We're beginning our study in
Luke chapter 3 today, and this chapter is broken down into three
main parts. In the first part we have an
introduction of some people. And again, we find there's no
accidents with God and the Holy Spirit records for us the things
that are needful for the church. And so there's some relative
application for the church here in the things that we learn. And in the beginning, we're introduced
to a bunch of folks there in the first couple of verses of
Luke. And then we find them mentioned
again, according to God's sovereignty in the Acts, the fourth chapter,
why they're here. And we look back and it always
just never ceases to amaze me, All the things that the Lord
brought to play, all the things that He determined, all the things
that He worked from the beginning of time to get these people here
at this point in time to do what His counsel had before determined
to be done. Just amazing. The Roman Empire. Then the next thing we are reintroduced
to John and an interesting thing that when we left chapter two,
Jesus was about 12 years old and John was six months older
than him. So they're both in their tween
years. And now as we get into chapter
three, they're in young adulthood. Jesus is about 30. And John is six months older. So they're in their ministry
period now. And John is entering into his
mission. And we'll look at that. And then
the last part deals with the genealogy of the Lord And it takes it all the way back
to Adam. And there's just a list of names. And I'm not going to
go through them in this class and say, here's this person,
and go back to the Old Testament and find them, and here's what
their name meant, and all that stuff. But it's interesting to
find Jesse, David, It's interesting to find him
all the way back to Abraham, all the way back to Joseph, all
the way back to Adam in this lineage. And in Matthew, there's
another lineage that's given that just takes him back to Abraham. Anyway, you can spend time there
if you want and just look at all those begats that the Lord
gives us. to show that he's the son of
man. And so with that, we'll start
off in Luke chapter three, and we're gonna read probably down
through verse eight there. Now in the 15th year of the reign
of Tiberius Caesar, Gives us the exact year and who's in charge. Pontius Pilate being governor
of Judea. And Herod being tetrarch of Galilee. And his brother Philip, tetrarch
of Aeturia and of the region of Trachonitis. And Lysanias
and the tetrarch of Abilene. Lysanias was, that word tetrarch
means ruler of a fourth. So this area of the Mideast was divided into
four areas under the Roman governorship. And these guys were, these Tetrarchs
were, just means ruler of a fourth. And then it says Annas and Caiaphas
being the high priests. Now it's interesting to note
that there was only really supposed to be one high priest, but they
had taken it upon themselves to kind of share that job. And
isn't that funny how religion changes things to accommodate
their needs. Annas and Caiaphas being the
high priest, the word of God came unto John, John the Baptist,
the son of Zacharias in the wilderness. And he came into all the country
about Jordan, the river Jordan there, preaching the baptism
of repentance for the remission of sins, as it is written in
the book of the words of Esaias the prophet, saying, the voice
of one crying in the wilderness, prepare you the way of the Lord,
make his path straight. Every valley shall be filled,
every mountain and hill shall be brought low, and the crooked
shall be made straight, and the rough way shall be made smooth."
All those things kind of like in the City of Refuge. All the barriers were to be taken
down, removed, and smoothed. I always think of that road going
over to Lincoln City. You used to have to kind of wind
through the mountains, and it was crooked, and slow, and tedious. When we first moved here from
Alaska, we said, wow, they're building They're building a new
road through there. And it only took them like 18
years. The Panama Canal was dug in a
lot less time. When they finally got it, man,
you just sailed through there just straight as a string. And
it was just, you bypassed all these little bergs and schools
and everything. But man, it was nice when they
got it done. It just always reminded me of
the, they filled in the gullies and they chopped off the top
of the mountains and they dug their way through this one and
smoothed out the way and it's, boy, it was sweet. Every valley shall be filled
and every mountain and hill shall be brought low and the crooked
shall be made straight and the rough way shall be made smooth
and all flesh shall see the salvation of God. Then say ye to the multitude
that came forth to be baptized of him, O generation of vipers,
who has warned you to flee from the wrath to come? Bring forth
therefore fruits worthy of repentance and begin 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 he says the ax is being laid
to the root. Every tree that doesn't bear
fruit is going to be chopped down. So we look at this first
few verses and we could go over to Acts chapter
4 verse 23 about these Pontius Pilate and Tiberius Caesar and
Herod and Philip and Verse 26, 27 of chapter four
of the book of Acts, the kings of the earth stood up and the
rulers were gathered together against the Lord and against
his Christ. For of a truth against thy holy
child, Jesus, whom thou has anointed both Herod and Pontius Pilate
with the Gentiles, the people of Israel were gathered together
for to do whatsoever thy hand and thy counsel determined before
to be done. It's just the sovereignty of
God declared so clearly in this opening verses here. So we have the priests, the religious
leaders, we have the rulers, kings. Then at the end of verse 2 there,
While all that was going on, the Word of God came unto John,
the son of Zacharias, in the wilderness. So he was out there
in the wilderness. It kind of reminded me of Paul. After he was saved, he conferred
not with men, but he went right out in the wilderness and got
a little education out there from the Spirit. And he was out
there in the wilderness and he came into all the country about
Jordan, preaching the baptism of repentance for the remission
of sins. Now it's interesting in these verses here, you know, a lot of religion, they
claim that you need baptism for various things. You need it for
admission to the, it's kind of an initiation into the church.
You want to join the church? You've got to be baptized. You
want to be saved? You've got to be baptized. It's
kind of been turned into a works thing. And a lot of it's attributed
to this verse here, baptism for the remission of sins. Well,
in verse two there, it says, the word of God came unto John. the son of Zacharias in the wilderness. Well, that's the Greek word ice. And it means into or unto. And
it's a preposition that indicates a direction in the accusative
case for those of you that, like me, that missed out on Mrs. Wells'
English class, grammar class. It's a word that kind of indicates
motion or direction to, and if you look it up in the Strong's
Concordance, it says, it defines it as a point reached. And so it's important to keep
that. They kind of translate it one
way, one time, and another way, another time, and kind of as
suited their purpose. So they said he came into the
country. That's the same word as baptized for remission, the
baptism for the remission of sins. For is the same into, same
word, same Greek word. So it kind of helps us understand
that a little bit better here and what it was, what was trying
to be accomplished. The mission of John, the purpose
of John, it's important to kind of keep the context here. The
mission of John in Malachi 3 says, I will send my messenger and
he shall prepare the way of the Lord. And the messenger of the
covenant then shall come into the temple And so there you have it, some
key verses. John chapter 1 says, there was
a man sent from God whose name was John. And John 1.33 says,
the same that, let me read that so I don't goof it up there. Chapter 1 verse 33. John is saying, I'm not the Christ. And verse 31 says, I knew him
not, but that he should be made manifest to Israel. That was
why John was there. He was to make Christ manifest
to Israel. He was supposed to announce the Lord coming. Therefore am
I coming baptizing with water. That was his purpose. And John
Bear Record saying, I saw the Spirit descending from heaven
like a dove and had a boat on him when he baptized. And we
find that a little bit later in Luke chapter 3 here. And he
says, and I knew him not, but he that sent me to baptize, the
he that sent me to baptize was the Holy Spirit. He was sent. He was in the wilderness, and
the Holy Spirit sent him to baptize. The same said unto me, upon whom
thou shalt see the Spirit descending and remaining on him the same
as he which baptized with the Holy Ghost. And I saw on bare
record that when that happened, when I saw that, that is the
Son of God. So he identified that. So we have this purpose of John
was to announce the Lord, the messenger of God. So with this identification in
accordance with God's purpose, we're looking at John and his
mission. And he would, remember he was
announced in Luke chapter one, he will come in the spirit and
power of Elijah, Elijah the Tishbite. Elijah, and we learned that that
word Tishbite meant, kind of had to, meant Turner. And if
you remember back to Elijah, he said, how long halts you between
two opinions? You going to serve these fake
religious idols, Baal worshipers, or are you going to serve the
living God? And John said, he will turn many
to the Lord. Many of the children of Israel
shall he turn to the Lord their God. That's from Luke chapter
1 verse 16. And he shall go before him in
the spirit and power of Elias, Elijah the Tishbite, to make
ready a people prepared for the Lord. He's going to go out and
preach all these scriptures from the Old Testament that said he's
coming. He's here. He's here right now. And that was John's mission.
In chapter 1 of Luke, verse 76, And thou, child, shalt be called
the prophet of the highest, for thou shalt go before the face
of the Lord to prepare His ways to give knowledge of salvation
unto his people by the remission of their sins. And then the next
word is, the next line is so important. Through the tender mercy of our
God, whereby the day spring on from on high has visited us.
So it's not, you need to do something, you need to repent, you need
to do this, you need to do that, in order to have remission of
sins. The remission of sins comes through
the tender mercy of God, through the Lord Jesus Christ. which
has visited us, the day spring from on high that we looked at,
not by works of righteousness, which we have done, but according
to his mercy, he saved us by the washing of regeneration and
the renewing of the Holy Ghost. Titus 3.5. He doesn't get you down and scrub
you with a Bible. It's not what that, there's a
term, it's called washing here, but it's just a metaphor for
spiritual activity that takes place in a believer. So again, we look at why and
what John baptized for. was to bring to their attention
remission of their sins. That word remission is a cool
word. You look that word remission
up and it just says freedom. Freedom. We always close our
lessons from John 8. The Son make you free. You are
free indeed. not free to do whatever you want
to do, but free from the penalty of sin, free from the bondage
of sin, free from all that. You know, when you do something
and you link your salvation to something you did, you just never get the the full use out of it. It's just something you did and
something you can undid, as it were. But when you're depending
on Christ, that changes not, as our pastor brought out again
the other day. He takes care of the issue once
for all. So as we're looking at at John's mission and why he
was baptizing in Acts the 19th chapter. If you turn over there
briefly, Acts the first five verses of Acts chapter 9. This was the understanding that
they had to the people that were a lot closer to John than we
are, except that we have all the scriptures, so I guess we're
just as close as they were. It came to pass that while Apollos
was at Corinth, Paul, having passed through the upper coast,
came to Ephesus, and finding certain disciples, he said unto
them, Have you received the Holy Ghost since you believed? And
they said unto him, we've not so much as heard whether there
be any Holy Ghost. And he said unto them, well,
unto what then were you baptized? And they said unto John's baptism.
Then said Paul, and he explains John's baptism to them. He says,
John verily baptized with the baptism of repentance saying
unto the people that they should believe on him, which should
come after him, that is on Jesus Christ. He said, he's right behind me. I'm going to see him pretty soon.
And when he saw him and he had people following him, he says,
there's the Lamb of God. Go with him. Follow him. So he baptized with the baptism
of repentance. And that word repentance, it
really has to do with a turning from where you were and an attitude
about God to what it is after you've been born again, after
you've been regenerated. A believing that they should
believe on him which had come after him, that is, on Christ
Jesus. And when they heard this, they were baptized in the name
of the Lord Jesus. In Matthew 3.11, it says, they
were baptized unto repentance. And that's the word here is in
Luke as well. baptized for remission of sins. It's the same word, but in Matthew
it says they were baptized in relation to repentance. They
were turning from worshiping, who knows what, self-worship. That's the worst thing. It's
self-righteousness. So in context, we find that the
baptism of John was in relation to announcing to the people the
physical coming of the Lord for the purpose of laying down his
life for the remission of the people's sins, for the freedom
from that. He came into all the country
heralding, declaring, proclaiming the baptism of repentance, this
turning and for the remission, the freedom
of sins. John Gill said, unto the remission
of sins is not for the obtaining the remission of sins. as if
either repentance or baptism were the cause of pardon or sin. It's not the cause, it's an effect. The sense is that John preached
that men should repent of their sins and believe in Christ who
was to come. and upon their repentance and
faith be baptized, in which ordinance they might be led to a fresh
view of the free and full forgiveness of their sins through Christ,
whose blood was to be shed for many to obtain it." That's how
John Gill explained it. The context regards the people
identified in Luke 1.16, where he says, many of the children
of Israel shall he turn to the Lord, their God. Turn them from
what? What were they doing? What did
they need to be turned for? Well, we have a good example
of that in John chapter 4. It seems how the baptism of John
was for the purpose of identifying with a turning from idolatry,
a turning from ceremonial religiosity. from deciding for yourself what
righteousness is and what it takes to obtain it. Turning from that to the true
God and Savior. In John chapter 4, we have the
woman at the well that you're all familiar with. She came there
at a time when nobody else came there, so she wouldn't run into
people and have a bad time. But, you know, Jesus said, I
must need to go through Samaria. And he was there waiting when
she got there. In John chapter 4 verse 16, Jesus
saith unto her, go call thy husband, and come hither. And the woman
answered and said, I have no husband. And Jesus said unto
her, thou hast well said, I have no husband, for thou hast had
five husbands. And he whom thou now hast is
not thy husband. In that saidst thou truly. And the woman said, I see that
you're a prophet. You called my truth out here. Then she does
the religious thing. Well, we don't want to talk about
that. We don't want to talk about what things I've been up to.
Let's talk about religion because that's easy. Let's talk about
works. Our fathers worshiped in this
mountain. And you say, in Jerusalem is
the place where men ought to worship. So she's saying, it
really doesn't matter. You say this, we say that. Who's to say who's right? John is saying, turn from that. Turn from that. Jesus saith unto
her, Woman, believe me, the hour cometh when ye shall neither
worship neither in this mountain, nor yet at Jerusalem worship
the Father. They weren't really doing it either place. You worship,
you know not what. We know what we worship for salvation
is of the Jews, but the hour cometh and now is when true worshipers
shall worship the father in spirit and in truth for the father seek
as such to worship him. God is a spirit and they that
worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth. And the
woman saith unto him, I know that Messiah cometh. That's what
John was declaring. The Messiah is here. She says,
I know Messiah cometh, which is called Christ. And when he
has come, he will tell us all things like what just happened.
He just told her all things. And Jesus said unto her, I that speaketh
unto thee am he. So it was a turning from all
this religious junk. It was a turning from, well,
my way is as good as any way, because this religion says do
this, and this religion says do that. There's enough of them
out there that take your pick. My way is just as good as their
way. And you hear all that kind of stuff out in the world. I
don't need to go to church. My church is out there in the
woods, or my church is down on the lake, or I get close to God
when I'm doing this, or when I'm doing that. They're just
denying the truth of the gospel in that. And John says, Y'all
need to turn from that, and turn to He that's coming after me."
And it wasn't really, his baptism wasn't
really a declaration of their being identified in Christ through
baptism, picturing the death, burial, and resurrection like
we do now, but as much as it was stating their belief that
Christ was coming. The Messiah is here. And indeed,
he is here. And the baptism of John declared
that they turned from their former false beliefs and believed on
him which should come after him. That's on Jesus Christ. That's
what it says in Acts 19.4. That's what Paul said. John preached
that they should believe on him who is coming after him. That
is on Christ Jesus. In Acts the 18th chapter, a certain Jew named Apollos, born
in Alexandria, an eloquent man and mighty in the scriptures,
came to Ephesus. This man was instructed in the way of the
Lord, and being fervent in the spirit, he spake and taught diligently
of the things of the Lord, knowing only the baptism of John. And
he began to speak boldly in the synagogue, whom when Aquila and
Priscilla had heard, they took him unto him and expounded unto
him the way of God more perfectly. So he didn't have quite the full
gospel picture there, just from the baptism of John. And when
he was disposed to pass into Achaia, the brethren wrote, exhorting
the disciples to receive him, who, when he was come, helped
them much, which had believed through grace, for he mightily
convinced the Jews and publicly by showing by the scriptures
that Jesus was the Christ. That He was here. That He was
the Messiah. And He's here right now. He was there. By this time He was risen again. So, it's important that, you know,
in religion they have all these ideas about baptism and it's
just an identification process. The physical act of
Baptism didn't have any efficacious value apart from identifying
with Christ and declaring faith in his finished work of redemption.
If we turned over to 1 Corinthians chapter 10, there's a metaphor
there about baptism from the Old Testament. 1 Corinthians
10, one through five. Moreover, brethren, I would not
that ye should be ignorant how that all our fathers were under
the cloud and all passed through the sea. That word baptize, it's from
the root Greek word for that, bapto is to whelm, to fully envelop,
to surround. And so while they were in the
desert coming out of Egypt, They were overwhelmed by the grace
of God. He took care of them. He fed
them. He gave them the cloud by day. They're pretty close
to the equator there, so it's probably in the 110s in the daytime
and 105 at night. They had this nice cloud, this
nice shady cloud that kind of shielded them from the blistering
sun and showed them that God was with them all the time in
the daytime, and they had the fire by night. They were baptized,
it says in verse 2, all were baptized unto Moses in the cloud
and in the sea. They passed through the midst
of the Red Sea. and walked over on dry land there. And all did eat the same spiritual
meat, and did all drink the same spiritual drink, for they drank
of that spiritual rock that followed them, and that rock was Christ. And then it says, but with many
of them God was not well pleased. Even though they'd been exposed,
even though they'd been whelmed by this cloud, and this fire,
and all the miracles that got them out of Egypt, All these
things they were exposed to, with many of them God was not
well pleased, for they were overthrown in the wilderness. Now if you
go over to chapter 4 of Hebrews, it said, The gospel was preached unto
them, same as unto us, but it didn't profit them, not being
mixed with faith in them that heard it." And then he goes on
to talk about them not entering into rest. It's just a picture
of them still sticking to their own works for their own righteousness. Doing what they always did. Well,
let's build an idol. And we'll say that's what got
us out of Egypt. Let's go back to the world and
all those things. It's just an example of useless
religion trying to get in on what they perceived as the latest
religious work. That's what we find here in Luke. Then he said to the multitude
that came forth to be baptized of him. Oh, generation of vipers,
who has warned you to flee from the wrath to come? Bring forth
therefore fruits worthy of repentance and begin not to say to yourselves,
we have Abraham to our father. Well, what's that mean? Your old religious ways don't
count for nothing. You had the baptism in the wilderness.
You can't be baptized now and still stick to your old Well,
you're going to go down to the temple tomorrow and offer up
all the lame, and the halt, and the fake stuff, and the money
changers, and the profit making out of religion, and the power
that you exercise over all the people, holding them in bondage
to this stuff that you've made a mockery of. Who's warned you to come here? Oh, we want to be baptized too.
That's cool. You've been baptizing all over
and we've all heard about it. There's a lot of people coming
to you for baptism. Do me." He says, no. Bring forth some evidence of
a work of grace in your heart. Bring forth some evidence You
understand what those sacrifices are that you're doing every day.
What do they mean? Who are they talking about? In
Ezra chapter 4, as Norm was teaching there on Sunday, the adversaries
of Judah and Benjamin heard that the children of captivity were
building the temple. They said, we want in on that. And they said, no, you've got
nothing to do with this. They said, well, we seek your
God as you do, only over here instead of over
there. We sacrifice unto him since the
days of Ezra Hayden, king of Asher, which brought us up hither. We're kind of doing the same
things as you're doing. We're kind of We're kind of the
same. Why can't we help you? Why can't
we be baptized? And he says, you've got nothing
to do with us. You have no idea who or what
God is. You have no understanding of
God. You're not of God. You want to be baptized, bring
forth some evidence that indicates a work of grace in your heart,
that they should believe on him that's Christ, who should come
after John. That is Christ Jesus. That was
what it said in Acts 19.4. And a little bit later, we find
Jesus being baptized of John in Luke 3.21 here. Now when all the people were
baptized, it came to pass that Jesus also being baptized and
praying, the heaven was opened. And in the other gospels, it
said he came up to John and wanted to be baptized. And John says, I'm not even worthy to tie your
shoe. How can I baptize you? He says, that's fulfilling your
mission, John. You're here. You are the messenger
of the Lord saying that he has come. I'm here. You baptize me. The Holy Spirit comes down. The
father says, this is my beloved son in whom I'm well pleased.
It all fulfills everything. It all fulfills the law, fulfills
the scripture. He said, it fulfills righteousness
for you to baptize me. And so he baptized him. Not because
Jesus had sins that he needed to get shed of. He baptized him
in accordance with John's baptism. to fulfill righteousness until
I say, this is my beloved son in whom I'm well pleased. He's
here to pay the price by his death for the remission of the
sins of my people, to free them. That word freedom. Freedom from
that sin. It doesn't mean you're just freed
from ever sinning again. We all know that never happens
in this life. But it sure frees you from the
penalty of it. It frees you from the guilt of
it. And it humbles you and makes you say, I have an advocate with
the Father that has loved me from before the foundation of
the world. that paid my price in my place. The baptism of John declared
he was here. The messenger of the covenant
is about to step into the temple. We'll close there. We went over
time a little bit. So as always from John chapter
8, be free.