John 1:19-29

John the Baptist is questioned about who he is. What is his answer? He points them to Christ!

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Alright, if you would turn in your Bibles to John chapter 1, I want you to look at verses 19 through 29 with us today. The Bible says, And this is the record of John, when the Jews sent priests and Levites from Jerusalem to ask him, Who art thou? And he confessed and denied not, but confessed, I am not the Christ. And they asked him, What then? Art thou Elias? And he saith, I am not. Art thou that prophet? And he answered, No. Then said they unto him, Who art thou, that we may give an answer to them that sent us? What sayest thou of thyself? He said, I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness. Make straight the way of the Lord, as said the prophet Isaiah. And they which were sent were of the Pharisees. And they asked him and said unto him, Why baptizest thou then, if thou be not that Christ, nor Elias, neither that prophet? John answered them, saying, I baptize with water, but there standeth one among you whom you know not. He it is who coming after me is preferred before me, whose shoes latchet I am not worthy to unloose. These things were done in Bethabra beyond Jordan, where John was baptizing. And the Bible says in verse 29, the next day John seeth Jesus coming unto him and saith, Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world. Let's have a word of prayer, and I want us to look uh today at uh this section here in John chapter 1, verse 19 through 29. Father, we thank you for this time and your word. Lord, I ask that you'll bless it. I pray that you would speak to our hearts, and Lord, that you would just make your truth real to us. Lord, I pray for draw you to draw those that are not saved to you. And Lord, that you would encourage those that do know you as their Lord and Savior. Help us to grow and stay strengthened in the Lord. In Jesus' name. Amen. So John the Baptist meeting with the Jews here in verses 19 through 29. First, I want you to notice the Jews inquiring in verses 19 through 28. They asked the question there in verse 19, Who art thou? His answer is, I am not the Christ. And of course, uh the word Christ means Messiah, the anointed one. And there must have been something about John the Baptist that resembled Jesus, although he uh never pointed people to himself. And we talked about that in some of our uh previous lessons. But this also tells us that the people uh that sent to inquire of John the Baptist were looking for Christ. And that's something that I noticed uh a few years ago as I was studying through uh the gospel of John, is that these people, the Jewish people, they were looking for the Messiah. And they uh we'll see at how they were looking for him. But the first question they asked, they say, Who are you? And so uh if we read in other passages of scripture, we'll find that John was an interesting uh person. He was clothed with uh camel's hair and had a leather girdle and was eating locusts and wild honey, and uh was in the wilderness preaching. And so uh, you know, some people probably perhaps thought he was a little out there and uh things like that. I I think about uh some of my friends when I first got saved, they they thought I had lost my mind. It's pretty funny. Uh they didn't think that when I was uh, well, yeah, they did think that when I was out uh doing all the crazy stuff that we used to do. But uh the Lord uh changed my life, and praise the Lord for that. But they ask John the question, Who are you? Who art thou? And they say uh in the next verse uh there, they say, Art thou Elias? Uh excuse me, uh, there in in the next couple of verses there, verse 21, and they asked him, What then? Art thou Elias? And he saith, I am not. Art thou that prophet? And he answered, No. And so uh in reference to Elias, they is speaking of Elijah, and they asked the question in Matthew chapter 17, verses 10 through 13, Jesus kind of explains to them about this, and it says, And his disciples asked him, saying, Why then say the scribes that Elias must first come? Jesus answered and said unto them, Elias truly shall first come and restore all things. But I say unto you that Elias is come already, and they knew him not, but have done unto him whatsoever they listed. Likewise shall also the Son of Man suffer of them. And then it says the disciples understood that he spake unto them of John the Baptist. And so there was a likeness to Elijah for some reason there, and uh the Lord uh explains that to the disciples, that that John the Baptist is the one that they're referring to. Now the scribes were uh looking for the fulfillment of Malachi chapter four and verse five, which says, Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord, and he shall turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to their fathers, lest I come and smite the earth with a curse. Again, we see that they were looking for Jesus to come. And how did they do that? They searched the scriptures as we should as well, and don't make the same mistake that most of them did in miss accepting Jesus. John's answer to them is, I am not. I'm not that one. But uh he is the again, we've talked about this before, he was the forerunner, he was the one that was to come before Christ and announce his coming, which we'll see he does in verse 29. And then they ask him another question, art thou that prophet? in verse 21. And what is that in reference to? Well, if you go back to the scriptures again, this is what they were looking for, this is how they were searching for him, and of course he would physically step onto the earth as he did, but the scriptures were what told them what to be looking for. And in Deuteronomy chapter 18, verses 15 through 19, I believe this is what that references uh in verse 21 of John chapter 1. Listen to Deuteronomy chapter 15, verses 15 through 19. The Lord thy God shall raise up unto thee a prophet, and if you're reading in your King James Bible there, you'll see that prophet is capitalized, so that is uh in certainly a title, a person that we're speaking of. From the midst of thee, of thy brethren, like unto me, unto him ye shall hearken. According to all that thou desirest of the Lord thy God, and Horeb in the day of the assembly, saying, Let me not hear again the voice of the Lord my God, neither let me see this great fire any more, that I die not. And the Lord said unto me, They have well spoken that which they have spoken. I will raise them up a prophet, and again prophet is capitalized there, so that is in reference to a specific person, uh, from among their brethren, like unto thee, and I and will put my words in his mouth, and he shall speak unto them all that I shall command him. And it shall come to pass that whosoever will not hearken unto my words which he shall speak in my name, I will require it of him. And so when they asked him, Art thou that prophet? I believe this is what they're referencing is this section in Deuteronomy chapter 18. The prophet referred to, there is the Lord Jesus Christ. Uh they were to be looking for him, and how would they know him? Uh they study the scriptures, they would see these things. In Deuteronomy 18, 15, from the midst of thee, of thy brethren, so he was going to come out of the midst of them. And of course he was of the seed of David, so he would have been uh of their brethren, he would have been of the Jewish nation, uh, he would have been of the nation Israel, and a Jew also verse 18, he would be among their brethren, and he would be like unto me. So in other words, he was going to be, he was going to have some kind of resemblance to Moses, and so he would be like Moses a prophet. Deuteronomy 18, 18, I will put my words in his mouth. And he would speak what God told him to speak. And there's several references, and I I wrote down one or two, I wrote down two here in our notes that uh the Lord Jesus Christ talked about how the Father gave him the words to give to the people. And it says in John chapter 14, verse 10 Believest thou not that I am in the Father, and the Father in me. The words that I speak unto you, I speak not of myself, but the Father that dwelleth in me, he doeth the works. And again in John chapter 17, 18, another example of that, for I have given unto them the words which thou gavest me. That's Jesus, God the Son, praying to God the Father, and he says that he has given the disciples the words which the Father gave him to give them. John's answer here, if he is uh that prophet, his answer is no. Now, again, they ask in verse 22, who art thou? What sayest thou of thyself? John's answer is in verse 23, and it says, He said, I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness. Make straight the way of the Lord, as the as said the prophet Isaiah. So what is John the Baptist referring to? Well, if you were to look at Isaiah chapter 40, verses 3 through 5, and we looked at that uh in one of our previous lessons there, John uh is referring to it says in Isaiah that there would be one that would come before. Uh he is the forerunner of Christ. Matter of fact, here, let's just look at the verses before I butcher it as I'm trying to explain it to you, but let's look at Isaiah chapter 40, verses 3 through 5, and you're going to see this reference to John the Baptist, who would come before the Lord Jesus Christ. And we saw in some of our other verses there in John a mention of him as well. But the voice of him that crieth in the wilderness. So John said there as they asked him that question, I am that voice. So they would have known that passage from Isaiah chapter 40, and what he was referencing, and it says here, Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make straight in the desert a highway for our God, every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and hill shall be made low, and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough places plain, and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together, for the mouth of the Lord has spoken it. And if you remember, back in earlier in John chapter 1, uh John said, We beheld his glory. The glory is of the only begotten of the Father. And so uh John the Baptist is pointing them back to the scriptures, saying, Hey, listen, I'm the one that's coming before him. I'm getting ready to announce him to you, is basically what he's saying. He is a fulfillment of prophecy in that he was the forerunner of Jesus Christ. In Malachi chapter 3, verse 1, Behold, I will send my messenger, and he shall prepare the way before me, and the Lord whom ye seek shall suddenly come to his temple, even the messenger of the covenant whom ye delight in, behold, he shall come, saith the Lord of hosts. We find in verse 24 who these were that were asking John these questions. Notice what it says, and they which were sent were of the Pharisees. And so then they ask another question in verse 25, Why baptizest thou then? And John's answer in verses uh twenty-six through twenty-seven, John answered to them, saying, I baptize with water, but there standeth one among you whom ye know not. He it is who coming after me is preferred before me, whose shoes latchet I am not worthy to unloose. And so they asked the question, Why are you baptizing? If you're not that Christ, then why are you baptizing? John's whole purpose was to make Jesus known to others. He was simply the forerunner. He was kind of the one blowing the trumpet and making the announcement that the king was coming. And uh he says there, whom ye know not. Again, several uh something that really stood out to me in reading John chapter 1 is that John the apostle uh and his record of John the Baptist here, they're making Jesus known to us. And of course, that's what the scriptures do. You know that everything that God has wanted to reveal uh to you and I about himself, we can find in the in the Word of God. And that is how God has chosen to reveal himself to us. And of course, he uses us to share the message and and expound on those scriptures, but uh, that is how God is reaching people today, and how he is making himself known to you and to me. And so again, notice what or who John is emphasizing. He it is who coming after me is preferred before me, whose shoes latchet I am not worthy to unloose. Verse 28 tells us where this was happening and what John was doing. It says that these things were done in Bethabra, beyond Jordan, where John was baptizing. And uh I want you to uh we'll look at next time we're gonna look at Jesus' introduction. All right. So John is gonna introduce us to, John the Baptist is gonna introduce us to the Lord Jesus Christ, and he's gonna introduce him, as we'll see in verse 29, the next day. John seeth Jesus coming unto him and saith, Behold, the Lamb of God which taketh away the sin of the world. And we'll look at that next time. But may the Lord bless you and have a good day.