Matthew 3:1-12

We find ourselves in Matthew's Gospel, we're in the third chapter.

We'll look at verses 1 through 12 this morning.

Matthew writing, he says, In those days John the Baptist came preaching in the wilderness

of Judea and saying, Repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.

For this is he who was spoken of by the prophet Isaiah saying, The voice of one crying in

the wilderness, Prepare the way of the Lord and make his path straight.

And John himself was clothed in camel's hair with a leather belt around his waist, and

his food was locust and wild honey.

Then Jerusalem, all Judea and all the region around the Jordan went out to him and were

baptized by him in the Jordan, confessing their sins.

But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming to his baptism, he said to

them, Brute of vipers, who warned you to flee from the wrath to come?

Therefore bear fruits worthy of repentance.

And do not think to say to yourselves, We have Abraham as our father.

For I say to you that God is able to raise up children to Abraham from these stones.

And even now the axe is laid to the root of the trees.

Therefore every tree which does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.

I indeed baptize you with water under repentance.

But he who is coming after me is mightier than I, whose sandals I'm not worthy to carry.

He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.

His winnowing fan is in his hand.

And he will thoroughly clean out his thrashing floor and gather his wheat into the barn,

that he will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire.

Let us pray.

Heavenly Father, this indeed is a stern word this morning.

It's a word of rebuke.

That's a word of caution.

Lord, it is a word of impending judgment.

And Father, Lord, help us as your people, Lord, to listen to what the Spirit would say

unto the church this morning.

Father, let us hear this message of repent.

Lord, we need to hear that.

But Father, Lord, mercy and grace are found there as well.

And Lord, God, help us to preach Christ and him holy as he is, both Savior and Lord.

And Lord, that the one who will fall upon him, Lord, they'll be received.

But the one who will not but stiffens his neck will be broken without remedy.

God help us this morning.

Lord, help me to be clear.

And Lord, I pray, Lord, for the aid, the power, the unction of your precious Holy Spirit.

Oh, God, feed your sheep this morning, we pray in Jesus' name.

Amen.

You may be seated.

The church throughout its history has had to battle against false teachers and heresies.

That is nothing new.

I mean, Jude tells us in verse 3 that we must contend earnestly for the faith which was

once delivered unto the saints.

So what Jude was saying, that there is an earnest fight in the church because she is

engaged in a war.

The truth is always under attack.

It is always under siege.

And that's the way it's always been in every age.

We don't find ourselves doing something different than the church in the first century had battled.

From the beginning, heretics arose promoting what Paul would call demonic doctrines.

One of the most severe heresies in the first century was led by this heretic named Arius.

Arius, modern day founder of Arianism, denied the Trinity, denied the deity of Christ.

Now this heresy took root.

It actually found a following there in the first century and it caused a lot of harm

in the early church.

And finally, it was officially condemned as a heresy at the Council of Nicaea in 325.

But if you think about today, that heresy, it just gets repackaged and rebranded in every

age.

I've said this so many times.

You go to him in 141 and you have the Kingdom Hall of Jehovah's Witnesses.

That's the heresy of Arianism, denying the Trinity, denying the deity of Christ.

But that's not where we're at in our context this morning.

One of the false teachings that we encounter, and I believe especially in conservative churches,

is this modern day notion that somehow repentance is not necessary for salvation.

There are some preachers, there are some pastors who would say, you should not preach the necessity

of repentance, only faith.

Because here's what they believe.

When you teach that repentance is necessary, they say that you're teaching a salvation

by works.

And that would be true if repentance were work of man.

But rather, it is a gift of God, just as faith.

God must grant true repentance.

Man cannot conjure it up himself.

There is a worldly sorrow.

There is a repentance that man does on his own.

It's shallow.

It's a worldly effort.

It has no bearing in heaven whatsoever.

True repentance must come from God, and he grants it.

And we read that in 2 Timothy chapter 2, verse 5.

2 Timothy 2:5

If God perhaps, maybe, will grant them repentance so that they might know or acknowledge the

truth.

Paul is telling Timothy, we don't know.

God might have mercy upon them and grant them repentance.

Show them their other ways.

In Acts 11, it's talking about repentance for salvation coming to the Gentiles.

When they heard these things, they became silent and they glorified God saying, then

God has also granted to the Gentiles repentance unto life.

The London Baptist Confession, the second confession, says this, that this saving repentance

is an evangelical grace whereby a person being by the Holy Spirit is made sensible of the

manifold evils of his sin.

He does by faith in Christ humble himself for it with godly sorrow, detestation of it

and self-apportance, praying for pardon and strength of grace with a purpose and endeavor

by supplies of the Spirit to walk before God unto all well-pleasing in all things.

This is our confession.

So to enter the kingdom of God, and we looked at the kingdom of God last week and what it

is and what it is not.

The Lord Jesus Christ himself preached the necessity of repentance.

You must repent unless you likewise perish.

The disciples preached the necessity of repentance to enter the kingdom.

The apostle Paul who came later preached the necessity of repentance.

You must turn from idols and to the true and living God.

So the church throughout the ages has preached the necessity of repentance.

So then what should we do today?

Preach the necessity of repentance if one is going to enter into this kingdom that belongs

to God.

Now, we're in Matthew 3 and we must understand that every passage has a historical context.

Up until this time of Matthew's gospel, there had been no prophetic voice in Israel for

400 long years.

We talked about this last week.

They're called the silent years.

Heaven seemed silent.

No new revelation, no new light, no new prophets coming down the scene.

And so much time had passed, four centuries in fact, so the people started to believe

that the next prophet to arise must have some messianic significance.

Then all of a sudden, there's this desert prophet coming on the scene.

His name is John.

There's a lot of talk, a lot of expectation about the coming Messiah.

There was a buzz in the air about the arrival of God's anointed one.

Now Matthew tells us explicitly that John's ministry is a fulfillment of prophecy.

In fact, he fulfills what Isaiah had prophesied back in chapter 40, verse 3.

Isaiah writes, the voice of one crying, heralding in the wilderness, prepare the way of the

Lord, make straight in the desert a highway for our God.

So if John, he's the forerunner of the long awaited Messiah, he is the voice crying out

for the arrival of the King.

So John was a herald.

And what we mean in Old Testament times, when a king would come to a town or a village and

he would get ready to enter into that town, he would send first a herald who would arrive

in the town first, blow a trumpet, and announcing that the King is coming.

The King is arriving.

This is John's ministry.

He was to prepare the people for the arrival of this King.

He was going to make his paths straight.

What does that mean?

Well, when a king would visit and make a royal visit to a town, sometimes a new highway might

be built.

Or certainly, they would clear a nice path for his chariot so that he would arrive without

any obstacles in his way.

Any clutter would be removed, roadblocks are going to be torn down, other hindrances taken

out of the way.

Why?

The King was coming.

So John's ministry was to get the people ready for the King by removing any spiritual roadblocks.

And this is why he's starting to preach the message of repentance.

He was building a highway, but a highway of holiness for the Lord.

The King was coming.

The people needed to get prepared.

And the only way they could prepare was to repent.

Now Matthew mentions some peculiar details about John that others don't mention.

He tells us about the way he was dressed and he tells us about his diet and what he ate.

Verse four, he's clothed in camel's hair with a leather belt around his waist and he

ate locust and wild honey.

So his diet lets us know that John is a poor man and he's a poor man living in the desert.

This is desert food, locust and wild honey.

But why does Matthew mention such a seemingly insignificant detail about the way the prophet

was dressed?

Because he's letting the Jewish readers, and Matthew's gospels were written primarily to

Jewish readers, he's letting these Jewish readers get clued in another prophecy.

The penultimate verse of the Old Testament, the next to last verse of the Old Testament,

is Malachi chapter four verse five.

Here's what Malachi writes.

Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful

day of the Lord.

God is going to send Elijah before the Lord arrives.

Now, since the time that Malachi had issued that prophecy, the people were expecting a

visit from Elijah.

And Elijah is going to serve as a forerunner for the Lord.

Now centuries later, 400 years later, John the Baptist comes dressed in camel's hair

and he has a leather belt around his waist dressed like the prophet Elijah was dressed.

We read that in 2 Kings 1 8.

A hairy man wearing the camel's hair, wearing a leather belt around his waist.

And he said, well, that's Elijah.

Everyone is how Elijah's dressed.

That's Elijah the Tishbite.

So now after all the silent years, you have a desert wilderness prophet dressed like Elijah

making his debut and he's preaching a radical message like Elijah would have preached.

Now if you look at Elijah and John the Baptist, they have very similar ministries.

They both face down evil kings.

Who is Elijah facing down?

Ahab.

Who was John the Baptist facing down?

Herod.

They both were actually more threatened by the king's wives.

Jezebel, the wife of Ahab, was the one that got to Elijah.

And Herodias, remember how John the Baptist dies?

Is because of Herodias and what she had petitioned her husband for.

Both of these men, the prophets, they live solitary lives.

And so no doubt the Jewish readers who are reading this gospel, they're going to pick

up on what Matthew is writing.

There's an Elijah-like figure who had just arrived after so many silent years.

Now of course we're not, you're saying, well, okay, aren't you making a big deal about nothing?

We're not reading into the text.

In fact, 14 chapters later, the Lord will confirm this is the accurate interpretation.

In chapter 17, here's what our Lord said.

His disciples asked him, that is Jesus, saying, why then did the scribes say that Elijah has

to come first?

Well, here's why they said it.

Malachi said it.

Malachi 4-5.

Jesus then answered and then said, he didn't say they are wrong.

He said, indeed Elijah is coming first and will restore all things.

But notice the words of our Lord.

And I say to you that Elijah has come already.

And they did not know him, but did to him whatever they wished.

And just in the same manner, likewise, a son of man is also about to suffer at these people's

hands.

Then it dawned on them.

Then the disciples understood, ah, he's talking about John the Baptist.

John the Baptist was the Elijah-like figure who was to come to prepare the people.

Why?

Because he was coming.

He was to prepare the people for the arrival of the Christ.

Now, he was wildly popular at the time.

People loved to hear him.

Verse 5, it says Jerusalem, that's the capital city.

Judea, that's southern Israel.

And all the region around the Jordan, that's the river, they go out to him and they were

baptized by him in the Jordan, confessing their sins.

Now, again, let me just say something that is a side note.

It says all Judea, all the region, and Jerusalem.

Jewish people sometimes says all means all.

Does it mean every single person who lived in Judea?

No.

Clearly, context is dictating here.

So you have Jerusalem, the southern area of Judea, the region, they go out to him and

they're hearing this message he's preaching and they're brought to conviction.

But what was more surprising was the message that this prophet was preaching.

He's preaching a message of repentance.

He told the people who came out to hear him, listen, folks, you need to repent.

You need to turn from your sins and turn to God.

Now, that's not a surprising message to us at all.

But what was surprising was the people to whom he was preaching this message.

John was not preaching to Gentiles.

John the Baptist was preaching to Israel, to his fellow Jews, to the people who were

in covenant with God already.

And he told these Jewish folks, you all need to repent.

And that, of course, was signified in their baptism.

Now, Judaism, if you know anything about it, they had baptisms or what we call washings,

ceremonial washings.

They had purification rights.

But they were not for Jews.

They were for Gentiles who were converting to Judaism.

Why?

Why being cleansed?

It was well understood that the Gentiles were unclean.

And since the Gentiles, anyone not a Jew, were unclean, they did need to repent and

they needed to be cleansed.

So they went through these purification rights.

They went through these ceremonial washings so they could join the people of God.

But it was unconscionable that the Jews needed to be cleansed.

They weren't unclean like the Gentiles, were they?

That's exactly what John is telling them.

He is telling his fellow Jews, you are unclean.

You have broken the law of God.

You need to repent and you must turn to him.

What is surprising, you have 400 silent years, all of a sudden this new prophet arises, something

radical and something new was taking place.

Something of significance was happening down in Judea and everyone knew about it.

Now the common folks gladly heard John.

They go out into the desert to meet him, out by the Jordan River and they respond to his

message and they begin to confess their sins in baptism.

But not all the Jews accepted his message.

Look at verse 7.

But when he, that is John the Baptist, saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees come into

his baptism, he said to them, you brood of vipers, who has warned you to flee from the

wrath to come.

These were the religious leaders.

Pharisees, facetious holders and keepers of the law, Sadducees, they are the erudite

lawyers.

Not lawyers in the way we mean it, but lawyers of the law of God.

So these religious leaders got wind of what was taking place out in the desert.

So they dispatched their own group, hey go investigate, see what is going on out there.

They were curious.

Why was John so popular with the people and additionally they wanted to know why is he

preaching anyways?

Now they were not coming so that they could be baptized by John.

They didn't want to do that.

They just wanted to see for themselves what was actually taking place.

Now if one of these Pharisees or Sadducees had been baptized, it would have been the

highest of scandals because they were the religious leaders.

And that would have been an admission of their own guilt.

It also would have been a stamp of approval upon John the Baptist's ministry.

So that would have been, if they would have been baptized, that would have been these

religious leaders admitting I'm unclean.

I need to be cleansed.

That was too big of a blow to their pride.

Surely they did not need to repent.

Surely they were not among them clean.

And if you know anything about these groups, the Pharisees and the Sadducees, they saw

themselves as righteous, personally righteous.

In fact they were so confident they could lead others into the kingdom of God.

And you have John in effect telling them you're not even in the kingdom of God, much less

capable of leading someone else to it.

This is a strong message.

That John the Baptist was a rugged man, he's a desert man, a rugged prophet, not very diplomatic

and certainly not used to soft words.

He's not using any soft words to encourage or to foster dialogue, what we might say today,

but instead he boldly said, listen, you are a brute of vipers.

Who told you to come out here and flee from God's wrath?

What he's doing, he's calling these religious leaders, he said you're a bunch of scoundrels.

He compares them to snakes.

And he says, he had the courage, John was a man of courage, he faced down the king,

he faced down these important religious leaders, and he said, listen, you too are headed for

God's wrath unless you repent.

You've got to see it.

And he's not a man to mince words, is he?

He's a straight shooter.

And he said, and by the way, verse eight, bring forth fruits worthy of repentance.

You repent and prove it.

See, repentance is more than just lip service, it's more than just saying, I'm sorry.

Repentance is a Greek word, metanoia.

And it literally, metanoia literally means just to change your mind.

But it is deeper than that.

That's the etymology, but the way it's used goes much deeper.

It is a change of mind, but it's a change of mind that leads to a change of behavior.

In its classical form, metanoia is to turn from sin, to turn from idols, and turn to

Christ for salvation.

You're changing your mind about yourself.

You no longer see yourself as righteous, you know you're unclean, you turn to Christ because

you know you need a savior.

That's repentance.

So it's a change of mind about sin that goes from delighting in it and approving of it

to loathing it.

Percy Sproul said, scripture understands a true change of mind to be one that includes

more than just a shifting of intellectual categories.

To have metanoia, to have true repentance, well that involves feelings of regret and

remorse.

Repentance means we are truly sorry for something we have done, not just its consequences.

And we want to change our behavior.

A repentant life is a changed life.

Not that perfection is ever attained, but that the fruit of repentance, a change in

actions, a change in attitudes, it does become discernible in a man's character.

Genuine repentance folks, listen, it takes place in your heart.

If your heart changes, so does your behavior.

But if your behavior never changes, neither did your heart.

Really having remorse about what you have done is what the Bible calls worldly sorrow.

Unbelievers have this.

They're sorry.

They see that they made a mess of things.

I think the classic example of this is Judas Iscariot.

Judas Iscariot felt remorse for his actions.

He even recognized his evil deed.

He certainly felt bad for it.

He went so far as to confess that he had condemned an innocent man.

He agreed with it.

He confessed it.

But he didn't look outward to God for mercy.

Judas continued to look inward.

And eventually he takes his own life.

And the Bible says he went to his own place.

Judas died an unconverted man.

Judas Iscariot is in hell today.

Daniel Dorianne says this, true repentance looks inward at your own sinfulness, outward

at the harm you've caused to others, but upward to the Lord.

See, friends, repentance is the initial step of the Christian life, but it's not a one

and done event.

The entire Christian life, and let me say this again, the entire Christian life is one

of daily repentance, looking to God for grace and mercy because we still see something of

our own sinfulness.

This is why Jamie earlier, I'm so appreciative of how he did this, the prayer of confession,

we read the law of God, we read the word of God, and we see in Ephesians, or Revelation

2, how the church at Ephesus had left their first love.

And he says, unless you repent, I'll come and read your candlestick.

You will cease to be a church.

Turn back.

And friends, we read that and we don't say, oh, poor church at Ephesus.

We say, poor us.

We like they are prone to do this.

Prone to wonder, Lord, I feel it.

Prone to leave the God I love.

And so what do we do?

We confess each Lord's day, we confess our sins, but we also see assurance and pardon

at the tables who are met with Christ.

But what these religious leaders failed to see here is they were blind to their own inward

corruption.

They could not see that they were separated from God.

They had an outward veneer of righteousness.

They did.

They looked good on the outside, but housing deep within them, corruption.

Now they hated external sins or obvious sins.

Sexual immorality, John 8, they had the woman caught in adultery.

They would have easily seen that.

They would have stayed away from that.

Theft, well, they thought they stayed away from that.

But they failed to see the inward sense of pride, self-righteousness, greed, avarice.

So what we understand, these men should have gone out to John, confessed their sin and

baptism, but instead they found comfort in their position.

And this message is needed as much today as it was in John's time.

So many preachers today preach a gospel and they offer salvation to sinners who have no

desire to break from sin.

None.

They offer Jesus as a very delicate savior, but not as the reigning Lord.

They offer entrance into heaven without ever having a break from sin.

And let me just say this, of course, sinners want to go to heaven when they die.

They're not foolish.

All people do.

But sinners do not want a Lord who reigns over them and rules them by His own word.

Christ Jesus will not save the impenitent.

And He does not offer salvation without repentance.

He does not save those who claim to want salvation and have no desire whatsoever to leave their

sinful lives behind.

You don't get it both ways.

You don't have your cake and eat it too.

So the Lord Jesus is offered to mankind in the gospel, but it's the complete Christ.

He is savior and He is Lord.

And those can never be separated.

To be saved by Christ, when we use the word saved, so angry, is to be rescued, is to be

delivered, but saved from what?

Well, God's wrath.

Why is God angry?

Why does He have wrath?

Why is He angry at you?

Because we've broken His holy law by our sin and we stand condemned before Him.

Therefore, you cannot be saved by Christ and still try to cling to the very thing that

separates you from God and arouses His anger, which is your sin.

You must repent metanoia.

You must change your mind.

Repent before God.

John was clear, he's not mincing word, he's clear in his message to these religious leaders

and he says, and by the way, if you've claimed to repent, well bear fruits worthy of that.

A repentance that is real, it is genuine, produces genuine results.

Not perfect change, not overnight change, but real change nonetheless.

Let me give an example of this.

When I was in college, I went to a very, very strict, fundamentalist college and I was called

to be a floor leader, so I had charged probably about close to 100 guys on my hall and I had

another guy, we would have to go in, we had to do room check daily to inspect it and that

night, long story.

So anyways, every morning, 7.30, you had to have your room completely clean, so that was

the room protocol.

So I had to go into this one room and so the guy's name was Dusty, he and I became good

friends.

He had just gotten saved, no one knew this, he confided in me, out of a non-Christian

background.

I mean, he had not been saved that long at all before he arrives on this university doorstep.

He had actually fathered a child while in high school and he didn't tell anyone but

me.

So he has a child, he's at school, at college, and Dusty had just gotten saved, but he had

always used foul language.

One day I was checking his room and he was taking a shower and this shower with hot water

apparently ran out.

Now he didn't realize I'd come in the room, there was obviously a door separating us,

and I'm on the other side of the door just looking at the room and when the hot water

turns cold, he let out a profanity-laced torrent against that shower head that would make a

sailor blush.

His language was not cleaned up overnight, folks, but he was making progress.

Dusty was repentant.

He had very deep conversations, his desire was real, and that showed in his life, albeit

imperfectly and slowly at the beginning.

And isn't that the way with us?

I mean, can anyone ever say, hey, we just absolutely categorically did away with our

sin overnight?

No.

This is how God deals with us, the transforming grace of the Holy Spirit of God.

Look at verse 9.

Do not think to say to yourselves, we have Abraham as our father, for I say to you that

God is able to raise up children to Abraham from these very stones.

See, what he's saying is he's taken away their pride, he's taken away what they held comfort

in.

They found comfort and solace in their identity.

They were Jews, biological sons of Abraham, incredibly proud of their pedigree and religious

heritage.

This is why they didn't feel they needed to repent.

They're not pagans.

They're children of Abraham.

And John, he says, hey, listen, you think that's a big deal?

You're a son of Abraham?

If God wanted, he could take these stones from the Jordan Riverbed and make children

of Abraham if he desired.

And he did.

You and I are Gentiles.

Before we came to Christ, how does the Bible describe our heart?

A heart of stone.

And God made us alive with Christ through the gospel, gave us a heart of flesh that

now beaded and pulsated with the life of God.

He in effect made us what?

Sons of Abraham.

He did use stones and make them sons of Abraham.

In Christ, God took men and women with stony hearts and makes them sons and daughters of

Abraham.

That's wonderful.

But these Jewish leaders relied on pedigree, on ethnicity to save them.

Verse 10.

And even now the axe is laid to the root of the trees, therefore every tree does not bear

good fruit.

It's cut down and thrown in the fire.

What he's doing, he's pressing his urgent claims on these religious leaders, on these

Pharisees and Sadducees.

Time is running out, he says, and judgment is coming to them.

It's kind of like a lumberjack and he's sizing up a tree.

He's looking at this tree.

It's not born fruit and it hasn't born fruit.

And if it doesn't begin to produce fruit soon, he's going to chop it down and burn it in

the fire.

What's the point?

God's judgment is closer than they feel.

So these leaders, they went out to investigate John's ministry, but they should have been

using this time to repent and get ready with God, get right with God, excuse me.

R.C.

Sproul once more.

We live in a culture where no one is afraid of the judgment of God, no one.

But the biblical portrait is of a God who will judge the earth, a God who will call

every leaving creature to account.

If we do not bring forth fruits worthy of repentance, we will be cast into the fire

where we belong.

Friend you must turn from your sin.

You must flee to Christ for salvation.

God's acts is already at the root of that tree.

Today's the day of salvation.

Today's the day you run to Christ confessing your sins, forsaking your sins, and He will

save you.

Verse 11, John says, I am baptized you with water under repentance.

But the one coming after me, he's mightier than I.

I'm not even worthy to carry a sandals.

And that man, he's going to baptize you, it'll be with the Holy Spirit in fire.

So John has been announcing and documenting the need for repentance and now he's about

to announce the King's coming.

There's one who's coming who is much greater than I, greater in power, certainly, greater

than importance than John.

In fact, John says, this man is so great, so esteemed, I'm not even worthy to carry

his sandals.

That's the job of a slave.

I'm not even worthy to compare this one who's coming.

I'm not even worthy to carry sandals.

I'm not even worthy to be his slave.

He said, no, no, I can do.

I can baptize you with water.

But not the one coming.

He will baptize you with Holy Spirit in fire.

And I believe this is a reference to Pentecost where the Holy Spirit is poured out upon his

church in clothes of fire, in flaming tongues of fire, excuse me.

The Messiah will come and he has come, not only to save his people, but he will judge

his adversaries.

This is what Sproul has said, no one thinks that this God that we serve will ever bring

judgment and yet he will.

Verse 12, his winnowing fan, it's in his hand, he will thoroughly clean out his thrusting

floor and gather his wheat into the barn, but burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire.

The winnowing fan, it's a fork.

He's talking about a farming metaphor here.

Jewish farmers would use this fork to separate wheat from chaff.

So they would go in, they would just use this fork and pick up the wheat.

They would throw it in the air.

The chaff, since it's lighter, would be carried away by the breeze and the good grain would

fall to the ground and it would be bound up as well.

And John says, there's coming a time where God's going to clean out his thrusting floor.

He's going to get all that good wheat, but he's also going to take the chaff and take

it away into unquenchable fire.

And this is what John said, it's not my words, he says, the winnowing fork, it is already

in Messiah's hand.

That's the one who's coming, he's also bringing judgment.

There'll be a day of separation, separating wheat from chaff and it's imminent.

But here is the importance, that separation results in a fiery end.

The chaff is burned what he calls unquenchable fire.

The message is clear.

Not everyone belongs to God.

There are wheat, good grain, and the rest is chaff.

The Lord will one day gather all his people out of the world.

A day of great separation.

His people he will gather into his father's house, where there'll be joy and feasting

and eternal celebration.

But those who are not his, those who are chaff in this metaphor, those who have not repented,

those who have not turned to Christ, will face an eternable, unquenchable fire.

Judgment.

Not my words, folks.

This is the word of the living God.

So the question that really behooves us is to which group do you pertain?

Are you gonna be taken to the Father's house?

Will you face the Father's wrath?

You say, how do I know?

The Lord's people, those who belong to him, the good grain, they have repented.

They have turned from their sin.

They have sought refuge in the Lord's anointed, the Lord Jesus Christ.

And their lives are bearing fruit, worthy of repentance.

Not perfectly, not perfectly at all.

But here's the message, and it's a message that I'm burdened with this morning.

Unless you repent, you too will likewise perish.

Turn from your sin and look to Christ.

Turn from any self-righteousness and rest in the one who is perfectly righteous.

Just as in John's day, the king was at hand, right?

That's what John was announcing.

The king is coming, and he was.

So there was an urgent need to repent.

Likewise, let me say this, the king is coming.

Well, let me say it this way.

The king is coming again, and the message is urgent.

There is an urgent need for you to be ready for his arrival.

How?

You repent.

And I would be remiss if I let you think that at the end of the day, this repentance would

be a work of your own.

I love what Daniel Doriani said, that no one is forgiven on the basis of their penitence.

We need to repent even of our own repentance.

We are forgiven how?

By the mercy of Jesus, who gave his life to atone for our sins and grant us the true repentance

that opens up a new life.

Hear the word of the living God.

Hear the message.

Hear what the Spirit says to the church this morning.

If you don't know him, friends, don't fight with it, don't argue with it, fall on your

face before him.

Admitting what you know to be true and what he already knows to be true, you are an unworthy

sinner who has broken his law and you stand in judgment, rightly so.

But God has offered his son as a savior.

And today is the day of salvation.

Fall on your face before him, repenting of your sin and turning to him in faith.

And he will save you.

And you can rest.

And every Lord's Day as we gather for worship, we come to our covenant renewal here at the

table.

This is the promise of God, Jesus, broken for you.

Come and feast at the table of the Lord.

Let us pray.

Lord, we thank you this morning, Lord, for the word of God.

It is so rich.

It is so nutritive, Lord.

It feeds us, Lord.

It meets us, Lord, in our need.

Lord, it provides nourishment for our soul.

Lord, let us see Jesus, Lord.

Let us understand the incomparable worth and glory that alone belongs to him.

May he be preeminent in his church this morning.

Father, thank you for all the ways you have dealt and met with your people in mercy.

Lord, indeed, we are blessed, and we pray this in Jesus' name.

Amen.

I want to ask the deacons if you'd come to the table as we prepare to commune with our

egoism, Lord.