Come and study Holy Scriptures with us as Father Stephen DeYoung teaches verse by verse on the podcast,

The Whole Council of God. Father Stephen is a former Protestant pastor and Bible teacher in the

Reformed Church, but now an Orthodox priest serving at St. George Orthodox Cathedral in Charleston,

West Virginia.

Now, as the people were in expectation and all reasoned in their hearts about John, whether he was the Christ or not, John answered, saying to all, I indeed baptize you with water, but one mightier

than I is coming whose sandal strap I am not worthy to loose. He will baptize you with the

Holy Spirit and fire. His winnowing fan is in his hand and he will thoroughly clean out his threshing

floor and gather the weed into his barn, but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.

So the people are wondering, okay, is he the Messiah?

He's coming, he's teaching, he's baptizing people, right?

Is he the Messiah?

Notice they don't actually ask him.

Just say John is aware that this is what they're thinking.

And so he tells them, first of all, no, right, that there's someone

else coming, right, who's greater than he is, right? And that while he's baptizing them with water

for the forgiveness of sins, this person will baptize them with the Holy Spirit, with the Spirit of God,

and with fire.

These are images of judgment.

These are images of judgment.

We tend to sort of jump ahead because we know where things are going and think about the Holy Spirit,

coming and adwelling the disciples and that kind of thing.

But going all the way back to the book of Genesis,

...