The Preacher: John the Baptist (Part 1 of 2)

What you know about John the Baptist. By all accounts he was a peculiar man.

He lived and preached in the wilderness. He dressed strangely, he ate locust. He wasn't exactly known for having a winning personality and yet he was extremely popular today on Truth for Life will find out why Alistair Begg is beginning a series titled the pastor's study. Our gracious God, and follow this to you. We look now for strength and for wisdom and grace and for insight to recognize that it is an awesome thing to take your word in our hands and upon our lips and we pray that you will introduces a fresh to your son and to the wonder of your word, not only in this time, but throughout our conversations together and in the hours that you will bless to us as a result of having convened in this way we give into your care. The burdens of our life's the things that press for our attention necessary things, understandable things and we take you at your word believing that you will sustain us for Jesus sake, we ask amen man, I invite you to turn with me to the third chapter of the Gospel of Luke.

Since much of what will do through these days has to do with that discussion, I'm talking not quite giving lectures, but certainly not preaching on each occasion, I certainly wouldn't want the standards of expository preaching that we will seek to discover and then hold up applied to the things that I'm trying to do because half the time. We won't actually be endeavoring to respond. The Scriptures together. But lest we fail to do that. I thought it would be important for us both to begin and end in that way. And so what I like to do is to read in your hearing and then trace a line through these opening verses of Luke chapter 3 in the 15th year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar. When Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea handed tetrarch of Galilee, his brother Philip tetrarch of its urea and tracking ideas, and lysine. He is tetrarch of Abilene during the high priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas, the word of God came to John son of Zechariah in the desert, he went into all the country around the Jordan, preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins as it is written in the words of Isaiah the prophet, a voice of one calling in the desert prepare the way for the Lord make straight paths for him.

Every valley shall be filled in every mountain and hill made low, the crooked Road shall become straight. The rough ways smooth and all mankind will see God's salvation. John said to the crowds coming out to be baptized by him. You brood of vipers.

Incidentally, not necessarily a pattern for the introduction of expository preaching most of the time when we feel like beginning. That way we probably shouldn't okay you brood of vipers, who warned you to flee from the coming Roth produce fruit in keeping with repentance and do not begin to say to yourselves, we have Abraham as our father for I tell you that out of the stones guard can raise up children for Abraham the acts is already at the root of the trees, and every tree that does not produce good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire or leave it there. One of thing about speaking to a group such as this, is that you can assume so much knowledge that you know all of the background to everything and that gives me a great out when you say Lily didn't really do as much on the background at all. Is it what I was, because he assumed that you knew it all. First of all, we know that this man John the Baptist is a remarkable individual. His birth was remarkable that the whole event was marked by drama back in chapter 1, and in 57 when the time was there for Elizabeth to have her baby she gave birth to a son and her neighbors and relatives here that the Lord had shown her great mercy, and they shared her joy and then all of a sudden it hits a whole new level when in the naming of the child that we go into a quite dramatic time and the birth of John the Baptist is marked by drama the people are saying.

What then is this child going to be there was about the arrival of John the Baptist so much that made this question even more striking and by the time you get to the 66th verse of that same chapter, we read that the Lord's hand was with him. What then is this child going to be for the Lord's hand was with him. By the time we see him in his growing up years. He has developed a lifestyle which is equally remarkable. The 80th verse of chapter 1 tells us that he's chosen an interesting place to live. He's determined that he's going to live in the desert.

He had a peculiar dress sense as well certainly striking an offer look to identify it and point it out as being distinct from what others were doing.

His clothing were told was made of camel's hair and he had a leather belt around his waist and his food was locusts and wild honey, but that's not really what makes him is remarkable. What is so remarkable about in is that Jesus said of him. In Matthew 11 it is recorded for us.

Among those born of women there has not arisen anyone greater then John the Baptist apart from the Lord Jesus Christ himself. There was no one said Jesus, who is of greater significance.

Then John the Baptist the one who is my four Runner so his birth is remarkable. His lifestyle is remarkable. The commendations he receives are remarkable. But the thing that I want to note to us with you.

For the purposes of this introductory session is that he was remarkable as a preacher. The thing about John the Baptist is that he was extremely popular as a preacher when in verse seven there, you will notice were told the crowds were coming out to be baptized by John, that is not a unique emphasis in the gospel of Luke in Matthew chapter 3 we read that all the people went out to meet him. Mark says the whole Judean countryside went out to meet him and John in chapter 3 says people were constantly coming to John the Baptist you don't have this idea of an individual who is preaching and there's a sort of trickle of individuals showing up in one or two people saying you know, perhaps we should go on your John the Baptist preach no the whole countryside is going out almost en masse. People are saying to their neighbors. I want you to come with me and hear this remarkable preacher.

Why don't we make a date and go out into the Judean wilderness together.

I want you to hear John the Baptist preach what is really remarkable when we step back and think about it for a moment or two, especially in light of the kind of things that are offered to us today as the keys to developing and building a successful and effective and numerically strong preaching ministry. First of all, he was not in a prime location. Indeed, he was in the very reverse of a prime location. He did not have a city center church with terrific communities is setting was not ideal. He was not in a lovely suburban corner with plenty of parking with freeway visibility and tremendous freeway access.

No, he was ministering in the Jordan wilderness and what was the Jordan wilderness at that point it was a deep depression through which the River Jordan flows to the Dead Sea.

Some of you will of been there, you will know that it starts at 600 feet below sea level and it ends up at 1300 feet below sea level. Lenski in his commentary describes the location as this hot uninhabited depression, which is why old in every way and removed from all civilization. Here we have the most remarkable preacher in a hot uninhabited depression while in every way and removed from all civilization… Pause and confess to God that it was wrong for us to think badly. As we drove away from our context about what a dreadful place.

It was we were ministering in. We haven't even come close to this. Some of you may think your circumstances are pretty poor but I'm sure you're not in a hot uninhabited depression and I know that none of your 1300 feet below sea level, at least geographically. As a reminder to us of an essential principle that we often stated before, is that there is no ideal place to serve God except the place in which he set you down/be done with all that foolishness and all of the silly stuff about finding the Ideal Pl. in America so that the ideal person in the ideal place can do the ideal job.

There's no such place.

There is no such person. There is no such jewel.

Indeed, the message here is what a strange man and what a strange place and what a strange ministry and when you put that in. You have than to say to yourself if you're thinking at all and I presume that one or two others are.

How then do you account for the popularity of John the Baptist. If he is such a strange man in the is in such a strange place that will come to that in a moment or two, but first I want you to notice the detail that Lucas provided for us in establishing a historical context and that is essentially what he's doing here. I don't think it's so much that he's telling us exactly when John the Baptist was ministering as it is that he's framing the emerging ministry of the Lord Jesus and he is making it clear with an eye for detail that his readers will understand that this Jesus lived in a geographical place and ministered at a chronological point in time and that he has sifted carefully, all these things as he says in his introduction and so he wants these people to understand he establishes far as the Preparatory role of John the Baptist and gives as a timeline or the commencement of the public ministry of Jesus. I don't want to delve deeply into this. I think it's efficient for our purposes to recognize that what Luke does for us here is he sets the context by referencing it in terms of both the secular rulers and the high priests so he gives to his if you're like a point on the compass that is both secular and religious.

These are the men who if you want to read history were there at the time and these are the men who if you want to go through the lineage of Levi were ministering at that time, and by depicting both the political and religious circumstances. He is informing his readers of the kind of claimant social climate. If you like, in which the ministry of John the Baptist to place. How then could we summarize this, I think, by means of simply two words and you may choose to agree or disagree, but let me suggest this.

At least that there context is marked by silence and by darkness, by silence and by darkness in the first case is silence that was still apparent, and then lingered through the inter-testament will. We need to realize that generations have come and go since the end of Malachi's prophecy, and they were saying to one another. Where is and when will he come and do you think this might be hit and children would grow up and they would ask their parents and their parents would send them as we do to the grandparents and say why don't you ask your grandma about that she knows a lot about those things and the child was a grandma. When is the one going to come that we read about in the prophets the other day when you and I were doing our Bible reading before I went to bed and actually in a far more immediate sentence, there would have been those who remembered the arrival of John the Baptist and would have been able to say you know a few years ago there was a whole dramatic series of events when Zechariah's son was born I would happen to Zachariah's son. I haven't heard much about them recently and somebody said will you know. Strangely enough, someone said to me just the other day that they think it Zachariah's son, who is out there is wearing a camo clothes and a big belt he's eating locusts and honey any shouting for always worth down and that heart depression there in the Jordan Valley with its strange place for them to go. Is it not if he wanted to shout at once he shouting out well shouting, prepare the way of the Lord's. Why would he go down there and do so out of the silence, the word of God. Notice in verse two came to John during the high priest of Venice and Caiaphas, the word of God came to John in the desert here who described himself as the voice crying in the wilderness becomes the recipient of the word, which in turn gave meaning and purpose to the voice and one since we have all been given a voice, and we use our voice and people expect to hear from our tongues and out of our months. What is it that gives our voice significance. It is that the word of God has come to us is that we are the mouthpieces of the very word of God. John the Baptist would have been on head of in the scheme of biblical history when it not for the fact that the word of God came to John and that the word of God having coming come to John. John then went with the war. One of the reasons for the ineffectiveness of much preaching is because individuals are growing is aware without ever having received the word without ever having had a sense of call and an accompanying sense of the provision of God's word applied to their hearts and minds through them to others. As a result, having received God's truth. There's all the difference in the world is there not, I'm sure we'll recognize this between saying something and having something to say we go away and we have the responsibility to speak in different places and we know after a relatively short period of time that there is difficulty in saying something we can all say something question is do we have something to say. I think it's Philip Brooks and preaching when he says the time to become alarmed is when you find that you can speak quite easily without having anything to say. Then we dried up and couldn't speak up tall right then or that our tongues stuck to the roof of our mouths then that we became adept with the use of language and we could impress people, and we could win them and woo them and move them in sterling but when you squeeze it all down to its essence, there was nothing being said et al. you can explain John the Baptist's impact as a preacher simply because of his clothes are because of his place was because of his messy so into the silence God brings his voice and into the darkness. He brings his light.

The context was a dark context, the reign of Tiberius was marred by treachery and by cruelty what we have here is a period of moral degeneration and political chaos. Those who were looking for the coming of the Messiah were living under the domination of a pagan power the holy land was divided up under the administration of a bunch of moral degenerates and now administrators and in the midst of it all. The religious life of the people of God was marked by confusion. Let me just rehearse that and see if you find any immediate point of application he was going to bring the word of God to bear in a time of moral degeneration and political care. Those who love the word were living under the domination of a pagan power and under the rule of administrators who were moral degenerates and hopeless of their job and to add to the board in the religious life of the people of God was marked by confusion and we don't want to be the wailing profiteer. We don't want to be Jeremiah. We wanted to take that role to ourselves immediately, but if we are going to try and read our Bibles and read the New York Times or whatever paper it is you read every day.

It's not too difficult to see that there is an immediate point of application at least in terms of the state of the people's hearts and minds and the context in which we been called today, so out of the darkness, or calls one as a witness to the light and out of the silence God raises up as a voice, and to that voice. He gives his word out. It's very important, is it not, and I want to make much of this and so I rehearse it again that when John steps out on the stage of human history to prepare the way of the Lord. It was not at his own discretion. It was as a result of divine initiative in the same way that the word of God to come to the Old Testament prophets. Now his word it come to this one student is the last of the Old Testament prophets is the bridge into this new era in God commissions him in a clear and personal manner. He provides them with the necessary equipment for the task and it was on the basis of the strength that God provides that then were told in verse three he then went into all the country around the Jordan, preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. Okay, well then that helps us to understand how we might begin to answer the question that we left hanging, namely, how was it that John attracted the attention of the whole Jewish nation.

Why was John such a remarkable preacher. Let me give you for answers to that and then that's going to be our time over for this first session. I figure I can encourage in the opening session by brevity. Why was it that he was such a remarkable preacher number one on account of divine authority on account of divine authority as a something to rehearse what we've said there was a man sent from God. When Jesus is asked about John the Baptist and this is recorded in Matthew chapter 11 Jesus says this is the one about whom it is written in other words, if you're wondering who this is just go back and read your Old Testament Scriptures and you will discover there that there was one to step on the stage of human history, and he was to prepare the way of the Lord. If you're wondering who he is, read your Bible and you will discover that he possesses divine authority.

And so when the crowds began to gather and when people took their friends out into the wilderness, and you can imagine Levi when his friend is closing down his shot for the evening saying to them, you know we were going to get a few sandwiches together and go out into the they the hot depression of the Jordan wilderness and his friends are what you want to go there for a picnic was is not so much the picnic, but we want to go your preacher and I was wondering if you would like to come in here into and he prevails upon his friend and this friend brings another friend and so they go out a group of them to a little men's conference out in this deep depression in the desert. What's it going to be like oh just wait and see. I'm sure your Leviton salty eventually get out and get seated in the grass begin to read some of their sandwiches in the ready to go and eventually John stands up and says you brood of vipers, who warned you to flee from the coming raw and Levi says to his friend. What in the world is this about how you bring me out here to listen to this. Who does this fellow think he is. Several people say when they encounter boldness in the proclamation were who's this arrogant rascal who does this person think he is now frankly, he had no basis upon which to say these things apart from divine authority. He was God's man in God's place with God's word and that is the only basis for our authority and any attempt to create authority by means of our personality or the context out of which we minister is destined to crumble to dust clearly wasn't John the Baptist's personality routes was God's calling in God's message.

Your listing to Alastair Bragg on Truth for Life. The world doesn't need to hear someone's clever opinions. The world needs to hear God's word toward our mission of Truth for Life is to teach the Bible with clarity and relevance interpreted, God will work through Alistair's teaching, just as he did through John the Baptist teaching so that unbelievers are converted believers are established local churches are strengthened. Is that something that resonates with you.

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