The Gospel of Luke 3:1-9 John the Baptist points the way

Good morning. We're going to venture into the passage Randy just read for us here momentarily. First, I want to talk about the electives for next year. We have sign-up sheets out in the lobby. And if you can sign up for that, that'd be great. It helps us with planning where the classes are going to be held. It helps us in planning materials, if there are any that have to be prepared for that.

So we have 1 and 2 Peter, taught by Roger, Bob, Jeremy, and Josiah, and that covers just a great pair of books. Here's Peter, who said all those wonderful things he said in the Gospel, you know, with foot and mouth disease. He comes along and imagine decades later, the Lord has taught him a great many things, very wonderful and precious things. And a key theme in both of those books, finishes off 2 Peter, is growing.

Growing. Just a wonderful book. Mike is going to be talking about faith. Faith is just an amazing thing. It's absolutely essential while we are here on planet earth. It's the only way you're going to get to heaven. But there'll be no need for it in heaven. Isn't that amazing? So it's a great thing to look at.

It has different aspects to it as well. Defense of the Faith and Discernment is one that Randy and I will be covering. And I just want to share with you where that's come out. One of the things that I've been doing in the last year and a half is spending a fair amount of time over the phone and via email dealing with people who have departed from the faith, in some cases just completely pitched it. And what I'm finding is that the things that we're covering here, the kinds of things that would address the issues that people often have, usually in their late teens or into their twenties, they're frequently questioning their faith. And so anyway, a real valuable topic to cover.

Now, into Luke 3, 1-9. Now, questions for this Sunday. We'll be answering them later. Why did Dr. Luke give the year within the reign of Tiberius Caesar plus the names of six other political appointees? It's kind of like overkill, isn't it? To give the date of the beginning of John the Baptist's public ministry. Anyway, we'll take a look at that.

If a person is baptized for repentance, are that person's sins then forgiven? Better answer that. That's in here. And finally, when John was done, was every ravine filled and was every mountain and hill brought low? Was that what John was doing? Anyway, we'll take a look at that. Here's Luke 3, 1 and 2.

Now, in the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar, when Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea, and Herod was tetrarch of Galilee, and his brother Philip was tetrarch of the region of Iteria and Trichonitis, and Lysanias was tetrarch of Abilene. In the high priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas, the word of God came to John, the son of Zacharias, in the wilderness.

Now, Tiberius Caesar was the second emperor to receive, as we addressed last week, the adoption of sons. And he reigned from 14 AD, at the death of Augustus Caesar, to 37 AD. So his 15th year of reign was about 29 AD, or it may have been exactly 29 AD. So Jesus and John were born under the reign of Augustus Caesar, both of them, and both of them carried on their ministry under the reign of Tiberius Caesar, the second one to have had the adoption of sons. So why does Luke list six other political figures if Tiberius Caesar is enough to nail it? Hmm. Well, we'll get there. Okay.

Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea from 26 to 36 AD. So it fits in the time frame when Jesus carried out his ministry and John as well. What we see is Judea is this area that's in the yellow there and that's the area that Pilate governed, Pontius Pilate.

Herod Antipas, and that's a name that you don't see there in the context, but that was his name. Herod Antipas was Tetrarch of Galilee and of Perea from 4 BC to 39 AD. So that certainly fits within the same period of time. And so here's Galilee up here, this area. kind of a bright green and then Perea is the other area down here so what was interesting is the Romans were fine with separating you know the kingdoms that a person would rule so you have Galilee and Perea don't even touch and so you hop back and forth between the two and actually that was okay in their mind Pontius Pilate actually went between Caesarea over on the coast and Jerusalem he went back and forth So going back and forth was fine with the Romans. They thought that was a great way to do things. Herod Antipas' half-brother, Herod Philip II, was Tetrarch of Iteria and Trachonitis and actually several other places from 4 BC to 34 AD. So that fits the time frame.

So here is Eteria, farther to the north, above the Sea of Galilee, and off to the east, the northeast side, Trachonitis, and then there are several other smaller little districts that were included in that as well, in the area that he ruled over. You have on page 2, the Herod family tree. Boy, quite a family tree. And the reason it's kind of a wild family tree is because Herod had nine or ten wives. We're not quite sure. The scholars debate that. He had nine or ten wives. He didn't let them all live.

And he had other sons besides the one we've shown here, and he didn't let them all live either. he was a crazy cruel man but in this context his son Herod Antipas is the one that Luke references and he's also referenced in Matthew and Mark and then you see the next one the son of Cleopatra of Jerusalem is Herod Philip II, who reigned when we give the first couple of names, Iturria and Trachonitis and those other smaller areas that he reigned over as well are included. His name is given in Matthew and in Mark and then in Luke in the passage that we're covering this week and next week. So we're going to revisit this after a bit.

Lysanias was Tetrarch of Abilene from 14 AD to 29 AD, and that's only recently been found because previously nobody knew anything about him, but they found a couple of inscriptions that included this information. And that's only, like I say, been very recently found. Abilene, of course, you know where that is, right? No, actually, Abilene is up here northeast of the Sea of Galilee by actually quite a distance and then there were other political figures and the high priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas is mentioned and the reason it's mentioned as a political title was because the Romans had to approve who was there and if they ceased approving they could remove somebody.

So really it was the Romans who were picking the high priest. In the final analysis they had the veto power. Here are the high priests and you have this on a slide on page one. Here are all the high priests in Israel starting from the birth of Christ up until the destruction of the temple. So from about 5 BC up until 70 AD, these are all the high priests. Now, you have on your handout bolded, and here it's bolded and in blue.

Let me explain something. The first one is Ananus, Ben Seth, or also known as Anus, and that's how you'll see him in the Bible, was the first one. However, he was taken out of power because the Romans didn't like him. Romans didn't like him even though he was taken out of power he continued to wield power behind the scenes because his son Eleazar got back into power as the high priest Joseph Caiaphas who was the one who was high priest during the time of Christ's ministry and of John's ministry was his son-in-law so he got him into power Jonathan ben Ananus was son of Ananus ben Seth. So what you see is those that are bolded and in blue are relatives of Ananus ben Seth. So even though the Romans took him out, and even though the Romans didn't like him, he still held enough power and sway to get relatives for decades to come to be the high priest. And that is why That is why when they first take Jesus to see the high priest, they take him to Annas, then Caiaphas. Why list six more names besides just Tiberius Caesar?

There was no dating system in place. We have what we call the Gregorian calendar that we use. That was not widely embraced until actually some centuries later. Even in Russia, it's only been since about 1917 that they've begun to use the Gregorian calendar. So our dating system, where we have some kind of a sequence that carries throughout history, was not in place. And even in our modern world, was not in place everywhere, even a century ago. So there was no way to date anything, and one way that you could date things was that this person was in power from this time to this time, and in the fifth year, first year, you can go down to the month and day if you wanted, of that rule.

That was one way to give it. So what Luke did was give all six of these names, in addition to Tiberius Caesar, to give you some kind of order. So since we know when each of these men ruled, it gives us a clue. Dr. Luke shows great care in getting the titles and the details right in a system that had no pattern. Here you have, you know, one ruler is called a tetrarch. That means over a quarter. He's over a quarter.

So one might be called a tetrarch and another one would be called a king and another one be called a governor. And so the Romans had no particular system. Over by Ephesus, they were called Asiarchs. And then over in an island, they'd have a chief man of the island so that the title system was completely irregular.

Luke, however, in the Gospel of Luke, and throughout the Book of Acts, gets everyone right at the right time. Really, a testimony to the accuracy of Scripture. The naming of seven political figures in a domain shows the historical reality of the events. Luke does not write once upon a time, and he doesn't write happily ever after at the end. He writes in a context that was real. It was actual. These are actual events and actual times. In addition to that, you notice that several of these names crop up again. And we're going to be seeing that. Caiaphas and Annas crop up again. We're going to see that Herod Antipas crops up again. More than once. More than once.

Here's Luke 3.3, and he came into all the district around the Jordan preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. So where?

Luke 3.3 says around the Jordan, Matthew 3.1, in the wilderness of Judea.

And then in Mark 1.5, baptized by him in the River Jordan.

So it seems like John would be around the River Jordan, but he might also go off into the wilderness area, off to the east somewhatly. So that was his pattern. He was a wild guy. John was called John the Baptist in Matthew, Mark, and Luke, not in John. But Matthew, Mark, and Luke, he was known to be in and around the Jordan River.

So when people would go out to see him, they'd have to first ask, where is he? Because he kind of moves around to different places. And Herod Antipas, Tetrarch of Perea, arrested John, which also gives us another clue as to the location where John hung out. Because this area of Perea is just across the Jordan River from where Jericho is and the southern part of the Jordan River. That's where John would hang out and that's where he got arrested.

Now, this baptism of repentance for forgiveness of sins. Baptism in water by immersion is an outward symbol, very important to understand that, of identifying with John's message of repentance, which is changing one's mind so as to end in belief. That's what repentance is.

It isn't, I feel really, really bad. Right? It's not that. It's not crying and feeling sorry and all that. It's changing one's mind to end in belief. That's repentance. And it results in action. That would be the Jewish mindset about it. It results in action.

Jesus' own baptism, which we're going to see described here, would be different in meaning from John's baptism. And what Jesus told his disciples to do in baptism was different still. So what people tend to do is, oh, that's baptism. I know what that is. No, that's the outward action. What it means is different under John the Baptist than it was for Christ himself when he was baptized by John and different still for what it means for you and me. The outward symbol looks the same. The inward reality is different in each case.

Changing one's mind was what brought forgiveness of sins. Changing one's mind is what brought forgiveness of sins. John would baptize as a symbol of the changing of mind and the forgiveness of sins. It wasn't the baptism that brought the forgiveness of sins. An important distinction. And we're going to see this very shortly when John the Baptist confronts when he confronts the Pharisees and the Sadducees, because they want to come down and get baptized as kind of for fire insurance. And he says, nothing doing. That's not going to save you. As a matter of fact, I'm not going to baptize you. I have other words for you that you're not going to like. But we'll get there. So here's Luke 3, 4-6.

So as it is written in the book of words of Isaiah the prophet, and that's from Isaiah 43-5, The voice of one crying in the wilderness, make ready the way of the Lord, make his path straight. Every ravine will be filled, and every mountain and hill will be brought low. The crooked will become straight, and the rough road smooth, and all flesh will see the salvation of God. So, John's out crying in the wilderness, right? Is that what he's doing? No, not quite like that. Okay. The voice of one crying in the wilderness certainly fit John the Baptist. John did not go to Jerusalem as a street preacher.

Did you notice that? I mean, he could have. There's a cave that was discovered in 1999 that some archaeologists think was St. John the Baptist's cave. They're pretty sure it was his. And that's only a few miles from Jerusalem. So he could have just gone straight to Jerusalem. It would have been only a few miles. But, no, where did he go?

He went down to the Jordan River and out in the wilderness in order to cry out the gospel that he was to teach and preach. John deliberately chose not to go into the streets of Jerusalem and be a street preacher, but instead he went out to the wilds and people had to deliberately come out to him which was a very good filter.

You're not going to say, hey, you know, on the way home from work, I'm going to just kind of drop by and listen to John for a while. No, you had to go way out of your way, in most cases, to listen to this John guy. And one of the things, as I look at the various pictures, the dramatic presentations, they'll make a movie, they don't have anywhere near enough people in the pictures and in the movies. Because Luke uses the word crowds Not crowd, crowds, plural. So lots of people went out of their way to listen to this guy. They came out to John the Baptist in such numbers, Luke uses crowds plural, and John did not make it convenient for them to come and repent and be where he was.

He didn't just drop by on the way home from work. Now, from the description of this passage, it sounds like John was doing a whole bunch of road work out there, you know, kind of filling in ravines and leveling mountains. And that's the way it appears when you read that and you say, what's going on here? You know, John never did this. So why do they say that's what he did?

Well, in ancient times, roads were cleaned up and even reconstructed in advance of the coming royalty and nobility. They had a problem with road maintenance a lot of times. The Roman roads, they kept them up pretty well, but any other road could get pretty bad. And here's a part of what happened. Okay, so here's this farmer, and he's out, you know, plowing his field, and there's a big rock in it. He says, I don't want this rock in my field. And so where does he put it? He pitches it into the road, right?

And then when the guys come through, when nobility comes, what do they do? They say, well, we don't want this rock in our road, and they pitch it back into the field. And it went back and forth like that. Anytime nobility came through, they'd pitch it back in the field. But it was that kind of thing. They'd straighten out the roads, get the rocks out of the roads for the nobility to come through. That's what this description is that you see there. It's not that John's into doing earthwork.

So what is described of John as prophesied in Isaiah 40, 3-5, and quoted in all four Gospels, Matthew, Mark, and Luke, quote directly from the scripture, John has this passage coming out of John the Baptist's own mouth. So all four Gospels have this.

And what they're talking about is preparing the way for the coming royalty. Who is Christ? The King of Israel and the King of Kings and Lord of Lords. It's looking forward to his second coming. So John is preparing the way for the coming King of Israel. That's what he's doing and that's what all the leveling and cutting down mountains and filling in ravines and all that's all about.

Now, all flesh will see the salvation of God. Take note here of Dr. Luke's pattern. Dr. Luke was not a Jew, but rather a God-fearing Gentile, a point of which he makes several times in the book of Acts as he goes through it. He points out those God-fearing Gentiles because he's one of them. He's one of them. As we continue to investigate Jesus here in the gospel of Luke, we'll see the gospel is presented for all flesh. That is, though he is a God-fearing Gentile, He's a God-fearing Gentile.

What he is doing is saying that right now Jesus is working in Israel. He is addressing Jews. But ultimately what Christ will do and will be addressed as is for everybody. Everybody. We'll also see that salvation is something that comes from God. And you see that introduced right here.

Salvation It's from God. It's from God, not from us. Human beings, as Dr. Luke presents, do not bring about their own salvation. Don't bring about their own salvation. They believe in the salvation of God. And by the way, this is a distinction with Christianity. A lot of Christians don't get it, but it's a distinction with Christianity.

In Buddhism, what do you have to do? You have to follow the Eightfold Path. Who does it? You do it. In Hinduism, you've got to go along with all the teachings of Hinduism, and you do it. You've got to do all the things to get yourself there. Islam, same thing. Judaism, same thing. Christianity is unique in that God is the one who does everything. All we do is believe, and God says, that's all I need, I'll take it from there. That's the way God works. Now, Luke 3, 7-9 reads like this.

So he began saying to the crowds who were going to be baptized by him, You brood of vipers! You can imagine him yelling this out, you know, here's all this crowd of people. You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? Therefore bear fruits in keeping with repentance, and do not begin to say to yourselves, We have Abraham for our father. For I say to you that from these stones God is able to raise up children to Abraham. Indeed, the axe is already laid at the root of the trees, So every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire."

Well, those are kind, soft words, aren't they? Woo! Okay. It turns out that this particular crowd, because you have an exact parallel passage about brood of vipers in Matthew 3, 7-10, but you have this additional information, the particular crowd, you saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming for baptism. That's why he's talking this way. He doesn't need to take a Dale Carnegie course. So, an equivalent expression might be something like, you bunch of snakes. So John wasn't afraid to tell the truth directly to people's faces and be very bold in what he said. He didn't hold anything back. You always knew where you stood with John, even if you didn't like it. So, John was this really bold kind of guy. Jesus himself, however, would call these same men by the exact same term. Matthew 12, 34, and 23, 3. So Jesus himself would use that term, you brood of vipers.

John next had a shocking message. for these Pharisees and Sadducees. You see, who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? The prophets of the Old Testament would speak in fiery ways as well. They had long warned about the coming wrath upon Israel and the nations.

And it's coming, and it could start today. Because ultimately that's shown in the seven-year tribulation period. There will be great loss in Israel, there will be great loss over the whole world. So that's spelled out in the book of Revelation. So who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? John could apparently tell that these Pharisees and Sadducees were coming out to John as fire insurance. They saw it as an external ritual. They saw it as, you know, if I go and have John baptize me, that means I'll have forgiveness of sins. Mistake. Mistake.

The way it worked out in church history is the Apostle John wrote the book of Revelation about 95 AD, 96 AD, about the time he died. By 170 AD, so within one lifetime after John's death, By 170 AD, they began to call the pastors and elders priests. By 220 AD, the church began to look at baptism and taking the Lord's table, as we're going to do this morning, as accomplishing something spiritual by itself. And it was that shift and drift that was the problem.

And then external rituals. then begin to be seen as effective. And that's what these guys were doing, the Pharisees and Sadducees. And John's saying, nothing doing. The external ritual isn't going to cut it. It's not going to make you guys holy. Like snakes moving away from an advancing fire, these just wanted to escape judgment using a ritual. John says, I'm not going to do it. As a matter of fact, I'm going to have words for you, and you're not going to like them. bear fruit in keeping with repentance.

Actions must be consistent with professed belief. This was frequently spelled out among the prophets of the Old Testament. Obviously John the Baptist is speaking this way. The book of James is actually very similar in terms of talking about consistency between what you believe and how it gets lived out. The Pharisees were cultural heroes of their day. So you can imagine these guys thinking, oh man, we're the best of the best. People generally admired and listened to them.

But John says, nothing doing. We're not going for externalism, and we're not going for your self-righteousness. John saw their inconsistency, as did Jesus, and spoke out about it. We're going to read that more as we go through the Gospel of Luke. Many of the Jews would say, we have Abraham for our father, and they'd go through the genealogy and see, I'm related to Abraham, therefore I am not going to hell. Right? And what they would do is they would go and look through these genealogies and depend on that genealogy to be saved. In fact, the Jewish myth was that Abraham would stand by the gate of hell on the last day and make sure that no Jew ever went in.

That was a little myth that they developed. John and soon Jesus would be speaking out boldly and regularly against that mistaken idea. Here's Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount. What's he going to say? Wide is the gate that leads to destruction. Narrow is the gate. You need to deliberately go through that narrow gate. Being descended from Abraham does not automatically mean salvation. Matter of fact, it doesn't mean salvation. Salvation is by faith, always. We also have many false gospels in our own day.

I'm better than average. I remember a journalist at the college where Nancy and I went, went around the school asking people, you know, are you good enough to get to heaven? And are you better than average? And 85% of the people, now you work out the math, 85% of the people who were asked said that they were better than average. Now I don't know how you work out the math on that one.

I try to be a good person. I try to be a good person. It was interesting, I was recently corresponding with some of my schoolmates from high school and within one week, two different ones talked about trying to be a good person and how important that was.

I made a commitment to Christ. You make a commitment to Christ and that's also how you get committed to an institution. I invited Jesus into my heart. Why would he want to go there, right? You've got to confess every single one of your sins or you won't be forgiven and you won't be saved. I talked to one fellow a few years back and that was his position. He says, just before I got baptized, I didn't list one of my sins so I'm not saved. That was how he saw things. The gospel to be believed is that Christ died for your sins, was buried, and rose again on the third day. Do you believe it? You're saved. That's it. Simple gospel. Didn't even take 15 seconds.

Judgment is coming. It was against the law of Moses to cut down a fruit-bearing tree. That's Deuteronomy 20, 19 and 20. And by the way, that's a significant thing in the Old Testament and in the New. Psalm 1. The tree bringing forth its fruit in its season, then you can't cut it down. That's what that's about. That was a picture of a fruit-bearing person. A fruit-bearing person. But any tree that did not bear fruit was a candidate for cutting down. And so it looks like John sees these Pharisees and Sadducees as prime candidates for being cut down.

Judgment in scripture is often pictured in land management in agricultural terms. And this is one of those. So questions for this Sunday. Why did Dr. Luke give the year within the reign of Tiberius, plus the six other names? Well, several of those other names would be relevant. It was certainly Luke's attention to detail and also giving the political background for the gospel.

If a person is baptized for repentance, or that person sins forgiven, that's turning it around. That person has repented, sins been forgiven, and then they are baptized as a symbol, as a picture of that repentance and forgiveness of sins. So when John was done with every ravine filled and every mountain and hill brought low, no, because what was this indicating? John was introducing the King of Israel, and therefore those kind of terms are figures of speech, so you will, for preparing the way for Christ. Now for next Sunday, when John the Baptist tells the people how they ought to live, is he telling them how to be saved or stay saved? Did John the Baptist threaten to directly carry out judgment on those who came to him with open hypocrisy and unrepentant sins?

And thirdly, what did John say that got him in trouble with one of the rulers One of those rulers listed in Luke 3.1 because of a relationship noted on page 2 of today's handout.

So we'll take a look at that as we go into Luke 3.10-20 next Sunday. Let's pray. Lord, we thank you for your word. We thank you for what you've revealed here through and about John the Baptist. the one who is instrumental in introducing Christ and getting people's attention. And we thank you for that. We thank you for what you've revealed here in your word. In Jesus' name, Amen.