In those days came John the Baptist
preaching in the wilderness of Judea, and saying, Repent ye,
for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. For this is he that
was spoken of by the prophet Isaiah, saying, The voice of
one crying in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord,
and make his path straight. And the same John had his raiment
of camel's hair and a leathern girdle about his loins, and his
meat was locusts and wild honey. Then went out to him Jerusalem,
and all Judea, and all the region round about Jordan, and were
baptized of him in Jordan, confessing their sins. But when he saw many of the Pharisees
and Sadducees come to his baptism, he said unto them, O generation
of vipers, Who has warned you to flee from the wrath to come?
Bring forth therefore fruits, meat for repentance. And think
not to say within yourselves, we have Abraham to our father,
for I say unto you that God is able of these stones to raise
up children unto Abraham. And now also the ax is laid unto
the root of the trees. Therefore every tree which bringeth
not forth good fruit is hewn down and cast into the fire.
I indeed baptize you with water unto repentance. But he that
cometh after me is mightier than I, whose shoes I am not worthy
to bear. He shall baptize you with the
Holy Ghost and with fire, whose fan is in his hand, and he will
thoroughly purge his floor and gather his wheat into the garner.
But he will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire. If you
remember last Sunday night we looked at Isaiah and in our Isaiah
study we saw how the Lord spoke of his threshing floor and his
corn. And this is the same event that
John is talking about here. The Lord is going to gather The
chief, the chaff and the wheat together, but he's gonna, there's
gonna be a threshing. There's gonna be a separation. The Lord Jesus Christ said of
John the Baptist in John 535, he was a burning and a shining
light. And you were willing for a season
to rejoice in his light. A burning and a shining light. The Lord said of him in Matthew
11 11, Verily I say unto you, among them that are born of women,
there hath not risen a greater than John the Baptist. Notwithstanding,
he that is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he. What was great about John the
Baptist? What makes men great? We know
We have a pretty good idea in the estimation of this world
what's counted as greatness. But what about John? He was just
out in the wilderness eating locusts and wild honey. He never led any kind of cause. You know, people are counted
great that lead some kind of great humanitarian effort perhaps. or maybe is instrumental in building
a great empire of some kind. John never did that. He never
built anything, best we can tell. Was he a man of great political
power and authority? Nah. A great military leader? People can distinguish themselves
in service to their country. That wasn't John. Think of the men that this world
has considered great and why. And not a single one of them
seems to apply to John the Baptist. And yet our Lord said he's the
greatest. The greatest man ever born of
a woman. Well, what did John do? He didn't build anything
or lead anything particularly or champion any kind of human cause
of any kind. What did he do? Well, verse 1
there says he came preaching. He came preaching. The greatest thing that any person
can ever do is to bear witness to the light. Turn to John chapter
1. Here's what John did do. This
is why our Lord describes him as a great man. Our Lord didn't
do a whole lot of that. He didn't go around bragging
on men a whole lot, did he? John 1, 1, In the beginning was
the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning
with God, And all things were made by Him. You begin to get
a sense here of who John's talking about here. He's talking about God that created
everything and everybody. Without Him was not anything
made. That was made. You can't find
a single thing or a single person that Christ didn't come from
him. He made him. If somebody is a
blessing to you, if something is a blessing to you, you have
to thank him. It came from him. He made it. And in him was life. That's our
text from this morning, isn't it? In him. God hath given us
eternal life. That's the record of God's book. And this life is in his Son.
In him was life. Still is. And the life was the
light of men, and the light shineth in darkness. And the darkness
comprehended it not. What did it say about John and,
or, yeah, John the Baptist in John 5, 35? He was a burning
and shining light. Why? Because he bore witness
of the light. In Christ is light. The light shineth in darkness,
verse 5, and the darkness comprehended it might not. And there was a
man sent from God, whose name was John. The greatest man, according
to the Lord, that ever lived. Well, what in the world did he
do? He must have been something. What did he do? Well, he came
for a witness. To bear witness of the light. that all men through him might
believe. He was not that light. But he was sent to bear witness
of that light. He was a burning and a shining
light. Yes, but he wasn't the light. He just reflected the
light. He bore witness of the life. What is a great man? Well, Christ
is the great man. And greatness in this world is bearing witness of Him. There is no higher calling This was Paul's aspiration. I'm
a servant of Jesus Christ. I just want to be his servant.
I just want to be a bond slave of Christ. What does the Master
want us to do? Go and preach. John came preaching. He came preaching. Christ is called the Word. And
John, it's called the voice. A voice crying in the wilderness.
That's what he said himself, just a voice crying in the wilderness.
There's the word and then there's a voice by God's grace. John is the one speaking and
Christ is the one spoken. And this is how it must be with
us. John is called the forerunner of Christ. Why is that? Malachi
3.1, Behold, I will send my messenger, and he shall prepare the way
before me. And the Lord whom ye seek shall
suddenly come to his temple, even the messenger of the covenant.
There's a messenger sent before, but then the messenger comes,
whom ye delight in. Behold, he shall come, saith
the Lord of hosts. But first, there's a forerunner.
And this is God's manner of revealing himself to sinners. Before God
spoke in the book of Job, if you remember the book of Job,
Job suffered greatly. Even before that, the Lord spoke
of Job and said how he's a man that loves me. Serves me. He's an upright man. Fears me and hates evil. And
of course, Satan inquired about him and was allowed by God to
cause Job great suffering. And then Job's friends came or
called his friends, but they weren't the best of friends. Because when Job began to suffer,
they began to accuse him. They began to look down on him.
They had all these conversations throughout the book of Job and
then God spoke. But before he did, he sent a
messenger, didn't he? Not one of Job's three friends,
he sent Elihu. Elihu came and spoke to those
four men, Job and his three friends. If you compare the language of
Elihu In the latter chapters of the book of Job, compare what
Elihu said with what God said when God Himself spoke, and you'll
find exactly the same message. Exactly the same message. But
before God spoke, He sent Elihu first. Why is this important? Because God's still doing this. If God is going to speak to you,
to your heart, He's going to send a man. He's going to send
a messenger. His preachers are his forerunners.
And when I say preachers, you know, that's not talking about
an ordained pastor. If you're the man of your house,
you're the preacher of your house. You are God's spokesman in your
house, ordained of God as the authority of your home. And women
can do some preaching, too, in that sense. They don't usurp the authority
over the man, as the scripture says. There's a little preaching
done by mamas, too. And there's not a thing in the
world wrong with that. But he sent Elihu and he sends his men
as forerunners, preparing the way for him to come. And what
does he do when he comes? He saves. A preacher can't save. He can talk about who does, though.
He can point to the one who does. John said, there's God's Lamb
that takes sin away. And then, after his messenger
had come and done that, The lamb came and took sin away. Is that
what he did? He said, that sins be forgiven
thee. And so he's still doing the same
thing. If Christ himself is going to come and visit you, he will
send a preacher your way first. A spokesman, a witness, a witness,
a witness. He came to bear witness of that
light. And he'll come preaching, he'll come declaring what? The
light. the light which clearly from John chapter
1 is a person not a concept the light is a person Isaiah called
John the voice of one crying in the wilderness verse 3 we
saw that the prophecy of Isaiah concerning him a voice crying
in the wilderness and in verse 1 it says he preached in the
wilderness of Judea the word means desert or uninhabited place
Now John apparently stayed outside the main cities a ways to preach
and that's what this is referring to. He didn't come into the big
cities. He stayed out somewhat outside
of the cities. But wherever he preached there
were crowds of people. He wasn't just out in the trees
babbling. All of the cities came out it
says. It talks about whole cities coming
out. to be baptized of him. God used him in a very great
and powerful way. But the spiritual fulfillment
of the prophecy of him being a voice crying in the wilderness
is that he could have been standing right in the middle of town and
still been preaching in a desert. A spiritual desert. There hadn't
been a prophet of God in this world for 350 years before John
came preaching. And you know what a wilderness
this world is now. Anybody that speaks for God is
a voice crying, sure enough, in the wilderness, the desert,
a dry place. There's no water in this world.
No water. John never preached in the synagogues.
He would have been unwelcome there. They despised Christ. They rejected him. He offended
them. He was not what they were looking
for. He would have been out of place
there and so would we. They had no use for him in the
established halls of religion. Still don't. Still don't. They're not going to ask me to
come preach at the people's church anytime soon. And you know what? I don't want to. I don't want
to go there. I'd be out of place there. And
when those came out that were hypocrites, you say, oh, well,
Chris, that'd be such a great opportunity. No. That's not how
it works, my friend. When the hypocrites came out
there, he said, who warned you? Who told you to come out here? You don't care anything about
the one I'm preaching. Go away. The world's religion is today
just like in John's day. Just like in John's day. Well, what did this voice say?
What was the first thing he said? Repent. Repent. We talked about that this morning.
His message was simple and straightforward. It came in the form of a command.
The gospel's not a suggestion. It's not really an invitation.
I know religion likes to characterize it that way, but the gospel's
not an invitation. An invitation is when you send
somebody an invite to maybe come over for dinner and And maybe
they say, well, I can't come that day. Well, that's all right,
we'll do it another time. That's not the gospel. The gospel is
you come now or perish. Or perish. Doesn't sound like
an invitation to me. I've never liked that characterization
of it. God doesn't invite sinners to come. He commandeth sinners
everywhere to repent. That's what the scripture says.
And that's what he does now. This is the gospel message. What
does repent mean? You know, it's interesting because
people who have certain doctrine that they try to get the Bible
to sort of transform it, to try to transform the Bible to their
way of thinking, you know, would never define repentance this
way. But if you look up the word in the scripture, you know what
it means? Change your mind. Change your mind. Just change
your mind. But here's the thing, change
your mind about what? Changing your mind about whether
you want to eat at McDonald's or Taco Bell is one thing, but
changing your mind about God, you're not going to do that without
grace. You were born hating God, and you're going to die hating
God unless God gives you repentance to the acknowledging of the truth.
You're not going to change your mind. Believe what? Change your
mind about what? About the light. Not a what,
but a whom. We talked about how believing
and repentance are two aspects really of the same act. Because
in order to believe what you did not before, you've got to
change your mind about what you did believe before. That's the
only way it happens. To go somewhere, you got to leave
somewhere. Well, faith is going to Christ.
Repentance is leaving you, leaving your works, leaving your way,
leaving your will, and going to Him. It's the same act, faith
and repentance. That's why they're used interchangeably
when God's messengers preach the gospel in this book. He didn't
forget something when He didn't say, believe on the Lord Jesus
Christ. He said repent, which is the same thing. Change your
mind. You're going to have to embrace
who you hate and abandon who you love, which is you. It's a person. You've got to
change your mind about him. You must repent of your thoughts
concerning your need of Christ. That is your sins. Your sins
are why you need him. You must have him. He's a necessity. And you must believe what God
says about that. We think by nature that we measure
up pretty good before God, but we think wrong. And thinking
right is a change of mind. We justify our evil, and we exaggerate
what we think is good about ourselves. The gospel message says there
is none good. No, not you. Not one. not anybody, and sets forth Christ's
righteousness as the only righteousness whereby a man must be saved.
By the deeds of the law, you're not going to be justified. No
flesh is going to be justified in the sight of God. Nothing
you do can make you acceptable to God. You must repent of your thoughts
concerning Christ himself, who he is, because most people think
that he's just some kind of a heavenly friend that's up there to bless
you on your way. That when you don't need him,
you know, you can go on with your life, but when you need
something, you can call on him. Some kind of lucky charm or something.
We think by nature that he was a good man, a good example, a
martyr indeed, and all that, but he came here and did his
best and, you know, left, really left things up to us. He showed
us the way But it's up to us to take it. The gospel message
declares a very different person. Christ doesn't show sinners the
way. Christ is the way. He is the way. He is the victorious
redeemer of a people. He didn't come down here to give
us an example of what to do. He came down here to do what
we couldn't do. Which is please God. What the
law could not do in that it was weak through your flesh. God
sent his son down here to do it. To do it for you. Not show
you how to do it. Not give you a hand up. To do
it for you. That's what substitution is.
You come out of the game and he goes in. He is the victorious redeemer
of a people. He died for a people and every
last one of them is saved. Every one of them. He came down
here and accomplished exactly what he came to accomplish. He
said, I came to do the will of my father and this is the will
of him that sent me. Of all those that he's given
me, I'll lose nothing. But I'll raise it up again at
the last day. He is the conquering Savior. He's the Lamb of God
that takes sin away. That was John's witness. He's
the conquering Savior of his people, spiritual Israel. He
is the representative righteousness of those whom he represents.
As in Adam all died, so in Christ all are made alive. Well, wait
a minute. Does that mean everybody that
died in Adam are all made alive? Everybody's going to heaven and
we'll just have a big old time? No. As in Adam, all died. Everybody Adam represented died
in Adam. So in Christ, all whom he represented
are made alive. Not every sinner. Everyone for
which Christ was federal head and representative as Adam was
of the whole race. To repent of what we once thought
is to believe what God says. You must take off your filthy
rags as Bartimaeus pictured when he left his rags laying there
and followed Christ. You've got to take the fig leaf
off before God will clothe you with the coats of skins. You
must be emptied of self before you can be filled with God's
grace. Our thoughts are not His thoughts, and so we must abandon
ours and believe His. No matter what He says, no matter
how painful, no matter in what bad a light it casts us, no matter
how wrong it sounds to this flesh, when the Lord speaks, our response
is this, truth, Lord, truth. That's repentance. You done changed
your mind when you come to that place. Because I'll tell you
this, that doesn't come naturally, does it? You ever try to inject
a little truth into something, into a situation? People are
arguing, people are talking about something, and you quote a scripture,
and you don't give chapter and verse, you don't say, well this
is, you know, Mark 14, whatever. You just say something that God
said. And you talk about stirring up a hornet's nest. Have you
ever done that? Just stir up a hornet's nest.
Just try to tell the truth of God. in a situation like that,
see what happens. Oh, you talk about making people
mad. When you come to the place where
whatever he says, your response is truth. God has given you repentance. Got to leave our works behind. Cast them off of us, our decisions,
our thoughts, our religion, our best thoughts in our mind. The songwriter said, just as
I am, without one plea, but that thy blood was shed for me, and
that thou bidst me come to thee. O Lamb of God, I'm coming. Just like I am. How else are
you going to come? Are you going to clean up first? Forget about
it. Don't forget about it. John's message. You know, he
came preaching the kingdom of heaven. We've talked about that
several times through our studies in John and Matthew. What's a kingdom? Why is it called
the kingdom of heaven? Why not just the society of heaven?
Just heaven, the kingdom of heaven. Because here's the thing, in
a kingdom, there's one person who calls all the shots. There's
one person whose word is law. I mean, there's no constitution
in a kingdom. There's no checks and balances. There's one man, and what he
says goes. And everybody pledges allegiance
to him. If you're not in allegiance to the king, if you're not willing
to do his bidding, if you're not willing to bow at his throne
and serve him with all your heart, then go live somewhere else.
That's the way a kingdom works. No wonder this is called the
kingdom of God, because Christ is the king, the sovereign Christ
who does as he pleases, and when he speaks, it's done. You know, his angels are much
better servants than we are in the sense that when he speaks,
it's done. That's the way it ought to be
with us. If we could get past our wretchedness, our sin, that
evil nature that Paul spoke of when he said that, I want to,
but I can't. Then that's the way it would
be, whatever he said. He does as he pleases, when he
pleases, with whom he pleases. That's what a king is. He preached
in the book of John, John 5.21, I give life to whomsoever I will. He's the king of life, the king
of mercy. He said I'll have mercy on whom
I'll have mercy. That was Christ speaking to Moses. We saw what Paul said in Romans
14, 7, the kingdom of God is not meat and drink. The kingdom
of God is righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Ghost. The
kingdom of God doesn't consist of those who eat the right things
and those who do only certain things and don't do other things. They don't eat the wrong things.
It's not about meat and drink and keeping days and keeping
ceremonies and doing weird religious things that people think are
honoring to God somehow. It consists of those who have
peace with God. It consists of those who are
righteous in the sight of God, not by the deeds of the law,
because you can't be justified that way, but through the faithfulness
of Christ. By the righteousness of Christ,
it's righteousness, peace, and joy It's those who are righteous
in Christ, it's those who have peace with God through Christ,
and it's those who rejoice in Christ. You see a theme there?
It's all Christ. Paul said in Philippians 3, 3,
we are the circumcision, in other words, the covenant people of
God, that was the sign of the covenant, which worship God in
the spirit and rejoice in Christ Jesus. Paul said the kingdom of God
is joy in the Holy Ghost. Joy, what joy? We rejoice in
Christ Jesus, that's what. And have no confidence in our
flesh. We don't rejoice in anything
we do. God forbid that we glory in anything but Christ and Him
crucified. When John preached repentance,
look at verse 6 of our text, Matthew 3, 6. They were baptized of him in
Jordan, confessing their sins. Confessing their sins. When John, it just says John
preached repentance, so how do you know that it's what I said
it was? That we're repenting of our sin,
that we're repenting of all of our own thoughts, all of our
own will, all of our own way, all of our own works. Well, from
verse six, they were baptized of John, Who preached repentance
and what they did confess their sins? Pretty sure that doesn't
mean that they were cataloging all of the bad things that they
did while John was baptizing them What he's saying there is
baptism is a confession of sin Baptism water baptism is a confession
It's saying to the whole world to everybody that's interested
that whoever wants to show up and watch it to witness it You're
saying to them My only hope. I give up on trying my best.
I'm not going to turn over a new leaf anymore. I quit doing that.
I'm going to abandon all my works. I've made all the decisions I
want to make for God. Done with that. Too late for
that. Can't help me. Here's my hope. That Christ died, was buried, and rose again. And I die in Him, the old me,
and am raised unto newness of life in Christ. My hope is Christ. That's what that ordinance is
about, and this ordinance is about exactly the same thing.
My hope is... I'm not gonna... I'm heavy, laden, and burdened. trying to carry a burden that
I can't bear. And what I'm about to do is lay
that thing down and grab hold of him. I'm gonna lay it down
and embrace the one who's able to carry it, who did carry it
to Calvary and did away with it. Confession of sin Confession of sin baptism is
a picture of that is that it's a picture of Christ in him crucified
and you Dying and living in him It is a confession of sin and
that happened when he preached Christ repentance When did Job
say you remember what Job said he confessed his sin sure enough
didn't he said behold I am a That's how you confess your sin. You
don't say, well, I've done some bad things in my life. No. I am vile. The things I've done
are not my problem. I am my problem. Behold, I am
vile. I abhor myself. This is still
Job talking. I'm vile and I abhor myself and
repent in dust and ashes. That's what repentance sounds
like. You know when he said that? Right after, that was Job 42.6
that I just read. You know what Job 42.5 says? I've heard of you by the hearing
of the ear, but now I see you. John came bearing witness of
the light. He came preaching Christ. And
sinners were able by the grace of God, through faith given by
God, they were able to see the Son of God. And they were able
to believe on Him to the saving of the soul, seeing that His
precious blood is sufficient to take all my sins away. And here in the promise of God,
that if I come and confess my wretchedness, He is faithful
and just to forgive. Christ is able. He said to that
man, your sins are forgiving you. And he said, here's why
I'm saying that. Nobody expected me to say that.
You thought I was gonna say rise and walk. I'm fixin' to say that
too. But I said what I did so that
you would know. That if I want to forgive your sins, I can do
it. Do we know that? By the grace of God, I pray.
I've got a lot more than that, but I'm going to quit right there.
I pray that God would reveal to us, through the witness of
the gospel, that Christ is able, if he's pleased to do so, to just say the word only, and
your sins are forgiven. Every problem that you have can be washed away. Washed away in his precious blood.