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