A Strange Place for a Strange Man

Father, Francis of Assisi would be very interested to hear the melody that was put to his ancient words. And we now, seizing upon words that have been sung without any real understanding by many, we sing them with passionate longing. We want, with John the Baptist, to be preparers of the way of the Lord.[1] We want to be involved in breaking down barriers and filling in roadways in the lives of men and women, that they may be able to walk directly into a living, life-changing encounter with Jesus Christ. It is to this end that we study the Bible. And we acknowledge our great need of you, both in speaking and in hearing. And we tell you that we’re not interested in simply the voice of a man sharing his meandering thoughts, but we do long to hear God speak. Speak, Lord, in the stillness, while we wait upon you. For Jesus’ sake we ask it. Amen.

Can I invite you to turn again to the Gospel of Luke? It’s important that you are following along in our study here in Luke’s Gospel. And you needn’t fear that we’re going to try and get all the way to verse 20. I did try this earlier in the week; it is an impossibility for me. And I have been thoroughly enjoying getting to know John the Baptist a little better. He is a familiar character in the Bible for any of us who know our Bibles at all, and he is remarkable, as we’re going to see.

And I want us to take a little time this morning to introduce John the Baptist. I was almost tempted to begin, in the kind of motif of the ’60s provided from Godspell, by suggesting that I should begin, “Heeeere’s Johnny!” Because that is exactly what we have here in the third verse: we have John the Baptist stepping onto the stage of world history, and a remarkable individual he is.

A Remarkable Man

And the remarkable nature of his character is seen just about at every point you touch it. For example, if you turn back a page in your Bibles, you can remind yourself of the drama which marked his birth. The drama which marked his birth.

Now, every birth is dramatic. What made this just a little more striking was the prophecy that led up to it, the encounter involving his mother and Mary, the fact of his father’s loss of his voice throughout the months of the pregnancy of Elizabeth, and then the dramatic rediscovery of his voice on the day that John the Baptist is circumcised and the day that he is named. And out of all of this drama, verse 66 records the fact that “everyone who heard [these things] wondered about [them].”[2] The sense of awe had pervaded both Jerusalem and the surrounding hill country of Judea. It was the topic of conversation. And the single most significant question is there in the second-last sentence of verse 66: “What then is this child going to be?”

Now, every parent asks that. People ask it of their nieces and nephews. We understand that. But there was a remarkableness about what had taken place to this point in the arrival of this young child, and they were wondering what he was going to be. And Luke provides for us, in the final sentence of verse 66, the explanatory comment “For the Lord’s hand was with him.” And it was on account of the Lord’s hand being with him that these other phenomena were present.

So, he is remarkable in his birth. He is remarkable, then, in his lifestyle, as he grows. The final verse of the chapter—that is, the first chapter—tells us that he “grew and became strong in spirit; and he lived in the desert until he appeared publicly to Israel.”[3]

Now, he was a fairly interesting chap. We’re not given any details as to why it was he lived in the desert. Some people speculate that it may be that his parents, who were elderly when he was born, died in his youth, and he then gravitated, by virtue of his personality, to a community in the desert where he would be able to congregate with others and be nurtured in an environment that was conducive to his growth. That is pure conjecture. We can say nothing with confidence concerning it. But nevertheless, we do know that he chose to live in the desert.

And his clothing and his eating were quite remarkable also. They’re certainly remarkable in that they distinguish him from other people in the New Testament record. They may not have distinguished him primarily from others in the wilderness community. But it is within the context of the New Testament that these distinguishing features are remarked upon—namely, that, according to Matthew chapter 3, his “clothes were made of camel’s hair, and he had a leather belt around his waist,” and “his food was locusts and wild honey.”[4]

He seems to have been on to something in terms of his dietary plans long before the twentieth century dawned, with everyone on the radio trying to sell us various boxes of pills which seem to be, in some cases, a concoction directly related to John the Baptist’s diet. The clothes have not made it into the Christian catalogs just yet, although I know a number of you are wearing camel’s hair this morning, but not necessarily in the style of John the Baptist. And when we imagine John the Baptist looking a little bit like Fred Flintstone, it’s probably a little unkind but a lot closer to the truth than the average wearer of a camel’s-hair jacket this morning. And his leather belt around his waist probably provided him a basis for hanging all kinds of things on. “What things?” you may ask. Frankly, I haven’t a clue.

But he was remarkable in his birth. He was remarkable in his lifestyle. He was remarkable also insofar that it was said of him by Jesus what was said by Jesus of no other individual. In Matthew 11:11, Jesus says of John the Baptist, “Among those born of women there has not [a]risen anyone greater than John the Baptist.” If we had no other basis upon which to build the notion of the remarkable dimensions of John the Baptist than that eleventh verse of Matthew 11, we would have sufficient. Here, says Jesus, is one of the most striking individuals that has ever appeared on the stage of human history.

And also, he was remarkable in his preaching ministry. He was remarkably popular as a preacher. And each of the Gospel writers record the place of John the Baptist, and each of them references the preaching of John the Baptist. Now, that in itself is significant, because as you know, the synoptic writers—Matthew, Mark, and Luke—do not always have the same material, and they are often, when they have the same material, distinguishable from the writings of John and from his Gospel in particular. But here, when you read Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, you discover that in every case this preparatory work of John the Baptist is there. And one of the things that comes across very clearly in reading the record is this remarkable preaching ministry that God had given to John the Baptist. And I’m referring largely to the extent of it. And you needn’t turn to all these references; you may note them if you take notes.

Matthew 3:5: “People went out to him from Jerusalem and all Judea and the whole region of the Jordan.” He had a ministry that was not territorial in terms of a local community, but it spanned not only Jerusalem, not only the precincts of the wilderness area of the Jordan Valley, but it went all over the place. People were coming—you’ve just got to get the impression that people were coming from everywhere to hear this chap preach.

In Mark’s Gospel, you find the exact same thing. In fact, he uses the phrase “the whole Judean countryside.”[5] The people were coming from “the whole Judean countryside.” In Luke’s Gospel, where we read in Luke 3:7, Luke records that “the crowds” were “coming out to … him.” And the word “crowds” there is descriptive of crowds. It’s not ones and twos trickling out to hear John preach. It is literally “crowds” of people who were coming. And in John chapter 3, as John records it, we read the phrase “People were constantly coming” to him.[6]

Now, the temptation is to simply nod our heads at that. You simply say, “Yes. So, John the Baptist was a preacher, and people came to hear him preach. There’s nothing remarkable about that.” Well, actually, if you think about it for a moment or two, there is a lot that is remarkable about that.

For example, he was not exactly in a prime location. He was not preaching, as it were, in the Jerusalem Citadel, or the Jerusalem Tabernacle, or the First Church of Jerusalem, which was a very comfortable place with lots of amenities, and people came around on account of its location and on account of its amenities, and as a result, they listened to John preach. It’s not that at all. Nor do we get the impression—and rightly so—that he had some beautiful suburban dwelling place with lots of parking, as it were, so that people could drive to it and they would be well catered for. No. He was actually in a pretty junky kind of spot.

The Jordan wilderness is a deep depression through which the Jordan River runs on its journey to the Dead Sea. It starts at about six hundred feet below sea level; it ends up at thirteen hundred feet below sea level in the Dead Sea basin. Some of you will have been there. And it is hot, and it is uncomfortable. And one can only imagine what it was like in the days of John’s wilderness dwellings. Lenski refers to it as “this hot, uninhabited depression which is wild in every way and removed from all civilization.”[7]

So, here we have this strange man, in the strangest of places, drawing the most remarkable crowds. He is not in the center of civilization. He is not even on the margins of civilization. He is removed from civilization. And crowds and crowds of people are saying to one another, “Let us go out into the wilderness area, and let us hear what John the Baptist has to say.”

Now, here’s the question that came to mind as I was studying this week: How do I explain this? How do we account for the popularity of John the Baptist?

Now, we’re going to come to that. I’m going to leave that question hanging for just a moment. I will come back to it. But I need to set in context what he is saying before we look at what he’s saying. And for that we turn to the verses that are before us, and particularly to this opening verse, which is full of all these difficult names.

Luke is describing here the preparatory work of John the Baptist. And he is providing an indication of the time at which the public ministry of the Lord Jesus commenced. It’s not so much that he’s trying to pinpoint the commencement of the ministry of John the Baptist, because he has John the Baptist in the spotlight only for a moment or two. John is there for a moment so that he can relinquish the spotlight and that it can fall full upon the Lord Jesus. And here, by this historical notation, Luke provides for us accurate records for pinpointing the commencement of the ministry of Christ, which was to follow these words concerning John the Baptist by about six months. He refers to the history both in terms of the secular news and also in terms of the religious factors. That is important.

John is there for a moment so that he can relinquish the spotlight and that it can fall full upon the Lord Jesus.

Remember, Luke tells us at the very beginning of his Gospel that he is setting out “to write an orderly account”[8] of these things. And we pointed out in that initial study that he, of all the Gospel writers, took time to ensure that he was explaining the fact that the unfolding drama of redemptive history was taking place within the context of real time and within the framework of the development of this Roman Empire, so that we might understand that we are reading history, that we are not reading mythology, that these are not bits and pieces of ideas—fragments that have been gathered together over time and stuck together by enterprising individuals interested in Jesus so that we might have a Bible, as some would suggest. No. This is history unfolding before our very eyes.

And he provides for us information, and I commend to you your own personal study if you would like to go back and unearth these things and take apart Tiberius Caesar and Pontius Pilate and so on. My purpose this morning is not to deal with that but simply to recognize that he provides for us, by describing the political and religious circumstances, the kind of social climate in which the ministry of John the Baptist took place. That’s really what verse 1 is all about. It’s about saying, “Let me tell you the climate in which John stood upon the stage of history and spoke.”

A Climate of Silence and Darkness

I can help you in this by giving you simply two words, and they’re these: silence, darkness. Silence, darkness.

Do you want to know the climate in which John stood to declare the preparatory work of Christ? Then you must understand it in terms of silence—the silence, to which we have previously referred, of the intertestamental period. Since the last prophet had spoken of the Messiah who was to come, who would be both Suffering Servant and Conquering King, there had been literally hundreds of years of silence. And generations had grown and had died. Children were brought up with an understanding of the Pentateuch. They were brought up with an understanding of the Psalms. They were brought up with the words of the prophets ringing in their ears, and moms and dads would sit with their children and tell them, “It will not always be this quiet. But God is going to send to us one who will come in the fulfillment of the expectation of the prophecy of Isaiah. We were reading in Isaiah,” they would have said to their children, “and we were discovering the fact that there is one who is going to come, declaring, ‘Prepare the way of the Lord.’”[9]

Now, of course, there had been some drama not too many years prior to this. There had been angels over the hills of Bethlehem. There had been shepherds scuttling around. There had been the news of this child born to Mary, the wife of the carpenter of Nazareth. There had been the unfolding drama that had related to this man Zechariah and his elderly wife, Elizabeth. But it had all died down, and it had grown silent again.

See, the way we read our Bibles, we tend to think that chapter 3 is, like, one verse away from the end of chapter 2. And you read it in that way. You have to step back and say, “Wait a minute! There’s thirty years here between the events describing the nativity of Christ and John the Baptist and the beginning of chapter 3. Thirty years!” So, in other words, twice the age of some of the teenagers that are here. Half the age of some of us who are present. A significant length of time.

And people had said to one another, “We had all kinds of questions about Jesus of Nazareth, but as far as I can work out, all he does is he works as a carpenter now in Nazareth. We haven’t heard a word from him. There was some story that went around for a while about when he was twelve, up in Jerusalem, with some of the elders in the temple, but even that—that’s eighteen years ago! And John the Baptist—very rarely do you hear about John the Baptist,” they would have said to one another. “He’s somewhere out in the wilderness. I don’t know where he is. Apparently, he’s wearing some pretty jazzy camel’s-hair outfit, and he’s a health food nut. But apart from that, nothing. We’ve heard nothing from him.”

Now, that is part of the climate in which John the Baptist suddenly steps up and speaks. What was needed in the silence? A voice. What do we have? A voice. When they asked John the Baptist, “Who are you?” he says, “I’m a voice.”[10] He who describes himself as the voice becomes the recipient of the word, which in and of itself then gave significance to his voice. For there were many voices, but what was necessary was the voice of God.

We understand the difference between a voice… Some of you have been kept up by voices during the night. Some of you as young parents, you nudged one another in the night, and you said, “I think it’s her.” And what did you hear? You heard her voice. You didn’t want to hear her voice at this point. You hoped that there was going to be uninterrupted time during which there would be no sound of a voice. [Imitates crying.] And you said, “Oh no! Do you hear that?” And there were all kinds of religious voices that were the equivalent of [crying], but they were longing for the word of God, and they couldn’t hear it. That’s what these verses are about. Out of the silence, God raises up a voice.

The second word is darkness. How do we understand the social climate? We understand it in terms of silence. We understand it, secondly, in terms of darkness.

Now, you can do your homework and check and see whether I have done my homework. And when you do, you will discover that the way in which we would describe the religious confusion and the political chaos of the period that is described here in the opening verse is one of darkness. For example, Tiberius: if you read secular historians about him, you will discover that his reign was marked by treachery and by cruelty. When you piece together the various bits and pieces, you discover that it is a time of moral degradation and political chaos.

Let me just say that again, for those of you who’ve come in this morning, and you’re saying, “You know, I don’t think the Bible has anything to say in the late twentieth century. I think it’s a remote book, you know. And why would we bother studying somebody called John the Baptist, who lives who knows where and when? And whatever he was doing, why would I pay any attention to that?” Well, here God raises up a voice in a time of moral degradation and political chaos. You think there might just be something worth hearing from that same voice at a time of moral degradation and political chaos? I think so.

The region was broken into little subgroups. It was under the domination of paganism. The pagans gave each other little pieces of territory, and the administration was one which was overseen by maladministrators and moral degenerates. You cannot begin to imagine the kind of filthy confusion which marked the secular era in which John the Baptist stands to speak. And out of the darkness God calls one as a witness to the light.

Don’t you love the way John describes John the Baptist when John writes his Gospel? The John who writes the Gospel is obviously not John the Baptist. (I say “obviously,” and some of you are making a note of that, because it was never obvious to you till this moment. I don’t want to assume anything.)

You cannot begin to imagine the kind of filthy confusion which marked the secular era in which John the Baptist stands to speak. And out of the darkness God calls one as a witness to the light.

John the Gospel writer describes John the Baptist in verse 6 of his prologue. He says,

There came a man who was sent from God; his name was John. He came as a witness to testify concerning that light, so that through him all men might believe. He himself was not the light; he came only as a witness to the light. The true light that gives light to every man was coming into the world.[11]

That was his task.

“Who are you, John the Baptist?” “I’m a voice crying out in the silence.” And some of you are here this morning, and religion represents silence to you. The whole notion of knowing God or hearing from God is a bizarre idea. You live in religious silence. You may engage in religious activities, but you live in silence. The Word of God has never come to your heart with challenge and with quickening power. You’ve never discovered the Bible to be a living book. You’ve never found yourself sitting on a pincushion, as it were, as you listened to it taught. You’re able just to drift in and drift out in an eerie kind of nether darkness and silence. And God sends a trumpet player to you to blow, to make you uncomfortable, to waken you up, to stir you in the darkness of your existence—feeling yourself, on an average Wednesday morning, like Prince Hamlet of Denmark, hearing the voice of the king: “How is it that the clouds still hang on you[, Hamlet]?”[12] And you can’t explain it, but they do.

And you live your life under a cloud. You live your life in darkness. You feel yourself unforgiven. You feel yourself without hope. You feel yourself at the end of your tether, and you’re saying to yourself, although you may not be able to articulate it, “Is there not a voice that could speak into this silence? Is there not a light that might shine into my darkness?” And here, I’ve got great news for you! Here’s the voice. Here’s the light. If you will honestly say, “Lord, speak to me,” if you will honestly say, “Lord, shine into my heart,” he will. You don’t need to live in silence. You don’t need to live in darkness.

Now, that’s essentially John’s message as he stands up on the stage of history. Into that strange environment comes this strange man, and he gives to the voice his word.

Now, I want you to notice very carefully verse 2, halfway through: “The word of God came to John.” We should not think of John waking up one morning and saying to himself, “You know, I think I’ll make an impact on the world this morning. I’ve been out here in this desert, honing my skills and practicing my preaching, and I think I’ll just see if I can’t draw a crowd and make a bit of an impact. Because after all, I’m fairly remarkable. I think they’ll like my clothes, they’ll be interested in my diet, and who knows who might show up?” No. It’s exactly the other way round, and it must always be the other way round. I can’t say that more strongly.

“The word of God came to John”—verse 2. “He went”—verse 3. “The word of God came …. He went.” If the word of God does not come, nobody is in the business of going. You understand?

Why is it that so many church congregations are so remarkably unfed? Why is it that people walk out of buildings saying, “I don’t know what that man is on about; I’m not sure that he knows what he’s on about”? It is because in many circumstances, they went without the word of God coming. In other words, it was by virtue of their initiative, by their own discretion. It wasn’t as with John here.

And the very phrase that is used is the phrase that you’ll find when you read the Old Testament prophets. You go back to Micah: “The word of God came to Micah.”[13] To Zephaniah: “And the word of the Lord came to Zephaniah.”[14] To Jeremiah: “And the word of the Lord came to Jeremiah.”[15] And so, here we have the word of the Lord, in the silence of this time, coming to the last great Old Testament prophet, who is the greatest of them all, because unlike the other prophets, who spoke of one they did not see, this prophet is a contemporary of Christ. And he is able to stand and point to this same Christ.

A Remarkable Preacher

Now, this helps us to understand why it was that John had such a remarkable preaching ministry. You say, “Well, that was the question from before.” That’s right. Let me return to it. How is it that John attracted the attention of the whole Jewish nation? Why was he such a remarkable preacher?

Now, let me answer that, and I’m going to do it briefly, and then we’re through. And for those of you who like to take notes, I have four simple statements.

Number one: on account of divine authority. Divine authority. John 1:6: “There was a man sent from God.”[16] “Sent from God.” How do you explain John the Baptist? You cannot explain John the Baptist except the divine compulsion and the divine propulsion into the task of preparing the way for Christ. And in that respect, he is archetypal for all who will ever preach. The word of God comes first, and then the man goes. It is wrong to go unless you’re sent. Isn’t that the great question that Paul adds, question upon question? “How will they hear unless someone preaches to them?” he says. “And how will they preach unless they are sent?”[17]

So you don’t become a preacher the way you become a lawyer. You don’t become a preacher the way you become a doctor or a schoolteacher. You don’t become a preacher the way you become an engineer or an athlete. You don’t become a preacher as a result of getting a degree from a theological seminary. Many who have got degrees from theological seminaries are absolutely, patently useless. God makes preachers.

He was “a man sent from God.” Why would anybody ever stand here unless sent? Well, I suppose for the sake of ego, for the sake of a little bit of supposed power, for the sake of whatever it is. I don’t know. But I, for one, wouldn’t stand here for a nanosecond but for the sense of divine compulsion—the only reason it ever began, the only reason it is ever to continue. And for those of you young men who are sensing in your hearts the stirrings of desire and that aspiration to be useful to God: that is right, and that is a constituent part of the call of God—but we dare not go without being sent.

And John the Baptist is remarkable in his preaching, because he is “the one about whom it is written”—Matthew 11:10. Jesus says, “You want to understand John the Baptist?” He says, “Let me explain John the Baptist to you in terms of Isaiah chapter 40: this is the one about whom it was said, ‘He will prepare the way of the Lord.’”

So when the crowds began to gather and they went out into this wasteland, into this ugly, hot, miserable wilderness region, why did they go there? And what did they say when they’d been there? They said to another, I’m sure, “Why is it we never heard this before? Why is it that we’ve been going to the synagogue all this time, and nobody ever told us this? Where did he get this stuff?” That’s what they ought to be saying. Divine authority.

Secondly, personal integrity. Personal integrity. We can highlight this in a number of ways. First of all, John the Baptist was prepared to be absolutely vulnerable in relationship to who he was. And you can’t have integrity when you’re always putting on a front. And the danger for someone in a position such as John the Baptist’s is that they feel they must put on a front, or the constraints around them demand that front, and it really is too bad.

You can’t have integrity when you’re always putting on a front.

Matthew 11:1: “After Jesus had finished instructing his twelve disciples, he went on from there to teach and preach in the towns of Galilee.” So Jesus is now out and about in Galilee. John is in the prison. “When John heard in prison what Christ was doing, he sent his disciples to ask him, ‘Are you the one who was to come, or should we expect someone else?’” Isn’t that an unbelievable question? I mean, you knew that question was in the Bible, didn’t you? But I’m not sure you ever remembered who asked the question. This is John the Baptist asked the question—the guy who from all of eternity was purposed to be the fulfillment of Isaiah 40:3, who is going to stand on the stage of human history and say, “Here he comes! Here’s Jesus!” Now he’s in the jail. Jesus is ministering in Galilee. And he sends word out of the jail; he says, “Just go and ask him one more time, if you would just ask him. Just say this to him: just say, ‘Are you the one who is to come, or should we look for another?’”

What does that tell us? It tells us that John the Baptist was a human being, for goodness’ sake! He had doubts. He had misgivings. His certainty was not mitigated by his question. But to find himself in the jail, removed from things, his mind would start to second-guess the issue: “Maybe if I was really where I should be, and maybe if he really was who we think he is, things would be different than they are now. But look at where I am, and look at what’s going on.” And

Jesus replied, “Go back and report to John what you hear and see: The blind receive [their] sight, the lame walk, those who have leprosy are cured, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, … the good news is preached to the poor. [And] blessed is the man who does not fall away on account of me.”[18]

So, you see, integrity in the Bible, in terms of the characters of the Bible, is revealed to us insofar as they’re there with their warts as well. They’re in the Bible, warts and all. Yes, he’s John the Baptist. Yes, he’s the “Prepare the way of the Lord” guy. But yes, he’s also the guy who in jail said, “Could you slip out and just check if he really is Jesus for me?”

Why is Cowper’s hymn “It Is Well with My Soul” so profoundly influential? Why is it that it can move congregations in their spirits to tears, removed by miles and years from his pen? I don’t mean “It Is Well with My Soul.” I mean “God moves in a mysterious way his wonders to perform.” Why is it that that finds such resonance in our souls? ’Cause it’s got integrity in it. “Behind a frowning providence”—in the loss of my son, in the death of my mother, in the failure of my exams, in the disappointment of my relationships—“behind a frowning providence he hides a smiling face.”[19] You sing that song, you say, “This guy knew.” And he did: three spells in a mental hospital, out of which he wrote a number of his most significant hymns.

See, integrity in the service of Christ is not “Hey, good morning. I’m glad that you had the opportunity of meeting me. I’d like you to know I’m invincible. I’ve memorized the whole Bible. I know everything off by heart, side by side, never had a bad day in my life. The joy of the Lord is my strength.[20] Amen, hallelujah, and let’s have a Diet Coke.” Phony! Phony! Check with the guy’s wife or somebody; you’ll find the truth.

Listen: his integrity is everywhere. When Paul warns the Ephesian elders, in Acts chapter 20, about those who will arise from among themselves, he says the danger is that they will “draw away” people—now, notice these two words, ’cause they’re crucial—they will “draw away” people “after them.”[21] “After them.” That’s always the mark of a false teacher. A false teacher will always be trying to find ways—and it’s often by the spin of theology, or the lack of theology, some quirky little interpretation or whatever it is—to try and get a group of people who follow exactly after him.

Where do you think Jim Jones came from? He started off as a fairly sensible guy. How did he create that bizarre communion service for those people and led them to their deaths? ’Cause he drew people after him. A man, a movement, and a monument. And anytime you get the impression “I think this guy is trying to draw me after him,” you step back at least fifty paces, and take significant gulps of air, and read your Bible. ’Cause you’re in danger.

You see, because the contrast is—with these nonsense people that arise in Ephesus—the contrast is John the Baptist. John the Baptist says—when they come to him and say, “Are you the Christ?”—he says, “No.” “Are you the Prophet?” He says, “No.” “Well, who are you?” Say, “Well, I’m just a voice crying in the wild—” “Well, what are you crying about?” “Well, I’ll tell you what I’m crying about. There’s the Lamb of God. He takes away the sin of the world.”[22]

Do you want to know what pastors ultimately ought to be doing, what ought to be the epitaph of every pastor? “Behold the Lamb of God”[23]—so that whether one is present or absent,[24] whether one lives long or short, that at the end of the day the people will say, “This guy, these guys, pointed me to Christ. And they pointed me to Christ irrespective of the cost to themselves.”

Isn’t that a dramatic statement at the end, there, of the section that we read in Luke chapter 3, concerning Herodias? Do you know who Herodias was? You say, “But no, you better hurry up and tell me, ’cause our time is almost through.” Okay, I’ll tell you. Luke 3:19: “John rebuked Herod the tetrarch because of Herodias, his brother’s wife, and all the other evil things he had done.”

See, this is where his integrity comes through. Mark chapter 6 tells us that John with frequency said to Herod, “It is not lawful for you to [sleep with] your brother’s wife.”[25] That was pretty gutsy! Especially when Herod had the ability to serve his head up on a plate.

So there was no possibility of John the Baptist ever getting the chaplaincy in Herod’s palace, right? Imagine he got the letter: “Dear John, down in the wilderness: Hear you’re preaching up a storm. We’re delighted to hear that everything is going so well, and since you have come to our attention, Herod has invited you up to be the chaplain of his royal court.

The good news is you can get rid of that hairy thing you’ve been wearing. We have some beautiful clothes. There are wonderful golf courses in the area, and we can ensure you of a dramatic change in your diet. It is going to be the best place you have ever been in your life. And all you have to do to take this position is to guarantee us that when you come and when you start to preach, you will not say anything about the fact that he shouldn’t be sleeping with Herodias. That’s the only thing we want to ask.” Would you sell your soul for that?

Why did they go out and listen to him preach? Why would they listen to him preach? Because he was perfect? No. But because when they analyzed it and they looked at him, they said, “This is a man who has the voice of God, he brings the word of God, and he is marked by integrity.” It took a lot of integrity to introduce the people who were coming to get baptized to the notion that they really were a bunch of snakes. We’ll come to that this evening, I think. Pity it’s not a baptism service! John said to the crowds coming out to be baptized by him, “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the coming wrath?”[26] He’s a crusty character, John, isn’t he? I like him! I like him. I fear I like him too much.

And then two things and I’m through.

Divine authority. Personal integrity. Thirdly, genuine humility. Genuine humility. Not Uriah Heep humility—you know, the David Copperfield character, Uriah Heep, who was always “ever so ’umble, Master Copperfield.” “I am your ’umble servant, Master Copperfield.” He was actually a creep. He was not humble at all. He liked to draw attention to himself.

There’s no thought of going out into the wilderness and finding John the Baptist some little meek guy, a little mouse in the corner: “Hello! Yes, I’m John. Oh, thank you for coming. It’s so nice to see you.” No, he’s not a mouse. He’s a stinkin’ lion-man. He’s going, “Hey! Clean up. Let me talk to you.”

You say, “Well, then he’s not humble. ’Cause if he was humble, he wouldn’t be like that.” We don’t even understand what humility is. Humility is not a personality type. Humility is not an introvert. Lots of introverts are proud. And lots of extroverts are humble. The fact is, he was self-effacing. He was not concerned to have his name on everything. It was not “John the Baptist this, John the Baptist that, John the Baptist the next thing. Welcome to the Church of John the Baptist. Welcome to the desert region where John the Baptist’s in charge.” No! “Who are you? Are you the Messiah?” “No, I’m not.” “Are you the prophet?” “No, I am not.” “Well, who in the world are you?” See, they had to squeeze it out of him.

And the problem that most of us face is that we’re on the wrong side of this equation. We love the question which comes in John chapter 1: “What do you [have to] say about yourself?”[27] “Oh, well, thank you for asking! Why don’t you draw up a chair and let me just begin? Where would you like me to start, you know?” See the direct contrast with Jesus? John the Baptist: “I am not, I am not, I am not.” Jesus: “I am, I am, I am, I am.” Why? ’Cause he was Jesus. “I[’m] the way, the truth, and the life.”[28] “I[’m] the light of the world.”[29] I[’m] the resurrection and the life.”[30] That’s why we have to say either Jesus was who he claimed to be, or he was a bad man, or he was mad man. But he wasn’t just a good man. John the Baptist: “I am not, I am not.” Jesus: “I am, I am.”

Divine authority, genuine humility, and lastly, helpful simplicity. Helpful simplicity. John understood his role: prepare the way; get out of the way. I think many of us, in teaching the Bible, would be far more effective if we learned how to get out of the way. We intrude so much in the way, when we’re trying to declare the way, that we spoil the way.

We’ll come to this as we continue our studies in John, but his helpful simplicity can be summarized at least in this respect. “What is it that you’re saying, John?” “Well,” John would say, “here is Jesus, and I want you to give him a wonderful welcome.” Isn’t that what he’s doing? Isn’t that what the preparer is? He’s an announcer. He’s not the one they came to see. When the guy who introduces you takes fifteen minutes to introduce you, you know you’re in deep trouble. When you introduce somebody, stand up, speak up, and get out of the way. You’re not the speaker! Maybe next week you’ll be the speaker, but this week, you’re not the speaker. Therefore, just stand up and say, “Here’s Jesus. I’d like you to give him a wonderful welcome.” That’s what he’s saying! “And the nature of it is, if you’ve got two tunics, you better give up one,” and so on.[31] But that’s what he’s saying. Simple!

And also he’s saying this: “I want you to go straight to the tub. I want you to go straight to the tub.” You say, “Where did you get that from?” Well, he was the Baptizer, wasn’t he? Do you remember coming home filthy from a football game? You come in the house; your mother takes one look at you; she takes you by the ear; she goes, “And now for you, it’s straight to the tub. Straight to the tub.” There’s no conversation. There’s no dinner. There’s no mucking around. It’s straight to the tub. Why? Because you’re stinkin’ filthy. That’s why!

What does John the Baptist say to these guys? Takes them by the ear, says, “Straight to the tub.” Because his baptism was a baptism of repentance. And if they would not repent, they would not believe, and therefore, they would not know Christ.

So I say to you: consider the remarkable influence of John, and pray that God will raise up in our day and in our generation others who follow after him in respect to the divine authority and the genuine humility, etc.

Father, at a time when there is so much manifold confusion, so much bumbling and stumbling, so many inconsequential voices sounding in our ears, we do long in the silence to hear your voice and in the darkness to see your light. So then, come to us, we pray.

And may grace and mercy and peace from the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit be the abiding portion of all who believe, today and forevermore. Amen.

---

[1] See Mark 1:3.

[2] Luke 1:66 (NIV 1984).

[3] Luke 1:80 (NIV 1984).

[4] Matthew 3:4 (NIV 1984).

[5] Mark 1:5 (NIV 1984).

[6] John 3:23 (NIV 1984).

[7] R. C. H. Lenski, The Interpretation of St. Luke’s Gospel: 1–11, Commentary on the New Testament (1946; repr., Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress, 2008), 176.

[8] Luke 1:3 (NIV 1984).

[9] See Isaiah 40:3.

[10] John 1:23 (paraphrased).

[11] John 1:6–9 (NIV 1984).

[12] William Shakespeare, Hamlet, 1.2.

[13] Micah 1:1 (paraphrased).

[14] Zephaniah 1:1 (paraphrased).

[15] Jeremiah 1:2 (paraphrased).

[16] John 1:6 (KJV).

[17] Romans 10:14–15 (paraphrased).

[18] Matthew 11:4–6 (NIV 1984).

[19] William Cowper, “God Moves in a Mysterious Way” (1774).

[20] See Nehemiah 8:10.

[21] Acts 20:30 (NIV 1984).

[22] See Luke 3:15; John 1:21, 23, 29.

[23] John 1:29 (KJV).

[24] See 2 Corinthians 5:9.

[25] Mark 6:18 (NIV 1984).

[26] Luke 3:7 (NIV 1984).

[27] John 1:22 (NIV 1984).

[28] John 14:6 (KJV).

[29] John 8:12 (NIV 1984).

[30] John 11:25 (NIV 1984).

[31] Luke 3:11 (paraphrased).