A Voice Crying - Part 2

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Turn with me again to Mark's gospel, to the first chapter of his description of the life of Jesus Christ. We're just getting started really in our study of this great book. You're going to enjoy it as we go along. Really tonight we finish what is the prologue. Any well-written book often needs to lay down some basic premises, needs to set the stage for the entrance of the main character. If you've ever read a novel, you know that often that will take place. There'll be some sort of prologue that builds the tension and points you toward the coming main character who will be introduced. And in a very real sense that's what Mark does in this description of the ministry of John the Baptist.

You see the last prophet of Israel had promised that before the Messiah came, a messenger would first come and prepare the way. In Malachi 3:1, he said, "Behold … [I'm] going to send my messenger, and he will clear the way before Me. And the Lord, whom you seek, will suddenly come…."

That prophecy had been made almost 450 years before Jesus Christ showed up on the scene. And so, this section in Mark's gospel about John the Baptist is not unimportant detail as I pointed out last week. It is at the heart of Jesus' credentials as Messiah. It is the basis of His authority. And so, Mark develops the ministry of John the Baptist, even though he's writing to Romans because it's so essential to who Jesus is; to understanding that He is, in fact, in the line promised even in Old Testament revelation.

As Mark develops his point that Jesus has these credentials of the Messiah, he does it in two distinct sections in verses 2 and 3 there's the Old Testament prophecy of the forerunner and in verses 4 - 8 of chapter 1, the first century fulfillment of the forerunner. He looks back at what the Old Testament predicted, and then he explains what actually happened in the life of the first century.

Now verses 2 and 3 are a collage really of Old Testaments texts, two of them. Verse 2 comes from Malachi 3:3 comes from Isaiah 40, and together they explain that if the people of God are to be ready for the coming of Messiah, they need to be prepared spiritually and morally. The image, as we saw last time, is that of preparing the road to an ancient city so that you can make a smooth highway for the arrival of the king. And the spiritual message is that every individual must prepare the heart, his own heart, her own heart the paths of their life and heart so that we're ready when Messiah comes. It was a demand for repentance.

We looked, or began to look, last time as well at the first century fulfillment of the forerunner. We looked at John the Baptist himself, who he was, his parents Zacharias and Elizabeth were devout Old Testament believers. His father was a priest. And while he was serving in his rotation at the temple, while he was in the holy place probably a once in a lifetime moment, the angel Gabriel appeared to him and told him that he and Elizabeth would have a son in their old age. They were to name him John.

And then John appears later in life. When did he appear? Well, we know that he was 6 months older than Christ and Jesus began His ministry when He was about 30, so that means that it was probably in about the spring of 26 AD that John appeared.

All of that is based on all the dates we put together when we did our survey of the New Testament. I won't go back and construct all that for you again. He appeared we are told in the wilderness, specifically, in the wilderness of Judea. That's what it was like as you see this picture on the screen, it was utterly barren. And trust me when you get closer to it, it's even more barren. It is an amazing place, and that's where John the Baptist appeared.

Now verse 4, the second part of verse 4 gives us a summary of his ministry if you look at it. "John the Baptist appeared in the wilderness preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins."

His method was preaching. What he insisted upon inwardly in the people was a heart of repentance. And where that repentance was evident, the outward sign that was to demonstrate that repentant heart was a baptism of repentance. John's baptism, as we saw last time, was probably based on the baptism that a Gentile wanting to become a practicing believer in the God of Israel would have undergone. But in this case, in John's case, it wasn't a baptism of Gentiles wanting to become true Israelites, instead it was for Jews.

John was saying to his Jewish audience, listen you are no closer to the kingdom than the Gentiles. If you want to truly become part of the true Israel, you need to come the same way a repentant Gentile would. You need proselyte baptism. And the spiritual result of that was for the forgiveness of sins verse 4 says. That's where we left off last time.

Now that brings us to verse 5 and the impact of John's ministry. Mark wants to give us some idea of the impact of this unique mans ministry, so this is how he describes it. Notice verse 5, "And all the country of Judea was going out to him, and all the people of Jerusalem…."

Matthew adds by the way, all the district around the Jordan. So, you get this picture of there is a huge number of the population of Israel that are going out to that wilderness area to be baptized by John. All the surrounding regions were going out to him in a sort of endless stream of humanity. The Greek verb has this idea they just kept coming, they just kept coming one after the other. Mark's language is obviously purposeful overstatement, but he wants us to get something.

Don't miss the big picture of what he wants us to understand about John's ministry. John, in his time, was a force to be reckoned with. Josephus, the Jewish historian who wrote for the Romans near the end of the first century, had more to say about John the Baptist than he did about Jesus Christ because of the impact of John's ministry in the lives of the people there. There were thousands probably even tens of thousands one estimate that I think is probably overstated, is that as many as 300,000 people went out to John. And they went out through a barren wilderness.

Understand this, it wasn't easy to get to John, and I think that was on purpose. You didn't just walk down the street of Jerusalem and find John just outside the city wall. From Jerusalem, where John was baptizing at the Jordan, was almost 20 miles. That meant for most of the people, a full day's journey out, walking or riding on a beast of burden. And then a day there and then another day's journey home, that would have been a sort of minimum. This was a 3-day ordeal to get out from Jerusalem to John. But in spite of those obstacles, Mark records that they were streaming out to him.

Verse 5 says, "and they were being baptized by him in the Jordan River, confessing their sins." "Confessing" means both confessing out that is they were probably publicly acknowledging their sins and it also means saying the same thing as we saw this morning that God does. You see true confession means calling our sins the same thing that God does, and they were apparently doing this publicly as they were being baptized.

The expression "being baptized" is an interesting one and one that we need to understand because it ultimately while John's baptism was not Christian baptism what happened with John sort of lays a foundation for Christian baptism in the future. Being baptized, what is that John was doing? Well, according to the leading Greek dictionary Bauer, Arndt, and Gingrich, this Greek word is used in secular settings to mean these things; to plunge, to sink, to drench, to overwhelm. That's, in secular settings, what this word baptize means. The word itself in a context like this and in the rest of the New Testament means to dip or to plunge or to immerse the dictionary says, the Greek dictionary Bauer, Arndt, and Gingrich. That's what the word means. That's what John was doing.

Interestingly, by the way, even most of those who argue for some other mode of Christian baptism, when that begins, admit that John's baptism and Christian baptism in the early church, was immersion. To plunge, to dip, to immerse. It says they were being baptized by him. Ordinarily proselyte baptism was self administered, but here clearly John is doing the baptizing. Where is he doing this? He's doing it in the Jordan River, verse 5 says, in the Jordan River.

Now the Jordan flows through the land of Israel between the Sea of Galilee and the Dead Sea, in fact, here's a map. It's oriented a little strange, north is up here at this corner, south is down here, and this is the Mediterranean. But you'll notice, here's the Sea of Galilee where my arrow is pointing. And here's the Dead Sea running through this valley. Between those two bodies of water is the Jordan River all the way through the land. John was baptizing in the Jordan. Now as far as where in the Jordan John was baptizing, the New Testament record gives us very clearly some names. Unfortunately, because we have incomplete archeological records, we can't be absolutely certain where these places were.

John 1:28 says that Jesus was baptized at Bethany beyond the Jordan. It's very possible, as you see here on this map; this is one guess as to where that would have been. Near the south end of the Jordan not too far from Jericho. John 3:23 says he was baptizing at Aenon, near Salim. Again, we don't know where that is. Some conjecture that that's up sort of in the middle between the two great bodies of water the Sea of Galilee and the Dead Sea, but we just don't know for sure.

It's interesting that in John 1, we meet several of John the Baptist's disciples you remember who become Jesus' first disciples, and they are from Galilee which is all the way up here around the Sea of Galilee. So, we don't know exactly, but somewhere from probably the mid-point and south is where John's ministry primarily was. Tradition says that initially John was baptizing in the Jordan near Jericho, here close to the city of Jerusalem, about 20 miles journey out from Jerusalem. So, people were coming out from all Judea, that's this area in the green. They were coming out as well even from the areas around Galilee because we will meet some Galileans in the next couple of weeks who were John's disciples.

What's Mark's point? Mark's point is that John was fulfilling his mission. Remember his mission, to announce to the people Messiah is coming. People from all over the land of Israel have heard from John about the coming Messiah. He was to be a voice crying out and the people heard his voice all over the land. But John's message was not restricted to his voice. His life cried out as well. I want us to look at the message of his life that comes in verse 6. "John was clothed with camel's hair and wore a leather belt around his waist, and his diet was locust and wild honey."

Now if that seems odd to you and it should. It seemed odd to people in the first century as well. Not everyone behaved this way, or dressed this way, or ate these things. John's lifestyle would have been almost as unusual in his day as it would be in ours. So, let's look at these things and ask the question why. Why did God have him behave in this way?

First of all, when you look at his clothes, the verse says that he dressed in camel's hair. That would have been a kind of long loose robe woven of the rough hairy camel's coat. Usually the poor or those who were into asceticism would wear it because it wasn't exactly the most comfortable garment in the world to wear. And it says he had a leather belt around his waist. This is a sash, is how to think of this. All men in the first century would have worn one of these belts there in first century Israel, would have worn one of these belts or sashes. It served a very important purpose. It held the long flowing loose robe that you wore together. You tied it, and it held the robe together, as your tie and sash on your bathrobe would.

It also served another purpose and place, and that was to tuck the bottom of the robe into for walking and for other certain kinds of work you would do. So, if you had a particularly strenuous kind of work, then you would take the long loose flowing robes, you would gather them up together and tuck them in the sash, so that your legs were free to do the work. It was a very common part of first century male dress.

However, the sash, believe it or not, had become a very common place for men to show off their wealth, by the materials and finishes of their sashes or belts. John's on the other hand was simple, probably untanned leather is the picture behind what he was wearing.

His diet was also very unusual, he ate locusts. Now Leviticus 11:20 - 23, in the law of God, permitted the people of Israel to eat 4 different kinds of locusts. They were usually prepared by removing the legs and then boiling or roasting them, and then you added a little salt. They are actually an excellent source of protein. Kids don't try this at home. Now, if this seems to gross you out, it's really a matter of culture. If you've traveled anywhere in the world you know that every culture eats odd things. That if you travel there, you're exposed to. People come to our country, and they can be grossed out by things like crawfish or shrimp or mussels or certainly oysters. And this was true in that time as well, locust for us doesn't compute, but it actually was that they were plentiful, they were a good source of protein and properly roasted or boiled with a little salt, apparently, they weren't too bad.

Wild honey was the other part of his diet, the honey produced by wild bees usually found in hollow trees or in crevices of the rock. In Deuteronomy 32 it speaks about taking honey from the rock. In Psalm 81 it says, "I will feed you with the finest of wheat, And with honey from the rock I would satisfy you." Found out in the barren wilderness, that's the only place that the bees could have their hives, and so, that became a source of food for John the Baptist in that barren, barren land. Now why did he eat these things, well there wasn't a grocery store down the street. No Tom Thumb or Kroger's which he could drop off at and pick up what he needed; there weren't farms nearby in that barren wilderness. So, John the Baptist essentially lived off the land. And both of these were, and still are, plentiful in that region. So, the food made sense.

But what was the message behind his strange, really bizarre lifestyle? What was the point? Well, his diet and his dress would have made several points to the Jews living in Palestine in the first century. The first is that John was probably a Nazirite. In Luke 1, when the angel Gabriel showed up to Zacharias in the temple and told him that he'd have a son, he said this about him in Luke 1:15, "For he will be great in the sight of the Lord; and he will drink no wine or liquor, and he will be filled with the Holy Spirit while yet in his mother's womb."

That, if you're familiar with the Old Testament at all, has a reminiscent flavor of Numbers chapter 6 where you have the vow of the Nazirite. Now nothing here about John is said about not cutting his hair, but it's very possible that that too was forbidden for John, that he was a Nazirite. Normally the Nazirite vow was a temporary vow, but both Samson and Samuel had been Nazirites from birth. It spoke of being set apart for the service of God. It's very possible that this is part of the message of John's clothing; specially set apart for God's service.

But there's a second message that his life had, his bizarre diet and clothes. It was a rebuke to the people of Israel. In fact, he was a walking rebuke to the sinful and indulgent lives, especially of the spiritual leaders of the nation. As we get into Mark's gospel (and certainly you can see it in other gospels, like in Luke 16,), Luke makes it clear that the leaders of Israel loved money and they loved what money could buy. They were immersed into the culture of materialism, and John the Baptist was the ultimate rebuke to their materialistic self-indulgent lives. As Kent Hughes says, "John the Baptist embodied his message." In this sense he was the message.

But I think there's a third message behind the way John was dressed and how he acted that's perhaps even more important than these. And that is that John was the prophet like Elijah that Malachi had prophesied. These were the clothes connected with a prophet. Zechariah 13:4 speaks of the prophet putting on a hairy robe. In 2 Kings 1:8, Elijah is said to be a hairy man, the NAS, the ESV I think probably gets the sense a little better, he wore a garment of hair with a leather girdle, and it was Elijah the Tishbite. So, here comes here comes John the Baptist dressed in the same way.

You remember Malachi's prophecy; I'm going to send you Elijah the prophet. Before the Lord comes, and he will restore the hearts of the fathers to the children and the hearts of the children to their fathers. Fulfilled partially in Christ's first coming, fulfilled ultimately in the second coming. But he wasn't Elijah. John the Baptist was not Elijah. John 1:21 says, "Are you Elijah? And he said, "I am not." Are you the prophet? And he said no. That's Deuteronomy. They thought that the prophet was possibly another forerunner of the Messiah, when in reality, the New Testament tells us that the prophet of Deuteronomy was, in fact, Jesus Himself.

But while John the Baptist was not Elijah, he came as Elijah would have come. Verse 17, Gabriel says this, Luke 1:17, "It is he who will go as a forerunner before Him in the spirit and power of Elijah…." He was not Elijah, but he was in the spirit and power of Elijah, and his dress and the way he lived and the way he acted, identified him directly as a prophet and not just any prophet, but even more specifically as Elijah himself. So, while he was not Elijah, he came in the spirit and power of Elijah, and even with the garb and dress of Elijah. This was part of his stamp of authenticity.

Now that brings us to verses 7 and 8 and to the heart the heart of John the Baptist's preaching. Look at verse 7, "And he was preaching, and saying…." Here is a summary of John the Baptist's message. If you look at the other gospels there are longer accounts, so Mark has chosen this as sort of the sound bite that best communicates the essence, the heart of John's message. He was saying this,

… "After me One is coming who is mightier than I, and I am not fit to stoop down and untie the thong of His sandals. "I baptize you with water; but He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit."

Now what's going on here, what's the heart of John's message? Understand this, although John preached repentance, and although he baptized as in evidence of that repentance, those things were not the core of John's ministry. Those were not the ends; those were merely the means to an end. You see, John understood himself to be the fulfillment of the Old Testament prophecy of Isaiah 40.

Turn with me to John 1, because there's an interchange, (actually there's a series of interchanges) in the end of John 1, between John the Baptist and several different groups. In fact, there are 3 different days captured as John discusses who Jesus is. And 3 different groups, the first day and the first group is John 1:19 - 28. The second day and the second group is John 1:29 - 34. And the third day and the third group is John 1:35 to the end of the chapter.

And I want you to look at the first encounter at verse 19, John 1:19. This is the testimony of John the Baptist, John the apostle says, "… when the Jews sent to him …" And the Jews here probably has reference to the Sanhedrin the ruling court of 70 plus men who ruled over the nation. "… the Jews sent to him priests and Levites from Jerusalem to ask him, "Who are You?"

They had heard what was going on; they were concerned about it. So, they go out to check it out. And he confessed and did not deny but confessed, I am not the Christ, I am not Hamashia, I'm not the Messiah. And they asked him what then? Are you Elijah. They understood Malachi to say that Elijah would come before the Messiah came? If you're not Messiah, are you the forerunner? Are you but they understood it to be Elijah specifically? And he said, I'm not Elijah. Are you the prophet? This is a reference back to Deuteronomy 18; Moses had predicted that God would give the people a prophet like him. And that's Jesus, as we learn in the New Testament, but the Jews of the first century thought maybe the prophet of Deuteronomy 18 was another forerunner. And he answered no, I'm not him either.

Verse 22, "Then they said to him, "Who are you, so that we may give an answer to those who sent us?" Don't be difficult, who are you then? What do you say about yourself? And notice how he identifies himself in verse 23, he said. … "I am …" [Here's who I am,] … "I am A VOICE OF ONE CRYING IN THE WILDERNESS, 'MAKE STRAIGHT THE WAY OF THE LORD,' as Isaiah the prophet said." It couldn't be any clearer than that. John says I am the forerunner prophesied by Isaiah the prophet that would come before the Lord. Verse 24,

Now they had been sent from the Pharisees. They asked him, and said to him, "Why then are you baptizing, if you are not the … [Messiah, and if you're not] … Elijah, [and you're not] the Prophet?" John answered … saying, "I baptize in water but among you stands One whom you do not know. It is He who comes after me, the thong of whose sandal I am not worthy to untie." These things took place in Bethany beyond the Jordan, where John was baptizing. The next day he saw Jesus coming to him and said, "Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!

What I want you to see here is that the heart of the forerunners message was a message about a person. And it's a person who at this point John doesn't even know the identity of. Notice verse 33 of John 1, "I did not recognize Him, but He who sent me…." Now stop there a moment, I did not recognize Him. John knew Jesus, remember John was Jesus' what, cousin. His point is, I didn't know He was going to be the Messiah. "… but He who sent me to baptize in water, said to me," [This is God,] "He upon whom you see the Spirit descending and remaining upon Him, this is the One who baptizes in the Holy Spirit."

So, I didn't know who it was, but God told me how to discover Him and so now obviously this is after Jesus' baptism that John is reporting this, and he says I now know who it is. Because God told me how to identify Him and what God said would happen happened to Him.

What I want you to see is that John's ministry was not primarily about repentance. Repentance was merely preparation for the coming Messiah. And his message was not primarily about baptism that was merely an outward sign of a repentant heart. John's ministry was about announcing and pointing to the One who was to come. In fact, every time John is mentioned this function of his is pointed out. So, he says, I'm just a voice, and I'm preparing the way. I am the announcer. The coming One, He's the One you need to look for. He's Hamashia, the Messiah; He is the One to anticipate.

But I want you to notice how this coming One contrasts with John the Baptist. John says He will be superior to me, and he says He'll be superior in 3 ways. First of all, He'll be superior in might. He says after me One is coming who is mightier than I. Now you've heard this all your life, and so you kind of ho hum, yea, I understood that, I know that.

But this would have shocked those who heard John; many of them who listened to John had already concluded that John was the Messiah, because of the authenticity of his life, because of the power of his ministry and his preaching, because all Israel was coming out to hear him and repenting and being baptized, even some of the leaders. Luke 3:15 says, "… the people were in a state of expectation and all were wondering in their hearts about John as to whether he was the … [Messiah]."

So, here is this mighty prophet of God, baptizing in the wilderness. A whole nation is repenting. But John said, the One who is coming after me, He is mightier than I. There's also a contrast in terms of worth.

John says not only will He be superior to me in might, He will be superior in worth. Notice what he says back in Mark's gospel, he says in verse 7, "… I am not fit to stoop down and untie the thong of His sandals."

Now even for us that makes a point. But to really appreciate the point that John was making, you would have had to understand first century life because undoing the thong of the sandal was the most menial task of the lowest slave in the household. Some sources tell us that only a Gentile would be forced to take off his master's sandals. This was so low a function that the Talmud, which said that a disciple was obligated to fulfill every menial service for his teacher his rabbi that a slave would do, said except this one. It was the bottom. So, John is saying that the One that is coming is so much above me in worth, that I am not worthy to be the lowest slave in His service doing the most despised duty of the lowest Gentile slave. I don't even deserve to be a slave in His house, not at the lowest end.

Again, remember John is the first prophet in 450 years, and he's baptizing all of these people as a sign of their repentance. He is clearly in a position of their spiritual superior. He's clearly in a position of spiritual worth over them. But even in his exalted position he says, I am not worthy to render the lowest service to Him of the lowest Gentile slave. This wasn't hyperbole, I don't believe. I think John meant this with all of his heart.

Folks, what does that tell us about how we treat and respond to Jesus Christ? John was an amazing man, a man I look forward to meeting in heaven, a remarkable holy man, whose entire life was devoted to God from the womb, who ignored the culture. By the way, let me just stop there and say that John the Baptist's ministry absolutely undermines the cry in our day for contextualization. You're going to reach somebody, you've got to become like them, John couldn't have been more different, and yet a revival broke out in Israel. But I want you to see about John is that he had the right perspective of Jesus Christ. He says, I'm not even worthy to be His slave. Is that how you think in your relationship to Jesus Christ? Is that how you think of Christ? Is He that elevated in your mind and in your thinking? He will be superior in worth.

The third way that John says He'll be superior is He'll be superior in ministry. Look at verse 8, "I baptize you with water, but He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit." In the Greek text, "I" is emphatic, I baptize you with water. In other words, John was saying, look my baptism was all external, it couldn't reach the heart. But He, and this is also emphatic in the Greek's text, He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit. In other words, Jesus would immerse people in the Holy Spirit. He would bring genuine transformation at the heart level.

Now, when you hear this, again, you might not get as excited as they would have gotten about it because Jewish people who heard this (and even Gentiles who read this account from Mark who were familiar with the Old Testament) would have known that this was one of the prophecies of the age of Messiah. God would poor out His Spirit on men and women, so this too would have been sort of an indication that this coming One was the Messiah. This prophecy of pouring out the Spirit, of immersing people in the Spirit was not fulfilled during Jesus' earthly ministry, but at Pentecost, and then beyond that, in the book of Acts, you can read about it.

This is John, and what an amazing man and ministry he had. But this is prologue. And in the prologue, in this paragraph that we've studied together there are 2 immediate applications that Mark was making to his first century readers and to us as well. One of them is doctrinal and the other is personal. Let me just encourage you to consider these together, first of all the doctrinal application of this section about John.

You see what's fascinating about this passage are the clues that it begins to give us about the nature of the Messiah. You remember the Isaiah prophecy back up in verse 3. The Isaiah prophecy said explicitly that the messenger would prepare the way for whom? For the LORD, in all caps, Yahweh, Yahweh is coming, and the messenger will prepare His way.

And then this great prophet John says that the Messiah will be mightier by far, exalted in worth by far, and infinitely superior in ministry to him. The coming One will baptize with the Spirit. You begin to get the feel that this One who is coming is no ordinary man. The One we're anticipating meeting, that we haven't yet met, is no ordinary human being. He is the coming. The coming of Jesus is the promised Old Testament coming of God Himself. And John's ministry makes it clear that Jesus is in a category all His own.

Turn with me back to John again. John 1, let's look at the second day of John the Baptist's encounters regarding Jesus. Verse 29 of John 1,

The next day, … [John the Baptist] saw Jesus coming to him and said, "Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!" [Wow, he understood the reason that the Messiah had come.] "This is He on behalf on whom I said, 'After me comes a Man who has a higher rank than I, for He existed before me.'" [Wait a minute, read that again.] "… He existed before me." [John was six months older than Jesus, and yet he said, He existed before me. You begin to get this growing weight that Jesus is more than a human being who grew up in the village of Nazareth.] Verse 31, "I did not recognize Him, but so that He might be manifested to Israel, I came baptizing in water." John testified saying, "I have seen the Spirit descending as a dove out of heaven, and He remained upon Him. I did not recognize Him, but He who sent me to baptize in water said to me, 'He upon whom you see the Spirit descending and remaining upon Him, this is the One…." Verse 34, "I myself have seen, and I have testified that this is the Son of God."

We began even in the first paragraph of Mark's gospel (in the prologue), to be exposed to these same great truths that this One who is coming is no ordinary human being. He is, in fact, God the Son. James Edwards explains the importance of all of this, he writes,

The Christ event is not a random and arbitrary occurrence. On the contrary the dawn of the age of salvation in Jesus is the consummation of a purposeful history of revelation of God extending back to Israel's inception of the exodus. From Sinai onward and particularly in the prophets, God has been preparing for a new beginning in Jesus Christ. And so, John the Baptist shows up as the announced forerunner announcing the One who would come."

So, Mark's readers in the first century, and us today, he wants us to begin to see even in this prologue in this introduction that this in no ordinary man. That He is the Lord who was promised to follow the messenger who is John.

The other application is personal. There's a very clear application from the ministry of John the Baptist to every person reading Mark's gospel. And it's very simply this, if you want to recognize and receive the Messiah that God has already sent, there's only one way to get prepared, repent. His preaching wasn't primarily about baptism, but about the need for repentance to prepare for the One who was coming. You must repent. That's a change of mind and heart that is so radical that it changes how you live. If you want to recognize God's anointed One and follow Him, it starts with repentance. That's the cry today.

You may have sat in this church (or in some church) your whole life, hearing very similarly what I'm teaching tonight, but you've never really responded to the Messiah personally. He is not; you can not truthfully say tonight that He is your Lord and Master. He's just a historical figure that you hear about on Sundays and then you leave this place and go out and live in whatever way you choose. If you want to be prepared to receive the Messiah, John says it begins with repentance. And by the way, that message doesn't change with the ministry of the apostles. Look at Acts 2, Acts 2. After Peter's message about Christ and the reality of who He is, verse 36 of Acts 2,

"Therefore" [This is how he concludes] "Let all the house of Israel know for certain that God has made Jesus of Nazareth both Lord and … [Messiah]-this Jesus whom you crucified." [There's the message. Same message, still announcing it.]

"Now when they heard this," [Verse 37] "they were pierced to the heart, with conviction and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, Brethren, what shall we do?" [What do we do about what you've told us? And notice Peter's answer, it sounds a whole lot like John the Baptist.] Peter said to them, "Repent, and each of you be baptized (but now) in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins; and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. For the promise is for you and your children and for all who are far off, as many as the Lord our God will call to Himself."

If you want to begin a life that is in the right relationship to the Messiah, God's anointed One, sent whom He expects you to bow the knee to; it begins with a heart of repentance. Are you willing to turn from everything you know to be sin and embrace Jesus alone as Lord and Savior? That's what John the Baptist demanded. You've got to get ready for the One who's coming. In our case, He's already come and the right response to receive Him is repentance.

Let's pray together.

Our Father, we thank You for this inspired record of the ministry of this great man, this wonderful prophet, with such an extraordinary life and ministry. Lord, he is in so many ways such a rebuke to us, and yet we thank You for his powerful ministry and for the effect that it had across the land of Israel. Father, I pray that you would help us to respond to Christ the way John the Baptist urged us to.

Help those who don't know Christ to be willing to repent, to turn from everything that they embrace, everything they live for to deny themselves and to follow Christ. And in Him, find a Master whose yoke is easy and whose burden is light.

And Father, for those who don't know Christ or for those who do rather Father, I pray that You would work in all of our hearts that You would stir us to honor and respect Christ the way John did. Lord, may we hold him in high esteem, as John. May we see Him as of infinite worth. May we feel privileged to be His slaves, knowing that we are not worthy, not one of us is worthy to be the lowest of slaves to Him, but we serve Him only because of His grace.

Lord, help us to think rightly about ourselves and to think rightly about our Lord in whose name we pray, Amen.