If you have your Bible, I encourage you to turn to the book of Luke chapter 3. We begin a new chapter in Luke's accounting of the gospel this morning. Look this morning at the first six verses. Now in the 15th year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar, Pontius Pilate being governor of Judea, and Herod being tetrarch of Galilee, and his brother Philip, tetrarch of Ederia, and of the region of Trachonitis, and Lysanias, the tetrarch of Abilene. I hope I got those words right. Sometimes those words are challenging. Annas and Caiaphas being the high priests, the word of God came unto John, the son of Zacharias, in the wilderness. And he came into all the country about Jordan, preaching the baptism of repentance for the remission of sins. As it is written in the book of the words of Esaias, that's Isaiah, the prophet saying, The voice of one crying in the wilderness, prepare ye the way of the Lord, make his paths straight. Every valley shall be filled, and every mountain and hill shall be brought low, and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough ways shall be made smooth, and all flesh shall see the salvation of God. The first verse gives us an incredible timestamp of what's about to happen with the beginning of John's preaching and six months later, Jesus. If we reconstruct this timestamp, we will end up with a date of approximately AD 29, 29 to 31, somewhere in that rather tight timeframe. And then we move to the cultural stamp of the day. Ananias and Caiaphas were high priest. Do you sense something a little wrong here? When Moses established the order of the law and the priesthood, he was very specific that only one man would be high priest and that was normally for life. When the Romans took charge and controlled Judea, they took charge of appointing who the high priest would be. Apparently, Annas, who was a high priest in the teens up to about AD 15, displeased them. And so after a couple of hiccups about AD 17, they appointed Caiaphas, his son-in-law, as the priest. Well, if those people try to control your religion, you're going to resent it, right? And so the Jewish people still respected Annas as their priest, even though Caiaphas was the Roman appointee filling that position. This was not God's way. From the very beginning of creation, God created three building blocks for the progress and culture of humanity to honor him and to live a peaceful and honorable life. He created the family. He created civil government. And he created public congregational worship of one sort or another, different in the Old Testament to the new. Whenever one of these entities encroaches into the other area, confusion and trouble is inevitable. As a pastor of many years, I have visited and heard and known many, quote, family churches. The dominant membership in this church is one family. That can be good for a while. Oh, but what happens when a family squabble occurs? A child goes bad and dishonors the family. A nasty divorce occurs, and both husband and wife are members of the church. It gets messy, doesn't it? Oh, yes, it does. And any time church and state try to do something, one encroaching into the other, disaster will occur. It was disaster when the Romans decided they would take charge of appointing who the high priest would be. It was disaster when church and state got confused in the early centuries of Christianity. It was disaster in the 1600s in England when English Christianity had broken away from Rome and established by law the Church of England. Parliament, not the Church of England, enacted into law the Westminster Confession as the official document of religious faith in Great Britain and England. Why is it that the Baptist in 1689 publicly adopted what we know as the London 1689 Confession of Faith. If you take the Westminster Confession and the London 1689 Confession and read them, it is obvious they copied and baptized the Westminster Confession. If you want to look at a time-stamped confession of faith that is Baptist, look up the 1644 London Confession of Baptist Faith. It's a much better confession of faith for the Baptist faith than the 1689. And if the Baptists had tried to maintain their 1644 confession, which did not comply with anything similar to the Westminster Confession, what would have happened? Persecution. Intense persecution would have occurred. A lot of Christians today in this country advocate a Christian nation in the United States. That frightens the willies out of me. Because if one group of Christians gain control of civil government, the same thing will happen that has always happened. They will begin to persecute Christians who hold a different faith to theirs. And folks, we who believe in the doctrines of God's sovereign grace will not be the majority. We will be the persecuted people in that setting. Please pray, the Lord's kingdom not man's to come. The word of God came unto John in the wilderness. Interestingly, God bypassed the temple, the leadership of the temple, the scribes and the Pharisees and the teachers, the rabbis, and his word was given to a man who preached it out in the wilderness. Are we surprised given the corruption that existed? It's God's kingdom, but man has done everything he can, you nailed it, to corrupt it. I want us to get a broader biblical perspective. The first chapter of John. In John chapter one, I'll begin with verse 29. Now, Jesus and John are cousins, they very likely spent time with each other growing up with their families. They know each other as persons. So think about that as I read John's discussion. Well, let's begin for the context, verse 28. These things were done in Beth Arbor, beyond Jordan, where John was baptizing. The next day, John seeth Jesus coming unto him and saith, Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world. He maybe had not realized this cousin Jesus was the Lamb of God, but now he does. The word of God came to him. This is he of whom I said, after me cometh a man which is preferred before me, for he was before me. We saw it in the first chapter and the second. with the birth of Jesus. John, by birth, is six months older than Jesus. But John says in his initial confession, he was before me. John the Apostle and John the Baptist agree when John the Apostle quotes Jesus as saying, before Abraham was. before Abraham came into existence. I am, I exist before Abraham ever saw the light of day. But verse 31, and I knew him not, but that he should be made manifest to Israel. Therefore, am I come baptizing with water. The Word of God was at work. The last time the Word of God, in such a powerful way, had been heard in Israel was 400 years in the past. This nation had suffered a silence of over 400 years of a prophet speaking the word of God. No doubt, many godly people, we saw some of them when Jesus was first brought into the temple, didn't we? who were there praying and had even been given light from God that they would see the coming of Messiah. They knew it was the time. They were living in the days of those kings and they were expecting God to set up the kingdom by sending the king to them. So this is a welcomed message from God to his people. Now, I want to focus this morning on John's message. Verse three, he came into all the country about Jordan, preaching the baptism of repentance for the remission of sins. Yes, John immersed people in water when they confessed their sins and joined with him. that was new in the sense in which John did it to the religion of the day. But what this verse is describing is not what John did with people in water, it describes the message he preached. He preached a holistic lifestyle change. Don't sprinkle yourself with repentance, immerse yourself in repentance. But these were religious, these weren't pagans, these weren't heathen people. These were the religious people of the day, the people of God of the day, the Jewish people who worshiped in the temple, who read the Old Testament, who many of them prayed for the kingdom, and many of them played the politics of Rome to gain power. What is repentance? What is repentance? First of all, The word self is translated from a Greek word defined by Lao and Nida as to change one's way of life as the result of a complete change of thought and attitude with regard to sin and righteousness. If you were to ask most Christians today this question, what is repentance? I would suspect that most of them will tell you, well, it's feeling bad when you do something wrong. It takes a whole lot more than that to make biblical repentance, to change one's way of life. That's the baptism of repentance. There's an interesting passage I want us to look at in the book of Acts chapter 19. This is Paul, and he meets some people that were kind of isolated, but they were trying to maintain John's ministry. There's no place in the record that God told John or his disciples to perpetuate his ministry. He was the one man who was to be the forerunner of Jesus and to merge his people with Jesus when he came. All of Jesus' apostles, probably most of his followers, were John's disciples who recognized when Jesus came, he was the fulfillment of John's message. But Paul finds some people long distance away from the Jordan Valley. And they're still thinking about John's baptism. And verse three and four. And he said unto them, unto what then were ye baptized? And they said, unto John's baptism. Then said Paul, John verily baptized with the baptism of repentance. There's the term, isn't it? He preached the baptism of repentance. What does this term mean? saying unto the people, here is the definition of the gospel, the baptism of repentance, that they should believe on him which should come after him, that is on Christ Jesus. These people believed in God. They believed in the Old Testament. They believed in their understanding of temple worship in Jerusalem and teaching in the synagogues. But when this man came from Galilee, they could not stomach the idea that a Galilean would be the Messiah. So they rejected him. And further, he went into the temple that they had claimed as their own and said, you have corrupted my house. That got their fire going, didn't it? Yes, it did. Religious people often need to repent. I'm a living testimony. So we have a definition of the word. We have Paul explaining the meaning of that term. I want to, let's go into the trenches. Second Corinthians chapter seven. Sandra used to tease me that I preach more out of Corinthians than almost any other book in the Bible. I'm trying to remedy that. Okay, but the reason I did it is that The ministry of the gospel is to teach and to correct and to refine our understanding and a good way to do it is to examine a church which got it wrong and how they got it right. At one time I counted some 16 errors that Paul confronted in the first Corinthian letter. It's believed that he wrote the second Corinthian letter about two years later. Although there were some people who resented Paul's confronting this church and correcting them, he's getting too big for his britches. How dare he try to correct us? We're a church. But a large part of this church did take Paul's words to heart and repent. Paul's rehearsing that point. 2nd Corinthians chapter 7. He's gone through some incredible promises especially in chapter 6 that despite all of our idolatry and our failures and our errors we can turn to the Lord and find forgiveness and healing and restoration. Having therefore these promises dearly beloved let us cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God. What is holiness? Living for God, not for self. Dedicated to God lifestyle. Receive us. We have wronged no man. We have corrupted no man. We have defrauded no man. I speak not this to condemn you, for I have said before that ye are in our hearts to die and live with you. I made an observation to Brother Jim last night on the phone. He and Burl, he graduated from Clemson University. Burl's a native of Southern California. So they come to Southern California to get his first job as a teacher. And they started attending the same church Sandra and I attended. And we have walked this journey all these years. And I told Jim, we're going to walk this journey together to the end. That's what Paul is saying to the Corinthians. You and I, we're together in heart and we're going to walk this path to the end. Great is my boldness of speech toward you. Great is my glorying of you. I am filled with comfort. I'm exceedingly joyful in all our tribulation. He's encouraged by the repentance he saw in this church. For when we were come into Macedonia, our flesh had no rest, but we were troubled on every side. Within were fightings, without were fear, without were fightings, within were fears. What's he talking about? can share just a thimble of Paul's thought here. There have been times when I felt a conviction to preach the rebukes of the gospel. I never did that, but what driving home from church my soul turned and churned and wrestled, will they take it right? Did they understand my love for them that prompted what I said? It's a heavy burden. Nevertheless, God that comforted those that are cast down comforted us for the coming of Titus. And not only by his coming only, but by the consolation. Notice this carefully. Why was Titus comforted? How did Titus comfort Paul? Not only by his coming, but by the consolation wherewith he was comforted in you. when he told us your earnest desire, your mourning, your fervent mind toward me so that I rejoice the more. You took my first message to heart. You mourned over your failure. You earnestly desired to correct and to return to the right way. and you didn't get mad at me. For though I made you sorry with a letter, I do not repent, though I did repent. Yes, been there, done that, yes. For I perceive that the same epistle hath made you sorry, though it were but for a season. Now he's going to explain. Now I rejoice, not that you were made sorry, but that you sorrowed to repentance, for you were made sorry after a godly manner, that you might receive damage by us in nothing. For godly sorrow worketh repentance to salvation, not to be repented of, but the sorrow of the world worketh death. What does it mean, godly sorrow versus the sorrow of the world? Any man who's been a pastor, any man who's preached for any length of time, has encountered those dear, precious souls who have a heart that want to serve God. They want to live a godly life. But they stumble and they fall and they falter and they come to you and they say, oh, I'm so sorry. I goofed. I failed. I'm a wretched, no good, fit for nothing. I'm ashamed of myself. I'll never do it again. About six months later, You're going to have the same person come to you with the same speech all over again, and again, and again, and again, right? Have it happen. Oh, but that's not repentance, is it? No, that's not repentance. What's the problem? They're trying to repent based on personal shame or personal conviction. It's not godly sorrow that's prompting what they're doing. It's the beginning if they're having godly sorrow, but godly sorrow is not going to stop with a sad heart or with regrets over what you did. Godly sorrow will motivate you to change your life, truly change your life. That's why I thought it was important to read that Acts chapter 19 verse where Paul interprets the baptism of repentance, John's core message to mean you who worship God, you who believe in God. You need to understand the need to stop worshiping the building, to stop worshiping yourself, to stop worshiping the temple, to stop worshiping whatever and worship God and believe in Jesus. That's required repentance. That required big repentance. Same is required of us, is it not? A lot of folks preach remission of sins as eternal salvation in our world. I think we can learn, and you've heard me say this, I'm not going to spend a lot of time The medical terminology of remission identifies that at this moment in time, a deadly disease has been stopped in its progress. But it doesn't mean you're totally immune for the rest of your life from it, does it? It's still there. It can return. But you've got it under control at this point in time. Over 20 years ago, I had prostate cancer. I had surgery for that disease. And the surgeon who did my surgery was very cautious because it was ready to break out and he wasn't sure that it hadn't already broken out when he did the surgery. He was very cautious for five years when I went back to see him each year. At the end of five years, he said, Joe, I think we beat it. But you need to understand, as long as you live, there is a 5% statistical possibility that prostate cancer will come back. It's remitted, but isn't that the way sin is in our lives? How can we remit the effects of the deadly disease of sin in our lives? Keep your heart and your eye of faith fixed on Jesus. That's what John preached, that's what we need to preach, and that's what we need to live. Remorse and shame will be repentance to be repeated. Godly sorrow and looking at Jesus and serving and believing in him and his power will produce repentance not to be repented of. It's permanent. It's a permanent lifestyle change. This is so transformative compared to what is preached so much in the world today. It's not self-determination that produces godly sorrow and repentance. It's not feeling bad that gives or constitutes repentance. Our power to overcome sin in our life is directly related to our walk and closeness with Jesus. I remember talking many years ago with a very sincere, godly woman. We were talking about Foxe's Book of Martyrs, about Christians who died for their faith in torturous ways. When we went with Greg and Leah to Rome, we spent an afternoon touring the Colosseum. The architectural miracle was amazing to observe. And I was enjoying all of the architecture and all of the remains that are still there. And then suddenly I looked down from up high in the structure to the arena and I thought, how many Christians were killed for entertainment in that place? I got sick to my stomach and I wanted to leave. And so this lady said, Joe, I don't think I could possibly be strong like those martyrs did in persecution. Surprise? No. Could you? No. Could I? No. But. When you're looking to Jesus and you keep your fixed heart and eye on him, you will be able to by his power, not by yours. The same applies, my friends, to repentance. I know I've done it many times and I need and strive to learn the way of Christ so I do it less often. Let's learn repentance not to be repented of. I love you. God bless.