SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 12/19/2015
12:38 PM
My Worship Time Focus: PT-4 1st
Day, 1st Group, 1st Emphasis
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: John 1:19-28
Message of the verses: “19 This is the testimony of John, when the
Jews sent to him priests and Levites from Jerusalem to ask him, "Who are
you?" 20 And he confessed and did not deny, but confessed, "I am not
the Christ." 21 They asked him, "What then? Are you Elijah?" And
he said, "I am not." "Are you the Prophet?" And he
answered, "No." 22 Then they said to him, "Who are you, so that
we may give an answer to those who sent us? What do you say about
yourself?" 23 He said, "I am A VOICE OF ONE CRYING IN THE WILDERNESS,
’MAKE STRAIGHT THE WAY OF THE LORD,’ as Isaiah the prophet said." 24 Now
they had been sent from the Pharisees. 25 They asked him, and said to him,
"Why then are you baptizing, if you are not the Christ, nor Elijah, nor
the Prophet?" 26 John answered them saying, "I baptize in water, but
among you stands One whom you do not know. 27 “It is He who comes after me, the
thong of whose sandal I am not worthy to untie." 28 These things took
place in Bethany beyond the Jordan, where John was baptizing.”
We had mentioned that we look in more detail as to
why we though perhaps that it was some of the Pharisees who were the ones
questioning John with all of these questions.
Well there was a group of Jewish leaders who were called the Sanhedrin
who lead the Jewish people as much as they could even though they were under
Roman rule. Seventy people were in this
group and most of them were Sadducees with the remaining Pharisees. The
Sadducees did not believe in any type of miracles nor angels nor anything like
that while the Pharisees did. There were
less Pharisees on this group and since they were the ones interested in the
religious things that were going on they were the ones interested in John the
Baptist so we believe that some in this group were Pharisees.
Now the next question that this group had for John
was why was he baptizing people at this time?
So I want to look at several paragraphs from a sermon that John
MacArthur preached back in 2012 on the subject of these verses we are looking
at and in these paragraphs he will explain about John baptizing people.
“And the question that’s behind the questions is
this: “Why in the world do you think you have the authority to be baptizing
these masses of people?” Again, their issues were always about power and
authority. They were completely hostile to Jesus because He assumed authority
in what He said and what He did. He hadn’t come through any rabbinical system,
any rabbinical institution, any rabbinical training—none of the normal
channels. He didn’t have any authorization from anybody in religious power, and
Jesus acted on His own authority again and again and again, and He said, “Look,
I have all authority given to Me,” as you know, “in heaven and in earth.” He
took authority over the Sabbath. He took authority over death. He took
authority over demons. He took authority over creation, nature. He took
authority over diseases. And this issue of authority especially irritated them
when He took authority to interpret the Word of God and declare for God what
God would say. It was always about authority because Jesus was a massive threat
to their religious authority.
“Well, John was the same. The people were going to
John by the tens of thousands. Typically speaking, if we can go back and look
at their history a little bit, they did have a baptism that they enacted for
proselytes, meaning Gentiles who wanted to become Jews and become a part of
their religion. They could go through a proselyte baptism, go into water
symbolizing externally what was going on internally. In other words, I want to
be cleansed of my paganism and I want to enter into the religion of the true
God of Israel.
“From what I can tell in reading, this was
actually done by individuals. In other words, they would do it themselves. I
suppose a friend could do it but from what I can tell, if you wanted to become
a Jew, you would literally do a baptism of yourself, put yourself in water as a
symbol on the outside of what you wanted to happen on the inside. At least we
cannot find any authorized group in the history of Israel that did this. So it
seems to be something people did as a sort of public confession. And so, here
comes John and he takes the authority to be the one doing this, and he actually
goes so far as to say, “I am doing this by divine authority.” Down in verse 33,
“He who sent me to baptize in water.” So he comes with this commission and must
have made it known that he was doing this with authority from God. So they’re
saying to him, “Who do you think you are? You’re not the Messiah. We might
allow for the Messiah to do this. You’re not Elijah. We might assume that
Elijah would do this. Where do you get the power or the authority to do this?”
That’s what’s behind the question.”
John next states that he was only baptizing with
water but that there was One here whose sandals I am not worthy to untie. We need to understand something here,
something that I had gotten mixed up and that is what time period was this that
these verses came from? Well according
to what John MacArthur writes and preached about this, this was forty days
after John had baptized Jesus Christ. I
had thought that he would be baptizing Him at this point, but it does make more
sense to see that Jesus was coming back from the wilderness at this time,
coming back to John and John is testifying about Jesus, the One whom he had
baptized and the One who, in John’s typical humble fashion says that he is not
worthy to untie his sandal, the job of the lowest of the lowest slaves.
John MacArthur concludes his comments on this
first day’s events by writing: “John’s
first emphasis was simple, yet urgent:
Prepare your hearts, because the Messiah is here. The prophecy of Isaiah six hundred years
earlier that the way was to be prepared for Messiah’s coming was being
fulfilled. And it would not be economic,
military, or political. The next
conversation proves that it would be a deliverance and a kingdom that was
deeply spiritual.” We will begin
looking at day two in our next SD.
Spiritual
meaning for my life today: The more
that I look at the life of John the Baptist the more I am impressed with him,
and they way that he fulfilled his ministry.
My Steps of Faith for Today: Learn
more about John the Baptist’s life as I think about what I have learned so far
and with the help of the Holy Spirit I want to be more like him in doing what
God has called me to do in the ministry He has given to me.Answer to yesterday’s Bible question: “Greek” (Acts 16:1).
Today’s Bible question: “What statement did the leper make in expressing his faith?”
Answer in our next SD.
12/19/2015 1:12 PM
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