Matthew
3 – 4
John (the Baptist) is introduced speaking a “stern but
exciting message” in the wilderness. John is ushering in the coming of Jesus.
His main message is for everyone to “repent” and prepare yourself for the
coming of the Messiah. Verse 3:2 is this message:
Repent! For the
kingdom of heaven is near.
What exactly is he saying? What do you feel
repent means? Is it just saying the prayer and living life as you did? In
verses 3:7 – 9 John rejects some Pharisees and Sadducees calling them “children
of serpents”. Why was this? Why did John
reject them, but not others?
The key is the definition of “repent”. A
key part of the definition is often missed. We get the confess part, but not
the turn away part. To turn away from sin is to do everything to stop sinning
and turning to God. Often we miss that and continue to sin, using the excuse we
are not perfect. Tie this with the idea that we are clean on confession of sin,
you can quickly get into a quagmire of self-destruction.
Verse 3:12 states mankind will be examined:
He carries a
winnowing fork in His hand, and He will clear His threshing floor; He will
gather up the good wheat in His barn, and He will burn the chaff with a fire
that cannot be put out.
Winnowing is separating the “chaff” from
the wheat. Interestingly the fork is very simple and seems to be very
indiscriminate in what is does. It’s wide and just tosses the wheat up to allow
gravity and the breeze to do the business. It’s not careful shifting through a
strainer, but just a tossing into the air and seeing how they fall.
Interestingly we ALL get tossed into the air; there is no time for a last
minute repentance.
As we get into chapter 4, it’s a similar
story of Jesus’ fast and temptation in the wilderness. After it was finished I
found verse 4:14 interesting:
He did this to
fulfill one of the prophecies of Isaiah:
He is fulfilling one of Isaiah’s prophecies
that we recently read in Isaiah 9:1 & 2, but he is purposefully doing it in
this case. Is this a fulfilled prophecy or did Jesus manipulate the result? I
am surprised the “Jesus is a story” doesn’t glom on this. Again did Jesus do this
from necessity or to do what scriptures said needed to be done. One could say
Jesus did this to ensure people understood who He was.