Sermon Tone Analysis
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Introduction
Back in 1998 I was at Fort Leonard Wood in Basic Combat Training.
I loved nearly every minute of it.
We had learned all types of stuff that I had never known before.
I learned how to put a tourniquet on a wounded soldier.
I learned how to fire a rifle, throw a grenade.
I was better at throwing a grenade than firing a rifle, by the way.
As the saying goes, close only counts in horse shoes and hand grenades.
I learned teamwork and how to eat an entire meal in under 3 minutes.
But what I did not learn was how to read a topographical map.
We had our lesson in a classroom and then we were taken into the middle of the woods, given a map, a compass, and our coordinates to find.
My battle buddy and I set off thinking we’d make it in record time.
We were the last to arrive, and only then because we stumbled across a road and were picked up by one of our drill sergeants sent out to look for us.
My battle buddy would often say something like, “I think we need to turn around.”
Or “I think we’re going the wrong way.”
But I wouldn’t listen.
I wouldn’t change course.
I wouldn’t turn back.
It’s hard to admit when you’re wrong.
It’s hard to admit when you’re lost.
It’s hard to admit that it’s time to turn around.
This morning, we’re opening a section of Scripture in which we see John the Baptist calling upon people to repent.
Like my battle buddy, but even more stringent, John was saying, “You’re going the wrong way.
You must turn around.”
As we look at this passage, we’re getting a look at what it means to be filled with the Holy Spirit.
Because what we see from John is a strength to do what God has called him to do: to preach and perform a baptism of repentance.
In this passage we see three acts of courage as the Spirit of God strengthens John to fulfill his calling.
We first see the act of courage to confront those who come for baptism.
The second act of courage is when he cautioned those who come for baptism.
The third act of courage happened when he counselled those who came to him.
The Courage to Confront
The Courage to Caution
The Courage to Counsel
The Courage to Confront
The first act of courage that we see in the text is the fact that John the Baptist confronted those who were coming for baptism.
You may remember that when Gabriel told Zechariah, John’s father, that he would have a son, he told him that he would be filled with the Holy Spirit from his mother’s womb.
And what we find, when someone is filled with the Spirit in Scripture, it is always a supernatural strength to accomplish the task that God has given.
It was that way with Balaam, with Samson, with Saul’s messengers, with Asa, and the apostles soon after Peter and John were released.
So here is John the Baptist, in a constant state of Spirit-filling, doing as God had called him to do.
And he demonstrates the courage to confront those coming for baptism.
It takes a special kind of courage to confront those coming to you for help.
There’s a saying in sales, “when you make the sale, shut up.”
These people were flocking to John to get baptized.
In a sense, it didn’t seem like he really needed to say anything.
Word apparently had spread.
This baptism of repentance was “selling itself.”
But John didn’t want this baptism to “sell itself.”
This wasn’t a gimmick.
This wasn’t some fad.
This was a baptism of repentance—a baptism of turning around.
It was not something to be taken lightly.
It was not something for the haughty.
So as the crowds would come, John would confront.
Perhaps he could tell the insincerity of those coming.
Repentance has a look.
Certainly it can be faked, but genuine repentance is preceded by godly grief.
Paul wrote
Perhaps no sign of godly grief was upon their faces.
Perhaps they continued to strut as if they hadn’t a care in the world.
And John confronted them.
He called them snakes and asked them who warned them to flee the coming wrath.
Today, we might say, “You bunch of rats, who told you the ship was sinking?”
You can just picture the rats fleeing from the flooding waters.
It’s one thing to seek this baptism because you realized you’ve sinned against a holy God, but something completely different to seek it just to hedge your bets.
Beloved, there is no hedging your bets with Jesus; not hedging your bets with baptism.
Eternity is not a mutual fund in which you have some higher risk stocks and some bonds to counterbalance them.
A person who seeks to go through the motions of baptism or church attendance or giving of offerings shows a shallow understanding of who God is.
And proves himself to be a double-minded man and unstable in his ways.
Let it not be said of us that we are simply a brood of vipers slithering away from the flames of wrath.
May it not be true that we are rats seeking higher ground on a sinking ship.
The Courage to Caution
The first act of courage that the Holy Spirit drummed up in John was the courage to confront.
But like a good prophet, John didn’t leave it at confrontation.
He gave a word of caution as well; the Spirit brought forth the courage to caution those who came for baptism.
I’ll talk about bearing fruit in a moment, but look at the caution that John gave.
“Do not begin to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father.’”
In other words, “Don’t even let the thought enter into your minds that you’ll be find because you’re of the line of Abraham.”
John, the apostle wrote in his gospel account,
When Jesus came, his own people did not receive him; that means that the Jews did not receive Jesus.
They rejected him and because they rejected him, they proved that they were already under condemnation, just as all who reject Jesus are said to be.
The Jewish people as a whole turned away from their own Messiah.
However, everyone who believed in him, they got the right to be called the children of God.
Israel had long been considered God’s child, his son.
But now John the Apostle says, that they rejected their Messiah, the Son of God.
And they forfeited the right to be called the children of God, but all who received him would be given such a right.
Proving then that it was not those who were born from the blood of Abraham who would be called the children of God.
Proving it was not a matter of will-power and self-determinism or even what a person may want.
It was all in the hands of God.
They must be born of God.
And here John the Baptist has said, “Don’t even let the thought into your mind that you’re safe because you’re in the line of Abraham.
God could raise up these stones and make them Abraham’s children.”
He can bear himself new children anytime he likes.
I don’t think I’ve met anyone like this, but I’m told they’re out there.
There seems to be people who still hold to the idea that because of their genealogy, God owes them something.
Because their mother was a Christian, they’re doing just fine with God, like they’ve got diplomatic immunity because of the status of mom and dad.
But there are others who cling to their actions of the past as if they’ve merited enough favor with God.
Altar boys and childhood Sunday School attendance, giving to the church and volunteering at food banks and stuff like that makes up for the sins they’ve committed.
These and others are the ones who need to be confronted and cautioned because they have a fundamental misunderstanding as to the coming wrath that awaits them.
That’s what Luke pointed out in
The wrath hasn’t come yet.
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