JOHN 1:19\u201323<\/b><\/p>\n
He said: \u201cI am \u2018the voice of one crying in the wilderness: make straight the way of the Lord\u201d \u2019<\/i><\/p>\n
(John 1:23)<\/i>.<\/p>\n
Returning to our study of John, we find that John the Baptist had made his first public appearance in the summer of A.D. 26. His ascetic lifestyle and fervent and effectual preaching on repentance, even for the seed of Abraham, excited much attention. His teaching that Abraham\u2019s descendants needed the spiritual cleansing symbolized in baptism stirred up the people and greatly concerned the Jewish leaders. If John was a prophet, as so many believed, the scribes and teachers of the law wanted to know it so they could use him for their own ends. But if he was a false prophet, some of the more sincere leaders wanted to suppress any error that might lead people astray.<\/p>\n
To investigate the situation, the Sanhedrin sent a committee to John. They had one purpose: to find out who he was in relation to Old Testament prophecy.<\/p>\n
Unfortunately, they came to him with a false presupposition. They had misinterpreted Malachi 4:5, which said that Elijah would precede the coming of the Messiah. They assumed that Elijah himself would come back from the dead. But as we learn from Christ Himself, the forerunner of Messiah would not be Elijah himself but one who came in the spirit and power of Elijah. The mistake of the Jews concerning this prophecy is a good lesson for us all not to assume a wooden hyper-literalism in understanding prophecy.<\/p>\n
When the Jews asked John whether he was Elijah, he denied that he was the prophet in the overly literal sense they had in mind. They also wanted to know whether he was the Messiah Himself. John denied that too. The Jews had missed the entire point because they did not apply Isaiah 40:3 to the situation\u2014a verse that John uses to identify himself.<\/p>\n
John told the committee in no uncertain terms that he was the forerunner of the Messiah, that he came to prepare the people for the coming of the Holy One of Israel. That preparation involved repentance on the part of a people who had grown cold toward God. They needed to turn from their legalistic traditions and prepare their hearts for the coming of the Lord.<\/p>\n
CORAM DEO<\/b><\/p>\n
Exodus 7\u20138<\/p>\n
Matthew 18:1\u201320<\/p>\n
WEEKEND<\/b><\/p>\n
Exodus 9\u201312<\/p>\n
Matthew 18:21\u201335<\/p>\n
What can you learn from the Pharisees about the ideas you bring to your study of God\u2019s Word? What caused them to be blinded? Sometimes we want God to be conformed to our way of thinking rather than the other way around. Ask God for a willing and teachable spirit that wants to think His thoughts after Him.<\/p>\n
For further study: Deut. 18:15\u201318 \u2022 Mal. 4 \u2022 Matt. 17:1\u201312 \u2022 Luke 1:5\u201325<\/i><\/p>\n
WEEKEND<\/b><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
JOHN 1:19\u201323 He said: \u201cI am \u2018the voice of one crying in the wilderness: make straight the way of the Lord\u201d \u2019 (John 1:23). Returning to our study of John, we find that John the Baptist had made his first public appearance in the summer of A.D. 26. His ascetic lifestyle and fervent and effectual preaching … Continue reading “FROM THE WILDERNESS”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12899","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sermons"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12899","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12899"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12899\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12899"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12899"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12899"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}