The King and His Forerunner

A Call to repentance!

Matthew 3:1–3 ESV

1 In those days John the Baptist came preaching in the wilderness of Judea, 2 “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” 3 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.’ ”

The Prophet - John the Baptizer

Matthew identifies John as the prophesied forerunner of the Messiah from Isaiah 40:3

Isaiah 40:3 ESV

3 A voice cries: “In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord; make straight in the desert a highway for our God.

John is the first prophet in 400 years

This was John, born of Zachariahs and Elizabeth.

6 months older than Jesus, his cousin.

His job description? “Prepare the way of the Lord; make His paths straight.”

The passage Matthew quotes from (Isaiah 40:3) has in mind building up a great road for the arrival of a majestic king. The idea is to fill in the holes and knock down the hills that are in the way.

The idea of preparing the way of the LORD is a word picture, because the real preparation must take place in our hearts. Building a road is very much like the preparation God must do in our hearts.

His message? “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand!”

Meaning of Repent

Not a feeling of sorrow for sin!

Repent is an action word. It’s a change of mind that moves one to a change in behavior/action.

Repentance does not describe something we must do before we come to God; it describes what coming to God is like. If you are in New York, and I tell you to come to Los Angeles, I don’t really need to say “Leave New York and come to Los Angeles.” To come to Los Angeles is to leave New York, and if I haven’t left New York, I certainly haven’t come to Los Angeles. We can’t come to the kingdom of heaven unless we leave our sin and self.

The Kingdom of Heaven is at Hand

For the kingdom of heaven is at hand: John wanted people to know that the kingdom of heaven was near — as close as your hand. It wasn’t as distant or as much of a dream as they had imagined. This is why John was so urgent in his call to repentance. If the kingdom of heaven is at hand, then they must get ready now.

John’s main message wasn’t “You’re a sinner, you need to repent.” John’s main message was “Messiah the King is coming.” The call to repentance was the response to the news that the King and His kingdom were coming — indeed, are already here.

Matthew 3:4–8 ESV

4 Now John wore a garment of camel’s hair and a leather belt around his waist, and his food was locusts and wild honey. 5 Then Jerusalem and all Judea and all the region about the Jordan were going out to him, 6 and they were baptized by him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins. 7 But when he 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? 8 Bear fruit in keeping with repentance.

John and Elijah

It wasn’t that John the Baptist was trying to be this Elijah-like forerunner predicted in Malachi 4:5, as if he decided on his own to make this his destiny and public image. John knew the words spoken to his father Zacharias before he was born: . (Luke 1:17)

Luke 1:17 ESV

17 and he will go before him in the spirit and power of Elijah, to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the disobedient to the wisdom of the just, to make ready for the Lord a people prepared.”

This is simply who John the Baptist was, and one might say he was this before he was even created in the womb.

Who was John calling to Repent and why?

He was calling all Israel to repentance, but he aggressively confronted the Religious Elite of the day.

This was a literal movement amongst the people of Jerusalem, all Judea and the area around the Jordan river.

Today we would have used cleverly devised marketing plans and marketing mail outs, facebook adds, or Google adds to get the word out.

Not so with John the baptizer. Remember, God had literally been silent for 400 years. He was still active, don’t miss that! It’s just that the Jewish people hadn’t had a “word from the Lord” through a prophet for 400 years and now there’s this guy who is dressed up like Elijah and he’s on the same diet! Needless to say, this got everyone’s attention!

In fact the Jewish historian Josephus actually wrote more about John the baptist than he did about Jesus.

What did John’s Baptism mean?

It signified a person’s willingness to turn from his or her sins and from the false belief that being born a Jew automatically put a person in right relationship with God.

Jews were already familiar with baptism because it was one of 4 steps for a gentile to become a Jew. (the other three were sacrifice, circumcision, and memorization of portions of Moses’ Law).

Confession of their sins - literally means that I agree with God that I am a sinner.

Baptism and confession follows a mental decision to repent. To turn away from your sin, agree with God about your sinful nature, and identify with Christ.

Here in this account John is calling the Jews to repent and be baptized as a way to make hearts ready to receive our savior and king, Jesus Christ and His kingdom.

Christian baptism is like John’s in the sense that it demonstrates repentance, but it is also more. It is being baptized into Christ, that is, into His death and resurrection.

Brood of Vipers

This group is made up of two groups of people. Pharisees and Sadducees. the Pharisees (legalistic Jews), “Legal precisians” and the Sadducees (liberalized Jews). “Men of affairs and of the world.

At large part, the stances of these two groups were the Jews had arrived after 400 years of silence. Israel had abandoned their end of the Covenant with God and He had allowed them to develop their own ways of doing things if they weren’t going to follow Him.

One extreme leans toward rules and legalism. The other swings so far left that it largely embraces the world and the things of it. In the middle is Jesus, full of Grace and Truth. Often times it’s easier for us to swing to one extreme or the other, even in our churches today. We can become dogmatic about things that are more driven by personal preference then they are by the word of God. On the other side of things Church goers today can embrace beliefs of the world, ideologies of the world, as a result of picking and choosing the parts of scripture that they like and rejecting the ones that they don’t like, or that challenge their life choices. All the while there is a savior somewhere in the middle inviting us to do the same thing John was inviting this brood of vipers to do, and that’s repent. Turn from our sins and believe unto salvation. Taking Jesus at his word and applying all of it to our lives, not just the parts we like.

Matthew 3:9–12 ESV

9 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. 10 Even now the axe is laid to the root of the trees. Every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. 11 “I baptize you 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. 12 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.”

He’s saying, “don’t think that you are good with God because of your birth as a descendant of Abraham.”

John then gives two examples of ultimately what will happen.

Fruitful trees vs. fruitless trees

God will separate those who are His from those who rejected Him. The result of both is to be burned in fire.

there are only two decisions to make when it comes to Jesus Christ. Either you are going to believe in him, repent and be saved, or you are going to reject Him and face eternal judgement in Hell fire.

Jesus Baptism

Matthew 3:13–14 ESV

13 Then Jesus came from Galilee to the Jordan to John, to be baptized by him. 14 John would have prevented him, saying, “I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?”

This is a significant emergence of Jesus from His many years of obscurity. These first works in His public ministry carry great meaning in understanding the rest of His ministry.

John recognized the inherent irony in this situation. Jesus had nothing to repent of, and it would be more appropriate for Jesus to baptize John.

It was as if John said to Jesus, “I need your Spirit-and-fire baptism, not you my water-baptism.”

Matthew 3:15 ESV

15 But Jesus answered him, “Let it be so now, for thus it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness.” Then he consented.

Jesus understood why this seemed strange to John, but it was nevertheless necessary to fulfill all righteousness. It wasn’t that this one act in itself fulfilled all righteousness, but it was another important step in the overall mission of Jesus to identify with fallen and sinful man, a mission that would only finally be fulfilled at the cross.

(Bruce) “In accordance with the symbolic significance of the rite as denoting death to an old life and rising to a new, Jesus came to be baptized in the sense of dying to the old natural relations to parents, neighbors, and earthly calling, and devoting Himself henceforth to His public Messianic vocation.”

Matthew 3:16–17 ESV

16 And when Jesus was baptized, immediately he went up from the water, and behold, the heavens were opened to him, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and coming to rest on him; 17 and behold, a voice from heaven said, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.”

Jesus’ act of obedience in a righteous identification with sinners, motivated by love, was how Jesus was seen as, “my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.”

The three members of the trinity all present at one time for all to see and hear! Seeing the Holy Spirit descending on the Son and the Son being identified by the Father as being a Son well pleasing to the Father. This was an event that brought clarity to John’s message. “Repent, for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand!”

When this voice of God the Father spoke from heaven, everyone knew that Jesus was not just another man being baptized. They knew Jesus was the perfect Son of God, identifying with sinful man. By this, everyone knew that Jesus was different. Jesus was baptized so to be identified with sinful man, but He was also baptized to be identified to sinful man.

Ephesians 1:5-10

Ephesians 1:5–10 (ESV)

In love He predestined us for adoption to himself as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace, with which he has blessed us in the Beloved. In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace, which he lavished upon us, in all wisdom and insight making known to us the mystery of his will, according to his purpose, which he set forth in Christ as a plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth.

Communion