The Crooked Will Be Saved (Pt 1)

Or, When the Word of God Came to John

God saves sinners.

He makes the crooked straight. He finds the lost. God purposed to do so, He sends prophets to announce it. The salvation of the Lord is sovereign, it is gracious. Sinners deserve judgment, we all have sinned and have earned God's wrath. We are crooked, but God makes the crooked straight.

At the right time, God gave His Word to a man named John who prepared the way of the Lord. He came preaching repentance, he came pointing to the Christ.

Between Luke chapter 2 and 3 about 30 years have passed. Luke's account opened with an announcement given to the old priest Zechariah. The angel told him that he would have a son, that he should name his son John, and that his son would "turn many of the children of Israel to the Lord their God" (Luke 1:16). Here at the beginning of Luke 3 John begins that work of turning.

The Word of God came to John (verse 2), and Luke recognized John as the preparing-prophet expected by the prophet Isaiah; prophet anticipate prophet. John proclaimed a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. We might call his preaching negative, harsh, fire-and-brimstone. But it is also full of the hope of forgiveness, and clear in fruit.

God makes the crooked saved.

The work of John covers verses 1-20 and we’ll take it in two parts. Today we'll consider the context of John's work (verses 1-6) and the opening confrontation (verses 7-9).

A Crooked Context (verses 1-6)

John came crying out when the culture was crooked. The word of God came to John when things were a mess. It was a moral wilderness, a religious low point.

Verse 1 is long, and unnecessarily long if the only thing Luke needed to establish was the date. A reference to the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar is enough to put it on the world timeline. It was about AD 29.

Luke names seven men, five in the political sphere and two in the Jewish religious sphere. The first five are sort of like Russian nesting dolls (a fitting illustration used by Garland), and from Caesar to Pilate to Herod and Philip and Lysanias, there are levels and layers of crooked men. Herod is named again in verse 19, a key figure in John's story, bookending this whole section (verses 1-20).

A caesar (like a king or emperor) over the empire, a governor appointed by the caesar with regional authority, and three local tetrarchs, rulers over assigned territories though still under Rome’s power. This isn’t just historical information, it’s a jumble of political jurisdiction.

Even the two religious guys set a crooked stage. There could only be one high priest at a time, and Annas was the father-in-law of Caiaphas. But Annas was maybe like a mob boss, the one with power behind closed doors. (cf. John 18:13-27).

The whole thing was a mess. It was a crooked state, dominated by crooked men.

This is when the word of God came to John. John was not a scribe, studying the Law. He was not a priest, following the Law. John was a prophet, proclaiming God's message.

He was in the wilderness (verse 2), which is where we last saw him (Luke 1:80). The next verse shows John nearer to the population. But the wilderness was not only a geographical place, it was a symbolic place. He would use wilderness analogies in his preaching (stones, snakes, trees).

He proclaimed that it was time to prepare. He proclaimed a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. This is not Christian baptism, and no one today still practices John's baptism. It was a liturgical event that showed a change of mind, which is what repentance means. They needed to change their thinking, to reorient their lives.

Since it’s the first time we’re seeing the word in Luke, do you know where our English word "baptism" comes from? It's what's called a transliteration, when you make a new word by taking the sounds of the word in its original language and writing it with the letters of the destination language. Here the the Greek noun is baptisma related to the verb baptizo. It means to dunk, immerse, plunge, put under. It does not mean pour or sprinkle. There are nice Bible guys who say that immerse is not the definition. But John's work around the Jordan let him do full-body dunks in the river.

Luke recognized John as the fulfillment of Isaiah's prophecy in Isaiah 40:3-5. Matthew and Mark reference one verse, but Luke quotes more.

Prepare the way of the Lord. What was Isaiah referring to? Initially he looked to Israel’s return from exile in Babylon. But the glory of the Lord did not re-fill the temple at that time, and the King did not come. The anticipation, and the theme, are still relevant.

John cried out. He called for men to get prepared as God was about to work. God was even coming. So get straight (verse 4), and this is what God will do, make the crooked (skolios) straight (verse 5).

God is going to save sinners. All flesh is a reference to the global target of the gospel, even as the gospel is the power of God to salvation to the Jew first and then the Greek (Romans 1:16).

Confronting the Crooked (verses 7-9)

Matthew said this confrontation was specifically with the religious leaders among the Pharisees and Sadducees (see the almost exact message in Matthew 3:7-10). Luke leaves it with crowds. They are Jewish crowds, and they were coming out to be baptized.

John calls them snakes, you brood of vipers. It's an image sometimes used in the OT, and not in an inviting way. It pictures snakes fleeing a field on fire, and John thinks that these people know that the fire is coming. What made him think that their hearts weren’t right? How did he know? He was filled with the Holy Spirit (Luke 1:15), and he may have picked up on their conversations and their vibes.

He exhorts them to prove their repentance. This is not just preparing for Jesus, this is pre-cross. Even still, John isn't offering a way to work oneself into salvation. He's saying that real repentance has real fruit. So, straighten up.

Those who heard him were thinking to themselves that they were okay because they were part of the right group. But being right with God has never been about genetics, even though sons of Abraham are more responsible because they've had the revelation about the Lord. “Don’t even think that.”

God is able from these stones to raise up children for Abraham. The stones are not getting saved in this hyperbole, they are giving birth.

The image of the axe...to the root pictures being cut off, cut down, severed, ready for the burn pile.

The crowd was full of crooked men. They needed to be made saved.

Conclusion

John was a prophet preparing sinners to receive the Lord, not a pastor preparing saints to follow the Lord. He was a rough man with a sharp message.

Are there any “vipers” at TEC? Do we have those who think they’re good with God because they usually come to church on Sundays? By God’s grace, our flock is not quite in the wilderness.

And yet, like the Jews in John’s day, God has given many promises—and fulfillments—that people take for granted. There are many who profess faith in Christ who do not possess Christ, who are not possessed by Him. They do not give attention to the Word of God. Their lives are crooked even if they use the name of Christ. John’s call to repent in Luke 3 is to religious crowds, so do not be surprised if “Christians” need to be saved.

What kind of fruit does repentance produce? Verses 10-14 raise that very question, and John gives very concrete answers. We'll look at them next week.

God makes the crooked straight.

Charge

Christian, your life is in Christ. You are in Him, He is in you. You want to see fruit of your faith, and good. So abide in the Vine. Apart from Him you can do nothing. As you abide in Him and as His words abide in you, you will be much fruit, and so the Father is glorified.

Benediction:

And it is my prayer that your love may abound more and more, with knowledge and all discernment, so that you may approve what is excellent, and so be pure and blameless for the day of Christ, filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ, to the glory and praise of God. (Philippians 1:9–11 ESV)