An Evil Adulterous Generation

In Matthew's Gospel, in chapter 12, as our Lord Jesus was addressing a crowd, we read, beginning in verse 38, Then certain of the scribes and of the Pharisees answered, saying, Master, we would see a sign from thee. But he answered and said unto them, An evil and adulterous generation seeketh after a sign, and there should be no sign given to it but the sign of the prophet Jonah. For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the whale's belly, so shall the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.

The men of Nineveh shall rise up in judgment with this generation, and shall condemn it, because they repented at the preaching of Jonah. And behold, a greater than Jonah is here. I will stop there, friends.

Jesus here not only brings a charge against the religious leaders of his day, on the scribes and the Pharisees, but he says of the whole nation of the Jews that it is an evil and adulterous generation that they, as an adulterous wife, had departed from the living God, to whom by covenant they had been espoused. Here was God himself in the flesh, standing in their midst, and they refused to turn back to God and repent and believe on him. The Jews were so hardened in their unbelief that Christ represents them as a generation that will continue in the possession and under the power of Satan to their ultimate ruin.

The title of my message today, friends, is An Evil and Adulterous Generation. And men today still seek a sign from God to prove his existence. Years ago, I spent a great deal of time witnessing to a man who was a relative of a friend of mine, and this man was full of excuses not to come to Christ.

I remember we were at a church picnic, and this man and I were seated at a picnic table by a lake, and I was witnessing to him, and he said to me, I tell you what, if Jesus exists, then why doesn't he come right now and make this picnic table float up in the air? If he makes this table float from the ground, I will believe in him. This man had no desire to come to Christ, and even if that picnic table began to float in the air, all it would have done was to send that man running in terror. An evil and adulterous generation demands a sign that God exists, but they have nothing but a hardened heart toward God.

America is a nation that has turned her back on the God of the Bible and has gone so far as to do away with God throughout our entire republic by legalizing sin and legislating God out of our educational and judicial branches of our government. This nation sits like a basket of ripe fruit rotting in the sun as it awaits judgment, as the nation of Israel was spoken of by the prophet Amos. In Amos chapter 8 we read, Thus hath the Lord showed unto me, and behold, a basket of summer fruit.

And he said, Amos, what seest thou? And I said, A basket of summer fruit. Then said the Lord unto me, The end is come upon my people Israel. I will not again pass by them any more.

God's purposes were ripe in regard to the people of Israel, for that nation had become ripe in sin, so ripe that it must be destroyed. Today America and England sit in their apostasy and rejection of God, and like baskets of rotten fruit sitting in the sun, they sit in spiritual drunkenness awaiting ruin and destruction. Two nations, both favored by God, both visited mightily by God in glorious revivals and who were mightily used of God for the printing of the Bible and the way of missionary enterprise to distribute the gospel to the nations of the world.

Now, as an evil and adulterous generation, they sit in apostasy with their backs turned against God. In the days of Amos, God sent a famine in the land, not a famine of bread nor a thirst for water, but of hearing the words of the Lord. Do you want to know why, friend? It is so hard to find a good preacher today who preaches the full counsel of God with an anointing of the Spirit of God.

It's because God has withdrawn himself from amongst us. We live in a day of spiritual dryness and a famine for hearing the true word of God, because we sit in judgment. And unless we repent as a nation and turn back to the God of the Bible, the men of Nineveh shall rise up in judgment with our generation as well, because they repented at the preaching of Jonah, and we live in a day of grace, of the gospel of the Son of God, and we have more accountability.

And all we do is make excuses and look for signs and refuse to repent. Like the fabled sword of Damocles glistening with blood as it hangs over our heads on a tattered thread, judgment is ready to fall upon us at any moment. Heaven help us all!