Mat 3:1-6; The Yelling Homeless Man Is Calling to You.

Class Outline:

Sunday December 3, 2023

 

JER 3:19

“Then I said,

'How I would set you among My sons

And give you a pleasant land,

The most beautiful inheritance of the nations!'

And I said, 'You shall call Me, My Father,

And not turn away from following Me.'”

 

Israel, however, was not a faithful son.

 

JER 3:20

"Surely, as a woman treacherously departs from her lover,

So you have dealt treacherously with Me,

O house of Israel," declares the Lord.

 

In that day, just a few years before the final death knell to Jerusalem by God (using the Babylonians as a tool of discipline), God appealed to them as a loving Father to repent.

 

JER 3:12-14

'Return, faithless Israel,' declares the Lord;

'I will not look upon you in anger.

For I am gracious,' declares the Lord;

'I will not be angry forever.

13 'Only acknowledge your iniquity,

That you have transgressed against the Lord your God

And have scattered your favors to the strangers under every green tree,

And you have not obeyed My voice,' declares the Lord.

14 'Return, O faithless sons,' declares the Lord;

'For I am a master to you,

And I will take you one from a city and two from a family,

And I will bring you to Zion.'

 

“Bring you to Zion,” is the message of all the prophets that God had a planned kingdom in store for them; a mediatorial kingdom in which the King, the Messiah would reign.

 

2SA 7:16

“Your house and your kingdom shall endure before Me forever; your throne shall be established forever.”

 

ISA 9:7

There will be no end to the increase of His government or of peace,

On the throne of David and over his kingdom,

To establish it and to uphold it with justice and righteousness

From then on and forevermore. [slide]

 

It is clear, in many prophetic passages, that this kingdom is a literal one and it is on earth.

 

DAN 7:14

And to Him was given dominion,

Glory and a kingdom,

That all the peoples, nations and men of every language

Might serve Him.

His dominion is an everlasting dominion

 

JER 5:3

O Lord, do not Your eyes look for truth?

You have smitten them,

But they did not weaken;

You have consumed them,

But they refused to take correction.

They have made their faces harder than rock;

They have refused to repent.

 

Malachi prophesied that a forerunner would announce the arrival of the King (MAL 3:1).

 

The forerunner was John, son of Zacharias, who would become known as John the Baptist.

 

MAT 3:1-2

Now in those days John the Baptist came, preaching in the wilderness of Judea, saying, 2 "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand."

 

Kingdom of heaven - the literal, earthly kingdom promised by God through the OT prophets.

 

Not a spiritual kingdom. Not the church.

 

Repent - metanoeite = present active commandment = a complete change of attitude, spiritual and moral, towards God.

 

It is a call to the nation of Israel to repair its relationship with the God who called them out of all the families of the earth.

 

Then John would call them to confess their sins, specific sins (MAL 3:5), and then he would baptize them in the Jordan. John’s baptism was a cleansing, a washing.

 

Remember, this is in preparation for the soon-coming King and His kingdom.

 

MAT 3:3

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!'"

 

ISA 40:3-5

A voice is calling,

"Clear the way for the Lord in the wilderness;

Make smooth in the desert a highway for our God.

4 "Let every valley be lifted up,

And every mountain and hill be made low;

And let the rough ground become a plain,

And the rugged terrain a broad valley;

5 Then the glory of the Lord will be revealed,

And all flesh will see it together;

For the mouth of the Lord has spoken."

 

We see mountains in Scripture, especially prophetic, as referring to kings and kingdoms.

 

REV 17:9-10

The seven heads are seven mountains on which the woman sits, and they are seven kings;

 

In the prophecy, what happens to the mountains? What happens to the valleys (the oppressed, the poor in spirit)?

 

What sins are Israel repenting from? Many, but they all emanate from pride.

 

They are baptized by John and so cleansed in a unique way - but it is not final. John himself said so.

 

MAT 3:11

“As for me, I baptize you with water for repentance, but He who is coming after me is mightier than I, and I am not fit to remove His sandals; He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.”

 

But what if Israel did not repent and accept Jesus of Nazareth as Messiah?

 

MAT 3:10

“The axe is already laid at the root of the trees; therefore every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.”

 

Repentance and faith are not the same.

There would be a final cleansing through the baptism that the Messiah would bring (through the cross) - the baptism of the Holy Spirit.

 

Conclusion / Application:

 

The fall of mankind infected us all with pride (independence from God).

 

We repent many times in our lives. We believe once for salvation and repent again and again as we grow spiritually.

 

Why is it so difficult for you to repent (change your attitude away from what you want to do and towards the spiritual and moral sphere of God)?

 

“Since the life of Christ is every way most bitter to nature and the Self and the Me (for in the true life of Christ, the Self and the Me and nature must be forsaken and lost and die altogether), therefore in each of us, nature hath a horror of it.” [Theologia Germanica]

 

The baptism of Christ (of the Holy Spirit) is crucifixion and resurrection.

Repentance for you is the continual blood-letting of pride.