Good morning. Glad everybody
can make it out. That is, everybody that didn't
make it out, glad you could make it out. And I pray our worship gathering
be a blessing for you. If you'll open your, don't have
to open your bones, we'll sing the hymn on the front, and we'll
stand as we sing. Jesus, how much thy name unfolds
to every hope and ear. The pardon sinner's memory holds
none other half so dear. Thy name encircles every grace
that God as man could show. There only could He fully trace
a life divine below. Jesus, it speaks a life of love,
of sorrows meekly borne. It tells of sympathy above, whatever
makes us mourn. Jesus, the one who knew no sin,
made sin to make us just. Thou gave thyself our love to
win, our full confiding trust. The mention of thy name shall
bow our hearts to worship thee. The chiefest of ten thousand
thou, the chief of sinners we. Arch, you may be seated and James
will read scripture for us. I will read from Psalm chapter
62, starting with verse one. Psalm 62, verse one. My soul finds rest in God alone.
My salvation comes from him. He alone is my rock and my salvation. He is my fortress, I will never
be shaken. How long will you assault a man?
Would all of you throw him down, this leaning wall, this tottering
fence? They fully intend to topple him from his lofty place. They
take the light in lies. With their mouths they bless,
but in their hearts they curse. Find rest, oh my soul, in God
alone. My hope comes from him. He alone
is my rock and my salvation. He is my fortress. I will not
be shaken. My salvation and my honor depend
on God. He is my mighty rock, my refuge.
Trust in him at all times, O people. Pour out your hearts to him,
for God is our refuge. Low-born men are but a breath.
The high-born are but a lie. If weighed on a balance, they
are nothing. Together they are only a breath. Do not trust in
extortion or take pride in stolen goods. Though your riches increase,
do not set your heart on them. One thing God has spoken, two
things I have heard, that you, O God, are strong and that you,
O Lord, are loving. Surely you will reward each person
according to what he has done. Let's seek the Lord's blessing. Our gracious Father, how good
it is to meet in the name of your Son and to hear about him
and to have our hearts strengthened and renewed in the knowledge
of his grace, of his work, of his love toward us. We rejoice, Lord, today that
you have not left us to ourselves. You have not done so much and
then said to us, the rest is up to you. But rather, you have
taken in hand the entirety of our soul's salvation. And we
certainly can find rest in you. Lord, we rest because there's nothing more
to do. What else could be added to your righteousness? What else
could be added to your sacrifice? What else could be added to your
intercession? We are beneficiaries, Lord, of
all your goodness done for us without cause, without any cause
other than your own will and purpose. Lord, we ask that this
morning, as the word is preached, that it would go forth with power
and touch the hearts of everyone who's met here. Lord, I have
no power to touch hearts, but you do. Lord, you can pick up and encourage and strengthen
us all. You can give spiritual life to
those who are yet dead in trespasses and sins. That is all within
your power, Lord, and we pray that you'd exercise that in our
behalf. May each of us have hearts that
are open toward your word, that we do not sit and listen and
agree with those things we already agree with and reject those things
that we presently may not agree with. But Lord, may we receive
all of your word as indeed your word and worthy of our acquiescence,
worthy of our faith. And Lord, why should we not?
You have never spoken a lie. Everything you have said is true,
and everything you have said is good for us. Lord, we pray
for our nation, and pray that you'd preserve its peace, and
most of all, that you'd preserve for us your people who live in
this nation, preserve for us the right to worship without
fear, and to be able to live our lives quietly and peacefully
as we worship you. We pray, Lord, for the people
of this congregation who are sick and ask that you would heal
them, that in your time your power would be exercised in their
behalf and they would soon regain strength and be able to be with
us. Lord, we pray for the young people
of this congregation you would enlighten their hearts and give
them the same faith that you have given to us, their parents
and grandparents. We pray, Lord, for those who
are in rest homes or assisted living. Lord, they're unable
to come and meet with us, and that is a burden to them. But
we pray that you would extend to them the same blessedness
you give to us as we have gathered in your name. We pray for other
churches as well, Lord, for all your churches throughout this
world. Lord, you have a people throughout the entire earth from
every kindred, tongue, tribe, and nation. Lord, you know those
who are yours. Protect them this day and speak
to them through faithful men. It is the name of our Lord Jesus
we pray, amen. All right, let's sing hymn number
400, Jesus, and shall it ever be, a mortal man ashamed of thee. Number 400, we'll remain seated.
? Jesus and shall it ever be ?
A mortal man ashamed of thee ? Ashamed of thee whom angels
praise ? Whose glory shine through endless days Ashamed of Jesus,
sooner far, let evening blush to own a star. He sheds the beams of my divine,
or this benighted soul Ashamed of Jesus, that dear friend,
hopes of heaven depend. No, when I blush, be this my
shame, that I no more revere his name. Ashamed of Jesus, yes I may,
when I've no guilt to wash away, no tear to wipe, no good to crave,
no fears to quell, no soul to save. Till then, nor is my boasting
vain. Till then, I boast a Savior slain. And may this my glory be, that
Christ is not ashamed of me. All right. Hymn number 483. 483.
Oh, I'm sorry. Number 195. But now you know
what the last song is. Put your bulletin in there and
you'll be able to turn right to it at the end of the service.
195, look and live. I've a message from the Lord,
Alleluia. The message unto you I'll give. It is recorded in His Word, Alleluia. It is only that you look and
live. Look and live, my brother, live. Look to Jesus now and live. It is recorded in his word, Alleluia. It is only that you look and
live. I've a message full of love. A message, O my friend, for you. Tis a message from above, Alleluia. Jesus said it, and I know tis
true. Look and live, my brother, live. Look to Jesus now and live. It is recorded in his word, alleluia. It is only that you look and
live. Life is offered unto you, Alleluia,
Eternal life thy soul shall have. ? If you'll only look to him,
hallelujah ? ? Look to Jesus, who alone can save ? ? Look to
him, my brother, live ? ? Look to Jesus now and live ? ? It
is recorded in his word, hallelujah ? ? It is only that you look
and live ? I will tell you how I came, Alleluia, to Jesus when
he made me whole. On his name, Alleluia, I trusted
and he saved my soul. Look and live, my brother, live. Look to Jesus now and live. As recorded in his word, hallelujah,
it is only that you look and live. So as a reference to one of my
favorite Old Testament illustrations of Christ and His salvation found
in the Old Testament when the Israelites were being bitten
by fiery serpents. Evidently their bite caused a
great deal of pain that felt like fire. They were dying. And
it was written that Moses was to make the image of a serpent
and put it on a pole. and put it up in front of the congregation of Israel and the
message went out, look and live. Look and live. And I thought
many times of how simple that message was. They didn't understand,
had to have to understand why looking would give them life
or sustain their life. And I am sure that there were
some who were so very far away from that image that was made,
they really couldn't make out many details of it. After all,
the congregation of Israel probably numbered in the millions. But they knew where it was and
they looked that way. I'm sure that some who looked
were very near to death because they'd been bitten. But they
looked and lived. There were some who hadn't been
bitten yet, but they looked and lived, and everybody in between. And the exhortation of the gospel
never gets more complicated than that. Look and live. And we must be careful we don't
ever make it more complicated than that. Now, if you'll open
your Bibles to Luke chapter three, Going to look at John the Baptist's
message of repentance. Luke chapter 3. In the 15th year
of the reign of Tiberius Caesar. Now Caesar was the emperor of
Rome. That was his name. And in fact,
that name or that title has persisted at least until the past century when the German
leader was called Kaiser and the Russian leader was called
the Tsar. Those are all derived from Caesar. But a man named Tiberius was
Caesar. When Pontius Pilate was the governor
of Judea, Herod was the Tetrarch of Galilee, his brother Philip,
Tetrarch of Etruria, and Trachonitis, and Lysanias, Tetrarch of Abilene. This reflects what is known in
history, that that region was once ruled by one person, but
upon their fall, it was split into four divisions, And at first
there were four different men, each one ruling one of those
tetrarchs. And tetrarchs just means four
ruler. And at this time it had been whittled down to three because
one man had been given authority over two of those four regions. All of this in verse two was
during the high priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas. The word of God came to John,
son of Zechariah, in the desert. Now you remember that John the
Baptist is related naturally to the Lord Jesus Christ. His
mother was some sort of relation to
Mary. And when Mary discovered that
she was pregnant. She went and lived with Elizabeth
evidently until Elizabeth gave birth to John. And when you compare
the various stories about that, John the Baptist was born about
six months before the Lord Jesus was born. The birth of John the
Baptist was a miracle. A miracle of the same sort as
the birth of Isaac to Abraham and Sarah, because Zechariah
and Elizabeth were both beyond the years normally associated
with being able to give birth. And so the angel had come with
the promise that Elizabeth, and this was
spoken to Zechariah while he was in the temple, doing his
work as a priest. And the angel told him that they're
going to have a child. And he sort of believed it and sort
of didn't. But his unbelief made it so he couldn't speak from
then until John was born. But the angel
had said to him that he was to call him John. Now, that was
unusual. Generally, when a firstborn came
into the world, at least the firstborn in the family was gonna
be named after some ancestor. But there was nobody in the known
ancestry of Zechariah named John. But the first words he said were,
when the Lord released him from that little bit of discipline
over unbelief, his first words is, his name will be John. In John, we don't know much about
his childhood. We know that he grew up and that
when he reached a particular age, he evidently separated himself
from most of humanity and went out and lived in the wilderness.
And he was similar in his bearing to the prophet Elijah. And he
had a similar message as the prophet Elijah did. Elijah, Eliyahu
is how the Hebrews pronounced his name, and it means my God,
is Jehovah. And his message to Israel, the
northern 10 tribes, his message to them was Jehovah is God. You remember that story of him
on Mount Carmel, as he had a duel, a showdown, with the prophets
of Baal and Ashtoreth. And what was the issue? What
was the confrontation over? Well, the confrontation was over
who is God. Is it Jehovah? Or is it Baal
and Ashtoreth, who the Israelites almost universally worshipped? And of course, the matter at
Mount Carmel established Jehovah is God. And John, being like Elijah,
he wore rough clothing, outfit made out of camel's hair. I've never seen one of those,
but I've seen camels, but I mean, I've never seen an outfit made
out of camel hair, but I can't think that it would be as comfortable
as something made out of, you know, cotton or linen, something
like that, you know, or one of the more common fabrics. And he, it was, uh, of course
your typical toga of the day and he held it closed with a,
a leather belt and he ate locusts and wild honey. And you know,
a lot of people, they tried real hard to make it, you know, where
locust is referenced to some kind of vegetation. Well, we
probably wouldn't eat locusts, but there's a lot of places in
the world where they would. That is locust the bug. there's no
reason for us to think that what John ate was anything other than
the bugs. He did not live in a civilized
fashion. He was out in a wilderness. And
in those days wilderness simply means places where nobody lives
and nobody is cultivated. And that is the way it normally
is spiritually speaking with God's prophets. It's always been
that way. They are in a wilderness, a barren
place, mostly barren, certainly not cultivated, and nobody wants
to live there. Their message is different than
the message being preached in the towns, and in spiritual,
shall we call them spiritual towns, where everything's convenient,
you know, and everything is altered to suit the hearing of those
who live there. John had the distinct message
and he preached it from a distinct place. If you were going to hear
John, you had to leave Jerusalem. If you wanted to hear John preach,
you were going to have to leave any of the various religious
centers that had been set up in the area of Judea and Galilee,
those places. You're going to have to leave
them. You're going to have to leave the comfort of your own
home. And you're gonna have to go out
there where nobody else is willing to go. And go out there where
it doesn't look like there's going to be anything worth finding.
But there you will find the one man for that six or seven months,
the one man in all of Israel who is telling the truth about
God. And that has a lesson for us,
how willing we should be to do whatever is necessary to be able
to hear that message of truth. Most of religion, much if not most of the religion
that goes under the name Christian, is like the city religion in
John's day. It's carefully packaged. Even
though they say words which might be offensive to their hearers,
if their hearers understood them, they cover them up with so much entertainment or cleverness of
words or whatever, but the offense of the gospel never comes through. Therefore, the people are never
aroused from their slumber. But that's the kind of religion
that dominates the world. You have to go out in the wilderness
to find the truth. The book of Hebrews said this,
that our Lord suffered outside the city gate. Let us therefore go to him outside
the gate bearing his reproach. As much as Certainly my natural
self would love to see this building full of people believing what
we believe. And I guess I could say my spiritual
self does too. I do desire the salvation of
everybody. I wouldn't begrudge anybody salvation.
I delight whenever God saves somebody, no matter who it is.
But here's what I know. It is only on the rarest occasions
that the truth of God has ever had a massive presence in this
world. There's a few times, but mostly
it's human religion with little groups here and there worshiping
the God of Scripture according to the truth of Scripture. And
most of them go on utterly unknown. utterly unrecognized. Well, the world goes on and pats
on the back those who will say what they once said. Now it says
of John that he went out, verse 3, into all the country around
Jordan preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness
of sins. Now John was sent to prepare
the way of the Lord. That's what Isaiah said of him.
And we'll read that text from Isaiah as it's quoted here in
Luke. But he was sent out ahead of the Lord Jesus Christ to preach
a message that would get people's attention and prepare them to
hear what the Lord himself would say. Now, there are some who
look at this and say, Well, John went out preaching at baptism
of repentance for the forgiveness of sin. See, this baptism gained
people forgiveness. No, it didn't. Whenever you're
reading things particular, something like baptism of repentance
for the forgiveness of sins, you got to do like you did in
your equations and algebra class, if you can even remember that.
You got to know where to put the parentheses, which group
particular words together. He preached. baptism of repentance for the forgiveness
of sins. Through repentance came the forgiveness
of sins not the baptism of repentance. He preached a baptism which was
in his day a picture of repenting for the forgiveness of sins. So there has never been a ceremony
not one invented by men or even one given by God, which as a
ceremony or as something observed was able to put away sin, period. I was thinking the other day,
you know, how the Jews of our Lord's day were so wrapped up
in their conformity to the old covenant practices. occurred to me, you know there
were people, prophets who were born in Babylon and lived their
entire lives up there, holy men of God who were used to write
scriptures. They never set foot in Israel.
There did not exist a temple nor an altar. They could not
observe any of the feasts as they were supposed to. They couldn't
do any of the Old Covenant. And yet they They had no sin
in the sight of God. Their sins were forgiven. Because
you see, in all of those ceremonies of the old covenant, the power
of salvation was not in the ceremony, it was in the one to whom the
ceremonies pointed. And the same thing is true with
John's ceremony of baptism here. And it's the same thing with
the ceremonies that you and I observe. Lord's command. Baptism on the
Lord's table they can't save. What truly saves is what those
ceremonies point to. So he went out preaching and
he called on people to be baptized as a symbol of them repenting
and through repentance receiving the forgiveness of sins. Now,
why would it be so important that they have the forgiveness
of sins? Well, John is a unique prophet. He's the last of the
Old Testament prophets, and yet he was introducing the New Testament,
the New Covenant. All the other prophets had spoken
of it in very shadowy type, but John is actually saying, you
know, here it is. It's upon us. All the prophets
before were saying, he's coming, he's coming, he's coming. John
pointing and said, he's here, he's here. And so there's both a bit of
an old covenant flavor and a new covenant flavor in the preaching
of John. And he's speaking here to these
people as Jews. And he's essentially saying,
prepare yourselves. The King is coming. God, who's been telling us He's
going to come, He's about to come. And while we think of His coming,
normally speaking, in terms of salvation, John and all the prophets
before him took both what is commonly called His first advent
and the second advent and jumbled them all together as an act of
judgment slash salvation. An act by which all of his enemies
would be judged and destroyed and all his people be found and
delivered. And that's what was about to
happen. They didn't realize it. They thought that they were behaving.
They thought that they were anxiously awaiting the arrival of their
God and that when God came, he would find them in good shape
and be pleased with what he saw in Israel. That was not the case.
How many times do we read in the scriptures that the Lord
would see what was going on and he groaned within his spirit? What he saw in Israel did not
give him joy. It brought him grief. He came to save and yet He was
very clear, the Lord Jesus came to save, but He was very clear
that salvation was only in Him and that those that rejected
Him, the only thing that awaited them was everlasting destruction. So John is saying to these people,
the King is coming and He's going to make a division. He'll make
a division among the people. You need to get on the right
side. And this was in fulfillment of
what Isaiah said. Verse four, a voice of one calling
in the desert, prepare the way for the Lord, make straight paths
for him. Every valley shall be filled
in, every mountain and hill made low. The crooked road shall become
straight, the rough ways smooth, and all mankind will see God's
salvation. Now, I have often used this figure
of the valleys being filled in, the mountains being
brought down, as by the preaching of the gospel we make a level
way for people to get to Christ, but actually When you look at
it, this is being used to describe making a level path for the Lord
to get to his people. And I believe one of the things
that it is demonstrating is what John, the apostle says in the
opening verses of his gospel. He came unto his own and his
own received him not, but to them that did receive him. To
them gave he the power to become, the authority to become the children
of God. And so John comes in as one who's
saying, we need to fill in the valleys and we need to carve
off the top of the mountains and we need to straighten up
the crooked path that the king may come. We need to make a welcome
for the king. That's what that word received.
He came into his own, his own didn't receive him. They didn't
welcome him. They weren't glad he was there. But there were some who, by God's grace, were made
to believe what John was saying. And in their hearts, every mountain
was made low, and the rubble was used to fill in the valleys.
And they straightened out a path, and they waited for the arrival
of the king. And we read in another place
that those who heard the Word of Christ believed Him and justified
God, which means vindicated God in His message, you know. And
it says, having been baptized by John. You know, Sometimes we might hear someone
who's just beginning to hear the gospel, but they don't know
just what to do, they're still confused. You know what one of
the best things to tell them is? Walk in the light that you
have. You know something, walk according
to that. Now John came, he was not the
light, but he came to testify of the light. His testimony of
the light gave some light. And those that walked in that
light, when the King of light came,
they recognized that light and they followed Him until the fullness
of truth. If you hear something preached
from here or from others of our brethren or whatever, and you
don't understand it all. Okay, none of us do. But walk in what light you do
have. Walk according to the truth you
already know. I've never known anybody to do
that, that did not receive more light as time went by. And in verse six here of Luke chapter
three, In quoting Isaiah it says, and all mankind will see God's
salvation. Now we're not going to turn,
but if we went back to Isaiah 40, where that scripture comes
from, it would read differently. It would say, the portion here
in verse 6 would say, and the glory of the Lord will be revealed. mankind will see it together."
And here it says, all mankind will see God's salvation. Now, when we find in the New
Testament that they are quoting from the Old Testament, but the
quotes don't exactly match. Now, skeptics will throw that
up in your face. You know, if you say the Bible
is true, well then how come the apostles couldn't even quote
the Old Testament right? Normally they were quoting from
a Greek translation of the Old Testament called the Septuagint. And I imagine that this is the
way it appears in the Septuagint. Why would God allow it to be
different than what Isaiah said? And why would he allow the apostles
to use a translation of the original Hebrew text that doesn't accurately
reflect the Hebrew text. Well, it does accurately reflect
the meaning of the Hebrew text. Isaiah says, the glory of the
Lord shall be revealed. Who is the glory of the Lord? And what is the name by which
he goes? His name is Jesus. He shall save
his people from their sins. When, you know, when they took
Jesus to the temple and they met an old man named Simeon and
the Lord had told him that he would not die until he had seen
the Lord's Christ. Simeon saw Joseph and Mary. Joseph
and Mary didn't know this was going to happen. But they are
just walking through there and here comes this old, old man.
And he said, give me that baby. And he takes that baby Jesus,
he had been I think at this point 40 days old. And he takes him
up in his arms and he says to God, you can now let your servant
depart in peace. And by that he means die. I can
die now, for mine eyes have seen your salvation." Isaiah called Jesus Christ the
glory of the Lord, and that all eyes would see it. Simeon called
him God's salvation. The glory of the Lord and God's
salvation are one and the same thing. because both of them are a person,
the Lord Jesus Christ. All mankind will see God's salvation. All mankind will see God's glory. And they did and they have, not
every individual. Here's a good example of how
the scriptures, well actually virtually any language, uses
words, universal words like They don't necessarily mean every
individual in the group that they're talking about, but every
individual classification in the group. Actually, the word is not mankind.
Mankind's good enough, but the word is flesh. All flesh will
see it together. according to the book of Revelation,
people from every kindred, tongue, tribe, and nation will see God's
salvation. They will see Him who is God's
salvation. They will see Him who is God's
glory. They did even when our Lord was
here. I suppose one of the reasons
God let the nation be overrun with Gentiles. And so when the
Lord got there, there were people in Israel, certainly from all
the countries around. There were Romans there, and
Arabs, there were Persians, there were Greeks, they were all milling
around in there. You know, that little strip of land right
there on the eastern shores of the Mediterranean, there's nothing
there to really attract anybody. Isn't it interesting in the Middle
East the only country that I know of that doesn't have any oil
is Israel? Or none to speak of, you know,
go no farther east and you've got countries just on top of
a, you know, a sea of oil. So even today over there in Israel
there isn't anything about that area that would make people from
all over the world congregate there. The only thing that made
people congregate there is there was hardly any other way to get
any other place than to go through there. Boats would land there on the
shores of the Mediterranean, as far east as you could go,
so they'd land there and they'd pass through Jerusalem on their
way to wherever they're going, that's where the main road was.
If you wanted to get from Egypt up to the Roman Empire, that's
the way you had to go. And God had arranged things so
that people from every kindred, tribe, tongue, and nation were
there when Jesus Christ came. Even at His birth. You had the Jews that saw it.
And then you had three Magi from somewhere in the East. They saw
it. And when our Lord spoke, began
his ministry a Syrophoenician woman came to him and said, help
me my daughter is sick. And the Lord said, I've not come
but for the lost of the tribes of Israel. And she said, well
that may be so. The Lord said it's not fit to
give the children's bread to the dogs. She said that may be
so but even the dogs get to eat the crumbs that fall off the
table. Of course, the Lord had just been playing with her is
not the right way, but he was going to make her confess something
that even the Jews didn't understand. But he said, well, you have great
faith. You have great faith. And this Gentile woman, one of
these all flesh, saw the glory of God, saw the salvation of
God on that day. And when he was crucified, were
people there from all over the world. There
were the Jews, both those who hated Him and sought His death. There were Gentile, Gentile leaders
like Pilate. And believe it or not, Herod
who was sort of king in Israel, he wasn't Jewish, he was Idumean, So there he is, and there's others
there. There's Simon of Cyrene. There's all kinds of people in
Jerusalem on that day. Why? It was one of the great
feasts, one of the great feast days. And there were Gentiles,
who while in the flesh they were Gentiles, yet in their hearts
they were of the seed of Abraham. And they would come there to
worship. And when Jesus Christ did that
great work of atonement and redemption, all flesh saw it. Representatives from all over
the world witnessed that event. And as the gospel went forth,
the first time the gospel was preached in its full-blown form,
a special gift was given to the apostles on that day that they
could speak in languages that they had never learned in the
normal way. Why was that? Why did God give them that gift
on that day? Because the temple was full of
people from all over the world. And when the full-blown gospel
was preached, which is the testimony of the glory of God and the salvation
of God in Jesus Christ, there were people, all flesh was right
there. And there is coming a time, well,
as the gospel continues to go out, it goes out throughout all
the earth. And when our Lord Jesus Christ
comes again, going to see it. It's not going
to be something done in a corner. It's not going to be Him appearing
in a backwater town of a backwater country, a little babe. It will be the King of Glory
coming in the full blaze of divine power and and in the fullness
of the human glory that God intended for man from the very beginning.
And all of them are going to see it. And some will see and wail, and
others will see and rejoice. But this was John's message.
He was, as it were, packaging all this element of the Gospel
age as though it were a singular event and say, prepare yourself
for this by repentance. There were some coming out to
him, verse 7, and Matthew identifies them as
Pharisees. And they came out and they're
going to be baptized by him. And rather than doing like most
preachers would do and just be glad for anybody who'd come out
and, you know, join the gang, he looked at him and said, you
brood of vipers, who warned you to flee from the coming wrath?
Now he says, mankind salvation, or excuse me, all mankind will
see God's salvation, but salvation is always in the context of wrath. Wrath was coming. Some would
be saved. Some would not. And he said to
these Pharisees, he called them a brood of vipers. He didn't
say, we're so glad to have y'all with us this morning. So glad,
you know, that we appreciate your studies in the scriptures.
You brood of vipers. He knew what they were in their
hearts. He said, who warned you to flee the coming wrath? Produce
fruit in keeping with repentance. And he begins to lay out what
that repentance would look like. He says, do not begin to say
to yourselves, we have Abraham as our father. You see, the repentance that
these particular people anyway needed to exercise was the reliance
and confidence they had in the fact that they were Jews and
descendants of Abraham. So he said, don't say Abraham's
your father. You must repent of any confidence
in your natural lineage. Now, the Reformed faith that
some of you all were brought up in, kind of in a left-handed
way, has people It would certainly leave them susceptible to be
deceived into putting some kind of confidence in their heritage,
in their ancestry. My parents were believers, and
my grandparents, and before them. Well, that's certainly a privilege
if you grew up in a home where the Bible was believed, and the
Bible was read and taught. That's a privilege, but it doesn't
mean that you've got a leg up in glory. It doesn't mean that
God has made any special promise to you that he hasn't made to
anybody. But they thought it did. Abraham's
our father. And he goes on, John says, for
I tell you that out of these stones, God can raise up children. for Abraham. You know, this business of God's
salvation, we think that God needs help. Now I know we say
that we don't believe that, but our flesh still rattles with
that. We think that certain things have to be done to a person before
God can save them. And John says God could make
a people for himself, a seed of Abraham, out of rocks if he
wanted to. He's got that power. After all, he made us humans
out of dirt anyway. That's how we started. You know,
we were just rocks that had been beat to pieces. But he can take the lifeless
and make the living. He can make the hard to be soft. He can make the silent to shout
with praise. He doesn't need religiously trained
and religiously upright people in order to find the seed of
Abraham. You might say this, the only
human that God needs to save people is the man Christ Jesus. No other humans are needed. But their trust in their connection
to Abraham was a trust in themselves. needed to repent at that. And
so he says verse 9, the axe is already at the root of the trees,
and every tree that does not produce good fruit will be cut
down and thrown into the fire. Now, what's John saying? He's
saying this, he's saying this to these Jews, God is coming
in judgment. He is coming and the axe is already
at the root. And if you want to kill a tree,
You've got to take it out by the roots. And he says, as he comes through,
if he finds a tree that's not bearing fruit, he's going to cut it down. And
he did. He did. What fruit should we
expect to see? Well, he talked about the fruits
of repentance. Now, one of those fruits was
no longer rely on the fact I'm a Jew and a natural descendant
of Abraham, as though somehow that puts me in an especially
blessed relationship with God. It was a privilege, but it wasn't
necessarily a blessing. And then there were some practical
things that would be expected of anyone who had repented, truly
repented, because repentance always involves humility. And
the people said, what should we do? And he said, well, the
man with two tunics should share with him who has none, and the
one who has food should do the same. Now, I don't have time
to look at how all of these might apply to even practical things
that we, as repentant sinners, might do. I will say this, let
us never so spiritualize these concepts that we forget that
these spiritual concepts are supposed to produce some outward
results. But these people who were the
descendants of those who spoke the Word of God, to whom the
Word of God came, they were not even walking in the light that
they had already been given. And he says, if you've got two
coats, you need to share with a man that doesn't have any.
And to the tax collectors, he never told them you need to quit
being tax collectors. He didn't say, why, you scoundrels,
there's no way God's gonna save you, because you've sold your
brethren out and started working for the Romans. He said, no.
He said, To them, just collect the right amount. I mean, tax
collectors had a lot of power, you know. If they told you you
owed so much money, even if you knew that it was more than you
actually owed, you'd go ahead and pay it. Because if you didn't,
all they'd have to do is report you to the authorities, and you're
in big trouble. And that's why they were, one reason they were
so despised, because the people knew they were being cheated.
He told them, don't cheat. And then he talked to the soldiers.
What should we do? Well, he didn't tell them to
quit being soldiers. He didn't say there's something essentially
sinful about a career in the military. He just said this. Remember, now, back then, soldiers
acted like the policemen as well. He says, don't extort money and
don't accuse people falsely. Be content with your pay. And
you can see how all those go together because these men had
the power of accusation. And if one of the soldiers, a
Roman soldier in particular, were to make an accusation against
you, you'd be real hard to get out of it. And so they would
threaten false accusations to get people to give them money.
Now these are some practical things, but they have spiritual
truth behind them. John said, if you have two tunics,
share with him who has none. Here's a lesson about our master.
He had a, shall we call it, a righteousness of his own by virtue of who he
was, God. And he had a coat of righteousness
by virtue of how he lived as a man. He had two coats of righteousness. What did he do? Those of us that
had none, he gave it to us. He has clothed me in garments
of salvation. He has stripped me of my filthy
rag righteousness and put upon me a garment of pure, spotless
righteousness, manufactured for me by Jesus Christ himself. See, repentance makes us do our
version of what Christ has done for us. Tax collectors, don't
collect more than you're required to. How many preachers go out and
lay burdens upon the people of God that God never laid upon
them? Or how many false preachers have
gone out there and laid upon people demands for salvation
that God never laid upon them? Look and live, says the scriptures.
Turn to me and be saved, says the scriptures. Believe on the
Lord Jesus Christ, thou shalt be saved. And they'll say that,
and then they'll add stuff. And that's just like one of those
tax collectors saying, here's what you, okay, I need 10% too. Our Lord came, and he showed
exactly what was needed in order that our monetary obligation
to God was paid. All we needed was him, and he
charged no more. What about those soldiers? Don't extort money. Don't accuse
people falsely. Be content with your pay. How well it would be for us to
apply this in a spiritual way, first of all, be content with
the righteousness that God has given you in Christ Jesus. Be
content with the blessings that He gives you entirely upon His
grace. And when it comes to others,
don't try to gain something from them for yourself. Don't try
to make yourself rise in religious judgment by false accusation
against them, by teaching them that somehow
or another they've come up short. I was talking to Brother Drew
Deets last night, and we were talking about that
in Christ we have no sin, and I related to him that the Greek
word for The devil, diabolos, actually
means a slanderer, a false accuser. And I said, you know, everyone
who accuses a believer of sin is a false accuser. It's slander. Now, I'm not talking about when
we simply say somebody did something. To accuse means to bring them
under threat of condemnation. And whether we do it out loud
or just do it in our hearts, it doesn't matter. If we look
at some other professed believer and they're not meeting our standard
and we go, huh, wonder if he knows God after all. What are we saying? Something
that we have done or something that we've avoided doing has
put us in a higher position than that person and that person's
guilty of sin. subject to judgment. That kind
of judgment is what the Lord Jesus meant when He said, Do
not judge lest you be judged. Be content understanding this,
everything you have was given you by God. And don't seek more
at the expense of others. Don't seek anything spiritual,
no standing before God. Don't seek it. by accusation
against others. Let us repent. Let us leave off
our own confidence, confidence in anything about us whatsoever. Let us go into this world with
humility, contentedness, and an understanding that our connection
to God and all his goodness is in one thing, Jesus Christ. And have full confidence in him
and never require anything more from anybody else. So John was speaking to us as
well as to the Jews of his day. May the Lord be pleased to work
in us that which he worked in his people through the preaching
of John. All right.