October 13th, 2024
From The Series: John-
So That You May Believe
Part 05 The Lord’s
Herald
The Gospel of John 1:19-28
Mountain View
Evangelical Missionary Church
Happy Thanksgiving everyone,
living in Canada today has its challenges, no doubt, but we also have so much
to be thankful for. We should take time, perhaps more than once a year, to thank
God for all the blessings He pours out on us daily.
Due to technical difficulties,
there will not be a PowerPoint presentation today. Mainly, because the
technology is too difficult for us to figure out when Willy is not here. If you
would like to be trained on how to do the technical things, please see Willy
when he comes back and he will be happy to train you. That would be a great
help to the church.
This morning we are continuing
the series, “John-So That You May Believe” and this morning’s message is titled,
“The Lord’s Herald”. This morning we will be introduced to John The Baptist, or
more accurately, “John the Baptizer”. I have mentioned before that when we
see the name “John” in this Gospel it is either referring to John the Baptizer
or about Peter’s father whose name was also John. The Gospel writer never
refers to himself by name in his book.
Let’s jump right into today’s
text and examine this interesting character named John the Baptist. Please open
you Bibles or turn on your devices to the first chapter of the Gospel of John
and we will begin at verse 19 this morning.
If you did not bring your Bible
this morning, you should find one underneath one of the chairs in the row in
front of you. John chapter 1 will be found on page 860 of the pew bible. If you
do not have a bible at home, please take that bible with you as a gift from
Mountain View Church. We feel that it is vitally important that you have easy
access to God’s Word. And God’s Word says…
READ JOHN 1:19-28
“19 Now this was
John’s testimony when the Jewish leaders h in Jerusalem sent priests and
Levites to ask him who he was. 20 He did not fail to confess, but
confessed freely, “I am not the Messiah.”
21 They asked him, “Then who are you? Are you Elijah?”
He said, “I am not.”
“Are you the Prophet?”
He answered, “No.”
22 Finally they said, “Who are you? Give us an answer to
take back to those who sent us. What do you say about yourself?”
23 John replied in the words of Isaiah the prophet, “I am
the voice of one calling in the wilderness, ‘Make straight the way for the
Lord.’ ”
24 Now the Pharisees who had been sent 25 questioned
him, “Why then do you baptize if you are not the Messiah, nor Elijah, nor the
Prophet?”
26 “I baptize with water,” John replied, “but among you
stands one you do not know. 27 He is the one who comes after
me, the straps of whose sandals I am not worthy to untie.”
28 This all happened at Bethany on the other side of the
Jordan, where John was baptizing.“
PRAY
Here we are first introduced to John the Baptizer. John was quite the
man. He was a relative of Jesus of Nazareth. John’s mother and Jesus’ mother
were sisters. Elizabeth and Mary were sisters. Some sources say they were
cousins, but it is believed that Elizabeth was an older sister of Mary. From
Luke’s Gospel, we read when Elizabeth was six months pregnant the angel Gabriel
appeared to Mary to tell her that she would become pregnant through the Holy
Spirit and would bear a child despite being a virgin.
After the vision and after becoming pregnant, Mary travelled to Jerusalem
to see her older sister Elizabeth. When she arrived, Luke records this
interaction in the first chapter of his gospel, “41 When Elizabeth heard
Mary’s greeting, the baby leaped in her womb, and Elizabeth was filled with the
Holy Spirit. 42 In a loud voice she exclaimed: “Blessed are you
among women, and blessed is the child you will bear! 43 But why
am I so favoured, that the mother of my Lord should come to me? 44 As
soon as the sound of your greeting reached my ears, the baby in my womb leaped
for joy.”
Yesterday, the ladies were
learning about the person and work of the Holy Spirit, and we see here recorded
in the New Testament, a filling of the Spirit before the Day of Pentecost. This
filling of the Holy Spirit was prophesized to Elizabeth’s husband Zechariah
while he was tending to his priestly duties in the temple. The angel Gabriel appears
to Zechariah and tells him this, “15 for
he will be great in the sight of the Lord. He is never to take wine or other
fermented drink, and he will be filled with the Holy Spirit even before he is
born.” Gabriel then strikes Zechariah mute until after the birth of his
son.
John was quite a
character. Mark describes John as wearing the traditional garb of the prophet, “6 John wore clothing made of camel’s hair,
with a leather belt around his waist, and he ate locusts and wild honey.” Matthew
chapter 3 also describes John’s appearance as well as his message, “1 In those days John the Baptist came,
preaching in the wilderness of Judea 2 and saying, “Repent, for
the kingdom of heaven has come near.” 3 This is he who was
spoken of through the prophet Isaiah:
“A voice of
one calling in the wilderness,
‘Prepare the
way for the Lord,
make straight
paths for him.’ ”
We know John was having an
effect because Matthew records, “5 People went out to him
from Jerusalem and all Judea and the whole region of the Jordan. 6 Confessing
their sins, they were baptized by him in the Jordan River.” Now this baptizing was unusual for
the Jewish people.
According to the Lexham
Bible Dictionary, Jews held a different understanding of baptism than
Christians do today, and John was teaching something other than what the Jews
held.
-In the teachings of the
Pentateuch, The use of water as an instrument for religious and physical
cleansing is prevalent. Those who had committed certain defiling offences were
required to immerse themselves in water in order to ritually purify the body.
Later the Jews used
baptism as a ritual to initiate new believers into the Jewish religion and
continued to serve as a purifying mechanism in Jewish religious life.
-In John 1:31, John the
Baptist identifies the reason that he was baptizing, "31
I myself did not know him, but the reason I came baptizing with water was
that he might be revealed to Israel." The purpose of John’s baptism
was not to usher people into a messianic community; rather, his purpose was to
awaken the Jewish people to the reality of the coming Messiah. John’s baptism
was a “baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.”[i]
Baptism was not a part of repentance for the Jewish people. The Jewish people
just celebrated their national day of atonement, known as Yom Kippur this past
Friday and Saturday. Baptism is not part of the celebrations. So what John was
doing with his baptism was something new and novel.
For John, Jewish ethnicity
was not a prerequisite to salvation or a relationship with God, repentance was
the prerequisite. Throughout the gospels Jesus taught us to repent, to turn
from our sins, to stop wallowing in our favourite sin, and to turn to Him for
forgiveness.
I’m listening to a book
which was released last year titled, “Five Lies of Our Anti-Christian Age” by
Rosaria Butterfield. Rosaria was a well-known lesbian-feminist professor
activist who was befriended by a Presbyterian Pastor and his wife and
ultimately came to Jesus, so she writes from a very unique perspective. She is
currently married to a pastor and they have five children (some are adopted)
and even grandchildren. Rosaria warns in her book about a danger that is
creeping into churches today known as Gay Christianity. There are two types of
Gay Christians: what are known as Side A; and Side B Gay Christians. Side A Gay
Christians are those who are still practicing gays. Side B Christianity are
those who still have gay attractions but are remaining celibate in their lives.
Here is the danger:
neither Side A nor Side B teach repentance for their sins. Rather, both sides
attempt to teach gay attraction as normative and the church should accept these
individuals just as they are. This approach runs counter to the teachings of
Jesus Christ, who called for the repentance of our sins. For Christians, when
we refuse to repent of our favourite sin, we are demonstrating that we love
that sin more than we love Jesus. Whether that sin is a sexual sin, the sin of
lying, excessive drinking, hatred in our hearts, unforgiveness of others, envy,
pride, the list goes on and on. All sins are equal in the eyes of God, all of
them are an abomination to Him. For us the danger exists when we refuse to
repent, change our behaviours and attempt to become more like Christ every day.
For the lost, the danger exists when they refuse to bend the knee to Jesus and
instead, cling to their sinful ways.
Did you know that Jesus
even called churches to repent? In the second and third chapters of the Book of
Revelation, when Jesus appeared to the Apostle John in a vision, Jesus called five
of the seven churches listed to repent. In one way or another, five of those
churches had erred in their doctrines or habits and needed repentance. They
were called to change their ways and come back to their first love: namely
Jesus Christ and His teachings. Think about that for a minute. Christian
churches, full of Christian believers, required repentance. One of the churches
was the church at Ephesus. This church had some of the best preachers and
pastors in its history. Planted by Paul in 52 AD who then returned a few years
later and spent three years in Ephesus teaching and pastoring the church.
Later, Paul’s trusted protégé Timothy was sent there to try and correct some
errors that were beginning to enter the church. Tradition has it that even the
Apostle John was a leader and teacher in this church, yet at the time that John
received the revelation from Jesus, the church required correction and repentance.
The words in these two chapters of Revelation should serve as a warning to all
churches.
But, this morning, we are
dealing with the very beginning of the earthly ministry of Jesus Christ. So,
John the Baptist was talking about repenting and being baptized. John was using
baptism as a means of cleansing after the people confessed and repented of
their sins. John was a model witness, going first to the Jews, but not limiting
the message to the Jewish people. John’s actions were getting the attention of
the religious leaders and we see here in this morning’s passage that there were
men sent from Jerusalem to investigate what was happening. Priests, Levites,
and even Pharisees came to question John as to the purpose of his work.
Their exact question is
not recorded in John, but from his answer, we can see that they were enquiring
if John the Baptist was the Messiah. Notice how John is taking a positive
approach to the questioning by the religious leaders. John "confessed
freely" that he was not the Messiah. This shows you can be positive while
still presenting a negative. John was not pretending to be something other than
what he was. John was the herald proclaiming the message of a coming king.
However, the Jewish
leaders had a preconceived notion of who the Messiah was going to be and what
his mission was. They thought that the Messiah would be a military leader who
would free the Jewish people from foreign occupation and give them their lands
and their freedom back. This was man’s plans and desires, not God’s plans or
desires. The religious leaders had an eschatological view in mind, an end-times
view but, it was not time for that yet. The leaders were looking for
signs so they asked John if he was Elijah who had returned, or if he was the
Prophet as foretold in the Old Testament.
They were looking for the fulfillment
of Malachi’s prophecy as told in his book in chapter 4 verse 5, “5 “See, I will send the prophet Elijah to you before that great and
dreadful day of the Lord comes.” This was clearly an end-times prophecy, and the religious leaders were
looking to see if the time was near.
It is clear from John’s
response that he did not think of himself in these terms even though the angel
Gabriel and Jesus both referred to John as fulfilling Elijah’s role. The angel
told Zechariah in Luke 1:17, “17 And he will go on before
the Lord, in the spirit and power of Elijah, to turn the hearts of the parents
to their children and the disobedient to the wisdom of the righteous—to make
ready a people prepared for the Lord.”
In Matthew 11:12-14, Jesus describes John’s
work this way, “12 From the days of
John the Baptist until now, the kingdom of heaven has been subjected to
violence, and violent people have been raiding it. 13 For all
the Prophets and the Law prophesied until John. 14 And if you
are willing to accept it, he is the Elijah who was to come.”
There were Old Testament prophecies of this
herald that was to come. Matthew records John as the fulfillment of the prophecy
in Isaiah 40:3 of one “calling in the wilderness” ahead of the arrival of the
Lord. But Jesus was not coming to fulfill the end-times, not yet.
Amazingly, John quotes a recognized prophet to
describe his role quoting Is 40:3. A prophecy made some 700 years earlier. John
may not see himself as a prophet, but he was a herald. A herald is a person or
thing that precedes or comes before; forerunner; or harbinger. John was a
harbinger of the Messiah, he just wasn't sure who that was at this exact time.
Jump down to verses 26 & 27 of chapter 1, “26 “I baptize with water,” John replied,
“but among you stands one you do not know. 27 He is the one who
comes after me, the straps of whose sandals I am not worthy to untie.” Here
is John fulfilling his role as herald. John is telling the religious leaders
standing before him, questioning John if he was the Messiah, and John
tells them “no” but, He is here presently among you and you do not recognize
Him.
What is the practical application of this
passage for us today? Preachers are the harbingers for the return of Jesus. The
preacher, the pastor, is the modern-day equivalent of John the Baptizer. We are
the heralds in today's world proclaiming the imminent return of the King. Just as
with John’s original audience, many today still do not recognize Jesus for who
He truly is.
In writing to his young protégé in the second
letter that bears his name, Paul writes to Timothy, “But
you, keep your head in all situations, endure hardship, do the work of an
evangelist, discharge all the duties of your ministry..” The term
“evangelist” comes from the Greek and means “one who announces good news.” That
is the job of the pastor, to announce the “Good News” of Jesus Christ.
My goal should be to be completely transparent
so that you see through me to focus on Jesus Christ alone. I am a
trumpet, a voice in the wilderness of today's culture proclaiming, "Look,
look" but not at me, but rather "Look at my Lord, Jesus Christ. Look
what He has done."
What is it that Jesus has done? Only the single
biggest act of self-sacrifice that could ever have happened for the most
ungrateful and undeserving people. A people so full of pride that they
defiantly reject God’s good teaching and instead follow the promptings of their
wicked hearts and the promptings of a fallen angel.
According to one Jewish website, there is a
fundamental difference between Judaism and Christianity when it comes to sin. “Jewish
tradition does not understand human imperfections as being the result of an
“original sin” by Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. Sin is the result of our
negative human tendencies or inclinations, known in Hebrew as the yetzer hara
(the inclination toward evil), which must be channelled in ways that affirm
life by the influence of the yetzer hatov (the inclination to goodness).” [1]
Christians understand we are tainted by
original sin. Paul presents this concept clearly in 1 Corinthians and again in
the Book of Romans. 1 Corinthians 5:21-22 teaches, “21 For
since death came through a man, the resurrection of the dead comes also through
a man. 22 For as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made
alive.” The lesson is repeated in Romans 5:17-18.
Turn with me in your Bibles to Romans chapter
5, verses 17 and 18. That’s going to be page 914 of the Pew Bible. “17 For if, by the trespass of the one man,
death reigned through that one man, how much more will those who receive God’s
abundant provision of grace and of the gift of righteousness reign in life
through the one man, Jesus Christ!
18 Consequently, just as one
trespass resulted in condemnation for all people, so also one righteous act
resulted in justification and life for all people.” We need to take a minute here and define the
word all in verse 18. Verse 17 limits the atoning work to those who receive
God’s grace, therefore the “all” in verse 18 cannot refer to everyone
everywhere.
C.H. Spurgeon puts it this way in a sermon on
Particular Redemption, … “the whole world has gone after him” Did all the
world go after Christ? “then went all Judea, and were baptized of him in
Jordan.” Was all Judea, or all Jerusalem, baptized in Jordan? “Ye are of God,
little children”, and the whole world lieth in the wicked one”. Does the whole
world there mean everybody? The words “world” and “all” are used in some seven
or eight senses in Scripture, and it is very rarely the “all” means all
persons, taken individually. The words are generally used to signify that
Christ has redeemed some of all sorts—some Jews, some Gentiles,
some rich, some poor, and has not restricted His redemption to either Jew or
Gentile …[2]
Spurgeon is clarifying
that “all” does not always mean “all, everywhere”. If “all” here, meant “all,
everywhere” then we would have the doctrine of Universalism which teaches that
everyone is saved by the redeeming work of Jesus Christ and this is simply not
taught in Scripture. Some people teach Universalism as a way of being able to
justify their rejection of Jesus as Saviour, yet still attempt to claim the
security offered by Jesus. Universalism may also serve as a comfort to those
who neglect the roles they are to play in the Great Commission. Universalism absolves
believers from having to tell others of the gospel, the “Good News” of Jesus
because they are already rescued from the flames of hell. This is not biblical
thinking.
If universalism were true,
Jesus would have no need for giving these instructions from Matthew 28:18-20, “18 Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth
has been given to me. 19 Therefore go and make disciples of all
nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the
Holy Spirit, 20 and teaching them to obey everything I have
commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.” This is known as the Great Commission.
A commission is defined as, “an authoritative order, charge, or
direction.” Often given by a King or a person representing royalty or
government. We were given the Great Commission by the King of
Kings and Lord of Lords.
What was that commission?
To spread the Good News of Jesus Christ and what He has accomplished. We heard
about the original sin a few minutes ago. The sin of Adam and Eve disobeying
the instructions given by God the Father not to eat the fruit of the two trees
in the center of the Garden of Eden. Picture this: man is formed from the dust
of the earth, and in an incredibly intimate and personal act, the Creator God
stops low and personally blows the breath of life into this pile of dust. The
Creator “spoke” all other forms of life into existence, but for man, he breathes
life into him. The woman is then formed from the rib of the man so that he
could have a “help-mate”, for it was not good that man should be alone.
Genesis tells us that God
walked with his people in the cool of the day and taught them all they needed
to know. But, the devil entered into a serpent and the serpent spoke to Eve and
deceived the woman. The serpent caused the woman to doubt the instructions they
had received from God, when the serpent asked, “Did God really say, ‘You must not
eat from any tree in the garden’?” Which was a twisting of what God had said. For God’s exact instructions
were, “17 but you must not eat from the
tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat from it you will
certainly die.” Notice the subtly in the lie, “Did God really
say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the Garden’?” Adam and Eve had
the entire Garden as a gift from God and could eat from any tree except
for the two set aside by God.
They disobeyed, they listened to a creature
rather than the Creator. At this disobedience to God, death entered into the
world. The man and woman attempted to cover their sins with clothes made of
leaves, but God killed two innocent animals and clothed the man and woman in
the skins of those animals. This killing of the animals set the standard of
blood needing to be shed for the payment of sin against God.
A lesson we see repeated at the killing of the
Passover lamb before the exodus out of Egypt by the Jewish people. Lessons
cemented home to Moses with the instructions given by God for the sacrifices to
be held at the Tabernacle, both in the wilderness and in the promised land
until Solomon built the first Temple. The continuation of the sacrifices, first
in Solomon’s Temple until it was destroyed by the Babylonians, then
re-established by Ezra and Nehemiah and the building of the second temple in
Jerusalem until the foreshadowing of animal sacrifices became fulfilled in the
final sacrifice of the shedding of the innocent blood of Jesus of Nazareth on a
Roman cross.
Jesus, who was in very nature God, took on
human nature and faced all the temptations that we face, yet still remained
faithful and without sin or blemish. A perfect sacrifice, the only
perfect sacrifice who could atone for our sins and bring us back into a right relationship
with the Father. Reconciling us back to God through the laying down of His own
life on our behalf. A sacrifice that was so complete that Jesus declared that
“it was finished” from the cross. Three days later, Jesus picked His life back
up again proving that His work was enough to satisfy the Father.
Let me ask you, if this work cost Jesus everything,
and it cost the Father His Son, why do you think that you get to accept this
gift at no cost to you? It is true, you cannot buy it and you cannot earn it,
but you can certainly show your appreciation for the value of the gift and the
cost that was paid. This is another work of the pastor and preacher: calling
God's people to a life of holiness and preparation for the King. A call to
live lives worthy of their inheritance. Reminding them of their obligations to
the King, the carrying out of the Great Commission and a life of purity to the
best of their abilities. Not a life of perfection, for there was only one
perfect, but a life of working and striving for that goal of being more like
Jesus each day we have been given.
CONCLUSION
We have seen that pastors and
preachers today are the modern heralds for Jesus and His imminent arrival. We
also are to herald other things. We are to warn our people against false
teachers and false teaching. These were things that 5 out of 7 churches failed
to do in the Book of Revelation. Here is an example of things to be warned
about:
“There’s a movement of new
churches rising across the country, and guess what they all have in common?
They all don’t believe in God! Yes, atheist churches and even atheist
megachurches are becoming more and more popular as people want the warm
feelings of a church experience they grew up with, just without God. Sanderson
Jones, one of the leaders of Sunday Assembly in Los Angeles, said, “There was
so much about it [referencing a Christian church’s Christmas carolling event]
that I loved, but it’s a shame because, at the heart of it, it’s something I
don’t believe in,” Jones said. “If you think about church, there’s very little
that’s bad. It’s singing awesome songs, hearing interesting talks, thinking
about improving yourself and helping other people—and doing that in a community
with wonderful relationships. What part of that is not to like?” Atheist
churches, like Jones’ Sunday Assembly, continue to grow in America.
Even those who don’t believe in
God understand the power and draw of things he ordains. Singing songs, talking
meaningfully to one another, caring for one another, being in a committed
community, and doing works of charity to our neighbours—these activities are
attractive to everyone. The reason why is that these activities represent who
God is and the expression of himself through his human creation. The only
problem is that these atheistic churches leave the original source out of it.[3]”
I have been emphasizing the
importance of community and the feeling of family to be found in a local body
such as ours. Those are admirable traits to be sure, but they should never take
the place of our first love Jesus Christ. For without Jesus, a church is simply
a community organization, no different than a community hall or a Lion’s Club.
Both are admirable things, but they will never be able to save the lost sinner,
because they both lack the Gospel message of the saving grace of Jesus Christ.
Let me dismiss you with this
doxology:
24 “The Lord
bless you and keep you;
25 may the Lord
make his face shine on you and be gracious to you;
26 may the
Lord turn his face toward you and give you peace."
Go in peace, you are dismissed.
Pastor Paul’s Points:
1) John was a herald for Jesus Christ.
2) The religious leaders failed to hear him.
3) Are we guilty of the charge: "He stands among you, yet you do not know Him?"
Question to meditate on this week:
Do you recognize that today’s pastors are the equivalent of John the Baptist?
[1]
https://www.reconstructingjudaism.org/article/sin-and-forgiveness/
[2]
James Strong, Enhanced Strong’s
Lexicon (Woodside Bible Fellowship, 1995).
[3]
Jim L. Wilson and Lee Peter, “The Growth of Atheist Churches,” in 300
Illustrations for Preachers, ed. Elliot Ritzema (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press,
2015).
[i]
Benjamin Espinoza, “Baptism,” ed. John D. Barry et al., The Lexham Bible
Dictionary (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2016).
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