(Disclaimer: This transcript is auto-generated and may contain mistakes.)

And then Luke chapter 3 beginning verse number 1 the Bible reads now in the 15th year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar Pontius Pilate being governor of Judea and Herod being Tetrarch of Galilee and his brother Philip Tetrarch of Eiturea and of the region of Traconitis and Lysanias the Tetrarch of Aveline Anas and Caiaphas being the high priest the word of God came unto John the son of Zacharias in the wilderness and he came into all the country about Jordan preaching the baptism of repentance for the remission of sins as it is written in the book of the words of Isaiah will continue in a moment but I want to focus on verse number 3 where it says he came into all the country about Jordan preaching the baptism of repentance for the remission of sins now keep your finger there in Luke chapter 3 let's go to Acts 19 because it's always important that we compare scripture with scripture to understand what the Bible is teaching what does that mean he preached the baptism of repentance for the remission of sins what what did that preaching sound like what did he say in that preaching the Bible says in Acts chapter 19 verse number 4 then said Paul acts 19 4 then said Paul John Verily baptized with the baptism of repentance does that sound right it's exactly what we saw over in Luke chapter 3 right the baptism of repentance what was he saying saying unto the people that they should believe on him which should come after him that is on Christ Jesus so when John the Baptist is preaching the baptism of repentance what he's actually preaching is that they should believe on him that should come after which is Christ Jesus at the beginning of the book of Matthew at the beginning of the book of Mark you'll find the term repent and believe the gospel and the word repent is used throughout scripture and it means different things depending on the context sometimes it is telling someone to repent of doing something bad sometimes the Bible records someone repenting from doing something good and when it comes to salvation the repentance involved in salvation is not turning over a new leaf it's not cleaning up your life it's not getting the sin out of your life when it comes to salvation it's just turning from whatever false god to the true god it's just turning from whatever you were trusting in your own dead works or your false religion or whatever it is that you believed was getting you to heaven to putting your faith and trust in the finished work of Jesus Christ John the Baptist preached a lot of things go to Luke chapter 3 again John the Baptist preached a lot of things that are not recorded in scripture look at verse 18 of Luke 3 in Luke 3 18 it says and many other things in his exhortation preached he unto the people so there's a lot of preaching that John did that's not recorded in the Bible some of it's recorded some of it's just mentioned oh yeah he preached the baptism of repentance for the remission of sins but in Acts chapter 19 we see what it was that he said when he made that preaching which was that they should believe on him which should come after that is on Christ Jesus which is consistent with Christ's preaching repent and believe the gospel now notice what it does not say it does not say repent of your sins and believe the gospel now we should repent of our sins of course but repenting of our sins is a daily thing repentance of our sins is a continual thing whereas salvation is a one time thing of just believing on the Lord Jesus Christ being born again in a moment in a twinkling of an eye being passed from death unto life and it's not about turning over a new leaf John the Baptist preached and he pointed to Jesus Christ and said behold the lamb of God which taketh away the sin of the world he didn't say behold a 12 step program that you can quit drinking and quit smoking and quit all your sins that you might be saved wrong but today churches have taken the emphasis off of believing on Christ for salvation which is the only thing that can save us and they want to go on and on about turning from your sins and cleaning up your life and all it is is just a thinly veiled works based salvation that's all it is they say well you don't have to do any works to be saved but you just have to quit doing certain things but in Jonah chapter 3 verse 10 it says and God saw their works, that they turned from their evil way and God repented of the evil that he had said that he would do unto them and he did it not so turning from your evil way is works any way you slice it keeping the commandments, getting this sin out of your life, getting that sin out of your life now did John the Baptist preach that people should get sin out of their life? of course because he also had a mission just to prepare people for Jesus Christ ministry if you would just back up to chapter number 1 because in Luke chapter 1 when John the Baptist is prophesied the Bible says in verse 76 and thou child shall be called the prophet of the highest for thou shalt go before the face of the Lord to prepare his ways to give knowledge of salvation unto his people by the remission of their sins so one of the things that he was there to do was to give knowledge of salvation to the people by the remission of their sins so he did preach things in regard to salvation he preached that they should believe on him that should come after that is on Christ Jesus going to Acts 19-4 but that is not the only thing that he preached because remember his coming was prophesied back in Malachi chapter 4 as well and it said that he would turn the hearts of the fathers to the children and the hearts of the children to the fathers lest he come and smite the earth with a curse so he's also making ready the people to be a people prepared to receive the Lord Jesus Christ so that when Jesus came on the scene they would already be right with God as it were not just saved but also that they would be right with God and have a lot of the sin out of their life the Bible says in Luke chapter 1 verse 16 it says in many of the children of Israel shall he turn to the Lord their God and he shall go before him verse 17 in the spirit and power of Elias to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children and the disobedient to the wisdom of the just to make ready a people prepared for the Lord so he's not just preaching salvation he's also getting children to obey their parents he's getting parents to love their children and he wants disobedient people to be wise and to do justly he's just trying to get people ready to serve God you know if people are going to serve God and be used by God they need to get the sin out of their life getting saved gets you to heaven but if you really want to do something for God you need to continually grow and repent and clean up your life and daily pick up the cross and follow Jesus well who are some of these people that John the Baptist is preaching this hard preaching against sin to and who is he baptizing? well the apostles for one and those apostles are going to be used greatly by God they're going to follow Jesus Christ they're going to preach and turn the world upside down and John the Baptist is getting them ready for that by preaching not just a salvation message but also preaching on how they can clean up their lives and get right with God and do right hard preaching is what prepares servants of God to go out and win souls and do great works because if our lives are filled with sin and iniquity we're not going to be good at serving God we're not going to accomplish as much as we will if we live a clean life so go back to chapter 3 it says in verse 4 as it is written in the book of the words of Isaiah the prophet saying the voice of one crying in the wilderness prepare ye the way of the Lord make his path straight every valley shall be filled and every mountain and hill shall be brought low and the crooked shall be made straight and the rough ways shall be made smooth and all flesh shall see the salvation of God and remember verse 6 there is very similar to what we saw in chapter 2 when Simeon looked on the baby Jesus and said mine eyes have seen thy salvation and when John the Baptist looks at Jesus he said behold which means look at the lamb of God which taketh away the sin of the world so when all eyes are all flesh shall see the salvation of God that's saying they're all going to see Jesus because seeing Jesus is seeing salvation look to Jesus and live it says in verse 7 then said he to the multitude that came forth to be baptized of him oh generation of vipers who had warned you to flee from the wrath to come now when you look at that in verse 7 it might seem a little harsh here are a bunch of people coming to get baptized by him so it seems like their hearts in the right place so why would he just come at them right away with this thing of calling them a generation of vipers well put your finger there in Luke 3 and flip back to Matthew 3 Matthew 3 let's compare scripture with scripture here Matthew chapter 3 what prompted John the Baptist to just get angry and make that statement oh generation of vipers who had warned you to flee from the wrath to come look at Matthew chapter number 3 the Bible says in verse 7 but when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees come to his baptism he said unto them oh generation of vipers who had warned you to flee from the wrath to come so when you read and understand that it makes a little more sense why in Luke chapter 3 he said that to the multitude he said it because he saw the Pharisees and the Sadducees and that's who he's primarily directing that at and you know anyone else if the shoe fits wear it but that's what got that on his mind when he saw them come to his baptism he said to them bring forth therefore fruits worthy of repentance and begin not to say within yourselves we have Abraham to our father this is verse 8 of Luke 3 sorry we're back in Luke 3 verse 8 bring forth therefore fruits worthy of repentance and begin not to say within yourselves we have Abraham to our father for I say unto you that God is able these stones to raise up children unto Abraham and now also the axe is laid under the root of the trees every tree therefore which bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down and cast in the fire there's so much in this chapter and so I don't have a long time to just park on these things I have to just kind of quickly move through these points but if we study the Bible especially in Matthew chapter 7 we know that the trees in the Bible represent prophets so for example he says in Matthew 7 beware of false prophets which come to you in sheep's clothing but inwardly they're ravening wolves you shall know them by their fruits so who will you know by their fruits? false prophets and then he explains how a good tree brings forth good fruit a corrupt tree brings forth evil fruit and he says almost the exact same thing as you see here in John the Baptist preaching every tree which bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down and cast into the fire wherefore by their fruits ye shall know them now where a lot of people will twist this and this goes back to what I was saying earlier where people teach a false gospel they ignore the hundred and some clear scriptures that say believe believe believe we're saved by faith it's not by works whosoever believeth in him and all those clear scriptures they ignore that and they want to teach a lordship salvation or a repent of your sins salvation and so what they'll do is they'll take this and say well hey if you don't bring forth fruit you're not saved and to them they've redefined what fruit is to them fruit means you stop sinning or get sin out of your life or whatever the good works that they claim that fruit is so they turn it into you gotta do works to be saved or you have to stop sinning or turn from your sins or be willing to turn from your sins to be saved but in reality fruit is reproduction you know when the bible said be fruitful and multiply he's telling them to have children physically to have children and spiritually when we bring forth fruit we're also reproducing not physically but spiritually Paul talked to people that he'd won to Christ and he called them his son in the faith he talked about begetting them in his bonds and so the fruit that we bring forth is the people that we win to Christ when we reproduce ourselves the bible says the fruit of the righteous is a tree of life and he that winneth souls is wise do you have to win someone to Christ in order to be saved? no, no more so than you have to have a baby in order to be a human being I mean if there were a lady that never had a child we would not say she's not human because she didn't bring forth fruit you didn't bring forth fruit therefore you were never even human to begin with that wouldn't make any sense but that's what people are saying they're saying if you don't bring forth fruit you weren't even saved to begin with but that's not what the bible is actually saying if you actually read carefully in Matthew 7 and here in Luke chapter 3 you'll find that the false prophet brings forth evil fruit because he's evil and everything brings forth after its own kind so you don't have to have a baby to be a human but if you have a baby and that baby's not human then you're not human think about that I mean look a dog doesn't have to have puppies in order to be a dog but it's not going to have anything but puppies if it has a kitten that wasn't a dog if it gives birth to a goat it wasn't a dog it's a goat that's been groomed to look like a dog perhaps but the point is that everything brings forth after its own kind the dog brings forth the dog, the cat brings forth the cat the goat brings forth the goat well here's the thing the false prophet he brings forth other false prophets when he compasses sea and land and makes one proselyte he makes him twofold more the child of hell than himself so he cannot, and listen to me carefully an unsaved false prophet cannot win someone to Christ he cannot win a soul why? because that would be a corrupt tree bringing forth good fruit it's impossible any more so than a dog could give birth to a cat or vice versa you cannot get saved from a false prophet so if someone's not saved they can't win anyone to the Lord you say well Judas went soul winning for three and a half years but he never won anyone to the Lord and you say well wouldn't people have noticed that? well no because here's the thing Judas is with people, he's preaching to people people might have prayed a prayer people might have made a profession of faith or maybe him and his soul winning partner were double teaming it and they were getting saved through the preaching of his soul winning partner that he's with but the fact of the matter is I do not believe for one second that Judas Iscariot got one person saved because he was corrupt he was evil, he was a devil from the beginning and a bad tree, the Bible's clear, cannot bring forth good fruit a good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit so therefore I'm incapable of making someone into an evil false prophet or a reprobate because I'm saved, I'm a Christian now that doesn't mean that our church will never send someone out who turns out to be a phony but I didn't make them that way and if you're saved you're not the one who made them that way someone else somewhere made them that way they're of the wicked one and look the Bible says they went out from us but they were not of us for if they had been of us they would no doubt have continued with us but they went out that they might be made manifest that they were not all of us you know when you see people apostatizing and turning to absolute heresy and I'm not saying that they're just a little off on this or a little off on that or you know they have a different view on Bible prophecy or politics they're talking about where they're just completely apostate they're preaching another gospel, another Jesus, another salvation, whatever when you see that, that tells you that that person was not of us in the first place they were never of us they were with us, they were among us but the Bible says that there are always going to be false prophets among us but if they were with us, if they were of us, what would they have done? No doubt no doubt they would have continued with us but they went out, and these are talking about preachers again because it says even now there are many antichrists they went out from us but they were not of us when you see people going out and preaching false doctrine from a Bible believing church that person was never of us although they went out from us now thank God we've never sent someone out who has been a Judas, close but we never have so we've never sent out someone who was a Judas but listen to me, it's going to happen you say, well you need to make sure it doesn't happen, you need to have more discernment well, you know, the eleven apostles didn't have the discernment because they all thought Judas was fine after three and a half years of laboring side by side with them daily so you know, you can't really fault us for not knowing if somebody is bad we don't know and all we can do is just take people's word for what they tell us and so therefore there are going to be false prophets among us there will be people who are sent out from us that we have to eventually turn around and say hey, they were not of us because look how they're not continuing with us you know, look how they're not staying with biblical salvation look how they're not staying with the biblical Jesus you know, they're teaching lies and heresy so we see here that the good tree brings forth good fruit the bad tree brings forth bad fruit because that's all it can bring forth just like the orange tree can only bring forth oranges now when you look at this scripture here and when you realize who he's talking to the Pharisees and the Sadducees they are preachers they are prophets they are men who teach the word of God and he's saying to them that they are a generation of vipers and that if they don't bring forth good fruit they're going to be hewn down and cast in the fire because here's the thing, if you're a teacher if you're a preacher, if you're a prophet you're bringing forth fruit, period now every Christian doesn't bring forth fruit every unsaved person doesn't bring forth fruit but teachers, preachers, prophets by the very nature of what they do they're bringing forth fruit, why? because when you get up and preach and teach and speak people are listening to you people are following you and you are creating disciples you're creating people who are following you imitating you, being like you so if you go to a church and you start asking everybody in the church about salvation and they're all giving you the wrong answer then the guy behind the pulpit is probably a false prophet because that seems to be the fruit of his ministry whereas if you go to a church and everybody's giving you the right answer on salvation then there's a good chance that that guy is a good prophet because the people that are in the church are good fruits now it's possible that the guy could still be a bad prophet if all the people in the church are people that were not reached by him because sometimes you'll have a church filled with good Christians and then a new pastor comes in and takes over and he's bad the people he brings in, the people he reaches end up being rotten but he's inherited some good people but this is a biblical principle that's pretty clear you can't get around this that an unsaved person can't win anyone to the Lord and that examining the fruit is a good way to determine a false prophet from a good prophet, a good preacher so he says to these Pharisees, Sadducees, false teachers verse 9, and now also the axe is laid under the root of the trees and this is specifically talking about these teachers how they're going to be cut down and this is very similar to Matthew chapter 15 I think it's Matthew 15 but where the disciples come to him and say hey you know Jesus did you know that you offended the Pharisees? did you know that they were offended? and he says hey every tree that my father has not planted is going to be cut down what's he talking about? these false teachers, blind leaders of the blind who are taking themselves and those who follow them into a ditch and he said you are compassing sea and land making a proselyte and making him twofold more the child of hell than yourselves so we don't want to abuse this passage and say oh well if you don't bring forth fruit you're not saved no no he's saying preachers, teachers, Pharisees, Sadducees those who are reaching people if you don't bring forth good fruit you're going to be hewn down and cast into fire look if they're not bringing forth good fruit they're bringing forth bad fruit that doesn't mean that a person who brings forth no fruit is not saved see there are three kinds of people in this world good fruit, bad fruit, no fruit okay the person who brings forth good fruit is for sure saved amen? and they're doing a good job they're serving God, they're winning souls, they're reproducing the person who brings forth bad fruit is for sure not saved because a good tree can't bring forth evil fruit so the person who brings forth bad fruit is not saved for sure the person who brings forth no fruit we don't know we don't know what they are they're not even a tree necessarily because you know the tree represents those who are teaching, preaching, speaking God's word so there are a lot of no fruit Christians but these repent of your sins, lordship, salvation types they'll point at the no fruit Christian and say oh you're not saved but that's not true they might just be a little sterile right now they might just be not producing fruit and you know what hopefully they'll produce fruit down the road she which is barren today may be the joyful mother of children tomorrow and so we need to be patient with people preach to them, teach them and try to get them to produce fruit so that other people could be saved so anyway I just want to make sure you understand that passage because salvation is the most important doctrine that there is and so if we get salvation wrong we're doomed I mean that's the way you know I've had people say oh Pastor Anderson I love your preaching everything except salvation except once saved always saved but I'm just thinking to myself you're going to hell it doesn't matter what else you agree with you're not even saved you're not even my brother in Christ you're teaching work salvation and that's all that is if you teach you can lose it it's a work salvation if you teach you have to keep the commandments to be saved that's work salvation if you teach that you have to turn from your sins turn or burn that's work salvation you can package it and wrap it up however you want but the Bible says salvation is by faith it's by grace it's not of works lest any man should boast so the Bible says here every tree that bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down and cast into the fire the people asked him saying what shall we do then what should we do verse 11 he answerth and saith unto them he that hath two coats let him impart to him that hath none and he that hath meat let him do likewise then came also publicans to be baptized and said unto him master what shall we do and he said unto them exact no more than that which has appointed you so he's giving these people life advice because remember his mission is not just to preach salvation but he's also trying to get ready people prepared for Jesus to serve him to work for him to receive his preaching so he's telling people look if you have two coats give one away to somebody who needs it if you have extra food split it with someone who has no food he says to the publicans and what is a publican the tax collector right public because they work for the government is what that means they're a government employee then came also the publicans to be baptized and said unto them master what shall we do and he said unto them exact no more than that which has appointed you so a lot of the publicans at that time they would actually cook the books and not only would they tax the people what they had to pay but they would take a little more and put it in their pocket and they would tax people extra he says to them exact no more than that which has appointed you and the soldiers likewise demanded of him saying and what shall we do and he said unto them do violence to no man neither accuse any falsely and be content with your wages now why does he tell them to be content with their wages because if you're a soldier the tendency could be that you go a little further than just following your orders and kind of just rob and pillage while you're there and just take money whatever you find just take it from the enemy or whoever you're subjugating and so what he's telling them is that they should not do any violence to any man that they should not accuse anybody falsely lie about anybody or get anybody arrested again maybe so they can get their hands on their property as spoils and to be content with their wages to just take their paycheck and that should be enough for them they shouldn't have to steal and pillage they should be there now it's interesting here the word violence because how can you be a soldier without doing violence because that's the modern view of what the word violence means today any kind of fighting or any kind of killing or anything like that is considered a violence but that's not the biblical definition of violence the biblical definition of violence has more to do with our word violate and you can see that in the beginning of the word violence violate violence is harming someone wrongfully so it's not a legitimate harming someone so for example if I were to engage in a consensual boxing match for sport that's not violence no one's being violated no one's being harmed in any way it's just a sport it's just recreation but people might look at that and say oh that's violent right also if I were to go to war in a just war and I'm defending myself in a country then that's not violence because I'm actually fighting in a legitimate battle and I'm doing right like David when he would go out he would fight and fight against the enemies of the Lord he wasn't being violent but where violence comes into play is when you go out as a soldier and you're killing women and children or you're killing civilians or you're killing people that are unarmed and they're non-combatants you're killing yourself because you're not content with their wages and you want to get their gear or another thing that takes place a lot is women that are being forced carnally and so that's something that soldiers have done throughout history unfortunately they go into a war zone and everything's so crazy everything's so out of control they feel like they can just get away with raping and pillaging and killing and whatever but they're not harming people violating people and so that's what he's telling them when he says do violence to no man so when the Bible talks about people who love violence I mean these are very wicked people they're very sick people because you actually love to see people harmed wrongfully innocent people suffering innocent people being violated or harmed or killed you're a sick person and God hates you that's what the Bible says people are in expectation so they're kind of just on the edge of their seats kind of like who is this guy they're wondering who he is it says the people are in expectation and all men mused in their hearts of John whether he were the Christ or not they're so impressed by him and the power of his preaching they're wondering is this the Messiah is this the Christ John answered verse 16 saying unto them all I indeed baptize you with water but one mightier than I cometh the latchet of whose shoes I'm not worthy to unloose I will baptize you with the Holy Ghost and with fire now what does that mean to be baptized with the Holy Ghost and with fire you'll find the same thing in Matthew book of John Acts chapter 1 what is baptism well baptism is immersion that's what that word simply means just immersion when you are baptized you're what immersed in the water you're dunked under water and so when the Bible says you're baptized with the Holy Ghost and with fire the Bible says in Acts chapter 1 that this is what they were supposed to wait in Jerusalem for he said wait for the promise of the Father which saith he you've heard of me for John truly baptized with water this is Acts chapter 1 but ye shall be baptized with the Holy Ghost not many days hence now they'd already received the Holy Ghost in John chapter 20 but in Acts 1 they're still waiting for the baptism of the Holy Spirit that is fulfilled in Acts chapter 2 and what that looks like in Acts chapter 2 is that there was a mighty rushing wind and it filled all the house where they were sitting and there appeared on them cloven tongues like as a fire that rested and sat upon them and they were all filled with the Holy Ghost now what does that mean what that means is that they were immersed by or surrounded by the Holy Ghost that's what that rushing wind was that came into the room that they were actually baptized by the Holy Spirit and the fire also surrounded them now a lot of people have this doctrine that says hey the moment that you're saved you're baptized by the Holy Spirit I don't believe that I don't think that's scriptural I think baptism is immersion and I believe that being baptized the Holy Ghost filled the room where they were all sitting and that was the baptism of the Holy Spirit and so it's kind of interesting too if you think about the earth itself the planet earth is that at one point it was baptized right when was it baptized the flood right I mean it was it was immersed in water it was completely surrounded by water right so it was immersed at one point in water and then eventually it's going to be immersed in what baptized in fire so that's also symbolic there of the same thing first the water baptism and then the spirit or fire baptism so that's what that's referring to when he gives that prophecy that he that cometh after me is mightier than I and he shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost and with fire verse 17 whose fan is in his hand and he will thoroughly purge his floor and will gather the wheat into his garner and many other things in his exhortation preached he unto the people but Herod the teatric being reproved by him for Herodias his brother Philip's wife and for all the evils which Herod had done added yet this above all that he shut up John in prison now keep your finger there in Luke 3 flip back to Mark chapter 6 Mark chapter 6 so why was it that Herod was upset at John the Baptist why was Herod reproved by John the Baptist because of Herodias his brother Philip's wife so what did Herod do in regard to his brother Philip's wife that got John the Baptist to preach that sermon against him where John the Baptist ended up getting thrown in prison because of that sermon well it says in Mark chapter number 6 verse 17 for Herod himself had sent forth and laid hold upon John and bound him in prison for Herodias sake his brother Philip's wife had married her he had married her now a lot of preachers go back to Luke chapter 3 will sort of gloss this over and say well John the Baptist is preaching against Herod for sleeping with his brother Philip's wife so they say he's committing adultery because he's physically carnally lying with his brother Philip's wife but actually if you look at Mark chapter 6 you'll see that that's not exactly he wasn't just sleeping with his brother Philip's wife the Bible says that he had married his brother Philip's wife now that's different isn't it that means that she's no longer married to his brother Philip now she's married to him this is more like divorce and remarriage than just straight adultery and you see that's not really emphasized because churches are filled with people who are divorced and remarried if you're married tonight I'm not here to condemn you or to criticize you about things in your past but I am here to say to those who are not in that situation that if you marry her which is divorced you are committing adultery and so by Herod marrying his brother Philip's wife he's committing adultery by doing that even though he's married well we're married if you have committed the sin in the past of getting divorced and remarried well there's nothing you can do you can't get in your time machine and change that but what you can do is stay faithful to who you're married to right now and it doesn't matter if you're on your third spouse or your fourth spouse you need to decide that divorce is not an option for you going forward nobody can change the past but we can control the present and the future and so we need to make sure that it's the sin of wife swapping or switching wives with someone else even if you say oh but we're married we actually got legally married yeah but that doesn't change the fact that it's wrong and John the Baptist called it out as a sin see John the Baptist preached against a lot of sin violent people people that are stingy and they're not generous and they don't care about people he preached against people that are covetous he's preaching against false teachers of religion Luke chapter 3 so that's what's going on in Luke chapter 3 there let's continue in Luke chapter 3 it says in verse number 21 now when all the people were baptized it came to pass that Jesus also being baptized and praying the heaven was open and the Holy Ghost descended in bodily shape like a dove upon him and a voice came from heaven which said thou art my beloved son in thee I am well pleased now the best book is the Trinity the book that really hammers the Trinity more than any other is obviously the Gospel of John even from the first verse those teachings are being laid down but also the book of Luke has been strongly teaching the Trinity and we're only three chapters in and we've already got a ton of evidence for the Trinity like for example just last week in chapter 2 I didn't bring this up in my sermon but in Luke chapter 2 in the same chapter we have Jesus called Christ the Lord the Lord's Christ now think about that just like what we have in John 1-1 he's in the beginning with God and he was God but then in Luke chapter 2 we have Christ the Lord but then we also have the Lord's Christ these things can only both be true if the Trinity is true because Jesus Christ is both the Son of God and also God himself he's both now the Bible spends a lot more time talking about the fact that Jesus is the Son of God that's what's emphasized the most but there are also plenty of scriptures that clearly teach the deity of Christ that he is God and the reason that these things are both true is because there's only one God composed of Father, Son, and the Holy Ghost and God the Father the Father is God the Son is God and the Holy Ghost is God they're all three equally God they're all equally eternal they're all equally God and they collectively make up one God made of three persons the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost and so that's why these statements make perfect sense to us once we understand that if you don't understand that then you're going to have to choose if you don't believe in the Trinity then you have to choose well is he God or is he the Son of God only then you're a Unitarian or you end up being like a Jehovah's Witness or a Mormon that denies the deity of Christ and you have a Unitarian doctrine or if you just choose and say well he's just God the Father, the Son that's just kind of a it's just a figure of speech or something then you walk away with this oneness Pentecostal view or the modalist view the Trinity is the view that actually lines up with all these scriptures and so in this passage we also have both so just as in chapter 2 we had both Christ the Lord and the Lord's Christ well in chapter 3 we have both the deity of Christ taught and the fact that he's the Son of God both because in verse 22 it says thou are my beloved Son that's the Father speaking in thee I am well pleased to be in the book of the words of Isaiah the prophet saying the voice of one crying in the wilderness prepare you the way of the Lord make his path straight now the Lord there can mean one of two things the Lord can either be referring to God or it can just be referring to anyone who's a boss or a master right because the word Lord also just means your boss or your master I mean even Sarah called Abraham Lord she's not calling him God she's referring to him as an authority and so the word Lord in the New Testament 100% of the time it's the same word for Lord every single time and it can go either way it can either mean a boss a master or it can mean God himself and what tells us which one it is it's the context right but in the Old Testament we don't necessarily have to rely on the context because in the Old Testament flip back if you would if you were 40 in the Old Testament we have the Lord spelled in all capital letters okay capital L, capital O, capital R, capital D and this is actually a name this is the name Jehovah this is what's called the tetragrammaton which is just a fancy word everybody knows what Tetris is this isn't that hard is it how many blocks are in a Tetris block four right four grammaton right that has to do with a letter all right so tetragrammaton just means it's a four letter word okay so the tetragrammaton or the capital L, capital O capital R, capital D is not the word boss or master only it's not just a simple word meaning the boss it can only be applied to God you understand what I'm saying because you know because a godly wife would call her husband sir or lord but she's not going to call him Jehovah right she's not going to call him God okay that's bizarre and so here in Isaiah chapter 40 we see what the Bible says in verse 3 it says the voice of him that crieth in the wilderness prepare you the way of the Lord and there's no question there's no doubt there's no wondering okay is this the Lord as in God or is it just somebody who has authority no the Bible says prepare you the way of the Lord Jehovah himself God himself make straight in the desert a highway for our God so who is John the Baptist preparing the way for for Jehovah for God himself so who is he preparing the way for Jesus so who is Jesus Jesus is Jehovah Jesus is God so right in Luke chapter 3 we have the teaching that he's the son of God and we also have the teaching that he's God himself now the name Jehovah in the Old Testament is not just referring to God the Father as some people would erroneously believe the term Jehovah in the Old Testament the term the Lord or God all of those terms are referring to God collectively because in the Old Testament the Trinity is not something that's revealed I mean it's touched upon you can see it alluded to and once you know about the Trinity you'll see it in a lot of places obviously having the New Testament teach us about the Trinity over and over and over and over again about the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost we understand the Trinity then when we go back to the Old Testament yeah of course we're seeing the Lord said unto my Lord sit down on my right hand I'll make thine enemies thy footstool we're seeing let us make man in our image we're seeing behold the man it makes sense to us understanding the Trinity but the Old Testament doesn't talk a lot about the Trinity it doesn't reveal or explain the Trinity like it does in the New Testament you know you get that teaching from the New Testament the thing that God's hammering in the Old Testament is that there's one God he's trying to get them to understand hey the Philistines don't have a different God those are all false gods because there's only one God right the only true God is the God of Jacob we don't get into the teaching on the Trinity in detail until we get to the New Testament look you don't get into the details on a lot of things until you get to the New Testament the New Testament really teaches a lot more clear doctrine in the Old Testament they saw through a glass darkly in the New Testament things get a lot clearer that doesn't really come as a surprise to us so in the Old Testament you just talk a lot about God the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost collectively as God and it doesn't usually differentiate so when the Lord appeared to Abraham capital L, capital O, capital R, capital D appeared to Abraham in Genesis 18 we know that that was the Son we know that that could not have been God the Father why? because no man has ever seen God the Father and lived no one can see his face and live God the Father is a spirit he's up in heaven his glory surrounds him nobody can even see his face whereas the Son of God appeared in the fiery furnace with Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego the Son of God appeared to Abraham in the heat of the day see we can all look back and hindsight's 20-20 we know that when it talks about Abraham and his seed we know that the seed is Christ they didn't know that they are thinking that it's the physical descendants and then Paul sets them straight in Galatians chapter 3 and he says that in the Old Testament that term with the all caps there is a name not just a title it's actually a name so that name is only referring to Jehovah, God and so Jesus is God Jehovah is God Jesus is God in the flesh Jesus is not God the Father because the Father the Son and the Holy Ghost are three distinct persons three distinct personalities even in Galatians chapter 3 and let's finish up here with this the Bible says that in verse number 22 the Holy Ghost descended in a bodily shape like a dove upon him and a voice came from heaven which said thou are my beloved Son and in thee I am well pleased now there's two different ways that you could read this and I can't really dogmatically say which one is right although I'll tell you which one I believe to be right the Bible says the Holy Ghost descended in a bodily shape right so stop and let that sink in the Holy Ghost descended on Jesus in a bodily shape now some people would look at this and say that that bodily shape was the shape of a dove so you have a bird shaped spirit coming down and resting upon him that's one way you could read this you know you could read this and say hey he descended in a bodily shape like a dove upon him but in a bodily shape like a dove the term like a dove is referring to how he descended a dove descends a certain way that's how he descended a gentle dove-like descent and that the bodily shape was the shape of a man's body a human bodily shape that's what I believe this is referring to but I mean I couldn't really just be dogmatic on that you know if somebody said hey I think it was a dove shape coming down I really would change anything because you know we see Jesus is represented as a lamb and there are other representations and that's okay to call Jesus the lion of the tribe of Judah or the lamb of God or to refer to the Holy Spirit like unto a dove the problem though is where we start making an image of a dove an image of a lamb or an image of a lion and we say hey this represents God let's worship this you can verbally say hey Jesus is the lamb Jesus is the lion Jesus is the you know but you don't start making an image because you don't want to take the glory of the uncorruptible God and make it like to the glory of of man or of a four-footed beast right we don't want to drag God down the level of a four-footed beast he's like those animals in that he shares their attributes the lion's the king of the jungle and Jesus is the king of kings but we just want to make sure that we don't cross that line but I personally believe that the bodily shape was that of a man and that the descent was in a man or like a dove but that's neither here nor there verse 23 and Jesus himself began to be about 30 years of age so he's not exactly 30 years of age when he's baptized but he's about 30 years of age and he has just recently turned 30 because it says he began to be about 30 years of age so that's genealogy and this genealogy finishes out the chapter it says being parenthesis as was supposed the son of Joseph so Jesus was not the son of Joseph but he was looked at by the people around him as the son of Joseph that's why they said hey behold is not this the carpenter's son so that's who people supposed or thought that he was now this genealogy is pretty interesting because it says that Joseph was the son of Heli so let's go back over here and go to Matthew chapter 1 Matthew chapter number 1 and we'll find that Matthew chapter 1 has a different genealogy and here's what we need to understand about genealogies in the Bible genealogies are in the Bible for a reason everything in the Bible is there for a reason God's not just trying to fill up space or hey I'm going to make this hard because I want people to have to work hard to read this thing with the boys and see who really wants to read this book and in fact we're going to open the New Testament with the genealogy just so that the lazy you know unintelligent people just won't even try that's not what he's doing he's not just trying to make it hard is he every genealogy is in the Bible for a reason every word every jot every tittle has a point it has a purpose God's word isn't just void so if we have a genealogy it means something now how many genealogies do we have in the New Testament two only two and they both have to do with Jesus after Jesus nobody needs a genealogy because it's just neither Jew nor Gentile just are you in Christ now in the Old Testament you have a lot of genealogies and every genealogy is there for a reason a certain point is being made and pay close attention every genealogy is making a point everybody got that there's a point being made ok so in Matthew chapter 1 the point that's being made here and the point that's made throughout the book of Matthew is that Jesus is the king of the Jews and that's what I preached about a while back maybe a month ago that Jesus is the king of the Jews that's the point so because that's the point it says in verse 1 the book of the generation of Jesus Christ is the son of David the son of Abraham now that makes him the king of the Jews king because he's the son of David and of the Jews because he's of Abraham so that's the point so then it takes us through this genealogy from Abraham down to David and then it shows us that he's not just the son of David but that he actually follows the succession of all the kings of Judah because if you look at this list of names these are the names of the kings of Judah all the way down to the end of verse 12 where we have Zerubbabel all the way down to Zerubbabel these are guys that we have Old Testament evidence of these guys are kings this is the kingly succession so the point being made is that he's the king of the Jews has everybody got that? now listen, in this genealogy there are people's names who are left out this genealogy is not complete there are names of kings that are skipped now when you're reading it you normally wouldn't notice that simply because of the fact that those people are not important people they're not people that we look to as being great bible characters and that we would tell stories about they're more obscure guys they were men that were wicked in the sight of the Lord and so for whatever reason God decided to just leave them out of this list so in verse 17 he talks about how hey, from Abraham to David fourteen generations from David to the carrying away into Babylon are fourteen generations from the carrying away into Babylon I'm sorry, I think I mixed that up Abraham to David are fourteen David to the carrying away into Babylon are fourteen carrying away into Babylon unto Christ are fourteen so this is what's called a mnemonic something to help you memorize something or to make sure that you have something right okay I learned these fourteen from here to here these fourteen take me from here to here these fourteen take me from here to here so perhaps also a few names of unimportant wicked people are left out just because, just to round it out to make it easier to remember the fourteen, fourteen and fourteen but what we need to understand is that leaving people's names out of a genealogy does not take away from the truth of that genealogy and it doesn't take away from the point that's being made and I could show you a ton of genealogies in the Old Testament that leave people's names out because it's not relevant what their names were because God's trying to make a certain point so in this particular genealogy there are people's names left out but the word begat is still used even though there's a gap even though that person did not directly beget the next person in line the word begat is used now what does the word begat mean? To bring into existence to generate or to cause to be that's what begat means so if I were to father a child then I am basically generating a new life by means of my seed and an egg from my wife a new life is being generated and we have the word genes there of my DNA is coming into that person so the word begat is not going to be an adopted son right? because I didn't bring that an adopted son could be my son but I didn't bring him into existence I did not generate him I did not cause him to exist does everybody understand that? the word begat means that now the word son does not mean that because you can be a son without being begotten or brought into existence by that father for example if you're adopted you're a son also the bible calls a son-in-law a son so you can be a son-in-law and your son you can be adopted and you're a son but that's not begotten because to beget is to generate bring into existence cause to exist now why is Jesus begotten of the father when he had no beginning God the father did not cause Jesus to come into existence in eternity past because Jesus has always existed because Jesus was in the beginning with God he was already there without him was not anything made that was made he was in the beginning with God and he was God and so Jesus has no beginning no ending so how has he begotten? well the answer to that question is in the bible of course but in Acts chapter 13 it talks about the resurrection of Jesus Christ and it says as it is written thou art my son this day have I begotten thee so the day when Jesus was begotten you say when was that? oh a long long time ago no no no wrong cause Jesus already existed eternally in the past Jesus was begotten on the day that he rose from the dead because the bible says that Jesus in Revelation 1 is the first begotten of the dead so there's no mystery he's the first begotten of the dead he was raised from the dead as it is written thou art my son this day have I begotten thee Acts 13 Revelation 1 very clear how does that mean he was begotten? here's why because he was dead and God the father caused him to be alive so he brought him into existence he brought him into life again God the father raised up Jesus from the dead so that is a begetting and by the way when we get saved our spirit is dead and our spirit is resurrected or regenerated and that's him begetting us we are begotten of God because he regenerated us just as he regenerated Jesus Christ and brought him back from the dead which is called the father begetting Jesus so the father did not beget Jesus in time past the father begat Jesus at his resurrection when he brought, when he regenerated him brought him into existence from death and of course Jesus Christ was raised by all three the father, the son and the holy ghost they all participated in his resurrection he was resurrected by all three so and you say this is too deep for me okay well go on and watch some cartoons when you're done if you can't handle this kind of intellectual exercise but this might be good for you and I want to make sure that I touch on this because I don't want people someday to say hey I'm mixed up about Luke 3 and you didn't explain it to me well I'm gonna say hey I did explain it back in my sermon on Luke 3 so does everybody understand everything that I've taught so far so the son of is not as strong as begat because begat is a physical bringing into existence it's a generation whereas the son of could be adopted it could be by marriage it could be other things also skipping someone does not stop us from using the word begat because the grandfather is still responsible for bringing the grandson into this world it's through his seed that that grandson was generated or came into existence so when the Bible skips someone you could still say that this person begat this person okay go to Luke 3 and we're gonna look at Luke 3 and Genesis 11 Luke 3 and Genesis 11 I just want to leave no stone unturned tonight so we're gonna look at Genesis 11 and Luke 3 so examples of this are when we look at genealogies of Moses and Aaron it does not give us a complete genealogy Moses and Aaron you know it tells us hey Levi begat this guy begat this guy it's only like it's like three or four generations and you're like what in the world you've been here 100 years you go into first chronicles you'll find some genealogies that have to do with the stay in Egypt and you'll find as many as 10 or 11 generations there why because it's giving a more complete genealogy whereas Moses and Aaron what's the point that's being made the point that's being made is just simply that they're of Levi and which branch of Levi they come from the point being made in a lot of these genealogies is just look are these guys Levites or not are they sons of Aaron or not are they the Malites or are they the Mushites are they the Mararites are they the Kohathites and those that have read the Bible know that there's a big difference between being a Kohathite and a Mararite those of you who don't know what I'm talking about shame on you for not reading your Bible but the Mararites and the Kohathites had two totally different jobs in the tabernacle and so it mattered whether they're of Kohath or of Mararite but you know what it didn't matter necessarily all the people in between sometimes give an abbreviated genealogy of hey this guy begat this guy begat this guy what's the point is what you have to ask yourself and understand that God will skip people if they're not relevant why do you just wish that he included everybody so you could just read even more names you know I mean how many names do you want to read thank God he skipped some people in Chronicles or that first Chronicles would be a real bear to read thank God for the skipping he's a merciful God you know what I mean we have enough names they're there for a reason okay now when we get to Luke chapter 3 we find a different genealogy than the one in Matthew David begat Solomon in the Matthew genealogy that's the kingly line right David begat Solomon Solomon begat Reboam Reboam begat Abiah and we go down through that list that's not in Jesus' genealogy but it's a different son of David look at verse 31 which was the son of Malia which was the son of Menan which was the son of Metatha which was the son of Nathan which was the son of David isn't that nice that David named one of his children after that prophet that preached against him Nathan the prophet so his son Nathan is the one here not Solomon it's a different branch so Jesus is the son of David on both sides now if we go back to verse number 23 it says the son of Joseph which was the son of Heli Joseph was not the physical son of Heli because we know from Matthew chapter 1 that Joseph was literally begotten which is the stronger word the physical word Joseph was begotten by a guy named Jacob just like the Old Testament Joseph was begotten by a guy named Jacob interestingly so in this passage though we see he's the son of Heli not the physical son but the son-in-law and this genealogy is the genealogy of Mary why? because what's the point of this genealogy the point of this genealogy is not to show that Jesus is the king of the Jews the point of this genealogy is to show that Jesus Christ is a literal human being descended from Adam that's why it doesn't stop at Abraham and say okay that's all that matters no it goes all the way back to Adam showing the physical unbroken descent no one's being skipped here there's no skipping this is a physical all the way back to Adam that's the point right here the point that's being made is the human side here so we're seeing Mary's genealogy and it just brings up Joseph because genealogies have men's names men's names so we're going to take Mary's dad his dad, his dad, his dad, his dad we're not talking about the women it's all the dads so we have Mary's dad so it just says Joseph the son of Heli it's actually Mary's literal father does everybody understand that? now we're going to get into the hard stuff that was all the easy stuff now let's get into that which is a sticking point this is something that a lot of people choke on or struggle with so let's talk about genealogy and Luke how many of you know where I'm going with this already? a couple people, wow, very few people maybe I shouldn't have even covered this tonight okay, well, I'm going to cover it anyway so, for you five, no, I'm just kidding but anyway, there's a name here that's in the book of Luke that's not in Genesis and it's like, where is this name coming from? okay, the name is found in verse number 36 it says, which was the son of Cainan which was the son of Arphaxad which was the son of Shem which was the son of Noah which was the son of Lamech so this guy Cainan who comes between Selah and Arphaxad this guy is in Luke but if we go back to Genesis he's not there if we go back to 1 Chronicles he's not there now why is that? well, if we just take what we've been talking about for the last 10 minutes okay, this makes sense because if God really wants to show the humanity of Christ all the way to Adam he's going to make sure he doesn't skip anybody whereas in Genesis because the guy that he skipped was irrelevant he just skipped the guy I mean, that's pretty easy to understand he skipped a guy just like he skips people in tons of genealogies if they're irrelevant, if they don't matter if they're not important to the story what's the purpose of the genealogy back in Genesis 11? so it's like this guy, this guy, this guy and those people all had descendants and then we can figure out the 70 nations of the world that existed back then 70 groups of people that the world was divided into in those days so we have a list of a whole bunch of names and they might not mean that much to us today but back then it's like okay, that's where all these different tribes and nations came from these guys well, if a guy might have died young and he had other kids he only had that one kid so he doesn't really matter from an, you know, ethnological perspective or maybe you just want to keep the number round at 70 because those are the 70 main nation groups then you're going to skip that guy but in a genealogy about Jesus you're not going to skip him because you want to show the humanity all the way back to Adam pretty easy to understand, right? why a guy is added here well, there's more though Christians will say to this that it's an error I looked up some creation you know, one of these creation I don't know if it was Ken Ham or, you know, hopefully I'm not slandering anybody here but it's for sure if you Google this one of the first thing that comes up is one of these creation defense places and they're like, oh yeah, this is a mistake we believe the Bible's perfect in the original that nobody's ever seen but unfortunately every single copy of Luke on the planet's wrong and they go on and on and they explain how they made a mistake and wrote this guy's name you know, I believe God puts stuff in the Bible like this just to test people's faith and you know, these creation defense people are some of the least faithful people in the world because they have to constantly prove to themselves that God's real by finding fossils I just believe God's real I don't even need to go to the Grand Canyon to figure that out I just read the Bible and I believe in the Lord you know, hey, blessed are they that have not seen and yet have believed in the creation ministries they can't believe that Luke got it right look, the fact that there are things like this in the Bible show us that the Bible is not a cunningly devised fable trying to trick us you know, if Luke wanted to trick us if Luke was just making stuff up and a liar if he was writing from his own heart he wouldn't have put this guy's name in you'd think a guy who wrote a book if supposedly the Bible's written by man right, according to people who dispute this if the Bible's written by man then you, Mark, Luke and John must be the greatest writers of all time since they wrote the most popular books of all time the greatest literature of all time but they were so dumb they can't even copy a genealogy without making a mistake they can't even mindlessly copy one thing to another that's so dumb, it doesn't even make sense no, but Luke is not the author the author is God the author is the Holy Ghost no prophecy of the scriptures of any private interpretation holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost it revealed a name to Luke that he would have had no way of knowing unless the Holy Ghost revealed that to him just like the quote from Enoch that's in the book of Jude it didn't come from some book of Enoch with 450 foot tall giants and stupidity it came from the Holy Ghost saying hey, here's something that Enoch preached before the flood there's no written record of it the Holy Ghost revealed that to Jude in order to be 100% accurate on this genealogy Luke received from the Holy Ghost that this other name needed to be there and so he wasn't copying anything he was writing as he was moved by the Holy Ghost to include that name to include this guy Kainin you say, well, he got it from the Septuagint yeah, from the Septuagint that dates back to 300 or 400 A.D. that manuscript that was written after this because they got, they're basically they took that fake so-called Septuagint and conformed it to the New Testament retroactively but that's a whole other sermon so anyway, I want everybody to follow this so this is leaving no stone unturned every single physical person from Adam to Jesus is mentioned even this guy Kainin who was insignificant enough to be left out of the Old Testament we don't have to make up some story about how well, you know, it's a mistake in the Bible but the original was right too bad we lost it heaven and earth will pass away God's word will never pass away this is the part that's the sticking point go back to Genesis 11 because that's pretty easy to swallow, right? piece of cake what's the hang up? what's wrong with this Creation Institute? why do they lack faith in God's word? get a King James, amen so but here's the part where people struggle and I'm going to explain to you why it's not a struggle because when I first saw this as a teenager when I was reading through my Bible I was kind of hashing all this stuff out for myself you know, thank God there was no Google available because, you know, who knows what kind of stupid stuff I would have read instead I just read the Bible and studied and went to the Holy Ghost but when I was hashing this out I had the thought process that I just explained to you but then I went back to Genesis 11 and I was like, oh, wait a minute wait a minute, how does that work? here's why look down at your Bible and it says it says in verse number 13 I'm sorry, look at verse number 12 it says, and our facts ad lived five and thirty years and begat Salah and then it talks about Salah, Begedi, Eber, and so forth so the key number here is 35 years our facts ad lived five and thirty years and begat Salah but we know, based on what we just got from Luke chapter 3 that this is not really his son it's his what? it's his grandson I first read this as a teenager and I thought, it's the grandson wait a minute, that's a little far-fetched that his grandson's being born when he's only 35 years old so I thought there must be another explanation and I came up with all kinds of elaborate explanations for how Luke 3 and Genesis 11 could be true both and there are other more elaborate explanations that make a lot more sense than just saying oh, the Bible's wrong oh, Luke got it wrong there are other explanations for you with them tonight because they're complicated but as I studied the Bible more I came back to my original thought and I realized that this is his grandson and he did have a grandson at age 35 and that might seem weird until you stop and actually realize when this happened look what the Bible says in verse 10 these are the generations of Shem Shem was 100 years old and begat Arphaxad when? two years after the flood he was born two years after the flood now stop and think about this if Arphaxad was born two years after the flood it's not hard to believe that he's becoming a grandfather at age 35 at all because when there's only eight people on earth and God tells you to be fruitful and multiply that becomes pretty high priority and we know that the Tower of Babel happened 100 years later so from Noah's Ark to the Tower of Babel is 100 years and we know it's a great multitude by the time the Tower of Babel comes so they multiplied like crazy for those first 100 years so when there's only eight people on the planet and God's telling you to be fruitful and multiply there's nothing else to do folks you know people who live in small towns are always saying there's nothing to do here you know I wish I lived in a big city there's nothing to do out here man there's nothing to do well you know when the whole earth's been flooded there's nothing to do now eventually they built a big city but for a while they didn't have a lot to do and look they had it's like you had one job what's your one job your one job is to repopulate this thing so then it would make perfect sense that somebody who's 16 17 their parents aren't you know you know 16 year old now we're telling them hey you need to wait till you're 18 right so here's the thing you know when you get off the arc there's no reason to wait till you're 18 you know when you're 16 17 years old it's like okay you know yeah get married it's time to reproduce buddy we want these grandkids now so it you know and if he's 35 years old 35 years of age which means that he could be 35 years and 11 months you know he the guy becomes a dad when he's 18 I became a dad when I was 19 right I mean that well my son was actually born when I was 20 but I got married when I was 19 my son was born 13 months after I got married you know despite all the people who lie and say I got married because my wife was pregnant or something people love to make up stories about me anyway no unless that was a 13 month pregnancy that's not the case so the thing about that is that you know if I was 20 years old when my child was born isn't that crazy to think that some dude is 18 now I don't know should I ask for a raise of hands is there anybody here who sired a child when you were 17 or 18 years old you know don't answer that but I'm sure that there are probably some hands that would go up of people maybe not here tonight but I'm sure out on the internet there'll be the YouTube comments hey I sired a child when I was 15 when I was 16 when I was 17 when I was 18 the answer's off the arc numero uno priority is multiplication makes sense let's bow our heads and have a word of prayer