Key Life Network

Guest (Male): Today's episode of Key Life is part one of a sermon from Steve called Fresh Word from God. And it's brought to you by The Vault Project, an ongoing effort to restore, preserve, and curate classic sermons from Steve dating all the way back to the 1970s. You can support this work for as little as five dollars a month while also getting access to those vintage messages. More info at keylife.org/vault. And now, here is Steve.

Steve Brown: Our text this morning is Matthew 3:1-12 as we continue our study in the Gospel according to Matthew. Before we turn to that, let's bow our heads and hearts in prayer. Father, we come before you this morning thankful for your faithfulness. We want to be like you. Father, we want to be faithful when others aren't. We want to hang tough when others have turned away. Make us like you.

We've come apart now to study your word, with thankful hearts that you wrote it down. We ask now that you would meet us in this place during the teaching as you have before. Father, may your teaching make us faithful. We want to be thinking Christians and we want to be feeling Christians, but we want to live it too. Father, we pray that during this time that you would forgive the one who teaches his sins. The misnomer of Reverend is applied to him. We ask that the one might teach, even Jesus. And we pray in Jesus' name. Amen.

Starting the third chapter in the Gospel according to Matthew, we are reading about the ministry of John the Baptist. In those days John the Baptist came preaching in the desert of Judea and saying, "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is near." This is he who was spoken of through the prophet Isaiah: "A voice of one calling in the desert, 'Prepare the way of the Lord, make straight paths for him.'"

John's clothes were made of camel's hair, he had a leather belt around his waist. His food was locusts and wild honey. People went out to him from Jerusalem and all Judea and the whole region of the Jordan. Confessing their sins, they were baptized by him in the Jordan River. But when he saw many of the Pharisees and the Sadducees coming to where he was baptizing, John said to them, "You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the coming wrath?"

"Produce fruit in keeping with repentance. And don't think that you can say to yourselves, 'We have Abraham as our father.' I tell you that out of these stones, God can raise up children of Abraham. The ax is already at the root of the trees, and every tree that does not produce good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire. I baptize you with water for repentance. But after me will come one who is more powerful than I am, whose sandals I am not fit to carry. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire. His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor, gathering the wheat into the barn and burning up the chaff with unquenchable fire."

In just a few moments we're going to examine how you can tell when somebody really has a message from God. But before we do that, I want to go down one side road, and I want you to know that nothing God does happens in a vacuum and John the Baptist is certainly not the exception. Look if you will at the first verse of that text. "In those days John the Baptist came preaching in the desert." It's very easy to assume when one reads that, that God by fiat raised up this prophet in the middle of the desert.

But that's not exactly what happened. God prepared John the Baptist for John the Baptist's ministry. If you are familiar with the birth passages of Jesus in the Gospel according to Luke, you're aware that Elizabeth, John's mother, was a cousin of Mary, the mother of Jesus. You also know that while John was still in the womb, that he played a significant part in that birth narrative. Something that you perhaps don't know is the great archaeological find in 1946.

There was a little Bedouin boy and he was out—and if you've ever been to Israel, you've probably visited the site—down around the Dead Sea in the wilderness area. If you look up in the hills, you'll see all kinds of caves up there. It is a barren, harsh, horrible place. But this little Bedouin boy was tending the herds and his dog went into one of those caves. He looked at the blackness of the cave and said there is no way in the world I'm going inside there. And so he took a rock and he threw it in to see if his dog would come out.

Instead, he heard the sound of breaking pottery. That was the beginning of one of the greatest archaeological finds in all of history. They found there the manuscripts that belonged to the community at Qumran, a monastic, ascetic community of men and women who had withdrawn from Judaism and its impurities to create a pure monastic community. Over a number of years, the manuscripts that were found there were translated and we found in those jars and strewn on the floor manuscripts that predated every manuscript that we had by almost a thousand years.

We don't know what happened or what happened to the Essene community there. If you visit, you can see the graves. Perhaps in the year 68 when Titus and his troops, the Roman legions, came up from the Rift Valley—and if you've ever been to Africa and I have, you can see the Rift Valley and it goes right on up into Israel into the Dead Sea. And the Roman legions were coming up that valley and the monks were standing and looking at them come, and then they realized they must protect the most valuable possession that they had, and it was their manuscripts.

And so they had time to put some of those manuscripts, their library, into clay jars. Others they simply just threw into those caves around the Dead Sea and then the Romans came. We don't know this for sure, but we found Roman coins in that area and whatever happened they were probably destroyed around the year 68, 70 AD. They didn't last very long, but listen very carefully. They lasted long enough to affect a prophet from the wilderness by the name of John the Baptist.

It is of course surmised but there is good reason to believe that John Baptist spent time at the Qumran community at the Dead Sea. His emphasis on the Messiah, the coming man of righteousness, repentance, turning from one's sin and baptism, were all the emphasis of the Qumran community. So why am I saying all this? I'm saying this to bring you to a principle that is a very good principle. Let me give it to you and then we'll talk about it. All of your life is preparation for today.

All of your life, everything that's happened up to this point is preparation for today. And then there's a corollary of that principle and the corollary is as follows: What God asks you to do today, he will have prepared you to do yesterday. Let me say it again. What God asks you to do today, he will have prepared you to do yesterday. Ken Smith has become a beloved friend up in Tallahassee, the pastor of the Fellowship Baptist Church, and I had a delightful time up there speaking.

Ken was telling me about a membership class that he had and he said it was pretty filled up. And he said he was telling them their philosophy of ministry. One of the things I like about Ken is that his philosophy is the same as mine. That makes him very wise and very deep and very intelligent. Ken was saying to the people in his class, "We don't want to keep the lights on on this church, in this church, every night every week. We're not in the business of keeping you busy. We're in the business of supporting you in the ministry that God is giving you."

And God has given you particular gifts, peculiar proclivities, and you're to use them in the service of God. A man in the back of the class raised his hand. He said, "Pastor, you really mean that?" He said, "Yes, I really mean that." He said, "You know that's good. In the last class where I served, they told me to teach a class of eighth-grade boys and I hate eighth-grade boys. I can't tell you how I hated going to that class and you've just freed me up. You know what I like to do?"

He was a highway patrolman, his name's Mike. He said, "What I like to do is to go find a young man who's been drinking and driving and then I like to call his daddy and to get them together and see if we can get something worked out. That's my ministry." And Ken said, "That's where God has called you." What's the principle? The principle is whatever God calls you to do today, he will have prepared, he will have drawn you to, he will have given you experience to do in the past. Nothing happens in a vacuum.

I remember, and I really thought I was over this cold, and I'm close. I sound awful, but that's because this was an ungodly hour for worship service at 7:30 this morning. I was one time called and asked to be the president of a rather large seminary here in this country. It was so far out of left field, given the fact that I ran away from kindergarten, it was so far out of left field that I thought maybe God was calling me to do it. And then I called Eddie's friend and my friend Rusty Anderson, and I told Rusty about it. Rusty's one of the guys along with Eddie and a couple of others that we walk together. Rusty said, "Steve, because it's out of left field means that you're not called to do it. What makes you think you're prepared to be the president of a theological seminary?"

Guest (Male): And we'll get to the rest of that story tomorrow. If you're thinking, hey, this episode of Key Life sounded a little different, you are right. This is a classic sermon from Steve called Fresh Word from God from April 27, 1986, just shy of 40 years ago. And here's the coolest part. We're going to explore this entire sermon this week. We introduced this idea last year and based on the overwhelmingly positive response, we're going to do it several times throughout 2026. More tomorrow, hope you will continue along with us.

At the top of the program, you heard me mention The Vault. It's a brand-new concept we introduced last year that you can not only experience, you can also be a part of it. Here's the nutshell version. We have thousands of Steve's sermons recorded on cassette tapes and old-fashioned reel-to-reels dating all the way back to the early 1970s, sermons just like the one we're hearing this week. Just two problems. One, you can't listen to them that way. And two, those tapes are steadily degrading over time.

The solution? To digitize and preserve those classic sermons. And that is exactly what we're doing. I want you to go to keylife.org/vault. There you can get the full story, learn how you can help, and most important, discover how you can hear those classic sermons. There's even a free audio sample waiting for you. Again, the place to be is keylife.org/vault.

Here's a sobering statistic. Depression will affect three out of ten adults. And whether that's you or someone you love, there is hope. We recently spoke with screenwriter and author Chris Easterly about his experience with depression and what he learned from it. If you or someone you know has experienced that kind of darkness, I know that this is going to encourage you. Check out that whole conversation on CD for free by calling us at 1-800-KEY-LIFE. That's 1-800-539-5433. You can also email Steve at keylife.org to ask for that CD. Or to mail your request, go to keylife.org/contact to find our mailing addresses for the US and Canada. Again, just ask for the absolutely free CD featuring Chris Easterly.

Finally, before you go, a question. Would you partner in the work of Key Life by giving? Giving is easy. Just charge a gift on your credit card or include a gift in your envelope. Or simply text Key Life to 28950 then follow the instructions. And of course, if you can't give right now, do not feel any guilt or obligation from this end. But if you think about it, would you pray for us? Always needed and always appreciated. Thanks. Key Life is a member of ECFA in the States and CCCC in Canada. And as always, Key Life is a listener-supported production of Key Life Network.