FBC Daily Devotional – June 4, 2021

Faith Baptist Church

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Well, good Friday to you. Last day of the work week, a typical work week anyway, and looking forward to the weekend.

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The Lord's Day is coming, and look forward to the time we gather together as God's people in Sunday school at 9 .30

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on Sunday morning. We're studying God's Word together as you know in the different classes, adults, children, and so forth, and 10 .30

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we gather for worshiping the Lord together. Always a highlight of the week, and then we meet again at 6 o 'clock on Sunday evening, and we call it a fellowship service.

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We sing some songs. We share some testimonies and a message from God's Word, looking in the gospel of Mark, going through Mark on these

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Sunday evenings. So I hope if you can get away to get to church on Sunday, you'll come be part of our gathering.

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If that's not a possibility, you can't get out, you're sick, you're confined to your home, whatever, then join us by live stream, because we do live stream each of those different events.

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So join us on the Lord's Day. Well, on today's reading, we read in Luke chapter 3, and reading about the ministry of John the

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Baptist, and John's ministry was to prepare the way of the

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Lord, and normally the typical process of preparing for a dignitary as he arrives on the scene was for this front people to go ahead of him down the highway, the pathway, however, he's getting there, and they would smooth things out on the road.

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If there were potholes, they'd fill them in. If there were bad bumps in the road, they'd level off the road, so he didn't have the bumps.

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I mean, after all, the dignitaries didn't ride in luxury Cadillacs and limousines like our dignitaries today, where they've got these wonderful suspension systems, and it's a smooth ride even in Chicago pothole roads.

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So they needed, for the comfort of the dignitary, they would prepare the way in that method.

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But not John. Not John. John's method of preparing the way of the

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Lord, of smoothing things out, filling in potholes and so forth, was to stir things up.

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And so he'd have people come out, and we read that he called them in verse 7, this multitude, brood of vipers.

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You brood of vipers. Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? Who do you think you are coming out here, you brood of vipers?

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I mean, this is not, he didn't go to a Dale Carnegie course on how to win friends and influence people, obviously.

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Very easily, what John had to say and the way he had to say it could have stirred up all kinds of animosity, and I suppose it did.

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But at the same time, there were those whose hearts were ready to hear.

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And so after we read about him saying, you brood of vipers, who warned you to come, there were all these people who said, what should we do?

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What should we do? What should we do? And he told them what to do. They were eager to hear, you know, what would it be for us to accept repentance, you know, to repent and to accept the baptism of repentance.

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What should we do? What should we do? So many, instead of getting angry at him and rejecting him and saying, wow, what in the world did

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I come out here in the wilderness to listen to this clown for? No, instead of doing that, they were convicted, they repented, and they received baptism.

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And that's still true today. The heart that the Holy Spirit prepares to receive the

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Lord is a humbled heart and turns to him, is convicted, is broken, and is repentant.

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Now while the Holy Spirit will quicken some hearts, quicken them unto repentance and faith, there are others like Herod that will be angered and want to silence the message and or the messenger.

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So we read in verse 18 and following, with many other exhortations John preached to the people, but Herod, but Herod, being rebuked by him concerning Herodias, his brother

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Philip's wife, for all the evils which Herod had done, he added this above all, that he shut

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John up into prison. So instead of being convicted and saying, what should I do? What should I do about this sin?

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You shut him up in prison. I'll silence that guy. I'll silence him. Well, what's your spirit?

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What's your, what's your response to the convicting word of God?

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When the word convicts you and and chastens you and points out sin and does it bring you to repentance?

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Or does it bring you to anger? Well, I trust the fact that you're watching something like this, your heart is sensitive enough that you would be repentant.

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You would turn, turn from your sin. Our Father and our God, I pray that you would give us that kind of a heart, a heart that's prepared by your spirit to receive the word, even if it hurts, to be repentant when we're convicted.

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Have that kind of humility. So do your spirit, may the spirit do

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His work in our hearts to prepare us for the word as it comes. And this we pray in Jesus name.

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Amen. All right. Well, you have a good rest of your Friday, and I hope you have a wonderful weekend.