Be like John The Baptist

Message preached by Samir Deokuliar on 7th Feb 2010

The Biblical hero for today is John the Baptist. Let’s check some scripture on the birth of John the Baptist.

Luke 1:11-17
11 An angel of the Lord appeared to him, standing on the right of the altar where the incense was burnt. 12 When Zechariah saw him, he was alarmed and felt afraid. 13 But the angel said to him, “Don't be afraid, Zechariah! God has heard your prayer, and your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son. You are to name him John. 14 How glad and happy you will be, and how happy many others will be when he is born! 15 He will be a great man in the Lord's sight. He must not drink any wine or strong drink. From his very birth he will be filled with the Holy Spirit, 16 and he will bring back many of the people of Israel to the Lord their God. 17 He will go ahead of the Lord, strong and mighty like the prophet Elijah. He will bring fathers and children together again; he will turn disobedient people back to the way of thinking of the righteous; he will get the Lord's people ready for him.

You can see that the scripture states that John the Baptist would be one who would be filled with the Holy Spirit right from the time of his birth. He was to go ahead of the Lord (Jesus) and bring His people to repentance (Baptism), so that the people would be prepared for the coming of their Messiah (Jesus), who would save them from wages of sin (death) (Romans 6:23).

John was a unique man, he did not drink wine or any strong drink, his food was honey and locust and he clothed himself in animal skin. John was a man who was focused on God’s purpose, which was getting the people ready for Jesus.

Luke 3:4-6
4 As it is written in the book of the prophet Isaiah:
“Someone is shouting in the desert:
‘Get the road ready for the Lord;
make a straight path for him to travel!
5 Every valley must be filled up,
every hill and mountain levelled off.
The winding roads must be made straight,
and the rough paths made smooth.
6 The whole human race will see God's salvation!’ ”

Coming back to John the Baptist, John was a man who pointed everyone to Jesus & thus making John a very good example for every Church.

This is what John the Baptist said about Jesus.

John 1:29-31
29 The next day John saw Jesus coming to him, and said, “There is the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world! 30 This is the one I was talking about when I said, ‘A man is coming after me, but he is greater than I am, because he existed before I was born.’ 31 I did not know who he would be, but I came baptizing with water in order to make him known to the people of Israel.”

John the Baptist was also a very forceful man. He was someone who didn’t care what people thought or said about him. Can you imagine a person who eats locust & honey and wearing animal skins bothering to think about what people think of him? He was someone totally radical for God.

Talking about radical, I must mention this. Sometime back a particular youth (Lets call him “J”) from our Church was listening about the youthful zeal of a spiritually veteran Christian. This guy (veteran) would take time out and travel in the Mumbai local trains distributing tracts. Listening to this J is spiritually stirred & he actually arranges something with fellow Christian youth. These guys wake up really early one morning, go to Churchgate railway station and get into the train with their drums and start playing their drums and singing loudly & Praising Jesus. They also distributed tracts…..Amazing ….. Praise God, Hallelujah.

This is what being radical is all about. You may get some really crazy idea to do something for Jesus, which will give you great zeal to do it and great sense after you do it. As my Pastor said, “if you want to experience something you never experienced before, then you need to do something that you’ve never done before”.

Working for Jesus is like working directly for someone who is infinitely more powerful than even the president of the United States of America. Here is what Jesus Himself say about His Church (the body of which he is the head).

Matthew 16:18 (Jesus’ words to Peter)
18 And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.
You can see from Matthew 16:18, how radical the Church is to be. Even the gates of hell will not stop us Christian from breaking in and saving souls in the Name of Jesus. We are not called to be defensive but to be on the offense against the forces of darkness. Allow me to quote some more scripture to support my statement.

Matthew 11:12
12From the days of John the Baptist until now, the kingdom of heaven has been forcefully advancing, and forceful men lay hold of it.

Luke 11:21-22
“When a strong man, with all his weapons ready, guards his own house, all his belongings are safe. 22 But when a stronger man attacks him and defeats him, he carries away all the weapons the owner was depending on and divides up what he stole.

So you see Jesus is grabbing from Satan.

Coming back, as I mentioned earlier John the Baptist was one forceful man of God. He even spoke out against the then ruler Herod, which got him into jail (Matthew 14:3-4) ) but John the Baptist was also a humble man of God. You know when John’s disciples came to him (John) saying that more people were going to Jesus than those coming to him (John), this is what John replied.

John 3:27-30
27To this John replied, "A man can receive only what is given him from heaven. 28You yourselves can testify that I said, 'I am not the Christ but am sent ahead of him.' 29The bride belongs to the bridegroom. The friend who attends the bridegroom waits and listens for him, and is full of joy when he hears the bridegroom's voice. That joy is mine, and it is now complete. 30He must become greater; I must become less.

Jesus is the best example of forcefulness with humility. In fact the Bible refers to Him as the Lion of the tribe of Judah (Revelation 5:5) as well as the Lamb of God (John 1:36). A good example of this is, the same Jesus who chased the money changers and businessmen out of the temple of Jerusalem (John 2:13-22) because they were turning the temple into a market place, this same Jesus also accepted torture till death on the cross (Acts 2:32-35), to pay the price of the sins of men, as this was His Fathers will (Matthew 26:42).

Lastly, about John, He always exalted Jesus right through all the high times of his ministry. Check John 1:29-31; John 3:27-30; Mark 1:7-8.

I would like to close saying be humble yet forceful for Jesus.