Sunday: John the Baptist and “Present Truth”
Matthew 3 begins with John the Baptist, whose first recorded word in the text is an imperative—“Repent!” (Matt. 3:2). In one way, that’s a summary of what God has been saying to humanity since the Fall: Repent, accept My forgiveness, put away your sins, and you will find Redemption and rest for your souls.
Image © Krieg Barrie from GoodSalt.com
And yet, no matter how universal that message, John also put a distinct “present truth” (2 Pet. 1:12) spin on it, a message for those people at that specific time.
Read Matthew 3:2-3. What was the present truth message that John was preaching, along with his call for repentance, baptism, and confession? See also Matt. 3:6.
John also does something here that is done all through the New Testament. He quotes the Old Testament. Old Testament prophecy comes alive in the New: time and again, whether Jesus or Paul or Peter or John, all quote the Old Testament in order to help validate, explain, or even prove the meaning of what was going on in the New. No wonder Peter, even in the context of the miracles he had personally witnessed, nevertheless stressed the “sure word of prophecy” (2 Pet. 1:19) when talking about the ministry of Jesus.
Read Matthew 3:7-12. What message does John have for the leaders? Despite his harsh words, what hope is being offered them here, as well?
Notice how central Jesus is to everything that John was preaching. Everything even then was about Jesus and about who He was and what He would do. Though the gospel was presented, John also made clear that there will be a final reckoning, a final divide between the wheat and the chaff, and that it will be the prophesied One who will do that dividing. Hence more proof of how inseparable the gospel is from judgment. Here also is an example of how, in the Bible, the first and second comings of Jesus are viewed as one event as we see John—in the immediate context of Christ’s first coming—talking about the second, as well.
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Let us by the help of God be friutbearing, being prepared for the day of reckoning where we can be rightly separated.
John was bringing the old and new testaments together by preaching repentance AND Jesus' second coming! He was clear and articulate in his instructions to repent before it's too late and to show by your fruits which are your works that you have repented and put your trust in Christ. This is the foundation of our faith, to realize we are lost sinners with no hope so we must repent and bear good fruit to demonstrate our new way of life. I'm so thankful and humbled to know He loves me and I will be with Him always and nothing can separate us! What a joy and assurance!
God bless you. i hereby confess to you that i am not rich in faith but i do enjoy how christians discuss bible lessons at our local church. sincerely, help me know how to link up all that information on topics and be relevant without mixing up events.
As John has a personal relationship with God, Only then can we also testify of Christ love to the last day generation. Let us share with others what we have experienced with our loving saviour.
We can all have a personal relationship with God through Christ. We must be filled with the Holy Spirit and try to emulate Jesus wherever we go.
"A distinct present truth spin?" "A more sure word of prophecy?" And yet the Apostle paul says in 1 Corinthians 13:1-3 that even if, "I have all prophecy and know all mysteries but if I have not love I am like a sounding brass and a tinkling cymbal." Therefore, our so called "works," or "fruits," should first and foremost demonstrate this "love." This should always be our "present truth," and or have that "present truth spin."
John call it fruit meet for repentance. Repentance comes from the Greek, matanoeite or meta and noieo. Meta is "within or amid" and noieo is "to exercise the mind or comprehend. Hence, to repent is to reason with one's self and to be convinced. Fruit is the outcome of that conviction. We have a tendency to focus on the act of sin and miss the real problem. You see, sin is a lie. When I want to eat that extra piece of pie, I "mega noieo", I think within my own mind and convince myself that I will be all right doing so. The eating of the pie is the fruit of that conviction. When Eve ate of the tree, she gave evidence of the conclusion she had arrived at in her mind, believing the lie of the serpent over the words of God.
I love this.... John was not playing the word!!
Compassion, empathy, One with us through Christ's eternal sacrifice! Unless we love, we remain as we were! Love is the fulfillment of the law! Love never fails! Love is of God and God is Love! If you have the Son, you have life, if you have not the Son of God as your compassionate Savior and Friend you have not life. At least you have not the eternal life, that Christ came to give us all, freely! He first loved us and it is He that will fulfill the good work that He has begun in us! I love Him because He first loved me and that is the only way I can continue in Him.
In the time of John, and in the time of Paul, the announcement of the "judgment hour" was NOT then present truth. For us today though, the judgment hour (the time in which we've been living since October 1844,) is a key component of "present truth". Our church was raised up to present specific truths - truths for our time. The first angel HAS the everlasting gospel, but what he SAYS is very specific. (Rev 14:6-7.)
"The usual subjects on which the ministers of nearly all other denominations dwell will not move them [i.e. will not move the people]. We must proclaim our God-given message to them." (19Manuscript Release p.41)
Our God-given message? Our God-given message for today is the message based in the 14th chapter of the Book of Revelation. This might sound drab and dry and "worn out", and yes, perhaps it is too often presented that way, but it won't always be like that.
The Judgement hour of Revelation 14:6 is the same Judgement hour as Revelation 18:10,and 19---The "hour" and "day" of the Seven Last Plagues Revelation 18:8. The first angel is proclaiming a judgement that is also in the same context as the second and third angels. This is still future but this SDA movement was called out in 1844 to start proclaiming this judgement soon to come to all the world and how to escape it and go through it without being affected by it and be translated without seeing death when it does come.
Rev 14:6 fell to the world in 1844. It is still a present truth. Rev 18 adds to that message and is the final summary. Note that Rev 14 focuses on the everlasting Gospel with our Creator Jesus as the center. It is because our Creator Redeemer was lost by the pre 1844 churches that the message was heralded so loudly. Today another message is to add to that. False religions will be washed away, if you stand in them your life will be destroyed. Stay in the truth and be preserved. Clearly, some will be lost by holding to their false ideals. All material objects will be called to serve the Master, and many lives will be crushed as the owners lose hope. We who read can avoid the pitfall and help those climbing into that trap.
John the Baptist may have long been dead and gone but his messages are still alive and relevant to this day and age. In my mind's eye I picture him walking through, dressed in his camel hair outfit and sandals, arms outstretched to heaven and voice lifted up in clarion tone, echoing the message for all the people to hear, "repent!" The call to repentance and to "Prepare the way of the Lord" (Matt. 3:3), is as much "present truth" in our time as it was in John the Baptist's. The only difference is that the reference to "prepare the way of the Lord" when applied to our time, alludes to the second advent of our Lord, whereas, John referred to both the first advent (in his lifetime) and second coming, which we expect will be soon.
If John saw the imminence of the "Kingdom of heaven is at hand" (Matt. 3:2), over 2,000 years ago, even before the One greater than he commenced His ministry, here on earth, how much more do we need to see it now? John did his part by sounding the call to repentance loudly and clearly that all could hear - many responded, heeded the warning, repented and were baptized. Jesus preached the same message of repentance unto salvation in Him, (the One John prepared the way for), by His atoning sacrifice. What is our role in the scheme of this agricultural setting. Are we sowing for the harvest? What kind of fruit are we bearing in preparation for the harvest when Jesus appears "with His winnowing fan in His hand"? (Matt.3:12).
I hope to be among "His wheat" that He will "gather into the barn" and not the chaff, because "He will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire." How about you? May God help us to choose life that we may live.
1.
When Jesus shall gather the nations
Before Him at last to appear,
Then, oh how shall we stand in the judgment,
When summoned our sentence to hear?
Refrain
He will gather the wheat in His garner,
But the chaff will He scatter away;
Then, oh how shall we stand at the judgment
Of the great Resurrection Day?
It is important to note that the announcements of John and Jesus' birth by angels are significant. Not all women were privileged to hear such announcements: Luke 1:30; Matthew 1:20,21. This shows that John was specially chosen to be the forerunner for Christ. John studied the prophecies, understood the mission he was called to execute, and was submissive to the Holy Spirits' leading. With such a connection, John knew exactly what the present truth for his time was: Jesus, the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world, introducing and and exalting the Kingdom of Grace and the Kingdom of Glory to a sinful world. John stressed the importance of REPENTANCE because that is the only way one can be saved in the Kingdom. Today, we must ensure that we are born again by the Spirit of the Lord, saturated by the word of God, and understand our purpose as His children. When that is established, then as a church, we are in readiness to present the truth for our time: Revelation 14:6-12. Amen!
Amen, "The truth for our time," Is and always has been since The Book Of Acts, "Jesus Christ and Him Crucified, Risen, Ministering for all believers in His Heavenly Sanctuary and coming soon to rescue all the living saved believers when He does come and establish his eternal and everlasting Kingdom of Righteousness."
That the fisrt and second coming of Christ were presented as a single event may have confused the Jews at the time. Anxiously waiting for the Messiah to redeem them from physical bondage, they saw in Christ the Son of David the opportunity of liberation. Repentance from sin wasn't on their menu. So after three eventful years - during which they saw no sign of their anticipated liberation - they lost the opportunity to repent and be part of the spiritual kingdom of God promised by John the Baptist and Christ himself and sealed their doom with His crucifixion.
Any parallel here for us? Indeed if we dont repent and accept Him and forsake our ways, like the Jews we shall wait and lose sight of the promise of the kingdom.
The birth of John the Baptist was foretold read in (Luke 1:13-17).We see the faithfulness of God. Zechariah his father has been praying for the fruit of the womb and the Angel came to inform him that his prayer has been answered. Only God knows how long he has been praying and we see a man who was really serving God at all times. It didn’t matter to him that God has not yet answered his prayer. Because of his faithfulness, he was blessed with a son and not just a son but a forerunner of our Saviour, Hallelujah. He was filled with the Holy Spirit before his birth. We see once again the importance of being Spirit filled. In order to have successful Ministries we need to be filled and led but the Spirt of Truth. He was a child born with a purpose, ‘to turn the hearts of the parents to their children and the disobedient to the wisdom of the righteous—to make ready a people prepared for the Lord. “Even today the message is the same ‘Repent for the Kingdom of God is at hand’. ‘The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. Instead he is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance’ (2 Peter 3:9).
I would like to differ with the author when he says John the baptist was harsh in his "viper" messages. The word harsh means uncivil, cruel, unkind, abrasive etc, and it is politically correct statement that speaks to the misnomer that real truth and the gospel always come in soft melodious tones... EGW says people in the last days will detest the Straight Testimony from the True Witness and I urge us not to secualrise our gospel truths...The three angels messages are tough love just as much as the letter to the seven churches in Revelation. Maranatha.
When did baptism came about? And why did John used baptism and preached repentance since the people were still practicing the sacrificial system( which also was a means of forgiveness of sins)?
Inge, we should make a thread for this important topic of "when did baptism come about."
The sacrificial system in itself pointed to the true lamb that could take away sin. The slaying of sheep or goats can never make the conscious clean (Heb9:9, 10:1). So although they offered sacrificial animals, unless it was accompanied in faith for the real Lamb of God, it did them no heavenly good.
As John came preaching repentance, he wanted their hearts to see the true Lamb, and asked them to repent (change their minds) about the Savior. Baptism is not just a sign of the desire to follow a new method. Baptism admits to the world that the change already happened, that we die in a watery grave, then are resurrected by the power of the Creator as a new being. John's baptism of repentance brought people only so far, and many are still stopping there today. A change of habits is not God's goal. God wants a new character, one that comes from the power of the Creator. This comes by agreeing to let Christ live in us and consume all our darkness. John wasn't wrong, just not complete. He was a "lesser light".
When the toilet leaks and rots the floor, we need a new floor, not a new paint job. So the same, we need Christ's works to be in us as our own, and not trading one habit for another.
what is the present truth, does truth change?
The truth does not change, only what we emphasize as important. When Jesus came to live on Earth his focus was on establishing his ministry as the Savior of the world. Thus the scriptures which related to the judgment of all people were downplayed. Note his words in Luke 4:18(Is 61) which stopped before the judgment. That was present truth. Today those judgment words are present truth.
Rev 14 and 18 were not emphasized in the past, today are present truth.
Johm's baptism and message were right on point. John was the forerunner to Jesus'advent, and remember just shortly after Jesus returned from the 40day fast, He went to cleanse the temple (the first account), because the leaders had abused the MEANING of the sacrifices. That's why Samuel said to Saul, God doesn't merely delight in sacrifies of blood etc, but in the heart that truly desires to be made whole with God (paraphrasing).
In response to Chako, Truth doesn't change, it is all embeded in Jesus Christ. However PRESENT truth means truth that is relevant for the time in which it is preached, i.e. a coming flood was for Noahs time, Jesus as the Lamb was for first advent, and Jesus coming as King to take us home is for our time etc. So we are held accountable for the light (truth) revealed in our time, as well as all the light(truth) gained from previous times too and we must respond to the cry of PRESENT truth in OUR time.