But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming to where he was baptizing, he said to them: “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the coming wrath? Produce fruit in keeping with repentance. And do not think you can say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father.’ I tell you that out of these stones God can raise up children for Abraham. The ax is already at the root of the trees, and every tree that does not produce good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire.”

This is such a powerful passage from Matthew demonstrating the zeal of John the Baptist for pure hearts and forgiveness that is real.

I have been watching a few World War II era movies lately. These are typically about heroes who hid and rescued Jews during the Nazi Holocaust. It never ceases to amaze me how many people, either out of indifference or fear, would not lift a hand to help the Jews. Toward the end of the last movie I saw, there was actually a Jew working for the Germans who would report on other Jews hiding in the underground. When asked why he did this, he said to live another week. He had a quota of turning in 10 illegal Jews a week for his life. He pretended to care about suffering people only to get to know them and turn them over to be killed. Horrible and disgusting, he was.

I think this is a similar type of reaction John the Baptist had as the Pharisees who showed up in all of their “pomp and circumstance” to witness his baptism of repentence. John was having none of it. He called out their fake religion, with fire, and called on them to exhibit true repentance. To do this would mean changing their proud hearts and ruthlessly callous actions of applying the law to the “nth” degree, without having compassion for widows and orphans.  

Jesus also called them out here: “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You are like whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside but on the inside are full of the bones of the dead and everything unclean.” (‭‭Matthew‬ ‭23‬:‭27‬)

John not only calls them out, he speaks true judgment over them. He says the ax is already at the root of the trees. The implication is: If they are the trees, and they do not produce good fruit, they will be cut down and burned up. This is a reference not only to possible judgment on earth, but to the judgment of sinners in the end times, where they are condemned to hell and an eternal burning up in the lake of fire.

John did not beat around the bush with life or death issues. He knew there was risk in confronting hypocritical leaders who modeled fake faith. Later in life, he called out Herod and was ultimately beheaded for it. But he saw past his earthly life to his heavenly mission of rescuing souls for eternity. He would rather save one Pharisee or someone else listening to his truth statement than be popular and safe here on earth.

How can I speak the truth, calling out sin in love, so I can win more souls (by the power of God’s Spirit) for eternity!

Thank you, Lord, for your Word and the reminder here: that when we serve you, we speak as Jesus would, as his ambassadors here on earth. May we be bold to stand for the truth and challenge sin, for a heart changed in repentance!