Turn Now, Not Later

You are listening to the sermon podcast from Rocky Creek Church. Find more resources online at Rocky Creek dot church. I thought you'd be starting with me on my favorite passage of scripture. We're going to Luke chapter three, looking at verses one through twenty, looking at the ministry of John the Baptist that if his entire preaching ministry could be summarized, it would sound something like this.

Turn now, not later, you know. You need to turn now, not later. If there's a change that God's wanting you to make, you need to do that today and not delay on that. Have you ever had a time in your life where you knew the Lord was asking and encouraging you to make a turn and you decided to delay and you kind of missed that opportunity.

I can remember a time where I missed a turn in my life that was very significant. It was late. I was tired. I was distracted and I was coming down.

I 26. It was I've been in seminary all week in Louisville, Kentucky. I finished class at five o'clock. I decided to drive home to Greenwood, South Carolina.

You need to know this. You can't get to Greenwood on I 26. You have to go through a little place called Clinton, South Carolina. If you know where Clinton is, right?

Okay. You know, it's really after midnight, there's not a whole lot going on in Clinton other than police officers, apparently. Anyway, I've been driving all the interstate for, you know, once again, trying about seven hours, about seven hours at this time. It's past midnight and I just in a day's miss my exit.

And so I know I have to go down a couple more miles so I can do a U-turn to come back to the exit to get there on Clinton where I was wanting to go to. And I don't know why. I know I only lost say about four or five minutes, but in my mind, I'm thinking now I need to speed to make up for that time, right? Okay.

No one's on this road. I have been used to going to certain speed and now I'm going to go through Clinton and everybody's asleep except for this guy who apparently decided to turn on his blue lights as soon as I blew past him, you know what I'm saying? And I was thinking maybe for somebody else, but there was no one else. And so I pulled over and you know, he kind of had one of those, you know, we had a little interesting exchange.

I remember he's like, well, where are you going to? And I was like, I'm going home officer. Where are you being? I'm like, I've been in seminary.

Oh, yeah. I'm like, I've never, I really have been in seminary. Like, there's not a seminary Clinton. I know I drove all the way from Kentucky.

I'm trying to get the Greenwood, trying to go home on its seminary. Oh, really? Do they train pastors to speed in seminary these days? Like, okay, we got one of these, right?

Okay. So I had a wonderful exchange with one of these guys. What happened was because I missed the turn, right? I started trying to actually fix the issue by now.

I've messed one thing up and now I'm actually breaking rules to try to make it better. Does that make sense to you? See, sometimes when we miss a turn, we miss the opportunity we're supposed to have instead of just, I'm going to slow down and do a U-turn and get where I need to, we start acting crazy and actually do worse things on top of the thing that we just missed and actually make a mess out of the situation. Missing the turn did not remove the need that I had to turn.

It just increased the cost of delay of me getting there. What happened was I actually compounded more issues on top of the issue I already had because I missed the turn and then tried to fix it in my own strength. This is John the Babis' message today. We're going to look at it.

And Luke chapter three, he's basically going to say, you need to turn now, not later. You need to make this adjustment in your life right here, right now. There's the exit ramp. You need to take it.

And if you don't take it now, let me tell you what's going to happen. Just more issues to come, right. Can I just, we don't have time for testimonial service right now, but how many of you can look back at a place in your life and go, if I just would have took it to turn back then, right. If I could just have had an opportunity and just one more shot, I'd have gone back and done things differently.

Here's what I know, friend. Regardless of where you come from in life, whatever your situation is, none of us can go back and retake that turn, but what's important is what do we do now? What do we do now? Do the Gospel of Luke, we've seen John the Babis and Jesus' birth, we've seen Jesus' as a 12 year old boy and it's simple.

And as fast forward about 16, 17 years or so into the future. Now John the Babis' is starting his ministry right before Jesus starts his ministry. And this is what it says about in Luke chapter 3 verse 1. In the 15th year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar, Parnchus Pilate, being governor of Judea, and Herod, being Tetrarch of Galilee, and his brother Philip, Tetrarch of the region of Iteria and Trakhanitis, and Lestanius, Tetrarch of Abilene, during the high priesthood of Anis and Caiaphas, the word of God came to John the son of Zachariah in the wilderness.

And he went into all the region around the Jordan, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins, as 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 past 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 the Lord. Now pause there for a moment because John's message is going to be to turn now, not later.

I guess the first question is like where to turn. Like where are we supposed to turn? And John sets this thing out. Now you may have noticed in the first two verses of chapter 3, those are the type of verses that make many of you very scared of actually reading scripture in public, right?

Okay. See all those hard names or whatever. You're like, well, pastor, you went to seminary, I'm going to tell you a trick. You read fast and confident and everybody thinks you know what you just did.

You know what I'm saying? And so I'm reading these names and you know some of them, someone sounds familiar to you, someone you're not exactly sure, but here's what you see. We got an emperor, we got some governors, we've even got some people that serve in religious capacity, not government capacity, and yet all these important people, did you see in verse 2, while there's people who are priests, it says that the Word of God did not come to any of those people, it came to who? John.

I want you to see something right at the gate. God speaks through whoever he pleases because the power belongs to him. God can use whoever he wants to use because the power belongs to him. God can send whoever he wants to send because the power belongs to him.

In our world, we typically think we have to have a status, a title, a position to be used by God to hear something from God and get the first two verses here, that's not exactly true. Luke lists these political and religious leaders, it anchors this account in real history, going by the clues he gives us the 15th year of Tiberius, most likely this happens around 28 AD right before Jesus' ministry starts. And all these powerful positions are named. Yet God's Word comes to none of them, not the government leaders, not the people of the titles, not the people of the power.

In fact, even the religious leaders. Now you notice they had Anas and Caiaphas. Well, Anas was actually the former high priest and he was the father-in-law of Caiaphas. He's kind of like the high priest emeritus.

You know what I'm saying? He used to have the role, but he still has some power and influence. And so both of them are mentioned, even though you're only supposed to have one. And it shows that somehow this religious power was concentrated and most likely compromised.

Have you ever known somebody who had religious power in love to use it? It's a situation like this, right? And yet God didn't speak to Anas. He didn't speak to Caiaphas.

He spoke to John out of the wilderness, who had not been trained like them, who did not have the titles or positions like him. Yet God speaks to him, a wilderness prophet, no institutional power because God's authority is never controlled by titles, offices, or even influence. Now, what did he say? Well, you've got this, right?

Verse 2 says, the word of God came to John. And verse 3 says, he now went into all the region around the Jordan proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. Look at verse 4, as it is written in the book, the words of Isaiah. So what is John doing?

John is not coming up with a message. He is just reporting what God has told him. The Spirit has taught him. The word of God has proclaimed him and he is doing this.

And this is important because you might say, but John the Bible is going to to say whatever you wanted to say. That's not what's happening here. We have no authority to give directions unless they come from God. Not a chance.

Not any one of us. I cannot get up here and say, well, let's say if trial, therefore you need to do this. The only time that I should ever point to you, the truth is, let's say, if the Lord, the Bible says this, the Spirit confirms this. And this is how we know this is truth, not because anybody in any type of authority stands up and says it.

John does not innovate a message. He delivers one repentance here. It's not shaped by this religious opinion. It's a divine revelation.

It says, the word came to John. He quotes Isaiah chapter 40 here saying, this is the basis of my message. I'm going back to the book. This is what this is about.

And it says, he was preaching a baptism of repentance for what forgiveness of sins. Now, baptism was a unique kind of thing that John the Baptist's ministry started, right? It was a call to repentance. It was a decisive turning from sin.

The Greek word, bapto, kind of started with it. It means to baptize. Let me tell you what it basically meant. It was used by the Greeks to signify the dying of a garment.

So they would take a garment and they would plunge it into a vat of die and it would come back, what? Different color than when it went in. This was the word to baptize, this garment and it comes out differently. The same word would be used sometimes to be talking about the drawing of water by dipping a vessel into another.

So he's using it. This was not originally a religious term. This was a term that was used by the Greeks and these kinds of things. Plunge there and you come out different or you come in and you get filled up and you come, you came in empty, you came filled up.

This was what this was. Now, this was different. They had religious washings back in the day, but this was very different because this was not repeated. This was a ceremonial cleansing.

This was a once for all moral response for repentance to turn basically. If you've ever, now some of you may have heard the word repent, some of you have not. How many of you grew up in a church that like you had a pastor that would get really red in the face, pound the pulpit got repat? You know, some of you have been there right?

Some of you know the end of this sermon title. Turn or burn. There you go. Okay.

I know exactly where you're from. Okay. So turn or burn. Hellfire and brimstone.

Like some of you grew up in that. And so with this, the word repentance sometimes is a little confusing because you know what exactly does that mean? That means if I'm going in one direction that I'm not supposed to go into, repentance does not mean remorse. I'm sorry I'm doing this God.

Repentance means turning around. It's a 180. I'm going to turn. I'm going to turn.

So this baptism of repentance, fourth forgiveness of sin was an indication to everybody out there in the water. Something's different inside of me now. So it symbolized this. It civilized the preparation and now we're signed that hearts were being made ready for God's coming work.

I have all things we get to celebrate last year. One of my prayer requests in addition to us meeting that goal was also that we mentioned earlier, I prayed for a kind of crazy goal, but I just prayed Lord, I would pray that the gospel would go forward and people would come to know you. And I just said Lord, I would love to see a hundred baptisms here at this church. And I was like, that's kind of a big goal for our church here exactly right.

So when I was looking at the other day and December, we were baptizing. We had baptized 94 people at Rocky Creek. But then when you take on the nine that I got to baptize at Perry, correction, we had 103 people just in our church. And Perry, we got to baptize last year, not talk about the recommission network church.

Man, that's pretty awesome. I go, you're exactly right. You want to try to show you numbers? God, no, I'm a story about this.

I love the story of Judah and Jamal and Julius. I love the story of Bradley, Rowan and Eliana. I love the story of every single hundred and three of those who came in. They heard the gospel either in this church by their parents, through somebody inviting them, whatever it is.

They heard the gospel. They said, I'm ready to follow Jesus. And I want to take this thing public. I'm different now.

I love every single one of those stories because we're people saying I am different. Now, John is saying this is a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. And he claims this prophet from Isaiah chapter 40 verses three and four. And I love it.

He says, my job is to prepare the way of the Lord so people can experience the Lord. And he says, where the valley is, guess what? It's going to be filled up. And where there's a mountain, guess what?

It's going to be brought down low. And if there's crooked places, God's going to straighten it out. And if it's rough around the edges, he's going to straighten it out. See, when Jesus comes to bear on a situation, things change, folks.

That's the way this thing works. And especially I want you to take that imagery of every mountain and hill shall be made low. Here's what the message of Jesus Christ is saying. If you are so prideful, so puffed up that you think you have it all together, when you meet Jesus, guess what?

He's going to humble you. And John's message is when Jesus comes, everything's going to change. You can humble yourself now or God will humble you later. Every mountain will be made low.

Every rough place will be made plain. And so as a testimonial experience, I want to go and tell you, if you have the opportunity to humble yourself or allow God to do it, I would recommend just go ahead and humble yourself. Do it while you have time because God will do it. It just may not be as pleasant, right?

So as I say as prophecy here, pictures of complete leveling of the spiritual landscape, probably brought low. Humility will be lifted up and repentance aligns us willingly with what God has determined to do in our lives. God's transforming work to certain reality. It's going to happen.

But our response is our role in this to do this, to turn. Now you might say, okay, well, what would be the message then where to turn? Well, John is going to make it very clear in this passage where to turn away from sin. That's where you need to turn away from sin.

It was a baptism of repentance. Turn from the sin. Why? So you can be forgiven.

Now, let me just ask you a question. Let's just think of a hypothetical scenario. You got your mailbox this week. It says to me.

And all of a sudden, you're kind of actually near the mailbox and the melody comes and can't use stacks, kind of stuff before you go to the mailbox and you look and you see this one long look there and it says it's red stamp on the outside. You notice it's from those bill people that you know you have to pay every single month, but it says late on the stamp. And also, you see that and you're so shocked by it. You start running down the post lady, you know, as fast as you possibly can.

You start banging on the window like, hey, hey, she's shocking or she rolls out of the window. Is there a problem? Yeah. What are you doing?

Giving me this mail? How dare you? That's not my day about telling me I got a late bill. Let me ask you a question.

Did the mail lady do that? Is she responsible? You're exactly right. It's not a mail lady's fault.

It's the bill people's fault. That's who it is, right? I'm going to call them up. Who do you think you are telling me?

I'm late. Now I got to pay extra money because I didn't pay the money on time. Who do you think you are? Are the people who have your power and we're about to cut it off?

That's it, right? Is it make any sense for me to get angry with a messenger or get angry with a bill collector who actually should I be frustrated with yourself, right? John Ababas was a mailman. God was the one with the standard and the people the one who had unpaid bills.

And so you get frustrated all you want to, but the reality on this is you don't have to be angry at either of them. The real issue is not the delivery. It's not the notice. It's the unpaid bill.

Repentance stops blaming everybody else in your life and takes responsibility for your need to change. Not anybody else's. God's call to repent is not the problem sin is, but in our day we don't have sin problems. This is what we have in our culture.

We have conditions. You know what I'm saying? You don't have a sin problem. You have a condition.

I'll tell you, you do have a condition. It's called a sin condition. I have a sin condition. I want to do what I want to do and not listen to God.

That's my problem. I don't have a condition. I don't have something like, wait, because of this, you really can't help it. Yes, I can.

I just choose my ways more than I choose his ways. That's where I am today. So for it. He says, where do you need to turn away from sin?

Well, then the next question is, when should you turn, right? Well, this is what he goes on and says verse seven. Follow along with me. He said, therefore, the crowds that came out to be baptized by him.

Now, this is church growth. You're ready. He just shows us how to get people to come back after their first visit. You, brutal vipers, who warned you to flee from the wrath to come?

I love this guy. You're saying, it's not always so thankful that you're here. But you like some free coffee. He's like a bunch of snakes.

What you doing here? Anyway, okay. This is how John starts his conversation with people. You, brutal vipers, who warned you to flee from the wrath to come?

I love this. Bear fruits in keeping with what? Repentance. And do not begin to say to yourselves, well, you know, 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 acts is laid to the root of the trees. And every tree, therefore, that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. And Carl asked him, well, what did you we do?

He answered them. Well, whoever has two tunics is to share it with him who has none. And whoever has food is to do likewise. Tax collectors also came to be baptized and said, I'm teacher, what shall we do?

And he said him, collect no more than you are authorized to do. Soldiers also asked him. And then what should we do? And he said them, do not extort money from anyone by for that to by false accusation and be content with your wages.

Did you see? Oh, Johnny B, what he's up to here? How dare this guy say, instead of just giving the religious talk, you actually need to do something with this repentance. Folks, I've been in church all my life.

And by the last half of it, I've been serving in one. And this is all I know. Church people really know how to talk the language that they want to. But the real proof is not on Sunday morning.

It's on Monday morning. The real proof is not where I'll gather in this place. It's when we're scattered from this place and seeing if you've actually decided to make the change that you know you need to make. He says, you're brutally viper.

You're a bunch of snakes, right? And I'm going, they are at your Bible study, John. Will you please be nice? Okay.

He's like, no, a bunch of snakes. You're just here for the show. You're just here to make yourself feel a little better. So you can go and do whatever you want to do.

If you're going to repent, fruit better come along with this. Did you catch that first aid? Fruit better come along with it. And so know this, the religious talk without real repentance is worthless.

You can talk all you want to. You can chirp all the day long about the things that you think that you know or the things you should do. John was confronting people who wanted religious safety without heart change. It was strong language exposing that they had shallow repentance.

They didn't really mean. He fangal was empty, rituals. They were just going through the motions. They had words.

They had ceremonies. They had appearances, but it could not replace the genuine turning that needed to take place in their life. Repentance must be visible in the fruit, not just in a verbal confession. Can I tell you what probably all of us need at certain points in our life?

We need a John the Baptist to say, your sin stinks, friend. And we live in a world that wants to say, no, you're not a problem. Everybody else is. You're fine.

It's everybody else that talks around you, right? You have a condition, but you don't have a sin problem. You know, in fact, if you just remove yourself in these environments, everything will go okay. I'm not John the Baptist, but I'm Travis the Baptist.

And I would just love to be able to speak a little honestly to your, for a second. I know that we're in a church gathering right now, but there is so much pride for rebellion to God in this room that probably make us choke if we're aware of it. In my heart and in your heart, and you go, you don't really know me. You're exactly right.

I just know myself. And I know this that if God were to click, all the things that I've ever thought about in my life, all the things that I've said in my life, all the things that I've done in my life, and dumped them here on the stage for all of you to see, I would not have a job and there wouldn't be enough room. And that's just my stuff. Okay.

Now you go, yeah, but my sin is not that bad. And that's called self-righteousness, which is really stinky, by the way. That you think, well, yeah, everybody else has to say, you know, sometimes pastor, I watch the news, I can't believe those people out there, they struggle with this. I can't believe people in here struggle with that.

I can't believe that some of us know how to play church so well that we can be so religious in this moment and lift our eyes up to the Lord and we sing out songs. And as soon as we leave this place, that same mouth begins to curse people in our family. I cannot understand how God says, we really have one witness in this world to see how Jesus loves us in the church. You need to look at how marriages are represented here.

And if you were to look at marriages in the church, it's such a stark contrast of what God has called us to do. We do not love our spouses. We do not sacrifice for our spouses. We just always love on convenience.

So many of us have put more into other people and other relationships. And we have investing in our own children. Some of us have placed more priority and more money in our hobbies than we've ever even thought about our spiritual condition. Some of us cannot find our Bible throughout the week, but we can find that phone and start scrolling through all that filth repeatedly.

And we have forgotten how to blush. We use our mouth to hurt people. We use our eyes to look at things that we should not go into. We take in all types of attitudes.

We walk into places we should not be. Our hands do things that we should not do in our entire lives. Basically say this, you know, for an hour on Sunday, I'm gonna get really spiritual, but for the rest of the week, I'm gonna live like however I want to. If I can be John the Baptist for a second, you need to repent now.

You need to turn and stop literally wasting words saying that God means something to you if he has not changed you. This repentance has got to come with a true, true fruit. Some of you are like, how dare you? Cough, pastor?

You know I have a granddaddy that was a pastor? Well, I'm sure he was wonderful. Yeah, but do you know that my entire family, we've always been in church. I mean, all my family's Christians.

You know, you know, the people in this Bible was actually saying the same thing that John the Baptist. We're children of Abraham. We're the Jewish people. You know, we're the chosen ones.

We're taking care of and he says, you know what? I'll go ahead and say something. God can actually raise kids up from these stones if he liked to. Now, you know what exactly is he saying?

I don't understand exactly what's the construct of what John is saying there. I'm gonna make it real South Carolina for you. I don't care who your daddy is. I don't care who your mama is.

I don't care if everybody figures, I don't care if you're all sitting in a collection over there at the same thing and you had your seats or your pews and nobody else was supposed to sit. They could have named a stained glass after your daddy. They could have literally your mom taught study school all these years. It does not matter at all.

You know why God has no grandchildren. Repentance, it must be personal. It's not about what your parents or your grandparents or people in your neighborhood or the people who are living in. Typically in your walk of life, but we've always done this at some point for him.

You cannot go into heaven on your parents' faith. You cannot somehow walk before Lord and say, we know what I have a really, really impressive religious pedigree. The crowd assumed their heritage, guaranteed their standing with God. But God talks about having sons and daughters, not grandsons and granddaughters.

It's not there. John dismantles their beliefs reminding them God owes none of us exhalation and ancestry. Heritage does not substitute for obedience of faith. Judgment was coming.

And then he's going to save them. They had to make a decision for themselves. What would they do? He obviously got their attention.

The crowd said, what should we do? They're probably thinking cry harder, sing louder. And John did something crazy. He got in their business.

He went from preaching to what some people call middling. The crowd said, what do you want us to do? He said, how many of you have two tunics? Of course I do.

Some people don't have one. You need to give that away to somebody. If somebody doesn't have food, you've got enough. I can tell.

Some of you will get that tomorrow. Tax collectors, what are we supposed to do? Stop robbing people. Maybe that's art.

Whoa. How am I going to have a living? No, you have a living. You're trying to rob them.

Soldiers got what are we supposed to do? Stop bullying people around. That's what you do. You see how this is crazy, you ready?

We like to compartmentalize our life. This is my religious section. These are all my relational. This is my work.

John goes, uh-uh. You fall in the Lord. He's going to mess up everything. He's got jurisdiction over it all.

Repentance does not permit. Here's three things. He says selfishness, greed, and intimidation to continue. Now these three things, I mentioned John the Baptist could go on for a long time.

But I think they're pretty good areas. They really summarize a whole lot of what's going on in our life. These convicted listeners are asking, well, what should repentance look like in our daily life? He says, okay, selfishness, right?

Crowds, stop hoarding so much. Start sharing with needy people. Folks, if you see new construction around this city, I'll tell you what it is. Appartments or storage buildings?

That's it. Maybe a car wash. Okay, that's the third option, right? That's what's going on around here.

Uh, apartments, storage buildings, car wash. What does that say about how affluent we are? We don't even have enough room in our big houses to fit all of our stuff. We just put stuff there to collect dust because one day we're going to need it.

He says, if you've got so much stuff, you got, you need to start giving to somebody else. Go, whoa, whoa, done. I just want to get churchy when I'm, you know, singing and like, have a good Bible study. I'm not actually wanting to change anything.

It's like, that's the problem. Selfishness, greed, tax collectors. You mean you don't want us to take any more than what's required? Hey, look, I know that you need to make a living, but it doesn't need to be on the back of breaking somebody else's.

Hey, everybody here, you need to make a living, but you don't need to exploit anybody. Take advantage of other people. Nearly soldiers showing up. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, what does this mean for us?

Well, they knew how to intimidate, right? He warned against abusing power through threats or false accusations. Hey, some of you in this room can use the size of your stature or the loudness of your voice or your manipulation tactics to bully people into submission. You're going to do what I want you to do.

And this is not how this works, repentance shapes reshapes how we treat people, handle possessions and even use their power. Love for neighbor becomes the evidence of a changed heart. If you say you're right with the Lord, I promise you this, it's going to flesh out and how you live with other people. And John, you know how he lived.

So when the turn, John would say as urgently as possible, don't wait, don't delay. Do not pass go to not collect you $100, right? You turn now. Why you still can?

These promises they were giving sent a release and seer until they got tested by real life. And didn't show they were not that sincere. And God is not impressed by emotional moments. He wants to see changed behavior.

So if repentance is, right, remember, repentance means turn around. So repentance means if I'm going this way, that I actually turn and start going the other direction. Let me tell you what I've often seen in my life and oftentimes in church. People don't want to turn.

They don't repent. They just want remorse. So it's like this. They know this path is bad.

So this is what it sounds like. Lord, I know I've been walking past for a long time and I'm so sorry. It's so hard. I know that you're not pleased with it.

But I'm so thankful that you're forgiving God. And one of these days, I'm going to turn around. And I really mean this. In fact, I'm going to sing a little louder.

I'm going to give something this week, whatever. And you know what God's saying? Stop all your talk and turn around. Stop it.

Actually, stop showing remorse. Show repentance. Have a real repentance that produces fruits, not just words. When I was sharing with our staff months ago, hey, this is what we're looking at for our whole campus project and what this is looking like.

I can tell you're all kind of getting our head around the numbers and trying to pray through, okay, how do we present this as a church? I was like, you know what? This is going to be a long-term thing. Raising funds and trying to get people to do this and do that.

Whatnot. I said, unless there's somebody out there who can just write a check for the whole thing and all the millions of dollars and I know I'm scanning the room and I just lock eyes with Becky Kirby. That's me on a Becky. Becky is one of our counselors here on staff.

And she looks at me and her eye just like, open up and I was like, Becky, do you want to write that check today? She goes, I do. And I said, oh, really? You want to write a check for all the millions of dollars?

I'm going to write it today? It's going to bounce, but I'll write it. Okay, right? I would love to write that check, right?

Here's what I have found. Many of us are mouth and writing checks that our life cannot cash. We're saying one thing. We can't back it up.

God, I promise. Get me out of this situation and I'll never, ever again. God, I'm really sorry about this, but you know, I'm just kind of always worried. You know, God would stop, you know, this person did this to me.

So therefore, at some point, he realized that your mouth is right. Check so you like can't cash and you got to make a change. So there's a way or two turn. There's only a term within the house to turn.

Look at what he says. Verse 15, as if people were in expectation, all were questioning their hearts concerning John, whether he might be the Christ. John answered them all saying, I baptize you with water, but he was myer than I is coming. The strap of whose sandals I am not worthy to untie.

He will baptize you with a holy spirit and fire. His winnowing fork is in his hand to clear his threshing floor and to gather the wheat into his barn, but the chaffy will burn with unquenchable fire. Yeah. Well, listen, I'll relate to you.

See, it seems like such a big turn already. So with many other exhortations, he breached good news to the people. Oh, that's nice. Okay.

We are in a bird forever, but I can do this. Okay, that's important. See those two contracts because I'm gonna bring them together in a second. But Herod, the tetraarch, who had been reproved by him for Herodias, his brother's wife, and for all the evil things that Herod had done, I added this to them all.

Then he locked up John in prison. Okay, we'll pick up next week. Let me show you what's happening here. John was making such a big impact that people were like, this is a Messiah we've been waiting for.

Look at him. He's preaching. Look at him. This is the guy.

I mean, look, he's got camel's hair. He's eating locusts. He's out the wilderness. Everybody's coming out here.

Like something's moving. Hey, John, are you the Messiah? Are you kidding me? I can't even untie that guy's shoes.

I'm baptizing the water. He's about to show it with fire. Y'all better get ready. Like what?

You mean there's someone more intense than Johnny B? Oh, yes, there is. Okay. John the baddest.

He was coming in with that right with that repentance. There's something different. He's like, I'm not even ready. This is what John understood no matter how successful he was, no matter how listening to him, no matter how bold he was, this was the settling thing in his life, knowing that Jesus clarifies who you are and who you are not.

I am not the Christ. I am not the Savior of anybody. I am not God. I am not the center of the universe.

And once you and I figure that thing out, everything in life, it's a whole lot easier. Some wondered if John was Messiah, but he wasn't. He quickly rejected misplace glory. He points beyond himself true humility flows from knowing Christ greatness in our proper place.

And identity becomes clear when Jesus is central. I'm not yet. I'm definitely not yet. He says, when he comes, he's gonna come with fire.

He's gonna start coming here with a winnowing fork in his hand. Just something just started literally just cutting stuff down. And you're like, whoa, so my more intense, the John is coming. Oh, yeah.

And he's gonna throw those that shouldn't be there right there in the fire, but then I love it goes. So he preached good news to them. I'm going. It surely doesn't sound good.

It sounds like we're in trouble. It sounds pretty much like Turner Bern. The good news is in the turn though. The good news is this doesn't have to be your reality.

You need to know this. You can't really hear good news until you've gotten the bad news, right? Somebody ever says, you want the bad news, the bad news is the bad news first. Give me bad news.

Tell me the good news, right? It's like you can't be found until you know you're lost. This is what John is doing. You and I and every person who's ever lived on this earth outside of Jesus, we have all sinned against the holy God.

And scripture tells us very clearly what you and I deserve. We deserve separation from him for eternity in a place called hell. Now, if that doesn't fit with what this well-meaning encouraging mantras of the day would tell you, I'm sorry, I did not come today to tell you what you want to hear. I came to tell you what you need to hear.

You will live somewhere forever. And depending upon what you do with Jesus right here in your life right now determines all of that. So the bad news, guess what? The bad news is judgment is deserved, but the good news is mercy is offered.

You got to see both. Without this judgment, the mercy doesn't sound so good. John knows the time of Messiah. He is both Savior, but he's also judged.

And this fire represents a purification for some and judgment for others. The warning is very severe. Hit the message is still called good news because repentance opens the door to mercy before judgment falls. And you go, I don't know what this really does.

See, is this good? Could this be good news or not? Let me tell you why this, I believe with everything within me is good news. Friends, you and I, it says, all of us have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.

Each of us have sinned. It says, the wages of sin is what? It's death. Okay.

So, so with that, I have told in all my gods, it says, early as I can remember, I know better than you and I'm going to do what I want to do. And you may think that your sins are more respectful than other people, but all that is, it's just piling actually more sin on top of it. Every single person in this room and who ever lived throughout history has told God, I know better than you. I don't have to listen to you.

And in fact, will you just keep your nose out of my business and stop being around me, stop telling me what to do. I want to live my life without you. And if you die in that mindset, that's what God will give you for eternity. You want it away from me?

Got it. And in hell, that unquenchable fire, the absence of everything good all originates from God. The Father of Lights, when there is no variation or shifting shadow. So that sounds like bad news.

You're exactly right. And some of you are like, I just don't know, like I don't think, once again, do I deserve that? All I can say is this, there's an almighty God who has done nothing but love you, care for you, provide for you. And every single one of us has said, I'm going to do things my way.

I know better than you. We have dishonored him, we have hurt other people and we have justified it at every single turn. And you may not feel comfortable saying this, but I will feel comfortable saying this. I deserve hell.

I deserve separation from him. I do not deserve to have a seat at his table or a place in his home. And so if I get to be there, it's not because I've earned a spot because somebody has paid for me to have a spot. And so what happens is Jesus Christ is going to follow John and he's going to live a perfect life up to the age of 33, never sin, never break into commandments.

And he's going to go to the cross so that there can be an exchange for you and I. He gets my unrighteousness. I get his righteousness. He takes my sin.

He goes to the cross. So therefore, all of that has been completely punished and taken care of. And then what I get the ability to do is to be able to walk in his righteousness on clothes with him. And that is an amazing thing to realize.

You don't have to be stuck in judgment. The good news is that mercy is offered and you go, you need to tell me you can have a new start. You can have a second chance. You can have a new life, abundant life now, eternal life with him forever.

This is a gift of mercy for us. Some of you respond and I pray you respond to it today, but not everybody will. Some of you like. Let's mention the last two verses.

Did you catch what it says about Herod? The guy in charge? Did you know that John the Baptist had the audacity to call out a public leader for sin? Crazy.

Herod married his brother's wife. It was wrong and gross and all kinds of stuff, right? Okay. And John, well, you're a preacher man.

You shouldn't be talking about that. He's breaking a commandment. I don't care who he is. John, this guy can make your life a little bit miserable.

I don't care what is it sin and he calls it out. And so Herod, who has the spiritual and emotional maturity by three year old, basically sticks his fingers and says, I'm not going to listen to you, right? So as he moves, John deprisms. So we all know the remainder of the story.

John will stay in prison until his head is taken off, right? And you go, well, then there's a good warning. I guess I will not speak up for my faith anymore, right? What was Herod trying to do?

He was trying to remove somebody who was telling him the truth so he didn't have to listen to it. But this isn't a trick question. Removing the truth, teller, does that get rid of the truth? No.

Resisting truth does not remove its authority. You can put the messenger in prison. You can put your fingers in your ears. You can listen to all kinds of other influencers on TikTok to make you feel wonderful about yourself.

But at the end of the day, you can put the truth literally in a complete other box. I don't want to hear it at all. But it doesn't matter if you don't want to hear it. If it's truth, it's not going away.

And you can hear it and change now, or you'll be reminded of it forever and later. John applies God's truth not only to the crowds, but even to the rulers. Herod's power was not exempt him for God's standards. Did you know that Josie, Jewish historian, actually wrote about Herod?

Herod knew he was such a horrible person that nobody would cry on the day that he died, that he made an executive order that some notable people would be executed on his death. So at least there would be tears in the area when he died. That's how messed up he was, right? You know, just kill this guy, this guy, this guy, this guy, this guy, when I die, so that everybody would be crying in the city.

Because nobody would be crying about me. And unless there was a change in Herod that we don't know about, he may have tried to do some things on this side of eternity to make it sound a little bit more about. I will tell you this, he was actually shedding tears after that fact for eternity because he never got right with the truth. And here's the deal, right?

Good news is offered to people like Herod all the time. And they go, no, I just think I do it myself. I'll get around to it one day. How many more days do you think we got?

I don't have any more times I get to preach something like this. I don't have any more times you get to hear something like this. All I know is we've got today, right? We've got this moment.

And some of y'all need to hear me saying take the exit now. You're going to miss it. And all it's going to do is cause more trouble. Take the exit now.

God's truth remains authoritative regardless of who resists this. So how do you turn? You believe the gospel. You believe the good news that John preached about there in verse 18.

The gospel, the good news is this. Yes, we deserve judgment. Yes, I should be in condemnation. But because of Jesus Christ, because God demonstrated his own love for me and that while I was a sinner, that's when Christ died for me.

And by trusting in the good news of what he has done, rather than what I have to do, then that exchange takes place. And now my sins are forgiven. I am made right with God. And I now get the opportunity to live this thing out until I go and see him.

This is a wonderful, beautiful opportunity. Next week, we're going to observe baptism. The pastor, I mean, we have baptized. I look this morning, zero so far.

I don't know. We're going to feel the thing. We're going to believe that somebody needs to be baptized to make a statement. You know why?

Because a lot of you have been internally going, Jesus, I promise, blah, blah, blah, blah, but you're not telling anybody about the changes that you're making. And in John's day and in our days, sometimes you just have to say, I'm going to make this public where everybody can see it. He's changed me. He's changed me.

Out of all the folks we got baptized last year, you have different types of excitement or fear beforehand. Sometimes you'll see a little jitters. I'm just nervous of being in front of people. I had one person before.

I'm scared of drowning. I'm like, I've never left anybody down there. I promise. I always bring them back up.