Message Nine: Fruits of Repentance

By Dr. Michael Guido, D.D.
Matthew 3:8

One morning a boy stood on the corner shouting, “Hot mince pies! Hot mince pies!” A stranger came along and said, “Give me one, son.” He paid for it and started to eat it. But he stopped, saying, “Son, these aren’t hot.” “I know,” answered the boy, “but that’s the name.”

As with pies, so with people; there’s the name, but not the nature. I’m afraid that much of what we call Christianity is just churchianity. It’s just heathenism mixed with a little holiness. It’s just the form, without the facts and the fire. It’s religion without the Redeemer. Too many admit without accepting, confess without changing, hear without heeding, and profess without practicing. They put convenience above conviction, license above loyalty, greed above God, money above the Master, self-indulgence above self-control, and worldliness above the Word.
What’s true of our day was true in John the Baptist’s day. With looks as lawsuits, with tones as thunderbolts, with sentences as streaks of lightning, he condemned sin and called sinners to repentance. I wish I could have heard him, don’t you? While his voice hasn’t been recorded, his words have been. They’re written in the third chapter of Matthew.

Coming out of the desert, after having undergone years of lonely preparation by God, not with any opinions of his own but with the message from God, John the Baptist preached, “Repent…turn from your sins…turn to God, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” People came from all over and listened with great interest. When they confessed their sins, he baptized them in the river Jordan. “But when he saw many Pharisees and Sadducees coming to be baptized, he denounced them.”

“Who,” you asked, “were the Pharisees and the Sadducees?” The Pharisees put great emphasis upon the Scriptures. They were great on show but short on sincerity. Their religion was on the outside but not on the inside. Their walk and their talk didn’t agree. It was all lip but no life. They were eighteen carat hypocrites. And the Sadducees? They lived by the expression, “You got to show me!” What they couldn’t see, they didn’t believe. Because they never saw an angel, they said, “There are no angels.” Since they hadn’t been to heaven, they said, “There is no heaven.” They denied the miracles, the resurrection, and life after death.

“Strange people,” you say. Yes, but we have both the Pharisees and the Sadducees in our midst today. Some, like the Pharisees, have a religion of the head, not the heart. They put on their religion like a coat when they go to church, but they take it off when they go to the club. It’s all being born in a Christian home won’t make you a Christian,” I continued. “You will receive Christ, won’t you?” I asked. “I will,” she said. Won’t you? Then prove it by your life as well as your lips.

copyright 2000 Guido Evangelistic Association

All Scripture verses are quoted from the New King James Version.

This series of messages on the books of the Bible were originally written for broadcast on Dr. Guido's radio program, "The Sower." They are collected and reprinted here for your enjoyment and spiritual edification. Go to the Sower's site for more at www.TheSower.com.