The Gospel of Luke: A Voice Crying in the Wilderness

Transcript

JRNT 78
03/09/2025
The Gospel of Luke: A Voice Crying in the Wilderness
Luke 3:1-14
Jesse Randolph


I'd ask you to go ahead and turn with me in your Bibles to Luke 3. Luke 3 represents this significant bridge in the Gospel of Luke as we now move from Luke's account of the birth of our Lord to what his Gospel teaches about the life and ministry and example of our Lord. And this morning, believe it or not, we are going to endeavor to make our way through 14 verses of Luke 3, but before we dive in I want to give you the big idea on the front end. This morning's sermon is going to be about repentance. And this morning's sermon is about repentance because this text is all about repentance. As you're having your 84th Street conversation after church this morning, I hope that the conversation comes back to, if the question is asked what was the sermon about, the answer is repentance. If I catch you in the south lobby after service this morning, I might quiz some of you and say, what was the sermon about? And you'll say, repentance.

With that let's get right into it starting in verses 1-2. It says, “Now in the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar, when Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea, and Herod was tetrarch of Galilee, and his brother Philip was tetrarch of the region of Ituraea and Trachonitis, and Lysanias was tetrarch of Abilene, during the high priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas, the word of God came to John, the son of Zechariah, in the wilderness.” If you're a note taker this morning, our first point is “The Prophet of Repentance.” Now the punch line in these two verses is actually at the end of verse 2, which is where we see the action happening, that's where the main verb is, where it says, “the word of God came to John.” The word of God came to John as he prepared to step out onto the scene of history, proclaiming his message of repentance.

But before we get there, before we get into this first prophetic voice to speak to Israel in some 400 years at this point, before we get to the word of God which came to the prophet of God in the wilderness, before we get to the message of repentance that John declared as he emerged from the wilderness, Luke, the historian, lays out in incredible detail these six different chronological data points involving an emperor, and a governor, and three tetrarchs, and two high priests, and a partridge in a pear tree. There's everyone here. You know, Luke lays out these details to help Theophilus understand precisely when it was that John the Baptist, this great prophet of repentance, arrived on the scene and when John's public ministry as Jesus's forerunner began.

Now let's take a few moments to pull back the curtain on each of those six references, so we can get our bearings here. First, Luke says that this moment where the word of God came to John was, verse 1, in “the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar.” Now you may remember, going back to Luke 2 in the birth account of Jesus, that there's that whole scene tied to the timing of this issuance of a decree by Caesar Augustus, whereby he, in Luke 2:1 called for a census to be taken of all the earth. Well, Tiberius Caesar, who we see here in Luke 3:1, was the stepson of Caesar Augustus, and when he was just four years old his mother, Tiberius' mother, divorced his father, a Roman politician, so that she could marry Caesar Augustus. So Tiberius spent most of his life from age four on in the imperial court of Caesar. And getting back to the text here, what verse 1 says about the word of God coming to John the Baptist in the 15th year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar, when was this 15th year? If we're getting our dates straight, when was this date? Well, there are two possible options. One would be AD 26 or so, which was 15 years after Tiberius was made co-regent of Rome, that was in AD 11, along with his father-in-law Caesar Augustus. So 15 years from AD 11 would be AD 26. The other option would be AD 29 which was 15 years after Tiberius became the sole ruler in Rome after his father-in-law, Caesar Augustus, had died off. Caesar Augustus died in AD 14. Fifteen years from that would mean AD 29.

Which option is best? I go with option one, AD 26, since when we consider that Jesus was born somewhere between 6 BC and 4 BC (you can go back in the archives to see how I made that argument). But if you look down the page to Luke 3:23 you'll see these words from Luke where he says, “When He began His ministry,” Luke 3:23, “Jesus Himself was about 30 years of age.” So we have Jesus being born in 6 to 4 BC, adding 30 years or so to that we get right to AD 26 or thereabouts. So I would place this 15th year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar mentioned in verse 1 right around AD 26.

Moving on to our next reference, Luke says, that “the word of God came to John when Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea.” Now Pontius Pilate was this Roman official, a governor who had been made prefect over this region of Judea, and Judea was about as far from the seat of power in Rome that one could get. Judea would have been about 2,500 miles to the east of Rome, about as far as New York is from LA, meaning Pilate was out there in the sticks. Well, we do know from the historical record that he was appointed governor, Pilate was, around 26 AD, meaning that these events that Luke is recording here during the 15th year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar would have happened while Pilate was yet a new governor. We learn, of course, a lot more about Pontius Pilate as we go deeper into our study of Luke. And his name, of all these names, is the one we're most familiar with because we know, having been in church for some time, how intimately connected Pilate is to the crucifixion of our Lord. Pilate was the one who looked Jesus in the eye and asked him, “Are you king of the Jews?” Pilate was the one who would turn Jesus over to the Jewish king, Herod. Pilate was the one who then had Jesus when He was turned back over to him and he gives the crowds there in Judea and Jerusalem this option, either release Jesus or release a known criminal named Barabbas. And then Pilate was the one who heard the crowds yell out, “Crucify Him,” referring to Jesus. And, of course, Pilate was the one who washed his hands and said, “I am innocent of this man's blood.” So we have the first two references here—Tiberius Caesar, Pontius Pilate. We're zeroing in on AD 26 here.

Now come this trio of tetrarchs in verse 1. Luke also mentions this all happened when “Herod was tetrarch of Galilee, and his brother Philip was tetrarch of the region of Ituraea and Trachonitis, and Lysanias was tetrarch of Abilene.” Now, we first need to answer the question, what in the world is a tetrarch? A tetrarch was a ruler over one quarter of any given territory. See, the provinces of the Roman Empire in these days were typically broken up into into quarters, into fourths, and each ruler over every fourth portion of a province was a tetrarch. The word “tetrarch” comes from a Greek verb, “arche,” which means to rule, and the Greek noun for the word “four,” which is “tetra.” So tetrarchs, properly defined, were those who ruled over a fourth or a quarter of a region.

And now for reasons only the Holy Spirit knows, Luke doesn't mention all four tetrarchs here. He rather gives us only three, Herod, Philip, and Lysanias. So who were these three men, Herod, Philip, and Lysanias? Well, the Herod that's being referred to here is not the Herod we saw back in Luke 1:5 when Zechariah received that visitation from the angel in the days of Herod, king of Judea. That Herod over in Luke 1 would have been Herod the Great. That Herod is the Herod mentioned in Matthew 2, the Herod who ordered the slaughter of all the male children two and under in Bethlehem. That Herod, King Herod, Herod the Great, had been dead for decades by the time we get to Luke 3. The Herod mentioned here in our text is Herod Antipas. Herod Antipas was a son of Herod the Great. Herod Antipas ruled over Galilee, the region of Galilee from about 4 BC until 39 AD for the entirety, really, of Jesus's life. And Herod Antipas was a wicked man. He was an adulterer, he was a murderer. In fact, look down the page at Luke 3:19, this is referring to the eventual fate of John the Baptist. Luke 3:19, it says, “But when Herod the tetrarch was reproved by him,” that's referring to John the Baptist, “because of Herodias, his brother's wife, and because of all the wicked things which Herod had done, Herod also added this to them all, he locked John up in prison.” And we know he not only locked John up in prison, but from other Gospel accounts like Mark 6 which we'll look at next week, in order to appease his new wife, Herod ordered John executed and specifically decapitated and put his head on a platter. That's the kind of man Herod the tetrarch was.

Next is Philip, who Luke tells us here in verse 1, was “tetrarch of the region of Ituraea and Trachonitis.” So Philip would be another son of Herod the Great. He had a rather undistinguished reign. He was the brother of Herod Antipas, and it was with his wife that Herod Antipas committed adultery. And the region that Philip ruled, Ituraea and Trachonitis, was just east of the Jordan River, northeast of the Sea of Galilee. And Philip ruled this region from his capital at Caesarea Philippi, which he named in his own honor, by the way, from 4 BC to 34 AD. Then the third of the tetrarchs listed in verse 1 here is Lysanias, who was “tetrarch of Abilene.” We know that Abilene was a region situated northwest of Damascus in Syria, but we know very little about Lysanias, like almost nothing other than what he's referred to here in Luke 3.

Now in verse two, Luke shifts his focus from these political rulers to religious rulers, saying that “the word of God came to John,” and you see it there, “during the high priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas.” Now what's fascinating about that language is that in this context John is clearly referring to the office of high priest, but there could only be one high priest at any given time. So in what sense could he be referring here to the high priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas? Well, what's happening is that we know from the historical record that Caiaphas was the actual high priest in office at this time when John emerged from the wilderness. He was high priest, Caiaphas was, from AD 18 until about AD 36. But we also know that Annas, who was Caiaphas' father-in-law, was the high priest from AD 6 until AD 15, before he was removed by the Roman authorities. And we also know that Annas, not only here in our passage but in other places in the New Testament, is still referred to by the Jews as the high priest, even though he's no longer officially in office.

For instance if we were to go over to Acts 4 and that scene where Peter and John are arrested in Acts 4:6, Annas on the scene there is referred to as the high priest. Or even at the arrest of Jesus, as it's recorded in the Gospel of John, specifically John 18, He's described as being first brought to Annas, the high priest, before being brought to his son-in-law, Caiaphas. And what all of that points to is that though Annas was no longer officially high priest, he still had some power, he still had some sway, he still had some influence. And like the former presidents of our country, he still held the title. Right? We still speak of President so-and-so, though he's not officially in office. And like many of our former Presidents, even though he officially had no power at this point, he was still able to pull a few strings, if you know what I mean. That's what Annas did.

So we got all these names down. Tiberius Caesar, Pontius Pilate, Herod Antipas, Philip, Lysanias, Annas, Caiaphas. So what's the significance of these names being mentioned by Luke in this narrative, other than the fact that Luke, as we've seen over and over so far, was this meticulous historian? Why did he go through all this trouble in mentioning all these names if the central idea of these two verses is that the word of God came to John? Why would he put himself through that work? Well, I actually believe that Luke is doing something really, really clever here, and it's this. By the time that Luke wrote what he wrote here every single one of these political and religious leaders was off the scene. They're dead and gone. And while in their lives, these men that we've just worked through, they wore crowns and they wielded scepters and they held reins, and they called shots, the reality is they were pawn pieces on the divine chessboard. God was moving their wills and their lives strategically by His hidden hand. And though each of these men surely would have thought of themselves as powerful and worthy of the esteem and the praise they received, right under their noses, growing up in the wilderness in this forgotten wasteland was this prophet, John the Baptist, who was about to receive a word from the living God, and on that basis call His own people to repentance. And this otherwise unknown wilderness dweller was going to pave the way for the truly powerful One, the truly mighty One, the truly sovereign One, the Lord Jesus Christ.

In other words, what Luke is doing with his pen here is he's totally trivializing the heavy hitters of this age by highlighting and pointing out what was really important in this account. It'd be like if I were to say in the year that Donald Trump was the 47th President of our nation and Jim Pillen was the Governor of the State of Nebraska and Leirion Gaylor-Baird was the mayor of the city of Lincoln and Matt Ruhl was the head coach of the Nebraska Cornhusker football program, Jim Aust delivered a killer children's church message. That's what Luke is doing here. He's given all the big names, and then he's swept them all out of the way to make John the Baptist the focal point. That's what he's doing.

Though he's gone through this laundry list of big names with all these individuals with their impressive titles and their credentials, the focus is on what comes next in verse 2, where we're told by Luke that within the realms and the rulerships of these men, sometime around 26 AD, “the word of God,” it says, “came to John, the son of Zechariah in the wilderness.” Now back in Luke 1:80, you'll recall, the very last verse of Luke 1, we were told “and the child,” that's referring to John the Baptist, “continued to grow and become strong in spirit, and he lived in the desolate regions.” That word “desolate regions” is the same Greek word as our word “wilderness” here in verse 2. “Until,” it says, “the day of his public appearance to Israel.” Well, it was there in that uninhabited, desolate region, likely somewhere just southeast of the Jordan River, that the word of God came to John. We know nothing of how learned or trained John was, we know nothing of how schooled or skilled he was. All that we know is that he grew and became strong in spirit in those early years in those desolate regions as he prepared to come to his people, preaching a message of repentance, paving the way for the long anticipated Messiah.

And that leads right into our next point related to John's prophetic role and his prophetic message of repentance. If you're a note taker, point two is this, “The Preaching of Repentance.” So we looked a little bit at “The Prophet of Repentance,” now is “The Preaching of Repentance.” Verse 3 says, “And he came into all the district around the Jordan, preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.” So John came out of the wilderness where he had been since childhood, he came into all the districts surrounding the Jordan. It says, “around the Jordan,” meaning the territory surrounding the Jordan River. To baptize somebody you need water, and then in these days water for baptism came from a natural water source, like a river. So John comes out of the wilderness, which would have been that region adjacent to the Jordan, to the broader district now around the Jordan.

And then look at this message he came to proclaim. He came “preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.” So for starters, he's preaching, he's heralding, he's powerfully proclaiming, authoritatively announcing, and he's preaching a message. He's preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. Now what type of baptism was Luke speaking of here as he's referring to John's preaching, to John's message? If we're not careful, we might be tempted to lay out our ideas of what baptism is over what John is doing here, and thinking that they're one and the same. But we need to be very careful with those presuppositions. We need to be careful Bible readers and careful students of Scripture as we strive to make sure we really understand what's happening.

Let's break this down to work through a few key questions that we should be asking of this text. First, who was John's audience? Well, John was a Jewish prophet, he was the forerunner to the Jewish Messiah. And so his audience there in the Judean wilderness next to the Jordan River would have been Jews. It was to this Jewish audience, to these Jewish crowds, that John was preaching this message of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. There's no church at this point, the church starts later in Acts 2. So John is preaching to Jews, it's to Jews John is preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.

Now, here's another question. What would baptism have meant to John's Jewish audience? We've heard me say many times already from here that the English word that we think of, “baptism,”, is really just a transliteration of a Greek word. The Greek verb is “baptizo,” the Greek noun is “baptisma.” And all that means when I say transliteration is that we've simply carried over the sound and the spelling of the Greek word into our more modern English vernacular, meaning the Greek word “baptize” or “baptisma” doesn't in its root sense mean to baptize like we think of it. Lexically, definitionally, it just means to immerse, to place into, to dip, to dunk. In fact, in some of the earliest usages of this word over in the secular Greek world, this word was used to describe taking like a white piece of cloth and submerging it, dipping it, dunking it in a bowlful of red dye. And then the cloth that comes out is now no longer white, but red. That's what John the Baptist, as Luke here is reporting on his ministry, would have had in mind here as he preached to his fellow Jews a baptism of repentance. Not a church baptism, the way that we think of baptism, but a washing, a cleansing, an immersion into water; a washing and a cleansing that involve those going under the water, reflecting on their waywardness and their sinfulness up to that point; a washing and a cleansing that recognized that the sacrifices that were then being made in this Jewish context at this time had become hollow and empty and ritualistic for many people; and a washing and a cleansing that would have hearkened back to the words of the prophet Isaiah in Isaiah 1:16 where he says, “Wash yourselves.” God through him says, “Wash yourselves, purify yourselves, remove the evil of your deeds from before My eyes, cease to do evil.” That's what John would have had in mind here as he was preaching this baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. He was preaching to them that they be washed, that they be cleansed.

Now here's another question that'll naturally pop up when we try to figure out what was the heart of John's message here. What would the baptism he was performing accomplish? And how would his baptism tie in with repentance? And how would it tie in with the forgiveness of sins? Let's take a couple of minutes to think about and confirm what John was not preaching here. He was not preaching that his audience needed to be baptized in order to be forgiven. He was not preaching what in some camps today is called baptismal regeneration, which teaches that it's the physical act of baptism itself, being submerged, immersed into water is a necessary component of one's salvation. No. That wasn't his message at all.

Though he would be called John the Baptist, at the heart of John's message was repentance, he was preaching a message of repentance. Remember what I said at the beginning, this sermon is all about repentance because this text is all about repentance. Repentance is all through this passage. John the Baptist was calling on those who came out to him in this region around the Jordan River to repent. He was calling on them to turn from their sinful ways and to turn to God. That's what repentance is. And in doing so, receive forgiveness of their sins. John's ministry of calling sinners to repentance, we have to remember, is directly in line with what his father, Zechariah, prophesied he would do. In fact, go with me back to Luke 1, Luke 1:77, where we see Zechariah now prophesying over his then newborn son, John, just a few days old at this point. And look what Zechariah prophesizes of John, or over John, verse 77, that he would “give to his people the knowledge of salvation by the forgiveness of their sins.”

That's what John would do, that's what his ministry would involve. And that's now what he was doing as we go back to our passage in Luke 3:3, he was calling his people, the people of Judah, people of Israel, to repentance. He was helping them see that if they were to repent, as David said back in Psalm 103:3, “Yahweh would pardon all their iniquities.” He was helping those who were repentant to see, as Isaiah would say in Isaiah 43:25, that God wipes out our transgressions for His own sake and will not remember our sins. He was helping his countrymen to see that if they would repent, as the prophet Micah says in Micah 7:19, that “God will cast all their sins into the depths of the sea.” In other words, John was not calling on those who came out to see him, he wasn't saying that they needed to be baptized for the forgiveness of their sins. Rather, he was calling on his countrymen to repent of their sins and then to be forgiven. And then, and only then, if there was genuine, heart-level repentance, to be washed, to be dipped, to be cleansed in the waters of the Jordan River. What they were doing externally would demonstrate, highlight, what had already happened internally, showing on the outside what had already taken place on the inside. Rinsing off in the Jordan was showing that they'd already been cleansed in heart. It was a baptism of repentance.

Now a question that is often asked is whether John's baptism was somehow different than Jesus's baptism. And if so, in what sense? And the answer is actually pretty straightforward. In fact, if you would, go with me over to Acts 19, Luke's sequel you could say to the Gospel of Luke, the book of Acts. But look at Acts 19, and here we have the account of Paul's ministry to the church at Ephesus. And again, this is on that topic of the difference, if any, between the baptism of John and the baptism of Jesus. But Acts 19:1, it says, “Now it happened that while Apollos was at Corinth, Paul passed through the upper regions and came to Ephesus and found some disciples. And he said to them, ‘Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed?’ And they said to him, ‘No. We've not even heard if the Holy Spirit is being received.’ And he said, ‘Into what then were you baptized?’ And they said, ‘Into John's baptism.’ Then Paul said, ‘John baptized with the baptism of repentance, telling the people to believe in Him who was coming after him, that is in Jesus.’ And when they had heard this, they were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus.”

So this really lays it out plainly that John's baptism was different than Jesus' baptism. It's right here in the text, and that fits in with his role as the Messiah's forerunner. John the Baptist's baptism of repentance was anticipatory, meaning those who came later or those who came to faith later or who encountered Jesus later, they still had to be baptized in His name, in Jesus' name. John's baptism looked forward to Jesus's arrival, it looked forward to this message of repentance that Jesus Himself would later preach. And it lined up directly with Jesus' call in Mark 1:15 to repent and believe in the gospel. See, both John and Jesus preached against empty formalistic rituals, both John and Jesus preached against dead works-based religion and both John and Jesus preached to their followers, to those who heard their voice, that they needed to repent, to turn from their wickedness, to turn from their sin, to turn from their unrighteousness, and with hearts of faith believe in and follow the Messiah. That's what Luke means here in verse 3 when he says that John was “preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.”

Well, that now takes us to our third point for this morning where we're going to see, here's our third heading, “The Path to Repentance.” This will cover verses 4-6, where Luke is going to tie John the Baptist's ministry and his message of repentance back to some familiar words from the Old Testament, from the prophet Isaiah. Look at verses 4-6 of our passage, Luke 3:4-6. After saying that John came “preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins,” it says, “as it is written in the book of the words of Isaiah the prophet, the voice of one crying in the wilderness, ‘Make ready the way of the Lord, make His path straight. Every ravine will be filled and every mountain and hill will be brought low. The crooked will be straight and the rough road smooth, and all flesh will see the salvation of God.’” So as he describes here, Luke describes John's emergence from the wilderness and his preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. Luke takes us down a path, a prophetic path to the words of Isaiah written some 700 years earlier, which looked forward prophetically to the path that God Himself would walk down as a way was made for Him to visit His people.

In fact, go with me over to the passage in view here, to Isaiah 40. We're in Luke, but now we're going to look back at the prophetic reference in Isaiah 40. The actual reference here is to Isaiah 40:3-5, but to give us kind of a running start, let's start in verse 1. Isaiah 40:1 says, “’Comfort, O comfort My people,’ says your God. Speak to the heart of Jerusalem; and call out to her, that her warfare has been fulfilled, that her iniquity has been removed, that she has received from the hand of Yahweh double for all her sins.’” I can hear Dwight Oswald preaching that like a month and a half ago. “A voice is calling,” verse 3, “’Prepare the way for Yahweh in the wilderness; make smooth in the desert a highway for our God. Let every valley be lifted up, and every mountain and hill be made low; and let the rough ground become a plain, and the rugged terrain a broad valley; then the glory of Yahweh will be revealed, and all flesh will see it together, for the mouth of Yahweh has spoken’.” Now in context of Isaiah 40, this is the prophet Isaiah speaking to the people of Judah, people who were about to go into exile, about the fact that they were not only going to be taken captive and exiled, but in the future restored to their land. And in the future they would have their sin debt cleared. “Their iniquity,” verse 2 says, “would be removed.” There was a future time when God Himself would be in their presence, and there would be a future time, verse 5, where God would reveal His glory to them.

Well, not just Luke, but the other three Gospel authors, Gospel writers, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, take these words from Isaiah 40 and apply them to John the Baptist in reference to his forerunning role before the Messiah. Those other three references, by the way, if you want to jot these down, are Matthew 3:3, Mark 1:3, and John 1:23. Matthew 3:3, Mark 1:3, John 1:23. But back here to Isaiah's original context, as this prophet of God spoke of preparing a way and smoothing out a highway and bringing mountains and hills low and converting rough ground into plains and rugged terrain into a broad valley, Isaiah was speaking in physical terms. In his day, in his mind and mindset, his context, when a king was about to pay a royal visit, elaborate preparations had to be made to physically smooth the highways, to make his approach as direct and nonhazardous as possible. Workmen would work well ahead of the king and his procession to clear any debris out of the way, to remove and smooth out any hazards that might make the king's journey difficult. Now while Luke isn't talking about John doing physical work to physically clear the debris off the road for Jesus to arrive and walk on, he wasn't that type of forerunner, he was clearing the way in another way. Right? Similar to the road crew who would be working on that rocky terrain and removing obstructions and leveling the crooked path and preparing for the royal entourage, John's ministry was to hew out the rough crooked ways of the people he was preaching to as he urged them to level out the rough patches in their hearts, to clear the wreckage of the spiritual debris in their lives, to level the ground in their souls, as he urged them to turn to the right and straight and true ways of God, as he urged them to repent as they prepared their own hearts to meet their Messiah. As the Messiah's forerunner, John the Baptist, you could say, was serving as a spiritual road clearer.

Back to our text, Luke 3:4, John was, as it says here, “the voice of one crying in the wilderness.” Right? Back in Luke 1:80, I've already mentioned it a couple of times, but that's that reference, that singular reference to John being out in the wilderness until his public appearance to Israel. In that passage we're not given any explanation as to why he went to the wilderness to begin with. Now we're told why. His ministry would be in fulfillment of Isaiah's prophecy as he “made ready the way,” verse 4, “of the Lord.” Now that word “Lord,” by the way, verse 4, in the Hebrew text of Isaiah is Yahweh. And Luke now carries that same word over to his writing here as he brings this in to bear on John the Baptist. And he is highlighting yet again that Jesus is God. John wouldn't be preparing the way for a mere man, he'd be preparing the way for God Himself, Yahweh Himself, as He came to His people incarnate in the person of Jesus Christ. And John was, verse 4, to “make His path straight,” meaning in this context, he was to lead this coming One directly to His people, not be a hindrance or an impediment to the Messiah meeting the masses.

And then these other statements from Isaiah's prophecy, which Luke by the Holy Spirit carries over to apply to John the Baptist as these metaphorical descriptions of repentance. Verse 5, “every ravine will be filled.” Those who heard the message of John and later Jesus, those who were truly repentant, those whose eyes were open to who Jesus is and what He came to do, they would go from a spiritual low point to a spiritual high point, very much like a ravine being filled, as they found their ultimate satisfaction and fulfillment in Him. Still in verse 5, “every mountain and hill will be brought low.” Those in Judea who were haughty, those in Judea who were arrogant, those who were religiously proud, those who didn't see a need for a Savior, would ultimately be humbled through the message of repentance that Christ came to bring. We recall what Mary said. In fact, you could look with me over at Luke 1:52, what Mary would say of her Son in her Magnificat. As she's magnifying the Lord, verse 52, she says, “He,” speaking of her Son, “has brought down rulers from their thrones, and has exalted those who were humble.” And then there's Jesus' own words later in Luke's Gospel in Luke 14:11, that “everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.”

That's all tied into the idea here of every mountain and hill will be brought low. Then still verse in verse 5, it says, “the crooked will be straight.” Both John and Jesus entered into a corrupt and crooked generation, a twisted generation. And as sinners came to repentance under their preaching, for instance the dishonest and duplicitous tax collectors who we'll meet later, their old ways were eventually overturned. And their crooked paths were straightened out as they came to adopt new ways. And then into verse 5, it says, “and the rough roads smooth.” Those with rough, crude temperaments, like the soldiers that we're about to meet in verse 14, they'd be tamed and refined as they came to a place ultimately of repentance. And that's because the one who repents and believes in Jesus doesn't undergo just a few minor touch ups and minor renovations. No. The one who puts their faith in Jesus Christ undergoes a total overhaul. The Lord is in the business of doing major excavation work. That's what repentance is all about.

And then we can't miss this, verse 6, “And all flesh will see the salvation of God.” Now it's undeniable that when He came, Jesus came to His own people, the Jews. And there's no question that the salvation that was offered by God at this time initiated with the Jews, to the Jew first and then also the Greek. But it's also undeniable that God has always designed that His saving gospel would ultimately go out to all people, to all nations, to all flesh. We remember the words of Simeon, in fact, just over the page in Luke 2:31. Remember aged Simeon, he's holding the infant Jesus in his arm and he's giving thanks to God for bringing this Child into the world. And look what he says of the Child in Luke 2:32, He's “a light for revelation to the Gentiles, and for the glory of your people Israel.”

He's “a light for revelation to the Gentiles.” In other words, it wouldn't only be Jews who would eventually repent and be saved, it wouldn't only be Jews who would be restored to a right relationship with God, and it wouldn't only be Jews who would have future kingdom blessings to look forward to. So too with the Gentiles, as the message of the gospel, Acts 1:8, went from Jerusalem to Judea to Samaria and then to the ends of the earth. And as people who, biblically speaking, in Lincoln, Nebraska, live at the far ends of the earth, according to what Luke would have been writing here. We praise God for that. We praise God that as Gentiles that message of the gospel has been extended out to us, that that path of repentance has been laid out for us, and that we have been offered the opportunity, as it says here in verse 6, “to see the salvation of God. “

Well, that takes us to our fourth point where in verses 7-9, we're going to see “The problem of Repentance.” That's our fourth heading, “The Problem of Repentance.” It says, “So he was saying,” still John the Baptist here, “he was saying to the crowds who were going out to be baptized by him, ‘You brood of vipers, who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? Therefore, bear fruits in keeping with repentance, and do not begin to say to yourselves, “We have Abraham for our father,” for I say to you that from these stones God is able to raise up children to Abraham. But indeed the ax is already laid at the root of the trees; therefore, every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.” So for the first time in this narrative about John the Baptist, it's actually John now speaking. Up to this point, it's been Luke narrating this account of John, and note how he begins with his first words, John's first recorded words here, he's drawing this crowd and the multitudes are coming to see him. They're probably thinking, like, “Who is this guy, and what's with the interesting appearance, and what's with the interesting diet? And why is he now getting people wet in the Jordan River? What is happening here?” “And John,” you see it there in verse 7, “was saying to the crowds who were going out to be baptized by him, You brood of vipers, who warned you to flee from the wrath to come?”

Now, here's the setting of what's going on here. As these multitudes are coming out to see John, apparently there were some in the crowds who had the wrong idea, they had the wrong motives, or they had both, both wrong ideas and wrong motives. Some of these, no doubt, were legalistic Pharisees and Sadducees who were openly critical of John's message. We know that from the cross reference to this passage in Matthew 3:7. But there are others who weren't Pharisees and Sadducees here. He's, Luke here, referring more broadly to crowds, meaning this was a group who were just otherwise prideful Jews who saw no need at a heart level to repent. And they saw no need to repent because as Jews they knew that they had Abraham as their father. And there would have been people in both groups who apparently had this mistaken idea that by being washed and baptized, dipped, dunked in the Jordan River, that this washing alone could wash away whatever sin they might have been dealing with at the time.

And apparently John the Baptist knew that that was their motive or that they had the wrong idea. Apparently, he knew that there were many in the crowd who were there before him for the wrong reasons. They were there to sightsee, they were the “looky loos.” Somehow word had gotten to them that this odd-looking desert dweller was doing whatever he was up to doing. And maybe, they thought, we can just go watch this guy and see what he's up to. Or maybe, you know, to get the full experience, we can be baptized by him, too. I mean, wouldn't hurt. Right? These were like the folks who, in our context, go to the county fair to see the prize winning pig, or go to the Lied Center to watch Back to the Future, or go to the Husker game to watch the Huskers win or lose. You never know, I know. But the point is they were there for the experience, they were there for the show, they were ultimately pretenders. They had no hunger, no thirst for righteousness. They were the kind of people, to bring it to our modern context, who show up at seeker sensitive churches. They're the kind of people that the seeker sensitive churches of our day are trying desperately to rope in by preaching shorter sermons that are full of funny stories or humorous quips and movie quotes and cultural references, but very little skillful handling of God's Word. Well, John the Baptist, we see here, was the very opposite of a seeker sensitive preacher. Right? He wasn't trying to win any popularity contests or to build a large following. He saw no virtue in flattering those who were at war with God. No. He was blood earnest and he was intentionally sharp with his words. He was purposely trying to grab the attention of those who came to see him when he addressed them, “you brood of vipers.”

In the Old Testament, by the way, there are a couple of references to God referring to His enemies as snakes, as serpents. Jeremiah 46:22, he does so about the Egyptians; Isaiah 14:29, he does so of the Philistines. The Egyptians and the Philistines were the enemies of God and were rightly called serpents or snakes. And now we have John the Baptist calling his fellow Jews, fellow sons of Abraham, a brood of vipers. He's essentially telling them here with that charged language that they are enemies of God. They are functional unbelievers who are at war with God. Jesus would do the same thing with the religious leaders of the day, of His time. In Matthew 12:34, our Lord would say to the Pharisees, “You brood of vipers, how can you being evil speak what is good?” Or in Matthew 23:33 Jesus said, “You serpents, you brood of vipers, how will you escape the sentence of hell?”

Back to our context though, continuing on. John asked this question of those who were gathering around him for the wrong reasons, for the wrong motives. After addressing them as this brood of vipers, he says, “Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come?” Or to borrow from a later Scripture that we're all familiar with, who warned you, Romans 1:18, that “the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness.” Who are you? Here's another more modern Scripture reference, Hebrews 10:27, who warned you of the “terrifying expectation of judgment and the fury of a fire which will consume the adversaries?” What led you snakes to slither out of your holes to escape the fiery judgment to come? That's what John is saying here. And implied in John's question is that it wasn't him, he hadn't warned them. They weren't his audience. He wasn't in the business of preaching to spiritually lifeless husks who were simply there to partake in a washing ritual. He wasn't after cheap success with a host of followers whose hearts hadn't been renewed or who didn't humbly and with contrition seek the Lord. John wasn't there to tickle ears. He was there to win souls and call sinners to repent.

But he was facing an uphill battle. And that's why I've titled this fourth heading, “The Problem of Repentance.” The problem was this, there were many who came to hear John who didn't in any way believe in the truth he was proclaiming, and didn't in any way believe that they needed the solution he was offering. And it all comes out in verse 8, where John begins with these words, he says, “Therefore, bear fruits in keeping with repentance.” As he spoke to this crowd full of individuals who apparently saw his baptism as some sort of magical rite or superstitious practice, like keeping a rabbit's foot in your pocket or a rosary hung over your rearview mirror, John corrected them by saying if they really meant to do business with God, if they really wanted to get right with God, they would show it, and not merely by getting wet in the Jordan River, but by living a transformed life; not merely by mouthing the words, “I repent,” but by living a life which demonstrated that they had truly repented. John here as the forerunner is previewing Jesus's words yet again in Luke 6:43 where Jesus says, “For there is no good tree which produces bad fruit, nor on the other hand, a bad tree which produces good fruit, for each tree is known by its fruit.”

But apparently, that's not what John was seeing. In this crowd of fellow Jews that were now surrounding him, this crowd of people who thought that they had a safe position before God based on their Jewish identity alone, who thought that based on their descent from Abraham they were safe in the family of God, this group of people who because of their bloodlines didn't see a need for heart transformation or change, to them and with this sense of exasperated anticipation, John says, verse 8, “And do not begin to say to yourselves, we have Abraham for a father. For I say to you that from these stones,” you can picture him pointing down to the Jordan River, “from these stones God is able to raise up children to Abraham.” In other words, their mere descent from Abraham was not enough, their relationship to this ancient patriarch of old was not enough. It didn't render them godly. No. As we'll see later in the New Testament, Abraham's true children are not merely his physical descendants, rather they're those who follow his God in faith, those who believe God's word the way Abraham did. We see that in places like Romans 9:6, “For they are not all Israel who are descended from Israel.” Romans 9:8, “The children of the flesh are not the children of God.” Galatians 3:6, “Just as Abraham believed God and it was counted to him as righteousness, so know that those who are of faith, those are sons of Abraham.”

In other words, back to Luke 3:8, just saying that we have Abraham for our father has never been enough. And then to drive that point home here, John says, “For I say to you that from these stones God is able to raise up children to Abraham,” meaning God didn't need them, God didn't need that specific group of stony-hearted Israelites to carry out His divine purposes. Rather, the same God who created everything out of nothing, indeed, the same God who created their nation from two elderly, barren people, Abraham and Sarah, could create for Himself a people if He so chose from the very stones that sat there on the edge of the Jordan River, a people who would actually love Him and honor Him and serve Him. What he's saying then, John is saying here in verse 8, is that merely being a member of the nation of Israel wasn't going to save anybody from the wrath to come. So it was time to put the pretense off. It was time to be done with being outwardly religious and virtuous, and to humble themselves and repent.

If they didn't, John gave this stark warning, verse 9, “But indeed the ax is already laid at the root of the trees; therefore, every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.” That expression, “the ax is already laid at the root of the trees,” that's a figurative way of saying, “You are in a perilous position, judgment is coming, and judgment is coming soon. The ax is at the root, and the tree of judgment is about to fall on you and fall on you fast. So act urgently.” And then he says, “Therefore, every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire,” meaning those who fail to heed his message of repentance, those who didn't manifest the true fruit of repentance, if they were to die in their sin, they would be condemned. No dip in the Jordan River would ever be able to extinguish the flames of hell. This is a true fire and brimstone message by John, but one that was no doubt rooted in truth and in love for his people.

That takes us now to our fifth point for this morning. The fifth point is this, “The Practicality of Repentance.” Let's take a quick look at verses 10-14, which read this way, “And the crowds were questioning him, saying, ‘Then what should we do?’ And he would answer and say to them, ‘The man who has two tunics is to share with him who has none; and he who has food is to do likewise.’ And tax collectors also came to be baptized, and they said to him, ‘Teacher, what should we do?’ And he said to them, ‘Collect no more than what you have been ordered to.’ And soldiers were also questioning him saying, ‘What should we also do?’ And he said to them, ‘Do not take money from anyone by force or extort anyone, and be content with your wages.’” Now we can make quick work of this one because, in essence, there's one question being asked by these three different groups of people. You've got the crowds in verse 10, the tax collectors in verse 12, and then the soldiers in verse 14, and each is asking the same question. It's a common question and phrased in ever so slightly different language: verse 10, “Then what should we do?”; verse 12, “Teacher, what should we do?”; verse 14, “What should we also do?”

In other words, putting this back in our context, there was this group of individuals in these very crowds that we've been looking at this morning, there were individuals woven in with these crowds surrounding John who heard his message, who heard him preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins, and it clicked for them. They got it. So they not only wanted to be baptized, they wanted to repent, they wanted to do the thing he was calling on them to do. They wanted to be forgiven of their sins, and now they needed John to tell them what does that mean. What does that look like? What does it mean to bear fruit in keeping with repentance? What was it supposed to look like? And look at John's response to each. Note how practical the directive was, hence the title, “The Practicality of Repentance.”

To those who made up the crowds, verse 10, they were told this in verse 11, “The man who has two tunics is to share with him who has none; and he who has food is to do likewise.” John's not preaching socialism here. John's not preaching forced governmental redistribution of wealth and income and resources. But he's describing though, a very practical way to demonstrate love of one's neighbor. When you have certain necessities of life, clothing and food, and they don't -- the fruit of repentance, having been forgiven much, having been loved much, is to show love to others by sharing. That's the idea here. He's just talking about sharing as a fruit of repentance. Very simple, practical idea.

Then there are the tax collectors, verse 12. Apparently, there were some in that crowd who had been serving as tax collectors who now wanted to be baptized, they wanted to repent. We'll get into the sliminess of the tax collector in more detail in future messages. But tax collectors, just for now, especially Jewish tax collectors, were absolutely despised by the Jews of this day. There was actually a saying that an honest tax collector is a starving tax collector because of the ways they were known to employ. They had this built-in incentive from the Roman government who they'd been commissioned by, to take some off the top and line their pockets in the process and rob their fellow Jews. And because of that, they were totally loathed. Tax collectors were considered to be on the lowest of the rungs of the social ladder. They were right there with prostitutes and thieves and murderers. In fact, Jewish tax collectors in this time were considered a disgrace to their families. They were expelled from the synagogue, they couldn't serve as witnesses in court. There are even some old Talmudic Mishnah regulations that say that if a tax collector touches a house, that house is now unclean. They were that low on the totem pole.

Well, to those tax collectors, they're told by John the Baptist in verse 13 as they're approaching him, apparently wanting to repent, and he said, “Collect no more than what you have been ordered to do.” “Collect no more than what you've been ordered to.” Now note, he doesn't say quit your job, he doesn't say move away, he doesn't say change your career, he doesn't even say stop being a tax collector. All he says is, start being honest. “Collect no more than what you've been ordered to.” That would be, for the tax collector, the fruit of repentance.

And then finally there's this last group mentioned in verse 14, soldiers. These more likely than not were Herod's soldiers, Jewish soldiers, who at this point in recorded history were known as being those who were underpaid. They had a meager wage, and many would steal from civilians, fellow Jewish people but civilians, and they would do so in extortionate ways. And to those soldiers, you can see it there, verse 14, John's call to repentance, to bear fruit in keeping with repentance was pointed and clear and practical. It says, “And he said to them, ‘Do not take money from anyone by force or extort anyone, and be content with your wages.’” The simple fruit of repentance there for the soldier was to act with integrity, to act with good character, not leaving the military, but being a good soldier.

Well, I've mentioned at the beginning of the message this morning that this sermon is about repentance. And that's because, as we've seen this morning, this text is about repentance. And it has taught us a lot about this subject of repentance. This text has taught us that God's message of repentance towers over all earthly rulers and powers, whether it be Tiberius or Herod or Pontius Pilate or Trump today. It's taught us that God's message of repentance began with Israel, but it's now universal in its reach, and we praise the Lord for that. We are beneficiaries of that truth. It's taught us that true repentance will be demonstrated by the bearing of good fruit. It's taught us that repentance is a non-negotiable condition of fleeing from the wrath that is to come on this earth. This text has taught us that repentance levels the playing field between the humble and lowly on the one hand and the religiously proud on the other. It's taught us that repentance is practical, immensely practical. I mean, repentance doesn't necessarily mean go be a missionary, you have to become a pastor all of a sudden, you have to commit yourself to joining every ministry at church or memorizing the book of Leviticus by the end of March. No. Quite often, as these examples of tax collectors and soldiers indicate for us, repentance is far more practical than that.

So the voice of one crying in the wilderness, that voice was John the Baptist as he called on sinners around him in his day to repent. It's an important message not only for his day, but for ours.

Let's pray. Lord, we thank You for this time this morning in Your Word. We thank You for John the Baptist. We thank You for his forerunning ministry coming before the Messiah who would enter the world as the Light of the World. We thank You for the clarity of Your Word and what it teaches us about repentance. God, I pray that everyone here this morning who's been listening and who has been reading the text along with me would understand what a gift repentance is. God, for us who once were Your enemies, we who were once running away from You, we who were once astray when You granted us repentance, as we came to faith in Jesus Christ, when we turned in the ultimate sense from our sin and turned to You, our sins were forgiven, washed, purged, cleansed, and we were made right with You and new in You. We praise You for the gift of repentance in salvation. We know that also we are called as Your followers to repent all the time, as believers to bring our sin to You, to confess our sin to You, knowing that You are faithful and just to cleanse us from our sin, forgive us of our sin and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. So we thank You for the mercy of repentance. God, I pray that we would be a continually repentant people, knowing what sin is in Your eyes, knowing what a Savior we serve and the sacrifice He made in our behalf, knowing that we are Spirit-directed and Spirit-led, and therefore we have the power and the ability to repent and to put off sin and to put on righteousness. God, I pray if there's anyone here this morning that does not know You as Savior and Lord through Your Son, that they would not hear this as being a message of legalism, that I just need to do better or try harder or get baptized or any other such work. Rather, I pray what they would hear is that they need to humble themselves before You. They need to see who they are as a sinner in the sight of a holy God. They need to see that there's nothing they could do by way of works or deeds that could earn favor before You. But that it is all about putting faith in Jesus Christ and what He did in His death on the cross and then rising victoriously three days later. That is the means by which we are saved, that's the means by which we repent and believe, and that's the means by which we have eternal life secured. So, God, if there's anyone here this morning who has not repented and believed in the gospel, I pray that today would be that day, and we would all rejoice in knowing that You are a God who saves. We love You and we praise You, we thank You for this time. In Jesus's name, amen.