The sermon, titled 'Infinitely Mightier Than The Greatest,' delivered by Jason Dohm, explores the infinite greatness of Jesus Christ in comparison to John the Baptist. It begins by discussing the anticipation of a savior among the Jewish people due to Old Testament promises and the oppressive conditions under Roman rule. Despite John the Baptist's significant role and powerful ministry, he humbly acknowledges that he is not the Christ, emphasizing that only Jesus can baptize with the Holy Spirit and fire, unlike John's baptism with water. Dohm highlights the distinction between external religious ceremonies and the spiritual realities that only Jesus can accomplish. The sermon delves into the metaphor of wheat and chaff, illustrating the ultimate separation Jesus will enact between true believers and those who are not. Furthermore, it notes John’s fearless rebuke of Herod's sins, underscoring the universal need for repentance. Through these teachings, the sermon calls for a deeper understanding of Christ's might and the necessity of genuine faith and repentance.

Well, the title of the message this morning is, infinitely mightier than the greatest. John the Baptist actually brings us to a comparison of himself with the Lord Jesus Christ. And I will find that, John the Baptist, isn't exercising false humility at all when he tells us there's no comparison between even himself and the Lord Jesus Christ that though John the Baptist is is called the greatest, I'm coming to that, that the Lord Jesus Christ is infinitely mightier than he is. So the title is about what our text is about, the infinite greatness, not of John the Baptist, but of the Lord Jesus Christ. It's always a happy thing to preach about the infinite greatness of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Now, where are we? Well, our last text gave us the preaching and the instruction of John the Baptist. His preaching was a preaching of baptism for repentance, a symbol that you felt the weight of your sins and you were committing to turn from those sins, trust the Lord and walk away from your sins. And then people were saying, well, what does that mean in my life for my occupation? And he would tell them, well, what does that mean for my life in my occupation?

And he would tell them different groups were coming and he was giving them instructions. And the ministry of John the Baptist and the preaching of John the Baptist was so remarkable that people began to wonder if John the Baptist was the promised Savior. As you look across the Old Testament, you have all these promises that God will send someone to save His people. And John the Baptist comes with this mighty preaching and mighty ministry, and so people begin to wonder, is this the Messiah? Is this the Christ?

And so that is what our text is about. Let's ask God to help us. God, we come to this text desiring to hear from you. Please speak to us, teach us through scripture today. I pray for help that as the preacher today that you would anoint me with the Holy Spirit to say things that would be helpful, that would be just earnest appeals, the earnest appeals that belong to this text and that for the people listening that you would give them an appetite, a hunger to hear from you.

Let these things be true in Jesus name. Amen. I'd like to begin by just isolating on the first verse, Luke 3 verse 15. So follow along as I reread that verse and then I'll talk about it. Luke chapter 3 verse 15.

Now as the people were in expectation and all reasoned in their hearts about John, whether he was the Christ or not. That's an abrupt place to end, but I just want to tackle that by itself. In this verse, the people wonder, that fills in the blanks if you're taking notes on the handout, the people wonder. They're wondering about the preaching and the ministry, the mighty preaching and the mighty ministry of John the Baptist. The people are in expectation.

They were looking for the promised Savior. I just give you two thoughts on why we find the people looking for the promised Savior. First, consider all the Old Testament promises. Depending on who's counting them, you get between 300 and 600 Old Testament promises that are fulfilled by Jesus in the New Testament. So the low end is 300 promises.

No wonder they're in expectation. Anyone who knew their scriptures knew that Israel wouldn't always be troubled, that God had promised over and over and over and over, I could say that 300 times, God had promised over and over again to raise up someone to save them out of their troubles. And they're wonderful promises. If you had someone who was able to keep promises, who had made you so many wonderful promises, you would be in expectation too. So this is where we find the Jewish people at the time when John the Baptist enters the scene.

Second, consider the conditions of the day. So, you have these people, they're considering the Old Testament promises, so they're in expectation, but also consider the conditions of the day. Israel had been conquered by the Romans 90 years earlier so You don't remember a time if you're listening to the the preaching of John the Baptist. You don't remember a time when the Romans didn't rule and your parents don't remember a time when the Romans didn't rule and your grandparents don't remember a time when the Romans didn't rule. There might be a few people alive who remember the time when the Romans came and conquered Israel.

So they've been under Roman rule for that time, under the thumb of the Romans. Now imagine being part of the people that God had claimed for himself. These are the people of God and now they don't even have self-rule. And the institutional religious environment was awful. To put it in modern, modern language, church was awful.

We were going to see as we study through the Gospels what the institutional religious environment was like when you went to the synagogue, when you went to the temple, when you sat under the teaching of the Pharisees. What was that teaching like? Was it good teaching or bad teaching? It was bad teaching. Were the traditions helpful to help you walk with the Lord or in many ways pull against you walking with the Lord?

In many ways it pulled against you walking with the Lord. So they're under the thumb of the Romans and the institutional religious environment was awful. If anything would have fixed your thoughts on the coming of the Christ, the conditions of that day would have fixed your thoughts on the coming of the Christ. How glad you would be to have promises that God would raise up a Savior and you would be hoping that it would be any day you would be looking for Him. And so they were reasoning in their hearts.

If you look at the Greek, a very literal translation would be they were turning over in their minds. Is this the Christ? Have you ever, you've had that happen where something's on your mind and you're just turning it over in your mind, over and over. Is it this or is it that? This is what is happening to these people.

They're turning this thought over in their minds. Here's a man with a mighty, mighty preaching ministry, a mighty ministry of baptizing for the repentance of sins. Is this the Savior that God has promised to send? Is this the one that we've been looking for and expecting and hoping for? Okay, now track with me.

I'm going to give you a list. Isaiah 66 chapters. Jeremiah 52 chapters plus the five chapters of Lamentations, which he also wrote. Ezekiel, 48 chapters. Daniel, 12 chapters.

Why do I list Isaiah and Jeremiah and Ezekiel and Daniel? Those are considered the major prophets, if you've heard of the minor prophets, there are the major prophets and the minor prophets. Those four names, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and Daniel, are considered the major prophets. By comparison, we consider John the Baptist to be a relatively minor character of the New Testament. We're in chapter three.

He's been a part, but not a particularly large part of the first three chapters, and he's getting ready to essentially disappear. He'll be referenced a couple of times in Luke, but we're essentially done after next week with John the Baptist, except for a couple of references. But what did Jesus say? Surely I say to you, among those born of women, there has not risen one greater than John the Baptist. That is Jesus's judgment on the matter.

So John the Baptist was as great as or greater than Abraham. John the Baptist was as great as or greater than Moses. As great as or greater than Moses, as great as or greater than David, as great as or greater than any of the prophets, minor or major. It is only because he is in the shadow of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, Jesus Christ, God in the flesh, that he appears to be a relatively minor character of the New Testament. He's not relatively minor at all.

It's just because he's in the shadow of Jesus and Jesus is God. So don't underestimate the earth shaking power of the preaching and ministry of John the Baptist. If we had lived at that time, we wouldn't underestimate the earth-shaking power of the preaching and ministry of John the Baptist because when he came onto the scene, it was like everything stopped and all attention turned to the Jordan River where the multitudes were coming to hear this man preach and to be baptized by him. The preaching and ministry of John the Baptist was of such influence and of such force that those who experienced it were asking themselves, Is this the fulfillment of those 300 promises? Is this the man who has been sent to keep all of those promises?

His preaching so mighty, his ministry so mighty, this could be the fulfillment of all those promises So that is verse 15 the people wonder let's keep going verses 16 through 18 Follow along as I reread verses 16 through 18. John answered saying to all, I indeed baptize you with water but one mightier than I is coming whose sandal strap I am not worthy to lose. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. His winnowing fan is in his hand and he will thoroughly clean out his threshing floor and gather the wheat into his barn but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire. And with many other exhortations he preached to the people.

Here in these verses John the Baptist answers. The people were wondering now John the Baptist answers. John the Baptist is aware of all the speculation, so he addresses it. John chapter one, verse 20 says, he confessed and did not deny, but confessed, I am not the Christ. So, in no sense was John the Baptist shrinking back from accepting a role that really was his.

This was no denial. John the Baptist was truthfully saying that this was a role that could never belong to him. He confessed the truth. I am NOT the Christ. Not a denial, Okay, not shrinking back, but a confession of the truth.

I'm not the Christ. The things he could do, I could never do. This is really the meaning of our text. In our text, John the Baptist communicates in three ways that he isn't the Christ. Let me give you the three ways.

First, John the Baptist compares his baptism with Christ's baptism. John the Baptist can immerse you in water. That's literally what the word baptize, the Greek word that's being translated means, to immerse or to submerge or to overwhelm. Okay. So that gets us away from sprinkling.

The word means to overwhelm. It is to immerse or submerge. John the Baptist can do that. He can immerse you in water or submerge you in water. He can preach mighty sermons about sin and your danger and command you in God's name to repent and then perform the religious ceremony where you accept the sign that you've turned from your sin.

All this is good, by the way. This is a mighty ministry. Then all those people go home And they begin to live their lives again. And now let's say, like you could follow them all. You could observe over time.

What would you see? So all these people come out, they say, yes, I see I'm a sinner, I need to repent. John, I want to have this religious ceremony performed. I want to go down into the water and as a token, as a sign that I feel the weight of my sin and I'm turning from it to walk with God. So now you get a webcam That follows them individually.

What would you see? Study revivals. What do you see? Afterwards there are things that proved to be true and things that proved to be false. There were undoubtedly people in the multitudes that came and they really repented.

And the thing that was signified by the going down into the water was a reality in their lives and the sign matched the reality of their lives. I know you would find that in the ministry of John the Baptist. And I also know that if there were multitudes you would also find people who took upon themselves the sign but as you observe their lives over time they proved that there was no reality there. The sign was there, but the spiritual reality wasn't there. This is, if you study any revival, this is what you'll find when you go back one year later, five years later, ten years later.

Some people are walking with the Lord and all of the activity, all of the preaching, all of the enthusiasm has been sustained or much of it you find is still a reality in their lives, but you will also find many who were caught up in the spectacle and in the enthusiasm of it all, and they're no different a year later than they were the day before the revival started. They're no different five years later, 10 years later, than the day before the revival started. The Billy Graham Evangelical Association believes that 5% of the people that came down to receive Christ actually became Christians that went into local churches and lived in a way consistent with their profession of faith, 5%. So that's their own numbers. When Christ comes, He will immerse you in the Holy Spirit and fire.

So it's good that God has raised up men who can preach earnest sermons about your great need to repent and trust God and walk with God and can perform a religious ceremony where you say yes to it all and I'm accepting it all and I'm accepting the sign of this. But what you really need is someone who can produce the spiritual reality in your life. That's what we really need. And John the Baptist says, I baptize with water. I preach my little heart out and I baptize with water.

Jesus is coming. He can immerse you in the Holy Spirit of God. He is the one who can actually create the reality in your life that the sign of what I'm doing is supposed to signify. The baptism of Christ is not a physical ceremonial one. It is the spiritual reality.

It is not the picture of something. It is the rock solid actual reality of it. The Christ immerses in the Holy Spirit and in fire. I'm coming to more on the meaning of that, what it means to be immersed in the Holy Spirit and fire, but for now, take it very literally. Being immersed in the Spirit of God, the Christ can do that.

He can immerse you in the Spirit of God. Being immersed in fire, he can do that. He can immerse you in fire. This is clearly what began on the day of Pentecost, approximately 50 days after Jesus' resurrection and 10 days after his ascension into heaven. Listen to Acts chapter one, verse five.

It gives us some of Jesus' very last words to his disciples. So you have Jesus' ascension into heaven in Acts chapter 1, in Acts chapter 1 verse 5, he says this to his disciples, John truly baptized with water, but you shall be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now. So this has to be exactly the same thing as what John the Baptist is referencing in our text because he says the same thing. I baptize with water. That's what Jesus said.

John baptizes with water. One who is mightier than I, the Christ, will come and baptize with the Holy Spirit." And Jesus says in John 1-5, you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit. Not many days from now they are saying the same thing. So John the Baptist is pointing forward to Jesus sending the Holy Spirit to immerse his people with the Spirit of God and this is the reality of all genuine believers from the day of Pentecost. I think I can prove that to your satisfaction from Acts chapter two.

The Christ does that. He immerses his people with the Spirit of God. So that is the comparison of baptisms. John the Baptist baptizes with water. It's a religious ceremony that has a very real good place, but it's not the reality in the heart.

Jesus baptizes with the Holy Spirit and with fire. Second, John the Baptist compares his place with the Christ's place. There's a ladder. Which step is John the Baptist on? Which step is Jesus on?

He compares their places. What does he say? One mightier than I is coming whose sandal strap I am not worthy to lose. The Christ is coming. We need someone to lose his sandal strap.

John the Baptist says not me. You'll need to find somebody worthy for that job. Utterly unworthy to do that, find someone else. Now, we update this and modernize it in our brains, and that isn't helpful. Why not?

Because we wear socks and ride in a climate controlled car pretty much everywhere. So undoing my shoelace in 2026 is nothing like loosing a sandal strap in the year 30. Do not modernize this because it won't help you understand what John the Baptist is saying. Think about people who don't wear socks and who walk around often in the heat on dusty trails all day and then think about the job of undoing that footwear. Listen to David Garland in his commentary.

He says, A Hebrew slave was not supposed to perform this act, according to a rabbinic commentary. Meaning the rabbi said, don't make a Jew do that. Find a Gentile for that. Here's what Robert Stein says in his commentary. The Messiah is so much greater than John That the great prophet was not worthy to perform a task that only non-Jewish slaves had to do for their Jewish masters.

For Jewish slaves were exempt from this demeaning act. What is being said? That the lowest Hebrew servant in a household would never be asked to do this. The very lowest Hebrew slave in a house would never be asked to do this. This was reserved for the lowest Gentile servant in the household.

It's like find somebody uncircumcised and then the lowest one and he'll do it. John the Baptist is saying, I am utterly unworthy of that task If that foot is the Christ's foot, if that sandal is the Christ's sandal, You've got to find somebody more worthy to do that task. Now put it all together. Jesus said, among those born of women, there has not risen one greater than John the Baptist. This is Matthew 11, 11.

John the Baptist is greater than or equal to Abraham, greater than or equal to Moses, greater than or equal to David, greater than or equal to any of the prophets. John the Baptist says, I am utterly unworthy of serving Christ in the lowest things. I am utterly unworthy of serving the Christ in the lowest things. How many times have I read that? I've read that so many times, this text.

Because A version of it appears in all the Gospels. So then how many times have I read it? Dozens and dozens and dozens of times. I've always thought of it as John the Baptist thought, Because John the Baptist thought, save the lowest services for me. I should be doing the lowest thing.

John the Baptist is not saying that. He's saying, I'm not worthy for that. Friends, this is not to lower John the Baptist. It is to exalt the Lord Jesus. The whole point here is not that we think less of John the Baptist.

It's that we think rightly of the Lord Jesus Christ Because Jesus humbled himself and took on flesh Because Jesus did not come to be served, but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many, this is Matthew 20, 28, I did not come to be served, but to serve and to give my life as a ransom for many. Because that's true, you might miss his glory. Oh, don't miss his glory understand what John the Baptist the greatest is saying here he's infinitely above me I'm not worthy to do the most demeaning tasks for him. At the end of his ministry, John the Baptist said this, this is John 3 verses 30 and 31. John chapter 3 verses 30 and 31, John says, He must increase, but I must decrease.

Jesus must increase, but I must decrease. He who comes from above is above all. He who is of the earth is earthly and speaks of the earth. He who comes from heaven is above all. So John the Baptist has this mighty preaching ministry, this mighty baptizing ministry.

But towards the end, he says, I have to decrease. Christ has to increase. I'm from the earth. He's from above. He's above all.

Jesus is so mighty that He can immerse you in the Holy Spirit of God and fire. No one else has ever been able to do anything remotely like that. Okay, so no other Bible character is able to do anything remotely like immersing you in the Spirit of God and fire. That's how mighty he is. Third, John the Baptist speaks of the great separating work of the Christ.

The great separating work of the Christ. The Christ will separate the wheat from the chaff with his winnowing fan. What is a winnowing fan? Google it. I'll try to describe it.

I think of a shallow, open-ended basket that allows you to take wheat that has been threshed. So you have a stalk and you have a head of grain and there are individual grains in the head held by and attached to all sorts of things that you don't want to eat. It's inedible. Wheat and chaff. Okay, so you get to just the wheat and the chaff separated but all jumbled up through threshing.

So there in our text we're talking about the threshing floor. So you essentially beat it out to get it separated, but it's still all jumbled up. And then you winnow it, meaning you take it into this shallow open-ended basket and you toss it, you toss it and you catch, but you're not catching everything. Why aren't you catching anything? Everything because any breeze at all takes the chaff, which is the inedible part that you want out of there, and it blows it off to the side.

The wheat has mass, has substance. So you toss it up, and it comes straight down. The breeze doesn't affect it, because it has mass. And so you end up with the chaff floating away and the wheat left. And then what's said is he'll gather that up to store it in his barn.

John the Baptist says that the Christ will thoroughly clean out his threshing floor. Nothing will be left. It will either be wheat and gathered up, stored in the barn, or chaff, gathered up and burned in unquenchable fire. I think that the context demands that we make connections. The Christ immersing with the Holy Spirit connected with wheat gathered and safely preserved.

The Christ immersing with fire connected to the unquenchable fire that awaits the chaff. Malachi is a prophet who speaks directly about John the Baptist in Christ. So he's a really good one to consult on this because Malachi is a prophet that foretells one will go before the Christ to prepare the way for the Christ and then the Christ will come and do these things. So if you want you can turn to Malachi 3 and 4. I'm gonna read a couple of verses from Malachi 3 and then a verse from Malachi 4, where we see this.

Malachi 3. I'll be reading Malachi 3 verses 1 through 3. 1 through 3. God says this, Behold I send my messenger and he will prepare the way before me. This is quoted in the New Testament.

Malachi 3.1 is quoted in the New Testament. Being fulfilled by John the Baptist. John the Baptist is the fulfillment of this. He is the messenger who prepared the way before the Lord. Behold, I send my messenger and he will prepare the way before me.

And the Lord whom you seek will suddenly come to his temple. Even the messenger of the covenant in whom you delight. Behold, he is coming says the Lord of hosts, But who can endure the day of his coming? And who can stand when he appears? For he is like a refiner's fire and like launderer's soap.

He will sit as a refiner and a purifier of silver. He will purify the sons of Levi and purge them as gold and silver that they may offer to the Lord an offering in righteousness. Now look at chapter 4 verse 1. Fast-forwarding to Malachi 4 verse 1. For behold the day is coming, burning like an oven, and all the proud, yes all who do wickedly, will be stubble.

And the day which is coming shall burn them up says the Lord of hosts that will leave them neither root nor branch but do you who fear my name the son of righteousness shall arise with healing in his wings so you you have this great separation spoken of in both places but definitely spoken of here in in Malachi this This fire to some will be a purifier like gold is purified. You heat it, you subject it to the fire and the impurities rise to the top and you skim them off the top and you end up with increasingly pure metals. But, but to the stubble it can't endure the fire at all. Just consumed, destroyed, ruined by the fire. It's purifying fire.

Friends, this is that. Malachi and John the Baptist are saying the same thing. Finally, verse 18 says this, and with many other exhortations, he, John the Baptist, preached to the people. It says that he preached. A better and more literal translation would be that John the Baptist announced good news to the people.

The other English translations that we like pick up on the gospel or good news part of that Greek word but it is absolutely part of that so We shouldn't just leave it that he preached. He announced good news to the people would be a very literal translation. Robert Stein says this in his commentary and I think helpfully. Robert Stein says, the message of repentance is good news. For it means that forgiveness is possible." Sort of the other side of the repentance coin is restoration.

Repent to be restored. The message of repentance is good news, for it means that forgiveness is possible. Persons can still pass from death to life and become part of God's kingdom. If they repent, the tragedy and consequences of sin are not irreversible, and this is good news. So we think of the preaching of John the Baptist, you brood of vipers repent the axis already at the root of the tree.

This is actually good news. That God would warn you and tell you to turn is good news because it means he hasn't determined to just let you get what you deserve. He's calling you to repentance. So John the Baptist preached many things. We only have a small sampling of it here, that's really what we're being told in the text, but it can be categorized as good news.

Even a call to repentance is good news. It means if, because it means that God wants you to repent, he'll accept repentance. Okay, finally, verses 19 and 20. Luke 3, verses 19 and 20, but Herod the Tetrarch, being rebuked by him, being rebuked by John the Baptist concerning Herodias, his brother Philip's wife, for all the evils which Herod had done also added this above all that he shut John up in prison. In these verses Herod reacts, reacts to what?

Reacts to the preaching of John the Baptist, the open public rebuke of his own sins. Here's the point, John the Baptist spares no one. He gives no quarter to anyone's sins. Well, we're not used to that. As a prophet, he is the mouthpiece of God and God exempts no one from the warnings that eternal ruin will be the end of anyone and everyone who refuses to repent.

Let me say that again. God exempts no one from the warnings that eternal ruin will be the end of anyone and everyone who refuses to repent. Men? Yes. Women?

Yes. Young people, yes. Old people, yes. Rich people, yes. Poor people, yes.

Rulers, yes. Servants, yes. No one is exempted from these kind warnings. Thank God no one is exempted from these warnings. What a cruelty to exempt someone from the warnings that you'll be ruined if you don't repent.

John the Baptist called the Pharisees who were considered and considered themselves good law keepers, brood of vipers. So if you look at the parallel passage in Matthew 3, here in Luke 3, it said that's what he said to the multitudes, but in Matthew 3, it calls out specifically the Pharisees, these people who were considered good at law keeping and who considered themselves good at law keeping. They were very proud of how good they were at law keeping. John the Baptist looks them in the eye and says, you offspring of serpents, you venomous, you poison-filled creatures. He said to the Sadducees, who were the ruling class, all the high priests came from Sadducees.

He said to them, you brute of vipers. He said to the multitudes, you brute of vipers. He publicly rebuked Herod, Tetrarch of Galilee, the son of Herod the Great, who had slaughtered all the babies in and around Bethlehem 30 years earlier. Why did he rebuke Herod concerning Herodias? Well one, Herod divorced his wife, Aretas IV of Nabatea, Probably saying that wrong, but you can't call my bluff.

To marry Herodias. So he had a wife, Oridas. He divorced her to marry Herodias too. Herodias had formerly been married to Herod's half-brother, Philip Tetrauc of Itteria. So Herod the Great was the father of them both, but they had different mothers.

Philip had been the husband of Herodias. There had been a divorce, and now he marries his half-brother's former wife. Three, Herodias was Herod's niece. Herod was the half brother of her dad. So pretty much everything was unlawful about this marriage.

And John the Baptist publicly took him to task for it. This is not lawful. This is against the law of God. And this way, this way, this way, Mark 6 actually has the full account because that's not our text. I'm not going to Mark 6.

It ends with John the Baptist's head being presented to Herod and his birthday party guests on a platter. That's where it ends. John the Baptist didn't just rebuke Herod for his marriage to Herodias, but also, quote, and for all the evils which Herod had done. There was a long list. He was happy to preach against all of them and connect Herod to all of them publicly.

Herod added this to the heap of his evils above all that he shut John up in prison. Interestingly enough, it says in other gospels that Herod heard his preaching and did certain things in response to his preaching. In a good way, he responded to his preaching. And yet, when his sins were openly challenged and rebuked, he put him in prison and it ended up in his beheading. So there was a time where Herod had an appreciation for at least some of the things that John the Baptist was preaching.

He said he heard him gladly and did many things. So that is the reaction of Herod the Tetrarch to the public rebuke of John the Baptist. Applications, let me give you three. One, only Jesus controls and accomplishes the spiritual realities that our religious ceremonies are designed to represent. I love that we baptize people.

I love that we observe the Lord's Supper every week. Those are just the external religious ceremonies designed to represent realities. Never confuse them. They're not magical. They do not affect the changes.

They are supposed to be symbolic of the changes. This is so important, listen to J.C. Ryle. We learn from these verses the essential difference between the Lord Jesus and even the best and holiest of his ministers. Man can administer the outward ordinances of Christianity with a prayerful hope that God will graciously bless the means which he himself has appointed.

Up to a certain point he can go, but he can go no further. No ordination, however solemnly conferred, can give man power to change the heart. Christ, the great head of the church, can alone do this by the power of the Holy Ghost, by baptizing, immersing in the Spirit of God. It is his peculiar office to do it, and it is an office which he has deputed to no child of man. In other words, he doesn't give that office over to anyone.

He keeps it to himself, reserves it to himself. Thank God for your pastor. Pray for your pastor. Don't expect that of your pastor. Go get a pastor 10 times better than me, a 100 times better than me.

He'll never be able to give you what you need, which is to immerse you in the Holy Spirit. Two, The chasm and the absence of any third alternative between the wheat and the chaff is terrifying. So the chasm, what's the distance between the wheat which is gathered up and stored away safely in the barn and the chaff which is gathered up to be consumed by unquenchable fire? Like, how do you get opposites that are more distant than that? And the absence of any third alternative, it's not like it's this or that or this other thing.

There is no other thing. There's wheat and chaff. Period. End of sentence, amen. So repetition doles.

Doles. So we come here week after week, month after month, year after year. Many of the same things are said, they're certainly the same things. You do get that there's no third alternative and it's either wheat stored safely away as the Lord's or chaff that is consumed by unquenchable fire. There's nothing else.

And a day that you don't know will be the end of any opportunity to repent. No one knows that day. What day are you going to die? All day, way off into the future. Maybe three.

Back to two. Three. Back to two. You have to respond to that. God, man, Christ, response.

That's a full-throated gospel. Who is God? Perfectly holy, all-powerful, could never overlook sin. Perfectly good. Who is man?

We're a brood of vipers. We descend from the poisonous and we're poisonous. Who is Christ? This savior that God has promised more than 300 times in the Old Testament to sin and he has done a work and it is enough for you and all your sins. But that last part, you say all that, you have not said the full gospel.

That last part response, you must respond. None of that has, None of Christ's work has anything to do with you until you respond in faith, repentance of faith. So don't get lulled asleep by having heard it the hundredth time. And think, maybe I'll respond after the hundred and first. Now number three.

Consider the proposition that the closer I walk with God, the more free from trouble I will be. That is a proposition. Closer I walk with God, the more free from trouble I will be. John the Baptist, consult with us on this matter. Did you walk closely with God?

Yes, very closely with God. Did that save you from trouble? Nope. I was imprisoned and then beheaded. Second Timothy 312 says, yes, and all who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will suffer persecution.

Such a falsehood that the closer I walk with God, the more trouble-free life will be. Maybe You can find some instances. In the end it's true. In an ultimate sense it's true. Let me tell you, John the Baptist has no complaints today about his treatment by his master.

How did his master treat him? His master treated him great. He had trouble in this life, but today if we could ask him, if we could bring him up to the pulpit and ask him, he would say, I have no complaints about how my master has treated me. Let's pray. God, we need every truth in this text.

Sure, some haven't been given what they should have been given, but I thank you for these truths that we keep coming upon week after week. They are precious and they're helpful and we need all of them. I thank you for the greatness of Jesus Christ that appears in this text. I know so many of my troubles would fade and assume their proper proportion if only Jesus Christ loomed larger. So I pray that would be the great legacy of this sermon, that Jesus Christ would loom large, that the greatest man who lived was not worthy to stoop down and unclasp the sandal of the Christ.

It makes him mighty enough to save. Thank you for the saving might of the Lord Jesus Christ, one who can accomplish the realities that our religious ceremonies can only signify. Thank you in Jesus name, amen.