WWUTT 2341 What Did You Go Out to See? (Luke 7:24-27)

John the Baptist came to the wilderness preaching a great message, and he held the attention of all kinds of people. But what was that message, and did the people listen to it? Finding the Christ. When we understand the text.

Many of the Bible stories and verses we think we know, we don't. When we understand the text is committed to teaching sound doctrine and rebuking those who contradict it. Visit our website at www .utt .com.

Here once again is Pastor Gabe.

John’s Ministry and the Question of Who He Is

Thank you, Becky. In our study of Luke's gospel, we come back to chapter 7, where Jesus has just been visited by some of John the Baptist's disciples who have asked him, are you the one who is to come, or shall we expect another?

Let me begin reading verse 18 again. We'll look at the verses we looked at last week, and then I'll go on from there. Hear the word of the Lord. The disciples of John reported all these things to him.

And John, calling two of his disciples to him, sent them to the Lord, saying, Are you the one who is to come, or shall we look for another? And when the men had come to him, they said, John the Baptist has sent us to you, saying, Are you the one who is to come, or shall we look for another?

In that hour Jesus healed many people of diseases and plagues and evil spirits, and on many who were blind he bestowed sight, and he answered them, Go and tell John what you have seen and heard. The blind receive their sight, the lame walk, lepers are cleansed, and the deaf hear, the dead are raised up, the poor have good news preached to them, and blessed is the one who is not offended by me.

When John's messengers had gone, Jesus began to speak to the crowds concerning John, What did you go out into the wilderness to see, a reed shaken by the wind? What then did you go out to see, a man dressed in soft clothing?

Behold those who are dressed in splendid clothing and live in luxury are in king's courts. What then did you go out to see, a prophet? Yes I tell you, and more than a prophet, this is he of whom it is written, Behold I send my messenger before your face, who will prepare your way before you.

I tell you, among those born of women, none is greater than John, yet the one who is least in the kingdom of God is greater than he. And let me stop right there. So last week we looked at verses 18 to 23, initially where John's disciples come to Jesus and ask him, Are you the one who is to come, or shall we look for another?

Jesus performs many miracles in front of them. So at least the way that Luke crafts this narrative, Jesus doesn't just turn to them immediately and say, Go tell John what you've seen and heard. He actually demonstrates it.

They may have been standing there for an hour or something, watching Jesus perform these great signs and wonders, maybe even longer than that. They were with him all day, perhaps. And then Jesus says to them, Go tell John what you've seen and heard.

He doesn't immediately say or outright say, Yes, I am the Christ. He doesn't say, I am God, or I am the son of God. He says, Go tell John what you've seen and heard. Because John would have known that by these things, the scriptures are fulfilled in Christ.

And then take note that Jesus says in verse 27, John is the one of whom it was said, Behold I send my messenger before your face, who will prepare your way before you. I want to make a particular note about that, but let's get to that as we go through our text here.

So picking up today in verse 24, when John's messengers had gone, Jesus began to speak to the crowds concerning John. What did you go out into the wilderness to see? Now remember, we considered this earlier in John, the pace that we're going through Luke's gospel here.

It's been a while since we've been in the first couple of chapters and read of the birth of Christ, even the foretelling of John the Baptist's birth and all these kinds of things. So remember that John was the son of Zechariah, the priest.

And the birth of John was miraculous, not just to Zechariah and Elizabeth, but even to all the people who knew them. So this was well known. And Luke even records that the people were quite interested in John as a boy because they wanted to see what kind of man he was going to grow up to be.

This is a pretty incredible thing that's happened with Zechariah and Elizabeth, who are high-profile people compared to Joseph and Mary. There was certainly a lot of buzz concerning Mary's pregnancy because she was pregnant out of wedlock.

So there were people knowing that Joseph wasn't the father who surely assumed or accused Mary of fornication. And if it was under the Hebrew system, if they were following the Hebrew law, then she would have been stoned to death for adultery.

Now, they weren't necessarily following that at the time that Mary got pregnant. You'll see that get written into movies about the nativity or the birth of Christ that Mary has hated and somebody tried to kill her because she got pregnant.

So of course, she's sleeping with somebody outside of the marriage covenant. And according to the law of Moses, such a person was to be stoned. So you might see that in films, but we don't have anything in the biblical narrative that.

Says that.

Capital punishment couldn't be carried out without the approval of the Romans. And so it wasn't a thing that was going on at that time where those who were adulterous were being stoned to death. You know, even with the account of the pericope adultery, the woman that was caught in adultery in John chapter eight, it's unlikely that woman would have been stoned to death, even with the challenge that they were that they were giving to Jesus in that particular account.

But anyway, back to this here. So Joseph and Mary were not as high profile people. It surely would have been known Mary's pregnant, though she's not yet married to Joseph. Joseph is not the father. And there would have been buzz about that.

We even see that come up in the Gospel of John with the people saying to Jesus that we were we were not born of of an illegitimate union, which was kind of a backhanded, accusatory statement toward Jesus saying, you don't even know who your biological father is.

So that's in John eight, either verse 40 or 41. But but Joseph and Mary, even though it would have been known among their family in this sense, it wasn't as widespread, wasn't as well known as what was going on with Zechariah and Elizabeth.

That was more high profile since he was a priest in the temple. And a bunch of people had seen when he went in to offer incense that he comes out and he's not able to speak after his encounter with the angel and the people know he's seen a vision.

He's unable to talk. He's mute and deaf even until the birth of John the Baptist. And then once John is born, Zechariah can speak again. It's miraculous that Elizabeth was able to have a child when the way of women was no longer with her.

And then with Zechariah unable to speak and now he can talk again and they name him John, which wasn't even a name that had had come through their family. So all of this stuff was being talked about. John the Baptist had a very high profile ministry.

Once he goes out into the wilderness and he is preaching there, people come out to him and interest in John had been going on since he was born. But this Jesus was not as well known. Not only is he from a family who's not as well known, Joseph and Mary, but he grows up in Nazareth, which is a town that people paid no mind to.

Remember, Nathaniel's comment at the beginning of John, can anything good come out of Nazareth? So no one was really watching Jesus. This boy was growing up, who a lot of people assumed was born of a fornication of an illegitimate union.

And so John the Baptist had a lot of attention drawn to him, and yet his mission was to point to Jesus, not to draw attention to himself, but to point to the one who was to come. He was the forerunner to the Christ.

People go out to the wilderness to hear John, we want to hear him speak. He's baptizing. We want to be baptized by him. And according to Luke's gospel, all of Judea came out to him while he was baptizing in the Jordan River.

And so the crowds, Jesus addresses the crowds, he begins to speak to the crowds here after John's messengers had gone away. What did you go out into the wilderness to see? You knew of John's name, you knew who he was the son of, you knew that he was out there strangely wearing camel's hair and eating locusts and honey, but you go out to the wilderness to see what?

A reed shaken by the wind? Like, did you go out there to see a man who was timid and cowardly? And he was like running away from people? Is that why he was out there in the wilderness? Because he was trying to be secluded.

He was trying to get away from danger or he was threatened by Herod or the Pharisees or somebody like that. Is that why John was out there? Is that why you went to go see him? We want to go see the cowardly man.

And by this question, Jesus is saying to them, you knew the boldness by which John the Baptist spoke. You knew that. That's why you went out to him. It wasn't because he was a timid reed that was shaken by the wind.

It was because the man was like a grand oak, like the cedars of Lebanon. If I could use an Old Testament reference, he was strong and tall and bold as a prophet. So then the next question, verse 25, what then did you go out to see?

A man dressed in soft clothing? Now, here's something interesting about the Greek here. A man dressed in soft clothing, that reference to soft is the same word that is used in first Corinthians six, nine and ten for an effeminate man soft.

So the word could be translated both ways here, it pertains to clothing. So it's not referring to effeminate, but it is nonetheless referring to those men who wear or live in very comfortable lifestyles.

So did you go out to the wilderness to see a man who was running away from everybody else like he was a fugitive, like he's trying to hide? He's cowardly. He's secluding himself out there in the wilderness.

Is that what you went to go see? Or did you go out to see a man who was dressed in soft clothing like the flip side? He's a man in luxuries, a man who's dressed with surroundings and comfort and influence.

And Jesus goes on to say, behold, those who are dressed in splendid clothing and live in luxury are in king's courts. That's not where John was. He wasn't in the court of the king. He was out in the wilderness.

So what then did you go out to see? A prophet? Yes. Yes, that's exactly who he was. And what we see of the prophets in the Old Testament are men that often had to give up their comforts and influence in order to serve the Lord, speaking the word he gave to them, to the people.

Now, there were prophets who were of who had influence as a prophet, like Isaiah, for example. He was already a priest. Samuel was a judge. David is referred to as a prophet in the New Testament, and he was a king.

But then you also had prophets that that did not come from such backgrounds. Amos being one of them, Micah as well. Hosea is even spoken about as being someone who was poor. So you have these you have men that did have power and influence as prophets, but then you had others that did not.

Nonetheless, to speak the word of the Lord was going to bring ridicule and hatred from those who didn't want to listen to it. It was a dangerous thing to be a prophet. And so as Jesus refers to John as a prophet, this was a man who was willing to give up everything in order to do what God had told him to do, speaking his word to the people.

And we know that John the Baptist ministry was not just, you know, he read the scriptures and then he went out to the wilderness and spoke the scriptures, although John surely knew the scriptures. God personally spoke with John because he talks about that in John chapter one, verse chapter one, that the Lord had said to him, the one on whom my spirit descends is going to be the one that I have sent.

So the father in heaven had said this to John. He did hear from God himself and the word that he spoke was from God. Yes, I tell you, Jesus says he was more than a prophet. John is whom we consider to be the last prophet, like the last Old Testament prophet.

Yeah, he's written about in the New Testament, but really the the new covenant doesn't come in until Jesus dies and rises again. Right. He says to his disciples at the Last Supper, when he passes the cup, this is the cup of the new covenant in my blood, which is given for the forgiveness of sins.

So New Testament, which is synonymous with new covenant, comes in with the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, the giving of the Holy Spirit, the going out and the and the spreading of the gospel.

So John the Baptist is essentially the last Old Testament prophet. He's the last prophet. Before the son of God comes before the Messiah arrives, so he's the forerunner to the Christ, and so therefore Jesus says more than a prophet, this is he of whom it is written.

Behold, I send my messenger before your face who will prepare your way before you. Now, often these references to John the Baptist, the prophetic references to John the Baptist that are cited in the Gospels will come from Isaiah.

It's an Isaiah chapter 40, a voice cries in the wilderness. Prepare the way of the Lord. Make straight in the desert a highway for our God. Every valley shall be lifted up. Every mountain and hill will be made low.

The uneven ground shall become level in the rough places, plain, and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed. So that statement there in Isaiah 40 is in reference to John the Baptist, who is going to come as the voice crying out in the wilderness.

But this reference right here in Luke 7, 27, this is actually from Malachi chapter.

Three.

Behold, I send my messenger and he will prepare the way before me and the Lord whom you seek 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.

So it's from Malachi 3, 1 that Jesus is making this reference here. I send my messenger before you who will prepare your way. Now, I said I wanted to make a comment about this particular statement here.

The Great Isaiah Scroll and the Reliability of Scripture

Recently, you may be aware of an apologist by the name of Wesley Huff. I've been familiar with his stuff for a couple of years now. He's an apologist out of Canada, lives in Toronto. And I first became familiar with him listening to cultish because they had they had Wes Huff on to talk about like the Book of Enoch was was a couple of episodes.

They talked about how much influence Constantine actually had on early Christianity, especially looking back at the fourth century and the Council of Nicaea and things like.

That.

So through those programs, I became familiar with Wes Huff. And then suddenly there was a debate at the end of last year with a fraudulent false teacher by the name of Billy Carson. And and Wes Huff just demolished Carson in those conversations or in that one conversation.

So much so that Wes Huff gets the attention of Joe Rogan, who previously had Billy Carson on last year. And so Wes Huff gets on the program. The very start here of twenty twenty five, Wes Huff appears on the largest podcast in the world, Joe Rogan, and they talk for like three hours about the Old Testament, about the Bible, about various things in ancient archaeology and things like that.

If you ever listen to the program, just be aware that Joe Rogan has R rated language. Wes Huff doesn't talk that way, but Joe does. So just be aware of that. If you ever listen to the conversation, one of the things that has come up in that conversation, and this has been a source of much debate since then, just over the last several weeks, Wes said to Joe Rogan that when the Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered, the Great Isaiah Scroll, which is the nearly complete manuscript of Isaiah, a thousand years older than the oldest manuscripts that we had of Isaiah.

Wes said to Joe that that manuscript was word for word the Book of Isaiah. Now, there are there are all kinds of people that have since popped up online and have said that wasn't true. Those scripts are actually not that close to one another.

The Book of Isaiah, as you read it in your Bible, is not word for word the Great Isaiah Scroll that was discovered at Qumran. Yes, there are some variations to it. Some people have tried to attach like there are there are so many textual variants that it is like ninety six percent alike or something like that.

They've tried to attach these numbers to it just to kind of discredit Wes Hough. But when it comes down to it, when you read the Great Isaiah Scroll and you read Isaiah as it is in your Bible, there's no difference.

Everything's the same between them. Nothing of substance is missing from the Masoretic text, from the Great Isaiah Scroll, from the text as you have it in your Bible. They all contain those essential elements that make the Book of Isaiah what it is.

Any sort of variant doesn't change the substance of Isaiah whatsoever. They are exactly alike. Now, I make that point because what's most important, what should be the most impressive, incredible thing about Isaiah or any of these kind of archaeological discoveries, whenever we discover something new about a really old text of the Bible?

And there's probably going to be more discoveries as we go on. Somebody else is going to find a really, really old text. The most incredible thing about those discoveries is what those texts say about Jesus.

We'll tend to argue about all of the like the technical things about it. How alike is it? Word for word, et cetera. You know, you'll hear those kinds of terms thrown around. But what is most important is what the text says about Jesus.

And Isaiah is making prophetic claims about the Christ 700 years before he comes. And the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls authenticated to us all the more the legitimacy of those prophecies that were made about Christ.

Forget all the technical things, although those things are certainly important and interesting to study. But what does Isaiah say about Jesus? And that demands a response. And that's what Jesus is really pointing out here about John the Baptist.

What did John the Baptist say? It was about him that the prophet said, I send my messenger before your face who will prepare your way before you. So what did he speak and what did he say? And did you listen to what he said?

And essentially what Jesus is pointing to there is what did John say about me? Did you believe the words that this prophet said? Then you would become a follower of Jesus and be saved from the judgment of God, your sins will be forgiven in Jesus Christ.

For just as the prophets pointed to the forerunner was going to come before the Christ, so the prophets pointed to the Christ of whom it was said and of whom John the Baptist said. That it would be by his wounds, we would be healed.

Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows, yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God and afflicted. But he was pierced for our transgressions. He was crushed for our iniquities. Upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace.

And with his wounds, we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray, we have turned everyone to his own way and the Lord has laid on him. The iniquity of us all. So that whoever believes in Jesus will not perish, but have their sins forgiven.

Will be restored, reconciled to God and will have everlasting life. And that's the message that matters. Let's stop there and we'll pick up on what Jesus says about John the Baptist tomorrow. Heavenly Father, we thank you for what you have said in your word, pointing us to the Christ, making us aware of our sin and need for a savior and giving that savior in the sending of your son.

May we pay attention to these things and always come back to the gospel to be reminded of these things, that we are sinners in need of a savior and that has been given to us in Jesus Christ. May we also share this message with others that they too may know that there is forgiveness of sins by faith in Christ alone.

It's in his name we pray.

Amen.

Thank you for listening to When We Understand the Text with Pastor Gabe Hughes. If you'd like to support this ministry, visit our website, www .wutt .com and click on the Give tab in the top right corner of the page.

Join us again tomorrow as we continue our Bible study, When We Understand the Text.