"He Will Burn"
[Matthew 3:1-12]
December 9, 2207 Second Reformed Church
Jesus is a problem. Well, He's a problem for people who only want the Hallmark Jesus -- the Jesus Who is hardly distinguishable from Santa. Our hymns are even misleading on this: In "It Came Upon a Midnight Clear" we sing, "Peace on earth, good-will to men, from heaven’s all gracious King." In "Hark! The Herald Angels Sing" we sing, "Glory to the newborn King, peace on earth, and mercy mild, God and sinners reconciled!"
A friend of mine once told me that he wasn't worried about not believing in Jesus because the Bible says, "Glory to God in the highest and on earth peace among men." He figured that meant that, even though he didn't believe in Jesus as the Only Savior, Jesus made everything right with everybody and God. But I told him that’s not what the Bible says -- the Bible says, "Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among those with whom he is pleased" (Luke 2:14). It's not everybody -- it's a specific group of people to whom God gives peace and is at peace.
In this morning's Scripture, we are introduced to the adult John the Baptist, the son of Elizabeth, Jesus' cousin. And in this passage, we learn four things about John's preaching, as well as something about his cousin, Jesus.
First, we see that John preached repentance. "Repent!" The word means to turn completely around. It means to go from doing one thing to doing the exact opposite. Here, we are talking about sin -- John was calling people to leave sin behind, leave behind all those things that are against God, in rebellion against God, and turn to those things that are pleasing to God and according to His Ways.
The commentator, David Dickson, writes, "The Gospel finds men mad, and out of their wits, in an evill way; when it is sent unto them, they are men who must return to their wits, as the originall of the word repent importeth" (Matthew, 21-22).
We remember in what is commonly called, "The Parable of the Prodigal Son," the son who had gone out and spent his inheritance on "riotous living," comes to a point when his "friends" are gone and he is face done in a pig trough, and Jesus says, "But when he came to himself" (Luke 15:17) or "When his senses returned to him" or "When he returned to his right mind" -- what? -- he renounced his sin and started back to his father's house.
This is the season of "the one with the most toys wins." We're mad -- especially in America. We want the quick fix, the easy answer, salvation in seven stops. And it's true -- for the moment, sin satisfies, it feels good, it's fun -- but it's only for a moment. And the madness is that Jesus is standing before us with eternal joy and eternal salvation. We’ve been following after instantaneous gratification with a grand sense of entitlement, and we get it -- whatever it is for us -- and it's a rush, and then it's over.
John's message is "Deny yourself that sinful, easy pleasure, and, instead, wait for the glorious, eternal, joy in salvation that is coming in Jesus, the Savior." And in John's day, there wasn't long to wait: "the Kingdom of God is at hand" -- it was this close -- it was breaking through as he spoke. So it would be all the more mad not to turn around -- repent -- when salvation is here and now, today.
Repent of your sins. Deny yourself sin. In its place, take up the salvation of Jesus. It's two thousand years after John the Baptist, and the Kingdom is even more fully among us now. And it is almost finished coming. And when it has fully come, our God and Savior will appear, not as a little Baby, but as the Once and Future King.
Second, John preached preparation for the Lord. As we saw in I Peter, as we saw last week in our look at Jesus' Second Coming, as we see now in the ministry of John the Baptist, we are to be prepared and preparing for Jesus. The people in the day of John ought to have been preparing for the first Advent of the Savior -- Jesus; we ought to be preparing for the second Advent of Jesus. We, like they, are in a period of waiting for the day when our Savior shall appear. We, like they, ought to "make his paths straight."
If we're a people looking for the coming of Jesus, we ought to be doing everything we can to make His Gospel clear, to make the way understandable, to keep obstacles from being in anyone's way. The pot-holes must be filled, the construction must be finished, the debris must be cleared off the road. We, like John, are called to call all to repentance and belief. Jesus was not born to invent toys or Santa or debt. Jesus was born to glorify His Father by becoming our Savior, and if we believe in Him Alone for our Salvation, we are saved.
The people listened to John and responded to John's call on them because they recognized him to be the prophet of God. In fact, John was the final Old Testament prophet. They looked at him and saw a man dressed in strange clothes, eating a strange diet -- and if that were all they had seen and heard, we could dismiss him as a nut and them as gullible -- but he also spoke only the Word of God. He preached the Word of God simply, straightforwardly, and the people understood that what he said was what the prophets had said for generations. Do people know when we are speaking the Word of the Lord? Do we tell others the things of the Bible -- the things of Jesus -- in a way that they can understand -- in a way that shows we believe it?
Third, John preached that a true faith results in good works. The Pharisees and the Sadducees came to the Jordan for baptism. They came to profess their repentance of sin. But John was full of the Holy Spirit and know that they were hypocrites -- they had come for the show, but they didn't believe in God's Word, they didn't believe in God's Savior, they were not repentant of their sins. No, they came because they wanted to be seen confessing and receiving forgiveness, but John would have none of it.
John spoke by the Holy Spirit and condemned their evil act: "You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? Bear fruit in keeping with repentance. And do not presume to say to yourselves, 'We have Abraham as our father,' for I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children for Abraham. Even now the axe is laid at the root of the trees. Every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown in the fire."
In calling the Pharisees and Sadducees "vipers," John connects them to the lineage of the Serpent in the Garden of Eden, and denies them the name of Abraham that they desired. John told them they were all talk -- they mouthed the words of repentance before the crowds and then they went right back to their houses of prostitution and money-laundering.
Now, let us understand -- we all have our "favorite" sins -- sins that we are more prone to follow and fall into. John is not condemning people who confess their sins and then fall into the same sins -- we all do that. What John is condemning is people who sin and confess their sin though they have absolutely no intention of stopping whatever sin they follow. These are people who mouth the words of repentance while intending to commit the same sin as soon as they have the chance. The difference is hypocrisy.
And before they could object, John told them that their family line will not save them. It doesn't matter how much money your family gave to the church, or how many generations your family has been part of the church, or, in this case, that you are a blood descendant of Abraham to whom God gave the promises. No. If you are not, yourself, sincerely repentant, you are a hypocrite and still dead in your sins.
And John warns them, and us, the axe is at the root. If we are hypocrites, we shall be cut down and cast into the fire. On the day of judgment, all will be known, and the truly repentant will be separated from those who sat in the sanctuary and gave their money and participated, but never truly believed and never truly repented. With the coming of the Kingdom, there is judgment.
Fourth, John preached that he was not the Christ -- the Savior. John explained that he baptized with water -- he officiated at the sacrament -- at the symbolic washing away of sin, but John could not actually make anyone right with God -- only the Savior could do that. Only the Savior could make atonement between God and man. Only the Savior could make God an man right with one another.
The Savior, John explained -- the One Who was coming -- the One Who now has come -- is greater than John. John said he wasn't worthy to carry This One's sandals. How do you view Jesus? Yes, Jesus is our Friend, but is there any sense of awe about Him?
Jesus said, "I tell you, among those born of women none is greater then John" (Luke 7:28a). Jesus said that john was the greatest merely human being ever born, and John said that he was not worthy to carry Jesus' sandals. And then there is you and me -- what shall we think of Jesus?
John said that the Savior Who is coming -- Who he later identified as his cousin, Jesus -- "He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire." What does that mean? John's baptism was a symbolic washing away of sin, but the baptism that Jesus gave was two-fold -- not only does Jesus forgive us for our sin through His Work of Salvation, but he also gives us the indwelling of God the Holy Spirit -- the Third Member of the Trinity lives in every Christian -- to guide and instruct us -- and to apply the fire of God. We are gifted with the purifying fires of God. As we saw in I Peter, God is at work in us to purify us, to remove the dross -- the impurities -- the sin -- to make us into the Image of His Son.
John preached that he merely, symbolically washed away the sin of the repentant sinner with water, but it is Jesus Who truly forgives, saves, and changes us -- through the gift of the indwelling of the Holy Spirit and through the often painful fires of purification. John pointed the way to Jesus.
And he told us one more thing -- something we might not expect of this little Baby: "His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor and gather his wheat into the barn, but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire."
Wheat was cut down and dried. Then it was beaten on the threshing floor, so the kernels of wheat would fall off of the stalk. Then the stalk was discarded and a large wooden fork -- like an over-sized pitchfork was used to pick the kernels up and throw them into the air. The actual kernel would fall to the ground, but the chaff, the light, papery cover would come off and float down. The harvesters would repeat this process until he good, wheat kernels were separated from the worthless chaff. The kernels would be gathered into the barn to make flour, but the chaff would be gathered up and burned.
Humanity is the wheat, and this little Baby is returning as the Winnower Who takes up His winnowing fork and separates us -- the kernels from the chaff. The kernels shall be saved, but the chaff will endure unquenchable fire.
The author of Hebrews reminds us, "Therefore, let us be grateful for receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, and thus let us offer to God acceptable worship, with reverence and awe, for our God is a consuming fire" (Hebrews 12:28-29).
Elsewhere Jesus called the chaff "goats" and said, "...'Depart from me, you cursed, into the everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels'" (Matthew 25:41b).
John preached that we must repent of our sin. He preached that we must prepare for the coming of the Savior. He preached that true faith will be followed by good works. But John was not the Savior. The Savior is Jesus, Whose Birth we remember this season each year. Yet we must keep before us the Truth that He is coming back -- and when He does, He will burn.
Let us pray:
Almighty Savior, make us ready. Let us rejoice in remembering Your Birth and the Salvation You give us, but let us also prepare by doing good works and telling others, simply that Jesus is the Only Hope and Salvation -- this Christmas and for all of eternity. In Jesus' Name, Amen.
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