Today’s Podcast
Today’s Bible reading plan:
Read it in a year – 1 Samuel 21-25
see the whole year’s plan [here](http://www.bible-reading.com/bible-plan.pdf)
Today’s Devotional
Matthew 16:2-4
Jesus: At evening time, you read the sky as a sign—you say, “The weather will be fine because the sky is shading red,” and in the morning, you read the sky as a sign, saying, “The red, stormy sky tells me that today we will have storms.” So you are skilled at interpreting the sky, but you cannot interpret the signs of the times? Only a cheating and evil generation such as this would beg for a miraculous sign from heaven. The only sign you will get will be the sign of Jonah.
What do Jesus’ words mean for us today?
God, I would believe in you if you make me rich. God I would believe in you if you heal my kid. God I would believe in you if you get me that promotion. God I would believe in you if you turned my hair blue.
We make fun of the Pharisees and Sadducees that came to Jesus asking for a sign from heaven, but so many of us do the same thing. They used to call those foxhole conversions back in the days of World War II, Korea, and Viet Nam. We don’t dig very many foxholes any more. But we still try to get a sign from heaven so we can believe that Jesus is who He says He is. Show me the evidence. I just can’t take someone’s word for it. I need to see something miraculous for myself before I can believe.
Did you ever meet someone like that? Are you someone like that? Be careful.
Jesus poked a pretty big stick in their eye with their request. They wanted a sign from heaven. So Jesus pointed to heaven. See that moon up there? What’s going to happen if it’s red? Well, there’s a little poem that everyone near the sea knows, “Red in the morning, sailor’s warning; red at night, sailor’s delight.” We look at the moon and we tell the weather by the color of the moon.
These guys knew that poem. They learned it as kids just as you probably did. But they also knew scripture. They were supposed to be the religious leaders watching expectantly for the coming of the Messiah. They should have their charts all laid out with the things that would show them when He arrived. We’ll give them credit for a few things we know that they didn’t. They didn’t know Mary and Joseph had a baby in Bethlehem, the place where the Messiah would be born. But it wouldn’t take much to find out Jesus was born there.
So let’s go from there. All the kids around His age were killed except Him. His mother and father miraculously whisked Him off to Egypt and saved Him when Herod had all the kids killed. Joseph settled in Nazareth. The home of the coming Messiah. Lineage of David? Yep. In the temple in Jerusalem at the age of twelve confounding the rabbis with His knowledge of the scriptures. Does things no one has ever done before like make blind men see, make the deaf hear, make the lame walk, raise the dead back to life. Hmmm? Is it possible that this guy could be who He says He is?
Surely not. He doesn’t look the part. He doesn’t sound pious. He doesn’t spend all His time at the temple, instead He’s out here healing and teaching. What religious leader worth his salt would stay out in the hot sun all day doing that? Surely the Messiah would want to stay in the shade and converse with the rabbis, right?
Well, let’s just make sure we’ve got it straight. Hey, Jesus. We have this argument. We know you fit the bill from scripture, but you we don’t think you look or act like we think a Messiah should look and act. So do us a favor and show us some miraculous sign from heaven just so we can make sure. Then we’ll know and we can get on board with you. Sound okay with you?
They got the same answer we get from our foxhole confessions. Exercise faith first. God doesn’t make deals. Who do we think we are that we can set the rules for our salvation? We deserve every punishment God could dish out for our disobedience. He is God, after all. Jesus said don’t be looking for a sign. Just look around and see that God is already at work. If you can’t see Him around you, how are you going to exercise any faith if you see some sign in the sky? You’ll just try to explain that away with some scientific mumbo-jumbo anyway.
Instead, just be honest with Him. Either believe in Him or don’t. He knows anyway. But there is only one way to heaven and that’s to believe in Him for salvation. If you don’t, well,…the book has those signs listed pretty well, too. In fact, that path is pretty broad and easy to follow. Just join in with the crowd headed that way. You’ll find that path pretty easily. It’s just that you really don’t want to get to the destination at the end of that road. Really, you don’t. Have some faith in Him.
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