The NXR Podcast - December 11, 2023


SUNDAY SERMON - “Let Earth Receive Her King”

Topics
baptism by fire repentance preparation king repent and look to the Lamb repentance call to repentance
Hosted by
Joel Webbon Harrison Smith Antonio Griffith Dale Partridge Wewsley Todd Calvin Robinson
Mentioned
Pharisees Messiah Isaiah Jesus Christ Mary Had Elizabeth Advent Joseph Behold Judea John Philpott Thomas Watson Jacob Miller Josh Breachin King David John Owen Nazareth Brothers Apostle Abraham and 6 more
DAILY TRUTH - The Problem With The American Church： You’re Not Angry Enough CONFERENCE - Children As Artillery - Pastor C.R. Wiley

Episode Stats


Length

59 minutes

Words per minute

141.6

Word count

8,355

Sentence count

448

Harmful content

Misogyny

1

sentences flagged

Toxicity

4

sentences flagged

Hate speech

18

sentences flagged


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

John the Baptist is the last of the Old Testament prophets, and one of the most prophetic messengers. He lived in a time of upheaval and change, when the old covenant was giving way to the new, and the way that God was relating to mankind was changing. John the Baptist lived through times of unprecedented change, and stood on the edge like Moses looking into the promised land.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
Toxicity classifications generated with s-nlp/roberta_toxicity_classifier .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
Topics generated with Qwen2.5-3B-Instruct.
Hosts, guests, and mentioned names generated with spaCy (en_core_web_sm), reconciled against Wikidata.
00:00:00 The word of the Lord says this,
00:00:02 there was a man sent from God whose name was John.
00:00:08 He came as a witness to bear witness about the light
00:00:11 that all might believe through him.
00:00:14 He was not the light, but came to bear witness about the light.
00:00:19 The true light, which gives light to everyone,
00:00:21 was coming into the world.
00:00:24 He was in the world, and the world was made through him,
00:00:27 yet the world did not know him.
00:00:30 He came to his own, and his own people did not receive him.
00:00:36 But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name,
00:00:39 he gave the rights to become children of God,
00:00:43 who were born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh,
00:00:46 nor of the will of man, but of God.
00:00:50 And the word became flesh and made his dwelling among us,
00:00:53 and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father,
00:00:58 full of grace and truth. John bore witness about him and cried out, this is he whom I said,
00:01:06 he who comes after me ranks before me, because he was before me. For from his fullness we have
00:01:13 all received grace upon grace. For the law was given through Moses, grace and truth come through
00:01:19 Jesus Christ. No one has ever seen God, the only God who is at the Father's side. He has made him
00:01:26 known. And this is the testimony of John when the Jews sent priests and Levites from Jerusalem to 0.93
00:01:33 ask of him, who are you? He confessed and did not deny, but confessed, I am not the Christ. 0.76
00:01:40 And they asked him, what then? Are you Elijah? He said, I am not. Are you the prophet? And he
00:01:48 answered, no. So they said to him, who are you? We need an answer to those who sent us.
00:01:54 what do you say for yourself he said i am the voice of one crying in the wilderness
00:02:01 make straight the way of the lord as the prophet isaiah said now they had been sent from the
00:02:09 pharisees they asked him then why are you baptizing if you are neither the christ nor elijah nor the
00:02:16 prophet john answered them i baptize with water but among you stands one that you do not know
00:02:24 even he who comes after me the strap of whose sandal I am not worthy to untie these things
00:02:31 took place in Bethany across the Jordan where John was baptizing and the next day he saw Jesus
00:02:38 come toward him and said behold the lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world
00:02:45 this is the word of God let us pray
00:02:50 Gracious Father, we are thankful for your word, your word that convicts, your word that convinces,
00:03:09 your word that teaches clearly. Father, we pray this morning that as we hear and learn from it,
00:03:16 that our hearts would be soft,
00:03:18 that we would receive this spiritual food
00:03:21 with hunger and with a resolve to obey you.
00:03:26 Father, I ask that you would equip me
00:03:29 to speak clearly and well and appropriately
00:03:32 the things that you have to say.
00:03:35 I pray this in Jesus' name, amen.
00:03:46 So I thought about which passage I would choose to preach on today.
00:03:50 I was drawn to this story of John the Baptist, particularly in the book of John.
00:03:55 Now, one thing that we're going to have to keep straight as we go through here is that
00:03:59 we are talking about John the Baptist, and the writer of this book is the Apostle John.
00:04:04 I'll do my best to keep it straight for us.
00:04:07 I chose this passage because it shows the connection between the mystery of the incarnation,
00:04:14 the chaos and the violence even that was happening as the old covenant was giving way to the new
00:04:20 and this story of a simple zealous prophet john the baptist lived in a time of incredible upheaval
00:04:30 and change literally the way that god was relating to mankind was changing we would do well to
00:04:37 examine his example and his message as he lived through times of unprecedented change
00:04:42 he was the last of the old testament prophets but also he stood on the edge like moses looking
00:04:49 into the promised land and observed the new covenant coming to be and so before we dive
00:04:55 into the text i want to give us a few minutes of background to understand exactly the context that
00:05:02 john was speaking into and the incredible time of transition that not only the nation of israel
00:05:08 but really the entire world was about to go through.
00:05:12 So buckle up.
00:05:15 When we celebrate Advent and Christmas,
00:05:19 we think about the coming of the Messiah.
00:05:21 We think about the manger, the angels,
00:05:24 regal visitors from a far-off land,
00:05:27 promises of hope and peace.
00:05:29 And this is all good and glorious.
00:05:33 But then, after that night,
00:05:35 some 30 years passed.
00:05:38 Jesus grew in wisdom and knowledge and favor with God and man.
00:05:44 But during that time, we don't really see anything messianic.
00:05:49 Do you think those shepherds forgot?
00:05:51 Do you think they wondered if it was a dream?
00:05:54 Do you think one of them became the crazy uncle at the family gatherings?
00:05:58 Hey, Abner, you remember that time?
00:06:00 Then they go off into the story again.
00:06:05 Mary and Joseph had more children.
00:06:07 and at some point along the line, Joseph died.
00:06:11 Jesus carried on the family business,
00:06:13 and life went on, boring and normal and ordinary.
00:06:18 Do you feel that sometimes?
00:06:22 Something significant happened in your past,
00:06:25 but now you just look at one day after the next,
00:06:28 one year after the next, all running together.
00:06:32 Each year seems to be the same as the last.
00:06:34 Brothers and sisters, one of the lessons in this passage is that God is always working.
00:06:44 And in this story, at exactly the right time, on a particular day, Jesus got up and walked
00:06:52 the 64 miles from Nazareth to Jerusalem, and then 20 miles out to the Jordan River, where
00:06:59 John the Baptist was leading a revival.
00:07:05 Advent led to this moment.
00:07:09 Advent happened because God was going to change everything.
00:07:14 Isaiah 43, 19 is the promise that we look to where God says,
00:07:18 Behold, I am doing a new thing.
00:07:21 Now it springs forth.
00:07:22 Do you not perceive it?
00:07:24 I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert.
00:07:28 God was indeed doing something new.
00:07:31 right under everyone's noses, totally unsuspecting.
00:07:36 The Messiah was come, more than a temporary earthly ruler,
00:07:40 more than just another prophet to call people back to repentance again.
00:07:45 He was going to bring about a whole new and perfect way to know and serve God,
00:07:50 where hearts would be changed to love the law and to serve the Lord with joy.
00:07:56 In John's gospel, when John sees Jesus,
00:08:01 he says, behold, the Lamb of God
00:08:03 who takes away the sin of the world.
00:08:05 It's verse 29.
00:08:08 Before Jesus, the way to repent,
00:08:10 to show contrition to God was to go to the temple
00:08:13 and offer sacrifices.
00:08:15 But that was all coming to an end.
00:08:18 Jesus was doing something new.
00:08:20 Matthew's gospel expands on this.
00:08:23 Then, this is chapter 3, verse 5,
00:08:26 Then Jerusalem and all Judea and all the region around the Jordan
00:08:29 were going out to him, to John the Baptist,
00:08:31 and they were baptized by him in the river Jordan,
00:08:34 confessing their sins.
00:08:36 And John said, I baptize you with water for repentance,
00:08:39 but he who is coming after me is mightier than I.
00:08:42 Now catch this.
00:08:44 What would be the purpose and the function of the Messiah?
00:08:47 He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire.
00:08:53 John's baptism was new, but it was new in order to symbolize and to foreshadow an even more
00:08:59 new thing. There's a transition between the old covenant and the new. And Jesus would baptize
00:09:06 people by the Holy Spirit, into the Holy Spirit. That's what that means. God would save people from
00:09:13 sin, not just cover it. God would give them new life. God would give them new hearts. The baptism
00:09:19 by the Spirit that Jesus offered would transform people from dead sinners to living worshipers.
00:09:28 And Jesus also came to baptize by fire. Listen again to what John the Baptist said in Matthew
00:09:35 3 about the coming Messiah. He says this, his, the Messiah's, winnowing fork is in his hand.
00:09:43 that is a stick or a like a pitchfork that they would use to beat the wheat so that the good
00:09:51 kernels of grain would fall and the chaff would be removed from it so that they could burn it
00:09:55 his winnowing fork is in his hand and he will clear his threshing floor and gather his wheat
00:10:00 into the barn but the chaff will be burned with unquenchable fire the baptism of fire
00:10:08 is the baptism of judgment or destruction. 0.93
00:10:14 And I want us to look for a moment at Malachi chapter 4.
00:10:18 These are the last few verses of the Old Testament,
00:10:21 and a lot of the sermon today is going to hang on these verses.
00:10:26 Malachi chapter 4, 1 and 2, and then I'll conclude with 5 and 6.
00:10:29 Listen to what God promises will happen when the Messiah comes. 0.82
00:10:34 But for you who fear my name,
00:10:36 the sun of righteousness shall rise with healing in its wings. You shall go out leaping like calves
00:10:42 from the stall. For behold, the day is coming, burning like an oven, when all the arrogant and 0.98
00:10:50 all evildoers will be stubble. The day that is coming shall set them ablaze, says the Lord of 0.96
00:10:56 hosts, so that it will leave them neither root nor branch. Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet 0.85
00:11:02 before the great and awesome day of the Lord comes,
00:11:06 and he will turn the hearts of the fathers to their children,
00:11:09 and the hearts of the children to their fathers,
00:11:12 lest I come and strike the land with the decree of utter destruction.
00:11:18 It's important to realize that this passage in Malachi
00:11:21 predicts the events of Jesus' first coming.
00:11:26 It's both the last thing that was written in the Old Testament
00:11:29 before the 400 years of silence,
00:11:32 And the New Testament writers go to great lengths to point out several times that John
00:11:38 the Baptist is indeed exactly this Elijah from Malachi chapter 4.
00:11:46 He's preparing the way for the Messiah.
00:11:50 That day called the day of the Lord, fearsome and terrifying to God's enemies, is compared 0.93
00:11:55 to a burning oven of judgment on the one hand for God's enemies.
00:12:00 but on the other hand, as a glorious sunrise to God's people.
00:12:07 As the Apostle John wrote in the passage that we read,
00:12:12 the light was coming into the world,
00:12:15 and by its nature, the light will scorch some and give light to others.
00:12:24 One of the reasons we know that this passage is about the first coming of Christ
00:12:28 is that, in fact, John the Baptist did come in the spirit of Elijah.
00:12:33 Jesus confirms this in Matthew 11, and also in Luke chapter 1.
00:12:37 It says this, and notice the same language about the function of John the Baptist, Luke 1, 15 and 16.
00:12:44 For he, that is John the Baptist, this is prophesied about Zechariah's son,
00:12:49 will be great before the Lord, and he will be filled with the Holy Spirit,
00:12:53 even from his mother's womb, and he will turn many of the children of Israel
00:12:57 to the Lord their God, and he will go before in the spirit and power of Elijah to turn the hearts
00:13:03 of the fathers to the children and the disobedient to the wisdom of the just, to make ready for the
00:13:08 Lord a people prepared. This means that John was zealous for repentance. He was zealous to call his
00:13:21 people back to serving the Lord on a massive scale. And they needed to repent, lest Jesus come
00:13:29 and rather than save them, destroy them on the spot. In fact, if you look back at the passage
00:13:35 in Malachi that we read, it says that God planned to send a messenger before the Messiah to prepare
00:13:42 the way. And then it says, lest, or so that the people would repent, lest the Messiah strike the
00:13:49 land with a decree of utter desolation. Malachi tells us that if John the Baptist had not come
00:13:57 to prepare the way, it's likely that the Messiah would have seen the situation in Israel and just
00:14:02 rained destruction down immediately. Advent, the birth of Christ, led to all of this. This 0.84
00:14:11 changing of the guard, this transition between ages. It was a time of long-awaited change and
00:14:19 violent transition. The king was making himself known after millennia of waiting.
00:14:25 He was changing everything. This is the situation that John the Baptist came into.
00:14:32 And as I read this passage in John 1, two questions came to mind.
00:14:38 Why did not God simply do this on his own? Why did he need John to prepare the way?
00:14:44 and the second one is what can we learn about our mission as we continue to prepare the way
00:14:52 to receive the lord and king again advent is always a looking back and a looking forward
00:14:59 to do that i want to look at three highlights from this text first we will look at the man
00:15:07 with the message second we will look at the message about the messiah and third we will
00:15:13 look at the means to accomplish the mission. The man with the message. Who was John the Baptist?
00:15:22 Who was he? One of the things I love about this passage in John is that it gives us the story
00:15:29 of John the Baptist, but it intertwines the theology of the incarnation in a really unique way.
00:15:36 Our reading this morning began with these words. There was a man sent from God whose name was John.
00:15:42 He came as a witness to bear witness about the light
00:15:46 that all might know, that all might believe through him.
00:15:50 He was not the light, but came to bear witness about the light.
00:15:55 John's birth was miraculous, not as miraculous as Jesus' birth. 0.61
00:16:00 Nevertheless, Elizabeth, his mother, was barren in her old age. 0.65
00:16:04 God sent an angel to appear to his father, Zechariah.
00:16:08 And they made this prophecy in Luke 1.
00:16:10 I alluded to it earlier.
00:16:11 the angel said to him, do not be afraid, Zechariah, for your prayer has been heard,
00:16:16 and your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son, and you shall call his name John, and he will be filled
00:16:23 with the Holy Spirit, even from his mother's womb, to make ready for the Lord a people prepared.
00:16:31 But interestingly, when we go to the end of that same chapter, Luke chapter 1, verse 80,
00:16:37 shows that John did not have a normal upbringing by any stretch of the imagination.
00:16:43 It says this,
00:16:44 And the child, again, John the Baptist, grew and became strong in spirit,
00:16:49 and he was in the wilderness until the day of his public appearance in Israel.
00:16:58 John lived in the wilderness for most of his life.
00:17:01 He clothed himself with camel hair, and he ate locusts and wild honey.
00:17:08 He was zealous for the Lord and for holiness
00:17:10 and that his people would return back to God.
00:17:14 And he probably did not fit in well in polite company.
00:17:19 Can you imagine John the Baptist going to a dinner party?
00:17:23 It would be like in the movie Beauty and the Beast
00:17:26 where the beast is trying to eat with the spoon.
00:17:31 He was not of the elite.
00:17:33 He was not of the well-known or the cultured or the educated.
00:17:40 Returning to John 1, verse 8, we see that despite the events going on,
00:17:47 John the Baptist was not the true light that was coming into the world.
00:17:52 And John the Apostle and John the Baptist wanted it to be very clear.
00:17:56 He is not the Messiah.
00:17:59 Nevertheless, he was preaching.
00:18:01 He was preaching, and his ministry grew and spread
00:18:06 so that multitudes from the region around Jerusalem and Judea
00:18:10 were coming out to the Jordan River to be baptized.
00:18:13 Again, it was about 20 miles from Jerusalem to the Jordan River,
00:18:18 and many, many people were coming to hear his preaching.
00:18:21 And when they heard his preaching, they were convicted,
00:18:24 and then many of them repented.
00:18:26 And upon repenting and confessing their sins publicly, they received a baptism from him.
00:18:37 He baptized them in the Jordan River, and such a commotion was happening that the Pharisees
00:18:43 decided they needed to know what was going on.
00:18:47 They had reached the capital, the circles of the elite, the circles of the cultured.
00:18:52 What is going on?
00:18:54 you will remember that the pharisees were the conservatives in israel at the time they were
00:19:02 the strictest of the religious leaders they professed an expectation of the messiah they
00:19:08 were actively looking for him they were zealous for the transitions of the elders
00:19:14 and it seems like they were putting some pieces of the puzzle together they were looking for the
00:19:23 Messiah to appear during this time, and something about John's ministry seemed messianic to them.
00:19:32 So they sent an envoy. In verses 19 through 23 of John 1, we see that when they came to him,
00:19:41 they asked him three things. They asked him if he was the Christ, they asked if he was Elijah,
00:19:47 and they asked if he was the prophet and he replied no to all of these three things
00:19:56 perhaps we understand their question about the christ right the word in the old testament
00:20:03 is messiah the lord's anointed they were asking john are you the one that god has appointed
00:20:11 and anointed by his spirit to bring back the kingdom, similar to King David or a prophet
00:20:18 to reestablish and raise the prominence of the nation of Israel again, both its land and its
00:20:26 holiness, at least as they understood holiness. John says, no, I am not the Christ. He was humble.
00:20:34 he knew who he was and he knew who God is and that is humility humility is not thinking
00:20:43 poorly of yourself it's knowing who you are and who God is
00:20:47 but they knew that something was going on something is clearly happening here John
00:20:54 so they asked him another question this one based on the Malachi 4 passage that we read earlier
00:21:02 They asked if John the Baptist is the Elijah that God would send.
00:21:06 Now, John is a little bit shrewd here.
00:21:10 We know from Matthew 11, 14, Jesus words themselves
00:21:14 that Jesus claimed that John the Baptist was the promised Elijah.
00:21:18 He says that directly.
00:21:20 He says, if you are willing to accept it, he is the Elijah who is to come.
00:21:25 So why does John answer no?
00:21:28 it's possible that he didn't know several things were unclear to him he didn't even know
00:21:36 who jesus was until he saw him for the first time but i think that's unlikely because he
00:21:42 definitely knows in verse 23 that he has been sent to prepare the way for the messiah
00:21:47 instead i think he is responding with his no i am not elijah to the common belief at the time
00:21:57 The belief was that because Elijah, the prophet, was taken to heaven in a chariot of fire
00:22:03 and did not die, that God would send that literal man back to prefigure or to prepare
00:22:12 the way for the Messiah.
00:22:17 And I think the reason that John says no is because he is not that Elijah.
00:22:24 He comes in the spirit of Elijah.
00:22:27 But he knows that there is no man, even Elijah, if he were to return, could not do the work
00:22:33 that needed to be done, that the Messiah was going to do.
00:22:36 In fact, that's the whole point of this chapter of the book of John.
00:22:41 John 1, 8 through 9 says this, the true light which gives light to everyone was coming into
00:22:47 the world.
00:22:48 We read in verse 10 that Jesus is the one who created the world, yet was rejected by
00:22:54 his people.
00:22:55 We read in verse 12 and 13 that Jesus was to become the only hope for new life and fellowship
00:23:01 in the family of God, not a lineage from Abraham.
00:23:06 We read also that the Messiah, Christ, is full of grace and truth, which are things
00:23:11 that can only truly be given by God, and that in verse 18, he is the very God of God at
00:23:18 the Father's side.
00:23:20 Finally, in verse 26, that he is the Lamb of God.
00:23:26 Sorry, that's 29.
00:23:29 And John says, there is a man in your midst, but he is not Elijah, and I am not Elijah.
00:23:35 There is no other man like Jesus.
00:23:38 None could ever come close.
00:23:41 And for that reason, John the Baptist wants to be very clear that they ought not look
00:23:46 backwards towards great prophets or to the strength and power of mere men.
00:23:55 I am not Elijah, he says, but one is in your midst whose sandals I am unfit to untie.
00:24:04 One is in your midst who will do things beyond the wildest dreams of Elijah,
00:24:10 things beyond the wildest dreams of Moses.
00:24:16 So he answers, no, he is not Elijah.
00:24:20 And the Pharisees ask them their third question.
00:24:23 They say, well, if you're not the Messiah, you're not Elijah, are you the prophet?
00:24:29 And actually, they're not that far off here.
00:24:32 They're getting closer.
00:24:34 In Deuteronomy 18, God promised to send a true prophet who would speak the true words
00:24:40 of God, a prophet who was raised up from the people who would be like them.
00:24:45 But in Deuteronomy 18, God says he will raise a prophet because the people were terrified to hear
00:24:52 from God himself. The holiness of God was too great for them, and they said, send a prophet.
00:24:58 And God says, in the last day, I will send a true prophet, and he will teach you as one of you.
00:25:06 And isn't it amazing that we find in John 1, the word became flesh? Isn't it amazing that John 1
00:25:14 18 says that Jesus explained the Father to us. Jesus is the true prophet, the final prophet,
00:25:23 not John. Jesus is the one who would speak the words of God and yet, like his brothers, a human.
00:25:32 So you can see that the Pharisees were on to something. They didn't understand that the
00:25:38 Messiah would combine all of these roles. He was to be the prophet and the priest and the king.
00:25:47 And so John says, no, I'm not the prophet.
00:25:53 And finally, they give up and they say, well, then who are you? We have to report back. Give
00:25:58 us something. They are not going to be happy. And how common is the bureaucracy in human history?
00:26:05 You have to answer to us because we have to answer to them.
00:26:13 John obliges them in verse 23 and answers this way.
00:26:18 I am the voice of one crying out in the wilderness.
00:26:22 Make straight the way of the Lord.
00:26:26 We're going to come back to this declaration in a moment.
00:26:29 but notice for now that this is a direct quotation of isaiah chapter 40 verse 3 and that john the
00:26:37 baptist is aware that this is his role he is not the prophet he's not the messiah he's not elijah
00:26:44 but he knows that he is the one to prepare the way he was more than a prophet in fact he was a herald
00:26:52 one who goes before and blows the trumpet, it says, make way, make way.
00:27:01 It's for this reason that Matthew 3 verse 1 tells us that he preached to the people that they should
00:27:07 repent, not just because judgment was coming, but because the kingdom of heaven was at hand.
00:27:15 The king is on the move.
00:27:17 imagine all those people around israel the fireworks of the birth of christ had been
00:27:27 impressive and yet lay in distant memory in fact most never knew about them if this was where the
00:27:34 story had stopped this would have been one of the most insignificant movements of god
00:27:38 in the old testament in human history but the story was not done though it appeared that god
00:27:46 had not in fact spoken, God was moving. And in obscurity of the wilderness, apart from the system
00:27:54 of the elites, the true light, which gives light to everyone, was coming into the world. And because
00:28:02 of this fact, God carried out a plan. There was a man sent from God whose name was John.
00:28:10 brothers and sisters when it seems that god is not working god is still working
00:28:18 his kingdom is coming and the light of christ still through the power of the gospel and the
00:28:26 testimony of the saints is going forward and we should not be surprised if the workings of god
00:28:34 in history and in our time do not make the news feed do not hit the headlines of cnn
00:28:41 This is how God has worked for millennia.
00:28:45 That is not to say that we are convinced that the work of God is so small and insignificant.
00:28:51 It is to say that it goes unnoticed until the proper time.
00:28:56 It means that God will use the weak and the foolish, us, to shame the strong and the wise. 0.54
00:29:04 God will use regular men like Jacob Miller and the abolitionists to destroy abortion.
00:29:12 That won't make the news until it does. 0.99
00:29:15 He will use a mother to preach the gospel in repentance to her son and daughter.
00:29:23 These things will go unnoticed all the way into the point when God makes them known.
00:29:28 And then it will be obvious that Christ is king.
00:29:30 god is always working i don't know what situation you're in what discouragement
00:29:41 you're in what depression you're in what doubt you're in god is always always working
00:29:51 you must have eyes of faith to see it i mentioned earlier john didn't even know who jesus was
00:30:00 He knew a Messiah was coming.
00:30:02 He didn't know until he saw him for the first time.
00:30:05 By faith, he knew and preached.
00:30:10 Things were so dark in Israel, I mentioned earlier,
00:30:13 that if John had not come to prepare the way,
00:30:16 it's likely that Christ would have just destroyed the nation on the spot.
00:30:22 If you think it's dark in your life, if we think it's dark in our nation,
00:30:27 God is working.
00:30:30 We might look at our situation, our context, our politics, to churches in our country,
00:30:38 our family and friends who have rejected God, and we may look even at our own sin and despair
00:30:43 and how dark it is, how dark it seems. The darkness may seem, in fact, to be winning.
00:30:53 But what was becoming true in the time of Israel, in the time of John the Baptist, 0.99
00:30:56 is even more true now. 0.98
00:30:59 As the Apostle John points out in verse 5,
00:31:02 the light shines in the darkness.
00:31:05 And even to this day,
00:31:08 the darkness has not overcome it.
00:31:12 Do not despair.
00:31:15 Do not give up.
00:31:18 Do not give in to sin or doubt or fatalism
00:31:23 or the spirit of the age that says we have no hope. 0.95
00:31:26 Eat, drink, and die.
00:31:31 And yet, remember the flip side of this message,
00:31:35 that the light will absolutely shine and does shine now.
00:31:39 And yet, though for some it is a sunrise of life,
00:31:43 for others it is a desert, scorching heat of judgment.
00:31:52 Who was John?
00:31:53 he was a herald and a witness
00:31:57 like John we have been made witnesses
00:32:01 to Jesus Christ we are heralds of the true light
00:32:06 so take hold of your calling in the midst of turbulent
00:32:10 times like John the Baptist
00:32:14 we are nothing and yet Christ
00:32:18 from whom we have received grace upon grace and adoption
00:32:22 as sons, as everything.
00:32:26 He is here.
00:32:28 Even now, among us, we are his body.
00:32:32 We are the light, his light, to the world.
00:32:36 We are a city on the hill.
00:32:38 We will not fail to testify about him.
00:32:41 We will not fail to call people to repentance,
00:32:44 starting with ourselves and our children,
00:32:46 and then our nation, and then all nations.
00:32:52 And in this way, we will continue to prepare to receive the king.
00:32:59 So that's who John was.
00:33:02 The second point is what is the message of the Messiah?
00:33:08 Let us now examine his message about the Messiah.
00:33:12 To do that, we will return to what I said a few minutes ago in verse 23 of John chapter 1.
00:33:18 When the Pharisees finally do ask John who he is,
00:33:21 he quotes scripture. He quotes Isaiah chapter 40. These verses in Isaiah 40 come immediately
00:33:30 on the heels of God assuredly promising exile to Babylon for Judah. There is no way out of it for 0.98
00:33:37 them. And yet to encourage them, he gives them these words from Isaiah 40 verse 3 through 5.
00:33:44 a voice cries in the wilderness prepare the way of the lord make straight in the desert a highway
00:33:52 for our god every valley shall be lifted up and every mountain and hill will be made low
00:33:58 the uneven ground shall become level and the rough places a plain and the glory of the lord
00:34:05 shall be revealed and all flesh shall see it together for the mouth of the lord has spoken
00:34:10 many Jewish scholars at the time and even now believe that this passage in Isaiah 40
00:34:18 was a prophecy that was immediately fulfilled by God making a way for Israel to return from
00:34:25 Babylon through the wilderness to Jerusalem again and yet that is not what God meant and is not how
00:34:34 John the Baptist applied it to himself. He was the voice calling out to prepare the way for the
00:34:41 Lord. His message, what was his message? His message was that the king is coming and we must
00:34:47 make the way ready. John Philpott was a preacher in England born in 1802. He was known as the
00:34:58 seceder because he ended up leaving the Anglican church, becoming a particular Baptist, and moving
00:35:05 to much smaller, poorer, less well-known churches for the rest of his time as a preacher. He describes
00:35:13 Isaiah 40 this way, and I'll read an extended quote here. The language of the text is, of course,
00:35:20 highly figurative and is an allusion to a practice in ancient times of oriental monarchs.
00:35:26 There being in those days no highways nor beaten roads in most parts of their dominion.
00:35:33 When they intended to visit some distant province, they were accustomed not only to send messengers
00:35:39 beforehand to announce their approach, but pioneers also to remove all impediments to
00:35:46 their progress.
00:35:47 There were often deep valleys and morasses, which are swamps, which had to be filled up,
00:35:52 hills and mountains to be laid low, crooked paths and intricate roads amid woods and forests to be
00:36:00 straightened, and rough places overgrown with thorns, thickets, and briars, and overspread with
00:36:05 loose rocks and stumbling stones which had to be smoothed and taken away. As the king traveled in
00:36:12 great state, it was necessary to make room for the royal chariot, for the approach of the majesty
00:36:19 with all its splendor and as the monarch never journeyed unattended the road was to be made wide
00:36:25 enough for his suite of servants and numerous cavalcade as well of himself as himself if you
00:36:32 want a more comical picture think of the disney movie aladdin where prince aladdin is making his
00:36:41 way into agrabah in a huge procession and they go before him singing out make way for prince ali
00:36:49 Clear the way.
00:36:51 Make room for this massive procession to come through.
00:36:58 What did it mean for John the Baptist to prepare the way?
00:37:03 I read earlier that the other Gospels record that John the Baptist said that he proclaimed
00:37:09 that the kingdom of heaven was at hand, and that because of this, John proclaimed the
00:37:15 need for repentance and confession of sin and baptism. And that the people of Jerusalem and
00:37:22 Judea came and publicly confessed their sins and received washing in the Jordan River as a symbol
00:37:29 of cleansing for sin. What was the message of John the Baptist? The kingdom is coming.
00:37:36 the king is coming therefore repent and be cleaned
00:37:44 so what does this have to do with preparing the way for the lord
00:37:49 well remember again malachi says that if the people were so wicked the messiah would come
00:37:58 and simply destroy them in other words the way that john the baptist was preparing was not a
00:38:05 physical road. It was a spiritual preparation. He called them to repentance, to cleaning house
00:38:14 in their hearts. The holes that needed to be filled up, the hills that needed to be leveled,
00:38:20 and the crooked paths that need to be straightened out were obstacles of sin, rebellion,
00:38:27 unbelief, hardness of heart. He warned severely in Matthew's gospel. He said, even now the ax is
00:38:36 laid at the root of the tree. The whole system is going away, and your self-reliance on your own
00:38:43 works will leave you empty and vulnerable to the fire of God. The way that John called them to be
00:38:53 ready for the Messiah was to repent and purify themselves, to bear fruit in keeping with that
00:38:59 repentance. And it's the same for us. In John's first letter, 1 John 3, we read this, verses 2
00:39:10 and 3, Beloved, we are God's children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared. But we know
00:39:18 that when he appears, we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is. And everyone
00:39:24 who has this hope purifies himself, just as he is pure. We have pride and doubts and disobediences
00:39:36 that while they don't separate us eternally from Christ, they make it difficult to see him.
00:39:43 the first step in receiving the king is always repentance always repentance
00:39:52 there's no way around this as much as sometimes when we are hardening our heart we wish there was
00:40:00 some way around this there is no way around this we will never ever serve the king properly or
00:40:06 welcome him well into our hearts and our homes and our nation until we repent. And once we have
00:40:14 done so, will not that pattern continue? The pattern of service to the king involves continual
00:40:22 repentance. And as we see in the example of those who went to the Jordan River, sometimes, maybe
00:40:31 often, it should be public. I don't mean going around to every person after church on Sunday
00:40:37 and confessing all of your deep and darkest secrets. I don't mean public mic time where
00:40:42 we get up and confess to everyone. But James exhorts us to confess our sins to one another
00:40:49 for a reason. We ought to do this as a spiritual discipline and as a practice.
00:41:01 In the same way that we, like John, are witnesses, we, like John, have a message.
00:41:09 The message is repent.
00:41:12 We live in a time when sin has reached almost unprecedented levels.
00:41:18 And where even more sad than that, we Christians, whether we try to or not, are desensitized to it.
00:41:28 I don't have to list all the horrors of society.
00:41:30 We know the abortions and the hatred of father and mother.
00:41:35 We know all of these things.
00:41:37 We know about pornography that is enslaving entire generations
00:41:40 and destroying marriages and households.
00:41:43 We know that the respectable people in our society,
00:41:47 the elites and the institutions, have largely abandoned God,
00:41:51 and consequently our society and our nation is being destroyed.
00:41:56 And that is angering.
00:41:58 that is sad and grievous.
00:42:04 The peace that we used to have, the safety, the common trust, is eroding.
00:42:10 These are terrible things.
00:42:13 And yet, as we live as Christians in our world,
00:42:16 we must remember that our efforts to build businesses,
00:42:20 to raise godly families, to pass just laws,
00:42:23 to rid our education systems of evil and ungodly ideas,
00:42:27 our efforts to work in the civil sphere all of these things must always center on one message
00:42:36 first and foremost which is repent and look to the lamb when we write our senators or call our
00:42:46 school boards our message is we urge you not to pass this law because it violates god's law and
00:42:53 you, sir, or you, ma'am, need to repent.
00:43:00 As we do this, we will lose allies.
00:43:05 People who we thought were on our side of the abortion fight,
00:43:09 conservatives, will reject that message, repent, that's too much.
00:43:16 But our message as heralds to the king is always repent and look to the lamb.
00:43:23 There are many ways to do this.
00:43:25 We don't all have to be John the Baptist.
00:43:27 Fire and brimstone.
00:43:29 There is a gentle, tender call to repentance from a mother to a child.
00:43:34 There is a grieving call to repentance of a good friend to another friend who is walking into sin.
00:43:40 There are many ways to call for repentance.
00:43:45 John's message was to repent and to look to the Lamb.
00:43:48 And our message is repent and look to the Lamb.
00:43:53 What does it mean to repent?
00:43:57 Well, we see in the text, one thing it means is to confess your sin,
00:44:01 to agree that it is evil and wicked, to make it known, to not hide it.
00:44:09 And then it means to turn from it.
00:44:10 John said over and over, bear fruit in keeping with your repentance.
00:44:15 We get rid of it.
00:44:17 We turn to obedience.
00:44:18 We put in place patterns and guardrails and habits that will keep us in holiness.
00:44:23 My parents used to talk about developing habits of holiness.
00:44:28 We put up guardrails to protect us against sin.
00:44:35 And yet in our time, as we call for repentance publicly,
00:44:39 repentance is almost an impossibility in the time that we live in.
00:44:42 Because on the one hand, postmodernism has exerted itself
00:44:47 and it's eroded all moral authority. How can you call someone to a supposedly higher moral path?
00:44:57 Don't you know that morality is relative? And this is what people use to assuage their
00:45:04 consciences. There is no right and wrong. There is just what makes me happy.
00:45:09 and how can we say that anything is god's judgment the tornado or the fact that you
00:45:17 haven't been able to sleep for three weeks or the fact that you have so many ulcers from your worry
00:45:23 and anxiety no these are not god's judgment we have materialistic and natural explanations for
00:45:31 these things now. All the same, brothers and sisters, our call always is to repent.
00:45:42 And in a world that rejects some of the natural revelations of God, it may be the case that the
00:45:50 only means left to them is the testimony, the call to repentance from Christ's church.
00:45:56 i long to see a holy army of god's people who unite in this call not in anger necessarily
00:46:06 although we ought to be angrier about the sin in our society but in love in longing that our
00:46:13 people our nation our neighbors our family members our co-workers would repent and find life in
00:46:19 Christ. I long that the church, we even, would stop being desensitized by the sin that is so
00:46:28 rampant. I long that we would not think that the politeness of letting people do what they want
00:46:36 is acceptable. And until the church arises with that single message, our nation will continue
00:46:44 to reject Christ as king
00:46:46 because the way that we prepare
00:46:48 to receive the king
00:46:49 always begins with repentance.
00:46:55 Brothers and sisters,
00:46:57 this is the message
00:46:57 for your household as well.
00:47:00 In fact, that's where it starts.
00:47:04 Parents,
00:47:05 do you call your children
00:47:07 to repentance?
00:47:08 Do you show them
00:47:10 what it means to repent?
00:47:11 not even just to say sorry and move on but godly repentance
00:47:17 it's not enough just to tell them that jesus offers new life that jesus loves them
00:47:25 in tenderness and in love and in affection and nevertheless in truth they must know that their
00:47:34 sin offends not just mommy and daddy, but God himself. It is okay for them to know the terror
00:47:43 of God's wrath in order to be driven to the Lamb of God who takes away their sin. I vividly remember
00:47:50 when I was very young, my mother shared the gospel with me, particularly about sin. And the conviction
00:47:57 of the Holy Spirit came upon me in a tangible way, and I fled to my bedroom, and I jumped in
00:48:03 my closet, and I closed the door, and I sat there trembling under the complete and utter certainty
00:48:10 that I was under the wrath of God. Do you know what happened next? I repented. I turned to the Lamb.
00:48:23 We must preach this message to our children, and this message is for you,
00:48:31 Brothers and sisters, we must preach this message to ourselves most of all.
00:48:37 Repent. Destroy sin.
00:48:41 Yes, it's good to read books such as John Owen's The Mortification of Sin
00:48:45 or Thomas Watson's The Doctrine of Repentance,
00:48:48 but then actually go out and do the work of repenting.
00:48:53 We often trick ourselves into thinking that because we're learning about repentance,
00:48:58 that's the same as actually repenting.
00:49:04 There is no phase of life
00:49:06 where repentance should not be common practice
00:49:09 for God's people.
00:49:11 For the more we see of God,
00:49:13 the more we know of ourselves and our sin.
00:49:16 And the more we know the word,
00:49:18 the more we see how far from the standard we fall.
00:49:23 And yet we have known the Lamb.
00:49:25 We have looked to the Lamb.
00:49:27 Let us not hide our sin, but let us bring it to the light.
00:49:35 God is doing something here in our midst.
00:49:39 I believe that.
00:49:40 We are a body seeking to bear witness to the risen King,
00:49:43 and we have a message for the world around us.
00:49:47 But repentance is the first step.
00:49:50 That was the message of John the Baptist,
00:49:53 and that is our message as well.
00:49:56 And lastly and briefly, the means.
00:49:59 How does this happen?
00:50:03 I said at the very beginning that one of the questions that I have as I read this passage
00:50:07 is why God chooses to carry out his plan in this way.
00:50:13 I mean, after all, isn't he God?
00:50:14 Didn't he make the world just like that?
00:50:18 Why did he not just grant repentance to all of those who were in Judea?
00:50:22 Why did he have John preach and then come out to the Jordan?
00:50:26 Seems like an inefficient way to do things for an all-powerful being.
00:50:32 We Calvinists rightly proclaim that salvation is a work of the Spirit.
00:50:37 We proclaim that God is sovereign over all things, as Spurgeon said,
00:50:40 even the particle of dust falling through the beam of sunlight.
00:50:46 And yet, we need to be careful not to fall into a very dangerous belief
00:50:52 that if something should be done and needs to be done,
00:50:56 God is the one who will just do it. Fiat. And therefore, we need not take any action.
00:51:05 No, you see, as we grow in our faith, we come to understand the effort and the energy that it takes
00:51:11 to accomplish God's purposes. Consider, although it's an imperfect analogy, a baby who, when it's
00:51:19 a newborn, only knows that it opens its mouth and there's milk when it cries.
00:51:24 and then as the baby grows it perhaps as a toddler knows that mom put the food in front of him
00:51:31 and then as the child grows even more he sees mom in the kitchen shaking some pots around
00:51:38 and oh maybe the food comes from shaking the pots around right and then the child grows and
00:51:44 the mom says will you rinse this carrot for me will you cut this cucumber for me will you stir
00:51:50 that sauce for me. And all of a sudden, the child is now making dinner once a week for the family.
00:52:00 There is a true sense that God accomplishes everything that happens.
00:52:08 His providence governs all things and his power enables all things. But as we grow in our faith,
00:52:15 we discover that amazingly, God uses us to carry out that plan.
00:52:24 This is not because we are great. Look what John the Baptist says in verse 27. He says
00:52:30 that he is not even fit to untie the sandal from the one who is coming, from the Messiah.
00:52:38 In a logical world, we would have no business serving the great and glorious king of the
00:52:43 universe. We are utterly unworthy, clumsy, and wrong-headed. Our cry, like John's, must always 0.68
00:52:51 be, he must increase, and I must decrease. And yet, consider the testimony of the New Testament.
00:52:58 We have this treasure in earthen vessels to show that the surpassing greatness is not from
00:53:04 ourselves, but from God. Christ is reconciling the world to himself, but he has given to us
00:53:11 the ministry of reconciliation. When we see the world embracing sin, it is good and necessary to
00:53:20 pray, even with great fervor and great zeal, that God would change hearts, that God would grant
00:53:25 repentance. You've heard the phrase, perhaps, you can take a horse to water, but you can't make him
00:53:34 drink. This is not true. You know how you make a horse drink more water? Give it salt.
00:53:44 The call to repentance is the salt that can lead to salvation for those around us.
00:53:54 John knew that he was an unworthy servant of God. We know that we are unworthy servants of God,
00:54:02 And yet he did not go around with the, woe is me, I'm so small and insignificant, I can't do
00:54:09 anything. Rather than focus on his own unworthiness, he focused on how great and holy God was
00:54:17 and how desperate the need of the people around him was. When we maintain this false sense of
00:54:24 humility, I can't do anything, I can't speak to that person, I'm too small, we lie about what God
00:54:31 has said. He has made us his witnesses. And we demonstrate hatred towards our neighbor.
00:54:38 No, instead, John the Baptist preached and spoke boldly, even though he knew he was so
00:54:43 small and insignificant. Because he believed, he truly believed that he was unworthy.
00:54:51 He didn't have to worry about what the Pharisees or the elites would say to him or do to him.
00:54:56 imagine a wealthy man very wealthy and he has some friends and he wants to
00:55:03 give them an evening of entertainment and so he hires the best musicians in all the land to come
00:55:09 and put on a private concert for his close friends and yet he has a young daughter and he delights in
00:55:17 this daughter and she started taking piano lessons three months before that and so to kick off the
00:55:23 concert, he has his daughter play Mary Had a Little Lamb. Now, she's not worthy to be there
00:55:33 if you consider the amount of time and effort and practice that those other great musicians had put
00:55:39 in for decades. Her musical accomplishments are nothing compared to theirs. And yet, because she
00:55:48 knows that she's unworthy to be there and yet because her father has said come and play she
00:55:55 plays with joy and abandon grace even not worried about what the rest of the musicians will think of
00:56:02 her that is us we are not worthy to bear the message we are not worthy to be the means of
00:56:11 preparing earth to receive her king. Yet God has given it to us. Who will we believe?
00:56:19 For whatever reason, God delights to use us.
00:56:24 John the Baptist was unworthy. He didn't know the whole plan. There were holes in his
00:56:30 understanding. Even later on, he doubted for a time. And yet he knew that God had called him
00:56:37 him to witness to the true light. We don't know all the details either, but we know that God is
00:56:45 establishing his kingdom. We know that he is the ruler of the kings of the earth. We know that he
00:56:51 has given us the right to become children of God, contrary to all logical explanation.
00:56:58 We know that his gospel is going out, and so we take hope because we are unworthy servants.
00:57:05 we are bringing the light into the dark places we are bringing it into our families
00:57:10 we are bringing it to our jobs our neighborhoods our land we preach repentance to ourselves we
00:57:16 preach repentance to our families and to our world that means the means that God used to 0.67
00:57:24 prepare the way for the Messiah in the time of John the Baptist was an unworthy man the means 0.97
00:57:30 that he will use to continue to prepare the way for the king now is the testimony of unworthy men 0.97
00:57:37 and women. There was a man sent from God whose name was John. He came as a witness about the 0.96
00:57:47 light that all might believe through him. Brothers and sisters, in the same way, there is a man or
00:57:54 woman sent from God whose name is Kevin, or Stacy, or Nicole, or Chris, or Jenny, or insert name
00:58:03 here. You are not the true light, but you bear witness to the light. Go and do it with joy and
00:58:12 perseverance. God is working, and amazingly, he's working through us. Let's pray.
00:58:24 Father, these truths are beyond us.
00:58:29 And yet we want to be humble, not just in a sense where we are full of the awareness of how small we are,
00:58:37 but also humble in our faith of how great and powerful you are.
00:58:43 Father, help us to be bold.
00:58:45 Help us to be ruthless with our own sin.
00:58:48 Help us to repent.
00:58:49 help us to walk closely with you so that we may go out and prepare the way for the king
00:58:55 and pray this in the name of your son christ jesus amen