And I invite you to turn in your Bibles with me to our Old Testament reading, which is found in the prophecy of Isaiah. The prophecy which we just sang together. Isaiah chapter 40. And the reading will be verses one through 11. That’s on 694 in your pew Bible. Isaiah chapter 40. Verses 1 through 11. Listen to this. This is the very word of God. Comfort comfort my people says your God.
Speak tenderly to Jerusalem. and cry to her that her warfare has ended, that her iniquity is pardoned, that she has received from the Lord’s hand double for all her sins. The voice cries, in the wilderness, prepare the way of the Lord. Make straight in the desert a highway for our God. Every valley shall be lifted up, and every mountain and hill made low. The uneven ground shall become level, and the rough places a plain, and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together, for the mouth of the Lord has spoken. A voice says, cry, and I said, what shall I cry?
All flesh is grass, and all its beauty is like the flower of the field. The grass withers, the flower fades when the breath of the Lord blows on it. Surely the people are grass. The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God will stand forever.
Go on up to a high mountain, O Zion, herald of good news. Lift up your voice with strength, O Jerusalem, herald of good news. Lift it up, fear not. Say to the cities of Judah, behold, your God. Behold, the Lord God comes with might, and his arm rules for him. Behold, his reward is with him, and his recompense before him. He will tend his flock. like a shepherd. He will gather the lambs in his arms. He will carry them in his bosom and gently lead those that are with young. And then our New Testament reading and the text for our message this morning is Luke. As we continue on now in our series through Luke, we come to chapter three. And the text will be verses 1 through 9. Luke 3, 1 through 9.
In the 15th year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar, Pontius Pilate being governor of Judea, and Herod being Tetrarch of Galilee, and his brother Philip, Tetrarch of the region of Etruria and Trachonitis, and Lysanias, Tetrarch of Abilene, During the high priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas, the word of God came to John, the son of Zechariah, in the wilderness.
And he went into all the region around the Jordan, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. As it is written in the book of the words of Isaiah the prophet, the voice of one crying in the wilderness, prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight. Every valley shall be filled, and every mountain and hill shall be made low, and the crooked shall become straight, and the rough places shall become level ways, and all flesh shall see the salvation of God. He said, therefore, to the crowds that came out to be baptized by him, you brood of vipers who warned you to flee from the wrath to come. bear fruits in keeping with repentance.
And do not begin 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 ax is laid to the root of the trees. Every tree, therefore, that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.
And that’s the reading of God’s word. Let’s pray for His blessing upon it now. Father, please teach us from Your Word. We pray that Your Holy Spirit would be our instructor this very morning as we consider Your Word, Lord, make it effectual. Make it an effectual means of grace for each and every one of us. We ask this in Jesus’ name. Amen.
So this text is all about preparation. That’s one central theme in the passage, the idea of preparation. And when I think of preparation, it’s something that often comes to my mind is when a military unit prepares for a visit from a senior officer. When you’ve got normal things going on in any kind of unit, really, things can sometimes get a little bit lax. Certain things can begin to be overlooked. But as soon as you find out, oh, the colonel is coming to visit, or a general officer is going to be dropping by.
Then everybody hops to it, and everybody in the unit is involved in preparing. They’ll clean up the place. They’ll make sure that everything about the unit and all of its operations and all of its facilities are The expression we sometimes use is dress right dress. Everything is right where it’s supposed to be. So when the general shows up or when the colonel shows up even, he looks around and he’s satisfied. Preparation is made for when this senior individual, this important person is going to come.
And that’s what the prophecy that we read from Isaiah is about. It’s about preparing. That’s what John the Baptist’s ministry was about. It was about preparation. And that’s why you have the connection between that Old Testament prophecy and John finally appearing publicly to commence upon his ministry, because he was the forerunner of Christ. He was the herald that proclaimed not just that the kingdom was coming, but that the kingdom was here. The kingdom had come. So Luke’s gospel. began with events surrounding the birth of John.
It’s really as soon as after the introductory paragraph that Luke wrote to Theophilus, the first thing we read about is this elderly couple and they find out that contrary to what’s possible naturally, they’re actually going to have a son. And this son is not going to be just anyone. He’s going to be this very, very important figure. He’s going to be the one who goes before the Lord in the spirit and the power of Elijah.
And so Luke’s gospel begins that way, events surrounding the birth of John, then events surrounding the birth of Christ. And then we fast forward with the exception of that brief little anecdote from the life of Jesus when he was about 12 years old. We fast forward from when these two boys were born, first John the Baptist and then Jesus. There’s the event where Jesus was left behind in Jerusalem by his parents. And then we fast forwarded about 30 years.
And we have John appearing after living in obscurity. He and the Lord Jesus really both living normal lives out of public view. John in the hill country of Judea, as far as we know, Jesus way up in Galilee and Nazareth, and then the voice comes crying in the wilderness.
And that’s what we have here. And as Christ’s herald and forerunner, John called all people to repentance and proclaimed the forgiveness of sins. That’s the main point of this passage. John is the herald. He’s the forerunner of the Messiah. And as Christ’s herald and forerunner, John called all people to repentance and proclaimed the forgiveness of sins. The three points for this message are in your bulletin.
First of all, we’re going to look at John’s ministry as a fact of history. Secondly, John’s ministry as a fulfillment of prophecy. And then John’s message as a call to people to be fruitful for the Lord and to be holy, fruitfulness and sanctity. So first of all, John’s ministry is a fact of history. The chapter begins with this list of names.
If you’re familiar with your Bibles, as most of you are, some of these names you’ll recognize. But you’ve got this catalog of leaders, some civil leaders from the Roman government and other religious leaders from within the Jewish community. So first of all, these Roman leaders, you’ve got Pontius Pilate, everybody knows about him. He’s well known in scripture, and he, of course, is the one who presided over the trial of Jesus when Jesus was condemned to death. Herod is also a familiar figure.
This is the Herod who would later imprison John and then order his execution. It mentions Herod’s brother Philip, who is the Philip whose wife Herod took. And that’s one of the reasons John rebuked him. He says, he rebuked Herod and said, it’s not lawful for you to have your brother’s wife. And that’s how he ended up in prison for rebuking Herod for his sin.
Philip is mentioned here. And then you’ve got a guy we don’t know really anything about. This is the only place he’s mentioned in the Bible. And there’s little mention of him elsewhere in historical documents, but Lysanias. And then Tiberius Caesar, he’s the Grand Apuba. He’s over the whole Roman government. He was the second emperor of the Roman Empire. He came after Caesar Augustus. You remember it was in the days of Caesar Augustus, a decree went out and that’s all the world should be taxed. That’s why Joseph and Mary went to Bethlehem. Well, Caesar Augustus is gone. Now we’ve got, pardon me, Tiberius Caesar. So you’ve got all these people who are in charge in various capacities. in the Roman government. And you’ve also got the religious leaders of the Jews.
As you’ve read and considered this passage, I don’t know how often it may have struck any of you that there are two high priests And if you’re familiar at all with the Old Testament, you know, that’s really not the way it’s supposed to be. It’s not supposed to be an office that has terms. If you are elevated to the office of high priest, you serve in that capacity for life. But somehow we’ve got these two.
We’ve got annas and kaiaphos. And the reason this is the case amongst the Jews at this time has a lot to do with Roman meddling in Jewish affairs. Annas had been the official high priest. He was installed as high priest by a Roman ruler, governor. A later Roman leader in the region deposed him and set up Caiaphas. But Annas had such respect among the Jews that he still had this status as having been the former high priest and people still looked to him. He still exercised a lot of control in the Jewish community, in the Jewish nation. but there they are, you’ve got these two, Annas and Caiaphas.
And John’s Gospel tells us that Jesus appeared before both of them as He was being tried by the Jews and as they were seeking to find charges against Him. Now, all Scripture is written for our instruction. Why does Luke bother to give us all these names and to tell us who is ruling all these different places at the time that John appeared on the scene in his ministry? Well, he’s got, I think, two important reasons to tell us who was in charge of these different districts, Lysanias, and Philip, and Herod, and Pontius Pilate. The first reason is, really, that’s just the way they gave an indication of when something happened in the ancient world. That’s the way he told time. That’s the way he said, this was the year that such and such happened.
You indexed it to who was in charge and what year of their reign or their time in office it was. They didn’t have calendars like we have with standardized years, standardized year markers. So just to give you an example, if we were to talk about a historical event, we could say, because we have a standard calendar, we could say the Space Shuttle Challenger, the disaster that pertained to the Challenger, when it exploded shortly after liftoff, that occurred on the 28th of January, 1986. And you all know exactly where to look on your calendar to see that, if I just give you that data.
If we were to use ancient reckoning, we might say it like this. It was on the sixth year of Ronald Reagan, President of the United States, in the first month on the 28th day. That’s the way they do that. And that’s the way it worked in the ancient world.
So Luke, by giving us these names, even though it might seem a little bit tedious, and even though you don’t really know much about any of these people, giving these names and saying that they were in positions of rule and positions of authority at this time, he’s taking the ministry of John and he’s putting it on the calendar for us. He’s putting it, he’s placing John’s ministry in history.
So, he says, in the 15th year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar, The 15th year of Tiberius reign was, best we can tell, Anno Domini 28. There’s a little bit of wiggle room, so it might have been 27 or so, but that’s when John’s ministry began, 28 AD. So then the second reason John gives us all these names The first is to pin a date on the calendar, pretty much, to put it in historical context. But by doing that, he fulfills a second purpose.
He’s asserting the historicity of John and his ministry and these events that we’re going to read about right now. These things actually happened. dates in the Bible, genealogies in the Bible, anchor the events that we read about in the Bible in history.
So in other words, this is not a proposition where once upon a time there was a man named John and he appeared in the wilderness. This is not a fairy tale. This is not a myth. This is not a long time ago in a land far away. This is true. This actually happened.
And those are the same reasons to give a date, to give a time reference to the event, and to assert that they actually happened. That’s the same reason why when we use our creeds, we mention the name of Pontius Pilate. These creeds that summarize the most basic Christian beliefs, Those things that we would all, regardless of our denominations, would all testify to be true. They mention the name of Pontius Pilate.
Why? Because the sufferings and the death and the resurrection of Jesus Christ were not a fairy tale. They actually took place in history. So John’s ministry is a fact of history. He was a real person. He lived in real space and time. And so verse 3 tells us that something of tremendous significance, something of eternal significance, took place in the 15th year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar.
And it had nothing to do with Tiberius Caesar, really. It had nothing to do with something he did. It had nothing to do with the machinations of the Roman Empire or its government. It didn’t even have to do with some work of religious leaders amongst the Jewish community. What happened in the 15th year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar in AD 28?
God’s Word happened. God’s Word happened. That’s how the word could even be translated. God’s Word happened to John. It came to him. It says in verse two. So John’s ministry is a fact of history. It’s verifiable. And secondly, John’s ministry was a fulfillment of prophecy.
It says in verse three that he went out into all the region around Jordan, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. John started out in ministry as what we might refer to as an itinerant preacher. He wasn’t just in one spot. He was going throughout the region. Now, in Mark’s gospel, Mark begins with John’s ministry. Mark says that everyone was going out to him. And so initially he traveled the region. Luke tells us he was going throughout the region. But remember, when Jesus’ ministry began, he was also traveling. He was going from town to town. preaching, he was healing.
But his ministry eventually became so popular, and even though he told people don’t tell anybody, they told everybody that they could, his ministry became so popular that he couldn’t even go into a city. He had to stay out in the wilderness and people were coming to him. And it appears that maybe something similar happened to John. He was traveling around preaching that people should repent, proclaiming this baptism of repentance, but then Because his ministry was also very popular for a time, he had to stay in the same region. Because I think that’s how we picture him, him just being out in the region and everybody coming to him. But at first he was traveling and preaching.
Now John’s ministry and his work were foretold centuries before by the prophets of God. And to put that in a little bit of perspective, here we are in 2026. And this year, on the 4th of July, our nation will mark 250 years of existence as a nation and of independence. 250 years. Compare that to the prophet Malachi, who prophesied of John coming in the spirit and power of Elijah. And Malachi prophesied of John 400 years, over 400 years before John was born or ministered. And then we can even go further back because the prophecy we read in our Old Testament reading from Isaiah, that was almost 800 years. roughly speaking, eight centuries before John. That kind of antiquity even is difficult for us to grasp.
But when Hillary and I were first married, we were stationed in Heidelberg, Germany, with the army. It was during our time there that the city of Heidelberg celebrated its 800th anniversary. 800 years as a city. And there’s lots of, obviously, there’s lots of celebration going on. The little town in the outskirts of Heidelberg, where Hillary and I lived, our first home, little village, a little city called Leimen, it had celebrated its millennial anniversary. That city had been around 1,000 years.
Now, if you think in terms like that, That’s how long ago, 800 years, that Isaiah proclaimed these words that would pertain to someone he would never meet and who wouldn’t even come for centuries after he spoke those words. And as the prophets declared, both Malachi and Isaiah, the ministry of John was going to be a ministry of preparation.
A ministry in which he called people to get ready because someone very, very important is coming. Something very, very important is coming. In fact, someone and something that is of greater importance than anything else. The Lord’s anointed was coming and his kingdom was coming. In fact, his kingdom is here. It’s at hand.
That was John’s message. And so what we read in Luke chapter three in verse four, that’s what we read out of the prophecy of Isaiah chapter 40 verse three. And what did Malachi say? In the third chapter of his prophecy, speaking the words of God, Malachi wrote, behold, I send my messenger before your face. He will prepare the way before me. That’s what John was going to do.
And then in the last chapter of Malachi, the last chapter of the Old Testament, Malachi 4, verses 5 and 6, the final verses, in fact, the very last verses of the whole Old Testament, read like this. Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the great and awesome day of the Lord comes. He will turn the hearts of the fathers to their children and the hearts of children to their fathers, lest I come and strike the land with a decree of utter destruction. So John’s ministry was a ministry of preparation.
And you heard it in Isaiah, you heard it in the quotation from Isaiah, in our passage from Luke, this prophetic language of leveling. You’ve got valleys and you’ve got mountains. Well, the mountains are gonna be made low and the valleys are gonna be filled. You’ve got prophetic language of smoothing. The rough places will become a plain. or the crooked will be made straight. The idea there is, just like a military unit will prepare for the visit of some distinguished officer, people, when a king was going to come and visit their city, they would prepare the way, and they would smooth the way so that the approach of the king could be eased, and so that he could come with proper pomp and circumstance on a smooth and level road. And John is prophesying the coming of the king of kings. Every valley shall be filled, every mountain and hill shall be made low, the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough places level ways.
And you see also a preview of the universal scope of the gospel. Again, still quoting the Old Testament, but verse six, All flesh shall see the salvation of God. Foretold by Malachi 400 years prior, Isaiah 800 years prior, John’s ministry was a fulfillment of prophecy. He was the one to come in the spirit and the power of Elijah.
But then finally, Let’s take a look at John’s message, because John called people to fruitfulness. He called the people to sanctity. John’s ministry was popular. Many people came, but very clear that John didn’t seek popularity, did he? Look at what he said in verse 7. He said to the crowds that came out to be baptized by him, you brood of vipers, who warned you to flee from the wrath to come?
Imagine a minister speaking to visitors to his church in that way. I mean, we are praying and trusting that the Lord will grow Westminster OPC and I’m confident that he will. But imagine if we got up to give the announcements in the morning, welcome to Westminster OPC, you brood of vipers, who warned you? I know you’d be disappointed in me if I did that. Come on, Steve, what are you doing? We want to grow the church. What are you doing? We’re not going to grow that way.
But that was the way John spoke to his audience, at least at times, under certain circumstances. He didn’t pull any punches in his preaching, did he? Now, we know that many people who came to John to repent and to be baptized were sincere. And we’re going to see it in the very next passage that we look at, Lord willing, next Lord’s Day, because as they came and he rebukes people and he calls people out for their sins, the people responded by saying, what shall we do? And we’re gonna see some really helpful examples of how different categories of people were admonished by John to repent, what their repentance should look like, specifics, particulars for soldiers and for tax collectors and other groups. So there were many who were sincere.
So what’s with this verse seven? Calling them a brood of vipers and and seemingly rebuking them for coming to attend upon this ministry that he was doing well Those words obviously were directed towards those who were insincere But they’re also directed towards the misguided Towards those who were falsely secure And in the Jewish community, sadly, there were many who fell into that category. Many who thought, you know, I’m descended from Abraham. I’m a child of Abraham, so I’m good to go.
How dare you speak to me in that way? Well, how did John apply the word of God to his hearers? He did make application, didn’t he? He applied it in two words, or in two ways. First of all, he called the people to repent, and he called the people to bear good fruit. You see repentance in that theme twice in the passage. It tells us, as it introduces John to us, that he came proclaiming a baptism of repentance, in verse 3. And then down in verse 8, John’s own words to the people were, bear fruits in keeping with repentance.
Now this word repent, There are certain standard words that are most often translated repent both from the Old Testament and the New. The Hebrew word that we find in the Old Testament that’s most often translated repent is the is the word shuv which has as its basic meaning to turn or to return. So The Hebrew concept of repentance is a person’s going the wrong direction. They’re going down a path of wickedness, of disobedience, of sin. And to repent means to turn from that path and go on a new path. or they’ve turned away from the Lord, and to repent means to turn back to him.
So this turning is really the fundamental concept in that Hebrew word for repentance. The Greek word in the New Testament is a form of metanoia, which you may have heard before. It’s also the name of a prominent prison ministry that the OPC and the PCA collaborate on. But metanoia means also it has a sense of turning, but more with respect to a change of mind, a new way of thinking. So that’s what repentance is.
And We’ll touch on this again right at the end, but there’s one thing we definitely don’t want to lose sight of in all this. And let’s look at verse three again, because he’s proclaiming a baptism of repentance, but that baptism of repentance and the repentance to which John admonished people had an end. It had a goal, and the goal was the forgiveness of sins. John was proclaiming forgiveness of sins in Jesus’ name and calling people to repentance.
So the two fundamental points of John’s message are repentance, but then secondly, fruitfulness. Bear good fruit is what he told them. Fruitfulness, which corresponds to holy living or sanctity. So if you’ve got this exhortation to bear fruits in keeping with, in other words, fruits that are consistent with repentance. As if John, as he preaches to the people is saying, repent and the people say, okay, I’ve repented or I’m going to repent. And he says, show me. Bear fruit in keeping with this repentance that you profess.
And at the end of verse nine, every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down, thrown into the fire. You know, those exact words, those exact words were spoken by the Lord Jesus later in his ministry. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.
So you have these stern warnings from scripture, stern warnings from the mouth of John the Baptist and from Jesus himself. And as I will continue to remind you, scriptural warnings are gracious warnings. They’re gracious warnings. And they have nothing to do with trees. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. That’s a truism of agriculture. This isn’t about trees, this is about people. And John is saying, be fruitful or be cut down. And he gives this contextual warning, which sheds some light on the whole message, because John was ministering in Judea, right?
And so his audience was predominantly, maybe almost entirely Jews. And to his Jewish audience, he gives this warning, because they placed tremendous confidence in their ancestral ties to Abraham. And they trusted in the mere fact that they were descended from him, Abraham’s offspring. Because they were trusting in that, they had this tendency, no doubt, to think that if somebody’s preaching about wrath to me, I don’t have any reason to be worried.
Well, yeah, you can proclaim wrath and judgment, but I’m okay, I’m good. Abraham’s my father. I’m safe. And John is warning them out of love for them, out of concern, true godly concern for their souls that their Abrahamic bloodline will not save them. Verse eight. Do not begin to say to yourselves, we have Abraham as our father.
John says if God needed, if God lacked children of Abraham, he could raise them up from these rocks. That’s not what God wants. That’s not what he’s looking for. He’s looking for fruit. And that comes through in the very fact that he’s baptizing. We call him John the Baptizer, or John the Baptist, because that’s what he’s doing. He was administering this ordinance, this rite, and he’s administering it to Jews. And the really striking thing about that, as far as they knew it and understood it, it wasn’t an ordinance for them. It was an ordinance for Gentiles.
Jews didn’t get baptized. If you were a Gentile and you wanted to be joined to the nation of Israel, you got baptized because having been a Gentile, having been someone who was far off, having been someone who was outside of the covenant community, you needed to be washed. And so this baptism was for the people who needed to come into the covenant community, people who weren’t Jews. And John is saying to the Jews, you need baptism too. You need it just as much as the Gentiles do.
That would have been a shock to their consciousness, a shock and an offense in some cases, an affront to their sensibilities. What me? I’m sure a child of Abraham. Why do I need to be baptized? But John came proclaiming a baptism. Of repentance. Saying to the Jews, you need this too. You’re like a tree and there’s an axe already laid to the root. So you need to be prepared. And the same could be said for any one of us.
Because as Jesus impressed upon us with that parable of the man whose flocks brought forth plentifully, and he said, what am I gonna do? I’ve got all this grain. I know, I’ll tear down my barns and build bigger ones. And I’ll have all this grain, enough to last for years and years, and then I can kick back and relax.
And the Lord says to him, you fool, this night your soul is required of you. The point being, part of the point being, we don’t know when our soul might be required of us. David’s brother didn’t. And in many cases, death comes suddenly with no warning. The axe is already laid to the root of the trees. And familial ties won’t save anyone in the day of judgment. Only faith, the instrument of God’s saving grace, will save you from the coming wrath. The same faith that produces holy living, or we could say good fruit. The same faith that leads to repentance. That is saving faith. And holiness is its fruit.
So just a few words of application. First of all, again, thinking back to our opening illustration, the importance of preparation. Even as Christians in our spiritual lives, there are things we prepare for and we ought to prepare for. We ought to prepare, for example, it’s good, it’s important that we prepare for the Lord’s day. and not treat Saturday night just like it’s any other night or wake up on Sunday morning like it’s just any other morning and think, oh, it’s time to go to church without any spiritual or mental preparation. Prepare for the Lord’s Day. Take time on the eve of the Lord’s Day to prayerfully make yourself ready. We prepare for the Lord’s Supper. I confess that over the course of my Christian life, I’ve come rather carelessly on many occasions to the Lord’s Supper, but it ought not to be so. We ought to prepare. week prior, certainly in the evening prior for the fact that tomorrow on the Lord’s Day not only will we come together in Holy Convocation to worship the Lord of the Universe, but we’re going to come to the table, we’re going to come to this ordinance that Jesus ordained for us as His Church to observe until He comes back.
And it’s important, it’s meaningful, and we ought to examine ourselves and prepare. And there are other things that that warrant preparation. John’s ministry reminds us of that. And most important of all, every sinner needs to prepare for the Day of Judgment. And the only way to be prepared for the Day of Judgment is to put your trust in the Lord Jesus Christ, to look to Him for spirit baptism, for the washing away of sins, to look to Jesus and to be prepared by being clothed in His righteousness, because without it, no one will stand in the day of judgment.
So the importance of preparation. And related to that, another point of application, just considering the message of John, what he preached to the people of his day, it’s a reminder to us to flee from the wrath to come. His words may have sounded harsh to your ears even as we read them this morning. We’ve heard them many, many times. But for Him to rebuke people who came to Him and say, who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? The underlying point is you must flee from the wrath to come.
And the only refuge from the wrath to come is in Christ. Just as the only refuge for anyone in the days of Noah from the wrath of God manifested in the flood was to be in the ark. Only those who were inside the ark were safe. Only those who were inside the ark survived. So it is with us. Only those who are in Christ are secure from the wrath which is to come at the end of the age. God is holy.
And sin incites his wrath. His wrath is coming, and we must flee. And it’s my duty, my calling, as a minister of the Word, to urge you to flee from the wrath to come. But let’s remember, of course, too, the good news that we see in this passage. It might not seem to be emphasized in the text, but let’s remember and rejoice and give thanks that the message that John preached was Repentance for the forgiveness of sins. Our God is gracious. There is forgiveness with him. And he offers it freely in Christ Jesus.
So whatever your mental image of John the Baptist might be, however you might picture him, always remember this. He was Christ’s herald. He was like the junior officer that would show up at the unit and say, the colonel’s coming. John the Baptist was the forerunner. He was the herald of Christ and his message was not in conflict with the message that Christ preached. It was not a contrast with it. There was a contrast in the form of their ministries. Jesus even says that. But the message was the same.
Repent. John’s ministry was maybe like the overture to a great opera, where Jesus’ ministry was the opera, John’s ministry was the overture, or like the prologue to a classic novel. They preached and they taught the same thing, that we are sinners in need of a Savior. Both John and the Lord Jesus call people to repentance for the forgiveness of sins. Let’s pray together.
Father, as you have shown us and convinced us from your word that we are sinners and we need a Savior, how thankful we are that you provided a Savior. Thank you that you graciously call us to repentance. Thank you that you have kindly and graciously, in your infinite mercy and in your loving kindness, which endures forever, called us to salvation, called us to repentance, and provided for us a Redeemer in Christ Jesus our Lord. We give you thanks and we pray you’d help us day by day to live lives of repentance, to bear fruit in keeping with that repentance, and to give honor and glory to our Savior Jesus. We pray in his name. Amen.