The Herald (Matthew 3:1-6)
The Herald
Matthew 3:1-6
As you know, Matthew is focused on the King and the Kingdom
And because this is Matthew’s focus,
We have already seen two important aspects to his gospel.
• We’ve seen the Genealogy of the King (both physical & divine)
• We’ve seen the Birth of the King
Now Matthew moves to the next logical aspect,
And that is The Announcement of the king.
Matthew takes us no farther than John the Baptist.
John was the chosen herald for Jesus.
Luke 1:15-17 “For he will be great in the sight of the Lord; and he will drink no wine or liquor, and he will be filled with the Holy Spirit while yet in his mother’s womb. “And he will turn many of the sons of Israel back to the Lord their God. “It is he who will go as a forerunner before Him in the spirit and power of Elijah, TO TURN THE HEARTS OF THE FATHERS BACK TO THE CHILDREN, and the disobedient to the attitude of the righteous, so as to make ready a people prepared for the Lord.”
And of course later after John’s birth:
Luke 1:76-80 “And you, child, will be called the prophet of the Most High; For you will go on BEFORE THE LORD TO PREPARE HIS WAYS; To give to His people the knowledge of salvation By the forgiveness of their sins, Because of the tender mercy of our God, With which the Sunrise from on high will visit us, TO SHINE UPON THOSE WHO SIT IN DARKNESS AND THE SHADOW OF DEATH, To guide our feet into the way of peace.” And the child continued to grow and to become strong in spirit, and he lived in the deserts until the day of his public appearance to Israel.
John’s role was specific, and therefore it was also limited.
After Jesus was formally introduced,
It was then time for John to fade away from the scene.
John 3:27-30 “John answered and said, “A man can receive nothing unless it has been given him from heaven. “You yourselves are my witnesses that I said, ‘ I am not the Christ,’ but, ‘I have been sent ahead of Him.’ “He who has the bride is the bridegroom; but the friend of the bridegroom, who stands and hears him, rejoices greatly because of the bridegroom’s voice. So this joy of mine has been made full. “He must increase, but I must decrease.”
And that is exactly what would happen.
John would be arrested and that would signify the end of John’s role
And the beginning of Jesus’ ministry.
Matthew 4:12-13 “Now when Jesus heard that John had been taken into custody, He withdrew into Galilee; and leaving Nazareth, He came and settled in Capernaum, which is by the sea, in the region of Zebulun and Naphtali.”
I tell you all that because it is important that we keep our perspective.
As great a man as John was (And Jesus called him The Greatest)
It is important to remember that the study is not about John.
Although John is the focal point of the text here,
Understand that Matthew introduces him because John’s presence Furthers Matthew’s point that Jesus is the Messiah.
Every Jew knew that before Messiah came,
There would first come the forerunner.
Malachi 4:5-6 “Behold, I am going to send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and terrible day of the LORD. “He will restore the hearts of the fathers to their children and the hearts of the children to their fathers, so that I will not come and smite the land with a curse.”
The point is that Messiah could not come without the forerunner
And therefore John becomes an important piece to Matthew’s puzzle
As he sets out to prove that Jesus is the Messiah.
So we do study John, the but the focus stays on Jesus.
In saying that, this morning we also get our first taste
Of what it requires to enter the kingdom of heaven.
That alone proves to be of infinite value.
So let’s study our text, and we are going to sort of go all over this text
But in doing so we see three clear points.
#1 THE MAN
Matthew 3:1
Again you see that John was a man of specific purpose and calling.
He was first of all “the Baptist”.
That speaks of his calling or occupation.
We also see that in order to fulfill his calling as a “Baptist”
His primary course of action was to preach.
He “came, preaching”
And so just in that simple sense, we understand him to have been
A man committed to his calling and his purpose.
But there is really so much more to this man,
And that is that he was a living illustration of what he preached.
(4) “Now John himself had a garment of camel’s hair and a leather belt around his waist; and his food was locusts and wild honey.”
We already read that he lived in “the wilderness”
And here we see that his life was one of extreme simplicity.
This man lives on “locusts and wild honey”
This man’s wardrobe is always “camel’s hair”
And what you quickly learn about John is that
He is a man who has truly and totally forsaken the world.
HE IS UNCONCERNED ABOUT WORLDLY COMFORTS AND PLEASURES.
I must tell you that I have been convicted this past week in no small way
Because it is apparent that I am far too concerned about those things.
I know I have preached on the topic many times,
But we are not just called to forsake this world,
WE ARE COMMANDED TO DO IT.
1 John 2:15-17 “Do not love the world nor the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the boastful pride of life, is not from the Father, but is from the world. The world is passing away, and also its lusts; but the one who does the will of God lives forever.”
It is clear that the things of this world and the things of God
Are complete opposite ends of the spectrum.
And if I am going to honestly evaluate my life, I have to ask myself,
“How much do I love the things of the world?”
And according to John, our love for the world
Is a direct revealer of how much we truly love God.
“If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him.”
A true Christian is one who has done like Paul:
Galatians 6:14 “But may it never be that I would boast, except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world.”
So how can it be that we can call ourselves Christians
When in reality the world is what we want?
Luke 6:20-26 “And turning His gaze toward His disciples, He began to say, “Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God. “Blessed are you who hunger now, for you shall be satisfied. Blessed are you who weep now, for you shall laugh. “Blessed are you when men hate you, and ostracize you, and insult you, and scorn your name as evil, for the sake of the Son of Man. “Be glad in that day and leap for joy, for behold, your reward is great in heaven. For in the same way their fathers used to treat the prophets. “But woe to you who are rich, for you are receiving your comfort in full. “Woe to you who are well-fed now, for you shall be hungry. Woe to you who laugh now, for you shall mourn and weep. “Woe to you when all men speak well of you, for their fathers used to treat the false prophets in the same way.”
It becomes extremely revealing.
To be a true Christian, a true follower of Jesus,
Then a desire for the things of this world has to be killed off.
Luke 9:57-62 “As they were going along the road, someone said to Him, “I will follow You wherever You go.” And Jesus said to him, “The foxes have holes and the birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay His head.” And He said to another, “Follow Me.” But he said, “Lord, permit me first to go and bury my father.” But He said to him, “Allow the dead to bury their own dead; but as for you, go and proclaim everywhere the kingdom of God.” Another also said, “I will follow You, Lord; but first permit me to say good-bye to those at home.” But Jesus said to him, “No one, after putting his hand to the plow and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God.”
The fact is if we have in us a love for the world,
It does not speak well of our spiritual walk.
In fact, it speaks very poorly of us.
What it reveals is at the very least we are not obedient followers of Christ,
If indeed we are followers of Christ at all.
I fear that instead we may be found to be the weedy soil.
Luke 8:14 “The seed which fell among the thorns, these are the ones who have heard, and as they go on their way they are choked with worries and riches and pleasures of this life, and bring no fruit to maturity.”
And if we wanted to we could go on and on and on with Scriptures
That speak to the very same thing.
To build a theology about salvation without a calling to forsake the world
Is to obviously read the Scriptures with a certain degree of blindness.
We either seek this life or we seek the next.
We either live for the kingdom of earth or the kingdom of heaven.
We either store up treasure here or we store up treasure there.
And it’s really not too hard to tell which decision most of us are making.
AND THAT IS ALSO TRUE FOR JOHN THE BAPTIST.
There is not a doubt in anyone’s mind exactly what he wanted.
He was not a man who desired the things of the world.
He was a man who had clearly rejected them.
Asaph said in his great Psalm:
Psalms 73:25-28 “Whom have I in heaven but You? And besides You, I desire nothing on earth. My flesh and my heart may fail, But God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever. For, behold, those who are far from You will perish; You have destroyed all those who are unfaithful to You. But as for me, the nearness of God is my good; I have made the Lord GOD my refuge, That I may tell of all Your works.”
It is obvious that John the Baptist believed that.
He was a man on whom the world had absolutely no grasp whatsoever.
Aside from Jesus, no one really ever displayed an eternal focus better.
He was a man focused on eternity.
That was The Man
#2 THE MESSAGE
Matthew 3:2
I don’t think the message that he preached comes as any surprise.
“Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.”
John was a man who preached with absolute urgency.
He wasn’t a “Someday you need to think about this” type of preacher.
The time to procrastinate had long since moved on.
And that reveals to us the main point of John’s sermon.
“Repent”
That is an interesting word, but one that is often misunderstood.
For some reason we try to liken repentance with remorse,
But they are not the same thing.
Certainly there is an element of remorse involved in repentance,
But remorse alone is not nearly enough.
We’ve all read about Esau.
Hebrews 12:17 “For you know that even afterwards, when he desired to inherit the blessing, he was rejected, for he found no place for repentance, though he sought for it with tears.”
In short, being sorry, being remorseful, even confessing sin
Still falls short of repentance.
Repentance is an action word.
It means to turn around and go the other direction.
John doesn’t just want the people to recognize their sin,
He wants them to leave it behind.
He doesn’t just want them to agree that they are wrong,
He wants them to change so that they will be right.
This is more clearly seen in Luke’s gospel.
Luke 3:10-14 “And the crowds were questioning him, saying, “Then what shall we do?” And he would answer and say to them, “The man who has two tunics is to share with him who has none; and he who has food is to do likewise.” And some tax collectors also came to be baptized, and they said to him, “Teacher, what shall we do?” And he said to them, “Collect no more than what you have been ordered to.” Some soldiers were questioning him, saying, “And what about us, what shall we do?” And he said to them, “Do not take money from anyone by force, or accuse anyone falsely, and be content with your wages.”
Those people asked, “What shall we do?”
They knew John didn’t just want them to say “I’m sorry”.
John wanted a life change.
It is by no coincidence that each of the three illustrations he gave
All dealt with money.
Money is not a bad thing, but it can sure be a good gage
Of just how much we love the world.
And John’s objective was to get them to let go of worldliness.
His message was for them to repent.
WHY DID HE PREACH THIS WAY?
Because of the purpose of his ministry.
The Man, The Message
#3 THE MINISTRY
Matthew 3:3
Here Matthew gives you yet another fulfilled prophecy.
But it is one that speaks of his purpose.
“For this is the one referred to by Isaiah the prophet when he said, “The voice of one crying in the wilderness, make ready the way of the LORD, make His paths straight!”
In short, John was the prophetic forerunner.
John was a herald.
A HERALD MADE SURE A PLACE WAS FIT FOR A KING
That is what John was doing in a spiritual sense.
Israel was spiritually defiled.
It was filthy.
It stunk of lawlessness and worldliness, hypocrisy and deception.
John came to make sure the place was cleaned up before the king arrived.
John’s ministry can easily be described as A PLOWING MINISTRY.
We are all familiar with Jesus’ parable of the soils.
It is explained like this:
Luke 8:11 “Now the parable is this: the seed is the word of God.”
And just from that one statement the parable gets clearer.
• Jesus is compared to a farmer casting seed.
• The seed He casts is the gospel message.
• The soil is the heart upon which the seed falls.
Now everyone knows what happens to a seed that falls on hardened soil.
NOTHING
Luke 8:5 “The sower went out to sow his seed; and as he sowed, some fell beside the road, and it was trampled under foot and the birds of the air ate it up.”
We have actually learned that the best chance you have
At getting a seed to take root is to plow the soil first.
That is true in a spiritual sense.
Many times before God actually drops the seed of the gospel
Upon a person’s heart, God first begins to plow that heart.
WE CALL IT CONVICTION.
Let me give you an example from Paul’s life.
Romans 7:7-11 “What shall we say then? Is the Law sin? May it never be! On the contrary, I would not have come to know sin except through the Law; for I would not have known about coveting if the Law had not said, “YOU SHALL NOT COVET.” But sin, taking opportunity through the commandment, produced in me coveting of every kind; for apart from the Law sin is dead. I was once alive apart from the Law; but when the commandment came, sin became alive and I died; and this commandment, which was to result in life, proved to result in death for me; for sin, taking an opportunity through the commandment, deceived me and through it killed me.”
Paul is obviously speaking of the benefit of the Law there,
And to prove it’s benefit he speaks of the effect it had on him.
It is clear that Paul is not speaking of the day he was saved,
He is speaking of the day he was condemned.
Paul is telling you about the day when he realized he was a sinner.
And when a person truly comes to grips with their guilt before God,
All of a sudden their heart is a little more willing to hear about Jesus.
I’ve often said it like this:
“You have to get a person lost before you can get them saved.”
Until a person realizes how much danger they are in before Holy God,
They will never embrace the salvation that God provides.
This ministry of condemnation is what we call PLOWING.
John is coming on the scene to reveal to the people
Exactly how much they need the salvation that the king is about to offer.
Jesus will come and spread the seed.
John comes ahead and is plowing the soil.
That’s why John is hitting things like money & worldliness so hard
Money & worldliness are ruthless weeds that choke out the seed,
And John is doing his best to plow them under.
Remember the Rich Young Ruler?
Matthew 19:21-24 “Jesus said to him, “If you wish to be complete, go and sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow Me.” But when the young man heard this statement, he went away grieving; for he was one who owned much property. And Jesus said to His disciples, “Truly I say to you, it is hard for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven. “Again I say to you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.”
Even Jesus taught that worldly possessions
Are a tremendous hindrance to people being saved.
For when Jesus comes around and asks a man to forsake all that he has,
It is obviously much easier for those who have nothing to forsake.
That is why John is telling people to stop hoarding their wealth,
And stop seeking to get more at all cost.
Because you are only making it that much harder on yourself
For the day when Christ asks you to forsake it all.
John is plowing.
AND BY THE WAY PEOPLE ARE RESPONDING
(5-6) “Then Jerusalem was going out to him, and all Judea and all the district around the Jordan; and they were being baptized by him in the Jordan River, as they confessed their sins.”
I told you earlier that John was a baptizer.
WHY?
Throughout the Bible water has a tremendous significance.
It symbolized a washing of purity.
We see it in the New Testament.
Ephesians 5:25-26 “Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself up for her, so that He might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word,”
But even more so to the Jew.
Washing in water was an integral part
Of being made clean again after having being defiled.
Numbers 19:17-19 “’Then for the unclean person they shall take some of the ashes of the burnt purification from sin and flowing water shall be added to them in a vessel. ‘A clean person shall take hyssop and dip it in the water, and sprinkle it on the tent and on all the furnishings and on the persons who were there, and on the one who touched the bone or the one slain or the one dying naturally or the grave. ‘Then the clean person shall sprinkle on the unclean on the third day and on the seventh day; and on the seventh day he shall purify him from uncleanness, and he shall wash his clothes and bathe himself in water and shall be clean by evening.”
When a person was made unclean for whatever reason
And forced to dwell outside of the camp.
Part of the ritual to be made clean again was a washing in water.
Certainly this at least part of the picture John is giving to Israel here.
You are unclean.
You are not fit for the king.
You need to be cleansed.
BUT THAT IS NOT ALL
If a Gentile desired to convert to Judaism baptism is what was required
And so by commanding Jews to be baptized
He was confronting Israel to let them know
They were not nearly as close to God as they thought they were.
This is clearly seen in the coming verses when John confronts the Pharisees for assuming they were ok because they were Abraham’s descendants.
Israel assumed they were fine, but they were wrong.
In reality they were vile, nasty, and unacceptable to the king.
John came to reveal what they were and to lead them to change it.
He came to show them their filth and to command them to repent.
He came to prepare their heart for the message of the king.
He came to condemn them that they might be saved.
He revealed a people in love with the world…
He revealed a people who thought their religion was pleasing to God…
He revealed a people as far away from God as the pagans of their day…
AND HIS MESSAGE WAS PRESERVED
SO THAT HE COULD PREACH THE SAME TO US TODAY.
It is a message of repentance.
Are you convicted by John’s message of worldliness?
Does his lifestyle convict you?
Would you say that you are ready to meet the coming King?
The solution for us is the same as it was for them.
REPENT
Don’t just admit your sin, flee from it.
He told men to share what they had with those who did not.
He told men to use only what was rightfully theirs.
He told men to be content with what they have and not want more.
AND THEN HE TOLD THEM SOMETHING ELSE
For you see this morning we really only see part of John’s message.
We see him as the herald who condemned man.
But if you turn to John’s gospel,
We see the rest of John the Baptist’s message.
John 1:29 “The next day he saw Jesus coming to him and said, “Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!”
Even later on he did it again.
John 1:35-36 “Again the next day John was standing with two of his disciples, and he looked at Jesus as He walked, and said, “Behold, the Lamb of God!”
You see John revealed to men their sin,
And before he left he also revealed to men the Savior.
The insinuation is that you now run to Him to find forgiveness,
To find salvation, to find new life.
This doesn’t mean you get to keep the things of the world.
But it does mean you can be forgiven
For the sin you’ve already committed.
John wanted you to Forsake the world and follow Jesus.
This morning listen to Him
Forsake this world.
Die to self.
Follow Jesus.
Matthew 16:24-27 “Then Jesus said to His disciples, “If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross and follow Me. “For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it; but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it. “For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul? Or what will a man give in exchange for his soul? “For the Son of Man is going to come in the glory of His Father with His angels, and WILL THEN REPAY EVERY MAN ACCORDING TO HIS DEEDS.”
