Sermons

Matthew 3:7-12 – Do not be one of them

 

There are many protests these days.  Protesting is trending. 

• Most are not worthy protests.

 

“Is it ever right for a Christian to protest?” 

• Christians are to submit to government, but does the Bible also sanction protest?
• Answer the question by asking another.

In Acts (our only infallible record of the early church): “Are Christians ever persecuted by governing authorities?” 

• Did anyone ever go to jail?
• Was anyone every beaten for what they did?
• Was anyone every executed for their faith?
• The obvious answer is yes.

 

You can make the case, that the underground church in China is an ongoing protest.  Where communism is enforced, meeting as a church is illegal. 

 

John the Baptist stood in protest of Herod Antipas and Jesus Christ openly defied the religious leadership.

 

• Both executed.

 

For the last 500 years, the Christian church has been in protest. 

• 1517 launched Protestant Reformation.
• Protesting for gospel reform, believers defied, were imprisoned, and died for the truth.
• Salvation grace through faith alone.

The question is not whether peaceful protest is right or wrong, it is the wisdom of when and why. 

• Christians contend earnestly for the faith (cf. Jude 1:3).
• When the truth of the Gospel is in jeopardy then there is cause to stand.

Interestingly, Matthew 3 records a massive protest. 

• Jerusalem and all Judea and all the region…going out to him (v. 5).
  • A massive outpouring, by the thousands.
  • Going out to John, protesting false religion.

The Sanhedrin ruled Israel as its Supreme Court. 

• Made up of its 71 members, this religion-based body was ultimately ruled by a High Priest presiding overall.

 

• They met every day (except the Sabbath) in the temple to hold court.

 

• Two of the main factions (parties) were the Pharisees and Sadducees but there were others.

 

Going out to the wilderness desert to this camel skinned prophet was a protest. 

• The robed religion based on external law-keeping was being exposed as false.
  • Something out there that was true, real, and reached the heart.
  • This was the message of the prophet, John.

 

• John’s message the masses: “Repent” – to turn from sins and be baptized as a true sign of repentance!

 

• All were going, “Even those they were protesting against!”

 

Pharisees and Sadducees. 

• Their arrival drew a stark contrast between true and false repentance.
  • John makes this strikingly clear.
  • “You see them, do not be like them” – “Why?” – “When God’s wrath comes, do not be one of them!”

“What was wrong with them?”  “What did they need to get right?”  “What did they need to repent of?”

 

First, look at the beginning of verse 7. 

John saw this particular crowd coming. 

• Non-specific regarding their dress but they were recognizable.
  • Pharisees known for their long religious robes.

Second, it does not specify how many but there were “many” coming meaning not a few. 

• Not two or three.
  • Pollus meaning a small city of them were coming out.
  • Josephus records there were 6,000 Pharisees that made this religious sect.
  • I suspect not many wanted to be left out.

 

• The Pharisees were religious perfectionist, so if they were going to go, then they all believed it was the right thing to do.

 

• The Sadducees were fewer in number.

 

• Matthew’s concern is not how many, but that coming together, made quite a crowd.

 

• In Luke’s account, John generically says the “crowds that came” tying in this religious contingency meaning it was large and conspicuous.

 

• Why were they there?
  • To spy on or check up on this quaking protest!
  • Emissaries?

^ESV  John 1:19 And this is the testimony of John when the Jews sent priests and Levites from Jerusalem to ask him, “Who are you?”

• Surely, they were not going to participate – they had it all together.
  • Luke 7:30 explicitly states the Pharisees were not baptized by him.
    • Either spies or actually thought they should go ahead and by baptized as a political stunt.
    • Some say, “Keep your friends close and your enemies closer.”

 

• They may have been acting ostentatiously, bragging about their holiness!
  • They could add John’s baptism as an elective.
  • Tie their temple together with what John the “prophet.”

 

• Bottom line – they were not baptized because John exposed them!

 

• “You brood of vipers” – “You family of venomous snakes!”

 

• They could not hide under ecumenism now!

 

• “We are not friends!”

• What John “saw” was not hearts coming to repent but hearts coming to corrupt or poison.

John was calling the crowds to repent – meaning not to be like this group. 

 1. What they needed to repent of?

      a. Being poisonous (v. 7)

What was the poison?  Better, what makes them lethal? 

• First, grouping the Pharisees and Sadducees together is common in the bible but nowhere else.
  • The definite article does that.
  • Though both part of the Sanhedrin, they represented two opposite sides of the house.

 

• The Pharisees were law-keepers and the Sadducees were liberals.

 

• It is true that there is nothing new under the sun but you need to stretch and merge your political stereotypes into religious/political stereotypes.

 

 

The Pharisees would be cult-leaders who reached and represented the Israelite middle class, while the Sadducees were philosophical gurus who reached and represented the aristocratic Israelite upper class. 

• They banded together to defeat their common foe Christ, who at this point they have yet to meet.
  • Their motivations are political power.
  • Their direct assault on Christ becomes the common ground.

 

“Pharisee” comes from a Hebrew term meaning, “separated ones.” 

• No one knows their origin.
  • Not the priesthood nor Levites.
  • Self-appointed lay-leaders who represented the Jewish orthodox core.

 

• They were cult-leaders who gained credibility in a leadership vacuum.
• Created in the 400 years of silence, obscuring Israel’s priesthood.
  • From the age of the Maccabean wars (40 B.C.), the Hasidean people.
  • Hasidim “pious” – a Jewish movement – offshoot where Pharisees arose.

  

• They held strict adherence to the ceremonial law and they added their traditions which they followed in equal weight and carefulness.
• They were legalists and ritualists.

Their poison was their false merit-based teaching. 

• Controllers where everything about them – based on “show!”
  • These are false teachers.
  • Binding people consciences – “You will never measure up to this imposed standard.”
  • Cult leaders are Satanic.
  • Gatekeepers of someone’s acceptance to God.

Many of our modern protests are cult-like demanding strict adherence to speak up or to bow down. 

• Binding people’s consciences with guilt and fear for what they are not guilty of – false guilt.
  • Either submit to an imposed standard or suffer the consequences.
  • One example of Pharisee manipulation was when they tried to lure Jesus into speaking out against Caesar.

 

“Let’s get Jesus in trouble with the government.” 

Matthew 22:15 “Then the Pharisees…plotted how to entangle him in his words” (v. 15). 

^ESV  Matthew 22:16-22 And they sent their disciples to him, along with the Herodians, saying, “Teacher, we know that you are true and teach the way of God truthfully, and you do not care about anyone’s opinion, for you are not swayed by appearances. Tell us, then, what you think. Is it lawful to pay taxes to Caesar, or not?” But Jesus, aware of their malice, said, “Why put me to the test, you hypocrites?

Show me the coin for the tax.” And they brought him a denarius. And Jesus said to them, “Whose likeness and inscription is this?” They said, “Caesar’s.” Then he said to them, “Therefore render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s.” When they heard it, they marveled. And they left him and went away.

 

• They were not impressed with Jesus; they were surprised!
  • They thought they could get Jesus on tax evasion.
  • Paying taxes to Rome was a middle-class issue; the Jewish middle class had no time for paying taxes to Caesar.        

The Sadducees were religious philosophers. 

• Religious, secular humanists, elitist, ivy leagues agnostics.
  • Gurus who were pro-intellect and anti-supernatural.
  • They did not believe in the resurrection meaning they believed in a new-age heaven!
  • This was their poison.

 

• False teaching leading to no accountability – no real God with no real afterlife.
  • Pragmatists who ran the Jerusalem’s temple-like casinos, racketeering scheme to buy and sell “clean” animals to Jews on pilgrimage to Passover.
  • They were liberals.   

Sadducees would never try getting Jesus on tax evasion – but would try to discredit Jesus as anti-intellectual. 

• Jesus is a religious fanatic.
• Make him look stupid and illogical.

The same section of Matthew 22.    

^ESV  Matthew 22:23-33 The same day Sadducees came to him, who say that there is no resurrection, and they asked him a question,  saying, “Teacher, Moses said, ‘If a man dies having no children, his brother must marry the widow and raise up children for his brother.’ Now there were seven brothers among us. The first married and died, and having no children left his wife to his brother. So too the second and third, down to the seventh. After them all, the woman died. In the resurrection, therefore, of the seven, whose wife will she be? For they all had her.” But Jesus answered them, “You are wrong, because you know neither the Scriptures nor the power of God. For in the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels in heaven. And as for the resurrection of the dead, have you not read what was said to you by God: ‘I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob’? He is not God of the dead, but of the living.” And when the crowd heard it, they were astonished at his teaching.

       

• Narcissists, self-worshippers.

The liberal agenda is anti-supernatural. 

• I did not stomach much of the Democratic National Convention, but I dipped in here and there.
  • Halfway through Joe Biden’s acceptance speech, he commits to his first step in office – “To get the virus under control.”
  • Biden then proceeds to accuse President Trump as having failed in his approach to the coronavirus.

 

• Biden cites Trump as saying the virus will suddenly disappear and that he is waiting for a miracle.
  • I see Biden’s angle, calling Trump passive.
  • Ok with the mud but what struck me was his follow on:

“I have news for Trump about Coronavirus. [angrily] ‘No Miracle is coming’.” 

• Biden was not making a direct statement on God’s existence but neither were the Sadducees.

 

• Satan is subtle and I believe it is noteworthy how God is being edited out of all liberal speak.

 

• God is conspicuously absent from liberalism.    

Back to chapter 3:7, John asks the stinging question, “Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come?” (v. 7). 

• John calls them to vipers who are smoked out into the open by a desert brush fire.
  • Snakes and scorpions outside of their protective hiding places.
  • Religious leaders outside of their temple – robes and ceremonial facades!

 

• God is not in their life.
  • God did not move them to come out here and repent.
  • There is no life inside of them.
  • Wrath is coming. End times judgment!    

 

Repent of your false teaching and second repent of your hypocrisy. 

      b. Being hypocrites (vv. 8-9)

As stinging as John’s rebuke, his simplicity is grace. 

• If you are alive, you will bear fruit.
• If you are not, then you cannot.
• It is as simple as that.

Someone’s lifestyle has to be in harmony with their oral repentance. 

• John’s rebuke is a leveler.
  • It applies to everyone.
  • In view of the Pharisees and Sadducees, this spans political parties and social classes!

Repentance and faith are two sides of the same coin. 

• You cannot have one without the other.     

^ESV  1 Thessalonians 1:9 For they themselves report concerning us the kind of reception we had among you, and how you turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God

^ESV  Acts 3:19 Repent, therefore, and turn again, that your sins may be blotted out

 

^ESV  John 15:1-6 “I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinedresser. Every branch in me that does not bear fruit he takes away, and every branch that does bear fruit he prunes, that it may bear more fruit. Already you are clean because of the word that I have spoken to you. Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me. I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing. If anyone does not abide in me he is thrown away like a branch and withers; and the branches are gathered, thrown into the fire, and burned.

 

Pharisees seem like the epitome of a lifeless branch. 

• Judas Iscariot was not a Pharisee but his exposure to Christ’s teaching and miracle power hardened his heart like Pharisees Jesus’ indicted.

 

It takes no spiritual life whatsoever to be an activist. 

• To stand for social justice.

 

• I watched a dated YouTube, from not too far back and it was three former Nationally recognized evangelical leaders having a dialogue from The Gospel Coalition forum.

 

• You would recognize their names but, to say the least.
  • One is now an outspoken atheist, tweeting obscenities, left his wife, standing with homosexual rights.
  • The other is a traveling motivational speaker, and spiritualist, speaking “little god” theology.
  • The last was disqualified from his massive church and following due to anger and control and integrity issues.
  • Now preaching again and I am hoping to trend in a better direction.

 

Christians always bear the fruit of the Spirit.      

 

I am going to just touch on verses 9 and 10.

John is undercutting the Pharisees and Sadducees’ sense of privilege. 

• They believed they could rely on tracing their racial line back to Abraham and that would make them impervious to John’s rebuke.
  • We do not need spiritual fruit because we are racially tied to Abraham.
  • Race does not save; only God’s transforming grace does.

 

• He could make “children of Abraham from these rocks.”
• In essence, God creates his children by creating life inside of hearts.

 

Finally, do not be so hypocritical that you become oblivious to God’s coming judgment (v. 10). 

• Drowning in the drunkenness of perfectionism or elitism makes you blind to your own conscience.

 

• Deaf to God’s warnings!

 

“Even now an ax is laid to the root of the trees” (v. 10).

 

• “Every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire” (v. 10).

 

• Judgment is coming!

 

• God’s ax is ready to cut down arrogance!

 

Would a Pharisee or Sadducee ever repent?  Could they?  Yes and no. 

• In this life, you can go too far and blaspheme the Holy Spirit.

 

• Most Pharisees did not bear fruit.

“Why do I say most?” 

• Could a Pharisee actually bear fruit?
• I know of one who did.
• Remember the account from John 3:1-15.

Note verses 9-15.

^ESV  John 3:9-12 Nicodemus said to him, “How can these things be?”  Jesus answered him, “Are you the teacher of Israel and yet you do not understand these things? Truly, truly, I say to you, we speak of what we know, and bear witness to what we have seen, but you do not receive our testimony. If I have told you earthly things and you do not believe, how can you believe if I tell you heavenly things?

 

What happened to Nicodemus?

 

^ESV  John 19:38-40 After these things Joseph of Arimathea, who was a disciple of Jesus, but secretly for fear of the Jews, asked Pilate that he might take away the body of Jesus, and Pilate gave him permission. So he came and took away his body.  Nicodemus also, who earlier had come to Jesus by night, came bringing a mixture of myrrh and aloes, about seventy-five pounds in weight. So they took the body of Jesus and bound it in linen cloths with the spices, as is the burial custom of the Jews.

 

“What about another Pharisee?” 

 

• How about Paul, a Pharisee.

 

• Himself, a member of the Sanhedrin (cf. Acts 26:10).

 

^ESV  Philippians 3:4-8 though I myself have reason for confidence in the flesh also. If anyone else thinks he has reason for confidence in the flesh, I have more: circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; as to the law, a Pharisee: as to zeal, a persecutor of the church; as to righteousness under the law, blameless. But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ.