A Greater than Jonah is Here

Luke 11:29-32 Jonah

Pastor Martin expounds Luke 11:29-32, comparing Jesus Christ to the prophet Jonah. He argues that Jesus is immeasurably greater than Jonah in His person, office, fulfillment of commission, authority, experience of judgment, and power to grant repentance. The sermon's pastoral application is a stark warning to unbelievers of the heightened judgment awaiting those who reject Christ, and an exhortation to believers to deepen their love and admiration for their Savior.

4 illustrations in this sermon

Jesus is Greater in the Experience of Judgment by Which He Enforces His Call

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Hugh Martin on Jonah's Sign

Driving home: My listener, when Jesus counsels you to repent and flee from the wrath to come, the exhortation comes from one, if we may reverently use, as we may with intense truth use the saying, it comes from one who knows whereof h…

Martin quotes Hugh Martin's commentary to explain how Jonah's personal experience of God's anger and deliverance in the whale's belly served as a sign to the Ninevites, enforcing the certainty of judgment.

that when Jonah came to preach to Nineveh, it is obvious from the statement in our text earlier on, Jonah was assigned to the Ninevites, indicating that he must have recounted his amazing deliverance from the belly of the fish, by which he was now a messenger of God to them. And so, picking up that train of thought, Hugh Martin says, While in his Godhead he is equal with the Father, and therefore supreme in authority, he is, as man, greater than Jonah, in that he has an experience of his own with which to enforce his message greater unspeakably than Jonah had. As Jonah was three days and night...

38:04 - 39:10 Read in full sermon

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Hugh Martin on Jesus' Experience of Wrath

Martin continues quoting Hugh Martin, contrasting Jonah's figurative death with Jesus' actual death and experience of God's full wrath, arguing that Jesus' experience gives Him unique authority to warn of judgment.

When Jonah says, I was disobedient, and the God-King of Israel, as a stroke of judgment upon my disobedience, had me cast into the angry waves, they would learn from that that God is a God who will not wink at sin, and Jonah can enforce his message of impending judgment by his own experience of that judgment. But now, Hugh Martin goes on to say, but behold, a greater than Jonah is here. Jesus was three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. Jonah died and rose again in a figure, a metaphor, a figure carrying in it a terrible reality, but stopping short of actual death.

39:44 - 40:28 Read in full sermon

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Hugh Martin on Jesus' Knowledge of Wrath

Martin concludes the extended quotation from Hugh Martin, emphasizing that Jesus' personal experience of God's wrath makes His warnings and calls to repentance profoundly urgent and authoritative.

For in his own soul he tasted, he experienced, he knew that wrath. Oh, if Jonah could enforce the validity of his message. Ninevites, hear this message. The wrath of an offended God will fall.

42:41 - 42:57 Read in full sermon

Jesus is Greater in Power to Grant Repentance

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Blind Beggar's Cry for Mercy

The point: Go to Him upon a throne of mercy. Come before Him like that poor blind beggar hearing that Jesus of Nazareth was passing by. He cries out, Son of David, have mercy upon me.

The story of the blind beggar crying out to Jesus, 'Son of David, have mercy upon me,' is used to illustrate how sinners should approach Christ for the power to repent and for mercy, despite attempts to silence them.

Go to Him. Go to Him upon a throne of mercy. Come before Him like that poor blind beggar hearing that Jesus of Nazareth was passing by. He cries out, Son of David, have mercy upon me.

46:40 - 46:59 Read in full sermon

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