Matthew 4

I told you we would finally be moving out of chapter one tonight and we are jumping all the way to chapter three. Now we have studied the birth of Jesus and seen how Matthew is using ancient prophesy to prove Jesus is the Messiah. We will continue to see that through Matthews Gospel but we won’t look back each time he does otherwise this would take a long time. I encourage you to research some of the prophecies yourself though and see what lessons can be pulled from those stories.

Now in chapter three we move into more of the story of Jesus after he has become an adult. We are skipping ahead in His life to when He is about thirty years old.

But before we get to Him, there is another man that would be roughly the same age as Jesus who was gaining some noteriety at this time named John, more commonly remembered as John the Baptist.

Let’s start reading in chapter one verse one. We are going to read the full text for the day and then we are going to go back and split it into two sections to break it down.

Matthew 3:1-6 “In those days John the Baptist came preaching in the wilderness of Judea, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” 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.’ ” Now John wore a garment of camel’s hair and a leather belt around his waist, and his food was locusts and wild honey. Then Jerusalem and all Judea and all the region about the Jordan were going out to him, and they were baptized by him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins.”

Matthew 3:7-12 “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? Bear fruit in keeping with repentance. 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. 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. “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. 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.””

Our goal today is to know who is John the Baptist and what was his message.

First we need to understand who he is. The Gospel of Luke records the story of his birth which was also a miracle birth itself. You don’t have to turn there but it is in Luke chapter one if you want to read it later. For now I will just sum it up for you.

There was a man and woman named Zechariah and Elizabeth. Now they were an older couple and past the time of having children. Well, the angel Gabriel appears to Zechariah while he is serving in the temple and tells him that his wife will be pregnant. Zechariah says thats not possible because I am an old man and my wife is advanced in years. I think he may have been trying to avoid calling her old, but that wasn’t a great way to say it either.

Well Gabriel then says since you are doubting God then you will be silent until the boy is born. So Zechariah is silent until the birth of John by his wife Elizabeth.

Now scripture later tells us that Elizabeth is actually related to Mary the mother of Jesus. It does not specifically tell us how they are related. Some suggest she was her aunt or maybe a first cousin. Either way they were close enough kin that Mary came to visit her when she found out she was pregnant with Jesus and Luke records that John leaped in Elizabeths womb when Elizabeth heard Mary.

So this means that John would have been a close relative of Jesus. Someone who grew up with him since he was a kid. Think about the cousins that you have. I know that I have cousins that are basically siblings to me. That is the relationship that Jesus and John would have likely had.

Now as John became a man he began to fulfill the calling God had placed on his life. Let’s go back and read 1-6

Matthew 3:1-6 “In those days John the Baptist came preaching in the wilderness of Judea, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” 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.’ ” Now John wore a garment of camel’s hair and a leather belt around his waist, and his food was locusts and wild honey. Then Jerusalem and all Judea and all the region about the Jordan were going out to him, and they were baptized by him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins.”

John, even though he is called the Baptist, is not your typical Baptist preacher you would see in church today. No John looked like a crazy man. He lived in the wilderness and survived off of the bare necesities. He did not strive for a lavish life like all of the other teachers of his day. Instead he ate whatever he could easily forage for and wore what he could easily aquire. And what does it say of his message here? It only gives one sentence. Repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. Yet from that one sentence it says that he was baptizing multitudes of people from all around who were confessing their sins.

Why? Why was this simple message bringing in the multitudes? Let’s look again at the second section.

Matthew 3:7-12 “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? Bear fruit in keeping with repentance. 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. 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. “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. 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.””

Heres why Johns message was so popular. He exposed the simplicity of the Gospel.

We need to make sure we understand the world around them to understand Johns message. So, here he calls out a group called the Pharisees. We have all heard that name used before but just to make sure we all know what it is, they were a group of religious leaders in the Jewish faith. They were keepers of the law as well as enforcers of it. And at this point in history they had gotten into a nasty habit of making new laws. It started of with good intentions of trying to help the people keep Gods law more successfully, but it became a corrupt system where they worshipped the law more than the God who gave it and became arrogant and corrupt with power.

John is calling them out here. Calling them a brood of vipers and I love how he calls out their arrogantness here. He tells them do you think you are special because you are Gods chosen people? God can make anyone His chosen people. He could turn these rocks into His chosen people. You are not special. He really just lays into them and lets them have it here tearing them apart and preaaching that there is coming a time when Gods judgement will happen and those trees who are not true followers of Him will be cut down and cast into the fires. He uses a similar analogy with the wheat saying that the chaff or the shells basically will be burned after the good is sorted out.

This is why John was so popular in his time. He called out the corrupt rulers that all of the Jewish people saw. He called out their ideas of a complex system of laws where your salvation is dependant on a series of daily tasks and offered to the people what God had been offering all along. Salvation through the savior who is coming. Repentance, turning away from your sin and running toward the man who is to come.

Today I want to make sure you know what God is offering you. He is not offering you a list of rules to follow to get into heaven. It isn’t complex either though. It is a simple message that can me difficult to accept. We are failures. We have sinned and we are not perfect. Our own desires and wants are evil and corrupt to the core. Yet we have a God who love us enough to send His son to pay the debt we couldn’t pay. To live the sinless life and die on the cross all so that we can have a relationship with him. All we have to do is repent and come to Him. Turn from our sin. Not simply admit that we sin, but admit and do better.

Have you made that commitment? Have you committed to God that you want to cut the sin from your life? Notice i’m not asking have you cut the sin from your life, we will never be perfect it will always be there but are you committed to making that effort? If not don’t leave today without accepting the simple truth of the Gospel.

Matthew 4

John the Baptist

John The Baptist

Who is John the Baptist?

What was the message?

Gospel Presentation