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This is our second period class. The teacher is Brother John Martin. His subject, the prophet of the highest, John the Baptist. This is the first day's class, and the title is In the Spirit and Power of Elijah. Brother John Martin. My dearly beloved brethren and sisters in our Lord Jesus Christ, let me first of all say how absolutely delightful it is, brethren and sisters, to be amongst you again after 15 years absence. And to see those faces which I'll never forget, you know, like Bob Lloyd, you never forget that, and to meet those people that we endeared ourselves to and were endeared to 15 years ago. Let me apologize to you for not coming earlier. Let me tell you the reason why. I am a coward. I developed a problem in 1969 with an aeroplane when we were in the Middle East tour. Bob was on the same tour, so that'll probably help you understand it as well. And from then on I have been grounded. I went to England two years ago and it took 12 brethren to get me there and they carried me on the plane and sat on me all the way. I went to South Africa last year with four other people and this year all I've needed is clemmy wigs of one, so I'm getting better and better and better. But though that may sound funny to you, brethren and sisters, it is to me a great trauma because I've come here to tell you about faith and courage. And believe me, that weakness makes me feel about one and a half inches high. But I believe that it's a friction which I probably deserve. It keeps me in perspective and I thank God for it. And I hope and pray that we're able to overcome it one day and perhaps come more often. But for the time being, let's get immersed into the life of this man, John the Baptist. And this is one of the most thrilling studies I've ever done in my life. I say it about every one of them, but it is particularly true about this one. I always wanted to do John the Baptist because wherever I get stuck into the word brethren and sisters, I get involved in the character. I can't help it. I just love the people of that book and he's a remarkable character. And the reason that I did this study for our Glenlock Easter camp was because I feel there is a very great need today because we are laboring under a curse. And if you were to ask me the greatest single problem we've got in Australia today, I would have no hesitation, whatever, in telling you what that is. It is the curse of materialism. It might sound strange to you people here who live in perhaps the pinnacle of materialism, but it's coming in our country and the effects of materialism are marked upon our community. And if ever there's a study, brethren and sisters, which would shake us out of our lethargy and apathy induced by materialism, it is the story of John the Baptist as God chose this man who they must have seen as a radical, a recluse, an extremist, and yet one who stood before them, the epitome of the simple power of that book and what an enormous power that is. I could do no better, brethren and sisters, to introduce this subject and its importance by telling you this, that in accordance with the opinion of our Lord Jesus Christ, no lesser than he, the man that we're going to study is underscored in importance by these words, Among those born among women there has not risen a greater prophet than John the Baptist. The theme over the top of the stage, brethren and sisters, is that we should hearken to God's prophets. If ever we should hearken to a prophet, it's this one, because according to our Lord Jesus Christ, he's the greatest of them all, and so he was. There's only one way to introduce this subject, and that's to link him up with Elijah in whose spirit and power he came. And, brothers and sisters, I invite your closest attention to this opening address because it is the absolute crux of his life. It is the very centre of his life. If we can grasp the significance of what we're now going to learn together, we will understand the purpose of John's life. What did Luke mean when he said that he came in the spirit and in the power of Elijah? And for years I considered, well, as Elijah preceded Elijah, so John the Baptist preceded our Lord Jesus Christ, that Elijah was a sort of a prototype of John, and that as Elijah, of course, came before Christ at his first advent, so Elijah will precede him at his second advent. That's what I thought it meant. And I suppose, in a sense, that is not the essence of it. What is the spirit of Elijah? What is the power of Elijah that John came in? Well, listen to this. Take power, first of all. He came in the power of Elijah. In the 10th chapter of John, and pardon me for not turning all these references up, because you know they're there. In the 10th chapter of John, verse 41, it says of John the Baptist, he did no miracle. Not one. And yet he came in the power of Elijah, who did eight. So it was not that sort of power that he came in. It was a different form of power for us. What about the spirit of Elijah? What was the spirit that John came in? Well, you may recall on one occasion recorded in the ninth chapter of Luke, that the Lord Jesus Christ was making his way through the village of the Samaritans, and they would not receive him. And the two sons of thunder, James and John said, shall we bring down fire from heaven and consume them like Elijah did? And the answer came, you don't know what manner of spirit you are on. For the Son of Man came not to destroy men's lives, but to save them. The spirit and power of Elijah, brethren and sisters, was not physical, terrible or inspiring. It was persuasive. It got to the heart of madness. And what Luke is trying to tell us is this, that John came in a spirit and in a power that Elijah should have, but never did around to exercising in his day, but which he most assuredly will when he comes again to lead that great second exodus up the valley of Acre to face the Lord Jesus Christ with those Jewish people, the representatives of the nation that crucify him. And they will only get there, brethren and sisters, by the persuasive power of the spirit of that book. And that's what Luke meant. And therefore we come and see John dressed in nature as Elijah was, very much like him in appearance, and exercising that spirit and power which God fully intended that Elijah should exercise. And so, brothers and sisters, in order that we might appreciate that, what we've got to do is take him back to where Elijah learnt that lesson. And we will bounce through the record, 1 Kings 19, Isaiah 40, straight into Matthew, and you'll see the connection. It's so plain. Elijah has raced down the valley of Jezreel before the chariot of Ahab. That action, brethren and sisters, was not one to show that he was faster than Ahab's horses. That was not the point at all. Everywhere in the Bible where people read before chariots, it was to illustrate that those running in front recognised the one behind to be superior. And Elijah was recognising. He thought the king had been converted. He thought the power of God from heaven had converted the king. He thought the prophets of Baal being dead, the nation was repented. He thought that the Ahab from then on would lead them to glory and in deference to the royal majesty of the kingdom. He raced down the dust bowl of the valley of Jezreel to the gates of Jezreel, stood aside and the king swept into that city and the door slammed. And from behind those doors, that imperious woman Jezebel fired her verbal thunderbolts at him and the man that had stood upon Mount Carmel listening to his own name shouted by the people, the Lord, he is God, was next found beneath the juniper tree saying, I want to die. And he went, brethren and sisters, inexorably to Mount Sinai. It's the only time in his life he ever moved without being told by God where to go. Ten times the record said do this or do that in the name of the Lord. Only once ever did Elijah ever direct his steps without that word and he went to Sinai because he was bitter in his heart. He was disappointed. He was shattered. He felt that God had let him down and he thought if he could get to Mount Sinai he could get God back on side. Didn't God understand what was going on? And the angel said, woke him up, fed him twice and said the journey's too great for thee Elijah. Who told him where he was going? That angel knew where he was going. How did he know? God knows everything and he's waiting for him and when he got there, brethren and sisters, in the first of Kings 19, but we'll pick the record up now, and this is where you're going to learn about the spirit and power of John the Baptist. When he got there he had to learn a tremendous lesson. And in the first of Kings chapter 19 we read this in verse 9, and he came thither unto the cave. The original Hebrew language there has the definite article. He came to the cave and lodged there and behold the word of the Lord came unto him and said, what doest thou hear Elijah? Now brethren and sisters, the cave, what's that cave? We wouldn't know for absolutely certain. We couldn't be dogmatic about this, but look, when you look at the whole spirit of what happened here, what else could it really be but the cave where Moses stood when he went down there brethren and sisters and ascended into that mount to pray Israel. And his father God, blot me out of the book, but save them. And the apostle Paul, putting his finger on the spirit of Elijah at this moment, said, watch ye not what the scripture says of Elijah, how he went to make intercession against Israel. That's a dangerous practice. And there he came to make intercession against Israel, standing in the very cave where Moses stood, I believe, to make intercession for Israel. And the question is, and this is the great question brethren and sisters, what are you doing here in this place Elijah? And what God was trying to ask him brethren and sisters was, what is it Elijah about me that you associate with me at this place? And Elijah, of course, had remembered that place, hadn't he, when the earth was shaken with the earthquake, when the law was given and the mountain was all on fire and the cloud descended and there was blackness and thunder and lightning and darkness and tempest and the voice of words, which voice they heard they could not endure. That even an animal approaching the mountain, they couldn't even kill it with their hands but speared it because they stood in awe of God. And that's what Elijah had associated with Mount Sinai and that's how he saw God's character. What are you doing here Elijah? What is it about me that you think that you'll get me to agree with here? And it all came out, it all came out, I have been very jealous for the Lord God of hosts. And there's his problem, there is his problem in a nutshell. Lord God brethren and sisters, as we would understand it with the expositions of our brother Thomas, he who will be the mighty ones, the covenant name of God, God will become clearly seen to all those who've got like characteristics. The wonderful covenant name but Elijah tacked on the end of it the word for armies and that's the only second time in the whole record of the Bible that that's found. And what Elijah was saying brethren and sisters, that he thought that God's purpose was that he would imprint his character on men and women if he couldn't do it by persuasion, he'd frosted on them the Lord God of armies. And in that he was tragically mistaken. For this is the covenant which I will make with them in those days, saith the Lord. Not like the covenant I made with them when I brought them forth out of the land of Egypt, which covenant they break, even though I was a husband under them. But this is the covenant I will make with the house of Israel and the house of Judah in those days, saith the Lord. I will write my law on their hearts and in their minds I will preach it. And that's not done by force brethren and sisters. That's not done by miraculous power, though it is miraculous. It is the miraculous power of the persistence and insistence of the powerful spirit of this book. And how you tell me how that for centuries God dealt with those people and never could get that law in their minds and hearts. Do you think brothers and sisters that we who love God with our hearts, soul and mind are any better flesh than them? What is it about a Jewish heart and a Christadelphian heart that's so different? Nothing. Well how did God finally get that into our hearts? Well you see when he took Israel out of Egypt, he released them from slavery by killing another man's son. He fed them with manna. He didn't allow the shoes to wear out, their clothes upon their back. He took them into the land of Canaan, drove Jordan backwards, conquered seven nations of Canaan, gave them judges and then set up over them kings at their request. He did all those things and still that law was not written in their hearts. So the prophet Isaiah in exasperation said, what more could I do for my vineyard? What more could I do? Well brothers and sisters, it wasn't so much a question of exasperation as a question of fact that there was just one little thing that could be done. My beloved has a vineyard in a very fruitful hill and in Mark chapter 12, the Lord's parable, he said unto them, his well-beloved, Isaiah 5, what more could be done? One more thing. And if that doesn't get the law in our hearts and minds, brothers and sisters, then we are hopeless. For while we were yet sinners Christ died for us, it may be for a just man. We might respect a just man, a stern, dignified man. We might stand in awe of him, says the apostle, never die for him. A benevolent man, a kind man. We might dare to die for him, said the apostle. But if it had to be a daring act, it would have to be a moment's decision, talk a deep breath and do it. We might dare to do that for a good man, said the apostle. But God in his love and mercy, brothers and sisters, for at least 4,000 years of history that we know, measured that off and waited until mankind had reached his worst stage. In due time, in what time? Due time. He died for who? The ungodly. They weren't even just, they weren't even kind, and God didn't have to do it with a daring act. He measured it off for 4,000 years of human history. And if you wanted to go that further than that, before the world was, our Lord had a glory with the Father. And the Father in the when he could have sent 12 legions of angels and prevented it. And we come Sunday morning by Sunday morning to talk about the sacrifice of Christ. And rightly so. Have you ever scared of thoughts for the sacrifice of the Father? And that's what it was that finally wrote that law in our hearts. And God can do no more. You can't go further than that. And that's what Elijah had to learn, brethren and sisters. The law of God of hosts. He's not going to enforce it by physical might or power, but by the persuasion of the power of his word epitomized in the son of his last. As Elijah protested his case before God, he was sent back into the cave and an earthquake shook that mountain. You could see Elijah in that cave. The whole of that mountain shaking. The windows all over. God's not there. Not in that earthquake. Fire raged up that mountain, brethren and sisters. There's nothing there to burn. But fire burnt that granite as if it was tinder. And the searing heat would send Elijah to the back of that cave and he'd feel the heat. And when the heat was gone, he was still lonely. God was not in the fire. The wind came. Not wind that bends trees as it did at Chippensburg while we were there, snapped them off at the base. Bad enough. This wind picked up rocks, hurled them past the mouth of that cave and smashed them against the granite walls of Soneo, reverberating in Elijah's ears. All over. God was not in the wind. And what he was trying to tell Elijah, you've brought down fire from heaven. The river Kishon has run red with the blood of the prophets of Baal. But what have you done that's positive? Accept it thee, the widow of Zanothi. And then, brethren and sisters, a remarkable verse of Scripture, verse 13. And it was so, when Elijah heard it, that is the still small voice. In verse 12, we'll go back a verse, and after the earthquake a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire. And after the fire, a still small voice. You know, in the Hebrew it means a thin crushed voice, perhaps just the opposite to mine. Robaham renders it a gentle whisper. And when he heard it, he wrapped his face in his mantle and went out. He went out. He went out, brethren and sisters. It was the voice that got him out in the open. And when that voice sounded in the wilderness, a voice crying, when they heard that voice again, the record in Matthew says, and all Judea went out to hear him. He drew them inactually to him with that very voice. As we'll illustrate to you as we proceed, it got him out of that cave. But not before he wrapped his face in his mantle. And the mantle, of course, a garment of hair, as it was called earlier, was a symbol of his prophetic office. He's a little ashamed of it, brethren and sisters. Because now, you see, the question comes again from God, what are you doing here? But the question is with a difference. And note the difference. In verse 9, the word of the Lord came to him saying, what are you doing here, Elijah? But in verse 13, halfway through the verse, and behold, there came a voice to him saying, what are you doing here, Elijah? And he repeated his defence, almost like a prepared statement. I have been very jealous for the Lord God of hosts. But you can see him now, brethren and sisters, saying it with his eyes to the ground. Because that voice that's talking to him is nothing like what he had been doing in Israel. When he'd gone through his prepared statement, the answer of God to him was, you go back to your way, to the spirit and power. That voice. You know, brothers and sisters, do you think that I got all of that out of my own head? Do you think that's the true rendition of that record? Listen to the last word for the Old Testament. Remember ye the law of my servant Moses, which I commanded him in Horeb with all statutes and with all the judgments. Behold, I send you Elijah. Why send us Elijah to remember Moses? Because Moses, Elijah, brethren and sisters, for this purpose is far better educated. Remember ye the law of my servant Moses, which I commanded him in Horeb, and he'd gone there to end in Moses' shoes. Behold, I send you Elijah before the great and dreadful day of the Lord. I smite the earth with a curse. Two words. As to what they're telling us about the spirit and power of John the Baptist and Elijah. I'm gonna send you before the great and dreadful day. Yes! I smite the earth with a curse. And he went down there, brethren and sisters, for the express reason to procure that curse on Israel. Watch ye not what the Scripture says of Elijah, how he made intercession against Israel. And so there was a voice in the wilderness, and it's in Isaiah 40, isn't it? And it's Isaiah the prophet in his 40th chapter that picks up that story. And here we have our voice, brethren and sisters. And this is what John said. They said, who are you John? He said, I'm the voice. And here it is. And he quoted the 40th chapter of Isaiah. And Isaiah, of course, is picking it up from the voice in the wilderness. And what voice could have that been but the one that was heard at the very apex of that wilderness at Mount Sinai. And the voice said in Isaiah chapter 40 and verse 1, Now, brethren and sisters, we're getting near to the story of John the Baptist's life. We're getting near to the purpose of his life in expressing that voice. How do you get to the story of Elijah? Here's how you do it. Hosea said, I will allure her into the wilderness. Speaking of the restoration of Israel, Hosea 2. And the very words of Hosea 2 are couched in the terms of Elijah's life. Great shall be the day of Jezreel. I will hear the hearth, and they will hear the heavens, and they will hear the corn, and they will hear the wine. The story of Elijah on the ground, bringing down rain upon a parched earth. All the references to the life of Elijah. And Hosea says, I will allure her into the wilderness. And I will speak to her heart. And that, brethren and sisters, is the lesson of our life. And believe me, when I tell you this here, I haven't come all this way from my family to illustrate to you that I can speak from the Bible, because I don't really think that's so. But I tell you what I have come to say to you, that if we don't get out into that wilderness from this cursive materialistic world, God will never talk to your heart. And I say that on the authority of the word of God and by the experience, because he can't talk to my heart, because I am basically materialistic. And that, brothers and sisters, is not false humility. It is a tragic fact. I am very much taken over with materialism. Not that I've got much, but I think a lot about what I could get. And if God can't allure me into the wilderness, he'll never talk to my heart. Come for she. Speak to the heart of this people. That her warfare is accomplished. The time of her hard services come. She hath received of, it says here, she hath received of the Lord's hand double for all her sins. In other words, she hath received, brothers and sisters, literally rendered in the Hebrew, she has accepted the punishment. She's accepted her punishment. She's agreed with it. And that's taken straight out of the 26th chapter of Leviticus, that what Israel accepts the punishment of their iniquity. Then I will remember the covenant, which I made with Jacob, with Isaac, with Abraham. That's backwards. Because God will remember them. Jacob, Isaac, Abraham. That's backwards. And in Hebrews chapter 6, Paul says, God is not unmindful to forget your labour of love, your service of hope, and your continuance in faith. And that's backwards. Because God is not unmindful, mindful to forget you. And there's the creator thinking back to them. Because we have accepted, brethren and sisters, the truth of the matter. That we are no good in God's eyes. And that he can never speak while in the wilderness. It's a voice crying. And what's he saying? The voice is crying. And it reads like this. In the wilderness prepare you the way of the Lord and make straight in the desert a highway for our God. The proof of it, brethren and sisters, is in the parallelism. That's the proof of it. And the voice says what? What does the voice say? In the wilderness prepare you the way of the Lord and make straight in the desert a highway for our God. That's the Hebrew parallelism. That's what it's got to me. And so Isaiah the prophet says, upon the soil the Adomar shall come to you in peace and invite you all to come out there and listen to what God had to say. There, brethren and sisters, is the great lesson of that man's life. God doesn't ask us to leave house and home. He doesn't ask us to sell all our possessions. That's not what he's trying to tell us, brethren and sisters. We don't have to go and buy a camel skin. We don't need to do that. We can't escape our environment. We're caught up in it. We're like rats in a trap. But unless we get that head out of that environment, we'll never learn about God's word. I can't do it. In older days when brethren of the pioneers went to the meeting in horse and trap and they went along jig jogging along with the horse and trap slowly to the meeting, brethren sisters, they regurgitated things. They zip here and zip there. They can't spend two seconds to quietly sit down quietly and listen to the voice of God speak to their heart. And the truth is going downhill, brethren and sisters. I don't know about your country. I know nothing about your country. I'm talking about my country. The truth is going downhill because of the curse of that situation. And people come to me and they say, how do you study the Bible? Can you show us messes? What colors do you use to mark up your Bible? I say to them, now look, before we ever start talking about colors, pens and inks or whatever, I want to know, are you prepared to spend hour after hour after hour after hour on that book? If you're not, forget it. Because brethren and sisters, he will allure us into the wilderness and speak to our heart. And so John was there in the wilderness, prepare the way of the Lord. And down they came and looked down nature's amphitheater and heard the voice. Every valley was to be exalted. He would lift up meat. Every mountain was to be made low. He would depress the mighty and the proud. The crooked places would be made straight brethren and sisters. And all those lives that were crooked in God's sight would be made straight. And the coarse, rough natures of men would be smoothed over. And do you know something? There were only four classes of people registered in the Gospels that listened to John. The common people who heard him gladly and were exalted. The scribes and Pharisees whom he leveled. The publicans with all their crooked dealings as tax gatherers. He straightened out. And down came the Roman soldiers with all their brutality. And he said, do violence to no man. What a remarkable fulfillment of that chapter of Scripture. Only those four classes were mentioned. And the glory of the Lord shall be revealed says says Isaiah. And all flesh shall see it together. All flesh would see it together. You know what that means brethren and sisters? You read it and you say all Christ will come. God's glory will be seen. All the world will be converted. Yes. Now that about that. That's not alike. And he's not talking about all flesh in the totality of brethren and sisters. What he's saying is this. That when they saw the glory of God, as John was telling them they would see it in our Lord Jesus Christ. All flesh in the sense of all kinds of people would see it and then all become alike. They'd become alike. Is that what I think? Did I get that out of my own head? Brethren the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth. So it was revealed. That's in John chapter one. John chapter three deals with Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews who thought that his blood was blue and everybody else's was red. And John chapter four deals with an immoral wicked woman of Samaria. The other end of the scale. And the glory of God was revealed and all flesh from the blue blooded rabbi to the poor destitute woman of Samaria that he despised saw that glory. And when the glory of God is seen by the mighty and perceived by the humble sisters, human distinctions disappear and they become alike because everything fades into insignificance, status, importance. Everything fades into insignificance in the view of that glory. That's what John come to do. To turn the heart of the fathers to the children and the record to turn the heart of the fathers of the children and the disobedient to the wisdom of the just. And the heart of the fathers would be turned to the children when Isaiah's prophecies fulfilled, which said, behold your children, the work of my hands. And when Abraham, Isaac and Jacob rise from the dead as they most assuredly will, and we are presented to Abraham as his children, he being the father of the faithful, his heart will go out to us, brothers and sisters, because he will see that we are the work of God's hands. I can raise up of these stones children unto Abraham and so the heart of the fathers will go out to their spiritual children. And we as their spiritual children who one time were disobedient have learned that the fathers being justified by faith were wise. And the disobedient to the wisdom of the just. And so John came to demonstrate those things. Elijah, full of power, full of fervent zeal and spirit, came down to Thaddei depressed to be told, brothers and sisters, that God does not work through physical means to impress his upon people. That it is by the still small persuasive voice of that spirit that the truth will finally get through. And the voice cried to him, allured him down there that God might talk to his heart. Isaiah picked that up beautifully, the voice crying. And when they came to John to ask who he was, brothers and sisters, the more he said, the less he said. Are you the Christ? I am not that Christ. Are you Elijah? I am not. Well, are you the prophet of Deuteronomy 18? No. The more he said, the less he said. Well, who are you? The answer? Nothing. I am a voice. And there was the answer, brothers and sisters. And you see what he's saying, don't you? The lower one gets in their own estimation, the less one is cluttered about with this world's good, the less distractions one has, the greater the opportunity for God to speak through you. If someone comes up and dusts your coat and says, that was a mighty address, and you run away with yourself and think, gee, well, it really was a good address, won't be very long, brothers and sisters, and you'll be done. If, on the other hand, we go on piling up in our house the things that Jesus called stuff, whereby we can't find time to get down to God's Word because I've got to do this, I've got to polish that, got to clean that, mend this, make sure I've got enough money to buy that and so on, then won't be very long before we're done. But John didn't have a motor car, he didn't have a house. He had a very low opinion of himself. Camel skin didn't have to be dry cleaned too often. Grasshoppers didn't need much cooking. And he was available. He was available. I'm nothing. I haven't got any status. I'm not very great, but I'm a voice. Do you know, brothers and sisters, I believe that John's voice was the greatest voice ever heard, not only because of what he said, but the quality of it. What else could it be when he held those people in the gallery of Nature's Ambly Theatre, riveted with attention, looking at this hermit figure, thinking to themselves, well, what could he do? And when he lifted up his voice, repent and be baptized, and have reverberated up with the wilderness of Judea. Everyone was transfixed with that voice. He might have been nothing else, brothers and sisters, but he had a golden voice. Do you know, we know this from the biblical record that so powerful was his influence that though he performed no miracle, they opened up a school in Egypt to learn his teachings. We know that because Apollos came from Alexandria in Egypt, where he had been skilled, the record says in the Greek, in the teachings of John. He had a college in Egypt. So powerful was that voice that came up that Nature's Ambly Theatre. And that was the voice of him crying, prepare you the way. He did come in the spirit and power of Elijah in another way, too, brothers and sisters. Look at the parallels in their life. Both came at a time of extreme wickedness. Ahab, of whom it was said, that no king before him have ever done so wickedly. So they both came at a time when the fathers had filled up the measure of iniquity. Ahab's father means to fill up. Omri means to fill up. And Ahab means his father's brother. So he had filled up the measure of his father's. So had the elders of Israel by the time John got there. Both men were dressed in nature, untouched by human hands. Both men pronounced stern judgments. As Elijah raced before Ahab, thinking that the nation had been converted, to proclaim the royal majesty of the kingdom. So John came before the royal majesty of the kingdoms of heaven. Elijah stepped aside, brothers and sisters, to give way to the gentler, Elisha. And John, in exactly the same locality, stood aside to give way to the greater Jesus. Elisha's name means the salvation of El, or God. And Jesus' name means the salvation of Yahweh, or God. They had very similar names. And Elijah gave way to him. And John gave way to him. And the mantle changed at exactly the same spot. Elijah came to the end of his career, as an effective career, because he dared to denounce the unholy alliance of Ahab with Jezebel. And John was brought tragically to death because he dared to denounce the unholy alliance of Herod with Herodias, his brother Philip's wife. He wouldn't get two more lives, brothers and sisters, that echoed one another more than them. And the great difference was, there was the god prophet from Gilead, like a piece of granite carved out of the escarpment of Gilead, had come to terrorise that nation. This one that came through the wilderness, through the line of the priesthood, drew all to him by the power of that voice that wafted up, that is that amphitheatre of the wilderness of Judea, and pricked so many hearts. It's a wonderful parallel and a wonderful contrast. And as we proceed with our studies, brothers and sisters, it is our wish that we would go with him to become mentally involved in his life, that by our vision together we might transport ourselves in those days and stand there and look at that man and say to ourselves, could we ever, could we ever, in 1983, be lured into a wilderness, solitude, quietness, in the midst of a mad, mad, mad materialistic world and give God the chance to speak to our heart.

Transcript

This is Idlewild, 1983. This is our second period class. Our teacher is our brother John Martin from Australia. His subject for the week is the prophet of the highest, John the Baptist. His subtitle for today, the second day, Joe Brill's announcement. Brother John Martin. My beloved brothers and sisters and our Lord Jesus Christ. The apostle John, brothers and sisters, introduced John the Baptist in a very simple way. He said there was a man sent from God whose name was John. Of course, John is but an abbreviation of that wonderful Hebrew name, Yohanan, which really means the grace of the Lord. You know, brothers and sisters, although these words that I'm going to read to you now, are not directly related to John, they fit his life and his purpose absolutely beautifully. The grace of God. You listen. Paul to Titus in his second chapter from verse 11. For the grace of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared to all men, teaching us that denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously and godly in this present age. Looking for that blessed hope and glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour, Jesus Christ. Those words, brothers and sisters, could form, could they not, a caption over the life of John. Looking for the grace of God, there he was. Teaching us to live righteously, soberly, denying worldly lusts in this present age. Absolutely epitomized in the life of that man. The Lord Jesus Christ referred to him on many occasions, brothers and sisters. When John referred to the Lord, he says, I am not that light that should come into the world. He said there was going to come that true light, which would lighten every man that came into the world. But when the Lord referred to John as a light in chapter 5 of John's Gospel, he referred to him like this. And in the fifth chapter of John and at verse 35, the Lord referred to John in these words. He said he was a burning and a shining light. And you were willing for a season to rejoice in his light. Now there are two different words, you know, used, brothers and sisters, for the Lord and for John the Baptist. John saw our Lord as the true light. And the word in the Greek in that place is phos, which means a luminous light, a permanent light, like phosphorus, glowing in the dark. But the Lord described John as a burning and a shining light. And he referred to a little portable hand lamp, which was charged up with the oil. And because it was a portable lamp, it didn't have much oil in it. I used to use that lamp, brothers and sisters, to go short distances. And so when they had to go in the dark, like we sometimes do from the hall back to our rooms, they would light this portable lamp and it would flare up, light up their path for a moment, and then out it would go. And that's exactly what happened. He was a burning and a shining portable lamp. He flared up for a while, lit up the whole landscape and gave men and women a moment of time to see themselves as they were before they had to stand in a permanent light where they couldn't be hid. One of the disadvantages of living today, brothers and sisters, is that we're not going to get to John the Baptist before that permanent light comes. And it would be to our advantage if we could have someone to flare up in front of us that we might see ourselves for what we are momentarily, to have that moment of time to prepare for standing in the permanent light. And that's what Israel got, and they needed it. Micah had said that the sun would go down over the prophets, and it had, for 400 years. And in the chapter that I've just alluded to, the third chapter of Micah in verse 6 where he said that, the sun would go down over the prophets, he said in the eighth verse of that same chapter, but he said, I am full of the power and the Spirit of the Lord. And the sun had gone down over the prophets. But here was one, brothers and sisters, who after 400 years of darkness had come in the Spirit and power of Elijah, which was the Spirit and power of his God. That's what Micah had said. And during the course of those 400 years, Judea groaned under the iron heel of the yoke of Rome, brothers and sisters. And Jewish nationalism seized and fermented with discontent. And in that very, very bad situation, the Jewish people who were the ecclesia in the wilderness at one stage, God's people divided. And they divided into several sections. And John was to come to all of them and expose them momentarily that they might have their opportunity to put matters right. There were the Pharisees, superstitious hypocrites, zealous of traditions over and above the Scripture. So proud, they were even too proud to submit themselves under the iron yoke of Rome. There were the Sadducees, a rich influential group who had for the moment the office of the priesthood. And as such, they had the key to the treasury box in the temple and feasted at the expense of others. They were men who believed that this life only could give hope. They didn't believe in spirit, angel. They didn't believe in supernatural powers. You live for this life. You got out of this life what you could get out of it. And depending how well you did in business, that was to them a measure of the way which God blessed you. I hope, brethren and sisters, that as we delineate these various groups, that we will find somewhere in our body, somewhere, an empathy for some of these things that we might have an opportunity to correct it. I've found them. I know where my problem lies. There were the scribes and the lawyers, legal parasites trading in religion to the highest buyer. There were the zealots, hot-headed fanatics who would stop at nothing and slit throats at the drop of a hat. There were the herodians who were formerly scribes. And they would even change their garments that they might have an alliance with Herod now for political expediency. Prepared to sell the truth to keep Rome at bay. Men of no principle, whatever. Complete traitors to the Jewish cause. There was the population at large, brethren and sisters, in which there was no middle class. There was no middle class in Israel. The parable of the rich man and Lazarus was absolutely true of that generation. You were either very, very rich or you were very, very poor. And amidst all of that division of thought and action, there still existed an expectancy of the coming of Messiah among the old people. The Annas and the Simeons. People who could remember better days and who groaned and tortured their soul for all that was going on in the world. To all those classes, brethren and sisters, there was a man sent from God whose name was John. And God offered to every one of those classes His grace. If only they would see themselves for what they were in that momentary flash of light which gave them that opportunity. And we pick up the record in Luke's Gospel of the way in which John was announced that he would come into the world. It's a wonderful record, brethren and sisters, of two old people. In Luke chapter 1, we'll pick up the record safe from verse 5. And Luke, of course, that brilliant historian, says that there was in the days of Herod, the king of Judea, a certain priest named Zacharias of the course of a buyer. And his wife was of the daughters of Aaron, and her name was Elizabeth. Very interesting, brethren and sisters, to learn that it was in the days of Herod who earned the title, the infamous title, of Herod the Great. He was known as Herod the Great. He was impious and cruel, and he reigned over Judea for nearly 40 years. He was an Edomite of the hated Edjameans, an Edomite. There was a mutual hostility between him and the Jewish people, and he was a fulfillment of Bible prophecy. Because years before, Moses had told them that when Israel had requested their king and would be disobedient, that a stranger would rise above them and become ruler over them. There he was, and there couldn't be more stranger to Israel than an Edomite. He married 10 times. He was a product of his age. One of his wives was Miriam, a Maccabean princess, a Jewish girl. He built the temple, which took 46 years to complete, and gained the favor of the Jewish people by giving them a great object of materialism. And he was known as Herod the Great. And there appeared down in the wilderness of Judea the one of whom we've been talking about, brothers and sisters, of whom it is said in verse 15 that he too was great, for he shall be great in the sight of the Lord and in no one else's sight. So in the days of Herod the Great, who is great in everything that men call greatness, in his cruelty, his impiety, his materialistic ways in which he built that temple, and in following the fashion of having 10 marriages, he was great in everything that made man great. And down there was one who was great in the sight of the Lord. And the only one who would ever recognize that greatness was his God. Now he was the son, we read, of a certain priest named Zacharias. Now very interesting, brothers and sisters, the details of John the Baptist's parents. These are not coincidental things I'm going to mention to you now. They are wonderful things. You see, because Zacharias' name means, Yah hath remembered. Yah hath remembered. His wife Elizabeth, her name means the oath of God. And John, of course, means the grace or, if you like, the mercy of God. And later on in chapter 72 of this chapter, and into 73, there is an obvious play upon the names of that family. When in the great eulogy, the great prayer of Zacharias, he said in verse 72 that God would perform the mercy promised to our fathers to remember his holy covenant, the oath which he sware to our father Abraham. Zacharias, Yah hath remembered. Elizabeth, the oath of ale. John, the mercy of God. And whilst there are times, I know, brothers and sisters, you can string a lot of names together and make a sentence out of them, which may or may not be the case, that's fairly obvious, isn't it? That that little family was tied together. And in the very words of Zacharias, there is a deliberate play upon the names of that family of mum and dad and of the boy that was born to them. We learn that Zacharias was a priest, so John was of the priestly class. How unusual it was then, brothers and sisters, to see him down in the wilderness of Judea, dressed as he was, when he had all the qualifications, according to Exodus 28, to be dressed in garments of glory and beauty. It wasn't as if he was from some obscure tribe that had no connection either with kingdom or priest. He was a priestly class. But look at him. He's not dressed like they were dressed. And yet he had a divine right to dress like that, in garments of glory and beauty. But he didn't take that right. We learn that the course of Zacharias was the course of Abiah. Abiah. And, of course, you may recognise in that name, brothers and sisters, the two Hebrew names, Abah, father, Abiah or Yah. God is his father. And, you know, had it not been for the divine intervention in the case of those two aged people, John would never have been born. More than that, brothers and sisters, so important is that, that Luke mentions it, that when we go back to I Chronicles 24 and we look at the 24 courses of priesthood that David organised that they might do their periodical service in the temple, we find that the course of Abiah happened to be the eighth course. And, of course, we're all familiar, or should be, that the eighth day was the day of circumcision. And that circumcision was given to Abraham primarily to teach him that children born of him would not be born by natural descent. For immediately upon his circumcision, Abraham could not have produced a child. And so Stephen, in his defence, reported again by that brilliant historian, Luke, puts the two incidents together. He gave him the covenant of circumcision and so Abraham begat Isaac. Many years were, of course, separating those two incidents, but Luke puts them together to teach us that Isaac also was a child of the spirit, brothers and sisters, not as Jesus was, not born of a virgin, but had not God intervened, in his case, or in John the Baptist, they'd have never seen the light of day. And so his father was Yahweh, and the eighth course spoke of that day of circumcision of which it speaks of the cutting off of the flesh, that the seed to come would not be born by humankind. It's rather interesting, brothers and sisters, that as you pass between the pages of Malachi to Matthew, the eighth day, which is really an anomaly in the Old Testament because there's no such thing, there's only seven days in the week, that that which is called the eighth day, which was a peculiar anomaly, when you pass the division of testaments, becomes the first day of the week in the New Testament, because there it's its fulfilment, its proper title. And our Lord was born of God, both in his conception of Mary, and from that tomb, on that first day of the week, he came forth a product of divinity. So all these things are terribly interesting. Not only do we have this with his father, but here's another fascinating thing. Elizabeth, brothers and sisters, is the Greek equivalent of the Hebrew Elishiba. And as we pointed out, Elishiba means the oath of ale, ale-shiba, the oath of ale, the oath of God. But the fascinating thing about that is this, that Elizabeth, or Elishiba, was the wife of Aaron, the high priest of Israel, the first high priest of Israel. And here is a new beginning, as it were. God has remembered his people, the oath which he swore to their fathers, and the boy was born of Elishiba, the very name of Aaron's wife. Quite incredible, really. We learn, brothers and sisters, in verse 7, had no child because Elizabeth was barren, and they were both now well stricken in years. And you know, so notorious was the fact that Elizabeth had no child, that she became called, they used to call her the barren one. If you look at verse 36 of Luke chapter 1, you read there, And behold thy cousin Elizabeth, she hath also conceived a son in her old age, and this is the sixth month with her, who was called barren. But in the original Greek, as amended by Rotherham's translation, it's like a proper name. She was called the barren one. And as we would well appreciate sisters particularly, in Israel it was a joy to have children. It was a wonderful joy and a privilege to have children, because they all wanted to bear, did they not, that child that would lead to the line of Messiah. And they all wanted to experience in their life the joy of that. And here's a poor woman who goes around known as the barren one. But the previous verse says concerning Mary that her child, the latter portion of that verse, therefore that holy thing which shall be born of thee, shall be called the Son of God. And so here is that poor woman with her title of the barren one, and the one that was coming was going to be called the Son of God. And she had the great privilege, brothers and sisters, of being able to bear that boy who would announce his coming. So there is a great joy coming for Elizabeth, which of course she at this stage that we're reading about had no conception of. Now another thing that's very interesting in that first chapter of Luke in verse 8 is this. That we read, and it came to pass that while he executed the priest's office before God in the order of his course, according to the custom of the priest's office, his lot was to burn incense when he went into the temple of the Lord. Now that's very interesting, brothers and sisters, because what happened was this, that as each of those orders of priesthood came up to the temple, they did so periodically so they all relieved each other for a period of time, and then that course, that whole course would go home, and another course would take over. But when they came up, the great privilege, everyone considered a wonderful privilege, was to burn incense in that holy place. And because there were many priests who sought that honor, they drew lots for it. And in his book, Edersheim's book on the temple and its services in the time of Christ, a remarkable book, Dr. Edersheim himself was a Christian who was originally a Jew, I used the term Christian in inverted commas, but he was a Christian who used to be a Jew and a very Eurodyte Jew, and he wrote very wonderfully of Jewish customs, and he pointed out, brothers and sisters, that tradition has it, that if you drew a lot to burn incense in that holy place, once that was done, you never got that opportunity again, because it was so much of a privilege that your name was then taken away, and when they drew lots again, your name was not included, because you had your privilege. And so what a wonderful coincidence in history it was, that on the only time ever that an old man would go into there to burn incense, there was Gabriel standing at the right hand of that altar to meet him. What a remarkable thing that was. And we learn that all the people were outside praying at the time of incense. Now they burnt the incense, of course, as the evening deepened, and as the morning sacrifice was coming to an end, and as it ascended up to God in its last stages, when the whole thing was consumed as a whole burnt offering, they went into that temple or tabernacle, whatever the case may be, and they offered up incense to God, and it was the time of prayer. And David says in the 141st Psalm in verse 2, Let my prayer, he says, be like unto incense, and the lifting up of my hands as the evening sacrifice. So he combined the two together, didn't he? His prayer went up as incense, and the lifting up of his hands as the last smoke of that evening sacrifice. And so it was the time of prayer in Israel, and they were all out there praying, I believe, for both Zacharias and Elizabeth. And of course the startling revelation when he got in there in verse 11, and there appeared unto him an angel of the Lord standing on the right side of the altar of incense. Now from verse 19, brethren and sisters, we learn that that angel was Gabriel. Gabriel. There are special angels, two we know of. Michael the Archangel and Gabriel. Eil Gibor, his Hebrew name, a mighty one of God. And how fitting it was that Gabriel should be the one to come to both to announce the coming of John the Baptist and our Lord Jesus Christ. Because some 500 years earlier, brethren and sisters, he appeared to Daniel to give him these very details of the prophecy of the 70 weeks when Jesus Christ, the Messiah, would be born into the world. And there would become the time of the manifestation of the end of all things as far as the law was concerned and the setting up of everlasting righteousness. How fitting that that angel should bridge history to be there to tell Daniel that and to tell Zacharias this. We haven't got time, brethren and sisters, to turn up the ninth chapter of Daniel, but if you read it in your leisure, this is what you will find. That in Daniel chapter 9 verses 1 to 3, Daniel prays for God to remember that the 70 years captivity had come to an end. In verse 4, he appealed for God's mercy. And in verse 11, he acknowledged that Israel was suffering because they did not understand the oath of the law. And here were the names of this little family to whom that same angel appeared that epitomized all that Daniel was praying for. It took 500 years for that prayer to get answered, brethren and sisters. And we've got to learn patience when we pray to God. 500 years God hath remembered His holy covenant, the mercy He swore to our fathers, the oath. Here it all is. And they were the very things that Daniel was praying for 500 years before when that same angel came to him. And here he is. What a remarkable thing that is. Now the fact that Gabriel was standing on the right side of the altar of insects was incredible. Because you see, it matters not to God, brethren and sisters, as far as lending His strength is concerned, be it on the right hand or the left. But you see, the right hand, if you look through the Psalms, you'll find particularly in the Psalms, the use of the right hand was used as a symbol of that which is the most dextrous of our two arms. We may be left-handed like the Benjamites were, whose name means the Son of God's right hand. They're all left-handed. So we might be left-handed, but most of us would be right-handed. And the fact that he was standing on that right hand of the altar, he was telling Zacharias, as the Psalms said, his right arm has gotten him the victory. There is strength and power there. Now let me tell you something about the altar of insects, brethren and sisters, that is also intensely interesting. You'll pardon me if we don't turn all these references up, because of the time factor. When they gave the details for the building of the altar of insects, that small altar that stood before the veil in the holy place, it was described separately from all the other pieces of furniture in the tabernacle. And when it was described in Exodus 30, if you look at that in your leisure, you'll read that when it talked about the top of it and the sides of it, the margin gives you an alternate rendering in the Hebrew. And the top is described in the margin in the Hebrew word for roof. And the side of the altar of insects is described in the margin in the Hebrew as the walls. So the altar of insects was described in the terms of building a house. In the 22nd chapter of Deuteronomy and at verse 8, Israel were told that every home they built had to be of the same pattern. They had to build it with a flat roof. They had to put a balustrade around the roof to prevent accidents, and they had to have an outside staircase that they could get to the top of that, brethren and sisters, without interfering with the domestic circle, so they could have privacy. So Jesus said, let him that is upon the housetop enter not into the house to take the stuff. He could do that by coming down the outside staircase and going. And the altar of insects having its walls and its roof, flat roof, also had around about it a crown of gold. And what God was saying, brethren and sisters, is this, that every house in that ecclesia in the wilderness or in the land or now ought to be a house of prayer. And standing right alongside that altar was Gabriel in answer to a man and a woman whose house was exactly like that altar. That is a wonderful detail of the law of Moses. And so the chapter went on to describe what this boy would be like. First of all, in verse 13, that Zacharias is reminded that his prayer was heard and that Elizabeth would bear a son. Brethren and sisters, we read that very quickly. You know, we think, well, he's a man of great faith. His wife was barren and he prayed to have a child. So he's got great faith. Well, let's just add to that somewhat, brethren and sisters, and think of this, that he was an old man. His wife was an old lady. She would have got past the age of childbearing. And he's still praying for a child. So it's the quality of that faith that we've got to think about. He's still praying for a child and he gets the promise in verse 14 that they would have joy and gladness and many would rejoice at his birth, which they did in verse 58. The neighbours and the friends came there and they rejoiced in his birth. And in verse 15, he shall be great in the sight of the Lord and shall drink neither wine nor strong drink and he shall be filled with the Holy Spirit even from his mother's womb. In other words, brethren and sisters, he would be a Nazarite from birth. Now there's something very remarkable about that. Very, very remarkable about John the Baptist being a Nazarite. And this was what was remarkable about it. Because the Nazarite vow was given for a singular reason. There was one reason why the Nazarite vow was given. And here's your reason. When Israel stood at the foot of Mount Sinai, God said to them, Ye shall be unto me a kingdom of priests. And he gave them a law which said it could never happen. Because the law said that unless you were from the family of Aaron, which of course was from the tribe of Levi, you could never be a priest. And previous to the law in Genesis 49, the principle was laid down that royalty would come from Judah. So even if you were from the tribe of Judah, you couldn't be a priest if you could be a king. If you were the family of Aaron, you could be a priest, but you couldn't be a king. And if you were a family from any other tribe, you could be neither. But you shall be unto me a kingdom of priests. What God was telling the brethren and sisters, as long as that law was in existence, that promise could never be fulfilled. And so Peter in writing to people who now were no longer under the law, but under grace said, Ye are a kingdom of priests and a holy nation. Not only futuristic, brethren and sisters, but we are at present kings and priests, in the sense that we have the Word of God and we represent God's thinking to men and women. Now John was of the priestly line, yet he had to be a Nazarite. And the purpose of the Nazarite was singular in that God gave the Nazarite vow for no other reason than that men and women, when either man or woman takes upon themselves a Nazarite vow, the purpose was that they might imitate the high priest for any period of their own designation. So the high priest was never to uncover his head, so they grew their hair long. The high priest was never to drink wine nor strong drink, so they weren't permitted to drink wine or strong drink. The high priest was never to go near a dead body, so they weren't permitted to go near a dead body. And what the Nazarite vow was doing, brethren and sisters, was offering brothers and sisters in the truth the opportunity during the course of this life of their own choosing to imitate their high priest. And we've seized that opportunity and we come every Sunday morning to renew that vow because we want to imitate our high priest. John had no need of that vow because he was born in the priestly life. But brethren and sisters, the Nazarite, doing what he did, imitating the high priest under the law, was really, in a sense, greater than the high priest because the high priest was there by a carnal commandment, by descent of flesh and blood. The Nazarite was there by being a volunteer. And even though John had the authority of the carnal commandment, both mother and father, both in the family of Aaron, he, brethren and sisters, chose to stand out there as a voluntary priest. That was what was so wonderful about that, absolutely wonderful. And he lived out the terms of that Nazarite vow. Jesus said of him on one occasion, John came neither eating meat nor drinking wine. And he didn't. And so he lived to the terms of that Nazarite vow. And in verse 16 we read, brethren and sisters, in verse 16, And many of the children of Israel shall he turn to the LORD their God. Not all, not all, but many. What a wonderful thing it was that he was able to accomplish what Elijah would never accomplish. But when you think about it, brethren and sisters, there's a progression in God's purpose, isn't there? You see, Elijah, really, apart from the widow of Zarephath, and of the 7,000, of course, and Elisha, he didn't affect them. They were already arrembed and according to the election of grace. There wasn't Elijah's work. Apart from the widow of Zarephath, Elijah turned nobody to the LORD their God. He left an indelible impression upon the nation. He shook them to their foundations. But when he was taken up in a storm out of this world, brethren and sisters, he left nobody except the widow of Zarephath. John comes along and many shall he turn to the LORD their God, because he will express that still small voice that Elijah didn't. But, brethren and sisters, an even greater destiny is ahead. For Malachi says, he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children and the heart of the children to the fathers. He'll convert all of them. Not all in the sense of the totality, because some of the rebels will fall in the wilderness, as Ezekiel says. But of all those that Elijah will bring, the multitude of the scattered tribes of Israel back to their land to meet Messiah the Prince, of all those who come with him, all of them he'll have. So there was none in the first instance, many in the second instance, all of them finally. What a remarkable progression that is in the divine purpose. Now, Zechariah, of course, was overwhelmed with all this, brethren and sisters. He was absolutely overwhelmed. And in verse 18 he said unto the angel, Whereby shall I know this? For I am an old man and my wife is well stricken in years. You may remember that the words, whereby shall I know this, really were said almost exactly those words many, many years ago by another very faithful man, so faithful that he became known as the father of the faithful. When Abraham in Genesis 15 was told, So shall thy seed be, he believed it. With all his heart and soul it was accounted unto him for righteousness. Righteousness therefore, brethren and sisters, is defined scripturally in believing in the humanly impossible. That's what Abraham did. When we believe in the humanly impossible, God says that I define as righteousness. If we imagine that by human prowess, ability, we can ever reach God's kingdom, then we're going to be shattered. But when Abraham had said that, he also said later on, Whereby shall I know that I will inherit it? But God didn't condemn him for unbelief. You know why, brethren and sisters? Because his problem was different than Zechariah's. Zechariah's was just simply, he was overcome for the moment and he just couldn't believe it. It was so great. It wasn't Abraham's problem. Abraham's problem was, So shall thy seed be. And looking up at those stars, he said, I believe it. But then looking at that body, he said, How can it be? Because I'm a mortal man. What God is talking about is immortal life. I'm a sinner. There's no perfect man except our Lord Jesus. He was a sinner like everybody else is a sinner in the sense that he was not perfect. And so he thought, How can God give me eternal life? Look at the principles of the deity. How can we get past them? And God immediately showed him a sacrifice to divide those animals. And he met Abraham as the burning lamp passed between the pieces. So the very expression, Whereby shall I know, in the mouth of Zechariah's, was those very words that Abraham used, but they were vastly different in character. And poor old Zechariah. And who could ever blame him, brethren and sisters? We know he was praying. We know he had great faith. But isn't it true that when God does answer our prayers, we sometimes just are so aghast in unbelief. We just can't accept it. And then the angel said this in verse 19. And the angel answering said unto him, I am El-Gibor, the mighty one of God, that stands in the presence of God, and am sent to speak unto thee and show thee grad tidings, the gospel. And because he didn't believe it, brethren and sisters, in verse 20, he was struck dumb. Why was he struck dumb for not believing the gospel? Why strike him dumb for not believing the glad tidings? Well, of course, there was nothing else the angel could do. Because the gospel, brethren and sisters, is not a New Testament thing. It's an Old Testament doctrine. Lift up thy voice with strength. Lift it up and say unto the cities of Judah, Behold your God. Bring good tidings of good things. Isaiah 40. And so the good tidings of good things that were said to the cities of Judah, Behold your God, were said with a voice that was lifted up. Because he didn't believe it, he was dumb. And exactly the same thing, brethren and sisters, is said in Isaiah 52. The watchmen shall lift up the voice. With strength they shall cry together. Say unto Zion, Good tidings, thy God reigneth. And because it had to be said with a loud voice and he didn't believe it, he was struck dumb. You know, brethren and sisters, one other time in Isaiah it is said, The spirit of the Lord God is upon me, for he hath anointed me to preach good tidings, the gospel unto the meek. And that gospel was the day of vengeance of our God. And in the three places where that is found in Isaiah, you have what Paul called in Romans chapter 1, the gospel of God. And in Isaiah 40 the good tidings were, Behold your God. In Isaiah 52 the good tidings were, Behold our God. In Isaiah 61 the good tidings were, Behold your God. And the personal pronoun, brethren and sisters, is attached to God's name in every case. The good news to you and I is that he's our God, not just simply any God, not the God or a God, but your God, my God, our God. That's good news. And because Zechariah failed to believe it, and because it had to be said in a loud voice, he was struck dumb. It was scriptural that this should be so. And you know, when his mouth was opened, one of the first things that he said in verse 68 is, Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, for he hath visited and redeemed his people. As soon as his mouth was opened, brethren and sisters, he saw the point of that gospel of God, the good tidings, that he had become your God, my God, thy God. God had visited his people. And he announced that wonderful gospel of God, which of course Isaiah had so beautifully put before him so many years before. And concluding our first session, brethren and sisters, we come back to that first chapter of Luke, and we read in verse 24 the fulfillment of God's promise. And after those days, his wife Elizabeth conceived and hid herself five months, saying, Thus hath the Lord dealt with me in the days wherein he looked on me to take away my reproach among men. She hid herself, brethren and sisters, for five months to think about the grace of God. And I know that we can stretch biblical numerics. I am not one of those fanatics about that, brethren and sisters. I sometimes think that that sometimes can be overdone. But believe me when I tell you that there are plenty of places where the number five is used of God's grace. And she went away to hide herself for five months to think about the grace of God, which was to be born into her house, Johannin, for he shall be great in the sight of the Lord. And you know, brethren and sisters, when he came along to announce the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ, he said that we have received grace for grace. So that he was the grace of God. There was one coming mightier than he. And when he did come along, they did receive grace for another form of grace, even greater than that which they received in John the Baptist.

Transcript

This is Idlewild, 1983, the teacher is Brother John Martin, Enfield, Australia, the subject The Prophet of the Highest, John the Baptist, and the subtitle for today is, The Day of His Showing Unto Israel. Brother Martin. Our beloved brethren and sisters in our Lord Jesus Christ, it seems quite remarkable, brethren and sisters, that of him of whom it is said that there had been no greater prophet born among women than John the Baptist, that we should only have one single verse of Scripture that spans 30 years of his life. Very similar, of course, to our Lord Jesus Christ, isn't it? We did get a glimpse of him at the age of 12, sitting at the feet of the doctors of the law in the temple. But the verse of Scripture in question, brethren and sisters, though it spans 30 years of John the Baptist's life, is absolutely eloquent as to what it says concerning God's purpose in him. And I would like us all now to focus our attention upon that verse of Scripture in Luke chapter 1 and verse 18. What this verse says is eloquent, brethren and sisters, it really is. And after Zacharias had finished his great praise of his Heavenly Father for the mercy performed in providing John the Baptist to him, we read the last verse of that first chapter, and the child grew and waxed strong in spirit and was in the deserts till the day of his showing unto Israel. You just contemplate that, brethren and sisters. I believe there are two very important things we're told in that verse about that man's life. The first one is this, that he was in the deserts, and that was his message. As we pointed out, he's not a voice crying in the wilderness. That's not what the Hebrew is saying at all. He's a voice crying. And the message of that voice is, in the wilderness, prepare ye the way of the Lord and make straight in the desert a highway for our God. And the proof of what I'm saying, brethren and sisters, is so obvious because that's the parallelism. And so here was one who was saying that if we're ever going to understand anything about God, we must at least be able to isolate ourselves from this world in our mind. I do not believe, brethren and sisters, for one moment that God ever expected any of us to live like John the Baptist. He was an extreme case for an extreme circumstance. God does not ask us to do that. We're taught in the book of Ecclesiastes to live a normal, happy life. Was sufficient that we might have security with ourselves and our families. What God is saying in that man is that unless, in the circumstances of life, we can isolate our thinking that we might go out where we are uncluttered by this society, God can never speak to our heart. And that was his message in a world that's seized in intrigue, in hatred, in materialism, and in all class distinctions. And his point was, the voice was crying to them, crying, crying to them, come out here and learn something about God. And where was he? In the desert. He was not a hypocrite. He was doing that, yes, to the extreme. That he might galvanize them out of their apathy and indifference towards the Word of God. And we need that, brethren and sisters. I need that. You need that in this dark and degenerate age in which we live. That's one thing. But remember what we said about him in our opening talk, our introduction. That John claimed to be nothing else but a voice. Now I understand that when you've only got a voice, you listen. But here the record is saying he was in the desert until the day of his showing unto Israel. Isn't that remarkable? And that is not a coincidental word, brethren and sisters. The Greek word means an exhibition. Until the day of his exhibition unto Israel. And the Lord Jesus Christ himself picked that point right up and he said, What went ye out to see? So it wasn't only a voice, though John claimed to be just that. But it was a voice, brethren and sisters, that was on exhibition in that man. Please understand that. I haven't got a phobia about materialism. I haven't come over here, brethren and sisters, because I think you're materialistic, because I never even considered that when I chose this subject. But I know what we are because I live there. And we need every day of our life to go out of our mind and have a look at him. The exhibition that God showed in that desert. What went ye out to see? And that's a very, very important thing. Well, let's have a look what went we out to see. Matthew chapter 3. Here it is, brethren and sisters, this is what they went out to see. And bear in mind, everyone would have seen him. Now before we quote this verse, I'd just like to draw your attention to that chart at the back there. I hope you can all see it. Now that was drawn by our young people. It's not entirely accurate, of course. But it's supposedly to represent the wilderness of Judea as it leads down to the Dead Sea. On the other side of the water is that little peninsula you see on the Dead Sea that sticks out into the water. And it was down there behind those mountains, brethren and sisters, that John stood on the floor of the Valley of Jordan, and people went down to hear him and to see him. And it was nature's amphitheatre. Because they would have been looking down like we were looking at that fellow of the day taking our picture. They'd all been looking down this way though. We'd have been up on that ladder. And we're all looking down at John like that. There wasn't anyone who couldn't see him. And there he was, this God figure. And have a look what they're looking at. And this was God's exhibition. Now, it says here in Matthew chapter 3 and verse 4, And the same John had his raiment of camel's hair, and eleven girdle about his loins, and his meat was locusts and wild honey. And that is the sum total of the inventory of his possessions, or his larder. All in that verse. Now, this is what they saw. Of course, looking down there, if you and I were crowded on the slopes of Judea watching him, you'd say to your neighbour, to your brother alongside of you, doesn't he remind you of Elijah? Of course you would. Who ever looked like that? But there was a difference, brothers and sisters. There was a difference. See, of Elijah it is said, that his coat was the skin of an animal. Doesn't say what it was, but this one, you know what it is. So I'd say to my neighbour, yes, he does look like John the Baptist. Have you noticed the difference? Why, what's the difference? He's got his coat in a different shop. It's a camel one. Why does the scripture note that? Because the camel, brothers and sisters, is made by the Creator to be adapted to the desert. That's where he was living. Come out here. And he was adapted to his circumstances. The camel has foot pads that spread out, so he can walk on the terrain, on the sandy terrain, and he can do that with great dexterity. You put him on rocky ground and he's hopeless. But on the desert he's absolutely sure. He's got a hump on his back, brothers and sisters, in which he stores his food. He's got a three-chambered stomach in which to store his water. His lips are thick and they're like leather, so he can eat thistles and cactus. He sheds his coat, he sheds his coat before the summer. His nostrils are all pitched in, so that the sand of the storms can't penetrate. He can go, brothers and sisters, 100 miles in 12 hours. And for four consecutive days, he can go at a trot for the whole day, for four consecutive days, without a respite. He's adapted to his circumstances. Look at him. What a great lesson there is in that for you and I, brothers and sisters. I realize that what I'm saying, of course, is unpalatable to us all. I've grown under this burden just as much as you do. I like my comfort. But you know, brothers and sisters, if we're going to be useful to our Creator, we've got to be adapted to the circumstances of hardship. God made that creature for the deserts, and John's close with him. What went she out to see? Well, that's what I'm looking at, and that's all I know about him. I've only got one verse that describes him. So I've got to be adapted to my circumstances. I've got to learn to go through a bit of hardship. We've just got to, brothers and sisters. We've got to have our feet adapted to go through difficult terrain. We've got to have our minds stored up with the power of God's Word. And the water of God's Word has got to be in several chambers of our thinking that we can always draw upon that in difficult circumstances. We've got to be prepared, brothers and sisters, to eat anything at any time, even the food at Idlewild, if it means we've got to endure under the end. It means that we can't always have our comforts of life. Our nostrils have got to be pinched against the grating sands of criticism. And we've got to have all these things. We've got to be adapted in the summer to prepare for the hot, and we've got to have our coats on in the winter to prepare for the cold. And if necessary, we've got to go for hour after hour in God's service without respite on the trotters that we're keeping going and keeping going and keeping going, if that's what it means to serve our Creator. And believe me, brothers and sisters, I haven't done anything, of course, that's worthy to boast of, but I have had circumstances in my life when I didn't think I could go any further, but I always found that you could do it if you put your trust in God. We must become adapted to our circumstances if we're going to do anything worthy of the name of the Creator which we serve. What went he out to see? And that's what I said. I've got no other description of him but that. Locusts was his food, brothers and sisters. Locusts was his food. Who'd live on locusts? Nobody. Before we get onto the locusts, however, I forgot to mention one thing about the camel. The camel was unclean under the law of Moses. He's a priest. They were dressed for glory and beauty according to the details of the law. There is a priest down there and he's got an unclean garment on him. But what God had cleansed, brothers and sisters, none was to their core common or unclean. Now, come on to the locusts. Now, you know, locusts were a form of food. Actually, they taste very much like almonds. I've never tasted them. I just, you know, I believe it. I don't want to put it to the proof. But they tell me that they taste very much like almonds. But the whole point that's being made is that they were found in the deserts. See, everything about that man is described about his environment. And that's what he's saying, come out here to me and listen to God's word. It's not, brothers and sisters, that he's dashing up into the Judean hills to go to the nearest drug store to buy himself an ice cream. He's got everything he wants down in that desert. He's not asking you to do any more than what he's doing himself. That's the whole point of that exhibition. Now, locusts, under the law of Moses, were a clean thing, depending on what type. Not all locusts were unclean. And the term locusts, of course, covered a variety of insect life. And the thing which made the locust clean, one single attribute it must have to make it clean under the law of Moses and edible, it must have the ability to spring above the ground. If it didn't have that ability, it was unclean. God never, ever authorised them to eat anything that groveled in the dust. But if a little creature could go, ding, like that, you could eat him. So don't worry about your roo burgers in America. They're quite okay. It has the ability to get off the ground. And, of course, therein was the lesson, wasn't it? If we have the ability to rise above the things of life, then that's what makes us clean. But again, I believe the emphasis was on the fact that that belonged to the desert. And then we learned that he also ate wild honey, which doesn't mean, of course, that honey, you know, come out and scrambled all over you in a vicious way. It wasn't wild in that sense. It meant, really, the Greek means natural honey, not that honey which was then gleaned by the beekeeper who cultivated that bee and kept it, of course, in apiaries and so on, and therefore cultivated in that sense. Not that sort of honey, brethren and sisters, but the honey that you would find in the desert. And strangely enough, in the land of Israel where Virgil was not great, was not extensive like you have here in the idle wild pines, it was the practice of some of the bees to build their nests in a rock, to build their hive in a rock and operate out of that rock so that Deuteronomy 32 says that I gave them honey out of the rock and listen to this, brethren and sisters, listen to what this says in that same context. I brought him into a waste howling wilderness that I might instruct him. That's exactly that message. And the wild honey, the natural honey, in Deuteronomy 32, in verse 13, is in the context of verse 10 that I brought him into a waste howling wilderness that I might instruct him. And that, brothers and sisters, again, is God's exhibition of how we go about understanding His Word. Please understand me. We are not saying, God is not saying, that we have to go into a literal wilderness. But unless we are going to find the time to close off in quietude, we will never come up with the thoughts out of the Scripture that you learn at Bible schools. We've got to go into that study. And I'm talking now to the brethren who, of course, upon whom devolves this great responsibility of feeding the flock. And it applies to everyone in general, of course, who listens too. But more appropriately, to those brethren who have got the ability to feed the flock, unless they are prepared, according to this word, and it's not my exhortation, brothers and sisters, to go down and have a look at that exhibition, they will never be able to prepare the way of the Lord. Close that door. Life is behind it and beyond it. And we're in that study and we're with God. Open up His book. Pray for understanding and help. And then, brethren and sisters, walk out where there is no distractions and let your mind assimilate to the wonderful thinking that is there. But how on earth could I ever understand that Bible if I'm in my study saying, I wonder if that car is clean, I should clean, what does it say here? I should really go down the street and get some of that. Now how on earth am I going to understand the Bible like that? You see what I'm doing. I'm being drawn away all the time, what I've got to do, what I must buy, where I've got to go. Finish that. Get out there with job. Isolate yourself in your mind and God will speak to your heart. As Hosea said, I will allure her into the wilderness and speak to her heart. Now we're going to see the day that came in Luke chapter 3, brethren and sisters, when the great day of His showing unto Israel, and what a day that was. What a day it was when the day when He came for His showing unto Israel. There are some parts of the Bible, brethren and sisters, that need no exposition. The exposition of them is on the surface itself. Not all the Bibles like that, but there are some parts of it which all you need to do is read it. And here's the great lesson of John's life. And I will read these verses to you. I will read them in an exaggerated way. I won't read like Brother McGill did the other night. I've never heard such a reading like that. I compliment him upon it. It was a magnificent reading if you listened carefully last night. I won't read it quite so well as that. But I will read it in an exaggerated way. And I won't have to tell you the meaning of it. Because Luke introduces God's exhibition by giving us a list of the great men in the world. Now you listen to me read the opening verses of Luke and you'll get the point. Now in the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar, Pontius Pilate being governor of Judea, and Herod being the tetrarch of Galilee, and his brother Philip tetrarch of Itcheria and of the region of Trachonitis, and Lysanias the tetrarch of Abilene, Annas and Cahiathus being the high priests. The word of God came unto John, the son of Zacharias, in the wilderness. That doesn't need any exposition, brethren and sisters, does it? Here's all the world's greats. Here's all their territory. Far as the eye could see. And the list finishes, brethren and sisters, with the high priests of God. And unto none of those greats did the word of God come, but unto John, whose territory nobody wanted. And in accordance with the man's importance of himself, brethren and sisters, so God cannot speak for him. Are you the Christ? I am not the Christ. Are you Elijah? I am not. Are you the prophet? No. The more he said, the less that he said. What are you? Nothing. God says, I can speak through you. Could never speak through Tiberius Caesar, or Herod, or Philip, or Lysanias, or Annas, or Cahiathus, because God's boyfriends and sisters wouldn't find room in their life. Why do you think it was when Jesus said in the 16th chapter of John, he said, I will send you the Comforter. When he cometh, he will convince the world of sin, of righteousness, and of judgment. Of sin because they believe not on me. Of righteousness because I go to my father. Of judgment because the prince of this world is judged. When he cometh, he will do this. Peter stood up on the day of Pentecost, brethren and sisters, and in his speech in Acts chapter 1, rather Acts chapter 2, he's divided into three sections. Of sin, by wicked hands you have crucified and slain. Of righteousness, because he said he's gone to the Father. Of judgment, because he said, save yourself from this underwater generation. Why was it that Peter was the spokesman on that day? Because he was the most eloquent of all the apostles? Because he could speak better than James and John? No, brethren and sisters, because he was the one that swore and cursed that he didn't know his Lord. And they all knew it. And there was in Peter that day, none of Peter. God was able to use his mouth. It's a wonderful and a marvelous lesson. He was able to speak to Peter's heart, because Peter got out of himself into a wilderness. He was ashamed of what he had done. And that made him available. That's why he was the spokesman. When he cometh, he will say this. That's not Peter talking. That was the spirit of the Comforter. The spirit of our Lord Jesus Christ speaking through him. What a remarkable lesson that is in life, brethren and sisters. And Luke says in verse 3 of this chapter, that this John came into all the country about Jordan, preaching the baptism of repentance for the remission of sins. Well, we might say, well, to a Christian, that's very, very familiar. And to us, of course, we said, oh, well, that's very doctrinal. But you see, brethren and sisters, you've got to appreciate what that meant to that crowd standing in the amphitheatre. Because you see, you've got to understand what the scribes and the Pharisees taught. Because they taught, you see, that there was a difference between Jews and, well, we'll call them Gentiles, but they called them dogs. Quite a difference, really. And when a Jew, of course, came to maturity, he was circumcised the eighth day, and then he came to the age of about 13, and he was inducted as the son of the covenant of the law in a very elaborate ceremony. But this chap here, he might want to become a Jew too, a proselyte. Got to watch him. Baptism, brethren and sisters, was in vogue long before John came. Baptism is not just a Christian doctrine. It was in vogue long before John came, and was reserved to wash filthy Gentiles to come into the truth of Israel's covenant. And here's John standing up there and telling all of them that unless they're prepared to get into the muddy waters of Jordan and confess that all flesh is grass, not just Gentile flesh, then there's no way that they're ever going to find repentance. That was John's power, brethren and sisters. Imagine a Pharisee lowering his dignity to that. It was years of tradition behind him of that act speaking of washing filthy Gentiles. Imagine the audacity of that one down there suggesting that. But that's what he suggested, brethren and sisters. And you know, despite the unpopularity of that doctrine, that man's doctrine went all over the world. He never performed a single miracle. We learned that in John chapter 10 and verse 41, as we saw before. But this we are told in the 11th chapter of Mark and verse 32, that all men counted John a prophet. There must have been something very compelling about that message, as unpalatable as it was to them. We learn in the 18th chapter of Acts and verse 25 that Apollos came from Alexandria in Egypt, and he was skilled in the teachings of John the Baptist. And the Greek word that is chosen there is really the word of one of our pieces of literature, catechesis. He had categorized John's teachings, so there was a school in Egypt teaching what John taught. So powerful was that. The Apostle Paul came to Ephesus, which was really the capital of Asia Minor, brethren and sisters. And he found certain disciples who knew about the baptism of John. It had penetrated into Asia Minor. And as unpalatable as this doctrine was, it must have been altogether powerful as it came reverberating up that wilderness of Judea. Matthew it is, don't turn away from Luke, because we want to stay here for a while. But it is Matthew who gives us his opening words, which Luke doesn't. And in the Diagelot version of his opening words, he says, And of course he was announcing the fact that the Lord Jesus Christ, or the Christ as he would understand it, he wouldn't know he was Jesus, but the Christ the Messiah was about to appear. Now you imagine, if Israel were told the Messiah was going to appear, well of course the Pharisees would all get dressed up in their paraphernalia, with their phylacteries, and they would tie their little things, little leather boxes around their foreheads with the law in there, and they would look very lovely, wouldn't they? And they would go down the streets of Jerusalem, and they would proclaim with the silver trumpets and with the ram's horn of Jubilee that the Royal Majesty of the Kingdoms has approached. Have a look at who's telling you that the Royal Majesty of the Kingdoms is on his way. Look at him and think, wow, the Royal Majesty of the Heavens is approaching. Look who's saying it. The Apostle Paul says, they wandered in sheepskins and in goatskins. They lived in the caves and then to the earth, of whom this world was not worthy. And although he was proclaiming the coming of a Royal Majesty, yet look at him, brothers and sisters, thus says the high and the lofty one that inhabits eternity. He that is holy, I will dwell with him that is of a poor and a contrite spirit, and to proclaim the coming of the Majesty. I don't want to turn these references up, I want to conserve our time, brothers and sisters, but Isaiah, you know, Isaiah the Provident says, preparing you the way of the Lord in the wilderness, preparing you the way of the Lord, make straight in the desert a highway for our God. Do you know how they made highways? Isaiah 62 tells us, cast up, cast up the highway. Behold thy salvation cometh. And the Royal Majesty was approaching. And the way that people made highways in those days, brothers and sisters, was that as you made your way to Jerusalem, the first pilgrims would find the easiest path. And as they went along, they would pick up the stones and pull them out of the way so their brother wouldn't trip over them. And as they did that, they would define the path. Whoops, stone fell out of my hand. They would define that path. That's the way, walk in it. And when you came along, the pathway was defined. And it was defined by the stumbling blocks that your brother had taken out of your way. That's what defines your path to the kingdom. Cast up, cast up the highway, was the words of the prophet. And the same chapter says, brothers and sisters, the same chapter says that my salvation shall come as a lamp that burneth. And Jesus said he was a burning and a shining light. And radiating along that path, for a moment of history, a short moment of history, John the Baptist went out up there putting aside all the stumbling blocks for people and flooring that path towards the coming of the Royal Majesty. And that's exactly the context of Isaiah 62. Cast up, cast up the highway, behold he cometh. And the chapter opens up with those words, behold his salvation cometh as a burning light. What a remarkable context that is in the light of John the Baptist's coming. And he fulfilled, did he not, brothers and sisters, the terms of that voice. Every valley shall be exalted. Luke chapter 3 and verse 10, he speaks to the common people. Every mountain and hill shall be made low. In Matthew chapter 3 and verse 7, he spoke to the Jewish leaders. The crooked shall be made straight. And in verse 12 of this chapter of Luke, he spoke to the publicans, the crooked tax gatherers. The rough places shall be made plain. And in verse 14, he smoothed over the soldiers. And there were only four classes that he spoke to. Every valley, the common people were exalted. Every mountain, the Pharisees were leveled. Every one that was crooked, the publicans were made straight. And every rough one, the soldier, was made smooth. And they were the four classes that came to him. What we now want to do, brothers and sisters, is to see what he said to each class. And in verse 7 of Luke chapter 3, then he said to the multitude. If you compare that with verse 7 of Matthew chapter 3, you'll read there that the first words were addressed to the Pharisees and the Sadducees. And to them John said, to the Pharisees and Sadducees, are a generation of vipers, who have warned you to flee from the wrath to come. Now this was very interesting, brothers and sisters. He called them a generation of vipers. The word generation means a brood or an offspring. That's how the RSV in Rotherham renders it. A brood of vipers. In other words, they were snakes just born. They were just starting to manifest their true characteristics. They were just beginning to be shown up for what they were. Later on, when the Lord Jesus Christ called them the same thing, he said, oh ye generation of vipers, ye serpents. By the time he came along, they'd grown up. He quoted the words of John and added the mature word for serpent. They had filled up the measure of their fathers. Who's warned you to flee from the wrath to come, says John. Who's warned you to flee from the wrath to come? And you know, brothers and sisters, he was referring, of course, to the custom down there that in the wilderness of Judea, during the winter months, it was covered with a very low verdure, green for a very short period of time during the winter, but quickly scorched by the sun in the summer months. And when it got hot down there and it got tinder dry, of course, there was always the fire. And out of the fire would come these vipers shooting out of that grass and brushes and tearing off of their life. And that's how he likened those scribes and Pharisees. The day is coming, said Malachi, that'll burn as an oven. And all the wicked, they that do wickedly, shall be burnt up as stubble, and I'll leave them neither root nor branch. And the end of that chapter says, Behold, I send you Elijah. And here is the one that's coming in his spirit and power. So the prophecy of Malachi has been brought to bear upon them. And the words of verse 8 of John to this class of people were, to bring forth fruit, meat for repentance, brothers and sisters. Fruit is how you determine a tree. It's not what a brother says. It's not his external appearance. Sometimes that can be very deceptive. We can be very oily, we can be very smooth. We can always be talking about the love of God. We may not be like that in our hearts. It's what we produce in life, brothers and sisters. You look at your quality of your ecclesia. Look at the quality of your young people. Look at the quality of your family. There's the proof you bring forth those sort of fruits, says John, before I ever put you in that water. And that's what he, the words he addressed to these people, brothers and sisters, and he said, if you're not prepared to bring forth those fruits, he says the axe is laid to the root of the trees. They said that they had Abraham to their father. They said, we have Abraham for us, our father. John says, God is able of these stones to raise up children unto Abraham. You know, brothers and sisters, he took them from that wilderness further north to baptize them. He didn't baptize them in the Dead Sea. He baptized them at Bethabara, which means the fords, the house of the fords. And that's the place where Israel crossed when they came into the Holy Land. And when they came into the Holy Land, God drove back the River Jordan and picked up stones out of the black, oozy, stinking mud of Jordan. And it was, brothers and sisters, that's no exaggeration. Jordan at that point is very, very stinking river as it gathers up all the debris before it dumps it into the Dead Sea. And God drove that water back and he plucked those stones out of the muck and filth and stood them up on dry ground. And John says, in the very place where that was done, don't you tell me that your descendants from Abraham, God is able of these stones to raise up children unto Abraham. And if we're prepared to go into the waters of baptism, which we have, and stand there, or go under the water and say, all flesh is grass, God will drive that water away, bring us up to newness of life. And from the muddy depths of our morality, brothers and sisters, he will stand us with his Son in newness of life that we should bring forth fruits worthy of repentance. Don't tell me that your natural descendants of Abraham, says John. Everything John said was calculated to send their minds back to the word of their God, because he was nothing but a voice. These were not his opinions. The axe is laid at the root of the trees. Where did he get that from, brothers and sisters? Where did he get that from? Now, you look at the correlation. This is marvelous. You look at the correlation of John and Jesus in their teaching. The axe is laid at the root of the trees. Now, what did the law say? It says that when they planted a fruit tree, this is in the 21st chapter of Leviticus, when you planted a fruit tree, God says, I will give that tree three years. I'll give it three years. And if it doesn't produce fruit in the fourth year, cut it down. John comes along, brothers and sisters, at the beginning of the three years, and he says, there's an axe at the root of that tree. And at the end, nearing the end of his ministry, Jesus said, a certain man planted a fig tree, and it didn't bring forth fruit for three years. And he's now getting to the end of three and a half years of his ministry. And he says, cut it down. And they make an appeal. Let it go a bit longer. Let's fertilize it and give it a chance. And that's exactly what happened. Look at the correlation. John says the axe is there. They saw Jesus pick it up. Three and a half years later. And that's what the law of Moses had said. John wasn't telling them anything. It wasn't back in that Old Testament. That's what he told the scribes and Pharisees. In verses 10 and 11, the people asked him, saying, what shall we do then? You know, brothers and sisters, I'm not trying to be dramatic, really. This is drama. This is real drama. Let's try and put ourselves, say, in this Bible school, and hundreds of other Bible schools are all spread along those hills, and we're all standing there. We're looking down at God's exhibition. And we're only common people. All of us are only common people. And we're all pricked in our hearts. We realize that our way of life is not what it ought to be. We don't know much about God's Word. We're all cluttered up with this life's goods, and we realize now how destitute we are of the understanding of God's Word. It's high time that we separated ourselves, if only in our mind we're able to get isolated from this world and think about God and being pricked in our hearts. We crawl out down that wilderness. John, what are we going to do? What are we going to do? And the acts of Redmond Sisters was devastating. Absolutely devastating. Oh, rolling up those hills came that golden voice. He that got two coats, give one away. And every eye is on that coat. He's only got one. And you and I, Redmond Sisters, wouldn't be seen dead in it. He wasn't asking you to do any more than he could do. He didn't have to. And if he offered you the only one he had, you wouldn't take it. And the only other thing he said to the common people was, he that's got food, let him share it. And every eye is down there looking at that exhibition. And if he invited you home for dinner, Redmond Sisters, you'd feel sick because you'd never eat what he's eating. And the only two things he mentioned to the common people that they should do were the only two details that we know about him in the whole of the record of his life. About his personal details. You heard my personal details last night. You heard Jim's. You heard our other brother, Warren. Well, all we know about him is his coat and his food. And that's all he asked us to do, Redmond Sisters. That's all. And I could imagine all of us going home in that night in the bitter cold of the Judean hills, going up the hills. And we might have called him anything in our minds. We might have called him radical. We might have called him an extremist. We might have even said he was a hermit. We might have even said he was mad. There was not a soul in that crowd that could have said that he was a hypocrite. I would love, Redmond Sisters, to have a life that I could stand up here and talk to you and have my life as an example of what I'm saying. Sad to say that is not the case. But nonetheless, it is our duty to tell you what we believe that Bible is saying. And I looked down that exhibition and I can tell you that when I was in my study and saw that and listened to that voice telling me about those two things only, I wept. Because I don't do that. I can't do that. But I could never ever say to him that he asked me to do what I couldn't, what he didn't do himself. He that have two coats let him impart to him that have none and he that have food let him do likewise. Oh, what a magnificent lesson. Absolutely magnificent. To the publicans he said this, Redmond Sisters, in verses 12 and 13. He says, and the publicans, then came also the publicans to be baptized. They'd made a decision. It didn't say that about the other crowd. They'd come to be baptized. Why had the publicans made up their mind and the others hadn't? Because they were, Redmond Sisters, overspied a lot. Tax gatherers. Farming system. So a Roman governor was responsible to someone higher than he. Who was responsible to someone back in the Senate in Rome? Who was responsible to someone higher in the government than he? And each one of them had allowed each one to take a portion of the taxation as long as some of them got back to number one. And so the poor little fellow at the end of the line, the tax gatherer, had to tax them enormously that he might get better pittance to pass the rest on to his governor who passed it on to his superior who finally passed it on to the government itself. And everyone got a bit of it as it went along the line. And these poor devils who lived like that, Redmond Sisters, and they taxed the people on behalf of Rome, the people walked past them and held their nose. Oh, they stank. And because they were an ostracized group and hated among the nations, they came to be baptized. They wanted to be baptized. Their hearts were yearning to be baptized like the harlots were because everyone hated them. And they flung themselves on their god for who else cared? They came to be baptized. And all the Lord told them exact no more than what is appointed. He didn't tell them to give up their vocation. He didn't say it was wrong because he knew the miserable life that many of them lived. Not all of them. Some of them were avaricious as others. But those that came down there to be baptized like Zacchaeus living a miserable life ready to throw themselves into the arms of their heavenly father because everybody else hated them. You go on with your work but just don't do any more than what you're told. You don't need more than what you need. Soldiers came down there. Verse 14. The soldiers said, what are we going to do? The rough places. What if it does violence to no man? The margin says put no man in fear. Accused no man falsely and be content with your wages. And I believe, brothers and sisters, I can't prove this, but I believe those three sentences all have to do with their material possessions because what they used to do was intimidate one another for extra provisions. The provisions were all farmed out and they would intimidate each other by brutality, bullying their fellow soldiers to get more rations. They were to be not informers against one another because there were rewards for informing which of course would increase their material possessions. And of course, of all the things that a soldier, a mercenary, was never satisfied with his wages. And what about us, brothers and sisters? You satisfy with your wages? In our country, oh, what a fool's paradise. What a fool's paradise. I'm here on long service leave. You've never heard about that, some of you. Thirteen weeks off, extra, for ten years service. Four weeks annual leave, a year. And in those four weeks annual leave, I get seventeen and a half percent of my wages over and above my basic wage just in case I might miss out on some overtime while I'm on holiday. Oh, dearie, dearie me. Content with your wages. That's the world we live in. And if that was a problem then, brothers and sisters, how much more is it a problem now? And of course, as the crowd dispersed in verse fifteen, and as the people were in expectation, and all men mused in their heart, look at the margin, they debated, reasoned or debated in their hearts of John whether he was the Christ or not. You know, brothers and sisters, they weren't debating that because they were wondering whether he was the Messiah or whether he was not the Messiah. They were doing this in their hearts because this is what they would be thinking. I'm being told to share me coats and he's only got one. I'm being told to share my material provisions and that's all he's got to share. I wouldn't touch it. I don't want nothing to do with his life. Now, because he's told me that, I'm thinking in my heart, oh dear, oh, I hope he's not the Messiah because if he's the Messiah, oh boy, what about my life? Oh dear, I hope he's not the Messiah. Others might have been saying, brothers and sisters, who saw the point, yes, John. That is an exhibition to me of faith. I hope you are the Messiah and I hope I can live up to at least a seventh of that ideal. They mused in their hearts about that. And I said, whatever they thought about him, brothers and sisters, they could never have said that he was a hypocrite. And I want to conclude on a positive note because, you know, Luke adds a very beautiful touch to the finish of John's preaching. And in verse 18 he said, and with many other things in his exhortation, preached he unto the people. And, you know, literally, brothers and sisters, in the Greek, literally in the Greek, it would read like this, and many other things in his exhortation did he bring glad tidings unto the people. So, you see, it's not all that he said. The main issues are put forth by Luke. But you can imagine, John, that when he'd finished and there were tears streaming down the faces of the common people in the public lands and those who were going to be baptized, stricken and smitten in heart and saying, oh, dear me, what's my life like in relation to that? Where am I going in life? What am I doing with my time? And having reduced them, brothers and sisters, to almost rubble on those mountains, Luke says that, apart from the exhortation, he spoke glad tidings unto the people. Oh, I only wish Luke had recorded that, with that voice saying it. Because John would have looked up and said, you people who listen to me, you common folk who have got the message, you who are determined to go away from this Bible school to do what is right in God's eyes, you people who want to isolate your mind from the mad rat race that you're in, let me tell you what the kingdom is going to be like. How beautiful are the feet of him that preach the Gospel of peace. And there he was. How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him that preach the Gospel of peace. And they were all standing on the mountain, yet he was down there. And I would have imagined, brothers and sisters, that apart from the stern, challenging words of John, there would have been the change of tone and emphasis for all those prepared to accept that message. A voice crying, come out here in your minds, if only in your minds, and prepare the way of the Lord. There would have been those eloquent overtones of the glory of God's kingdom for all those who were prepared to submit themselves at least to the principles of the day of his exhibition unto Israel. The question is, brothers and sisters, what did we go out to see?

Transcript

This is Idlewild, 1983. Our second period speaker is Brother John Martin. His subject this week is The Prophet of the Highest, John the Baptist. This is the fourth class, and the title for the fourth class is To Fulfill All Righteousness. Brother Martin. My dearly beloved brethren and sisters in our Lord Jesus Christ. The last time we saw John, brethren and sisters together was to watch him on that desert floor giving us all a very, very powerful exhortation to live within our means, to live a quiet, simple life with the ability to be able to isolate in our minds ourselves from this terrible world and give God the opportunity to speak to our heart. If we've learnt that lesson, brethren and sisters, we've taken a gigantic step, I believe, towards the kingdom of God. For there is no other way to that kingdom other than that God should speak to our heart. Let us all therefore give him that opportunity. But now a different phase is coming. The words of the prophet are about to be fulfilled. Behold, I send my messenger, and he shall prepare the way before me. And the Lord Jesus Christ quoted that third chapter of Malachi and applied it to John the Baptist, so we know it's speaking of John, the Lord being our authority. He shall prepare the way before me, and the Lord whom ye seek shall suddenly come to his temple. And whilst John was at the banks of the River Jordan, brethren and sisters, baptising others, he was in a fervour of expectancy because God had told him that any day one was going to walk up, in whom, of course, the purpose of God was to be focalised. What an era of aura of expectancy that would be. Fancy standing there like he was, watching them come down by their droves into that water, because it says, all Judea, all around about Jordan, they came from everywhere to be baptised of him. And you can imagine him watching them one after the other pass through those waters, brethren and sisters, wondering, with his body quivering with excitement, knowing that any time he of whom the Old Testament had spoken would come. You know, we're in that fervour of expectancy, brethren and sisters, and how exciting it is to think about that. And so we come to the first chapter of John and we learn here of that excitement that John must have felt building up within himself. The climax of his mission was coming. And in John, chapter 1, in verse 33, John says here, In verse 31 he says, And so you see, brethren and sisters, John's purpose was not only to baptise others, but in the very process Messiah would appear. He says, He was waiting for him. It was absolutely necessary that Messiah be introduced this way. It wasn't that God had chosen it, brethren and sisters, because it was an ideal opportunity, because the crowds were all there, and this would draw attention to Jesus. He had to come through that water, because Scripture demanded it. And therefore John was waiting for him. And of course, these words which are here are written in retrospect. John didn't know who he was when he first came. What we're reading here is John's words in retrospect. And after the next day, we read in verse 29 of John, chapter 1, that is the next day after his baptism, John seeth Jesus coming again. He now does know who he is, brethren and sisters, and he saw Jesus coming unto him and he said, Behold the Lamb of God which taketh away the sin of the world. And that, brethren and sisters, was a monumental statement. It was not an outburst of emotionalism. It was not that John looked at him and saw him merely as being meek and mild. That was not the point at all. It was a calculated, intelligent statement of fact. A startling fact. Because the fact of the matter is this, brethren and sisters, that you will search in vain from Genesis to Malachi. In vain you will search to find a male lamb for a sin offering. It isn't there anywhere. It's not in the law, it's not in the Psalms, it's not in the Prophets. Nowhere does the Old Testament ever speak of a male lamb for a sin offering. The nearest you'll ever get to it is Isaiah 53. He was as a lamb led to the slaughter. And even in that chapter it says, Thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin. And the word in the Hebrew is trespass offering. So it's still not a sin offering. And the very words used in Isaiah 53, the exact terminology is taken from the law of the trespass offering. So not even that was a sin offering. And so when John directed all the eyes of those rabbis of the law, who knew every jot and tittle, what he was saying was, here he comes of whom the law knew nothing as far as a sin offering was concerned. Here's one above and beyond that law, the Lamb of God. And because, brethren and sisters, it was something that the law never offered, something entirely different, it had to be for the sin of the world. So there were monumental facts being placed before them by this one who had come to John to fulfill all righteousness. What a wonderful thing that is. And they would have been arrested by that statement. The glory of God had appeared, says John. We saw His glory full of grace and truth. And you know, brethren and sisters, those two words conjure up the extent of God's character. If we can say, if we could ever use that word, extent of God. But of our knowledge of Him, it conjures up all that we know about God's character. Grace and truth. And that's what was manifested to John. You know, brethren and sisters, when you think about those two things, what are they? Well, as I say, they represent, behold, the goodness and the severity of God. Grace and truth. The characteristics of Exodus 33 now embodied in this personality from Nazareth, shone forth in all its glory in a man who was able to bring together those almost opposite principles which we cannot exercise perfectly and yet which we are exhorted to do by the words of Zechariah the prophet, execute true judgment and show mercy and compassion every man to his brother. And there's no soul that's ever been born except the Lord Jesus Christ who could make mercy and truth kiss each other as the psalm says and become compatible perfectly. Because whatever judgment we make, brethren and sisters, and we have to make judgments, not about our brother's motive, but we've got to make responsible decisions. Whatever judgment we make, we're going to err somewhere between those two. We're either going to be unbalanced one way or another. But here was one that was full of grace and truth that came to John. We're going to be kings and priests, brethren and sisters, aren't we? You ever wondered why? Because those two offices are those two characteristics. He that rules over men must be just, ruling in the fear of God. And every high priest taken from among men is ordained for men in things pertaining to God that he might have compassion on the ignorant and them that are out of the way, kings and priests, mercy and truth, if you like. And those characteristics magnificently presented in the case of our Lord Jesus Christ, and that's what John was waiting for. And when one came who could balance those principles perfectly, he had to be the Son of God because there's no man, woman alive that could ever do that in this mortal frame. And that's what John was waiting for. And he was waiting for him at Jordan. I made the statement, brethren and sisters, it had to be this way. It had to be this way for several reasons. Not only because the Lord was to manifest the fulfilment of all righteousness in his own body but that he might become the example for others. That was the primary reason, of course. But I only know of three men in the Bible who were highlighted to Israel by coming up out of Jordan. Now this is fascinating. There are three men that I know who were to lead that nation and that God demonstrated their leadership out of that river. And those three men were Joshua, Elisha, and the Lord Jesus Christ. I want you to have a look at them, brethren and sisters, and then I'll tell you why I believe it's those three men. Joshua chapter 3. Notice the language here. And when we see the principles, we'll see how inevitable it was that Jesus had to come to that Jordan to be manifested to Israel. Joshua was to succeed Moses. But there may have been doubts about that, brethren and sisters. There may have been those in Israel who felt that they should succeed Moses. And so we read in the third chapter of Joshua and at verse 7. And the Lord said unto Joshua, This day will I begin to magnify thee in the sight of all Israel that they may know that as I was with Moses so I will be with thee. And thou shalt command the priest to bear the ark of the covenant, saying, When ye come to the brink of the waters of Jordan, ye shall stand still in Jordan. And so there, brethren and sisters, was the principle. God says the people must know, Joshua, they must know that you are the true successor of Moses. I will magnify you this day. Get the priest to stand in that water. And then we read in verse 11. Behold, the ark of the covenant of the Lord of all the earth passes over before you into Jordan. And of course, that ark represented the leadership in Israel with which Joshua was related. Now, brethren and sisters, you will see that the word in verse 11 for Lord is in small print. It's not in small capitals. Where, of course, we have it in verse 7. In capitals, we know it is the Hebrew name of our Heavenly Father. He who will be. But down in verse 11, the Hebrew word is Adon and it means the ruler of all the earth. Behold, the ark of the covenant, the ruler of all the earth passes over before you into Jordan. And on that great day, brethren and sisters, Joshua was magnified. Not that God would say that he would be the ruler of all the earth, but most assuredly, as a shadow, as a figure, as a type that stretched forward to the substance, Joshua prefigured him who would come, brethren and sisters, to be the true ruler of all the earth. And so it was necessary for God to demonstrate Joshua's leadership by bringing up out of the Jordan. I hope you're paying attention because we're going to have a climax to this. In the 2nd of Kings, chapter 2, we have the other incident of the other man who was manifest in the same way as he succeeded in the leadership. In the 2nd of Kings, chapter 2, in verses 13 to 15, Elijah is departing this earth. The question is, who is his successor? There were 50 aspirants for the job, 51 if you count Elijah, but there were 50 great men standing by who thought that they might, one of them might be the leader. And we read in verse 13 of the 2nd of Kings, chapter 2, that Elijah took up the mantle of Elijah that fell from him and went back and stood by the lip of Jordan. And he took the mantle of Elijah that fell from him and smoked the waters and said, Where is the Lord God of Elijah? And when he also had smitten the waters, they parted hither and thither, and Elisha went over. And when the sons of the prophets, which were to view at Jericho, saw him, they said, The spirit of Elijah doth rest upon Elijah. And they came to meet him and bowed themselves to the ground before him. And so again, brethren and sisters, when the question of the successor came, it had to be manifest through the river of Jordan. And when that happened, people acknowledged that. I think you can see where I'm going. And the day came when John's successor was to be manifest. All the people had been impressed with John. We learn later on that despite the words of John himself, telling them to follow Jesus, they still wouldn't forsake him. And there were such people known as John's disciples, even though he told them to follow the Lord Jesus Christ. And so it was necessary with that sort of quality in him and leadership in him that God should make it known that day who is going to be his successor. And how did he do it? Straightway when Jesus came up out of the water, he said, This is my beloved son. Now, brethren and sisters, it begs the question, why those three men and why coming up out of Jordan? They are the two questions. Why those three men and why coming up out of Jordan? Because the three men's names, two of them are identical, and the other one is that close, it doesn't matter. Joshua, Yahoshua, Yahweh will save, is the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. Jesus is but the Greek equivalent. Elishua or Elisha is ale, God will save. And so we find, therefore, the three men who were manifest coming up through Jordan, brethren and sisters, all had names basically meaning the same. That's answer question number one. Question number two is, why must they manifest to Israel by coming up out of Jordan? We'll never understand that, brethren and sisters, unless we understand the principle for which Jordan stood. Jordan means the descender. It rises at the foot of Mount Hermon, several thousand feet above sea level. It bubbles out from right underneath Hermon, and by the time you turn around from when you're looking at the springs coming out of Hermon, behind your back, it's a very broad stream already. It is aqua blue, in places other places emerald green, as it represents the sparkling, refracting water of the melting snows, bubbling and gurgling and foaming over the rocks, like the stream down there. By the time it reaches the Sea of Galilee, it's a dirty brown, and it's already at the Sea of Galilee, 600 feet below sea level. As it makes its torturous way down the Jordan Valley, brethren and sisters, like the winding of a snake, it's already down, when you get to the top of the lake, it's about 1,392 feet below sea level at the Dead Sea. No wonder it's called the descender. And because it's got such a steep descent and such a torturous course, when the snows melt in the thaw, the river overflows all its banks, so we learn in the first chapter of Joshua, the first of Chronicles chapter 12. Quickly overflows its banks, quickly recedes, and you ever see a river do that, it will leave on the banks all the bracken, all the debris, all the mud caked in layers, baked hard in the sun on top, but beneath oozy and black. Jordan ever stood for the flesh, as it started in all its purity and stagnated in the Dead Sea. And about 15 miles north of the Dead Sea, according to the third chapter of Joshua in verse 16, was a little city called Adam. And through Adam, it stagnated into death, and nothing lives in that sea. Jordan ever stood as a symbol of the flesh. Zechariah the prophet, Jeremiah the prophet, looking down upon Jordan from the heights of Judea, you look down upon it, it's a beautiful sight, the winding river. And because the bracken grows up in the debris, and it's got a green top, it looks beautiful, brothers and sisters. You look down upon a river like that from a great height, and you're looking straight down at it, you're looking at the top of the bracken, it's beautiful. A green sward seems to converge and clothe both banks of the river as it flows peacefully towards the Dead Sea. But when you get down there, on ground level, and you see underneath, the dead-looking branches which just got the green on the top, and the oozy black mud, and the slimy stuff there, and the vipers making their way through that bracken, it's a dangerous place. It's also where the lions were very prevalent down there, and a very dangerous place to go. And so Jeremiah said, If they have weary thee with footmen, how will you contend with horses? And if in the land of peace you couldn't get on, how ever will you do in the pride of Jordan? In other words, if you can't keep up with men running, you'll never keep up with horses. If in the land of peace you can't get on, you'll never get on. When you get down to the pride of Jordan, and the word pride is used because it looked good, but oh boy, you get down there and you're all sorts of trouble. And so when we understand therefore, brethren and sisters, for what Jordan stood, we begin to understand why it is that God manifested His salvation by men who are able to climb out of its water. He who can get out of that water has to be God's salvation. Not that Joshua was, not that Elisha was. They were but representatives of Him who should come. But there was a man, brethren and sisters, who came of Adam, and he's with us, or was with us, I should say, correcting myself, he was with us in the stagnation of death. But he got out of it. And the only way he could ever get out of it was by the power of his God. He was Yah's salvation. And so that's why the men have got the same names, and that's why they came out of the same river. If you can overcome the flesh, if you can live a perfect life, brethren and sisters, then you are of God as He was of God, but you're not, and I'm not. And we will never ever, in reality, get out of that water until He comes to pluck us out. But He did, and when He come up out of that water, God says, this is my Son. And you know, brethren and sisters, that was not so much as a statement again of endearment, although of course that's clearly implied in it, this is my well-beloved Son. What God is trying to tell us, this is my Son. That's why He got out of that river. Had He not been my Son, He never got out of it. He would have still been in the grave with the rest of the stream of humanity that stagnated in that water. And so John was waiting for that to happen, for the tide of humanity to be returned back from the first Adam through to the second Adam. By one man came death. By another man, brethren and sisters, came resurrection to life. John was waiting for that. And God told him, that's how He's going to be manifest. Prophecy demanded it. Principle demanded it. Type demanded it. And because He was God's Son, stepping up out of that water, He stood there clean, pure, because the mighty power of His Father operated in Him in a manner which I could never understand or describe, but which I could never match either. And so we come to the third chapter of Matthew. With that little bit of an introduction, which took half the session, we'll have now a look, brethren and sisters, at the monumental occasion when the Lord came to that river in the third chapter of Matthew. And we'll basically stay with this record, perhaps, with just deviating here and there to illustrate our principles. And in the third chapter of Matthew we read, and listen to what it says, then cometh Jesus from Galilee to Jordan unto John to be baptized of Him. He almost traversed the whole course of that river. See the point? He almost traversed the whole course of that river. He descended. And He that ascended far up above all the heavens, what is it first, but that He descended to the lower parts of the earth. He that will be exalted must first humble Himself. If we want to ride upon the high places of Judah and be fed with the heritage of Jacob, brethren and sisters, we must first walk the distance down Jordan. He came from Galilee and He descended the course of that river. Now, of course, John was embarrassed, wasn't he? He was absolutely embarrassed. Because although he didn't know that Jesus of Nazareth was the Messiah, as he himself confessed, he didn't know. He knew Him as a person. He knew Him as an individual. He knew Him as a character. And John was utterly embarrassed that this one should stand in that water with Him and looking into those beautiful eyes, which of course was the light of the body. And knowing behind those eyes that body had lived a life of utter perfection. Oh, how embarrassing it is to stand there and have to baptize Him into the baptism of repentance. What is John going to do, brethren and sisters? Lord, I have need to be baptized of Thee. Comeest Thou to me? John, John, you must understand. John, thus it becometh us, the two of us, to fulfill all righteousness. What righteousness was fulfilled on that day that a perfect man should be baptized into that baptism? Well, you see, brethren and sisters, John wasn't only preaching the Gospel of repentance. You see, sin is the outcome of a cause. It's the cause of an effect. Sin is the cause of the effect. And so there's got to be something to be acknowledged. What was the righteousness to be fulfilled? Well, listen, they said, who are you? He said, I'm a voice. And he identified himself with that voice in Isaiah 40. And the voice said, cry. And he says, what shall I cry? All flesh is grass. Not some of it. All flesh is grass. Had not Jesus submitted to that baptism, brethren and sisters, he would be claiming to be a man from another planet. But for as much as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, he also himself likewise took part of the same. All flesh is grass. John, thus it becometh us to fulfill all righteousness. For it became him of whom are all things, and through whom are all things, in making the captain of their salvation perfect through suffering, says the Apostle in Hebrews 2. It became him. It behoved him to be made like unto his brethren. So Paul says, it became him in making him the captain of our salvation. It behoved him to be made like unto his brethren. If he's got to be a captain, he's got to be a leader. A captain represents his people, as Joshua did, as Elisha did, as the Lord Jesus Christ did. And so when the Lord stepped into the water, brethren and sisters, to fulfill all righteousness, there was two things declared. First of all, his humanity. He was a descendant with everybody else into the stagnation of death, and of himself he could do nothing. When the Lord said that, it wasn't pseudo-humility. It was an absolute statement of fact. He could of himself do nothing. And by the same token, to quote our brother Jim playing on the front foot, he was telling everybody the real source of his strength. Thus it becomeeth us to fulfill all righteousness. Back, keeping your hand in Matthew, back to Isaiah 42. Here was the righteousness, brethren and sisters, that was being fulfilled on that day. Some wonderful things written in the prophets. Isaiah 42, verses 5 and 6. Thus saith God, the Lord, he that created the heavens and stretched them out, he that spread forth the earth and that which cometh of it, he that giveth breath unto the people upon it, and the spirit to them that walk therein. Ay, the Lord have called thee in righteousness, and will hold thine hand, and will keep thee, give thee, for a covenant of the people, for a light of the Gentiles. See the point, brethren and sisters. Ay, the Lord have called thee in righteousness, but in order to do that, I've got to hold your hand. There's no way that he could be called in righteousness unless God had hold of his hand. And God says, I will keep you, give you. It was all the work of God, brethren and sisters. Far be it from me to stand here and to detract from the remarkable, wonderful, loving cooperation of the Son of God. Never would I, brothers and sisters, ever want to hear, depreciate the grandeur of his submission. But in accordance with his own wish, his own doctrine and teaching, it was his Father where the victory belonged. His was but the submission to a power beyond him. And his Father grabbed his hand, kept him, gave him in righteousness. Whose righteousness? The chapter finishes in verse 21. Chapter 42 of Isaiah finishes with these words. The Lord is well pleased for his righteousness sake. He will magnify the law and make it honorable. Whose righteousness sake, brethren and sisters? Rotherham, I believe, catches the spirit of that verse when he says, the Lord is well pleased for his own righteousness sake. And it has to be God's righteousness because it's a magnification of the law which was given before Jesus as an individual saw the light of day. It was making something honorable that came before the man that God had instituted. And so the Lord was pleased for his own righteousness sake. And when he took him by the hand and led him in righteousness, John, thus it becometh us to fulfill all righteousness. And the Lord felt, brethren and sisters, the warmth and the strength of his Father's arm holding him there, keeping him there, and then finally giving him to the people for a covenant. It was also wonderful when the principles are discerned. That's the atonement. You know, brethren and sisters, it's a precious doctrine. I've never found, you may correct me in this, in all my experience in the truth, I've never found anybody who believes what we believe in its purity on the doctrine of the atonement. It's a gift. I will give him. It's a gift to understand that doctrine. And so there was the fulfillment of all righteousness. And straightway, says Matthew, as he came up out of the water, God acknowledged that. And when he was baptized, he went up straightway out of the water, and lo, the heavens were opened unto him, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and lighting upon him. There was an acknowledgment, brethren and sisters, in one decisive act. In one decisive act, God acknowledged what had been going on during the whole course of his life. Just as you and I, in one decisive act of baptism, we give credence to the doctrines to which we have been taught and are determined that that one decisive act will be but an epitome of all our life. And that's what God was to acknowledge on this occasion. Now I have a very wonderful matter to put before you. It may not always be easy to grasp this, but it is truly wonderful. When we put the Gospel records together, brethren and sisters, Luke tells us that as that voice came to him from heaven, he was praying. It was in the attitude of prayer that the Lord received that acknowledgment. Isn't that wonderful? That's what Luke says. But I want you to turn to Mark, because Mark says something different too about this incident. And it's from Mark that we're going to go to the Old Testament again for a remarkable application of Scripture. Now in Mark, chapter 1, recording the same incident, Mark says this in verse 10, And straightway, coming up out of the water, he saw the heavens opened and the Spirit like a dove descending upon him. He says almost the same was what Matthew says, with a difference, brethren and sisters, that if you look at the margin for the word opened, Mark's Greek word is different than all the other Gospel writers. The word means, as the margin says, cloven or rent. He saw the heavens rent. And any brother who is familiar in any way with his Bible will know exactly, or may not exactly, but he'll know that somewhere in the Old Testament it is said that God would rent the heavens. And Mark, with the choice of his Greek word, is sending us straight to that passage of Scripture. Why? Well, let's have a look at it, Isaiah 64. Let's have a look at it, brethren and sisters. And I hope by this illustration, brothers and sisters, that we may be able to impress upon you, as it has been impressed upon me, the value of letting the Bible speak for itself. So Mark says the heavens were rent. And in Isaiah 64, in verse 1, O that thou wouldest rent the heavens, that thou wouldest come down, that the mountains might flow down at thy presence. And it's a play upon the wonderful events of Mount Sinai. But the prophet is asking, brethren and sisters, for another manifestation in another spirit. And then we drop our eyes down to verses 5 and 6. Thou meetest him that rejoiceth and worketh righteousness, they that remember thee in thy ways. Behold, thou art wrath, for we have sinned. In those is continuance, but we shall be saved. But we are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags. And we all do fade as a leaf, and our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away. Now, brethren and sisters, there's more in that that's on the surface than is on the surface. Because, you see, the prophet is praying, and try to follow this. The prophet is saying, O that thou wouldest rent the heavens. What for? Well, he says that you might meet him that rejoiceth and worketh righteousness, not their own, because verse 6 says that's filthy rags. It's a different sort of righteousness, brethren and sisters. But who are the people that Isaiah is talking about? Upon whose behalf is he appealing? I believe we can prove who it is by letting the Bible speak for itself. Because, you see, the end of verse 5 says, we have sinned. In those is continuance, and we shall be saved. Let me read that from the Revised Standard Version, and you will see the sense is much better. In our sins we have been a long time, but we shall be saved. Now, brethren and sisters, let me put a proposition to you, and you just use your logic. The prophet is calling for a renting of the heavens, as it was when God came down in fire and melted Mount Sinai, as it were. And he's asking for another manifestation of the same saving power. He's talking about God coming to meet people who work righteousness that's not their own. And he's talking about a people who've been a long, long time in their sins, but that God would eventually save. Who's he talking about? He's talking about the Gentiles. Israel had their manifestation, and the prophet's crying on behalf of another people. Another people who have been left a long time in their sins, but who are able to work the righteousness of God in their lives and to be saved. Now, the proof of it, brethren and sisters, is this. Peter's on the housetop. The sheet is let down from heaven, knit at the four corners, in which there are all manner of four-footed beasts and creeping things. Leviticus 20, representing the Gentiles. And he's taken to the house of Cornelius, and he came in and he said, I perceive that God is no respecter of persons, but that he that worketh righteousness is accepted of him. Isaiah 64. And straightway as he came up out of the water, the heavens were torn asunder. And in him God meets everyone, who though may have been a long, long time in their sins, they can be saved if they meet in him he that works the righteousness that don't belong to us. And that one word that Mark uses opens up that whole chapter. And there we have it, brethren and sisters. The wonderful act of grace of which John was the witness that when all righteousness was fulfilled, when the Lamb of God was presented that the Lord knew nothing about, it was so efficacious that it reached out to a people who had been left a long, long time in their sins. A remarkable day it must have been for John to perceive all that. And Matthew goes on and tells us that he saw the Spirit descend upon him like a dove. Rather wonderful, brethren and sisters, the expression here used by Matthew. He saw the Spirit descend upon him like a dove. But look what he says had happened. And Jesus when he was baptized went up straightway out of the water, and lo the heavens were opened unto him, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and lightning upon him. Do you know back in the story of Elisha that very word is used that the Spirit of God came upon him and the word, not that very word, not that very Greek word, but a similar Hebrew word. In Isaiah 11 when it says the Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him, the word is the same and both words mean the settling down of birds. And so here we have the Spirit settling down upon him like a dove. Now brethren and sisters, if we go to John's Gospel, we won't turn it up now because my time is going. If we go to John's Gospel, John says, I saw the Spirit descending upon him and remaining with him. And immediately after that happened, immediately after, look we will turn it up because it will be better for me to read it than describe it to you because I want you to get this point. It's absolutely beautiful. In John chapter 1 and verse 33, look what it says. I was going to try and conserve time but it's better to do it this way because I want you to see this point here. In verse 33, and John says, 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 baptizes with the Holy Spirit. And then over in verse, taking it up at verse 49 or verse 48, Nathaniel said unto him, whence knowest thou me? Jesus answered and said unto him, before that Philip called thee, when thou wast under the fig tree, I saw thee. Nathaniel answered and said unto him, Master, teacher, thou art the Son of God, thou art the King of Israel. Jesus answered and said unto him, because I said unto thee, I saw thee under the fig tree, believest thou? Thou shalt see greater things than these. And he said unto him, truly, truly, I say unto you, hereafter you shall see the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of Man. And so when that Spirit came down like a dove, brethren and sisters, and John records it stayed with him, he goes to see Nathaniel. Nathaniel was sitting under a tree, and Nathaniel was reading Genesis 28. There's not a shadow of a doubt. He was either reading it or thinking about it, one of the two. There's not a shadow of a doubt about that, because Genesis 28 records the incident when Jacob laid his head upon the pillar at Bethel, the house of God. And he saw the angels of God ascending and then descending upon him, in which case they were with him at the beginning and they were with him at the end. Had it been the other way, brethren and sisters, had they been descending and ascending, it would have meant that they were not with him at the beginning and they were not with him at the end. But it didn't say that. It said they ascended from him and descended to him. And God was telling him, I will be with thee in all the way in which thou goest. And immediately after that Spirit came upon the Son of God and stayed with him, he pointed his finger straight at that chapter of Scripture and said, Nathaniel, you say I'm the King of Israel? So I am. If that man was changed his name to Israel, I certainly am the King, because the Spirit was with him. And so this is what we read in Luke's Gospel, brethren and sisters, skipping over the chronological order of our Lord's life. This is what we read in Luke's Gospel. The Spirit drove him into the wilderness to be tempted of the Diabolos. Luke then records he came out of the wilderness in the power of the Spirit and then ignoring chronological events, Luke then records his visit to Nazareth, he stood up in the synagogue and says, the Spirit of the Lord God is upon me. So it took him into the wilderness, stayed with him during the temptation, came out with him and stood up with him in that synagogue. And all the way through that record in Luke's Gospel, as he ignores the chronological order of details to present that thought that the Spirit was always with him. Why did it come down, brethren and sisters, in the form of a dove? There has been much speculation upon that. I suppose the idea that I will present you may think is speculation too. That's your privilege. Some say, well, the name of Jonah is the Hebrew word for a dove and our Lord said that they would not get any sign but the sign of the prophet Jonah and therefore the dove represented him as the fulfilment of the type of Jonah. Maybe it doesn't impress me much. Well, I think, brethren and sisters, and I put this forward respectfully, but it really is beautiful, I believe, that of all the characteristics we know about a dove, harmless and everything else, there are two which on this occasion I feel have a wonderful and remarkable application. The thing that the Scripture notes about the dove is that it is a very clean little bird. My dove, my undefiled Song of Solomon, it will not ever put its foot in dirt, mud, filth. It will hover around and flutter until it finds firm ground, clean ground, and it will land. Point number one. Another feature of the dove which is noted by the prophets, which I think has peculiar application here, is that it has strong homing instincts because it belongs to the pigeon family. They shall fly as doves to the windows, says the prophet Isaiah in his 60th chapter. It's the pigeon family. It has strong homing instincts. And putting those two things together, brethren and sisters, when he came up out of the muddy waters of Jordan and the water flowed from his body and he left his humanity as it were back in that water denying his flesh and he stood up on clean ground. He was a morally perfect man. Never done a wrong thing in his life. And so a little dove came and settled on him. And because that dove had strong homing instincts, the spirit of his father which had made that life holy, it was the reason why his life was holy. The origin of his morality was in heaven. It homed in where it belonged. What else could it do? This is my beloved son in whom I am well placed. We've left John for a while, haven't we, brethren and sisters? We've been making a study of our Lord Jesus Christ, really. But it is one section of John's life where he had a stand as an awe-stricken spectator. And from that moment onwards, it was inevitable that he must decrease. And as we follow him in the next study, brethren and sisters, we will see how greatly impressed John was with that occasion and how he drew constant attention to him who was truly the Lamb of God. And the next day as Jesus walked by with the disciples standing around him, amongst them were Peter and Andrew, the next day they were clinging to John and John says, look, my disciples, I'm telling you, my work is finished. There he is. There's the Lamb of God which takes away the sin of the world. And he said that as John said as Jesus walked past. And some of those disciples left John, including Peter and Andrew, joined with the Lord and walked away from him. And the fulfillment of John's course was seen, brethren and sisters, in the action of those disciples. And it is our great and earnest prayer that the studies of John the Baptist might help us to do exactly what they do. He directed us to the Lord as he walked past. Let's join in and follow in his footsteps.

Transcript

This is Idlewild, 1983. Our second period speaker is Brother John Martin from Adelaide, Australia. This is the fifth class on the subject, The Prophet of the Highest, John the Baptist. Subtitled for today, I Must Decrease. Brother John Martin. My beloved brethren and sisters in our Lord Jesus Christ. With the baptism of our Lord, of course, came the climax of John's work. It was inevitable, brethren and sisters, from that point onward, that John fade out of the picture. I want to put things, this morning, in chronological order, a little bit better, because I do remember making a couple of comments, thinking up ahead, you know, it's a dangerous thing to do without your notes, that I didn't put things altogether right in sequential order. Let me tell you what happened after that, that Mark records that immediately after the Lord's baptism, he was driven of the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the Diabolos. And so the Lord would have been in that wilderness, of course, as we will know, for those 40 days and 40 nights, when he would have been severely tested as to his obedience to his loving Heavenly Father. It was after that incident of the temptation that, of course, he returned to the scene of John's baptism. And if we look at the first chapter of John, brethren and sisters, we'll find here that John deals with four consecutive days. And these days, of course, I believe, would have taken place after the temptation of our Lord in the wilderness. And the four consecutive days are here spelled out by John as to the position of John the Baptist. And by this time, of course, brethren and sisters, interest would have been heightened in John. There would have been tremendous tension among the leaders of that nation. As John's popularity grew, as the so-called Messiah, which they would not have believed, of course, had appeared, there would have been a fervor of interest and anxiety among the rulers about what exactly was going on down there in Jordan, because things to them would have got quite out of hand. And so what you find, therefore, is John gives four consecutive days in which various sections of the community came to John to determine what it was that he was all about. Certainly, brethren and sisters, from verse 19, we read there that this is the record of John when the Jews sent priests and Levites from Jerusalem to ask him, who art thou? In verse 29, John speaks to the people and points out the fact that the Lord Jesus Christ is the Lamb of God. The next day, John stood there with two of his disciples, John and Andrew. And then from verse 43, the next day, Jesus departs for Galilee. So there is four consecutive days. And the first day is taken up with the priests and the Levites being sent as an official delegation. What are you up to, John? Who are you? What's your opinion of yourself? Then follows John's exhortation to the people, then follows his exhortation to two of his disciples the next day, and on the fourth day, Jesus departs with those disciples into Galilee. Now that is, I believe, the chronological sequence of this story. Now let's have a look at John's witness to the Jewish elders. And we read in that verse 19 that the Jews sent priests and Levites from Jerusalem to ask him, who art thou? Now, brethren and sisters, that was necessary under the law of Moses because John's claim, of course, was quite stupendous. Nobody could make that sort of claim that he was making, that he was a prophet of the highest after 400 years of silence. Nobody could make that claim without having a check put on him. And it was right that it should be done. Because Deuteronomy 17 and 18 had clearly laid down the procedures for this matter. The local judges had to be determined, of course, by divine choice because they administered the word. Deuteronomy 17, verses 8 to 13. The kings themselves had to make their own personal copy of the law. Irrespective of copies that had gone before them, they had to make their own copies of the law. So it was the kings that copied out the word of God. The 17th chapter of Deuteronomy, from verses 14 to 20. But the prophets, brethren and sisters, were different. It wasn't a question of the prophets administering the word or even copying it out. A prophet could add to the word. And that is a serious matter. And why I mean add to the word, I don't mean add in his own right. But if God sent a prophet with a new message, which he oft times did, and that became part of the word of the Lord, that was an addition. And so you can understand in measure, despite their hypocrisy, of course, and lack of belief. I'm not justifying that. But you can understand in measure the apprehension of those people that down there after 400 years of silence, now here is a man saying that God's word is now being increased. There's been an addition to it. No wonder the Jews sent priests and Levites down there to determine what that man was all about. Who art thou? If you turn to the 28th chapter of Jeremiah, brethren and sisters, you will see the point that I've been making about the prophet. That there had to be a check upon all things that were said in the word of the Lord. And so here Jeremiah actually quotes Deuteronomy chapter 18 and says in the 28th chapter of Jeremiah verses 8 and 9, The prophets that have been before me and before thee of old prophesied both against many countries and against great kingdoms of war and of evil and of pestilence. The prophet which prophesies of peace, when the word of the prophet shall come to pass, then shall the prophet be known that the Lord hath truly sent him. Now here's the test that when the prophet spoke words which were in addition to the law, the test was if it has come to pass. Now brethren and sisters, you think of the anxiety of those people because John is not only saying that there's been an addition to God's purpose, that there's been an ongoing thing in God's purpose, but the thing that he is saying is that the Messiah has come. Now if the test was that if what the prophet has said has come to pass, if it has proven it has come to pass, then those words were put into the canon of Scripture. They were accepted as such. But look what he's saying. Messiah has come. Oh boy, that really is going to take some checking. And so down went those Jewish elders, the priests and the Levites, to find out what John was all about. And as we pointed out, the more they asked him and the more that he said, the less he said. I am not the Christ. I am not. No. And so he then said, well who are you? So in verse 22 they said, then they said unto him, what art thou then? That we may give an answer to them that send us. What sayest thou of thyself? What's your opinion of yourself? What's your self-opinion? John's answer was, I'm nothing. I'm a nobody. I've got no possessions. He has no fixed abode. No credentials. He doesn't dress like other people. He doesn't eat like other people. He's a non-entity. All I'm trying to be, he said, is a voice. But it wasn't just simply the repetition of a voice, brothers and sisters. It was a re-echo of that voice, pointing out at the substance of which that voice had pointed forward. So he wasn't just expounding Old Testament things and leaving them in past history. And although it was the re-echo of an old voice, it was pointing forward to new things, in the matter that the Lord Jesus Christ had now come and was the substance of all that went before him. You know, there is a wonderful expression. In the Old Testament Scriptures. See, John claimed to be a voice, but the Scripture says he was God's exhibition. He was a living manifestation of that voice. Because the voice said that if you want to understand God's Word, you must isolate yourself from your environment. You must not be caught up in the things of this world. He was a living manifestation of that voice. You know, brothers and sisters, when God's voice boomed across the plain from Mount Sinai, the fourth chapter of Deuteronomy said they heard the voice of words. The voice of words in the giving of the law. When Paul quoted that in the twelfth chapter of Hebrews, he says, You are not come under the mount that might be touched, that burn with fire, under blackness, darkness, the tempest and the sound of a trumpet, and the voice of words. And he quoted that expression. And why aren't we come to the voice of words, brothers and sisters? Because in our Lord Jesus Christ particularly, we've got the Word made flesh. It's no longer the voice of words in the abstract, it's the voice of words in an embodiment of all that that Word spoke of. Now John was not the Word made flesh, but I think it could be truly said of him that as far as his message went, as far as the degree of responsibility that God placed upon him, I think it could be said in all truthfulness that in that degree, brothers and sisters, he was his voice made flesh, what he said he practiced. And so although he only claimed to be a voice, and that's all that he was, and it really wasn't his own voice at any rate, it was the voice of God, so he wasn't even really that. And yet nonetheless, brothers and sisters, the fact that he lived up to those principles, he himself was the very embodiment of that voice. Verse 24 makes a very interesting comment about the religious persuasion of the people who were sent down to see John. It just says, and they which were sent were of the Pharisees. And the word Pharisee, brothers and sisters, is a word which means separate ones. And isn't it typical of John that he should drop into the record that little comment that it so happened that they that were sent on behalf of the Jewish elders were of the sect of the Pharisees, separate ones. And have a look at who they're talking to. Look who they're questioning about separateness. And they thought, brothers and sisters, that they were separate, they were isolated, they were different, they were God's people, they were the vehicle of God's message, because they were separate. Have a look at him. If ever there was a separate one in Israel, they were talking to him. Now they said in verse 25, Why baptizers thou then, if thou be not that Christ, nor Elijah, nor that prophet? Now their problem, as I pointed out, brothers and sisters, was that baptism only applied to a Gentile who was considered so unclean that he needed to be washed. And of course completely out of place with a Jew. And so they were grievously offended when John invited them all to be baptized. They were terribly insulted. And they said, Why do you baptize? That was a problem to them. See, they couldn't lightly dismiss him because he had made a profound impact upon the people. So they can't just go out and arrest him and do away with him, because there's going to be an uproar if they do that. But they are profoundly insulted by that baptism. That's dust not on. You do not ask clean people to wash. That was their opinion. Brothers and sisters, his answer was devastating. Look, we read it, we read it ever so glibly. And because I don't suppose we have that same Jewish attitude of mine, we wouldn't realize just what a tremendous impact his words would have had. He said, Do you know why I'm baptizing? Because that's the only way that the Messiah was going to be manifest to Islam. And you could imagine him recoil back in horror that he's not only suggesting, brothers and sisters, that Jews should undergo a washing equivalent to those dirty Gentiles, but he's pointing out to them horror of horrors that Messiah has to go through that process. You could imagine the violation in their minds that that would have created. That although they did not believe for a minute that the Lord Jesus was the Messiah, to them Messiah, oh Messiah, and that's his answer. Why do I baptize? I baptize primarily because that's what Messiah will do when he appears. I knew him not, but he that said unto me, he whom you see the Spirit descending, the same as he. And he says, Therefore I am come baptizing. What an answer! But even Messiah must go through that process. And he went on to say in verse 26, John answered him saying, I baptize with water, but there standeth one among you whom ye know not. There standeth one among you. There standeth one among you, he says, that you don't know anything about. He's already here. Coming after me, yes, is John, but he was preferred before me. Or as the RSV says, he who comes after me ranks before me because he was before me. And so they go back with their report. And you can imagine them making their report. Well, what did you ask him? Is he the Messiah? No, he's not the Messiah. He said he wasn't the Messiah. Well, did he claim to be Elijah? No, he didn't claim to be Elijah. Well, there's a prophet of Deuteronomy 18 whom they saw as a different prophet, of course. We know it was the Lord Jesus Christ. They said, was he that prophet spoken of in Deuteronomy 18? No, he's not that either. Well, for goodness sake, who is he? Well, we really don't know because he said he was nobody. Oh, he's a nobody. What's a nobody got the audacity to come here and telling us people who have got a lovely relationship with the God of Israel and who are his chosen people? What's the audacity of that nobody saying that we've got to be baptized? What sort of an answer did he give you to that? Well, actually, he sort of said that the Messiah ought to be baptized. What? And you could imagine the reaction. You could imagine that reaction. And so that's the first day. In verse 29, the next day, Jesus has returned from the wilderness of temptation. And John sees Jesus coming unto him and says, Behold, the Lamb of God which takes away the sin of the world. And as I pointed out, brothers and sisters, that that was a monumental statement because there were two things they never understood. That the law of Moses nowhere, neither in the prophets nor the Psalms, from Genesis to Malachi, nowhere does the law understand a male lamb for a sin offering. It doesn't appear. So here's something that's made apart from the law. And because it's apart from the law, it's efficacious for the sins of the world. And then in verse 31, John goes on and he says, I knew him not, but that he should be made manifest to Israel, therefore I am come baptizing with water. You know, brothers and sisters, he was to be manifest to Israel. A rather delightful little tie up here in scripture that it was subsequent to this, of course, that I pointed out that Jesus found Nathaniel, whom he saw in his mind's eye beneath that fig tree, either reading or thinking about Genesis 28 of that stairway that led to heaven, upon which the angels were ascending from Jacob and descending, and therefore they were always with him, having left him and come back to him. But in that 28th chapter of Genesis, brothers and sisters, in the authorized version it says that Jacob saw the Lord standing above that ladder. But that's not what it says in the Hebrew. In the Hebrew it says that Jacob saw Yahweh standing by him. And that's what the original Hebrew says. Rollerham's translation puts it that way. He saw the Lord by him. And in other words, in the course of those angels ascending and descending, God was manifest to Israel, because later on his name was changed from Jacob to Israel. And here is the Lord Jesus Christ. He is the presence of God. God can never be where he is not. And he can never be where God is not. God was standing by him. I and the Father, he said, are one. In fact, that was his testimony to the people on that next day when Jesus came back from the wilderness temptation. Verse 35 says, again the next day. And so the day following, quite a remarkable thing happened then too. And you notice what it says, brothers and sisters. It says in verse 35 that John stood and in verse 33 that Jesus walked. And that's very deliberately said. So the picture is of John standing still and of Jesus walking. That's what John's trying to tell us. And John is standing there with two of his disciples. We're told their names later on in this chapter. In verse 40, one of them was John and the other one was Andrew. And as those two disciples stood there with John, Jesus walked past them. And he looking upon Jesus as he walked says, look, behold the Lamb of God. And there's a wonderful thing there, brothers and sisters. There was enacted out that cameo that John must decrease and the Lord Jesus Christ must increase. And John and Andrew with their beloved Lord, as they would have seen John the Baptist, their master, their rabbi, to whom they had given their allegiance, stood there with them and he watched him go past and he said, that's him, behold the Lamb of God. And they left him and walked after Jesus. And there was enacted out right there and then the very purpose for which John the Baptist had come. Messiah had come and it was time for him, brothers and sisters, that they would leave him. And so verse 37 says, and the two disciples heard him speak and they followed Jesus. John, of course, later on was to get his brother James. Andrew later on was to tell his brother Peter. And so those two men was later on to involve their brothers. And in verse 43, the day following, Jesus would go forth into Galilee and so on. And so on the fourth day, having returned out of the wilderness of temptation, the Lord left John and he walked into Galilee. You know, brothers and sisters, it's very interesting that Mark, the Gospel writer, dates, actually dates the beginning of the Gospel of the Kingdom of God when the Lord Jesus Christ had left John and went into Galilee. You look at Mark chapter 1 and verse 14, he actually dates the beginning of the Gospel of the Kingdom in the mouth of the Lord Jesus Christ from that point on. And so we find in Mark chapter 1 and verse 14, now after that John was put in prison, Jesus came into Galilee preaching the Gospel of the Kingdom of God. Now you turn to Acts chapter 10. And notice how this was taken up by Peter when he was speaking to Cornelius. And in Acts chapter 10 we find the same dating is given by Peter when he was talking to Cornelius. And so in the 10th chapter of Acts from verse 36, the word which God sent unto the children of Israel preaching peace by Jesus Christ, he is Lord of all, that word I say ye know, which was published throughout all Judea and began from Galilee after the baptism which John preached. So you see, both Mark and Peter combined to tell us of the starting point of the Gospel which was preached by our Lord Jesus Christ. Well you say, well what's important about that? Well don't you see, brethren and sisters, the people who walked in darkness have seen a great light, Galilee of the nations, Galilee beyond the nations says Isaiah 9 and verse 6, the people who walked in darkness have seen a great light. And you see how God had come to the nation, a man sent from God whose name was John and he preached in the wilderness of Judea. And Judea, brethren and sisters, was the centre, the stronghold, the capital of Jewish thinking, of Judaism and they had their opportunity. What did Galilee stand for? Well the name Galilee really means a ring. So called for one reason because of the geographical strata of the mountains there which don't run in chains but in rings. As you go up from Judea, Samaria, the broad plain of Israel divides Samaria from Galilee, you go up the slopes on the other side to the city of Nazareth and beyond that the rings of Galilean mountains. That's where the name came from. But it wasn't only the ring of mountains that the name meant, brethren and sisters, because Galilee being north, it became a meeting place of all those tradesmen and so forth that came from the Roman world going east and from all those eastern merchants which came from the east on their way to the western world. And they would come down as far as Galilee and nations ringed together. So much was that said that even the Jewish accent was tainted with the Gentile accent so that Peter's speech betrayed him as a Galilean. It was a region, brethren and sisters, in the Old Testament which Solomon gave to the king of Tyre. But because although the region is beautiful as far as the geography is concerned, because it became a district in which people had settled down of all nationalities and became a slum area, the king of Tyre called the name of the place Cable which means dirty. In the days of the Lord Jesus Christ, part of it became known as the Decapolos which means the ten cities. Because the Romans had built their ten cities which were built specifically for those Gentile people who were not welcome in Israel. And so the district had a bad name. Could anything good come out of Nazareth or Galilee? It had a very bad name. And yet both Mark and Peter tell us that when John had given the intelligentsia of the Jewish people their opportunity and Messiah was manifest, though he was first sent to Israel, brethren and sisters, it is remarkable that in a typical way he went to a district where all nations ring together in a district which was renowned for its poverty and its uncleanness. The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light. Now Jesus begins his work and just briefly this is what he was doing while John was continuing to be baptized. He attended a wedding in Cana. He visited Capernaum. He then came back to a visit to Jerusalem and cleansed the temple, kept the first Passover and made many disciples. He visited Nicodemus and then of course he supervised himself baptism in Judea. So the one that John had said that is the Lamb of God who had left him and gone into Galilee was back. And now on the banks of the River Jordan and in another place there were two men baptizing people really for two different reasons. One complementary to the other for sure, but different. And so there arose a problem, brethren and sisters, didn't there? Because there were still men who believed that John the Baptist was indeed the Lord. He was the great prophet and they had not accepted the fact that the Lord Jesus Christ was the Messiah. And so we pick up the record in John chapter 3. A bit of history of Jesus going back into Galilee and now returning again and he is supervising baptisms near Galilee. You see we read that in verse 22 of John chapter 3. And after these things came Jesus and his disciples into the land of Judea and there he tarried with them and baptized. So the Lord I believe is supervising. I don't think he would have been doing the baptisms but he would have been supervising baptisms in that place, brethren and sisters. And then we read in verse 23 and John also was baptizing in Aeneon near to Salem because there was much water there and they came and were baptized. Now did you notice what happened, brethren and sisters? Aeneon was a spring about 8 miles south of Beit Shan. It was not on the banks of the river Jordan. John had moved away from the Jordan. He had gone to a spring of water where there was much water there. He was not baptizing in Jordan anymore. All flesh is grass. Thus it becometh us to fulfill all righteousness. It had been fulfilled in that sense, brethren and sisters. The declaration had been made. He who had come out of Jordan now had the authority having stood before God true in principle and practice. He now had the authority to put other people in that water. John had moved away from the banks of Jordan and gone further to the west to a spring of water. And there were two baptisms going on together in different places for different reasons though as I say complementary one to another. And there were people who noticed that. And so verse 25 says there arose a question between some of John's disciples and the Jews about purifying. Who's doing the right baptism? You know, brethren and sisters, in that 25th verse it reads that there arose a question between some of John's disciples. Actually the Greek is in the singular. It's all in the singular. The Diagelot, the Revised Standard Version, Rotherham and other reliable translators all put it in the singular. There was a one Jew there who noted the difference. And standing there, this agitator said, hey, what's going on here? I thought we were right. What's he doing down there in the banks of the River Jordan? Why have we moved? Why are we now here? Why is he down there where we originally were? We've got opposition. And there was an agitator. You know, brethren and sisters, that's not uncommon with human nature. That isn't uncommon with human nature. We follow leaders. And you know, if leaders were not wise, agitators like that can divide them. There wasn't any way in the wide world they'd ever divide John and Jesus, but he thought he could. And he thought he could agitate strongly enough, he could get John's back up and John would oppose the Lord Jesus Christ. That's how much he knew about John the Baptist. That happens in ecclesial life. You don't believe me? I remember a very, very well respected and well loved brother in our meeting and still the same, an expositor of the Bible. Him and I have a difference of opinion. On a certain matter, it's not fundamental, of course. It's on a matter of exposition. We disagree amicably. We don't have any problems with that. I respect his view and I know for sure he respects mine. It came to a point, brethren and sisters, when we were going to put out a certain publication in which that difference appeared. I didn't want to see the thing published. The other brother thought it might be a good thing to publish. The difference wasn't great. And a brother turned up at our meeting to the arranging brethren's meeting that had never come, never seen from one year's end to another and he came there and I said, oh, you're here tonight. He's got some matter of interest to bring up the arranging brethren. Oh, I know, he said, I've come to see the bun fight between you and this brother. He had greatly, greatly misunderstood both that brother and myself. He had greatly underestimated, brethren and sisters, the spirit that was between me and that brother. There was no way that he ever could have driven a wedge between us. I knew that and so did that other brother. And we had that understanding between us, brethren and sisters, not because we'd got together and agreed to disagree, but because in principle we were one. So it does happen. Needless to say, that brother became the myth between the Sammich. It didn't work. It did not work at all. But it does happen and this Jew stood there and he thought he might be able to divide these great men. You know, it's very often, you know, they try to divide Paul and Apollos. You know, there were those of the Apollos party in Corinth and there were those of the Paul party. Paul says, who is Apollos and who am I but ministers of the grace of God by which you believe? Apollos planted, I watered, God gives the increase. We're working together. And he pointed out to the Corinthians, brethren and sisters, he said, I have transferred these things in a figure to Apollos and myself that you might think not to consider one man above another. So Paul was telling them the problem was not with Apollos or with himself, the problem was with the fickle crowd. I want to draw that principle out, brethren and sisters, because it's pertinent to us all. Bible schools are wonderful, but they do present an opportunity for odious comparisons. I like that brother, but I don't go for this chap's style. I like his matter, but I don't think he quite got to the point of it all. Which do you think were the best of the three speakers? Don't ever get into that sort of discussion, brethren and sisters. Don't you ever get into that sort of discussion. You concentrate on what is good in all that's said. Don't ever get to the point of that disciple. I wonder who's right. And try and divide friends because you will find that it won't be the friends who will divide. Responsible men who teach you from the Bible have got a bit more in them than that. And the only people who will be divided is those who try to divide them. That's what this fellow tried to do. I've mentioned that, brethren and sisters, because not that I think it's happening here, I don't think it is for a second, but it has happened. And I believe it's a very great evil. Let us come with a positive outlook to take out of the studies whatever is good and I don't matter who says it. As far as John was concerned, they could never ever divide him. Look in verse 26, and they came unto John and said, Master, now look at the words, Master, they said, he that was with thee. Oh, what a mistake. You know, they came to John in this patronising fashion. Very peeved that someone was taking John's position. And look at the way they address him. Master, he that was with you. How wrong they were, brethren and sisters. How wrong they were. He was not the master and Jesus was not with him. He was the servant and he was with Jesus. That was the fact of the matter. And they had completely and utterly forgotten that. And because none of us are the Messiah, nor ever could be, it's always better in circumstances of that nature, that if someone says to you, if ever you have the opportunity to stand where I'm standing, remember that brother who was teaching with you at the Bible school, you point out to them, no, actually I was teaching with him. And they put John in a situation which was tempting him, brethren and sisters, to take the Lord in place. How easier it would have been for a lesser man to say, oh yes, I remember that chap who was sort of with me. But he wouldn't say that, brethren and sisters. No way. John's answer was magnificent. See, they said to him in verse 26, Rabbi, he that was with thee beyond Jordan, to whom thou bearest witness, to whom thou bearest witness, the Lord Jesus Christ is spoken of, brethren and sisters, as the true witness. Behold, they said, the same baptizeeth, and all men come to him. Now, all men were not coming to him. Verse 32 says, and what he hath seen and heard, that he testifieth, and no man receiveth his testimony. So they were not right. They were exaggerating the success of the Lord Jesus Christ. But John could see, brethren and sisters, that there was no man that was really accepting his testimony. And though there were people following our Lord, they weren't following him for the reasons that John said, nor were they following him for the reasons that Jesus said. So all men were not going to him at all. Matter of fact, nobody really, truly was. But they should have been. But then John gave a classic answer, a classic answer, to the point about who was the greatest. Now they said, the question was, John, are we to believe that your baptism is right, or that one? He's taken your place. He's baptizing for perhaps a different, though complementary. Who are we going to believe? John's answer is magnificent in verse 27. John answered and said, A man, a man, note that, a man can receive nothing except it be given him from heaven. Brethren and sisters, there were two men on the banks of the River Jordan, the Lord Jesus Christ and John. The Apostle Paul called him, even in his exalted status, the man, Christ Jesus. And John says that that was a man sent from God. So as far as their physical being was concerned, they are both equal. They are both men. That's John's point. Never a question of superiority when it comes to flesh. We're all men. I'm a man and he's a man. The thing that makes the difference, says John, is what either one of those men received from heaven. And they only had to think back when they were together as men as to what happened when Jesus came out of the water and they stood there together. But who received what? The Lord Jesus Christ received that spirit as it were in the form of a dove saying, This is my beloved son. This is my beloved son, which made him, brethren and sisters, more than just a mere man by virtue of what he received. And so we're all equated. There is no one superior to the other because all are in Adam. We're all men. If there is a difference in our ecclesia where we may respect one brother or sister above another, it can only be determined by what they have gotten from God's Word. And that's very easy sometimes, brethren and sisters, to determine. Hard in some cases perhaps, but there are brothers and sisters among us who tower as monuments, not because they have any virtue in themselves, but it's obvious that they have received something. And that's the point that John made. Furthermore, John went on to say in verse 29, He that hath the bride is the bridegroom. Well, that's a statement of fact, isn't it? But he says, The friend of the bridegroom which standeth and heareth him rejoice greatly because of the bridegroom's voice. This my joy therefore is fulfilled. So he likened his relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ as the Lord Jesus Christ was the bridegroom, he was what the Jews called the friend of the bridegroom. Or if you like, what we call him in Australia, do you do it here, the best man? Is that what you call him? Okay. Well, I suppose, brethren and sisters, we could say that John was the best man. But he was more than man. He was more than mere man. And the friend of the bridegroom was to give way to the bride, to the bridegroom rather, when the bridegroom had met the bride. Now let me tell you in Jewish custom what the friend of the bridegroom did. This is what Jewish custom says, brethren and sisters. The bride's friend, the bridegroom's friend rather, was charged with these responsibilities. He would arrange the marriage between the two parties. He would do all the preliminaries that were necessary for the wedding festivities. He was to act for the bridegroom, to the bride during the espousal period. They were very modest people, the Jews, brethren and sisters. They had their customs of modesty, dignity and reverence. And the bridegroom just didn't go trooping around with his girlfriend all over the place. They had a go-between because they respectfully kept their distance. Naturally, they would have known each other. They would have had their moments together. But when the marriage came near, they kept their distance, and the mediator went between the two of them. And that added and heightened the anxiety and the anticipation of the marriage coming together. You can imagine that happening. As for a period of time, they separated, and all they have is contact with each other through the friend of the bridegroom. And they'd both see that man as a very great friend. What did he say? What did she say? What did he say? What did she say? And the terms of endearment and of love would be carried by the friend of the bridegroom. Wasn't he doing that? Wasn't God instructing him of the coming of the bridegroom? Wasn't he going to Israel, the bride of Yahweh, and saying, this is what your bridegroom is saying? Weren't the common people asking him, what does the bridegroom want us to do? And the friend of the bridegroom was going between the two parties. He then organized the festivity on the day of the marriage. And when the day of the marriage came and all the organization was done, like the committee here organizes this Bible school, there was a signal, brethren and sisters, there was a given signal which terminated his responsibilities. They didn't ring a bell. No one came up and told him that he could now be dismissed. There was a given signal by which he knew that his job was finished. And that is this, that as the bride and the bridegroom came together, all was silent, and the bridegroom opened his mouth and gave his espousal of love to his bride. When the friend of the bridegroom heard that, he walked out of the ceremony and was dismissed. That was the signal that his job was done. The bridegroom made contact with the bride, spoke to her, and immediately that voice was heard, his job was finished. I therefore, he says, he that hath the bride is the bridegroom, but the friend of the bridegroom which standeth and heareth him, rejoices greatly because of the bridegroom's voice. This my joy therefore is fulfilled. And down there in John's place by the banks of the River Jordan, a voice was talking to his bride. John may not have been able to audibly hear it, but he knew that down there he could hear the bridegroom's voice. He said, that's it, I'm happy, I'm thrilled, they're together, my job is over. You know, it was some time later in the ninth chapter of Matthew, this is before that John was put to death, that John's disciples came to the Lord Jesus to question him on this very matter as to who they should follow. I want you to notice how Jesus answered them. And in the ninth chapter of Matthew, verse 14, then came to him the disciples of John saying, why do we, that is John's disciples, and the Pharisees fast not, but thy disciples fast not? In other words, we're two separate groups. Jesus said unto them, Can the children of the bride chamber mourn, as long as the bridegroom is with them? But the days will come when the bridegroom shall be taken from them, and then they shall fast. Oh, brethren and sisters, what a powerful answer. So here's John saying, I'm the friend of the bridegroom, he's the bride, I can hear his voice, he's talking to his bride, therefore he says, my job's finished. He told his disciples that. Now later on, they still won't believe him, they still won't leave John, they were so attached to him. So they come to this new teacher and they say, Lord, you think you're the great teacher and you've got a band of disciples, but really, you know, you don't live up to the principles of the truth like we do. We've got to be right because we follow the Jewish traditions. We fast and do this and that like the Pharisees do, and though we won't believe what the Pharisees believe, yet we follow the ancient traditions. So obviously, John is the master and we really are the disciples of the master, and that leaves you, I don't know where. And the Lord's answer is, what did your master teach you? How can the children, how can my children fast while they got the bridegroom? Isn't that what John told you? I'm paraphrasing this Brethren and Sisters because this was the intent, I believe, and the Lord warned them, the day is coming when you won't have the bridegroom, neither will they. My advice to you is that if John is your master, listen to what he's teaching. Move your allegiance to me because I am the bridegroom. If you don't do that soon, I won't be here and it'll be too late. That was a tremendous warning, Brethren and Sisters. And so with the voice of the bridegroom speaking to the bride, John's last words were in the Gospel of Matthew, I must decrease and he must increase. In the Greek, I must grow smaller. I must grow smaller. I am not the Christ. I am not. No. What are you? Nothing. Just a voice. What about the voice? Gone. Disappeared. And all that's left is one object of love, devotion, dedication, the bridegroom. And if we Brethren and Sisters want to be part of that great marriage supper of the land, let's move over as fast as we can and listen with great intent to the voice of that bridegroom.

Transcript

This is Idlewild, 1983, day number 6, period number 2. Our speaker, Brother John Martin, from Enfield, Mcclesi, Australia, whose general subject is the Prophet of the Highest, John the Baptist. Today's topic, What Went Ye Out to See? Brother Martin. My dearly beloved brethren and sisters in our Lord Jesus Christ. Well, brethren and sisters, that portable, burning, shining lamp was about to go out, leaving behind it that phosphorus light, that permanent light that nothing could put out. The time has come for John to go, and you know, brethren and sisters, by a very simple comparison of Matthew's Gospel with that of John, we learn that John was beheaded during the Passover season, just 12 months before our Lord should suffer a similar fate. He was a forerunner in more ways than one. When the Lord received the knowledge of his death, he was on the western side of the Lake of Galilee, and the crushing news came to him at the same time that there were 70 disciples bouncing up and down with joy that the message had been accompanied by the physical manifestation of God's power. But so crushing was the news of John's death that our Lord requested that he leave that excited little group, get into a ship, and they sailed across to the eastern side of that lake. And as he sat there with the 5,000 and fed them, John says, it was spring. And so we learn from that, brethren and sisters, that John was beheaded at the time of the Passover. How grim was that warning to our Lord, forerunner indeed, of all that was before him, because the sufferings must come before the glory. John, you know, just before they took him into prison, was baptising in Aeneon, we told, in that Gospel record that we read the other day, where there was a spring of water. That, brethren and sisters, was near the border of Peria. And at the time of John's baptism at Aeneon near Peria, the governor of Peria was Herod Antipas, and he was the son of Herod the Great, of whom we made reference, of course, in our earlier study. Herod Antipas was almost the reincarnation of Ahab. You notice I said almost. I don't want to go away from Idlewild with the reputation that I believe in reincarnation. I'll have Jim Madley answering that question in the question session. But I use that term advisedly, because really, brethren and sisters, they were twins in character. And the whole situation that faced John at the end of his death was almost that exact situation that Elijah, in whose spirit and power he came, had faced with Ahab and Jezebel. For if Herod Antipas was the counterpart of Ahab, Herodias was almost the equal of Jezebel. What an incredible set of circumstances as history repeated itself. Herod Antipas was an Edomite. His father was an Edomite, and his mother was a Samaritan. What a glorious family background. And you know, brethren and sisters, he produced in his life his hereditary characteristics of a cowardly, wily sneak that Jesus called that fox. Really apt, that was, that fox. A cowardly, wily sneak. And that was the characteristics of Herod Antipas. He was a weak-minded man, like Ahab, and he was always haunted by his suspicions and his fears. He kept saying, after he'd killed John, it's John, risen from the dead, I know it is. He kept saying that, the record says. He was haunted by his suspicions and fears. And like Ahab, brethren and sisters, he had half a conscience. He had half a conscience. He believed in the truth in Mecca. He was affected by the words of John. In exactly the same way as Ahab was. And perhaps in a better environment, with a better wife, he could have been a better man. I say perhaps because that wasn't to be in God's purpose and I don't question that. But humanly speaking, in different circumstances with a different woman, he may have been a better man for all his cowardly ways. But he didn't stand, he didn't stand a snowball chance in a furnace with Herodias. Because brethren and sisters, a man with half a conscience will never get anywhere if he's dominated by someone who is determined in the other direction with a full-blooded determination to do that which is evil. He didn't stand a chance in her presence. Like Ahab, you know, history records that he had a fascination for beautiful buildings. Incredible, isn't it? So he would have delighted to imagine Ahab's ivory palace. They were twins. He had married a girl, the daughter of Aretus, the Nabataean king. The Nabataeans, of course, were those people who succeeded the Edomites down in the fastness of the Negev and were a hardy people. And because they were a very industrious, a very intelligent people too, they had penetrated among the governorships of Judea and Samaria. And the Aretus was king of the Damascene, do you remember, in the days of the Apostle Paul. And this man had married the daughter of such a king. But on one occasion when he was visiting Rome, he got talking to his brother Philip's wife. And so he divorced his wife and married his brother Philip's wife. And he committed twin evils, brethren and sisters, just because Herodias was his niece. He was living in an adulterous and an incestuous union. And that's what the law of Moses had condemned, both those twin evils. And of course, in the sixth chapter of Mark, where basically we will now be going for a while, where we look at John and the way in which he came to a tragic end, John didn't let him get away with that, brethren and sisters. And so in the sixth chapter of Mark, we read in verse 18, For John had said unto Herod, that is Herod Antipas, It is not lawful for thee to have thy brother's wife. And I want you to understand, brethren and sisters, that John didn't say that once. In the Greek, it is in the present continuous tense John kept on saying, It is not lawful for thee to have thy brother Philip's wife. He kept saying it, saying it and saying it until he drove Herodias mad with it. And day by day, day by day, she grew more belligerent towards him. Why, brethren and sisters? Because you see, John's words were having some effect upon Herod Antipas. And the woman could see that. And so in verse 19, we read of this chapter, Therefore Herodias had a quarrel against him. The margin says that she had an inward grudge. And that's exactly what the word in the Greek means. Rotherham puts it in his translation, She was cherishing a grudge. Just as Jezebel did, of course, against Elijah. And we read in that 19th verse, And she would have him killed, but she could not. In the Greek, again, the words are very strong. She was cherishing a desire to kill him. So she was harbouring an inward grudge and she was cherishing a desire to kill him because he kept on denouncing that unlawful union day after day after day. You know, brethren and sisters, that takes a lot of courage. It takes a lot of courage to stand up for the right things of God. In a creasual life, the least we can suffer is to be ostracised by our brethren and sisters and call hard-hearted. That man was risking his life day after day after day. And although that woman cherished the desire to kill him, she couldn't because we read, Herod feared John, feared him. The margin says that Herod feared John and observed him and the margin says that he saved him, he kept him or saved him. So Herod was saving him. Now you imagine the scene in that house. A man with half a conscience and a determined, ruthless woman is exactly that situation back when Elijah had a face. But for a moment, because of the great impact that John had upon Herod Antipas, he stood his ground momentarily and he prevented that woman from having her desire upon John. I believe, brethren and sisters, that he saved him for two reasons. First of all, because in the record here, we learned that he liked to hear John. He learnt many things of him. And secondly, as Matthew adds his little bit, he feared the people because all held John as a prophet. And in that 20th verse, we read, For Herod feared John, knowing that he was a just man and unholy. You see, he recognized uprightness in character. He recognized sanctity in character. You see, brethren and sisters, that's the tragedy of many of our people. That's the tragedy of an Ahab, of a Herod Antipas. They could have been better. He was not ignorant of that which was just or holy. He had a respect for it. Or if only he could have had the rest of his conscience. And that's the tragedy of those people. But no, he would not. And we read, And when he heard him, he did many things. That's a very important sentence. He did many things, except the one thing needful. And you can see John telling him day after day about the holiness of his God, about the greatness of the one that had come and standing among them, of the justice and the glory of God's character and shining that forth in his own life, Herod being visibly impressed. And he actually, brethren and sisters, he actually practiced many things in the truth, except the one thing needful. It's not lawful for you, he kept telling him, to have your brother Philip wise. How true is that of human nature? How true, brethren and sisters, when we have a problem in life and sometimes we go to people with our problems or they come to us with their problems. And if we are wise and kind to our brethren and sisters, we will listen carefully to what they have to say. And all the early words they talk to you really are the perimeters of that real problem. This is what I find by experience. You listen carefully, you sift it all out, and you know they're going around the perimeter of that problem, somewhere it's in the center. Sooner or later, it'll come out. And if it doesn't come out directly, they will say certain things which you can see as an inference and then you say, that's your problem, isn't it? And you'll see them wince, and you put your finger right on the nerve center. And you know what? They will do anything you say, except solve that problem. And very often that has been the case. And they'll try and solve all the things on the perimeter, but they will not solve the problem. Which if they were to do that, come to the core of the matter, everything else would fall into place. And you can see the play between those two characters. And John is telling Herod about being just and holy. There was nothing just or holy about that marriage alliance. Nothing just, nothing just about it because it was a defiance of God's law, and nothing holy about it either, brothers and sisters, because it was his niece. And he kept telling him that, and he'd do anything except solve that problem. And yet it says, he heard him gladly. Imagine how that would worry Herodia, as day by day she saw her husband affected by that man whom she hated with a hatred that would defy the scripture, harbouring a grudge. And of course she waited her opportunity, as did Jezebel. History was to repeat itself, and verse 21 talks of a convenient day. It was Herod's birthday. They had a custom in those days, brothers and sisters, for their birthdays. You see, it was a custom, and of course it was more than a custom. I mean, if they didn't follow it, well, they'd find themselves, you know, in the Mediterranean with their souls resting in cement. The custom was that when Herod, Herod had a birthday, you see, and of course the custom was that Caesar always had a great celebration on his birthday in Rome, because they considered the Caesar, whoever he was, to be a god. And so it was expected of those who worshipped the god of this earth, headed up in Caesar, that they would repeat on their birthday the celebrations of Rome. I'm learning all this out of the historical books that I've read in conjunction with my study of John the Baptist. You'll find this in several books dealing with the history of the early Roman Empire. So you'll find that no governor, who was under the jurisdiction of Rome, as these all were, would dare not have a birthday party, because it was for them a recognition of he who was greater than them in his birthday party. That was the custom. And of course, being Herod's birthday, he had to follow that custom, and he invited, we learned, the lords, the high captains, and the chief of states. Put all that together, the lords, of course, were the officials of the court. The legal system was there. He had the high captains. The word means the captains of a thousand. All the officers of the military were there. The military men were there. And the chief of states, the word indicates the landowners in the province. So they were all there, representing the gods of this world, the legal system, the military mights, and all the landowners. All who stood in exact opposite situations than he who now languished in a prison in Makaria. Because Herodias had got away to a degree, and John had been put in prison, to shut him up, because he was telling everybody that that marriage was wrong. So she silenced him in that prison, at least for the time being. But because she had a grudge, she wasn't satisfied with that. Now Makaria, brothers and sisters, where John was put, was right over on the eastern side of the Dead Sea. There it is, that's the Dead Sea, up a bit north to this way, and over that side, Herod had a great castle, in which there was a dungeon, as well as, of course, lordly buildings. He had a great castle, perched right up on the Escarpment of Gilead, looking right down on the shimmering blue of the Dead Sea. It had a magnificent view of the land all around about it, and yet it was set in a very, very inhospitable terrain, very forbidding really. It wasn't built really for pleasure, but for defence. All the Herods did that. They had a house of pleasure, and they also had a castle of defence, and that was his castle of defence, and in there they had put poor John, and there he was, languishing in that prison, looking down over the Dead Sea. And here comes the birthday party. And verse 22, When the daughter of the said Herodias came in and danced and pleased Herod, and them that sat with him, the king said unto the damsel, Ask of me what's over that world, and I will give it. And he sweared unto her, What's over thou shalt ask of me, I will give it unto thee to the half of my kingdom. You read those words, brothers and sisters, that we need to capture the drama, because I do believe that there is an important principle involved in all that. The daughter of Herodias. Mark says she came in and danced, but Matthew says she danced among them. And you can see what happened. Josephus, the historian, the first century historian of the Jewish people, said that her name was Salome. We've all heard, of course, of the lewd music that's been based upon the dancing of the said Salome. It's, of course, a Greek dress of the Hebrew word shalom. Peace. Peace. Anything but peace, brothers and sisters. And as that girl would swirl in between, as Matthew says she did, among the tables of the feasting lords in her lewd clothing. And you can imagine the ribald, coarse comment that would come forth from the inflamed lips of those who were overcome with wine, clapping in their lewd ways and allowing all the pleasures and the lust of their flesh to have unrestrained sway in their body. What a dreadful thing that was. That girl was the granddaughter of Herod the Great. She was born of Marianne, a Maccabean princess. She stood, brothers and sisters, in line of the high priest. She was a girl herself who married a tetrarch and became the mother of a king. And debauched herself in that situation. That's what the world does. That's the world that we don't understand. God be thanked. We have nothing to do with that world, brothers and sisters. There is no, not only is there no decency, there is no dignity there. This was a girl of blue blood, according to this world's standards. But she saw no inhibitions to flaunt her body before those men. And she knew what she was doing. What a dreadful, shameless thing she was. And Herod had to pass. Well, he's got the legal system, the army and the landowners there, hasn't he? And this girl, oh, was she a beauty. And drinking his wine, shouting in a loud voice, oh, he says, ho, ho, half of my kingdom laughs I give to you. What a fool he was. You know, brothers and sisters, that was an echo of an Old Testament phrase. When another king said exactly the same thing about another girl who was also very beautiful. Because that's what Ahasuerus said about Esther. But between the two, there was a void and a world of difference. And one was promised, of course, half the kingdom that was not really to be taken literally. It was an expression that he would give her beyond her thinking. Something that she would really appreciate, beyond what she would expect. Nobody would give her a half the kingdom. That was a proverbial, a colloquial expression. And when it was made to Esther, it was made because Ahasuerus was pleased, brothers and sisters, and impressed with her beauty of character. Because when she was given the opportunity to have access to all the cosmetics which the science of that kingdom could manufacture, she said she wanted nothing. Nothing, whatever. Except those necessary things for purification, for her sanctity. But apart from anything else, it was all laid out before her. What do you want? Nothing! And she went in there as a natural Israelite. Beautiful, indeed. Not only externally, brothers and sisters, but radiating out of her face was her character. And you know, there's a fallacy in this world. And it goes like this. You can't tell a book by its cover. Don't you ever believe it. Because Isaiah said, the show of their countenance does witness against them. And shining out of that little Jewish girl without all the cosmetics was a glory of character that impressed that king to half of the kingdom. And look at this girl. Imagine how she'd be dressed. And now she's promised half the kingdom. An Old Testament is right. World of difference between those two girls. Well, she's got her promise, hasn't she? And we know what happened, brothers and sisters. But in verse 24, and she went forth and said unto her mother, what shall I ask? And she said the head of John the Baptist. You know, in Matthew chapter 14, in the Comparable Record, we are told there, brothers and sisters, that she was before instructed of her mother. And it would seem, and this is how it appeared to me, that the Greek here is to force forward. In other words, she had been prepared by her mother before what to do. Now she goes back to mom and says, well now will I go on with it? And she forced forward to do what they had already planned. It seemed that the girl had hesitated. Mother didn't hesitate. And straightway, verse 25 says, straightway, she made haste unto the king and saying, I will that thou give me by and by in a charger the head of John the Baptist. What a terrible thing. And you know, brothers and sisters, I don't enjoy entering into these sort of details. But I think sometimes, if we can enter into the depths of depravity of these merciless creatures, we will sometimes be able therefore to feel more keenly the death of this great man, John the Baptist. I'm one of those people that when I study the Bible, I like to see it and live it. And I like to think that it really happened and we all know that it did. And I like to think that we're there. And you see that man's head coming in on a plate as the word charger really means. On a plate. Why would she want it on a plate? Well, it was a birthday party, wasn't it? This is not funny, brothers and sisters. I'm serious about this. This is not a matter for us to smile or laugh. This is a tragic matter. And that woman wanted that on a plate. And I believe there were several reasons for that. And she would sit there. A woman, merciless, cruel, harboring that grudge. And one of the reasons she wanted it on a plate was that she wanted to make sure it was him. Secondly, she would have that held up in front of her at Antipas. Do you still think it's unlawful? For us to be married? You're pleased to hear that creature? Well, there he is. Talk to him now. And the third reason, brothers and sisters, was that that woman had a perverted sense of humor. Because it was on a plate at a birthday party. It was to her the piece de resistance. What a woman. Your heart goes out, doesn't it? It really does. No wonder our Lord left that shore and said, get me out of here. You know, some of our brethren have gone that way over the years, brothers and sisters, and their souls are under the altar crying, how long, O Lord of hosts? We live a sheltered life brought up on the cream of the truth society. Harbored in the pioneers writings, brothers and sisters, and shepherded by those brethren of sound principles. Living our lives as if every day was going to go on endlessly from one day to another. Imagine it. Sometimes the things around us are all permanent. We've forgotten that lesson. A voice is telling us, come out here in your mind and learn something about God. And you know, Herod only acceded to that request. It says the king was exceeding sorrowful. That exact expression, brethren and sisters, that exact expression, very strong Greek term, is used in Matthew 26 when our Lord bent his head in Gethsemane and he was exceeding sorrowful. And you can see that king's conscience. He'd be sobered up in a moment of time with that girl's request. He would pierce him like a dagger. Sober as a judge he is now, exceeding sorry. But you see what had happened. Everyone in the room heard him. The legal system had heard him. The military had heard him. And all the landowners had heard him. And so John's head, brethren and sisters, was sacrificed on the altar of pride, in deference to the greats of this world. He couldn't have suffered a more honourable death. I'll say that again. His head was sacrificed on the altar of pride and in deference to the greats of this world. And it came to pass in the 15th year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar. And then listing all the greats of this world and all their territories. Right down to the very last two, the high priests of the God of Israel himself. And unto none of them did the word of God come, but unto John in the wilderness. And because he denounced this world, brethren and sisters, and called upon you and I, if not to live like him, not to wear a camel skin, to become a hermit and be looked upon as a radical or an extremist, he doesn't ask that. But that we might, at least in our minds, isolate ourselves from that which the world, it seems, is great. Isolate ourselves from status or territory, possessions, whatever. And having enough to live a godly life with contentment, to give our minds to the wonderful voice of God's word, to sacrifice that mind, if needs be, on the altar of pride and to the greats of this world. Wonder what God thought of all that. We come now to the seventh chapter of Luke, brethren and sisters. John is gone. And we pick up the story of our Lord's reaction to him. And what a wonderful reaction that was. And the story that we pick up begins for us, brethren and sisters, in verse 16 of Luke chapter 7. Listen to these words. After the Lord had been raising the dead, it says, and there came great fear on all, and they glorified God saying that a great prophet is risen up among us and that God has visited his people. That's exactly what Zacharias, the father of John the Baptist, was saying when John's promise of birth was given to him, brethren and sisters. And when John was born, he says, God has visited his people. And he had. Not only in the person of John the Baptist, but now in the personage of our Lord Jesus Christ. And so in the context of Zacharias' words, re-echoing again, we read in verse 18, and the disciples of John showed him of all these things, and John calling unto him two of his disciples, sent them to Jesus saying, Art thou he that should come, or do we look for another? You know, brethren and sisters, we sometimes try, in our sincerity and love for biblical characters, to skirt the obvious. People try and say, well of course John didn't doubt, he sent his disciples, it was for the cause of his disciples' education, not John's. Brethren and sisters, that will not fit that context. In the first place, John had been continually telling those disciples to follow Jesus. They're hardly likely to send them to Jesus to be convinced of him, whom they saw as John's opposition to what John was telling them all the time. They're hardly likely to be convinced of the Lord to follow him. That wouldn't be the reason. No, brethren and sisters, the context of this chapter demands that that doubt, if you like to call it that, was John's. There is no perfect character in the Bible except one. All the heroes of faith, brethren and sisters, have their failings. But before we start casting stones, let's think about that man in that prison. Down there in the black dungeon. With all the rioting going up above him and he's about to die. Let's think about that before we ever start to wonder how he doubted. He wanted some reassurance. Don't you not want reassurance, brethren and sisters? You know, I was absolutely staggered on Thursday night to hear the response to that lecture, not by the interested friends, but by you. I thought you would have been there to support me to do our duty and to sort of sit it out because you've heard it that many times that, well, it's our duty to be here. You were thrilled with it. Why? Because you need that assurance. So do I. I never cease to deliver that address in the same way. I get thrilled about it as if I give it for the first time. And I could repeat it with my eyes closed. But to me it's thrilling. I need that assurance. And if we need it, brethren and sisters, in our circumstances, please spare a thought for that man. You know the answer he got? Oh, what an answer. What an answer. Oh, what an answer. They come up to him and Jesus doesn't say a thing. He doesn't say, yes, I'm the one. You just know what it says. Verse 21. And in the same hour he cured many of their infirmities and plagues and of evil spirits and of many that were blind, he gave sight. Then Jesus answering said unto them, Go your way and tell John what things ye have seen and heard. How that the blind see, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and then comes the classic. The absolute classic. To the poor, the Gospel is preached. Now I can just see John receiving that message. They come back to John. They say, what did he say? Can we be reassured? John they would have said. We saw marvellous things. We saw people healed. You've never seen anything like it, John. We've seen healing before but he went to work like we've never seen him go to work. John, he not only gave hearing to the deaf, he gave sight to the blind. John, he raised the dead. Look, the sick stood up. John, we saw it. And John's listening to this. And then he said to tell you, to tell you, John, to the poor the Gospel is preached. And that Brother and Sisters was his answer. You know why? That was coming from the Old Testament. That was a phrase taken right out of the Old Testament. And John would have known it. Isaiah 61. Isaiah 61. And you know, Brother and Sisters, Jesus told him, gave him his answer. Not only that he was the Messiah, the physical miracles prove that. But here's the answer to his problem. And in Isaiah 61, in verse 1, The spirit of the Lord God is upon me because the Lord has anointed me to preach good tidings unto the meek. He has sent me to bind up the broken hearted to proclaim liberty to the captives and the opening of the prison to them that are bound. There's his answer, Brother and Sisters. Don't go away from that chapter. But just let's get the context. He had sent to preach good tidings unto the meek. The Gospel is preached to the poor. Good tidings to the meek. But you see, John would have heard those words. He would have known where they come from. But the Lord is not saying, Brother and Sisters, he's not saying that the prison will be opened then. He stopped short of that. John, I can't open that prison now. But that verse says that it will be opened. And down in verse 7, for your shame, you shall have double. And for your confusion, they shall rejoice in their portion. Therefore, in their land, they shall possess the double. Everlasting joy shall be unto them. John, you're in shame in that dungeon. John, you're confused. I can't open that prison now. But when I do, it won't just be to bring you to mortal life, John. I'll give you double, John. That's what he's telling him. And no one will ever convince me that that wasn't the message going back into that prison. It was a perfect answer, Brother and Sisters. Because it set that great mind thinking about the kingdom of God. Blessed is he who would not be offended in me. And in verse 9 we read of this chapter, and their seed shall be known among the Gentiles, and their offspring among the people. All that see them shall acknowledge them that they are the seed which the Lord hath blessed. Blessed art thou are those who would not be offended in me. And so John, Brother and Sisters, had a perfect answer. He was set to work thinking about the future. Yes, the Gospel had been preached to the poor, and he was the poorest of all men. The prison would be opened, but not just yet. What a wonderful answer that was, Brother and Sisters. And that's the answer we get in life, isn't it? You come to me, I go to you, and you say, here's my problem. How often is it have you ever been able to get a direct answer to your problem? You don't. But God gives us enough to carry on. He tells us, I understand your problem. I know what it is. I could relieve you, but not now. That's the answer to our prayers, that little girl that we got. We've been praying and praying for it. You've prayed for it. We may, Brother and Sisters, and our faith is that it can be done. But if not, it will be done. If not now, it will be done some day. And we'll be there with her. It's gotta happen. Not always immediately. But it'll come. And if we learn nothing else, Brother and Sisters, in life, in all these tragedies, we learn to pray for his coming. Oh, I want him to come. Not for my sake only, but for the whole world's sake and those I love. And you want him to come. That's what John was being told in that prison. He wasn't gonna get out of it. There was no way. But one day it would happen. Oh, that was a wonderful answer. It was a wonderful answer. And you know, as those disciples were going, Luke says in verse 24, and when the messages of John were departed, you know, Brother and Sisters, the Greek is, as they were departing. It's, you know, as they walked away. And I'll tell you what Jesus saw. And this is what upset him so much. That he really let fly, not with uncontrolled anger, Brothers and Sisters, but with controlled anger. Our Lord could get angry. Very angry. He had every right to get angry. And he had a righteous anger. And I can see what happened. He watched those two disciples depart. He couldn't open his mouth until they got out of his shop. But he saw what the crowd was doing. He knew how they thought. And everyone was saying to themselves, well, you would never believe that he would have doubted. Oh, well. After all that he told us, well, I suppose everyone's got their weakness. Oh, I can just imagine our Lord. And I'm not, Brothers and Sisters, exaggerating. And I can see him now, swinging on that crowd, laughing up their sleeve at this man. Of whom they were not worthy. And I can see him turning around to that crowd. What went he out to see? What was it you saw? A reed shaken in the wind. A man who bent his opinion to popular appeal. Is that what you went to see? A man who bowed before others because he wouldn't offend them. A reed shaken in the wind who stood up to you and told you to your face what was wrong. Who stood up to the Pharisees and called them vipers and a generation of brood of vipers. Who dared to tell Herod Antipas that he was unjustly and unholy married. Is that what you went to see? A reed shaken in the wind. None of you would have had the gumption to do what he did. Is what the Lord was telling them. Or did you go and see a man in gorgeous apparel. Like that crowd in Herod's court of scribes who were the foundation members of the erodeans. Who stepped over from Jewish law to take off the plain robe of the scribe to put on the purple of Herod's court and were known by their very gowns with which they walked through the land as those who were traitors to the cause. Is that what you went to see? Or perhaps you went to see someone who lived delicately. Who was effeminate and who liked the dainty things of life. Who couldn't live without the comforts of what this life could offer. Who needed air conditioning in the summer and winter. Some great conveyance to get him from this place to that place. Who couldn't stand any hardship. Is that what they went to see brothers and sisters? These are the words of our Lord as He turned on that fickle crowd and let them know exactly what He thought about that man. Or perhaps they had a higher opinion of him. Perhaps it was a measure of respect for John. Did you go and see a prophet? And did they think that by thinking that John was a prophet that they were patronising him? Did they were flattering him brothers and sisters? Well he said I'm going to tell you something. He was even more than that. You haven't even appreciated him in that capacity where you think you have. Has never been he says. One born among women. Greater than he. What a verbal blast that was. Every smile was wiped off every face. They'd be ashen. Right to the gills, standing there listening to that blast. Who could stand up brothers and sisters to that? With the superlative example of that man before you. Not only the man speaking but his forerunner. Oh heads were hung in shame. And even when they thought he was a prophet they'd even underestimated him in that. He was higher than what they ever imagined. This is he of whom the prophet said he was himself a subject of prophecy brothers and sisters. Not only a subject of prophecy but that prophecy said that he would go before me. Before me. But Jesus changed the words and applied those words to himself. He said I'm the subject of Malachi and he's the one who comes before me. And you say he's a prophet. Think again. He's more than what you think. Born among women was the qualifying factor. You know brothers and sisters I believe that we can understand the spirit of the seventh chapter of Luke because now the Lord's mood changes. He's had his say. He can see the look from the people's faces. They're ashamed. He knows that. And you know he changes so quickly. What a magnificent character our Lord is. Because no sooner had his anger, righteous anger, vented itself upon the people in a manner that had to be. That when he saw those faces change, smiles disappear and the look of shame come over them. He turned around brothers and sisters and said you're all greater than John. Unbelievable. This is what he meant. Verse 28 I say unto you among those born of women there is not a greater prophet than John the Baptist. Now the qualifying phrase is born among women. In other words brothers and sisters, John was the greatest of all the prophets because all were born of women. But you see it's not used only in that sense. The phrase means that he was the greatest of a transient system. Because the expression is only twice used in the book of Job. He that is born of woman is a few days and full of trouble. So John's greatness greatest of all those yet was a greatness brothers and sisters which had a line of demarcation of those born among women. There were people standing there listening to him as he told them who would be in God's kingdom. And who would be in that state greater than John the Baptist. See how our mood of our Lord changed and how wonderfully he exalted those people. Have you ever thought brothers and sisters of a very similar thought? I put this forth very reverentially. Please don't misunderstand me but I believe this is the thought of the Apostle Paul. Let this mind be in you which was in Christ Jesus. What was that mind? That we should consider each other better than ourselves. However how on earth could our Lord ever adopt that attitude when he knew brothers and sisters that there was no one better than he. Yet Paul says let this mind be in you and he equates that with that thinking that we should esteem each other better than ourselves and the answer in the context is that being found in fashion as a man. He bowed his head to mortality to weakness to humility to create a people who would be better than that in the kingdom of God with immortal bodies. What an attitude of mind from one who knew there could be no better than him. But because he saw himself in a fashion as a man he saw himself in that capacity brothers and sisters in a lower estate than you and I will be in God's kingdom. And so John was greatest born among women but he said there'd be some here. Some here he said who is but he that is least in the kingdom of God is greater even than he. And he didn't mean brothers and sisters and you know he didn't mean that when they got into the kingdom some of them that they would hold higher positions than John or they will not. They will not. But that John as born of woman would not have is not in that state which they will be. And so having vented his righteous anger brought them to shame. He lifted those people up and the record very significantly says that the publicans justified God verse 29 and the Pharisees rejected the council of God against themselves. And the crowd was divided between those people who were hated and those people who were loved by this world. And the people who were hated by this world justified God in their hearts and the people who were loved by this world rejected the council of God which was for their benefit and they turned it down. What an amazing thing. The law and the prophets said the Lord Jesus were until John. But now he says the kingdom of God is preached and every man presses into it. At the end of our studies brothers and sisters permit me to have the luxury of a couple of minutes over time to tell you this. We want to ride this all up together. At the end of our studies let us heed that wonderful invitation that the law and the prophets were until John. In other words a transient system born of woman. But now the hour has come brothers and sisters that the Lord Jesus has come and the gospel of the kingdom of God is preached and every man and woman is pressing into it. Says Luke. Matthew uses the expression men of violence take it by force. And it doesn't mean literally in the English what it means. It means that men of determination grasp the opportunity and that's what we're going to do brothers and sisters. Let's not go away from Idlewild saying what a wonderful experience that was. Didn't we really enjoy ourselves? That's not the issue brothers and sisters. Let us go away from this place with a determination that almost borders on violence with a determination to grab that kingdom and grab the opportunity and never let it go. That's what Jesus said press into it. And if ever the world needed a determination it needs it now. And that was the great lesson of John's life. That's what we've got to do. So energetic men and energetic women seize their opportunities. And as well they might because the voice is still going brothers and sisters. It's still crying. And it's crying before the great and dreadful day of the Lord. Rest ye come and smite the earth with a curse. He's going to smite that earth with a curse. That's not the earth that Malachi is talking about. He was talking about the Israelite earth. And we are the Israel of God brothers and sisters. This voice is telling us. It's coming. We told the stranger last night. Tell ourselves it's coming brothers and sisters. A great and a fearful day is coming upon this world and all its iniquity. Pray God it doesn't smite our Christadelphian earth with a curse. We can escape that brothers and sisters if we listen to that still small voice. That's the urgent warning. You know we're not going to get a John as they got a John to prepare them for the coming of the Lord. Wouldn't it be good if we did? Wouldn't it be good if God sent him again to the Christadelphian community that he could go from England to Australia to America to all the islands where the truth is and tell our brothers and sisters he's coming. He's coming. It would be good brothers and sisters but we're not going to get him. We're being told now. And if we don't hear that voice now we'll never hear it again. That's the urgency of this message. Perhaps we could just finish our considerations of John by leaving behind us a testimony of our appreciation for his work in these words Others had a trial of cruel mockings and scourgings yea moreover of bonds and imprisonment. They were stoned they were sawn asunder tempted and slain with the sword they wandered about in sheep skins and goat skins and we could add camel skins destitute afflicted and tormented of whom the world was not worthy. They wandered in deserts, mountains in dens and caves of the earth and we could add the dungeon of Makaris and look at the wonder of it all brothers and sisters. This is what I don't understand. I can't understand this. And these all having obtained a good report through faith received not the promise. And I don't understand this. God having provided some better thing for us us us that they them without us should not be made perfect. I don't understand that. I understand it academically I can't grasp the wonder of that that God should leave that man where he is today for you and for me, waiting though he has no conscious existence time still goes on for us that men like that lay in their grave brothers and sisters, if we can't be moved by a story like that then there's no truth in us and it's only those things that keep us going in life. May I say at the end of my sessions, God be with you all we leave you this afternoon and may the God of Israel, brothers and sisters bless us not in obeying his law but in endeavouring to do something to isolate in our thinking this dreadful world to come out into the wilderness and to let that book speak to our heart to consider the character of John the Baptist again in our memories and to be struck with the thought that he's waiting for us of whom the world was not worthy. Pray God, brothers and sisters that in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ and by the grace of our eternal Heavenly Father we shall be accounted worthy of that kingdom to meet characters like him and to learn as we've never, ever learned it before, the principles of that still small voice.