God sent John the Baptist to prepare the way for Jesus. What was John’s message?
John’s preaching can be summed up with: “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand!” (Matthew 3:2). And people responded: “Jerusalem, all Judea, and all the region around the Jordan went out to [John] and were baptized by him in the Jordan, confessing their sins” (Matthew 3:5–6). John spoke of repentance as a radical turning from sin that inevitably became manifest in the fruit of righteousness.