John the Baptist's Revolutionary message.

You know it never occurred to me before just how revolutionary John the Baptist's message was. I always thought of him as a bit of a minor player, a side note.  He seemed to be there merely to usher in Jesus.  But today I realized how revolutionary his own message was that got things started. 

Luke 3:1-3(NKJV)

Now in the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar, Pontius Pilate being governor of Judea, Herod being tetrarch of Galilee, his brother Philip tetrarch of Iturea and the region of Trachonitis, and Lysanias tetrarch of Abilene, 

while Annas and Caiaphas were high priests, the word of God came to John the son of Zacharias in the wilderness. 

And he went into all the region around the Jordan, preaching a baptism of repentance for the remission of sins, 

In the old days under the Old Testament the people sacrificed animals for the forgiveness of sins.  What made John's message so revolutionary in my opinion was that forgiveness was not based on an animal sacrifice.  It was based on repentance and baptism with water which Jesus later replaced with baptism of the Holy Spirit.
 

Interesting.