Dec. 13, 2020 Luke 3:7-18 “You Brood of Vipers!”

11 Dec Dec. 13, 2020 Luke 3:7-18 “You Brood of Vipers!”

Dec. 13, 2020   Luke 3:7-18    “You Brood of Vipers!”

Well, here we are.  In just a few days it will be Christmas day 2020.  Is everyone ready for this?  We have taken quite a route to get here.  I think that these are about the strangest times I’ve ever seen in my nearly 70 years.  The coronavirus is obviously the most upsetting illness we have had in a long time.  This has caused many people to be very sick, including Sharon and me, and some die.  This in turn has caused the country to all but shut down.  In the midst of this we had a presidential election that has really turned into a farce.  As far as I can see, we haven’t had an honest election in many years.  We have found out for sure that our modern media reporters are just as corrupt as most government officials.  Many of our favorite businesses are being closed and will not be reopened.  Socialism is at our doorstep and no one seems to notice.  I could go on and on with this vein but I won’t.  I won’t because in a couple of weeks we have the best news in the world coming.  It’s Christmas.  I would guess that many of us will celebrate a little differently this year due to all the restrictions.  But no matter where you are, who you are or who are with or are not with, please remember that Jesus is the reason for this season.  Jesus Christ is all everything to everyone whether they know it or not.  So, let’s take a look at this wonderful passage and see why the preaching of John the Baptist is so important.  Maybe you will find a reason to enjoy your pastor even more.

An author in Sermon Central was really disappointed in the preachers of today.  They seem to have their own logic, their own ethics, their aristocratic ways, their own science, their own theories and their new theology.  They have everything except for Jesus and His love for you and me.  I have been preaching for several years and there is more than enough material in the Bible for me and everyone else.  However, you cannot continuously preach a prosperity gospel or a social gospel and reach those that need it the most.  They don’t need to prosper.  They don’t need what little the social gospel has to offer.  They need hope.  They need love that only Jesus can provide.  Critics call me old fashioned and tell me that I have to change the message to adapt to the modern world.  They tell me that asking if you know Jesus on a personal basis every week has to stop.  Well, I don’t really care what they say.  All I try to do every week is to win one person to Jesus Christ and I will use the tried and true formula from the Bible.  In the Bible we find some of the best preachers.  Paul, Peter and John were some of the best at spreading the early message.  Even John the Baptist, from our today’s reading, has a special way of presenting the message and people flocked to hear him.  Let’s take a little closer look at this.

As we begin, we have to remember that this is before Jesus shows up.  John the Baptist is all by himself.  The only thing he has is the Holy Spirit and that is all he really needs.  The people he is preaching to are lost.  They have been under the rule of the crooked Jewish leaders and the Romans for a long time.  There is corruption everywhere he turns.  Nothing is as it seems.  At this point all were lost.

Also remember, that John comes out of the wilderness which no respectable person of the time would live there.  He wore clothing made of camel hair.  I would almost think that this camel hair would be enough to chap his hide.  Think about how uncomfortable that would be.  But, I suppose, that is all he had in the wilderness.  His diet consisted of locusts and wild honey.  Clearly, he was not a man of the metropolitan area.  He was a hillbilly.

Along with his appearance, he is preaching a message that most of the people have never heard before.  He is preaching about repentance for the forgiveness of sins.  He’s not talking about getting your sacrifices ready.  He’s not talking about buying your way into the Temple.  Instead he is talking about a new way to get into heaven and the good graces of God.  This message is so strange that he has become very popular.  These people are dying of truth starvation.  John the Baptist is giving them the truth and they love to hear it.  People come from far and wide to hear him.  He is surrounded by crowds.

So, here we are out in the country some place.  We are definitely not in a town.  There is a huge crowd waiting for the appearance of John the Baptist.  If you have ever been to a concert or some big event, you know the anticipation and tension in the crowd just before the appearance of the main speaker or group.  Suddenly the burly, unkempt, man from the wilderness steps up to the ancient microphone and shouts out.  “You brood of vipers!”

This is a pretty famous line for this season.  What would you do if I started out by calling you some snake that you hate?  John’s audience hated vipers.  They caused nothing but trouble.  One of the first things you learn when you take a speech class or a preaching class is to start out on a good note so that you have a chance of capturing your audience.  You don’t come out and call the audience the vilest snake that they know.  I don’t even know what would be equivalent to this today. I suppose I could start by saying you low-down loathsome fools.  I know you aren’t but I hope you get the picture.

John has their attention and maybe not their respect for this but it seems to work.  These people are starving for the truth and will accept whatever John tells them because he is honest.  When I first started preaching, I was told that I would have to talk about social issues and things that really aren’t in the Bible.  In other words, I was supposed to try to present the Bible or change the Bible so it would fit into our terrible, degrading society.  Well, obviously, that is not my style.  I think that it’s much more important to start in the Bible.  Read the verses and preach on the verses.  I try to apply what the Bible says, not change it to what society says or to the world.  That way you get a shot of the truth.  Most of the time, you probably won’t like it because we live in such wayward times.

I was also told that in order to get young people to attend church I would have to use all the gimmicks and trends that are popular in main line churches.  Here is a little news flash for everyone.  They aren’t attracting young people at all.  I found that young people are very smart and know what they want.  And what they want is the truth.  Remember I have been saying that there is only one truth and that comes from the Bible.  So, I started off with the truth and guess what I found.  These young people weren’t any different than us older folks.  They wanted the truth.  I would say that they were starved for the truth and not some fancy, silly package.  So that’s what I present to people.  I’m not the greatest preacher in the world but I do follow the Bible which is the greatest book in the world.

So faithful preaching, or the preaching of John the Baptist, alerts us and calls us to divine judgment that we read in verse 7.  It also calls for repentance.  This wasn’t new to them but practicing repentance was.  The whole purpose of sacrifices was to bring something that was of value and sacrifice it because of all the sins you had committed.  Then you were supposed to turn from your bad ways or repent and start things over again.  What usually happened was that the animal was sacrificed and you just went back to doing what you had been doing.  There was no repentance.  Now John isn’t calling for sacrifices but only repentance.  The baptism was to cleanse us so that we could start again.  Soon Jesus would come and be the final sacrifice.  Because He was God in the flesh, He would be the last sacrifice that anyone would ever need.

When I think of repentance like this it reminds me of when we come and confess our sins.  We confess and go right back to sinning again.  I have heard of people who come to confess early on Saturday night so they can go right back to the bar.  I understand that many times it’s hard to quit a sinful behavior but that doesn’t mean that we don’t try.  There is no way we can live a perfect life but we are to try the best we can.  Then we are to go to Jesus and confess our sins and try to start over.  I think one of the ways to start any and all prayers is with confession.  You will never get it right but you can come closer through confession and repentance.

Another thing that John does here is that he warns about the false hope these people have in Abraham.  To these people Abraham was a god.  He was the father of Judaism and was held at almost the same high esteem as God the Father.  Jesus will talk about this during His ministry as we read in the Gospel of John.  It turns out that these people were in real trouble because they were following the wrong thing.  Abraham was just a man like all of them and us.  They are no better than the stones around them because God can raise up the stones to be children of Abraham.  This would be another insult added to them.

This is really important for today.  I know that most of you will say that you don’t have any gods besides Jesus.  I would say to this that you are a fool.  There are gods all around us.  Just look at the last election.  For the third or fourth election in a row, I think there has been massive election fraud.  However, there are many that believe the government is a god and can do no wrong.  Therefore, no one checks into it.  The Republicans and the Democrats are the two biggest frauds this country has ever seen.  Don’t complain to me about it; fix it!  They are not gods.

Maybe this is just too general for most of us.  Maybe we have to point the finger a little closer to home.  What are the things that keep you from your family or keep you from having a family?  Do you worship your work?  Do you worship the almighty dollar?  The family is one of the basic structures in God’s creation and anything that keeps you from your family is a god.  Along the same vein, what keeps you from worship or church?  Don’t expect any sympathy from me.  Anything that keeps you from church is a god and most of you have one that keeps you away.  I have heard all the excuses and as far as I can see, they are only excuses.  There are no valid reasons that should keep you from worship.  Do yourself a huge favor and go to a church service this Christmas.  Find a church and quit finding faults.  There is a much, much better life waiting for you in a church.

Finally, John’s good preaching demands transformation.  John demanded that if you have two tunics, you were to give one to the poor.  It was the same way with those that had more food than they needed.  Tax collectors were to only collect what they were required to collect and not more.  Soldiers were to quit stealing from the people.

We, too, are to help the poor.  When was the last time you gave something to a poor person?  We are to quit stealing from anyone.  When you don’t have enough time for your family, you are stealing time from them.  In other words, you are to try to be the best human you can be!

These kinds of things can be really hard to do especially if you have never given your life to Jesus.  If you have never done this, then you are but an empty shell of a person.  No matter how much you give to others or refrain from doing bad things, Jesus will not recognize you.  John the Baptist had it all right.  He knew what he was doing.  I’m asking you today, that if you have never invited Jesus into your life, to do so today.  You need to do this today because tomorrow might be to late.  This is why John was so insistent on this.  Tomorrow might be too late.  Unfortunately, once you miss this boat and die, it is too late.

Luis Paulau, the famous evangelist, was once doing a revival meeting in Mexico.  There were thousands and thousands of people in the stadium that night when he gave the altar call.  Many came forward and accepted Jesus Christ for the first time.  It must have been a wondrous scene to see.  Luis Paulau found out later news that just devastated him.  There were a couple of young women at this event who didn’t know Jesus.  One of them decided not to come forward that night but would come again the next night after she had thought about it a little.  She got outside the stadium, was struck by a car and killed instantly.  It was too late.  I don’t want that to happen to anyone.  Confess you sins to Jesus today and ask Him to live in your heart.  You will begin the best years of your life.

Jesus is for everyone. There isn’t a person too bad that Jesus won’t accept them.  You cannot be too tall, too short, too black, too white, too good, too bad, that Jesus won’t accept you.  His call if for everyone in the world because that is how much He loves you.  He will never stop loving you either and that is a promise.  I used to be that broken person who thought he was too bad to come to Christ.  Boy, was I wrong!  Please join Him today.  And thank you Jesus for first loving us.  Let’s pray.