uit is hewn down, and cast into the
flre, 11. I indeed baptize you with water unto repentance: but he
that cometh after me is mightier than I, whose shoes I am not
worthy to clean he shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost, and with
fire: 12. Whose fan is in His hand, and He will throughly purge His
floor, and gather His wheat into the garner; but He will burn up
the chaff with unquenchable fire.'--MATT. iii. 1-12.

Matthew's Gospel is emphatically the Gospel of the kingdom. The keynote
sounded in the story of the Magi dominates the whole. We have stood by
the cradle of the King, and seen the homage and the dread which
surrounded it. We have seen the usurper's hatred and the divine
guardianship. Now we hear the voice of the herald of the King. This
section may be conveniently treated as falling into two parts: the
first, from verse 1 to verse 6, a general outline of the Baptist's
person and work; the second, from verse 7 to end, a more detailed
account of his preaching.

I. We have an outline sketch of the herald and of his work. The voice of
prophecy had fallen silent for four hundred years. Now, when it is once
more heard, it sounds in exactly the same key as when it ceased. Its
last word had been the prediction of the day of the Lord, and of the
coming of Elijah once more. John was Elijah over again. There were the
same garb, the same isolation, the same fearlessness, the same grim,
gaunt strength, the same fiery energy of rebuke which bearded kings in
the full fury of their self-will. Elijah, Ahab, and Jezebel have their
doubles in John, Herod, and Herodias. The closing words of Malachi,
which Matthew, singularly enough, does not quote, are the best
explication of the character and work of the Baptist. His portrait is
flung on the canvas with the same startling abruptness with which Elijah
is introduced. Matthew makes no allusion to his relationship to Jesus,
has nothing to say about his birth or long seclusion in the desert. He
gives no hint that his vague expression 'in these days' covers thirty
years. John leaps, as it were, into the arena full grown and full armed.
His work is described by one word--'preaching'; out of which all modern
associations, which have too often made it a synonym for long-winded
tediousness and toothless platitudes, must be removed. It means
proclaiming, or acting as a herald, and implies the uplifted voice and
the brief, urgent message of one who runs before