#18 Lu. 3:1-9; THE MINISTRY OF JOHN THE
BAPTIST
Introduction:
In Luke 1:68-69 Zachariah, the father of John the
Baptist, uttered a prophecy concerning
Jesus. He said,
"Blessed be the Lord God of
redeemed his people, and hath raised up an
horn of salvation
for us in the house of his servant
David."
Then Zachariah followed that prophecy about Jesus with a
prophecy about his own son, John. He said, "And thou, child,
shalt be called the prophet of the Highest: for thou shalt
go before the face of the Lord to prepare
his ways; To give
knowledge of salvation unto his people by
the remission of
their sins," Luke 1:76-77
The first chapter of Luke closes out by saying of John,
"And the child grew, and waxed strong
in spirit, and was in
the deserts till the day of his showing
unto
is, he was in the deserts until the
beginning of his ministry
unto
In chapter 3, the ministry of John begins. Luke starts
the chapter off by telling us something
about the time in
which his ministry started.
I.
The time of John's ministry
V. 1-2, "Now in the fifteenth year of the reign of
Tiberius Caesar, Pontius Pilate being
governor of Judaea, and
Herod being tetrarch of Galilee, and his
brother Philip
tetrarch of
and Lysanias the tetrarch of
being the high priests..." Luke tells
us about seven men who
held high positions of power at the time
that John the
Baptist began his ministry.
The first was Tiberious Ceasar.
Tiberious was in his
fifteenth year as the ruler of the
that John began to preach in
The second man was Pontius Pilate, who was governor of
Tiberious who was in
who would later be involved in the trial
and crucifixion of
Jesus.
He is the man who would give orders for the Roman
soldiers to crucify Jesus. He is already governor in Judaea
when John started preaching. The stage is already set for
the crucifixion of Jesus even before He
ever begins His
ministry.
The third man was Herod, tetrarch of
the Herod who later would order the arrest
of John the
Baptist and finally, upon the request of
Salome, would order
that John be beheaded.
The fourth man was Philip, the brother of Herod. It was
Philip's wife, who had an affair with
Philip's brother, Herod
of
She was the mother of Salome and was the
one who prompted
Salome to ask for the head of John the
Baptist on a platter.
The fifth man was Lysanias who was made tetrarch of
recall, there is nothing else said about
this man in
Scripture.
The sixth and seventh men were both said to be High
Priests.
They were Annas and Caiaphas. Now
technically,
there could be only one high priest in
Luke calls both of these men high priests
at one time. How
could that be? It happened this way. Annas had inherited
the position of high priest from his
father who was high
priest before him. However, the Roman authorities did not
get along very well with him and so they
deposed him and
appointed somebody else in his place. In fact they kept
appointed two other priests between him
and Caiaphas. As it
turned out, Caiaphas, was the son-in-law
of Annas.
The Jews really did not like the idea of the Romans
deciding who their high priest would be,
but they did not
have a choice. However, as long as Annas lived, most of the
Jews considered him to be the real high
priest and pretty
much treated him as such. Even Luke must have gone along
with this idea. In our text he calls him the high priest
right along with Caiaphas.
II.
The word of God that John preached
(V.2), "...the word of God came unto John the son of
Zacharias in the wilderness." Luke speaks now about the
beginning of John's preaching career. Luke said that the
word of the Lord came unto John. That is, God moved upon the
heart of John and gave him the message
that he was to deliver
to the people of
while he was in the wilderness area and he
spent his entire
ministry in that wilderness area. John never went to the big
cities to preach. He was a country preacher.
V. 3, "And he came into all the country about
preaching the baptism of repentance for
the remission of
sins." John did move about somewhat there in the
wilderness.
Yet it was always out in the wilderness
and small villages
near the
stayed within the borders of
I have already mentioned that the word of
the Lord came
to John.
I would point out to you here that John preached
the word of the Lord as the Lord gave it
to him. Luke said
that he preached the baptism of repentance
for the remission
of sins.
This means that John preached first of all that the
people were sinners and needed to repent
of their sins in
order to receive the remission of
sins. This is what Matthew
said that John preached. In Matthew 3:1-2 we read, "In those
days came John the Baptist, preaching in
the wilderness of
Judaea, And saying, Repent ye: for the
kingdom of heaven is
at hand." Or to put it another, John preached,
"Repent ye,
for the King of Heaven is at hand."
But the idea is that all men are sinners and all men
need to repent of their sins in order to
receive remission of
sins or forgiveness of sins. Jesus later said it this way in
Luke 13:3 and also Luke 13:5, "I tell
you, Nay: but except ye
repent, ye shall all likewise
perish."
The clear implication is that if anyone will repent, he
will not perish. This is true.
Real genuine repentance
toward God always brings faith in the
Christ as Savior. And
repentance toward God and faith toward the
Lord Jesus Christ
is what all of the apostles preached. In Acts
said that he preached to the Jews and to
the Greeks:
"...repentance toward God and faith
toward our Lord Jesus
Christ." But if one truly repents toward God, he will
not
refuse to trust in Jesus Christ as his
Savior. God calls on
all men to put their faith and trust in
Jesus Christ for
salvation.
If a man repents toward God he will not reject
the Savior that God has sent to save
him. He will not reject
the Christ, but instead he will trust the
Christ.
In this particular verse Luke does not say anything
about trusting Jesus as Savior, but if we
study all that he
preached in all of the gospels we will see
that he preached
faith in Jesus Christ. In fact later in this same chapter,
John is going to preach to the people that
he is not the
Christ, but that the Christ would be
coming after him. The
very idea of that statement is that they
should put their
trust in the Christ.
Along with the preaching of repentance for remission of
sins, John also preached baptism. In other words, he
preached, "You repent and I will
baptize you. If you will
not repent then I will not baptize
you." There were many who
did come to him in repentance of their
sins and John did
baptize them. There were some who came to John whom John
had
reason to believe had not repented and
John refused to
baptize them. Some of the scribes and Pharisees came to
John
and wanted him to baptize them and John
said, "You bring
forth fruit meet for repentance and I will
baptize you."
III.
The task that John was sent to accomplish
In verses 4-6 John presented Old Testament scripture as
proof that his ministry was from God and
as a description of
what his ministry was to accomplish. V.
4-6, "As it is
written in the book of the words of Esaias
the prophet,
saying, The voice of one crying in the
wilderness, Prepare ye
the way of the Lord, make his paths
straight. Every valley
shall be filled, and every mountain and
hill shall be brought
low; and the crooked shall be made
straight, and the rough
ways shall be made smooth; And all flesh
shall see the
salvation of God."
In the olden days when a king would travel through the
land, a crier would go ahead of him and
inform the people of
his coming. It was then the responsibility of the people
to
prepare the way---the roadway---for the
coming of the king.
They had no highway department make road
repairs. When the
common people would travel along the road
if a tree had
fallen across the road they would either
move the tree or go
around.
If the rains had washed out a gully, they would
either go through it or manage some how to
go around it. If
a rock slide had heaped up a pile of rocks
in the road, they
would either move the rocks or go around.
But it was not considered fitting for a king to either
have to repair the road or go around. Therefore the crier
would summons the people and call upon
them to prepare the
roadway for the king. They would tear down the rock piles
and fill up the gullies and make the road
as straight and
smooth as possible.
But John was not trying to get the people to repair
the literal road way where Jesus would
walk. What John was
trying to get the people to do was to
repent of their sins.
He was trying to get those who would
repent to then come to
him and be scripturally baptized. Further, he was trying to
get those who had repented and had been
baptized to live
godly lives. That is the work that John was hoping to
accomplish.
IV.
John's reaction to the scribes and Pharisees
John had great success in accomplishing what he was sent
to accomplish. A lot of people came to him to be baptized.
But not everyone who came to him for
baptism had repented of
their sins and got prepared for the coming
of the Christ. V.
7-8, "Then said he to the multitude
that came forth to be
baptized of him, O generation of vipers,
who hath warned you
to flee from the wrath to come? Bring forth therefore fruits
worthy of repentance, and begin not to say
within yourselves,
We have Abraham to our father: for I say
unto you, That God
is able of these stones to raise up
children unto Abraham."
Luke does not tell us here that this is
not the kind of
language that John used with
everybody. But Matthew tells us
that he talked this way only to the
scribes and Pharisees who
came to him for baptism. John refused to baptize them until
they first would show a change in the way
they were living.
John said that they were a generation of
vipers. That is,
they were snakes in the grass. John said that they were
living devilish lives. John would be glad to baptize them if
only they would show some evidence by the
way that they lived
that they had repented of their sins.
Now let me point out to you that by today's standards
the scribes and Pharisees were not living
a wicked life at
all.
They were not drunkards. They
were not rabble-rousers
and trouble makers. They did not use dope. They were not
shacking up with somebody that they were
not married to.
They were not involved in murder or
anything like that. By
today's standards the scribes and
Pharisees were clean moral
law abiding citizens.
Their problem was that they were self-righteous. They
looked down their noses at everybody else
and they thought
of themselves as being God's gift to the
human race. But in
spite of the good opinion they had of
themselves, they were
egotistical self-righteous hard-hearted
no-good low-down
sinners in the sight of God. They needed to repent of their
sins and John wanted evidence in the way
they lived that they
had repented.
V.
John's warning about the fires of torment
In verse 9 John sounds a warning to those who will not
heed his message of repentance. V. 9,
"And now also the ax
is laid unto the root of the trees: every
tree therefore
which bringeth not forth good fruit is
hewn down, and cast
into the fire."
In this verse John is not talking about one single tree
representing the nation of Israel and the
nation of Israel
being rejected. Rather John is talking about trees plural
representing the many individual people of
Israel and of the
world.
John is using an illustration from real life to point
out to them the danger of failure to
repent. In real life a
fruit tree that does not bare fruit is cut
down at the roots
and burned in the fire. Likewise this is what happens with
human beings. If one will not repent of his sins so that he
can start producing some good fruit, then
he (or she as the
case may be) will be cut down and burned
in the fire. The
difference between humans and literal
trees is that when a
human being is cast into the fire he never
gets out and he
never stops burning. Oh, if only men would realize the
terrible suffering that they will endure
throughout eternity,
perhaps they would repent and be saved.
VI.
Some things which are taught in this passage that are
important to us today
Let me point out to you some things which are taught in
this passage of Scripture that are
important to us today.
First of all, these Scriptures teach that
all need to turn to
God in repentance of sin. When John preached repentance to
the people, he preached it to
everybody. All have sinned and
come short of God's standard of perfection
and so all need to
repent.
All who will repent will be saved and all who will
not repent will be cut down and cast into
everlasting fires.
In the words of Jesus Christ Himself,
"Except ye repent ye
shall perish."
Another thing that is taught in this passage is that if
one does repent of his sins he will have
no problem following
through with faith in the Lord Jesus
Christ. John preached
about the coming of the Christ. The whole purpose of his
ministry as to warn people about the
coming of the Christ and
to get them to be ready when He came. He wanted men, women,
boys and girls to be ready to receive the
Christ when He came
on the scene. You, too, should put your faith and trust in
Jesus Christ. Just as John preached that Jesus was coming
on
the scene in that day, even so God's
preachers today are
preaching that Jesus is going to come
again. Do not wait
until Jesus comes back to this world to
repent of your sins
and to put your faith in the Lord Jesus to
save your soul.
Trust in Him now before it is everlastingly
too late.
One of the chief things that is taught in this passage
of Scripture is that all who repent and
trust in Jesus as
Savior should then be baptized. God sent John with authority
to baptize those who were saved and God
has authorized His
New Testament churches to baptize those
who get saved in our
day.
When John was baptizing the baptism did not save
anybody.
If it had, John surely would not have refused to
baptize the scribes and Pharisees. If John's baptism could
have saved them, surely John would have
baptized them.
The truth of the matter is that John's baptism did not
need to save anybody. Jesus Christ, the Son of God is well
able to save. He does not need any help from John in the
Jordan River and today He does not need
any help from a
preacher in the baptistry. Baptism does not save. One who
believes in Jesus is saved, John 3:18.
But I'll tell you what John's baptism did do and it is a
very important thing. Every time that John put somebody
under the water and raised him up again
everybody would say,
"There is a person who has repented
of his sins." They would
say, "There is a person who believes
what John said about the
Christ.
Theres is one who believes in the Christ." They
would say, "There is a person that
loves God and wants to
please God." And that is one of the reasons that it is
important today that every saved person
follow the Lord in
Scriptural baptism. Every time a person is baptized in that
baptistry back there people ought to be
able to say, "There
is a person who has repented of his
sin." They ought to be
able to say, "There is a person who
truly believes in Jesus
Christ.
There is a person who is saved.
There is a person
who loves the Lord and wants to please the
Lord." But I will
be frank with you. If one claims to be believe in Jesus and
be saved and is not willing to be
baptized, them people have
reason to doubt whether or not he has ever
been saved.
But let me hasten on to another important thing that
this passage of Scripture teaches to
us. It teaches that
after one has professed to repent of his
sins, after he has
professed to believe in Jesus Christ as
his Savior, and after
he has been through the waters of baptism,
he ought to live a
life that is in harmony with what he has
professed. If he
claims to believe in Jesus Christ, he
ought to live like a
Christian.
John did not want to baptize the scribes and
Pharisees and then have them to go right
on living the same
kind of lives without any change. In their case John
insisted that they show some change before
he would baptize
them.
That just might not be a bad idea today in some cases.
But everybody who has gone through the
baptismal waters ought
to show a definite change in the way they
live he lives.
One is are not to make changes trying to
get saved. Rather
he is to make the change because he is
saved.
Conclusion:
Let me ask you a few questions for your consideration.
If John the Baptist were here to stand
before you this
morning and tell you to repent of your
sins, would you
repent?
Would you repent or would you let it go in one ear
and out the other? I do not hesitate to say it. It doesn't
make all that much difference whether it's
me that tells you
or whether it's John the Baptist, if you
do not repent you
will go to hell, but if you do repent you
will go to heaven.
If you would repent under John's
preaching, why not repent
today?
If John the Baptist were here this morning to stand
before you and tell you about the Christ,
would you believe
him?
Would you believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of
the Living God? Would you believe that Jesus is the Savior
of men and that He is able to save your
soul? If you would
believe John, then why not believe the
record of God's word
which gives you John's testimony about the
coming Christ?
Believe him and put your faith and trust
in Jesus as your
Savior.
If you are already saved and John the Baptist stood
before you this morning and asked you to
follow Jesus in
Scriptural baptism, would you do it? Would you come and let
this church baptize you?
If you are saved and you know that you are not living
right and John the Baptist were to stand
here today and tell
you to get your life straightened up with
God, would you do
it?
Well listen, John is not here, but I am and I am asking
you to do those things. I am not asking you to do them
because I say so. I am asking you to do them because that is
what God wants out of your life. We are going to have an
invitation hymn at this time. If you know that what I am
asking you to do is what God would have
you to do, then I am
going to ask you to come in this
invitation hymn and to
present yourself to this church.