Matthew 3:7–10
7But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming for baptism, he said to them, “You brood of vipers, who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? 8“Therefore bear fruit in keeping with repentance; 9and do not suppose that you can 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. 10“The axe is already laid at the root of the trees; therefore every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.
Focused Thinking:
Who were the Pharisees and Sadducees?
The Sadducees were political liberals and religious conservatives. They were a small aristocratic and priestly sector that had made its peace with the Roman government. They believed only in the written Scriptures; more specifically, the five books of Moses. They rejected angels and the resurrection of the dead.
The Pharisees were a larger, more popular group of teachers of the law. They tended toward political conservatism and religious liberalism. They developed the oral law as a “fence around the Torah,” which included detailed interpretations, applications, and amplifications of the written Scriptures to enable people to obey them properly. They viewed Rome as illegitimate in preventing Israel from enjoying its divinely ordained blessings of freedom and peace in the land. The Pharisees were generally liked and respected by the ordinary people. They weren’t uniformly hypocritical.
Did he know that these specific Pharisees and Sadducees were hypocritical?
Was there a growing feeling that the group as a whole was hypocritical?
What previous interaction did John the Baptist have with the Pharisees?
I wonder if John knew these specific Pharisees and Sadducees.
What made John say to the Pharisees and Sadducees, “You brood of vipers, who warned you to flee from the wrath to come?”
Brood is literally offspring.
- He is calling them offspring of the snakes/serpents (possible the devil).
- He is referring to their shrewdness and danger.
- John knows the Pharisees aren’t coming to flee the wrath to come.
John follows his accusation with a command to truly repent.
Therefore bear fruit in keeping with repentance…
Verse eight indicates that John didn’t trust the Pharisees’ repentance.
Were they truly coming out to repent and prepare for the Messiah, or were they coming out to investigate?
Where was the fruit of their repentance?
John accuses, commands and anticipates their objection.
and do not suppose that you can 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.
This was unbelievably offensive to the Pharisees and intentionally so.
The Messiah is the true son of Abraham; apart from Him there is no salvation.
John sees the motive of their heart. They were coming to where he was baptizing; they weren’t coming to be baptized.
- If they weren’t coming to be baptized then why were they there?
- If they weren’t coming to be baptized then what was their purpose?
How did the Pharisees respond to John’s strong words?
Their response isn’t recorded in verses 7–12.
John is incredibly strong in his comments and doesn’t let up.
Personal Application:
I need John’s vision.
I need to focus my eyes on Jesus and Jesus alone.
I need to focus myself on me decreasing and Jesus increasing.
I need to focus my life and ministry on preparing the way.
I need to focus my life and ministry on preaching repentance.
I need to focus my life and ministry on fruit in keeping with repentance.
Interactive Prayer:
Father, give me the focus on John the Baptist. Give me the ability to set my eyes on Jesus as the author and perfecter of my faith. Help me to manage my time better to focus everything I do on prayer, the Word and people. Father, give us the ability as a church to preach repentance and to see the fruits of repentance. Give us the ability to preach the truth in an uncompromising way that moves the majority from consumerism-Christianity to courageous-Christianity. Father, I can’t handle the levels of sin in our people.
Give us revival. Give us a mysterious and unexplainable blowing of Your Holy Spirit. Purify me. Purify us. Forgive me for my sins. Forgive me for all the ways I worry. Help me to replace my fears with faith. There is context to this prayer, but help me to replace my planning with prayer. Father, heal the inner parts of me. Give me the confidence I need in the way You designed me, wired me and gifted me to accomplish Your purposes. Give me the ability not to evaluate ministry in light of my performance; give me the ability to evaluate it in light of pleasing You. Give me an overwhelming passion to please You in my life and my leadership.
Father, protect me from spiritual warfare. Get me out of the funk I’ve been in. Give me the ability to get out off this plateau and to go to the next level. Father, give me the ability to desire to follow You more, to deny myself more, to pick up my cross more and to follow You more. Father, I want to be like my Jesus. I want less of me and more of You. I want to die to my fears. I want to die to my insecurities. I want to live according to my confidence of You in me as the hope of glory. Father, my leadership can’t be good enough to lead this church; people don’t need my leadership, they need You leading me.
Father, increase my faith. Father, help my unbelief. Father, I dream big dreams but I’m frustrated when I doubt You or maybe more accurately when I doubt Your ability to work in and through me. Father, increase my faith. I want to see revival. We desperately need to see revival in order to change the direction of this country. Give me the discipline to persevere and press on.
Leave a Reply