THE MESSAGE OF JOHN THE BAPTIST

Pastor James J. Barker

Text: MATTHEW 3:1-12




INTRODUCTION:


  1. Today I would like to speak about the message of the first Baptist preacher. Oftentimes, we hear anecdotes about the first Lutheran preacher, Martin Luther – and rightly so, for he was certainly one of the most influential men in the history of Christianity. In fact, I think it can be said that he was one of the most influential men in the history of western civilization.
  2. I like to read about John Wesley, the first Methodist preacher – a giant of the faith, a great man of God.
  3. "And what shall I more say?" (Heb.11:32). For the time would fail me to tell of John Knox, and of Whitefield, and of Spurgeon, and of Moody.
  4. These were great preachers, but yet they are not of the stature of the first Baptist preacher, John the Baptist.
  5. Today, I would like for us to look at the man, the mission, and most importantly, the message.
  6. We are told quite a lot about the man and his mission, but for now I want to focus primarily on his message.
  7. Concerning his background, Luke tells us all about his parents and his birth. You will recall that his father, Zacharias, was a priest, and his mother, Elisabeth, was a cousin of Mary, the mother of our Lord.
  8. Matthew skips those details and concentrates on the message. The message was forceful; the message was blunt, and yet the message was quite simple. It involved three things:
    1. REPENTANCE FROM SIN
    2. CONFESSION OF SIN
    3. JUDGMENT OF SIN

 

I. REPENTANCE FROM SIN.

    1. Reading this passage before us, we see right away that the word "repentance" is emphasized (Matt.3:2,8,11). Before I proceed any further I think it would be a good idea at this point to define the term.
    2. Repentance is a voluntary change of mind, whereby the sinner turns from his sin. I think it is helpful and more Scriptural to say that the repentant sinner turns from his sin, rather than sins.
    3. I am pointing this out for several reasons:
      1. Our Lord said that the Holy Spirit would come and "reprove (convict) the world of sin" (John 16:8).
      2. Some preachers are very confused concerning the doctrine of repentance. There must be conviction of sin, and turning from sin, in order to be genuinely saved.
      3. I am convinced that one of the reasons our churches are so full of lost church members is there is so little emphasis on repentance from sin.
    1. That John the Baptist preached repentance, there can be no question (Matt.3:2) That the Lord Jesus Christ preached repentance there can be no question (Matt.4:17).
    2. The question is: What exactly is repentance? Repentance is inseparable from conversion (II Peter 3:9). Repentance is inseparable from salvation (Luke 13:3,5). In other words, if a lost man does not repent, he is still on his way to hell.
    • "But he prayed the sinner’s prayer." Yes, but if he did not repent he is still lost.
    • "But he got baptized and joined a church." Yes, but if he did not repent of his sin he is still not saved.
    • "But he claims to be a born again Christian." Yes, unfortunately there are many rascals running around claiming to be born again Christians. Our Lord said we would know them by their fruit.
    • "But they say they believe the Gospel." Yes, and the Bible says in the book of James, chapter 2, verse 19 says "the devils also believe, and tremble." At least the devils tremble. I wish some of these unconverted church people would. I tremble when I think of all the trouble they cause in our churches and all the souls they are leading to hell.
    1. Repentance has three aspects:
      1. There is an intellectual element – there has to be a change of mind. A noblewoman named Lady Huntington invited the Duchess of Buckingham to come and hear the great evangelist George Whitefield, but the duchess replied: "It is monstrous to be told that you have a heart as sinful as the common wretches that crawl on the earth – it is highly offensive and insulting." This self-righteous duchess was just like the Pharisees and Sadducees whom John rebuked (Matt.3:5-8; cf. 21:32; Luke 18:9-14).
      2. Repentance also has an emotional element – there has to be a change of feeling. By this I mean genuine sorrow for sin, recognizing that sin is hateful to God. Too many people are like the little girl who prayed: "Oh Lord, make me good – not real good, but just good enough so that my daddy won’t spank me." True repentance does not think of the consequences, does not care what other people may do or say, and does not make excuses for sin.
      3. In addition to the intellectual element, and the emotional element, repentance also has a voluntary element – there has to be a change of purpose. This is what John meant when he said, "Bring therefore fruits meet for repentance" (3:8).

 

II. CONFESSION OF SIN (3:5,6).

    1. John was used by God because he was not afraid to confront sin. A worldly young man mocked a preacher one time by saying, "You say that unsaved people carry a heavy weight of sin. How heavy is sin? Is it ten pounds? 50 pounds? I don’t feel anything!" The preacher replied, "If you placed a 400 pound weight upon a corpse, would it feel the load?" The young man answered, "It would feel nothing because it is dead." The preacher then said: "The reason you do not feel the weight of sin and the reason that you are so indifferent to it is because you are dead in your trespasses and sins." {I had a similar experience recently and pointed the young man to Eph.2:1, "And you hath He quickened, who were dead in trespasses and sins."}
    2. There is a tendency among many preachers today to stay away from naming sin, but the great preachers of the past were not afraid to deal with sin (3:7-9). Notice that the Pharisees and Sadducees thought that their ancestry was an automatic ticket to heaven (vs. 9). This way of thinking still prevails among Jewish people, Roman Catholics, Protestants, and even some Baptists.
    3. I have been told many times, "I am so glad that you have had this born-again experience, but I have always been a Christian."
    4. Concerning John the Baptist’s preaching, H.A. Ironside said, "Such a ministry is needed greatly today when men have lost, in large measure, the sense of the sinfulness of sin. It is useless to preach the gospel of the grace of God to men who have no realization of their need of that grace. Only when the soul is awakened to see its uncleanness and unrighteousness in the eyes of a holy God will there be the cry, `God be merciful to me a sinner.’"
    5. By preaching against sin and demanding repentance of sin, John got the right results – many were baptized in the Jordan River, "confessing their sins" (3:6). Have you repented? Have you been scripturally baptized? Have you confessed your sins? -- not to a priest, not to a pastor – but to God.

 

III. JUDGMENT OF SIN.

    1. A preacher is not doing his job right if he does not properly warn his audience of the judgment of God. John certainly did (3:10-12).
    2. Notice that John proclaimed, "The axe is laid unto the root of the trees…" (3:10). Too often the axe is laid at the fruit of the tree, but if the root is all wrong the fruit will be also (cf. Matt.7:17-20).
    3. To lay the axe at the root of the tree signifies the total condemnation of the natural man – the apostle Paul wrote, "For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh) dwelleth no good thing" (Rom.7:18).
    4. Man must be born again. It is frightening to consider that some of the loudest voices that are crying out against the sins of our day are themselves unconverted. According to the words of our Lord, they are children of the devil (cf. John 8:44). John called them a "generation of vipers" (3:7).
    5. The "fire" John was warning of is the eternal fires of hell (3:10,12).
    6. In our text, we see that John speaks here of three different baptisms:
      1. The baptism of repentance (3:11a) – this baptism is for repentant sinners after they are converted. It is always by immersion. The word "baptize" is transliterated from the Greek baptizo, which means "to dip, submerge, plunge under, or immerse." No one in the Bible is ever sprinkled. John the Baptist was not John the Sprinkler or John the Pourer. He baptized in the river "because there was much water there" (John 3:23). The proper mode of baptism is seen right here in Matthew 3:16. Have you been scripturally baptized?
      2. The second baptism is the baptism with the Holy Ghost (3:11b) – this too is for believers. Some times unbelievers will fool the church (and sometimes they are fooling themselves) and go and get baptized. But they will never experience the indwelling of the Holy Spirit until they get genuinely saved.
      3. The third baptism John speaks of is the baptism with fire (3:11c; cf. 3:12 "unquenchable fire"). The Pentecostals have insisted that the baptism with the Holy Spirit and the baptism with fire go together but they do not – the first is for believers only and the second is for unbelievers only. You will notice that in Acts 1:5, our Lord makes no mention of fire. But He does in Matt.5:22, and in 7:19, and in 13:41,42,49,50.
    1. There are many other references to hell – in fact, our Lord preached more about hell than any other preacher in the Bible (Matt.5:29,30; 7:21-23; 8:12; 10:28; 11:20-24; 13:30; etc.).
    2. Baptism represents separation – when a person gets saved, he separates from his worldly ways and his worldly friends and gets baptized and joins the church. When an unsaved person refuses to repent, he too will eventually be baptized, but it will be a baptism with fire where he joins all the horrible lost souls in hell – this means eternal separation from God and eternal torment in the lake of fire.

CONCLUSION:

  1. At a steel manufacturing plant in Kentucky, workers were terrified when an employee fell into a vat of molten steel more than 2,200 degrees Fahrenheit. His body disintegrated right before their very eyes.
  2. That is a frightening story, but consider this: hell is hotter than that but the soul of man can never disintegrate (cf. Luke 16:19-26; Rev.14:10,11).


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