John, son of Zecharias, cousin of the Messiah, called “the Baptizer”, knew something. He had knowledge of the Scriptures to know that there was Someone coming that was so vital to the history of the planet that an essential part of His existence in relationship to the rest of humanity was simply He is coming. John was called “the Baptizer” because that is what He did all the time. In a time when the nation had little else to do, all 1.2 million of them came out to see what was up with this Baptizer fellow. If you do the math, 1.2 million people divided into a three year ministry, John baptized 400,000 people a year. Remove the Sabbaths and other holidays from the year, and he now has less than 300 days to baptize them in, making an average of 133,000 people per day. If he were baptizing 12 hours per day, that ends up being roughly 10,000 people an hour, which is 160 per minute. Those are rough numbers (actually the real numbers would probably be much more extraordinary) and John had disciples to help him. But the point is that he was called the Baptizer not because he was a little into baptism, but because that is all he did. Just like a baker bakes and a writer writes, a baptizer baptizes.
In Matthew chapter three we get a basic outline of John’s message. His messages consisted of a call to repentance and a prophetic declaration of one who is to come who would not simply baptize in water, but in the Holy Spirit and fire. His message was that there is someone coming who will immerse men in the Holy Spirit and fire. His own baptism was a sign of what was to come through the One who was to come. As John was baptizing with his disciples he preached repentance, but he did this to prepare for the One who is to come. After years in the wilderness God had spoken many things to him about this One, and John knew that his purpose was to prepare for His coming; this preparation was to return the Lord in repentance so that when He came the transition would be much smoother. But his obsession was with this One, it was all for Him.
Living in what many have called “the Church Age”, the time between the Messiah’s first coming and His final Coming, we are in a similar situation to John and we are to have a similar message and the same motivation. We are to prepare the earth for the Return of the Messiah, who will baptize His people with the Spirit and fire. He is the One for whom we wait, for whom we watch and for whom our hearts are discontent until He is again on the earth. The way of preparation is repentance through the uniting of the generations, but the motivation is that we long for the Man Christ Jesus to come back to the earth and rule us with righteousness and justice.
Friend, He truly is coming. And for one to live with this as the obsession of their life, that their days of strength are spent reminding the earth of His return, is greater wisdom than we have yet considered. He will drown His people with His Spirit and fire, they will drip with the power and character of the Spirit of the Living God. The greater power that the church experiences, the closer we can know He is. The Spirit loves the Son, and as the Son draws nearer the Spirit will excitedly aid His Bride in the manifestations necessary to prepare the earth for the Coming Son.
The prophecies are true. He will come as He said He would and as He told His friends He would. The world will simultaneously have revival and great darkness. We live in the days of Noah and Elijah.
*Jesus, Coming One, give us the Spirit that we may prepare a Highway of Holiness for you to return on, a fitting landing strip for a King, come Lord Jesus. Amen*
Do you think John was an Essene?
I’ve also heard that he was Jesus’ rabbi – when Jesus is asked by who’s authority he does ‘these things’ he brings up John, asking by who’s authority John baptized.
Or is this idea of semicha more prevalent in Mishnaic Judaism. (By the way, are you familiar with the Jerusalem School of Synoptic Research [www.js.org]?)
I don’t think that John was an Essene, though he had some similar characteristics. He was just one of those crazy prophet-types that do prophetic (strange) things for prophetic (bazaar) reasons.
I don’t think that John could have been Jesus’ rabbi simply because of the nearness in age. A rabbi would be at least ten years older than his disciples, as I understand it. And I think that when Jesus was asked by what authority He did what He did, I think that when He brought John up it was divine trapping, not divine hinting. He knew that their reaction would be what it was, He wasn’t trying to tell them without telling them. If He wanted to hint at it He would have told a parable.
I don’t know anything about semicha or Mishnaic Judaism…I don’t even know what that means, honestly. Care to enlighten?
And, no, I am not familiar with JSSR. But my mom has mentioned it to me before. I will look into it sometime, I have it bookmarked now so I will be reminded sometime.
i had heard before about out time being similar to the time where John went out batizing, but one parallel that i had never thought of before struck me:
the kings of the age we are coming into now will be seduced by a woman who will demand the blood of those who are declaring the coming of the Lord, in the same way that the daughter of Herodias asked for the head of John the babtist..
ps. i love how you and jimk have all these really heady debates about your blogs while the rest of us are like “duh, yeah the blog was really neato!! hi-uck”