Matthew 21 - John the Baptist, showing the way to pity
 28“What do you think? There was a man who had two sons. He went to the first and said, ‘Son, go and work today in the vineyard.’
 29” ‘I will not,’ he answered, but later he changed his mind and went.
 30“Then the father went to the other son and said the same thing. He answered, ‘I will, sir,’ but he did not go.
 31“Which of the two did what his father wanted?”
      ”The first,” they answered.   Jesus said to them, “I tell you the truth, the tax collectors and the prostitutes are entering the kingdom of God ahead of you. 32For John came to you to show you the way of righteousness, and you did not believe him, but the tax collectors and the prostitutes did. And even after you saw this, you did not repent and believe him.
How did John show the way of righteousness?
BELIEF: He believed God’s prophecies of a Messiah.
OBEDIENCE: He announced the Messiah’s coming, and baptized Jesus.
REVERENCE FOR GOD’s NAME: John called the Pharisees and Sadducees a brood of vipers, because of their lack of reverence for God. When he finally described himself, he said he was not even fit to carry the sandals of He who God was sending. John probably didn’t yet know that the Messiah would be God incarnate, but He did know that God would have a man so holy and worthy as His representative, that even John, trying to walk in righteousness, was unworthy to serve him, let alone serve God.
THE JUSTICE of GOD: God is just. And as we’ve seen elsewhere on this blog, God’s justice is composed of several ingredients: rewarding the faithful, punishing the wicked, turning away from those faithful who turn to wickedness, and showing pity when the wicked turn to faithfulness. Pity is such an odd thing from a person’s perspective, but God said He shows pity because He is just… well substituting His Son for those who turn from wickedness is the final fulfillment of that justice. It turns out that He never stopped requiring a life for ones wickedness; His act of pity was to substitute His Son’s life for theirs.
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One of the mistakes we make as followers of Jesus is to put outselves in a position over other people who do not follow Him, when in fact following Him does not change our nature per se. On the other hand, following Him does result in God crediting us with righteousness. Being credited with righteousness is a whole other thing than being righteousness in and of ourselves… something only God can do.
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The measure of a nation, in my opinion, is who they show pity to. God shows pity to those turn from wickedness. In modern times, mankind shows pity to the mistreated and weak who later turned to wickedness. God shows pity based on who we are; mankind does it based on who we were and how we got to here from there.