Jesus is Asked for a Sign by Pharisees and Sadducees

Take Every Passage to Prayer - Volume 2, The Gospels
^{Tuesday July 30, 2024}

Matthew 16:1-12, Mark 8:11-21

Father, please forgive me for each and every time I’ve ever demanded a “sign” from You. When I did so, I was revealing my doubt and lack of faith. Help me to trust in You wholeheartedly, without requiring any more evidence or proof. Help me to come to the permanent and unshakable conclusion that You are who You say You are in Your Word. Please help me to be vigilant, defending my soul against all false teachings. Please use Your Word as my defense against the attacks of the evil one and the desires of my own sinful heart. Amen.

Father, word got to the Pharisees that Jesus had once more fed a large crowd of people with a few loaves of bread. The Pharisees were at war with Jesus for the heart and soul of the population. The Pharisees had to undo the spiritual gains Jesus’ had just achieved with this miracle. They had to derail His ministry. Confident in their superior wisdom and understanding, they approached Jesus to ask him for a sign from heaven.

In Matthew 4, Mark 1, and Luke 4, we read that Satan tested Jesus by taking Him to the highest point of the temple in Jerusalem and tempted Him to jump off. Satan, citing Psalm 91:11-12, knew that Jesus would be protected from the 200’ fall by angels. This was not a temptation for Jesus to commit suicide. It was a temptation for Jesus to do tricks for the crowds below to see. Satan tempted Jesus with celebrity if He would focus His ministry not on saving people from their sin but instead on becoming famous for the amazing magic He could perform.

Most likely tempted by Satan, the Pharisees are asking Jesus once more to do tricks.

“Jesus, come on. Show us something really spectacular. None of this mere healing of people or feeding thousands of people with a few loaves of bread. Show us chariots of fire and the angels of heaven in the skies. Turn the moon red. Have the stars fall from the sky.”

This is eerily similar to Darth Vader inciting Luke Skywalker in Star Wars to “come to the dark side.”

“Join us, Jesus. We live and breathe to make ourselves celebrities among the people. Become like us and do the same. If You join us, we’ll ease up on You and give You rest.”

Father, Jesus performed surgery on their hearts and zeroed in on exactly why they are asking for a sign.

1. They don’t ask for a sign because they are unintelligent. They are smart enough to know that red skies at night indicate there will be fair weather the next day and red skies in the morning indicate it will be stormy. They have the ability to make rational observations and come to logical conclusions from the data available to them.
2. They have observed the ministry of Jesus. They have seen His miracles and heard His teachings. They have studied the prophecies of the Old Testament that told of His coming. The evidence is right in front of their noses that Jesus is the fulfillment of Old Testament prophecy. He is the promised Messiah, the savior of the world. These are the “signs of the times.”
3. However, the Pharisees do not acknowledge Jesus as the Messiah. Since their excuse cannot be their lack of intelligence, the only other explanation is that their hearts willfully, deliberately, and intentionally reject Jesus as the Messiah. They deny the evidence not because the evidence doesn’t exist. They deny the evidence because they want to deny the evidence. They don’t want Jesus to be their Messiah. Hence, Jesus says that a “wicked and adulterous generation looks for a sign.”

He didn’t entertain their temptation even for a second. He walked away and got into a boat with His disciples to sail north to the region of Bethsaida.

In other words, it is a rebellious, unregenerate, and wicked heart that asks for Jesus to prove Himself by a “sign”. Those who ask for a “sign” are arrogant and pompous. They are sanctimonious. They are like the Pharisees themselves.

Father, how do we ask Jesus’ for signs today?

1. By questioning Jesus’ sovereignty and power because current events seem to be out of His control. If He was the Son of God, He would sweep away, in dramatic fashion, all wickedness and suffering by His divine power.
2. By being ungrateful for the “small things” that Jesus has done for us because He has yet to answer our prayers for the “big things” that we want. If He was the Son of God, He would give us what we want when we ask for it.
3. By refusing to accept Jesus as our Savior until we see His glory with our own eyes. We reject faith and believe only scientific evidence that can be observed.

Jesus will not do signs for the first group. He does not need to do signs for the second group. Jesus doesn’t do signs.

Jesus and His disciples were now in the boat heading towards Bethsaida. The disciples were hungry and realized that they had brought only one loaf of bread with them into the boat. Their focus was not on spiritual matters. Their focus was on satisfying the desires of their flesh.

We can conclude from this text that the disciples were worried about not having enough food. They were not thinking that Jesus could perform another miracle. We can conclude this because Jesus had to remind them that they had just witnessed two occasions where Jesus had fed a combined 9,000 men, as well as women and children, with only 12 loaves of bread. He certainly had the ability to feed each person on the boat with only this single loaf of bread. The disciples were revealing their lack of faith and their stubborn refusal to embrace, once and for all, that Jesus is the Son of God.

Father, Jesus was not concerned about there being only one loaf of bread. He was concerned that His disciples are so weak in faith that they were vulnerable to the lies and deceits of the Pharisees and Sadducees. Just like the disciples consumed yeast when they ate bread, they also consumed the lies and deceits of the Pharisees and Sadducees when the disciples listened to them.

“Be careful,” Jesus said to them. “Be on your guard against the yeast of the Pharisees and Sadducees. (NIV)”

The disciples were confused. Since bread is made with yeast, was Jesus telling them not to eat bread because the yeast is somehow poisonous? Was Jesus disciplining them for being so careless as to not bring enough rations for everyone on board?

Jesus challenged them.

“Why do you lack faith? Why do you refuse to see the truths I have been teaching you? You have eyes to see. You have ears to hear. Is it because your hearts are hardened, just like the hearts of the Pharisees? They demand more proof that I am the Son of God. Are you not demanding the same, despite all I have already shown to you? You should know by now that I could perform another miracle and feed everyone on board with this single loaf of bread. You’ve seen me do this miracle twice now. Don’t you get it by now that I teach by metaphors? Now, I’m going to say this again. ‘Be on your guard against the yeast of the Pharisees and Sadducees.’ Think about what this means. Tell me what I am teaching you.”

Father, they got it. Jesus was telling them to be on their guard against the false teachings of the Pharisees and Sadducees. Their false teachings are subtle and sneak into the soul unnoticed, just like yeast is consumed unknowingly when we eat bread. The disciples, as well as believers in the 21st century, must be continuously vigilant, testing everything they hear against the truths in the Word of God, to make sure they don’t “consume” any false doctrine. The disciples understood that they were being like the Pharisees, stubbornly refusing to embrace that Jesus is the Son of God. Amen.