Luke chapter three. We're looking at when Christ prepares the sinner, when he prepares the sinner. Verse three tells us, and John the Baptist came into all the country about Jordan, preaching the baptism of repentance for the remission of sins, as it is written in the book of the words of Isaiah the prophet, saying, the voice of one crying in the wilderness, prepare ye the way of the Lord, make his paths straight. Every valley shall be filled and every mountain and hill shall be brought low and the crooked shall be made straight and the rough ways shall be made smooth and all flesh shall see the salvation of God. We ask our Lord to give us grace to hear and understand for Christ's sake.

John was sent of the Lord to prepare a people for the Lord. Now, it's the Lord who prepares. John was sent to preach Christ, it's the Lord who prepares. Scripture says, the preparations of the heart in man and the answer of the tongue is from the Lord. He blesses the word and he shods our feet with the preparation of the gospel. But when the Lord does this, there's some leveling done. There's some bulldozer work being done to show us our sin, to show us our need for Christ.

Now we know John the Baptist was sent and he preached Christ. He was sent from God and he came to bear witness of the light, Christ Jesus. He was not the light, he was sent to bear witness of the light and he plainly preached Christ. And when the Lord sends the preacher preaching Christ and he begins to work and prepare his child and save his child, quicken his child, there's some things the Lord teaches us. First of all, we have to be made to see that we do not know Christ. We have to be made to know we haven't heard the gospel. He says to them there in verse seven, then said he to the multitude that came forth to be baptized of him, O generation of vipers, who hath warned you to flee from the wrath to come? This was the Pharisees and the Sadducees and they didn't know the Lord. They had not heard the gospel preached. They didn't know the Lord. They didn't see him in the ceremonies. They didn't hear what the law said about him. They had not been warned in truth through the gospel to flee from the wrath to come. They didn't like each other, but the one thing they did unite over was they had a common enemy, the Lord Jesus. They were religious, but they were lost.

When we're lost, and especially if a man is religious and lost, we think we have, we think we're an authority on the word of God. We think we know the word of God, and like Paul said in Romans 2 of the Pharisees, you think you're an instructor of the foolish. But the Lord has to make us to know we have not heard the gospel. He said, how shall they call on him of whom they have not heard? How shall they hear without a preacher? Christ sends his preacher. Why did he call them a generation of vipers? Well, by nature, that's what we are. By nature, by our first birth in sin. When a man's trust in his will, when he thinks he's good, when he thinks that God will receive him because he's moral and a good neighbor and that that's all there is to it, Paul said, he said, their throat is an open sepulcher, with their tongue they've used to see the poison of asps is under their lips, the poison of snakes. And that's, even when a man calls himself Christ, but he's worshiping another Jesus through another gospel, and he's bearing witness of that other Jesus, That's a man whose mouth's full of cursing and bitterness. His feet are swift to shed blood, running to try to convert folks. He's really shedding blood. We saw that Thursday night in Isaiah. He said, you're slaughtering the children from the clefts of the rocks. They literally were doing that, offering their children, but really preaching a false gospel to a child and convincing them of a false gospel, It is murder. It really is.

Salvation begins by the Lord making us have the same heart the Pharisee had. He wouldn't look up to God. He looked down. He smote upon his breast and he begged God, have mercy on me, the sinner. He didn't have to have somebody teach him to pray that. He didn't have to have somebody help him pray through like false religion does. The Lord taught him that. And in spirit, he begged God, have mercy on me, the sinner. And we're not used to be sinners. Paul in the end said, Christ came to save sinners of whom I am chief. He keeps you knowing you're the sinner and Christ is the savior.

Now, the second thing I see here is we have to be made to see that our religion and our family relations and in everything that we have done in religion, none of that saves us. None of that saves us. None of that contributes to our salvation. He says here in verse eight, bring forth therefore fruits worthy of repentance and begin not to say within yourself, we have Abraham to our father. For I say unto you that God's able of these stones to raise up children unto Abraham. This is the fact of it. Until God quickens a man and teaches us and makes us behold Christ, we think that we bring forth the fruits worthy of repentance. We think we produce those fruits. That's what we think by nature. But they're fruits of righteousness which are by Jesus Christ unto the praise and glory of God. He produces the fruit. He produces faith. He produces repentance. He produces love. He produces long-suffering and joy. And all these are in Christ, long-suffering. And he tempers our flesh. He's the only one that can subdue our old nature. All the fruit is of the Lord.

The fruit that Christ produces in a man makes him stop looking at his fruit. That's so, the fruit Christ produces in a man makes him stop looking at his fruit, even when it's the true fruit of the Lord. He makes you stop looking at your fruit and he makes you look to Christ alone. God alone quickens, God alone draws us to Christ, God alone produces the fruit. When a lost man will look to religion, he'll look to his heritage, who his mom and his father was, he looked to his works. And this is what the Lord has to teach us all. This is what he has to teach every one of his children. That's not how we're saved. None of that, none of that. He said, don't say within yourselves we have Abraham'd our father. God's able of these stones to raise up children unto Abraham.

They thought they were God's elect because they were born in Israel, Because Abraham was their father after the flesh, they thought that made them the elect. We've seen clearly, Romans 9, they're not all Israel which are of Israel. That didn't make anybody God's elect. God's grace makes his people his elect. When he said God's able of these stones to raise up children under Abraham, that's what the Lord does when he when he raises us up, because our heart is an adamant stone, scripture said. We have hearts of stone. He has to give us a new heart and faith to behold our Lord Jesus. You know, being a natural son of Abraham, a natural son of Abraham, that didn't help anybody. That didn't make anybody an elect or a believer. That didn't do it. God the Father chose whom he would freely by grace in Christ. And the Lord makes you to know that so, and makes you know what a blessing of grace it is when he calls you. It's all by his righteousness alone, by his holiness alone.

And men really do put confidence in, you know, who their mother and father was, My grandfather was a sovereign grace preacher. That don't help me. That don't make me God's elect. That don't make me a believer, because he was. Men put confidence in the fact that they're Baptist or Methodist or Catholic or Buddhist or whatever. None of that matters. None of that makes you God's child.

Look at Paul over there in Philippians 3. You know, people will take up a baby, and they'll sprinkle water on them, and they'll make that child grow up hearing how they were baptized as an infant, and that child will put confidence in that. Well, for one, infant baptism's not in scripture, because it's for believers, but two, baptism's not the New Testament equivalent of circumcision. is confessing we died in Christ and we rose in Christ, we're saved by Christ. Circumcision pictures God giving a new heart. But even if baptism was the New Testament equivalent, we still don't put confidence in baptism.

Look at Paul here. He said, verse three, we're the circumcision, Philippians 3.3, we're the circumcision which worship God in the spirit and rejoice in Christ Jesus, and have no confidence in the flesh. He said, if any man thinks he has confidence in his flesh, he said, I have more, I have more reason. He said, I was circumcised the eighth day. See, he didn't look at that, though. Look at there. Of the stock of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of the Hebrews, as touching the law of Pharisee, concerning zeal, persecuting the church, touching the righteousness which is in the law, blameless, but that what things were gained to me, those I counted lost for Christ. They doubtless I count all things lost for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I've suffered the loss of all things, and I do count them but dung, that I might win Christ. I want to be found in him, not having mine own righteousness which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith.

So the Lord has to, make us know we've not heard the gospel. We don't know Christ. He has to make us see none of our religious heritage or any of our religious works. That didn't make us Christ. It didn't make us righteous, didn't make us belong to him. And then we have to be made to know that our sin is in our nature. We have to be made to know it's not only the acts we commit, it's in our nature.

He says here in verse nine, and now also the ax is laid unto the root of the trees. Every tree therefore which bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down and cast into the fire. The root in every believer is the heart, and we have to be made to know the ax has to be laid to the root to the heart and we have to be made to know not only is sin in our acts, sin is what our nature is. The heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked, who can know it? Until the Lord makes us know it, we can't even know our own sinful nature. We can't, that's how deceitful our nature is. We can't know it until God makes us know it. God said, within out of the heart proceeds evil, evil thoughts, and that's enough to condemn us. But it's the heart, it's the nature, and God has to give you a new spirit. Paul, as he grew as a believer, he continued to say, oh wretched man that I am. And this is one way the Lord keeps you knowing he's the only one that delivers you. He said, who's gonna deliver me from the body that's dead? I thank God through Jesus Christ the Lord. He's the only one and God keeps you knowing that.

The spirit of God is the only one who can give a man a new heart. It's truly the Lord Jesus Christ himself in spirit coming to dwell in his child. That's how we're made new. That's how we're given a new spirit and a new heart. And it's not because It's not something our mother and our father did for us by their will. It's not something that any other man did. It's not by our blood relation. It's not by our own will.

John said those that were born were born not of blood. They didn't have a thing to do with their blood relations, earthly relations. Not of the will of the flesh. It wasn't mother or father that did something or the preacher or the priest that did something. And not by the will of man. It wasn't their own will. But they were born of God. Born of God.

John said, a man can receive nothing except it be given him from above. Isn't that so, brethren? This is what stops us from glorying. Like Paul told the Corinthians, what do you have that you didn't receive? Everything we're given, we're given from God above. So he's the only one that made you to differ was him, his grace, his presence in your heart, his righteousness, Christ alone. So we don't have any reason to glory as if it wasn't all freely given to us. He gave it all to us. That's the only thing that saved us.

I want to really look at this. I want you to see this right here. Go with me to Luke 6. It's only when the Lord, by the Spirit, binds the devil. He binds the strong man, because Christ is stronger than he. And he, in his Spirit, enters in and gives you a new heart. He makes the tree good. He gives you a new heart. He makes the tree good. And that's when we start speaking right things concerning Christ, concerning His glory, concerning righteousness and holiness being all of Him and not of us.

And brethren, this is a verse, I'm gonna show you two passages. And men will use these passages in a legal nature to, when they're examining the fruit in somebody else and condemning somebody else for not bearing fruit, when these verses are directed by our Lord directly to the Pharisees who had that same legal spirit, and he was speaking of them needing a new heart so they would speak right things and preach right things and bear witness of Christ alone as being all salvation. That's what he's telling them.

Look here. Luke 6.41, he said, Why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye, but perceivest not the beam that is in thine own eye? Either how canst thou say to thy brother, Brother, let me pull out the mote that is in thine eye, when thou thyself beholdest not the beam that is in thine own eye? Thou hypocrite, cast out first the beam out of thine own eye, and then shalt thou see clearly to put out the mote that is in thy brother's eye. For a good tree bringeth not forth corrupt fruit, neither does a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit.

See, he's saying, if he's made the tree good, you're gonna see your own sin. and you're gonna know you have sin, so you're not examining the fruit in your brother. And when you really have, when he's removed that splinter or that beam out of your eye, and you see Christ alone did it, that's when, rather than you trying to take the splinter out of your brother's eye, you'll speak about Christ to him. You'll point him to Christ, who alone removes it from his people.

Go to Matthew 12. Now here's where it's really clear that the Lord was condemning the Pharisees for not speaking right about Christ and depending and trusting Christ alone to save. Look here, Matthew 12, 32. We're looking at how the Lord has to make the tree good. When he makes the heart good, by him dwelling in the heart, then you're gonna speak the gospel and give Christ all the glory.

Matthew 12, 32. Whosoever speaketh a word against the Son of Man, it should be forgiven him. But whosoever speaketh against the Holy Ghost, it shall not be forgiven him, neither in this world, neither in the world to come. He's saying that, he just said, he has to bind the strong man and create a new heart. And when a man denies the word of God given by the Spirit, where it denies that it's all of Christ, If you forsake the gospel and forsake Christ, there's no other sacrifice for sin, there's no other salvation. So that won't be forgiven.

Now look what he says, either make the tree good and its fruit good, or else make the tree corrupt and its fruit corrupt, for the tree is known by its fruit. O generation of vipers, how can ye, being evil, speak good things? He's not talking here about works. He's talking about not confessing you're the sinner, and Christ alone is the Savior, and not speaking the gospel to men, but speaking a false gospel and preaching works to men. He says, How can you speak good things? For out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaketh. A good man, out of the good treasure of the heart, bringeth forth good things. And an evil man, out of the evil treasure, bringeth forth evil things. But I say unto you, that every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give account thereof in the day of judgment. For by thy words thou shalt be justified, and by thy words thou shalt be condemned.

You know, there's a place in the scripture where the Lord says, don't bring the Lord's sacrifices. He says, take with you words and go to him and confess your sin and ask God for mercy. That's the good thing he brings out of the heart he gives. And then from then on, he said, you're my witnesses. You're going to bear witness of him and his works and declare he's all salvation. That's what he produces when he makes When he lays the ax to the root, the heart, and makes you see you depraved in your very nature and gives you a new heart, you're gonna speak of his glory and give him the glory.

He said this, and this is something to remember too about this thing of him producing fruit. One of the fruits that Christ produces is you stop examining the fruit in others. He makes you to stop being a fruit inspector by making you know you have enough sin of your own. You need Christ yourself. And here's what he makes you to know. The Lord gives to each of his people, Ephesians 4 says, we're given grace according to the measure of the gift of Christ. He doesn't give every one of his children the same measure He doesn't, we don't come forth all having all fruit at once. And even when he produces fruit in his children, we don't all have the same fruit. We don't all discern everything the same. It's given in measure by Christ. That's to keep us all knowing he's the giver. And then we depend on him for one another, reminding one another of that.

And he said this, he that receives seed into the good ground is he that heareth the word and understandeth which also beareth fruit and bringeth forth some a hundredfold, some 60, some 30. Not everybody's gonna have the same fruit. So the Lord turns you to him from examining each other and inspecting one another's fruit and makes you depend on him to produce your fruit. and give him the glory.

So he does this by laying the ax to the root, to the heart. Remember in Romans 11, he said, if the root is holy, who's the root? Christ is. He's the offspring of David in that he came through the flesh, but he's the root of David in that David was righteous and holy only in Christ. He's David's Lord. And he said, and if the root's holy, if Christ is holy, then the tree will be holy, his people will be holy.

But it's, here's what the truth is. We're trees of righteousness, the planting of the Lord, that he might be glorified. Isn't that right? We're not glorying in any of this. And that's really what, with this thing of examining another's fruit and being critical of another, what that really is, is a man glorying in self, glorying in self. Why do you, Why would you do that when you know everything was given to me of the Lord? I didn't create this fruit. He did it. To the praise and glory of God, Paul said.

All right, fourthly, lastly. The fruit Christ produces is faith and love. This is the fruit. We behold Christ has done everything to save us and we believe on him. And because we behold this now, The motive of our heart and everything is the love of Christ, and that's what controls how we deal with each other, is the love of Christ toward us.

Verse 10, the people asked him, saying, what shall we do then? Luke 3, 10. What shall we do then? He answered and said to them, he that hath two coats, let him impart to him that hath none, and he that hath meat, let him do likewise. Now look at that, coats and meat. What do you have right there? You have righteousness and holiness. You have justification and you have life.

We didn't have a coat. We had no righteousness at all. We were the one without any coat of righteousness. And the Lord Jesus came and by his grace toward us, he became poor. that we through his poverty might be made rich. He laid down his life for his people and made us righteous in him, justified us in him. And then he comes and he's the bread of life. We didn't have life. And he's the meat, he's the life that he gives to us to make us alive and live and believe him. And he robes us in that righteousness.

Now when that, that's the faith he gives you to know that's what he did for you. And when that's the faith he gives you, you give him the glory like Isaiah. Isaiah said, I'll greatly rejoice in myself, no, in the Lord. My soul, my very most inner new man will be joyful in my God, for he hath clothed me with the garment of salvation. He's robed me in his righteousness. I'm glorying in him. And you'll know that because he's the life in you, the meat in you. He's the bread that gives you life to know him.

And so, when you see a brother, maybe he doesn't have a physical coat, or maybe he doesn't have bread, or he doesn't even have to be a brother. But you see a man without physical clothing or physical bread. But here's what you know that's the dire need of this man. is he needs Christ. He needs his righteousness and he needs him to be the life in him. So above everything, you're gonna give him the gospel. You're gonna preach Christ to him. You're gonna bear witness of Christ to him. And that's how you give him a coat. That's how you give him meat, the true meat.

And because Christ has done this for you in spirit and in truth, And you know that God that spared not his son, but delivered him up for you, will also with Christ freely give you all things that you need in this life, because you know he's provided you his son, so therefore you know he'll provide you every lesser thing. If that sinner needs a coat, you give him your coat. If he needs meat, you give him the meat. But above all, you're giving him the gospel, because that's what he needs more than anything.

Well, I don't know how to preach to, I don't know how to speak these things to a lost man. We've said this before, some of the greatest witnessing ever done, come see. We found him, come see. Tell him to come hear the gospel. Come here, come hear the gospel.

And when God, we see God did this for us, we see that we had a debt we owed and we couldn't pay it. We had a debt we owed to justice and we couldn't pay it, but Christ paid it all. And so when you see that and you know that if God had exacted of you what his law demands, you couldn't have paid him. You couldn't have given him. And if, you know, we're not only owed the law righteousness, that's what we should have done. But because we sin, we gotta die. We owed it more, far more. And Christ paid it all.

And when you know that, you'll stop exacting of men what they can't pay. Look at verse 12. Then came the publicans to be baptized and said to a master, what shall we do? He said unto them, exact no more than that which is appointed to you. They were sent by the Romans. They'd be Jews. They'd go from the Romans, working for the Romans, to their own kinsmen who were Jews. And the Romans would say, collect $2 from them for taxes. And they'd go to them and they'd tell their own kinsmen, you need to pay me $4. And they'd give two to the Romans and they'd keep two. See, that's the picture there is of a self-righteous man trying to exact from others and rob others and rob Christ of the glory that belongs to Christ, steal the glory that belongs to him.

He brings you to see he paid it all. He didn't exact more of you than you can pay, because you couldn't pay anything. He paid it all, and he made you rich. So you stop stealing his glory, and you stop robbing men, and you stop exacting of others, especially in terms of the gospel. You stop trying to extort out of men what they can't give God, and you preach Christ to them. And you physically don't rob men.

And the soldiers likewise demanded sin, and what shall we do? And he said to them, do violence to no man, neither accuse any falsely, and be content with your wages. What would happen if God accused us in truth? Oh, we wouldn't be able to stand. We wouldn't be able to stand. That's the hard thing. When somebody accuses you falsely, that's the difficult thing about it, is you know as a believer, maybe you have not done what they're accusing you falsely of, but you know, if the truth was known, I'm far worse than what they're accusing me of. I'm a wretched, vile sinner that has never done anything in true righteousness according as God sees righteousness. And if God accused me, I couldn't stand. That's knowing that Christ took all that accusation upon himself and bore it for us and put it away so God'll never charge us again. That's what makes you stop accusing men falsely.

See, I'm saying when he gives you a new heart, he produces these fruit and he makes you content. You know this, he said, let your conversation be without covetousness. He said, He said, be content with what you have. He said, I'll never leave you, I'll never forsake you. You know he's going to provide.

So you know, I don't have to be fearful of men. If the bank account's getting low and I know the creditor's waiting, I don't have to be fearful. I don't know how he's going to do it, but the Lord's going to do it. He's going to open the way. He's going to give me a second job or he's going to do something. but he's going to provide for you physically because he's already laid down his life for his people. He's not going to lose you. He's not going to let you be so distressed over physical meat and physical clothing and physical money that you lose sight of him. He's going to keep you right where the Psalms said, Lord, don't give me too much lest I forget you and don't let me fall into poverty lest I curse your name. He's going to keep you right where you need to be knowing you have all in him.

See, these are the things the Lord has to teach you. That's make you know you never heard Christ. He has to make you know none of your religious heritage, none of your religious works are gonna help you. He has to lay the root to the heart and makes us see our hearts corrupt. He has to give us a new heart. And then, by giving you faith in Christ and love, the love of Christ, he constrains you then to stop taking advantage of men Preach Christ to them and provide them whatever lesser thing they need. That's salvation. That's what a man been prepared by the Lord.

All right, let's pray. Thank you. Our Lord, we thank you. This is the thing we've been hearing this morning is what you've done for your people right here. We're so thankful to you. Lord, we didn't do anything. You did it all. Thank you for revealing your grace to us for revealing to us that you are our salvation. Lord, increase fruit in us, increase our faith and our love and every other fruit, Lord, and keep us knowing and praising and glowing only in you and make us useful. Make us used of your hand to bear witness of you and your works and provide whatever we can for one another and for our neighbor. Lord, thank you for grace. Thank you for free salvation in Christ. In his name we pray, amen.