When people needed saving, Jesus would save; but when people wanted a show, Jesus was less than enthusiastic. Jesus tells the crowds, "This generation is an evil generation. It seeks for a sign, but no sign will be given to it except the sign of Jonah. For as Jonah became a sign to the people of Nineveh, so will the Son of Man be to this generation." (Lk 11:29-30 ESV) This has to be my favorite prophecy/allusion to Christ rising from the grave.
Jesus then tells his audience that they would be condemned by the city of Nineveh and the Queen of the South at the Judgment. Most Jews probably thought that Nineveh & the Queen of the South owed their lives and salvation to Jonah, Solomon and all of the other children of Abraham. To hear that these foreign gentiles would condemn them would be a pretty big insult indeed.
Why would the generation be condemned? Because they saw the power of Jesus and ignored it! Because they heard the wisdom of Jesus and ignored it! The Queen & Nineveh didn't ignore what God sent to them.
The phrase I usually think of in this story is, "They should have known better!" That's the same phrase I use with myself when I sin today, "I should have known better."
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