I invite you to turn with me
this morning to Matthew chapter 3. What I want to do this morning
is to use the ministry of John the Baptist to show you the message
of every true gospel preacher. I read Mark's account of John
the Baptist to you earlier because I wanted you to see that his
ministry The ministry of John the Baptist marked the beginning
of the gospel of Christ. Mark said, this is the beginning
of the gospel of Christ, and then immediately started talking
about John. John was the forerunner of Christ.
And this gospel, which we've come to know as the person of
Jesus Christ, would not be manifest until John came and John preached. I believe this in my heart. A
little known fact in our day is that the gospel is a person.
It is a person. I hear men talk about the gospel,
but they are referring to decisions. They are referring to an act
of acceptance. They are referring to this, that,
and the other, keeping of the law, commitments, baptism, all
kinds of things. But they are not talking about
the person of Jesus Christ. And He is the Gospel. If you
miss that, you miss the Gospel altogether. The Gospel is Christ. And that is what John came to
do. This religious world had made
things crooked. Men in their fallen nature under
the influence of Satan had made things crooked. They took the
way of God and they had it upside down. They had it sideways. It
was a crooked path. It had nothing to do, nothing
even similar to what the gospel of Christ really was as it was
set forth by the prophets. And John came to straighten that
path out. Straighten out his ways and make
his ways clear to this world. In 2 Timothy 1, verse 10, speaks
of God's eternal purpose of grace being manifested by the appearing
of our Savior. That's where it was manifested.
By the appearing of our Savior, Jesus Christ, who has abolished
death, now listen to this, and brought life and immortality
to light through the gospel. He is the gospel. And the four
testimonies of the birth, life, death, and resurrection of Christ
are called the four Gospels. The four Gospels. And John marked
the beginning of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. John's ministry
was to make the way of the Gospel plain and clear, to straighten
out that which had been made crooked, and to fill in all the
low places and level out all the high places. Turn with me
to Luke chapter 1. Luke 1. And look over here at verse 76. Let's look at what Luke had to
say about the ministry of John. Luke 1, 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. Now watch this. to give knowledge of salvation,
salvation unto his people by the remission of their sins.
That is not a hidden knowledge, but an experiential knowledge
which they receive by hearing the gospel and being born of
God's Spirit. And verse 78, through the tender
mercy of our God, whereby the dayspring on high hath bested
us, talking about Christ being born, to give light to them that
sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, and to guide our feet
into the way of peace. Do you know one of the things
that Paul said in Romans chapter 3, talking about being under
sin? Is that the way of peace? We
have not known. They have not known that. And
John came to tell them that. He came to guide their feet into
the way of peace. In short, John was sent to preach
the gospel of Christ who had already been born in Bethlehem. Well, why must John be sent? Why couldn't Jesus of Nazareth
herald His own coming? He did stand up one day and read
some scripture from Isaiah and said, this day is a scripture
fulfilled in your ears, declaring Himself to be the Savior and
the Christ. But why couldn't He herald His own coming? Well,
I'll give you two reasons. First of all, because the Scripture
said John would. That's the first thing. You know,
we often wonder about things that are plainly declared in
the Word of God. We don't need to wonder about
them. This is how God said it was going to be. That's why John
came. That's why John was covered with the Holy Spirit in his mother's
womb. Listen to this, Matthew 3, verse
3. For this is he that was spoken
of the prophet Isaiah, this John, the voice of one crying in the
wilderness, prepare you the way of the Lord, make his path straight.
Over in Isaiah 40. And then secondly, he came for
this reason. John marked the beginning of
the gospel age. And he'll set forth the means
whereby all God's elect should be called to see the manifest
glory of God in Christ. And as John was the forerunner
of Christ and plainly declared his coming and work, so every
preacher called of God in this gospel age marks the revelation
of Christ in the hearts and minds of all that believe. Preaching. I want you to hear me. Preaching
always precedes the revelation of Christ. And God establishes
that in this man, John. Establishes it. Right there.
It always precedes the revelation of Christ to chosen sinners.
And when these men came, and when they do come and preach,
they make five bold declarations to all who are brought to hear.
May God the Holy Spirit be pleased this morning to press these claims
upon you and press them upon your heart and upon mine. John
came and he made five bold declarations. And men didn't like it, especially
religious men. They didn't like it. They didn't
like it. And the first bold declaration
is that every man, every woman, every child born into this world
is a sinner before God. They come forth from the womb,
the Scripture said, speaking lies. Now, here's what John said. Now, he said, is the ax laid
to the root. When you preach the Gospel, the
Gospel is God's axe. And He lays it to the root of
man. He cuts man down at the bottom. He doesn't trim off a few dead
limbs. He doesn't go up there. He's
got a few limbs up there kind of looking scabby like they used
to look on those old apple trees my dad had. He doesn't go up
there and trim a few limbs. He lays the axe to the root.
The whole tree is bad. And he lays that axe to the root
and chops it down. And that's what the gospel does.
It takes man down. It shows him that he's a sinner
before God. That's a bold declaration. This
world don't believe that. We don't have to believe it.
We're sinners before God. Sinners. Speaking of John the Baptist,
Isaiah said this, the voice said, cry, cry. And John said, what shall I cry? And the voice said, cry, all
flesh is grass. And all the goodliness thereof
is the flower of the grave. What's the flower of the grave?
That's a dandelion, isn't it? That's what it is in Kentucky.
I don't know what it is down here. But up there, it's just
a dandelion. You know what happens to a dandelion?
It comes out and blooms yellow. And I don't care what you spray
them with or what you do, pretty soon they turn white and you
can take them in your hand and blow them away. They're gone.
That's man. That's man. All of his goodliness
is just like that dandelion. It comes forth and you see it
for just a season and then it's gone. Gone. The grass withereth,
and the flower fadeth, because the Spirit of the Lord bloweth
upon it." Where does he do that? He does that in the preaching
of the gospel. The Holy Spirit of God blows
on the glory of man, and he just turns it into dust. Turns it
into dust. So the first straightening out
of the crooked and perverse ways of man is the conviction of sin.
Until God the Holy Spirit through the preaching of the Gospel convinces
men of sin, they'll remain right where they are. They'll stay
right where they are. They'll keep on thinking exactly
the way they think in that minute. They'll continue to walk according
to the course of this world and continue under the influence
of the Prince of the power of the air. You can read about that
in Ephesians 2, verses 2 and 3. That's where God finds all
his elect walking according to the course of this world, according
to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit who now worketh
in the children of disobedience. So the first word of the gospel
to those who gather to hear it is that all have sinned and come
short of the glory of God. Why is this so important? Why
must every God-called preacher insist on telling his hearers
that they're sinners before Holy God? Well, I tell you, first
of all, because they're ignorant of it. That's right. They're ignorant of it. Now,
I always knew that I had sinned. I always knew that. I took something
that wasn't mine or told a little fib about something or stole
somebody's watermelon or done something. I knew I was a sinner. But I didn't know what sin was.
I didn't know what sin was. I didn't realize that sin is
a nature. Sin's not near so much what you
do. It is what you do, but it's not
near so much that is why you did it. Only sinners sin, did
you know that? If you wasn't a sinner, you wouldn't
sin. Men are ignorant of this. They're ignorant of it. We're
sinners. Sinners before a holy God. Zen is a state of being. By nature, he tells us in Ephesians
2, we're by nature the children of wrath, even as others. And
then Romans 3 tells us plainly that the great advantages given
to the Jews that were withholding from the Gentiles didn't do them
a bit of good. He said, what then, for all these
advantages, all these things that was given to them, what
then? Are we any better off than they are? No. He said, no. Why?
Why? Because we have before proved
both Jew and Gentile are all under sin. Then he goes on to
tell you what he's talking about. They're non-righteous. Non-righteous. Now, wait a minute.
Wait a minute. I used to go to that church.
There's an old lady down there, she'd give you anything you needed,
she'd do anything. There's none righteous. Isn't
that what it says? None righteous. None that understandeth. None that seeketh after God.
None good, no not one. In Romans 8, verses 6 and 7,
he tells us that to be carnally minded, naturally minded is death,
because the carnal or natural mind is enmity, hostility toward
God. Not subject to the law of God,
neither indeed can be. And then in Ecclesiastes 9.3,
he said, the heart of the sons of men is full of evil, And madness
is in their heart while they live, and after that, they go
to the dead. You're sinners. Sinners. Now, why do I have to preach
that? I have to preach it because men
are ignorant of it, first of all. Secondly, I have to preach
it because God can't do you any good. Nothing I'm going to say
to you is going to do you any good until He convinces you that
you're a sinner. If you're a pretty good feller,
if you're a pretty good Lady, boy, girl, here this morning,
this salvation is not for you. This salvation is for sinners.
And here's what our Lord told them. We forget sometimes that
these Pharisees, they would put us to shame with their moral
lives. Their moral lives were spotless.
Absolutely spotless. And our Lord, when they came
to Him, He did the same thing John the Baptist told Him to
do. He said, now you go learn what this means. I'll have mercy
and not sacrifice. For I'm not come to call the
righteous but sinners to repentance. Now you go learn what sin means.
You go learn what mercy means. You go learn that and then you
come back and we'll reason together. And so John tells them. He told
those Pharisees. They came out to him to be baptized.
They didn't want to be baptized because they had been led of
God to repentance and believed in Christ for the remission of
sins. They wanted to be baptized because they were jealous of
those crowds that went out to hear John preach. And they wanted
to identify with him to get in good with the crowd. And when
they came out, John told them, he said, well, you vipers, you
vipers, that's what he called them. He didn't call them good
folks. He didn't call them folks that,
you know, we're all just folks in a wheel. We're coming from
different directions, but we're all headed... That ain't what
John said. He called them vipers. And he
said, you go back and when you come back to me, you bring fruit,
meat for repentance. Job said, man drinks iniquity
like water. And David said, at his best state,
he's altogether vanity. And listen to this, Jeremiah
said, his heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately
wicked. Who can know it? Man is a sinner,
and because he is a sinner, he is under the wrath of God, under
the condemnation of God, and bound in chains of darkness. David prayed and confessed his
sins to God. He confessed that his sins were
ever before him. before his eyes. He couldn't
get shed of what he was. He was a sinner, a sinner before
God. And that his sin was against
God wasn't so much against me as it was against God, against
his nature and against his authority and against his law and against
his testimony. And in spite of the promise of
punishment, David said he confessed these things and justified God
in his judgments toward him. And we will, too, if God ever
convinces us of sin. We'll get on God's side in our
own condemnation. We'll say in our own hearts,
He ought to send me to hell. I'm not talking about wanting
to go to hell, but you'll say God will be just if He does.
You'll agree with Him. God's preachers will tell you
the truth about sin. There's none righteous, none
good, none that understand it, no fear of God before their eyes.
That's the first bold declaration that He gives. And He gives it
because men are ignorant of it. And He gives it because it's
necessary to the receiving of grace. The first work of God
in the conversion of a man is conviction of sin. He said when
He sends the Holy Spirit over in John 16, when the Holy Spirit
has come, what's He going to do? He's going to convince us
of sin. That's first. and then of righteousness
and judgment. All right, here's the second
bold declaration that God's preachers preach to men, is that a true
knowledge of sin is in the light of a holy and just God is sufficient
to turn him from his sin. Now, I've got people that will
stand right beside me when I talk about sin, but it's never been
sufficient to turn them from their sin. There's something
wrong with that. There's something wrong with
that. If my faith in Christ and my conviction of sin is not sufficient
to turn me from sin, then I've never really known what sin is,
and I've never really known what the grace of God is, else I'd
turn. That's what Paul told those Thessalonians. He said, I know your election
of God over there in 1 Thessalonians 1. I know your election of God
because you turned to God from your idols. You turned. This matter of conviction of
sin and faith in Christ has turned you. Turned you. I'll tell you what I've learned.
You're not going to swim in a cesspool, are you? Huh? You're not going
to swim in a cesspool. You're not going to hug a hot
stove, and you're not going to lay down in a thicket of thorn.
And you avoid these things because you know better. And those who
know what sin is, who see the exceeding sinfulness of sin,
they don't lay down in it. They don't swim in it. You see
what I'm saying? They don't rest in it. They don't
follow after it. They turn from it. They turn
from it. You avoid them because you know
better. You know their nature, the danger of it. And you know
what will happen if you don't turn from them. Those who profess faith and repentance
but go on in their sins deny the true work of God in repentance
and faith and have got no fruit. of repentance. And that's what
John was telling them. Listen to what he says here to
these Pharisees and Sadducees who came and sought baptism.
Matthew 3, verse 7. 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?
Bring forth therefore fruits and meat for repentance. You
see, they professed repentance. but they clung to their old beliefs.
They professed repentance, but they wore those broad phylacteries
on their robes. They professed repentance and
faith, but they still held to their old titles and positions. They came to confess faith in
Christ and repentance from sin, but they still preached salvation
by works and salvation by law. And when God leads a man to repentance,
He takes out his old righteousnesses, all his old concepts of God and
all his old hopes, and he throws them out on the dung heap. That's
what Paul said he did with his. Takes them out there and throws
them on the dung heap where they belong. And I'll tell you this,
you might lie to God's preachers about repentance and faith, and
they may baptize you. I'll baptize you. You come and
tell me you believe what I preach, and you repented of your sins,
and God's done a work in your heart. You come to me, I'll put
you in the pool, but I'll tell you what I'm going to say when
I put you there. According to your profession of faith, I baptize
you. And you can lie to me about it,
but I'll tell you this, you can't lie to Him. You can't lie to
him. I'll tell you this, you can come
lying to me, but you can't come to me in that facade of Phariseeism. I'll tell you to go somewhere
else and get baptized. I'll tell you the same thing Paul did.
You go bring forth fruit, meat for repentance. Then we'll talk
about baptism. Alright, here's the third bold
declaration that every God-called preacher makes to men, is that
salvation is in the glorious person of Jesus Christ. Prepare,
John said, the way of the Lord. Prepare that way. My friend Jesus
Christ said, I am the way. Didn't He? Stating out the way
is to declare plainly who He is and why He came and what He
did and where He is. These modern day preachers, they
got Christ sitting in some vacuum, some
unsure vacuum, waiting on man's acceptance of Him to make His
work effectual. And he's not up there pacing,
Brother Mahan used to say, back and forth over the banisters
of heaven, wringing his hands, wondering if somebody's going
to do something for Jesus. He sat down. He sat down at the
right hand of God. He's not worried. And he's sitting
there, now listen, expecting until his enemies be made his
footstool. He's not worried. His work's
already accepted. You're the one who ain't accepted.
His work's been accepted. It's not near so much your accepting
His work as it is His work making you acceptable. That's where
it's at. Jesus Christ finished the work.
He finished the work He came to do, redemption. justified
all His elect, took possession of their inheritance, and from
His throne in glory sends them the means and the power to become
sons of God." Peter told the Sanhedrin over there in Acts
5, verse 31, that God exalted Christ with the right hand of
His power to be a Prince and a Savior. Now listen, for to
give repentance. Well, I thought that was the
work of man. That's the gift of God. And it comes from the
exalted Christ. He exalted Him to be a Prince
and Savior for to give repentance to Israel and forgiveness of
sins. You see, Christ is the Savior,
not us. We don't save ourselves. He's
the Savior. And Christ is the Savior, not
the Pope or some priest or some preacher somewhere. Christ is
the Savior, not a handful of water sprinkled on your head
or a tub full or a pool or a river. They're none other name. That's
what these early preachers said. They're none other name under
heaven given among men whereby we must be saved. The Lord came
to John and He said, baptize me. And John said, I'm not worthy
to unloose yours, you let it. He said, I need to be baptized
of thee. He said, suffer it to be so for
now. Let the Scriptures be fulfilled.
All righteousness be fulfilled. You suffer it to be so for now.
But preachers preach Christ. They preach Christ. There cometh
one after me. That was John's message. He didn't
tell them to come after him. He said, there cometh one after
me who is mightier than I. His message was this, behold
the Lamb. That's what he declared. The
Lamb of Lambs, the sacrificial Lamb, the substitutionary Lamb,
the Lamb slain before the foundation of the world. And behold the
Lamb is what preachers tell convicted sinners. who's turning from their
sins. Look to Him. Look to Him. Believe on Him. Rest in Him. Come to Him. That's salvation.
Well, how much does a man have to know to come to Christ? Enough
to cause Him to come. That's what he has to know. How
much is that? I don't know. I don't know how
much it is. But you'll know. You'll know
because you'll come. And then fourthly, every God-called
preacher boldly declares that all true believers bow to Christ. There is no coming to Christ
apart from bowing because Christ is Lord. The Gospel declares
that He is Lord. He is Lord of the dead and He
is Lord of the living. In our lesson this morning in
Colossians, I showed the people here, He is before all things. He is the firstborn of creation. He is the reason for it. He is
the glory of it. He is the hope of it. Christ
is. In Him, all preeminence in Him. Why? Because it pleased the Father
that in Him should all fullness dwell. All true believers bow to Christ. Wherever there is an inward revelation
of Christ, there is always an obedient heart. Listen to this. Paul said in Romans 6, verse
17, But God be thanked that you were the servants of sin, but
ye have obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine which was
delivered you. And that form of doctrine is
the doctrine of Christ. It's submission. That's the evidence
of a new heart. Submission. Submission to Christ. We're told over and over in the
Scriptures that the natural man will not submit himself to God. He won't do it. He won't do it. Natural Israel would not submit
themselves to the righteousness of God in Christ. And the natural
man, it says in 1 Corinthians 2.14, will not submit himself
to the means of grace, to the things of the Spirit of God,
because he believes them to be foolishness. God gave instruction
to Natro-Israel, but they refused to hearken and pulled away the
shoulder and stopped their ears that they should not hear. And
then over in Proverbs 1, he said this, he said, I called and you
refused. You refused. I stretched out
my hand and no man regarded." I tell you this, nobody is going
to be saved until they are made of God to submit, to bow to Him. Bow to His Word. Bow to His claims. Bow to His Gospel. Bow to His
means. Submit. Submit you, Paul said,
one to another. Submit yourselves under the mighty
hand of God that He may exalt you in due time. And I'm not talking about a perfect
obedience. I'm talking about a spirit and
attitude of submission. Actually, submission is what
the believer craves. And he craves it because this
is where he's the most blessed, when he submits. And this is
where he's the happiest. This is where he learns. and
where he finds peace. And then the fifth thing that
every God-called preacher declares to his assembly is the sufficiency
of Christ. I know lots of folks who talk
about coming to Christ and then going to the law, or coming to
Christ and then looking back on an old experience and all
this kind of nonsense. My friend, Christ is sufficient.
You'll know that if you ever learn who He is. You'll know
that. You'll see that. See, I was told
as a child that it had to do with my... I think the phrase
they used was, keep on keeping on. And they're talking about
your grasp, your hold, your dedication, your commitment, all of these
things in your hands. But I kept losing it. I couldn't
hold it. I'd lose it. I'd get it and then
I'd lose it. And then I'd get it again and
lose it again. Truth is, I never had it. Never had it. But you see, that's not the way
it is. The way it is, he said, they're
in my hand. No man shall pluck them out of
my... He's not in my hand, I'm in his. That's where the security
is. That's where the sufficiency
is, is in him. And that's what Paul said, as
you have received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk ye in Him.
Rooted, built up, grounded in the faith. All of these things. Why? Because in Him dwelleth
all the fullness of the Godhead bodily, and ye are complete in
Him. All sufficiency is in Him. Here's my sanctification. You
know there's millions this morning going to church Trying to figure
out what it is to be sanctified and then leaving that church
and going home and trying to sanctify themselves through doing
this and doing that and thinking this. And feelings, they're trying
to drum up a feeling in their heart sufficient to give them
a little peace. That's not where it is. I'm telling
you, it's all in Him. You can read about it. 1 Corinthians
1, verse 30. God hath made Him to be unto
us wisdom, all wisdom, everything you need to know is in Christ.
Righteousness, all my righteousnesses are as filthy rags, but in Him
I have a perfect righteousness. And God hath made Him to be unto
me wisdom, righteousness, now listen, sanctification. Huh? Sanctification. Over there in Hebrews chapter
10, I think it's verse 14. By one offering He hath sanctified
us forever. He is my sanctification and He
is my redemption. All sufficiencies in Christ.
And when you see that, you lay hold of Him. You quit chasing
all these play pretties and you quit chasing all these works
and all these feelings and experiences and all these things that men
try to push you to and call you to. I'm just calling you to one
thing, the Lord Jesus Christ. Look to Him. Look to Him, not
this pitiful Jesus this world is trying to preach, but the
exalted King of glory in whom is all sufficiency, all the fullness
of the Godhead bodily in Him, and you are complete in Him.
If you're in Him, now He said, don't let anybody come out here
and start talking to you about Sabbath days and tithing and
all these other things of the law. You're complete in Him.
Those things were just shadows. Those things were just pictures.
Here's the body that gave the shadow right here. And you have
the body. You have the fulfillment of all
those things. Do you need life? He's the resurrection. You remember the two sisters
Mary and Martha mourning over their brother Lazarus, and the
Lord said, well, you believe he's going to live again? Oh
yeah, we believe in the last resurrection. He said, I am the
resurrection. Do you need life? He that hath
the Son hath life. Do you need healing of the soul?
He's the great physician. Do you need knowledge? He's the
wisdom of God. Do you need forgiveness? In Him
we have redemption. the forgiveness of sin. Do you
need righteousness? He's the end of the law for righteousness
to everyone that believeth. Do you need rest? We which have
believed do enter into His rest. He's the rest. And I'll tell you, Paul believed
this so much that he actually said in the book of Colossians
that Christ is all. That's an all-encompassing word,
isn't it? All. to the believer. He's all and he's in all. And if that be so, and we know
that God cannot lie and it must be, then why would we ever go
anywhere else? Why would we ever look anywhere
else? Why would we ever listen to anything else? Why would we
ever preach anything else? God's preachers preach and insist
on the full and complete sufficiency of Christ. Paul said this. He said, I'm confident in this.
He's able to save us to the uttermost who come unto God by Him. So what are you saying, preacher?
I'm saying look to Christ. That's what I'm saying. Turn
from yourself. Turn from this world and look
to Christ. Look to Christ. May God make
it so. Our Father, I thank You for this
opportunity this morning. to stand again this side of eternity,
preach to eternity-bound sinners, and point them to Christ. Bless
the message this morning for Christ's sake. Amen.