness of sins. Lord, all of our hope is fixed upon you. I pray that as we seek to understand your word more, you would disciple us and train us up. God, help us to have understanding, Lord, that Our flesh will not allow us to have, but by your grace, by the spirit at work, Lord, you have renewed us and have given us understanding and help us to come to you in faith and hope. Pray that you would increase our faith even now. And we praise you in Christ Jesus name. Amen. My notes are mixed up here. Oh, there we go. All right, the sign of Jonah. All right, what if we doubted that Greg was a fireman? Sorry to pick on you, Greg, but what if we became suspicious of him and we started to accuse him of not being a fireman? At first, we know Greg is a nice guy and he's patient and he wouldn't immediately probably take offense at this. Be patient towards us. But suppose he wanted to convince you. What could he show you? What evidence could he give us? What signs? He could show us his uniform perhaps, his badge. He could show us his diploma. Do you get a diploma from Fire Academy? Okay. He could take you down to the firehouse and show you his notes at his office, he could take you in a fire truck, he could give you all different kinds of evidences that he was indeed who he claimed to be. What if, after all that, we accused him of being a liar, an imposter, and actually not a fireman at all, but an arsonist? Hey, Greg's a nice guy, but I mean at some point his patience would have run out, right? And he'd say, enough is enough here. I'm tired of these false accusations. I've shown you ample evidence to prove that I'm actually a fireman. And your doubts about this are unreasonable. And even furthermore, you're questioning my character. You're bringing my name into disrepute. the context here with Jesus in Matthew chapter 12. There's been a great surge of resistance mounting against the Lord Jesus Christ, and they've accused Him of being a liar. They've accused Him of all kinds of malicious behavior, and they're condemning the Son of God. And they even call Him a Satanist in verse 24. And now when the Pharisees heard it, they said, this fellow does not cast out demons except by Beelzebub, the ruler of the demons. So things are getting heated. Things are getting a bit out of control here. And that's where we find ourselves in Matthew chapter 12. He's shown them many miracles. He's shown them many signs fulfilling Old Testament passages of scripture, casting out demons, doing all these wonderful miracles. And they're telling, they're asking Jesus and they're demanding a sign and they're saying, prove it to us Jesus that you are the Son of God. And so today we're going to talk about signs, particularly the sign of Jonah. And is the sign of Jonah good enough evidence to believe the claims of Jesus Christ? So first we have to the question, why are they so skeptical? And are they justified in this skepticism of Jesus Christ? And are they just honest inquirers? Are they simply trying to weigh out the evidence? Or is there something more malicious about their questioning of Jesus Christ? What is behind the demanding of more evidence? And what is this sign of Jonah? Jesus says, you're not going to get anything except for the sign of Jonah. What is that sign? Well, first of all, the sign of Jonah is compelling proof, indicated by our Lord's very words, right? You are going to get this sign. This is the preeminent sign, the sign of all signs, the sign of Jonah, which I find fascinating. It's supposed to be the most compelling proof, the most persuasive proof that Jesus is who he claimed to be. It's forceful proof that he is the Messiah, the Son of God. It's evidence and it's an argument that builds the case in people's minds for who Jesus claims to be. In other words, if if you wanted to prove your citizenry of the United States of California, you could actually show forth some evidence, your driver's license or a passport or something like that. If you had a, um, wanted to prove to somebody that you're a medical doctor, you could bring out your, your doctor's degree and show your certification for, for work practicing medicine, right? This is the sign of Jonah is exactly that. It's an evidence. It's a sign. It's an indicator of who Jesus Christ is. And it's compelling. Which begs the question, if someone claimed to be the Christ of God, what kind of evidence would you demand of that person? What kind of proof would you need? Well, We're going to read verse 1 through 8. At that time, Jesus went through the grain fields on the Sabbath, and his disciples were hungry, and he began to pluck heads of grain to eat. And when the Pharisees saw it, they said to him, Look, your disciples are doing what is not lawful to do on the Sabbath. But he said to them, Have you not read what David did when he was hungry? he and those who were with him, how he entered the house of God, and he ate the showbread which was not lawful for him to eat, nor for those who were with him, but only for the priests? Or have you not read in the law that on the Sabbath the priest and the temple profane the Sabbath and are blameless? And yet I say to you that in this place there is one greater than the temple, But if you had known what this means, I desire mercy and not sacrifice, you would not have condemned the guiltless. For the Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath." A lot is said here, but what I want to point out to you is Jesus constantly uses this question. He asked him, have you not read? Have you not read? Have you not read the scriptures about what David did and You would call David a man who profaned the temple out of a basic necessity for food. Don't you understand what Sabbath is all about? But he's combating some false arguments that they have about the Scriptures. Jesus was, it was said of him that he spoke like no other and he spoke with power and authority and mastery of the Holy Scriptures. If you wanted to know, if you wanted to validate a claim that Jesus is the Christ, the Messiah, what would you expect? That He would show mastery of the Scriptures. He constantly confounded His enemies with the Holy Scriptures. We see that in context here. 9 to 14, verses 9 to 14. And now when He had departed from there, He went into their synagogue. And behold, there was a man who had a withered hand, And they asked him, saying, is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath that they might accuse him? So see, now we see the real underlying motive of why they're asking these questions of Jesus. They didn't come as unbiased, neutral party. They actually wanted to accuse him. Then he said to them, what man is there among you who has one sheep and if it falls into a pit on the Sabbath will not lay hold of it and lift it out. Of how much more value than is a man than a sheep. Therefore it is lawful to do good on the Sabbath. And then he said to the man stretch out your hand and he stretched it out and it was restored as whole as the other. And when the Pharisees went out and plotted against him how they might destroy him. You see the response of the Pharisees and the scribes and all the religious leaders to these miracles that Jesus is doing? If you were wanting some proof that Jesus Christ was exactly who he said he was, how about healing a withered hand? Is that not a miracle of miracles? I mean, we get these fake faith healers today who claim to heal people, but literally the people are tossing aside their walker for a day and then waking up the next morning with more pain having aggravated their injury, right? That's the kind of thing people are claiming today. But Jesus actually took a withered man's hand and restored it whole. This is the kind of evidence that he's been bringing to them. And you see the opposition of these Pharisees. 16 to 21. 15 to 21. But when Jesus knew it, he withdrew from there and a great multitude followed him and he healed them all. Actually, let's just stop there. Verse 15. He healed them all. I mean, the hospitals were empty. All the doctors and nurses had to go home for the week because there was no jobs. It's thought that during the life of Jesus' ministry, all of Jerusalem was completely eradicated of illness and sickness. This is a profound evidence that Jesus is precisely who he claims to be, right? Can you imagine that? I don't know the names of the hospitals here, but in Santa Rosa, Sutter and Memorial and Kaiser were just completely free of any ill patients and people just had to go home for the day. That's the kind of evidence these guys were seeing in the lifetime of Jesus Christ. And yet they're looking at all this and wanting to question him more and more and more. They're coming at it with a heart of wanting to see his destruction. They want to see his ruin. He goes on. He says, I'll just briefly summarize a little here, but he says, when the Messiah comes, Isaiah predicted that he would be merciful. You know, a bruised reed he will not crush. he would show acts of mercy, he would show acts of justice, he would do things precisely like Jesus Christ was doing. In other words, he's the fulfillment of all the Old Testament scripture. So he's eradicated sin, done wonderful miracles, he's shown mastery with the Bible, his biblical knowledge, and he's fulfilling Old Testament scriptures. And then we find in 22 to 37 that he actually cast out a demon and he enters into this whole discussion with them because they say, you cast out demons by the devil himself. And he's like, what's wrong with you? You know, you think basically his argument is this, like, why would, why would the devil destroy the works of the devil? The devil doesn't want to cast out devils from people. The devil wants to fill people with devils, right? Satan is not in the business of destroying his own kingdom. If his work is truly from God, then you would expect him to be casting out devils, right? Otherwise he's playing for the other team, okay? So he's casting out devils. He's healing everybody in town. He's fulfilling Old Testament scripture. He's showing his mastery of the scriptures. What other evidence is there that you need, Pharisees? That's where we find ourselves here with the sign of Jonah. What are they asking for? Hasn't it been enough? Well, they want him to prove who he is. by showing a more fantastic sign, a more compelling sign. What they have seen up to this point wasn't enough. They wanted something God-like. It seems that these miracles that he had performed thus far were very earthy and tangible. He had touched a person's hand and healed it. He had put his hands on another person's eyes and healed the blind. And he was personal. He showed compassion to people. They wanted to see something fantastic like hurling of a storm, or an earthquake, or the stars falling from the sky. Something very God-like, I think, is what they're asking for. And they knew that he was claiming not only to be the Messiah, but also claiming to be God. And they're saying, prove it, Jesus. Prove that you are God. And so Jesus says, I'm going to give you that proof. I'm going to give you that proof. The sign of Jonah. The greatest evidence that Jesus Christ is the Christ, the Son of God. And this sign is a compelling sign of belief. So it's also a multifaceted prophecy. Jesus says that the sign of Jonah is indisputable evidence for his claim. It's really a kind of a multi-faceted prophecy. What do I mean by multi-faceted? There's kind of different ways you can look at the prophecy that Jesus gives here. It has different dimensions to it. Different dynamics to it. You could look at it in multiple different ways. And it's fulfilled in its indications and implications. It has multiple implications. First, there's three of them I'm going to point out. First, it foreshadows the resurrection. I'm going to read verse 38 through 42 here. And then some of the scribes and the Pharisees answered, saying, Teacher, we want to see a sign from you. 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. 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. And the men of Nineveh will rise up in judgment with this generation and condemn it, because they repented at the preaching of Jonah. And indeed, greater than Jonah is here, the queen of the south will rise up in judgment with this generation and condemn it. for she came from the ends of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon and indeed a greater than Solomon is here." We're going to talk about first the the sign of a man being spit up from the from the shore and then we're going to talk about the sign of the Ninevites and the sign as it relates to the Queen of Sheba as well. But first this the This sign of Jonah foreshadows the resurrection of Jesus Christ. As Jonah was as good as dead in the belly of the fish and then he burst forth from the bowels of the fish. So Jesus Christ would be actually dead in the belly of the earth in a cave and burst forth in his resurrection and triumph. And so Jesus says, as, as Jonah, as this happened to Jonah, not that Jonah was actually resurrected, but he's a picture. It's simile language as in the same way in such manner as that happened. So this is going to happen with me. Jesus actually died. It actually rose from the dead. And so the resurrection is the sign of all signs. This is the most compelling proof that Jesus is exactly who He says He is. They wanted a sign that was fantastic. They wanted a sign that was undeniably God-like. Jesus had raised the dead already. But think about this. Who can raise themselves after they've already died? That is a fantastic sign. That is a sign above hurling a windstorm or an earthquake or something like that. That is impossible, right? Only God can do that. Only the eternal God who lives forever could actually do such a thing. Evidence that He Himself is who He claimed to be. God incarnate. And so it foreshadows this resurrection. Second, it foreshadows The Jewish rejection of the Messiah. This shocking rejection of Jesus in this particular generation at this time. Jesus condemns this generation. The Jews that lived at this time who were condemning Jesus for having done all these wonderful miracles amidst them. Jesus condemns them. And Jesus says the sign of Jonah is actually a foreshadow of the Jewish ultimate rejection of Jesus Christ when they put him on the cross and rejected their Messiah. Jonah, he is really a Jewish prototype. He's a lot like the older brother in the... say it again? Prodigal son. Yeah. I was going to say proselyte, but yeah, prodigal son. Thank you. The prodigal son, he was jealous of his brothers. He didn't want anybody else to have the blessings of God, the Father, in that illustration. He didn't want his brother to have the feast, the fattened lamb killed for him in a big celebration. That's Jonah. He hated the fact that God had freely given his grace to the Gentiles, these horrible Ninevites who had squandered everything and were wasteful, terrible people, right? That's Jonah. He's a prototype of the Jews. He's the older brother. He's a picture for us of what the Jews, their attitude was to the lost world. And Nineveh is a Gentile prototype. And because of that, it says that the Ninevites will actually rise up in judgment and condemnation of this generation of Jews. In other words, they're going to be saved. In the end, they will be resurrected with Christ and they will rise up and not actually stand there and condemn. Christ is the judge in heaven. But their example is proof that it doesn't take these wondrous signs that they're demanding in order to believe in Jesus Christ. By their own logic, they are condemning themselves. The Ninevites proved contrarily. They had no signs. Jonah was actually spit up on the shores 500 miles away from Nineveh. They never even got to see this miracle of Jonah coming forth from the fish. They saw no miracles. There was no stars falling from heaven. There was no hand, withered hand being healed. There was none of that. There was the simple conviction of sin brought forth by the preaching of the Word of God. amazingly, they took it to heart and they searched their souls and they agreed with God about their sins and God saved them. And so it pictures this Jewish rejection of the Ninevites, but also it foreshadows this miraculous salvation that would be brought to the Gentile world. the age of the gospel, the church age that we live in now, and why the gospel has come across the Atlantic Ocean over here to the west side of the United States up in the northern region called Laytonville. It foreshadows the gospel going out to the Gentiles The Old Testament had predicted that this would happen. That through Abraham, all the nations would be blessed. Right? Abraham, the prototype of faith. The man of faith. The Gentiles would, in like manner, be one and kin with Abraham as he is the father of faith. The Gentile nations would come to faith. And so we have this multifaceted prophecy, a foreshadowing of the resurrection, a foreshadowing of the Jewish rejection of their Messiah, and what would come in the church age as the Gentile world is reached with the gospel. So that's the sign of Jonah. It's a pretty amazing sign, isn't it? Now what's wrong with sign-seeking? Jesus condemns their sign-seeking. I mean, didn't Gideon put out a handkerchief and ask God to give him a sign? And he wasn't condemned for doing that. Right? Is sign-seeking inherently wrong in and of itself? And is Jesus rebuking sign-seeking in general? He's rebuking, not necessarily sign seeking, but in the manner in which it's being done here, right? He's rebuking the Israelites who had this unwarranted suspicion of him and were accusing him of being a liar. And they were taking, they were being unreasonable and they were condemning the Son of God of a truth claim that he was making that was obviously true. That's the kind of sign seeking that he's condemning. Matthew Henry says this, signs were granted to those who desired them to confirm their faith as Abraham and Gideon, but denied to those who demanded them to excuse their unbelief. That's precisely what they're doing there. They're trying to justify their unbelief in him as their Messiah. All the pointers are pointing to Him and saying, this is God's Messiah. He's from God. He's from heaven. He's doing the works of God. He's mastery over the Bible. He's fulfilling Old Testament scriptures. He's doing the wondrous miracles. And you're still unbelieving. How unreasonable. Signs. What are signs? Well, I think I might have used this illustration before, but a sign is a pointer. It's supposed to point to something else. And one time my family and I went up on a road trip to Oregon and Washington. We stopped at the road sign to take a picture because we were crossing over the border and it was exciting. So we all got out of the car to take a picture with the sign. But the sign was telling us to go into Oregon. The destination was to go to the Rogue River and to see Silver Falls and we wanted to see the ocean, Gold Beach and these things, right? What would you think of me if we stopped there at the sign and we set up tent and we spent the entire week right there surrounded by the sign taking pictures and we were super excited and we brought them back to you and said, hey, look how exciting. We went to the Oregon border. You say, that's ludicrous. That's insane, right? The point of the sign, it was an indicator. It was telling you, it was pointing you to something else. All right? And that's what these signs were supposed to be about. And Jesus is saying, you've got it all wrong. You're being unreasonable. You're missing the point. You're literally standing here face to face with God incarnate. And you've missed it. And you want signs? The glory was in Christ. They're looking right past him and they're looking at the signs, saying, give us another sign. And Jesus says, this generation, this generation is condemned, having seen God incarnate, face to face, and they're wanting something else. Can you imagine? Can you imagine God who had been so gracious to them, had been so faithful to them, who had given them the covenant, had taken them out of Israel, out of Egypt from their bondage and slavery. He had given them this wonderful land flowing with milk and honey, right? And covenanted with them, gave them their law, gave them their priests, their whole religion, their whole existence. They're looking at God in the face and they're rejecting Him and saying, we don't want you. And He calls them evil and adulterous. It's interesting He calls them adulterous. How would you feel if you'd been in a marriage and you found out that the person really didn't love you at all but they just were using you because they knew that you had you know they were a gold digger and they they knew you had you could provide them a lot of um security and a nice car and a house and vacations they were using those things though to go and and um have adulterous affairs on the weekend that you weren't known to know about that's that's what he's saying He's saying, God made a covenant with you. He showed His affection for you. He showed His loyalty to you. He's blessed you in every possible way. You literally took these things and you prostituted yourselves with other idols. You wanted something other than me. So they're an evil and an adulterous generation. And they won't believe in Him. And the sign-seeking became an excuse for their hardened hearts and their unbelief. In their calculations of themselves, they were justified in not believing in Jesus Christ. After all, He hadn't given them a great enough miracle. So they say. But the reality is they want all of the blessings of God, but they don't really want God Himself. They found Jesus Christ to be an imposition upon their lives. And so Jesus says that their seeking was evil and it was adulterous. There's an application for us. Jesus is using this illustration of Jonah to compel people to faith. To place their faith in him. even though he's he's in this conflict and it's it's getting heated and they're coming at him with all kinds of false accusations even calling him a satanist jesus seems to want to still reach them he's giving him this warning graciously he wants them to actually see how unreasonable they're being he wants to show them the sign of jonah the resurrection that some of them would hopefully come to faith in him the application for us is Maybe that's something in your own soul that you've justified your unbelief. The application is this. Stop seeking. Stop demanding all these proofs. Examine your heart. Is this faith really unreasonable? Have you really not sufficient evidence for belief? Do you really need more than what God has given you? What is it? What do you need? What is the criteria for belief? how much evidence do you need? You have the God giving His very own Son and the whole apostolic witness of miracles in the Word itself. Each of us has Bibles at home. We have opportunities to have Bible software on our computers. We have churches, numerous churches to go to. We have Preaching you can get on your phone through sermon audio. We have every opportunity available to us. Have we done the hard work of searching the scriptures? Stop seeking and examine your heart. Is your doubt reasonable or is it unreasonable? And start believing. Second application is start believing. believing in the one who Jonah is pointing to. True faith believes like Nineveh, Jesus says. The Word of God alone was sufficient for faith to these Ninevites. That's the point I want to make. The Ninevites had none of these miracles. God sent a miserable prophet with the shortest message ever. And he shouted it out with contention towards the people that he was ministering to. He had no pastoral heart towards the Ninevites at all. And yet, they received that message. They knew that it was from God. God had addressed their heart. They knew that they were condemned and under the wrath of God. And they took it to heart. And they believed the message. They agreed with God and they repented of sin. They shoved forth to us this simplicity of faith, believing in the words of God, they repented at the preaching alone. And they didn't demand a sign. And Sheba, you could read about her, I think it's First Kings 10, but Sheba is a queen of the South who came to witness the wondrous prosperity and the wisdom of God as seen in Israel at the time of Solomon. Solomon was like the height of Israel's, you could say, dynasty. And she was so impressed by the wisdom of God displayed in that place, she said, I want Solomon's God to be my God. It was a very simple, short time that she spent there. to convince her and to be a seeker of truth and to try to understand. I actually had a wrestling coach in high school. I didn't have a church background at all and didn't read the Bible. But I had this one coach who was distinct. I knew only one other Christian, my aunt Barbara, who lived an hour and a half away. But this coach really he stuck out to me and the way he lived his life and his principles and his values. I didn't know that much about the Christian faith but I knew I wanted to be like John Jackson. Like his life it was meaningful to me and it stood out. That's the kind of experience I think that Sheba had. She looked at the wisdom of God. She looked at the values. She looked at it all and she said, oh this is the glory of God displayed here in Israel. But both of these illustrate something. They had very little. Ninevites and Sheba both illustrate to us those who had very little exposure to signs. Very little exposure to to the graces of God. Very little blessings in this area. And yet they understood that Israel was marked by God. They understood how great the Jewish God was. And so they were seeing with eyes of faith and they were understanding. And it says that Sheba is going to rise up in judgment with of this generation of Jews and they're going to condemn it. Both Sheba and Nineveh. And so it's a witness against this generation. And so Jesus is basically arguing from the lesser to the greater to condemn the attitude of these Jews who had become very entitled in their Jewishness. They felt that all the blessings belonged to them. all the privileges that they had and all the blessings that God had brought on that nation. It was for them and them alone. And they were selfish. And yet these lesser Ninevites who had incomplete revelation, only the words of Jonah, they had no signs, they had no opportunities, none of the advantages of Israel. They had no vacation Bible school in Nineveh. They had no family camp, no Sunday school, no sermon audio, none of those things that we enjoy as blessings today. None of the great history of Israel. They didn't have the law of Moses or Aaron's rod or the jar of manna, none of this stuff. And yet the greater privileged Israel who should have believed won't believe, while the lesser privileged Ninevites are put to shame by their faith. by the faith of these Ninevites. That's the lesson we learn from the sign of Jonah. But you know who else this passage really condemns? All those churches, all those churchgoers who are hardened in their hearts. Right? We have all these advantages. We experience the blessings of God. We have every opportunity to search out God's Word. We experience the benefits of living under God's blessing and provision. And if we don't want to share with others this great hope, we want to hoard it to ourselves. It reveals our unbelief, to our shame. So Jesus' warning is not just for the Jews of this day, but it's for us. Without With turning away from Jesus Christ, there really is no hope. There's just only condemnation. And so Nineveh and Sheba, they are examples to us of those true sincere seekers that sought after Christ and sought. They searched inside their own souls and they came to faith in God. And it's a remarkable illustration of the simplicity of faith that God requires. So I'm going to close with five questions for reflection. First of all, should God have done more to reveal himself to you and I? I mean, what do you need from God? Does God need to put a neon sign up in the sky every morning saying, good morning? You know, what is the criteria that you have? And is the Bible sufficient evidence? To me it is. I know the Bible itself makes that assertion of itself. It says, faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God. I know that was true for me. When I simply just began to read the Bible, it read me. It opened up my heart. It revealed who I was. And it called me to this life of faith. Should God have done more to reveal Himself? Second, would the Word of God be more convincing if it were etched on the surface of the moon and you could read it with a telescope? I mean, does it need to be fantastic in order for us to believe? That's kind of what I'm getting at here. Or can you just simply pick up your Bibles and read it with eyes of faith? What kind of evidence are you looking for? Third, have you sufficiently applied yourself to a rigorous study of God's Word? Are you a truth seeker? Are you seeking what God has to say in His Word? Are you simply seeking to justify yourself and remain hardened in your hearts? And then finally, is your need of evidence really a cover to justify your unbelief? I think it's really the point of this section here. So God has given us ample evidence that Jesus is the Christ of Scripture. He is the very Son of God. And unbelief, it's not due to a reasonable rejection of Jesus. The reason people don't believe is because they won't believe. That's at the core of it. But if you are willing, there are good answers to doubts. I mean, God does give us all kinds of evidences in different ways. And people have written much about serious questions and serious concerns and doubts. We don't want to deny that, that people struggle with some of these questions. But a true, honest, sincere seeker is going to dig into these questions and really seek them out with an unbiased look at it. And if you're here today honestly seeking, God wants actually in the end this to be a warning. To be a warning to your heart. To do some deep soul searching. And try to come to the root of what? What is at the root of my unbelief? God wants to save you. And that happens through repentance of sin. And just literally agreeing with God that I have broken your law. I am worthy of your condemnation. I am worthy of your wrath. But then, not staying in that conviction, but trusting in Jesus Christ, that He actually has provided atonement for sin and forgiveness of sin through what He did at the cross and paying your penalty. If that's your conviction, I hope it would be. All right, let's pray. Lord, I just thank you so much that you sent the Savior Jesus Christ into this world Lord and God I thank you for his wisdom Lord and how gracious he is and even with those who are standing there and staring him in the face and with brutal assaults and attacks upon his character God and yet his patience God I acknowledge that you've been so tender and patient towards me, Lord. I thank you for that. I thank you for revealing these great wonders and mysteries about Christ. I pray that you would increase our faith, Lord. Help us in our doubts and our unbelief, Lord. Pray that you'd miraculously give us that simplicity of faith we see in the Ninevites. Just thank you for this wonderful time of worship and fellowship and Lord, may you use us to your service throughout this week. We praise you in Christ's name. Amen.