The Greatest Prophet

[00:00:01] Hello and welcome to Tall Paul's preaching. Episode eight was originally recorded on September 9th of 2018. [00:00:10] This sermon was scripture intensive with four major scripture readings of John chapter one, Luke, chapter one, Mark, chapter one, and Matthew chapter three, among other minor scriptures. [00:00:26] In this sermon we explore the greatest prophet in the Bible, and it is titled the Greatest Prophet. [00:00:36] I got a little joke for you. The Spokesman Review columnist Paul Turner related a story from a friend. While visiting my wife's parents in Maryland, we stopped on the Delaware shore at a donut shop called Dough and Sin, short for cinnamon. [00:00:53] Just think, if the place ever went out of business, they could call it Dough and Sin no More. [00:01:04] Dough and Sin no More. [00:01:07] Well, good morning. It's a beautiful day and all right. We will definitely pray. [00:01:16] Oh, let's bow our hearts. Heavenly Father, you are almighty, so glorious, so mighty and so loving. [00:01:28] Lord, we humbly come before you with our needs that are not even close to overtaxing you. Nothing you can't handle, Lord. [00:01:42] Lord, help us as we prepare our hearts for your word. [00:01:47] Let the Holy Spirit open our ears to what you would have us hear. [00:01:51] Help us recognize what needs to change in our lives and give us the power in Christ to do your will in our lives. [00:02:00] Oh, you are awesome. And we eagerly look to what you will do here today and what you will do for the rest of our lives. We pray all this in the name of Jesus. [00:02:12] Amen. [00:02:16] Well, today we will be taking a close look at the greatest prophet in history, aside from Jesus, of course. [00:02:28] But this is whom Jesus said was the greatest. [00:02:32] And it's not Jonah who was sent to Nineveh, but didn't want to go and ended up spending three days and three nights in the belly of a fish. But after he was sped up onto the shore, went and preached to Nineveh, the Israelites enemy and 100,000 people were saved. [00:02:53] It's not Daniel who spent the night with the lions who was given the vision of all Israel. In fact, he was given the dream another man had and was able to relate that. [00:03:06] And the 70 weeks he was given the prophecy of the future of Israel. [00:03:14] It's not even Moses, you know, he wrote the first five books, the Law, he's given the ten Commandments, he parted the Red Sea, he led Israel through the desert for 40 years. [00:03:28] That's not Elijah, Elisha, Ezekiel, Jeremiah, nor even Isaiah, although Isaiah did prophesy about him. It is in fact none other than John the Baptist. [00:03:42] Jesus says in Luke 7 and Matthew 11 in the first part of those verses, I'm going to read in Luke 7:28 says, For I say unto you, among those that are born of women, there is not a greater prophet than than John the Baptist. [00:04:01] And Matthew 11:11 says it this way. Verily I say unto you, among them that are born of women, there has not risen a greater than John the Baptist. [00:04:13] So he was the greatest. [00:04:16] Yet John the Baptist was very humble. [00:04:19] He basically said, I am nothing special. But Jesus is. [00:04:25] John 1. The gospel of John. [00:04:29] John 1:1927 says this. [00:04:35] Now this is the testimony of John. [00:04:39] When the Jews sent priests and Levites from Jerusalem to ask him, who are you? [00:04:45] John confessed and did not deny, but confessed. He said, I am not Christ. And they asked him, well, what then? Are you Elijah? He said, I am not. Because they thought that Elijah was going to come back. [00:05:00] Then they asked, are you the prophet speaking of the Messiah? And he answered, no. And they said unto him, well, who are you that we may give an answer to those that sent us? [00:05:11] What do you say about yourself? And John the Baptist said, I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness. Make straight the way of the Lord, as the prophet Isaiah said. [00:05:23] Now those who were sent were from the Pharisees. And they asked him, saying, why then do you baptize if you are not the Christ, nor Elijah, nor the prophet John answered them, saying, I baptize with water. But there stands one among you whom you do not know. It is he who coming after me is preferred before me, whose sandal strap I am not worthy to loose. [00:05:50] He recognized he was not even worthy enough to untie Jesus shoes. [00:05:58] So what made John the Baptist the greatest? [00:06:01] That's the cool thing about his greatness. It wasn't his miracles. He doesn't have any notable miracles. Although he did baptize the Messiah and be witness to that. [00:06:15] It wasn't his prophecy. He doesn't have a lot of prophecy, nor his sermons, although we're going to get to one of those. [00:06:24] So it wasn't his works of miracles, nor his preaching, nor giving of the word prophecy. What then made John the greatest? [00:06:36] His relationship to Jesus. [00:06:40] Jesus is the focus of the entire Bible. He is more important than everyone else. Everything. All scripture points to Jesus, who is the pinnacle of everything. [00:06:57] Even John the Baptist tells some of his own disciples. He says, go and follow Jesus. He had followers and he sent them to Jesus. [00:07:07] He was always pointing to Jesus and not himself. [00:07:12] Because Jesus is the Messiah, the Lord of Lords, the King of Kings, God in human flesh. [00:07:20] But John the Baptist was his best man. [00:07:25] John 3:29 30 says, he that has the bride is the bridegroom. But the friend of the bridegroom, which stands and hears him, rejoices greatly because of the bridegroom's voice. This my joy therefore is fulfilled. He must increase, but I must decrease. [00:07:47] Yet with all his greatness, we are greater in the eyes of Jesus, greater than Moses and Elijah, Jonah, John the Baptist, all of them. [00:08:02] Why? Because you've got the groom, and that's Jesus. His best man is John the Baptist. But who else is very special in a wedding? [00:08:14] The bride, the focus. [00:08:19] And that's what we are likened to. The second half of Matthew 11:11. In Luke 7:28 that I read earlier, it says that he that is least in the kingdom of God is greater than he, referring to John the Baptist. [00:08:38] We are that chosen people during this time of grace. We have such great opportunity, by grace, through faith, to believe on the Son, Son of Man, the Savior of the world. [00:08:53] We might never have been chosen to be a bridesmaid or a best man to stand up in a wedding, but we have been chosen to stand with Jesus as his bride, to be with the Lord forever. [00:09:10] I don't know if you've ever gone a long time without something that you. That you really love and you develop a craving for it. And it can be like, let's say, the beach, the sun and the sand, and hear the ocean roar. My wife loves. Or maybe it's a food, like a special meal or a dessert that you really love and you haven't had for a long time. Or maybe it's a person that you just long to sit down with and talk to and hear their voice again. [00:09:44] And that's what was going on in Israel at the time of Jesus. [00:09:49] They'd been about 400 years without a prophet giving the word of God. They felt God was silent, and it was a time that they became hungry and thirsty for God's word, just yearning to hear from God. [00:10:06] And God would satisfy the people's desire with Jesus, the word of God. [00:10:14] But John was specifically chosen by God before he was even born to prepare the way. Jesus. [00:10:22] He is one of seven people in the Bible that was named before birth. [00:10:28] The others were Abraham's sons, Ishmael and Isaac, David's son, Solomon, Josiah, Cyrus, Jesus and John the Baptist. [00:10:39] The Bible tells us he was filled with the Holy Spirit from inside the womb before he was even born. [00:10:46] As the babe leapt for joy when it heard Mary, the mother of Jesus speak, he was six months in the womb and had three more to go. And Mary came and visited and he leapt for joy. [00:11:05] His role was to prepare Israel for the Messiah. He was chosen before he was born to be the best man. [00:11:13] So if you want, you can turn to Luke 1, starting in verse 5. And this is how John the Baptist came to be. [00:11:25] There was in the days of Herod, the king of Judea, a certain priest named Zacharias of the course of Abia, and his wife was of the daughters of Aaron, and her name was Elizabeth. Now the priests came from the line of Levi, and they were from Aaron. So both him, Zechariah and Elizabeth were from the tribe of Levi. They were to be priests. Verse 6. Continues. And they were both righteous before God, walking in all the commandments and ordinances of the Lord, blameless. Wow, quite a couple there. [00:12:04] And they had no child because Elizabeth was barren. [00:12:09] And they both were now well stricken in years, as the Bible says, or they were old. [00:12:17] And it came to pass, verse 8, that while he executed the priest's office before God in the order of his course, David set up all the courses according to the custom of the priest's office. His lot was to burn incense when he went into the temple of the Lord, and the whole multitude of people were praying outside at the time of the incense. And there appeared unto him an angel of the Lord standing on the right side of the altar of incense. [00:12:49] Now remember, they're hungry. It's been 400 years. [00:12:52] And when Zacharias saw him, he was troubled and fear fell upon him. But the angel said to him, fear not, Zacharias, for your prayer is heard, and your wife Elizabeth shall bear you a son, and you shall call his name John. There it was named, and you shall have joy and gladness, and many shall rejoice at his birth. [00:13:16] For he shall be great in the sight of the Lord, and shall drink neither wine nor strong drink, and he shall be filled with the Holy Ghost even from his mother's womb. And many of the children of Israel shall he turn to the Lord their God, and he shall go before him in the spirit and power of Elijah to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the disobedient to the wisdom of the just to make ready a people prepared for the Lord. [00:13:51] We'll skip down a little bit and I'll summarize what happened. But Zacharias didn't trust didn't trust what the angel had said. And so he was stricken, unable to speak. In fact, he was probably stricken without the ability to hear as well as we'll see in this next section until his son was born, until John the babe was born. [00:14:16] Now also in that chapter, Mary the mother of Jesus visits, obviously when John's six months in the womb and stays until his birth. Luke 1:41 it says and it came to pass that when Elizabeth heard the salutation of Mary, the babe leapt in her womb and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Ghost. [00:14:39] And we'll pick it up again Luke 1:59 for the rest of the chapter. And it came to pass that on the eighth day that they, Zacharias and Elizabeth came to circumcise the child as the custom of the law required. And the people called him Zacharias after the name of his father. So they named the baby Zacharias. But his mother Elizabeth answered and said, not so he shall be called John. [00:15:08] And the people said to her, there is none of your kindred that is called by that name. And they would name their children after their ancestors. And so apparently there was nobody named John in either of their lineage. [00:15:24] 62 and they made signs to his father. [00:15:29] This may indicate that he couldn't even hear if they had to make signs, signs of what are you going to name the child, how he would have him called. 63 and he asked for a writing tablet and wrote, saying, his name is John, and ate all marbled and his mouth was opened immediately, and his tongue loosed. And he spoke and praised God. May we all praise God when our tongue is loosed. [00:15:57] 65 and fear came on all that dwelt around about them. And all these saints were noised about throughout all the hill country of Judea. And all they that heard laid them up in their hearts, saying, what manner of child shall this be? And the hand of the Lord was with him. [00:16:16] And his father Zacharias was filled with the Holy Ghost and prophesied, saying, Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, for he has visited and redeemed his people. He has raised up a horn of salvation for us in the house of his servant David. Now remember, David's from the tribe of Judah, and they're Levites. So Zacharias understood that Messiah was coming. Messiah was about to be here, just as he spoke by the mouth of his holy prophets, which have been since the world began, that we should be saved from our enemies and from the hand of all that hate us, to perform the mercy promised to our fathers, and to remember his holy covenant, the oath which he swore to our father Abraham, that he would grant to us, that we being delivered out of the hand of our enemies, might serve him, being Messiah without Fear in holiness and righteousness before him all the days of our life. Amen. And you, child, speaking of John, shall be called the prophet of the highest. For you shall go before the face of the Lord to prepare his ways. And this is key, verse 77. To give knowledge of salvation unto his people by the remission of their sins through the tender mercy of our God, whereby the day spring from on high has visited, visited us, to give light to them that sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the ways of peace. And the child grew and waxed strong in spirit, and was in the deserts until the day of his showing unto Israel. [00:18:07] He spent his life out there in the desert. [00:18:12] So why do we call him John the Baptist? There were no surnames like Paul, Paul Clemens. You know, we adopt the surname and we're now called Clemens. And so if you were to just go out in the street and say, hey, Paul, you might get a bunch of people turning around. But so what they did in those days, they would say so and so was from the town of or they would say so and so the son of or they would say so and so some other descriptive term. [00:18:44] So you have Simon the Cyrene, who helped bear the cross of Jesus. And he was Simon of the town of Cyrene. And you had James and John the sons of Zebedee. So here they took on the name of their father, and they would call him James the son of Zebedee, to differentiate them from everybody else. And then you had, like, Simon the leper. [00:19:09] Not sure I'd want to be known by that. But Jesus did end up going to his house after he healed him of leprosy. [00:19:17] So I go by Tall Paul a lot. [00:19:22] So since John was baptizing people, that's how he became known. He was John the Baptist because he would baptize people. [00:19:32] And baptism is a new concept, or was a new concept. It's not in the Old Testament. There was no baptism in all of the Old Testament. [00:19:43] And so here, John the Baptist, the first time we see in the Bible that someone was baptized. Now, Elisha did tell Naaman to go. [00:19:52] He was a leper. Naaman the leper. Go wash in the Jordan for seven times. And he would be cleaned. And they had ceremonial cleansing and purification rituals where they would wash and clean themselves. But there was really no baptism. So it was something completely new. [00:20:10] And here the baptism represents a willingness to be made new and ready for the kingdom of God. [00:20:18] And that's how they presented baptism. We have a different Understanding now, and I'll get to that. But Mark chapter one, verses two through eight. [00:20:29] It describes the baptism that John was doing, as it is written in the prophets. Behold, I send my messenger before your face, which shall prepare your way before you the voice of one crying in the wilderness. Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make his path straight. John did baptize in the wilderness and preach the baptism of repentance for the remission of sins. [00:20:53] And there went out unto him all the land of Judea and they of Jerusalem, and were all baptized of him in the river of Jordan, confessing their sins. And John was clothed in camel's hair and had a belt of leather about his loins and his waist. And he did eat locusts and wild honey. And he preached, saying, there comes one mightier than I, after me the latchet of whose shoes I am not worthy to stoop down and untie. [00:21:21] I indeed have baptized you with water, but he shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost. And so that's the baptism that we understand now that Jesus baptizes with the Holy Spirit. And now we get baptized as a symbol of that, the symbol of our salvation. We are dipped under the water until the bubbles stop, representing the death. And then we're raised back up and that's representing the resurrection that we now have a brand new life in Jesus Christ our Lord. [00:21:55] And John preached, repent for the kingdom of God is at hand. [00:22:01] Preach the baptism of repentance for the remission of sins. [00:22:06] That's a message that was direct and straight to the point. [00:22:11] He didn't preach that. You've just go to Jesus and Jesus will take care of everything. Which is true. That's true. [00:22:19] But John preached that we must repent and prepare our hearts for Jesus. [00:22:25] We often want a better life without having to do any work. [00:22:31] And many people think, you know, I'm a good person. I've never murdered anyone. [00:22:36] However, repentance is all throughout the Bible and it's not not a New Testament concept like baptism. It was all throughout where like the Ninevites I mentioned earlier with Jonah, 100,000 repented. They repented from the king down to the animals, and God delivered them. [00:22:56] My favorite Old Testament verses about repentance is Ezekiel 18:30, which says, Therefore I will judge you, O house of Israel, everyone according to his ways, says the Lord God, repent and turn yourselves from all your transgression, so iniquity shall not be your ruin. [00:23:19] So John the Baptist prepared the people for the kingdom of God. [00:23:24] We see in the parable of the sower and the seed, that the seed is the word of God. And there's four different types of soil and there's only one soil that produced any fruit that grew and produced fruit. [00:23:40] So it's a one in four chance of a heart being receptive to the word of God. [00:23:48] Those aren't very good odds. [00:23:51] We need to understand our need for a Savior to prepare ourselves for God's ways and God's will. [00:24:02] So let's take a look at one of John the Baptist's sermons. [00:24:07] Matthew 3:1 12 is what I'll be going over, and his sermon is really only five verses long. It's really short, but it is powerful and packed. Matthew 3:1 in those days came John the Baptist preaching in the wilderness of Judea, saying, repent ye, for the kingdom of God is at hand. For this is he that was spoken of by the prophet Isaiah, saying, the voice of one crying in the wilderness, prepare ye the way of the Lord, make his path straight. [00:24:39] And the same John had his clothing of camel's hair and a leather girdle about his waist, and his food was locusts and wild honey. Then went out to him, Jerusalem and all Judea and all the region round about the Jordan, and were baptized of him in the Jordan river, coming confessing their sins. But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees come to his baptism, he said unto them, this is his sermon. O generation of vipers, who has warned you to flee from the wrath to come. You certainly don't hear many pastors open up their sermon with you snakes. [00:25:18] You need to change. [00:25:21] Verse 8 Bring forth, therefore fruits meet for repentance. And think not to say within yourselves, we have Abraham to our Father. For I say unto you that God is able of these stones to raise up children unto Abraham. [00:25:35] If we think that we can do it on our own, or that I'm good enough or anything. If we think that because I'm an American or because of who my daddy was. No, you needed the Father and we need Jesus. [00:25:53] And that's what John was telling them. Verse 10 continues and now also the axe is laid to the root of the trees. Therefore every tree which brings forth not good fruit is cut down and cast into the fire. [00:26:08] The time is now. The time is always now to change, to accept Jesus, to grow, because the harvest is coming. [00:26:16] Verse 11 I indeed baptize you with water into repentance. But he that comes after me is mightier than I, whose shoes I am not worthy to bear. He shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost and with fire, whose fan is in his hand. And he will thoroughly purge his floor and gather his wheat into the garner. But he will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire. [00:26:39] John boldly spoke his faith. See, our faith encompasses our entire lives. [00:26:46] We live by a moral code, the word of God, and you can't separate it from any aspect of our life. [00:26:56] We're born again completely, not just, you know, one little section. [00:27:02] And so John got sent to prison for criticizing the political leaders of his day. Herod, the king at the time, married his brother's wife. In other words, his brother had a wife. And he took that wife and married her. [00:27:18] He just took her. [00:27:20] And John spoke out publicly that that was not right. [00:27:26] And that wound him up in prison. Herod threw him in prison. [00:27:30] And John's life ended while he was there, when Herod's niece asked for the head of John for a reward for dancing and pleasing Herod and his friends. [00:27:42] The only person who can separate church from state is an atheist, because they have no church. [00:27:50] We are to live biblically under God's will and not just one little tiny aspect, but every part of our life. [00:27:57] It was okay that John the Baptist's ministry was decreased at that time because there was another person, Jesus, who was already here with his ministry increasing. [00:28:10] We should remember John for sending people to Jesus. Prepared. [00:28:16] Are we prepared for Jesus? [00:28:19] Are our own hearts ready? [00:28:22] Are we growing and producing fruit? [00:28:27] We need to repent and ask for forgiveness. [00:28:31] And they call it the bar of soap. The Christian bar of soap is First John 1:9. [00:28:38] If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us of our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. [00:28:50] Are we preparing others for Jesus? [00:28:54] Yes. God will accept you just as you are, but he's not going to leave you that way. [00:29:00] We need to tell people to have a relationship with Christ. You must be open to his will and his ways. [00:29:09] We need to speak that truth, speak of reality, because there's so much deception in our world and there's a lot of lives that are lost. [00:29:21] May the people around us have their eyes opened and their hearts prepared. [00:29:28] Because there is power in Christ to transform, to make us new, but only if we are willing. [00:29:42] Let's pray. [00:29:44] Heavenly Father, thank you for your word and for your son, freely given to us to all those that would claim him to be our savior. [00:29:59] Lord. Heavenly Father, we seek peace, peace with you through accepting your son, Jesus. [00:30:07] Peace with our neighbors to shine forth your way to lead them into your arms, a peace within ourselves, quickly repenting and turning our lives back into your guiding hands. [00:30:23] O Lord, when we were baptized, we didn't hold our wallets up out of the water while we were dunked. All of what we have is yours, and you have blessed us with much. [00:30:36] Please, please bless this offering we are about to cheerfully give. [00:30:42] Lord, we love you, we thank you, we praise you, and in Jesus name, Amen. [00:30:54] Thank you for listening to this message. We hope you enjoyed it. Our prayer is that the message, in some way or another, helped in your walk with God, and that your relationship with God was strengthened and grew more intimate. [00:31:13] If you would like to contact us with questions or comments, you can email us at the following that's meredletters.com or me-l e t t e r s.com thank you.