Calling Others to Repentance (Luke 3:17–18)

His winnowing fork is in his hand to clear his threshing floor and to gather the wheat into his barn, but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire. So with many other exhortations, he preached good news to the people.
– Luke 3:17–18

So these two verses are talking about John the Baptist, and the first verse that I read is what John is saying. He’s going around preaching about how Jesus is the Christ, and he describes Jesus this way.

Luke 3:17–18 describes the judgment of those who don’t receive salvation in Jesus.

His winnowing fork is in his hand to clear his threshing floor to gather the wheat into his barn, but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire. It’s just one of many places that we see in the New Testament, in John the Baptist, in Jesus himself, in Paul, and other people talking about the judgment that comes for all of those who don’t receive salvation in Jesus. And the language here is potent. They will burn with unquenchable fire. This verse is talking about eternal suffering in hell for all who do not experience salvation in Jesus, do not receive his grace, cover over their sin.

And then you get to the very next verse, verse 18, which says, “So with many other exhortations, he preached good news to the people.” So burning with unquenchable fire doesn’t sound like good news, so how does John talking about unquenchable fire translate to being good news that he’s preaching to people? This is where we realize, and we see it all over the Bible, that the good news only makes sense when we understand the bad news, when we understand how serious sin is, how holy God is, how just God is, how in his holiness God possesses wrath towards sin. And the reality is, as sinners, we deserve his holy judgment, his holy wrath. And until we realize that bad news, we won’t realize how great the good news is.

Luke 3:17–18 reminds us about the reality of hell.

This is why Francis Schaeffer said… And I was sharing this just a couple of days ago with a group from our church family. We were walking through how to share the gospel in a seminar. Francis Schaeffer was asked, “What would I do if I met a modern man on a train and I had one hour to talk to him about the gospel?” And Francis Schaeffer said, “I’ve said over and over I would spend 45 to 50 minutes on the negative to really show him his dilemma, that he is morally dead.

Then I’d take 10 to 15 minutes to preach the gospel. I believe,” Francis Schaeffer said, “that much of our evangelistic and personal work today is not clear simply because we are too anxious to get to the answer without having someone realize the real cause of their sickness, which is true moral guilt, and not just psychological guilt feelings in the presence of God.”

So I hear that and I think about how little we talk about the reality of hell in contemporary Christianity, at least in my culture, in churches and how little we focus on the seriousness of sin in ways that lead us to minimize the wonders of grace and how great the gospel is.

This verse reminds us that the wages of sin is death.

So I just want to encourage each of us today to remember how bad the bad news is that our sin and others’ sin warrants infinite eternal judgment before a holy God. And in the process for us to realize how great the gospel is in our own lives, we don’t have to fear that because of who Jesus is and what Jesus has done for us, and that we would live today with eternal urgency. We’re talking about people we will interact with today, and tomorrow, who are on a road that leads to eternal suffering, and we have the good news that they can experience eternal life.

Let’s not keep this good news to ourselves in a world surrounded by people, friends, family members, co-workers, and classmates today who may not realize it, but at this moment the news is very bad for them. Eternally bad news. And yet, it can change if they will hear and believe the good news. And that’s where you and I come in.

This verse reminds us of the urgency of the gospel.

So God, we praise you for your love for us, for your grace, for your mercy. God, we shudder to think where we would be right now apart from Jesus. We’d be in hell. And you and your mercy have sent your son to die on a cross for our sins, to pay the price, to endure the judgment we deserve. All glory be to your name, Jesus. For your perfect life, for your sinless, substitutionary death, for your victorious resurrection from the grave, we exalt you as our savior and our Lord. We praise you for the greatest news in the world that we’re in relationship with you even right now, that we don’t even have to fear death because we are in Christ.

So help us, then, to live with eternal urgency today. God, help us to share the good news with somebody around us, to carry on the line of John the Baptist and point people to Jesus today. God, we pray for that. In each of our lives and our circumstances today, help us to live with eternal urgency when we look at the people around us and as we intercede for people around the world.

Prayer for the Pattani Malay People

God, we pray for the Pattani Malay people, over a million and a half of them who’ve never been reached with this good news. All these unreached people groups who’ve not even heard the good news, God we pray that the gospel, the greatest news in the world, would spread to all the peoples of the world. Specifically, we intercede for the Pattani Malay of Thailand. God, for this Muslim people group, most of whom have never heard this good news, God please change that. Please cause your church in Thailand, your church from other parts outside of Thailand to get the gospel to them, that they might be saved forever. God, we pray all of this in light of your Word in Luke 3:17–18. In Jesus’ name, amen.