The Herald

"The Herald" concerns the ministry of John the Baptist as he prepares his followers for the coming of Jesus Christ.  It is also a commentary on the insufficiency of mere ritual to satisfy the spiritual needs of the human heart, and that real satisfaction can only be found in a saving relationship with Jesus Christ.  

Transcript

Copy Transcript Copied

SPEAKER_00 0:13

Hello, welcome to Scripture Simplified. This is Tim Wolfe. We're going to continue our study in the book of John, and I'm reading today from John's Gospel, chapter 1, beginning with verse 19, and reading through verse 34. My subject today is the herald. And this is the record of John when the Jews sent priest and Levites from Jerusalem to ask him, Who art thou? And he confessed and denied not, but confessed, I am not the Christ. And they asked him what then? Art thou Elias? And he saith, I am not. Art thou that prophet? And he answered, No. Then said they unto him, Who art thou, that we may give an answer to them that sent us, what sayest thou of thyself? He said, I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness, make straight the way of the Lord, as said the prophet Isaiah. And they which were sent were of the Pharisees, and they asked him, and said unto him, Why baptizest thou then, if thou be not that Christ, nor Elias, neither that prophet? John answered them, saying, I baptize with water, but there standeth one among you whom ye know not. He it is who coming after me is preferred before me, whose shoes latchet I am not worthy to unloose. These things were done in Batharbora beyond Jordan, where John was baptizing. The next day John seeth Jesus coming unto him and saith, Behold the Lamb of God which taketh away the sin of the world. This is he of whom I said, After me cometh a man which is preferred before me, for he was before me. And I knew him not, but that he should be made manifest to Israel. Therefore am I come baptizing with water. And John bare record, saying, I saw the spirit descending from him like a dove, and it abode upon him, and I knew him not, but he that sent me to baptize with water, the same said unto me, upon whom thou shalt see the spirit descending, and remaining on him, the same as he which baptizeth with the Holy Ghost. And I saw and bear record that this is the Son of God. Dictionary.com defines Herald in two ways. First, a person or thing that precedes or comes before. Other words, a forerunner or harbinger. And the second definition is a person or thing that proclaims or announces. John the Baptist fits both definitions of herald. First, he came before Christ in ministry, and secondly, he proclaimed his soon coming and announced Jesus as the Christ at his baptism. In this episode of Scripture Simplified, I want to look at the special ministry of John the Baptist. All four Gospels speak of John's ministry and its significance. There are several things that I see in this passage. The first thing I see is the insufficiency of ritualistic religion. Temple life in the time of John and Jesus was in full bloom. When the Jews returned from Babylonian captivity, they rebuilt the temple. It was rebuilt around 516 BC. In the first century, Herod the Great began a massive renovation of the temple, doubling the size of the Temple Mount and increasing the scope and splendor of the structures. Powerful religious parties were involved in maintaining the religious life of the populace of Israel. We have some mentioned in our text, for example, priests, Levites, and Pharisees. All the prescribed Jewish feasts were being observed. But despite all of this, all of this activity, there's a restlessness among many. Maybe it would be better to refer to it as a heart hunger. So we see John emerge as a powerful influence. Now I will speak more about John's message later, but Matthew puts it this way. Then Matthew goes on to speak about his impact. He said, They went out to him, then went out to him Jerusalem and all Judea and all the region about Jordan. Now, the question is, why are so many making this journey in this theocratic culture? Their religion had devolved, and I guess the answer would be their religion had devolved into external repetitive practices that had little to no effect on their internal guilt. It is not that ritual is necessarily bad. For example, in many churches, the Lord's prayer is prayed each week as part of a planned service, and yet even the Lord's prayer can become a mere recitation with no connection to life and action. It doesn't matter the denomination, anything that is done repetitively can lose its effect upon the mind and heart, even singing amazing grace. God, who knows the heart, condemned heartless ritual. The multi he said, the multitude of your sacrifices, what are they to me, says the Lord? I have more than enough of burnt offerings, of rams and the fat of fattened animals. I have no pleasure in the blood of bulls and lambs and goats. When you come to appear before me, who has asked this of you, this trampling of my courts? Stop bringing meaningless offerings. Your incense is detestable to me. New moon, Sabbaths, and convocations, I cannot bear your worthless assemblies, your new moon feast and your appointed festivals. I hate with all my being. They have become a burden to me. I am weary of bearing them. When you spread out your hands in prayer, I hide my eyes from you. Even when you offer many prayers, I am not listening. Your hands are full of blood. Wash and make yourselves clean. Take your evil deeds out of my sight. Stop doing wrong. Learn to do right, seek justice, defend the oppressed, take up the cause of the fatherless, plead the case of the widow. Come now, let us settle the matter, says the Lord. Though your sins be like scarlet, they shall be white as snow, though they be red like crimson, they shall be like wool. And so you can see what takes place when people take this, these rituals that God is condemning here are things he instituted, but the way they're doing it is without heart. There's no meaning to what they're doing. They're doing it simply as a matter of doing something, some external practice that may give them some sense of fulfilling a religious duty. Kind of reminds me of the Jewish people of Jesus' time. They took the pride that they were of Abraham's children as though somehow just being Abraham's child could absolve them of all guilt. They were God's chosen people. Well, there's people like that today who simply go through the motions of, let's say, saying the Lord's Prayer. And they pray every week and say, Forgive us our trespasses, our sins, as we forgive those who sin against us or trespass against us. And they go through that, and they think because they've said that, but that absolves them of everything. They go out and they change nothing. They live the life they want to live, they sin all they want to sin, and they think by coming back to church and going through the ritual and saying, Forgive me of my trespasses, that somehow that absolves them. And God is saying that He condemns that because it's not from their heart. And so there's a hunger in these people. They know that ritual will not satisfy, and it satisfies no one. Mere ritual doesn't. It does not deal with the real struggles and problems of the human heart. The second thing we see here is the interrogation. There's a delegation from Jerusalem. They've come to check John out. Messianic expectation was somewhat high among the Jewish population at that time, so they wonder if they if he might be representing some kind of an end-time figure, either the Christ or some prophet. And so they ask him, Who are you? John first confessed emphatically that he was not the Christ. He was not the promised Messiah. And then they say, Well, are you Elijah? And why would they ask that? Because Malachi had prophesied, uh, it's in the last book of the Old Testament, and he had prophesied, saying, Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord. Malachi chapter 4, verse 5. And John, this is talking about John the Baptist here, he answered plainly, I am not. And then they asked one other question, Art thou that prophet? Now what does that mean? Moses had Moses had given a prophecy in Deuteronomy chapter 18, verse 15. It says, The Lord thy God will raise up unto thee a prophet from the midst of thee, of thy brethren like unto me, unto him you shall hearken. And so it basically he's saying, I'm not that prophet either. Now we have to ask the question, why are they putting John through this? Why are they drilling him like this? A.W. Pink writes this. He says, To them the Baptist was an interloper. He was outside the religious systems of that day. He had not been trained in the schools of the rabbins, he hadn't held no position of honor in the temple ministrations, and he was not identified with either the Pharisees, the Sadducees, or the Herodians. From whence then had he received his authority, who had commissioned him to go forth bidding men to repent? By what right did he baptize people? I think about the great Methodist movement. It was started by a man who was officially sanctioned and shunned by many Anglican ministers. Wesley preached outdoors, which the Episcopal Church frowned upon. On one occasion, he stood on his father's flat tombstone after having been denied the opportunity to preach at his father's former church at Epworth and declared, I look upon the whole world as my parish. John had a calling from God and would not be intimidated by official censure. And they finally asked, Who art thou? That we may give an answer to them that sent us. What sayest of thyself? John replies, I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness. Make straight the way of the Lord as the prophet Isaiah, as said the prophet Isaiah. The metaphor is that of a road crew going out before a king to make the road smooth for travel. The metaphor means exactly what we've been talking about up to this point. The work that is needed is not ritual adherence, but heart preparation and cleansing. People needed to get their hearts ready for the coming of Christ. So into the baptism waters they went, confessing their sins and receiving anticipatory cleansing. In the Old Testament, there were many things that foreshadowed Christ. The most famous foreshadowing, I suppose, would be the Passover lamb. And that Passover lamb had to be without blemish, and its application to the door of a house protected those in the home from the death of the firstborn. So what about here with John? He's baptizing in a flowing river, immersing people. They're going under the waters, they're confessing their sins, they go under the flowing waters of the river Jordan. Isn't that a beautiful picture of confessed sin being washed away, going downstream and fading around to bend, never to be seen again? What a beautiful sight it is. They finally asked John, why are you baptized if you're not one of the prophetic personages, such as Christ or Elijah the promised prophet? And then John in great humility told them, He said, There's someone in the crowd that you do not know. He is preferred before me. I'm not worthy of unlatching his sandals. And later we see that humility demonstrated again in John's ministry. John said, I baptize with water, but he will baptize with the Holy Spirit, anticipating the new birth and the work of the Holy Spirit in the life of the believer. The third thing we see is the identification. We see that in verses 29 through 34. How Jesus had been identified was by revelation and sign. God had told him, Upon whom thou shalt see the Spirit descending and remaining on him, the same as he which baptizeth with the Holy Ghost. John said, I saw the Spirit descending from heaven like a dove, and it abode upon him. Finally, Jesus is entering into his earthly ministry, and his great purpose was revealed in his identification. Says the next day John seeing Jesus coming unto him and saith, Behold the Lamb of God which taketh away the sin of the world. John, the writer of this gospel, writes in his first epistle, and we know that he was manifested to take away our sins, and in him is no sin. First John chapter 3, verse 5. The metaphor, well the metaphors, Passover, and even this baptism of John's, the baptism in water, repentance and remission of sin. These metaphors will become a reality in Christ. Jesus said, For even the Son of Man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister and to give his life a ransom for many. It is not water, no matter how pristine, that will wash away the sins of man. It is the blood of Jesus Christ. John writes, The blood of Jesus Christ cleanseth us from all sin. Folks, that's not symbolic. That's real. My sins, your sins, can be cleansed only by one agent, and that's the blood of Christ. Also, John writes in his epistle, if we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. It doesn't hurt us to look at the river again and to think about those sins, confessed sins going down, moving further and further away and disappearing into the distance. Well, that's exactly what the blood of Jesus Christ does for us when we come to Him, confessing our sins before Him. His death on the cross, his suffering, his shedding his blood has made the difference for all of us who will believe on Him. Martin Luther famously described his personal salvation as a gift of grace received through faith alone rather than by good works. He famously stated that when looking at himself he found no assurance. But when looking at Christ, he saw his salvation. Luther relied entirely on God's promises, famously calling himself a beggar in his final days, emphasizing reliance on divine mercy. And that's where we must all come with our sins, leaning upon only one person, and that is the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God. Luther had tried to find peace of heart by severe self flagellation and denial. Canadian press photo shows how one man from Havana, Cuba tried to appease God's wrath. It's a sad picture. The man is lying on his back on a dirt road. Attached to his ankle is a chain several feet long. The other end of the chain is wrapped around a rock. The caption explained explains that the bearded man is inch by inch pulling the rock on a pilgrimage to a sanctuary dedicated to Saint Lazarus. Well, folks, it's not in pilgrimage or ritual or denomination or martyrdom that brings cleansing to the human heart. It is the precious blood of the Lamb of God. John Wesley in his famous salvation experience came to his brother Charles with two triumphant words. I believe. We ask, Father, that there's one that is in the sound of my voice that does not know you as Savior, that they will sp put their simple faith and trust in you this day. And may they have the peace of knowing their sins have been washed away. We ask in Jesus' name. Amen.