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Will you take your Bibles and turn to Luke chapter three, we continue our verse-by-verse examination of this gospel, and we're going to be looking at verses one through six. And while you're turning there, may I just remind you that what we are doing here this morning, in this place is something that millions of people would give anything to be a part of. People that live in places in the world, they love Christ, but they're terrified to get together to worship. I mentioned a minute ago in my prayer that the church is growing rapidly in Iran, but they have to meet underground because of the vicious, brutal regime that is there; little home churches scattered here and there. The church continues to grow in North Korea, but they have to meet in twos and threes and fours and attics, and when they sing, they have to whisper their hymns lest somebody hear them. So don't take for granted what God has given us here this morning to come together to worship and to submit ourselves to his Word.

Luke, chapter three, let me read the text; and I've entitled my discourse to you this morning, "The Ministry of John the Baptist." Verse one,

"Now in the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar, when Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea, and Herod was tetrarch of Galilee, and his brother Philip was tetrarch of the region of Ituraea and Trachonitis, and Lysanias was tetrarch of Abilene,

"in the high priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas, the word of God came to John, the son of Zacharias in the wilderness.

"And he came into all the district around the Jordan, preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins;

"as it is written in the book of the words of Isaiah the prophet,

"'The voice of one crying in the wilderness, "Make ready the way of the Lord. Make his path straight.

"'"Every ravine will be filled and every mountain and hill will be brought low;

"'"The crooked will become straight and the rough road smooth;

"'"and all flesh will see the salvation of God."'"

By the time this was written, Israel has experienced about four centuries of silence from God. They hadn't heard a prophet of God for about 430 years, since the time of Malachi. He has not raised up a prophet to speak to Israel until John the Baptist, who was the last of the Old Testament prophets. But now he emerges from the wilderness. As you know, he is a forerunner of the Messiah, the Lord Jesus Christ, and He will now prepare the people for their Messiah, and he will present him to them. For 30 years, Jesus and John the Baptist have been living in obscurity, in isolation, secluded from the rest of the world, and only a handful of people really knew who John the Baptist was. That would have been his mom and dad - Zacharias and Elizabeth -and certainly Simeon, Anna, Joseph and Mary. But by this time, they're all dead, except Mary. So that's the context. And now John the Baptist will introduce the Messiah, and he's going to usher in a new age. Here he's "the voice of the one crying in the wilderness, make ready the way of the Lord....and all flesh will see the salvation of God."

Now, before we examine this more closely, may I remind you that there are many other voices in the world, even now, that are proclaiming. Their version of a messiah, their version of a savior, their version of here's how we can ultimately be right with God. And of course, their god is a false god. There exists, for example, a fascinating satanic counterfeit of the Messiah in much of the Muslim world today, especially the Shia fundamentalists like you see in the hardline totalitarian regime of the ayatollahs in Iran. I was reading a Fox News digital investigation, and it reveals that for certain hard line Shiite fundamentalists, including many in the United States, the attack on Iran is not the end, but the beginning of the world being ruled by the Imam Mahdi, an Islamic messiah. According to their eschatology, the Mahdi is considered the redeemer of Islam. Is also known as the 12th Imam. So they welcome the chaos brought upon them by Israel and the United States, and now other Arab allies, because they believe that their Mahdi, the messiah, is going to come and deliver them. It's baffling to me that our leaders don't seem to understand this. So many of them are wondering, why is Iran attacking their Arab neighbors? It just doesn't make any sense. They wrongly assume that it's because their top military people have been taken out, and now the fourth string buffoons are somehow, you know, running everything, or they assume that their neighbors will join in their fight. You know, let's attack our neighbors so they will join in with us to fight the United States and Israel. But all of that is wrong. You see, dear friends, the jihadist mindset is we want an Armageddon so that our Mahdi will come and deliver us. That is the satanic lie that they believe, and out of an apocalyptic scenario, in their version of an Armageddon, the Mahdi is going to emerge to battle the Dajjal, who is the Islamic equivalent of the Antichrist. And most of them see President Donald Trump as the Dajjal. So most of the hardline Muslims in Iran are never going to surrender, because they expect the Mahdi to come and deliver them; and you cannot reason with these people. Satan has blinded their eyes. They've been given over to a depraved mind, as we see in Romans one. Maybe their defeat and the Mahdi not showing up might soften some of their hearts. And like I say, many people are coming to faith in Christ in Iran. And by the way, none of these things, even in the slightest way, affects God's kingdom purposes. But we certainly pray that many will come to faith in Christ through all of this.

Again, according to Fox News, digital investigation, “In the majority Sunni sect and the minority Shia sect of Islam, clerics describe the Mahdi's army traveling from modern day Iran to Damascus, Syria, where Jesus would appear at the Umayyad Mosque and pray behind the Mahdi. The Mahdi's forces would battle of the Dajjal in Syria and kill him in Israel conquering the world." It went on to say, "Days ago, Iran's state-run Islamic republic news agency repeated the end times narrative, quoting Hezbollah Secretary General, Sheik Naim Qasim, claiming the regime is the "government of Imam Mahdi and its anti US resistance is the path of hastening his reappearance." So that's what you're dealing with here.

By the way, just a brief summary of Muslim eschatology. They believe that the Mahdi is coming to slaughter all who will not worship Allah and establish an everlasting world, dominating kingdom of Islam, what they call the "final caliphate," and that he's going to have an army. They're going to carry black flags with one word in Arabic, which means "punishment." By the way, today you will see the Iranian flag has that on it; ISIS carries the same flag. In other jihadist organizations. They teach that Jesus also will return as a prophet. But the Mahdi is greater than Jesus. Jesus will return, but he will return as a radical Muslim, and he will arrive at a minaret near Damascus to help the Mahdi prove to the Christians and the Jews that they were all wrong. Jesus is going to serve the Mahdi. They're going to together establish Sharia law and they say, "he will shatter crosses," meaning, they will destroy Christianity; they're going to refute all of the truths of the gospel, deny that Jesus was the Son of God that came to die for sinners and rose again from the dead, etc., and he will kill the Islamic Antichrist, which would appear when you see him described as the true Jesus, and then he's going to die and be married be buried by Muhammad. So again, just some satanic lies, counterfeits.

But what we are studying here, with respect to John the Baptist, has been repeated many times in other cultures with other religious groups, and we see that happening even today. And sadly, what people don't understand is that the true Messiah, the Son of God, is the Lord Jesus Christ, who came to seek and to save sinners, to save the lost, and he will come again in the hour of Israel's greatest peril, at the end of the pre kingdom judgments, at the end of the tribulation, the end of Daniel's 70th week.

Now back to the ministry of John the Baptist, all right, he's the voice of one crying in the wilderness; make ready the way of the Lord. It goes on to say, "and all flesh will see the salvation of God." Now in these six verses this morning, I've divided them into two sections that I hope will be helpful to you. As we examine them, we're going to see, first of all: the significance of the historical and geographical context, and secondly: the significance of the theological and prophetical message. So first, let's look at this very important information. And by the way, these are, I call them fly over passages, you know, like we have flyover parts of the country that don't really matter. These are flyover passages. For a lot of people, you just kind of read them and you go on. Well, we don't want to do that. So we're going to see the significance here of what he's saying. And you must understand that Luke now is providing a historical setting out of which all of the amazing events are going to come with John the Baptist and with Jesus. And he's doing this in order to validate the veracity of the claims. And any good historian is going to follow this same procedure. And what we see here at the very beginning is he mentions five prominent Gentiles and two prominent Jews.

Let me read the passage again, verse one, "Now in the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar, when Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea and Herod was tetrarch of Galilee, and his brother Philip was tetrarch of the region of Ituraea and Trachonitis, and Lysanias was tetrarch of Abilene." Now let's break this down just briefly. Who was Tiberius Caesar? Well, he became co-regent in AD 11. So John's public ministry began 15 years after that, in about AD 26. Josephus, the first century Jewish historian, said that Herod the Great began building the temple in 19 BC. And when we put that together with John 2:20 where we read about the Passover, and the frustrated Jewish leaders told Jesus that it's taken 46 years to build this temple, and in three days you're going to raise it up, but when you look at that timeline as well, it means that the date of that Passover was AD 27 which means Jesus began his public ministry in late AD 26. Furthermore, I might add in Luke 3:23 it says that Jesus was about 30 years old when he began his public ministry, which fits perfectly with the fact that he was born just prior to Herod's death in 4 BC, making him about 30 in AD 26. So again, all these historical figures and these dates serve to verify the accuracy of Luke's historical account.

So you have Tiberius Caesar, he mentions Pontius Pilate; says he was governor of Judea. He was the fifth Roman governor of Judea. He was appointed by Tiberius in AD 26; He was removed, actually, 10 years later. He was corrupt, he was arrogant, he was cruel, an incompetent governor, like so many of the politicians and governors that we have today; nothing has really changed, and he hated the Jews. In fact, history records how he infuriated them by marching his troops in Jerusalem carrying standards that displayed images of idols that the Jews despised. The Jews were upset, and he threatened to kill any of them that protested, and they called his bluff, because he knew that, that if there was a massacre, he would probably lose his job, so he backed off. But that's the type of guy he was.

I might add, as well. He wanted to build an aqueduct, which he did, but he decided to use the funds that he stole from the temple treasury to build it, and that went over like a pork chop at a bar mitzvah. And so he's got them all upset, and he had his soldiers beat and murder some of the protesters, and then the straw that broke the camel's back for Pontius Pilate was when he mistakenly saw a group of Samaritans climbing Mount Gerizim in search of he didn't know it, but they were in search of golden objects that they thought Moses had supposedly hid there on the summit. By the way, I've been on top of Mount Gerizim, maybe some of you have as well, it's in the West Bank. It's immediately south of the Palestinian city of Nablus. That's ancient Shechem. By the way, you wouldn't want to go there now. The last time I was there probably maybe 15 years ago, and we had to be snuck up there with black windows on a van to get up to the top of it and meet. By the way, that's where the Samaritans had built their temple to rival the Jewish temple. You remember the story of Jesus and the Samaritan woman who called that the mountain "where our fathers worshiped." And Jesus told her that the physical location doesn't matter, because our Father is looking for true worshipers that worship the Lord, their God in spirit and truth. So he sees these, these people going up that mountain - sorry for the rabbit trail there, but I want you to get a picture of what's going on - he sees them going up there, and he thinks they're insurrectionists, so what does he do? He tells his soldiers to attack them, and many of them were killed. And so the Samaritans, now, not the Jews, but the Samaritans, complain to Pilate's superior, who was the governor of Syria, and that guy has him removed and sent him to Rome to be judged and we kind of lose track, we don't know really what happened to him.

So you've got Tiberius Caesar, Pontius Pilate, and then you got Herod tetrarch of Galilee. That's Herod Antipas, by the way, and his brother Philip, and they're serving there in the region, or Philip is, in the region of Ituraea and Trachonitis region that's east of the Jordan. It's kind of Northeast Galilee and Herod Antipas now is going to be the character that's ruling during the days of Jesus' ministry, he's the one that will imprison John the Baptist and have him beheaded. You may recall in Luke 23, Herod's the one that questioned Jesus before he was crucified, and Jesus wouldn't answer him and so his soldiers mocked him. That's when they put the gorgeous robe on Jesus and then he sends him back to Pilate and so forth. So that's who this character is. And then it just says Philip; Philip was one of the better Herod’s, actually, and he ruled east of the Jordan from 4 BC to 34 AD; and then you have Lysanias tetrarch of Abilene, that's just northwest of Damascus.

And we also see John's ministry now beginning not only in the time of those Gentile characters, but also in the time of Annas and Caiaphas. In verse two, it says "...in the high priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas." Now, Annas was the high priest from AD 6 to AD 15. You must understand he was like a mafia don, like a crime boss, and he ran what they call the bazaar of Annas at the temple. That's where they sold sacrificial animals, and of course, they jacked it up, and he gets a piece of the profit, and he also got a cut of the money changers fees that was exorbitant. You had to exchange money because only Jewish money would work. And so the foreign currency exchange rate was high, and guess who got a cut of all of it? So that's how he made his money. And by the way, that's why he and his son in law, Caiaphas, were so furious with Jesus, because he upset their whole operation on at least two occasions. Well, he was eventually deposed by the Roman authorities, and he was replaced by his son in law, Caiaphas, and he ruled from AD 18 to 36 However, what's interesting is, because the Jews resented the fact that the Romans had anything to do with their religious affairs, they continued to recognize Annas as a rightful high priest, so at some level, he continued to function in that capacity, along with his son in law, Caiaphas. And Caiaphas, of course, he was essentially a greedy, corrupt, religious politician. He was a Roman lackey who would do anything to stay in power. He was the one that suggested later on that Jesus be executed. In fact, you may recall the passage in John 11, beginning in verse 50. He says to the other characters, thinking about all this is, "...do you take into account that it is expedient for you that one man die for the people and that the whole nation not perish?" So he's rooting, "let's get rid of Jesus." John goes on to say, and here you see the sovereignty of God in all this,

"Now, he did not say this on his own initiative, but being high priest that year, he prophesied that Jesus was going to die for the nation,

"and not for the nation only, but in order that He might also gather together into one the children of God who are scattered abroad."

So a little bit of background there, very important figures here, and we must understand beloved that it is out of the reign of these dark, wicked rulers - the rulers of this semi- independent Roman regions of the Roman Empire and these satanic religionists - it's out of this that that God chooses to unleash the ministry of John the Baptist and the Lord Jesus. He couldn't have picked a better time with all of the odds stacked against him. Well, Jesus would later call the apostate Jewish leaders hypocrites, blind guides, fools, whitewashed tombs and a brood of vipers who served their father, the devil. So it gives you a flavor here of what's going on. And yet, it was out of this dark dungeon of depravity that God sent the light of the world. I mean, think about that. John eight and verse 12, "I am the light of the world." Jesus said, "He who follows Me will not walk in the darkness, but will have the light of life."

Now look at end of verse two, we see that, "the word of God came to John." The word here,"rhēma," it means the message or the utterance of God, it, "came to John, the son of Zacharias, in the wilderness." In other words, God is telling him, "Okay, it's time to leave the isolation, it's time to start the ministry, to preach the gospel." Now, got to talk to you for a moment about the wilderness. I have traveled in this wilderness on multiple occasions, and it's hard to describe the utter desolation and danger of that part of the world. Even today, it was even worse in the first century. In fact, Hendrickson says this quote, "the turn of wilderness indicates the rolling badlands between the hill country of Judea to the west and the Dead Sea and lower Jordan to the east, stretching northward to about the point where the Jabbok flows into the Jordan. It is indeed a desolation, a vast undulating expanse of barren, chalky soil covered with pebbles, broken stones and rocks. Here and there, a bit of brushwood appears with snakes crawling underneath." So, this is where John was living. And also bear in mind that he became an orphan at a very early age, and this is where the Spirit empowered prophet lived.

Now in the first century, we know that Nile crocodiles lived in the Jordan River system, along with various venomous snakes. There were large predators at that time, especially lions that inhabited the thickets of the Jordan River. Leopards were found in the surrounding cliffs. You have lots of different carnivores; you've got wolves, striped hyenas, jackals, foxes, like the sand cat, they were present. Of course, you have the Nubian ibexes and the rock hyraxes that were living on the on the rocky slopes there in the desert mountains; you have wild boars living in the marshes. And so this is where he lived, very nice place to live, right? And we know, according to Matthew 3:4 he had a diet of locusts and wild honey. I've talked about that before, but may I remind you that there were four varieties of locusts that were allowed as food. According to Leviticus 11:22, there we read, "These of them you may eat: the locust in its kind, and the devastating locust in its kind, and the cricket in its kind, and the grasshopper in its kinds. But all other winged insects, which are four footed, are detestable to you." And again, poor people still eat these in that region of the world, especially in the spring season, when these critters will swarm by the billions. They will remove their wings and their legs and then they will either dry or roast the bodies of these little insects, and they will even grind them up into a very fine flower, and they will season them with salt and preserve them and so forth.

Now the question comes, why on earth would John the Baptist choose to live there. I mean, couldn't he have found a suburb in Jerusalem? You know, why the wilderness? Well, folks, it's because he was Spirit-filled, and therefore totally unimpressed, even offended with the things of this world, especially the religious and political leaders that would eventually hate him. Later on, as you know, he's going to expose their hypocrisy, expose the corruption of the scribes and the Pharisees and the political leaders. And so as a prophet sent by God, his 30 year seclusion in the wilderness was really an indictment against the corruption of the political system, the religious system, there in the realm of Judea - the realm of Palestine - and even the remote territory of his ministry, where he later would preach, was an insult to Jerusalem. It was an insult to the temple. He didn't go there and have the people come to him. He rather stayed out in the hinterlands, because what was going on there is it required all of those who were weary and heavy laden and were seeking for truth, it required them to leave the realm of apostasy and go out into the wilderness, the edge of the wilderness, at least, to hear the Lord's Prophet. John MacArthur makes an interesting and insightful observation. He says, "As the Jews had to be purged in the wilderness after they had left Egypt before entering the promised land, they would also be required to return to the wilderness again, to be cleansed, baptized by John, to prepare their hearts to receive Messiah's kingdom."

So we've seen a little bit here of the significance of the historical and geographical context. And now let's look at the significance of the theological and prophetical message. Verse three, "And he came into all the district around the Jordan, preaching..." Now let's stop there, again think about this, now after 30 years, he emerges from living in isolation in the uninhabitable regions of the wilderness and now he comes into the habitable region of the Jordan River, because you see, there's water and where you have water, there's vegetation, there's a place for livestock to thrive, and so forth. So that's where people would live. But notice it does not say that he came into all the district around the temple and Jerusalem; it doesn't say that. And I might also add that it's for this reason that the Jewish leaders would say later on to the people that, "you don't want to believe this austere hermit that lives out in the wilderness, he has no credibility. He's not from among us here in Jerusalem and the temple." And as we will see the word of the Lord first came to the people by the humblest of prophets, and it came to the common folks, not the sophisticated elites. Didn't come out of the temple courts, or to the temple courts, it came out of what we would call the boondocks, right? The boondocks, not the palace. You know, when I think about this, I'm reminded of what Paul said, and I can put my picture next to this verse, and I think you can too, First Corinthians 1:26-27, "Consider your calling brethren, that there were not many wise according to the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble. But God has chosen the foolish things of the world to shame the wise."

So again, notice it says that that he came preaching. Well, what did he preach? Well, we all know that he came preaching a social justice gospel. He carried a banner that said, "Jews Lives Matter"; he carried banners that said, "Down with Herod," "Defund the Police," No Justice, No Peace," "Trans rights are human rights," "Love hates Caesar" and on and on it goes. Folks, I say that because I grow so weary of this heretical social justice gospel that focuses on how people are to be delivered from the social injustice of man, rather than how to be delivered from the righteous judgment of God. What a huge difference. There's so many other counterfeits, as I have written elsewhere, "The glorious gospel offer of Christ Himself has been hijacked by clever perversions like the prosperity gospel that would have us believe Christ died to make us happy, or the social justice gospel that requires the church to advocate for critical race theory and embrace a cultural definition of justice that is always changing and that has nothing to do with the justice of God fighting against such distortions, and there are many others. Paul warned. Quote, 'If anyone preaches to you a gospel contrary to that which we have preached to you, let him be accursed' (Galatians 1:8)."

So back to verse three, "And he came into all the district around the Jordan, preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins." Now you must understand that baptism here is not a reference to Christian baptism, which hadn't been instituted yet, but rather it was a public acknowledgement that, like the Gentiles, the Jews were equally guilty and alienated from God and in need of saving grace. So John's baptism is essentially, or was essentially, a baptism of cleansing, as we will see. Whereas later on, Christian baptism symbolized a believer's personal faith in Christ and an identification with his death, burial and resurrection, which had not yet happened. Now bear in mind, there was no such thing as Jewish baptism for Jews, that just didn't happen. The only type of baptism they had was reserved for Gentile proselytes; for Gentiles that wanted to convert or were basically converts to Judaism. So it would be a supreme insult. And you must understand the culture here; it would have been a supreme insult to tell a Jew that he needed to be baptized. Of course, baptism itself saves no one. Baptism does not produce the forgiveness of sins. There is no mystical, supernatural dispensing of saving grace when someone enters the water. Salvation is by grace alone, through faith alone, not by some ritual. So here's the point: John the Baptist's preaching here absolutely blew their mind because he was preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. And most self-righteous Jews would consider that to be an astounding insult to their religious sensibilities. I mean, they saw no need for repentance or forgiveness. After all, we're the covenant people. We're the sons of Abraham. So are you telling me that that I am no better than these pagan Gentiles? Are you saying to me that I am alienated from God and and I'm cut off from his covenant blessings? Yep, that's what the gospel is telling you.

But oh, for those who humbled themselves, who came to Christ in repentant faith and believed in him, they were willing to publicly acknowledge their need for repentance and forgiveness and faith in God's saving grace by being baptized again. John's rite of baptism did not produce repentance. It only symbolized the need for cleansing that was foreign to the Jews, and as I read from Acts 18, later on, he had to be, and some of his followers, kind of had to be straightened out on some of that. Bear in mind that God has granted us, “repentance unto life," Acts 11:18. It's the result of the gift of faith through the power of regeneration. But baptism just publicly demonstrates that this has already occurred, that sins have been forgiven.

And if I can talk about repentance, for a moment; and even now, I'm reminded of being asked to speak when I was Professor out at Master's University. This church, the seeker- sensitive church called wanted me to preach and they listed several things they didn't want me to preach on, and words to leave out: sin, repentance, hell, I forget, there were several others. This is my first time of being exposed to that kind of insanity. Needless to say, they couldn't afford me, so that didn't happen, but folks, true repentance is a God-induced hatred of sin. It's a turning from sin, and it is a Spirit-empowered forsaking of sin resulting in a turning to God. That's what repentance is; real, genuine repentance, again, that is Spirit induced, is an appropriate and accurate sense of guilt that causes a man or a woman to beg for undeserved mercy and forgiveness of sins, and it results in a change of mind and a change of purpose, whereby a man turns from sin and he turns toward God. This can be seen in the attitude of the tax collector. Remember, in Luke 18, he was so overwhelmed by the reality of his own sin and unworthiness to be forgiven. We read in verse 13 of Luke 18, he, "...was even unwilling to lift up his eyes to heaven, but was beating his breast saying, 'God, be merciful to me, the sinner!'" Folks, this is the stuff of genuine saving faith. Martin Lloyd Jones gave great clarity to the scope of repentance, when a sinner comes to Christ, when he said, "Repentance means that you realize that you are a guilty, vile sinner in the presence of God, that you deserve the wrath and punishment of God, that you are hell bound. It means that you begin to realize that this thing called sin is in you, that you long to get rid of it, that you turn your back on it, in every shape and form, you renounce the world, whatever the cost the world in its mind and outlook as well as its practice, and you deny yourself and take up the cross and go after Christ, your nearest and dearest. And the whole world may call you a fool or say you have religious mania. You may have to suffer financially, but it makes no difference. That is repentance."

And Paul even described the marks of genuine repentance in that watershed passage in Second Corinthians 7. This is what he witnessed in the lives of those in Corinth that were genuinely repentant. And he kind of summarized these marks of genuine repentance. In Second Corinthians 7 verse 11, he says, "For behold what earnestness this very thing, this godly sorrow has produced in you: what vindication of yourselves, what indignation, what fear, what longing, what zeal, what avenging of wrong!" Notice we see first, the earnestness of their godly sorrow. What is he saying here? It's that solemn sincerity about turning from sin. They were eager, they were aggressive, they were serious above all else. You see, beloved to deal with your sin in that way is so different than this cavalier attitude that so many people have when they, "get saved" or repeat some sinners prayer or walk some aisle. Rather, we can see the same kind of conviction in the plaintiff confession of David in Psalm 51 beginning in verse one, he pleads,

"Be gracious to me, O God, according to Thy loving kindness; according to the greatness of Thy compassion blot out my transgressions.

"Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity and cleanse me from my sin.

"For I know my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me.

"Against Thee, Thee only, I have sinned and done evil and done what is evil in Thy sight, so that Thou art justified when Thou dost speak, and blameless when Thou dost judge."

Paul went on to say, "what vindication of yourselves," denoting their desire to do all that they could, to make things right, to somehow clear their name, to make a new name for themselves that would bring glory to God. "What indignation" he says that expresses their utter contempt for their sin, that self-loathing, hatred of sin, their resentment for rebelling against God. Genuine repentance will cause a person to have such a sense of anger over offending God that they will do all that they can to get rid of it, because it has brought reproach upon God. It has brought reproach upon certainly themselves and their family and their church. And on it goes. What indignation, he also goes on, he didn't stop there, he said, "what fear" in verse 11, remembering their appropriate fear of God, their profound reverential awe of the holy one that they worship. He adds, "what longing" indicating their passion to restore sweet fellowship with the lover of their souls; "what zeal" he says, signifying their willingness to surrender themselves to the will of God and please him, no matter what the cost. And finally, "what avenging of wrong," referring to their commitment to make things right, to be reconciled with those against whom they had sinned, and perhaps with those that they had sinned. Folks, this is the stuff of genuine repentance.

I might add, as I think about it, our repentance is never perfect, and it is never final. It grows over time, does it not? The more we become conformed to the image of Christ, the more we know his word, the more we see ourselves for who we really are, the Christian is always examining his heart before the Lord. John 1:9, speaking to Christians, he says, "If we confess our sins, He's faithful and just to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness." To confess in the original is a compound word "homologeō." "Homo" is the same; "logeo" means to speak, so it means when you confess your sin, you're saying the same thing about your sin as God says about your sin. And as we grow in the grace and knowledge of Christ, we understand more fully just the depth and the breadth of our sin;  and as our hatred of it grows, we become increasingly vigilant to do all that we can to clean out any further pockets of rebellion that might be hiding even in the dark and inner resources of our imagination. We seek opportunities to turn from that which God abhors, and even in the final days of our life when the end is drawing near, we don't rest on the laurels of past victories. We don't rest and slow down our pace, but rather, we strain as we cross the finish line in an effort to forsake any remaining sin that is still left.

And as we will see, some came out to John in sincerity; some are going to be truly born again, others were phony, religious pretenders. Let me give you an example of that in Matthew three, beginning in verse five, "Then Jerusalem was going out to him." You understand why now - they're "going out to him and all Judea and all the district around the Jordan." So words getting around here, "and they were being baptized by him in the Jordan River, as they confessed their sins. But when he saw many of the scribes and Sadducees coming for baptism, he said to them, 'You brood of vipers who warned you to flee from the wrath to come?'" Now, mind you, the seeker-sensitive movement had not gotten started at that point. John didn't realize that friendship with the world is really a better strategy for evangelism than preaching the gospel. But I think you understand I'm being facetious. A few of you are smiling anyway. "You brood of vipers, who warned you to flee from the wrath to come?" I have to admit, I've thought that about some people before, and I'm sure they've thought it about me as well. "'Therefore bear fruit,'" he says,

"…'in keeping with repentance;

"'do not suppose that you can say to yourselves, "We have Abraham for our father," for I say to you that from these stones, God is able to raise up children to Abraham. 

"'The ax is already laid at the root of the trees; therefore every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.

"'As for me, I baptize you with water for repentance, but He who is coming after me is mightier than I, and I am not fit to remove His sandals; He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.

"'His winnowing fork is in His hand, and He will thoroughly clear His threshing floor;

"'and He will gather His wheat into the barn, but He will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire.'"

So beloved, please bear in mind, true repentance is far more than just reformation, where a man resolves to do better and kind of turn over a new leaf in his life. And it's even more than contrition, where you feel really sorry for yourself, you feel bad because you got caught and because of the misery that your sin has caused in your life. But true repentance is going to be a Holy Spirit induced grip that comes upon your soul that causes you to fear God and to hate your sin; to hate your sin more than hell itself. It will be a loathing over it, as you desperately endeavor to embrace the truth, and then a decisive commitment to turn from it and to follow Christ.

I might add too, that calling sinners to repentance is crucial for evangelism. We're going to see this all through the gospel. We see this in our text here, in Luke three. Moreover, in Mark six, remember when Jesus commissioned his disciples and sent them out in pairs, it says "they went out and preached that men should repent.' And according to Matthew 4:17, it says, When Jesus began to preach, he said, "'Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.'" That's Jesus' first sermon there. Begins with "repent." And when we see real repentance, I mean, it produces joy, doesn't it? Don't you love it when your children repent, when they come to faith in Christ; other loved ones come to faith in Christ. You know, it's little wonder why in Luke 15:10, we read that, "there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents." So again he verse three, "...he came into all the district around the Jordan, preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins; as it is written in the book of the words of Isaiah, the prophet," and he's going to go on here and essentially quote from Isaiah chapter 40, verses three through five.

Now let me pause here for a moment. It's important for you to know this. If you go to Isaiah's prophecy, you will see that the first 39 chapters of Isaiah contain God's warning Israel; his judgment upon Israel and the surrounding nations. That's what you see. And then, beginning in chapter 40, for example, the first three verses, it moves from retribution to restoration. It moves from a message of divine wrath and judgment to a message of saving grace, restoration, mercy. And here's what chapter 40 begins with in verse one,

"'Comfort, O comfort My people,' says your God.

"'Speak kindly to Jerusalem; and call out to her, that her warfare has ended, that her iniquity has been removed, that she has received of the LORD's hand double for all her sins.

"A voice is calling, 'Clear the way for the LORD in the wilderness; make smooth in the desert a highway for our God.'"

And it's with this in mind that we see what is going on with John the Baptist that Luke records here in chapter three, verse four, "'THE VOICE OF ONE CRYING IN THE WILDERNESS...'" By the way, wilderness here is really a symbol of the wretchedness and the desolation in the human heart. "'MAKE READY THE WAY OF THE LORD, MAKE HIS PATHS STRAIGHT." In that day, there would be workers that would go ahead of Oriental monarchs to clear out any rocks that might be in his path as his entourage, his caravan, would come down the road; move away, rocks, debris, roadkill, all of those kinds of things. Smooth out the road so it would be more comfortable. So that's the imagery here.

Verse five, "'EVERY RAVINE WILL BE FILLED, AND EVERY MOUNTAIN AND HILL WILL BE BROUGHT LOW; THE CROOKED WILL BECOME STRAIGHT, AND THE ROUGHT ROADS SMOOTH;'" Of course, these are all figurative expressions denoting that the way of the Messiah would be made smooth. It's going to be made smooth here by the preaching of John the Baptist, because a large number of people now are going to be prepared to receive the Lord Jesus Christ. In fact, in Luke 1:17 we read that that he will "make ready a people prepared for the Lord."

And then finally, in verse six, "AND ALL FLESH WILL SEE THE SALVATION OF GOD.'" And of course, this ultimate comfort, this ultimate salvation, will finally be realized at the end of human history; the Lord Jesus Christ returns in power and great glory, and judges the nations, judges Israel. The remnant will be saved out of Israel; many Gentiles will be saved. He will establish His glorious millennial kingdom, and at that time, the curse will be lifted, and all of the crooked, all of the perverse, all of the corrupt forms of wickedness are going to be leveled, and a remnant of Israel and many Gentiles will repent; they will be saved. And as we read in verse six, "all flesh will see the salvation of God." My How I long for that day? How I long for that day.

May I challenge you in closing, folks, be bold in your gospel proclamation, because God is in it. And one day, all flesh will see the salvation of God. He's going to accomplish that, and therefore, be bold in your in your gospel preaching. Never be ashamed of the gospel. Why? Because it is the, what? The power of God for salvation to the Jews and to the Greeks. Folks, never be ashamed of the gospel. Make your proclamation bold and clear so there's no mistaking it. There's no confusion over it. Don't somehow cut off the corners to avoid offense, as if somehow the Holy Spirit needs your help. Preach it with all of its clarity, all of its power, unleash it and watch what God will do and live it so that your life matches your message. Amen. Let's pray,

Father, thank you for the glorious truths of your word, I pray that they will find lodging in every heart, and that because of that, they will produce much fruit to the praise of your glory. For it's in Christ's name, that I pray. Amen.