SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR
12/6/2015 9:09 PM
My Worship Time Focus: PT-2 John the Baptist: Believable Testimony
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: John 1:6-8
Message of the
verses: “6 There came a man sent
from God, whose name was John. 7 He came as a witness, to testify about the
Light, so that all might believe through him. 8 He was not the Light, but he
came to testify about the Light.”
We continue in this SD to look at John the Baptist and
one of the things that we learned was that he was to prepare the way for the
Messiah as Isaiah 40:3 says “A voice is calling, "Clear the way for the
LORD in the wilderness; Make
smooth in the desert a highway for our God.” I have highlighted a portion of that verse
and the reason is that this is the answer to the question as to what John the
Baptist was to do in his preparation for the Messiah to come. He was to confront sin in order to prepare
the way for the Messiah and John did that in a way that shows us how much
courage he had. His courage could be
seen in the way that he preached to the people.
John was baptizing people who came to see him, who repented of their sin
and this is interesting to me for baptism was not something that you saw or heard
much of in the Old Testament. If a
Gentile wanted to accept and become a part of the “religion” of the Jews he had
to be baptized and then he was called a proselyte and the interesting thing to
me about John’s baptizing people was these were Jews who were coming to get
baptized, so this says to me that they did not feel like they were a part of
the faith of the Jews and so they got baptized.
John would tell the people that the Messiah was coming
and that is the reason that he came baptizing for he would say “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. I baptized you
with water; but He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit (Mark 1:7-8). It was the lowest of the lowest slave who had
the job of taking their master’s sandals off in order to wash their feet and
John says he is not fit to even do that job for the Messiah.
It seems that there were more people coming to John than
would later come to the Lord Jesus Christ, that is in that time period. When Paul passing through Ephesus that he
actually found some people who had only been baptized by John the Baptist and
so he had to baptize them again in the name of Jesus Christ for they were
believers and this shows the extent of John’s ministry.
Jesus told a crowd that John the Baptist was the greatest
man who ever lived up until that time.
(See Matthew 11:11) Why would
Jesus give such high praise to John?
John MacArthur writes “He was the greatest man because God chose him to
perform the most important task to that point in human history—being the
forerunner of the Messiah. He was the
first to announce publicly that Jesus was the Savior (John 1:29). Yet despite that, he himself acknowledged;
‘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).”
Some of John’s disciples were a bit zealous for his reputation and said
“26 And they came to John and said to him, "Rabbi, He who was with you beyond the Jordan, to whom you
have testified, behold, He is baptizing and all are coming to Him."
27 John answered and said, "A man can receive nothing unless it has been
given him from heaven. 28 “You yourselves are my witnesses that I said, ’I am
not the Christ,’ but, ’I have been sent ahead of Him.’ 29 “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. So this joy of mine has
been made full. 30 “He
must increase, but I must decrease.”
John MacArthur quotes William Hendriksen who points out
the contrast between John the Baptist and Jesus: “Christ was (en) from all eternity; John came
(egeneto). Christ is the Word (ho logos); John is a mere man
(anthropos). Christ is himself God; John
is commissioned by God. Christ is the
real light; John came to testify concerning the real light. Christ is the object of trust; John is the
agent through whose testimony men come to trust in real light, even Christ.”
Verse seven tells us that John came to be a witness about
Messiah, to testify about the light.
John MacArthur writes these very important words: “He is the first of eight witnesses that
appear in John’s gospel; the others are the Father (5:37), Jesus’ words (8:18)
and works (5:36; 10:25), the Old Testament Scriptures (5:39), some of those who
met Him (4:29), the disciples (15:27; 19:35; 21:24), and the Holy Spirit
(15:26). The legal terms ‘witness’ (marturia) and ‘testify’ (martureo) are words related to fact, not
opinion, as in a courtroom setting. The
terms are used predominantly in the New Testament by the apostle John (77 out
of their 113 occurrences are in John’s gospel, epistles, or Revelation.”
We see from verse eight that John the apostle made is
clear that John the Baptist was not the light, but the one who came to testify
about the light. We can see that this
was a great responsibility given to John and it is a good thing that he was
empowered by the Holy Spirit to accomplish this task.
Spiritual meaning
for my life today: I would like to
be as bold as John was in declaring who Jesus is and why He came.
My Steps of Faith for Today: Trust the Lord that in the days ahead that He
will give me opportunity to tell someone about Christ.
Answer to yesterday’s Bible
question: “Jesus’ disciples” (Matthew
14:33).
Today’s Bible
question: “Who said “But whom say ye
that I am?”
Answer in our next SD.
12/6/2015 9:51 PM
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