In Season (John 3:22-36 Jeff Kliewer)

In Jesus' name, amen.

Can we stand together?

Good job, Michael, thank you. You know, I love songs like that, which are rich in the lyrics. Yet not I, but through Christ in me. That's my bent. I wanted to apologize for something I said last week, when I was referring to Anne Wilson's song, Sunday Sermons.

You recall, I mentioned how much I love that song from John 3, 16. I would love a song about Sunday Sermons, wouldn't I? Kind of makes sense. But I made a comment that wasn't in my notes, which is dangerous when you go off script.

I said, unlike most Christian music, which is kind of garbage, that is not a fair or charitable assessment of Christian music. I think what happened was, I had just seen an apologetic article about this worship leader who paints his fingernails, and I got so worked up and angry that I overstated my case.

But there are many wonderful and godly songs on the radio, so I didn't mean to disparage all of them, but some of them can become less than biblical in the theology. And that's what I was trying to say, but I apologize for that comment about garbage.

So, shall we pray? I think I need some prayer. Lord, guard my tongue.

Let's pray.

So, Father God, thank you so much for your grace, for your love, for your forgiveness. And thank you, Lord, for your word that we can gather together and worship you and sing praise to you because you are worthy of the highest praise, that you would be honored in this place.

And now, Lord, I do pray that you would take my tongue and use it, Lord, for your name's sake. And Lord, you've given us your word, and we pray that your word would be the sword of the Spirit to us this morning, that you would divide the thoughts and intentions of our hearts, change our attitudes, change us from the inside out, through your word, in Jesus' name we pray, amen.

Enoch Burke and the Cost of Christian Conviction

Enoch Burke is one of 10 in a homeschool family in Ireland. The mother and father of this homeschool family, Sean and Martina, have done a wonderful job training their children in the knowledge of the Lord.

This is a solid, robust, evangelical family. And all of the 10 have grown up to serve the Lord, and they are all academically gifted. Some of them have PhDs, some have won national titles in debate, others are teachers, and Enoch Burke is the third of them.

He is a teacher, or he was a teacher, at the Wilson's Hospital School in Ireland. Now, the Wilson Hospital School is a Church of Ireland boarding school. And Enoch Burke has been the teacher of history for 10 years.

His ministry, a sweet season of ministry, training up a young generation to worship God, raising them to know the word of God and teaching Christian history. It came to an end on September 5th, just like that.

In a day, 10 years of sweet ministry came to an end. You guys remember John Bunyan, that preacher who would not stop preaching about Jesus, and what did they do to him? They threw him in jail. And from prison, he wrote The Pilgrim's Progress.

Well, Enoch Burke was at a staff meeting, and Mrs. McShane, who is the principal of the school, had raised the issue of transgenderism. There was a he at the school, a young man, who is now requesting to be called they.

And Mrs. McShane was bending to the demand and requiring of the teachers that they also tell a lie and refer to this poor, confused adolescent as they. Enoch Burke spoke up at that meeting, and he opposed this, and because it is a Church of Ireland school, a boarding school with a Christian worldview, he made a stand for the truth, and as a result, he was suspended.

But like John the Baptist in a prophetic ministry, he stood on the truth, and he went in the next morning to teach the children, at which time he was arrested. Now, I wanna give honor where honor is due, as the Bible says, to someone in our congregation who holds a position in the state of New Jersey as an administrator.

And the New Jersey government passed a resolution of sorts asking all the schools to teach this transgenderism and sexual perversion in the classrooms, beginning at a very young age. And one of the men in our congregation, being sovereignly placed in that role, his name is Eric, made a stand and withstood the forces of New Jersey so that the 100 schools under him are not teaching that curriculum.

Praise the Lord. I wanna give a hand clap.

Amen.

In the context that he was in, where God placed him, he took a stand for the truth of God's word, and to protect children from indoctrination in things that are constant and just completely against their human flourishing and against the will of God.

Now, what happened to Enoch Burke? Two days later, on September 7th, he was called up by the judge and given an opportunity to purge his case, meaning he can walk free from prison if he will only submit to the demand of Mrs. McShane.

He would probably have had his job back had he done so. But to the judge, he said, I would rather stay in prison every hour of every day for the next 100 years than to compromise. And so he went back to jail where he is to this day.

He said he would only obey God, not men. And he said, I am here today because I would not call a boy a girl. I go back to jail, a law-abiding subject of the state, but a subject of God first. Enoch Burke has a John the Baptist kind of spirit.

John the Baptist, Baptism, and a Short Season of Ministry

Let's turn in our Bibles to John chapter three, verse 22. Just like that, 10 years of sweet ministry, raising up a young generation comes to an end. And as we look out at the world around us, last year, there was an order given in Canada that churches were no longer to gather because of fear of a virus.

And James Coates and Tim Stevens and others continued to gather and preach the word of God, and they were thrown in prison. That's our Northern neighbor. Ireland is likewise a Western country informed by Christianity.

You wouldn't see it coming. But what it tells us is we do not know how long the sweet season of ministry that we are enjoying will last. Let's see John at the very end of his sweet season of ministry as he ministers out by the Jordan River about a mile in just before his arrest.

John chapter three, verse 22. After this, Jesus and his disciples went into the Judean countryside, and he remained there with them and was baptizing. John also was baptizing at Enon near Salim because water was plentiful there, and people were coming and being baptized.

Verse 24, for John had not yet been put in prison. We'll comment at this point that John was enjoying a sweet season of ministry. Now, Enon was about a mile in from the Jordan River, and there are YouTube videos where you can see what it looks like to this day.

One of them is by Sergio and Rhoda. They do like archeological videos where they go to these sites and they show you what it looks like now. Well, this is a place, Salim, Enon, this is a place where springs bring water out of the ground and so water is plentiful there.

And on a beautiful day, I can just picture it. John the Baptist with his disciples baptizing people, and Jesus just over there, maybe a few hundred miles away, with his disciples. And there is joy. There is delight in what is happening here.

What is happening here? Well, the text says that each of them are baptizing. In the Greek, that word is baptizo, and it means immerse. Now, how do we know that baptism ought to be by immersion and not just this amount of water to sprinkle someone on the head?

Look at the text. It says in verse 23, they chose that spot.

Why?

Because water was plentiful there. You need plenty of water to put someone down under the water to immerse them and bring them back up. You see, the symbolism of baptism, as it appears in Acts 8, Acts 16, Acts 19, if you read Romans 6, the symbolism is to be buried with Christ and raised to newness of life.

As Christ died, being crucified, and was buried in the tomb but came back up, baptism pictures that. You go under the water like being buried, and you come out of the water in newness of life, buried with Christ, raised as a new person.

It's a symbol of that. And so that's what was happening here. Now, let's do a little Bible trivia. Did Jesus baptize with water in Acts 3 .22? Ooh, very good. She said no. Turn one page to Acts 4 .2. It is the same event recorded here, the end of it.

There is a parenthetical that explains specifically what's happening there. Acts, I'm sorry, John chapter four, verse two. Did I say Acts? See, Lord, help me with my tongue. It says, although Jesus himself did not baptize, but only his disciples.

That's a sermon for another day. Jesus himself was not doing it because Jesus gives a different kind of baptism, a spiritual baptism. You see, as we go over to the shore today, it is going to be beautiful.

We were gonna go to Ventnor, but instead we're going to LBI because there's some kind of seafood festival at Ventnor, so that would have been awkward. You have to pay to get in and everything. But we found an even better place, an old Baptist church right near the beach.

We're gonna be able to gather there and give testimony and pray. Then we're gonna go down to the water and baptize. This beautiful scene. The Lord is giving us this opportunity. John was baptizing at Enon near Salim.

Jesus was not baptizing himself doing the work because there is another baptism that only he can give. Luke 3 .16, John baptizes with water, but Jesus baptizes with the Holy Spirit and fire. The spiritual baptism, the washing of the heart, the internal renewal by the Holy Spirit, and the baptism of fire that changes you and gives you a desire to preach Christ, this baptism Jesus does by the Spirit in the heart of men and women.

We can baptize with water, but Jesus alone can do the saving spiritual baptism by the Spirit. So that's just a little aside there that we wouldn't be confused. Big point in verses 22 to 24. John the Baptist didn't know that his ministry was just days, maybe weeks or months, away from being cut off.

He had enjoyed a few years baptizing, calling people to repentance. He had identified Jesus in the water, behold, the Son of God, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. And then in verse 24 it says, for John had not yet been put in prison.

While preaching Christ, John was also speaking to political matters of his day. According to Matthew 14, he had been telling Herod that it is not lawful for him to have his brother Philip's wife. He had been saying this repetitively.

And the temperature had been rising. He was prophetic. Like Enoch Burke, he was calling out the sin in the culture and in the government. And so the time came for him to go to prison. And we know the story, how he'll be beheaded.

The point I want you to see here is how short and how precious is the season of ministry that John had there and that we have now. Ecclesiastes says there's a time for everything. There's a season, to everything there's a season.

I think there was a song by the birds about that, right? Turn, turn, turn. There is no evangelism in heaven. That's one thing you cannot do in heaven, as the old book says. There's no evangelism. We are in a very short and precious and sweet season of ministry.

And because we've been here for some time, we may not appreciate it. But to see people coming to a church and a church growing and people being baptized, saved. This season of ministry is sweet and it's short.

We do not know our day or hour. Many, I see you nodding. Loved ones that were with us at this time or just over a year ago who are now with the Lord. None of us know the time.

And we feel like it's so long.

We have so much time to do something for the Lord. I remember one time as a missionary where I had organized an evangelistic festival and we had thousands of people come on the streets of Kensington in Philadelphia.

And we had hundreds and hundreds of decision cards filled out that they had come to trust in Christ. And I remember feeling this like I had never felt before as I walked away and I was like the last one on the street cleaning up, feeling I can die now.

I could die now.

I would be okay. I feel like I've done something to offer something to my king. And of course it's nothing compared to what he has done. What do we have to bring him compared to what he's given us? But it was the sense in my heart that, okay, I've been given a season of ministry and I've stewarded it.

And when I stand before him on that day and he says, well done, good and faithful servant, there will be something that was accomplished in that short window of ministry. This is the message of John here.

Because as it goes in to verse 24, he hadn't yet been put in prison. Just over the horizon was his arrest and it's over. No more baptizing, no more joy. Now continue on, the danger, verses 25 and 26, for us, like John's disciples, is distraction.

There are so many bells and whistles in this world. There are so many things that grab our attention and derail us from the only thing that matters. Verse 25, now a discussion arose between some of John's disciples and a Jew over purification.

They came to John and said to him, Rabbi, he who is with you across the Jordan to whom you bore witness, look, he's baptizing and all are going to him. What is happening in verses 25 and 26? At first glance, when you read 25 to 26, does it feel disjointed?

Is there a non-sequitur there? Look at verse 25. You have a discussion arising between some of John's disciples and a Jew over purification. They're debating cleanliness. What does John's baptism have to do with the cleanliness laws?

They're being dunked under water? What does this have to do with the ritual washings of Judaism? They're in this conversation. You come to verse 26 and you expect them to ask John to settle the dispute, right?

Instead, when they get to John, it's almost like they look around and they come out of their conversation and they say, where'd everybody go? It's just a couple of them there debating some theological point, which is actually extra biblical because the Jewish people had taken the law of Moses and gone beyond what was written.

That's why they criticized Jesus and the disciples for eating with unwashed hands. They had gone beyond. They were disputing this. They come back and they start talking to John and all of a sudden they look and they're like, hey, wait a minute.

Everybody's left us and gone to him. And that's the point. They were distracted. They were so caught up in this little dispute that they'd missed John's message, which was I am not the Christ, he is. Behold the Lamb of God.

You should go follow the Messiah. They're still lingering back here with John the Baptist. They're still having little disputes with the Jewish man who came to argue. So in verse 25, the discussion arises.

They're all caught up. They go to John and they point out the fact. Now their eyes are opened. It's like, oh, wait a minute. That's where the action is. Look at verse 27. John answered, a person cannot receive even one thing unless it is given him from heaven.

You yourselves bear me witness that I said, I am not the Christ, but I have been sent before him. The one who has the bride is the bridegroom. The friend of the bridegroom who stands and hears him rejoices greatly at the bridegroom's voice.

Therefore, this joy of mine is now complete. He must increase, I must decrease. There's a memory verse to write on your hand. Go ahead, this is permission if you ever do that. That's how I memorize verses often.

I would use a pen and just write it on my hand. He must increase, I must decrease. John is pointing to Jesus and he's lifting him up. He's not distracted. He's got his radar fixed where it belongs. He's looking for Jesus.

And I wanna tell you, church, listen, this is so important. This right here is the meaning of life. To live is Christ. To die is gain. Paul says that he considers everything else rubbish compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus for whose sake he has lost all things.

Life is knowing Christ and making him known. That's where you'll experience purpose. That's where you will find meaning to your existence. Notice he begins verse 27 by saying, a person cannot receive even one thing unless it is given to him from heaven.

He's referring to Jesus. Jesus is only being exalted because God is the one doing it. But he states that principle in a general statement, right? Look at it more closely. 26, I'm sorry, 27. A person cannot receive even one thing, even one thing.

Who can't? A person, that means anyone. No one can receive even one thing unless it is given him from heaven. That means that when the Prince of Wales recently became King Charles over England, even that is within the sovereign plan of God.

Well, that's surprising because King Charles was the one who introduced the Great Reset in June of 2020. King Charles is the one who said that we need to take advantage of this COVID issue. There might not be another chance like it to completely transform the economic system of the world.

And he is best friends with Klaus Schwab and Yuval Harari and that whole World Economic Forum. These are the stakeholders of stakeholder capitalism. These are the elite who know what's best for the world.

And I wanna tell you that there is an evil principle described in 2 Thessalonians 2 that desires to see these elite, ultimately the beast, the man of sin, who will be the Antichrist ruling the world. And our verse today in verse 27 indicates that none of that will happen apart from the sovereign plan of God.

Even King Charles, even whoever the Antichrist turns out to be, all of these things are within the sovereign plan of God. And here's a ditch I want to warn us against falling into. The disciples of John were distracted.

They were disputing something off to the side. And what they were saying might well have been true about purification, but they were missing the better thing. They were missing Christ over there on the other side of Enon, in the water.

And the disciples baptizing. We can know a lot of things about what's going on in the world. We can watch Fox News and other reports and realize that there are real dangers and real things that are threats.

And listen, we have a John the Baptist-like responsibility to call those things out. We should not just let the United States of America hand over sovereignty to the United Nations. We have to preach against these things and write articles and vote and all those sort of things.

Yes, fine, but here's the ditch. The ditch would be to spend so much time distracted by those things that we miss the better part. The sweet season of ministry that we're in, amen? We have an opportunity to take six people, some young, some old, down to the shore today, hear their testimony, pray together, baptize in the ocean.

And all the bystanders will see this happen and conversations will develop and the gospel will go out. It will run and this church, this is what matters most. The gospel, John the Baptist tells us where his joy comes from.

Guys, you wanna have joy? Right, we all do. It doesn't come by indulging the flesh. It doesn't come by what this world offers, the earthly promises that promise life.

They're empty.

Life comes from Christ. And Jesus will tell us later that the thief comes to steal and kill and destroy, but I have come that you may have life and have it more abundantly. Look again in the text. It says in verse 29, the friend of the bridegroom, that's John the Baptist being the friend of Jesus, the friend of the bridegroom rejoices to see him on his day.

Jesus is receiving his bride. The church believers are coming to Jesus to be baptized and John is not over there sulking. He doesn't lament the fact that he's losing his clicks on YouTube, he's losing his following to somebody better.

Look what word he uses in 29. Therefore, this joy of mine is now complete. He is enjoying Christ, exalting Christ, and that is where you will find life. Now, this verse, he must increase, but I must decrease, that's a life verse.

When you run after that, when you wanna make him known, and you wake up in the morning thinking, how can I tell somebody about Jesus today? And you begin to pray for that. That's where life comes from, making him known.

So look, at the last five verses, 31 to 36, you have again John's testimony. Now, there is some debate here, which John says this? Is this John the Baptist and the quote is still continuing, or is this John the apostle?

Commentators are divided on that. It doesn't really matter, because the substance of what's said is not about themselves, they're decreasing, both Johns. This is about the one that's being exalted. This is the testimony, this is what we're to go and say, and it is a reiteration of what we saw earlier in John 3.

It's lifting up the son and showing us, finally, that that's the point of division. He who has the son has life, he who does not have the son does not have life, so look at 31. This is an exaltation of Christ.

This is what we're to do with our mouths and go and say, he who comes from above is above all. That's that word exalt, E-X-A-L-T. Lifting up, exalting. He who is of the earth belongs to the earth and speaks in an earthly way.

He who comes from heaven is above all. He's exalting, he's glorifying Jesus. Verse 32, he bears witness to what he has seen and heard, yet no one receives his testimony. Now that no one there refers to the nation, because the very next verse says that there are some who come, the disciples, verse 33.

Whoever receives his testimony sets his seal to this,.

That God is true.

When you testify that Jesus is the son of God, you are setting your seal, your stamp of ownership on this statement, God is true. To testify of the son is to glorify the father. There's no disharmony, and now look at the Trinitarian verse 34.

For he whom God has sent, okay, the he there is Jesus, the second member of the Trinity. God, when it's left generically like that, refers to the father. So he whom God has sent utters the words of God.

For he gives the spirit without measure. There's the third member of the Trinity. The idea here is that when Jesus has the spirit, it's not like us who sometimes grieve the spirit. There is an ontological unity between father, son, and spirit.

In other words, when it says without measure, there's no distance, there's no restraint. The son of God is fully filled with the spirit all the time. In fact, he is one with the spirit. One in essence, and with the father.

So you see the Trinity there in verse 34. Now the love between the father and son. The father loves the son, and has given all things into his hand. And lastly, this divide. The gospel divides humanity.

Whoever believes in the son has eternal life. Whoever does not obey the son, that is in the preaching of the gospel, to believe and repent, to not obey, what's the result? Shall not see life. And here are our terrifying words.

But the wrath of God remains on him. There are some people who are pretty scary. You look at the Great Reset and all that. We don't need to fear their wrath. The wrath that we ought to fear is the wrath of the one who spoke the world into existence.

And if the Bible says that he has wrath, and that wrath will abide, it will remain on the one who rejects the son. This gospel call is urgent. Everything hangs on this. This is why it's so important to go out preaching the name that is above every name.

The Urgency of a Short Ministry and the Joy of Exalting Christ

So in conclusion, what we've seen here is that the season of ministry that we have, the short period of time on this earth, after which we'll have eternity, year after year, decade, millennium after millennium, to enjoy the presence of God and one another.

This period of time, this season of ministry,.

It's very short.

It could be cut off by a prison sentence like Enoch Burke.

It won't be easy.

I think of George Whitefield, who was preaching joyfully all throughout America, and he talks about how he was treated and, in his words, honored. He said, George Whitefield said, I was honored today with having a few stones, dirt, rotten eggs, and pieces of dead cats thrown at me.

Horrible. That's how he was treated, and yet he had the joy of the Lord because he was honored to suffer disgrace for the sake of the name, Acts chapter five. He was enjoying life, even while being mistreated.

True life is not the comforts of the flesh. Life is to know Christ and to make him known and to wake up every morning with purpose, meaning, abundant life in your heart, with a burning zeal to go and make him known.

That's joy.

And then to see him, to come back from Portugal, Kamlen's, after serving for 25 years, to come back and know that you have invested your life in something that matters for eternity could be cut off like this.

That's the point this morning.

Let's pray.

Father God, we do pray for Enoch Burke this morning. We pray for his release from prison and we pray for his ministry coming out of prison. We pray that though they sought to silence him, you, Lord, would amplify his voice, that you would give him more opportunities to preach Christ and the full counsel of God, Christian ethics in all areas of life.

Lord, we pray for ourselves that we would find our life in losing it. Lord, we must decrease, Christ must increase in us. We pray that Jesus Christ would become everything to us this morning, not just a compartment, an area of our lives, but that Christ would be our lives.

So Holy Spirit, come and renew our zeal. You say never be lacking in zeal, but keep your spiritual fervor serving the Lord. So Lord, come and stir us up. Make us like John the Baptist, that we're not afraid to tell the culture and the world what you say.

But Lord, help us not to get distracted by these things. The distractions of this life are many, and there's many ditches that we could fall into. But as we go on this progress, this pilgrim's progress, Lord, we pray that you would keep our eyes to the celestial city, our mind on heavenly things, not earthly things.

We pray that you would remind us that this life is meant for ministry, to serve the church and build one another up. Get us all involved, Lord, in serving as best we can. Lord, we pray for those being baptized today.

We pray that you, Spirit of God, would baptize them afresh with power from on high. Bring them up, praising you and testifying. Bring them up out of the water with a newness of life,.

A renewed zeal.

Fill them with your Holy Spirit. And we pray for all of us who are there to witness it, that we would also be stirred up. Thank you for your word this morning, Lord. We pray that we would be changed by it, in Jesus' name.

Amen.

Let's stand and sing.

Let's end my days, let them flow in ceaseless praise Take my hands and let them move at the impulse of thy hand Let them be swift and beautiful, always long to be with me Clean my lips and let them be filled with messages Take my silver and my gold, out of my day it shall be

Who can make it, and don't worry if you can't, the baptism will meet up at 2 o 'clock p .m. at Beach Haven. The address is 215 3rd Street, Beach Haven. That's Island Baptist Church. You can just Google Island Baptist Church and get there by 2 o 'clock.

We'll probably baptize around 3 o 'clock at the shore right next door. Let's do the benediction. Fight the good fight of the faith. Take hold of the eternal life to which you were called and about which you made the good confession.

In the presence of many witnesses, I charge you in the presence of God, who gives life to all things, and of Christ Jesus, who in his testimony before Pontius Pilate made the good confession to keep the commandment unstained and free from reproach until the appearing of the Lord Jesus Christ, which he will display at the proper time.

He who is the blessed and only sovereign, the King of kings and Lord of lords, who alone has immortality, who dwells in unapproachable light, whom no one has ever seen or can see, to him be honor and eternal dominion.

Amen.