Sometimes, God chooses the weirdest personalities to accomplish His most important assignments. That doesn't sound like a charitable thing to say, but when it comes to John the Baptist, we'd have to agree that this prophet of God was, well, odd. John was a hermit who lived in the wilderness, wore camel's wool, and his diet included locusts and wild honey.
Plus John blatantly insulted his audience with a brash scolding against hypocrites. So what do we make of this bizarre biblical figure? Today on Insight for Living, Chuck Swindoll titles his message, Strange Preacher, Strong Proclamation, and we begin with prayer. Oh Lord our God, without Jesus, we can do nothing of value. Without Him leading us, we cannot decide correctly. Our decisions will be awash in human opinion, filled with our own ways and our own plans, because we are so damnably selfish. So give us His mind to think His thoughts, to walk His path, to live His life through the invasive work of the Spirit who lives within your people. We pray that this will be a year when we realize more than ever that you alone are God.
You alone are awesome. You alone are in charge. Not only of the events and affairs of this huge globe of international activity, warfare, struggle, strife, infighting, and all of the battles of the flesh that go on, you are in charge of our very lives. Nothing is thrown to the wind of circumstances.
Nothing just happens. Convince us of that early on, lest we lose a day with that insight to guide us, to comfort us. We haven't a clue what tomorrow will bring.
We couldn't even predict this evening or the afternoon that lies before us. But you know it all. The end from the beginning. You know our last breath just as you knew our first one. You understand our thoughts long before we even have them.
You are intimately acquainted with all our ways. Search us, O God, and know our hearts. Rid from us every tendency to hide from you and deliver us from a secret life that looks one way on the outside but is altogether different within. Teach us from John's own example the value of solitude. Silence without, surrender within. Then bring us, Lord, with open hands and open hearts before you while we still have breath in our lungs. There will be some this year who will make major moves from one geographical area to another. Give them peace as you lead them there.
There will be others who will step into an arena filled with surprises. Give them the grace to be free of panic and the stability to accept whatever unfolds, whatever unfolds as a part of your plan. I pray specifically, Father, for this nation in which we live every day moving further from your truth. O God, intervene, we pray, in some ways that we would look back on them and say only God could have turned the course of this country. Only God could have changed the heart of these leaders.
Only God could have brought to pass what we have witnessed. Give us the patience to wait on you. The protection of our men and women in military who fight for our freedom, who stand firm even against those who have no place for them in our lives. Encourage their families, watch over their children without their parent right now. Continue to provide peace by your grace, not because we deserve it, but because we in great humility ask for it. Now, Lord, we have the joy of our occupation. We earn a living there. We make our salary our hourly wage. From that, we give our gifts. We give them to you. In return, find favor in our motive and understand, Lord, that it is our great delight to give. More blessed to do that than to receive, and how much we have received. Through Jesus Christ, we pray these things, and for His sake alone, everyone said, amen.
You're listening to Insight for Living. To study the book of Matthew with Chuck Swindoll, be sure to download his Searching the Scriptures studies by going to insightworld.org slash studies. And now let's resume the message titled Strange Preacher, Strong Proclamation. How valuable authenticity is, and if nothing else, John the Baptizer was authentic. He had nothing to lose. You realize how little he cared what you thought of him? He didn't care what you thought of what he was wearing or what he ate or where he slept or how he lived.
He had one clear channel, and that was to the one who called him. And listen to this, Jesus said of him what he had said of no one else, no greater person ever lived than John. The Lord knew if I'm going to bring my son to this earth and prepare people for his arrival and his kind of ministry, I need to get their attention. Indeed, he does, as he selects the baptizer. The words began, chapter 3, in a rather innocuous manner in those days. Life as usual, Pharisees still proud of their Pharisaism, Sadducees in all their wealth and liberalism still proud of their lifestyle, all of those who live under the tutelage of rabbis who studied under them and with them, imbibing all of that religious garbage. What will it take to break through in those days? It takes John the Baptizer out of nowhere, out of the wilderness.
Look at it. In those days, John the Baptizer came to the Judean wilderness and began preaching his message. Judean wilderness. That's where John was trained. Before the training began, he was born into the home of a barren, otherwise barren mother, whose name was Elizabeth. His conception was amazing. It was the greatest thing that had happened to Elizabeth. She finds from the words of the angel, you're going to have a child.
And it is just the most magnificent message she could hear. When Zachariah the dad hears the message, he doesn't believe it. And you know what happens to him? The Lord shuts up his hearing and closes his tongue so that he can't speak or hear throughout the nine months waiting for the birth.
The only thing he can do is write. In fact, when asked about the name of the boy, he wrote, the name will be John. John's life was marked by the stamp of Zacharias. By the words of Elizabeth, John, we're old, but we can tell you all of this abstinence is worth every bit of it because it keeps your vow before God and you want to be a clean vessel that announces the coming of Messiah. On the heels of John's life came the one who would transform the world.
His name was Jesus. Before he steps on the scene, John is in the wilderness. There isn't a sprig of vegetation. It is rock and gravel. It is unbearably hot during the day and cool at night.
On occasion, a rain will wash through, but for the most part it's barren. There was his place of training. The howling winds of the wilderness were heard by John throughout his growing up years.
I think his mother and dad by now were gone. And there he learns the harsh demands of an existence. There he dismisses all human opinion.
He lives long enough to become completely unimpressed with others' opinion. Whether it be for him or against him, you're my enemy, that's your problem, not mine. You don't like the message, you got to deal with it. It's not my message, it's God's message. And I'm here to prepare you for one who will set the record straight and cut through all the veneer of your religious life. In fact, you will notice that 700 years before John is conceived, a prophet wrote of him.
Imagine that. Look at verse 3. The prophet Isaiah was speaking about John when he said, he is a voice shouting in the wilderness, clear the way for the Lord's coming, clear the road for him.
Where is that? Go back to Isaiah chapter 40. Turn. Isaiah chapter 40, we taught you some time ago the value of correlation. Here's a perfect example. You see the verse quoted in Matthew 3, but you don't see it from Isaiah's pen until you go back to Isaiah chapter 40. Now, I'll build up to it. If you love music, if you love the classics, you appreciate the ultimate writing of George Frederick Handel, Messiah. As he introduces that piece of music vocally, he begins with a tenor recitative, comfort ye, comfort ye my people, saith your God.
Where's that from? Look at verse 1. Comfort, comfort my people, saith your God.
Speak ye comfortably to Jerusalem. The sad days are gone, her sins are pardoned, there's hope in the future, all of this is a part of the tenor aria. The recitative turns to an aria, and it's the beautiful music that flows out of the pen of Isaiah. And then when you get to the fifth verse, it is, then the glory of the Lord will be revealed. That's the first chorus of Handel's Messiah. The choir stands and bursts forth with, and the glory, the glory of the Lord shall be revealed. You who love music have heard it a hundred times, especially during the Christmas season.
I love Messiah. It comes directly from the Scriptures. Now, back to the subject.
Look at the reference to John, and this is 700 years before John was conceived. Look. Verse 3. Listen.
It's the voice of someone shouting, clear the way through the wilderness for the Lord. Make a straight highway through the wasteland for our God. Fill in the valleys and level the mountains and hills.
Straighten the curves and smooth out the rough places. Then the glory of the Lord shall be revealed. Do that, John. Do that.
You know what's fascinating is to put yourself in the sandals of Zacharias the dead, and to watch him as he unrolls the scroll of Isaiah. Get this. And says, look here. Look here, John. That's you.
That's you. Amazing, isn't it? It is said by someone who wrote of that day that when Alexander the Great saw himself portrayed in the prophecy of Daniel, he dropped to his knees, amazed that there would even be a hint of his sweeping across Greece and across the world as a dictator. When you see yourself in the Scriptures, something happens that puts a permanent chill up your back.
John never lost the chill. When he realized Isaiah wrote of him seven centuries before he ever existed, it gave strength to his voice, took away all resistance, all reluctance, all tendency to compromise his message. Back to Matthew 3. His voice shouting in the wilderness prepare the way for the Lord. John comes on the scene suddenly. Alexander McLaren, one of the great expositors of the late 19th and early 20th century, wrote this, John leaped as it were into the arena, full grown and full armed.
Did he ever? The people weren't ready for John. Appreciate the words of another expositor who writes this. Everything about John the Baptizer was unique and amazing. His primary place of ministry, like his primary place of training, was the wilderness of Judea. By the world's standard and procedures the coming of a king or of a great person of any sort is as proclaimed and prepared for as with great expense and pomp and fanfare. Even the announcer dresses in the best suits, stays at the best hotels and contacts the best people, makes preparations for the monarch to visit only the best places, but that was not God's plan for heralding his son. John the Baptizer was born of obscure parents, dressed strangely even for his day, and carried on his ministry mostly in the out of the way and unattractive places. In the wilderness, today when you have a gift and people notice it, they want to promote you.
They want you to get an agent and they want to put it on television and they want to make sure everybody knows you're there and people need to come and fill arenas to hear you. John had nothing of that. He preached where he was trained in the wilderness and interestingly the word got out that there was this preacher out in the wilderness wearing camel's hair and a leather belt with a strange diet, but his message is like no other message we've ever heard. What is this proclamation that was so strong? Verse 2, repent and turn to God. The word repent, metanaiō, in the Greek, means to change the mind. Meta, around, and nous, the mind, to turn the mind around. John looked at his audience and he said, you, you who have been steeped in the religion of your day, you who have been keeping the legalistic rules of the Pharisees and Sadducees, you who are so proud of your own accomplishment, change your mind. Everything starts there.
Right in the mind. Change your mind regarding the truth and move in a new direction regarding life itself. You've been going in this direction all your life, I challenge you now to repent, turn in the other direction, leave that lifestyle behind.
Look at what he says. The kingdom of heaven is near. Turn from your sinful ways and know that when you do, you're moving toward that kind of righteousness that will one day fill the earth. Some of them believed in those he baptized. Look at this. Verse 6, when they confessed their sins, he baptized them in the Jordan River.
Who knows how many? By the time Jesus comes on the scene, he has quite a following. But you know what? It never went to his head. John wasn't about increasing himself. In fact, his great words were, he, that's Jesus, must increase, I must decrease. It's all about him. He's the word, I'm just the voice. He's the light, I'm just the lamp. He's the living God on earth in human flesh, I'm just a man.
I'm not worthy having bent down to loosen the thongs of his sandals. John never forgot that, never lost that. What a servant at heart. So he baptized those who repented. But look at verse 7.
Look at this. When he saw many Pharisees and Sadducees coming to watch, why would they come? Out of curiosity. They come in to look at this weird guy that's out there in the wilderness. And they gathered themselves together and they left Jerusalem or wherever they were and probably brought some rabbis of the same way of thinking and they stood around to watch the baptisms and please observe his response to them.
He denounced them. Look at his opening line. You brood of snakes. That is not called how to win friends and influence people quickly. That is not encouraging with a seeker-friendly style. But you know what it is?
It cuts through the garbage. Who would talk to us like that? Don't you realize that the Pharisees and Sadducees took delight in intimidating people? You don't keep the rules? You're out. We shun you.
You're ostracized. And their rules were over 600 in number, even though the commandments from God were only 10. But you see, when you're a religionist, you have to put people under your thumb and control them.
There's no place for freedom in their lives. And here they are standing in front of this strange wilderness preacher, calling them snakes. Who warned you to flee God's coming wrath? How did he know about all of that? He lived in the desert. Time when a fire will sweep its way through a little bit of vegetation in the desert, all of the varmints are flushed out.
The snakes, the scorpions, the rodents, they all come out. He'd seen that. And he thought of that when he saw the scribes and Pharisees and the Sadducees and those who denied the supernatural. That's why they were sad, you see. I couldn't pass that up.
There was just a moment there. Who warned you to flee God's coming wrath? Now he says it further, prove by the way you live that you have repented of your sins and turned to God. Don't just say to each other we're safe, for we are descendants of Abraham.
Don't just say that. By the way, I meant to mention earlier, if you're hanging on to your ancestry, you're as lost as the Pharisees and the Sadducees. Your granddaddy may have been a godly man, and I hope he was. Your grandmother may have been a model of purity. And I can tell you, I had grandparents very close to that.
Still human, but very close to that. Didn't admire anyone in my younger years more than my maternal grandfather. But my relationship to Christ does not help because of L.O.
Lundy in El Campo, Texas. That's his life. Any more than Abraham helped these people with their spiritual lives. So quit hiding behind the shadow of Abraham. No one had ever talked to them like that before.
Thumbs under their suspenders, they bragged about the fact that they were of their father, Abraham. And John has the audacity to say, you're not safe because of that. You're safe because you repent and you turn to the living God.
This is Insight for Living. We're midway through a message about John the Baptist. Chuck Swindoll titled this study in Matthew chapter 3, Strange Preacher, Strong Proclamation. To learn more about this ministry, visit us online at insightworld.org. In the first century, Matthew, under the inspiration of God's Spirit, recorded the story of Israel's King.
He starts with Jesus' arrival in Bethlehem, works through his earthly ministry, all the way to the Great Commission, in which he commanded us to make disciples around the world. In order to make the most of this brand new teaching series from Chuck, we're inviting you to add Swindoll's Living Insights commentary on Matthew to your personal collection. The commentary comes in two hardbound volumes, and they're written in a style that's easy to understand, and the format is simple to navigate. Chuck's practical insight, conversational style, and humor bring a warmth and accessibility rarely found in commentaries. And these are excellent reference books that belong in the library of anyone who's a student of the Bible.
You'll be pulling them off the shelf and looking up details for years to come. So to purchase Swindoll's Living Insights commentary on Matthew, go to insight.org slash store. Or if you prefer, you can call us.
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Our friends and families are facing complicated cultural issues today, and men and women all over North America and around the world are looking to Insight for Living for biblical clarity and direction. Well, to help us continue, you can give a donation today when you call us. If you're listening in the United States, dial 1-800-772-8888. Or give online at insight.org. Many prefer giving through our convenient mobile app. Or once again, you can give a donation by calling us. If you're listening in the U.S., dial 1-800-772-8888. Or give online at insight.org. Chuck Swindoll's helpful description of John the Baptist continues Thursday, right here on Insight for Living. The preceding message, Strange Preacher, Strong Proclamation, was copyrighted in 2015 and 2021, and the sound recording was copyrighted in 2021 by Charles R. Swindoll, Inc. All rights are reserved worldwide.
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