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John the Baptist: A God's general
I recently read
the book: “God’s generals”. For those that have
not read it, it is a book that speaks about famous ministers that acted
in the 19th and 20th centuries. For each of the figured ministers there
is a biographical account of their high and low times, together with
comments by the author. Affected by this, I was thinking today to have a
look at the account the Bible gives for a God’s general well known
among Bible students, namely for John the Baptist.
1.
Not superhuman
I
believe God has put the stories of such men as John, Paul, Elijah etc.
in the Bible to teach us and show us their lives as an example. Many
tend to think that these people were somehow superhuman and there is
little or no similarity with the rest of us. However, this is not the
case. As James characteristically says concerning Elijah:
James 5:17
“Elijah was a man subject
to like passions as we are”
(KJV)
and as Peter also said to
Cornelius when he bowed down to him:
Acts 10:26
“Stand up; I myself am
also a man”
And earlier, when the
people gazed at Peter and John, after the healing of a lame, Peter
said:
Acts 3:11-13, 16
“….why you look so intently
at us, as though by our own power and godliness we had made this
man walk? The God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, the God of our
fathers, glorified His Servant Jesus……… And His name, through
faith in His name, has made this man strong whom you see and know”
The
people of God we read about in the Bible and wonder at the works God
did through them, were by no means superhuman. They were all men
“subject to the same passions as we are” As Paul says in II
Corinthians:
II Corinthians 3:4-6
“And we have such trust through
Christ toward God. Not that we are sufficient of ourselves to
think of anything as being from ourselves, but our sufficiency is
from God, who [GOD] also made us sufficient as ministers of the new
covenant, not of the letter but of the spirit”
It
is GOD that is our sufficiency. John, Paul, Peter, Elijah were no more
“sufficient” than any of us. It is not needed to be superhuman,
super sufficient, to do what God has called you. It is HE that is
super sufficient and He certainly is as sufficient for us as He was
for any of those that desired to walk with Him in the past.
2.
John the Baptist
After
this small introduction, let’s now turn to John the Baptist. The
angel that announced his birth to his father, said about him:
Luke 1:15-17
“For he will be great in
the sight of the Lord, and shall drink neither wine nor strong
drink. He will also be filled with the holy spirit even from his
mother’s womb. And he will turn many of the children of Israel to
the Lord their God. He will also go before Him in the spirit and the
power of Elijah, to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children and
the disobedient to the wisdom of the just, to make ready a people
prepared for the Lord”
and as Jesus said
later:
Matthew 11:9-11a
“But what did you go out to
see? A prophet? Yes, I say to you and more than a prophet. For this is
he of whom it is written: “Behold I send my messenger before
Your face, who will prepare Your way before You”. Assuredly I say to
you, among those born of women there has not risen one greater
than John the Baptist; but he who is least in the kingdom of
heaven is greater than he”
The
last statement is not to reduce John’s significance. He would be
“great in the sight of the Lord”. Among those born of women, none
had yet risen greater than him. John had a call for his life. He was
to be the forerunner of the Lord Jesus Christ. “To make ready a
people prepared for the Lord”. He had a mission to accomplish, and
he was ordained for it even before his birth. Yet, this is true not
for him only. As the Scripture says, we have been foreknown by God
(Romans 8:29), and each one of us has been set by Him in the body of
Christ with a certain function (I Corinthians 12:8). As John’s
function was to be the forerunner of Christ and this function was
defined by God, so also we have a function in the body, a call, that
God has defined especially for each one of us. For sure, we are not
accidentally on this earth. Instead, we are well known, may be not to
men but certainly to God our Father.
3. In
the wilderness
Not
many things are written for the time before John started preaching.
Luke 1:80 sums up this period as follows:
Luke 1:80
“So the child grew and became
strong in spirit, and was in the deserts till the day of his
manifestation to Israel”
John
was in the deserts till the day of his manifestation to Israel.
He had a call from the very beginning. Yet, there was also an
appointed time for its manifestation. ALL we have a function in the
body of Christ, yet it is GOD that defines this function as well as
how it will be manifested. As it says in I Corinthians 12:18
I Corinthians 12:18
“But now God has set the
members, each one of them, in the body JUST AS HE PLEASED”
You
do not have to seek for a place in the body of Christ. God has already
placed you there and He has done it just as He pleased. HE alone has
designed a function FOR YOU, He has ordained you for
this function and He has equipped you to do it. Moreover, He has also
defined HOW AND WHAT you will do in your function. John’s call was
to prepare the way of the Lord and he knew it from the very beginning.
One would imagine that as soon as he knew it, he should have stopped
anything else and start preaching. Yet, John did this only after
“the word of God came to him” (Luke 3:1-6). As soon as he had it,
he step ahead to do it. Really Luke 3:1-6 tells us:
Luke 3:1-6
“Now in the fifteenth year of
the reign of Tiberius Caesar, Pontius Pilate being governor of Judea,
Herod being tetrarch of Galille, 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 [after the
word of God came to him] he went into all the region around the
Jordan, PREACHING a baptism of repentance for the remission of sins,
as it is written in the book of Isaiah the prophet, saying: “The
voice of one crying in the wilderness: Prepare the way of the Lord;
Every valley shall be filled and every mountain and hill brought low;
the crooked places shall be made straight and the rough ways smooth;
and all flesh shall see the salvation of God”
John
was appointed by God with a special function. He was to be the
forerunner of the Lord Jesus Christ, to prepare the way of the Lord,
and preach the baptism of repentance. He could go ahead from the very
beginning and do what he might have thought would satisfy his mission
in the best way. He could have come up with one thousand ideas, about
how he was to fulfill his mission better. Yet he didn’t do this.
Instead he waited till he had a word from God. As soon as he had it,
and without a second thought, he started doing what he was told:
preaching a baptism of repentance for the remission of sins. God has
appointed us in the body of Christ with a certain function, defining
also how and what we will do in our function. John didn’t start
preaching but ONLY WHEN “THE WORD OF GOD CAME TO HIM”. And this
happened….. in the wilderness. This was John’s
“training center”. The times we may not appreciate at all, the
deserts, may really be the very times God use for our training. Then,
when the flesh and its actions are broken there, we will be ready to
do, not what we think we should do for Him, but what HE HAS CALLED US
TO DO from the very beginning.
4.
“To the multitudes that came out”
And
the gospel of Luke continues:
Luke 3:7-9
“Then he said to the multitudes
that came out to be baptized by him, “Brood of vipers! Who warned
you to flee from the wrath to come? Therefore bear fruits worthy of
repentance, and do not begin to say to yourselves, “We have Abraham
as our father.” For I say to you that God is able to raise up
children to Abraham from these stones. And even now the ax is laid to
the root of the trees. Therefore every tree which does not bear good
fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire””
“The multitudes
came out to be baptized by John”. It was not John that tried to
attract them though. For sure, he was not diplomatic when he called
their generation “Brood of vipers”. Obviously, he didn’t try to
please them. Instead, he spoke what God wanted him to speak in the
volume He wanted him to speak it.
John’s
ministry prospered as he followed what God had appointed him to do. He
didn’t do any miracle (John 10:4), at least there is no record of
one. He didn’t advertise himself. Yet, the people knew they had
encountered a prophet. There are people today going around and say
“I’m a teacher” or ”I’m a prophet”. John didn’t do this.
He didn’t make a campaign commending himself as a prophet. In fact,
you will nowhere find him saying he was a prophet. Yet, the people
knew it. The Lord confirmed it.
If John
lived today, millions would have come to him. However, John was not
after the multitudes. When his ministry was up to the skies, with
multitudes coming to him and when everyone was thinking that he might
be the Christ, John «confessed and did not deny»:
John 1:21-23
“I am not the Christ.” And
they asked him, “What then? Are you Elijah?” He said, “I’ m
not.” “Are you the Prophet?” And he answered, “No.” Then
they said to him, “Who are you, that we may give an answer to those
who sent us? What do you say about yourself?” He said: “I am the
voice of one crying in the wilderness: make straight the way of the
Lord,” as the prophet Isaiah said”
John
didn’t try to take for himself all those popular titles as Christ,
Elijah or the prophet - though prophet and Elijah were titles that
would fit very well to him. He was these. Yet this was not the point.
What was the point was that he was doing what he had been
appointed to do. He was to be a voice of one crying in the
wilderness and that’s exactly what he was. Our concern should not be
to get a title, a name, but to do what God has appointed us to do,
whatever this may be and regardless of the name it may have.
5.
“All are coming to Him”
John’s
popularity was very high. He was very famous …. Till Jesus’
ministry started. It seems that when the Lord’s ministry started,
John ministry reached an end. The once popular minister was now
watching the multitudes to leave him and follow the Lord. What was his
reaction? John 3 tells us:
John 3:26-30
“And they came to John and said
to him, “Rabi, he who was with you beyond the Jordan, to whom you
have testified - behold, He is baptizing, and all are coming to
Him!” John answered and said, “A man can receive nothing
unless it has been given to him from heaven. You yourselves bear me
witness, that I said, “I’m not the Christ”, but “I have been
sent before Him” He who has the bride is the bridegroom; but the
friend of the bridegroom, who stands and hears him, rejoices greatly
because of the bridegroom’s voice. Therefore this joy of mine
is fulfilled. He must increase, but I must decrease.”
John
was not after the multitudes and thus he didn’t feel uncomfortable
seeing his ministry decreasing. In contrast, when the time arrived, he
show to the people to turn away from him to follow the Lord and this
was his joy. At the end John ended up into prison, where he was
beheaded. As Hebrews 11 says for those that as him had a martyr’s
death:
Hebrews 11:35-38
“Others were tortured, not
accepting deliverance, that they might obtain a better resurrection.
Still others had trial of mockings and scourgings, yes, and of chains
and imprisonment. They were stoned, they were sawn in two, were
tempted were slain with the sword. They wandered about in sheep skins
and goatskins, being destitute, afflicted, tormented - of whom the
world was not worthy. They wandered in deserts and mountains, in
dens and caves of the earth”
John
- as well as those of Hebrews 11:35-38 - was a man like us. Yet, he
was determined. He could have denied his call and just live as
all the others of his age (he was around 30!). It would have been much
more easier. Wouldn’t it? Yet, he preferred to follow God. The
Christian way may have times of discomfort, times where you know that
it would be much more easier in other paths. We will be able to walk
in those narrow ways, only when our vision, the one we are looking at,
is the Lord Jesus Christ. As Hebrews again says:
Hebrews 12:1-2
“let us run with endurance the
race that is set before us, LOOKING UNTO JESUS THE AUTHOR AND FINISHER
OF OUR FAITH, who for the joy that was set before Him endured
the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of
the throne of God.”
The
only way to run the spiritual race is by LOOKING UNTO JESUS CHRIST.
Not at the things that are seen but at those that are not seen, the
eternal.
II Corinthians 4:18
“we do not look at the things
which are seen, but at the things which are not seen. For the things
which are seen are temporary, but the things which are not seen are
eternal”
Tassos Kioulachoglou
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