Sermon Tone Analysis

Introduction

Good Morning - I’m Rob - Elder/Pastor - Glad you’re here

We do Expositional or Expository Preaching here.

Mainly because it guards us from bringing our own opinions or cultural ideologies into this pulpit.

We value the Word of God as infallible and without error.

Exposing what God inspired is the intention.

In the world of expository preaching there are scriptures that you come to and they’re light and uplifting and encouraging.

And there are passages you come to that are heavier - perhaps where joking throughout is less appropriate.

This is a heavier message as we discuss the message of John the Baptist in Luke Chapter 3.

Please Stand as we Read

Luke 3:1-14.

Read - Then Pray

Message

God has planned this moment precisely and this message was intentional - This should draw our attention.

We draw two things form the first couple of verses in this chapter.

Luke demonstrates for Theophilus his attention to detail and the rigor with which he prepared and compiled data for this account.

Secondly, it demonstrates the preciseness of God.

Luke uses 6 different points of reference for when this was taking place.

We serve a precise God.

He picked this moment.

Long before time was set in motion God had this moment fixed in his mind.

God Spoke to John

God spoke to John.

He spoke to him in the same way he spoke to the prophets of old.

“In the year of…the Word of the Lord came to...” is a common entrance for a prophetic book in the old testament.

Similar in Jeremiah, Jonah, Micah, Zephaniah, Samuel and others.

Some others who don’t have books named after them:

Nathan - 2 Sam.

7:4

King Solomon - 1 Kings 6:11

Elijah - Elisha - and several others.

This is a way the Word of God draws importance and attention to what follows:

God goes on to make an eternal covenant with Abram in the verses that follow.

And today...

Luke is telling Theophilus that in the same way God spoke to the prophets of old, he spoke to John.

In the same way, with the same power that he spoke to Isaiah, Daniel, Joel, Nahum, Ezekiel, and Habakkuk he spoke to “John the son of Zechariah”.

And therefore John was to communicate this “Word” with the same authority, with the same urgency as the OT Prophets.

John Listened and Obeyed

And John obeys.

John knows God.

John knows who God is.

John knows that this God who spoke to him is indeed the same God that spoke to the prophets of old.

This was not a God like other gods - This is the God...

who parted the Red Sea

who commands legions of angels

Who, at the prayer of Elijah sent fire and consumed the burnt offering in the presence of all that were there to worship a puny and false god, and the event was so beyond the thinking capacity of those present that 1 Kings 18:39

John knows this is Yahweh, the God of all things.

As Luke says quoting Isaiah in verses 3-5.....

John Knows God

This is a God who straightens the crooked!

He is Big and Great enough to completely fill up the deepest of valleys.

He is mighty and powerful enough to bring down the highest of mountains.

His righteousness is so righteous that it makes the crooked straight.

His presence is such that the rough things become smooth and level.

He is a God that evens everything out.

He is above all things and all things are for him.

Both the best things in this world and the most evil things in this world will give God glory in the end.

John knows this God.

He knows that this God, is a God to be listened to.

This word is one to be obeyed, adhered to, to see through to the end.

So, Let’s look at the message.

What was John’s message from God?

Origen Adamantius, a scholar in the 2nd century A.D.

“Origen taught that the threats of eternal punishment were only hortatory (meant to exhort or to spur on)....Origen admits that the grammatical sense of the scriptural terms teaches an everlasting and inextinguishable fire; but considers this an intentional and gracious deceit on the part of God to deter men from sinning.”

Ligonier Ministries did a Study this year in which they surveyed a wide spectrum of people who would say they are “christian” that you can find on thestateoftheology.com

- In the study one of the questions was, true or false, “Hell is a real place where certain people will be punished forever

30% of them disagreed that Hell is a real place.

10% of the evangelicals they asked, disagreed.

Donald Bloesch said...

“If anything has disappeared from modern thought, it is the belief in a supernatural heaven and hell.

Even those who retain some vague idea of heavenly bliss beyond the pale of death are extremely reluctant to give serious credence to the threat of a final judgment”

This is a truth that through the ages humanity has not wanted to deal with.

We so badly don’t want this to be true.

Because if it is then we most likely have coworkers and friends and family that will inevitably spend their eternity there.

As a society and even within the American church we long for relief from such a doctrine.

But a Gospel preached without the doctrine of Hell and without the Wrath of God is not complete.

It’s not good news without that.

It’s a false gospel.

It would make us false teachers.

Hear me when I say there is a wrath to come.

Jesus spoke of judgement and hell more than any other subject during his ministry here on Earth.

Imagine a society in which all criminals no matter the crime simply went unpunished.

where rapists go free.

Where child pornographers are acquitted.

where car thieves were simply allowed to keep the car and enjoy their drive.

Imagine an American judge that let everyone from parking tickets to premeditated murder walk.

That would be a terrible judge and he would be relieved of his seat swiftly.

God is a righteous judge.

And all crimes against him little or great are great.

All crimes against him are rightly deserving of eternal damnation.

God is so good, right, and holy that on judgement day (one church father said) the damned will be in complete agreement with their damnation!

There is a wrath to come, and the axe is already laid to the base of the tree and God is ready to judge.

“But I’m saved”, you might say.

Who is John talking to here.

He’s talking specifically to the religious people of the day!

The Pharisees and Sadducees were the religious people of Johns day.

The equivalent today would be some church people.

So, we are to read what John is saying as if he’s saying it to those in the church who are like the religious people of his time.

Game of Thrones Article - Kevin DeYoung - The Gospel Coalition

This will not be a long post.

Because the issue doesn’t seem all that complicated.