CHRIST AND JOHN THE BAPTIST
[p. 32] CHRIST AND JOHN THE BAPTIST
Matthew 11:7 - 15; John 1:26 - 34; John 3:27 - 30
I wish to speak of Christ and John the baptist. In the first scripture Christ is speaking about John the baptist, and in the second and third scriptures John the baptist is speaking about Christ. As prone to speak of one another, we have a good example in these scriptures of how it should be done. To speak to one another is commended, that is, among those who fear the Lord. Those who do not fear Him may speak to one another unprofitably. There is much of that kind of speaking, but we are enjoined that our “word be always with grace, seasoned with salt”, Colossians 4: 6. Those who feared the Lord, it is said, spoke often one to another. We are not told what they said to one another, but they spoke often to one another. The conversation was not unprofitable, nor unholy, for it is said that “Jehovah observed it, and heard, and a book of remembrance was written before him for them”, Malachi 3:16. Remarkably touching! We may be sure every word was profitable. If one of the saints not present who feared the Lord was spoken of, it would not be to traduce his character, or to criticise unreasonably. Jehovah would soon rebuke that. It is said that He hearkened and heard. His ear and His interest are called into attention as to what is being said. I believe we have but little idea how interested heaven is in the saints. As soon as one begins to repent of his sins, before he is a saint at all, he is causing joy in heaven; there is joy in heaven “for one repenting sinner”, Luke 15:7. It has often been remarked that it is not only one that has repented, but a ‘repenting sinner’. If a christian does wrong, as judging himself he causes joy in heaven; he is a repenting sinner. So that we can reasonably say even as to this that heaven is full of joy all the time; for there are many repenting sinners, not only those who are just converted,
[p. 33] but those who were converted years ago, in that they are characteristically repenting persons. When the apostle Paul said to the high priest, “God will smite thee, whited wall”, Acts 23:3 he did not know that he was speaking to the high priest, but he repented immediately. He recovered himself. He adjusted himself at once, and that is one of the most wholesome features among the brethren. We are not to carry unforgiven sins, but to deal with them immediately; thus joy is caused in heaven and reconciliation is caused on earth, and healthy conditions are maintained among the saints.
So we find at the mount of transfiguration that the Lord made a selection of certain disciples and took them up on to the mount with Him, and He was transfigured before them; His countenance became different. There were two men who appeared in glory speaking with Jesus. That is a beautiful scene; spiritually we may visualise it. It does not say that He was speaking with them, but that they were speaking with Him. We are told what the subject was; they were speaking about His departure at Jerusalem. The original word is ‘exodus’, and it reminds one of the book of Exodus. The Lord was going out of this world through the death that awaited Him at Jerusalem. Moses and the children of Israel went out of Egypt through the Red Sea. Moses and Elias were speaking to Him about His exodus. What a theme! I would like to have heard just what Moses said, and what Elias said. I am only referring to it, because it is a conversation between the Lord Jesus and two of His disciples; heaven was listening to that!
At the time of our Lord’s history as recorded in Matthew 11 John the baptist had been arrested and was in prison. He was a comparatively young man. Possibly some here picture John as an older brother, but he was beheaded when he was not yet thirty-five years of age; his work was done under that age. Now he sends a message to Jesus. The character of it was on account of [p. 34] the exceeding pressure that he was in. Why should he be cast into prison? Why should any of the Lord’s people or servants be greatly pressed by conditions? It comes about in the government of God. Why should it be? The enemy would seek to cause such a condition to lead to scepticism. Unconverted people are constantly saying, If there be a God, why should He allow such things? Why does He allow such a man as John the baptist to be put into prison? We might just as well go back and say, Why should Job be attacked by the devil? or Why should there be a devil? Is God required to give an answer to us for all that He does? Does He regard Himself as obligated to us? Faith says, “Will not the Judge of all the earth do right?” Genesis 18:25. This right attitude saves us from scepticism arising from the governmental dealings of God. These things are often a veil, but there is the holiest into which we can go through the veil to see all God’s mind in Christ; though we must keep in mind that “his ways past finding out!” His way is in the sea, and His pathway in deep waters, so that we may as well humble ourselves and recognise that God is not obligated to us to give us an account of all His providential actions. Simple faith would say that God is right. This preserves us from speaking foolishly like Job’s wife who said to her husband, “Curse God and die”.
Well now, to come back to these verses in Matthew 11, the Lord had said certain things to John’s messengers which were for John. He said these things to recover his faith. It must have been a sorrow to the Lord that John should have any question about Him, so He sent a word that no doubt revived him. Then He turns to the crowd and says, “What went ye out into the wilderness to see?” Now those of us who are in fellowship have professedly come out into the wilderness, and this challenge is a question that comes right home to every one of us. When you came into fellowship, what did you expect to see?
[p. 35] Many have come out and gone back. In the Lord’s own history many of His disciples went away back and walked no more with Him. This is a challenge to us. What did each of us come out to see? Those who went to John did not find a reed shaken by the wind; he was not a man that would listen to the whisperings of everyone who came to be baptised. Suppose one of those who came to John said, I want to tell you something; there are a lot of people in Jerusalem that do not like you. Well, John would not be shaken with that wind. He would say, Did you come out here to frighten me? There are some people who would try to disturb servants in that way. In Nehemiah’s time people came and told him that some were about to kill him and that he should enter the temple to protect himself; but he said, “Should such a man as I flee?” No servant of the Lord is worth the name of a servant if he flees because of such rumours. The principle in service and military activity is that of “the lion, mighty among beasts, which turneth not away for any”, Proverbs 30:30. John would not listen to such stories. John would say, Did you come out to be baptised? Well, this is the baptism of repentance, not the baptism of story-telling or accusation. John would stand his ground, he was not like a reed shaken by the wind. Then the Lord says again, “What went ye out for to see? A man clothed in soft raiment?” If I come out to see a man like that I show myself in accord with the Romish church which makes much of religious vestments. The Lord says, those that wear such garments are in kings’ palaces. You certainly will not see them in the fellowship marked by Christ’s death, nor would you have seen them on John the baptist. He was clothed in camel’s hair, with a leathern girdle about his loins. In truth, the questions the Lord is asking concerning John answer themselves; he was neither a reed shaken by the wind, nor a man clothed in fine garments. “But what went ye out for to see? A prophet? yea, I say unto you, and more than a prophet”. If they came out to see a prophet, there was more than that there. This is what the Lord would stress, and so it is today: there is more in the fellowship than any of us came out to see. The more we look into the truth of Christ and the assembly, the more we find to be there. John was a lion, he stood up against what Jerusalem represents. He says, “Offspring of vipers, who has forewarned you to flee from the coming wrath? Produce therefore fruit worthy of repentance ... the axe is applied to the root of the trees; every tree therefore not producing good fruit is cut down and cast into the fire”, Matthew 3:7 - 10. God is dealing in judgment with the leaders of Jerusalem, but in John we find a man who is as bold as a lion, and who did not wear fine clothes; he made no show at all. I suppose he looked as though he never went to town to buy anything, he just appropriated what the desert supplied. His clothing and food indicated this — his food was locusts and wild honey. He had been in the deserts, not just the desert — it was the full thought. As to ordinary outward circumstances, such was John the baptist.
Well now, I want to bring out how beautifully the Lord speaks about him. “Verily I say to you, that there is not arisen among the born of women a greater than John the baptist”, Matthew 11:11. There was none greater than he among those born of women, and then the Lord says, “if ye will receive it, this is Elias, who is to come”. Doubtless they had never thought of that. They had thought much of John the baptist, but they had hardly thought he was Elias that was to come. It was a question of whether they could receive this. One truly affected by John’s ministry would receive the Lord’s statement. He would say, The Lord says that John is Elias; I believe that; he has brought the light of God into my soul, I received deliverance through him, he led me to confess my sins, he baptised me; to my soul John’s ministry is no [p. 37] less, it is as great as that of Elias. In this way the servants of God are defended at all times.
What did you come out to see? Young people say, I would like to break bread. What have they in view? The Lord says, What did you come out into the wilderness to see? Some have come out because others have, persons of their own age. The devil has a good advantage over you and over the meeting you are in, if that is all; brethren are suffering all over the world from that very thing. So I stress the fact that John was a desert man. It was not that he lived in Jerusalem and went to the deserts to preach; he made no attempt to be a great man from Jerusalem, although at one time Jerusalem would have highly honoured him, John 1:19 - 27.
As people come into the wilderness as breaking bread, God would hold them there. Israel went out into the wilderness. What did they go out for? There had been much light and instruction in view of their going forth: “Let my son go, that he may serve me”. They were to serve God in the wilderness; that was what they were to do, but not in Egypt’s religious ways. These were refused; Moses refused Egypt’s ways. The people came to Sinai where they were to be taught to serve, and where they were to serve; but as in the wilderness they soon began to complain. They said, We remember the good times we had in Egypt; indeed they began to tell each other lies! They began to speak about how well off they were in Egypt, and really they had just been slaves. “When we sat”, they said, “by the flesh-pots, when we ate bread to the full”. As sure as possible, if you begin to turn away from the truth, if you want to go back to Egypt, you begin to tell lies; you complain, and probably say something about the leading brethren. There is always some excuse for complaint, but it is just falsehood, it is unreality. Still, in such circumstances we usually find a hopeful side; some may be saved. We want them with the truth, but not on their terms.
So Moses said to Aaron, “Say to all the assembly of the children of Israel, Come near into the presence of Jehovah; for he has heard your murmurings. And it came to pass, when Aaron spoke to the whole assembly of the children of Israel, that they turned toward the wilderness, and behold, the glory of Jehovah appeared in the cloud”, Exodus 16:9,10. That is like the gospel of Luke. Why should not Moses himself have spoken to the people? Moses from the very nature of his office would have been obliged to speak sternly to them, to rebuke them. Aaron represents the priesthood of Christ, and there was no rebuke as Aaron speaks. “Never man spake like this man”, is said of the Lord Jesus. God said of Aaron, “I know that he can speak well”. Applied to Christ, such speaking would be words of grace; they marvelled at the words of grace that were coming out of the Lord’s mouth, Luke 4:22. So in our dealings with the young, they may have to be rebuked, but let grace have its full scope, for we must have them if possible; only we must have them on God’s terms.
When Aaron speaks to these delinquent people “they turned toward the wilderness, and behold, the glory of Jehovah appeared in the cloud”. If that does not really hold you, nothing will. If you are kept by other influences you will be a continual trouble to the brethren and a detriment to the testimony. The ministry of grace is to be set before the young, but if you fail to be affected, there is scarcely any hope of recovery. Where grace is despised, the parting of the ways is come; they may as well go. It is mortifying to say it, but they will be a weight and disgrace to the testimony, they may lead others away too. It involves the fellowship; there is to be no provision for the flesh. You are not going to get anything outwardly but what is of the desert if you go out to John; but there is the glory, what the Spirit provides in the assembly. What holds you is the glory; there are the Lord’s sufferings and His glories; it is from [p. 39] glory to glory every first day of the week. If that does not hold you, you should not be there.
Now we shall look at John speaking about the Lord. The two passages are well known to us, it is a question now of how John speaks about the Lord. It is of the very greatest importance that we should be able to speak rightly about Him. The Lord asks the disciples, “Who do men say that I the Son of man am?” They told Him; they knew what men were saying about the Lord. It is an important thing to speak about the Lord in the ears of the people we meet. The Lord enquires, “who do ye say that I am?” Peter says, “Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God”, Matthew 16:14 - 16. Peter, John and Nathanael were outstanding confessors of the Son of God. “Who is he that gets the victory over the world, but he that believes that Jesus is the Son of God?” It is a question of what you say. John the baptist says, in the verses read, “I baptise with water. In the midst of you stands, whom ye do not know, he who comes after me, the thong of whose sandal I am not worthy to unloose”. What a beautiful testimony! John the baptist’s remarks about Jesus always affect the hearts of those who love Him.
Then we are told that John was baptising and he sees Jesus coming to him. John was baptising. The flesh might say, John, He is coming to you. Satan was there by the banks of the Jordan to inflate him, but John was proof against that. We are so ready to be inflated! If some great person should stop us on the street to speak to us, we would feel dignified, but John was proof against that sort of thing. He sees Jesus coming to him and says, “Behold the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world”. That is a sacrificial thought. John did not know Christ naturally, although he was related to Him, John 1:31. Clearly John’s link with the Lord was to be spiritual; he came to know Him spiritually. That is the only way to know Him now. Paul says, “if even we [p. 40] have known Christ according to flesh, yet now we know him thus no longer”, 2 Corinthians 5:16. In christianity it is not a question of what money people have, or what honour in this world, but of what they are spiritually. John saw Jesus coming, he knew Him by His walk, it was a sacrificial walk. It is a Person going down into death for others. Everyone of us has to die, either as carrying out our baptism or actually. Jesus was immune from death, but for the moment, in figure, John sees Him as a sacrifice. He is a Man who lays down His life for His own, for His sheep, for all. In truth, if we are to know each other rightly, it must be in a spiritual way. John says he did not know the Lord, but He who sent him to baptise with water. He said to him, “Upon whom thou shalt see the Spirit descending and abiding on him, he it is who baptises with the Holy Spirit”. And he saw and bore witness that this was the Son of God. God had prepared John for this occasion, and He gave him the privilege of seeing this wonderful sight. He was fortified by God so that the devil was shut out. John was told that the Spirit would descend upon the Son of God; he was fortified, and he saw this wonderful thing, heaven opened and the Holy Spirit descending as a dove. John was assured and satisfied; he says, “I have seen and borne witness that this is the Son of God”.
The next time he sees Him walking, and says, “Behold the Lamb of God”, a beautiful word! Yesterday he called Him the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world, and now he leaves out the latter part; it is just, “the Lamb of God”. The more you speak rightly of Christ the more full your heart will be. There were two disciples there and they were affected by what John said; the disciples heard him speak; it was in the power of the Spirit of God, and about the greatest Person. No wonder they followed Jesus! The two disciples left John and followed Jesus.
There remain to be noted the verses read in chapter 3:
“[p. 41] John answered and said, A man can receive nothing unless it be given him out of heaven. Ye yourselves bear me witness that I said, I am not the Christ, but, that I am sent before him. He that has the bride is the bridegroom; but the friend of the bridegroom, who stands and hears him, rejoices in heart because of the voice of the bridegroom: this my joy then is fulfilled. He must increase, but I must decrease”. This passage indicates that as we speak well of Jesus and of what He says, we shall increase in light. We get from John what we do not get from anyone else, it is the outcome of right speaking about the Lord and the brethren. God honours it, and we shall be able to speak more than we ever thought we could speak. The Lord has said that the smallest one in the kingdom is greater than John the baptist, but at the end of John 3 I believe he is morally as great as any of them. God honours John by giving him to say these things in chapter 3, and his speaking here really runs into christianity. It is difficult to say where John the baptist’s speaking ends in chapter 3; so advanced is he, that you might say, in this passage he merges among christians. He knew how to speak in the most spiritual and intelligent way about the Lord Jesus: “He must increase, but I must decrease. He who comes from above is above all ... He who comes out of heaven is above all, and what he has seen and has heard, this he testifies”.