Matthew 3:9

Think not to say... we have Abraham to our father.

One of the first things. true minister has to do is to destroy false hopes. It is thus that John did when he broke in thus rudely upon the hopes of those who heard him. They were living securely in the fact that Abraham was their father, and their reasoning was that if Abraham was their father they themselves were necessarily good, and their moral position was invincible. John takes the roof off this house of refuge, and pours the divine storm upon their heads. He throws down the walls within which they have inclosed themselves, and sends the floods of divine judgment along the courses of their foundations.-- Joseph Parker.

Of these stones.

Pointing, perhaps, to the stones of the Jordan. In thus sinking the higher claims of Judaism, John, no doubt, indicates the coming rejection of the Jewish race. Gentiles who were not Abraham's children shall become his children by faith. (See Galatians 3:29.)