All right, Matthew chapter three.
I titled the message, the message that saves, and I could have
titled it the message of God's preacher, because we're going
to look at this morning, the message that all of God's preachers
preach, wherever you find them. These are the tenants of their
message, the pillars of their message. And this is the message
that God uses to save sinners. It's the message that John the
Baptist preached. Now John the Baptist was the
last of the Old Testament prophets. All the other prophets in the
Old Testament told us the Messiah is coming. They kept giving us
different pictures, different ways that we could recognize
him when he comes. John the Baptist was the one
given the privilege to say he's here. John the Baptist identified
him. Behold, he said, look to him,
the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world. And
look over Matthew chapter 11. Every preacher, ought to try
to imitate both the character and the message of John the Baptist.
Matthew chapter 11, verse 11. Verily I say unto you, among
them that are born of women, there hath not arisen a greater
than John the Baptist, notwithstanding he that is least in the kingdom
of heaven is greater than he. Now that's from the Lord himself. That's a pretty high commendation
from the Lord himself. And John's message, what was
his message? Well, his message was Christ. He preached Christ. He said, here he is. Now you
believe him. You come to him. He said, don't
look at me. Now there's one greater come.
I'm not worthy to bend down and tie his shoes, untie his shoes.
He must increase and I must decrease. That was John's message. And
look back at Isaiah chapter 40. Isaiah told us how we could identify
the forerunner of Christ, how we could identify John the Baptist
when he comes, and you'll be able to identify him by his message. Isaiah 40, verse 3. The voice of him that crieth
in the wilderness, prepare ye the way of the Lord, make straight
in the desert a highway for our God. Every valley should be exalted
and every mountain and hill shall be made low. and the crooked
shall be made straight, and the rough places plain, and the glory
of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together,
for the mouth of the Lord has spoken it." That's going to be
his message. That's going to be the effect
of the forerunner's message. That's how you can identify him.
Now look at Malachi chapter 3, the last book in the Old Testament. Malachi told us the same thing
about this messenger, the forerunner of Christ. Malachi 3. Verse 1. Behold, I will send my messenger
and he shall prepare the way before me. And the Lord whom
you seek shall come suddenly into his temple, even the messenger
of the covenant whom you delight in. Behold, he shall come, saith
the Lord of hosts. And before he comes, suddenly
appears in his temple, God's messenger is going to come preparing
the way before me. And he's going to do that by
preaching Christ. He's going to prepare the hearts
of the people for the coming of Christ. And more than 400
years after Malachi wrote that, John the Baptist appeared. Now
I said that every gospel preacher should try to imitate both the
character and the message of John the Baptist. John's message
is the message that God uses to save sinners. And I want to
give you nine marks of the message of John the Baptist. These are
nine marks, nine pillars of the message of every one of God's
servants. I was telling Dan just a few
moments ago that I was kind of glad that Eric's class is out
here this morning. As you all grow and you start
venturing out further away, you go to college, you go wherever,
wherever you might be, and you hear somebody preaching, you
remember this. You go back and read this passage,
and maybe the Lord will bring it to your mind. These are nine
ways you can tell if a man's preaching the gospel or not.
It's his message, if he's God's servant, if he's preaching the
gospel, is going to agree with the message of John the Baptist.
So the first mark is this. The message that saves. is going
to be preached outside of organized religion. Verse one now, Matthew
chapter three. In those days came John the Baptist
preaching in the wilderness of Judea. Now John preached out
in the wilderness because he couldn't go preach in the temple.
The religious leaders wouldn't let him. You know, they were
trying to keep the people under the burden of the law and the
ceremonies. And John came preaching freedom
from those things. Freedom from the law. Freedom
from the ceremonies in a person. He was preaching salvation not
by our works, not by following all these ceremonies, not by
the set of rules and regulations. John came preaching a person. And they weren't about to let
that message of freedom be preached to people that they are trying
to keep under captivity. And when you find one of God's
preachers, you're going to find him preaching in the wilderness.
Always. He'll have to be outside of organized
religion. He's got to be. Because man by
nature, which loves man's religion, loves organized religion, will
not receive the gospel. So he's going to be preaching
outside of organized religion. God's preachers just don't fit
into man's religion. Man's religion is trying to build
a membership. I used to work with a man who
their so-called church, I can't think of a better word for it,
goat farm, It's always trying to raise a budget. They wanted
to have it like a business, see how big our budget can be. God's
preacher's not interested in that. God's preacher, when you
find him, here's how you can tell if he's God's preacher or
not. He's interested in one thing. You know Christ. And if he's
interested in something else, there's something wrong. God's
preacher is interested in this, that you know Christ. So he's
going to preach Christ to you, and he's going to have to go
out in the wilderness to do it. The only way for us to deal with
false religion is come out of it. You're not going to be able
to change it from within. You've got to come out of it. Go out
into the wilderness and preach Christ. And God's preachers also
preach in the wilderness in this sense. They deal in the barren,
lifeless hearts of men. God's preachers are not trying
to reform people and get them back better. We just preach Christ
to the heart. And God the Holy Spirit will
reveal Christ to the heart The outside is going to take care
of itself. We're not trying to be interested in reforming people.
God's preacher doesn't try to get people to do something for
him. He's trying to do something for them. He's trying to give
them something. He's trying to preach Christ
to them. So they'll be enriched by knowing him. And God's preacher
is not going to try to make himself rich by getting people to give
him a lot of money. Like I said, he's trying to enrich
them by getting them to know Christ. So as a result, God's
preachers are plain, ordinary men. Just like John the Baptist
was. Look here at verse 4. Here's
how he's described. The same John had his raiment
of camel's hair and a leather girdle about his loins, and his
meat was locust and wild honey. He was a plain, ordinary man,
almost like a mountain man or something, because he wasn't
trying to get something from people. He wasn't trying to make
himself rich from people. He was trying to preach Christ
to people. And God's preachers don't try to make a name for
themselves. They're not trying to get a following for themselves
and become famous. Their sole interest is for you
to know Christ. That's their sole interest. John
called himself nothing but a voice. Remember when the scribes and
Pharisees came to him in John one, they said, who are you?
Are you Elias? Are you that prophet? Who are
you? He said, no, I'm nobody. I'm just a voice, he said. Same
thing said here in verse three. For this is he that was spoken
of by the prophet Isaiah saying, the voice, the voice of one crying
in the wilderness, prepare ye the way of the Lord, make his
paths straight. God's preachers, all of them,
just like John the Baptist, all they are is a voice. What's a
voice? I've got a lot of words running
around in my head. How do I communicate with you?
With a voice. God's preachers are a voice,
giving voice to the word, giving voice to Christ, preaching the
message of Christ that God's given them. And when you find
them preaching that message, you're gonna find them in the
wilderness. All right, number two, this message that saves
is a message of repentance. Verse two, Matthew three, it's
saying, repent ye, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. Now, salvation
requires repentance. Now, repentance is a whole lot
more than feeling sorry for our sin. That's part of it, I suppose. But normally, when we feel sorry
because of our sin, you know what we're sorry for? We're sorry
we got caught. We're sorry that the result of
the sin is punishment. And that's not repentance. Repentance
is a radical turning. It's radical. It's 180 degree
turn. It's turning to believe the opposite of everything you
used to believe. That's repentance. Now the gospel
declares all we are is sin. So repentance is repenting of
everything that we are, not having any trust in anything about us
and turning to Christ to trust him. The gospel declares everything
we do is sin. Everything we do is sin because
of our nature. Everything we are is sin. Well,
then we've got to repent of everything we've ever done for God. We've
got to repent of everything we've done in religion. We've got to
repent of all our morality and we've got to turn from those
things. We've got to quit trusting in those things, turn our back
on those things and turn to Christ and trust him for all of our
salvation. We're so sinful, we've got to
repent of the very best things we've ever done because our righteousness
is. are nothing but filthy rags.
We can't trust in those things. Those things can't cover us.
They can't cover our shame. They can't make us accepted before
God. We've got to turn from those things and trust Christ to be
our righteousness. We're so vile in this flesh,
we've even got to repent of our repentance. Because this flesh
is going to start saying, yeah, I've repented. I can trust in
that. And we can't trust in our repentance. We've got to turn
from trusting in our repentance and turn to Christ and trust
him. All right. How can I repent? Well, repentance is just like
faith. It's God given. It's a gift of
God. God gives repentance the same
way he gives faith through the preaching of Christ. Faith cometh
by hearing, doesn't it? So does repentance. How are you
going to turn to Christ if you don't know him, if you don't
hear about him? God gives repentance through the preaching of Christ.
And that's why God's preacher only preaches Christ. And he's
going to tell you, now you turn to him and you trust him and
don't trust anything about yourselves. All right, here's the third mark.
This message that says, always says, bow to Christ the King. Verse two, John said, repent
for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. Now the kingdom of heaven
is the church. It's all of God's people. And
Christ is the king of it. He's the head of it. And John's
saying, The kingdom of heaven is going to be here when Christ
appears. Now the church is the kingdom
of heaven, the kingdom of heaven, because Christ, the king of it's
from heaven. The church is the kingdom of heaven because it's
a, it's a heavenly spiritual kingdom. It's not fleshly kingdom.
Isn't that what our Lord told Pilate? Oh, I have kingdom. Absolutely. You're right. I'm
a king. I have a kingdom, but my kingdom is not of this world.
Now you beware the man trying to build a kingdom in this world.
That's not God's preacher. God's kingdom is a heavenly kingdom,
a spiritual kingdom. And the purpose of the kingdom
of heaven is to not get more stuff in this world. The purpose
of the kingdom of heaven is to leave all this stuff and go to
our new home where Christ, our king sits in throne. Christ is
the king of his church. Now he's the savior. No question
about it. He's the friend of sinners, and
aren't you glad? But brethren, we're going to
meet him first as king. And we're going to bow to him as king. He's going to be our king. He's
going to be our sovereign. We're going to see and freely
confess that we are in his hand to do with as he pleases before
he does anything else for us. And everyone who's in Christ's
kingdom willingly and lovingly bows to Christ. begs him to save
us. Everybody who is in God's kingdom
willingly and lovingly bows to Christ and lives their lives
to serve him and to please him. And if you haven't bowed and
you haven't begged, then you've not yet entered into the kingdom
of heaven. And any man tells you, you can
enter into the kingdom of heaven by your choice, if not telling
the truth, is he? Because Christ is the king and
we must bow to him. All right, here's the fourth
thing. The message that saves says, confess your sin. Verse
five, 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. Now John's baptism clearly is
a confession of sin, isn't it? John, he baptized in the exact
same way we do. The form of it is exactly the
same as we do. It's in immersion. Always not
sprinkling, it's immersion, dunking a person clear under the water.
That's why he was at the River Jordan, because there's enough
water to dip somebody under the water. And John did indeed baptize
people confessing their sin. But John's baptism is a whole
lot more than that. Look at Acts 19. I'll show you
this, Acts 19. John's baptism also showed that
people's sin would be washed away by the Lord Jesus Christ
who was coming. Remember, John preached Christ,
so he's going to preach that our sins are washed away in Christ.
Acts 19 verse 2. And he saith unto them, have
you received the Holy Ghost that you believed? And they said unto
him, we have not so much as heard whether there be any Holy Ghost.
And he, this is Paul talking to them, said unto them, well,
unto what then were you baptized? And they said unto John's baptism. Now, apparently all they heard
about was John. This is John's baptism. It was
just a confession of our sin. But look what Paul said in the
inverse for then said, Paul, you didn't hear everything John
preached. John barely baptized with the baptism of repentance,
saying unto people that they should believe on him, which
should come after that is on Christ Jesus. John, he's telling
them John preached Christ. John preached remission of sin,
cleansing of sin in Christ. Now you believe him. And when
they heard this, they were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus.
They were baptized in the name of Christ because the Holy Spirit
finally enabled them to hear of Christ. So John's baptism
was more than just a baptism confessing sin. Apparently it
was believers baptism that confessing I'm a sinner. And the only way
I can be cleansed is in this one who's coming. All right. How is believer's baptism a confession
of sin? If I'm going to be saved, there's
got to be a confession of sin. Well, this is what believer's
baptism says. Anytime anybody's baptized, this is what they're
confessing. I am so sinful. The only way I can be saved is
in Christ. It's the only way it's possible.
The only way I can be saved is in Christ paying for my sin with
His death, burial, and resurrection. The only reason I'm saved, this
is what I'm saying when I'm baptized, the only reason I'm saved is
that I was in Christ. When He died, I was in Him. I
died to God's law. I died to God's justice in Him.
I was buried in Him, and then I rose again in Him. I rose again
to life in Him. That's how God saved me. It's
all Christ. That's how my sin was put away.
It's all in Christ and his life, his death, his burial, and his
resurrection. Now that's the message that saves. The message that saves says it's
all in Christ without anything we do added to it. Because everything
we do is sinful. Right, here's the fifth mark.
The message that saves says this. I wish my generation knew this.
God does not need me. I need him. Verse 7. But when
he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees come to his baptism,
he said unto them, O generation of vipers, who hath warned you
to flee from the wrath to come? Now I love the boldness of John
the Baptist. He declared the same message
to everybody everywhere. He told everybody, you're a sinner,
without exception. That's what he told everybody,
because it's true. No matter who you're talking
to, that's true. He even said that to the Pharisees
and the Sadducees. He didn't change his message
when he preached to them. Now, you beware of a man who
changes his message when he goes, he's got a different audience,
goes from place to place. You beware of him now. Truth
is the truth. North is north, no matter where
you are. John told this even to the Pharisees
and Sadducees. And this is bold because in his
day, those Jews said, if only two people go to heaven, just
two, one of them is going to be a Pharisee and the other one
is going to be a Sadducee. And what did John tell them? You're
a generation of poisonous snakes. Your bite kills people. You hold
people in your religion and you kill them with your religion.
You kill them getting to believe your religion and you send people
to hell through your religion. And you're going to follow them
there and that's exactly what you deserve. You're going to
follow them there unless God's merciful to you. Now I know that
sounds harsh, but brethren, that's the message that saves. Religion
with all of its ceremonies, with all of its duties, with all of
its candles and songs and atmosphere, that make the flesh feel better,
make the flesh feel more holy, it's worse than useless. I was
going to say it's useless, but it's worse than useless. It kills
the souls of people who believe it and sends them to hell for
believing a lie. It's worse than useless. And
God's preachers are going to tell us that in no uncertain
terms. We've got to be told in plain,
simple, harsh language that our sin makes us useless and vile. God don't want us that way. He
can't do anything for us. He don't need us. God doesn't
need us with all of our religious activity, with all of our good
works. God can't get anything done without our help. That's
a lie. We need Christ. We need God to
be gracious to us. We need Christ. We need Christ
to come and do for us what we cannot do for ourselves. We need
Christ to come and keep the law for us. We need Christ to come
and keep the law for us because we can't do it. That's the only
way sinners can be saved. We need Christ. That's why God's
preachers preach. Look what John says in verse
8. Bring forth therefore fruits, meat for repentance. Now fruit,
meat for repentance, those are, what he means, the translation
there is works that are answerable to life. It's fruit that shows
God-given life. How do you know a tree is an
apple tree? It bears fruit. Meat for an apple tree doesn't.
It bears apples. It bears fruit. So what are these fruits that
are meat for repentance that are answerable to life? Well,
back where we started, it's coming out of false religion. It's coming
out of that lie because you can't stand to hear it anymore. You
need to hear Christ the truth so you come out of the lie. Those
works of meat for repentance that are answerable to life are
repentance. It's that you quit trusting in
all those things that you used to trust in, and you trust in
Christ alone. It's to confess everything I
am, everything I do, everything I think is sin, so the only way
I can be saved is in Christ. That's works meat for repentance.
It's answerable to life. And it's also this, to have no
confidence in the flesh, because the flesh is useless. There's
nothing in me that God needs. That's what Paul told the church
at Philippi. He said, those of us who have
spiritual life, we worship God in the spirit, we rejoice in
Christ Jesus. And what's the third one? Have
no confidence in the flesh. So that brings me to the sixth
thing. The message that saves will destroy all confidence in
the flesh. Verse nine. 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. You beware of a man that gives
you some confidence in something that you've done, something about
your experience. John didn't do that. He told
those scribes and Pharisees and everybody around him was listening.
They're all Jews, no doubt. He said, don't think being a
Jew related to Abraham is going to do your soul any good because
the flesh contributes nothing to salvation. The flesh is useless. And to us here, to make it more
applicable to us, I'll tell you the same thing John said. Don't
think being related to believers is going to do your soul any
good. Salvation doesn't come from the blood of our parents.
I mean, you're better off if your parents are believers and
teach you the gospel, but that's not going to do your soul any
good. Salvation doesn't come through human blood. Salvation
can only be found in the blood of Christ. We've got to trust
Him. And don't think knowing other believers is going to save
you. Don't think loving other believers
is going to save you. Don't think knowing and even
loving the right doctrine is going to save you. Salvation
comes from knowing God. Isn't that what our Savior said
in John 17? This is life eternal that they
might know thee. Salvation is in knowing Christ
and loving Christ. And that's why God's preacher
will slay the flesh, he'll insult your flesh every single time
he preaches. He's going to insult your flesh.
And he's going to preach Christ and point you to Christ because
the one thing we must know is Him. All right, here's the seventh
thing. The message that saves will lay
the axe to the root of the problem. It's our heart. The message that
saves is going to lay the axe to the root of where this problem
started. Verse 10. And now also the axe
is laid to the root of the trees. Therefore, every tree which bringeth
not forth good fruit, bringeth not forth that fruit, meat for
repentance, is hewn down and cast into the fire. Now here's
our problem. Our problem is a sin, sinful,
dead heart. When Adam sinned, we died. That's the root of the problem.
So we don't need to put ourselves in a better environment. You
know, if I think, well, if I put myself in a better environment,
I wouldn't sin so much if I just wasn't out there in the bad world
where everybody's sinning. That's not the problem. We need
a new heart, not a new environment. And we don't need to think, well,
if I just was more educated, I'd be more refined and I wouldn't
sin as much. You know, I wouldn't sin as much
if I was just educated so I knew better. We already know better. That's not the issue. We need
a new heart. And we don't need more religious
activity. Thinking all just getting caught
up and spend all of our time on a bunch of religious activities
can help us. Because that won't save. We need a new heart. A new heart. So the message that
saves always begins with where we went wrong. In the garden. We're on vacation, Jan's mother,
we're sitting around talking. And I don't know what made her
say it, but she said, you hear religious people talk. And she
said, none of them knows what happened in the garden. They
know we're in a mess, but they don't know why. She's exactly
right. Well, God's preacher is going
to do his dead level best that you know that. Where is it that
we went wrong? Why is it that we're in such
a mess? Why is it that we need to be saved? Because when Adam
sinned, we all sinned in him. When Adam died, we all died in
him. When Adam was cast out of God's presence, we were cast
out of God's presence in him. So we're dead and we cannot save
ourselves. We can't trust in anything this
dead flesh produces because all it produces is more stinking
flesh, more dead works. So that brings me to my eighth
point. The message that saves shuts sinners up to Christ and
makes us dependent upon the work of the Holy Spirit in the new
birth. Verse 11, John says, I indeed baptize you with water under
repentance, but he that cometh after me is mightier than I,
whose shoes I'm not worthy to bear. He shall baptize you with
the Holy Ghost and the fire. Remember, John told him back
up there in verse 9, don't think you're saved just because you're
children of Abraham. He said, God can give these stones
life and just make these stones lying around here. He can make
them children of Abraham. But you know, that is just exactly
what God does every single time he saves a sinner. He takes a
dead stone and gives it life and makes it a child of Abraham.
He takes out that old heart of stone and gives a new heart of
flesh. And I tell you how he does it.
He does it through the preaching of Christ. See the theme running
through? It's the preaching of Christ.
It's the preaching of Christ. It's the preaching of Christ.
God's servant's got one message, and it's Christ. Same as John.
Salvation's not going to be found in our works. It's not going
to be found in our religious ceremonies. It's in Christ. It's in Christ. saying this is what I mean when
I say salvation is not in religious ceremonies. It's not even in
baptism. I'm just like John. I can baptize
you with water. But if all we do is have a ceremony
of baptism, you know what we're going to have to end that ceremony?
We're going to have two wet sinners, you and me. That's all we're
going to have. But God the Holy Spirit has got
to He's got power to give life in the new birth. That's what
John talks about here, baptizing with fire. He means immersing
us into Christ and making us pure in Him. That new man born
of the Holy Ghost is pure and he's sinless. And the only way
he can be born is by the Holy Spirit blessing the seed of the
Word of God and putting life in the heart. That leaves you
and me totally dependent on God to save us. And when the Holy
Spirit gives life in the new birth, that new life will leak
out on you. I promise you it will. I'm not
going to pressure somebody into being baptized. If God the Holy
Spirit has given you life, sooner or later this is going to happen.
You're going to do something that gives evidence of life that
God put in you. You're going to confess it. In
obedience to the Savior, you're going to confess him and believe
his baptism, and nobody's going to have to talk you into it.
All right, here's the ninth thing. The message that saves declares
God's judgment against sin. Verse 12, whose fan is in his
hand, and he will throughly purge his floor and gather his weed
into the garner, and he will burn up the chaff with unquenchable
fire. Now, the message that saves declares
God will punish sin. He'll punish every sin of every
human being who ever lived. He'll punish it with the wrath
and the justice that it deserves. He's either going to punish sin
in us eternally, Christ our substitute and Calvary, one or the other. And the message that saves declares
that God saved his people in justice, justice. Not because
God's just so kind. He couldn't stand to punish you.
He couldn't stand to see you suffer. So he's going to ignore
your sin. No, the message to save says God has saved his people
in justice by punishing their sin in the person of their substitute. So now God can be both just and
justifier. God could be just when he justifies
the ungodly because he punished their sin in Christ. And everyone
else is going to receive the exact punishment that they deserve
for their sin. No more, no less. It will be
exactly what their sin deserves because God's just. God's going
to be just all this. He's going to be just when he
damns and he's going to be just when he saves. That's the message
of the gospel. Somebody saying something different
than that, they're not preaching the gospel. All right. Lord bless
you.