Matthew 3:1-12
Vipers, repentance and fire
Sermon notes
Over the last few weeks we’ve been looking at the first couple of chapters of Matthew - the birth and infancy of Jesus. And on that first Christmas, He appeared in human form, first as a baby, and then He grew up to commence His ministry. Today we look at Matthew 3:1-12. Jesus is now a grown man and is about to commence His ministry. But before Matthew talks about Jesus’ ministry, we are introduced to John the Baptist. Every Gospel – all four of them, mentions John the Baptist as the one who prepared the way for Jesus.
But who is this John the Baptist? Why was He so significant? What was this John the Baptist like? Well for starters, as we read John the Baptist’s preaching, it looks like he never read such books as Dale Carnegie’s “How to win friends and influence people.” When we read of his ministry methods, it seems as though he never went to any church growth seminars of courses on “How to have a seeker-senstive church service”or on “How to make everyone in your church feel good.” When we read about John the Baptist, we see he was a straight talker, said it like it was and wasn’t afraid to offend people in order to tell them the truth. And so today, I’m going have to ask you to put your seatbelts on. Today’s sermon is hard hitting: it doesn’t pull any punches. Today’s sermon may confront us and may force us to make a decision about the way we live, about our focus in life.
Our passage starts in Matthew 3.1. It tells us that John came preaching in the wilderness of Judea, where the Jordan River flowed through it, so it was probably in this area in this photo here (which is now a fenced border between Israel and Jordan). And in verse 2, it tells us what John was preaching.
Matt 3:2 “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.”
This was John’s message “Repent.” That is, turn from sin and towards God. And we’ll look at that more closely later in the passage. But why repent? Because the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand. The Kingdom of Heaven, that is, God’s kingdom, God’s reign, God’s rule, is at hand. But what does all this mean? What does repentance mean? What is this Kingdom of Heaven? The reign of God’s rule?
Well first, let’s have a look a bit more about John the Baptist and who he was. Matthew as well as the other 3 Gospel writers tell us that John the Baptist was the exact one foretold by the prophet Isaiah hundreds of years earlier.
Matthew 33 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.’ ”
This is a direct quote from Isaiah 40:3, and every single Gospel writer quotes from Isaiah 40 in order to explain who John was. So to understand the significance of that quote, we have better go and read the first few verses of Isaiah 40. The book of Isaiah was written in a period of turmoil in the southern kingdom of Judah. The northern kingdom of Israel had just been taken off into captivity, and the big question was – would Judah follow suit? In the first part of the book of Isaiah, it is mostly doom and gloom as Isaiah prophesied disaster and defeat for the Jews because of their sin; their rebellion against God. The Jews continued in their sin and were eventually taken into captivity as their northern relatives had. But Isaiah was not all doom and gloom. From chapter 40 onwards there is a turning point, where we see prophecies of the Messiah.
We have the famous servant songs, songs that foretell of the suffering of the Messiah for our sins. And this turning point is in chapter 40, where we read:
Isaiah 40 Comfort, comfort my people, says your God.
2 Speak tenderly to Jerusalem,
and cry to her
that her warfare is ended,
that her iniquity is pardoned,
that she has received from the LORD’s hand
double for all her sins.
3 A voice cries:
“In the wilderness prepare the way of the LORD;
make straight in the desert a highway for our God.
Up to this point, Isaiah had been prophesying warfare and calamity for Jews, for the inhabitants of Jerusalem and it surrounds. Why? Because of their sin. The result of that sin, was that eventually they were carried into exile in Babylon. And now in chapter 40 the table turns, and we can see in verse 2, that her warfare is ended. Why? Because, as it says, her iniquity is pardoned. And in verse 3 we see the foretelling of a messenger, a voice crying in the wilderness. A voice crying to prepare the way of the Lord. And now Matthew – as well as every other Gospel writer, tells us that this prophecy has now been fulfilled! This voice of one preparing the way is none other than John the Baptist. Matthew 3:3 says, “For this is he who was spoken of by the prophet Isaiah”
Now can you imagine the reaction of a Jew who knew his scripture well! John the Baptist - he is the one! Well, not THE one – not the Messiah himself, but the one – the voice - who would prepare the way for THE Messiah. The voice in the wilderness. The one preparing the way for the Messiah. This voice has now appeared. And what is he saying? What is his message? It is to prepare the way for the Lord, to make his paths straight. That is, John’s role was to prepare people for Jesus, the salvation that Jesus was bringing. The Gospel – the good news – of the Kingdom of Heaven. That Jesus would shortly be proclaiming and which we’ll be looking at in more detail as we go through Matthew. The Good News that that war is over, peace is coming, because the people’s sin has been pardoned. And that’s exactly what John did. He prepared people’s hearts for the coming of Jesus, by preaching and telling people to repent.
And we see in verse 5, that actually many people came to John. Many people from Jerusalem, Judea and all around the area of the Jordan. And when they came to him
it tells us in verse 6, they were baptised, confessing their sins. That means, that when they were baptised, they confessed their sins. Baptism was not just a ritual. Some Christians equate baptism as being the New Testament equivalent to the Old Testament circumcision. In the Old Testament, baby boys were circumcised when they were a few days old. It was a decision by their parents, and it was a command of the Old Testament by God. But baptism is not the New Testament equivalent of circumcision. The people who came to be baptised by John confessed their own sins themselves. Not the sins of their children, but their own sins. We see that throughout the New Testament -
starting from here - the first baptisms - that baptism is always a voluntary thing on the part of the person being baptised.
And it is significant what went with the baptism - confession of sins. You know, one of the biggest problems we face with evangelism in our modern culture is that people don’t think they are sinners. People don’t realise they have offended God, that they have rebelled against God. Remember when we looked at Genesis, we saw how serious our sin is. Now what is sin? What did our ancestors Adam and Eve do? God told them to one thing not to do – don’t eat the fruit from a particular tree. The devil told them another thing. He tempted Adam and Eve to doubt God when he said in Gen 3:1, “Did God actually say?” The devil tempted Adam and Eve to question and doubt God, and in the end Adam and Eve believed the devil instead of God.
And it is the same today. We think we know best. Some of you may know of the recent controversy here in Gympie. On Christmas Day, the priest at the Catholic Church here in Gympie encouraged his congregation to sign a petition against homosexual marriage, and ever since it’s been in the Gympie Times and he’s been under fire. But the point is this: when you read the Gympie Times article and most of the posts on the internet, people are making up their own minds about what is right. They are not considering what God says, or they presume to know what God says about this topic. That’s what sin is. It’s when we say we know best. When we say, “what would God know?” “I know best.” It’s when we write our own rules. It’s when we ignore God. It’s when we don’t put Him in first place in our lives. Sin is the belief by a person that he knows better than God.
And so the first step towards coming to God, is we need to acknowledge our sin. And that’s what these people were doing at John’s baptism. They were confessing their sins. And if you haven’t confessed your sins, then you are still separated from God. But the Good News is, that if you do confess your sins and repent (and we’ll get to what repentance means in just a few moments), then God can and will forgive you.
And these people were baptised as a sign of their confession of sins and their repentance. And if you have repented and haven’t been baptised, baptised of your own volition, your own choice, not just as a baby, then you need to be baptised as the Jesus tells us to do. So in our passage, we see that many were confessing their sins in the waters of batpism.
And lo and behold, in verse 7, we see some interesting visitors to John’s baptism. It doesn’t say that they were baptised, but they just came along for a sticky beak. And these people were Pharisees and Sadducees. Pharisees and Sadducees were two Jewish religious groups. And although the Pharisees and Sadducees were quite different to each other, they were similar in that they came across as being very religious, and they thought they were pretty good. And what’s John’s response to seeking the Pharisees and Sadducees come? Well, this is where we need to hold onto seatbelts. and where we see that John hadn’t read many books about how to welcome people to your church. Does John say: “Great that you could come and see these baptisms. Do make yourself comfortable.” No! Instead, we read in the middle of verse 7, he called them, “Brood of vipers!” Now “brood” is not a very common word these days. It means the offspring of an animal – its young. Literally, it means – “offspring of snakes,” “children of snakes”! How would you feel if you turned up to church one day and you were greeted with: ”you son of a snake!” Why did John say that to them? Something that seems, well, just downright rude! Well we need to read on to see:
Matt 37 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? 8 Bear fruit in keeping with repentance. 9 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.
You see the problem was two-fold. Firstly, we see John telling them in verse 8, Bear fruit in keeping with repentance. That is, if you repent of your sins, if you confess your sin, say you will turn to God, then there must be something to show for it. It MUST effect the way you live.
Secondly, the Pharisees and Sadducees thought they were okay, that they were alright. They thought they were exempt from the wrath of God. Why did they think that? It says here in verse 9, because Abraham was their father. In other words, because they were Jews, descendents of Abraham. That somehow, being a Jew meant that they were alright, and there was no need for repentance, there was no need to live a changed life. You see, this was a common understanding of Jews - that just because they were a Jew, that they were okay with God. The Jews of Isaiah’s time thought that, and that’s why Isaiah had to prophesy against them, and tell them to stop sinning, or they would face God’s judgement. But they didn’t listen, and so went into exile as the punishment for their sins. And now in John the Baptist and Jesus’ time, many of the Jews had the same attitude.
But John says something extraordinary to them. In verse 9 He tells them not to presume to say to themselves, that they are okay because Abraham is their father. Instead, as we’ve seen, John says that rather than being children of Abraham, they are children of snakes! Perhaps referring to the snake of Genesis 3 that deceived Adam and Eve. Jesus Himself said much the same thing in John 8 when he was being questioned by some Jews.
John 8:39 They answered Him, “Abraham is our father.” Jesus said to them, “If you were Abraham’s children, you would be doing the works Abraham did.”
and then in verse 44 Jesus says to them:
John 8:44 “Your are of your father the devil.”
Much the same as what John the Baptist is saying here in Matthew 3. These Jewish religious leaders thought they were okay just be virtue of being born Jews, but John the Baptist is saying, you think you’re okay because Abraham is your father? But actually, you are children of snakes, and as regards to children of Abraham, John the Baptist says in the second half of verse 9, Matthew 3:9b for I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children for Abraham. Now that might not seem like such a big deal for us, but for these Jewish leaders who prided themselves so much on their Jewish lineage, that they were children of Abraham, for John to say that God is able to raise up from these stones children for Abraham, that would have been a real shock to their system!
So it seems as though John is preparing the way for Jesus - that it is not just good enough to be born into the right race, the right family, but there must be repentance - and not just a repentance of words, but a repentance of action, of a changed life, of good fruit.
Now what does that mean for us here today? Well firstly, it does tell us that even today, there is no hope for Jewish people without Christ. Today many Christians try and help the Jews to live in the physical land of Israel. But we must remember, that a Jew who does not accept Jesus as the Messiah, as it says so clearly in the Gospels, cannot rely on their physical lineage, or where they live, to make them okay with God. They must confess their sins, repent, accept Jesus the Messiah, and bear fruit in keeping with that repentance. If you want to help today’s Jews, the best way you can do that is to preach the Gospel to them.
But what about us here at Gympie Baptist? Does this passage apply to us too? Well I think it might. And we all need to examine ourselves on this one. You see, John the Baptist was saying this to people who thought they were okay with God just by virtue of their birth. That they were from a religious family, that they did the right rituals, and therefore they were okay with God. Now many of us are in a similar boat. We have grown up in Christian homes. We have grown up in the church. We come to church each week, or maybe just every now and then. Maybe we’re members – or maybe we are not. And perhaps we just go to church, call ourselves a Christian, because that’s what we’re supposed to do, that’s what our parents did, so that’s what we do. And because of that, we think we are right with God. Now don’t get me wrong. It’s great to be brought up in a Christian home, it’s great to have the things of God taught to you from an early age, and that’s what we are doing with our own kids. But you know what? Being brought up in a Christian home won’t save you. Being taken to church every Sunday and then continuing on yourself when you are an adult, won’t save you. Just because you were christened or dedicated as a baby, that won’t save you. Just as with the Pharisees and Sadducees who thought they were okay with God because Abraham was their ancestor, you are not okay with God, just because you’ve always been in the church.
You see, God doesn’t have any grandchildren. He only has children. Every one of us must decide for ourselves to follow Christ or not. And if you decide to follow Christ, as John the Baptist says so clearly, then you must do it properly. 100%. You must be fair dinkum about it. You must show fruit of your repentance. It must be obvious from the way you live, that God is number one. As far as God is concerned, there is no such thing as Christianity Lite. What are the priorities in your life? Do you put God first? Do you put coming church on Sunday in order to meet with other Christians, worship the Lord together, and be taught from the Word - is that your priority – every Sunday, and not just when it suits?
Do you make serving the Lord, with your time, your abilities, your money, the number one priority in your life? Do you make the proclamation of the Gospel the priority of your life? Does your behaviour towards others show that Christ lives in you? Are you kind, generous, thinking of others ahead of yourself, helping those in need, the poor? Behaviour that we are going to learn about soon in great detail as we go through the Sermon on the Mount in the coming months. Do you spend time each day in prayer and Bible reading, soaking up the Word of the Lord? When you talk with people, email them, post on your Facebook wall, do you talk about the things of the Lord? Have you made Jesus the priority in your life? And is it obvious in the way you live that you’ve done this?
Does your life show fruits of repentance? That you have turned from a life of ignoring God, to now following after Him and making Him your life goal and number one priority? Have you truly been born again? You can’t just rely on your upbringing, your Christian heritage, or just calling yourself a Christian, as helpful as all those things may be. You must decide for yourself, and live it. And why? Is it that important? Well, yes it is. Let’s see what John the Baptist says. In verse 10, he says
Matthew 3 10 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.
But, you might ask, wasn’t this just John the Baptist? He was a pretty abrasive bloke. After all, wasn’t Jesus different? Didn’t Jesus just talk about the nice stuff? O Really? Let’s put on our seatbelts and read what Jesus came to do:
Matthew 311 “I baptize you with water for repentance, but he who is coming after me [that’s Jesus] is mightier than I, whose sandals I am not worthy to carry. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. 12 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.”
Wow that’s strong! Perhaps I had better explain the last verse, the bit about winnowing forks and threshing floors. You see, this is an illustration from harvesting wheat. When you harvest wheat, the grain itself is surrounded by a protected covering called chaff. But this chaff is inedible for us humans. So you must separate the grain, the useful, edible bit, from the chaff, the bit we can’t eat. Nowadays this is all done by combine harvesters, but back then, the first thing they had to do was to thresh the grain, which meant to loosen the chaff from the grain. They would do this on a threshing floor, which was a flat surface, and often they’d stomp on it or get heavy animals to stomp on it, so as to break the chaff, and loosen it from the grain. So now the grain and the chaff were separated, but they were still mixed in together. So what they would then do, is grab a winnowing fork, and toss the the whole lot up into the air in a light breeze. The chaff is lighter so would get carried further in the breeze than the grain, and they would be separated. Then the grain – the wheat fit for eating would be gathered together into the storage silo. But the chaff – the waste - would be gathered and burnt. And this is the illustration John the Baptist uses here.
Jesus will come with a baptism of the Holy Spirit and fire. And Jesus will sort out the wheat from the chaff. He will sort out those who truly are His, and who show it in their lives. The wheat He will gather into His silo, and the chaff He will burn with unquenchable fire. Well, when would that happen? At the beginning of our passage in vserse 2, John preached, Matthew 3:2“Repent for the the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” Jesus was coming to set up His kingdom. He came to bring Good News of forgiveness, but it is only good news for those who recognise their sin, repent and turn to God, who then have their sins forgiven and who show fruit of that repentance.
We know that Jesus is now with His Father in heaven, but one day He will return to establish the absolute rule of His kingdom, the Kingdom of Heaven. And when He does, He will winnow all the people of the earth. There will be the final judgement, and those who are His will be okay and will share an eternity of joy with Him.
But those who have not repented, who do not show the fruit of repentance in their lives, will be cast into the unquenchable fire of Hell.
Friends, there is no such thing as Christianity Lite. It will not save you. When it comes to Christ, you are either in or out. And if you are in, if you want to be for Christ, then you must be 100% for Christ. People, we are coming to the end of this sermon today. I warned you to put your seatbelt on at the beginning! It is a hard passage, but it’s in the Bible so me must listen to it. Our eternal destinies are at stake. John the Baptist was the one sent from God to prepare the way for Jesus. John baptised people, people who chose to be baptised of their own choice. And as they were baptised they confessed their sins.
But John warned us that we must show fruit of our repentance. And He prepared the way for Jesus who come to baptise with the Holy Spirit and fire, and who would divide all the peoples of the world into one of two camps: those who repent, trust in Him and show the fruit of that in their lives, and those who don’t.
Which one are you?
