Tag Archives: wilderness

Wild Prophet!

Bible Study, , , ,

WILD PROPHET!

And so John the Baptist appeared in the wilderness, preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. The whole Judean countryside and all the people of Jerusalem went out to him. Confessing their sins, they were baptised by him in the Jordan River. John wore clothing made of camel’s hair, with a leather belt around his waist, and he ate locusts and wild honey (Mark 1: 4-6)

What a sensation this man must have caused! His appearance, first of all, must have been startling. Camel’s hair clothing! I am sure he had not sat painstakingly weaving cloth from camel hair. He probably wore a tunic roughly cobbled together from a camel hide. His diet sounded revolting – locusts and honey, unless of course he ate the pods of the carob tree, the “locust”, which was what they were called. Perhaps his diet wasn’t quite so out of the ordinary after all. What else could he eat in the wilderness?

His message was equally unusual. Forgiveness of sins? Was he calling people to sacrifice at a rival altar which he set up in the desert? They only knew the forgiveness of sins through animal sacrifice. I don’t think he was setting up a rival religion. Whatever he said to the people drew the crowds. He was swamped by people who wanted to join his movement. Calling them to repentance was familiar to them. God often called His people back to His “way” through His prophets when they had wandered off the path of His instructions and done wicked things in the name of their false gods.

His preaching made a big impression on them because he was making them aware of their sin. Perhaps they had grown so familiar with their never-ending sacrifices that the reality of sin no longer no longer impacted on their lives. He brought the importance of the forgiveness of their sin right up close. Repentance meant returning to the way of Yahweh, to faithfulness to the terms of His covenant with them, to a way of life that reflected who He was in their nation – their God, and to walking in the light of His word.

Why did he baptise them? Baptism or mikvah, ritual washing, was a common practice in Israel. Archeological digs have uncovered baths for ritual washing everywhere. It was a symbol of cleansing, of leaving the old life and starting a new life, of identifying with the one who was leading a movement. Even a young bride-to-be had to go through a washing before her bridegroom concluded the courtship period with a proposal of marriage. She was washing away her old life and starting a new life as a betrothed and soon-to-be-married woman.

Considering what he had to say to them, why was his ministry so popular? He spoke some harsh words to the religious types according to the other gospels, calling people a basket of snakes, for example! Who would want to listen to preaching like that? Not a “seeker-friendly” ministry, I’d say! He didn’t have gentle words for the Roman soldiers either. Imagine that! A Jewish prophet who drew pagan Romans into the mix. There must have been something more than just a charismatic preacher that drew them.

He might have been a lone voice crying in the wilderness from a human point of view, but he was in partnership with the God who sent him and anointed him with the Holy Spirit while he was still in his mother’s womb. He was a miracle child, remember? Born to a childless couple in their old age, he was raised to be a priest and prophet by godly parents. He knew why he was on this earth and he gave his all to fulfill his calling.

His years alone in the wilderness waiting for the cue to preach prepared him for that moment. Trained as a priest, he knew the Torah intimately. God’s word was in his heart. He spent years in the awareness of God’s presence, listening to His voice, hearing His purpose through the coming Messiah. He was so familiar with Messiah in his spirit that he instantly recognised Him when He appeared on the bank of the Jordan River.

His ministry, extraordinary as it was, was owned and empowered by the Holy Spirit from the moment he opened his mouth. He knew what he had to do. He had to introduce the Messiah to the crowds – and they came in droves to meet Him. Their expectation was high. They were tired of the Romans. They were tired of religion. They were tired of being tired! Messiah sounded exactly what they needed to change things for them.

Not even John’s harsh words could keep them away.

Scripture taken from THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®, NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

Have you read my new book, Learning to be a Son – The Way to the Father’s Heart (copyright 2015, Partridge Publishing)? You’ll love it!

Available on www.amazon.com or www.kalahari.com in paperback, e-book or kindle format, or order directly from the publisher at www.partridgepublishing.com.

Check out my blogsite at www.learningtobeason.wordpress.com

Herald Of His Coming

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HERALD OF HIS COMING

The beginning of the good news about Jesus the Messiah, the Son of God. As it is written in Isaiah the prophet: “I will send my messenger ahead of you, who will prepare your way” – “a voice of one calling in the wilderness, ‘Prepare the way for the Lord, make straight paths for Him.'” And so John the Baptist appeared in the wilderness, preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. (Mark 1: 1-4).

Israel’s migration through the wilderness from Egypt to the Promised Land was recognised in Scripture as symbolic of their journey through life. In order to navigate the treacherous and unknown path, they had to follow the landmarks which God pointed out to them on the way. He promised to accompany them, to show them the right way and to keep them from wandering off the path, getting lost and dying without food and water. His word would light the way for them.

Their destination was Mount Zion, (tsyiown – meaning landmark) the highest point in the city of Jerusalem. God had told them that it was in Jerusalem that He would establish His name. When they were settled in the land, they were to go to Jerusalem three times a year to celebrate His appointed feasts which were prophetic of the work of the promised Messiah.

There were obstacles and dangers on the way. If they wandered off the path by failing to keep His commandments, they would die but, if they realised they were lost, they were to return to the path by repenting of their disobedience and by following His instructions (Torah – His commandments) which would keep them on the path and take them to their destination.

It was this imagery which lay behind the opening words of Mark’s gospel. His announcement – “the beginning of the good news about Jesus, the Messiah, and the Son of God” would put his readers in the picture. Using Hebraic thought, he related the story of John the Baptist whose role was to call the people to repent (shuv – meaning to return to the path from which they had wandered and got lost).

Isaiah had prophesied, centuries before, that God would send a man ahead of the Messiah to prepare His way and to announce His arrival like the herald who would go before a king to alert the people that he was coming. God’s people had wandered off the path through disobedience and misunderstanding of His word. It was now time to come back so that, when Messiah came, they would learn to follow Him because He was God’s representative to bring them back to God through the forgiveness of sins and to show them the way to the Father by His perfect life.

Mark wanted his readers to understand that John’s appearance and message fitted perfectly into God’s prophetic timetable. He was no upstart preacher, some crank who dressed funny and spoke funny, but His appointed herald to prepare the way for His Messiah. John’s message was a clarion call to return to the way of Yahweh – to come out of the wilderness where for centuries they had wandered around with no one to show them the right way.

They had not heard God’s voice for four hundred years after the ministry of Malachi, the last of the Old Testament prophets. Now, at last, God began to speak again, through John, the last of the prophets of the old era. His role was to prepare the way for the Son of God who came from God not only to speak God’s word but to be God’s final word to His people. If they did not listen to Jesus, God had nothing more to say to them.

Jesus did not come from God with a new message. He came from the Father to show His people how to live the way He had instructed them from the beginning. He came to interpret God’s eternal message. He did not come to do away with torah, but to live it out in the spirit of Torah which was the revelation of God’s mercy to show us how it is done.

On the mountain with God in the wilderness, Moses had begged God to show him His glory. God revealed the meaning of His name – mercy and compassion. In the flesh Jesus became the meaning of God’s name by showing mercy and compassion to His people, culminating in His death to rescue them from the consequences of and slavery to sin.

Just as John the Baptist called his people to shuv – to return to the way of the Lord, so the Holy Spirit still calls His people today. Jesus issued one simple instruction to the twelve men who became His disciples – “Follow me,” and the instruction has not changed. The church of the Lord Jesus has, in the main, become lost in the wilderness of ignorance and sin again because its leaders and those who follow them have ignored His call and made up their own way.

A lady made a profound statement to me in conversation recently, “Without Jesus, all we have left is religion.” How true that is! Many churches have plenty of religion but no Jesus. How tragic that mere humans have usurped His place and taken His people off the path and back into the wilderness where they have become exactly what His people were when He came – harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.

John’s message is as relevant today as it was then: “Repent! Return to God’s way because the good news is that Jesus is here!”

Scripture taken from THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®, NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

Have you read my new book, Learning to be a Son – The Way to the Father’s Heart (copyright 2015, Partridge Publishing)? You’ll love it!

Available on www.amazon.com or www.kalahari.com in paperback, e-book or kindle format, or order directly from the publisher at www.partridgepublishing.com.

Check out my blogsite at www.learningtobeason.wordpress.com

Words To Rattle Your Cage Or Give You Hope

Christian life, , ,

WORDS TO RATTLE YOU CAGE OR GIVE YOU HOP 

“Now this was John’s testimony when the Jewish leaders in Jerusalem sent priests and Levites to ask him who he was. He did not fail to confess but confessed freely, ‘I am not the Messiah.’

“They asked him, ‘Then who are you? Are you Elijah?’ He said, ‘I am not.’ ‘Are you the prophet?’ He answered, ‘No.’ Finally they said, ‘Who are you? Give us an answer to take back to those who sent us. What do you say about yourself?’ John replied in the words of Isaiah the prophet, ‘I am the voice of one calling in the wilderness, ‘Make straight the way of the Lord.'” John 1:18-23 (NIV).

John caused a real stir! People flocked from all over to listen to the fiery preacher who emerged out of nowhere. The religious leaders were getting worried. Their comfortable lives were being shaken up and they didn’t like it — especially because of what he had to say about them!

They sent their representatives to interrogate John. ‘Who are you?’ There were two things on their minds. Elijah or ‘the prophet’. Why Elijah? They knew what the prophet Malachi had said about Elijah — not necessarily Elijah come back from the dead but another prophet in the disposition and ministry of Elijah.

“See, I will send the prophet Elijah to you before that great and dreadful day of the Lord comes. He will turn the hearts of the parents to their children, and the hearts of the children to their parents, or else I will come and strike the land with total destruction.” Malachi 4:5, 6 (NIV).

Malachi, like all the other prophets, was calling God’s people to return to Him. Judgment day was coming and only those who turned back to the Lord and showed their sincerity by doing whatever they could to restore the family unity would escape the “flames” of the refiner’s fire.

A symptom of the depth to which God’s people have fallen is evident in the disintegration of the family unit. Even so-called believers are abandoning marriage through divorce, or “shacking up” so that they can walk away if it doesn’t work. There is very little commitment and children are left fatherless, without security and without identity. God said, ‘It’s got to stop! Get the family back on track. That’s the first step towards restoration.’

Who was “the prophet”? Moses reminded the people, “‘For this is what you asked of the Lord your God at Horeb on the day of the assembly when you said, ‘Let us not hear the voice of the Lord our God nor see this great fire any more, or we will die.’ The Lord said to me, ‘What they say is good. I will raise up for them a prophet like you from among their fellow Israelites, and I will put my words in His mouth. He will tell them everything I command Him.'” Deuteronomy 18:18 (NIV).

The people were waiting for this special prophet to come. It is quite natural that they thought that John was he. But John denied it.

Then how did John view himself? The apostle John, looking back, saw John the Baptist as a man who understood who he was and what his role was in this crucial time in Israel’s history. He made no extravagant claims for himself, and yet his very words set him apart as a prophet with a unique ministry. He was a voice proclaiming the beginning of a new era for which God’s people had waited for four long centuries after the last prophet.

‘I am the one who is telling you that the Messiah is here.’ What an astonishing declaration! After all this long time, God was actually doing what He said He would do. He would send His representative, the Messiah to put everything right that had gone wrong since the beginning of their existence as a nation. They could hardly believe it.

What do you suppose the priest and Levite contingent told the Jewish leaders when they got back to Jerusalem? ‘This man says he is the prophet God promised He would send as the forerunner of the Messiah,’ or something like that? Possibly! Did the Jewish leaders believe them? Not likely.

All the evidence, in their attitude to and treatment of Jesus suggests that they rejected John’s response and were ready with their campaign to deal with any challenge to their comfortable position as spiritual leaders of the people. When Jesus came along, they were ready to use their power and influence to maintain their authority, whatever the cost.

Do John’s words, ‘I am the voice,’ rattle your cage or give you hope?

Untested!

Bible Study, , ,

UNTESTED!

“When Jesus entered public life He was about thirty years old, the son (in public perception) of Joseph…son of Adam, son of God.”

“Now Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, left the Jordan and was led by the Spirit into the wild. For forty wilderness days He was tested by the devil. He ate nothing during those days, and when the time was up, He was hungry.” Luke 3:23-4:2 (The Message).

I don’t know about you, but as I read Luke’s story, I am struck by the sober, down-to-earth way in which he reported the results of his investigation. There was nothing fanciful or imaginative about the details of his story. He was writing about things that happened.

At the age of thirty Jesus was eligible to enter the priesthood. But wait a minute. He was neither a Levite nor the son of a priest. He was from the tribe of Judah and His father was a carpenter and a builder. He had no earthly claim to priesthood.

But He had a connection with God the Father which overrode His human connections. As a twelve-year-old boy, He was already aware of His role as a Son, which took precedence over His obligation to be under the authority of Joseph and Mary. At the age of thirty He stepped into public view at the Jordan River to take up His office as High Priest, not in the order of Levi but in the order of Melchizedek (Hebrews 6:20; 7:15).

He was baptised in the River Jordan by John; baptised into humanity, baptised into John’s ministry and baptised into His High Priesthood. After He was anointed by the Spirit and affirmed by the Father, He left the Jordan and made His way into the wilderness to be alone for a while. He had the connection with His Father and the power of the Holy Spirit. Now He needed the strategy for the huge mission that lay ahead of Him.

Satan needed no invitation to join Him! He was there, hovering in the background and waiting to pounce at every opportunity. And that was just what the Holy Spirit wanted him to do. The devil was playing right into God’s hands! If Jesus was to “get” God’s modus operandi, Satan would help Him to understand what it was not. Get rid of the alternatives and the right way would become crystal clear.

At this point in His life Jesus was untested. He had passed the test of infancy, boyhood and youth with flying colours and affirmed by the Father — “You are my Son in whom I am well pleased,” but, from now on it would be a whole new ball game. He was stepping onto the battlefield, and it would be a fight to the death, not just the death of His physical body, but either His own death if He went the way Adam went (and He was fulfilling the role of the “last Adam”), or the death of His adversary if He consistently lived as a true son.

“During the days of Jesus’ life on earth, He offered up prayers and petitions with fervent cries and tears to the one who could save Him from death, and He was heard because of His reverent submission. Son though He was, He learned obedience from what He suffered and, once made perfect, He became the source of eternal salvation for all who obey Him and was designated to be high priest in the order of Melchizedek.” Hebrews 5:7-10 (NIV).

What was the “death” this passage is talking about? If it refers to physical death, then it is not telling the truth. Was Jesus saved from physical death? No. But He was saved from eternal death because of His “reverent submission”. Does that mean that by becoming a man, Jesus risked eternal separation from God if He stepped out of line like Adam did? It surely does, otherwise He would not have been qualified to be the perfect lamb that took our place on the cross.

“For we do not have a high priest who is unable to empathise with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are — yet He did not sin” Hebrews 4:15 (NIV).