Don’t give me that!

But when he [John] 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? Therefore bear fruits worthy of repentance, 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. – Matthew 3v7-9

Baptising John was quite a guy. He was one of that rare breed who was never slow to say what need to be said. While short on tact he was long on truth.

After more than 400 years Israel had a prophet sent by God. Divinely named John he took to the wilderness wearing the roughest of clothing and eating honey and locust beans. He certainly would not have been accepted into the religious circles. By this time the religious leaders had become comfortable in their religion. They were the doctors and reverends of religion today who had become the cream of the crop of religion. Everyone knew them. They were far above the crowd. They wore the most expensive robes and made sure that everyone treated them properly.

The first thing John did was to deal with them about their religious sins. ‘It’s time you proved yourself by bearing righteous fruit. Don’t say to yourselves ‘we have Abraham as our father so we are okay.’

John made it clear that their religion was nothing. They were a ‘brood of religious vipers’ who used their religion to cover up their need of God. Religion is always a convenient way out of really dealing with God.

The thing is that this still happens today. Doing all the religious stuff that is expected can replace fruits of righteousness in our lives as well. Are we showing the ‘fruits of righteousness’ or are we just being religious?