Matthew 3:7-10

God will not leave you in the same state that He found you. You will be constantly maturing, precept upon precept, into the image of His only Son. He sees Jesus’s righteousness when He sees you so that it is not by works but by faith in Him and the power of the Holy Spirit to accomplish what we cannot. Anything in your life that does not show the fruit of the Holy Spirit…love. peace. mercy. kindness. He will remove. He will give you empathy where before only sympathy or disdain existed.

John likened his ministry to God’s ax, clearing His orchard of dead wood—especially that which did not bear the fruit of repentance.

The Pharisees and Sadducees were two prominent groups in Judaism during the time of Christ. Both groups claimed to be true followers of Judaism, but their beliefs were considerably different. The Pharisees were primarily associated with the laymen of Israel. In doctrine, they held not only to the Law of Moses and Scriptures, but also to a whole body of oral tradition. Their activities were centered in the synagogue. On the other hand, the Sadducees were associated with the priestly caste, for whom worship was centered in the temple. Extremely conservative, they based their beliefs essentially on the Pentateuch—the books of Genesis through Deuteronomy.

Matthew 3:7-10

⁷ But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming to his baptism, he said to them, “Brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? ⁸ Therefore bear fruits worthy of repentance, ⁹ and do not think to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father.’ For I say to you that God is able to raise up children to Abraham from these stones. ¹⁰ And even now the ax is laid to the root of the trees. Therefore every tree which does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.

^34 bBrood of vipers! How can you, being evil, speak good things? For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks. 

Matthew 12:34

⁹ Much more then, having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from wrath through Him. 

Romans 5:9

¹⁰ and to wait for His Son from heaven, whom He raised from the dead, even Jesus who delivers us from the wrath to come. 

1 Thessalonians 1:10