Snakes and Hedgehogs, Fallen Trees and Fulfillment
Matthew 3:4-12
Five “God” Promises
1. God promises that you can sit in a church pew and still smell of sin.
2. God promises that vipers will vanish because they will be vanquished.
3. God promises that only righteous fruit-producing trees will stand.
4. God promises that He will baptize with the Holy Spirit and with fire.
5. God promises that SOME will escape from judgment.
What do snakes and hedgehogs have to do with trees and Biblical fulfillment? We find out in Matthew 3 (I like the way John 1:6 describes John the Baptist –“There was a man sent from God, whose name was John.” In Matthew 3:4 we find out what he was like:
Matthew 3: 4: “John’s clothes were made of camel’s hair, and he had a leather belt around his waist. His food was locusts and wild honey. (John’s attire was totally non-characteristic of contemporary clothing. We might think of him as some sort of “hippie”. His diet was extremely sparse, (seed pods and wild honey) which was a sign of his life being in tune with God and not the things around him. Even “in the day”, he was atypical, he was different than the normal. If you were looking for the status quo or normal, you wouldn’t find it in John the Baptist. That’s the way it is with people of God’s Kingdom. They are DIFFERENT from the world’s expectations and standards. What is important to the world is NOT important to Followers of God .The important thing about John is that he was proclaiming the appearance and ministry of Jesus. )
5 People went out to him from Jerusalem and all Judea and the whole region of the Jordan. (The Word spread about John, and people said: You have to see this guy!)
6 Confessing their sins, (People came to him and were confessing the fact that they had missed the perfect mark of God’s holiness. They were getting sins off of their hearts-getting the weight of sin off their chest, so to speak.) they were baptized by him in the Jordan (the descender, go down) River. (they were baptizô: dipped in the waters of the Jordan as a profession that they wanted to turn from their sin. They wanted to be clean.)
Brood of vipers
7 But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming to where he was baptizing, he said to them: "You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the coming wrath? (“You generation or offspring of poisonous snakes.”
In Genesis 3, Satan is pictured as a serpent or a viper, one who deceives and steals precious hearts and lives from God. What did that mean to Jews schooled in the Old Testament? “Snakes and serpent (s) were used more often in the OT: the root word pertains to soothsaying, to divination and sorcerers, people who would lead others AWAY from God and His Word by deception.
Ps. 140:3: “They sharpen their tongues as a serpent ; Poison of a viper is under their lips.”
(This phrase was VERY contemporary. The Greek the word for “viper” is “ecidna”. Today, Echidnas are small, solitary mammals covered with coarse hair and spines. They resemble the anteaters or other spiny mammals such as hedgehogs and porcupines. In Greek mythology, “Echidna” was half woman and half snake, known as the "Mother of All Monsters" because most of the monsters in Greek myth were mothered by her. She was the mother of evil monsters in the same way that the devil is the father of all evil.)
Vipers are mentioned 5 times in the NT; If you are part of a brood that were vipers you are offspring or children of the devil. (Actually, that fits every person ever born.) Jesus used the same phrase to the Pharisees in Matthew 12:33 "Make a tree good and its fruit will be good, or make a tree bad and its fruit will be bad, for a tree is recognized by its fruit. 34 You brood of vipers, how can you who are evil say anything good? For out of the overflow of the heart the mouth speaks. 35The good man brings good things out of the good stored up in him, and the evil man brings evil things out of the evil stored up in him.”
Again in Matt 23:33, Jesus addresses the scribes and Pharisees: “You serpents, you brood of vipers, how will you escape the sentence of hell ?”
John 8:43-44, Jesus said: “Why is my language not clear to you? (Jesus answers his own question:) Because you are unable to hear what I say. (YOU”RE SPIRITUALLY DEAF!) 44 You belong to your father, the devil, and you want to carry out your father’s desire. He was a murderer from the beginning, not holding to the truth, for there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies.”
The wages of SIN and SATAN is DEATH! Death is the end of those who look like healthy spiritual fruit on the outside, but inside, they still have a rotten core that corrupts the whole fruit. It’s BAD FRUIT. The Pharisees not only claimed to keep the law, they expounded on it and distorted it, and didn’t keep it. They gave the APPEARANCE of the good, but inwardly they hated God and disregarded others, and it showed in their lives. John gives them God’s warning in verse 8.
8 “Produce fruit in keeping with repentance.” (Read Isa. 58 to find out about this and also Galatians 5:22-25) 9 and do not think you can say to yourselves, ’We have Abraham as our father.’
The Axe is at the Root of the Trees
“I tell you that out of these stones God can raise up children for Abraham. 10 The ax is already at the root of the trees, and every tree that does not produce good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire. 11 "I baptize you with water for repentance. But after me will come one who is more powerful than I, whose sandals I am not fit to carry. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire. 12 His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor, gathering his wheat into the barn and burning up the chaff with unquenchable fire."
Jesus was always trying to faze and frazzle the Pharisees, and we see that John the Baptist did the same thing when he was preparing the introduction of Jesus’ ministry. I want to quickly examine 5 Godly promises AND fulfillment in these verses.
5 Promises from God
In some churches in centuries past, church pews were installed at the expense of the congregants, and were their personal property; there was no general public seating in the church itself. In these churches, pew deeds recorded title to the pews, and were used to convey them. When the pews were privately owned, their owners sometimes enclosed them in lockable pew boxes. In some churches you could rent pews so that you could always have the same seat. This created and enforced a sort of social status in church seating.
1. The Jews of Jesus day created social systems too, and so John, as well as Jesus, paid a lot of attention to the religious people of the day. Many of the discourses and parable of Jesus warned that God promises that you can sit in a church pew and still smell of sin. That’s NOT a good thing but it does not have to be lethal.
Remember that “IN ADAM” everyone is in a sin-rotten condition. We didn’t acquire it by ourselves and we don’t fix it by ourselves. Only God fixes our sin and death problem in Christ by paying for our sins. Many are deceived by their own so-called righteousness. Jesus will warn many times that Self-righteousness does not create a saved person, only He does.
2. God promises that vipers will vanish because they will be vanquished. Vipers could be compared to fruitless trees in this passage. The end of Vipers who speak and produce poison and trees that produce no fruits of righteousness will both be thrown into the lake of fire. Revelation as well as Matthew 24 speak of the end times, but there is an example of both of these items in Acts 28 where Paul is on the Island of Malta:
“When Paul had gathered a bundle of sticks (fruitless wood) and laid them on the fire, a viper came out because of the heat and fastened itself on his hand. 4 When the natives saw the creature hanging from his hand, they began saying to one another, "Undoubtedly this man is a murderer, and though he has been saved from the sea, justice has not allowed him to live." 5 However * he shook the creature (the viper) off into the fire and suffered no harm.” Both are vanquished and overcome by the fire!
3.“Trees” are mentioned 100’s of times in the Bible, beginning in Genesis and ending in Revelation with the Tree of Life; Notice in verse 10 that “the ax is already at the root of, NOT ALL TREES, but at the root of those which do not produce Godly fruit. God promises that only righteous fruit-producing trees will stand. Jesus affirmed this in Matthew 7:19 says: "Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.” But trees that are planted IN CHRIST (by streams of living water. Ps. 1) will flourish and produce fruit.
Normally, trees are not immediately cut down and used for firewood. They are usually cut and “seasoned”. Although John the Baptist may have thought that judgment would be more immediate, the apostle John quoted Jesus in John 15:6: “If anyone does not abide in Me, he is thrown away as a branch and dries up; and they gather them, and cast them into the fire and they are burned.” Remember that Jesus is a miracle worker and even if you feel that you have been cut off, He can still perform a miracle of NEW LIFE.
4. There is more than one kind of baptism. We read in verse 11 that John’s baptism is one of water and repentance, but God promises that Jesus would baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire. The word “Baptism” has been a source of disagreement in the church for many years, and I spent a lot of time explaining the many ways that it was used in the past, but for now let’s accept THIS WORD just as it is. Jesus baptizes with the Holy Spirit and with fire.
The word for “fire” is “pur”, pronounced “poor”. The word is used 25 times in Revelation, 12 times in Matthew, and 34 times in the rest of the NT. His Spirit baptizes us, who are POOR IN SPIRIT, humble and repentant before Him, in need of a Savior from sin, so that we are now PURE or purified. When that happens, we are TOTALLY poor, are purified by His Spirit and we RECEIVE HIS HOLY CLEANSING. It is a cleansing and renewing fire: THAT’S GRACE.
Our God is also a “CONSUMING fire.” (Heb. 12:29). This is a destructive and punishing fire. Satan tries to deceive us with images about burning in hell. He tries to attract and lure us to a fire and flame that looks like life and contentment, something that will give us restoration. Why are there so many who worship satan? Because satan BRINGS a strong DELUSION! Satan will only bring death and deception, but our SAVING God will bring, not only LIFE, but also death.
The fires of hell will burn eternally, not because satan is causing them to burn, but because God’s punishment and “baptism” upon UNBELIEVERS, people and spirits who REJECT HIM and His judgment, DESERVE an eternal FIRE of His wrath!
5. But these verses also tell us that God promises SOME will escape judgment. He promises it NOW, BEORE the fire of His judgment: Repent and Receive the Holy Spirit of cleansing and purity instead of the fire of eternal destruction. Receive HIS cleansing NOW, not YOURS!
When people talk about choices, there really is no “choice”. Who would want the fire of God’s destruction, rather than the fire of purging and purification? God promises that there is an escape: Repent and Receive the Holy Spirit, yet millions hear that message and don’t repent because they don’t really HEAR the message. They have been deafened and blinded by the world, the devil and the sin that is within them. Come to Him and be baptized, immersed in His purity.
