Messenger

Luke 3:1–6 CEB

1 In the fifteenth year of the rule of the emperor Tiberius—when Pontius Pilate was governor over Judea and Herod was ruler over Galilee, his brother Philip was ruler over Ituraea and Trachonitis, and Lysanias was ruler over Abilene, 2 during the high priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas—God’s word came to John son of Zechariah in the wilderness. 3 John went throughout the region of the Jordan River, calling for people to be baptized to show that they were changing their hearts and lives and wanted God to forgive their sins. 4 This is just as it was written in the scroll of the words of Isaiah the prophet, A voice crying out in the wilderness: “Prepare the way for the Lord; make his paths straight. 5 Every valley will be filled, and every mountain and hill will be leveled. The crooked will be made straight and the rough places made smooth. 6 All humanity will see God’s salvation.”

John the Baptist is one of the most interesting characters in the story of humanity. More has been told about his birth and babyhood than almost any other character in the Bible.

After we hear about his birth, we know nothing at all until we find him a full-grown man coming out of the desert, preaching in the wilderness. He was not coming to the towns and cities to find a crowd but drawing the eager multitudes away from the cities into the desert.

John was sent by God on a mission. He was filled with the power of the Holy Spirit to fulfill that mission.

This made those who listened to him believe that he was a messenger from heaven. Listen to how the Apostle John introduces us to him.

John 1:6 CEB

6 A man named John was sent from God.

A very simple opening concerning John. In Luke's account he talks about who was who when John began his ministry. He wrote about political power and also religious power before he introduces us to John.

The picture that we have of John is very striking. It is hard to find any other character in the Bible like John. The acception would be the prophet Isaiah who was also sent by God. The Bible tells us that he walked around naked and barefoot for three years.

With John we read about the desert, the wilderness, his camel's hair clothing, his food of locusts and wild honey, his utter recklessness with taking risk.

As the atmosphere of intense reality surrounds him, he speaks to the very last letter of the message he has been given by God. It is to the crowd of peasants, the soldiers, the formal Sadducees, the hypocritical Pharisees, or the guilty Herod on his throne.

These are all characteristics that arouse the most intense interest in learning more about him. Combined with his independence of character, his faithful obedience in preparing for the coming of Christ, and his utter humility in Jesus' presence. That all suggests a man of great spiritual insight and character. No one who studies the story of John the Baptist carefully can refrain from agreeing with the declaration of Jesus in Matthew’s gospel.

Matthew 11:11 (CEB)

11 “I assure you that no one who has ever been born is greater than John the Baptist.

There are several characteristics of John the Baptists’ ministry that I want us to take a look at this morning.

The first and probably the most notable is the positivity of John’s ministry. Jesus brings our attention to this characteristic when he was talking a crowd of people who had listened in on his conversation with some of John’s disciples.

These disciples had come to see Jesus with a question for their master, who was then locked up in prison. After they had walked away with that amazing answer of Christ as to His Messiahship

Matthew 11:4–7 CEB

4 Jesus responded, “Go, report to John what you hear and see. 5 Those who were blind are able to see. Those who were crippled are walking. People with skin diseases are cleansed. Those who were deaf now hear. Those who were dead are raised up. The poor have good news proclaimed to them. 6 Happy are those who don’t stumble and fall because of me.” 7 When John’s disciples had gone, Jesus spoke to the crowds about John: “What did you go out to the wilderness to see? A stalk blowing in the wind?

That is some very positive great news.

Notice the irony of Jesus’ question there in verse seven. He’s saying to them that you traveled long distances, you made great efforts to see John, you left your homes and went out into the wilderness for what? Some frail stalk swaying in the wind, or weak trimmings tossed by the wind?

The irony of the question is sufficient to answer it. It is as if the Jesus had said, "John the Baptist was no stalk shaken by the wind, and you went, not expecting to find him as that shaking stalk. If you had, you would not have gone out to see him."

Folks, it is a mistake to assume that the world is unwilling to hear an intensely earnest and optimistic spiritual message. There will be more people willing to listen to that than any other kind of discussion.

The one question that everyone has to answer is what happens after I die. Is this it? Is there anything afterwards? People are looking for this answer. Deep down inside every person is the great question of the soul's salvation.

Deep down in every heart, there is a restlessness the becomes focused in the presence of any unique manifestation of spiritual power. This is at least a latent force in the soul of every man and woman in the world. It is not lost through any lack of cultivation, and it does not disappear under any degree of education.

Let any unique manifestation of spiritual power be prompted by a positive presentation of the divine message. All classes rush with curious anxiety to listen to it. The lost, the least, the skeptics, Pharisees or hypocrites. It really does not matter who they are. This phenomenon promises hope to the soul, and that is what attracts people to view it.

Catherine Booth was the wife and co-laborer with her husband William Booth and together they founded the Salvation Army. There is a story told about her that she had been organizing the Salvation Army among the poor in Paris France. She reserved a fashionable ballroom not far from the grand opera. She went there to preach the gospel in the simple, plain, straightforward way that has given the Salvation Army its mighty power. All Paris was stirred by her messages. The boulevard was blocked with carriages bringing ladies dressed for the opera. Gentlemen in evening dress, gold eyeglasses, glittering diamonds, and all the other necessaries that go to make up a society fop in Paris, accompanied by the jeweled women, painted and powdered and dressed up to the latest fashion, crowded every available seat.

When the Catherine showed up on the platform, opera glasses came into great demand, and laughing comments were hear throughout that great ballroom. But when she knelt to pray silently for a few minutes, the audience rose and gazed at her in perfect wonder.

One lady asked “Is she sick?" and the answer was, “She is praying to God." Exclamations of surprise broke out at the lack of regard for dress that made her willing to kneel in the dust. The subject of her message that evening was, "Has God left Paris?"

At first, as she spoke, the look of amused wonder was upon the faces of the audience. Fans would be fluttered, glasses in use, and false smiles put on like a mask in society would hide the real heart feelings. But after a while, as the power of God could be felt through the straight tender words of the speaker, they would for once forget themselves and be lost in the subject.

Fans would be folded, glasses forgotten, and the mask would drop, leaving on those faces a look of weary longing, showing that the heart beneath had not been entirely deadened by the false joy and emptiness of the Paris world. However, some of the ladies, who had not come prepared to weep, could not keep back their tears, which washed away their makeup. As they wiped away the tears, they wiped the paint with them, making their handkerchiefs red and their faces pale.

And this plain, simple, straightforward, positive message of man's sin and God's willingness to save through Jesus Christ had the same effect among the poor in that wicked city of Paris. Catherine’s daughter in-law told of the first conversion Catherine Booth made in a miserable small hall in the poorest part of Paris.

She said that one evening, Catherine made her way to the back of the hall and sat down beside a poor, promiscuous working woman. She put her arms around her and asked if she wanted Jesus as her friend and Savior. And when there was no answer, her heart broke, and she looked into the poor woman's face and exclaimed, while her arms were still around her neck, "I love you," while her tears fell upon the hard-worked hands. That melted the heart, which no amount of preaching would have broken. Before that night was over, the woman had found salvation and peace in the blood of Jesus.

That same message backed by the Holy Spirit, when given by us, will have the same effect. You can depend on it. I pray to God for the Spirit of John the Baptist, for the Spirit of Catherine Booth, which will make this gospel message real to us and give us the courage and faith and love to carry it to the people who are within our reach in these days.

During the ministry of John the Baptist there were some classes of people whose excitement astonished John the Baptist. He was not surprised when the publicans came to him. But, when he saw multitudes of Pharisees and Sadducees coming, he exclaimed in wonder, "You offspring of vipers, who warned you to flee from the wrath to come?" Matthew 3:7.

The Pharisees were the formalists. They followed the letter of the law strictly, but they did not have its spirit. They were selfish and hard-hearted. They would argue a question of tithes as though it were a question of life and death. Yet, they had no mercy for a broken heart. They were ready to stone a hungry man who rubbed an ear of grain between his fingers on the Sabbath day.

Frederick W. Robertson says, "They had shrunk away from all goodness and nobleness and withered into the mummy of a soul."

May God have mercy on the religious mummies that are stored up in our churches. If there are any religious mummies in this church, I pray to God that his Spirit may arouse them to life.

The Sadducees were materialists. They were the reaction against the Pharisees. They saw through the hollow formalities and miserable sham of the Pharisees. But they did not realize that these counterfeits were only counterfeits of the real spiritual possibilities. As a result of seeing some men as hypocrites and frauds, they blindly believed that all was a sham. "There is no life to come. There is neither an angel nor a Spirit. And this glorious thing called man, with his deep thoughts and his aching, unsatisfied heart, his sorrows, and his loves, godlike and immortal as he seems, is but dust that lives for a time, passing into the nothingness out of which he came." That was the creed of the Sadducees, as it is of such men as Ingersoll today, who try to feed their hungry souls on dry husks.

What I think astonished John was that these antagonistic classes, one wedded to its formalism, the other denying everything, both crowded around this prophet of the wilderness, each seeking to know how to "escape from the angry judgment that is coming soon." The truth is, as Frederick Robertson has said, no self-righteous formalism or morality will ever satisfy the conscience of man, neither will infidelity give rest to the troubled Spirit. Observing the two classes go together to John's baptism is an excellent lesson if we study this lesson thoughtfully and earnestly.

The heart of man, which the moralist tells us is so pure and excellent, will not stand the light of day. The fact is, it is not pure but corrupted, sinful, polluted, and restless. If that isn’t true then why did the Pharisees go to John and find the symbol of a new life.

The unbiased decision of the intellect, of which the materialist boasts, a satisfactory trust. In the light of day, he sees his intelligence warped by a sinful life, his heart restless and dark and lonely. If not, why does the Sadducee beside the Jordan tremble before John's heart-searching message?

The secret of it all is that neither of them is satisfied. There is something which both Pharisee and Sadducee want, and they come to see if John can give it to them.

How powerfully they must have been convicted of their sins before they could bring themselves to make this open confession of the hollow mockery of their trust. You can almost imagine standing at the water's edge and hearing the confession from their poor quivering lips as the hot tears course down their cheeks and their voices are choked with sobs, during that solemn hour when the conviction is forced home upon them that they are poor, lost, condemned sinners before God.

"It is a lie." We hear them say: "We are not happy, we are miserable and have no hope. Tell us prophet of God, if you can, about that awful other world toward which we rushing towards. Tell us, if you can, how we may find forgiveness for our sins, how we may make our peace with God."

Those are not overdrawn images; it is easy enough when you are healthy and strong and feeling the pleasures and blessings of God. But you never thanked him for what he did for you: he drew the covering of your self-righteousness around you and brought you to peace.

When you face the everlasting God and see the splendor of his judgments, your self-righteousness will shrivel into rags of filth, as Jesus describes in the book of Revelation. Believe me, no skepticism, however logical its philosophy may seem to you, will soothe your conscience or rock it to rest with an everlasting lullaby. No agnosticism or worldliness can soothe the undying worm nor quench the inward fire that smolders in the restless soul. Only through faith in Christ, the manifested love of God, can the soul find peace.

There are three or four characteristics of the ministry of John the Baptist which are of particular interest to us. This is because they illustrate our own duty at this moment in history.

John was said to be a voice crying in the wilderness. He was a voice of protest against the sins of his time. He was a voice loud and clear, unequivocal, attracting people's attention not to himself so much as to their own sins and the coming of Christ, the Savior. We, too, are to be voices crying in the wilderness. We are not to join in other people's sins by remaining silent in the presence of sin. We are to attract attention in every possible way to Jesus, the Savior of sinners.

John was a witness. He came to be a witness for the Lord Jesus Christ. And we are assured by Christ himself that he expects all his disciples to be witnesses for him. Isaiah 43:10 “You are my witnesses, says the Lord”

How often do we hear the phrase, "the cause of Christ." That is a legal phrase. When you utter it or listen to it thoughtfully, a courtroom is seen in your imagination. The judge sits on the bench, the jury is in their places, the lawyers are there to plead. However, if it is an honest court, the issue depends more upon the witnesses than anybody else.

Now the Lord Jesus Christ has a cause that is being tried in this world. He is a plaintiff in the suit, which has been pending for over two thousand years. Though it has been settled by millions of people in that time, it is still pending for millions more. He claims the race of humanity as his because he redeemed it by his own blood. He claims all human hearts as his because he died for them.

The ministers of the gospel are merely his attorneys. I am here not to present my own claim but the claim of my Master. And every Christian, old or young, is subpoenaed as a witness in the cause of Christ. And we must testify whether we wish to or not. We bear witness one way or the other even while we are silent. We are in court all the time. The jury is watching us. The stenographers are taking down our evidence. The Savior is looking and listening, and a detailed record is being kept in heaven.

What kind of evidence are you giving for the Lord Jesus? How imperative it is that every one of us, not only with our lips but by our daily living, will bear witness to the truth of God's word. He says that "being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ."

Are we living so that we have that peace? Is that loving and grateful acceptance of Christ the end for us of all worry and trouble? Are we moving about from day to day "rejoicing in hope, patient in tribulation"? Unless we do so, we are false witnesses and do not support the cause of our Lord.

Again, he says, "My grace is sufficient for thee." If this is true, then in poverty and loss of health and grief, we should be able to look up into the face of our Heavenly Father and say with cheerfulness, "Thy will be done." Let us bring it close to home to our hearts and ask ourselves what kind of witnesses for Jesus we have been this past year.

John came to prepare the way of the Lord, to make ready for the coming of Jesus Christ. John C. Fremont was called the great pathfinder because he found a way over the Rocky Mountains and the Sierras into California. He was followed by the long wagon trains that came after him. John the Baptist was a pathfinder for Christ. Fremont only found his way over mountains and around rugged terrain. John was a representative of those who were to pull down the hills, build up the valleys, and make a highway for the coming of the King.

Doesn’t this illustrate our duty at this very moment concerning Jesus? We are to prepare the way for the arrival of Jesus into this community.

If there is a person in our family who is not saved, we are to look for every way we can to open up a path for Jesus into that heart. If a non-Christian family is living near us or about whom we know, then we must seek to invent some method by which we may build a path into that family for the Savior. We must use our friendships, business relations, and all our associations with our fellow men as bridges that Jesus can walk into their hearts and lives. What nobler, grander work can any man do than that?

It is an amazing thing it is to go among people in this world, developing friendships with them. We live in the Spirit of kindness and love, in an atmosphere of such grace and Christly charity that we win their hearts.

When we have become their friend and won their hearts, we can introduce them to the Savior. We can do that through the power of the Holy Spirit who lives in us.

This is our purpose, to take the message of the Gospel to the world.

Who needs to hear this message in your circle of friends and family? What are you doing about it?

This message is based an original sermon by Rev. Dr. Louis A. Banks titled “The Messenger of Jesus” from his book “Christ and His Friends” published in 1895.