WWUTT 1912 Bear Fruit in Keeping With Repentance (Matthew 3:7-12)

The Pharisees and Sadducees were false teachers who told the people that in order to be righteous you have to do all of these things.

But righteousness is not dependent upon what we do, it's dependent upon what Christ has done for us when we understand the text.

This is When We Understand The Text, a daily Bible study in the word of Christ, that men and women of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.

Tell your friends about our ministry at www .utt .com. Here's your teacher, Pastor Gabe.

Thank you, Becky. In our study of the Gospel of Matthew, we've been reading about the ministry of John the

Baptist in Matthew chapter 3. And this is leading up to the baptism of Jesus in verses 13 to 17, which we'll get to tomorrow.

But let's pick up where we left off yesterday. So I'm going to start reading here in verse 7 and go through verse 12 out of the

Legacy Standard Bible. But when he saw many of the

Pharisees and Sadducees coming for his baptism, he said to them,

You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come, therefore bear fruit in keeping with repentance?

And do not suppose that you can say to yourselves, We have Abraham as our father, for I say to you that from these stones

God is able to raise up children to Abraham, and the axe is already laid at the root of the trees.

Therefore every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.

As for me, I baptize you with water for repentance, but he who is coming after me is mightier than I, and I am not fit to remove his sandals.

He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will thoroughly clear his threshing floor, and he will gather his wheat into the barn, but he will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire.

So again, this particular section that we've been looking at since last week begins with verses 1 through 3 introducing us to John the

Baptist and telling us the nature of his ministry as prophesied by Isaiah.

That reference in verse 3, the voice of one crying in the wilderness, make ready the way of the

Lord, make his path straight. Verses 4 through 6 tell us something descriptive about John the

Baptist and the people coming out to him, why they were coming to him. But then verses 7 through 12, which we're looking at today, this is

John's address specifically to the Pharisees and Sadducees, but even to the people who were there.

Now in verse 7, we've got two groups of religious leaders mentioned here, the names of which we have not seen in the

Bible until we get to Matthew chapter 3. Who are the Pharisees and the

Sadducees? These are not two religious sects that were defined in the law of Moses somewhere, nor do we even see them appointed during the time of the temple.

So where did we get the Pharisees and Sadducees from? Well, this goes back not quite 200 years before the events that we're reading about here to the

Maccabean revolt. Perhaps you're familiar with the story of Antiochus IV Epiphanes, who was the

Hellenistic king that ruled the Seleucid Empire from 175 until his death in 164

BC. He led an army into Jerusalem and went into the temple and sacrificed a pig on the altar of God to try to demonstrate that he was greater than God.

Antiochus proclaimed himself to be the incarnation of Zeus. In fact, his very name,

Epiphanes, was an exaltation of himself as a god, and he wanted the people to believe that he was even greater than the

Hebrew god. He wanted to do away with any Jewish distinctives and introduce them to Greek and Hellenistic customs.

Well, this was met with immediate pushback. Judas Maccabeus, who was the son of the priest

Mattathias, led the Maccabean revolt against the Seleucid Empire from 167 to 160

BC. We read about this in the Apocrypha, in the book of 1st and 2nd Maccabees. These are not divinely inspired books, but nonetheless, they do contain history.

We read about some of the things that happened in the intertestamental period, those few centuries between the

Old Testament and the New Testament when God was not speaking through his prophets. We can read about the history of what was going on in Israel at that time.

So because the Greeks were trying to assimilate the Jews into Greek customs, it became a serious thing for the

Hebrews to separate themselves from the heathens. They would not associate with them in any way.

They would not marry into any non -Jewish families.

And so the faithful became known as the Assyrians who looked to Judas Maccabeus as their leader.

Later on, they took on the name the Pharisees. And this kind of formed a particular fraternity or party holding fast to those dear customs of the

Hebrews, not just according to the law. But the Pharisees even saw it as their duty to put a hedge about the law.

You've surely heard that term before, and you wonder where it came from. It really came from the Pharisees.

So in addition to keeping God's law, they wanted to establish other laws to keep the law of God pure.

So you have to obey all these other laws, too, in order to really be sanctified.

If you want to be as holy and as righteous before God as the Pharisees, you had to do everything that they said to do.

Now there were different teachers. The Pharisees actually were derived from two particular teachers.

There was the school of Shammai and the school of Hillel. The former teacher was more rigid in his

Sabbatarianism, so obeying the Sabbath laws and following that hedge about the law, doing things that were even beyond what the law of God instructed his people to do.

But then the second group that were from the school of Hillel, they were a little gentler in character, and their moral precepts were a little more broad.

They weren't quite as strict as the school of Shammai. But regardless of that, the

Pharisees were not connected to the priesthood. So whenever you read about the priests in the temple, they were not

Pharisees. The priests were not chosen from the Pharisees. These were lay religious leaders. Now of course we think of the

Pharisees and the Sadducees as being the bad guys, because they're false teachers. They're leading people astray. They're adding to the law of God, more so on the side of the

Pharisees than the Sadducees. Adding to God's word and telling people they have to follow all these extra laws as well.

So of course being false shepherds, they're leading the people into false doctrine.

But that doesn't mean that the people disliked the Pharisees. Since they were lay religious leaders, the

Pharisees hung out with the rest of the people. Where else were they going to get the law of God? How else would they know the way that they must live in order to please

God? In addition to the Pharisees, there were the Sadducees. So you had the Sanhedrin, which was the legal council, and they were made up of the

Pharisees and Sadducees. The Sadducees were much more influential. They were wealthy.

They were upper echelon. They would rub shoulders with even the political leaders of those nations that would control or rule over the

Hebrews, the Greeks, and then the Romans. It was from the Sadducees that the

Hebrews would get their temple priests. In fact, that very name, Sadducee, is derived from Zadok the priest.

You can kind of hear a similarity, Zadok to Sadducee, but they claimed a consistent line of priesthood that went all the way back to the priest at the time of Solomon, who was

Zadok. Now the Sadducees and the Pharisees did not always get along. They believed different things.

The Sadducees were false teachers, too. In fact, one of those false doctrines that the Sadducees were known for believing was that they denied the resurrection of the dead.

Matthew 22, 23, on that day, some Sadducees who say there is no resurrection came to Jesus and asked him a question.

We don't know exactly why the Sadducees denied the resurrection, but one theory is that the

Sadducees taught in order for your work before God to be genuine, you had to believe that there was no reward for it.

You were not working to attain a reward. That was the only way that your work could be done in true holiness and humility and submission unto

God, is if you did not expect anything in return. Somehow from that, the teaching just kind of morphed itself into believing there's no resurrection of the dead.

Because if you can't get any reward for the work that you do, you can't be rewarded after death.

If there's no resurrection of the dead, then what was the point of all of their teaching? Well, in order to get the most fulfilling life, in order to have the favor of God while you're alive, you have to obey his law.

Otherwise, your life is going to be miserable and God is going to afflict you. So that's how the Sadducees were able to use this teaching to keep people in line.

It wasn't because of the promise of eternal reward. They denied any of that. It's because if you want to be able to live your best life now, you have to keep all the laws of God.

So in this way, the Pharisees and the Sadducees were alike, building hedge about the law and having to do all these extra laws that they added to it and things of this nature.

So here we have the Pharisees and the Sadducees that are mentioned in Matthew 3, 7.

And even they are coming out to John in the wilderness to be baptized by him, according to the way that Matthew is written this year.

When he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees, he being John the Baptist, he saw the religious leaders coming for his baptism and he said to them, you brood of vipers.

They are poisonous snakes. And this goes back to the Psalms, like Psalm 14, where it says the venom of asps is under their lips.

These who deceive with lies, and this is the way that John the Baptist describes them.

They are a brood of vipers. Anybody who falls in with the Pharisees and the Sadducees will be poisoned by their false teaching.

Now Jesus describes them the same way. This particular insult comes up again at the end of Jesus' ministry.

It's the last time he addresses the Pharisees and the Sadducees with the seven woes in Matthew chapter 23.

So it's kind of like this confrontation of Pharisees and Sadducees is bookended with this insult that they're a brood of vipers.

And John went on to say to them, who warned you to flee from the wrath to come, therefore bear fruit in keeping with repentance.

So that first line is a little curious. Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? Well, is that why they're coming out there to be baptized by John?

They're fleeing from the wrath to come? Another way of understanding this, that word warn could also be translated teach.

So who taught you to flee from the wrath to come? Now the understanding here is that they're attempting to flee something without repentance.

So maybe they have heard the word of John the Baptist preaching in the wilderness.

Remember the word that he preached according to verse two, repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.

The Pharisees and Sadducees understand this according to the prophets, that the judgment of God is coming with his return.

So therefore they're coming out to John to be baptized. And maybe that baptism is going to help them to escape from the judgment that is coming, but they're not really repenting.

So John said, repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. They're just coming out to be baptized, almost as kind of like a syncretism sort of a thing.

Maybe if I do enough religious practices, then I'll have covered myself to protect myself from the judgment that's coming.

And so they're coming out to John the Baptist to receive that very thing. I'm speculating on that point because again, we don't really know their motivation, at least according to Matthew's gospel here, but maybe that's the reason why they're coming out.

They want to be baptized so they can be sure that they're going to be covered since we've got this guy out in the wilderness prophesying that the king is on the way and he could be the forerunner to the

Messiah, the fulfillment of Isaiah 40. So they come out to be baptized. John rebukes them and says, who warned you to flee from the wrath to come?

And then adds verse eight, therefore bear fruit in keeping with repentance. If you're not going to repent, you're not going to escape judgment.

You can't just do works thinking that you've got yourself covered because you are still guilty before a holy

God. You must bear fruit in keeping with repentance. If you're going to claim that you have repented from unbelief, from sin, from injustice, from all these things that you do, then you've got to bear fruit.

You've got to see it in your life that you're no longer walking in wickedness, but you're walking in righteousness.

And for us who are followers of Jesus, that is an essential component of our faith. If we say that we are followers of Christ, there should be evidence of it in our lives.

Jesus will say coming up later on in Matthew seven, you will know them by their fruits. A good tree cannot produce bad fruit and a bad tree cannot produce good fruit.

And John uses that same metaphor here in verse 10, which we're getting to in just a moment.

But anyway, telling them bear fruit in keeping with repentance. If you say you've repented, prove it, show it.

And do not suppose, verse nine, that you can say to yourselves, we have Abraham as our father for I say to you from these stones,

God is able to raise up children to Abraham. So the Pharisees and Sadducees were not going to be able to rely on their works in order to save them, nor could they rely on their lineage to save them.

Well, we're descended of Abraham. So surely we're already saved.

The judgment of God is not going to come upon us. But John the Baptist says, no, I tell you, you're looking for children for Abraham.

God could turn these rocks into children for Abraham. Now, that in itself is a metaphor because we who are

Gentiles, I'm assuming most of my audience is not Jewish or Jewish in heritage.

So you're a Gentile. We who are Gentiles were once heart of heart against God.

We did not know the oracles of God. We did not know God. We were not seeking God. But yet it's through the proclamation of the gospel of Jesus Christ that has come to us that our hearts have been softened, that we may turn from our sin to the

Lord Jesus Christ and live. Repentance has happened there. We have repented from our sin and our unbelief, and we have turned toward Christ and we believe in him.

And by faith in Jesus, we are saved. We have even become children of Abraham.

So we've gone from hard -hearted Gentiles to children of Abraham. As it says in Galatians 3, 7, those who are of faith, those are the sons of Abraham.

And as we read in verse 29 at the end of that chapter, if you belong to Christ, then you are

Abraham's seed, heirs according to promise. So in Christ Jesus, we've been made children of Abraham.

That's exactly what John the Baptist is talking about here. How God was going to take even hardened sinners and give them a heart of flesh as prophesied about in Ezekiel 36, that we may become children of God and therefore the seed of Abraham's spiritual offspring.

John goes on in verse 10 to say, and the axe is already laid at the root of the trees.

Therefore, every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.

And this is the warning to the Pharisees and the Sadducees. You must bear fruit in keeping with repentance. If you have not truly repented, if you do not truly serve the

Lord, our God, then of course that's going to be demonstrated by the fruit that you produce.

Is it going to be good fruit or bad fruit? Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.

The judgment of God. Verse 11, as for me, I baptize you with water for repentance, but he who is coming after me is mightier than I.

So he's talking about, I'm preparing you for his coming. And when he comes, I'm not even fit to remove his sandals.

John demonstrating his humility here. He will baptize you with the

Holy Spirit and with fire. Now this is spoken about in a very positive way.

To be baptized in the Holy Spirit is to just be covered with God, fully immersed in his spirit.

And then fire being that purifying fire that burns out the bad and purifies us if to make good.

So the spirit and the fire that he brings purifies us and makes us holy.

This is the baptism that we receive in Christ. But then the next fire that's mentioned in verse 12, this is the fire of judgment.

His winnowing fork is in his hand and he will thoroughly clear his threshing floor and he will gather his wheat into the barn.

That's those who believe in Christ, but he will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire.

The promise of hell. In Malachi chapter four, it says, for behold, the day is coming, burning like a furnace and all the arrogant and every worker of wickedness will be chaff.

And the day that is coming will set them aflame, says Yahweh of hosts, so that it will leave them neither root nor branch.

But for you who fear my name, the son of righteousness will rise with healing in its wings and you will go forth and skip about like calves from the stall and you will tread down the wicked for they will be ashes under the soles of your feet on the day which

I am preparing, says Yahweh of hosts. And that is talking about the coming of the

Christ. And so here he is as a fulfillment, even of that prophecy that was made in Malachi four, he will gather his wheat into the barn.

But those who do not believe he will burn up with unquenchable fire.

And so we need to understand that even now, that it's those who are in Christ who are saved.

Those who have put their faith and trust in him have eternal life. But whoever does not believe will perish in the consuming fire of God's judgment.

My friends, just like the Pharisees and Sadducees told the people that there were certain things that they had to do in order to be righteous.

So there are many false teachers today telling us the same thing. You have to do this in order to have a fulfilling life.

You have to believe this in order to be liked by the world or liked by the culture.

You have to do this in order to be saved, but it is not dependent upon what we do.

It is dependent upon Christ and what he has done for us.

So you will receive fire, my friends, either it will be the fire of the

Holy Spirit that comes upon you because you have faith in Jesus Christ, or it will be the fire of judgment that comes upon all who do not believe.

Turn to the Lord Jesus Christ and live, bear fruit in keeping with repentance. Live for him today.

Heavenly Father, I thank you for what we've read here, and I pray that we would be mindful of those false teachers out there that try to lead us astray just like the

Pharisees and Sadducees did with all kinds of additional things on God's Word or new and strange teachings that they say that we need in order to have a fulfilling life.

We have everything that we could ever need in Christ. So forgive us our sins and lead us in paths of righteousness today.

For your name's sake we ask in Jesus' name, Amen. Pastor Gabe keeps a regular blog sharing personal thoughts, alerting readers to false teachers, and offering commentary on the church and social issues.

You can find a link to the blog through our website, www .utt .com. Thank you for listening and join us again tomorrow as we continue our study in God's Word when we understand the text.