A Voice Crying in the Wilderness
The Ministry of John the Baptist
Part 2
Luke 3:1-17
John’s Early Life and Mission
Dave Redick

This is more than a history lesson for us living today, friends. True repentance is the same now as it was back then – and it is just as necessary. It is still at the very core of coming to God and receiving His Son. We are told by God to repent and where there is true repentance, there will be fruit. Our lives will change. In time, people will be able to see the difference.

A group of denominational preachers got into an argument about which church Jesus would attend if He were to come back the following Sunday. The Presbyterian said, "It is obvious that He would attend a Presbyterian Church because of our educational standards and our position on social issues. A couple of others in the group joined in and expressed their reasons why Jesus would probably attend with them. Then the Baptist preacher said, "I just have one question. Who was it that baptized Jesus? The others said, "John the Baptist." "Well, said the Baptist preacher, what makes you think He would want to change his membership?"

Of course, John wasn’t really a Baptist in the modern sense of the word because no Protestant denomination is over 500 years old. In fact (and you’ll have to think this one through) John wasn’t even a member of the church of Christ of the first century. I say that because the prophet both lived and died before the birthday of the church on Pentecost in 33 A.D. As one writer put it, "He stood like Moses, on the threshold of the Promised land. He did not enter the kingdom of God proclaimed by Jesus, and consequently, 'he who is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he.'"(1) As late as Matthew 16:18, after the death of John the Baptist, Jesus was still saying in the future sense, "I will build my church."

Last Sunday I mentioned that I planned to spend a few Sundays teaching on the on the life of John the Baptist. Last Lord's Day We covered John’s background, his place in Old Testament prophecy, and his appearance and conduct. This morning I want to do a second installment. We’ll look at John’s early life and his mission.

Like Jesus, very little is said in the Bible of John’s early life. After his father, Zacharias, returned from his tour of priestly duty where the angel Gabriel had informed him that he would be a father in his old age, his wife, Elizabeth, conceived, but stayed in seclusion for five months.(2) In her sixth month she was visited by Mary, the soon-to-be mother of Jesus, whereupon, Luke tells us that the baby growing inside her leapt in her womb for joy.(3) This reminds us of the angel’s prediction that John would be filled with the Holy Spirit while still in his mother’s womb.(4) After John was born his Jewish parents circumcised him on the eighth day and he was named(5) amid a bit of a dispute among relatives as to what they would call him. They all wanted him called Zacharias after his father, but old Zacharias would have none of it. He had learned nine or ten months before this that you don’t question the angel of the Lord. This boy would be named John, just as Gabriel had directed him in the temple. Since Zacharias was still not speaking due to his doubtful response to the angel’s prediction of the birth, the old priest asked for a tablet on which he wrote: "His name is John!"(6) At the very instant he wrote those words, his speech was restored and the first words out of his mouth were words of praise to God. He also was filled with the Holy Spirit for a time, and he prophesied of the coming events in John’s life.(7)

At that point the Bible closes the page on John’s early life. Luke 1:80 says, "And the child continued to grow, and to become strong in spirit, and he lived in the deserts until the day of his public appearance to Israel."

The Bible says nothing of the deaths of John’s parents. Tradition outside the Bible has it that Zacharias was killed by Herod the Great and Elizabeth was forced to flee into the desert of Judea, which provides a tempting explanation as to why John would later appear living a desert lifestyle and preaching in the wilderness. Unfortunately, this, like all the other extra-biblical theories about John’s background, is pure speculation that likely won’t be cleared up until eternity.

Let’s look next at:

Luke has the fullest account of it in the third chapter of his gospel. We’ll begin reading in verse 1 and 2:

Would you back up with me just a moment and re-read that last phrase? "…The word of God came to John, the son of Zacharias, in the wilderness." John was not speaking his own opinions when he preached. He wasn’t giving his hearers his theories about God or his theology course guesswork. Neither, may I say, was he elaborating on things he had learned while living in a reclusive desert community among a bunch of Jewish monks as you might have heard claimed on one of the popular cable TV channels lately. If you have seen such claims, let me just say that there is no sure evidence that John ever lived in the Qumran community where the Dead Sea Scrolls were found. Such claims are mere speculation based on some real and imagined similarities between John and the Qumran community. Neither is there any verification that John was a member of the sect of the Jews known as the Essenes or that he derived his teaching about baptism from them. The fact is, there are about as many differences between John and those who lived at Qumran as there are similarities. To the contrary, the Bible says that "the word of God came to John." He spoke, not because he was full of information and speculation he had learned from men, but because he was inspired by the Holy Spirit.

Luke says, "The word of God came to John…." That terminology is conspicuous to anyone familiar with the Bible. It is the same language used to refer to the other Old Testament prophets and where they got their message:

Thus John’s mission was that of a prophet – He was a man through whom God would speak His message, just as Peter wrote in 2 Peter 1:21: "for no prophecy was ever made by an act of human will, but men moved by the Holy Spirit spoke from God."

John preached the word of God. This is reiterated by John the Apostle in John 1:6 when he spoke of John the Baptist: "There came a man, sent from God, whose name was John."

John’s mission was that of a prophet. It was also was that of a preparer – one who got things ready for the coming of King Jesus. Luke continues in verses 3-6:

We touched on John’s work as a preparer in last week’s message. In the same way a team would be sent ahead in that day to prepare the highway and announce the coming of a great king, literally straightening and smoothing out the way by filling in the holes and smoothing out the bumps, John came to prepare the hearts of the people of Israel to receive the Messiah – their King. He did this, as Luke says here, by "preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins."

Matthew says of John’s preaching in Matthew 3:1-2: "Now in those days John the Baptist came, preaching in the wilderness of Judea, saying, ‘Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.’"

The theme of John’s preaching was repentance and baptism for the remission of sins to get ready for the coming King. Repentance is a change of mind that will reorient a life toward obedience to God. Baptism is immersion in water(8) for the reason given here: "the forgiveness of sins."

Let’s imagine that we are somehow able to go back in a time machine and drop in on John’s preaching that was going on in the desert of Judea in those days. We land in a remote area so as not to be detected, hike for a couple of miles, and as we approach the place on foot, people are everywhere, all looking in a common direction. We can hear the prophet in the distance well before we can see him. He is thundering out his message against the stark desert backdrop. His voice reverberates with a message of warning. Luke says in verses 7-9:

Many of the Jews in John’s day had come to trust in their Jewish heritage alone to save them. They had developed an arrogant, elitist attitude. Heard among them in that day were such sayings as:

John’s preaching confronted this presumptuous attitude head-on. "Do not begin to say to yourselves, 'We have Abraham for our father,' for I say to you that God is able from these stones to raise up children to Abraham."

To receive the Messiah, these people needed a heart change. They needed to repent. John’s preaching knocked down the hills of self will and stubbornness in them. It filled in the valleys of apathy and neglect of the word of God and got people ready to receive the Christ who was soon to come.

Yet some came to him, just as some do today, for baptism with no intention of repenting. They wanted to be accepted by this new teacher, but didn’t want to change. Baptism is really a simple thing. To allow oneself to be lowered into some water and then taken out again, in and of itself requires no commitment. When one is baptized, those looking on cannot tell whether it is accompanied by true repentance. They cannot see the heart. Just like in our day, it was easy back then for some to come out to John and "join the party" so to speak, without every making a decision to change their lives. That explains his harsh words to them. Such pretending never has been, nor will it ever be, within the will of God. It must be confronted if the truth of God is ever to get through.

So that we might not misunderstand the impact of true repentance, Luke gives us three examples from John’s preaching of how he clarified his meaning to his hearers in verses 10-14:

When a person repents, he or she will change their wrong behavior. The selfish person will begin to share. The cheater will start behaving honestly. The exploiter will cease to oppress those under his charge.

This is more than a history lesson for us living today, friends. True repentance is the same now as it was back then – and it is just as necessary. It is still at the very core of coming to God and receiving His Son. We are told by God to repent(10) and where there is true repentance, there will be fruit.(11) Our lives will change. In time, people will be able to see the difference.

May I ask you frankly what could be the most important consideration of this lesson? Have you repented? Has there been a change in your life because God has come near? It’s a serious question on which your eternity depends. Is there a difference between the way you are now and the way you were before you came to God? Has the word of God knocked down the high spots of pride and rebellion and self-will in you? Is God filling in the potholes of apathy and neglect and willful ignorance in your life? I sincerely hope so, because without repentance, none of us will be going to heaven, no matter how many times we come to church – whether we have been baptized or not.

John’s mission was that of a prophet and a preparer. His mission was also that of a portender. That is a word we don’t often use, but it is a good one to describe a part of John’s mission, so I think it is worth if we haven't used it before. A portender is a sign or a warning that something drastic is about to happen. For instance, dark clouds would be portenders of a storm. Long, steady rain would be the portender of a flood.

When I first moved to our area here from California where I grew up, I was still into running so every day I would go out and jog along some of the logging roads up in the Ames Creek area. It’s beautiful country up there and I was really enjoying all the trees. Then one day as I jogged around a familiar corner of the road, surrounded with timber, I came upon some logging equipment that had been moved in the previous day. Nobody was around but it was evident that something was getting ready to happen. I didn’t run in that area for another week or two, but when I got back up there, I discovered that the entire area had been logged. Not a single tree was left standing. Having grown up in a state where clear cutting is, for the most part, against the law, it was a bit of a shock. But that’s not my point. My point is that the logging equipment was the portender of the logging operation.

God was about to bring judgment upon Israel for their repeated rejection of Him.(12) In less than forty years, their city and their magnificent temple would be utterly leveled. Over a million Jews would perish. But even worse, those who refused to repent would miss the gift of salvation that God was about to send them in His Son.

For some, John’s ministry was the harbinger of great things to come. Messiah was about to visit Israel. The King was coming! God’s Son was coming! But to others, his preaching was a portender of judgment and doom like suddenly discovering an ax leaned up against a tree or logging equipment sitting in a forest.

For us, it is a reminder of the importance of genuine repentance - a checkup to be sure that there is the fruit of repentance in our lives.

John’s mission was that of a prophet, a preparer, and a portender.

It was also that of a witness. A witness is one who testifies for the benefit of another.

Luke continues in verses 15-17:

As popular as John’s preaching was in those days, with multitudes coming out to the desolate areas to hear him, his was only the pre-game show, so to speak. One was soon to come after John Who was far greater in power and importance.

This last prophet of the Old Testament,(13) this one of whom Jesus Himself said, "among those born of women, there is no one greater than John…,"(14) would soon bow in homage to One even greater. Not long before John was arrested by Herod, some of his disciples complained that people were now flocking to hear Jesus rather than coming to them. John responded this way: "You yourselves bear me witness, that I said, 'I am not the Christ,' but, 'I have been sent before Him.' …He must increase, but I must decrease."(15)

John the Baptist witnessed to a number of things regarding Jesus, in number of places. Because of the limit of time, we’ll confine ourselves to just one passage. Perhaps the fullest statement of the Baptist’s witness of Jesus is in John 1:29-34:

Let's see if we can pick out the truths of John’s witness about Jesus? I'll underline them as we identify them. He presented Jesus as:

This is the Jesus whom we serve.

Lloyd H. Steffen wrote in The Christian Century how when King Frederick II, an eighteenth century king of Prussia, was visiting a prison in Berlin, the inmates tried to prove to him how they had been unjustly imprisoned. All of them were pleading their cases - except one man.

He sat quietly in a corner, while all the rest protested their innocence. Seeing him sitting there oblivious to all the commotion, the King asked him what he was in for. "Armed robbery, Your Honor." The King asked, "Were you guilty?" "Yes Sir," he answered. "I entirely deserve my punishment." At that, the King called for a guard and said, "Release this man. I don’t want him corrupting all these innocent people."(16)

We’ve spoken of the need for repentance all through the message today. In this story the man was sorry for his wrong – sorry enough to admit it, to accept his punishment, and presumably, after he was pardoned and released, to live a different life out of gratitude for what the King did for him.

That is what God wants us to do. I call on you, if you have not already done so, to repent. Your eternity depends on it.

Footnotes: Please use your back button to return to your place.

1. Nelson's Bible Dictionary, Article on John the Baptist.
2. Luke 1:24
3. Luke 1:44
4. Luke 1:15
5. Luke 1:59
6. Luke 1:63
7. Luke 1:67-79
8. Accordingly, John chose the locations of some of his preaching, according to John 3:23, "because there was much water there."
9. The Pulpit Commentary, Electronic Database. Copyright (c) 2001 by Biblesoft. Comments on Luke 3:8.
10. Acts 2:38; 3:19; 17:30; 26:20
11. Galatians 5:22-24
12. See Matthew 21:33-41 for Jesus’ parable of their rejection.
13. Luke 16:16
14. Luke 7:28
15. John 3:28-30
16. Donald W. Brenneman APO, Miami, FL. Leadership Magazine, Vol. 12, no. 2.

Dave Redick is Minister of the Hwy 20 Church of Christ in Sweet Home, Oregon and Editor of The Preacher's Study. He may be reached at pstudysupport@comcast.net.

Copyright © 1996-2008 by The Preacher's Study. Permission is granted to subscribers to use this document in total or in sermon preparation in the context of the local congregation only. Publishing it in a book, on the Internet, or anyplace beyond the local congregation is prohibited.

All Scripture quotations and references are from the New American Standard Version unless otherwise stated.

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