Time after time Jesus speaks with certainty of the fact of coming Judgment of all men for their sins. Of those who will not listen Jesus says,

“Most assuredly I tell you, it will be more tolerable for the land of Sodom and Gomorrah in the day of judgment than for that city.”
Mtt 10:15

Jesus points out that men of ALL generations will stand before the Lord to answer for their sins, and that they will also see and comment on the answers of others.

Jesus points to the preaching of Jonah to the men of Nineveh

Jon 3:3 says that Nineveh “was an exceedingly great city,” and that it took three days to just to walk across it. The prophet Jonah with perhaps a bleached acid washed look to him, as it has been with other men through history who have been swallowed by “a great fish,” began his preaching.

“Jonah began to enter into the city a day’s journey, and he cried out, and said, “Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown!” ”
Jon 3:4

Then a strange thing happened.

“The people of Nineveh believed God;

“and they proclaimed a fast, and put on sackcloth, from the greatest of them even to the least of them.”
Jon 3:4

Even the king heard and fasted and prayed, Jon 3:6. The King proclaimed,

“8 … Yes, let them turn everyone from his evil way, and from the violence that is in his hands. 9 Who knows whether God will not turn and repent, and turn away from his fierce anger, so that we might not perish?”
Jon 3:8-9

Jesus then foretells what the men of Nineveh will do in the day of Judgment

“The men of Nineveh will stand up in the judgment with this generation, and will condemn it, for they repented at the preaching of Jonah; and behold, someone greater than Jonah is here.”
Mtt 12:41

This is prophecy which even some twenty-seven-hundred years later has not been fulfilled, yet! So it is pertinent to those Jews of the first century who were hearing these words of Jesus, and is also pertinent to you and I ! Knowing and believing these prophecies should change our behavior, and if we truly believe these things, it will change our behavior.

ALL of these things are prophetic statements

They are prophetic statements by the greatest prophet of all times. The prophet who was to be like Moses, Deut 18:15. His name is Jesus of Nazareth.

Believing what God says in prophecy does matter!

It is an ethical matter. We should seek to know what will happen. These things are of eternal importance to us all. As Paul says,

“Don’t despise prophesies.”
1Thes 5:20

It seems to be a common failing of fleshly men to despise what he cannot immediately see. However, if we are walking after the Spirit,

“Therefore we know no one after the flesh from now on. Even though we have known Christ after the flesh, yet now we know him so no more.”
2Cor 5:16

Scriptures are from the World English Bible (WEB), a copyright free revision of the original ASV American Standard Version 1901