“He then said to the crowds who came out to be baptized by him, “Brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the coming wrath? Therefore produce fruit consistent with repentance. And don’t start saying to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father,’ for I tell you that God is able to raise up children for Abraham from these stones. The ax is already at the root of the trees. Therefore, every tree that doesn’t produce good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire.”” Luke 3:7-9 CSB https://bible.com/bible/1713/luk.3.7-9.CSB

John the Baptist was sent by God to His people, Israel, to prepare them for His arrival as Messiah, the Savior of the world. To prepare for God’s arrival, people must repent from their disobedience to God and begin to do what God commands. Those who understood they needed to repent and that they were not good or ready for God to come to earth, John called vipers! In a day when the Church tries to make coming to Jesus for forgiveness as easy as possible, John was demanding, harsh, maybe, and certainly direct. His question asking who warned the people of the coming wrath is almost a rebuke of their effort to come to God for cleansing. When the people came, John insisted they do what is good rather than depend upon their religion or beliefs to save them. The Church today would do well to consider John’s message for the Church today makes little impact upon the world as evidenced by the world’s further moral and spiritual erosion. Much of the Church has gone astray by ignoring the clear teaching of Scripture, becoming so welcoming to the world that it is indistinguishable from the world’s values or lifestyle. Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord God Almighty. Repentance is from disobedience to God. Following Jesus as our Lord and Savior means denying our self-centered, self-oriented lifestyle to do the will of God in the world as His servants. The Great Commission is the mission of every Christian executed through love, service, and dogmatic insistence upon obedience to everything Jesus has commanded. Those who live this way demonstrate they have genuinely repented and are waiting properly for God’s kingdom to come as they work to see His will be done on earth as it is in heaven.