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As we continue to make our way through Luke's gospel, we now find ourselves in chapter three, and we will be looking at verses 7 through 17 under the heading, "The Uncompromising Preaching of John the Baptist."

May I remind you, by way of context, after 30 years of isolation, God now calls John the Baptist out of the wilderness, out of his seclusion, to begin to prepare the people to meet their Messiah, the Lord Jesus Christ, and to prepare them to believe in his offer of salvation. But I also want you to understand that even as it is today, in that day, most people will hear the gospel message and reject it, and therefore they will perish in their sins. We read, for example, in First Corinthians, one, in verse 23 the Apostle Paul says that,

"we preach Christ crucified, to Jews a stumbling block and to Jews a stumbling block and to Gentiles foolishness,

"but to those who were the called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God."

Indeed, Peter tells us in First Peter two and verse eight, about, "a stone of stumbling and a rock of offense, for they stumble because they are disobedient to the word and to this doom, they were also appointed." Now most who will claim to believe the gospel, people that are going to come to John and be baptized and so forth, most of them will be insincere. Only a small percentage will truly repent and truly trust in Christ as their only hope of salvation. And each group is really represented here. You might say they are the rejecters, the pretenders and the repenters. It's fascinating. In Russia, they often call Christians "repenters," because they will very publicly confess and repent their sins when they come to faith in Christ. It's really a remarkable thing to see. And actually, the pretenders and the repenters are featured here in John's uncompromising preaching in our text this morning.

So with that background, let me read the passage to you Luke three, beginning in verse seven.

"So he began saying to the crowds who were going out to be baptized by him, 'You brood of vipers who warned you to flee from the wrath to come?'

"'Therefore bear fruits in keeping with repentance, and do not begin to 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.

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

"And the crowds were questioning him, saying, 'Then what shall we do?'

"And he would answer and say to them, 'The man who has two tunics is to share with him who has none; and he who has food is to do likewise.'

"And some tax collectors also came to be baptized, and they said to him, 'Teacher, what shall we do?'

"And he said to them, 'Collect no more than what you have been ordered to.'

"Some soldiers were questioning him, saying, 'And what about us, what shall we do?' And he said to them, 'Do not take money from anyone by force, or accuse anyone falsely, and be content with your wages.'

"Now while the people were in a state of expectation and all were wondering in their hearts about John, as to whether he was the Christ,

"John answered and said to them all, 'As for me, I baptize you with water; but One is coming who is mightier than I, and I am not fit to untie the thong of His sandals; He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.

"'His winnowing fork is in His hand to thoroughly clear His threshing floor, and to gather the wheat into His barn; but He will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire.'"

From the very outset, let me tell you why John's preaching and this passage is so important, it's because hell is going to be filled with insincere counterfeit Christians. Those who said they belonged to Christ, but they really didn't. They were Christian in name only. They never sincerely repented of their sins and wholeheartedly embraced Jesus as Savior and Lord.

Throughout the New Testament, we read about how false apostles would dupe people, and many refused to submit to God's authority through the spoken words of the apostles. And it was for this reason that Paul said in Second Corinthians 13, five, "Test yourselves to see if you are in the faith; examine yourselves! Or do you not realize this about yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you -- unless indeed you fail the test?" And some of the proofs of genuine saving faith would be things like: having a brokenness over your sin, certainly a belief in the person and work of Christ, a repentant faith, a hungering and thirsting for righteousness, a passion to know more of who Christ is, joyful submission to his Lordship in your life, a love for God and others, a desire to know more of who Christ is, an appetite for his word and so forth. But those who profess Christ as Savior and Lord but live in a perpetual state of rebellion or irreverent indifference to God's authority, those people have no basis to claim genuine saving faith. So I challenge you if you claim to know Christ, but in fact, you're just living for yourself, you must examine your heart if you're living in sin and you have no fear of God, no fear of his righteous judgment; you need to examine your heart.

You so many times, people who claim to have Christ have no real secret devotion to God. They really even avoid being around God's people. They're uncomfortable with them. They have no desire to worship Christ. They typically will end up in a very man-centered church where they can feel good about themselves. Oh, they can spot the flaws in everybody else, but they can't see sin in their own life. They will want to run with the ungodly. They will believe the things of the world. They will feed upon things like social media, but in their heart....

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We'll go on from there to see what he says. You know, for most of them, it was just another ritual. Okay, maybe this guy's a prophet. Maybe we need a little more fire insurance here. So okay, let's do this thing too. Let's add this to our list. So, many people now are leaving the confines of apostate Judaism, and they're going out to the edge of the wilderness to hear this incredible preacher. So we pick it up here in verse seven. "So he began saying to the crowds who were going out to be baptized by him, 'You brood of vipers, who warned you to flee from the wrath to come?'" You see, he had sufficient discernment, through the power of the Spirit, to know that most of them were just coming out to check off another religious box. And we see that a lot in our culture, people walk aisles, they repeat prayers, they get baptized, they do all kinds of religious things, but in many cases, they are never really born again. Sadly, many people like that fill pulpits every Sunday. In Matthew seven, we read how most who claim to be Christians will never enter the kingdom. Jesus said in verse 13, "'Enter through the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the way is broad that leads to destruction, and there are many who enter through it.'" Then he went on to say, "'For the gate is small and the way is narrow that leads to life, and there are few who find it.'" And he went on later on, in verse 21 to say, "'Not everyone who says to Me, "Lord, Lord," will enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father, who is in heaven, will enter.'" And the only way we're going to do the will of the Father is if the Spirit of God has radically transformed us.

Jesus went on to describe the dubious defense of the self-deceived - those who masqueraded as his disciples by performing religious works and making orthodox declarations of faith, without any heartfelt love for Christ, any commitment to obey Him -  and in perhaps one of the most alarming passages in all of Scripture, Jesus describes this terrifying dialog that will occur in the coming hour of judgment; verse 22 and three, he says, "'Many will say to Me on that day,

"Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in Your name and in Your name, cast out demons and in Your name, perform many miracles?"

"'And then I will declare to them, "I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness."'"

This is an eschatological scene of just unspeakable incredulity and terror. The damned will be dumbfounded. In desperation, the many will plead their case, but to no avail, they will argue their case enthusiastically based upon their outward signs of religiosity, including what they consider to be miraculous gifts of the Holy Spirit. You know the prophecies and exorcisms and other kinds of miracles that we see there in verse 22; counterfeit signs and wonders that can be fabricated by human chicanery, by demonic influence, but the penetrating eye of divine omniscience will see through all of that, and then Jesus will say, "I never knew you," indicating that even those with the most sincere profession of faith will be sent away to destruction because they entered through this wide gate of easy believism. There was really never any genuine brokenness over sin, no real repentance. They were Christian in name only. What a contrast to the narrow gate that demands self-denial, that demands repentance produced by regeneration, the gate of genuine conversion; and that requires people to give up all that they are and all that they have to follow Christ. The gate of the few, those who are humble and contrite of spirit and who tremble at his word (Isaiah, 66). But the Christless Christians of the wide gate and the broad way will be those who believed in a God of their own making. They came up with their own theology that would appeal to their fallen flesh. They lived in indifference. They lived as if God didn't even exist. And so that's why this is so important. This is what John the Baptist is trying to help them see.

So beginning in verse seven, again, "He began saying to the crowds who were going out to be baptized by him..." by the way, remember, most of these people are going to reject him later on and cry for him to be crucified, alright? He says, "You brood of vipers, who warned you to flee from the wrath to come?" Here, John the Baptist begins to prepare the way of the Lord by penetrating the wilderness of their hearts, by exposing the dangerous deceptions that they embrace in apostate Judaism. Notice he says, "You brood of vipers." In other words, you offspring of deadly poisonous snakes; really an interesting concept. By the way, they all knew about that danger, and John the Baptist would have certainly known about it. I've been in that area.  I'm aware of some of these snakes and just to give you a little idea, of course, as an outdoorsman, I always want to give you these things, to give you a flavor of what he's talking about here. They had the Palestine viper, which is responsible for most of the venomous bites to this day. They had the Painted saw-scaled viper. It's the one that's often identified as the fiery serpent in the biblical text. This little character will hide in in crevices and under rocks. They have the Sahara horned viper, known for its distinct horns. Maybe you've seen that on these snakes of the horns right above their eyes. And they inhabit the sandy areas, and they will hide under the sand with only their little eyes sticking up. And you come by, and they reach out, and they grab you, and they hang on. There was the Fields horned viper, another form of these sand vipers that would hide in in the sand, hide in rocky areas. And then, of course, they had the Black Desert Cobra, the highly venomous snake. Sometimes in the Bible, it's called an asp, a big black snake. Now, why would he use this metaphorical imagery? Well, because Satan, who is often depicted as a certain serpent, was in essence, their spiritual father, the father of lies; the one that is deceptive and deadly, hard to spot. Jesus said in John 8:44, "You are of your father, the devil." The reason why is because they share the same characteristics as their father: deception, murder, rejection of the truth, hostility towards Biblical Christianity. And the visual here is one that is hard to get out of your mind. It's a picture of a massive number of snakes fleeing from a brush fire. And of course, they were familiar with that, because the farmers would, after at the harvest season, they would burn off their fields. Perhaps you've seen this in other parts. They certainly do it down in Florida with the canes and all of that. And so what he's in essence saying is, "You people, you think this is just another legalistic ritual. That's why you're coming here, another self-righteous act where you can check off another box to merit your salvation." He's going to expose them in this preaching. And as a footnote later, they will question him about this, the nature of genuine repentance. We're going to see this more.

Jump down to verse 10, it says, "And the crowds were questioning him, saying, 'Then what shall we do?' And he would answer and say to them..." and so on and so forth. Grammatically, it's in the imperfect tense in the original language, the verb translated, "say, which indicates that this was a habitual, ongoing thing. They're constantly asking him about this, and he's constantly answering them. So John the Baptist essentially is saying to them, "Do you really think that coming out here to be baptized is going to help you escape God's wrath?" So he's exposing their mindset, their hypocritical, self-righteous, ritualistic, external religiosity. And they were familiar with this, Isaiah, 29 verse 13, "This people draw near with their words and honor Me with their lip service, but they remove their hearts far from Me, and their reverence for Me consists of tradition, learned by rote." And I would challenge you to examine your own heart. Do you have just the outward trappings of religiosity, just church attendance or whatever, but you live as if he doesn't even exist. That is indicative of many professing evangelicals today.

So notice, genuine repentance first of all, is going to include a fear of God's just wrath. So he's not denying coming judgment, instead, he's asking them in verse seven, "'Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come?'" Now, to be sure, everyone knows that he or she has rebelled against the Most High God and stand guilty before his bar of justice. Everybody knows that, even though they don't want to admit it. Romans one verse 18, "For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth." They don't want to deal with it, they suppress the truth in unrighteousness, "...because that which is known about God is evident within them; for God made it evident to them." And he goes on to talk about God's witness in creation and in conscience. And he adds, "...so they are without excuse."

God's wrath was a familiar concept to the Jewish people. You read about it all through the Old Testament, especially in the phrase, "the day of the Lord," which speaks of imminent, catastrophic divine judgment; and many times, it would have both near and far implications. You can read about this, oh my, in Isaiah, in Ezekiel, in Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Zephaniah, Haggai, Malachi and so forth. A near historical "day of the Lord" where judgment came upon them, but also one that pointed to a much greater eschatological "day of the Lord" when the Lord returns. For example, you could go to Zephaniah in chapter one, you read about the coming day of the Lord that spoke of the Babylonians coming in to take Judah. But then later on, in chapter three, you see a promise of a future final day of the Lord. In fact, Zephaniah three, verse eight, says that it will be, "the day when I rise up as a witness. Indeed, My decision is to gather nations, to assemble kingdoms, to pour out on them My indignation, all My burning anger, for all the earth will be devoured by the fire of My zeal." When you look at what's happening today in Iran, you get just a little glimpse of that. But folks, that's backyard firecrackers compared to what God will do when he comes to judge the nations.

"But whatever things were gained to me, those things I have counted as loss for the sake of Christ. And what is that prize? It's the prize of Christlikeness and all of the benefits that go with that bottom line. This is where John the Baptist now is heading with his preaching, and he begins with a solemn acknowledgment of the just wrath of God upon sinners from which we must all flee. We all want to be delivered from that. But people need to understand that the good news of the gospel begins with the bad news. Do you understand what the bad news is? Apart from saving grace, in God's eyes, according to his infinite, holy standard of justice, we have all sinned. We have all fallen short of the God of the glory of God; we stand condemned before his bar of justice. And sin is man's innate inability to conform to the moral character and desires of God. Moreover, we read in First Corinthians 2:14 that a natural man, in other words, a person without Christ, "does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them because they are spiritually appraised." In other words, man has no desire or ability in himself to save himself. The wages of sin is death, eternal death. That's the bad news. In fact, in John 3:36 Jesus said, "'He who does not obey the Son will not see life, but the wrath of God abides on him.'" It's already there, and it's going to stay on him, and that wrath extends through an eternal hell. You see, rejecting God's compassionate grace results in his condemnation.

Now the problem with the Jews is they were convinced that they could avoid God's wrath because they were keeping the law. They were legalists. They observed the rituals. They observed all of the annual feasts, the dietary restrictions, observed the Sabbath, the alms giving; they would offer these formal prayers, and on and on it would go; all external forms of religion that gave them the illusion of spirituality. And that's nothing new. Today, we can be prone to that as well, to do certain things, religious things, and talk a certain way, act a certain way, and give ourselves the illusion that somehow we truly love the Lord our God with all our heart, mind, soul and strength and our neighbor as ourselves, when, in fact, that's not really true. And sadly, their outward law keeping, and this is always the case with legalism, their outward law keeping concealed the hypocrisy of their hearts; hearts that were absolutely bereft of a genuine love for God and a commitment to worship him from their heart. If you ask people today, how is your walk with Christ? Typically, the first thing they will say is, well, I go to church at such and such. They give you some external, outward proof that I'm walking with Christ, rather than to say with passion that, hopefully, it's rich, it's intimate, it's rewarding. I can't live without it. I have a hunger for his word, a desire to know him better. I can't tell you the many ways he reveals himself to me in His word and in my life, etc, etc. How would you answer that? If I were to say, how is your walk with Christ? What would you say? Let me tell you what Paul said. Remember now he was a Pharisee of the Pharisees, a fastidious keeper of the law. Here's his testimony in Philippians three, beginning in verse four, "I myself might have confidence even in the flesh. If anyone else has a mind to put confidence in the flesh, I far more..." And here he gives his list,

"…circumcised the eighth day, of the nation of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; as to the Law, a Pharisee;

"as to zeal, a persecutor of the church; as to the righteousness which is in the Law, found blameless.

"More than that, I count all things to be loss in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them but rubbish, so that I may gain Christ,

"and may be found in Him, not having a righteousness of my own derived from the Law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which comes from God, on the basis of faith,

"that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death;

“in order that I may attain to the resurrection from the dead.

"Not that I have already obtained it or have already become perfect, but I press on so that I may lay hold of that for which also I was laid hold of by Christ Jesus."

"Brethren, I do not regard myself as having laid hold of it yet; but one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and reaching forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus."

Do you realize that Jesus spoke more of hell than he did of heaven? In Matthew eight, verse 12, he says of the damned that they will be "cast out into the outer darkness. In that place, there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth." And in Matthew 13, beginning in verse 41 he says, "Those who commit lawlessness will be thrown into the furnace of fire. In that place, there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth." Might I add that hell will will include the physical torments of punishment, as well as, for many, anger and remorse and horror and isolation and obviously darkness, and sadly, for many, utter shock surprise that they're there. And I might also add that the physical torment will be proportional to the level of their rejection of the gospel. In Romans two, beginning in verse five, Paul says,

 "because of your stubbornness and unrepentant heart, you are storing up wrath for yourself in the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God,

"who will render to each person according to his deeds."

Jesus said in Matthew 10, verse 15, "'Truly I say to you," and here he's speaking to those who did not receive his witness nor heed the words. He says, "'It will be more tolerable for the land of Sodom and Gomorrah in the day of judgment than for that city.'" And he goes on to speak of Chorazin and Bethsaida and Capernaum, where most of his ministry took place. They saw all these incredible things they still wouldn't believe. He says in Matthew 11, verse 21,

"Woe to you, Chorazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida! For if the miracles had occurred in Tyre and Sidon which occurred in you, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes.

"Nevertheless, I say to you, it will be more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon in the day of judgment than for you.'"

Then he adds this,

"'And you, Capernaum, will not be exalted to heaven, will you? You will descend to Hades;  for if the miracles had occurred in Sodom which occurred in you, it would have remained to this day.

"'Nevertheless, I say to you that it will be more tolerable for the land of Sodom in the day of judgment, than for you folks.'"

Please hear this: this is why Calvary Bible Church is one of the most dangerous places on the planet -  for those who will come here and consistently hear the gospel of God's grace and reject it - because if you do that, you are storing up wrath for yourself.

Well, the first mark of genuine repentance that John the Baptist describes is the fear of God's just wrath. Secondly, it's going to be a change in attitude and actions. It's as if he's saying, "Okay, you want to flee from the wrath to come? Great!" "Therefore," verse eight, "bear fruits in keeping with repentance." Repentance is just referring to God honoring attitudes and actions. True repentance is going to involve a change in the direction of one's life, a renouncing of sin and an embracing of righteousness. Now this was nothing new to them. We can go back to Second Chronicles seven and verse 14, it says, "My people who were called by my name, humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven. I will forgive their sin and will heal their land." True repentance, you see, is going to involve a brokenness of heart, a profound sense of offending the Lord our God. The great Puritan William Perkins wrote, "Godly sorrow causeth grief for sin because it is sin." Mind you, this is English back in the late 1500s, okay? "It makes any man in whom it is to be of this disposition and mind that if there were no conscience to accuse, no devil to terrify, no judge to arraign and condemn, no hell to torment, yet he would be humbled and brought on his knees for his sins because he hath offended a loving, merciful and long suffering God." Folks, that's the stuff of genuine repentance. David begins his great penitential psalm, Psalm 51, by crying out,

"Be gracious to me, O God, according to Thy loving kindness; according to the greatness of Thy compassion, blot out my transgressions." And later he will go on to say, "Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me." And then he adds, "Then I will teach transgressors Thy ways, and sinners will be converted to Thee." In other words, a righteous attitude will produce righteous behaviors or fruit of repentance. And so this is at the heart of John the Baptist preaching, and it should be at the heart of every faithful gospel preacher, whether that person stands in a pulpit or sits across from another person with a cup of coffee.

"Therefore," verse eight, "bear fruits in keeping with repentance, and do not begin to 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 of Abraham." In other words, just because you are of the chosen ethnicity doesn't mean you are automatically saved and you are automatically secure; and yet, that's what they thought. In fact, the rabbis actually taught the Israelites that that they all are going to have a portion in the world to come, and they would teach that somehow, they were able to deliver merits - the merits of their fathers - to their descendants. And some even taught that Abraham would stand guard at the gates of Gehenna, of hell, and if an Israelite were to come that way, they would turn him back because, no, no, no, no, yyou know, you're of Abraham. You're good to go, you don't need to come in here. And many taught that Abraham, because of Abraham's merit, their ships would sail without incident, and that their crops would enjoy rain, and all kinds of silly things. That's the mindset. But what they didn't understand is that even Abraham was justified by grace through faith, not because of who he was. Romans 4:1-3 speaks of that; salvation is individual, it's not based upon ethnicity. And later on, even in Jesus' ministry, some of the Jews we read, they proudly asserted their perceived security based upon their Jewish pedigree. They were saying, like in John 8:33, "We are Abraham's descendants."

But being a physical descendant of Abraham does not make anyone a true son of Abraham. Paul spoke of this in Galatians three beginning in verse six, "Even so, Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness. Therefore, be sure that it is those who are of faith who are sons of Abraham." He went on to say in verse 29 that, "If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham's descendants, heirs according to promise." And Paul said in Romans, two beginning in verse 28, "For he is not a Jew who is one outwardly, nor is circumcision that which is outward in the flesh. But he is is a Jew who is one inwardly; and circumcision is that which is of the heart, by the Spirit, not by the letter; and his praise is not from men, but from God." And he also says this in Romans nine and beginning in verse six,

 "For they are not all Israel who are descended from Israel,

"nor are they all children, because they are Abraham's descendants, but: 'through Isaac, your descendants will be named.'

"That is, it is not the children of the flesh who are children of God, but the children of the promise are regarded as descendants."

You see, the only descendants of Abraham who are heirs of the unilateral, irrevocable, unconditional, eternal promises made to Abraham and David in those covenants, the only ones that will be heir to those promises are those who have been justified by grace, through faith in Christ. So again, verse eight, "Therefore bear fruits in keeping with repentance, do not begin to say to yourself, 'We have Abraham for our father,' for I say to you that from these stones God is able to raise up children to Abraham." It's interesting, isn't it? God created Adam out of dust, and he can create sons of Abraham out of rocks, out of something that is spiritually dead, something that is lifeless, just a stone. And that's what he did with Abraham and all who come to faith in Christ, including the Gentiles. And you think about it, prior to salvation, every one of us had a heart of stone. Ezekiel 11:19, speaks of that. So his point here is: God is the one who saves, and he will save anyone who truly believes, Jew and Gentile. Great example of this, remember Jesus' response to the Roman Centurion? Remember, in Matthew eight, the Centurion asked Jesus to heal his servant simply by saying the word. That's the type of faith he had. In Matthew eight, beginning in verse 10,

"Now, when Jesus heard this, He marveled and said to those who were following, 'Truly I say to you, I have not found such great faith with anyone in Israel.

"'I say to you that many will come from east and west, and recline at the table with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven;

"but the sons of the kingdom will be cast out into the outer darkness; in that place, there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.'"

Once again telling them that, look, it's faith that saves, not pedigree. Now, knowing Israel's hard-hearted rejection of his call to repentance, he is now going to predict imminent judgment that he know is going to come upon them, he says in verse nine, "'Indeed, the ax is already laid at the root of the trees.'" In other words, judgment is at hand. I'm reminded of what Paul said in Second Corinthians 6:2, "'Behold, now is "the acceptable time....now is the day of salvation."'" So he goes on to say, "So," in other words, in light of the fact that the ax is already laid at the root of the tree, it's about to be cut down, "So every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire." And certainly, a lifeless vine, a lifeless tree is worthless. It must be destroyed.

The people would have understood this imagery. At the end of every harvest season, farmers would cut down unproductive vines and trees to prevent them from, shall we say, sucking up all of the good moisture and the good nutrients that should be going to productive trees. And Jesus uses the same figure in describing unbelievers and false disciples that bear no fruit and therefore prove themselves to be unbelievers the tares amongst the wheat. Also in John 15:6 he says, "If anyone does not abide in Me, he is thrown away as a branch,” literally thrown away from the vineyard the true Church, "...and dries up; and they gather them, and cast them into the fire and they are burned." And certainly, Judas Iscariot would have been in mind here, who had superficially attached himself to Christ, attached himself to the church, but he bore no fruit.

By the way, I might add that grammatically in the Greek, it's the aorist indicative passive, which indicates that the fruitless branches are now, already in the company of other similar branches gathered together for the fire of judgment. They're already there right now. Fascinating concept, and so John's point here is his fruitless repentance is worthless. It's just words. It's meaningless. It's useless. It's an affront to God's grace. And as a result of his preaching, many are under conviction, yet they're perplexed. And so what we're going to see next is they want examples. All right, what are you talking about here? What are these fruits in keeping with repentance? And he's going to use three groups to answer the question: the crowd, the tax collectors and some soldiers.

Notice verse 10, "And the crowds were questioning him, saying, 'Then what shall we do?'" Again, this is the imperfect tense of the verb translated "say," which indicates that this is a constant query that required a constant answer. So they're asking them him a lot here. By the way, as we read these things, we're not getting every single word that was preached; every single word that was said. We're getting kind of a summary of what the Spirit wants us to hear. So the crowds were questioning him saying, "'Then what shall we do?' And he would answer and say to them, 'The man who has two tunics is to share with him who has none; and he who has food is to do likewise.'" In other words, true repentance will be manifested in selfless sacrificial love for your neighbor by voluntarily sharing what you have with that person.

Verse 12, "And some tax collectors..." who, as you will recall, the people absolutely hated, I'm not real fond of them, even to this day, "... some of the tax collectors also came to be baptized, and they said to him, 'Teacher, what shall we do?' And he said to them, 'Collect no more than what you have been ordered to.'" My that would have cut them right to the quick because they did not treat people fairly. I could spend an hour giving you examples historically of the things that they would do to cheat people and to keep some of the profit and pad their pockets. And the soldiers weren't any better.

Verse 14, "Some soldiers were questioning him, saying, 'And what about us, what shall we do?' And he said to them, 'Do not take money from anyone by force, or accuse anyone falsely, and be content with your wages.'" We know historically that the soldiers were notorious for torturing slaves to make them accuse their masters of minimizing their holdings to avoid taxation, and that way, they could be penalized more. The government could get more money, and they could get a cut of it. They would extort the rich to gain more money and for the government again and get a cut for themselves. Many were dishonest. They were cruel. They were angry men, disgruntled with their station in life. So he says, "Do not take money from anyone by force, or accuse anyone falsely and be content with your wages." Now, folks, the bottom line here is, when you love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind, soul and strength - which is a consequence of genuine saving faith that you came to through genuine repentance - then these things will be manifest in your life. You will bear the fruit of genuine repentance.

And so we see that two of the marks of genuine repentance, it will include a fear of God's wrath - just wrath - a change in attitudes and actions, and then finally, faith in Christ alone. Because you see, apart from our union with Christ by the power of the Spirit, none of this could ever happen. We would remain spiritually dead.

Verse 15, "Now while the people were in a state of expectation, and all were wondering in their hearts about John, as to whether he was the Christ..." Let me pause there again. There's this sudden appearance of this austere prophet that's coming out of the wilderness. His powerful preaching, he's baptizing Jews, which was unheard of for repentance, and it makes them wonder, "Well, I wonder, is this the Messiah?" Well, he obviously denied it. In fact, later on in John one, verse 19, we read, "...the Jews sent to him priests and Levites from Jerusalem to ask him, 'Who are you?' And he confessed and did not deny, but confessed, 'I am not the Christ.'"

Back to Luke three, verse 16, "John answered and said to them all, 'As for me, I baptize you with water.'" Remember, now he's doing this in the Jordan. The baptism that he was doing was a symbol of cleansing. It was an outward confession of repentance. It's not the same as Christian baptism later on, that we have now. But he goes on to say, "'... but One is coming who is mightier than I, and I am not fit to untie the thong of His sandals.'" In other words, I am so low compared to him that I'm unfit to even be the meekest of slaves to perform such a lowly task. He says, "'He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.'" Now mind you, this is New Covenant language that he's using here. They would have been acquainted with this. These are works that only God can perform. He's talking about the one who is coming, the Messiah who is coming. He is the only one that could do these things. Ezekiel 36:27, "I will put my Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you will be careful to observe My ordinances." They would have also been familiar with Ezekiel 37:14, "I will put my Spirit within you, and you will come to life, and I will place you on your own land. Then you will know that I the Lord, have spoken and done it declares the Lord." Moreover, they would have understood, as we all should, that God alone can immerse unrepentant sinners. By the way, that's what baptized means. God alone can immerse unrepentant sinners into the fire of eternal judgment. And this is a theme that is found throughout the Old Testament. I'm reminded of Malachi four and verse one, "'For behold, the day is coming, burning like a furnace; and all the arrogant and evil every evil doer will be chaff; and the day that is coming will set them ablaze,' says the LORD of hosts, 'so that it will leave them neither root nor branch.'" And I have to believe that some of the believing remnant, even of that day, would have understood the earlier statement in Malachi's prophecy. In Malachi three and verse one we read, "'Behold, I am going to send My messenger, and he will clear the way before Me.'" That's a reference to John the Baptist. It was right there in front of them. It goes on to say, "'And the Lord, whom you seek,'" by the way, he's using sarcasm there, they're not really seeking the Lord, the true Messiah. They're seeking somebody to exalt them and help free them from Rome. "'And the Lord whom you seek, will suddenly come to His temple; and the messenger of the covenant, in whom you delight,'" again, sarcasm, "'Behold, He is coming,' says the Lord of hosts." So in other words, Malachi was saying that the Lord will one day suddenly come to his temple - a reference to the millennial temple Ezekiel describes in Ezekiel 40 through 48 - and he will come in judgment as the messenger of the covenant. Yes, he is coming as promised. But then he says this in verse two of Malachi three, "'But who can endure the day of His coming? And who can stand when He appears? For He is like a refiner's fire, like fuller's soap.'" Two metaphors describing the purifying and cleansing nature of his second coming judgment.

Well, finally, John the Baptist says in verse 17 of Luke three, and here he's picturing, by the way, the separation of the saved and the unsaved by using a very familiar illustration of grain harvesting. They would pour out the grain on the floor. They would take this winnowing type, it looked kind of like a wooden pitchfork, and they would throw it up. Maybe you've seen them do that. And the breeze would blow the chaff away, and the wheat would fall in separation. And he says in verse 17 that, "'His winnowing fork is in His hand to thoroughly clear His threshing floor, and to gather the wheat into His barn; but He will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire.'" Oh dear friends, do not dare trust in your own self-perceived goodness, or your superficial repentance. God sees your heart. Ask yourself, "Do I have a sincere fear of God's wrath?" Or better to say, "Before I came to faith in Christ, did I have that? Because now I'm not afraid of that, because Jesus bore the penalty that I deserve in his body." But have you had that? Have you truly repented in such a way that other people can see a change in attitude, a change in actions, and is your faith in Christ alone, or is your faith in some other Jesus that you have created, or perhaps even in your good works, which is the case for most people. You ask most people, "Do you think you're going to heaven?" "Yeah, I think I'm a pretty good person." Folks, there was no one good except Christ. I hope you know the Lord. I don't know what else to say. I hope and I pray that you know the Lord. The last thing in the world that I would ever want to even think about is that someone that would sit under my preaching would stand before the Lord and be thoroughly shocked because they thought they deceived themselves into believing that they truly loved Christ, but in fact, they never did.

So folks, examine your heart. And for those of you who know, because of the ministry of the Holy Spirit in your life and so many other things, you know that you love Christ. Isn't it wonderful to know that you're secure forever in him? What would we do without that hope and that promise? Amen? Let's pray,

Father, thank you for the eternal truths of your word. As always, I pray that they will penetrate deep into every heart, especially those that may not know you. Oh Lord, please don't let them deceive themselves. The heart is so deceitful and desperately wicked, but Lord, you can penetrate that; you can conquer the most rebellious, recalcitrant heart. You can soften it by the power of the gospel, by the power of your Spirit, and I would beg you to do that today, especially in our children. Lord, please save them. Save them by your grace, and Lord may we live lives that honor you and celebrate the great blessings that are ours in Christ, for it's in his name that I pray. Amen.