John the Baptist Prepares the Way

Wow these are some powerful passages - I really don't think that I can do them justice so I will only hit on some of the points that stood out to me

• John quotes Isaiah, and says that he is the voice in the desert preparing the way for the Messiah.
  
• This passage is one of the arguments against infant baptism (the main argument for being Acts 16:32-34) the argument against is that John gets them to confess their sins first (Matt3:6, and Mark1:5) He also gives the Pharisees and Sadducees grief when they turned up to be baptised, as they were being hypocrites, by not living their lives as men who had confessed their sins and turned to God. A demonstration that your actions need to speak louder than words. Personally I was baptised as an infant - and was very confused and upset when I was told that this wasn't right. I then went on to get baptised again as an adult, as an open profession of my faith. Our boys were not baptised as babies, and will make the decision for themselves when they are old enough. Either way baptism doesn't change your salvation, as it is the confession of sins and the acceptance of Christ as your Saviour who died as punishment for the sins you committed, and then conquered death by rising from the grave. It's these facts that result in your salvation not a bath or sprinkle at any age - or by any specific denomination.
  
• John warns them that being Jewish doesn't get them into heaven they have to act like Gods people too (professing their faith by the way they live their lives).
  
• John makes sure that the crowd knows that he is nothing compared to Christ.
  
• And finally John tells them that Christ will baptise with the Holy Spirit, which for the Jews was a really exciting prospect as they knew how infrequently that the Holy Spirit was handed out, so the thought of being bathed in the Holy Spirit would have been awesome to them. I am unsure as to what the reference of a fire baptism infers.