Luke 3:3

Luke 3:3

I. The teaching of St. John the Baptist, as it is described to us in Scripture, was perhaps different to what many would have expected. He had not only been sanctified to God in the world, and had been born of holy parents and kept unspotted from the world; but when he came forth to preach repentance he had been dwelling for thirty years in the wilderness, not only apart from other men, but living in a very hard and severe way, unlike other men. When, therefore, he came down among the cities of men as the great preacher of repentance; and found himself surrounded with multitudes of all kinds given up to sins and vices of which he knew nothing; we might have expected that he would have said something of the desert and his own more excellent mode of life, that he would have called upon all men to retire from so wicked a world, and to live, like himself, quite disengaged from all temporal things. But the holy Baptist's teaching was far different from this; he was as gentle and considerate to others as he was severe and unsparing to himself; they confessed their sins unto him, and he entered into all their temptations; and instead of requiring of them great and difficult things, he told them to avoid their besetting sins and temptations, and so amend their lives.

II. It may be observed that the teaching of the Bible is throughout of this nature. Men are inclined to put themselves forward for great things, and for putting great things before others, because this gratifies the secret pride of our hearts; and certain it is that there is nothing so great but that we ought to do it in religion and which God will, if we seek Him, give us strength to do. But this great thing probably lies much nearer home than we are willing to suppose; it consists in overcoming ourselves and in breaking through some besetting sin which may seem a small matter: so it was in the teaching of the great preacher of repentance; he told men of some besetting temptation which lay at their own door of that evil spirit who was watching and waiting for them in their daily life; which was first and beyond all things to be attended to.

Plain Sermons by Contributors to "Tracts for the Times,"vol. i., p. 20.

References: Luke 3:3. Homiletic Magazine,vol. x., p. 99. Luke 3:3; Luke 3:4. F. W. Robertson, The Human Race and Other Sermons,p. 267.