The Voice of One Cry Matthew 3:1-12

John the Baptist as the Greatest and the Forerunner of the Messiah

Truly, I say to you, among those born of women, there has arisen no one greater than John the Baptist.". These are the words of Jesus in Matthew 11 .11. And it's quite a statement. No one born of women is greater than John the Baptist.

Our world is fascinated with who is the greatest. There are some people from history that have the word great attached to their name because of their accomplishments during their life. We just saw one of them a couple weeks ago.

Herod the Great. And the Greco-Macedonian conqueror, Alexander the Great, would be another. But when our world thinks about great, we don't think about character. We know King Herod had horrible character.

When we think about greatness, we think about achievements. But when Jesus used the word great, He used it in a different way. What He meant by great is reflecting God's character. John the Baptist reflected God.

And to this point in history, besides Jesus, no one had reflected Him better. Jesus also had something else in mind when describing John the Baptist. He performed a very specific ministry that was so unique and so important.

John the Baptist alone would be the one who would prepare the way for the ministry of the Messiah. So this morning, we are going to see this great man perform his great calling. And we must listen to the call of God through this man.

As we continue our sermon series through Matthew, we will see this important man prepare the way. So as always, I encourage you to turn with me in a Bible to Matthew 3. We'll be looking at verses 1 -12 this morning.

And if you're using the Red Bible in the pews, I think it's on page 961 or something like that. You can try to find it there. This sermon is titled, The Voice of One Crying. And our big idea, our proposition, what this sermon is calling you to do is this.

Respond to God's call with judgment looming. Respond to God's call with judgment looming. And we're going to see three ways how we are to respond to God's call from our text. The first way how is by turning from your sin to God.

We'll see this in verses 1 -6. But before we jump into our text, let me give you a little recap of last week's sermon. We looked at the story in Jesus' life where his parents took him to Egypt because Herod sought to destroy him.

Herod, of course, wanted to eliminate him because he saw Jesus as a threat. An angel warned Joseph about Herod's search for the child. And so Joseph took Jesus along with Mary to Egypt. Now Herod did not know the precise location of this child king since the wise men never returned to him after being warned in a dream to leave town.

So Herod's plan was to wipe out all the children in Bethlehem, two years old and under. And he thought if I wipe all of them out, then one of them will have to be the child king. But of course, Herod failed.

Remember, Herod didn't fail when it went to eliminating people, right? He was highly successful at doing that, but he finally failed because God was protecting Jesus by sending them to Egypt. And what we saw is very important for everyone in this room who knows Jesus Christ.

What we saw is that God has always been for his people in history. Long before you were born, God was thinking of you. He protected Jesus from Herod, knowing that Jesus needed to live and earn your salvation for you, right?

If Jesus dies, you have no hope and you go to hell. He is your only hope to be brought into a right relationship with God. And God, of course, succeeded by protecting Jesus. And God is not only for you in saving you, but he's also for you with whatever you are facing in your life right now.

If he was for you in the past, then he's for you in the present. And you could take great comfort in that, and he will bring you safely to him forever in the future. So this should encourage us this morning as we think again about last week's sermon.

But this leads us to our text today, as we are introduced, as I've already mentioned, to a very important figure in the New Testament. So let's begin by reading the first two verses of chapter three, as we see John the Baptist.

In those days, John the Baptist came preaching in the wilderness of Judea. Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. Okay, let's stop right there. So the first phrase we see is in those days. From the end of chapter two to the beginning of chapter three about 30 years has passed.

The last time we saw Jesus, last Sunday, he was about a year old. When, remember the wise men visited him, his parents took him to Egypt. He's about a year old at that point. But now, as we will see, he's about 30 years old.

The only thing we know about Jesus' life between his baby toddler stage and his adulthood is one episode in the Gospel of Luke. That comes from Luke 2, 41 through 52, when Jesus' parents were looking for him and found him in the temple.

So we jump from his early childhood to his adulthood, where he's around the age of 30 years old. In fact, Luke mentions that in his Gospel. Jesus started his ministry at about the age of 30. This is the time when God chose to send the prophet who would prepare the way for Jesus.

What we see in verse one is that he's called John the Baptist. He was tagged with this title because of, it's obvious, right? And we're about to see him perform this in a little bit. What we see at the end of verse one is that he preached out in the wilderness or the sticks, as we would call it.

I mean, you can think about it, right? We're out in the sticks. So he's just preaching. There's nobody knows him. Nobody from the big town knows him, but he's out there preaching and people are being drawn to him as he preaches in the wilderness of Judea, which was the southern part of Israel.

And now what we see in verse two is how he's going to prepare the way for the Messiah. He isn't merely going to tell them that his ministry is starting, but he has to do something before Jesus comes. He has to prepare people's hearts before he comes.

So what John the Baptist does, as we see here in verse two, is he calls people to repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. So let's first look at the word repent and then we'll look at the word kingdom of heaven.

The word repent, many of you are, we're familiar with this term. We might not understand it as much, especially if you're new to the Christian faith. And in our world today, sadly enough, this word isn't used very much, even in churches.

People are afraid to use the word repent, but the Bible is so clear on the need to repent. In the Old Testament, when the Lord called Israel to repent, the Hebrew word for repent meant for one to turn from sinfulness and move toward righteousness.

I heard a pastor say one time, the Hebrew word is shuv, which sounds like shove. So it's to be pushed in a different direction. So to turn, that's what the Hebrew word meant. In the New Testament, the Greek word for repent meant to change one's mind.

So you once care nothing for God, and then one day you all of a sudden care a lot about God. Something happened there. There's a repentance that takes place. So both these words in the Hebrew, which is the Old Testament, and the Greek, which is in the New Testament, are getting after the same idea.

You are to see your sin as filthy and offensive to God, and you should have a desire to turn from it. When this desire takes a hold in your life, you will see change. This does not mean perfect change, but there will be change toward holiness when one truly repents.

If someone prays to receive Christ and there's no change in their life, what that shows is that there's no true repentance, right? There has to be change for there to be repentance. Repentance involves acknowledging to the Lord that you are sorrowful for your sins, like truly acknowledging it, and relying on Him to change you so that you can walk in His ways.

This is what John the Baptist is calling Israel to do, and all of us, to turn from our sin and walk in His ways. So that's the meaning of repentance. Now let's look at the meaning of the kingdom of heaven.

The Jews knew that the Messiah was coming, and so when He tells them the kingdom of heaven is at hand, He is telling them the King has arrived, and to prepare yourself for Him. You need to repent in order to prepare yourself for Him.

Matthew also uses the phrase kingdom of God later on in his gospel. Kingdom of heaven and kingdom of God are used interchangeably. So they mean the same thing. And not just in Matthew, but throughout the Old Testament.

The kingdom of God is the Christ coming to earth to reign, and of course, He comes the first time to save, and He's coming again to reign. So when we think kingdom of God, we need to think about that.

We need to think earthly kingdom. We need to think Christ reigning on the earth with His people. This call by John the Baptist in connection with His mention of the kingdom of heaven tells us what kind of place the kingdom of God will be.

This is gonna be a kingdom unlike anything else in the history of the world, because the people are actually gonna be good. They're gonna be changed people. The kingdom of God is a place of purity. In the future, Christ will reign a pure people, and much of Jesus' ministry is calling people to live as kingdom citizens now before the kingdom comes to the earth.

So to summarize, the kingdom is present. It's present in the sense that Christ came the first time, right, He accomplished His mission. People are being changed. We can live as kingdom citizens now, but it's future in the sense that He's not here yet, it's reigning.

Then the author Matthew tells us that John the Baptist is a fulfillment of Old Testament prophecy. He quotes Isaiah 40 verse three. Let me read verse three here. He says, for this is he who was spoken of by the prophet Isaiah when he said, the voice of one crying in the wilderness, prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight.

Okay, so he's quoting Isaiah 40 verse three, and this is not the only prophecy in the Old Testament about John the Baptist. Malachi 3 .1 says concerning him, behold, I send my messenger and he will prepare the way before me.

Then later on in Malachi 4, 5, and 6, it is said of him, behold, I will send you Elijah, the prophet before the great and awesome day of the Lord comes, and he will turn the hearts of fathers to their children and the hearts of children to their fathers, lest I come and strike the land with a decree of utter destruction.

John the Baptist is called Elijah, not because he was Elijah reincarnated, but because he is a prophet similar to Elijah as he calls people to repent, just like Elijah did in his day. And Jesus himself calls John the Baptist Elijah in Matthew 17, 12.

He tells his disciples, you have heard that Elijah is coming, referencing Malachi, and he says he has come and they killed him because of course John the Baptist, as we'll see later on, is beheaded. But in this prophecy from Isaiah, we see how precisely this prophecy is fulfilled.

John the Baptist cries or preaches, right? It's interesting, this morning we looked at Jeremiah.

In Sunday school, right?

Jeremiah was known as the weeping prophet. So sometimes preaching comes out like crying, right? You're just pleading with people to change, right? That's what preaching is. And his purpose is to prepare the way for the Lord, specifically the Messiah Jesus.

The importance of John's ministry is hard to overstate. He fulfills the all important ministry of tying the Old Testament period with the New Testament period. He is the bridge between the Old Testament prophets and the Christ and his apostles.

But John, outwardly speaking, is not the most impressive guy. He may not have seemed like the best candidate for the job. But then again, God doesn't often choose the love of society to bring his message to his people and bring a message of judgment to the world.

We get a little biographical sketch of John in verse four. Verse four says this. Now John wore a garment of camel's hair and a leather belt around his waist. And his food was locusts and wild honey. So John's attire was camel's hair.

He wore a leather belt around his waist. We could see that he was a rugged man. He got his clothes from a camel in his belt and his belt from cowhide. His clothes may have looked strange. But what looked even more strange was his diet.

You see his diet here? Locusts and wild honey. Anybody do that today? Anybody here eat something like that?

No.

So he had protein and carbs, right? Protein from the locusts, carbs from the honey. And he probably just drank water for a drink. Nothing fancy. And what we see is that he was a very simple man. Not flashy, not looking for the world to be impressed by him.

Lots of pastors today can learn from John the Baptist. I mean, sometimes you can see pastors on TV or something. They look so slick and they try to be so eloquent and the suit they wear is the most important thing in the world and they try to entertain.

That's not what John the Baptist was like at all. He was the opposite. People would look at him and say, why are people drawn to this guy? Clearly it was a work of God, right? Because if there's nothing in his outward appearance that would have drawn anyone to him other than the message.

So a proclaimer of the word of God is a messenger, not the attraction, right? God is the attraction. As John preached, the people, they weren't attracted to him in any way, but the message. Let's see the message here in verses five and six.

Let's see how successful it was. Then Jerusalem and all Judea and all the region about the Jordan were going out to him and they were baptized by him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins. You can see the picture here.

John is preaching in the wilderness, but word spreads about that he's preaching and he's preaching repentance. He's saying the kingdom of heaven is coming and people from all over the place, countryside and Jerusalem are being drawn to him.

And they're listening.

They're repenting. The people were to turn from their sins and follow God and his righteousness. And the place John was preaching from in the wilderness was near the Jordan. And so what a great place, right?

Let's go get baptized in the river. And in the Old Testament when a Gentile would become a Jew, when they would be proselytized and become a Jew, they would baptize them. So this was not a new practice for Jewish people, but he's doing a new kind of baptism here.

He's doing what we do every August when we dunk people in the water, right? And then lift them out. The Greek word baptizo literally means to immerse. Now John's baptism obviously preceded the finished work of Jesus Christ.

We talk about the meaning of baptism every August at our baptism. And what we say is that it doesn't save you, but it symbolizes what has happened to you spiritually. The Apostle Paul tells us the meaning of baptism in Romans 6, one through four, where you've died to the power of sin and you've been raised to new life in Christ.

And what John is doing here is foreshadowing the true baptism that would be commanded by Christ to his followers. Of course, Jesus commands his disciples in the Great Commission, Matthew 28, 19, and 20.

Go and make disciples of all nations and do what? Baptize them. And so how do you make a disciple? Right, you preach the gospel, people repent, and then they're baptized. That's how people enter the Christian faith.

That's how you cross from death to life. In the parallel account in Luke 24, 27, Jesus says that repentance for the forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in his name to all nations. Now as John the Baptist calls these people to repentance, the Lord did a marvelous work.

What verses five and six tell us is that many recognized their sin and pursued righteousness. This is God's call for everyone here today. Many of you have done this, but in a room this size, some of you probably haven't.

What these verses are calling you to do is to respond to God's call with judgment looming. And we'll look at the judgment here in point number three. But the first way how we must respond to God's call with judgment looming is by turning from your sin to God, as we have seen here, just as the people did when John the Baptist called them to repent.

And the call is there for today, if you don't know Christ, to repent and believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and you will be saved. The second way how we must respond to God's call with judgment looming is by refusing to believe that you are good before God without repentance.

False Religion, the Pharisees and Sadducees, and the Need for Repentance

We'll see this in verses seven through nine. I'll start with verses seven and eight. But when he, John the Baptist, saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming to his baptism, he said to them, "'You brood of vipers, "'who warned you to flee from the wrath to come?

"'Bear fruit in keeping with repentance.'". That's not very nice, right? He just goes right at them. You brood of vipers. The two groups that were present as John was baptizing, all of these people, were the Pharisees and the Sadducees, right?

So there's all these commoners, mostly commoners coming to be baptized. And then there's two groups that are looking on. They're wondering, what's going on here? Why is everyone going to John? And these two groups are the Pharisees and the Sadducees.

I wanna give a little bit of a biographical sketch of these two groups. The Pharisees were a Jewish sect that formed probably a century or two before the time of Christ. These were a people who were known for their insistence on keeping the law.

And that's good, right? But the problem is, is they did it the wrong way and they added laws to the law that God had given, right? They had all these human laws. And one author said that they were legalistic isolationists who had no regard or respect for those outside their sect, right?

So they looked down on other Jews. They really looked down on Gentiles. They thought they were the scum of the earth and they thought we're the chosen ones. All these other people are the reprobates. God loves us.

He doesn't love them. And they, and of course we know from the New Testament, they didn't follow, they weren't true believers. They were just making their own way. They weren't following God's way. They weren't repenting.

They were just doing their own thing, trying to earn their own righteousness. And because of this, they thought they were going to receive a great reward in heaven. But as we just read, John the Baptist calls them brood of vipers.

And Jesus had the same view of them. He said the same thing to them in Matthew 23, 33. All of their religion was external and there was no true repentance in their heart. They thought they were good, when in reality, their soul was very sick.

The next group that stood before John the Baptist, that he also refers to as brood of vipers, were the Sadducees. These people were every bit as bad as the Pharisees. However, they were bad in a different way.

The Sadducees were the liberals, while the Pharisees were the conservatives. Let's not think politically here, but religiously. On one end, one can appear to follow God's law outwardly, but be far from him.

That would be a conservative. On the other hand, people can disregard what God says and not even put up the charade that they're a follower of God. And that would be more of a liberal-minded religious.

And these people were irreligious. Of course, the Sadducees, they were the secular ones of the two of these groups. This group arose around the same time as the Pharisees. The Pharisees, this group probably came up a couple hundred years before Christ, and that's when the Sadducees came up.

They came from the priestly aristocracy, so they came from the higher-up, well-to-do class in Judaism. They were skilled politically, and not in a good way, in a bad way. They compromised to the point where they would climb the ladder.

They knew how to gain power. They were secularists who mostly denied the supernatural. They did not believe in life after death, so they lived for the present, trying to get as much as they could out of life in this world.

And their compromise, and climbing the ladder when they compromised, led the Romans to give them some power as a result. The Sadducees, they were ethnic Jews, but they didn't practice their religion. So maybe someone who grows up in a Christian country, but they don't practice, that would be like the Sadducees.

So this background helps us understand why John was so hard on them. He didn't come up to them and say, hey guys, how you doing? And shake their hands. No, as they come up to him, he knows who these people are, and he's not gentle with them, which is interesting.

And sometimes it's appropriate not to be, right? Jesus wasn't gentle with these people. John wasn't gentle with them. So we have to have wisdom on which people to be gracious towards, right? And which to be firm with, right?

As the elders of our church, Mark, Rob, and I, if someone comes into this church and is causing issues, and has been very divisive, and is teaching a false doctrine, you know, we have to address that in a firm way to that person.

And just as Jesus did that to the Pharisees. So what John the Baptist tells them in verse eight is to bear fruit in keeping with repentance. In other words, if they repent, then they will see true good works.

God is not impressed with the external deeds of religious people who have no love for Him. The Pharisees had forgotten the greatest commandment of Deuteronomy 6 .5, which is what? To love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, and might.

The Pharisees in particular did everything for themselves, thinking that they could earn their way to heaven. And the Sadducees were so focused on this world, they were not prepared for the next. Now, as I'm saying this, you might think this sounds like our world.

And it is. These two groups are very well represented in our world. But let's first look at the Pharisees. There are people today going to church who are just doing their duty. They want to go to heaven when they die.

So if you do enough good things, then the belief is that God will let you into His kingdom. Ask yourself, is that you, right? We're good religious people.

Is that you?

Do you have true religion, which comes through repentance, recognizing your sin and your great need for a Savior? Or do you have a false religion, which comes through thinking you are good enough and you have no need to repent?

In the 2004 Athens Olympics, there was quite a moment during an event that hardly anybody pays attention to, but people paid attention to it because of what happened. There was an archer who, he had one shot to go, and if he hit the bullseye, he was going to win gold.

And so he sets up, okay, Mark has taught me how to shoot here, so I'm gonna try, right? So he sets up, he lets go, the arrow goes, and it hits the bullseye. He thought he won gold. There was a problem, though.

He hit the wrong bullseye. And so instead of winning gold, he finished in eighth place. His name was Matthew Emmons. And could you imagine that? He thought he was going the right way. He thought he was hitting the right target.

He thought he was gonna go to heaven. Okay, not this guy in particular, but you can see where I'm going with this, right? The target was the wrong one for life. That's how the Pharisees lived. They hit the wrong target.

And they're in hell.

The right target is repentance. The wrong target is, I can do it on my own. I can earn my own salvation. I'm a good religious person. And as we think about churches, right? This is more common. We're far less likely to see a Sadducee walk through our doors than a Pharisee.

So we need to ask, are you truly following Christ, or are you just trying to be a good person, trying to earn your way, trying to be a good religious person? There's lots of people out there like that.

And I pray that no one in this room is that. And if you are, repent today and truly follow the Lord. Secondly, there are people all over the world who are like the Sadducees. They care nothing for God, but are secular.

These are the type of people we are much likely to see walk through our door on a Sunday morning. But they need Christ, and we would love for them to hear the good news. And so we should invite them. And this morning, Sean and I were talking about, and Sean and the Sunday school were talking about inviting people to the Christmas carol on December 8th,.

Right?

What an opportunity for unbelievers to come and hear the gospel. Invite them to the Christmas service. What an opportunity. The Sadducees were worldly.

They loved the world.

And nobody would confuse them with the Pharisees, right? The Pharisees, these were the good religious people. The Sadducees were the worldly ones. Both groups need Jesus. So that helps us think through this here.

The kind of people that John was talking to. Now, John the Baptist continues to address these two groups before him. And he does not pull any punches. But before I read this next verse, let me say this though.

He's so hard on the Sadducees because they had a Jewish heritage, right? They knew better. And they just forsook it, right? If you're talking to the average unbeliever, you don't want to just go up to them and say Brutal Vipers, okay?

Let me be very careful on that. He's going after the hard because of their background, right? He's like, you guys know better. And you've given that up and you're living for this world. So, okay, let's see what John the Baptist says here.

He doesn't pull any punches once again in verse nine. And this is what he says to them. And do not presume to say to yourselves, we have Abraham as our father. For I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children for Abraham.

John the Baptist is telling them, you cannot appeal to the fact that since you derived from Abraham, you are in a good standing with God. For you to be in a good standing before God, you need to repent, right?

That's what he's already called them to do. You need true faith to enter a true relationship with God. He even says that God is able to raise up people for him from these stones. I always wondered what this meant.

And as I studied it this week, he's not talking about the rocks on the ground. He's talking about the Gentiles. Ezekiel gives us the picture of people who have a heart of stone. And he's saying, I can raise up people from the Gentiles who did not descend from Abraham like you did.

And Jesus says this later on in the Gospel in chapter 8, verses 11 and 12. He says, I tell you, many will come from east and west and recline at table with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven, while the sons of the kingdom will be thrown into the outer darkness.

So in that passage, Jesus is referring to the Gentiles. And this has a rich application for us. Just because you grow up in a Christian community does not mean you belong to God. For you to belong to the Lord, faith and repentance needs to be in your heart.

And you will remain in the faith to the finish line. This is true faith. This is true religion. Sometimes you hear people say, this person needs to make their faith their own. Because you live off your parents' faith or you live off the church people's faith.

And you don't have a personal relationship with God. But the Bible calls everyone to have a personal relationship with the Lord by repenting, by turning from your sin, by following Him, by living a changed life.

A nominal faith doesn't cut it with God. Your faith must be sincere. So our second point here, respond to God's call with judgment looming. The second way how is by refusing to believe that you are good before God without repentance.

Now in our third point, we're gonna see the judgment part of this passage. We must respond to God's call with judgment looming. The third point is this. The third way how is by understanding that Jesus will repay each one according to their true standing.

Jesus will repay each according to their true standing. Verses 10 through 12. Let me read those right now. John the Baptist says, "'Even now the ax is laid to the root of the trees. "'Every tree therefore that does not bear fruit "'is cut down and thrown into the fire.

"'I baptize with water for repentance. "'But he who is coming after me is mightier than I, "'whose sandals I am not worthy to carry. "'He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. "'His winnowing fork is in his hand "'and he will clear his threshing floor "'and gather his wheat into the barn, "'but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.'".

The Bible is very clear that judgment is coming. John the Baptist is one of many messengers who describes what is to come and the urgent need for everyone everywhere to repent. John the Baptist gives us the picture of urgency in verse 10.

He says, "'Even now the ax is laid to the root of the trees. "'The Lord is ready to swing the ax "'and so the need to repent is urgent.'". What we saw in verse eight is that true believers are those who bear fruit in keeping with repentance.

Then what he says in the second line of verse 10 is that anyone who does not repent and bear fruit, anyone who does not show him or herself to be a genuine believer will be thrown into the fire. This is a picture of hell, the punishment that sinners deserve for their sins.

And I remind you of the reality of this place. Most in our world laugh at it and how flippantly the word hell is used in our culture. It's a part of people's regular vocabulary. And people even say that they wanna go there with their buddies someday, having no idea what the real hell is like.

It is no joking matter. It's a real place where real people go and it's unbelievably horrible with no hope of ever getting out. That's why we preach the gospel at this church because we don't want anyone to ever go there.

There's a comedy group, maybe you've heard of them, Penn and Teller. One half of this duo, Penn Gillette, he described an experience that he had which was quite moving. After one of his shows, a man came up with a New Testament Bible to give it to him, to share the gospel with Penn because he knew he was an atheist.

And so Penn, there's a video of him online where he talks about this experience. And he says, this man who brought this book up to me, this Bible to me, is a good man. He's like, I don't agree with him.

I'm still an atheist, but this man's a good man. And he says, why? He says, he's a good man because this man believes that judgment's coming. And he is warning me of this judgment. And Penn says, if an 18-wheeler is gonna come and run over me, how much do you have to hate me not to push me out of the way before it comes, right?

So the most loving thing you could do is to share the gospel with someone. And this was an atheist who said this. Now, John the Baptist here previews the one who is going to separate the believer from the unbeliever in the future, at the future judgment, the one who's coming after him in verse 11.

He already said in verse two that the kingdom of heaven is at hand and to proclaim that the king is coming is to proclaim that justice is coming, so that judgment is coming, right? And judgment can't happen until the king comes.

And that's coming in the future. What John the Baptist does is contrast here the position of the believer on one hand with the position of the unbeliever on the other. The believer will receive the Holy Spirit.

The baptism of the Holy Spirit is also described in 1 Corinthians 12, verse 13, where we learn that the baptism of the Spirit is when one enters the body of Christ upon conversion, right? That's when you enter the universal church, when you become a follower of Christ and you receive the Holy Spirit.

The other end here that John contrasts is the place of the believer who will receive judgment. And that's represented by the reference to fire, right? So one receives the Holy Spirit and his future blessedness, at present blessedness too, and then one receives fire.

The one who remains an unbeliever lacks the presence of the Spirit and judgment awaits him or her. The Spirit is our guarantee into heaven when we die or Christ returns, as Ephesians 1 .14 tells us. And the unbeliever lacks this guarantee, right?

The unbeliever lacks the Holy Spirit. The contrast between believer and unbeliever continues in verse 12. John the Baptist tells us that he will gather his people, his wheat into the barn, but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.

Right, so he's comparing and contrasting. Believers on one hand, unbelievers on the other. And what John the Baptist is describing is the judgment at Jesus' second coming. Now in one sense, when you die, a judgment has happened, right?