We are in the Gospel of Luke. We're in chapter 3. This is our ninth week in this wonderful Gospel. And this morning we're going to be looking into verses 15 through 20 in chapter 3. So let us read the Word of God. And in verse 15, John had come into the Judean wilderness. And we learn here that the people were in a state of expectation. And all were wondering in their hearts about John. About whether he was the Messiah. Whether he was the Christ. And John said to them, as for me, I baptize you with water. But there's one who's coming who is mightier than I am. And I'm not fit to untie the thong of his sandal. And He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. His winnowing fork is in His hand to thoroughly clear His threshing floor and to gather the wheat into His barn. But He will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire. And so with many other exhortations, He preached the gospel to the people. But when Herod the Tetrarch, that's Herod Antipas, was reprimanded by him because of Herodias, his brother's wife, and because of all the wicked things which Herod had done, Herod also added this to them all, he locked John up in prison. Well Lord, we thank You that You have given us Your Word, that You have spoken from heaven through the prophets You have called, through apostles that You have sent. And Lord, now as we look into Your Word this morning, may we come to it knowing it is inerrant, infallible. And Lord, may Your Spirit speak this Word into our hearts. In Christ's name, amen. We begin this morning again with this one little verse in Malachi. He's the last of the Old Testament prophets. Malachi 3.1, Behold, I am going to send My messenger, and he will clear the way before Me. These are the words of the Lord spoken through Malachi around 425 B.C. Three hundred years before that in Isaiah and through Isaiah, chapter 40, verse 3, we read this. The voice of one crying in the wilderness, Prepare the way of the Lord, make His paths straight. Every ravine will be filled, every mountain and hill will be brought low, the crooked will become straight. Rough roads made smooth, and all flesh will see the salvation of God. These words which are recorded in all four Gospels and spoken by Jesus Himself in Matthew chapter 11 of John the Baptist. And they speak of the preparation for the arrival of an approaching king. They would clear the roads. They would straighten the roads. They would remove the obstacles. And a king was indeed coming. And so as the language here speaks of the preparation for a king, John comes into the wilderness to prepare the world for the coming of the king. Shortly after John was born, we recall his father Zacharias was filled with the Holy Spirit. And he prophesied. We see this in Luke 176. And you, child, will be called the prophet of the Most High. For you will go on before the Lord to prepare His ways. Now that's the sixth person to speak these words. And a seventh would be, of course, John himself. He said, I am a voice of one crying in the wilderness. And the prophecy of Zacharias was, you will go on before the Lord to prepare His ways, to give His people the knowledge of salvation by the forgiveness of their sins. So in fulfillment of the prophecies of Isaiah and Malachi and of his own father Zacharias, John the Baptist came into the Judean wilderness between 26 and 29 A.D. Now we recall God had not been heard from for over 400 years since the prophecy of Malachi. And then the Word of God came to John. Now at the age of 30, he came preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. Repent, the kingdom of heaven is at hand, he said. John, the apostle John, tells us that John the Baptist was a man sent from God. He came as a witness to testify about the light so that all might believe in Christ through him. Now here's John. He was announcing that the salvation promised by God to Abraham in Genesis 12, 3, and even before that in the Garden of Eden. to Israel and to people from every nation had come in Jesus of Nazareth. And in announcing the arrival of Messiah, the Savior, John called all men to turn from their old ways, to turn from their sin, and to turn to and believe in Jesus. John called them to repent and to be baptized in water, in water, as a profession and sign of their repentance. And to bear fruit. To bear fruit. Love, joy, peace, kindness, gentleness, patience. Fruit in keeping with repentance. As evidence that they had turned from their old ways. Now again, our works could never save us. Our works are as filthy rags. But our works demonstrate, our fruit demonstrates whether we have turned from our old ways and whether we are believing in the promise of God and in the coming of Christ and in His death as the atonement for our sins. John also referred to the unbelieving, to the unrepentant as offspring of vipers, brood of vipers. He said to them, who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? John, we're told Matthew spoke these same words directly to some Pharisees and Sadducees who came to him. But the clear inference is John would not baptize the unrepentant. And as for those who do not repent and turn to Christ and believe, the judgment of God is certain. This is the message of Scripture. The axe, John said, is already laid at the root of the trees, and every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. Well, there's John out here saying all of these things. And the people who heard John could see that he was very likely a prophet of God. People had heard about John when he was born, we remember. They'd heard the things that his father had prophesied about him. You look at Luke 1, 65. All these things had been talked about in the hill country of Judea. Verse 66, all who heard them kept them in mind, saying, What will this child turn out to be? And while their idea of what Messiah would be had become confused and mistaken over the centuries, they had not forgotten the promise of Messiah. And so seeing John speak and hearing him, they wondered if he might not be the long-awaited one. That's what verse 15 tells us. They were in a state of expectation, all wondering in their hearts about John, whether he was the Christ. And that's a little bit understandable, at least a little bit. His sudden and strange appearance, dressed like Elijah. His rigorous way of life, eating locusts and honey. His stern call to repentance. This all attracted a great deal of attention. And it caused a lot of talk in Judea. And he was doing something no one had ever done. He was calling Jews to be baptized. Telling them, don't think you're safe just because you are sons of Jacob. Regrettably, this was news to them. And on top of all of this, people were flocking into the wilderness to see and hear John. His mission was to announce the coming of the Christ. Since he himself was such a strange-seeming person, talked so strangely, and was a powerful person. And given their expectation of Messiah, it really was no wonder people wondered, maybe John himself is the Messiah. So they send a delegation to him. Pharisees did. And they had some questions. Who are you? And why are you baptizing? What is this? Why are you baptizing Jews? This ritual is not part of the law given through Moses. So by what authority are you introducing this new ritual? Apostle John chapter 1 of his Gospel, verse 24, says they'd been sent from the Pharisees. And they asked him, Why then are you baptizing if you're not the Christ, you're not Elijah, and you're not the prophet of Deuteronomy 18? Well John answered and said to them all, As for me, I baptize with water, but one is coming who is mightier than I. and I am not fit to untie the thong of his sandals. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire." Now Mark and Matthew in their Gospels record pretty much these same words. But look at the first part of this. He who is coming is mightier than I. In sheer power, The coming Messiah surpasses John. Did then, does now, always will. But not only that. John saw himself as unfit even to untie the thong of the Messiah's sandals. Now to give us some perspective of this, it was the duty of the lowest slave to remove and clean the sandals of his master. But the rabbi said, every service that a slave does for his master, a disciple shall do for his teacher except this one. he shall not loosen the sandal thong." Untying the sandal's thong was too much for even a disciple. So John selected precisely this duty, which the rabbis regarded as too menial for a disciple, as the one for which he said he was unworthy. Now this man who said this is the one of whom Jesus said in Matthew chapter 11, verse 11, "...Truly I say to you, among those born of women there has not arisen anyone greater than John the Baptist." And John said, this coming one will come with a baptism that is superior to my baptism with water. Now, by these words, this one who had been filled with the Holy Spirit while still in his mother's womb, who was speaking as God's prophet, was declaring the power and the goodness of the Messiah. And if John was not fit to handle the sandals of the one to come, how great must this Messiah be? What's the answer? Well, He's God's own Son. He's God's own eternal Son. And He's taking on flesh. And He's coming into the Judean wilderness. And He's going to bring a baptism of greater power and greater significance than that of John. He will baptize with God the Holy Spirit and fire. John and Christ were not only, and are not only different in their persons, there is a great difference in their work. John baptized with water, a symbol of one's personal repentance and of his belief in John's message. A divinely appointed man may baptize with water, but God's Son, God's Son will crown his redemptive work by baptizing with the Holy Spirit and fire. only the Son of God can pour out the Holy Spirit. And that He would do only after completing His redemptive work and returning to heaven. Now it's not that the Holy Spirit was never present on the earth before Pentecost. He was. If that were true, no one could have been saved. Abraham, Moses, any of them. The distinction is this, before the Son of God actually completed His work of redemption, the work of the Spirit was limited. And what really was it? It was preparatory to the coming of the Son of God into the world. But after Pentecost, the Spirit of God was poured out into the world. And Christ is the author of the outpouring of His Spirit into the world. He will cause His Spirit and the Spirit's gifts to come upon His followers. Now we see in Acts chapters 1, 2, 10, 11, and other chapters that this prophecy was fulfilled in a special sense in the earliest days of the church. Take a look at Acts chapter 1, verse 4. Jesus was about to ascend back to heaven. He gathered His disciples together. He commanded them not to leave Jerusalem, but to wait for what the Father had promised, which He said, You heard of from Me. For John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit many days from now. Now these words, of course, recall John's, the Baptist's own words. Verse 8 of chapter 1, you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you. And you shall be my witnesses both in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria and even to the remotest part of the earth. And so they were praying in the upper room. It was ten days later. And suddenly Acts 2.2, there came from heaven a noise like a violent rushing wind and it filled the whole house where they were sitting. And verse 4, they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak with other tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance. And then look at verse 16. Peter tells us. This is what was spoken of through the prophet Joel in chapter 2. And it shall be in the last days, which began at that point, really. God says that I will pour forth My Spirit on all mankind. Your sons and daughters shall prophesy. Your young men shall see visions. Your old men shall dream dreams, even on My bond slaves, both men and women. I will in those days pour forth of My Spirit, and they shall prophesy. Now later in the book of Acts, in chapter 10, Peter has a vision. He has it three times. Calling him to go to where a man named Cornelius was. A Roman centurion. And Cornelius also had received vision from God. A message from God. Telling him to call for this man Peter to come to him. And Peter did, and Peter preached the gospel to these Gentiles. And as he was preaching, and the Holy Spirit fell on them all. And Peter comes back to Jerusalem, and he's telling the Jewish brethren who had come to Christ. He reported in Acts 11.13, He told them how the angel was standing in his house. Cornelius had told Peter this, to send to Iapaea and have Simon brought here. And he'll speak words to you by which you will be saved. You and all your household. And then Peter says, and as I began to speak, the Holy Spirit fell upon them just as he did upon us at the beginning. And I remembered, Peter said, the word of the Lord, how he used to say. Used to say more than once. John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit. And so if God gave them the same gift He gave us, who was I to stand in God's way? Peter affirmed that what was occurring in those early days of the church, what occurred at Cornelius' house, was in fulfillment of these words of John the Baptist here in Luke chapter 3. He will baptize with the Holy Spirit. So it was then after Pentecost that through the coming of the Spirit, the minds and hearts of Christ's people were awakened and were opened to the knowledge of divine saving truth. And their spirits awakened to new life. The Spirit made a spectacular entry into the world on Pentecost, just as both John and Jesus had foretold. And in the earliest days of the church, He worked in great power and effect, reviving the lifeless spirits of 3,000 people in that first week. And He continued to move and guide the apostles, first in Jerusalem, then in all Judea, then into Samaria, and ultimately into all the world, miraculously demonstrating divine power as He attested to the gospel preached by the Twelve and by Paul. He attests to the truth of Scripture to us right now. in an equally miraculous, though less spectacular way, by convicting our hearts of the knowledge of this truth. Jesus still baptizes with His Spirit. He still gives new life to the spiritually dead and equips them for service in His church. And so when a person is called out of the darkness and dead spirit into God's light, he is baptized with the Spirit of God. He's joined to the risen Christ. He's indwelt by the Spirit of God and immersed into this eternal union of believers with Christ and in Christ. And so after the apostolic age, though the Spirit rarely works in such spectacular displays as He did then, He continues to work miracles. Reviving dead spirits, making them alive, teaching them the Word of God. Christ will not only baptize with the Holy Spirit, He'll baptize with fire, John said. What does he mean by these words? Well, often in Scripture, fire symbolizes God's wrath. But fire's also indicative of God's work of purifying grace. We see this here in several passages in both Testaments. Look at Isaiah 6-6. One of the seraphim, as he's called before God, flew to me with a burning coal in his hand, which he'd taken from the altar with tongs. He touched my mouth with it. Behold, this has touched your lips, and your iniquity is taken away, and your sin is forgiven. Back at Malachi 3.3 on the first of the Scriptures on the first page. He will sit as a smelter and purifier of silver. He will purify the sons of Levi and refine them like gold and silver. In Zechariah 13.9, He will bring the third part through the fire. refine them as silver is refined, and test them as gold is tested. They will call on My name, and I will answer them. I will say, They are My people, and they will say, The Lord is my God." So in verse 16, fire here speaks of God's refining and purifying His people. He baptizes with fire in a purifying sense. So Christ not only bestows the spirit of regeneration on His people, He purifies us, removes our pollution, cleanses our consciences. Those who receive Christ are purified as by fire. Now verse 17, the metaphor of fire is used in a completely different sense. It's also one that's frequently used, especially in the New Testament, and quite often by Christ Himself, to speak of final judgment. So fire both purges the believer, and it is the eternal destiny, at least figuratively, if not literally, of the unbeliever. Malachi 4.1, here's another way we see fire. For behold, the day is coming, burning like a furnace, and all the arrogant and every evildoer will be chaff. And the day that is coming will set them ablaze, says the LORD of hosts, so that it will leave them neither root nor branch. John 15, 6, our Lord said, If anyone does not abide in Me, he is thrown away as a branch and dries up, and they gather them, cast them into the fire, and they are burned. Matthew 13, 40. It's just as the tares are gathered up and burned with fire, so shall it be at the end of the age. The Son of Man will send forth His angels, and they'll gather out of His kingdom all stumbling blocks and those who commit lawlessness, and He will throw them into the furnace of fire. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth John says here in verse 17, his winnowing fork is in his hand to thoroughly clear his threshing floor, to gather the wheat into his barn, but he will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire. Now this is the second, if not the third reminder and warning in this very passage, in these first 20 verses of Luke 3, of the certainty of God's judgment. People tend to want to read only those parts of the gospel where everything turns out fine. But the gospel tells us eternal life is for those who believe and demonstrate that belief in their lives. For those who don't believe, there's only judgment. And it's eternal judgment, eternal misery. And whether people acknowledge it or know it or not, in one sense or another, all people desire that there will be no consequence for their conduct in this life. Even those who deny that their violations of God's Word are sin, they still want to believe there's no consequence for their conduct. And millions have been deceived into thinking and believing their sins aren't so bad as to incur the wrath of a loving God. They're so wrong. The wrath of God will come against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men. Romans 1, 18 and 19. And there is none righteous. No, not one. So if anyone is to be saved from eternal misery, God must make a way. And he did in sending his son. So this picture here of the threshing floor is where winnowing of grain takes place. It's a flat area. It's maybe 40 feet in diameter. It's exposed to the wind. You'll clear it of stones and make a nice flat area because the grain's going to fall down there. They take a shovel with forks and throw the grain into the air, and it separates from the chaff. And the chaff pulls away and floats away in the wind. And what's left is on the ground. The grain kernels, which are heavier than the chaff. They fall straight down to the threshing floor. And the winnowing process doesn't stop until the floor has been thoroughly cleared. The grain gathered up. After Christ returns, there's going to be such a separation of wheat from chaff. Of sheep from goats. Christ gathering His wheat, His sheep, to Himself. He used both illustrations in His own preaching. And His point was nobody is going to escape detection. And no one is going to escape His judgment except those who are trusting in Him. And only those who trust in His offering of Himself for their sins, who have demonstrated that trust by their repentance from their sin, only they will survive this judgment. The chaff, the unrepentant and unbelieving are going to be thrown into hell. You look outside and you think, you know what? People don't really believe this. But it's going to happen. God's Word always comes to pass. unquenchable fire, unending punishment, where the worm never dies, where their shame is everlasting. They will be tormented with fire and brimstone, and the smoke of their torment ascends forever and ever, so they have no rest day or night." Revelation 20, 10, "...the devil who deceived them was thrown into the lake of fire and brimstone, where the beast and the false prophet..." That's all false religion. That's all falseness. And they will be tormented day and night forever and ever. And folks, Christ already has the winnowing fan in His hand. He brings the gospel. And the gospel separates us. These who believe, these who don't. Now what about this fire? What sense is this fire to be understood? Is it a literal fire? Well, I'm not ready to rule it out. shouldn't be excluded out of hand, but Scripture does point to a symbolic meaning of fire, the eternal wrath of God resting upon the unbelieving to their eternal anguish. of the unquenchable fire, Calvin wrote, let us lay aside the speculations, whether it's literal or figurative, by which foolish men weary themselves to no purpose and satisfy ourselves with believing that these words denote unquenchable fire in a manner suited to our feeble capacity, a dreadful torment which no man can now even comprehend and which no language can express. One writer remarks, Sadducees of all ages have tried to quench this fire by making sport of it. Oh, there's no unquenchable fire. But when they do that, they only prepare themselves for this fire and assure themselves of its coming upon them. And fire and the idea of death might be misunderstood as denoting annihilation of the wicked, but John shuts this out. And so does Christ. By these words, with fire unquenchable, it goes on. This fire is unquenchable. And so this term, unquenchable fire, emphasizes both the certainty and the completeness of judgment. Let me say it again. Only those who repent and receive the Lord Jesus Christ in faith are found to be grain, found to be true children of Abraham. Only they will enter heaven. All the rest are chaff which the wind blows away. Psalm 1-4, the wicked are not so. They are like chaff which the wind drives away. And then they are thrown into an everlasting and unquenchable fire. Now, this work of winnowing, it's already begun. It goes forward every day. Now, while the full accomplishment of it will not be seen until the last day, let's remember, believers right now enter into the granary of God in which we will all have our everlasting home. So in our passage here this morning, John distinguishes between himself and the other ministers of baptism on the one hand, and the power of Christ and His baptism on the other. And he declares the superiority of Christ over His servants. And so, we may gather a doctrine from this that what's pictured or symbolized in water baptism is actually accomplished by the Son of God, has been accomplished by the Son of God, and is accomplished every day when He brings new life and gives His Spirit to sinners. Christ alone bestows all the grace which is figuratively represented by this outward sign of baptism. It's He who sprinkles the conscience and with what? With His own blood. With His own blood. He mortifies the old man. He's condemned sin in His flesh and He bestows the spirit of regeneration. Kind of wish Luke had expanded on verse 18 a little more. With many other exhortations he preached the gospel to the people. John did. And his purpose, by the way, of preaching of the eternal misery to come is evangelistic. That's his purpose. To call people to repent and come to Christ. There's no better evangelistic message than the warning of the certainty of eternal misery, if you don't. And that's what the gospel teaches us. Now he adds, he goes right to the end of John's ministry and to the point where he's arrested by Herod Antipas. Herod the Tetrarch. When he reprimanded Herod the Tetrarch because of Herodias, his brother's wife, and because of all the wicked things which Herod had done, Herod locked John up in prison. That was it. Eventually he would be beheaded. Now Luke's account, we can see here, is not always chronological. He jumps ahead here because he wants to, in an orderly way, move from the story of John's ministry. And remember, there had already been two accounts from Matthew and Mark, most likely, of these things. But he wants now to write the story of Christ's ministry. So he brings his account of John to the end here. I think most of you know Herod Antipas, while visiting his brother Herod Philip, became infatuated with Philip's wife. And they both ended up leaving their spouses. They married each other in an adulterous and incestuous relationship. And John went right to Antipas and rebuked him. Governor of a quarter, roughly, of the Holy Land. He rebuked him repeatedly. What you're doing is wrong there. And as we later learn, John was beheaded for his faithful service in rebuking him. Calvin remarks, this history shows us what sort of reward may await faithful ministers of the truth. And it may become more and more like that in Western civilization as time goes on. If God does not step in and revive His church. If He leaves us to our own devices, this may be where we're headed. But in John we have an illustrious example of great moral courage. The truth is all faithful preachers of the Word must possess that kind of willingness to declare the Word accurately, confront sin. A lot of people don't like to hear the Word declared accurately. They don't like to hear that certain things they like to do are sins. That's intolerant. That's unloving. No, that's sin. And a minister or evangelist must be willing to incur rejection as often as it may be found necessary. We are all supposed to be seeking His approval and His glory, not the honor of men. So what shines through so clearly in Luke's account of the conception and the birth and the life and ministry of John is that a great change was coming. You read through the Old Testament, you stop at Malachi, if we could just go silent for 400 years to get a sense of things. And now a great change, the salvation of God had come. Finally, after 4,000 years after man had fallen, So our Lord's message to us this morning, He has sent His own Spirit into this fallen world. He made a spectacular entry into the world on Pentecost, just as John had foretold, just as Jesus had said would happen. And in the earliest days of the church, he worked in great power, great effect. He revived 3,000 in the first week. He continued to move and guide the apostles through Jerusalem, Judea, and Samaria, into all the world. He miraculously demonstrated divine power to attest to the validity of what they said. Now we have the Word of God and the Spirit attesting to us, to our spirit, the truth of God's Word. For 2,000 years. For 2,000 years now, Jesus has baptized those given Him by the Father in eternity past with His Spirit. By His Spirit, He has revived our dead spirits. Don't think you came into this world spiritually alive. None of us did. We all came in spiritually dead, and He's revived us, and we've been joined to our Savior spiritually. and immersed into that great eternal spiritual body that will live forever with God. And by His Spirit, He's given us the knowledge of the truth, the only truth that can save us. He's given us new hearts. He's given us new desires. All of this is part of the baptism of the Holy Spirit. He's purged us of the guilt of our sin that He may present us holy and blameless before Him. And yes, with fire, He's purged us of our sin. He's cleansed us of its stain. He's cleansed our consciences. And He's given His Spirit to every believer as a pledge of our eternal inheritance in glory with God. Hallelujah. Well, Lord, there's so much wonderful assurance for every believer here in this passage this morning. And Lord, for the unbeliever, may they hear this Word. May they have this Word brought to them by someone You call. And may they receive it as from You. May they know that Your Word is truth. And may they be sanctified by this Word. Lord, we pray for every lost soul around us. And we pray that You would continue to encourage every child of Yours Lord, we're ever thankful that You've sent Christ. And the Spirit of God may dwell not only in this world, but within each one of us. And may we be ever grateful for Your kingdom and for Your glory. In Christ's name, Amen.