The Divine Opportunity (Luke 3:2-18)

The Divine Opportunity
Luke 3:2-17

INTRODUCTION:
In an episode of the Bob Newhart show, Newhart plays a psychiatrist named Dr. Switzer. This woman comes to him with a problem - she has a fear of being buried alive in a box. She says it makes her anxious to think about it; it makes her life horrible. She can’t even go through tunnels or be in an elevator. She can’t even be in a box - anything “boxy.”

Dr. Switzer (Bob Newhart) says, “So, what you’re saying is, you’re claustrophobic.” The woman agrees with his assessment. So Dr. Switzer says, “Let’s go Catharine. I’m going to say two words to you right now and I want you to listen to them very, very carefully. I want you to take them out of the office and incorporate them into your life.”

She asks if she needs to write them down. Dr. Switzer says, “If it makes you comfortable. Most people can remember them.” He asks if she’s ready. She says, “Yes.” He says, “Ok. Here we are: Stop it!”

The patient is taken aback because the “prescription” is so simple. Dr. Switzer says, “This is not Yiddish, Catharine. This is English. Stop it!”

Catherine says, “So I should just stop being afraid of being buried alive in a box?” Dr. Switzer says, “You got it.”

Catharine has a few other problems she would like to address with Dr. Switzer:

She says she’s bulimic - Dr. Switzer says “Stop it!”
She says, “We’ll, I’ve got self-destructive relationships with men.” Dr. Switzer says, “Stop it!”

She finally says, “I wash my hands a lot.” Dr. Switzer says, “That’s alright.”
She says she’s afraid to drive. Dr. Switzer says, “Well, stop it!”

When it comes to our sinful behaviors, Jesus tells us: “Stop it!” The biblical word for that is “repentance.” Now, we will see in our passage that “repentance” - while meaning to “change one’s mind” - is also going to result in us stopping our sinful behavior. Because changing the mind produces behavior that is worthy of repentance.

Let’s study the preaching of John the baptizer - Luke 3:2-17:

THE COMMANDS JOHN PREACHED - 3:2-3:
The “word of God” came to John. This expression is reminiscent of the OT prophets. It also is as if the message from God is a powerful force that comes over someone and they can’t help but tell people what God wants said or preached.

John had been living in the desert (1:80) and we don’t know why. God guided him out of the desert, to the district around the Jordan River. John was given the responsibility of preparing the Jews for the coming of the Messiah, which we saw last month in Luke 1:16-17. John preached that the kingdom of the Messiah was about to be established, which we saw two weeks ago: Matt. 3:2. In order for the Jews to be prepared for the kingdom of the Messiah, they had to repent of their sins against Jehovah God and they had to be immersed in water, please observe the text, “for the forgiveness of sins.” Notice that the purpose of the baptism was “for the forgiveness of sins.”

It would have been inconceivable at that time for some Jewish prophet to come along and say, “Well, the repentance is for the forgiveness of sins, but the baptism just shows you that you are already forgiven.” John would have denounced that man as a false prophet just as surely as he denounced King Herod in verses 19-20. Baptism is not to show that you are already forgiven. Baptism is for the purpose of the forgiveness of sins. A Jew was not prepared for the Kingdom of the Messiah until he repented and was baptized for the forgiveness of sins. Incidentally, when Peter tells Jews what to do to become Christians, in Acts 2:38, he uses the exact same phrase - it’s the same in Greek and in English - baptism is for “the forgiveness of sins.”

JOHN’S PREACHING WAS PREDICTED BY ISAIAH - 3:4-6:
While Matthew (3:3) and Mark (1:3) quote only Isaiah 40:3 - “The voice of one crying in the wilderness, make ready the way of the Lord, make His paths straight,” Luke chooses to quote also verses 4-5… Before we get to that text…

Isaiah predicted that there would be one who would cry in the wilderness - cry for Israel to repent - and through that message this person would “make ready the way for the Lord.” I want to tell you that the word “Lord” in the OT Hebrew is “Jehovah.” Clearly here in Luke, as well as in Matthew and Mark, we know that John was preparing the way for Jesus. This shows decisively that Jesus is Jehovah in the flesh. We might say “Jehovah the Son.” We’ll talk more about the nature of Jesus next week.

My dad was in the Navy, having served two tours of duty in the Construction Battalion during Viet-Nam; he was there in 1967 and again in 1968; I think he had 6-month deployments. The Construction Battalion replaced civilian contractors after Pearl Harbor; it was there job to pave the way for the Marines. We love and respect our Marines, like Cody Melvin and Clayton Crewse, and Jeff Sparks and John Cox. But the CBs had to prepare the way for the Marines.

That’s what John did with the Jews - he prepared them for the coming of the Messiah and His kingdom. Isaiah uses metaphorical imagery here: make the paths straight. Fill the ravines. Flatten the mountains and the hills. Straighten what is crooked and smooth what is rough. Likely the Holy Spirit had Luke quote Isaiah 40:3-5 in order to include verse 5, which is in verse 6 of our text: "and all flesh will see the salvation of God.” Isaiah’s purpose was spiritual. John’s purpose was spiritual. It all had to do with salvation from sins which would be available in Jesus Christ and this salvation would be made available to “all flesh.” It clearly would not be just for the Jews. It would be for “all flesh.”

JOHN’S PREACHING ANTICIPATED A COMING WRATH - 3:7-9:
Crowds of people went out to hear John preach. In Matthew’s account, Matthew writes that “Jerusalem was going out to him, and all Judea and all the district around the Jordan” (3:5). In other words, bunches and bunches of Jews were listening to John preach and were being baptized by him. Many many Jews wanted to be prepared for the coming of the Messiah and His Kingdom.

But there were some insincere people out there too, in John’s audience. Matthew tells us that John was specifically directing these thoughts to the religious leaders who were hypocrites, the Pharisees and Sadducees (Matt. 3:7). John asked who warned these folks to flee from the wrath to come? This verb “to come” is actually the verb “to about to happen” and it is in the present tense. In other words, John is warning that the wrath of God was in the process of being implemented very soon on that generation!

It’s like when my dad got angry at one of us kids… He kept a 2” wide brown belt hanging on the back of the dining room chair to use it when he needed it. And if he ever started reaching for that belt, you knew that wrath was “about to happen!”

So how could the Jews be prepared for the coming Kingdom and avoid the coming wrath? In verse 8, John tells them: “bear fruit in keeping with repentance.” The expression “in keeping with” translates the word for “worthy.” “Bear fruit worthy of repentance.” Here’s the deal… “Repentance” literally means changing one’s mind. You decide in your mind, you decide in your heart, that you want to honor God, you want to please Jesus Christ. But when you make that decision in your mind / heart, then the “fruit” is going to be worthy of that changed-mind. In other words, your behavior is also going to change.

Furthermore, to the Jews, John emphatically states that they should not believe that they will be saved just because they were Jews. He cautions them, “Do not say, ‘We have Abraham as our father’ (in other words, they were boasting about being jews); if all God wanted were “bumps on a log,” He could raise up children to Abraham from rocks!” (3:8).

In verse 9, John returns to that imagery of an imminent expression of the wrath of God: “Already the axe is laid at the root of the trees.” In other words, God is getting ready to start chopping down the tree at any moment! And the tree which does not bear good fruit - fruit worthy of repentance - God will cut down and He will throw it into the fire.

REPENTANCE INVOLVES SPECIFIC ACTIONS FOR SPECIFIC INDIVIDUALS - 3:10-14:
Notice beginning in verse 10 that the crowds knew that there was something they had to do and they had to do something to get right with God. “What shall we do?”

To certain individuals, John told them to “share” with someone who needed a tunic and if someone needed food, share that too! It’s like the picture of judgment we have in Matthew 25 - if someone is hungry feed him, if he is thirsty, give him something to drink, etc.

To the tax collectors, who asked “What shall we do?” John gave them the response: Collect no more than what you have been ordered to.” Tax collecting in the Roman Empire was hired out to bidders and they collected what the Roman government told them to collect but they would also generally collect even more so that they could have a very nice level of living. The “chief tax collectors” would have men working underneath them and the chief tax collector could get an even bigger portion. John says, “Stop it! Collect only what you are supposed to collect!”

And then soldiers came, probably Jewish soldiers not Roman soldiers, and they asked “What shall we do?” And John told them: “Do not take money from anyone by force, or accuse anyone falsely, and be content with your wages.” Notice that two of these three examples have to do with money. Twenty-first century Americans are not the first humans who have had a problem with materialism…

So John did not tell these soldiers to stop being soldiers because it is against the law to kill. It is okay for someone to be a pacifist - not fight to kill as a police officer or in the military - but God does not require Christians to be pacifists. God did not require these soldiers to hang up their swords and He did not require Cornelius in Acts 10 to stop being a soldier when he became a Christian.

But, “repentance” did require these soldiers to not be guilty of extortion, not to accuse others unjustly, and to be content.

JOHN’S PREACHING ANTICIPATED ONE COMING WHO WAS GREATER - 3:15-17:
The crowd knew something about the coming Messiah and it sounded like John was that Messiah. They were in a state of expectation that John would reveal himself in some dramatic way that he was the promised anointed one.

But they did not understand the OT as well as they should have. John was not the Messiah; he was only sent to prepare them for the Messiah. In verse 16, John told them that while he was baptizing them in water, One was coming after John who would baptize in the Holy Spirit and fire and John was not even worthy to untie the thong of His sandals.

The baptism in the Holy Spirit, we know, happened first in Acts 2 when God immersed the twelve apostles in the Holy Spirit to tell the Jews what it meant that Jesus had risen from the dead. And the baptism in the Holy Spirit happened a second time in Acts 10 relative to the acceptance of the first Gentiles into the Messiah’s Kingdom. The apostle Paul writes in Ephesians 4:5 that there was only one baptism, so the baptism in the Holy Spirit - which is distinct from baptism in water - is no longer available. It was a sign of the coming of the Messiah.

Baptism in fire was also going to come on some of those who were in John’s audience. The imagery in verse 17 relates to that coming wrath of God, the baptism in fire. The Messiah would hold the winnowing fork in His hand and would thoroughly clean the threshing floor. He would then gather the wheat - the good “fruit” - into the barn, but the “bad fruit” - the chaff - would be burned with unquenchable fire. Clearly that refers to the fires of hell.

TO PREPARE FOR THE SECOND COMING OF THE MESSIAH:
We also have to “repent” and be baptized for the forgiveness of sins. Those are the words of the apostle Peter in Acts 2:38.

So when it comes to us acting sinfully or living in sin, the message of the Messiah is: “Stop it!”

If you are practicing sexual immorality - stop it!
If you are living in impurity - stop it!
If you are living in sensuality - stop it!
If you are engaging in division behavior - stop it!
If you are guilty of being argumentative - stop it!
If you are living in adultery - stop it!
If you are guilty of outbursts of anger - stop it!
If you are envious of others - stop it!
If you are engaging in drinking intoxicating beverages - stop it!

I have just gone down the list of Paul’s “works of the flesh” from Galatians 5:19-21. Clearly there are even more behaviors that we tend to do because we like them but the message of our Savior is: “Stop it!” We cannot be saved if we don’t stop practicing sin. Repent.

In 2 Timothy 2:25, Paul tells faithful Christians that we need to gently correct those who are living in opposition to God’s truth so that perhaps God will give them an opportunity to repent which would lead them to knowing / experiencing salvation.

Take home message: Whatever sin you are currently doing - stop it! You can’t be saved in your sinful life.