I've entitled this message, The
Pharisees and the Sadducees. Now, if someone thinks, well,
we're giving a history lesson. No, there's a Pharisee within.
There's a Sadducee within all of us. So don't think we're going
to be talking about people from a couple thousand years ago.
This is the natural man's religion, the Pharisees and the Sadducees. I think it's interesting that
much of the dialogue that took place in the Gospels was the
Lord speaking to the Pharisees and the Sadducees. John the Baptist, the Lord Jesus
Christ said of this Man, John the Baptist, verily, verily,
I say unto you, among them that are born of women, there hath
risen none greater than John the Baptist. Now that is enough
to catch our attention. This is the man, the Lord says,
there's never been a greater man of those born of women. He was prophesied of in the Old
Testament. He was filled with the Holy Ghost
from his mother's womb. I don't know how to comment on
that, but that's what the Bible says. He was filled with the
Holy Ghost from his mother's womb. It was said of him, the
child grew and waxed strong in spirit and was in the deserts
until the day of his showing in Israel." Now, it seems that
he wasn't reared by his parents. He was out in the desert, living
under the stars with God as his teacher. He was God's prophet. Now, let's look in verse 1 of
chapter 3. In those days came John the Baptist,
preaching in the wilderness. of Judea, and saying, repent
ye, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. For this is he, Matthew
tells us, that was spoken of by the prophet Isaiah, saying,
the voice of one crying in the wilderness, prepare ye the way
of the Lord, make his path straight. The same John had his raiment
of camel's hair, and a leather girdle, about his loins. His meat was locusts and wild
honey. Now the scripture points out
that Elijah was a very hairy man. And I assume John the Baptist
was too. So picture this man in your mind
that people are going out into the wilderness to hear preach.
This man in a loincloth, hairy, eating locusts and wild honey
for his food. Then went out unto him Jerusalem
and all Judea and all the region round about Jordan. If you're
going to hear from God's prophet, you're going to hear in the temple.
You're going to have to go to the wilderness. He made no effort
to identify with man's religion. I think that's so beautiful.
And these people that came were baptized of him in Jordan, confessing
their sins, but when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees come to his baptism. They came
evidently to observe. They weren't coming to be baptized. They were coming to observe,
to see what they could agree with or disagree with. Now this
man, the Lord knew this man who was God's prophet, this man who
knew the Lord as he was baptizing, he sees these Pharisees and Sadducees
come out to listen. Now I think it's so glorious
how the Bible is always so current. The Pharisees and the Sadducees. Now, these were man-made denominations. You don't read about them in
the Old Testament. They happened sometime between
Malachi and the coming of our Lord. From what I could read,
they were developed some 200 to 150 BC, and that's when these
religions began. And the Pharisees and the Sadducees
were the fundamentalists and liberals of that day. They were
the conservatives and the liberals. Neither group is mentioned in
the Old Testament, but these two denominations, as it were,
this is not denominational religion, man-made denominational religion. You can't find any support for
any kind of denomination in the scripture. It is not there. The Pharisees and the Sadducees. The word Pharisee means separated
one. And the word Sadducee means righteous
one. That's the meaning of these names,
of these two man-made denominations. If you want to know what the
Pharisee believed, read what the Lord said about the Pharisee
in the temple. He spake a parable unto certain
which trusted in themselves, that they were righteous. And
anyone who believes themselves to be righteous will always despise
others. Two men went up into the temple
to pray, one a Pharisee, the other a publican. The Pharisee
stood and prayed thus with himself. I love the way the Lord says
that. He thought he's praying to the Lord, but he's just praying
to himself. God, I thank thee. I'm giving you the credit for
this. I'm far too humble to take the credit for this. God, I thank
thee that I am not as other men are. I'm different. I'm separate. I fast twice in
the week. I give tithes of all that I possess.
I'm not an extortioner. I'm not unjust. I'm not an adulterer. I'm certainly not like this miserable
publican back here. He thought something he did separated
him from everybody else. The reason he was saved, and
he would give God the credit. God, I thank Thee. I think this
man was a Calvinist. I thank Thee. He didn't give
his free will the credit. God, I thank Thee. But his ground
of hope was the difference between him and everybody else. I love what the Lord said with
regard to this man. He said, with regard to the publican,
I say unto you, this man, this publican, went down to his house
justified. rather than the other. The Sadducee,
he was a liberal. You see, the Pharisees believed
in the resurrection. They believed in angels. They
believed in an afterlife. They believed in heaven. They
believed in hell. That is brought out quite often in the book of
Acts, the difference between these two. And then the Sadducees
did not believe in an afterlife. They didn't believe in the resurrection.
That's brought out in the gospels. As a matter of fact, I tried
to do some reading about the Sadducees, and what they were
especially opposed to was predestination. And they were strong supporters
of free will. Now, there we have human religion. The Pharisees and the Sadducees,
man-made denominational religion, and denominations today. Any denomination I'm in, I'm
saying I've got a little bit more handle on the truth than
the Baptists do, or the Presbyterians do, or the Catholics do, or the
whatever denomination you want to have. When you have human
denominational religion, you think somehow I've got a, I'm
in the better one. Is Christ divided? No. That's
why I'm saying all these things of denominations are simply man-made. And here we have it, the Pharisees
and the Sadducees. They came out to observe John
the Baptist. They heard they were going to
give their judgment with regard to this man. They didn't like
John the Baptist. They didn't like each other,
but they could get together on their opposition to Christ and
John the Baptist at this time. So verse seven, when he saw many
of the Pharisees and the Sadducees come to his baptism, he said
unto him publicly in front of everybody, O generation of vipers, poisonous snakes, who hath warned
you to flee from the wrath to come. Now these people considered
themselves righteous, set apart, at least better than the average
Joe. I might not be perfect, but I'm better than most men.
All of these men felt this way. How do you reckon they responded
to this language when John said, oh generation of vipers? Who hath warned you to flee from
the wrath to come? And he said this publicly, and
the Lord Jesus Christ did as well. Matthew 23, 23, he says
to the same people, you serpents, you generation of vipers, how
can you escape the damnation of hell? That was the Lord's
words. And you know, I don't even like
to talk about hell. I don't even like to use the
word when I'm preaching. But the Lord did, and he spoke more
of hell than anybody else did. You know, the Apostle Paul in
his writings never uses the word once, almost like it's too terrible
to even imagine. He talked about condemnation
and damnation, but he didn't use the word hell. But the Lord
used the word more than anybody else. But John the Baptist says
to these people, O generation of vipers, poisonous snakes,
who hath warned you to flee from the wrath to come? There is a
coming wrath. Ponder that for a moment. And
when he said this, he's saying, this wrath is coming for you.
John did not share with them the high opinion they had of
themselves. Verse seven, 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 Bring forth therefore fruits meet, appropriate,
answerable to. Fruits meet for repentance. Now, repentance. Repentance is a change of mind. That's what the word means. I've
heard people say, well, that's not enough. Well, if you give
it the right definition, yeah, it is. It's a change of mind. Now, here's the fact with regard
to every Pharisee, every Sadducee, every natural man, me and you. By nature, we're ignorant of
the character of God. We don't know who he is. We don't
know who we are. We don't know how he saved sinners.
That's true of every man, woman, boy, and girl in this world by
nature. We're ignorant. We're blind to
the character of God. And that is seen, and this is
helpful to me. I hope it will be helpful to
you. That is seen in the belief in salvation by works. If I believe
that salvation is in any way dependent upon me doing something
before God can do something for me, if I think salvation is dependent
upon anything I do, I demonstrate a complete ignorance of the character
of a holy God to think that He can accept something that I did.
I demonstrate a complete ignorance of my own character to think
that He can accept any of this stuff. I don't show, I don't
really understand. I demonstrated complete ignorance
and blindness to God's way of salvation. That's the way every
natural man is, and that's the importance of repentance. Change
your mind. I love what Brother Mahan said
about repentance. Repentance is a change of mind,
and it comes from a change of masters, and it produces a change
of motives. and it brings about a change
of manners. Repentance. Now he says to these people,
bring forth works, meet for repentance, congruent with true repentance,
a true change of mind. Now here is an example. If I've
had this change of mind, I'm gonna have fruit. meat for repentance. What's that mean? If I've had
this change of mind, I'm going to be poor in spirit. I'm going to mourn over my sin. I'm going to be meek before God. Before God, you can't be anything
but that. And you know that in your experience. If I have fruit,
meat for repentance, I'm going to hunger and I'm going to thirst
after His righteousness. If I have fruit, meat for repentance,
I'm gonna be a merciful person. Blessed are the merciful. If
I have fruit, meat for repentance, I'm gonna have the pure heart,
the heart given in the new birth. If I have fruit, meat for repentance,
I'm gonna be a peacemaker. I'm gonna preach the gospel of
peace. I'm gonna seek to preach peace, promote peace. If I have the fruit of the Spirit,
I'm gonna be persecuted for His righteousness sake, because I'm
gonna maintain that His righteousness is the only righteousness there
is. I'm gonna bear the fruit of the Spirit. I'm gonna have
love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith,
meekness, temperance. If I bear the fruit fruit, meat
for the repentance, I'm going to have a broken and a contrite
heart over my sin. I'm going to have humility before
God. I'm going to have the fear of
God. I'm going to believe and bow
to all His Word says. Fruit, meat for repentance. Self-righteousness and pride
is certainly not fruit, meat for repentance, is it? bring forth therefore fruits
meet for repentance. He could see these people had
just come to judge him, criticize him, had no love for his message. And he knows exactly where they're
coming from. He knew him. So he says this to them. And
he says in verse nine, and 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. He knew that all of their confidence
came out of their hope that somehow their connection with Abraham
was going to do them some good. We'd be children of Abraham.
We have the right heritage. We have the right upbringing.
We're children of the man that God first made himself known
to. We're in that group. John says, God is able of these
stones to raise up children unto Abraham. You see, they had no
understanding of their need of a new birth. To as many as received him, to
them gave he the power to become the sons of God, even to them
which believe on his name, which were born, which were birthed. Not of blood, not because you're
children of Abraham. Not of the will of the flesh,
not because a bunch of men got together and said we're going
to pray and we're not going to give any peace to God until He
saves you. Not of the will of man, not as an act of man's free
will, but of God. They had no understanding of
their absolute need of the new birth. Now, verse 10. And now also the axe is laid
unto the root. of the trees. Now he's speaking
of the axe cutting down every fruitless tree. Now also is the
axe laid unto the root of the trees. Now the Lord said in John
chapter 15, If a man abide in me, he bringeth forth much fruit. The fruit I've been speaking
of. Everyone that abides in Christ brings forth much fruit. Now
somebody says, what in the world do you mean by abiding in Christ?
What does that concept mean, abiding in Christ? That means
the only place you want to be found is in Him. That's exactly
what it means. You don't want to be anywhere
outside of Him. When God looks at you, you want
Him only to see you in Him. Now, if you abide in Christ,
if that's you, if that's an accurate description of you, you will
bring forth fruit. It's the fruit of God, the Holy
Spirit, but you will bring forth fruit. The key to bringing forth
fruit is abiding in Christ. The Lord made that clear. If
we abide in Him, as the branch abides in the vine, we will bring
forth fruit. And if we don't bring forth fruit,
we're not abiding in Him. You see, everybody that God has
saved brings forth this fruit. Every one of them. There are
no people in the kingdom of heaven who are not poor in spirit. There are no people in the kingdom
of heaven who do not mourn over their sin before God. There are
no people in the kingdom of heaven that are not meek before God
and who do not hunger and thirst after the righteousness of Jesus
Christ, who are not merciful, who are not pure in heart, who
are not peacemakers, who are not persecuted for righteousness
sake. Where there is an abiding in him, there is this fruit. And when there is no fruit, there
is no salvation. Now does that mean if you're
saved you'll no longer have the same struggles with sin? No,
the struggles with sin actually begin when you're saved. You
don't even know what sin is before God saves you. And the struggles
begin when you're saved. That every branch in Him bears
fruit. What is the difference between
the good ground here and the other grounds? Fruit. Fruit. same bears fruit in the good
ground. Some 30-fold, some 60, some 100-fold,
but the other grounds did not yield fruit. So John says, And
now also the axe is laid into the root of the trees. Therefore
every tree which bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down
and cast into the fire. Now I need to baptize you with
water unto repentance. He's talking about water baptism. They came... Baptism, if I understand
what it means, that's repentance, isn't it? I understand I can't
be saved by my works. I understand the only way I can
be saved is by what baptism depicts, being in Christ, the life of
Christ, the death of Christ, the resurrection of Christ, the
ascension of Christ, the intercession of Christ. That's repentance.
When I am baptized, I negate, I reject, I repudiate any salvation
by works, and I look to Christ alone. That is repentance. That's true repentance. He said
in verse 11, I indeed baptize you with water unto repentance,
but he that cometh after me is mightier than I. whose shoes
I'm not worthy to bear. Now this is how he felt about
the Lord Jesus Christ. He knew who he was. And you know,
sometimes understatement is the most powerful way to say things.
He's mightier than I. What an understatement. And I
am not even worthy to carry his shoes. He shall baptize you with the
Holy Ghost and with fire. Now he's talking about regeneration. He's talking about the new birth.
He's also talking about Acts chapter two, when the tongues
of fire came upon them and they began to speak in other languages,
17 different languages in Acts chapter two. this baptism of
fire that he speaks of is because of the fire he experienced in
when he spoke of it's that you read about in Luke chapter 12
and I'm gonna look at a little bit more detail Lord willing next
week but He said, I've got a baptism to be baptized with, and how
is my soul straight until it's accomplished? And he was talking
about going to the cross. And he'd already gone through
water baptism right here, but he was talking about this baptism
of fire when he would become completely immersed under the
wrath of God as the sin-bearing substitute, and because of that,
he gives us the new birth. He doesn't give you the new birth
because you ask for it. He gives you the new birth because
he was baptized under the wrath of God. For your sins, they were
put away. And now he gives you the new
birth. And the evidence is faith in Christ. Looking to him alone. And look what he says. Verse 12, whose fan is in his
hand. And he will throughly purge his
floor. I love the way he calls it. He
calls it his floor. The earth is the Lord's, and the fullness
thereof, the world, and they that dwell therein. He shall
throughly, all the way through, purge his floor. The wheat will be gathered into
the security of his garden, and the chaff will be burned with
unquenchable fire. And you know what that word means,
it'll never go out. He's talking about an eternal
hell. And the reason hell is eternal
is because I can never satisfy God with my punishment. It's
never enough. God could never say I'm satisfied. My sin in murdering his son,
God could never say I'm satisfied, but what Christ did when he died
on Calvary's tree. God could say, because of his
death, and it's proved by his resurrection, I'm satisfied with
what he did. And that's what I'm satisfied
with. I'm satisfied with what God's satisfied with. But the
unquenchable fire speaks of eternal hell, and that's what he was
warning these people about. But let's close with this thought.
I don't want to talk right now about chaff being burned with
unquenchable fire although it's going to happen but he will through
the purge his floor the wheat that's the believers he'll gather
into his garner the place of security now let's close by looking
at hebrews chapter one Remember this, all together,
throughly. Somebody says, is that thoroughly?
Well, no, it's throughly. That's what the Bible says. That means
all the way through. It goes all the way through. It washes away every sin outside
and inside, upside, downside, everything, throughly, all the
way through. Hebrews 1, verse 1, God. I love the way Hebrews begins. God, no attempt to prove his
existence, you know, don't have to. God, who at sundry times and in diverse
manners, spake in times past unto the fathers by the prophets,
hath in these last days spoken to us by, and notice the word
his is in italics. Once again, I think the italics
don't do us any good. He has spoken to us by son. Son. Well, who is the son that he's
speaking of? The one whom he hath appointed
heir of all things. He owns everything. That's who
the son is. He owns everything. He owns you.
He owns the person beside you. He owns everybody else. He owns
angels. He owns demons. He owns the world. There's nothing that he doesn't
own. He's the heir of all things. By whom also he made the worlds.
He's the creator. When we're talking about the
son, we're talking about the one who created the universe. Verse three, who? Being the brightness of His glory. I don't know how that could be
explained other than red. He's the brightness of God's
glory. And the express image of His
person. All you'll ever see of God is
Jesus Christ. He is the express image of His
person. And upholding all things by the
word of His power, this One who God has spoken through is the
One who controls everything, upholds everything. That means
the last breath you took is because he willed for it to take place.
And he can stop your breath and my breath whenever he wills to.
He controls everything and every event. There's nothing that's
outside of his sovereign purpose and control. This is the glory
of this one we're speaking of. Now, remember that? Throughly purged. when he had by himself purged
our sins. Now, if it said when he had purged
our sins, we're thankful for that, aren't we? But I love the
way God the Holy Spirit points out when he had by himself purged
our sins. Now, I don't understand this, but the Father
had forsaken him. The Father wasn't helping him.
He said in Psalm 22, Verse three, why art thou so far from helping
me? And the words of my roaring,
he said, why aren't you helping me? The Father had forsaken him.
His people weren't helping him. You and I made no contribution
in this thing. When he had by himself purged, put away, made not to
be our sins. That's the repurging. And he
did this by himself. When he had by himself purged
our sins, he, what? Sat down. The work was accomplished. He sat down at the right hand
of God. Now he's going to burn the chaff
with unquenchable fire. But oh, his wheat, his people,
they're gathered into the security of his garner. They are saved. And by his grace, they will bear
fruit. Isn't it amazing how current
every story in the scripture is? Let's pray. Lord, how we thank you for the
gospel of thy dear son. How we thank you for his excellency
and glory. How we thank you that he's the
heir of all things. How he made the world, that he's
the brightness of your glory and the express image of your
person. He upholds all things by the word of his power. How
thankful we are to read and to believe that when he had by himself
purged our sins, he sat down, he's still sitting in absolute
control. Give us the grace to look to,
to rest in, to believe on him. How we thank you for your gospel.
Bless us for Christ's sake, in his name we pray, amen.