The Message of the Herald: Repent and Beleieve (Matthew 3:1-17)

Wrong Direction

In one of his sermons, Tony Evans spoke about the importance of repentance and restoration. He compared the act of repentance to being on a highway. According to Evans, repentance is not just about thinking about changing directions or observing others who might be going in the wrong direction. It's more about recognizing that you are headed south when you should be going north, finding the next exit, crossing over, and getting back on the right road. In other words, repentance is about turning the other way and heading towards home. Home for us us the kingdom of God.

According to Charles Quarles' definition,

“The kingdom of God refers to the authority that God holds through the life, actions, and teachings of Jesus.” Charles Quarles

To become a part of the kingdom of God, we must confess and repent our sins, and renounce our sinful ways. The Bible says the sons of Adam are are dead in their sin (Eph 2:1), children of wrath (Eph 2:2-3), and citizens of the kingdom of darkness (Col 1:13). We all drive on the the broad highway to hell. We need to a change of direction. We need to exit the interstate of rebellion, turn around on the overpass, and exit onto the narrow road that leads to life. That whole process begins with repentance. Repentance is so important to salvation that God sent the world a Herald, one who came before the Messiah, to tell the world we are going the wrong direction and how to get on the straight and narrow road into the Kingdom of God. In other words, John the Baptist came into the world preaching,

To enter the kingdom of God, you need to repent of your sin and believe in Son whom God sent for sinners.

This morning, Matthew will introduce us to John the Baptist, whose ministry, although was short lived, was vital to not only announcing the arrival of the Messiah King, but also preaching a vital message of repentance.

The Ministry of the Herald

John Was a Herald

There are various types of Heralds, and their main function is to convey messages from the king. For instance, a herald would prepare the way for the king by approaching an opposing military commander and announcing either the terms of surrender or future engagement. Heralds would also visit different regions of the kingdom to declare the king's arrival or any new laws or decrees made by the king. Additionally, Heralds would remove obstacles in the path of the arriving king, they would, at times, carve a path, build a road, or make a bridge to ensure the path was clear. Finally, they would make sure the people were ready to receive the new king.

In Matthew 3:1-3, John the Baptist acts like a herald in announcing the arrival of Jesus Christ. Matthew cites two Old Testament prophecies about a prophet who would come to prepare the way for the Lord. These prophecies are from Isaiah 40:3 and Malachi 3:1. (As a side note, this is called conflation, where two scriptures are fused together to make one point. The prophet Isaiah is explicitly named, as he is considered to be the greater prophet. This was a common practice in Matthew’s time.) The point of these prophecies is that a forerunner will come before Christ to announce His arrival and prepare the way for Him. John is that forerunner and he will also be the last prophet.

John was a Prophet Herald

The role of a prophet is to convey the word of God to people. When God commissions Isaiah in Isaiah 6, Yahweh says, ““Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?” Then I (Isaiah) said, “Here I am! Send me.” 9 And he (Yahweh) said, “Go, and say to this people…” Matthew describes John as a man wearing camel’s hair and a leather belt, eating locusts and wild honey in the desert. Why does Matthew describe John in such a way? He is verifying that John the Baptist was a genuine prophet. Matthew does this in three ways.

John dressed like a prophet.

In the Bible, specifically in 2 Kings 1:8, the prophet Elijah is described as wearing a "hairy garment and a leather belt around his waist." According to John MacArthur, this was a common attire for prophets who wanted to be taken seriously. By wearing such clothes, they conveyed their prophetic identity and authority.

Zachariah 13:4, however, notes that God announces the judgment of Israel and promises to cut off their idolatry. In doing this, he was going to remove the prophets from the land. And he says in 13:4, “On that day every prophet will be ashamed of his vision when he prophesies. He will not put on a hairy cloak in order to deceive…” What’s with the hairy cloak? Why would wearing it bring about deception? A hairy cloak and leather belt are what genuine prophets wore. In Zachariah, men might wear the cloak and belt to appear to be a prophet, but they would speak deceitfully. Jesus says, “Beware of the wolves dressed in sheep’s clothing.” He is referring to false prophets. They may look the part, but they do not speak the truth. As a point of application, I would caution you not to judge a preacher's credibility based on his clothes; whether he is wearing a suit or not. The most important factors in judging a preacher are his message, a life that verifies that message, and the purity of his heart.

John spoke like a prophet

John came in the spirit of Elijah the prophet. Luke 1:15-17 “15 for he will be great before the Lord. And he must not drink wine or strong drink, and he will be filled with the Holy Spirit, even from his mother's womb. 16 And he will turn many of the children of Israel to the Lord their God, 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.”

Matthew quoted Malachi 3:1, speaking of sending a messenger. A chapter later in Malachi, the prophet says that the messenger is Elijah. Malachi 4:5 “5 “Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the great and awesome day of the Lord comes.”

Jesus affirms John came in the spirit of Elijah in Matthew 11:13-15 “13 For all the Prophets and the Law prophesied until John, 14 and if you are willing to accept it, he is Elijah who is to come. 15 He who has ears to hear, let him hear.”

Elijah's ministry and message was aimed to lead people towards repentance. He was tasked with conveying a message of God's impending judgement. Despite the danger posed to his life, he remained loyal to the message that the Lord had entrusted him with, even when confronting Israel's most corrupt king, Ahab and his wife Jezebel. This same spirit of faithfulness in delivering God's message was also evident in John's preaching. He called Israel to repent.

John acted like a prophet

In the same dress and spirit as Elijah, John the Baptist came with the same ministry of Elijah. He called his people to repentance by living a life of distinction. While many Jews pursued materialism, prosperity, reputation, and socio-status among their peers, John lived in the wilderness where the poor and marginalized lived. He lived with a central focus on God, living a repentant life separated from sinful influences, in complete devotion to the Lord. He was not concerned with identifying with his peers or his people. John lived for an audience of one. John MacArthur offers a word of wisdom here,

John MacArthur says,

“John the Baptist didn't care to identify with the people. He cared to identify with the prophet. I think any preacher makes a bad mistake when he tries to identify with the line of the people rather than the line of the prophets. Paster you want to stand in the great tradition of the prophet, you want to speak like a prophet, you want to act like a prophet, you want to look like a prophet.” John MacArthur

Kent Hughes also notes,

“John’s dress and lifestyle were a protest against the godlessness and self-serving materialism of his day.” Kent Hughes

John the Baptist was a prophet herald who was sent to testify of the Messiah King, and in the spirit of Elijah, John was sent ahead to preach a message of repentance to God’s people with a call to faith in the Son he sent to offer salvation. He now points us to the exit off the broad highway and onto the exit of repentance.

How do we get to the exit?

We have a massive problem. We cannot turn off the highway. We can’t even recognize the exit. We are dead in our sin. Spiritually dead people cannot repent of sin. How do sinners who are dead in their sin muster up repentance? They can’t muster up repentance. Repentance is a gift of God.

God must first give your heart life for you to be able to see your sin for what it is. Jesus pointed Nicodemus to that reality in John 3. Jesus says, “You must be born again.” God must take out your heart of stone and put in a heart of flesh. That is the Spirit’s work of regeneration. God must grant you a regenerated heart and the gift of repentance.

In his book, Doctrine of Repentance, Puritan Thomas Watson (ca. 1620–1686) writes:

“Repentance is a grace of God’s Spirit whereby a sinner is inwardly humbled and visibly reformed.” Thomas Watson

Watson understands Paul’s preaching of the gospel in his letters to the Romans and Timothy, as well as Luke’s book of Acts. Paul, speaking of justification and the gospel, says

Romans 2:4 (ESV)

4 Or do you presume on the riches of his kindness and forbearance and patience, not knowing that God’s kindness is meant to lead you to repentance?

The point Paul is making is his Jewish audience did not understand that God is the one who leads sinners to repentance. Repentance is a gift.

To his son in the faith, Paul exhorts Timothy to live a gospel centered life.

2 Timothy 2:24–25 (ESV)

24 And the Lord’s servant must not be quarrelsome but kind to everyone, able to teach, patiently enduring evil, 25 correcting his opponents with gentleness. God may perhaps grant them repentance leading to a knowledge of the truth,

The hope is by Timothy’s faithful example, God will grant or gift those who are watching repentance.

In an explanation as to why the Gentiles were to receive the gospel, Luke writes,

Acts 11:18 (ESV)

18 When they heard these things they fell silent. And they glorified God, saying, “Then to the Gentiles also God has granted repentance that leads to life.”

The Spirit must first regenerate your heart, make it alive, before you will bear the fruit of repentance. Charles Spurgeon explains this well.

Repentance is a plant that never grows on nature’s dung-hill. The nature must be changed, and repentance must be implanted by the Holy Spirit, or it will never flourish in our hearts.

Charles Spurgeon

God first changes your nature so you can respond to Him.

Now, Spurgeon also wisely held the tension of God’s sovereignty and man’s responsibility in hand when said,

God gives repentance, but men must themselves repent.

God’s Work Upon Minister And Convert, Volume 30, Sermon #1774 - Acts 26:16-20

Charles Spurgeon

Do not neglect the gift of the Holy Spirit to reveal sin in your heart by ignoring his call to repent. You will harden your heart and remain on the highway to hell. Thank God this morning for his grace and gift of repentance b accepting the gift and acting on it. But maybe you sit there and wonder, “Pastor, what is repentance?”

What is repentance?

Dwight L. Moody captures the essence of repentance when he says,

Man is born with his back toward God. When he truly repents, he turns right around and faces God. Repentance is a change of mind…. Repentance is the tear in the eye of faith.

Dwight L. Moody

John says something similar to Moody. In Matthew 3:2, John calls for repentance. In verse Matt 3:5-9, John offers ways to recognize repentance.

Repentance turns from sin (Matthew 3:5-6)

In verse 5, the people of Judea are leaving the city and coming out to the wilderness to hear the prophet. Matthew says they were being baptized by the John in the Jordan River.

Baptism was not a common practice among Jews. It was usually performed when a Gentile wished to convert to Judaism. If a Jewish person was baptized, it meant that they were identifying with the Gentiles in some ways. The act of baptism itself did not forgive their sins. Rather, it was an outward expression of an inward reality.

The Jews who were being baptized by John were listening to his message of judgment, repenting, and believing it. They were humbling themselves, identifying with the gentiles, and asking for forgiveness. They left the city for the wilderness, distancing themselves from their sinful culture and pursuits. They identified more with the prophet than the people. In short, they turned from their sin.

James Phillips wisely says,

Repentance is, fundamentally, a change of direction, a turning from sin to God.

James Philip

What does turning from sin look like?" It looks like what happened to the Ninevites. God had commissioned Jonah to go to Nineveh and tell the people there to repent, warning them that God's judgment would fall on them in forty days. The people of Nineveh responded by humbling themselves, wearing sackcloth and putting ashes on their heads. They fasted for three days and begged God for mercy. They turned away from their idolatrous, sexually immoral, exploitative, murderous, adulterous, and dishonest ways. But was their turn from sin an merely outward work No! Jesus says that your heart is corrupt. Out of your heart comes idolatry, sexual immorality, murder, adultery, and dishonesty. The Ninevites had a change of heart that turned to God, and just as it was for them, so it is for you. Repentance in your life must be a turn from sin in your heart.

Repentance confesses sin (Matthew 3:6)

Matthew 3:6 ESV

6 and they were baptized by him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins.

John Calvin says,

The beginning of repentance is the confession of guilt.

John Calvin

Guilt before God was what the Israelites confessed in the Jordan River, as an act of repentance.

If repentance means changing the direction of your heart, then confession is the natural expression of repentance. For from the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks (Matthew 12:34). When you confess you guilt before God, you tell God in your own words that you have not obeyed His law, that you have failed to love and worship Him as He deserves, and that you have not loved your neighbor as He commands. You tell God what he already knows, but you tell him with the humility he requires to be heard, and God gives grace to the humble heart that confesses sin.

Keeping in mind Tony Evans's analogy of being on a highway, if you realize you're twenty miles off course, you must take the exit ramp to change directions. This is the ramp of confession. It's where you acknowledge that you've been going the wrong way. Once you confess, you have to cross the grace overpass. This is where God gives you the opportunity to turn around. Confession gets you to the place where you can make a U-turn. Grace helps you cross over. As a matter of fact, they entire process is God’s grace.

Repentance is a work of God grace that enables you to turn from your sin, confess your sin, and heed the warning.

Repentance heeds the warning (Matthew 3:7, 10, 12)

John says,

Matthew 3:7 ESV

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?

John was criticizing the spiritual elite in Jerusalem. The Pharisees were the largest and most prominent religious Jewish group. They controlled both the synagogue and the Jewish community at large. The Sadducees were a privileged religious sect made up of high priestly families. They controlled the temple and accepted the Pentateuch as the only authoritative source of scripture.

Both parties were proud of their heritage, and John knew they had no intention of confessing their sins. To such people, he warns that the wrath of God looms over them. He urges them to heed the warning and repent.

John is doing what modern Americans call hellfire and brimstone preaching. It is a style of preaching that compels us to confront our sins. Unfortunately, this type of preaching has become scarce in our churches, partly due to the rise of the health, wealth, and prosperity gospel and the fear of offending anyone. However, the gospel itself is offensive. For instance, Jesus had to die on the cross for sins you and I committed agaisnt God. That is hard hear and think about. That being said, we cannot simply overlook sin and judgement as if they are not important. God says it is appointed for man to die once, and then comes judgment (Hebrews 4).

Psalm 7:12-13, Psalm 21: 8-9,

Psalm 7:12–13 ESV

12 If a man does not repent, God will whet his sword; he has bent and readied his bow; 13 he has prepared for him his deadly weapons, making his arrows fiery shafts.

Psalm 21:8–9 ESV

8 Your hand will find out all your enemies; your right hand will find out those who hate you. 9 You will make them as a blazing oven when you appear. The Lord will swallow them up in his wrath, and fire will consume them.

The gospel is first a message of warning that comes with a call to repent. Repentance, in itself, is an act of grace and mercy. God is warning you of his judgment but, at the same time, providing you with an opportunity to respond to his warning.

Charles Spurgeon cleverly quips,

Sin and hell are married unless repentance proclaims the divorce.

Charles Spurgeon

Repentance divorces you from sin and hell. Heed the warning and turn, confess your sin, and bear the fruit of repentance.

Repentance bears fruit (Matthew 3:8-9)

John Blanchard says,

Unless there is the fruit of repentance in the life, there is no evidence of the root of repentance in the heart.

John Blanchard

In Matthew 3:8-9, John exhorts them to

Matthew 3:8–9 ESV

8 Bear fruit in keeping with repentance. 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.

The Pharisees and Sadducees preached what the the Mishnah says, “All Israel will have a share in the world to come.” For them, salvation was merited based on their lineage to Abraham. And yet, John calls them a brood of poisonous snakes, like the serpent in the Garden, deceiving the message of God. He calls them to bear the fruit of repentance. What does he mean by that? What fruit does repentance bear?

Repentance bears the fruit of humility.

Humility is the fruit of repentance. It involves adopting a humble attitude, making radical changes, separating oneself from sin, developing new God-honoring convictions, and pursuing holiness.

Repentance is the initial step towards experiencing God's presence. Notice how John the Baptist prepares the way for the lord? He delivers the message that sin is judged by God. He urges people to humble themselves and repent. To show that you are genuinely repentant, do the most radical and humbling thing: lower yourself.

John's ministry was never about himself, but rather about joyfully advancing the kingdom of God by making much of Jesus. Although his baptism had the power to cleanse God's people externally, John knew that an internal cleansing was what was truly necessary for salvation.

Repentance bears the fruit of exalting Jesus

Jesus is the only one who can baptize you with the Holy Spirit. This is incredible for John to say. In the Old Testament, the giving of the Spirit solely belongs to God. For John to say that Jesus will baptize you with him is to declare that Jesus is God. He is the greater one whom John is not worthy to stoop down and untie the strap of his sandal.

Repentance bears the fruit of Spirit empowerment

This baptism will be with the power of God. God has promised to abundantly pour out His Spirit to His people as mentioned in Isaiah 32:15; 44:3. His Spirit will give us a new heart that will desire to follow God's ways and obey His commands. Our heart of stone will be removed and replaced with a heart of flesh as stated in Ezekiel 11:19, 36:26-27, and 37:14.

According to Joel 2:28-29, it is by the power of the Holy Spirit that we are able to understand and share God's truth effectively. However, we must also recognize that this spiritual baptism is only made possible only through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, who suffered and died on the cross for our sins. It was only after Christ had taken on God's wrath on our behalf that God could pour out His Spirit upon us.

Jesus had to atone for our sin, rise from the grave, and ascend into heaven before he could baptize us with his Spirit.

Now, there is another ramp that you have to take to get back on the highway headed in the right direction. This is the restoration on-ramp. The confession off-ramp leads to the grace overpass, which carries you over and puts you right in front of the restoration on-ramp, so that you can begin heading in the right direction.

Conclusion

Once the turn has been made and repentance has been accomplished, you may still be twenty miles out of the way. You might be discouraged because you’ve gone twenty miles wrong or maybe twenty years wrong. In fact, many folks get stuck here, thinking that since they are already twenty miles out of the way they, might as well keep on heading in that same wrong direction.

The thing to remember is that when taking a trip, the ride coming back home always seems shorter than the ride going. There’s something about coming home that shortens the feeling of distance even when the actual distance to cover is the same