Sermon – Baptized with Holy Spirit and Fire 

Preached December 29, 2024

Introduction – 

Last week, we left off this monumental verse that quotes John the Baptist calling the Pharisees and Sadducees a brood of vipers. It’s monumental because John is making a theological statement about the leadership, confronting them with their wickedness. They are wicked, because they are in positions of leadership, as shepherds, yet they are not being the shepherds they should be given the blessings of God that have been given to them.

What blessing have they been given?

Well, for one thing, they have the word of God at their disposal. Therefore, they should know the requirements for being in the covenant with God, the blessings and curses that come along with the covenant.

Now, one might hear that and think that it is better to not be in covenant with God at all. But all that means is that the attendant curses of the covenant rest on you continually, while being in the covenant, leads to true blessings.

The Pharisees and Sadducees should have known these things.

But they did not. They have become more a political group than a group that truly shepherds the people.

Yet, when given the sign of the covenant, which they boasted in, they were agreeing to be God’s covenant people. They had in their possession Deuteronomy 27 & 28, which spells out those blessings and curses, and makes it clear that blessings come to those who obey the voice of the LORD our God. The curses come when we reject the covenant, and live in disobedience.

All these things had been given to the Pharisees and Sadducees, but they chose their own way, instead of God’s way.

This is what leads John to saying what he does.