1. "Interesting how created beings feel that they're in a position to test and examine their Creator and Judge."

2. "If you come as skeptical as these leaders did, I wonder if like them you're aware of discounting lots of evidence that is there that already exists. All around you for who Jesus is, the record of His own life and teachings that's here to be examined, His deeds and works, ultimately His crucifixion and resurrection."

3. "Worldly knowledge never does. Knowledge of this world and its ways are fine and good, but this is not the kind of knowledge we all need. D.C. is full of smart people, but is it full of wise people? Schools can educate and grant degrees, but they can't sanctify and make you wise. Only God's Spirit and God's Word can do that."

4. "They were better as untrained weathermen than as trained theologians."

5. "For those of you who are doing well at work these days, just consider for a moment, what if you were as good with your Bible as you were at work?"

6. "Their own Phariseeism blinded them to seeing the truth about that sign of who Jesus is. So the same healing of the blind man was a sign to some, and it was utterly invisible as a sign to others, looking at the same thing with their eyes, seeing the same thing, writing down all the same facts, but the significance, the conclusion, was invisible to some of them who had no faith."

7. "You can go either way, legalism or license, to serve yourself."

8. "As important as it is that I have my Bible open when I write my sermons, it is that important that you have your Bibles open when you listen to them. You understand, this is together we're doing this. This is how carefulness is upheld."

9. "In their despising and rejecting Jesus, they were becoming the sign they had requested."

10. "What kind of sign are you today? What are you a sign of? What is your life pointing to?"

Observation Questions

1. According to Matthew 16:1, who came to Jesus and what did they ask Him to do?

2. In Matthew 16:2-3, what examples does Jesus give of signs that the Pharisees and Sadducees are able to interpret correctly?

3. What does Jesus call the generation seeking a sign in Matthew 16:4, and what is the only sign He says will be given to them?

4. In Matthew 16:6, what specific warning does Jesus give to His disciples regarding the Pharisees and Sadducees?

5. According to Matthew 16:9-10, what two miraculous feedings does Jesus remind the disciples about when they misunderstand His warning about leaven?

6. What do the disciples finally understand Jesus meant by "the leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees" according to Matthew 16:12?

Interpretation Questions

1. Why is it significant that the Pharisees and Sadducees—two groups that were typically theological and political opposites—came together to confront Jesus? What does their unusual alliance reveal about their view of Him?

2. Jesus contrasts the leaders' ability to read weather signs with their inability to read "the signs of the times." What were "the signs of the times" that these religious experts should have been able to interpret, and why couldn't they see them?

3. What is "the sign of Jonah" that Jesus references, and how does Matthew 12:40 help us understand its meaning? Why would this be the definitive sign for an unbelieving generation?

4. How does the concept of "leaven" function as a metaphor in this passage? What made the teaching of the Pharisees and Sadducees so dangerous that Jesus would compare it to leaven spreading through dough?

5. In what way did the Pharisees and Sadducees, through their very opposition to Jesus, ironically become a "sign" themselves that fulfilled Old Testament prophecy about the Messiah?

Application Questions

1. The Pharisees and Sadducees were highly educated religious professionals who missed the significance of Jesus standing right in front of them. In what areas of your life might you be proficient with worldly knowledge while neglecting spiritual wisdom, and what specific step could you take this week to grow in understanding God's Word?

2. Jesus warned that false teaching spreads like leaven through dough. What practices do you currently have in place to evaluate the teaching you receive—whether from sermons, books, podcasts, or social media—against Scripture? How might you strengthen your discernment?

3. The sermon mentioned that parents should pray not primarily for their children's titles and education but for them to truly know God. If you are a parent or influence young people, how are you prioritizing their spiritual formation alongside their academic or career development?

4. The religious leaders asked for a sign while simultaneously plotting Jesus' death—their hearts were already closed. Is there an area of your life where you might be asking God for guidance or confirmation while already having decided what you want to do? How can you cultivate genuine openness to God's direction?

5. The sermon concluded by asking, "What is your life pointing to?" Consider your daily routines, conversations, and priorities this past week. What would someone observing your life conclude about what matters most to you, and what one change could make your life a clearer sign pointing others to Christ?

Additional Bible Reading

1. Matthew 12:38-42 — This earlier passage provides Jesus' fuller explanation of "the sign of Jonah," connecting it explicitly to His death and resurrection and showing His pattern of responding to sign-seekers.

2. Isaiah 53:1-12 — This prophecy of the Suffering Servant describes the Messiah being despised and rejected, which the sermon identifies as fulfilled in the religious leaders' opposition to Jesus.

3. John 9:1-41 — This account of Jesus healing the man born blind illustrates how the Pharisees could witness an undeniable miracle yet remain spiritually blind due to their commitment to their own traditions.

4. Acts 9:1-22 — This passage recounts Saul's conversion from a persecuting Pharisee to the apostle Paul, demonstrating that even the most zealous opponents of Jesus can be transformed into signs pointing to Him.

5. 2 Timothy 4:1-5 — Paul's warning to Timothy about people accumulating teachers to suit their passions reinforces the sermon's emphasis on the danger of false teaching and the importance of sound doctrine.

Sermon Main Topics

I. The Day of Freedom: Booker T. Washington's Memory and Jewish Expectation Under Rome

II. The Sign They Want (Matthew 16:1)

III. The Signs They Read (Matthew 16:2-3a)

IV. The Signs They Don't Read (Matthew 16:3b)

V. The Sign They Will Read (Matthew 16:4)

VI. The Sign They Are (Matthew 16:5-12)

VII. The Sign That Could Be: Transformation Through Christ

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Detailed Sermon Outline

Finally, the war closed, and the day of freedom came.

It was a momentous and eventful day to all upon our plantation.

We had been expecting it. Freedom was in the air, and had been for months.

Deserting soldiers returning to their homes were to be seen every day. Others who had been discharged or whose regiments had been paroled were constantly passing near our place. The Grapevine Telegraph was kept busy night and day. The news and mutterings of great events were swiftly carried from one plantation to another.

As the great day drew nearer, there was more singing in the slave quarters than usual. It was bolder, had more ring and lasted later into the night. Most of the verses of the plantation songs had some reference to freedom. True, they had sung those same verses before, but they had been careful to explain that the freedom in these songs referred to the next world and had no connection with life in this world. Now they gradually threw off the mask and were not afraid to let it be known that the freedom in their songs meant freedom of the body in this world.

The night before the eventful day, word was sent to the slave quarters to the effect that something unusual was going to take place at the big house the next morning. There was little, if any, sleep that night. All was excitement and expectancy. Early the next morning, word was sent to all the slaves, old and young, to gather at the house. In company with my mother, brother and sister, and a large number of other slaves, I went to the master's house.

That's Booker T. Washington. Remembering a few decades earlier when he was a nine-year-old child, a slave in Franklin County, Virginia, and particularly remembering what it was like as the day of freedom drew nearer.

There had always been hope. And those hopes themselves in songs and prayer and deep in the human hearts were real and powerful. But as the days wore on, there began to be more and more indications that the day of freedom was really coming, and that it was almost upon them. Soldiers returned from battle. News came through whispered reports.

Hope turned into excitement. Singing grew louder and longer. Sleep fell off. These were all signs that the day of the fulfillment of their hopes for freedom was upon them.

This is something of the feeling of the Jews under Roman rule in the first century AD. After the public excitement of John the Baptist's ministry, now followed up by two years of Jesus' public ministry of teaching and miraculous feeding and even the blind being healed, the situation was becoming so explosively hopeful that a unique group of religious leaders came to Jesus, almost certainly from Jerusalem. Unusual because they were political and religious and social opposites. In Matthew chapter 16, our text this morning, we have recorded that the red-towN religious fundamentalist Pharisees and the blue Jerusalem temple establishment Sadducees, deniers of resurrection and of most of the Scriptures the Moses-only elite that had developed in self-interest through feeding and cultivating by the occupying Roman overlords. These two opposite groups for the first and only time recorded in the Gospels seemed to see a threat so real as to unite them together.

That threat was Jesus.

And that brings us to this occasion in our study of Matthew's gospel, Matthew, chapter 16, verses 1 to 12. You'll find the beginning on the Bibles provided at page 821. Let me invite you to take your Bible, open up to Matthew, chapter 16 and follow along as I read the passage.

Matthew 16, beginning of verse 1.

And the Pharisees and Sadducees came. And to test Him, they asked Him to show them a sign from heaven.

He answered them, 'When it is evening, you say, 'It will be fair weather, for the sky is red.' and in the morning, 'It will be stormy today, for the sky is red and threatening.' You know how to interpret the appearance of the sky, but you cannot interpret the signs of the times. An evil and adulterous generation seeks for a sign, but no sign will be given to it except the sign of Jonah. So He left them and departed.

When the disciples reached the other side, they had forgotten to bring any bread. Jesus said to them, 'Watch and beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees.' and they began discussing it among themselves, saying, 'We brought no bread.' But Jesus, aware of this, said, 'O you of little faith, why are you discussing among yourselves the fact that you have no bread? Do you not yet perceive? Do you not remember the five loaves for the five thousand, and how many baskets you gathered? Or the seven loaves for the four thousand, and how many baskets you gathered?

How is it that you failed to understand that I did not speak about bread, 'Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees'? Then they understood that He did not tell them to beware of the leaven of bread, but of the teaching of the Pharisees and Sadducees.

As we work through this passage this morning, I pray that we will understand the significance of Jesus for each one of us and for our life together and for others. So let's dig in. We see this group of leaders want something, so our first point, the sign they want. The sign they want. Look again at verse 1, and the Pharisees and Sadducees came, and to test Him they asked Him to show them a sign from heaven.

Now this unusual group of religious leaders, really of religious professionals, spanned the whole spectrum that Israel had. Pharisees who were widespread, popular. Pious, law-keeping, in fact, keeping the law so much that they made lots of new laws. And the Sadducees who were in control of the Jerusalem temple, who rejected all the books of Scripture except for the books of Moses and didn't believe in the resurrection, this group together against the gospel, you can call them, came to Jesus. We read here in verse 1, to test Him.

It's a very interesting word. It's the same word that's used of what the devil does, what Satan does with Jesus at the beginning of His public ministry. Interesting how created beings feel that they're in a position to test and examine their Creator and Judge.

They wanted a sign from heaven. That could either mean a sign up in the heavens, up in the sky, or a sign from God, or it could mean both. I think it's more likely it means a sign from God. I wonder if some of you have come today asking for God to give you a sign. You know, people do that sometimes when they feel desperate.

Perhaps that's you. Whether you've been a member of this church for 20 years or this is your first time ever in a Christian church, perhaps you've known a sense of desperation, driven you to ask for such a thing. Well, if it is, I hope that you will pray right now that God will use this portion of His Word to be that sign that you need, to show you how you can come to know Him, to find Him in in your life. Talk to the Christian you came with, or to me, or one of the other pastors at the doors afterwards. And let's see what we could do to help.

Of course, what this shows is that the religious leaders of His people didn't recognize Jesus. That's why they were demanding a sign of the kind they wanted. They wanted Jesus to play by their rules, implicitly acknowledge their authority. But they refused to recognize Jesus. You just think of everything we've read in Matthew's Gospel.

What more signs could they want than everything we've seen for the last fifteen chapters? Back in Matthew, chapter 11, verses 4 to 6, when John the Baptist had asked for a sign, Jesus had simply recounted for John what was happening in His ministry, and that was sufficient for John. John, as a believer, was reminded of the way these prophecies in Isaiah were being fulfilled, and it brought Him peace and understanding, but not evidently for these leaders. Whatever had been happening around them, whatever signs there were, they evidently couldn't see them. It seems that the Jews were always asking Jesus for a sign.

You think of His first visit to Jerusalem in John 2. He's approached in John 2:18 and what did the Jews say? What sign do you show us? He gave them a veiled answer about His resurrection, but they didn't understand it. Now again, if you come as skeptical as these leaders did, I wonder if like them you're aware of discounting lots of evidence that is there that already exists.

All around you for who Jesus is, the record of His own life and teachings that's here to be examined, His deeds and works, ultimately His crucifixion and resurrection, and what's more, what He's done since then in converting so many and building His churches down the centuries. And around the world, I wonder what it means that you see none of this as evidence for Jesus, for who He is. Does that give you any significant information about yourself?

For that matter, I wonder what these leaders really wanted. Was this a request to be fulfilled or were they really just making a point? They clearly did not think that Jesus was really the Messiah. So they saw this as an opportunity to publicly expose him. And the fashion was simply in this, in asking Jesus to produce for them a sign from heaven.

Sounds pious. That's what they said they wanted.

So much for the sign they want. Now on to our second point, the signs they read. The signs they read. Look again at verse 2. He answered them, 'When it is evening, you say, 'It will be fair weather, for the sky is red.' and in the morning, 'It will be stormy today, for the sky is red and threatening.

You know how to interpret the appearance of the sky. Now, I approach this paragraph in fear and trembling if there are weather forecasters or meteorologists present. But it is interesting how Jesus responds here. He responds by citing other heavenly signs, signs in the skies, things how they appear, signs of weather, portents that indicated what the day's weather would be like. That these teachers would normally read, as normally as you or I might look at a weather app on our phone.

They shared in the common proficiency of reading the signs of the heavens, of something as passing and as short-lived as the weather, whether it would for a few hours be fair or stormy. These signs they could and did read. The forecasting they would do without thinking was common across that part of the world in which the Mediterranean Sea was to their west, the Negev Desert was to their south. The weather generally moves from west to east, much like our weather does. The red sky in the evening most likely results from a high pressure system.

That makes the sky look red at sunset in the west. High pressure usually means stable, fair weather. On the other hand, if the sky is red in the morning over to the east, that's the direction the weather is traveling, where the sun is coming up, that may mean that the high pressure system has moved on. It's heading out that way and it's going to bring a lower pressure system and behind which will often mean storms, unsettled weather. Now, of course, this worldly knowledge didn't bring them the heavenly wisdom they needed.

Worldly knowledge never does. Knowledge of this world and its ways are fine and good, but this is not the kind of knowledge we all need. D.C. is full of smart people, but is it full of wise people?

Schools can educate and grant degrees, but they can't sanctify and make you wise. Only God's Spirit and God's Word can do that. Jesus was not intimidated by this committee of united opposition which had now come out to test Him. And in fact, He would turn the tables on them. He would point out some signs in the heavens which they did see, which they could read.

He would for a moment appear to commend them. It's a disarming maneuver, no doubt, as Jesus pointed out to them, ways in which they were perhaps being too hard on themselves and their own abilities to read the heavens. Oh, you can read the signs in the heavens, at least when it came to interpreting the appearance of the sky. Of course, Jesus brings up their proficiency here really to point out an unflattering contrast with their inability to read other signs, signs which were more important, and for reading which they should have been even better qualified.

Just as an aside, for those of you who are doing well at work these days, just consider for a moment, what if you were as good with your Bible as you were at work?

Well, that's what these teachers were not. As we see in the contrast, Jesus draws next at the end of verse 3. So we've considered the sign they want, the signs they read, on to our third point, the signs they don't read, the signs they don't read. Look again at the end of verse 3: you: know how to interpret the appearance of the sky, but you cannot interpret the signs of the times.

So why had Jesus cited these weather signs that these teachers would have commonly read as a way to contrast that with their inability to read the far more important religious signs that it was their job to read and understand. That's what they had been trained for. That's what they were supposedly experts in, the Scriptures of God. They were better as untrained weathermen than as trained theologians. These signs of the times were the signs that these teachers didn't read.

They were the miracles that were all around these religious leaders. They had no doubt heard about them. Why do you think they had made the journey from Jerusalem? They had known that they were happening. Perhaps they had known someone who had been healed.

Maybe they had talked to someone who had themselves been healed.

There were miraculous works that Jesus had been doing along with other indications of His messianic identity. All the things, if you just look up in chapter 15, verse 29, you see that ESV heading, Jesus Heals Many. 1529, Jesus went on from there and walked beside the Sea of Galilee. He went up on the mountain and sat down there, and great crowds came to Him, bringing with them the lame, the blind, the crippled, the mute, and many others, and they put them at His feet, and He healed them. So that the crowd wondered when they saw the mute speaking, the crippled healthy, the lame walking, the blind seeing, and they glorified the God of Israel.

And then, of course, we go on and read of that still another miraculous feeding. These were all signs to those who would see their significance, that the kingdom of heaven was coming in the person of Jesus, the Messiah.

So, visitor, I wonder what you make of all these accounts in the Gospels of what Jesus Christ did. Are they signs to you of His special significance, His special power and position, His special person and work? If you don't think Jesus really performed such miracles, Why is that your final conclusion?

And if you think that He did, what does that signify? What does that show? Do you think these works show anything about Jesus?

What a charge Jesus was making against these religious professionals. He's blaming them for being able to read the signs for the coming of the weather and yet not being able to read the signs of the coming of the infinitely more important Messiah who would bring the kingdom of God. That's the rule and reign of God. And they had the Scriptures of the Old Testament which gave them plenty of information that they needed to know in order to see when the Messiah was there. They should have known from His miracles.

They should have known from His claims. They should have known from His teaching. They should have known from His life. Even His knowledge of their sins and His willingness to talk to them about them had been prophesied. Isaiah 58:1, Cry aloud, do not hold back; lift up your voice like a trumpet.

Declare to My people their transgression, to the house of Jacob their sins. Friends, that's exactly what Jesus had done and was doing, and yet these religious leaders didn't appreciate it.

Though the crowds were swelling around Jesus, they were sprinkled through with Pharisees and scribes who were trying to catch Him in incriminating sound bites to use against Him.

Friends, there's education and there's wisdom. You can know a bunch of stuff, you can understand the importance and the significance of the use of the stuff.

Our congregation is located on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., one of the most highly educated communities in our nation. Our particular congregation is full of young parents with young children. Mom and dad, as you pray for your children, you don't want to pray for them so much to have titles and education like these Pharisees and Sadducees. You want to pray for them to truly know God and His Word. You want them to be able not just to know, but to recognize the signs about Jesus and to know who He is and to trust Him entirely with their own lives.

I pray this will be the case with scores of young people that God has so graciously entrusted to our care here, so that they will read the signs of Jesus' identity and come to savingly believe in Him. Let's pray this for the hundreds of children that God has entrusted to this congregation. Well we've considered the sign they want, the signs they read, the signs they didn't read. Now into our fourth point, the sign they will read. The sign they will read.

Look at verse 4.

An evil and adulterous generation seeks for a sign, but no sign will be given to it except the sign of Jonah. So He left them and departed. Jesus calls them an evil and adulterous generation, echoing the Old Testament's language of warning and denunciation of Israel for their unfaithfulness to God. In this case, these teachers were adulterous in the sense that They were standing there with the incarnate Son of God, the Messiah, Jesus, asking for something other than Him.

Were they not spiritually adulterous, they would have recognized Him and been satisfied by Him. Jesus puts it here in verse 4, sweepingly, no sign will be given to it. That's this generation. Except the sign of Jonah. The sign this evil and adulterous generation would be shown was the sign of Jonah.

If you want to know exactly what Jesus means by that, just turn back to chapter 12. He said this before and He's defined it, chapter 12, verse 40.

For just 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.

Now we don't know that they knew exactly what that meant when He said it. It was an odd thing to say. Certainly Jonah had had a singular experience among the prophets of the Old Testament. There were not others who had been stored in sea life and then brought out for continued ministry, appeared to be dead and gone, and then, as it were, raised up from the depths. But Jesus saw in Jonah a sign of what would be happening to him.

So He forecast that, and of course He would go on to show them exactly what that sign would mean when He was buried and then raised from the dead. One bitter irony of their question and Jesus' answer here is that a little bit earlier in Matthew chapter 12 and verse 14, we see that at least the Pharisees had already been plotting Jesus' death for some time.

There they were asking for a sign. At the same time they were already active in plotting His demise.

Now it just seems they were trying to get the establishment, the Pharisees, to come along with them. After all, the powerful never like having their power threatened, do they? So grab the Sadducees. They've made the compromises with Rome. They control the temple in Jerusalem.

Normally they wouldn't have anything to do with each other except for they had to in the Sanhedrin. But for this purpose it might be useful, bringing the power of Rome that has the power to actually execute should it come to that.

Jesus was regularly critical of those seeking signs in part, I think, because it means that they weren't seeing the signs that He was providing. There are lots of signs in the Gospels. At one point Jesus said to an official with the sixth son, unless you see signs and wonders, you will not believe. It seems many of them were like those in Luke 11 who witnessed Jesus cast out a demon from a man, and yet nevertheless to test him kept seeking from him a sign from heaven. He had just seen Jesus cast out a demon and then asked for a sign.

What's he looking for? That would seem to be a pretty good sign. That's going to stop most pulpit search committees right there. We'll take this one. Don't need to go any further.

And that's another time in which Jesus said, no sign will be given except the sign of Jonah. Jesus has defined these Pharisees and Sadducees as part of an evil and adulterous generation that demands signs, evidently seeing none of the signs that Jesus was providing plentifully for them. There was the changing of the water into wine in Cana. In John's Gospel, the second sign was Jesus' healing of the official's son. There was the feeding of the 5,000.

It's called a sign. We could go on and on and on for those who had eyes to see.

There were lots of signs. In that sense, you could say that Jesus' signs were given to the believers, to the disciples who saw them. Just like we're about to see in Matthew 17 in the Transfiguration. We know Jesus did many signs. John, at the end of his Gospel in chapter 20, verse 30, says, Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book.

One of the best examples of how this could be, these religious leaders seeing all these signs but not seeing them, is with the man born blind over in John 9. Let's just turn there for a moment. This is a good illustration of how this works. We won't read the whole story. It's a simple story.

A lot of you will know it already. There's a man born blind. Jesus heals him.

When he's healed, John 9:13, they brought to the Pharisees the man who had formerly been blind.

Now it was a Sabbath day when Jesus made the mud and opened his eyes. So the Pharisees again asked Him how He had received his sight. Note they didn't dispute that He had received his sight. They asked Him how He had received his sight. And He said to them, He put mud on my eyes and I washed, and I see.

Some of the Pharisees said, this man is not from God, for he does not keep the Sabbath.

But others said, How can a man who is a sinner do such signs? And there was a division among them. All right, so just think of what that means. Nobody's disputing whether this man was born blind. Nobody's disputing he can now see.

Nobody's disputing Jesus seems to be the person who healed him. The dispute is, does that make Jesus from God or from Satan? You would think that the giving of the sight to the blind would be a good thing, would show that the author is good and therefore from God. And yet, He had done this on a Sabbath. And though the Old Testament nowhere forbid healing on a Sabbath, the Pharisees, in their concern that God's law never be violated, had had suburbs added to God's law and outer suburbs added to God's law, all to make sure the core of God's law was never violated.

And now here was someone healing on a Sabbath, and all they could see was this thicket of their own man-made laws they had built up, and they couldn't see the core of what He'd done that was so good. Their own Phariseeism blinded them to seeing the truth about that sign of who Jesus is. So the same healing of the blind man was a sign to some, it seems, even to the Pharisees. Who became believers, I assume, and it was utterly invisible as a sign to others, looking at the same thing with their eyes, seeing the same thing, writing down all the same facts, but the significance, the conclusion, was invisible to some of them who had no faith.

But none of them would be able to finally miss Jesus, risen and returning. That's what the sign of Jonah is. It's Jesus in the totality of His ministry, which would include the crucifixion and the resurrection.

And should even that not finally convince them?

There would be His return. If you look over in Matthew, chapter 24, when Jesus is teaching in the last week, He's teaching about His coming.

Matthew 24, verse 29, Immediately after the tribulation of those days, the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light, and the stars will fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens will be shaken. Then will appear in heaven the sign of the Son of Man. And then all the tribes of earth will mourn. They will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory. He will send out His angels with a loud trumpet call and they will gather His elect from the four winds from one end of heaven to the other.

Oh friends, they will not miss the significance of that. That sign.

So we've considered the sign they want, and the signs they read, and the signs they didn't read, and the sign they will read. Now in the rest of our passage we see this fifth point, the sign they are, the sign they are.

Look at verse 5.

When the disciples reached the other side, they had forgotten to bring any bread. Jesus said to them, 'Watch and beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees.' and they began discussing among themselves, saying, 'We brought no bread.' But Jesus, aware of that, said, 'O you little faith, why are you discussing among yourselves the fact that you have no bread? Do you not yet perceive? Do you not remember the five loaves for the five thousand and how many baskets you gathered? Or the seven loaves for the four thousand and how many baskets you gathered?

How is it that you failed to understand that I did not speak about bread? Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees. Then they understood that He did not tell them to beware of the leaven of bread, but of the teaching of the Pharisees and Sadducees. The Pharisees and Sadducees, that you might think theologically were about as opposed as could be, except on the cardinal point of Jesus, whom they both rejected.

Let me share with you what I think is happening in this passage overall, and then we can come into these verses a little bit more. In verses 1 to 4, the Pharisees and Sadducees ask for a sign. Now in verses 5 to 12, Jesus tells the disciples, you see that verb there in verse 6, He tells the disciples to watch the Pharisees and Sadducees. Ironically, in their uniting opposition to Jesus, these religious leaders become a sign that Jesus instructs to mark and to understand.

They were the opposition and rejection which the Scriptures had foretold the Messiah would be met with.

Again, if you're not that familiar with Christianity, it may surprise you to know that the Scriptures of the Old Testament had long prophesied that a Messiah would come as a Savior, but this Messiah would at first be rejected by His own people. And this rejection was actually an essential part of his mission, because when Jesus was rejected and ultimately crucified, he was crucified as a sacrifice, as a sin-bearing sacrifice, bearing the sins of all of us who would ever turn and trust in him. And then when God would raise him from the dead, And He ascends to heaven. He presents that sacrifice to His heavenly Father, and He accepts that in that He accepts all of us who turn from our sins and trust in Him alone. Friends, that rejection is horrible as it was and as culpable as these leaders were for it was also in God's strange providence.

What had been long planned and prophesied In verse 5, we see the disciples forgot to bring bread with them. Seemed to be a regular concern of them in their travels. In verse 6, Jesus warned them about leaven. Leaven was commonly used then as now in dough to cause it to rise when making bread. Just a little bit of leaven, a little bit of yeast, cause a large loaf to rise.

One of the special aspects of the Passover meal is that the bread was unleavened. Reminding the Israelites of their haste in preparing the meal and in going on the Passover. In fact, their feast then was called the Feast of Unleavened Bread, and it was to begin a week in which no leaven was to be used in cooking or in baking, and in fact, it would be taken out of the house entirely. Beyond that, all the grain offerings were to be unleavened. There were other restrictions on the use of leaven in connection with sacrifices in the priest.

Because of its spreading nature, Leaven or yeast was a good illustration of corruption. So here in verse 6, Jesus called His disciples to watch out for the leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees. What was the nature of their spreading corruption, particularly the Pharisees and Sadducees? It was their hypocrisy. Luke in chapter 12 is explicit about it.

It was their hypocrisy in presenting themselves as servants of God and His Word when they were really serving themselves.

It was in their very teaching we see down in verse 12, as the Pharisees served themselves by multiplying rules, and the Sadducees served themselves by eliminating rules. You can go either way, legalism or license, to serve yourself.

Anyway, the disciples were confused by this. We see In verse 7, thinking that this was about the forgotten bread, but Jesus says, that's not the case. In verse 8 He calls them, Are you of little faith? In verses 9 and 10, Jesus reminds them of the feeding miracles which showed His sufficiency as the Messiah. And then in verse 11, He warned them again about the leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees.

And we see in verse 12, they understood that the leaven Jesus was warning about had nothing to do with bread, but it was the... what? The false teaching of the Pharisees and Sadducees. And what was that false teaching that they united together in? It was that false teaching about Jesus.

It was the rejection of Jesus as the Messiah. That was the teaching that was false. That was the leaven that Jesus was telling His disciples they needed to reject.

Brothers and sisters, we can't miss the importance of teaching, and in this case, false teaching. The Pharisees and Sadducees concern for outward practices and rituals blinded them to the larger issues. Again, remember the concern about Sabbath-keeping back in John 9 that kept some of them from seeing the truth about who Jesus truly is.

And as we as a church navigate the days God has us in, We seem to be coming in evangelical churches in America into something of a white-water rapids with great rocks of false teaching all around us and causing many local churches damage and some even ruin. Do not take biblical and theological carefulness for granted. In Paul's charge to the Ephesian elders whom he loved dearly, Paul said, Pay careful attention to yourselves and to all the flock, in which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to care for the church of God which he obtained with his own blood. I know that after my departure fierce wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock. And from among your own selves will arise men speaking twisted things to draw away the disciples after them.

Therefore be alert. Friends, it's not just in that one meeting with the Ephesian elders that Paul sounds like this. He seemed to spend his whole ministry writing letters to churches, warning them. In Galatians 1, he warned them not to rely even on him as much as they relied on the gospel that he preached. He more than once warned about false teaching or false living and holiness being accepted as being like leaven spreading in a church and corrupting it.

He called out false apostles as servants of Satan. In his last letter, Paul warned Timothy, For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions. This is what I want. This is what my body craves. Who can I pay to tell me this is what God says is okay?

That's what he says will happen. 2 Timothy 4:3, They will turn away from listening to the truth. And wander off into myths.

Brothers and sisters, false teaching can corrupt a church in its life and doctrine, especially false teaching about Jesus, which is what these religious leaders were evidently there to spread. Oh, he's a good moral teacher. We can learn much from him. Such faint praise damns Jesus. He's the incarnate Son of God.

Come to be our Savior. So we give ourselves as a church to careful expositional preaching and every bit as careful expositional listening. As important as it is that I have my Bible open when I write my sermons, it is that important that you have your Bibles open when you listen to them. You understand, this is together we're doing this. This is how this works.

This is how carefulness is upheld. But even in their opposition, God's sovereign finger could be traced, fulfilling the prophecies He had given of old to mark out the coming of His Son. Isaiah 53:3, He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. And as one from whom men hide their faces, He was despised, and we esteemed Him not. Not.

It was these scholars of the Old Testament Scriptures who now unwittingly were fulfilling them. In their despising and rejecting Jesus, they were becoming the sign they had requested.

This was the sign these Pharisees and Sadducees wanted. The signs they read, the signs they didn't read, the sign they would read, and the sign they actually became. There's one more sign I want us to note as we conclude. The sign that could be. Even the sign they could be.

You see, they could have been transformed. They could have been converted. By the truth and power of Jesus Christ, and so bear witness to Him. There could have been some members of this delegation who ended up following another way, like Nicodemus that we read of in John 3. He is described in John 3:1 as a man of the Pharisees.

Named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews. He said to Jesus, Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher come from God, for no one can do these signs you do unless God is with him. And then there's Saul who described himself in his letter to the Philippians as a Hebrew of Hebrews, as to the law of Pharisee, as to zeal a persecutor of the church. But we read in Acts chapter 9, even while he was zealously persecuting the church, he was given a sign from heaven. He was given a sign from heaven.

Acts chapter 9, verse 3, Suddenly a light from heaven shone around him. And falling to the ground, he heard a voice saying to him, 'Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting Me?' and he said, 'Who are you, Lord?' and he said, 'I am Jesus. Whom you are persecuting. From that point on, Saul followed Jesus. He was soon baptized and became a herald for spreading the good news of Jesus around the Mediterranean world under the name he became better known by, Paul.

So were Nicodemus or even Paul among the delegation that day?

We can't say. No mention is made of it. But even if they weren't, others may have been who would later become followers of the very one they'd questioned that day. It's happened many times. Nicodemus, Paul.

History is full of such stories. So one thing I do in my daily scheduled document, a Word doc, When I read stuff, I type in dates, so that pretty much every day of the year, as old as I am, as long as I haven't typed into this document, I'll find reminders of things that happened. So did you know, for example, today, November 24th, is the day on which John Knox died. And when I read that, I am provoked to remember the certain person that I made the note about as we come to that date. So just to refresh your memories, in case you don't know much about John Knox, he was born in 1514, he was converted around age 30, he was older than many of you when he was converted, and yet he became a sign for an entire nation.

He had a few years of ministry in Scotland, then he was in exile for 13 years. Some of that as a slave. He didn't return until 1559. He only had 13 years of life left for ministry in Scotland. He was mainly in Edinburgh and he had a most fruitful ministry pointing people to Christ.

From his mid-40s until he was about my age when he died. In the spring of 1572, Ian Murray writes, while Knox was still in St. Andrews, there was a marked decline in his health. Yet in August he was able to return to Edinburgh and after 13 months' absence, preach again in the pulpit of St. Giles. But the vast congregation could no longer hear his now feeble voice and thereafter he chose the pulpit of the much smaller Toll Booth Church where he began to preach on the crucifixion on the 21st of September. The English ambassador reported on the 6th of October, John Knox is now so feeble that scarce can he stand alone or speak to be heard of any audience.

Yet he was able on Sunday the 9th of November to preach at the installation of his successor, James Lawson. It was the last time he was to leave his home. The following Thursday he had to lay aside reading and on Friday, confused which day it was, he declared he meant to go to church and to preach on the resurrection of Christ. A week later, with increasing difficulty in breathing, I always get affected when I read about the death of the saints. A week later, with increased difficulty in breathing, he ordered his coffin to be made.

And waking hours were now spent in hearing Scripture read, especially Isaiah 53, John 17, and Ephesians, saying, Goodbye to friends and speaking brief words of testimony and prayer. Live in Christ, and then flesh need not fear death. Lord, grant true pastors to the church, that purity of doctrine may be maintained. On Monday, November 24th, that's today's date, 1572, he insisted on rising and dressing, but within half an hour he had to be put back to bed. To the question of a friend, Had he any pain?

he replied, It's no painful pain, but such a pain as shall soon, I trust, put an end to the battle.

There was further intermittent conversation that day. And the last reading of 1 Corinthians 15, at which he exclaimed, Is not that a comfortable chapter? About 11 o'clock that evening he said, Now it has come. Lifting up one hand, he passed through his final conflict in peace.

And friends, it's not just in history.

Conversions like that are still claiming people around the world as signs of who Christ is. This room is full of them. Members of this church, you remember when you were converted. I was an agnostic and God saved me. How many of you have testimonies of God's kind conversion?

What kind of sign are you today? What are you a sign of? What is your life pointing to? His gospel to the lost, proclaim. Good news for all in Jesus' name.

Let light upon the darkness break, that sinners from their death may wake. Let's pray.

God, we pray that yout would forgive us for the small things we would use our one life upon.

Pray that yout would give us fresh resolve to use our lives to point to Christ. Show us by youy Spirit what that means for each one of us. We pray in His name, Amen.