A Harsh Preacher

Luke 3:6-7

Here is a sample of John's preaching.  He did preach the gospel.  And what is the gospel?  It's the good news.  What is the good news?  God will forgive your sins if you repent and turn to Him in faith.  John is a model for us.  He is a standard for how to preach.  In some ways he's even a more easily understood example than Jesus Himself because it's hard for us to emulate the preaching of Jesus since He is God in human flesh, but John is a man like us. 

We learn from John how to confront unbelievers with the message of the gospel. And one of the things that hits you immediately is the lack of any kind of effort to win them over with smooth talk.  In fact, he is very harsh, saying things like, "You bunch of vipers."  I don't think that John was without love for the people, but he was clear as to the message.  And that is the issue. Clarity, straight-forwardness in giving the message marks a good gospel preacher.

What is true repentance? It is given to us here in wonderfully clear terms.  This passage is also an exposure of false repentance, or non-saving repentance.  People are prone to shallow repentance. The modern message of “cheap grace,”— just believe in Jesus, that's all you need to do —"easy believism" invites shallowness and is at odds with the message of John the Baptist.  There was nothing about John's message that was warm and fuzzy.  It was harsh, it was strong. It was confrontational. It was devastating because John understood how prone the sinner is to a shallow, superficial repentance that does not save.

Jesus gave a parable about wheat and tares [grow among], and He taught that there are many who you would think are Christians but are not the real thing. I'm convinced that churches are literally filled with people who may look the same as the others, but have had a shallow, non-saving conversion and they are categorized in Scripture as the many, who say, "Lord, Lord,” in Matthew 7, to whom the Lord says, “Depart from Me, I never knew you."  They are the kind of soil that receives the Word initially and with maybe some emotion but it never took root because the soil was never plowed up...it’s hard soil; it’s weedy; and either the rock or the weeds choke out the Word, and there never is any real fruit because it never actually took root.  Shallow repenting is common.  It was common in Israel. It’s always been common. It was common in the Old Testament era.  It was common in the New Testament era.  It's common today and it's exacerbated by those who preach a cheap message, by those who strip the gospel of its powerful, life-changing truth.

As time goes on it becomes apparent that even with the strong preaching and clear message of John, their repentance was, for the most part, shallow and false.  We really don't have a difficult time in proving that because as the story of Jesus unfolds most people do not acknowledge Him as Messiah. His own received Him not. In fact, they finally come to the place where even though they have celebrated Him as Messiah on Palm Sunday [shallow], they cry out for His death on Friday at the crucifixion.  And when you get to the book of Acts and the believers in Jerusalem are gathered in the Upper Room there's only 120 of them and that's after the full ministry of John and Jesus is completed.

So, there was a lot of tares among the wheat.  And John was preaching a strong message and still there was superficial faith.  How much more superficiality is there when a very weak message is preached?  And all across this country in churches all across this land a shallow message is being preached, a shallow gospel, a shallow call to repentance that is giving people the tragic and damning illusion that they are saved when they are not.

So how can we know real repentance?  How can we have the real thing and separate it from false and shallow repentance?

John gives us six elements of a true repentance. 

True repenters reflect on personal sin

v. 4          He's saying get ready, do the necessary preparation. Messiah is coming. What he's talking about here is heart preparation. 

vv. 5-6     Low living must be brought up, pride has to be brought down, crooked living straightened out.  And then “the rough made smooth,” any kind of hindrance, any kind of obstacle, anything that clutters a clear path, anything that obstructs the Lord's entrance into the heart should be removed.

True repentance requires a complete and full admission of one's sinfulness, depth and height and length and breadth.  That's essential to real repentance. 

True repenters recognize divine wrath

v. 7          Sin has eternal consequences.  True repentance comes out of the fear of divine wrath.  This motivates it.  We should want to flee the wrath to come. 

v. 9          When you're going to chop the tree down the first thing you do is take the ax over there and set it down while you put your gloves on, stretch, and get ready to pick it up and cut the tree.  He says the ax is already there and God is about to swing it.

Malachi 3:1-5

¹ Behold, I will send my messenger, and he shall prepare the way before me: and the LORD, whom ye seek, shall suddenly come to his temple…² But who may abide the day of his coming? and who shall stand when he appeareth? for he is like a refiner's fire, and like fullers' soap: ³ And he shall sit as a refiner and purifier of silver… ⁵ And I will come near to you to judgment;

Malachi 4:1

¹ For, behold, the day cometh, that shall burn as an oven; and all the proud, yea, and all that do wickedly, shall be stubble: and the day that cometh shall burn them up, saith the LORD of hosts, that it shall leave them neither root nor branch.

There the ax will be laid at the root as stated by John the Baptist. 

Isaiah 2:10-12

¹⁰ Enter into the rock, and hide thee in the dust, for fear of the LORD…¹² For the day of the LORD of hosts shall be upon every one that is proud and lofty, and upon every one that is lifted up; and he shall be brought low:

Isaiah 2:19

¹⁹ And they shall go into the holes of the rocks, and into the caves of the earth, for fear of the LORD, and for the glory of his majesty, when he ariseth to shake terribly the earth.

We see this in the book of Revelation when people cry for the rocks and the mountains to fall on them and hide them from the face of the Lord.  Isaiah 30:27

²⁷ Behold, the name of the LORD cometh from far, burning with his anger, and the burden thereof is heavy: his lips are full of indignation, and his tongue as a devouring fire:

Very graphic prophecy.

Zephaniah 1:14, 15, 18

¹⁴ The great day of the LORD is near, it is near, and hasteth greatly, even the voice of the day of the LORD: the mighty man shall cry there bitterly. ¹⁵ That day is a day of wrath, a day of trouble and distress, a day of wasteness and desolation, a day of darkness and gloominess, a day of clouds and thick darkness, ¹⁸ Neither their silver nor their gold shall be able to deliver them in the day of the LORD's wrath; but the whole land shall be devoured by the fire of his jealousy: for he shall make even a speedy riddance of all them that dwell in the land.

Now those are just a few of many, many passages that speak of judgment when Messiah comes.  All the prophets preached judgment.  John preached judgment.  Any true preacher preaches judgment.  And when you give a witness for Christ to another individual, you have to talk about the wrath to come.  The wrath to come is speaking of final, eternal judgment.  Jesus made that a theme of His preaching.  He preached more on hell than He did on heaven.  He preached more on hell than anybody ever preached on hell.  Why?  Was it because He didn't like sinners, because He wanted to damn sinners?  No, it was because He wanted to warn sinners.  And one of the things that you must preach when you preach for a true repentance is the seriousness, the eternality, and the suffering of eternal hell.

There is a hell and it is a forever alienation from God and a forever conscious punishment of torment.  That's what makes forgiveness urgent.  That's what makes forgiveness good news.  That is a strong motivation. Any faithful preacher preaches the wrath to come.

You hear people say, "Well, this world is all the hell we'll ever know."  No, it's not. In truth, for the lost man, this beautifully created planet is the only heaven they will ever know. For the saved, this sin cursed planet is the only hell we’ll ever know.

In v. 7 he preaches:  You sons of poisonous snakes! Boy, that is not a seeker-friendly approach.  What is he saying here?  This is not how you win friends and influence people.  This is not how to schmooze people into the kingdom.  What in the world is he saying?

First of all, I think he's calling them children of Satan.  Jesus did that in John 8:44. He said to the Jewish leaders, "You're of your father, the devil."  Jesus said to the Pharisees, Jewish leaders, Matthew 12 and 23 "You brood of vipers," same phrase exactly.  Jesus said it twice to the Jewish leaders. You sons of snakes!  I think he's really identifying them with their father.  The devil appeared in the Garden in Genesis 3 in what form?  A serpent.  And according to the Scriptures he is a serpent, as clearly indicated in Revelation chapter 12.  He's really telling them, you belong to Satan, you snakes.  What he's saying to them is, you are running from the fire but not interested in any change of your nature.  You're still snakes. You're just scrambling away from the fire and that’s why you’re here in the water.  Shallow repenters are the offspring of that snake, Satan.

They wore the name of God on the outside but were satanic on the inside. He says: your repentance is superficial because your true nature is vicious, your true nature is of the serpent, your true nature is poisonous.

“Who told you you could escape the wrath by just coming down here and getting baptized?”

True repenters reflect on personal sin. They recognize divine wrath.

True repenters reject religious ritual

The Jews were so used to a ritual approach to religion, they were so used to believing that you could somehow make yourself right with God by your formal prayers, by your giving, by sacrifices, and by keeping the Sabbath. They believed that you could actually make yourself right with God through these various rituals. 

v. 8a         It isn't going to do you any good just to be baptized.  That's not what God is looking for.  There’s no ceremony and no good works that can save anybody.  There was no salvation in baptism then and there's none in it now. 

Churches are full of people going through the motions.  People who were baptized as babies, people who were baptized as young people, people baptized as adults, people who go to the church and go through whatever ordinances their churches call for them to go through, whether it's confirmation or whether they go and the priest tells them to say so many “Hail Marys” and they go through their beads and they go through whatever patterns of penancing they go through, light so many candles, or whatever, pray so many prayers, go on a missions trip, serve in the church. In the end it has absolutely nothing to do with anything.  You cannot flee the wrath to come by scrambling like a snake fleeing a fire and diving into the water.  Verse 8 says you have to bring forth fruit that demonstrates repentance.

Paul said I was the perfect Jew, doing all the rituals, and it was all dung.

John is NOT telling them they don't need to escape.  They DO need to escape.  But a snake in the water is still just a snake in the water.  What they needed was a change of nature. 

True repenters renounce ancestry

v. 8b        “You know, salvation is genetic, it just gets passed down, we're Jewish, we have Abraham for our father.”  They were basing their eternal hope on their genes.  They were the people of the promised blessing. 

In John chapter 8 they say to Jesus, "We are Abraham's offspring."  And Jesus says to them, "I know you're Abraham's offspring,” verse 37, “yet you seek to kill Me because My word has no place in you."  In verse 39, "If you're Abraham's children, do the deeds of Abraham."  You are the children of Abraham, but look, Abraham didn't kill God.  He didn't try to kill God.  That's what you're trying to do.  You're doing your...the deeds of your real father, the devil.

The fact that you may have been raised in a Christian family doesn't make you a Christian.  God has no grandchildren. The fact that you may have been baptized as an infant doesn't secure your salvation.  By the way, you remember the rich man that died and went to hell?  He says, "Father Abraham, have mercy on me." He was Jewish.  What's he doing there?  Boy, Jesus made it pretty clear.  Heritage doesn't save you.

Zaccheus was a Jew.  He needed salvation.  Jesus went to his house and he was saved.

So, John says then in very sarcastic words, “begin not to say” – you’d better act like you’re not about to say…

God can make children of Abraham out of the rocks.  You think you're special?  God can make as many children of Abraham as He wants out of the dirt.

You have to come to the place, if you want to truly repent, where you don't base your relationship to God on anything ancestral.  It doesn't matter what your father believes, or your mother believes. Their salvation doesn't pass to you. 

Abraham's true children, according to the Scripture, are those who follow the faith of Abraham.  It's not genetic.  You're Abraham's child if you follow the faith of Abraham. 

True repentance calls for honest reflection on personal sin. It calls for a recognition of divine wrath. It calls for a rejection of any religious ritual as a means of salvation and the renouncing of any ancestral hope.  And there’s a couple more for another time.

There's no more important thing than giving a clear message of the gospel and that includes a real repentance.  John is a wonderful model.  You say, "Yeah, but he was so harsh."  They say the same about our President, and I admit, I cringe at some of his language, but the issue at stake is so serious. And we need results. I’m not excusing being harsh, just pointing out the gravity of sin. You should speak the truth with love, but at the same time you cannot hold back the heaviness of the truth. 

“It’s not what you say, it’s how you say it.”

Actually, it’s both!