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I. "The Pharisees and Sadducees came, and tempting desired Him that He would show them a sign from heaven." They did not take what we would account a miracle on the human body as a sufficient sign, but in the presence of many great and marvellous works they still said to Jesus, "Show us a sign from heaven." Here we find the spirit which cannot see in Christ, or in Christ's religion, its own value, and which is always going outside of it for some token or evidence of its worth. There are people to whom all religion is a thing outside of them; and they receive it, not because it meets any want in their hearts, or because they need it, but because it comes with an outside authority and show. What was there so far wrong in seeking a sign from heaven, that the people should be found fault with for demanding it? Now there are many things which people might be justified in not believing until they had seen some sign from heaven. But the great truths which Christ taught were truths which Came home to the hearts and consciences of men. These need no sign from heaven or earth; they are their own witnesses to every man who hears them. When Christ taught the people, as He had just been doing, that the things which truly defiled a man were not the things he touched and ate, but the things which were in his heart, his thoughts and wishes, and the things he spoke and did, that teaching needed no sign, could have no sign, from heaven greater than itself. If you were to convince a man that be had done something wrong, and if you were to ask him to repent of the wrong, what would you say suppose he were to reply, "Show me a sign from heaven that I ought to repent"? Suppose, again, a man were taken out of darkness and allowed to gaze round on hill and sky and sea, how would you receive his demand, "Show me a sign from heaven that these things are what they are"? The light in which he is living is the standing sign from heaven, the only one, and the best. And in the same way, the only and the best sign from heaven in the things of the spirit, is the truth acting on the conscience and the heart. If a man can see nothing there, who can enlighten him? If a man is always asking you for an outward sign to prove that a moral or religious fact is true, if he has no touchstone in his own inner life to which he can bring it, how is he possibly to find such a touchstone outside of him? This was the condition of those persons who came to Christ demanding of Him sign from heaven. And His reply to them proceeds upon the fact that they had signs all around them for their guidance in religion, as truly as they had signs for their guidance in the common affairs of life. Jesus Christ turns what is too often considered a secular object of inquiry into one of the most religious kind. It is too often taken for granted that the study of the signs of the times is not so "much a religious as a political work. Christ's teaching was in itself a sign from heaven. It was a sign which no man who looked on human society could afford to despise. It came home to men's hearts; it brought new life, new comfort, new sources of hope and strength to mankind.

II. On the part of disciples and friends, as well as enemies, there is often a misunderstanding of Christ's words. And thin fact is illustrated hero in a striking way. Jesus said to the disciples, "Take heed and beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees." What words could be simpler or more intelligible? They did not at the moment connect His warning with any previous incident. "It is," said they, "because we have taken no bread." Their minds were on a very different level; they were engrossed with things of a very different kind from any which were troubling Christ, and naturally they regarded His words from their own point of view, and interpreted His teaching through their own state of mind and feeling. "Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees, and of the leaven of the Sadducees." Both Pharisee and Sadducee had lost the earnestness and sincerity which are essential to a true life; and our Lord warns His disciples against their hypocrisy, their insincerity, their shallow and outside religion, their inward contempt of all that was really good and worthy in religion and in human life. What is chiefly wanted to render religious teaching intelligible and valuable, is this spirit of sympathy between those who speak and those who hear. For want of this, much that would otherwise be plain is misunderstood altogether. Indeed you find often that it is not words, but thoughts and things, which are strange to men who do not enter into the spirit of them. There are numerous hindrances, perhaps, in our own life and in its general spirit to the reception of Christian teaching and the power of it. The impression which I wish to convey by all I have said is principally this —

1. That we are to look for the great evidence of all religion in the religion itself. Believe that the light is its own best evidence, and that truth by its power on the human soul is enough.

2. And that sympathy with the Divine Teacher is required, in order to understand His teaching; and that this sympathy is best produced and kept strong by making the whole tone and spirit of His life the familiar tone and spirit of our own lives, and by taking to heart more than ever the great facts which are so prominent in the life and spirit of Jesus Christ.

(A. Watson.)

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KJV: And others, tempting him, sought of him a sign from heaven.

WEB: Others, testing him, sought from him a sign from heaven.