Matthew 11: 2-15 The message John the Baptist preached
and the message he received
Lutherans are very firm on teaching Law and Gospel
and emphasising the correct distinction between the two.
We need them both, Law and Gospel,
God's Law, rules, duties and percepts,
and God's Gospel of grace and forgiveness of sin,
and both are in every book in the Bible
as Hector has shown in his series of Bible Studies.
John the Baptist preached God's Law and the need for everyone to repent,
and the message he received was God's Gospel,
the Good News of who Jesus was and what He said and what He did.
With regard to John the Baptist's preaching of Law,
most people like to be popular, so they say and do things
inclined to endear them to others,
but John was not someone who was prepared to tickle people’s ears
so they would join his fan club.
He believed God had called him to be an Elijah,
a preparer of the way for the Messiah,
Someone (with a capital S) greater than him,
who would come after him;
and at the right time according to God's plan
Jesus came, also preaching the need for repentance,
but also healing the lame, lepers, and deaf people
and also raising people from the dead.
Saying and doing what God made His Son incarnate,
flesh,
to say and do.
The writer of the Letter to the Hebrews defined 'faith'
as the 'evidence of things not seen'
but John's disciples, who came to Jesus,
asking Him Who He really was, and what He was all about,
were given evidence in the form of people they could see, touch and talk to,
whose lives had been made much better by their encounter with Jesus.
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There are many religions in the world,
but they all boil down to one of two types,
religions of law and religions of grace.
A religion of law produces a fearful, uncertain clinging,
to the proposition that if a person’s good deeds outweigh his bad,
God, or the gods, will look upon him with favour,
so the emphasis is on ”I do this GOOD”
or “I try not to do that BAD”
whereas a religion of grace recognizes one’s personal helplessness
and inability to EARN or MERIT favour with God,
so the emphasis is on “what God does”.
That is the difference between Arminians on the one hand (“I got saved”)
and Lutherans and Calvinists on the other (“GOD saved me”).
The wonderful good news is that God for Christ’s sake
rescues us from our sin and from our helplessness.
The Bible says we are dead in our sins.
A dead person cannot bring themselves back to life.
Like Lazarus or Jairus' daughter or the widown of Nain's son,
it took Jesus to bring them back to life.
Similarly there is nothing we can do about being dead in OUR sins;
we need Jesus to give us life, eternal life.
In spite of our lack of merit
whereby we could expect or even demand something,
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Let us look at John the Baptist.
John was born of special parents.
He was of the priestly race by both parents,
for his father Zacharias was himself a priest of the clan of Abijah
who was offering incense in the Temple at the very time
when a son was promised to him;
and Elizabeth was of the daughters of Aaron.
Both were devout persons,
walking in the commandments of God,
and waiting for the fulfilment of his promise to Israel.
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Elizabeth’s son, John was a special child
because he was called to a mission
decided by God long before his birth,
a mission to proclaim the coming of the Messiah.
came with a message of both law and the need for repentance,
and a message of grace because God had revealed to him
that Someone would come after him
who would have the power and authority to forgive people's sins.
John’s job was to make people ready for that coming
by proclaiming that everyone,
every single human being, including us,
needs to repent and turn to the Lord,
for there is no salvation by any other means.
That word repent is simple to understand
but more difficult to put into practice, because of human nature,
and of course, the devil, who does not want to lose anyone.
Repentance, or 'metanoia' in the Greek,
It is defined as a complete reversal of one’s attitude and values,
a turning toward God,
a great experiencing of regret for past conduct
which causes a change one’s mind regarding it;
a change for the better as a result of remorse or contrition or guilt
for one’s sins, trespasses, or 'debts'.
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John preached the message of repentance, change,
but his message of 'Law' was, and still is, difficult for many people,
because most people do not believe or like to admit
that they have anything to repent from.
It is human nature to say to ourselves, “I’m not so bad;
maybe not perfect, but better than most people,
and certainly better than so-and-so”.
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John knew that for the people to get ready for the coming of the Messiah,
they had to admit that they were sinners
and that they needed the forgiveness that the Messiah would bring
through his life, death and resurrection.
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John told the people over 2000 years ago to repent,
to get ready for the Saviour,
and through the gospels he tells people today the same thing:
“Get ready, acknowledge your sinfulness, repent
and the forgiveness brought by the Babe born in the manger will be yours.”
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Someone once said,
"Most people repent their sins by thanking God
that they aren’t as wicked as their neighbours."
He was right because it is easy to see the speck in our neighbour’s eye
but we don’t like to admit we have a log in our own.
People usually have a very high regard for themselves.
Most people think they are pretty good,
and most can see the faults, the sins, the evil in another,
that is human nature, ever since the Fall.
But John's message was that all of us fall short of what God expects of us.
All of us sin, so all of us need to repent
and accept the forgiveness of the One born in the manger
to die on the cross.
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John knew we needed the two edged sword of law and gospel.
The purpose of the Law being to convict us of sin
and the purpose of the gospel being to assure those who repent
and put their faith in Christ
of God’s grace and forgiveness.
If the devil and our own thoughts can make us believe
that we have no need for repentance,
then we will not feel any need for Jesus,
and people who live without any relationship with Jesus Christ
we will face a lost eternity when they die.
This is why the world, Scotland, this town, our households,
need someone like John the Baptist to point them to their need to repent,
and to the one and only Messiah who can bring salvation.
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ANECDOTE
A newspaper story a few years ago told of a man who did repent
and found joy in his life.
Al Johnson, a Kansas man came to faith in Jesus Christ,
but what made his story remarkable was not his conversion,
but the fact that as a result of his new found faith in Christ,
he confessed to a bank robbery he had participated in
many years earlier, when he was nineteen years old.
Because the statute of limitations on the case had run out,
he could not be prosecuted for the offence,
but he believed his relationship with Christ demanded a confession,
and he even voluntarily repaid his share of the stolen money!
After doing this, the newspaper reported that he was able to sleep better
than he had done for many years.
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Without repentance, people try to hide their guilt,
or claim they have NEVER done anything wrong. which is impossible,
but the devil accuses them, torments them;
and nothing the world has to offer can bring lasting peace.
This peace, the result of knowing that we are loved by Almighty God
is what motivated John’s preaching to the crowds he encountered.
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His message;
calling people to repent might not sound much like love,
but it is love because John wanted to announce the coming of the Saviour
and this would involve confronting people about their sin,
and their need to repent in order to receive the fruit of repentance,
which is forgiveness and peace of mind.
John the Baptist knew that most people don’t want to acknowledge their guilt before one another, yet alone before God.
yet he knew that we all have much to be guilty about
and that we all deserve condemnation for our sins,
and he knew that the only way we can truly receive the Saviour
is by recognizing our sin, repenting of that sin,
and turning to a new life made possible by the Lord Jesus
who went to the cross to pay the penalty for our guilt before God Almighty.
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When John acted out his ministry of preparing the way for the Messiah
it was because he wanted people to know the joy and love of Christ
and the forgiveness of sins and assurance of eternal life,
and he did this by preaching a hard message, calling some of his listeners
a “brood of vipers!” and telling them to “Produce fruit in keeping with repentance,
(and) every tree that does not produce good fruit will be cut down
and thrown into the fire."
He did not come to deliberately offend them, but to help them.
He DID set out to confront them with their sin by preaching the Law;
calling them to hear and respond to the tough message of judgement
but he, and we if we witness like him,
would never leave them in what John Bunyan called 'The Slough of Despond'
For after preaching Law and the need to repemnt,
he then preached the Gospel, the loving message of salvation
that he, John, by faith,
believed the Messiah who would follow him, would bring,
so we can imagine how happy he would be when his disciples
returned to him
to tell him about Jesus and what He was saying and doing.
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John the Baptist could not save anyone,
and neither can we, no matter how much we would like to save
our relatives, vriends and neighbours,
but he did what God had called him to do
which was to get people ready for the coming of the Messiah, the Christ,
and he, John, carried out his message faithfully, so faithfully,
that it literally cost him his head, his life,
but he would not water down his message
whether to a peasant or a king.
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John knew in advance that God would give His one and only son
to be born in our world of sin.
John knew in advance that the Son of God would shed His blood
and give His life on the cross
so that the penalty of our sin would be paid
so that we could receive God's grace and eternal salvation.
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John preached his message around the year 30AD
but his message is as applicable today as it was for the people of John’s day.
Everyone, everywhere, needs to repent,
needs to know that they have fallen short
and cannot please God and demand eternal life
by their own efforts.
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And the message that his disciples brought back to him
is also for the people of today,
so just as John the Baptist proclaimed it, so should we,
and if it costs us our heads as it did John, so be it;
we go to a better place.
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The message that this church stands upon
and which I trust of all us believe and confess or proclaim
is = that through Jesus Christ, the Son of God and Saviour,
everyone, everywhere,
can enter the Kingdom of God,
and benefit from the promise that if they do,
the peace of God, the assurance of sins forgiven,
the blessed assurance of eternal life with God in glory,
will be in them and remain with them
for ever and forever,
Amen and the peace of God be with us all.
