The Gospel of Luke 3:10-20 John the Baptist says what to do
Luke 3:10-20 · Vern Peterman · Dec 21, 2014
Gospel of Luke, No. 12
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://www.hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/4926450474060

Transcribed from the recording by SermonAudio, so expect the occasional misheard word.

Good morning. We're going to proceed through this passage here. I just thought I'd comment, you know, Courtney, you shared about you had some ideas for names that your wife didn't care for. I went through a similar experience. But anyway, now, We had some questions that we presented last week, and we'll look at those today. One of them was, when John the Baptist tells the people how they ought to live, is he telling them how to be saved or how to stay saved? Another question, did John the Baptist threaten to directly carry out judgment on those who came to him with open hypocrisy and unrepented sins?

And thirdly, what did John say that got him in trouble with one of the rulers in Luke 3.1, one of the rulers listed there, because of a relationship noted on page 3 of today's handout.

So we'll take a look at that. Last week, on seeing the Sadducees and the Pharisees among the crowds, John the Baptist spoke with friendliness and lightheartedness, saying things like, Merry Christmas, and you brood of vipers, right? Not actually. The brood of vipers part, yes. But they were apparently significant among the crowd, not the only ones among the crowd.

So Luke 3.10 says, And the crowds were questioning him, saying, Then what shall we do?

One of the things that we have to look at in context is the people, most of them thought that the Pharisees and the Sadducees, those guys are the best of the best, especially the Pharisees. These guys are really, really good. They were the cultural heroes and everyone would admire and aspire to be like. and to be as good as these guys.

So when John the Baptist comes up and starts calling these guys things like, you brood of vipers, and who warned you about the judgment to come? Things like that, the people were thinking, these guys are the best of the best, what chance do I have? Right? So, that's one of the reasons why as soon as John just reads these guys out and says, no, I'm not baptizing you, you brood of vipers, right? As soon as people hear that, they're thinking, these guys are the best of the best, and that's why they start coming up with this question, what should I do?

They were at that point desperate. That same, what shall we do? That same thing happens when Peter on the day of Pentecost says, you know, the Messiah that was long promised and all that, you killed him. And they were stung to the heart. And they said, what shall we do?

That's the same kind of desperation that's here. They aren't just calmly coming to John and saying, you know, give us an assignment. They're a place of desperation because if you are telling the Sadducees and the Pharisees, these guys are the best of the best. If you're telling them that they are a brood of vipers, that they're in terrible shape spiritually, these people are just shocked. They're desperate. John, tell us what to do. If these guys don't pass, where does that leave us?

And so that's where this then, what shall we do question comes up. It turns out that if you look through the passage, we've got, what shall we do? What shall we do? What shall we do? And by the way, that's a very Jewish thing to ask, right? If you've got some kind of a dilemma, it's always, what do I do? It's all about doing, right? And so that's a very Jewish thing to ask. And think about the day of Pentecost where they ask the same question, what then shall we do? This exact same question comes up and it's a bunch of Jews talking to Jews. So it's a very Jewish question.

What shall we do? What shall we do? What shall we do? Well, the law of Moses has 613 things to do and 365 of them are things not to do. So, as one of the things we'll see here, John tells positive things, do this, and he also says don't do this, do not. So we'll see both of those in here.

So here's Luke 3.11, he begins to answer their questions, which we have to keep in mind, they're questions of desperation, they're questions of near panic. Oh no! If the Sadducees and the Pharisees get called a brood of vipers, Where does that leave me? What should we do? It's a gasping, what should we do?

And he would answer and say to them, this is Luke 3.11, the man who has two tunics is to share with him who has none, and he who has food is to do likewise. So first of all, recognizing this when you see this, this has to do with food and clothing. Basic necessities, right? Basic necessities. So, here's out of Deuteronomy what the law of Moses would say to do with poor people, people who didn't have adequate food and clothing. So here's Deuteronomy 15, 7 and 8, and then we'll switch over to 10 and 11.

If there is a poor man with you, one of your brothers in any of your towns in your land which the Lord your God is giving you, you shall not harden your heart nor close your hand from your poor brother. But you shall freely open your hand to him, and shall generously lend him sufficient for his need in whatever he lacks. Then, starting again in verse 10, going on through verse 11, you shall generously give to him, and your heart shall not be grieved when you give to him. Not, here it is, but oh, I hate giving this money to you. Right? So not that. So this is, I'm giving, and he even gives a reason why your heart should not be grieved.

Because for this thing the Lord your God will bless you in all your work and your undertakings, okay? The Lord is going to replace it. And by the way, this is one that is used often by the ones who teach prosperity doctrine, okay? But notice that this is for Israel. This is for Israel. For the poor will never cease to be in the land, the land of Israel, okay?

Therefore I command you saying you shall freely open your hand to your brother to your needy and poor in your land So what is John doing when he says, you know, give him your spare tunic given the food Follow the law of Moses. That's what he's saying So the law of Moses told the Jews exactly how they're supposed to deal with the poor among them and there would be poor among them And that was to be generous to them from the heart. Not just giving it on the outside, but not wanting to give it on the inside.

Trusting that God would bless in return. Bless in material ways, because that's the way it was with the land of Israel and the Jews. So John the Baptist was simply telling these other Jews to share what they had with those who didn't have those basic things, adequate food and adequate clothing.

In this case, it was an undergarment. Let's talk about the undergarment. A lot of times the translators have a tough time, you know, what's the right word? And usually, you know, a lot of the translators will call this a tunic or something. It's an undergarment. That would be probably underwear but not configured quite like the way we wear it.

The custom in Israel in New Testament times was to wear an undergarment and if you had a spare, and a number of people did, if you had a spare to wear two of them if it was cold. So you have an extra layer there. So typically a person would have that.

What we show here is there's a fisherman with that undergarment And so when Peter, for example, when Christ was resurrected, he dropped off the outer garment and swam in, in his undergarment like this. He dropped off the outer garment and swam in his undergarment. It was typical in the fishing situations, like in the Sea of Galilee, to only wear this undergarment while you were working. So, they would have one, maybe two, so what does John say?

Give the spare to the person who has none. If you got an extra, give your spare to the person who has none so that you have one and he has one. Now, the disciples, when Jesus, in Matthew chapter 10, sent the disciples out two by two, one of the things he told them was don't take a second undergarment. Don't take a second. So it would be customary that you would take along two. He says don't do that, just one.

So John the Baptist had several kinds of messages to different ones, but those included the straightforward living out of the Law of Moses. Notice that where he read out the Sadducees and the Pharisees, He basically still said you need to follow the law of Moses. But simply, not with all these crazy complications that they came up with. The Sadducees and the Pharisees would come up with all sorts of crazy rules.

You could promise something, but if you swore by certain things, then you weren't obligated to keep your promise. Certain exceptions. So somebody would get a list, oh I swear by, and they'd swear by several things as long as none of those was on the list that required you to keep your promise. You didn't have to keep your promise.

They had that kind of thing. You know the guy who Jesus healed who was by the pool, the pool of Bethesda, and he couldn't get into the water fast enough when the water stirred. And so Jesus told him, and Jesus healed him on a Sabbath, Jesus told the man, pick up your bed and walk. Well, the rabbis figured, figure this out, the rabbis figured that if two men carry that guy to the pool on the Sabbath, that was okay. but for him, once healed, to pick up his bed and walk was not okay. That's work and you violated the Sabbath. That's how the rabbis figured that out. So two guys can work and that's okay, but if one guy works, that's no good. Right? So anyway, a little crazy. So all the complexities and distortions and the loopholes. Here's an example of a loophole.

You're not supposed to go more than a Sabbath day's journey, about five-eighths of a mile. A Sabbath day's journey on the Sabbath, that's it. You're not supposed to go any farther than that from your house. But, if you can take pieces of things that were from your house, you put them in your pocket, and you go a Sabbath-based journey, and you go and hide something from your house, and then you go another Sabbath-based journey, and you hide something from your house, and they would go through those kind of silly things in order to be able to travel farther on a Sabbath.

Crazy! In today's era, breaking off the toilet paper sheets is work. Boy, I hope somebody doesn't have a bowel problem. Anyway, John's teaching focused on the living out of the Law of Moses before God and in relationship with others. Simply, directly, do it. Not all these crazy complications and inventions and distortions.

So here's Luke 3, 12 and 13, and some tax collectors also came to be baptized and they said to him, teacher, what shall we do? And he said to them, collect no more than what you've been ordered to. No more than what you've been ordered to. Now, some of the tax collectors that we know names of from scriptures, here's the writer of the Gospel of Matthew.

Matthew was a tax collector under the Roman tax system. Another one that we see towards the end of Jesus' earthly ministry is Zacchaeus. Zacchaeus, the one who was up in the sycamore tree. And so he was not just a tax collector, but an arch tax collector, a tax collector over the other tax collectors. So this guy is up there in the tax collection system.

But being a tax collector was one of the worst things you could possibly do according to the Jewish measure of things. But Jews would actually become tax collectors. They were considered the worst kinds of traitors. One of the phrases you'll find in the Gospels in certain places is tax collectors and sinners. It's redundant, right? Tax collectors and sinners.

It was against the law of Moses, most certainly, to tell a lie. But the rabbis figured that because these Roman tax collectors were so evil, and they often charged more than they were supposed to, that the rabbis reasoned it was still allowed to tell a lie to a tax collector. It was still okay to a tax collector.

Tax collectors were known for taking money above what was required by the government. See, the government said, you're going to get this much money for certain things, right? And so the tax collector would have his own little list of taxation rates that he jacked up. And he would take the extra.

These particular ones, these ones showing up before John the Baptist, were repentant. What shall we do? So John, unlike many Jews, would actually talk to these guys, to these repentant tax collectors, and he could tell who was faking it and who wasn't. And he said, don't take more than what you're ordered to. Don't take some extra for yourself.

Luke 3.14, some soldiers were questioning him, saying, and what about us? What shall we do? And he said to them, do not take money from anyone by force, one point, two, or accuse anyone falsely, or three, be content with your wages. So you notice that the first two are a do not, and the next one is to be content. Notice they're asking what should I do? But he's actually a third part of his answer isn't what should I do what you should do? But rather what should your heart?

Perspective be like hey Be content with your wages so these soldiers are likely not Roman soldiers and They would not likely have come to John the Baptist. The Roman soldiers, actually the Jews were exempted from the Roman military. Can you imagine getting a Jew in the Roman military? It's Friday afternoon and it's time to start pulling up the tents and move on to another place and the Jew says, I'm not going anywhere.

What? You follow orders. Or you can imagine, you know, put this armor on. Hey, wait a minute. I've got some mixed materials. I can't have mixed materials on, right? And so they have things like that. Or it's time to eat, you know, and they'd give them some, you know, a piece of pig meat or something. It's real problematic.

So the Jews were exempted. They also were not likely Jewish temple guards. The Jewish temple guards did not have these same kind of problems because they're just dealing with things in the temple. Most likely they were Jewish soldiers working under Herod Antipas. Josephus, the Jewish historian, wrote about these Jewish soldiers that worked under Herod Antipas and this was Herod Antipas' domain that John was in.

The soldiers would often assist the tax collectors in taking money by force and often making false accusations for a cut of the extra taxes the collectors would gain. So the tax collectors make a deal with the soldiers. I tell you what, you know, if we get like five drachma, I'll give you two. Okay. All right. So the soldiers would get extra money out of this deal. And if they made false accusations and made the people more fearful, the people were more likely to come up with, you know, some extra money more readily. So that was a particular piece of leverage that they were rather well known for carrying out.

The soldiers were also very well known for griping about their pay at the lowest level. Once you got up to the centurion level, it wasn't so bad. But at the lowest level, the soldiers were just infamous for griping all the time about how little they were being paid.

So John told these soldiers that came to him that they were no longer to take money by force. You're no longer going to come and threaten people with the sword the minute that they hesitate to pay. Likewise, these soldiers were not to accuse anyone falsely in order to make them more fearful and to pay more and pay more readily. They were well known for making these false accusations of different kinds that were difficult for someone to prove otherwise, but it would definitely get some leverage and get them more money faster when they make these accusations. But John also told the soldiers to be satisfied with their pay, and this was something that addressed their heart issues, not just what do you do and what do you not do on the outside.

They would do these other things because they weren't satisfied with their pay. So the dissatisfaction with what they were being paid was the root cause of these other behaviors. So John goes after the root cause. This is the reason you're making false accusations. This is the reason you're forcing people to pay and threatening them with a sword. It's because you're not satisfied with your pay. You think more money is going to fix things.

So here's Luke 3.15, Now while the people were in a state of expectation, and all were wondering in their hearts about John, as to whether he was the Christ. So the question in people's minds is, John the Messiah?

I mean, this guy is astounding. He's extraordinary. He speaks out, you know, against people with power and even, and just, wow, he's very impressive, and just nobody like him. So, is he the Messiah? They're asking, they're thinking. And besides, the Romans were such awful people to be under, to have a Messiah come right then would be just really great, to get them out from underneath the Romans. So the people wondered, is John the Messiah? So in John chapter 1, 19 through 25, John denies three things. One, he denies being the Messiah. No, I'm not. He denies being Elijah, and that refers to Malachi 4, 5, and 6.

And by the way, that's Malachi. I once knew this Italian fellow. As soon as he read that, he says, it's Malachi. Anyway, or the prophet that Moses wrote about in Deuteronomy. See, Moses wrote about a prophet will come. They didn't put together that that prophet and the Messiah are the same, the same person, which is Christ. So here is Luke 3 and continuing on with verses 16 and 17.

John answered and said to them, As for me, I will baptize you with water, but one is coming who is mightier than I, and I am not fit to untie the thong of his sandals. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. His winnowing fork is in his hand to thoroughly clear his threshing floor and to gather the wheat into his barn, but he will burn up the shaft with unquenchable fire."

Now, the first thing he starts off with is, okay, let's get something straight here. the one who's coming, the Messiah that you're wondering if I am, the one who's coming is mightier than I. Okay? Mightier than I. So here's a distinction. If John's answering their question by actually addressing three different things. He's mightier than I, and if that's the case, then I'm not the Messiah. He is. Right?

So that's the first one. The next one is untying of sandals. The untying of sandals or taking off the sandals and washing the feet was something that the lowest slave in the household got to do. Someone would come in from a journey and the lowest slave in the household would stoop down and take the sandals off and wash the feet. The lowest slave in the household would do that.

Jesus, of course, did that. He washed the disciples' feet. And you know why he did that? Here's more rabbi rules. The rabbis had rules about how you're supposed to treat your disciples. And the rabbis ruled that a rabbi could not ask his disciples to wash his feet. But there was no rule against a rabbi washing the disciples' feet, right?

So nice, okay, good deal. John the Baptist says, I'm not even worthy. He says, I'm below the lowest slave. I'm not even worthy to be the one to undo the sandal and wash the feet. So he had greater might. The Messiah had greater might than John. The Messiah had greater standing, position, rank than John. And now compared to the one who was coming, John could not, did not qualify to be the lowest slave to the one who's coming. So I'm definitely not the Messiah. But he's not done.

He says, not only is there greater might in the one who's coming and greater rank, but I baptize and he's going to baptize differently. I just use water. He's going to use the Holy Spirit and fire. So, they'd seen this baptism in water. This is another entirely different baptism coming by this one who's coming next. The one who's coming will baptize with the Holy Spirit and with fire.

Okay. Now, it turns out that there are four main views. Isn't it interesting? Christians seem to go all kinds of different directions. Four main views as to what is meant by Christ baptizing with the Holy Spirit and with fire. And you can imagine, okay, some people put that together, that's the day of Pentecost. Some people say, well, it's the day of Pentecost and then the fire is in the coming, you know, end of tribulation period and into the millennium. And others say, no, no, no, no, it's the fire is the coming millennium and the Holy Spirit is the new covenant with the Jews in the coming millennial kingdom. So anyway, different views. However, I think the fourth view is correct, and that is that the Holy Spirit's baptism and fire are the same event. And here's one reason why. Here's Isaiah 4, 2-4, which you have also on your handout.

And that day the branch of the Lord, and the branch of the Lord in several different prophecies and several different prophetic books, the branch of the Lord is the Messiah, will be beautiful and glorious and the fruit of the earth will be the pride and the adornment of the survivors of Israel. Those who survive to the end will be saved, right? And those will go then to populate the Millennial Kingdom. It will come about that he who is left in Zion and remains in Jerusalem will be called holy, everyone who is recorded for life." That's the book of life. Recorded for life in Jerusalem. For the Jews in the Old Testament, the book of life has to do with millennial life. Millennial life. And this is one of those passages.

When the Lord has washed away the filth of the daughters of Zion and purged the bloodshed of Jerusalem from her midst by the spirit of judgment and the spirit of burning." It's the same word context determines whether it's capitalized. And I believe it is. The NIV has a note in which they capitalize it. I've got a couple of commentators as examples of others who would capitalize spirit here.

The Holy Spirit has a ministry of unbelievers now. of convicting, of sin and righteousness and judgment. That's out of the Gospel of John. The Holy Spirit has a ministry with us as believers, about two dozen different ministries among us as believers. The Holy Spirit will have a ministry at the end of the tribulation period and the beginning of the Millennial Kingdom of purging, of purging.

Now, he mentions winnowing, chaff, and fire. The prophets use God winnowing as a picture of judgment. Examples of that are in Isaiah 41, 16, and Jeremiah chapters 15 and 52. So what they would do is they would, you see the winnowing fork that they've got there, and they would take the grain and after kind of beating it down to break off the heads, They would toss the stuff up in the air so that the shaft and things that were not grain would blow away and you'd have a pile of grain left under the winnowing fork and then the shaft was the stuff that blew away, the lighter material that you don't want to eat, right? Because it's like wood. So that's what the winnowing fork was like and he was saying God's going to at this time separate out those who are going to continue on into the Millennial Kingdom and those who won't.

And the prophets also used chaff and fire to picture judgment and examples of that Isaiah 33 11 and Psalm 1 4 through 6. So baptism with the Holy Spirit and with fire therefore refers to the judgment of Israel at the end of the tribulation period. That judgment is also recorded for us in Matthew chapter 25.

So here's the use of the winnowing fork and the picture that John is relaying there. You'd have the grain that would fall because it's heavier and the chaff being lighter with the wind would get blown away from the grain and that oftentimes would be dealt with by just lighting it on fire. That'd get rid of it quickly.

So here's Luke 3.18.

So with many other exhortations he preached the gospel to the people. So which gospel did John preach? Well, in this passage, all we've seen is John preaching the gospel of the kingdom. Remember, there's two gospels, the gospel of the kingdom and the gospel of substitution. Here, all we have seen so far is the gospel of the kingdom. That's exactly what was written in Matthew 3, 1 and 2 that John the Baptist preached. He preached about the kingdom. So John here, in this passage, as he did in other places, preached only the gospel of the kingdom.

But the other gospel is the gospel of substitution, that is, that Christ died, or would die, if you're looking forward to it, in our place. Christ died in our place. This is the message of Isaiah 53, where Christ the Lamb would die in our place. He took our sins, sins that we should have paid, and paid them Himself. So that gospel of substitution is what John referred to in John chapter 1, 29 and 36.

Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. And by the way, that takes away doesn't mean that He makes all the sins go away. That is the lifting up part of taking the sins of the whole world The other half of that is taking those sins and placing them on himself. Okay? Placing them on himself. So when he says he takes away the sins of the world, it doesn't just make them go away. He lifts them up off of the whole world to place them on himself. And he died for the sins of the whole world.

Okay. And the last part of this, the words, the people refers to those of Israel. We've pointed out previously that Israel is referred to as the nation and the people. And the pattern in the Old Testament on into the new is that the Gentiles are then called the nations and the peoples. So plural for the Gentiles.

So here is John 3.19.

And 20, when Herod the Tetrarch was reprimanded by him because of Herodias, his brother's wife, and because of all the wicked things which Herod had done, Herod also added this to them all, he locked John up in prison. So that was his final bad thing, except for what Luke doesn't cover. Okay, you have again, only this time it's on page 3, the outline of Herod's family tree, and boy it's a mess. We only show the part here that's relevant to scripture. He actually had nine or ten wives. Historians will debate how many. Probably doesn't matter. He killed one of them. He had other sons and daughters by other wives. He had three of his sons killed. The guy was a lunatic. As a matter of fact, I was reading there was a conference in which Bible scholars and Christian psychologists got together and they determined by going through the historical record that he was a paranoid schizophrenic.

So that's Herod the Great, not so great. But what we have, and we'll point out what the story is here, here is Herod Philip II. He's referred to, he's the Philip that is in Luke 3.1. So there's Herod Philip II. Herod Philip II married his niece, Herodias. So there's Herodias. Herodias married Herod Philip. Well, somehow or another, Herod Antipas is the one who took Herodias away from his brother Philip and took Herodias then for his wife.

And Herodias then had a daughter, Salome, who was the one who danced for Herod Antipas. So here you have Salome, daughter of Herodias, dancing before Herod Antipas, the one who had John the Baptist put in prison. And Matthew 14, 1-12 and Mark 6, 14-29 are the passages that have that particular set of events chronicled. Herod Antipas was quite pleased at basically his daughter's sensual dance.

And everybody had been eating and drinking aplenty, and of course he was probably a little bit goofy in his thinking. But he did as was often done of noblemen and kings and emperors, and if they were really pleased with somebody, they'd say, ask for anything up to half my kingdom. That would be the standard thing, and that's what he does. Ask for anything up to half the kingdom.

So Salome is some young lady and doesn't know quite what do I ask for you know and so she goes to her mother Herodias now John had been speaking out against Herodias making the switch of husbands right and so Herodias answer is hey we've got John the Baptist in prison right here ask for his head right ask for his head And that's exactly what happens. So that's not in Luke. I cover it now just because it's not in the Gospel of Luke. Later on we'll see Luke mentioning John the Baptist, but that will be at a point after John is beheaded. So I just cover that briefly here so I know what the rest of the story is.

So this Herod family, oh boy, Herod Philip II had married his niece Herodias. Herod Antipas took Herodias away from his brother. Herodias had a daughter whose name was Salome. John was arrested when he publicly condemned Herod Antipas, in whose domain he was, for taking Herodias away from his brother Herod Philip II. On Salome's dance, Herodias told her to ask for John's head. And then guess who? Guess who Salome married?

Herod Philip the first so this family is a mess and in Acts you've been studying about Bernice right and Agrippa the second right and so those two are married and they're also brother and sister so anyway crazy Herod family so he talks about all the wicked things which Herod Antipas had done but he doesn't talk about what those are aside from taking Herodias away from his brother Herod Philip The second, Herod Antipas had done a number of other very wicked things, and the Gospels don't detail it other than just saying he did a lot of wicked things. Harold Hohner, who was, he's home with the Lord now, who was a professor at Dallas Seminary, wrote this 400-plus page book detailing all the wicked things. So anyway, if you really want to read about it, Get this book.

For now, we won't bother. Okay. So questions for Sunday. When John the Baptist tells the people how they ought to live, is he telling them how to be saved or stay saved? No. No. Salvation is by what? By faith. Salvation is always by faith for all time, period. You're not going to do anything, because remember they're asking, what do I do? You're not going to do anything to get saved. You're not going to do or not do anything in order to stay saved.

Salvation is by faith. Once saved, always saved. That's what the Bible teaches. Did John the Baptist threaten to directly carry out judgment on those who came with him with open hypocrisy and unrepentant sins? No. He didn't. Who did he point to? Christ is mightier than I and he will have a baptism for the Holy Spirit and with fire. And so I won't need to carry out any judgment. He'll do it and you won't like it.

Then, final question, what did John say that got him in trouble with one of the rulers in Luke 3.1 because of a relationship note on page 3 of today's handout? He pointed out that Herod Antipas had stolen Herodias from his brother, Herod Philip II. And that's what got him thrown in prison. And then it was Salome's wish gotten from Herodias that ended John's life. Now the questions for next Sunday.

How many Bible books include or make reference to John baptizing Jesus? So that's one we're going to take a look at. If we're baptized after we are saved by faith, does Jesus' baptism mean the same thing? If Jesus gets baptized, does that mean that he just got saved? Well, we'll get to that. So, why does the Bible include so many long genealogies? Why does the Bible include so many long genealogies?

As a matter of fact, this one in Luke that we'll be looking at next Sunday is the longest genealogy in the whole New Testament. And it goes from Christ all the way back to Adam. That's long. So we're going to be reading a long genealogy next Sunday. Is the genealogy in Luke the lineage of Christ through Joseph, or is it the genealogy of Mary, Jesus' biological mother? So we'll take a look at that question. Whose genealogy is it? So we'll find that out next Sunday. Meanwhile, let's pray. Lord, as we look at this account here, we're just thankful for this extraordinary man, John the Baptist, and how he served a role for introducing our Lord and Savior and introducing his ministry, getting people's attention, but pointing most certainly To Christ is the one mightier Christ is the one of higher rank Christ is the one of a different baptism and as we saw in the gospel of John Christ has the substitute the lamb and we just thank you for the ministry that John had and and the place that you had Luke take up in writing some very special and unique things And we just thank you in Jesus name. Amen