John the Baptizer (Part B)

In those days, the priesthood was led by scoundrels like Caiaphas and Annas, his father-in-law, and others. Man-made traditions only serve the men who made up the traditions.

He strangled the people. That's why we get the Sermon on the Mount. Jesus is blue. Unless your righteousness exceeds that of the Pharisees.

I mean, he hit them right between the eyes. This is Cross Reference Radio with our pastor and teacher Rick Gaston. Rick is the pastor of Calvary Chapel, Mechanicsville. Pastor Rick is currently teaching through the Gospel of Mark.

Please stay with us after today's message to hear more information about Cross Reference Radio, specifically how you can get a free copy of this teaching. Today, Pastor Rick will continue his message called John the Baptizer, as he teaches in Mark chapter 1. Verse 5, Then all the land of Judea and those from Jerusalem went out to him and were all baptized by him in the Jordan River, confessing their sins. Well, they came to take their stand with God's view of sinners. That's why they came out. Not all of them. There were in this number some that did not believe and that were going to stir up trouble.

We'll come to some of that in a moment. But they sided with God, God's opinions and God's solutions concerning fallen man. Now the rabbinical traditions had largely replaced the Jewish Bible. It was not what Moses said that was moving the leaders in their preaching. It was what the rabbis said.

That was what was moving the people. And the confession of sin was drowned out by ritual. Actually, their rituals began to promote sin, to enable sin. The first sin recorded in Scripture is pride. And the Jews became very proud, especially the Jerusalem Jews. This became a problem even in the book of Acts and beyond. Jesus gave this parable. He said there were two men.

I'll kind of reverse their appearance. I'll go with the tax collector first. The tax collector, he would not even look up to God. Tax collectors, of course, were viewed as traitors, as lowlifes, people not worthy of forgiveness in the Jewish mind at the time. And Jesus said the tax collector wouldn't even look up to heaven but asked God to forgive him.

He was so ashamed of himself. Not that he was a tax collector but that he was a sinner. But before him, Jesus talked about the Pharisee, the religious man, the pastor. The Pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself because he wasn't praying to God.

He said, God, I thank you that I'm not like other men. Extortion is unjust. Adultery is even this tax collector.

I fast twice a week. I give tithes of all I possess. And on he went. Christ said that one didn't go.

He did not leave there justified. The tax collector did. You see, rabbinical Judaism did this. You do the ritual, you took care of the ritual, good.

And you're better than the guy who did not do the ritual as good as you did the ritual. We have our versions of it in Christianity. Oh, you don't speak in tongues?

Nope. It's not mocking tongues. It's mocking those who use it as a tool to justify their behavior and condemning others from not being as spiritual as them. It's serious business because it turns people off to the truth.

For me, when I looked at folks like that, that's what it means to be a Christian. I don't want any part of it. I believe in speaking in tongues. And I believe in it in order in the church. And when that order is turned into disorder, there's nothing attractive about it. It doesn't make any sense to me. Why would I follow a God that did not make that contradicted logic? Christ does not do that. We may become perplexed, but we are not in a state of contradiction.

There's a great difference. Now I've got to do a sermon on 2 Corinthians to clean that up. But I speak as though you understand enough of the Bible to follow what I am saying. That there are things that can replace righteousness in the name of religion and they bring death. And the Pharisees and the Sadducees, they were hurting the people and that's why John's message was so attractive to those coming out into the wilderness. And so, helping John's decision to preach in the wilderness were these priests and rabbis and the Sadducees and the Herodians and the zealots.

Instead of a prophet in the wilderness, they wanted to live the life of luxury. And the high priest especially, and there were more than one of them in the upper echelons of Judaism, they were corrupted. Jeremiah was in the same spot. Jeremiah was a priest. We never read about him serving in the temple. We read about him saying to the Jews, mocking, not the temple, but the attitude of the temple.

Like I just attempted to do with the attitude, wrong attitude of tongues. Jeremiah said, the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord are these. And he was saying, you think you can hide behind the temple of God while you trample his word and get away with it?

You're wrong. They beat Jeremiah. They threatened his life. They almost killed him at one point. In the end, he possibly ends up being captive and that's it.

We hear of him being kidnapped. These men, they were sent by God to uphold the word of God and not to play games with religion. And John the Baptist knew firsthand the hypocrisy of the Pharisees. He knew about the skepticism of the Sadducees and skepticism to the point of unbelief and refusal to receive God's word. He saw the materialism and the opportunistic lifestyle of the Herodians that stripped from the people whatever it could get. He saw the fanatical zealots that used nationalism as a veil for serving Yahweh when really they weren't even listening to what God had to say. Although God ended up using them in his own way also.

In Galatians in chapter 1, it is a battleground letter, that Galatian letter. You know, those beautiful verses where if I or an angel or anyone else comes and preaches any other gospel, let them be accursed. And Paul is dealing with Judaizers, which were the Jews that claimed Christ as Messiah but still insisted you follow Moses' law. And Paul did great battle with these people because he said, that is not the gospel. And if you keep that up, you will kill the gospel. And the gospel was almost destroyed. And so Peter was confronted, Peter and Barnabas were confronted by Paul who made sure that that was not going to be the case.

Because Christianity would have died right there had Paul not had the guts to stand up to Peter and Barnabas and tell him that they were wrong. You guys don't mind eating with the Gentiles when the Jews aren't around. The Jews show up and then all of a sudden you don't want to have anything to do with the Gentiles.

That's not love. This is not anti-Semitism. This is the word of God for Jew and Gentile alike. And so when he writes in Corinthians chapter 1, he says, for you have heard, I'm going to take the old King James version because the word is translated to make my point.

And then I'll give the Greek word. He says, for you have heard of my conversion in time past in the Jews religion. You see, the Greek word he uses is Judaism. And most translations, modern translations have picked that up and they're now using, they translated Judaism. But the old King James says, the Jews religion. That is what it was. It is not an insult.

It is a fact. And so Paul says, you have heard about me in the Jews religion because it was rabbinical Judaism. It was not the law of Moses. Paul does not say, you heard about me in times past concerning the law of the prophets in Moses.

No, no, he doesn't say that. And so this ministry of John in the face of rabbinical Judaism was attractive. Verse 5 again, that all the land of Judea and those from Jerusalem went out to him and were all baptized by him. They went out to John. They heard of his messages. He did not go to the people. The people came to him.

How significant, how meaningful that is. And they came in vast crowds to hear John preach what he had to say. Matthew 11 verse 9, Jesus asked this question about John. What did you go out to see, a prophet?

Yes, and I say to you more than a prophet. He preached with his voice in the wilderness and reached to Jerusalem and all the regions around Jerusalem without programs and without music. Those things could come later, but the essentials were the essentials. The main things were the main things. He preached the word of God and it was a convictive message.

Not only attractive, but it convicted people. And so we read here in verse 5, confessing their sins. So it wasn't the happy little sermon that God loves you and it doesn't matter how you live. Just confess him as Savior and you do anything you want to do. That was not his message. His message was, yeah, you're a sinner and God does love you.

And it is an invincible love. There's no love like this love of Christ, so much so he dies on the cross for you. Peter didn't know what to do with Jesus Christ when he saw his power. Peter asked the Lord to leave him alone. He said, I'm not worthy, depart from me. Thank God it's not the style of Christ to say, okay. No, he brought Peter in even closer. His message, not only attractive, convictive, invective. G. Campbell Morgan's the one that put that combination together and he was right on. And I don't know, I read it back in the 80s and it's stuck with me ever since.

It's so accurate, it doesn't need improvement. He did not appease the guilty. If you were impenitent, he'd let you know. The road ahead of you is destructive. For example, when the Pharisees came out, the religious leaders came out to hear John preach, Matthew chapter 3 verse 7. But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming to his baptism, he said to them, brood of vipers, who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? You know how many people over the years have tried to get me to tone it down?

Don't pick on that group. How do you expect them to get saved? By hearing the word of God. Faith comes by hearing the word of God, not burying the word of God.

Well, I want to be seeker friendly, make sure everybody feels good about themselves when you leave. John says, I want you to feel really bad about your sin so that we can deal with it. And then, that's what Peter preached, at times of refreshing might come. Repent and be baptized at times of refreshing might come. We still preach that. You know, if I weren't talking and I was doing all this, I'd look very angry.

But I put that sweet voice on it, and it just comes to life, and I know. I wonder what John, I don't know, I can't imitate him, I don't speak Hebrew, but otherwise I would. Well anyway, in those days, we're going to get that next paragraph, next session, in those days, and days they were unlike any other. But in those days, the priesthood was led by scoundrels like Caiaphas and Annas, his father-in-law, and others. Man-made traditions only serve the men who made up the traditions. They strangled the people. That's why we get the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus is blue, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the Pharisees.

I mean, he hit them right between the eyes. Mark, chapter 7, I'll spare much of the verse, because he says, these people draw near me with their mouths, honor me with their lips, but their heart is far from me. He says, for laying aside the commandment of God, you hold the tradition of men.

The washing of pitchers and cups, and many such things you do. That many such things is a list too long to itemize. And by the time, you know, the Mishnah, the Talmud, these Jewish writings are just packed on the people, burden after burden after burden. And Peter and James said, you know, our fathers with their pinky couldn't lift up this law, you know, just does not put these burdens on the Gentiles. And when they came out and they said, okay, we just asked the Gentile church that you abstain from things strangled, that you don't eat blood, sexual immorality, that was not legalism. They were saying, listen, you're Jewish brothers. They need to adjust to this.

We're just going to take this a little bit more slowly than what you think. If you just come marching into the church, there's going to be a cultural war between the Jewish believers and the Gentile believers. And so the church said, listen, we need this to be understood. And they got it. They did understand it.

They complied. They submitted to their leaders because it was right and the church survived. And again, to this day, the rabbinical tradition silences their own Bible. They don't listen to Moses. They listen to their rabbis.

And you look at Judaism, various forms of Judaism today, and you just shake your head and you say, what is that? Even, I mean, many of them don't know. You know more Bible characters than they know many of them. Some of them don't even know the names they have come from the Bible.

It's that bad. Well, we go on. I mean, just again, look at Tel Aviv. Tel Aviv is one of the most supportive places of homosexuality. Did they ever read about Sodom and Gomorrah? I mean, no, because the Bible doesn't mean anything. And yet, you go to a Burger King, there's a kosher line and there's a non-kosher line.

You can't get a milkshake and a burger on the kosher line, but you can on the Gentile side. There's many such things that they do to this day. There are a few rabbis, though, that are beginning to go through their Old Testament verse by verse.

That's going to lead to good things. Well, anyway, he continues here, All were baptized in him in the Jordan. Now, the Jordan is a river, of course, and it's immersion.

Otherwise, they could have used a cup or a pitcher or something like that. It's immersing the soul. If a person is not well or can't get to water, then you can certainly take up other symbols.

But the ideal, if you want to stay close to the ideal, it is emerging someone. All right, you got it. And it's a little fun holding a person under water. That's how you get confessions. What?

That's how John was getting the confessions, waterboarding them. All right. Okay.

Stop it. So, yeah, of course, the baptism is that outward expression of what's going on in the inside. It's a sermon. When a Christian, ideally speaking, is getting baptized in public, they're saying, I side with Christ against my sin, and he now sides with me in Christ. And, you know, to prove this, just go downtown Saudi Arabia somewhere and get baptized in Jesus' name and see if you make it out of the water alive. Because the symbols are real, and Satan knows it, and we should know it too. Confessing their sins, that verbal admission of guilt, Romans 10, verses 9 and 10. If you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.

Pause there. The liberal theology that has crept into Christianity and has almost engulfed it, of course, attacks the miracles. It attacks the virgin birth. It attacks the resurrection of Christ. And even though the Bible clearly preaches that they're wrong, well, it's one thing to be a false prophet.

It's another thing to be an advocate of a false prophet. It continues here in Romans 10. He says, For with the heart one believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation. We are all sinners by practice and by nature. In fact, we're sinners first by nature. That's why we sin by practice. We sin because we are sinners. And Romans, again, chapter 3, verse 23, For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.

It's comprehensive. All have sinned. Notice the difference in that Roman verse. All have sinned.

That's past tense. And fallen short, and fall short, present tense, of the glory of God. Verse 6 now.

Now John was clothed with camel's hair and with a leather belt around his waist, and he ate locusts and wild honey. His chosen attire reminded everyone of Elijah, the garb of a prophet, a great prophet. Luke's Gospel, chapter 1, verse 17. Here's a prophecy concerning John the Baptist before his birth. He will also go before him in the spirit and power of Elijah, to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children and the disobedient to the wisdom of the just, to make ready a people prepared for the Lord.

And that's what we've been discussing. John the Baptizer was doing these things with more than water. And this in contrast, this garb of a prophet, of Elijah, to the robes of such men as Caiaphas with their corruption.

Mark, chapter 8, verse 31. And he began to teach them that the son of man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders and chief priests and scribes and be killed. There's a rebuke on the rabbinical Judaism that had taken over. And it started out well, rabbinical Judaism. The rabbis, the teachers, men such as Ezra, wanted the people to learn. But then, just like in Eden with Eve, learning became the goal, not God. And that's when the problems happened.

That's why so many universities are corrupted. We won't go down that trail. We're just going to keep focused right here. And he ate locusts and wild honey. Why the combination? Because a spoonful of honey helps the locusts go down.

Let's sing it all together. I mean, you know, people always can find a reason not to attend a church. They don't like the pastor. That's never happened here, of course.

But this would be a good one. You know what? I'm not going back there. Why he eats locusts?

I want to hear what he has to say. Why not cornflakes? Anyway, back to this. He could have lived off the temple. He could have just served at the temple and had lamb and oxen and other things. But he'd rather eat locusts in the wilderness than be associated with a corrupted priesthood. Verse 7, and he preached saying, There comes one after me who's mightier than I, whose sandal strap I am not worthy to stoop down and loose.

I mean, what do you say behind that? Every Christian loves this verse. The loosening of a sandal, that was a slave's work. John is saying, I'm not worthy to be his slave. And John knew his calling, as we mentioned earlier.

He knew he was the voice, and here he is announcing this mighty one. And John himself was mighty. Here's the mighty John who made Herod tremble. The Pharisees, he called them a brood of vipers and they didn't touch him. They wanted him dead.

They wanted him beheaded because he was a mighty man of God. And yet, this mighty man says, there's one mightier than I. And I'm not worthy to stoop down and loose his sandals. I'm not worthy to dare to touch him. And compared to the one coming, he was nothing and he had no problem preaching that.

I think it's a very beautiful section of Scripture that all of us want to reproduce in our own lives. John was a mere man. Jesus was infinitely more. He was self-existent. He was God the Son. John was a voice and Jesus is the Word. John called for repentance and Jesus demanded rebirth.

He went beyond repentance. John was a messenger and Jesus is Messiah. And all the attention that Messiah deserves, especially that comes out of the mouth of prophets like Micah and especially Isaiah.

John's father, Zacharias, was a priest in the temple. But the father of Jesus Christ, of course, is almighty God the Father. So we agree we are not worthy to even be a slave of Christ. And yet, he calls us more than slaves.

He calls us family and that runs pretty deep. Verse 8, I indeed baptize you with water, but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit. A lot of churches are afraid of the Holy Spirit because of abuses.

That does not justify it, though. We must strike the balance. This is another promise, the coming of the Spirit of God on the individuals. He will baptize you. He will immerse you in the Holy Spirit. As John baptized with water, that was as far as he could go.

Repentance. He could not get you to the throne room of God. That required someone greater than him whom he is talking about here.

And he is saying Christ is superior. The messenger was not as important as the one he preached. And to prove that, this messenger died preaching. This message for the king. He delivered that message and is in glory at this moment. So we close with a John the Baptist quote. When John saw Jesus at one point, and saw him several times, of course, and at this point in John chapter 3, John saw Jesus coming toward him. He said, Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.

He must increase, I must decrease. Thanks for tuning in to Cross Reference Radio for this study in the book of Mark. Cross Reference Radio is the teaching ministry of Pastor Rick Gaston of Calvary Chapel Mechanicsville in Virginia. To learn more information about this ministry, visit our website, crossreferenceradio.com. Once you're there, you'll find additional teachings from Pastor Rick. We encourage you to subscribe to our podcast. When you subscribe, you'll be notified of each new edition of Cross Reference Radio. You can search for Cross Reference Radio on your favorite podcast app. That's all we have time for today, but we hope you'll join us next time as Pastor Rick continues to teach through the book of Mark, right here on Cross Reference Radio.