<p>3:7<i> He said to the crowds that went out to be baptized by him: You offspring of vipers, who warned you to flee from the wrath to come?</i>-The ideas of fleeing wrath and preparing a way are surely based upon the Law&rsquo;s command in Dt. 19:3 that a way or road should be prepared to the city of refuge (symbolic of Christ- Heb. 6:18), along which the person under the death sentence for manslaughter could flee for refuge. John was preparing that way or road to Christ, and urging ordinary people to flee along it. They didn&rsquo;t like to think they were under a death sentence for murder. They were just ordinary folk like the soldiers who grumbled about their wages, and the publicans who were a bit less than honest at work. But they had to flee. But they wouldn&rsquo;t be alone in that. If a man prepares his way after God&rsquo;s principles (2 Chron. 27:6; Prov. 4:26), then God will &lsquo;prepare&rsquo; that man&rsquo;s way too (Ps. 37:23; 119:5), confirming him in the way of escape.</p><p>This intense, urgent presentation of the ultimate issues of life and death, acceptance and rejection, brought forth a massive response. People lined up for baptism. And John was hardly polite. He called his baptismal candidates a &ldquo;generation of vipers&rdquo;, alluding obviously to the seed of the serpent in Gen. 3:15. Yet his tough line with them, his convicting them of sin, led them to ask what precisely they must do, in order to be baptized. They didn&rsquo;t turn away in offence. They somehow sensed he was for real, and the message he preached couldn&rsquo;t be ignored or shrugged off as the ravings of a fanatic. Time and again we see the same- the very height of the demand of Christ of itself convicts men and women of Him. And it&rsquo;s for this reason that it seems almost &lsquo;easier&rsquo; to convict people of Christ and the need for baptism into Him in societies e.g. radical Moslem ones where the price for conversion to Him is death or serious persecution&hellip; than in the easy going Western countries where being &lsquo;Christian&rsquo; is the normal cultural thing to do.</p><p>The Gospel was presented in different forms by the early preachers, according to their audience. John the Baptist set the pattern in this. Having quoted the prophecy about the need for the rough to be made smooth and the proud to be humbled in order for them to accept Jesus, John &ldquo;said <i>therefore</i> to the multitude&hellip; ye offspring of vipers&rdquo; (Lk. 3:7 RV). He used tough and startling language because that was what the audience required. He had set his aims- to humble the proud. And so he used &ldquo;therefore&rdquo; appropriate approaches. The early preachers as Paul became all things to all men, so that they might win some. They therefore consciously matched their presentation and <i>how</i> they articulated the same basic truths to their audience.<br />But perhaps even his comment &ldquo;Generation of vipers&rdquo; was said with a heart of love and appeal, reflecting the &ldquo;heart of mercy&rdquo; which he had come to know in the Father. He was &ldquo;the friend of the bridegroom&rdquo; (Jn. 3:29)- the one who introduced the groom to the bride and arranged the marriage and then the wedding. John&rsquo;s &ldquo;Generation of vipers&rdquo; stuff was all part of his attempt to persuade the bride, Israel, to accept the groom, the Lord Jesus. He wasn&rsquo;t angrily moralizing, lashing out at society as many a dysfunctional preacher does today, working out his own anger by criticizing and condemning society in the name of God. No, John was appealing. He had an agenda and an aim- to bring Israel and the Son of God together in marriage.</p><p>When asked who he was, John&rsquo;s reply was simply: &ldquo;a voice&rdquo;. He was nothing; his message about Jesus was everything. In all this there is a far cry from the self-confident, self-projecting speaking off the podium which characterizes so much of our &lsquo;preaching&rsquo; today. So John&rsquo;s appeal to repentance was shot through with a recognition of his own humanity. It wasn&rsquo;t mere moralizing. We likely don&rsquo;t preach as John did because we fear that confronting people with their sins is inappropriate for us to do, because we too are sinners. But with recognition of our own humanity, we build a bridge between our audience and ourselves. In this context it's worth reconsidering Lk. 3:7: &quot;Who has warned you to flee from the wrath to come?&quot;. John said these words to those who were coming to him wishing to be baptized by him- exactly because he had warned them of the wrath to come. It's possible that John meant this as a rhetorical reflection, thus enabling us to paraphrase him something like this: 'And what kind of man am I, who am I, just another sinful guy like you, who has warned you to flee? I'm nothing- don't get baptized because of me, but because you repent and are committed to bringing forth the fruits of repentance&quot;. And it&rsquo;s worth meditating that if Israel had responded to his preaching, then the glorious salvation of God might have even then been revealed in the form of the Kingdom coming on earth, even then. But instead of heeding John&rsquo;s message, Israel in the end crucified their King, necessitating a latter day John the Baptist mission (Mt. 11:13,14; 17:11,12). And it&rsquo;s not going too far to suggest that our latter day witness to Israel and indeed to the world is to conducted in the spirit of John&rsquo;s preaching; hence the crucial importance of understanding the spirit and content of his witness.</p>