Are you ready for what’s Coming [Part 1 of 2]

(Matthew 3: 1-12)

Boy Scout are taught to “Be prepared”. I wasn’t in the boy Scouts, lots of my friends were, I I was in something called the Boys Brigade, and it motto was, Sure Steadfast”, taken from Hebrews (6:19). I think we would all agree, but being prepared is a good idea, and to be Sure and Steadfast is really important when it comes to facing the valuable things in life. Now I say valuable not difficult or challenging, because I often think they are the same thing, but let me ask you a question, are you prepared for the future, and when the future arrives are you prepared to the point that you can remain Sure and Steadfast, no matter what? Maybe the real question I should be asking is how can we be prepared for the future? How can we be so prepared that we can face any eventually, no matter what?

To answer those questions, I’d like to invite your attention to a passage in the first book of the New Testament, the Gospel of Matthew, Chapter 3. This story is the story of John the Baptist. You will recall that at the end of Chapter 2, we were still at the stage where Jesus was a child, but now we entered a Chapter 3. And Jesus is now an adult. So, between Matthew chapter two and Matthew chapter three, there is a large gap of a lot of years, somewhere near 30 years. However, there is something significant to look out for before we look at this passage, and that is this. If you will recall, there were number of prophets in the Old Testament, but those prophets ceased to exist about 400 years before the events that are being described here occur. In other words, there has not been a prophet in Israel for 400 years, then all of a sudden John the Baptist appears on the scene and he is said to be the who has been tasked to, “prepares the way of the Lord”. We call him John the Baptist, but perhaps a more accurate name might be John the preparer, or John the forerunner because he tells us his sole purpose is to prepare people for the coming arrival of the Lord. 

As I look at this passage, it seems to me that it just naturally falls into three parts. In the first part of this passage, we will be told that John came preaching repentance. Then we will be told that John practiced baptism, and in the latter part of the passage we are going to be told that he proclaimed judgment. So, I’d like to begin by just looking at John and what he preached. But in these opening verses before it actually tells us about his preaching. It tells us a few things about his person. For example, verse one says,

In those days John the Baptist came, preaching in the wilderness of Judea and saying, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.” This is he who was spoken of through the prophet Isaiah:

“A voice of one calling in the wilderness,
 ‘Prepare the way for the Lord,
     make straight paths for him.’” 

(Matthew 3: 1-3)

“In those days” is a reference to the days when Christ was living in Nazareth, which is the way the previous chapter had ended, but what’s significant is that this verse says John appears in the wilderness. We know from other passages of Scripture, namely from the Gospel of Luke, that John the Baptist was the son of a priest in Jerusalem, and as the son of a priest, he too had the right to be a priest. He was eligible to serve as a priest in the temple in Jerusalem, but he’s not in Jerusalem here, we find him in the wilderness which was down by the Dead Sea region South of Jericho. So, what is John the Baptist, the son of a priest, doing preaching in the wilderness and not in Jerusalem? Well, the next verse explains that he is the one who was spoken about by the prophet as a voice crying in the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord, make his path straight. According to Matthew here, Isaiah the Prophet prophesied that someone such as this would come crying in the wilderness in this way. This reference is to Isaiah is a quote from Isaiah Chapter 40.

A voice of one calling: “In the wilderness prepare the way for the Lord, make straight in the desert a highway for our God.

(Isaiah 40: 3) 

The analogy used has to do with the image of making a road ready for the coming of a king. In the ancient world they didn’t have paved roads like we do today. Sometimes roads would be improved for the imminent arrival of a king So just before a king came to town, they sent out the word and a messenger would come and say, prepare the road, make it straight and smooth as you can, because the king is coming. (Nepal). As you will recall, we’ve seen that the subject of the Gospel of Matthew is that Jesus Christ is the king and what we're being told here is that John the Baptist is the one in fulfilment of prophecy that’s coming before the king is one proclaiming, “prepare the way for the king is coming”. Make the road straight, make it smooth. Prepare for the coming of the king. Now we’re also told something else about John the Baptist, in the next verse we are told about the way he dressed. 

John’s clothes were made of camel’s hair, and he had a leather belt around his waist. His food was locusts and wild honey.

(Matthew 3: 4)

Sounds like a rather strange individual, doesn’t? What’s all that about? Well, actually, the camel hair and the leather belt were just signs that he was a prophet. Prophets wore camel hair as a sign of mourning, and more specifically, the leather belt was the a piece of clothing that Elijah wore. Elijah wore a leather belt according to First Kings chapter one, and we’re told in Luke that John the Baptist came in the spirit and the power of Elijah. One more thing about John’s person, it says he ate locusts and wild honey. Does that sound very appetizing to you? Probably not, because when you think of locusts, you think of an insect. It’s possible that that’s what this is referring to, but we don’t know for sure. The truth of the matter is, though, that there was something else called the locus, and it was a plant. Bible experts have debated which exactly this is referring to but there is no definitive answer. We don’t know for sure, but what we do know from this text is that he was different than the religious establishment around him and that’s sort of the point the test is trying to make. He’s out in the wilderness dressing like a prophet, remember a prophet hasn’t been see in Israel for 400 years, and he’s eating this rather strange diet now. And he is in the wilderness, and he is in the wilderness because that is what was prophesied.

People went out to him from Jerusalem and all Judea and the whole region of the Jordan. Confessing their sins, they were baptized by him in the Jordan River.

(Matthew 2: 5-6)

So, John the Baptist came to prepare people for the Lord, come to call people to make the road straight for the lord to come amongst them.

As you know, the subject of the book of Matthew is the fact that Jesus Christ is the king. So, this is in perfect harmony with Matthews whole theme is that the Messiah is coming, and he will rule as king, and John is preparing the way for him to come. But as I said at the beginning, the opening verses, though it tells us some things about the person of John, it is really focusing on his preaching what he says, and his desire to tell us how to prepare for the coming of the king? His message was, “repent for the Kingdom of heaven is at hand”. Now that’s going to take a bit of explanation. When most people hear the word repent, they immediately think of the call to turn from your sins. Stop sinning that we normally think, and that is something I recommend people do, all the time in fact, even in this podcast. But that’s not what the Greek word repent means. The Greek word repent means to change your mind, therefore John the Baptist message is not just about an external change of your actions. It a call to an internal change of your attitude.

Now, how do we know that, well let’s look at the rest of the passage. 

7 But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming to where he was baptizing, he said to them: “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the coming wrath? 8 Produce fruit in keeping with repentance. 9 And do not think you can say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father.’ I tell you that out of these stones God can raise up children for Abraham. 10 The axe is already at the root of the trees, and every tree that does not produce good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire.

What’s he trying to correct? He is telling them they need to recognise their problem is in the way they think, and here’s what you think. I am a descendant of Abraham and am therefore one of the chosen people God. The attitude at the time was we who are the descendants of Abraham and are God’s chosen people, we’re going to be in the Messianic Kingdom when the Messiah comes and everybody else, is going to be excluded. In other words, the Jewish people at the time Christ lived were trusting in themselves and their religion to get into the Kingdom that was coming, the kingdom of God. That’s very important, in a sense the Jews of the day, we’re trusting their ancestry, which they backed all they way through their descendants back to Abraham as their merit for getting into the Kingdom of God. Then, John the Baptist comes along and says, repent, and the word means change your mind. It’s an internal attitude and what he wants them to change their mind. He wants them to quit trusting themselves, quit trusting that you got some merit because they happen to be a descendant of Abraham and start looking to God himself for your righteousness. I said it was an internal attitude and not an external act.

Look at verse 8, he tells them to bear fruit that’s worthy of a life of repentance. Now, that verse clearly demonstrates that there’s a difference between the road of repentance and the path of external acts of pride in your own ancestry or even in you obedience to external act of religious observance. 

 “I baptize you with water for repentance. But after me comes one who is more powerful than I, whose sandals I am not worthy to carry. He will baptize you with[c] the Holy Spirit and fire. His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor, gathering his wheat into the barn and burning up the chaff with unquenchable fire.”

(Matthew 2: 11-12)

My conclusion is that repentance is an internal change of attitude, a change of direction which is wy he says they need to” repent”, “turn around”. and the internal change of attitude John is unpacked in his message. In that, if you change your mind about trusting yourself . If you change your mind about trusting yourself to have merit before God, then who or what are you going to trust in. Who you going to trust, if you’re can’t trust in yourself anymore. Well, as John the Baptist tells them, and as the Bible clearly teaches, there’s one coming after me, and I’m not worthy to carry his shoes, and he’s the one you need to trust.

In Acts. Chapter 19, Luke quoting Paul says that John preached that they should believe on the one who will come after him, namely Jesus Christ. So bound up in this idea of repentance is that you would change your mind about trusting yourself and trust Jesus Christ instead. you’re transferring your trust. That’s the idea in repentance. You’re transferring your trust from trusting your own merit to God’s mercy. Jesus Christ died to pay for sin. Jesus Christ arose from the dead. It’s nothing more than Good Friday and Easter, thing Jesus Christ changes the transaction we need to pay as an atonement for sin from trusting in something we do to something he did. Hhe died to pay for sin and arose from the dead. So, when we trust in him, we have forgiveness and we inherit the kingdom of heaven on earth, in this life. So, what is the Kingdom of heaven and where did that concept come from? We shall find out in the next episode.