John The Baptist – Making Ready A People Prepared For The Lord

by Chris Simmons

Before the Messiah would come, God, through the prophets Malachi and Isaiah, spoke of one who would come before Him to “clear the way before Me” (Malachi 3:1) and to “make smooth” His paths (Isaiah 40:3-5). He was to “make ready the way of the Lord” (Luke 3:4-6) and be the forerunner of the Son Of God. He was to have the noble task of turning back the hearts of the sons of men to God (Malachi 4:5-6). Finally, in the gospel of Luke, we read that an angel came to Zacharias and Elizabeth and told them, “Do not be afraid, Zacharias, for your petition has been heard, and your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son, and you will give him the name John. And you will have joy and gladness, and many will rejoice at his birth. For he will be great in the sight of the Lord, and he will drink no wine or liquor; and he will be filled with the Holy Spirit, while yet in his mother's womb. And he will turn back many of the sons of Israel to the Lord their God. And it is he who will go as a forerunner before Him in the spirit and power of Elijah, to turn the hearts of the fathers back to the children, and the disobedient to the attitude of the righteous; so as to make ready a people prepared for the Lord” (Luke 1:13-17). There was important work to do in preparing man for the Son of God to reveal the gospel and teach about the kingdom that He was to establish, and John was the man God asked to make the people ready.

It is made very clear that John was in fact the fulfillment of the Old Testament prophecies referred to above. It is recorded in Matthew 11:11-14, “Truly, I say to you, among those born of women there has not arisen anyone greater than John the Baptist; yet he who is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he. And from the days of John the Baptist until now the kingdom of heaven suffers violence, and violent men take it by force. For all the prophets and the Law prophesied until John. And if you care to accept it, he himself is Elijah, who was to come.” Jesus Himself noted that “Elijah already came, and they did not recognize him” (cf. Matthew 17:10-13). Was John literally a resurrected Elijah? John emphatically said “I am not” (John 1:20) but he was the one to come “in the spirit and power of Elijah” (Luke 1:17) as Malachi and Isaiah had prophesied several hundred years before.

What was his message? First, we need to remember that it was an inspired message. We already noted above that John was to be filled with the Holy Spirit (Luke 1:15) and in Luke 3:2 that it was the “word of God” that was revealed to him, which he then proclaimed. His message that he preached was one of “a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins” (Mark 1:4; Luke 3:3). Like all true biblical repentance, John did not seek to simply make men feel remorseful or regretful for their sinful ways (the “sorrow of the world” ) but rather to invoke “vindication … indignation … fear … longing … zeal … (and) avenging of wrong” (II Corinthians 7:10-11) over their sin against God. Still under the Old Law, it was a baptism that led to the forgiveness of sins through the blood of Jesus that He would later shed upon the cross (Hebrews 9:15). We need to be clear however that John’s baptism is not the one baptism (Ephesians 4:5) practiced in the New Testament church today (Acts 19:1-5), that is, baptism in the name of the Lord Jesus which the disciples in Ephesus had to submit to.

A divinely inspired preacher, John was clear, direct and bold in his message: “So he began saying to the crowds who were going out to be baptized by him, ‘You brood of vipers, who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? Therefore bear fruits in keeping with repentance, and do not begin to say to yourselves, “We have Abraham for our father,” for I say to you that from these stones God is able to raise up children to Abraham. Indeed the axe is already laid at the root of the trees; so every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire’” (Luke 3:7-9). John challenged those to whom he preached to demonstrate their repentance through the fruit in their life and soberly warned them of the consequences of failing to make such a change. John certainly didn’t practice what so many clamor for today, that is “positive preaching.” He demonstrated the boldness that we need to pray that we have in our lives today (Ephesians 6:18-20). John understood what it meant to be “faithful unto death” (Revelation 2:10) as his bold and direct rebuke of King Herod’s adulterous marriage was responsible for the command to have him first imprisoned and ultimately beheaded. We should be inspired by John to hold fast to the truth of God’s word on such issues as marriage regardless of how upset some may get. God has defined who may marry (Romans 7:1-3; Matthew 19:3-8) and He alone may dictate the only exception for divorce (Matthew 19:9). Not all marriages are “lawful” and there will continue to be situations in which the godly man must tell such a one, “It is not lawful for you to have her” (Matthew 14:4).

The cries to attack or kill the messenger of God’s truth are nothing new and they will continue as long as there are faithful men willing to “retain the standard of sound words” (II Timothy 1:13) and “abide in the teaching of Christ” without wavering (2 John 9). John certainly was a man who preached “in season and out of season” (II Timothy 4:2-3), whether to an audience of common laborers or to the religious and political leaders of the day such as the Pharisees and Sadducees (Matthew 3:7-8). Preaching has to be done without partiality (I Timothy 5:21).

John had to make it clear to his audiences “I am not the Christ” (John 1:19). He recognized and testified that “After me One is coming who is mightier than I, and I am not fit to stoop down and untie the thong of His sandals” (Mark 1:7). He recognized the eternal nature of Jesus Christ, noting “this was He of whom I said, ‘He who comes after me has a higher rank than I, for He existed before me’” (John 1:15). At times, John garnered large crowds (note Mark 1:5, “all the country of Judea was going out to him, and all the people of Jerusalem” ) but John was never seeking his own preeminence. When it was brought to his attention that multitudes who once were coming to him were now following after Jesus, John noted that such was actually an occasion to rejoice and simply added “He must increase, but I must decrease” (John 3:26-30). Indeed, John displayed the humility in his life that we so desperately need ourselves (James 4:6-10; I Peter 5:5-6). May we seek and cherish the role of the humble servant that John played.

John – a man of prophecy, a man of conviction, a man of truth and a man of humble obedience.