Bear Fruit or Burn — Carter Conlon

John the Baptist’s Message: Bear Fruit or Burn

Well, the title of my message from John chapter 1 this morning is Bear Fruit or Burn. Somebody was looking for a word this morning, well there it is. Bear fruit or burn. That's not as bad as it sounds.

John chapter 1, it was the last and most potent message of John the Baptist. Now, Father, I thank you, Lord, for this time together this morning. I thank you for the anointing of your Holy Spirit. Lord, unlock your word.

Help us to see it, to hear it, to embrace your word. Help us to find the life that you promise us. Give us sense to be able to agree with you and to change by the power of God. I thank you for the anointing that you will place upon me to give me the strength that I need to speak this word and give us the strength to hear it.

Lord, I thank you for it with all my heart. In Jesus' name. John chapter 1, beginning at verse 19. And this is the record of John, this is John the Baptist. When the Jews sent priests and Levites from Jerusalem to ask him, who art thou?

And he confessed and denied not, but confessed, I am not the Christ. And when they asked him, what then? Art thou Elias or Elijah? And he said, I am not. Art thou that prophet? And he answered, no. Now, Moses had said that there would be a prophet arise that would be like unto himself and that people were to give heed.

And they wondered if John the Baptist were that prophet that Moses spoke about. Then said they unto him, who art thou? That we may give an answer to them that sent us. What sayest thou of thyself? He said, I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness.

The Law Reveals Humanity’s Inability to Save Itself

Make straight the way of the Lord, as said the prophet Isaiah. And they which were sent were of the Pharisees. Now it could be said of John the Baptist that his message was the final statement or the capstone of all that mankind had been able to build under an old system of human effort to obey God-given laws.

It was the summation. It was the final moment. Paul had defined the law as it is, as an instructor sent by God, which was meant to bring us to an understanding that we could not save ourselves. We could not be godly in ourselves.

Now remember that man's inherent problem was that in the garden of Eden, he was bitten by the serpent and that subtle poison of the serpent infused itself into the entire being of humanity, giving us the thought that we in ourselves and through our own effort and our own resolve can be as God or we can be equal to God.

Remember in Genesis chapter 3 verses 4 and 5, it says, the serpent said to the woman, you shall not surely die for God knows that in the day that you eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened and you will be as God's knowing good and evil.

He set a, it was really a theology in my opinion that he set before Adam and Eve and essentially said, look at me, I have lived and acted independently from God and there had to be something still attractive about this deceptive creature who is, who is defined or described as a serpent.

The poison of a serpent is in him because the scripture tells us that in Eve's sight it was, it was pleasant to the eyes and seemed to be desired to make one wise before partaking of it. And that's the dilemma of the whole human race.

It's your dilemma. It's mine. In a sense that everything in us apart from God wants to tell us that we can be godly in ourselves. If we just make one more resolution, if we just push a little harder, if we just try a little deeper, then we in ourselves have the power to be as God or to be godly.

Now God gave therefore to a group of people, and I'm fast forwarding, I don't have time to go through the whole history. Please just try to give me your best ear. He gave to a group of people who declared themselves and he declared to be his own eventually a set of laws to obey, which if they could, it would prove that in themselves they could indeed be godly.

He said, okay, if you think the inherent problem of humanity is that we think we can be God without God. And so basically he said, if you think you can be godly, if you can bear the fruit of God, if you can be as God, if the nature of God can become yours, then here are 600 and plus things to obey.

And of course, if you fail in one, he said you fail them all. Therefore you have to take a sacrifice, you have to go back into the temple, you have to atone for your wrong because you see, you have proved once more that you're not God.

And then once you're back in right relationship, then you can come back out and give it your best shot again at being God and being godly. But if you fail in one of the 600 plus laws, then you have to get another goat, another lamb, another dove, you have to come back into the temple.

How far do you think people really got from the temple before they were back in the sheep market again looking for another lamb or another goat? I'm talking about the sincere who really thought or really wanted to be godly, but were under an old system of laws and human effort that really has no power.

Romans 7 and the Powerlessness of Human Effort

Because in Romans chapter seven, let me just read it to you. Here's what Paul says about those who try to be godly and he had given it probably a better shot than most people of his generation. In verse 18, he said, I know, for I know, he said, that in me, that is in my flesh dwells no good thing, for to will is present with me.

I want to, I want to, I want to be godly, in other words, but how to perform that which is good, I find not. Paul says, I don't, and this is the dilemma of all humanity that are honest. I want to be a better husband, but how?

I mean, I make all my resolve, I promise to do better on the way home. I say that I'm not going to respond in like kind, and that goes for wives as well. How long does that last when you get in the door?

Where's the milk? Well, what's it to you? You don't think I have anything else to do with my life? And then suddenly going, oh, all the way home, I said I was going to be a different person. Paul said, I want to be, I want to be godly inside, but I can't find the strength to do it.

For the good that I would, I don't do, but the evil that I don't want to do, I do. In other words, what is wrong with me? What's wrong with my body, in a sense, the totality of my being, that I can have this inner desire to be godly, but I can't find the power to perform it.

Now if I do that which I do not, I would not, it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwells in me. Paul said, I find then a law that when I would do good, evil is present with me, for I delight in the law of God after the inward man, but I see another law in my, like it's in my members, but he means, he says, I see something else that's seemingly completely interwoven into my character, warring against the law of my mind, standing against what I want to do, standing against the kind of a person that I feel I would like to be or I want to be, and this war brings me into captivity to this law of sin, which seems to have found a lodging place in my members or in my life.

It's a common dilemma. Has anybody else here ever faced that? You want to do right, you want to speak truth, and how, you get halfway into a conversation, you realize, wow, I left truth, I left truth five minutes ago back in the road somewhere.

And Paul finally gets to the point of saying, oh, wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from the body of this death? He said, I've got something of death working inside of me that I have no power to overcome, and that's called the sin nature in the scriptures.

And you don't get the sin nature unless we understand what happened in Eden, that Satan sowed that thought in humanity, that was the fall of humanity, that we can be as God, that we can determine what's good and what's evil.

That's why you have societies that, in a sense, eradicate the word of God from its public sphere and from its public consciousness, and suddenly evil becomes good, and good becomes evil, because that's exactly what the sin nature will do.

Self-Righteous Religion and the Pharisees

The sin nature will say this is good when God says it's evil. And that's what Paul said becomes the human dilemma. Now, in spite of the admission that it was hopeless, and the honest person, realistically, the honest person will admit it's hopeless to be godly in ourselves.

I can't do it. You can't do it. None of us can do it. It's hopeless. But there are still groups of people who believe, they believed it then, they believe it today, that in themselves, that they have sufficiently obeyed the rules, that touch not, taste not, handle not, all the rules, all the ducks are lined up in their mind, and to the point where they believe that they have earned to themselves the undisputable title of godly.

I have met some of the most ungodly religious people who can't see what they are. They have the right clothes, they have, they can point to their rules that they've obeyed, but there's such a death at work in them.

All they have to do is speak, and it's just like a corpse speaking to you. It's such death, but they're unaware of what they've become because they've obeyed the rules, and because they've been stronger than others who seem to be weak around them.

They've compared themselves among themselves and have displayed a lack of wisdom in this, and walk around and believe that they're godly. Now John, John the Baptist saw the religious coming towards him.

He was, he was the final voice of this old system. The final voice of this, this self-induced godliness, may I call it that, or it's like people giving themselves a certificate of godliness that has nothing to do with God.

God's hand is not in it or on it, he doesn't endorse it. But he saw them coming towards him, and they're still holding to this self-earned righteousness, and in Matthew chapter 3 verse 7, it's another version of what we're talking about in our opening text.

Next, you might want to turn there, it's just back a little bit from where we started. Here's what John the Baptist said, he said, when he saw many of the, that's Matthew 3 7, when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees come to his baptism, he said to them, O generation of vipers, who has warned you to flee from the wrath to come?

O generation of vipers, he saw them coming in their finery, their robes, their self-imposed righteousness, the rules that they have obeyed. Now John is telling the people, he is the capstone, keep this in mind, it is the end, it is the finish, in a sense, of the Old Testament law.

The power of it is about to be broken. John is giving a message to the people, saying all of your attempts to be holy, all of your attempts to be righteous, are rotten rags, you all know it, you all know that you're not walking in a godly manner, you all know that your conversation is not clean, therefore, he said, come and repent, turn away from all of human effort, turn away from your own efforts to be godly in and of yourself, and that's what John's baptism was about, it was a baptism of repentance.

Bearing Fruit for Repentance or Facing Judgment

Now when the Pharisees showed up, he said, he called them vipers, in other words, in spite of their religion, the seed of the serpent is still very much alive in them, the tongue of the serpent, in a sense, is their tongue, the reasoning of the serpent is in their minds, they're still living under their fallen condition, and that's why he said to them, actually I believe it's rather sarcastically, all generation of vipers, he said, who warned you to flee from the wrath to come, or your coming fate?

And how I know it was sarcastic is because everyone knows that serpents can't hear, they don't have ears. You ever wonder why Jesus says to the churches in Revelation, he who has ears to hear, let him hear?

If the seed of the serpent is still, if that seed of fallenness is still in you, if that seed of procuring your own righteousness is still in you, if that seed of God should accept me because I've done this or because I've done that or because I've read or because I've prayed or because I've done or because I've given or because I've gone or because I haven't gone, if that seed is still in you, then you really don't have ears to hear the voice of God.

The serpents are led by their senses, and that's exactly what happens to people who lose touch with God as they begin to be led by their own natural senses, and it's defined in the scripture as the seed of the serpent.

And that's why John said to them, who warned you to flee the wrath that's to come? Who warned you to flee this, your own future as it is? You're in a place of wrath. And he said, who warned you? Because I know you don't have ears to hear.

So how come you're coming here? I believe, of course, they're not coming to be baptized. In most cases, of course, they're coming to challenge anything that declares their position to be bankrupt or short of the glory of God.

That's what religious people will always do. When revival breaks out, for example, you watch who will oppose it. It's not going to be the guy that's sitting and drinking a bottle of wine over on 52nd at six o 'clock in the morning on the sidewalk.

He won't oppose it. He'll get saved. It will be the religious that will oppose it because oftentimes it makes their righteousness appear to be bankrupt because there's no power of God in it. He said to them, if you have truly, verse, if you have truly turned to God, then produce fruit of the evidence of his true presence within you.

Otherwise, be prepared to burn. That's what he said to them. Bear fruit or burn. In other words, bring forth fruits, therefore fruits meet for repentance. If you've truly turned to God, he said in verse eight, then bring forth fruit that proves you have.

And think not to say within yourselves, we have Abraham to our father. I say to you that God is able to raise of these stones, children into Abraham. And now John said, the ax is laid to the root of the tree.

Therefore every tree which brings not forth good fruit is hewn down and cast into the fire. I indeed baptize you with water into repentance, but there comes after me. But he that comes after me is mightier than I, whose shoes I'm not worthy to bear.

And he will baptize you with the Holy ghost and with fire, whose fan is in his hand. And he will thoroughly purge his floor and gather his weed into the garner, but he will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire.

John was telling, saying, listen, here's, here's the end of the old Testament and all of its rules and all of itself imposed godliness and obedience. Here's your option. Bear fruit, bear the fruit of God or burn.

It's an amazing thing. It's an indictment on all the old Testament, all its old system of laws and all its self imposed ideology that in myself and through human effort, I can be godly. And John said, no, there's a fire coming against all of this.

There's a day of God's wrath when everything especially will endure his wrath that has pretended to represent him, but has not been representing him in truth or in spirit. And John said in verse 11, I indeed baptize you with water to repentance.

But he that comes after me is mightier than I, whose shoes I'm not worthy to bear, and he will baptize you with the Holy ghost and with fire. So John was saying, I'm, there is a wrath for hypocritical religion that one day will be revealed from heaven, but I'm called to introduce you to another kind of fire.

Isaiah’s Promise and the Call to Repentance

This is a fire that will not burn you, but rather will burn within you and set you free from the impurity and corruption that Satan planted within you. He said in John chapter one, verse 23, I'm the voice of one crying in the wilderness.

I'm crying to you in your dry places. I'm crying to you in the places in your life where you are powerless and directionless and empty. I am the voice of one crying to this whole wasteland of humanity that believed it could be God without God being God inside of it.

If I may say it that way, and I'm calling to you and I'm saying, make straight the way of the Lord, just the way Isaiah spoke it. And he was quoting from Isaiah chapter 40 verses three to five, where Isaiah said the voice of him that cries in the wilderness, prepare you the way of the Lord, make straight in the desert, or that means a barren place, a highway for our God.

Every valley will be lifted. Every mountain will be made low and the crooked will be made straight and the rough places plain and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed and all flesh shall see it together for the mouth of the Lord has spoken it.

That's why, you see, it would be insufficient if John just brought that kind of a word, it would be insufficient if I brought that kind of a word to you today and left it there. And there always are people who are more than willing to do that.

Just in just a heap, a pile of condemnation on people who've already known that they're failing and say, listen, here's your option, bear fruit or burn. He called that society to a baptism. Baptism means that I'm going to die to these attempts to be godly in my own strength.

That's why there was a lineup of people in John's day who knew it was hopeless. It was powerless just the way you and I know it. And they were going down into the waters of baptism, John's baptism, which was a turning from all of my attempts to be God and godly in my own strength, turning from my own wisdom, turning from my own human effort, turning from my own sense of self-justification and how short it would fall if that's all it was.

If all it was was a baptism of recognition that I can't be godly, then it would be almost pointless. John would be just baptizing people in water and they would rise up and go back, but what do they go back to?

Now that they've recognized that it's hopeless to be godly, what would they do? Where would they go? You see, that's why John was the bridge between the old and the new covenant, because for those who were being baptized, he could point in John 1 29 and say, behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.

We can only behold the Lamb of God when we have come to the end of ourselves. When we have come to the place like Paul of being honest with God and saying, I can't be godly, I can't change who I am, I've given it my best effort and it fails.

Now I have only two options. One is I can be honest with God and the other option is I can adopt some kind of a religious falseness that has absolutely no divine life in it and declare it in my stubbornness to be godly.

But there's an indictment against that in the Word of God. There's an indictment against false and stubborn religion that is not born of the Spirit of God, that has not been redeemed by the blood of the Lamb, that is not in living relationship with God.

The indictment is bear fruit or burn. And you and I know that we can't bear fruit. It is not possible for me to bear the fruit of Christ. I cannot change who I am apart from Christ inside of me who is the hope of glory.

That means the hope of my change. And so when you and I get to the point where we say I can't be, I can't be a better husband, I can't be a better father, I can't speak truth, I can't be honest, I can't be godly and I'm simply not willing to cover it up with robes that make me look like I am God.

I'm not going to cover up my bankruptcy with my own homemade arguments and religion. It's at that point a voice comes to you and says behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. Hallelujah.

Hallelujah. Behold the one who will destroy the power of the serpent. Behold the one who will go to a cross and every drop of shed blood touching the ground will be like a drum beat in hell and all the power of hell will be broken at that cross.

Everything the serpent sowed in you will be destroyed. His power will be gone. The separation between man and God will be removed and the cleansing fire of God will come to us and reclaim us as his own.

Hallelujah to the Lamb of God. Glory to the Lamb of God. Glory to Jesus. In Luke chapter 24 after Jesus was raised from the dead there were some men walking on the road to a place called Emmaus and they were sorrowful because they had had a glimmer of hope and there would be people here today who might fit into that category.

You had a glimmer of hope for your future and it even in measure had something to do with Jesus Christ. But things happened that came your way and you didn't fully understand them. Maybe you were sidelined or hit with something you didn't see coming or circumstances around you made it look like your future is hopeless and they trusted, it said, we trusted that it had been he which should have redeemed Israel.

And besides all this it's been three days since these things were done and he had just asked them, what are you talking about and why are you so sad? And then he said to them, oh slow of heart, oh fools and slow of heart to believe all the prophets have spoken.

And verse 27 says, and beginning at Moses and all the prophets he expounded unto them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself. In other words he showed them that all through the Old Testament everything was leading to him as the Redeemer, as the one who would break the bondage of sin, as the one who would give us a promise of new life, as the one who would destroy our enemies.

It wasn't just in the New Testament, it was foretold all through the Old for those who had the ears to hear it. And when they drew to the village where they were going they constrained him, said, come and abide with us, it's toward evening and the day is far spent.

And he went into tarry with them and it came to pass as he sat at meat with them he took bread and blessed it and break it and gave it to them and their eyes were opened and they knew him and he vanished out of their sight.

When they let Jesus walk with them the first thing that happened is the scriptures opened and they invited him to stay with them, don't let me go back, don't let me fall back into what I used to be or used to do, walk with me, stay with me only to find out he was only too glad to come and abide with them.

And at the table the scripture says he took bread, blessed it and broke it and gave it and when he did this their eyes were opened and they saw that this was the Lamb of God, he was broken so that we might be made whole, he was punished so that we might go free, he died and took our death upon him and then rose again from the dead that through the same spirit that raised him from the dead we too might live in newness of life.

From Bear Fruit or Burn to Burn and Bear Fruit

And it says their eyes were opened and they knew him, there's no greater thing can happen in your life as a believer in Christ than the day that your eyes are opened and you say oh God thank you that I don't have to walk into the house of God with the filthy rags of self-effort, I don't have to present to you a list of things I have done this week for you to accept me, I don't have to hang my head because I had a rotten week, my God you gave yourself for me, you broke the power of sin, you broke the power of the devil to dominate my inner man and to lead me into places to do and live in a way that I don't want to, you gave me the power to live in what I know is right from the word of God, you broke the backbone of death and hell and sin, you were raised from the dead and because you live I live and you are willing to live inside of me and empower me and you are willing to change me and make me in to the person that you have destined to be on this earth, you are willing to bring me back to where Adam and Eve were in that garden of Eden in relationship with you before the serpent sowed that evil thought in their hearts that in themselves they could be as God, so I'm going to do what the people did in John's day, I'm going to get baptized, I'm out of here, I'm out of all self-effort, self-righteousness, self-righteous religion, I'm out of all fraud in the name of God, I'm out of all of these things and I'm going to let Jesus Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit guide me into the word of God and be my God and be the Lord of my life and they said one to another, did not our heart burn within us while he talked with us and opened to us the scriptures, did not our heart burn?

You see the message today is simple, if you're still holding to the thought that you can change yourself and become godly through your own efforts, all the best to you, that's all I can say, bear fruit or burn, but if you know that you cannot and you are willing as they were in the day of John which was publicly displayed by baptism, publicly displayed in a sense by standing out in public and saying I can't do this in my own strength, I can't be godly, I can't change myself, I'm tired of this endless treadmill of sin, confess, sin, confess, sin, confess, I'm tired of this endless river of powerless sacrifice in this Old Testament temple, there surely has to be more than this, if you know you cannot save yourself and you're willing to put away your own efforts to try to be godly, now there's an effort required, don't misunderstand me, you've got to get in the word of God, you have to read it and believe it, you have to yield your life and let God through the Holy Spirit produce the character of Christ in you, but if you're willing to put away your own efforts, if you're willing to do it in public, I say to you today behold the Lamb, behold the Lamb of God, behold the one who redeemed you, behold the gloriousness of your salvation, the wonder of it, the awesomeness of it, you will have a song like you've never believed that you could ever have in your life the day you let Jesus be the Lord of your life, in every part of your life, in him all things change and here's the difference, instead of the message bear fruit or burn, the story now becomes burn and bear fruit, did not our hearts burn within us when he opened to us the scriptures and showed us his sacrifice, that is the Old Testament testimony is bear fruit or burn, the New Testament testimony is burn and bear fruit, burn with a passion for God, burn with a love for his word, burn with thanksgiving for what he did on the cross, burn with a desire to let Christ be Christ in you and to take you where you could never go, make you what you could never be and give you what you could never possess, burn to glorify God in this generation, burn in your heart to be restored, burn to go into this text of scripture with the motive of saying Lord I can't glorify you, I can't even change myself but you live inside of me and because of that every promise in this book is now mine, I yield to you, the scripture tells us that these men turned and went back the way that they had come from, glory to the Lamb of God, I'd rather burn and bear fruit than try to bear fruit and burn, I don't know about you, so why are you sad Jesus said, get up from your wilderness and become a partaker of the life of God, Jesus Christ is alive, why are you sad, why are you sad today, why do you come in this house so beaten down by what Christ has already destroyed on the cross, is it possible part of that sadness is trying to bring about a resolution in your own strength, trying to bring about change and you can't change, only Jesus can change you from the cross, I've changed a lot in the last 35 years but I'm still changing by God's grace, there are still corners in my life that need rounding out, that need a bit of smoothing, I don't get condemned by any of them because I'm not looking to my own righteousness in my walk with God, I am looking to the one who promised to change me as my heart burns for him and burns for his word, he has promised that he will bear fruit through my life, that fruit will be the fruit of God in me, I will be changed by the glory of God, that means the power, that which brings God to reputation, I will be changed by the power of God, think of the people in the upper room who came out on the day of Pentecost not speaking about themselves, not speaking about anything they were going to do, not speaking about anything of themselves but every man, every woman was speaking about what God was going to do through their lives and how he was going to change them and that's what caused at least 3 ,000 very religious people to literally stare and say whatever they have, everything that we've had up to this point in history hasn't brought us there, so what must we do to have this kind of a relationship with God and the scripture tells us that 3 ,000 turned from this old covenant way of thinking and they embraced the life that Jesus Christ fully offers to those who come to him and so my question again this morning is why are you sad?

Responding to the Gospel and Abandoning Self-Righteousness

Very often we're sad because we're holding to something of our own righteousness in some area of our life and we're so sad aren't we, we come in and we so wanted to be different and we so blew it and so we come in and we feel so sad, do you realize it's not within us, we don't have the power to change, you shouldn't be sad if you will let Jesus Christ unlock the scriptures to you, give you ears to hear, take away that nature of the serpent that says I can do it on my own thank you very much I don't need God, that's a serpents nature to take that out of our hearts and give us ears to hear and give us hearts to obey.

In John's day you see the Pharisees I doubt they didn't see the Lamb of God but the sinners saw who knew that they couldn't do this in their own strength they saw the Lamb of God and of course later on in the scripture it says they left John and they followed Jesus and of course that's the way it should be.

And I want to give an invitation to you this morning for those that are trying to change you can't bear fruit in your own strength. You're trying to change in some area of your life and you have the courage as those did in John's day now the religious didn't but the common man did to say it's hopeless.

I'm giving up on trying to change and I'm going to publicly go into these waters of baptism to say that it's not in me to change I can't. And when you come out of that place of acknowledgement I say to you behold the Lamb of God see your provision see what God has done on the cross see who Christ is.

Get ears to hear and let Jesus Christ glorify his own name inside of each one of us. Let's stand together please if you will. And for those that this applies to I'm going to ask in the annex in Roxbury at home on the internet to slip out of where you are and maybe get on your knees if that's appropriate in your living rooms.

And for those that are here you're simply tired of trying. You can join those who came to John and say I'm done. I'm finished. I've had it. I'm not covering failure with religion anymore. I have failed.

I can't get the victory. I'm coming to Jesus whether that's salvation whether that's just something you're battling with in your walk with God. Burn for truth. And you have the promise that Christ will bear the fruit of his life within you.

We're going to worship for a moment. And if this is something you would like to respond to you want to come to may I call it John's baptism this morning to give up on trying to be holy in your own strength.

Then please just come and we'll pray together in a few moments. It's an awesome thing when you come to the end of yourself. Because the end of ourselves is the beginning of God. And contrary to public opinion it's not a shameful thing to say I can't.

It's a shameful thing to keep on trying when God says you can't. I thank God for the wisdom that he gives to those that are here today. Because the next thing that comes to your spiritual ears you'd be able to hear.

You start hearing the Word of God. You start seeing the Lamb in the Old Testament. You start seeing the power of Jesus in the new. And you start sensing the willingness of God to make these words that are in this book a reality.

And he is the one who does it. It's Christ in you the hope of glory. It's got nothing to do with me. My part is to believe and just put one foot in front of the other. His part is to make these promises a reality.

And when I stumble and fall to pick me up and say let's just keep on going. It's going to get better tomorrow. That's the job. That's what God does. So I say to you at the altar today welcome to John's baptism that the end of the old nature the end of the old ways of trying to be godly and the beginning of letting Jesus take over behold the Lamb of God.