After over 400 years of silence, and with this new and glorious covenant and age in the form of Jesus Christ dawning upon His church, our King could have chosen so much to say about where He’d been and where we were going. Just think of the pages it could have filled! Yet, when the greatest “new thing” God ever did—when Jesus at long last came to shatter the silence, redeem what was lost and bring the ultimate hope of the future to His people, His entire speech consisted of nine simple words. Just nine: “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand” (Matt 4:17)!

Jesus chose these words because they were the simple, yet profound, words sufficient to reveal the smashing point of His appearing. How important was heralding the kingdom of heaven come to earth? Evidently more important to God than the longest, most eloquent speech He could possibly have put in the mouth of John the Baptist. I think we might want to understand them.