God's will is confusing for a lot of people based on the fact that it seems so hard to find. Fortunately, we can know the will of God for our lives from Scripture. It is clear, unmistakable, and applicable.
Jesus shows in this passage how the authenticity of our relationship with God is directly related to our prayer life.
Adultery like murder begins in the heart and that is why one who constantly is lusting after a woman is doing so because of a heart that is immortal and lustful.
Who is a murderer? The answer is all of us, because the fruit of murder is anger. Those who wish others dead have committed murder according to Jesus, even if it is never carried out in action.
Matthew focuses both on Jesus’ words and His works in 4:23-25. He introduces His ministry of teaching, preaching, and healing as further proof of Christ's identity as the Messiah.
The Doctrine of Repentance by Thomas Watson goes into great detail on the phases of true repentance - the fourth and fifth phases being shame of sin and hatred of sin.
John the Baptist preached a message of repentance. But what exactly is repentance? Over the next couple of weeks, we will look in depth at what repentance is and what it looks like when it is genuine. Last week, we covered the first two phases of repentance: sight of sin and sorrow for sin.
The 3rd phase is confession of sin.
Here we have before us in this chapter a man that Jesus said was the greatest man who ever lived up to his time. That begs a question then, doesn't it; the question being, "What makes a man great?" Or, "What makes someone great?" By the world's standards, money, status, education, great possessions – this is what makes someone great to the world. But Jesus Christ never had any of these things. "Foxes have holes, birds have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay His head." And neither did John the Baptist. To quote verse 4, "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." And yet, Jesus said he was the greatest man who ever lived up to his time. So the conclusion then is that God must have a different set of standards on what makes someone great from the standards of the world.
That led me to study the Scriptures regarding the life of John the Baptist to get an overview of what made this man great. And here's what I found:
That is what made the man great, and what is so wonderful is that Jesus said in Matthew 11:11, "Truly I tell you, among those born of women there has not risen anyone greater than John the Baptist; yet whoever is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he." You and I, while we might be deemed the least in the Kingdom of Heaven, are greater than the one who foretold it was coming. That is an incredible thing. We have all the resources he looked for. We have all the realities he searched for. We have all the blessings he anticipated. We're not greater in terms of character. That isn't what he's saying. We're greater in terms of privilege and opportunity.
It's like Jesus said to His disciples, "Very truly I tell you, whoever believes in me will do the works I have been doing, and they will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father." That's what it is to be in His Kingdom.
And John was the herald of proclaiming the one who would forever establish that Kingdom. "In those days" in verse 1 signifies a transitional time period between the 2nd and 3rd chapter of Matthew – a period of about 30 years. At the beginning of those 30 years, as chapter 1 of Luke bears witness, John was born to Zechariah and Elizabeth. Elizabeth was barren and could not have children; nevertheless, the angel told Zechariah, "Do not be afraid, Zechariah; your prayer has been heard. Your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son, and you are to call him John. He will be a joy and delight to you, and many will rejoice because of his birth, for he will be great in the sight of the Lord. He is never to take wine or other fermented drink, and he will be filled with the Holy Spirit even before he is born. He will bring back many of the people of Israel to the Lord their God. And he will go on before the Lord, in the spirit and power of Elijah, to turn the hearts of the parents to their children and the disobedient to the wisdom of the righteous—to make ready a people prepared for the Lord."
This is the fulfillment of Malachi 4:5-6 that says, "I will send the prophet Elijah to you before that great and dreadful day of the LORD comes. He will turn the hearts of the parents to their children, and the hearts of the children to their parents; or else I will come and strike the land with total destruction."
It is the Spirit who gives life – therefore, while it is true that Elijah did not come down in his physical body to Israel, Luke does make it clear that John the Baptist "would go on before the Lord, in the spirit and power of Elijah" – so Malachi 4:5-6 was indeed fulfilled in John. It says also that he would be filled with the Holy Spirit even before he was born. This man, the son of a priest of the tribe of Levi, and expected to join the priesthood when came of age, forsook his life as a priest, and from the time he was about 13 years old, he was led by the Spirit into the wilderness, in complete isolation to eat locusts and wild honey and to be alone with God. That's about 16-17 years in the desert. God isolated him so that he would not get swept up in the legalism of the Pharisees, chief priests and teachers of the law, but would boldly proclaim God's message that God Himself had given to John in those many years in the wilderness. The message was to appear publically before Israel and to announce the coming King.
The wilderness of Judea was to the immediate west of the Dead Sea – it was an utterly barren desert. The Jewish sect of the Essenes had significant communities in this region. But there is no biblical evidence to suggest that John was in any way connected with that sect. John seems to have preached near the northern end of this region, close by where the Jordan flows into the Dead Sea. This was a full day's journey from Jerusalem; nevertheless, Jerusalem and all Judea and the entire region about the Jordan were going out to him, and being baptized and confessing their sins.
Confession of sins implies the means of how John prepared the way of the Lord and made His paths straight, as Isaiah 40:3 prophesizes. He preached a very much needed message of repentance.
And those who accepted this message were baptized. Now, I want to impress upon something here – this baptism likely had its roots in OT purification rituals. Baptism had also long been administered to Gentile proselytes coming into Judaism. The baptism of John powerfully and dramatically symbolized repentance then, in that, Jews accepting John's baptism were admitting they had been as Gentiles and needed to become the people of God genuinely, inwardly (which was an amazing admission, given their hatred for Gentiles). Their repentance signified a complete turnaround in how they viewed themselves, and how they viewed what made them God's people. John's message of repentance was calling on them to repent of the belief that they were saved because they were children of Abraham, instead of realizing that repentance is a change of heart.
This is exactly what the Pharisees and Sadducees were rebuked for. Verse 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? Produce fruit in keeping with repentance. 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. The ax 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.
"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 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."
John's message was of repentance to those who would believe in the coming Messiah and judgment for those who rejected Him. It didn't matter if anyone was a child of Abraham – the single criteria was and always has been faith – and those who live by faith in God would recognize that repentance is a change of mind, will and heart to loving God, and not to external appearances or of generational decent. And that is why Jesus would baptize with the Holy Spirit and with fire – the Holy Spirit for those who believed in His name and repented, and the fire of judgment for those who rejected Him. What I think is the most incredible verse in this chapter and in the rebuke given by John to the Pharisees and Sadducees is verse 8, "Produce fruit in keeping with repentance." That is to say that repentance is not a work, but works are its inevitable fruit. And incidentally, repentance is a grace of God's Spirit whereby a sinner is inwardly humbled and visibly reformed. For further reflection of this, meditate on the fact that repentance involves six things: 1. Sight of sin, 2. Sorrow for sin, 3. Confession of sin, 4. Shame of sin, 5. Hatred of sin, and 6. Turning from Sin. If anyone of these is left out, repentance loses its virtue. So let's look closer at these 6 things and see exactly what they mean. We may not get done with the chapter I realize, but this is so essential to understand and so I feel that it must be thoroughly examined. These six things I've just mentioned by the way are from The Doctrine of Repentance by Thomas Watson, a Puritan writer in the 16th century, and you know that when a Puritan is done writing about a subject, there is nothing left to be said, so grab yourself a copy if you are so inclined, and you will not regret reading the 125 pages or so on the doctrine of repentance.
First, Sight of sin – it begins with eye salve; it is the great thing noted in the prodigal's repentance: "he came to himself" (Luke 15:17). He saw himself as a sinner and nothing but a sinner. Before someone can come to Christ, they must first recognize what their sin is and know the plague of their sin before they can be duly humbled for it. The first thing God created was light, and in the same way, the first thing in a penitent heart is illumination – "For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Live as children of light" (Ephesians 5:8). The eye is made of both seeing and weeping. Sin must first be seen before it can be wept for. That is why if there is no sight of sin, there is no repentance. Many who spy faults in others see none in themselves; instead, they proclaim that they are good and have good hearts. Isn't it a strange thing that one's body and soul live together, eat together, and work together, yet they are so unacquainted with each other? Many are filled with self-love and ignorance, and as a result, do not see what deformed souls they have and what evil they carry inside them. They have eyes to see into worldly matters but the eye of their mind is smitten; they do not see any evil in their sin. As Zechariah 11:17 states: "May the sword strike his arm and his right eye! May his arm be completely withered, his right eye totally blinded!"
Secondly, sorrow for sin – Ambrose calls sorrow the embittering of the soul. The Hebrew word 'to be sorrowful' signifies 'to have the soul, as it were, crucified'. This must be in true repentance: They shall look upon me whom they have pierced, and they shall mourn' (Zech. 12:10), as if they did feel the nails of the cross sticking in their sides. This sorrow for sin is not superficial: it is a holy agony. It is called in scripture a breaking of the heart: Psalm 51:17 – "The sacrifices of God are a broken and contrite heart." They that sow in tears shall reap for joy says Psalm 126:5. In 1 Samuel 1:18 says that Hannah after weeping went away and was sad no more. But not all sorrow evidences true repentance – it must be sorrow after a godly manner. It is sorrow for heart-sins, that is to say, it is sorrow for the first outbreaks and risings of sin. It is sorrow for the stirrings of pride and the root of bitterness even though it never blossoms into act. A hypocrite may be sorrowful for scandalous sins; a real convert laments heart-sins. It is sorrow for the offense rather than for the punishment. Perhaps this is what David meant when he said in Psalm 51:3, "My sin is ever before me." The grief should come as a result of sinning against so good a God and the free grace which has pardoned us. But godly sorrow is intermixed with faith in God's grace to forgive and restore. We grief and yet believe that God can pardon and restore us because of the atoning work of Christ. How great a sorrow must this be? It must be as great as for any worldly loss. We must grief more for offending God than for the loss of dear relations. Isa. 22:12 for example says, "In that day did the Lord God of hosts call for weeping, and to baldness, and to girding with sackcloth." This was for sin. But in the case of the burial of the dead, God prohibits weeping. Jeremiah 22:10, "Do not weep for the dead king or mourn his loss; rather, weep bitterly for him who is exiled, because he will never return nor see his native land again." And again in Jeremiah 16:6, "Both high and low will die in this land. They will not be buried or mourned, and no one will cut himself or shave his head for them." This speaks the truth that sorrow for sin must exceed sorrow for any worldly loss, even death, for in death only a friend departs, but in sin, it is God who departs. In short, sorrow that is godly in that it causes one to fall out of love with sin and more in love with God. And in that sense, it must be followed if necessary with restitution – that is to say, that if you have wronged someone or taken something from them which can be paid back them in full, it should be paid back. If that individual has passed away, then it should be given to his family, and if the family is gone, it should be given to the ministry of God's Kingdom. And finally, godly sorrow is abiding. It is not something that is done every year or so when things get really bad in one's relationships – this must be habitual. It must be habitual given the fact that this disease of sin is ever returning in our lives; and therefore, we must be vigilant in continuing to repent.
And those are the first two, sight of sin and sorrow for sin – time constrains me from covering the other four but we will cover that next week.
As we close, let me encourage you with the baptism of Christ at the end of chapter 3, where Christ makes a public declaration with those whose sins He would ultimately bear, yours and mine. Furthermore, all three persons of the Trinity are clearly defined here: The Father's command to hear His Son and the Spirit's vindication and empowerment officially inaugurate Christ's ministry. And then the Father says, "This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased." This heavenly pronouncement combines language from Psalm 2:7 and Isaiah 42:1 – prophecies that would have been well known to those with messianic expectations. Praise God for such a redeeming Savior.
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