Luke 11:29-32

Jesus is addressing those in the crowd that wanted Jesus to do more tricks before deciding who he was. 

The way they are demanding a sign is to prolong or avoid the implications of who Jesus. 

“Testing”- taunting, teasing, make difficult 

“Evil”- not just malicious, but Hebraism for Satan. 

They accused him of doing miracles by the power of the devil and Jesus says, “some here are acting by the devil, but it’s not me.”

Free will is a beautiful gift, but some will use it to find every reason in the world to reject Jesus. 

He isn’t done doing miracles. He is saying that nothing has any hope of getting through to you except maybe the sign of Jonah. Jonah didn’t do a sign. He became a sign. Jonah spend three days in a whale and came out alive and preached the Kingdom of God. Jesus would die and be buried and come out alive and bring the Kingdom of God. Jesus is greater than Jonah- a greater prophet and greater in the essence of who he is. 

People who are far from God respond quickly to God, but often people who are close to the things of God are slow to respond and callous. No one has an excuse not to repent. 

This is a major theme of Luke. Those we expect to embrace Jesus reject him and those we expect to reject his embrace him. 

Even though I don’t say “do more so I will believe,” I still withhold parts of myself from him and make excuses or ignore his conviction and leading.