“IT’S NOT THE WONDERS, IT’S THE WORD”
LUKE 11:29-36

I. Introduction
The Word of God! It stands in opposition to the philosophies of men. And why wouldn’t it? It is the Word of God, not man. Therefore, it can only be believed by the faith that God gives, not by the reason that man cultivates.

Man argues that the true facts about something can only be determined when human rea-son is applied to existing evidence. When it comes to the existence of God, most human philosophers take great pleasure in saying that His existence can’t be proven because we don’t have enough evidence. Thus human reason must conclude that God doesn’t exist.

But when human philosophers say this, they ignore or misinterpret the evidence that is all around them. Doesn’t the Bible say, “There are none so blind as those who will not see”? Actually, it doesn’t. That’s one of those statements like, “God helps those who help themselves.” That’s not in the Bible either. But here are some of the things that the Scriptures do say about the evidence of God’s existence that is all around us.
*Psalm 8:1
1 O LORD (YAHWEH, God’s name), our Lord (Adonai, His sovereignty and authority over His creation), how majestic is Your name in all the earth, who has displayed Your splendor above the heavens!

*Psalm 19:1-2
1 The heavens are telling of the glory of God; and their expanse is declaring the work of His hands.
2 Day to day pours forth speech, and night to night reveals knowledge.

But the so-called wise of this world ignore that majesty, that declaration, that speech, and that knowledge. Not only do they think themselves good, they think themselves wise. But God says they are neither good nor wise. Rather, He says they are wicked and fools.
*Psalm 10:4
4 The wicked, in the haughtiness of his countenance, does not seek (God). All his thoughts are, “There is no God.”

*Psalm 14:1
1 The fool has said in his heart, “There is no God.”

The evidence for the existence of God is everywhere and obvious, so when it is ignored and denied, God reveals His wrath. Why?
Romans 1:19-20
19 …because that which is known about God is evident within them; for God made it evident to them.
20 For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse.

Why is the natural man blind to the things of God when the evidence is all around him? It is precisely because he is a natural man. He is a sinner, a member of a fallen race. He is unable to see the light of the gospel, because his intellect is blinded by Satan.
2 Corinthians 4:3-4
3 And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing,
4 in whose case the god of this world (Satan) has blinded the minds of the unbelieving, that they might not see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.

Such people can look directly at the evidence for God’s existence and tell you they can’t see it. They’re telling you the truth, they’re not lying. They can’t see it, because…
1 Corinthians 2:14
14 …a natural man does not accept the things of the Spirit of God; for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually appraised.

Now, as we return to our study of Luke’s gospel, Jesus will confront such natural men.
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II. Review
Luke 11 began with Jesus teaching His disciples how to pray, and telling them about how God would respond to the prayers of His faithful. In vv. 14-26 the Lord cast out a demon and the religious leaders accused Him of doing so by the power of Satan. Jesus warned them that ascribing the power and work of God’s Holy Spirit to Satan, that is, calling God evil, was virtually unforgiveable. That passage ended with this:
*Luke 11:27-28
27 And it came about while He said these things, one of the women in the crowd raised her voice, and said to Him, “Blessed is the womb that bore You, and the breasts at which You nursed.”
28 But (Jesus) said, “On the contrary, blessed are those who hear the word of God, and observe it.”

So we come to today’s passage where unbelief and human blindness will be on display.
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III. Text
Think of it. Most of the multitude that has already witnessed Jesus’ casting out of the demon back in v. 14 still doesn’t believe He is who He says He is. In fact, they accuse Him of being in league with the devil. Yet they still want Him to perform another mira-cle. Isn’t that amazing? Instead of fleeing from someone whom they think is wielding the power of Satan, they want to see another sign, another wonder, another “trick.”
But would that change anything? If they don’t believe what Jesus has already said about Himself, if they don’t believe His words, the Word of God, why would another “trick” convince them?

Maybe a better question would be this: “How many miracles do you think it would take for these unbelievers to become believers?” And ask yourself this: Were the signs and wonders that Jesus’ did for the purpose of turning unbelievers into believers? No, they weren’t! They weren’t for that at all. They were for the purpose of validating the Mes-senger. And if the Messenger was validated, then His message would be validated too. So the miracles, signs, and wonders that Jesus did proved who He was.

After the church was born the apostles did the same signs and wonders that Jesus had done. Those signs and wonders validated those men and their message in the same way they had validated Jesus and His message. And why not? It was the same message – the message of the gospel. But when the church was established and the NT was complete, those signs and wonders were no longer needed, and they ceased.

And just so there is no misunderstanding – your salvation is most certainly a miracle of God. God took you, a spiritually dead sinner, and made you spiritually alive in Christ. But you didn’t come to saving faith because of a sign or a wonder. You came to saving faith because the Word of God penetrated your hearts and breathed eternal life into it.

Obviously, the Pharisees believed the signs they saw. Therefore, they also should have believed the message they heard, but they did not. That message, the message of the gos-pel, the message that they refused to believe, was the only thing that could save them.

Like them, you and I are called to respond to God’s words, not His wonders. His won-ders are illustrations of His glory. They tell us what kind of God He is, but they don’t tell us who He is. They don’t identify Him. His Word does that. So Jesus says, “…blessed are those who hear the word of God, and observe it (Luke 11:28).”
*Luke 11:29-36 (Please stand with me in honor of reading God’s Word.)
29 And as the crowds were increasing, He began to say, “This generation is a wicked generation; it seeks for a sign, and yet no sign shall be given to it but the sign of Jonah.
30 “For just as Jonah became a sign to the Ninevites, so shall the Son of Man be to this generation.
31 “The Queen of the South shall rise up with the men of this generation at the judgment and condemn them, because she came from the ends of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon; and behold something greater than Solomon is here.
32 “The men of Nineveh shall stand up with this generation at the judgment and condemn it, because they repented at the preaching of Jonah; and behold, something greater than Jonah is here.
33 “No one, after lighting a lamp, puts it away in a cellar, nor under a peck-measure, but on the lampstand, in order that those who enter may see the light.
34 “The lamp of your body is your eye; when your eye is clear, your whole body also is full of light; but when it is bad, your body also is full of dark-ness.
35 “Then watch out that the light in you may not be darkness.
36 “If therefore your whole body is full of light, with no dark part in it, it shall be wholly illumined, as when the lamp illumines you with its rays.”

Before we look closely at the words Jesus says, I want to point out the tone in which He says them. It’s immediately obvious that He hasn’t read Dale Carnegie’s book “How to Win Friends and Influence People.” He hasn’t taken a course in how to reach unchurched people or how to make His message “user friendly,” has He? Not hardly!
*Luke 11:29
29 And as the crowds were increasing, He began to say, “This generation is a wicked generation; it seeks for a sign, and yet no sign shall be given to it but the sign of Jonah.

As always, Jesus soft-soaps nothing. He speaks words of truth and of warning about the judgment to come. “Wait a minute, Jesus. That’s not how you increase attendance. Don’t you know you have to make people feel good about themselves?”

A few years ago there was an article in the Flagstaff, AZ newspaper about a local church that was growing rapidly. The pastor was quoted as saying that the reason for their “suc-cess” was their “upbeat and animated atmosphere.” He said, “People are tired of hearing about sin in their life; they need to hear about the joy that is out there as well.”

Of course, he did have a point. We do need to hear about the joy that Christ gives, but there can be no joy if we try to hide our sin, or claim we have none, or attempt to come to God without confronting the reality of our sin and the judgment to come.

But the religious leaders in Luke 11:29 were not the least bit interested in confronting the sin in their lives. And since Jesus knew their thoughts, He also knew that a hundred mir-acles would not soften the hard hearts of these unbelievers. They were unrepentant and they wanted to see more tricks. Their problem was the same problem that plagues so many unbelievers today. They claim that they don’t have enough evidence.

So what does Jesus do? Does He give them an upbeat and animated atmosphere? No! Does He try to make them feel good about themselves? No! Quite the opposite. Does he say to them, “You’re all such wonderful people. God loves you and so do I”? No and no again! Rather, He tells them they are sinners, and He uses a strong word, “pŏnērŏs,” to tell them so. The word means that they are both morally and spiritually evil.

The hearts of the people Jesus is talking to are hard. So He will give them no more signs. Well, He will give them one…He will give them what He calls “…the sign of Jonah.”

What exactly is “the sign of Jonah”? For the Ninevites the “sign” was the miraculous reappearance of a man they all thought to be dead. In human understanding, Jonah was dead. He had been cast into the sea and swallowed by “a great fish.”
Jonah 1:15a, 17
15a …they picked up Jonah, threw him into the sea…
17 And the LORD appointed a great fish to swallow Jonah, and Jonah was in
the stomach of the fish three days and three nights.

Matthew makes it clear that the sign of Jonah is a picture of Jesus’ coming resurrection.
*Matthew 12:39b-40
39b “An evil and adulterous generation craves for a sign; and yet no sign shall be given to it but the sign of Jonah the prophet;
40 for just as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the sea monster, so shall the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.”

In this parallel Jesus does not say that either His or Jonah’s words are the signs, but that He and Jonah themselves are the signs. He is telling this evil and adulterous generation of unbelievers that His resurrection will be the only sign that will be given to them. It will be the parallel to Jonah who was the sign given to the people of Nineveh.
*Luke 11:30
30 “For just as Jonah became a sign to the Ninevites, so shall the Son of Man be to this generation.

In these parallels both Jonah and Jesus are the signs, wonders, and miracles themselves. Didn’t they both signify God’s awesome power? But what brought about the repentance of the Ninevites? And what brings about the repentance of everyone who trusts Christ for salvation? Is it miracles and signs and wonders? No, it is the Word of God.

Now to be sure, miracles, signs, and wonders are real, and they are of God. But remem-ber, those things only serve to authenticate the messenger and validate the message. They are not the message. The message is the gospel, the Word of God is that convicts sinners’ hearts, draws them to repentance, and saves their souls.

Did John the Baptist perform signs and wonders? He preached a message of repentance.
Matthew 3:1-2
1 …John the Baptist came, preaching in the wilderness of Judea, saying,
2 “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.”

John was merely the messenger. The messenger had no power. The power was in the words God spoke through John.
Those words had all the power needed to accomplish God’s purpose. Just like John, you and I are messengers who have no power. But, just like John, you and I have God’s Word. If we will just USE it, it will always accomplish God’s purpose.
Isaiah 55:11
11 “So shall My word be which goes forth from My mouth; it shall not return to Me empty, without accomplishing what I desire, and without succeeding in the matter for which I sent it.”

This is why you can have confidence that when you tell someone what God has said, you can, as it were, “sit back and relax.” Then if anyone tells you they don’t have enough evidence to believe in Jesus, or they want a miracle, or a sign, or a wonder to prove that salvation is found in Christ and Christ alone, you can tell them we have proof. We have an empty tomb and a risen Savior.

So do not let anyone tell you that you have no proof. We do. We have both the written Word, the Bible, and the living Word, the Christ. They are inextricably linked together and the one testifies to the other. The Apostle John testifies about the living Word.
John 1:1
1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

Then Jesus, the living Word, testifies about the Bible, His own written Word.
John 6:63
63 “It is the (Holy) Spirit who gives life; the flesh profits nothing; the words that I have spoken to you are spirit and are life.”

The words that save those who believe in Christ are the very same words that condemn those who do not believe in Christ. You might say the Word of God “cuts both ways.” The writer of Hebrews uses vivid terms to express this truth.
Hebrews 4:12
12 For the word of God is living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword, and piercing as far as the division of soul and spirit, of both joints and marrow, and able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart.

John 3:18
18 “He who believes in Him is not judged; he who does not believe has been judged already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.” (back to Luke 11:31)

*Luke 11:31-32
31 “The Queen of the South shall rise up with the men of this generation at the judgment and condemn them, because she came from the ends of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon; and behold something greater than Solomon is here.
32 “The men of Nineveh shall stand up with this generation at the judgment and condemn it, because they repented at the preaching of Jonah; and behold, something greater than Jonah is here.

The queen is the Queen of Sheba. In 1 Kings we’re told that she spared no effort to go to Solomon, see his wealth, and hear his wisdom. In the process she was confronted with God and His words spoken through Solomon. She heard truth and recognized it as such. Luke is telling us that she will be among the judges of those who are rejecting Jesus.

Unlike the Queen of Sheba, the people Jesus is confronting, this “wicked generation,” don’t have to go anywhere or make any special effort to find God’s Word. It/He is standing there talking to them – and He is infinitely greater than King Solomon.

Then Luke tells us that the men of Nineveh, those who repented when Jonah preached to them, will also stand among the judges of this “wicked generation.” Like the Queen of Sheba, they also heard God’s Word and knew it for what it was. So the people Jesus is confronting have no excuse. Someone infinitely greater than Jonah is speaking God’s Word to them.

In John 8 Jesus is also confronting unbelief, and He refers to Himself as “light.”
John 8:12-13
12 Again therefore Jesus spoke to them, saying, “I am the light of the world; he who follows Me shall not walk in the darkness, but shall have the light of life.”
13 The Pharisees therefore said to Him, “You are bearing witness of Your-self; Your witness is not true.” (“You lie!”)

Unbelief wants proof. But when it is given to them, they claim it is a lie. How can you deal with that? You can’t! Only the light of God can break through such darkness and spiritual blindness. In the last verses of this segment of Luke’s gospel Jesus compares His words to light. Those who hear Him are rejecting His words, but they want His mira-cles, signs, and wonders. As a result, they are trying to hide the light.
*Luke 11:33-34
33 “No one, after lighting a lamp, puts it away in a cellar, nor under a peck-measure, but on the lampstand, in order that those who enter may see the light.
34 “The lamp of your body is your eye; when your eye is clear, your whole body also is full of light; but when it is bad, your body also is full of dark-ness.

In the natural world these unbelievers would never light a lamp and then put a cover over it so that the light could not be seen. But this is exactly what the religious leaders are doing. They are doing in the spiritual world something that they would never do in the natural world. The example Jesus uses in v. 34 is essentially this.
When people see clearly they know where to step and what not to touch. They know what to take hold of, to grasp, and what to leave alone. But the opposite is also true. When people do not see clearly they can trip, stumble, and fall, and they can be burned by something they should never have touched.

So spiritual blindness is the result of the lack of spiritual light. This is dangerous for any-one, but it is especially dangerous for religious leaders because of their influence upon those who follow them. You’ll remember that Jesus said, “…if a blind man guides a blind man, both will fall into a pit (Matthew 15:14b).”

Finally, Jesus shifts His emphasis from the multitudes to each of us individually.
*Luke 11:35-36
35 “Then watch out that the light in you may not be darkness.
36 “If therefore your whole body is full of light, with no dark part in it, it shall be wholly illumined, as when the lamp illumines you with its rays.”

What does “watch out that the light in you may not be darkness” mean? There is such a thing as “false light.” I believe that it can be equated to false religion. How many peo-ple do you know who have the “false light” of a religion but live in spiritual darkness? It may be the darkness of ignorance, the darkness from which we all came. Or it may be the darkness of hard-hearted unbelief. This darkness is far worse. This is the darkness of the religious leaders of Jesus’ time. And it is no different today.

Finally, in v. 36, Jesus drives home the point that if you truly have the light of Christ, you will see clearly, you will be fully illumined, and you will shine brightly.
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IV. Conclusion
Have you received the light of Christ? The first part of this morning’s passage makes it crystal clear that you will never see it by seeking after miracles, signs, and wonders. The true “light” can only be seen when God’s Word is spoken and heard.
Romans 10:17
17 So faith comes from hearing, and hearing by the word of Christ.

When it is heard it is either believed or it isn’t. Experiences can be fickle. They can be manufactured, simulated, counterfeited, or just plain phony. By them millions have been deceived with a false light that is in reality just another form or spiritual darkness.

This is the Apostle Paul’s exhortation to the church in his letter to the Ephesians.
Ephesians 5:6-8
6 Let no one deceive you with empty words, for because of these things the wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience.
7 Therefore do not be partakers with them;
8 for you were formerly darkness, but now you are light in the Lord; walk as children of light…
Speaking of the last days, the Apostle Paul told his young protégé Timothy that difficult times would come, that men would love themselves rather than God. He said they would be religious and have a form of godliness but they would deny its power. Paul warned Timothy to avoid such men. Then he said this:
*2 Timothy 3:10-17
10 But you followed my teaching, conduct, purpose, faith, patience, love, per-severance,
11 persecutions and sufferings, such as happened to me at Antioch, at Iconi-um and at Lystra; what persecutions I endured, and out of them all the Lord delivered me!
12 And indeed, all who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will be persecuted.
13 But evil men and imposters will proceed from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived.
14 You, however, continue in the things you have learned and become con-vinced of, knowing from whom you have learned them,
15 and that from childhood you have known the sacred writings which are able to give you the wisdom that leads to salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus.
16 All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness;
17 that the man of God may be adequate, equipped for every good work.

In closing let me just say a word to those of you who witness to friends and loved ones. You can’t argue someone into the kingdom. You can’t reason someone into the king-dom. Even if you could perform miracles and signs and wonders, they would save no one. It isn’t what people see, it’s what they hear. We like to say, “Seeing is believing.” But while that may apply to earthly things, it does not apply to the gospel.

The gospel isn’t seen, it’s heard. Scripture does not teach that faith comes by seeing, and seeing the signs and wonders of Christ. Rather, it says, “…faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of Christ (Romans 10:17).”

Do you remember when Jesus performed His first miracle at the wedding in Cana? His mother didn’t say to the guests, “Watch Him, see what He does, and be amazed.” She said, “Whatever He says to you, do it (John 2:5b)!” That’s the lesson for us today – It’s not the wonders, it the words. Hear the words of Christ, and obey them! He said…
Mark 13:31
31 “Heaven and earth will pass away, but My words will not pass away.”

~ Pray ~