Thursday, March 30, 2006
Isaiah's Prophecy
Luke 7:21 At that very time He cured many people of diseases and afflictions and evil spirits; and He granted sight to many who were blind.
At the very moment that John’s two disciples approach Jesus with his questions, Jesus is fulfilling Messianic prophecy that would be quit familiar to John.
Matt. 11:4-5 And Jesus answered and said to them, "Go and report to John what you hear and see:
5. the blind receive sight and the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed and the deaf hear, and the dead are raised up, and the poor have the gospel preached to them
Luke 7:22 And He answered and said to them, "Go and report to John what you have seen and heard: the blind receive sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, and the deaf hear, the dead are raised up, the poor have the gospel preached to them.
Instead of answering John’s disciples with mere words, Jesus gave them evidence that He was the Expected One; the very One that John proclaimed. John’s problem was that there was no evidence of Jesus cleaning house by rendering justice to the wicked and ungodly. However, John’s disciples were privileged to hear and witness the evidence that would more than satisfy this confined and confused prophet.
Jesus answered and said to them something that would have a very familiar ring to the report that they were about to hear and see. Jesus recites an abbreviated and yet augmented recitation from the prophet Isaiah. Is. 35:2-6a. Then the eyes of the blind will be opened, And the ears of the deaf will be unstopped. 6. Then the lame will leap like a deer, And the tongue of the dumb will shout for joy. Not only are these reporters having prophecy quoted and fulfilled before them, they are eyewitnesses to Jesus healing; the blind who receive their sight and the lame who are now able to walk and even the deaf who now hear. However, this is not all that Jesus is doing, He is doing more than what Isaiah prophesied; He cleansed lepers and raised the dead.
The disciples were to report to John what they hear and what they see. Their seeing was the miraculous works that Jesus was doing, that which they hear is the words of Jesus from Isaiah 61:1"The Spirit of the Lord God is upon Me, because the Lord has anointed Me to preach good tidings to the poor (NKJV). Most importantly it is what they heard from Him. Paul tells us in Rom. 10:17 that faith comes from hearing, and hearing by the word of Christ. As wonderful as the miracles are, the greatest miracle of all is the redemption of mankind from sin by the substitutionary atoning death of Jesus Christ on the cross. This message was gospel preached to the poor. Good health in one’s life on earth is not comparable to the eternal benefit of faith that comes by hearing and believing God’s absolute truth penned in scripture. Those who have faith and believe will obey the scriptures. Those who do not obey the scriptures are basically saying that God is lying. 1John 1:10 If we say that we have not sinned, we make Him a liar, and His word is not in us.
At the very moment that John’s two disciples approach Jesus with his questions, Jesus is fulfilling Messianic prophecy that would be quit familiar to John.
Matt. 11:4-5 And Jesus answered and said to them, "Go and report to John what you hear and see:
5. the blind receive sight and the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed and the deaf hear, and the dead are raised up, and the poor have the gospel preached to them
Luke 7:22 And He answered and said to them, "Go and report to John what you have seen and heard: the blind receive sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, and the deaf hear, the dead are raised up, the poor have the gospel preached to them.
Instead of answering John’s disciples with mere words, Jesus gave them evidence that He was the Expected One; the very One that John proclaimed. John’s problem was that there was no evidence of Jesus cleaning house by rendering justice to the wicked and ungodly. However, John’s disciples were privileged to hear and witness the evidence that would more than satisfy this confined and confused prophet.
Jesus answered and said to them something that would have a very familiar ring to the report that they were about to hear and see. Jesus recites an abbreviated and yet augmented recitation from the prophet Isaiah. Is. 35:2-6a. Then the eyes of the blind will be opened, And the ears of the deaf will be unstopped. 6. Then the lame will leap like a deer, And the tongue of the dumb will shout for joy. Not only are these reporters having prophecy quoted and fulfilled before them, they are eyewitnesses to Jesus healing; the blind who receive their sight and the lame who are now able to walk and even the deaf who now hear. However, this is not all that Jesus is doing, He is doing more than what Isaiah prophesied; He cleansed lepers and raised the dead.
The disciples were to report to John what they hear and what they see. Their seeing was the miraculous works that Jesus was doing, that which they hear is the words of Jesus from Isaiah 61:1"The Spirit of the Lord God is upon Me, because the Lord has anointed Me to preach good tidings to the poor (NKJV). Most importantly it is what they heard from Him. Paul tells us in Rom. 10:17 that faith comes from hearing, and hearing by the word of Christ. As wonderful as the miracles are, the greatest miracle of all is the redemption of mankind from sin by the substitutionary atoning death of Jesus Christ on the cross. This message was gospel preached to the poor. Good health in one’s life on earth is not comparable to the eternal benefit of faith that comes by hearing and believing God’s absolute truth penned in scripture. Those who have faith and believe will obey the scriptures. Those who do not obey the scriptures are basically saying that God is lying. 1John 1:10 If we say that we have not sinned, we make Him a liar, and His word is not in us.
Wednesday, March 29, 2006
Unfulfilled Expectations
At this time in history there was an air of anticipation of God’s messenger to return after 400 years of prophetic silence. John the Baptist broke this silence as he cried out in the wilderness with everyone coming to hear him. God has waited long enough and John is proclaiming One coming with His winnowing fork in His hand and therefore repentance is in order. This One who John proclaims is also known as “the Branch, Son of David, King of kings and, the Expected (Coming lit.) One,” which were common designations for the Messiah.
Is. 11:1-2
1. Then a shoot will spring from the stem of Jesse, And a branch from his roots will bear fruit. 2. And the Spirit of the Lord will rest on Him, The spirit of wisdom and understanding, The spirit of counsel and strength,The spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord.
Jer. 23:5-6
5. "Behold, the days are coming," declares the Lord, "When I shall raise up for David a righteous Branch; And He will reign as king and act wisely And do justice and righteousness in the land. 6. "In His days Judah will be saved, And Israel will dwell securely; And this is His name by which He will be called, `The Lord our righteousness.'
Ps. 40:7
7. Then I said, "Behold, I come; In the scroll of the book it is written of me;
John baptized Jesus and would certainly find it hard to forget the events associate with it. Matt. 3:16-17 And after being baptized, Jesus went up immediately from the water; and behold, the heavens were opened, and he saw the Spirit of God descending as a dove, and coming upon Him, 17. and behold, a voice out of the heavens, saying, "This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well-pleased."
MacArthur says, “It should be reassuring to us that even a man of John’s spiritual stature and gifts was subject to doubt.” John’s expectations of what this Expected One would do appear to have gone unfulfilled by the second part of his question, “Shall we look for someone else?”
Tuesday, March 28, 2006
The Summoning
Matt. 11:2-3. Now when John in prison heard of the works of Christ, he sent word by his disciples,
3. and said to Him, "Are You the Expected One, or shall we look for someone else?"
Luke 7:19-20. And summoning two of his disciples, John sent them to the Lord, saying, "Are You the Expected One, or do we look for someone else?"
20. And when the men had come to Him, they said, "John the Baptist has sent us to You, saying, `Are You the Expected One, or do we look for someone else?'"
Jesus is ministering in Galilee and John is locked up in Herod’s palace located in Machaerus, 8 miles east of the Dead Sea and 20 miles south of its northernmost tip. Jesus and John are separated by approx. 80 miles but John is desperate for some answers.
From Luke 7:17 we know that the news from the north, Galilee, is spreading to the southern regions of Palestine throughout Judea where John’s prison is located. Now when John in prison heard of the works of Christ, he sent word by his disciples, and said to Him, "Are You the Expected One, or shall we look for someone else?" It is evident that all these things /the works of Christ were being known throughout Palestine. Another thing we see is that this incarceration did not prevent John from communicating with his disciples by the method of his summoning. Luke is specific in that he summoned two of his disciples.
John’s summoning reveals that he has questions about the new kingdom that the ruler, or the Expected One, is going to set up. He is anxious to see it happen and knows that the Expected One would not tolerate for him to be locked up in this prison. This is easily understood. So, he sends two of his disciples to Jesus asking, “Are you the Expected One or do we look for someone else?” Our authors (Thomas & Gundry) explain, “Some have accused John of a faltering faith at this point. This seems unjust. His question was probably prompted rather by impatience with his own personal plight that grew out of an inability to grasp why the death of Christ had to precede his kingly rule. Prior to the crucifixion no one understood this sequence of events.”
Monday, March 27, 2006
The Imprisonment
Luke 7:17-18. And this report concerning Him went out all over Judea, and in all the surrounding district. 18. And the disciples of John reported to him about all these things.
Luke gives an encapsulated view of John the Baptist in chapter 3:1-20. John’s gospel – good news – is that found in verses 16-17 John answered and said to them all, "As for me, I baptize you with water; but One is coming who is mightier than I, and I am not fit to untie the thong of His sandals; He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. 17. "And His winnowing fork is in His hand to thoroughly clear His threshing floor, and to gather the wheat into His barn; but He will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire." This “One” who is coming is going to clean house. Matthew is more graphic in his account of John’s good news recorded in 3:10-12 "And the axe is already laid at the root of the trees; every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.
11. "As for me, I baptize you with water for repentance, but He who is coming after me is mightier than I, and I am not fit to remove His sandals; He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. 12. "And His winnowing fork is in His hand, and He will thoroughly clear His threshing floor; and He will gather His wheat into the barn, but He will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire."
John’s preaching ministry was relatively short (1-1½ yrs.) in that it was disrupted by the fact that John despised unrepentant sin. He rightly viewed sin as an affront to God that must be reconciled. When Herod, the tetrarch of Galilee, had an affair with his sister-in-law, divorced his wife, and married this wife of his brother, it was entirely too much public sin for John to bear. John confronts Herod to seek that he repents of the atrocity and was incarcerated. Luke 3:18-20 So with many other exhortations also he preached the gospel to the people. 19. But when Herod the tetrarch was reproved by him on account of Herodias, his brother's wife, and on account of all the wicked things which Herod had done, 20. he added this also to them all, that he locked John up in prison.
Luke has shown the healing of the centurion’s servant (7:1-10) and then the events that transpired at Nain (7:11-17). Sequentially we start with verse 17: And this report concerning Him went out all over Judea, and in all the surrounding district. John is locked up in prison when his disciples report back to him what Jesus is doing. Prison is not the place for the one who made his home in the wilderness and fed upon locusts and wild honey but he cannot remedy his present situation. He is stuck, he cannot preach his gospel and it is tearing him apart. He is impatient for the kingdom and therefore needs to correspond to none other than Jesus.
Luke gives an encapsulated view of John the Baptist in chapter 3:1-20. John’s gospel – good news – is that found in verses 16-17 John answered and said to them all, "As for me, I baptize you with water; but One is coming who is mightier than I, and I am not fit to untie the thong of His sandals; He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. 17. "And His winnowing fork is in His hand to thoroughly clear His threshing floor, and to gather the wheat into His barn; but He will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire." This “One” who is coming is going to clean house. Matthew is more graphic in his account of John’s good news recorded in 3:10-12 "And the axe is already laid at the root of the trees; every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.
11. "As for me, I baptize you with water for repentance, but He who is coming after me is mightier than I, and I am not fit to remove His sandals; He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. 12. "And His winnowing fork is in His hand, and He will thoroughly clear His threshing floor; and He will gather His wheat into the barn, but He will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire."
John’s preaching ministry was relatively short (1-1½ yrs.) in that it was disrupted by the fact that John despised unrepentant sin. He rightly viewed sin as an affront to God that must be reconciled. When Herod, the tetrarch of Galilee, had an affair with his sister-in-law, divorced his wife, and married this wife of his brother, it was entirely too much public sin for John to bear. John confronts Herod to seek that he repents of the atrocity and was incarcerated. Luke 3:18-20 So with many other exhortations also he preached the gospel to the people. 19. But when Herod the tetrarch was reproved by him on account of Herodias, his brother's wife, and on account of all the wicked things which Herod had done, 20. he added this also to them all, that he locked John up in prison.
Luke has shown the healing of the centurion’s servant (7:1-10) and then the events that transpired at Nain (7:11-17). Sequentially we start with verse 17: And this report concerning Him went out all over Judea, and in all the surrounding district. John is locked up in prison when his disciples report back to him what Jesus is doing. Prison is not the place for the one who made his home in the wilderness and fed upon locusts and wild honey but he cannot remedy his present situation. He is stuck, he cannot preach his gospel and it is tearing him apart. He is impatient for the kingdom and therefore needs to correspond to none other than Jesus.
