Wednesday Night, December 9, 2020, PM

John the Baptist’s Imprisonment and the Growth of Jesus’ Ministry

Luke chapter 7 verses 24 through 30. The stories of Jesus have been piling up, stories of him casting out demons and healing the lame and the sick and even raising the dead. The crowds keep on growing in size.

They are willing to follow him into remote areas. His fame is growing far beyond that which John the Baptist even had. This has bothered some of his disciples, John the Baptist's disciples that is, because John is now in prison.

He has been thrown into the royal dungeon by Herod and with all of this going on John's disciples are I think possibly upset, confused, concerned. They come to tell John the Baptist all that's been going on.

Nobody else was going to bring food and clothing and needs to John in the prison. If your family and friends didn't take care of you nobody would. So they come to him on a regular basis to keep him going there in Herod's dungeon and they let him know what is going on.

All the crowds are going out to Jesus. Jesus is teaching with power and all these miracles are occurring and John, as Jesus will point out later, John is not doubting and John knows that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the Living God.

He knew it from the beginning when he was still baptizing. He knew who Jesus was. He didn't want to baptize Jesus. He said, I need to be baptized by you and you're coming to me. He knew who Jesus Christ was.

Later on as John's crowds were getting a little bit smaller and Christ's fame was increasing that had bothered John's disciples early on and he told them, he said, look you know the friends of the bridegroom rejoice with the bridegroom.

He must increase, I must decrease. And now that John's in prison everything he's been doing throughout his entire ministry has been one of preparing the way, just like the prophecy said. He was preparing the way for the Messiah, preparing people by preaching a message of repentance.

They needed to turn away from their paganism and their pride. They needed to turn away from idols, turn away from their sins, turn away from trusting in false righteousness. So whatever it was, if they were a Gentile, if they were a Jew, it didn't matter who you were, everybody needed to repent and get ready for Christ.

Well these disciples come to him now when he's in prison and he still is doing his job as the forerunner. He does not want his disciples languishing, clinging on to him when the Messiah had come. He wanted his disciples to follow the Messiah so he did something very wise.

He told them, go ask, go to him, it's easy to find, look for the crowd, go find him, ask him, are you the expected one or do we wait for someone else? And they went and they did that. That was for their benefit and that was kind of John setting Jesus up, you know, a little softball for Jesus to hit it out of the park.

Because when they asked him that question, Jesus began to do all these miracles. He began to heal and cast out demons and he was using all these wonderful things in showing compassion and power, showing the power of the kingdom right there in front of everybody.

And then he turned to John's disciples and told them, said, now go tell John what you have seen, what you have witnessed. And then Jesus began to describe what they just saw with words from Isaiah's messianic prophecies.

So he's using the scriptures to describe what they saw. So he's saying, scripture is being fulfilled, now go tell John this. And then so he's handing them back off to John and he knew John would complete the lesson once they got back to him.

Now all of that background has brought us to a point where the crowds have an opportunity to kind of settle in their minds the whole idea about John the Baptist and Jesus. We hear the tendency in the Jewish crowds to kind of equivocate all these different famous Jewish people.

Are you Elijah? Are you the prophet? Are you one of the other prophets? And so on. I remember that Peter on the Mount of Transfiguration said, okay we've got Moses and Elijah and Jesus, let's make a tabernacle for each one of you.

And this could be the new center of wisdom and revelation and truth in the universe. Everybody can come here and hear from Moses and Elijah and Jesus. Won't that be great? Just kind of equating all these different famous people as they're all good.

And just as at the Mount of Transfiguration, so now Jesus is clarifying here, no it's not that John the Baptist and Jesus are on the same level. John's whole business was to point everybody to trust in Christ.

So Jesus is taking that and he's running with it now and helping the crowds understand the purpose of John, that they would buy into that. And as he's doing so, he's also instructing them. Because remember when Jesus looks upon the Jews, when he looks upon the people in his homeland, what does he see?

He sees sheep without what? Sheep without a shepherd. They are ravaged by wolves and they're scattered, but they don't have shepherds. And so here he begins to talk about what kind of shepherds they need.

What kind of teacher or preacher should they value? Why did you go out to John? And that's the whole idea here in this passage. So Luke chapter 7 verses 24 through 30. When the messengers of John had left, he began to speak to the crowds about John.

What did you go out into the wilderness to see? A reed shaken by the wind? But what did you go out to see? A man dressed in soft clothing? Those who are splendidly clothed and live in luxury are found in royal palaces.

But what did you go out to see? A prophet? Yes, I say to you, and one who is more than a prophet. This is the one about whom it is written, Behold, I send my messenger ahead of you, who will prepare your way before you.

I say to you, among those born of women, there is no one greater than John. Yet he who is least in the kingdom of God is greater than he. When all the people and the tax collectors heard this, they acknowledged God's justice, having been baptized with the baptism of John.

But the Pharisees and the lawyers rejected God's purpose for themselves, not having been baptized by John. So the question is, Jesus said, what did you go out there to see? We read earlier that all Israel, all Judea, all Jerusalem went out to hear John.

Why did he attract such a large following? He says, why did you go out there? Did you go out there to see a reed shaken by the wind? Anybody who went down to the Jordan River to hear from John would have passed through a bunch of bulrushes and reeds there by the water's edge, and they are not stout plants.

They're easily brushed aside. They bob and weave in the wind. And they said, what did you go out there to the Jordan to see? Another reed tossed by the wind? And people are laughing at this point. No, we can't hear it.

It's in the white space. They're laughing. That's a good joke. Everybody knew John the Baptist. They knew that he was solid. They knew he was courageous. They knew he was bold. They knew that he wasn't going to turn away from the truth.

He preached difficult things, but he didn't waver. He said, so what did you go out in the wilderness to see? A reed shaken by the wind? Of course, no. He did not shake in the wind. We looked at that last week.

And the second question was, well, what did you go out to see? A man dressed in soft clothing? This too is very humorous because everybody knew John the Baptist's uniform was that of Elijah. Camel hair and a leather belt.

You know, he probably found some dead camel and skinned it and tanned the hide, and he was wearing, you know, whatever he could find. And he looked exactly like Elijah. And so Jesus clarifies. He says, those who are splendidly clothed and live in luxury are found in royal palaces.

Where is John? He's in the royal dungeon. So he is not fraught with fear. He's not waving in the wind. He's not bought by power. He's the kind of faithful preacher and teacher that the people of Israel needed.

He did not take advantage of even Herod's favoritism. Herod had him in jail because Herodias hated John, but Herod kind of liked John. He liked to hear from him. All John had to do was capitulate just a little bit, and he would have been made the royal prophet.

I mean, Herod liked the guy, but he would not compromise. So that's the kind of person that John the Baptist was. So Jesus wraps up his trio of questions. The master teacher here, he says, did you go out to see a reed shaking the wind?

No. Someone dressed in luxurious clothing? No. Okay, verse 26. Here's the third question. But what did you go out to see? A prophet? Yes. I say to you, and one who is more than a prophet. This is the one about whom it is written, Behold, I send my messenger ahead of you, who will prepare your way before you.

Now, this is a quotation from Malachi chapter 3 in verse 1, so we should go back there and take a look at what that says. So Jesus says that John is the greatest of all the Old Testament prophets, but he was more than, because he was more than a prophet.

We could put this into all kinds of context, but the idea is that John comes after the Old Testament has been completed, has been 400 years of silence, no special revelation from God for all this time.

John is miraculously conceived by Zacharias and Elizabeth in their old age. He is still with the Holy Spirit from the womb, preached his first sermon from the womb leaping when Christ entered the room with his mother when he, when, just after he was conceived.

And so John the Baptist is someone very, very special, and he is somebody who is preaching at a time that is incredibly important, but the main reason why he's greater than all the other prophets is because he's the one who is the forerunner of the Messiah himself.

So that's the point, Malachi chapter 3. I'm going to read verses 1 through 4. Behold, I am going to send my messenger, and he will clear the way before me. So the messenger, that's John. Behold, I'm going to send my messenger, and he will clear the way before me.

It's interesting, the word messenger there is the same word for as angel, because that's what the meaning of the angel is in the Greek, here in the Hebrew, same idea that the meaning of angel is messenger.

He will clear the way before me, and the Lord whom you seek, right, the Messiah whom you are anticipating and hoping for will suddenly come to his temple. And the messenger of the covenant in whom you delight, behold, he is coming, says the Lord of hosts.

And then what we read next sounds a little bit like John the Baptist preaching, doesn't it? It says, verse 2, but who can endure the day of his coming, and who can stand when he appears? For he is like a refiner's fire, and like fuller's soap.

He will sit as a smelter and a purifier of silver, and he will purify the sons of Levi, and refine them like gold and silver, so they may present to the Lord offerings and righteousness. Then the offerings of Judah and Jerusalem will be pleasing to the Lord as in the days of old, and as in former years.

So that's what John the Baptist came doing, he came preaching, saying there's fire coming, there's cleansing fire coming, you better repent, the axe is laid at the root of the tree, things are about to change, and you need to repent and get ready for the coming of the Messiah and his new arrangement of things.

And we have the same theme there in chapter 4 of Malachi, one of the reasons why Malachi is listed last in our version of the Bible, in the Hebrew Bible, 2nd Chronicles is last. But in our English Bibles, Malachi is last, it's a very traditional arrangement, because these are the promises that were last written down, and we leap from there right into the stories of the forerunner, the John the Baptist coming right before Messiah.

So Jesus says, you went out to see a prophet, somebody who would prepare the way of the Messiah. Everything about John the Baptist's ministry was wrought of God, it was defined by God, it was designed by God, and John the Baptist did exactly what God had called him to do.

Go out, preach the word, call people to repentance, prepare the way for the Messiah. And in this, this is the kind of preacher or teacher that Christ is approving of. It's somebody who was not being driven by the two things he already mentioned, right?

Men's approval or external adornments, those kinds of things, that that's not what he was interested in. Jesus was very complimentary of John the Baptist, because what he did as a preacher, what he did as a teacher, lined up with the Word of God.

He did this according to what God had said. And John's whole business was directing the focus of the people where it ought to be, which was upon Christ, who was the light of the world. So as I talked about last week when we introduced this section of Scripture, we have a lot of access to preachers and teachers through books, articles, radio, internet, TV, so on and so forth.

There's a lot of preaching and teaching of the Bible, there is a surplus of preaching and teaching of the Bible in our world today. Praise the Lord for that as a bare fact. Now, which ones should we be interested in being edified by?

You know, there's been plenty that have been helpful to me, that have been edifying and directing and clarifying for me in the teaching and preaching of the Scriptures, and I praise the Lord for them, and then sometimes they turn out to be real disappointments later on.

And it doesn't always follow that the person with the most followers is the one who is the person to listen to. I one time commented on something about a person who was a questioning, you know, the exclusivity of Jesus Christ alone for salvation, somebody who was very soft about certain sins and had really kind of soft-pedaling a lot of stuff about Scripture, and I made some sort of observation about that and it's like, you know, kind of an alarm.

And then somebody replied and said, and how many followers do you have? Like, oh, I've been refuted. You know, it's like, well that's, but it's interesting to me how many people are just wired that way, you know, you're only legitimate if you have certain statistics and a certain level and you've published this many books and so on.

But Jesus, when he's talking about John the Baptist, here's a guy who is in prison, almost all of his followers have abandoned him and Jesus is saying, great job, right? So we need to have a different type of rubric to evaluate teachers and preachers.

The Greatness of John and the Blessing of the Kingdom

Okay, the last thing is that John the Baptist taught the truth and this was, this is obvious here, verses 28 through 30. I say to you, among those born of women there is no one greater than John, yet he who is least in the kingdom of God is greater than he.

When all the people and tax collectors heard this, they acknowledged God's justice, having been baptized with the baptism of John. But the Pharisees and the lawyers rejected God's purpose for themselves, not having been baptized by John.

This is an interesting observation that Jesus says here, you know, the greatness of John, but the least in the kingdom of God, and then Matthew has the least in the kingdom of heaven, is greater than he.

So what all were the disciples, what all were the first converts to the way, what were they able to do and experience that John did not? What was it about, I mean, what was it about the least in the kingdom that Jesus brings, inaugurates with his resurrection, and he goes to ascends to the right hand of the Father, he's seated down, he's given the name, which is with every name, he proves his ruling and reigning by sending the Holy Spirit to fill his followers.

He uses the royal language from Daniel, saying that to the chief priest, he said, you're going to see the Son of Man, you're going to prove to you that I am at the right hand of the Father with all authority.

So, but what is it, what is it that the early disciples, the first converts of the way, were able to do and experience that John did not? Why were they greater than John? In what way? Yeah, there was a, there was certainly, you think about the day of Pentecost, you know, 5 ,000 added to the church, okay, what else?

Okay, yeah, exactly, so there's going to be, there's going to be followers and disciples later on who have never seen Jesus, they've just been told in Jesus' course, so Ted said, Thomas, you know, you believe, you know, you put your fingers in my nail prints in the side, but blessed are those who have never seen and yet believe, right?

So Jesus made that distinction, didn't he? How great or blessed are those who have not seen and yet believe? So that's another way, certainly. Think about the way in which John, as the last of the prophets, has at his disposal like all of the Old Testament to bring to bear to the moment, and he's preaching Christ, and Paul tells Timothy that this is sufficient to make you wise unto salvation, because Timothy grew up with these scriptures and that's how he got saved, okay?

So these scriptures are good and sufficient, they're wise, they lead us to the wisdom which leads us to salvation, so God is good in that. John has the entire Old Testament he's laying, he's laying hold of and preaching.

He even baptizes Christ, but John the Baptist dies before Christ is lifted up on the cross and suffers as the Lamb of God and is raised from the dead the third day and is seen by hundreds of witnesses and goes to glory and ascends and all the rest of it.

John lived at the almost the penultimate moment of shadows and types, and he saw something of the substance in Christ, but he never saw at that, you know, on that side he hadn't seen the fulfillment where Christ begins to set everything out to his disciples and so on, say, you know, the law, the writings, the prophets, these are those that testify of me and just and lay it out, and then the preaching of the gospel that, as Red noted, went all over the place, spread throughout every area.

Very interesting, the book of Acts traces everywhere the gospel went from as we trace from Jerusalem all the way to Rome, remember that, but then the New Testament tracks the spread of the gospel to the full extent of the four empires of Daniel.

Now we know from history the gospel went beyond those borders. They did, I mean, they went places that Daniel never talked about, they went places that Acts and the New Testament didn't talk about. The gospel went even farther than that, but the point is being made, what?

The fulfillment of the prophecies, the fulfillment of the the big rock that comes and crushes all the other nations, all the other empires. Look, this one becomes a mountain that fills the world, and the gospel went forward to all the different places, to the fullest reaches of exactly what was prophesied would occur, and did so in very rapid fashion thanks to the miracles and the power of God.

And so in this way, John the Baptist, John the Baptist was a great prophet, but he was not, he did not experience the outpouring of the blessings that the least in the kingdom of heaven experienced. And so Jesus is saying what there?

John was great, John was good, I approve of his ministry, but it was not, it is not sufficient on its own. The whole point was to point to something greater, okay? So Jesus is agreeing with John in that we found in the book of Acts, pockets of believers who had been baptized by John and knew of John's baptism but did not know about Christ, and so they had to be converted, they had to be witnessed to, and then they turned and followed Christ.

Now, what about those who had not been baptized by John? The Pharisees and the lawyers. Those who had been baptized with the baptism of John rejoiced in the Messiah. Those who did not, who were not baptized by John, the Pharisees and the scribes, they rejected God's purpose for themselves.

They rejected God's purpose for themselves. They had not been prepared. They rejected the truth of John, thus they rejected the truth of Christ. In this we see the effectiveness of John, that whoever believed that message and turned from their wicked ways as John was calling them to, they were ready, they were prepared, and so they believed, and they followed the way just like John had said.

So Jesus finishes up, I think, that little moment that John began by sending his disciples there. He was trying to get them to be established in their faith, and Jesus made the most of that moment. It's interesting to me that the story of John the Baptist and the Jewish religious leaders, you know, the Pharisees and the scribes who didn't really care much for John, and they certainly didn't like Jesus, but John was rejoicing in the fact that Jesus was being exalted, whereas the religious leaders, these Pharisees and lawyers, were totally against him.

This whole thing reminds me of the dynamics that occurred with Saul and Jonathan and David. As Saul was not faithful as a king, so God said, I'm going to take away the kingdom from you and give it to a man who is after my own heart, okay?

And then when Saul gets jealous of David, what does Saul want to do? He wants to do what to David? He wants to kill him, just like the religious leaders and Jesus. You're a threat, you know, you're going to take away what's ours, okay?

But then Jonathan, who he should have been, you know, the next king, but he was rejoicing in David. He said, I know you're gonna be the next king, I want it to happen, I'll help it happen, right? And that's the way John the Baptist was, that was his attitude.

He stood in the tradition of the greatest prophets of Israel, and yet he's like, it's not about me, it's about him, and he wanted Jesus to be exalted, and so on. So those stories, to me, play a lot in some similar ways.

Transition to Prayer

Okay, well let's turn our attention now to a time of prayer.