Preparation for Kings Appearance Luke 3 Vs 1 20

And welcome to Faith Bible Church. We're glad you're here this morning, and if you're, I think, tuning in and watching remotely, I know we have some folks that are infirmed and not well, or just not as mobile as they used to be, and so we just, our prayers are with you, and our love goes out to you, and we'd love you to be here, but we know that God has other plans in our lives, and so we, they're just different seasons, and so we thank God for where you're at, that we'd just be blessing you.

Announcement-wise, there's a biblical counseling training that's coming up in March 11, and I'm sure Pastor will have more things to say about that, but we're gonna be putting out a sign out front to try to announce it and to maybe share around in the community that that's available to that, so be praying that that would be a good time for our own people to grow in understanding of biblical, how the Bible applies to counseling, and so just have that in your thoughts and prayers.

Before we go to the Lord in prayer, I wanted to read Psalm 111, just a couple verses. Praise the Lord. I will praise the Lord with my whole heart. In the assembly of the upright and in the congregation, the works of the Lord are great, studied by all who have pleasure in them.

His work is honorable and glorious, and his righteousness endures forever. We're here to worship our Lord, not to hear ourselves sing, but to sing to the Lord and to hear his word and to have it change our lives, so let's go to the Lord in prayer.

Lord God, we thank you that you have joined us together here this morning, Father. This is your church, Faith Bible Church, that was established over 75 years ago, Father. We thank you for your consistent faith and care for the flock here, Lord.

God, we pray that we would honor you this morning in all that we do. We pray that as we open your word and as we lift our voices in song, that we'd think about the words, that we'd think about how they might apply to our own lives, that we would be changed for your good, Father.

God, we pray for Andy, that you would bless him and heal him and help him to come, just be with the doctors and those that are surrounding him, Father. Give them wisdom, as we'd ask for healing for Andy, Lord, this morning, and strength for the family as they go along through this process, and for David as well, Father.

So God, we lift him up to you, to your care, because you are the great physician and healer, and we commit him to you, Father. God, we ask that you would bless our service today. We pray for the meeting afterwards, Father, that we'd just thoughtfully bring those things that are important forward to the congregation, Lord, that we would just in love celebrate the place that you have this church, Father.

You have been so faithful to us, and we thank you for that. So God, may we honor you this morning and just be with us, Father, as we allow the Holy Spirit to guide and lead us, Father, and we give you praise, in Christ's name, amen.

Good morning. Jesus Christ is our God, and he made the heavens and earth with his great power, and he gives eternal life, and it is him to whom we sing this morning, and let's stand and sing to him.

Morning, everyone. Scripture reading for today will come out of the book of Isaiah, chapter five, verses one through seven. Isaiah five, verses one through seven. Now let me sing to my well-beloved a song of my beloved regarding his vineyard.

My well-beloved has a vineyard on a very fruitful hill. He dug it up and cleared out its stones and planted it with the choicest vine. He built a tower in its mist and also made a winepress in it, so he expected it to bring forth good grapes, but it brought forth wild grapes, and now, oh, inhabitants of Jerusalem and men of Judah, judge, please, between me and my vineyard.

What more could have been done to my vineyard that I have not done in it? Why then, when I expected to bring forth good grapes, did it bring forth wild grapes? And now, please let me tell you what I will do to my vineyard.

I will take away its hedge, and it shall be burned, and break down its walls, and it shall be trampled down. I will lay it waste. It shall not be pruned or dug, but there shall come up rears and thorns.

I will also command the clouds that they rain no rain on it, for the vineyard of the Lord of hosts is the house of Israel, and the men of Judah are his pleasant plant. He looked for justice, but behold, oppression, for righteousness, but behold, a cry for help.

This is the word of the Lord.

It's always a delight to hear the young children singing and speaking. I think parents need to not worry about if they're being too loud. Adults can sing louder, and I'm mic'd, too, so please don't feel embarrassed, or don't feel like they're a burden.

They're not.

They're a huge blessing to have here. Please turn to Luke chapter three, verses one through 20. Luke chapter three, verses one through 20. Now, in the 15th year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar, Pontius Pilate being governor of Judea, Herod being Tetrarch of Galilee, his brother Philip Tetrarch of Etruria, and the region of Trachonitis, and Lysanias Tetrarch of Abilene.

While Annas and Caiaphas were high priests, the word of God came to John, the son of Zacharias, in the wilderness. And he went into all the region around the Jordan, preaching a baptism of repentance for the remission of sins, as it is written in the book, the word of Isaiah the prophet, saying, the voice of one crying in the wilderness, prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight, every valley shall be filled, and every mountain and hill brought low, the crooked places shall be made straight, and the rough way smooth, and all flesh shall see the salvation of God.

Then he said to the multitudes that came out to be baptized by him, brood of vipers, who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? Therefore bear fruits worthy of repentance, and do not begin to say to yourselves, we have Abraham as our father, for I say to you that God is able to raise up children to Abraham from these stones.

And even now the ax is laid to the root of the trees, therefore every tree which does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. So the people asked him, saying, what shall we do then? He answered and said to them, he who has two tunics, let him give to him who has none, and he who has food, let him do likewise.

Then tax collectors also came to be baptized and said to him, teacher, what shall we do? And he said to them, collect no more than what is appointed for you. Likewise the soldiers asked him, saying, and what shall we do?

So he said to them, do not intimidate anyone or accuse falsely, and be content with your wages. Now as the people were in expectation and all reasoned in their hearts about John, whether he was the Christ or not, John answered, saying to all, I indeed baptize you with water, but one mightier than I is coming, whose sandal strap I am not worthy to lose.

He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. His winnowing fan is in his hand, and he will thoroughly clean out his threshing floor and gather the weed into his barn. But the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.

And with many other exhortations he preached to the people. But Herod the Tetrarch, being rebuked by him concerning Herodias, his brother Philip's wife, and for all the evils which Herod had done, also added this, above all, that he shut John up in prison.

This is the word of the Lord. Let us pray. Father, we're thankful that you have sent John the Baptist to prepare the way for your son, Jesus Christ. And Father, we pray that as we read this and listen to your word this morning, you would help us to produce fruit in accordance to the genuine repentance that your spirit gives us.

Father, we pray that we would go to you and not to look to ourselves, but look to your son, Jesus, to be saved. In Jesus' name, amen. We come to the portion of scripture right after the birth narratives of both John and Jesus.

We start with John the Baptist again. There's this cycle, birth of John the Baptist, birth of Jesus. And now we go back to John the Baptist, whose role is to prepare the way for Jesus. And this is important because John the Baptist's main role is to introduce Jesus.

That's his main ministry. Oftentimes we think of a successful ministry as a long time for decades, right, and you die well and you're remembered well. But in Christianity, it's not the length of time you serve, it's about living according to God's will for you.

And John the Baptist's ministry is pretty short-lived. In fact, Luke, unlike Matthew and Mark, shows us in 20 chapters from the beginning and to end of John's ministry. But we will see here that John was a great prophet.

And elsewhere in the Bible, according to Jesus, John would be the best prophet born of woman because he got to introduce Jesus. It's not that John in himself is great, it's that his purpose in God's redemptive history is that he had the privilege to introduce Jesus, the Messiah, to the world.

That's how special Jesus is, right? That introduction, the privilege of introducing Christ made John the greatest prophet. And we will see how his prophetic ministry is similar to the Old Testament prophets, but how it's also different.

So this morning, the main point is that John the Baptist's ministry prepared God's people to receive Christ's superior ministry. John the Baptist's ministry prepared God's people to receive Christ's superior ministry.

First, God sends a prophet to prepare the hearts of his people to receive his salvation through repentance. God sends a prophet to prepare the hearts of his people to receive his salvation through repentance.

After the birth narrative of Jesus and John the Baptist, we see the beginning of John's ministry. The first two verses set up the historical context for John's ministry. Now in the 15th year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar, Pontius Pilate being governor of Judea, Herod being Tetrarch of Galilee, his brother Philip, Tetrarch of Etruria, and the region of Trachonitis, and Lysanias, Tetrarch of Abilene, while Annas and Caiaphas were high priests, the word of God came to John, the son of Zacharias in the wilderness.

Luke starts by listing out the political leaders and then religious leaders during the time of John's ministry. This is significant because these leaders were, it's not that they were uniquely important.

In fact, the focus of this is not Herod, the focus of this is not Pontius Pilate, and the focus of this text is not even the Caesar, the emperor of Rome. The focus is John the Baptist and what he is called to do.

Now the fact that these two verses reflect the leaders in that historical context means two things. First, it tells us what kind of ministry John the Baptist is called to. It tells us what kind of ministry John the Baptist is called to.

So when we look at many of the Old Testament prophets and how they are introduced in their prophetic ministry, the similarities are stunning. Jeremiah one, one through two. The words of Jeremiah, the son of Hilkiah, of the priests who were in Anatoth, in the land of Benjamin, to whom the word of the Lord came in the days of Josiah, the son of Amon, king of Judah, in the 13th year of his reign.

Nearly all the introductions of the prophetic books include the reigning political leaders, although the political leaders themselves are not the focus. What this means is John the Baptist's ministry was not just any ministry.

It was a divinely set apart ministry for God's redemptive history. John the Baptist was not some strange, wild man coming out of the wilderness, entering civilization for the first time in a while. He was a divinely commissioned prophet with a God-ordained ministry.

And briefly, I will go over the second significance of the historical setting. The list of the political and religious leaders here show us the complex atmosphere in which John the Baptist was ministering.

The leaders are listed from the broadest authority to the narrowest authority, to the local region. So it starts with the Roman Emperor Tiberius who rules over the whole empire and really did not have much impact in the land of Judea because he was ruling from afar through the governor, the second one, Pontius Pilate.

He was the prefect of Judea to govern on behalf of the Roman Emperor. And when we get to the Jewish regional leaders, we get Herod. He's the son of Herod the Great who massacred all the boys in Bethlehem.

And he also shared the ruling authority with Pilate as the regional leader. And the reason why Herod was there is because Herod's grandfather sided with Julius Caesar and Julius Caesar, being a very important figure in Rome, made Herod the Great's father, so Herod's grandfather here, the ruler over that region.

And second, having a Jewish leader alongside Pontius Pilate, a Roman citizen, helped calm down any potential riots, right? It gives this idea to Israel that, see, it's not Rome that's directly ruling over you.

There's a Jewish king on the throne, right? Herod just happened to not be the Jewish king that Israel was waiting for. Verse two then introduces the religious leaders, the high priests, Annas and Caiaphas.

Now, they were not political leaders, but religious authorities. And Annas was the high priest during AD 6 to 15. Then his son-in-law, Caiaphas, took over after that, and he was the high priest until AD 36.

Now, formally, Caiaphas was the high priest during that time, right? During John's ministry, it would've been around 29, AD 29. So Caiaphas is the high priest in charge. However, the influence and authority over the region was basically shared with Annas as well.

And this is similar to the US presidents of our day. Even after their retirement, they get to keep their title and often their influence. If something big happens in the United States, the media still asks the former presidents, right?

And they're called President So-and-So, even if their term has been over for decades. And it was precisely during this confusing and complex time in history in which God chose to send his prophet to announce the imminent coming of the Messiah, the Christ.

And at the end of verse two, John's prophetic ministry is inaugurated. It starts off, the word of God came to John, the son of Zacharias, in the wilderness. This divine calling pattern is important because that's how most of the prophets were called.

Some secular theologians say, oh, see, Luke didn't completely write this because why is he repeating that John is the son of Zacharias? We know that. We've heard that for the first two chapters. Why is Luke being redundant?

Well, there's a reason for this redundancy. This is because John's calling to the prophetic ministry parallels the divine calling of other Old Testament prophets. First, the word of God comes to the prophet.

And then second, the prophet's father's name is introduced. And this happens over and over again. Jeremiah, Amos, Amos, right? And even this controversial prophet, Jonah, right? Jonah's ministry follows the same pattern of calling.

Now, the word of the Lord came to Jonah, the son of Amittai. That is how every prophet in the Old Testament were called. In fact, when we compare John's calling to the prophetic ministry, to any other Old Testament prophets, his calling is longer than any of them.

This shows the special position that John as the prophet was in because he got to come right before the Messiah. John the Baptist had a special location in history because he got to announce the coming of the Messiah, the Christ.

This tells us that God is able to act in real time in history when he calls his prophet. John's calling was precise and clear during a dark and complicated time in Israel's history. And this is significant because it shows that the God that we worship, the God that Israel worshiped, is the God who is able to deliver his people in real life.

Not about some feelings, but he had a direct impact in history. He was not a distant God, but a God who saves and delivers in real time in real ways. And he is the God of history who is sovereign over history in the most noticeable way.

Now verse three summarizes John's prophetic ministry around the Jordan River. Preaching a baptism of repentance for the remission of sins. Now it is important to know that John's baptism is unique to his ministry, which means you don't get baptized twice if you're a Christian, right?

I'm not baptizing you in the John the Baptist baptism first, just like Israel experienced, and then, okay, let me baptize you the way that Jesus commanded in Matthew 28, right? John's baptism was unique to that time and that location of history.

It's not something we repeat. And it is different from Christian baptism, which John's baptism was preparing us for. Now, baptism was and is really external symbol, right? For internal divine cleansing.

In the Old Testament, the physical phenomena taught God's people spiritual truth. So the physical act of washing in the water taught them the spiritual truth about repentance. God's people were to turn back to God in order that they may be forgiven, and that physical washing showed them the necessity of that internal washing, internal cleanliness, internal purity, right?

They were to reorient themselves to God in preparation for the coming of Jesus Christ, right? God's people were to turn back. That's what repentance means, turn back. Turn back from sin and turn toward God in order to be forgiven of their sin, which starts from the inside.

And this was not some random cultish ritual, but John's ministry actually fulfilled what the Old Testament prophet Isaiah has prophesied. And Luke quotes from Isaiah 43 through five, as it is written in the book of the words of Isaiah the prophet, saying, "'The voice of the one crying in the wilderness, "'prepare the way of the Lord, "'make His paths straight.'".

The significance of preparing the way of the Lord was a common known metaphor in ancient Near East. Now, before a king or a god, if you're a pagan nation, you believe that your god's coming, the road had to be cleared of all obstacles in order to prepare for the glorious entry of the king.

And Isaiah here is prophesying that God is coming and His people need to prepare. And here, the metaphor is a moral preparation, it's the preparation of the heart for the coming of the Lord, as the context is about repentance, right?

The repentance from sin is the context, turning away from sin and turning toward God. So God's people were to morally prepare their hearts to welcome the returning Lord. Now, how are they to prepare for the coming of the Lord?

Verses five unpacks what this preparation looks like. "'Every valley shall be filled "'and every mountain and hill brought low, "'the crooked place shall be made straight "'and the rough ways smooth.'".

John the Baptist is not calling for a literal major construction around the land of Israel, right? He's not saying, oh, okay, we move the mountain over there and fill that pothole. We don't want that, we could trip the king.

That's not the goal here. This is the figurative language for the total repentance for God's people. It's a total makeover, it's a complete transformation, turning away from their sinful life and turning toward God.

Just as all the obstacles that could be blocking the king's highway were removed, whether the valley filled up, mountains removed and hills removed, and then the crooked ways made straight, rough ways made smooth, what John is saying is that John is calling for the complete preparation of God's people to welcome the return of their king from their heart.

It is nothing less than the purified hearts.

Through repentance.

The mountains and hills represent the prideful. They need to be brought down because they cannot be higher than the king. And in another sense, when God comes down, the prideful will come down, they will be humbled.

And any crookedness in God's people will have to be made straight. And this is a powerful picture of God's redemption of his people when he finally comes back. Now, what is the purpose of this preparation?

And all flesh shall see the salvation of God. Here, Luke introduces to us, although the immediate context is Israel, the immediate context is the restoration of Israel. And John the Baptist was preaching to the Israelites.

When the Messiah comes back, the whole world will see it. The whole world will witness God's great redemption. The salvation of God's people will not be a restricted access event, but a global sight for all.

Now, what does this preparation look like? The preparation for the coming of the Lord requires fruit-bearing repentance to be delivered from the inevitable wrath. The preparation for the coming of the Lord requires fruit-bearing repentance to be delivered from the inevitable wrath.

Now, this section gives us a glimpse of John's prophetic ministry. Verse seven starts with a shocking question to the gathered crowd. Brood of vipers, who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? A brood of vipers means offspring of serpents, right?

And in the Old Testament, God's enemies were actually called serpents, whether the Philistines, Assyria, they were called serpents. And the significance of this is ultimately that offspring of serpents goes all the way back to Genesis three, right?

There would be an enmity between the offspring of the women and the offspring of the serpents, right? There's plural offspring of the serpents while there is a singular offspring of the woman. That means ultimately, of those who are called the brood of vipers are those who belong to Satan himself.

And the question is, how could this be? How can John call Israelites offspring of Satan? Are they not the covenant people of God? Are they not Israel? And verses eight to nine warn against Israel from trusting in their heritage and nationality for salvation.

First, verse eight starts with what Israel must do to avoid God's wrath. Therefore, bear fruit worthy of repentance. The only way to avoid God's impending judgment is genuine repentance that produces fruits.

Lives reflecting the reality of turning away from sin and turning toward God. This is a striking message to Israel. It is not the family you're born into. It is what your relationship to God is. Even if you're born an Israelite, no matter how pure your heritage is, if you don't repent, you might as well be a son of Satan.

You will be treated like one on the judgment day. That's how powerful that statement is. And the second part of verse eight warns them what they must not do. And do not begin to say to yourselves, we have Abraham as our father, for I say to you that God is able to raise up children to Abraham from these stones.

John warns them that even the best religious lineage will not protect them from God's coming wrath. This is similar in modern times. Your responsibility before God is dependent only on your personal repentance, not someone else's.

It will not help you one bit before God's judgment seat. Even if you're related to Martin Luther, Charles Spurgeon, and Billy Graham all combined. Does not matter one bit. You will be standing before God and God will only hold you accountable for what you've done.

And this must be stated, the opposite's true. You cannot take on someone else's sin just as you cannot take on your ancestor's righteous faith, you cannot claim your ancestor's sin. In our country with this woke ideology, people are making white people guilty of so-called sin of slavery, even though they've never owned slaves in their lives.

You can't inherit someone else's sin. That's what John the Baptist's telling you here. Your ancestor's life, your ancestor's faith, or lack thereof, does not impact what you will be judged by. You're not gonna be able to say my dad was a preacher.

He was a faithful preacher, God. Your exit interview will be based upon your life, not someone else's. And John goes even further that he adds that God is even able to raise up children of Abraham from these stones.

Now, this is a metaphor to emphasize the point that God does not need Israel. Just as one would not expect any life to come from a stone, a cold, gray, lifeless stone, you don't expect life to come out of that.

What John is saying is that God is able to raise up children of Abraham from nations, people groups, that you would not even think of. This is a hint at this, the global reach of the gospel. For an Israelite, their main focus was that God would restore Israel.

And that's true. God does not go against his promise. But the restoration of Israel includes bringing forth other children who are not Israelites. But again, the warning stays the same. Your ancestry will not save you.

Only God will save you if you respond according to his way in bearing fruit, right? It's important to note that bearing fruit is not a workspace salvation. And this fruit metaphor helps really well. You bear fruit because you're alive if you're a tree, right?

A tree bears fruit only if the tree's alive. The fruit does not make the tree alive. The fruit does not cause the tree to be alive. The alive tree bears fruit. So what John is saying and what the Bible, rest of the Bible says is if you truly repent, if you're truly forgiven because you believe that Jesus died for your sin, and you've turned away from your old self and you turn toward Jesus, the most natural thing is you would bear fruit.

It's not that you bear fruit in order to be alive, in order to be saved. You bear fruit because you're alive, because you're saved. Now, verse nine increases the urgency with another warning of judgment.

And even now the ax is laid to the root of the trees. Therefore, every tree which does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. The ax laid at the root of the tree is significant because it shows the immediacy, the urgency of God's judgment.

It's going to happen. And to those who do not produce the fruit of repentance, the destruction will be decisive. God will not dilly-dally. The second metaphor of fire increases the intensity of the judgment.

It is not that you'll just be cut off, removed completely, but you will be painfully punished. You will be cast into the fire. And upon this severe announcement, the crowd desperately responds in the next four verses.

It starts with, again, general, broad, and then it narrows down to specific cases. John answers. The first, the crowd asks him, what must we do? And then John answers, he who has two tunics, let him give to him who has none.

And he who has food, let him do likewise. Now, this is rather an odd response to require in relation to repentance, especially in Judaism when the sacrificial system was the center of their worship. You would have thought, well, you got to make the atoning sacrifice, sin offering, you know how to do, check the book of Leviticus, and then guilt offering, then the peace offering.

Then you're good.

That's not what John says. John is not commanding a special purification ritual. He's not even requiring another offering, a special offering that's not in Leviticus. John is saying that true repentance from sin shows up concretely and visibly through selfless acts.

The sign of a genuine repentant heart is the outflow of their caring heart toward the most vulnerable. The tunics here mean undershirts, the shirt that you wear under the robe. They were not robes, but shirts worn under, which means they were pretty personal.

So if you had two, for a true believer in God, you were to give one to the one who doesn't have it,.

Who needs it.

A truly repentant life truly reflects God's heart toward the defenseless and vulnerable. A person who has turned his life toward God and away from his sinful past definitely displays God's compassion toward others.

And this is crucial in the gospel accounts. You cannot love the Lord God with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength and ignore your neighbor. Whenever the Pharisees and the Sadducees tried to trip Jesus up, trying to have him choose one or the other, are you gonna be faithful to God or love your neighbor?

Jesus' answer was not this or that, but it was usually both and. That's because a truly repentant life, a truly restored soul before God allows for truly restored relationship among humans. That's the only way.

You cannot have true peace among yourselves without having peace with God. Now after this general description of true repentance, verse 12 through 14 show repentance for specific groups of people. In this case, they are the most despised groups of ancient Israel.

They were hated by fellow Jews and they were tax collectors and the soldiers. They were hated because they were known to abuse their power for their personal gain. For example, Rome did not individually go around knocking on the door.

Caesar did not go do that. Even Pilate didn't go knock on doors to collect taxes. They hired tax collectors among the Israelites, which means the fellow Jews, they directly were commissioned to take specific amount for Rome, but they also could charge extra to make up the difference for whatever cost they needed, they accrued from doing their job.

In fact, the personal surcharge would often rise to an unethical amount and people knew it. But they couldn't really do anything about it because you rebel against that, you're basically going against the Roman government.

In fact, even secular people, not just Jews, in those days grouped the tax collectors with adulterers and pimps. They were that lowly viewed. And the Jewish soldiers were hated because they were hired by Rome and they often protected the tax collectors.

That's what they were meant to do. They were to protect the fellow tax collector, Jewish tax collectors. So you could see why these people were especially troubled because in their society, they were social rejects, they were despised, and they were known as the utmost sinners.

And to the tax collectors, John proclaims that the fruit of repentance must be righteousness in doing their job. They must not abuse their power to increase their personal bank account. And it's important to note that John's message is not that of a political revolution, which would tell them to give up their jobs and working for Rome, right?

John's main desire is not a political change because he knows the change will come from God. It will not depend on what the tax collectors do through their activism. Rather, John's command is repentance that requires honesty and integrity and you stay in the location that God has placed you right now.

Even if it is an unfavorable or less than desirable position, live honestly and with integrity where you are. And to the soldiers, similarly, John warns them of abusing their power for their personal gain.

Do not intimidate anyone or accuse falsely and be content with your wages. The first warning prevents them from voluntarily and fraudulently taking money from the defenseless crowd, right? The Roman, not the Roman, the Jewish soldiers, they were armed to protect.

But they could also use their armory to threaten, to gain, fraudulently. What John is saying is do not do that. A truly repentant heart wouldn't bear that kind of fruit. The second warning gets to the heart of the wicked act.

Be content with what you have. This is important because the Bible is clear where the true problem lies. The core of any sinful problem is inside. And what that means is John's saying you wouldn't even dare to seize to take someone, you wouldn't even be tempted to take something if you were already content with what you're given.

It's a heart problem. And to the heart problem, the solution is a heart repentance, repentance from inside that bears fruit outside. If the second command is followed to be content, then the first command would not even be necessary.

Now it's important to note that John the Baptist's ministry was very unique to his time, right? We don't have another John the Baptist. There is no spiritual gift of John the Baptistry. However, we are in a similar state as Israel back then as we wait for the return of the Lord.

And the Bible makes it that it's imminent. It could happen any time. And in the similar sense, unless you truly repent, the message of judgment remains the same for you. That hasn't changed. In the same way, repentance is not a sorry, right?

Repentance does not mean you apologize. Repentance is not just in word only. Repentance inevitably bears fruit. It produces results. If an abuser keeps saying sorry, but keeps beating his spouse, that's not repentance.

If a liar apologizes for lying, but keeps on lying, he didn't really repent because there's no fruit. And as this was true in the Old Testament, this was true under John's ministry, and this is true under Christ, right?

The fruit of repentance is what God looked for, the sign of genuine heart change, right? The passage that Dexter read for us this morning, the vineyard represents the people of God, Israel. God did everything possible, provided the correct environment, cared for it, nurtured for it in the best way possible so that the vineyards would bear fruit.

The sad reality is that they didn't. And it is true for under Christ. When someone repents and believes that Christ died for their sin, she will begin to produce fruit. Now, real repentance produces real fruit, lasting fruit.

Fruit that's genuine, not fruit that is just externally beautiful, but rotten to the core. Externally pleasing in appearance to gain popularity, not that, but a fruit that is delightful inside and out.

And this is why Jesus says in Matthew 7, by their fruit you will know them. How do you know that one belongs to Jesus or not? By their fruit. And this is important because there's so many Christians, unfortunately so many pastors who claim to be Christians, but they bear no fruit.

If you ask them, how do you know you're saved? They look back to some prayer they've uttered decades ago. Oh, I went to Sunday school all my life. Yet they live like pagans. There has been no change in their desire for God.

There has been no change in their delight in holiness. There has been no change in the purity of life. And this text tells us that may not be true repentance.

There's no fruit.

And this is important to us this morning because scripture does not know of any repentance only in words. Repentance, repentance bears fruit. And if your life is not bearing fruit, the one you need to go to is not me and it's not yourself.

It's Jesus Christ. He's the one who supernaturally changes your heart to make it alive so that it may bear fruit. I have no power nor authority to give life to a dead soul. That's the work of God. Now, what was John preparing for?

John prepares the way for Jesus' ministry, which is far superior in every way. John prepares the way for Jesus' ministry, which is far superior in every way. Now, the crowd starts to wonder at this powerful preaching.

Could John the Baptist be the Messiah? Could he be the Christ? After all, that would make sense. The Old Testament prophesied that when the Messiah comes, God will fully restore Israel. And this message of repentance and forgiveness of sin sounds like restoration of Israel to me.

Now, they saw the baptism of purification and repentance as the first step toward restoring the nation that has fallen away from God. Now, God will have mercy on us as we turn toward God. However, John squashes that idea in verse 16, in the very next verse.

"'I indeed baptize you with water, "'but one who mightier than I is coming, "'whose sandal strap I am not worthy to loose. "'He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. "'His winnowing fan is in his hand, "'and he will thoroughly clean out his threshing floor "'and gather the wheat into his barn, "'but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.'".