The Bethany Inquiry
By
Rev. Todd W. Allen
Villa Rica 3/6/05
John 1:19-28
An ecclesiastical committee went out to inquire of John the Baptist
about his ministry and credentials. They had heard about this man in
strange dress out in the wilderness preaching. Many people had gone out
to hear him. Many had come back greatly impressed, their lives affected
by his preaching. It was inevitable that he would come to the attention
of the Jewish leaders.
These men were proud of their authority.
They were the establishment. A man like John the Baptist was highly
suspect to say the least. He had no recognition from any of the Jewish
parties: Neither the Pharisees, the Sadducees or the Herodians. He was
an interloper. He had not been trained in a recognized rabbinical
seminary He had not stood an examination before any presbytery. As far
as they were concerned he was at best an interloper and at worst an
imposter. I am sure that their questioning was intimidating in tone.
The temptation of John by these agents
from Jerusalem took the form of a line of questioning which made John
the Baptist acknowledge his mission and give answers that reflected his
own self-abnegation.
I believe it is true to say that all
temptation has at heart the temptation to pride, self-exaltation,
self-aggrandizement. Pride causes us to want to believe the best about
ourselves. We want to think as highly of ourselves as we possibly can.
We want to be recognized, be applauded, and be looked up to. In its
coarser form this root of sin desires pampering and the fulfilling of
lust, the satisfying of desires, but at the other, perhaps even more
dangerous and prideful extreme it wants to be as high on the totem pole
as possible.
Note how the questioning began:
“Who are
you?” John's reply indicates
that they wanted to know if he were indeed the Christ, the long promised
Messiah. Immediately John confessed
and did not deny, but confessed, “I am not the Christ.” VS.20
“Are
you the Prophet?” This
question referred to the prophet like himself that Moses prohesied would
come.
And he
answered, “No.”
“What then?
Are you Elijah?” And he said*, “I am not.” He
might have claimed that he was in the spirit and power of Elijah. But
whatever spiritual power God had given him for the conduct of his
ministry it did not cause him to vaunt himself, but rather to put
himself down.
22Then
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?” 23He said, “I
am a voice of
one crying in the wilderness, ‘Make straight the way of the Lord,’
as Isaiah the prophet said.”
Whenever a man begins to think of
himself as a very important person he has no doubt fallen for Satan's
ancient temptation. John the Baptist must have detected the insincerity
of these men from Jerusalem. They were not really interested in his
ministry in order to know the truth or to please God but only to try and
stumble him or trick him or catch him in his words. But instead of
answering them pridefully or antagonistically or brashly, he put
himself down as low as he possibly could without denying his calling
from the Lord.
23He
said, “I am a voice of
one crying in the wilderness, ‘Make straight the way of the Lord,’
as Isaiah the prophet said.”
He thus identified himself in a very
scriptural way, for he was indeed the very man of whom Isaiah spoke, and
his message was in fulfillment of that very scripture in Isaiah 40:3.
How admirably John met all of the words
of temptation addressed to him. He both maintained his humility and
self-abnegation and proclaimed his message in a gracious and scriptural
manner. He was not trying to make a name for himself. He was not
interested in calling attention to himself, but only that he was the
forerunner of the Lord, the herald of the Messiah.
“Why then
are you baptizing, if you are not the Christ, nor Elijah, nor the
Prophet?” 26John 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.”
They
completely missed the point of his answer.
Had they been
familiar with the scriptures they would have known that he was sent from
God to proclaim a message of repentance so that people could be made
ready for the Messiah. But they missed that. All they could think of was
what gives you the right to be out here baptizing people? No recognized
authority has ordained you. You have no credentials from anyone. They
really tried to put him down to embarrass him, to humiliate him.
John's
reply to them was both a rebuke and an invitation. The Messiah promised
hundreds of years before is now in their midst but they are blind of eye
and dull of hearing. Their pride separated them from the knowledge of
the truth. Yet would they but seek they might find. His words addressed
them as men in need of a Savior. The repentance he was preaching was
exactly what they needed in order to know God's Messiah.
Repentance is the great need today as it was then. John's message was a
stern and uncompromising one. He said to his generation:
when he saw
many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming for baptism, he said to them,
“You brood of vipers, who warned you to flee from the wrath to come?
8“Therefore bear fruit in keeping with repentance; 9and
do not suppose that you can 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. 10“The axe is already laid at the root
of the trees; therefore every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut
down and thrown into the fire.
11“As
for me, I baptize you with water for repentance, but He who is coming
after me is mightier than I, and I am not fit to remove His sandals; He
will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. 12“His
winnowing fork is in His hand, and He will thoroughly clear His
threshing floor; and He will gather His wheat into the barn, but He will
burn up the chaff with
unquenchable fire.” Matt. 3:7-2
Repentance is not some superficial
attitude that says I guess I should try doing better. It isn't like
those New Years’ resolutions made one day and forgotten the next.
Repentance must go much deeper than that.
Repentance begins with knowledge of
one's true predicament. It sees God as holy and oneself as sinful. I
recognize that my sin separates me from God, not just here and now but
that I face an eternal separation. I am deserving of God's just penalty
for my sins, which the Bible tells us is an endless place called hell
and the lake of fire.
Repentance also recognizes my total
inability to please God in my deadness in trespasses and sins. It faces
the truth of my moral condition as being without personal righteousness.
Repentance has both a negative side and a positive side. It seeks after
the mercy of God. It longs for the righteousness of God. Without the
positive element repentance would give way to despair and suicide. We
must somehow combine judgment with hope, not a vain hope that somehow I
will turn over a new leaf and begin to do what I have never done before,
namely, become a righteous person. This hope is born of God's Word. It
is the hope created by the very Word preached that leads us repentance.
Repentance prepares for mercy. Repentance strips away the sham, the
dishonesty and the deceit and opens the way for God's revealing of his
remedy in Christ.
When God comes to a man to show mercy he
first sends a John the Baptist. The preaching of John the Baptist was
intended and designed to lay bare the sins of men. The sinful, lying,
cheating, heart. I must hear it like it is. I must make a clean breast
of sin, confess it all, admit before God my wickedness and disobedience
– then I will be ready to see Jesus as the Messiah and not before. Only
those who want to play it straight with God can expect to find God's
mercy and pardon. A person cannot know the remedy until he confesses his
need.
Unless a man admits
he is blind he cannot hope to have anything done about his blindness.
Unless a man sees his sinful predicament he will not seek God's mercy.
Lloyd
H. Steffen wrote in The Christian Century how when King Frederick II, an
eighteenth-century King of Prussia, was visiting a prison in Berlin, the
inmates tried to prove to him how they had been unjustly imprisoned --
all except one.
That one
sat quietly in a corner, while all the rest protested their innocence.
Seeing him sitting there oblivious to the commotion, the king asked him
what he was there for. "Armed robbery, Your Honor." The king asked,
"Were you guilty?" "Yes, Sir," he answered. "I entirely deserve my
punishment." The king then gave an order to the guard: "Release this
guilty man. I don't want him corrupting all these innocent people."
Repentance is always difficult, and the
difficulty grows still greater by delay. You cannot repent too soon
because you do not know how soon it may be too late.
The delegation that came out to John did
not know
Christ for the very
simple reason that they thought of themselves as religious. There were
self-righteous. How can you offer God's mercy to a man who says, I don't
need it. Like the church at Laodicea the unrepentant man is self
satisfied. He says, "I am rich, and increased with goods, and have need
of nothing" He has no concept of himself as a wretched, miserable, poor,
blind and naked sinner. That's the gutter bum, not me. I'm okay. And
because he believes that he is not a candidate for salvation at all. He
is lost and without God but doesn't know it. He is self-deceived.
After
John had been taken into custody, Jesus came into Galilee, preaching the
gospel of God, 15and saying, “The time is fulfilled, and the
kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel.”
On another occasion when his disciples reported to him how Pilate
had mingled the blood of some Galileans with their sacrifices Jesus said
to them,
“Do you suppose
that these Galileans were greater sinners than all other
Galileans because they suffered this fate? 3“I tell
you, no, but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish. 4“Or
do you suppose that those eighteen on whom the tower in Siloam fell and
killed them were worse culprits than all the men who live in
Jerusalem? 5“I tell you, no, but unless you repent, you will
all likewise perish.” Mark 1:14-15, Luke 13:2 -5
John the Baptist knew he was unworthy of
Christ. He did not have a misconception of himself. He said, "I am not
worthy to untie his shoe lace" but those scribes and Pharisees never
thought of themselves that way. They were quite sure that God would
accept them just as they were without repentance. But that is not true.
Beloved, each one of us needs to repent.
We cannot continue on in our ways, our attitudes, and our dispositions,
which are sinful. We must be converted from that course and way to
Christ and begin to show forth fruits meet for repentance. As John the
Baptist said
8“Therefore
bear fruit in keeping with repentance; 9and do not suppose
that you can 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. 10“The axe is already laid at the root of the trees;
therefore every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and
thrown into the fire.
The Lord Jesus preached the
same doctrine as John the Baptist. He said,
every good tree bears good fruit, but the bad tree bears bad fruit.
18“A good tree cannot produce bad fruit, nor can a bad tree
produce good fruit. 19“Every tree that does not bear good
fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. 20“So then, you
will know them by their fruits. 21“Not everyone who says to
Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the
will of My Father who is in heaven will enter. 22“Many
will say to Me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in Your
name, and in Your name cast out demons, and in Your name perform many
miracles?’ 23“And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew
you; depart from Me, you who
practice lawlessness.’ Matt. 7:17-23
Faith in Christ is a two-sided coin, one
side is faith and the other is genuine repentance. How about it, friend,
have you repented since you have believed? If so, is there evidence of
genuine repentance in your life by the fruits of your life? No man truly
knows Christ in a saving way that has not repented of his sins.
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The paper and sermon manuscripts from
Pastor
Todd W. Allen
are made freely available for review and
distribution. We only request that proper
web page attribution be provided if
distributed for any reason. Please be
gracious to forgive typos and errors of
expression. These notes are faithful
approximations of what has been preached.
May God be glorified in the preaching of
His Word.