Would you open your Bibles now please to the gospel according to Matthew and the third chapter. You can open your Bibles and follow along or as always, we have the verses printed out in the bulletin. So you can follow there if you'd like. I'm going to be reading this morning, Matthew chapter three, beginning with the first verse and reading through to the 12th verse. And let's listen to the inspired word of God. In those days, John the Baptist came preaching in the wilderness of Judea and saying, repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. For this is he who was spoken of by the prophet Isaiah, saying, the voice of one crying in the wilderness, prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight. Now John himself was clothed in camel's hair, with a leather belt around his waist, and his food was locusts and wild honey. Then Jerusalem, all Judea, and all the region around the Jordan went out to him and were baptized by him in the Jordan, confessing their sins. But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming to his baptism, he said to them, brood of vipers. who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? Therefore, bear fruits worthy of repentance. And do not think to say to yourselves, we have Abraham as our father. For I say to you that God is able to raise up children to Abraham from these stones. and even now the axe is laid to the root of the trees. Therefore, every tree which does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. I indeed baptize you with water unto repentance But he who is coming after me is mightier than I, whose sandals I am not worthy to carry. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. His winnowing fan is in his hand, and he will thoroughly clean out his threshing floor and gather his wheat into the barn, and he will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire. And here is our reading from God's perfect word. After a couple of weeks off now, we're back to our relatively recently begun new series, The Gospel of the Kingdom of Heaven, our study of the gospel according to Matthew. I'll remind you that most Bible students agree that we can reasonably well divide the book of Matthew into five great sections. Matthew perhaps even modeling that over the five books of Moses, not that there's a correlation between say, the first seven chapters of Matthew, which would be the first book or the first section of Matthew, as if that corresponds to Genesis and then the next part to Exodus. I think you'd be disappointed if you were looking for that. But Matthew, we've already seen how much he likes to see not only prophecies and figures and types from the Old Testament, but he likes Old Testament numbers, too. He just likes them. He's just steeped in the scriptures of the Old Testament, and you see that reflected in his writing. Remember Matthew or Levi, the publican, the tax collector, the despised one. from Galilee, who wrote that gospel, which the church throughout most of history, if perhaps not today, but almost nothing is the same today as it used to be. But throughout history, actually, most people have thought, and I continue to think it, that this gospel was probably the first of the four gospels written by a Jew and for Jews. Not at all that he's unaware that he's talking to the Gentiles and he is especially talking to the Jews about the Gentiles. That's why we had those Magi come. That's about as far away from Israel as you can get. Those Magi, those sorcerers who came to worship the Christ. I'm calling this series, The Gospel of the Kingdom of God. You're going to get a little bit of a taste of that this morning, why I chose that for the title of our little series. Matthew was already recounted for us. sort of the bare bones history of the birth of Jesus Christ, how he, as John in his gospel says, how he came unto his own. That was the first chapter. The second chapter, then what we call the second chapter, of course, remembering that Matthew didn't write chapters or verse numbers, that's just for our convenience. The second chapter, Matthew gives us a history of the devious, wicked, King Herod, and the apathetic priests who don't even bother to go out to see the one who has been prophesied as the Messiah, the Holy Anointed One of Israel. All of which is summed up in John's gospel with simply, he came unto his own, and his own received him not. And he was not received. And Matthew has given us at the end of chapter two the Bible's account of the journeys of the holy family as in fear for the baby's life because of wicked Herod, Joseph took Mary and the baby first to Egypt, and then after Herod's death, which probably occurred within a year after his slaughter of those children, Mary and Joseph come back to Israel, but they know it's still a hotspot, so to speak, down south around Jerusalem. And so they move back up to Nazareth, that far, far away no place in the land of Israel. And then Matthew just sort of leaves Jesus there. in obscurity for almost 30 years, for about 28 years. There's about 28 years that pass between the last verse of the second chapter and the first verse of the third chapter. All those years pass in silence. And then suddenly in verse 1, In those days, John the Baptist came preaching in the wilderness of Judea. Matthew very suddenly jumps forward in time to begin the public ministry of the Lord Jesus Christ. What I want to look at this morning is in these verses we see what it was this prophesied forerunner or herald Kings always have forerunners who go before. They blow the trumpet, so to speak. They say, bow down, here comes the king. And he comes before Jesus Christ. This is the gospel of the kingdom. of heaven and he announces the coming king. What then is the content of the royal announcement which John gives? I want you to notice first of all that it is a message of repentance. Look at the first four verses. In those days John the Baptist came preaching in the wilderness of Judea. and saying, repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. For this is he who was spoken of by the prophet Isaiah, saying, the voice of one crying in the wilderness, prepare the way of the Lord. Make his paths straight. Now John himself was clothed in camel's hair with a leather belt around his waist, and his food was locusts and wild honey. I want you to just notice particularly right now from verse 2, notice what is the very first word that the herald of Jesus Christ, the herald of the king of the kingdom of God, What's the first word he says? Repent. Repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. John's father, you remember John's father, Zacharias. Matthew doesn't tell us about him, but Luke does. You remember the story of Zacharias. John was a Levite of the tribe of Levi, of the priestly tribe, as his father was. And you remember that John's father, Zacharias, had been struck mute because he would not believe and therefore could not pass on the message given to him by the angel. You remember? after Mary's, the Annunciation to Mary, and the angel not only tells Mary about the baby that she will bear, but tells Mary about the child which Mary's cousin Elizabeth is carrying now. That child, of course, was John the Baptist, this very person, and how when Mary visited her cousin Elizabeth, what happened? That little baby leaped for joy as if he just couldn't be stopped. He was so, so dedicated to even in the womb. How did that happen? I don't know. I don't think anybody else knows either. But the word of God says that he leapt for joy. And I'm sure that he did leap for joy, even in his mother's womb. But the point I'm trying to make is that Zechariah finds it hard to speak, but John the Baptist can hardly restrain himself from bringing the message that God gives to him. After that little encounter between Mary and Elizabeth, the scripture falls silent again about John the Baptist. That's all those verses, or rather, all those years between the second and third chapter here that we're looking at. And then, see, if you You have to sort of sit down and read the scripture in bigger pieces to get an idea of the flow of it. It's very sudden. It's very shocking. In verse 1 here, in those days John the Baptist came preaching in the wilderness of Judea. How did he get there? You say, why is he out there? What's that? What's that about? Very suddenly, unexpectedly, and very much like the ancient prophet Elijah. who also steps out of no place in front of King Ahab and prophesies the terrible drought and famine. Remember that? In the same way here, almost out of nowhere, out of the desert, the wilderness of Judea. Elijah spent a lot of time in the wilderness too. He was a desert prophet. Do you remember? Ahab and Jezebel especially, they were out for his head and how he had to go, he had to flee into the wilderness, remember that? His clothing, why is that mentioned in verse 4? I think because that kind of clothing very much reminded Matthew and his readers and the Jews and the people who first saw John the Baptist, it reminded them of Elijah. Rough, unrefined. Jesus said, would you go out in the wilderness to see somebody clothed with fine clothing and eating fancy food? No. That's not what you went out to see. Very much in the spirit of Elijah, John the Baptist is. And like Elijah, John the Baptist not only lived much in the wilds, but he was even fed on the locusts and wild honey. There's presumably nothing miraculous in that. But you do remember, don't you, that Elijah was miraculously fed out in the wilderness. It was the ravens who brought him food. You remember that? Yeah. But you just see these echoes of Elijah. That's the kind of stuff that Matthew likes, boy. He likes to show you all these parallels between the Old Testament and the New Testament as God works out the salvation of his people. And so when John appears, his very first word was repent. The word repentant Well, the word in English means the same as it does in Greek. Metanoia in Greek is metanoia, or in English, repent. Well, what's pent? Well, pent, if a person is pensive. What's that mean? They're thoughtful. Metanoia means to remind, to change your mind. Not in the sense of only changing the inside, but don't worry about the outside. That's the sin of the Gnostics and liberal Christianity, by the way. Somehow you change on the inside, but you can act the way you always acted. No, when you change your mind, You change your inside, then you change your outside too. When you change the way you think, as a man thinks in his heart, so he is. And metanoia means you've got to think in a totally different way. you have to change your mind in that way. To repent means to choose and commit and work on, endeavor is the old word the theologians used to use, to endeavor to change your life inside and out, deeply, radically, and obviously. And then Matthew, in the third verse, uses the words of Isaiah the prophet from the 40th chapter, and the third verse of that chapter as well, to describe. See, are you getting that? See, in verse two it says, repent. Well, in verse three now, these are not random thoughts. Matthew is quite coherent. He's telling you now how to repent. What is repentance to consist of? This is he who was spoken of by the prophet Isaiah saying, the voice of one crying in the wilderness, prepare the way of the Lord and make his paths straight. Isaiah gave this prophecy. That was before Before Israel, all of Israel, went into captivity in Babylon, that's why the liberals say that, you know, normal people just have the book of Isaiah. I went to seminary. They have 1st Isaiah, 2nd Isaiah, and 3rd Isaiah. I didn't even know that. And the reason they say it is Because in the 40th chapter of Isaiah that Matthew is quoting from here, well, look what it says. The voice of one crying in the wilderness, prepare the way of the Lord, make his path straight. And as you continue to read that chapter, it becomes perfectly clear that Isaiah is talking about Israel's return from captivity in Babylon. And they haven't even gone into captivity in Babylon yet. And that's why the liberals say, it can't be. There's no such thing as prophecy. I mean, there'd have to be like a God or something who knows everything. Then you'd have to actually tell people like his prophets. That can't be. And so when I went to seminary, Isaiah 40 is second Isaiah. Then they even figure out a third Isaiah. I don't know where that starts. But this is a prophecy that Isaiah is making. to the Jews. He has spent, not all of it, but most of the first 39 chapters of Isaiah, he has spent mourning the people. Oh, if they will not repent, they will go into captivity. The temple will be destroyed. They will be a captive people. But people wouldn't believe him. Temple of the Lord. Temple of the Lord. Temple of the Lord. Jeremiah mocks the priests about that. Oh, we got the temple here in Jerusalem. Don't worry. Don't worry. Nebuchadnezzar is not going to get us. Remember, we talked about that not too long ago. Matthew talked about it in this second chapter where he quotes from Jeremiah, Rachel, weeping over the loss of her children as they were going in. It's like, in a picturesque, non-literal way, it's the ghost of Rachel weeping over the Jews who were being taken from the city of Ramah out to captivity in Babylon. Well anyway, so Isaiah then in chapter 40 is saying, yes, You're going to be punished severely for this, for all the wickedness of your land, but the Lord will save you. And so in the 40th chapter of Isaiah, before the captivity has actually even happened, Isaiah is telling about how God is going to lead the Jews back from captivity in Babylon to Judah, to their homeland. So it's God leading his people through the wilderness. And of course, what's that an echo of? Well, the book of Exodus. The voice of one crying in the wilderness, prepare the way. What's the way? It's the road or the path, but it means something more than that if you listen very carefully to the first psalm, our psalm for today. Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight. God is going to come and he is going to redeem his people, but he has a job. And he has this voice of one crying into wilderness, and he's supposed to tell the people they have something to do. And what is that? To prepare the way of the Lord and to make his paths straight. What's it mean? To thoroughly consciously, you might say conscientiously, change your behavior. This is virtually the definition of repent. He's telling the people how to repent. Prepare the way of the Lord. Straighten out. the road in the desert. Now he's not talking here when John the Baptist comes. He's not talking about the return from the Babylonian captivity. That's over. That happened. What's he talking about? I'd say this. John is in the wilderness. He's in the desert, all right. But he's not talking about a geographical desert. When he says to the people that come to listen to his preaching, okay, prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight. He doesn't mean the geographical desert and the geographical road from Babylon to Judea. But he's talking about the dry and dead desert of our souls. When Adam sinned and he was cursed, cursed is the ground because of you, all of the dead and the deserts, and the trials, and the suffering, and the death, the blood, the sweat, the tears, all of those outward things came about because that's what Adam's soul became when he sinned. When we sin, our souls die. on the day you eat of it, on that day. Literally in the Hebrew, dying you will die. You will die. You'll die completely. So John is saying here as he's interpreting Isaiah and as Matthew is recording it for us, what's he mean by prepare the way, make his path straight? Put out of the way. You've got so many impediments to God's path in your heart. You have all kinds of stumbling stones that impede your obedience to God. Get rid of them. Clear the way. Change your life. We have so many things that block our growth in the Christian life. We're too tired to go to church on Sunday morning. We don't have time to spend in prayer each day, to read a chapter of scripture. Chapter of scripture. Memorize a psalm, maybe. Oh, we make our kids do that, but we adults, we don't do that, do we? We don't memorize scripture. Get rid of it. Prepare ye the way of the Lord. How's God's word gonna enter your heart when your heart is too full of everything else? That's what John is saying, okay? So this repentance that he's talking about is radically active. That's what John is saying to everyone who comes out to him, whether they're converted or unconverted people, regenerate or unregenerate, we would say. He doesn't ask, are you regenerate or unregenerate? Then I'll give you your special message. He only has one message. Reminds me of the Puritan doctrine of seeking. The Puritans weren't naive. They were consistent in how they thought about the Bible. We have churches filled with seekers. Oh, so-and-so, he's really looking for God. He's seeking God. There is none who seek God. No, not one. And the word of God trumps what your friend told you. We have entire churches built to be seeker-sensitive. They're built in opposition to scripture. We're a seeker-sensitive church. There is none who seeks God. No, not one. And so when the Puritans counseled unbelievers, when they did what today we call evangelism, They didn't say to a person, well, you know, answer the altar call. Come forth just as you are. No, you don't need to prepare the way or make straightest paths. You don't need to clean out anything. Just come as you are. Come as you are. That's the sign of a loving church, isn't it? Come as you are instead of come in repentance. walk up the aisle, make a decision, pray the sinner's prayer, and all will be well. But the Puritan said, seek, not God, seek to escape hell. Seek to escape the wrath which is coming upon you. Don't fool yourself. into thinking that, well, your unbelief in God is somehow just a, it's a natural thing and you don't need to repent and change. But the Puritans knew, The unbeliever, the person who's not born again, doesn't have any ability. He doesn't have any moral ability. He has natural ability to seek God, of course, but he doesn't have a moral. What's a moral ability? The desire. He doesn't have a desire for God. He has a desire for comfort. He doesn't want to be lonely. He didn't want to not have any friends. So he goes to a seeker-friendly church. He gets lots of friends. But what he doesn't hear is the gospel. He doesn't find out how to flee from the wrath to come, because seeker-sensitive churches don't talk about that. And they don't believe in it. I really just don't believe in it. But the Puritans knew. And yet they would say to people who are not believers, they would say, what you have to do is seek to escape the just punishment which God has in store for you. And there are some things, even if you're not a Christian, there are some things you can do. You come to church if it's convenient. Well, you can start coming to church because it's your duty. You can get more honest in your business. You can stop telling all the lies, the big ones and especially the little ones that you don't even notice and that you justify and call them white lies. Stop lying. Get honest. Get pure. and the things you watch on the TV and on the internet and the things that you read and the music you listen to. Get rid of that. You can do that. You can tell a drunk. You don't have to be a Christian to go to AA. Even non-Christians can stop drinking. They can't do it out of love for Christ, because they don't love Christ. But they can do it out of love for themselves. And the Puritans said, you can, and you ought to. Because when you're drunk, you can't hear the Gospel. Prepare his ways. Make straight the way of the Lord. Get rid of those things that keep you from hearing the Gospel. That's what John is saying here. Remember Francis Schaeffer, oh my, I guess sometime in the 60s, maybe it was, wrote a book. What shall we then do, or how shall we then live, rather? How shall we then live? I think it was based on John the Baptist's preaching. Because in Luke's gospel, in the third chapter, in the tenth verse, people are coming out to John, all kinds of them, and he's preaching this message, and they say, quote, what shall we do then? What can I do? Altar call? Sinner's prayer? What's he say? John answers each of them according to their own life. John says, he who has two tunics, let him give to one who has none. Generosity. Plain ordinary generosity. You don't have to be a Christian to be generous. You can do it if you just want to. Tax collectors say to John, what should we do? He says, collect no more than what is appointed you. Be honest, scrupulously honest in your business. You can do that. Soldiers came. Well, I know the pacifists think that John made a mistake and he should have said, you know, you need to resign from the military because that's always a bad thing. John says to those soldiers, do not intimidate anyone or accuse falsely and be content with your wages. Be honest and respect people. I think what John is saying to those, it's once again, that's Luke chapter three, beginning with verse 10. I think what John is saying, he's putting the bones on Micah's prophecy, the other Micah, to do justice, to love mercy, to walk humbly before your God. You see, change your behavior, to conform to godliness. Now, if you do that, to clear away those sins in your life, preparing the way of the Lord and making his path straight, it won't make you a godly person and it won't make you born again. It won't. It can't. You must be born from above, from the Holy Spirit only. But you can do these things. You can prepare the way of the Lord. You can make his path straight. It won't wash away your sins, let alone your guilt. But it will remove some of those outward obstacles to your hearing the gospel of salvation. I don't know why that's hard for people to get. Yet what I'm saying is, see, there was a time, certainly true amongst the Puritans, and ever since then in these United States, it has become less and less so, you knew you ought to be ashamed of yourself if you don't go to church on Sunday morning. Not a terrible mistake to assume that all those people who go to church on Sunday morning for all those years, where churches used to be packed, You'd make a terrible mistake if you think that's because they're all converted people. But it's better to be there than on the golf course or the Super Bowl. That's preparing the way of the Lord. It's making the pathways for his gospel to clear out all the junk. that's in the way. And that's why John says, repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. Jesus is going to preach that kingdom of heaven. Boy, but John is saying, but you got to take the plugs out of your ears. You got to quit wasting your mind and your thoughts and your energies on all those things. Okay. It was John's first word. Repent. It was Jesus' first word. Turn the page of your Bible. Matthew chapter four, verse 17. What do you see? From that time, Jesus began to preach and to say, what's Jesus' first word in his public ministry? Repent. for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. He says exactly and precisely what John the Baptist says. Repent is a word absolutely necessary for absolutely everyone to hear, unbelievers, believers. Oh, well you just sort of do that once and then it's smooth sailing. Then you just comfort people. Jesus said twice to his own disciples, unless you repent, and the word there means keep on repenting, unless you repent, you will all likewise perish. And Jesus wasn't wrong and he wasn't mean. He was the only purely loving person who ever walked this earth. And it's a message that we need to hear. It's a word that continues and that, Oh, well, that was for the Jews. That was, that was for the Pharisees and the Sadducees. That's not the gospel to the world. Well, you better straighten out the apostle Paul then because when Paul preached the gospel in Athens, He said this to the Gentiles, now God commands all men everywhere. Give us how the repetition of word, piling up reasons. You don't need all those words. All men everywhere. Boom, boom, boom. He's hammering it. God commands all men everywhere to repent. Acts chapter 17 and verse 30. And it's still just as true today. And it's just as necessary today. If the church is willing to measure its proclamation of the gospel by the scriptures, by John the Baptist, the prophet of God, by Jesus Christ, the son of God, it must be the church's first word. not smile, but repent for the kingdom of God is at hand. And if we're gonna be true, honest believers, that's our first duty. You have never believed in Jesus Christ if you have not repented. You just haven't. Don't fool yourself. Don't do that. Secondly, the message of John the Baptist was a message of repentance, but it was also a message of warning. Look at verses five to 10. Then Jerusalem, all Judea and all the region around the Jordan went out to him and were baptized to him in the Jordan, confessing their sins. That's a mega church. But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming to his baptism, When he saw that a lot of people who were coming weren't coming honestly, he said to them, brood of vipers, who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? Therefore, bear fruits worthy of repentance. Repentance isn't just being sorry. It's loving the law of God. Oh, how love I thy law. It is by meditation all the day. It's not my justification. There's no merit in it. I do such a lousy job at it. But I love the law of God. I love truth. And I hate falsehood, especially when it's my falsehood. It's easy to hate somebody else's falsehood. I love purity. I love faithfulness. And I know that impurity and unfaithfulness stink to high heaven. I agree with God. I agree with him. Bear fruits worthy of repentance and do not think to say to yourselves, we have Abraham as our father. For I say to you that God is able to raise up children to Abraham from these stones. And even now, The axe is laid to the root of the trees 2000 years ago. Even now, the axe is laid to the root of the trees and therefore every tree which does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. John's message is a message of warning. Sober, dire, off-putting, not at all seeker-friendly. There aren't many megachurches that preach this message, and you know it. They just don't. They point out sin when it's in Washington, and there's plenty there, boy. There's plenty. You can spend your whole time. But John the Baptist isn't doing that. He's talking to people in front of him. It's an off-putting message. It's not seeker-friendly. I wonder how many preachers have ever dared to say such a thing from their megapulpit. He calls his congregation a brood of vipers. Not the good people of Shady Grove Church. He calls the Pharisees and the Sadducees that. You noticed that, right? I hope you didn't think that's because those are the only ones. He doesn't call the Pharisees and the Sadducees the brood of vipers because they're the only brood of vipers. Because they were the only ones dead in trespasses and sins. The only ones whose sins were like scarlet, the only ones who needed to repent, there was none righteous, no, not one. John called the Pharisees and the Sadducees the brood of vipers, not because they were different from everybody else, but because they were the same as everybody else. The way to heaven is not by being a non-Pharisee or a non-Sadducee. That is not the way to heaven. You get the point I'm trying to make here? He's not calling the Pharisees and the Sadducees brood of vipers because the other people are nicer. They're puppy dogs. No, no. He's calling them that not because they're different from other people, but because they're the same as everyone else, the same as you and me. John preached, John the Baptist preached the doctrine of John the Calvinist, John Calvin. He preached the doctrine of total depravity. You're not only a viper, you're the brood of viper. You're the brood of vipers. See, the goal of Christianity, the goal of Christ, the goal of John the Baptist is not to help people who are trying to be good, but to point out the savior of vipers. Those who are already dead, those who were shapen in iniquity and brought forth in sin, as David says in Psalm 51, right? We're all of us, Adam's race, we're a brood and generation of vipers. Our parents were conceived and born in sin. They were conceived and born vipers. Our children, they're nice, they're cute. But they're a brood of vipers. True believers admit that. They don't tell God. that there's exceptions and he's got this wrong, that it's not. Everyone is born dead in trespasses and sin. That's why that 51st Psalm, you know, remember how that goes? He says, behold, I was shapen in iniquity and in sin did my mother conceive me. My mother's conception of me, the act of procreation, is not a sin. That's obeying God. The sin today is refusing that. He's refusing the purpose of marriage. Behold, I was shapen in iniquity and in sin did my mother conceive me. And then right after that, the very next verse, what's he say? Behold, thou desirest truth in the inward places. God desires that you acknowledge that you are brood of vipers, that you are dead in trespasses and sins. Behold, thou desirest truth in the inward parts, and in the hidden part thou wilt make me to know wisdom. The converted person will see that truth right down inside. and he'll fall on his knees in gratitude for the Lord Jesus Christ and for the cleansing of his blood. But he will admit that on his own, He's nothing but the brood of vipers. So this honest preacher doesn't give comfort to the vipers, not at first. Okay. But he gives them this sincere warning. Verse seven, the end of it, there is wrath to come. The Bible calls that wrath hell. And it's real. And there's people there right now, right now. There's people going there right now. Right now. And John talks about the instrument of God's wrath, that axe in verse 10. The axe is already laid to the root of the tree. He's not going to cut it off and prune it back so it grows up again. It's going to be cut down, destroyed. There will be a great cutting down on Judgment Day. And even now, even now the axe is laid to the roots and God is judging right now. Trees are cut down every day. Nations come and nations go. Wicked nations are judged and they are destroyed and we're headed that way. I don't know when. I hope I hope you are pleading with God for his mercy, but I also hope that you are on God's side. And when he says, there will be no rain in this land until I pray for it, that you're on God's side. Elijah, remember, he refused to pray for rain. That was because God told him that, by the way. What I'm saying is, if God chooses to destroy this land, hallelujah. He's serious about this, you know. Our nation is destroying souls, absolutely destroying souls. Wicked nations are judged and sooner or later they are cut down. And men come and men go. Countless thousands of human lives are cut down every single day. Sometimes men see it coming. They have a disease and they see the incoming. Don't think that that's not a great mercy. To die from a disease like that is a great mercy, especially for the wicked. It is God's loving call to them to repent. John Gerstner, oh boy, I got in trouble just for quoting him. Back in the days when AIDS first broke out. He said, if you have received, if, now listen, if you have received AIDS as a result of sin, then that is God's loving chastisement of your life calling you and giving you a moment to repent Sometimes men see the end coming, oftentimes not, as suddenly as an imploding submersible, and it's over. And they stand before God, the judge. Men go and they meet their judge. They may have denied his existence in this life, but they cannot and they will not deny his existence in death. But whether today or tomorrow, John is saying, the wrath of God awaits all the unrighteousness of men. God is patient He's remarkably long-suffering, but his patience is not forever, John is saying. It's not forever. He sincerely offers mercy to anyone and everyone who will receive it on his terms. On his terms. Repentance and faith. in and through and for Jesus Christ alone. He sincerely offers mercy to everyone. God is love, but God is not love in the sense that he isn't anything else. You only have to read the Bible. You only have to read Jesus. If you survive, if we all survive, this series through the gospel according to Matthew, you will discover that Jesus preached more hell than all the other prophets put together. The question is, do you believe him? And for a preacher, the question is, do you preach Jesus? Jesus. God is love. But God is also wrath. And His wrath is as real as His love. And His wrath will last as long. as his love. Religiosity won't help. There's verse 9. Do not think to yourselves, we have Abraham as our father. For I say to you, Abraham was able to raise up children to Abraham from these stones. John's baptism won't help. Christian baptism won't help. No religious thing can help. Only God the Holy Spirit can help. And he does that by quickening the person. That means waking them up so that they hear and believe and obey the word of God. That's why most often in the New Testament, the apostle does not say, believe the gospel. He says, obey the gospel. I didn't write it. I'm just pointing it out to you. Obey the gospel. To preach the wrath of God is the only faithful thing a preacher can do, the only loving thing that a preacher can do. Sinners will be cut down, John says. They will be thrown into the fire. And that fire, look at the end of verse 12, will be unquenchable. I know, the Archbishop of Canterbury and on and on and on. No, hell's not forever. Hell is as long as heaven. And it's forever. One little word. unquenchable. We're going to hear a lot more about that as we listen to the preaching of Jesus. It will burn forever. Thirdly and lastly, notice that John's message is a message of repentance and it's a message of warning, but it's also a message of hope. Look at verses 11 and 12. I indeed baptize you with water unto repentance, but he who is coming after me is mightier than I am, whose sandals I am not worthy to carry." He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. His winnowing fan is in his hand and he will thoroughly clean out his threshing floor, the threshing floor of his church, threshing floor of Israel, the threshing floor of the Christian church, the threshing floor of this world because it belongs to him. It's his vineyard. This whole world is his vineyard. and gather his wheat into the barn. He will gather his wheat into the barn, but he will burn up the chaff. He personally, you notice that? He personally will do it. He will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire. We are all a brood of vipers and every tree that does not bear good fruit." What's good fruit? Good fruit is doing what God says. once again, our psalm for this morning. Blessed is the man who walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful who won't even listen. His delight is in the law of the Lord, and in his law doth he meditate day and night, and he shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water that bringeth forth his fruit in his season, and his leaf does not wither, and whatsoever he doeth shall prosper. Good fruit is meditating upon, believing, the commandments of God, not for justification because there's no justification there. There's no merit there. That's the insult of the gospel. The insult of the gospel is not that you don't have to work to go to heaven. You do have to work to go to heaven. The insult of the gospel is you have to work and it's still not merit. That's what people hate about the gospel. If you would just say to people, okay, LBQ, whatever, people, you know, have a good time, just believe, just trust, but you don't have to obey. The insult of the gospel is that you must bear good fruit. And the good fruit is the keeping of the commandments of God, because God's the only one who knows what the really good fruit is, because you mess up all the time. You always think what's something that's good is bad, and something that's bad is good, don't you? You notice that? We're so wrong. We have to trust God. God gives commandments, not the church and not anybody else. They're his commandments and we have to bear fruit. But notice how John says, you know, after he says every tree that doesn't bear fruit, she'll be cut down. And then he says, but now listen, there's hope. There's somebody who's greater than I am. He's bigger, and he's more powerful, and he's more worthy, and he's coming after me. He's younger than me. He's my younger cousin, as a matter of fact. As to his humanity, he's younger than I am. I came before him. He who comes after me is mightier than me. But he's mightier than I am. And he can not only preach the truth, but he can send the Holy Spirit, the fire of God, into your heart that you would actually believe it. I can baptize you with water, but he can baptize with the Holy Spirit. I can't do that. and with fire. He's infinitely more worthy. I'm not worthy to be his lowliest slave, John is saying. He'll baptize you. We have labored for months. The word baptize means cleanse. He will cleanse you from the filthiness of your sin and your guilt. And he won't do it with water because water cannot wash the soul. But with the Holy Spirit who can. wash the soul with the very creating and recreating power of God, the third person of the deity, the great regenerator and the great sanctifier. And that's what he means by fire. By fire. This is not the unquenchable fire of hell, which he has mentioned. But this is the purifying fire of the sanctification of the Holy Spirit. Christian life is a joy and it's a bloody battle. The flesh wars against the spirit and the spirit against the flesh. If your eye causes you to sin, pluck it out. If your hand causes you to sin, if your foot causes you to sin, cut it off. It's a bloody business. If you've been living a sanctified life, you've noticed it hurts. It hurts. It's a good hurt. But it hurts. It's not the fire of hell. This is the refining fire. The fire that purifies even gold. And it will purify you. And when God, especially when those troubles come into your life, because of your faithfulness to God, you lose a job. You lose friends. You lose family. because of the gospel. But you'll never be the less for it. It's a fire, yes, but it's a purifying fire. Like I said, we call that sanctification. It's a powerful fire. And you remember that Jesus actually compares this very line from John the Baptist to the coming of the Holy Spirit on Pentecost. John baptized you with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit on many days from hence, Acts chapter one. Remember that? But this fire of sanctification is a painful fire. It's a refining fire. It's a burning away of the chaff. of our sinful behavior. That's the easy stuff. Sinful behavior. You can stop doing that. All you gotta do is want to. You can stop your behavior. Not only your behavior, but your words. Not only your words, but your thoughts. Oh boy, it's getting rough now. You and I are responsible for what we think about. And your deepest desires. Now, that's the last frontier of sanctification. Your deepest desires, those unworthy desires that you and I both have, that we have to repent of every day. We have to confess them. If we confess our sins, He's faithful and just to forgive us our sins. It's an ongoing thing. And that dead body of sin, which is tied to your back, is going to follow you around until the day you close your eyes. And you're gonna meet that judge. That's all gonna be removed. And you're gonna be, the Holy Spirit will transform you and make you perfect in the sight of God. And that's the gospel message that John preached. Let's pray. Dear Holy Spirit of God, How we pray that you would indwell us for Jesus' sake, that you would convict us of sin and of righteousness, convict us to repent and to change. Oh, how we pray that as you work in and through and with us, that you would be pleased to give us all of the comfort of the Holy Spirit of God. We pray it in Jesus' name. Amen.