Let us pray before we read the scripture text. Lord God, we thank you for your word. We thank you that through your spirit, you have spoken to the apostles and prophets of old and thereby have spoken even to us. We pray that as we cast our eyes upon your word that you would Through your Spirit, show us your Son. Show us our need for him. Show us his glory, that he may be high and exalted, even now as we pray in his name. Amen.

Our sermon this morning will be from the Gospel according to Matthew, Gospel according to Matthew chapter 3. If you turn to Matthew chapter 3 here this morning, we’ll be reading the first 12 verses of Matthew chapter 3. You probably know that the first two chapters of Matthew record the early days of Jesus’ life on earth, his birth, the visit of the Magi and the subsequent flight into Egypt, and the return two years later to Nazareth to live. And so now we have skipped a fourth decade As Jesus begins, inaugurates his public ministry. That’ll be at the end of this chapter, which if you’re here next week, Lord willing, we will see. But the first half of this chapter, the way is prepared for Jesus’ public ministry by his cousin, the son of his mother’s cousin, Elizabeth, John the Baptist. So hear God’s word now from Matthew 3, beginning in verse 1.

In those days, John the Baptist came preaching in the wilderness of Judea, repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. For this is he who was spoken of by the prophet Isaiah when he said, the voice of one crying in the wilderness, prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight. Now, John wore a garment of camel’s hair and a leather belt around his waist, and his food was locusts and wild honey. Then Jerusalem and all Judea and all the region about the Jordan were going out to him. They were baptized by him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins. But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming to his baptism, he said to them, you brood of vipers, who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? Bear fruit in keeping with repentance. And do not presume to say to yourselves, we have Abraham as our father. For I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children for Abraham. Even now the axe is laid to the root of the trees. Every tree, therefore, that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. I baptize you with water for repentance. But he who is coming after me is mightier than I, whose saddles I am not worthy to carry. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire. His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor and gather his wheat into the barn. But the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.

Last several years, has seen what has become known as a renaissance of what they call prestige television. Now, I’m not a big prestige television fan. I don’t subscribe to any of that. streaming services, but on the vanguard of pristine television, one of the first shows that really began that renaissance was Mad Men on AMC. I, again, wasn’t a big Mad Men fan. I know that this was a period drama. My period dramas are usually set in England in the 1800s, but this one was in the 1960s in the advertising age. And evidently, if you watch the show, you might get the impression that to be a good advertiser, you drink cocktails and flirted with your secretary. Now, if you know anything about advertising, that’s actually not true. That’s not how you are a good advertiser. In fact, advertising these days is a very highly scientific endeavor. If you cast your eyes upon an advertiser in a newspaper or a magazine or online, you can rest assured that every detail of that advertiser was thought through very carefully. Even down to the font that was used, what will catch the reader’s eye? The colors that were used, what background will make the product really pop out? If you get an email from a retailer, they may have sent, you know, 100,000 people 10 different emails, and they’ll do some research saying which emails led to the most clicks, and which clicks led to the most sales. And then after harvesting that data, they’ll send that email to the other 90,000 people, knowing that was the most effective email. If they’re having people who are looking at a website, They’ll have these special eyeball trackers, and they’ll have people test the website to see, you know, where does the person’s eyeball go? Does it go to that section of the page? Does it skip past that text or that picture? All for this purpose of grabbing and keeping your attention. They want you to pay attention to their message, and they’ll do whatever they can to make sure that that happens. Now, when John the Baptist comes on the scene in Matthew chapter 3, I can assure you he doesn’t have an MBA from Wharton. He hasn’t been studying economics. He hasn’t been studying advertising. And yet, his ministry and this text is designed to grab our attention. John and his ministry, and Matthew has recourse it for us even now, wants to grab our attention because He has an important message. No, he’s not selling life insurance. No, he’s not selling you a refinance on your mortgage or even a $9.99 pizza. But his message is far more important and far more worthy of our attention. The message is not complicated. It’s simple. Christ is coming to save and to judge. so you must repent.” Christ is coming to save and to judge, so we must repent. As we look at Matthew chapter 3, these first 12 verses, we’ll consider this by looking at it under three main headings. We’ll begin by seeing the manner in which John comes. Even his lifestyle, if you will, speaks to the importance of this message. Next, we’ll consider the mission of John, why he has come to do what he does in this text. And then finally, we’ll consider the message proper, that message that John comes to pray. So under these three headings, his manner, his mission, and his message, we’ll see this fact, that Christ is coming to save us, so we must repent. But you get with John’s manner, and even the place where he goes, his location is important. When we first meet John in this text, it tells us that John was preaching where? in the wilderness of Judea, the wilderness of Judea. You may remember in Old Testament Israel that the kingdom of Israel split into two after the death of Solomon. And the southern kingdom was known as Judah, which by the time of Latin-speaking Rome became known as Judea. So this is the southern kingdom. We’re somewhere between Jerusalem and the Dead Sea alongside the Jordan River in southern Israel. And particularly though, Matthew tells us that John was in the wilderness of Judea. Now this may not mean much to us, okay, he’s in the desert, so what? But in Old Testament and in Israelite history, the desert was a place of renewal. You may think, desert? Renewal? Well, in the harrowing place of the wilderness, where your only hope of survival was on the provision of the Lord. Think of Israel as they left Egypt, for instance, surviving for 40 years in the wilderness because of the Lord’s provision. The wilderness was a place of renewal. So Hosea, in chapter 2, the Lord promises, I will bring Israel out to the wilderness and speak tenderly to her. Again and again the Old Testament seems to propose a new exodus, a new time of God bringing his people up out of slavery, this time not to Egypt but to sin. So in this era of Roman occupation, as it were, in the time of Jesus and John, there were often these revivalist movements coming out of the wilderness. These false messiahs would arise from the wilderness and try to make for themselves a movement. They were the original populace, if you will. It was often a place for refugees to hide if they were being persecuted by Rome or by the many other empires that had gone back and forth between the Egypt, Alexander the Great, the Romans later, all would drive people away and they would hide in the wilderness for refuge. So it was a place of a new Exodus, of prophets, of messiahs, of refuge. It was a place, in short, of salvation. That’s why Matthew quotes for us from the book of Isaiah chapter 40. When John comes preaching in the wilderness, Matthew says, aha, this is a fulfillment of prophecy. This is part of God’s plan all along. And he quotes Isaiah chapter 40. And we must recall that whenever a New Testament writer quotes the Old Testament, he’s not just plucking a verse out of context, but he’s referring to the entire chapter or the entire context in which that verse came. And in Isaiah chapter 40, the Lord makes wondrous promises to his people. That’s the famous comfort ye my people chapter. Speak tenderly to Jerusalem, the Lord says. Cry out to her that her warfare’s ended, her iniquity is pardoned, that she has received from the Lord’s hand double for all her sins. A voice cries in the wilderness, prepare the way of the Lord. And Matthew says, one of those voices that was prophesied to speak is John. He’s come to speak this message of salvation. So, in other words, pay attention. This is prophesied of old. This is the fulfillment of great prophecies. God is coming. But it’s not merely his location in the wilderness. You may have noticed that Matthew wants to tell us about his clothes. Now, very rarely in Scripture do we read about someone’s clothing. And so when we do, we think, oh, why is this important? Why is this mentioned? If you look at verse 4, we see the clothing given is a bit of detail. He wore a garment of camel’s hair, you know, an outer sort of cloak. He had a leather belt strapped around his waist. Now, when we read about a camel hair coat and a leather belt, nowadays you could spend $700, $800 for a beautiful camel hair coat from Brooks Brothers. You could spend a couple hundred bucks probably for a leather belt. But 2,000 years ago, this is not a sign of status and money to throw around. No, this was the rugged wearer of a desert nomad. But more than that, do you recall elsewhere in scripture where we read of a man in the wilderness dressed in camel’s hair and a leather belt? It was Elijah. In the Old Testament, 2 Kings 1 says that this was the garment of Elijah. And if you know anything about Elijah, you know that scripture prophesied that another Elijah, a new Elijah was on the way. In fact, the prophet Malachi in his book says, behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the great and awesome day of the Lord comes. So Malachi said, the Lord was coming. It would be a great and awesome day, a day of tumult and of salvation and uproar and the just being justified and the guilty being condemned. But he says, before I will send Elijah. It wasn’t that Elijah was going to reach Pern and minister again. You see him at the Mount of Transfiguration. But no, this was an Elijah-like figure. And in fact, when Mark’s gospel records this, he quotes that same text to say that this Elijah was John. So the Lord is coming. The great day of the Lord is coming. And so you won’t miss it. We’re going to put up a billboard, the ministry of this man John. And you say, okay, great, so Jesus was prophesied or had a forerunner named John. What does that mean? Well, think about what an Old Testament prophet did. If John was, if you will, the last Old Testament prophet, He was here to remind the people of the Lord’s covenant, remind them of their status as His people, remind them that if they were God’s people and they had entered into a relationship with Him, then certain behavior was expected of them, certain obedience was expected of them, a certain way of life was expected of them. But specifically, a new day was that the Lord was on his way. One prophet compares it to a dust cloud in the horizon, that, oh, you know someone must be coming, must be kicking up that dust, must be riding quickly this way. Jesus is, so sit up, pay attention. Well, that’s his location in his garment. We can’t skip his diet, can we? Second half of verse four. He’s eating locusts. They had wild honey. And again, in antiquity, this was a sign of poverty. These days, you could pay $7.99 for a box of locust granola bars at Whole Foods. But back then, eating locusts was a sign of poverty. Honey was common, but not your whole diet. So to subsist solely on locusts and wild honey was a sign of someone who was sold out, who was committed to his ministry, who has one goal in mind. That’s to prepare our hearts for Christ, to let us know that Jesus is coming, our Savior is on the way. That’s the mission of John. to grab us by the nape and to shake us up and awake and tell us Christ is coming. Christ is on his way. So we see that as the manner in which he comes. But we also see it in the mission that he is on. We see it on the mission that he is on. Why is John here? Don’t overthink it. It’s right there in his title, his last name, John the Baptist. Or as I sometimes call him, John the Baptizer. So you don’t think that John was actually a Southern Baptist. No. John the Baptizer. The one who came to baptize. The text tells us that that’s what John was doing right there around the Jordan River. Fortunately, these weren’t just baptism as if it were the New Testament sacrament that hadn’t even been instituted yet. That doesn’t come till the end of this gospel when Jesus commands his disciples to go and baptize. No, this was Old Testament baptism if you will. You remember that when John comes, he doesn’t merely baptize, he has this announcement of confession of sin. of turning from sin, of repentance. It was there in his inaugural message there in verse 2. But what’s interesting is that remember where we are. John is in the Old Testament version of the Bible Belt. He’s right there in Judea. He’s speaking to the outwardly righteous, those who knew their Bible. those who knew what to expect, those who probably could have quoted chapter and verse the same Isaiah verse that Matthew points out for us. But it’s to these people John comes and says, repent, repent, confess your sins. This was the message of the prophets in which John was in the long line of, wasn’t it? Then what does Isaiah say, chapter 45, quoting the Lord, turn to me and be saved. Jeremiah three, return to Yahweh. Ezekiel 14, repent, turn away from your idols. Of course, we know why the need for repentance. If repentance is a turning away from sin to the Lord, The message of repentance implicitly has behind it a message of we’re sinners. That we are in rebellion in our natural state against the Lord. That it’s not really the bad sinners out there who need to be reminded of the need for repentance. That we all, before we come to Christ, need to repent. And even in an ongoing way in our life before the Lord, we need to repent. This is how John the Baptist prepares the way for Jesus. Remember, there’s no need for a Savior if there’s no sin. But the message of repentance is a necessary precursor to the sweet and glorious news of Christ. Christ didn’t merely come to make us happy. Christ didn’t merely come to heal people, which he did, and as a wonderful sign of his work as the creator and the new creator. Christ didn’t merely come to tell nice stories. He didn’t merely come to get some followers and, you know, a lot of shout outs on Twitter. No, Christ came to save sinners. We read it earlier in our service. The message of repentance makes no sense. lest we understand that it’s coupled with a Christ who can save us from that sin of which we must repent. Think about these people who are coming to be baptized by John. Like I said, Jesus hasn’t given the command to baptize his followers yet. So this was an Old Testament baptism. But the only sort of baptism that was arguably done in Israel was the baptism of Gentiles. The baptism of washing and being brought into the people of God. If you were born a Jew, you were circumcised and you were a male. If you were a male, then you were automatically part of the people of God. But if you were a Gentile, you would typically be circumcised again, but also baptized. So when John comes to the Bible Belt and says, you must be baptized, his message is, you may think you’re a part of the people of God, but if there’s no fruit in your life, if there’s no bearing of fruit in giving us repentance, like he says, if there’s no evidence that you are changed, if there’s no evidence that you have been circumcised, not outwardly, but in the heart, because you’re as good as a Gentile, you need to be baptized. You need to be brought into the people of God. You need to be baptized, not really with this water of the Jordan River, but your very heart needs to be cleansed by the blood of the Lamb, the one I’m declaring to you now, he says. Especially the Gospel of John, where he sees Jesus, and he says, behold the Lamb of God who comes to take away the sins of the world. Jew and Gentile. This would have been perhaps offensive to some of his listeners. You notice in verse 7, he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees, it says, coming to his baptism. It doesn’t say coming to be baptized. So it says these people who were the most outwardly religious, who had the most street cred in Jerusalem, who everyone was assured that these were the godly people, they weren’t coming to be baptized. They didn’t want to admit that they were as good as Gentiles. They were coming to see, perhaps, 2 BC. They were checking John out, wondering what was going on. And that’s why John’s response to them is so strong. He calls them hypocrites. Because again, they outwardly were the cream of the crop, but inwardly would not be pets, would not acknowledge their sins. He’s combating what we could call the sin of presumption. They thought because they were descended from Abraham, they had it made. They said, hey, we have Abraham as our father. He said, John says, don’t say we have Abraham as our father. Your outward credentials are of ultimately no use. And today we don’t say, hey, I’m related to Abraham, because we’re not, most of us. But it’s easy to rely on your outward credentials, isn’t it? It’s easy to say, hey, I grew up in the church. Hey, I walked down the aisle once and said a prayer. and I’m good to go. Hey, I’ve always been a faithful giver. Hey, I might even be an officer or a trustee or someone of great importance or esteem in the faith community. I’m a hardworking and decent citizen. Don’t get me wrong, these are all good things, but they’re no substitute. for a heart that recognizes its sin and its need for Christ, a life that matches the confession. That’s what John calls fruit in verse 8. As he’s telling them not to be presumptuous, he basically says, you’re no better than a rock. He says, great. You’ve got everything neatly tied. You’ve got everything nicely packaged. You’ve crossed all your T’s and dotted all your I’s. But he says, God can raise up rocks like that. God can raise up rocks to have the right status outwardly as children of Abraham. Convicting to me, you know, someone who’s grown up in the church and would have been to seminary as a preacher, but am I any better than a rock? Am I bearing fruit in keeping with repentance? Is my confession matched by my behavior? That’s the conviction that John brings in this message. We must repent because Christ is coming. As he will say when he arrives, he is the true vine. We’re the branches, he says. Whoever abides in him and he in us, in us he will do what? He will cause us to bear much fruit. You see, when you hear this command to bear fruit, even that can become, oh, something I’ve got to do. You know, I’ve got to go and be, I’ve got to go and bear fruit somehow. No, friends, Jesus says bearing fruit is about being connected to him. from being an organic, living, life-giving relationship with the vine, with Christ. We don’t bear fruit by trying harder. We don’t bear fruit by repenting again and again as if we’ll finally get it right one day and then God will be happy with us. Yeah, we keep repenting, but we repent because we want to be connected to that vine. because we want nothing to cut off, and then the life-giving sap that a vine gives, the life-giving spirit that Christ gives. We bear fruit by keeping our eyes fixed on Christ. John did. John understood that the one coming after him was far more important than he, that he was even worthy to untie his sandals. He kept his eye fixed on Christ. That was his message to those around him. Be bare fruit by looking at him. As he says in Evangelist John’s gospel, he must become greater, I must become less. Let’s fix my eyes on Christ and then I will bear fruit. You see, friends, the urgency of his mission, of his manner in coming was tied up with his message. Look at verse 11. What does John have to say? One is coming after me. Jesus, greater than John, as he says, to baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. The baptism of repentance was great. It was necessary as a sign of coming into the people of God, but that was just the prelude. He says he’s coming to baptize you with the Holy Spirit. As I said, that’s the sap, that’s the life-giving fluid, in this case, the life-giving work of the vine. It’s through his Spirit. Christ is now with us. We are now connected to him by his spirit. He says what? He’s not merely coming, but he’s bringing the kingdom, he says, verse 2. Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. The kingdom is coming means that God is here. God is taking control in a different way. A new era has dawned. When the gospels say the kingdom is coming, it doesn’t mean that God wasn’t in control before. No, it means the king is here. He’s come to get his hands dirty and his realm. He’s come to walk among his people. Jesus says the kingdom is here because the king is here. Things will never be the same. One commentator puts it this way, his rule will be more fully and openly implemented and acknowledged among the people of the earth. Yahweh will become king of all the earth, Zechariah said. John’s message is clear. Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. Repent, because the king of heaven is at hand, because he is here. so providential that we read from 1 Thessalonians 4 today, wasn’t it? Because if you remember, that text was all about the fact that the king is coming again. In many ways, we’re in the same spot that John was, right on the cusp of the arrival of the king. Any day that Trump could resound, the skies could be open. And as Paul says in 1st Thessalonians, the Lord will descend and we’ll go up to meet him in the air like ancient people went outside their city walls to welcome in the conquering king and to usher him back into their town. And we will meet the Lord in the air and usher him back into his internal realm and the new heaven and the new earth. Are we ready? Are our hearts prepared? Have we repented? Have we borne fruits in keeping with that repentance? That we will lay before our King’s throne and he will say, yes, I recognize you by your fruit. Yes, I know you are mine. Yes, I know that you are connected to me each heartily in the vine through the spirit that I have given you by the fruit that you bear. I recognize that fruit. It’s from my vine. I know the taste of my own vintage. That is a sort of welcome that we have the privilege of giving our Savior. Hey, enjoy the fruit of your vine, Christ. Enjoy the wealth of your kingdom as you return to be with your people. Friends, we must repent because Christ is coming. He’s coming to save us. He’s coming to rescue us and to remake this world. But he’s also coming to judge. That’s the other reason we must repent, is it not? John makes clear, he’s also coming to judge. He says, I’m coming, he’s coming to baptize you not merely with the Holy Spirit, but with fire. We saw that in verse 7, who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? We saw that in verse 10, the axe is laid to the root of the trees. Every tree that doesn’t bear good fruit is cut down. We see that in verse 12, his whittling fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor and gather his wheat into the barn, but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire. You’ve likely heard the metaphor explained before, They didn’t have combines back then. The way to separate the grain from the chaff was to take a large fork-like implement and throw it in the air. The wind would blow away the chaff, and it would gather over there, and the good grain would fall. Take the good grain and put it into the barn, just like the Lord will come and collect us and take us to be with him forever. But then you also got to go over there and pick up that chaff and dispose of it. Scripture makes clear that Christ is coming to do that too. He comes to baptize with the Spirit, but also with fire, eternal fire, hellfire. Perhaps not a popular sermon topic, but John makes clear that if we do not repent, If we do not welcome the king, if we do not delight in his appearing, if we do not bring him the fruit that shows that we have been forgiven and cleansed and saved and justified and sanctified, he will do what kings do with their enemies. He will give us what we deserve, give us eternal torment, the fires of hell. You see, the Baptist calls this fire at the end of our text unquenchable. And the Greek is just literally never ending, everlasting. So grateful when that word is applied to the kingdom of life and of glory that Christ will bring in, and it is. But likewise, so is the end of those who don’t believe. So friends, everything that has been laid out before us, whether it’s repentance, life in the spirit, a welcome and joy and delight in the coming and now the re-coming of Christ, versus unquenchable fire and the burning of weight and the cutting down of trees that don’t bear fruit, brings us to this point of stark contrast. We have heard the message of John. Our attention has been gotten. This is, Lord willing, a successful advertising campaign. But far more than that, it is a war for your soul. But take heart. Know that as Christ has worked in you, if this message can fix you, if it points you to him, that is a beautiful sign that it is working, that Christ is working, that he has baptized you with his spirit. and with joy and anticipation, and the eager, gloriously ripe bearing of fruit for your Christ and your saviors. You can, with anticipation, welcome his return, long for it, and know that soon your Savior, your King, will come to be with you, and he will never, ever let you go. Let us pray.

Lord God, we thank you for the hard message of your servant John. We thank you that he has pointed us to your son, that he has not stolen the limelight, he has not distracted us, he has not toyed with us. No, Lord, he has driven us straight to the Lord Jesus. We bow before him in humble admiration and confession and repentance, but also love and joy and peace in the Holy Spirit. who has been richly and lavishly poured out upon us by Christ our Savior. In whose name we pray, amen.