Peoples Who Heard John the Baptist’s Message and Their Reaction — March 7, 2021: full transcript and answers

▶ 0:00 Thank you, Jesus. Amen. Savior lives. Like to invite the pastor up, share God’s word this morning. Let God’s word transform you, change you, make you a new creature. We need to become new creatures. Amen. Old is passed away. Behold, all things have become new. Welcome to all of you on Facebook and all of you that are here and our guests. Good to have you with us. Praise God. We have been talking about the scripture in John chapter 20 where he says, “If all the things were written that Jesus did, the world the heavens couldn’t contain the writings.” But these are written that you might believe that Jesus Christ is the son of God.

▶ 0:57 Jesus is the Christ and he is the son of God. And in believing this you might have life. Life both now and life to come. Amen. So the gospel of John and the other gospels plus the prophets of old tell us everything we need to know to have eternal life, doesn’t it? And that life is through Jesus Christ. And so we find that God the Father, the Lord Jesus Christ, imparts his belief, his faith, and his glory, and his presence to those who will receive it. Peter said to Jesus, “You are the Christ, the son of the living God.” Jesus said to Peter, “Flesh and blood has not revealed that to you, but my father which is in heaven, he revealed it.” Aren’t you glad that Jesus can come to you and reveal himself to you and his truths personally?

▶ 1:58 Beautiful. So he said, “The more God reveals, the more belief builds. Our faith grows as God reveals more of himself, more of his truth to us. Today in session three, we’re going to be looking at people that came to hear John the Baptist’s message. A lot of different people heard the message of John the Baptist, but we want to look at their reactions. Uh I’ve been dealing with people on the internet for almost two years now and uh it’s amazing. It’s beautiful to experience uh talking with people, millions of them about Jesus Christ.

▶ 2:51 And let me just give you a few just this week of responses. Uh thank you for your awesome post. Now you can do the same thing. Another guy keep posting this concept. Okay, a topic that we were talking on. Another says now I believe now I know I’m wrong and I have something to correct in my life. Amen. Isn’t that what we need? Hallelujah. Another one says, “Your posts are very uplifting and I honestly hold you in very high regard in this group. I always read your posts. I’m telling you that to encourage you to get on there and talk to people about Jesus.” Amen.

▶ 3:49 Hallelujah. So we are going to go to John the Baptist’s message. When John the Baptist was talking to people uh in Matthew 3:21 and 23 and Matthew 31:32, Luke 3 and John 119. We’re going to be taking this message out of these areas, okay? And we’re going to be looking at 11 different people that heard John’s message. John’s message was confess your sins, repent from your sins, get water baptized for the remission of sins, and then bring forth fruit of repentance, and follow Jesus who is going to follow after me.

▶ 4:40 That was his message. He didn’t leave Jesus out, did he? Hallelujah. So we go and we find first of all there were just people okay just common ordinary people like you and I husbands wives uh business people farmers whatever then there were publicans all right publicans tax collectors then there were soldiers the police force at that time. And fellanders are people that um are sexually immoral. Any kind of sexually immoral acts.

▶ 5:32 These people, the Bible says, believed. They obeyed by repenting, confessing their sin, getting water baptized. Bringing forth the fruit. When John said, “Bring forth the fruit,” they said, “what shall we do to bring forth that fruit?” They wanted to know how to grow and move forward in God. And they believed in Jesus, the one that was to come. That’s this group. All right. Now we got seven more people. The Pharisees came. They were a religious group of Jews who believed in spirits. They believed in angels.

▶ 6:23 They believed in life after death. Then there was another religious group of Jews called Sadducees. And they were sad, you see, because they didn’t believe in spirits. They didn’t believe in angels. And they didn’t believe in a life to come. Then there was the chief priests and the elders of Israel, the Sanhedrin and the scribes, the ones that said, “We know the scriptures. We are the experts, the professionals of the scriptures.” And then there were just regular priests and Levites. Levites is the tribe that God chose to minister in the temple. And you know, they kept the door.

▶ 7:14 They kept things clean. They had different jobs. All of these are connected with religion. They had beliefs. They identified with a group. Sounds like America today, doesn’t it? We identify with a group. Now these guys responded different. They said to John, “Who are you? Why do you baptize if you’re not the Christ?” They knew the Messiah was to come. If you’re not Elijah, they knew Elijah was to come, which Jesus said John the Baptist was Elijah.

▶ 8:06 In spirit to come and you are not the prophet to come. Why are you baptizing and preaching this message? See, they questioned. These are the ones that Jesus turned to and said, “You generation of vipers, who has told you to flee from the wrath to come? Bring forth the fruit of repentance, the good fruit of repentance, or else the axe will be laid to the tree. The tree will be cut down and cast into the fire. That’s the one he talked to when he made that statement.

▶ 9:00 Now, it’s very important that we understand this. They chose religion over repenting from their sins. They chose religion over being water baptized, confessing and admitting they were sinners. They chose religion over following Jesus, who was to follow John the Baptist. Now Jesus is going to cut their tree down. All right. And he’s going to throw all that worthless fruit, no branches that didn’t bring forth fruit into the fire and burn them up. But the stump is still left.

▶ 9:56 And if you know that if a a stump can reproduce, if the root is right, the stump can reproduce, grow back, and become a fruitful tree. See, a tree could be smitten with a blight or some kind of reason outwardly above the root to not produce fruit. Okay? So the tree is cut down. If the root is right, it will grow back. If the root is not right, that stump will die. Now, Revelation 22:16, I Jesus am the root and the offspring of David.

▶ 10:51 See, Jesus was to come through the bloodline of David. Jesus is the root. If you got Jesus in your life, and this is what he does when you come to him, you come to him as a tree that is unfruitful, didn’t you? Yeah. You went your own way. Yeah. So, he cuts you down. He throws all that wasted branches and that bad fruit into the fire and burns it up. Now, because you’ve accepted Christ, the root into your life, a new tree begins to grow. Hallelujah. A tree that will bring forth fruit. But if the root isn’t there, like it wasn’t for this group.

▶ 11:46 They weren’t interested in Jesus. They knew he was coming. They knew all the scriptures, but they weren’t interested in receiving him and accepting the message. Hallelujah. But these people, yes, they’re they were cut down as a tree, but they accepted the message and they grew back into a fruitful, beautiful tree. Amen. Aren’t you glad God isn’t finished with you yet? Hallelujah. So, we see also in Isaiah 11:1, a chute shall come up from the stump. See that? That tree is starting to grow back. But this is a fruitful tree. Now from his root, Jesus is the root, right?

▶ 12:41 From his root, a branch shall bear fruit. Now, as you know, as you grow in God, you do some things, the branches, that branch doesn’t bring forth fruit in the area of anger yet. So, what does God do? Comes up and cuts off the branch. And guess what will grow back? A fresh branch until you bring forth the fruit of self-control over anger. Isn’t that beautiful? Yes. God is very clear in his truth when he uses natural things to illustrate them. But this group, they’re not interested in Christ. They’re interested in their religion. And sadly today, so many Americans I talked to on Facebook and the internet are just defend their religion to the end.

▶ 13:39 We should How many you know Jesus doesn’t need to be defended? He He is very capable of defending himself. How many you know his word does not need to be defended. His word is powerful and quicker than any two-edged sword. You speak the word plus nothing and the word will do the work. Could that be an amen? Yes. When there’s something wrong with my doctrine, I got to use a long explanations. See, to justify what I believe. When I really have truth, I just speak the truth. Could that be an amen? Yeah. It’s that simple. All right. So, these people here are born again. See, they’re the new creature. The old things are passed away. Behold, all things are made new. This is what the Bible means when it says you must be born again. See, the trees cut down.

▶ 14:31 All that old life is thrown into the fire and burned up. Not you. Your old ways are burned up. Aren’t you glad they can’t have no connection with you anymore? They are burnt up. They’re gone. And then you start growing back. That’s the born again. That’s the new creature. Old things passed away. All things made new. And it takes time to grow. None of you turned into a mature Christian overnight. Did you? No. Why? Because the illustration is you got to grow. And by the word you grow. By the spirit you grow. This is all God interacting in our life. God imparting himself. You experience him. Amen. That’s the difference. These people did not experience. They just had a lot of Bible verses that they talked about.

▶ 15:25 They didn’t have the root. Now, Herod heard the message. Now, listen to this. Herod feared John. He respected John. Herod heard the message that John preached gladly. He didn’t reject the message. Herod protected John from people who wanted to annihilate him, wanted to accuse him. And Herod, the Bible says, knew John was holy and a just man. He heard the message.

▶ 16:16 He was afraid of John. He respected John. But when his wife asked him to kill John, he sided with his family member to keep peace in the family. He had John killed even though he heard the message. Do you know people like that today? They heard the message. They respect the message and the messenger, but they don’t receive the messenger, Jesus Christ. They don’t believe. They don’t follow him. They don’t repent. They don’t confess their sin. And so God doesn’t come and reveal that Jesus is the Christ, the son of God, to them.

▶ 17:12 And in that Revelation, they have eternal life. Aren’t you glad you’re one that God came to and put it in you to respond? Hallelujah. Hallelujah. Beautiful. Herod never repented, never confessed his sins, never got water baptized. He just liked to hear the messages. He feared John and all that. And then you have Jesus. Jesus came to John. Jesus accepted the message of John. Jesus got water baptized. For those of you who keep pushing, you don’t need to be water baptized.

▶ 18:07 Jesus himself got water baptized and he had no sin. We have sinned. We need to be water baptized. Could that be an amen? He is our example. Not you guys who keep saying you don’t need to be water baptized to be cleansed from sin for gez. And then they’ll use the thief on the cross. How many do you know are dying on the cross today that that applies to? None. Hallelujah. So, we find Jesus in Matthew 21:32 as the musicians come, we find Jesus talking in the temple.

▶ 19:06 The people are there. The chief priest is there. The elders are there. The Sanhedrin is there and this is what Jesus says to them. John the Baptist came to you in the way of righteousness that you heard his message. You believed him not. You see, you didn’t repent. You didn’t com admit your sin. The publicans and the harlots over here. The publicans and the harlots, the soldiers, you know, whether it’s sexual immorality with money involved or not money involved, it’s still sexual immorality. He said, “You guys didn’t believe, but these publicans, these tax collectors, these people believed.

▶ 20:09 And when you had seen, and the word it in italic, when it’s in italic in the King James, that means it’s not in the translation. They put it there for clarification. When you had seen what? You had seen these people repent, confess their sins, give water, baptize, and bring forth the fruit of repentance and follow Jesus which came after John. When you saw all that, the change in their life, something happened in their life that changed their life from following their own way and sinful ways to God’s way and righteous ways. Said, “You seen it, yet you repented not afterward that you might believe.” So repentance come before belief here.

▶ 21:11 God who Jesus said revealed that to Peter, not flesh and blood. Here it’s saying you got to confess your sins and repent from those sins. Then belief is imparted by God. A divine impartation. Otherwise, it’s just head knowledge, intellectual knowledge, and you just go like these people do here. They just ask questions, and they talk with great rhetoric and and and great words, trying to justify why they have not really accepted Christ and bringing forth the fruits of righteousness. Could that be an amen? I know you’ve met him. I had a guy online this week that said that, you know, you got to keep the Sabbath to obey God.

▶ 22:11 I said, “Sir, are you telling me I’m going to go to hell if I don’t worship God on Saturday or work on Saturday?” And he comes back with this long comment. I swear it was this long. I had to keep plunking down. I said sir that is just a yes or no question. Will I go to hell or not? Will I burn in the lake of fire for working on the Saturday or Sunday for that matter? And he would not say yes or no. Why? Because they want to defend the religious ideas instead of just simple gospel truths. The simple gospel truth is God is not going to send anyone to hell for working on a s Saturday or Sunday or worshiping God on a Saturday instead of Sunday or whatever.

▶ 23:07 God will take your worship on Monday through Sunday anytime you want to give it to him. Could that be an amen? Hallelujah. See, they got to complicate it with a lot of words and they want to ask questions to bend the scriptures. But it’s that simple. These people did not believe. They didn’t have that revealed to them by God. You see, they didn’t have the root Jesus in them. They just justified their faith by excuses of question. Excuses. They’re just full of excuses and ambiguous talk. Mainly, they don’t know what they’re talking about.

▶ 24:00 Hallelujah. Does the Bible say, “Don’t leave the simplicity of Christ?” Yes. Did Paul said, “I preach Christ and him crucified.” Yeah. Should we ever leave that main message of the Bible for anything? You’ll notice John when they said to bring forth fruit of repentance. And they asked him, “What should I do?” He said, “You soldiers, be content with your wages and do violence to no man.” Okay, you people, if you got an extra coat, you got some extra food and somebody by you doesn’t have any, give them some. Okay, you tax collectors, only collect what you’re supposed to. Don’t add to it. What is those rules? Love your neighbor as yourself. The Bible says if you love your neighbor as yourself, that fulfills all the law and the prophets.

▶ 24:54 So if you don’t do anything to hurt yourself and to hurt your neighbor, you are bringing forth the fruit. It has nothing to do with clothing that you wear and my haircut. When I got saved, God didn’t check out my haircut. He didn’t check out my clothes. Are you there? He didn’t ask me what I was doing on Saturday. Amen. But we bring in all this nonsense and get everybody confused and everybody’s eyes off of Jesus and the reality that God bursts you. God puts his faith in you, his belief in you. He reveals who Jesus is to you. And that’s what makes us different. Otherwise, we’re just like any other religion.

▶ 25:47 Ain’t that right? Without Jesus, where would we be? So, God is calling us to holiness. And we’re going to sing and go to prayer out of Leviticus 20:26. The fruit of righteousness is love your neighbor. Treat yourself right. If you are getting intoxicated and that intoxication is causing you to make bad judgments as the Bible says and hurting others and yourself, that’s not the fruit of God. And you taking drugs or alcohol or whatever. If you’re into sexual immorality, you’re hurting yourself. You’re hurting others. You’re hurting someone’s father, mother, and someone’s child. And so, we got to listen to what John said and Jesus repeated it and his apostles repeated it.

▶ 26:43 Bring forth fruit worthy of repentance. And that’s how do I treat my children, my spouse, my neighbor, my brothers and sisters in Christ. That’s bringing forth the fruit of righteousness. If you will say to God today, Lord, I could use more holiness in my life. I could use more increase in treating myself and my brother right. Will you stand with us and let’s sing this as a prayer? You shall be holy unto me. You shall be holy unto me. For I the Lord am holy. You shall be, holy unto me.

▶ 27:38 For I, the Lord am holy. I have separated you from from other people that you should be mine. I have separated you from other people that you should be. Lifting our hands to him. Yeah. You shall be holy unto me. For I the Lord am holy. You shall be holy unto me.

▶ 28:30 For I the Lord am holy. I have separated you from other people that you should be mine. I have separated you from other people. I have separated I have separated you. You should be holy. I have separated you from other people that you should be mine. I have separated you from other people that you should be.

▶ 29:26 Just pray. Just pray. Father, we come to you right now in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ as you asked us to do. Lord, we are thankful that you’re not wanting to put us into the fire, but separate us from the bad things that we do or did that we might grow a fresh new life in Jesus Christ. Lord, we’re thankful today that you when we accepted you, you cut our tree of life down at that time and cast it into the fire and burned up all those old years of evil of doing our own thing.

▶ 30:23 Lord, they have been burned up. They have no contact, no connection, no power over us anymore. And Lord, you are growing a new tree out of our old stump that brings forth branches that produce fruit. And Lord, if we have a branch that isn’t producing fruit, you come and you prune it so that it will grow out again and be fruitful. We thank you for the pruning, Lord. We thank you for making us new creatures. All the old things are done away with and all things are made new. We thank you Jesus this day. As Paul said, you will complete the good work that you started in us until the day of the Lord Jesus Christ.

▶ 31:23 Lord, we grow by your word. We grow by your spirit. And we grow by you coming and revealing more and more of yourself to us. And we just invite you, Lord Jesus, to come and reveal more and more of yourself to us that we might grow in our faith, in our belief, in our experiences in God. And Lord, that if there’s any of us out there on Facebook land or here that’s never accepted you as their savior, never repented and confessed their sins. Lord, we just ask you to come as we pray and Lord, as they pray and ask you to forgive them of their sin, the sins of hurting others and hurting themselves.

▶ 32:24 Lord, just come right now to them and birth them by your spirit and by your word right now in Jesus name we pray. And father, the rest of us, we look to you, the author and the finisher of our faith, Jesus. You started this new tree in us, and you will cause it to grow until it is a full, mature, fruitful tree. And Lord, if we do make a mistake and do something we shouldn’t, you will cut it out of us. Throw it into the fire and not us into the fire. We thank you, Lord Jesus, for such a powerful salvation in your precious name.

▶ 33:21 In Isaiah it says, “Your desert shall blossom like the rose. I’ll restore your broken life so you will know that I’m your healer, your deliverer, and friend.” And church, that’s why one of the main reasons we come to church is to let Jesus meet with us and keep restoring things in our life that we might have neglected or diminished. He comes and he builds them back up. Let’s sing this and let let’s let him make us a beautiful rose bush today. And your death Desert shall blossom like a rose.

▶ 34:24 I’ll restore your broken life. So you will know that I’m your healer, deliverer, and friend. And my love for you will never never end. Yes, your desert. Oh, my desert shall blossom like the road. You’ll restore my broken life so I will know.

▶ 35:22 Hallelujah. That you’re my healer. Deliverer and friend my friend and my love for you will never never end. Thank you Jesus. Yes, my desert shall blossom like a road. You’ve restored, you’ve restored my broken life. So now, so I will know. You’re my healer, deliverer, and friend and my love for you.

▶ 36:23 You’re my healer will never never end. You’re my healer, deliverer, and friend. You’re my healer, deliverer, and friend. And my love for you will never never end. You’re my healer deliverer. You’re my healer deliver. And my love for you will never never end. And my love and my love for you will never never end.

▶ 37:28 And my love for you will never never end. And my love for you will never never end. Yes. My love for you will never never end. Your love for me will never end. And your love for me will never never end.

▶ 38:26 Lifting our hands. And your love for me will never never end. And your love for me will never never end. And your love for me will never never end. Let’s thank him and praise him for his great love. Oh my Lord Jesus, thank you for your love, thank you for your mercy.

▶ 39:26 Thank you for your grace. Thank you for the power, oh Lord, that you give us to serve you. Thank you for revealing, Father, the Sus is the Christ. Thank you, Father, for revealing to us that he is the son of God. Thank you father for putting faith and belief in our life and Lord through that faith we have eternal life and we have abundant life now. Thank you Lord Jesus. Thank you father. Oh we exalt thee. We exalt thee. We exalt thee with our mouth. We exalt thee with our lives. We exalt thee.

▶ 40:17 We exalt thee, oh Lord. You are exalted above everything in heaven and in earth. You are exalted above, oh Lord, our deserts and our problems. You are exalted. We exalt thee. We exalt thee. Hallelujah. We exalt thee. We exalt thee, oh Lord, that we exalt thee. We exalt thee.

▶ 41:11 We exalt thee. Oh, we exalt thee, oh Lord, for thou Lord, for thou Lord Jesus are high. You’re high above all. Above the earth, you’re exalted. Thou art exalted far above all God. There is no other God. Thou Jesus are high. You’re high above the above everything. You are exalted far above our God.

▶ 42:07 So we exalt thee. We exalt thee. Your name is Jesus. We exalt. You’re the savior of the world. We exalt thee, oh Lord. We exalt thee. We exalt thee. We exalt thee. Oh Lord, you are exalted, Jesus. Hallelujah. You are exalted. Hallelujah. You’re the King of Kings.

▶ 42:58 You’re the Lord of Lords. You’re the great I am. Oh Jesus. Jesus, you’re the all in all. We exalt you this day, Lord. Your name is above every name. Your power is above every power. Your word is above every word. You are Jesus. You are Jesus. Great. Thank you, Lord. Hallelujah. Thank you, Lord. Thank you, Jesus. Amen. And amen. Do this all through the week. Exalt him and you’ll have that refreshing, inspiring power and presence of God in your life from Monday to Sunday.

▶ 43:53 You can find your seat as Mike comes to close the service. Let’s bow our heads this morning. Pray for the offering. Lord Jesus, we come before you, God. Lord, as the song says, we exalt you, Jesus. God, Lord, we pray for restoration in our lives, God, in every area, God, we pray for that pruning in our lives, Jesus, that you prune off those parts of us, God, Lord, that need to be changed, God.

▶ 44:52 Lord, from something that is a bad thing into self-control, the fruits of the spirit, Jesus. Lord God, we want to bring fruit forth fruit worthy of repentance like John the Baptist preached, Jesus. Lord Jesus, not just a Christian who says they’re a Christian, but one who acts like a Christian. Jesus, we want to have that that testimony that John had. A holy and just man, somebody who speaks the Lord and they they respect us and the word of God that is spoken from us. Jesus, we want to be those kind of people, Jesus. Lord Jesus, we ask you bless this offering to further the kingdom of God, Lord, that the gates of hell would not prevail against your church. We thank you. Everyone said, “Amen.” Amen. If you have offering this morning, uh normally there’s some uh envelopes in the back. You can go grab an envelope, write out what you’re offering, and put it in the offering box. We want to thank you for joining us. We’ve sung a lot of songs, and uh so we’re just going to just end the service now. Uh if you can go ahead.