Well, good morning. Our lesson this morning is going
to be taken from Mark chapter 1, but we're going to look first
at Matthew chapter 11. If you want to turn there before
we go to our Lord in prayer and ask his blessing this morning. Our Father, how we pray that
as Kerry just prayed that you would send your spirit to sweep
over our soul this morning. Father, enable us this morning
to worship. Father, I pray that you would
cause your spirit to send your gospel forth in power, in power
to give life, in power to save, in power to comfort and point
to our Lord Jesus Christ. Father, enable us to forget about
all the goings on of this life for a few moments And Father,
we pray that you would be pleased to reveal your glory to us. Oh,
if you would show us the glory of Christ our Savior, we would
forget all these other things for a few minutes and truly worship. We pray you'd magnify the name
of Christ our Savior this morning. Father, I thank you for this
time, for this place that you've given us to be able to meet together
and worship. And Father, I pray you'd give
us the wisdom to carefully guard this great blessing that you've
given us here, this great privilege to preach the gospel, the gospel
of your dear son to our generation, and to be able to gather together
with your people in peace and love and unity to worship together. Father, we pray for those of
our number and those in other places who are sick and who are
in deep waters or in times of sorrow and heartache and difficulty. Father, we pray that you'd be
with your people, that you'd heal, that you'd deliver, and
Father, above all, that you'd give them a special portion of
your grace that's sufficient for the trial that you see. Now,
Father, all these things we ask and we give thanks in that name
which is above every name, the name of Christ our Savior. Amen. Now, I've titled the message
this morning, God's Prophet Described. and I guess it's probably always
been this way, there's a whole lot of people who call themselves
preachers. Now, when I see these people,
how can I tell whether or not they're God's preacher or not?
I know there's true preachers and false preachers, because
that's what the word says. How can I tell if they're God's preacher
or not? Well, like Brother Henry told
me one time, let's start with what we do know. Here's what
I know. John the Baptist was a prophet. He's a prophet of
God, and I know that because our Lord said so here in Matthew
11, beginning in verse seven. And as they departed, Jesus began
to say to the multitudes concerning John, John the Baptist, what
went ye out into the wilderness to see? A reed shaken with the
wind? But what went ye out for to see?
A man clothed in soft raiment? Behold, they that wear soft clothing
are in king's houses. But what went ye out for to see?
A prophet? Yea, I say unto you, and more
than a prophet, for this is he of whom it is written, behold,
I send my messenger before thy face, which shall prepare thy
way before thee. Verily I say unto you, among
them that are born of women, there hath not arisen a greater
than John the Baptist. Notwithstanding, he that is least
in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he. So I know that John
the Baptist, now look over in Mark chapter one, I know John
the Baptist was a prophet of God. And God's preacher today
is going to be a whole lot like John the Baptist. God's preacher
today is going to have the same message that John preached. He's
going to preach exactly the same message and his methods, his
way of preaching, his way of being with people is going to
be a whole lot like John's. So let me give you four or five
descriptions of God's preacher. Number one, John was sent of
God. And if you find God's preacher
today, he sent from God. In verse two there in Mark chapter
one, as it is written, behold, I send my messenger before thy
face. God sent that messenger. Now
look in John chapter one, look what the apostle John had to
say about John the Baptist. God said, I send my messenger
before thy face. And the apostle John knew John
the Baptist well. In John one verse six, he says,
There was a man sent from God whose name was John. John was
sent by God and he was sent with a message from God, a message
that is to be preached and it's a message to be believed. This
message is a commandment to believe on the name of the Lord Jesus
Christ. John's message was Christ. That's what he preached. That's
who he preached. And since he preached Christ, that's why his
message is to be believed. Look at verse seven. The same
came for a witness, to bear witness of the light. Now that tells
you how blind by spiritually, you know, by nature we are. Somebody
had to come bear witness and tell us the light's on, the light's
here. The same came to bear witness of the light, that all men through
him might believe. He was not that light, but he
was sent to bear witness of that light. John's message was Christ. That's the message to be heard,
to be believed. And since John was sent by God,
John's goal was to please God. God's his master. The Lord's
his master. This is who sings. His goal was to please his master.
And you read what we have, the account of John the Baptist's
life in scripture, you can tell this. He never tried to please
men by just telling them what they wanted to hear. He never
tried to do that. John made every effort to please
God by telling the truth. preaching the message that God
sent him to preach, no matter what it cost him. I mean, even
if it cost him, John was going to preach Christ. Well, I'm telling
you, that's exactly what God's preachers do today. I mean, I
don't care what it costs them. They're going to preach Christ.
Now that is not to say that John didn't care about me. You can't
be God's preacher and be of any use to people if you don't care
about people. John cared about people a whole
lot. He cared enough about people to always preach the message
that God sent him to preach. He cared enough about people
that he always preached Christ to people because that's the
only message God's ever gonna use to save a sinner. God's preacher
today is the same way. He cares about people. And you
know how you can tell if he cares about people? You can tell his
love and his care for you if he always preaches the truth
of God's grace in Christ Jesus. If a man always does that, that's
his constant message. If you find a man like that,
tell you what, you should stop and listen to him. Pretty good,
that gives us pretty good indication he sent from God. He cares enough
to always preach Christ to you. All right, number two, John,
Never did try to get rich from religion. Look at verse six of
Mark chapter one. And John was clothed with camel's
hair and with a girdle of skin about his loins, and he did eat
locusts and wild honey. Now John wasn't trying to get
rich from religion. The Pharisees did, didn't they? Oh, they made
their phylacteries broad. They seemed like somehow, isn't
it just funny? They always seemed to be wealthy
men. Were they skimming off the top? You know, what were they
doing? I don't know. They were getting rich from religion, not
John. I think, just from this description, don't you think
he kind of looked like a wild man? Clothed in camel's hair
and just, you know, probably not the most comfortable clothes
that you could ever wear. I know for sure John wasn't wearing
Armani suits and thousands of dollars worth of jewelry. I know
that for sure. He was clothed in just plain clothes a common
man wore in that day. And he wasn't out eating in five-star
restaurants. He was eating wild honey and
locusts. Now, you know, okay, if that's what you like, but
the point there, he wasn't eating in these five-star restaurants.
He wasn't doing that. This man was sent by God, but
he was just like everybody else. He didn't try to make himself,
you know, on a higher plane physically or spiritually than other people.
Now, I hope it doesn't disappoint you. I'm not gonna start wearing
camel hair clothes, you know, and I try not to look like a
wild man. I always wear a suit when I preach,
because I want how I dress on the outside to show the solemnity
for the occasion, the seriousness of the occasion, worshiping God. I want what is on the outside
to show what's on the inside, to give some indication that
there's respect for the Lord here. If I dressed in jeans and
a t-shirt and tried to preach to you all, you'd find that distracting,
wouldn't you? Because that's not what we're
used to seeing. But I want my dress to show the
reverence that's in my heart. But now you don't need no Armani
suit to do that. And you can tell the difference.
Now you can tell if a man's after that or not. You can tell. You
just be around somebody long enough, you can always tell what
motivates them. Now all that being said, look
over at 1 Corinthians chapter nine. 1 Corinthians chapter nine. God's preacher. Now he's to be
supported by the church. And he said to be supported well
enough, he lives just like everybody else. And I'm very thankful to
say this church does that for your pastor, and I thank God
for you. But this is something that is
good for God's church to be taught. Look what Paul says about supporting
the pastor. 1 Corinthians 9, verse seven.
Who goeth to warfare any time in his own charges? Who planteth
a vineyard and eateth not of the fruit thereof? Or who feedeth
the flock and eateth not of the milk of the flock? Say I these
things as a man, or sayeth not the law the same also? For it's
written in the law of Moses, thou shalt not muzzle the mouth
of the ox that treadeth out the corn. Does God take care for
oxen? Or saith he yet altogether for
our sakes? For our sakes no doubt that is
written, that he that ploweth should plow in hope, and he that
thresheth in hope should be partaker of his hope. Now if we've sown
unto you spiritual things, is it a great thing if we shall
reap your carnal things? You're the church is to support
the pastor financially. So he can give his time to prayer
and to study so that the gospel is preached to you. So you get
a spiritual blessing. I mean, you know, there's something
here for you. You know, if a man has to work
and support his family and come home when he's tired and try
to study, I've done it. I'm telling you, the preaching
is not as good. If a man can give his time to study, and to
prayer, you're gonna get a blessing from it. If he's God's pastor,
you are. And you know, the pastor should
be worthy. His work ethic should be worthy of enough support that
he not just scrape by. But now listen, all that the
church is to support the pastor, but getting more money from the
church is not the goal of the pastor. And if it is, you can
tell. You've been there, you can tell.
You can tell if a man's goal is getting money from you or
not. You can tell if a man's goal is to minister to you or
get you to minister to him. You can tell the difference.
And there's just, there's a problem. When a man who calls himself
a preacher has private jets and yachts and these, there's something
wrong with that. Something wrong. If a man's God's
preacher, his number one concern is to preach Christ to you. That's
his number one concern. And if you can find a man like
that, you'd be wise to listen to him, because that's a pretty
good indication he's God's preacher. All right, number three, here's
John's message. John preached the remission of sins by the
blood atonement, the blood sacrifice of Christ. Back in our text,
Mark chapter one, verse four says, John did baptize
in the wilderness and preach the baptism of repentance for
the remission of sins. Now we talked about this first
in the lesson last week. We talked about what believer's
baptism is. Believer's baptism is a confession. It's a confession of your faith
and your trust in Christ. It's a confession, this is how
God saved me. It's by the death, the burial,
and the resurrection of Christ. And when a person is baptized,
they're publicly confessing this. I'm such a vile sinner, the only
way I could be saved is by the obedience and by the sacrifice
of the Son of God in flesh. It's the only way I could be
saved. A person who's baptized is confessing, my sin is so great
that the only way that sin could be forgiven is through the blood
of the Son of God, shed as a sacrifice for my sin. Now that's what John
preached. And that's what the people who
John baptized, that's what they were confessing. Now you can't
confess what you don't believe. And you can't believe what you've
never heard. John preached Christ crucified to those people. And Lord gave him faith, that's
what they were baptized confessing. John preached there is remission,
there's forgiveness of your sin because of the blood of Christ.
Now that's the only message God ever used to save anybody. before
Christ came or after Christ came. That's what Abel believed. You
know why Abel was offering a lamb and he wasn't bringing produce
from his garden? He believed there's remission of sins in
the blood of Christ. The lamb slain from the foundation
of the world, Abel believed that. That's what Abraham believed.
Remember our Lord said, Abraham saw my day and was glad. You
know what the Lord was talking about what day he was talking
about? That day, Abraham took Isaac to that top of that mountain
to sacrifice him. And as he lifted that knife to
slay his son, the Lord said, Abraham, Abraham, stop. And he
looked behind him, there's a ram caught in the thicket by his
horns. And Abraham took that ram and he offered that ram up
in the stead of his son Isaac. And Abraham watched that ram
die. He watched that body being burned with the fire, the burnt
offering. Abraham watched that. And by
faith, he saw Christ. By faith, Abraham said, I see. I see how God's going to save
sinners. I see how God can save me. It's by the Lamb of God coming
to be my substitute, to bear the punishment that I deserve.
And he was glad. He was glad. That's what Abraham
believed. The same thing you believe. That's what David preached. You know why David wrote Psalm
22, the Psalm of the Cross? My God, my God, why hast thou
forsaken me? David was looking for Christ.
That's who he was looking at. That's where his faith and hope
and trust was. That's what Isaiah preached.
That's why Isaiah wrote chapter 53 of Isaiah. We were having
dinner yesterday and our son, Doug, made this statement about
the Jews who do not believe that the Messiah has yet come. He
said, all anybody's got to do, he said, I know there's a whole
Testament, but all anybody's got to do to know that Christ
has come is read Isaiah 53. He fulfilled it all. Isaiah was
looking for that land taken before her shears as dumb. He didn't
open his mouth and was crucified and slain, bearing our transgressions. That's what he believed. Same
thing you do. That's what Ezekiel preached. The Lord showed Ezekiel
that, the valley of dry bones. Ezekiel, can these bones live?
Lord, thou knowest. That's what the Lord taught.
Spiritual life comes to the death of Christ as our substitute,
bearing our sin. That's what all those Old Testament
prophets preached. That's what every Old Testament
believer believed. The same thing we preach today,
the very same message. If you find a man preaching salvation
by God's grace alone, through the blood of Christ alone, by
the power of God alone, if that's his only message, I'm telling
you, you'd be wise to stop and listen to him. because I think
I could say with some degree of certainty that's God's preacher.
That's his message. And here's something else John
preached. Here's the fourth thing. John preached repentance because
of the remission of sins. Remember, see that in verse four?
John did baptize in the wilderness and preached the baptism of repentance
for the remission of sins. And I told you this last week,
that word for, it means because of something that's already been
done. Something that's been done in the past, you don't do it
in order to make something happen. It means you're being baptized,
you're doing this, making this confession because of something
that has already happened in the past. See, John baptized
people who believed his message. He preached Christ. He preached
Christ crucified. Behold, the lamb of God, which
taketh away the sin of the world. That's how he identified the
Savior. Well, how's that lamb gonna take away the sin of the
world? By sacrifice, by his blood. And people that John baptized,
this is what they were confessing. Their sin has already been forgiven
in the blood of Christ. They weren't baptized in order
to be forgiven of their sin. They were baptized because God
had already forgiven their sin. In Christ, the lamb slain, who
was coming. And their repentance, they turned
to Christ. They turned away from all that
religious junk that they used to trust in. They turned to Christ.
because God showed him the Lamb slain. They said, this is the
only thing I can hope in. He's all my hope. God's preacher
today preaches the very same message. He preaches this message
with this method. He never preaches to you, you
need to do something. He never preaches to you, your
sin is forgiven because you did anything. Sins aren't forgiven
because you repented. Your sins won't be forgiven and
washed away because you're baptized, you're dunked under the water,
If that's what you're trying to accomplish, to have your sins
washed away and you're dunked under the water of baptism, Brother
Henry said all you have is a wet sinner. That's all you got. Your
sin's not gonna be forgiven if you make a confession of all
of your sins. Salvation doesn't have one blessed
thing to do with anything that we've done other than our sin
that requires our salvation. That's the only thing we contribute
to salvation is our sin, our need of a savior. Salvation has
everything to do with who Christ is and what Christ has done for
his people. Here's why you repent. A person
repents. They turn from trusting their
idols and they turn to trust Christ because you've experienced
that blood of Christ being applied to your heart. Your sin is forgiven
in the blood of Christ. God shows you that and you turn
to trust Christ alone. You repent and you turn to trust
Christ because of the heart work that God's done in you. He's
giving you a new heart. And that new heart can only trust
Christ. It can only look to Christ, it
can only rest in Christ. So you turn to Christ to trust
Him. See, you repent because God turns you. I'm telling you,
if God turns you, you're gonna be turned. You're gonna turn
away from all of your idols. And you're the biggest idol that
every one of us has to deal with. I mean, someone could grow up
Catholic and they got a lot of problems with all those different
idols, you know, that they teach them to bow to and all those
different things. But you know, the biggest idol
we've got to contend with is self. Every one of us is born
with that idol of self. Well, when you're baptized, here's
what you're confessing. I'm not trusting me. I'm not
trusting anything about me. I'm not trusting anything I've
done. I trust Christ. That's where we are baptized
and we repent because of a work of Christ in us and for us. Here's
the fifth thing. John preached the preeminence
of Christ. In verse seven says, he preached
saying, there come with one mightier than I after me, the lachet of
whose shoes I'm not worthy to stoop down and unloose. Now,
John was very plain. about himself, and God's preachers
today, if he's God's preacher now, he's gonna be very plain
about himself. He'll freely admit, I'm not worthy. I'm not worthy
to be doing this. I'm not worthy to get up and
talk about the Savior and talk about the Son of God. I'm not
worthy to do that. I'm not worthy of God's mercy
and grace to me. I'm not worthy that the Son of
God would suffer and die in my place. that he take my sins and
his body on the tree and suffer and die for. I'm not worthy of
that. I'm not worthy to do the lowest service in the kingdom
of God, especially to preach Christ. But even though that's
true, God's given me a message of grace for unworthy sinners. And that's the message that I
preach to you. Now, I want to find a man like
that. I want to hear a man preach grace
who knows he doesn't deserve grace. That's who I want to hear
preach. Nobody can preach grace to sinners
like another sinner who knows he needs God's grace. I want
to hear a man preach grace who knows he needs grace himself. Because you know why? That'll
make him more compassionate on my weakness, on my weak faith in my flesh and it'll
make him more compassionate for my need of grace because he understands
it because he needs it too. I want to hear a man who only
preaches Christ because Christ is all he needs. Christ is his
all. I need somebody to do that for
me because that's what I need. I need him. He's my all. If a
man knows how much He needs God's grace. He's totally dependent
on Christ. You know what that'll do for
him? It'll make him faithful to preach grace to other sinners.
It'll make him faithful to preach Christ to others. And a man who
knows that he needs grace, he's gonna have some humility about
himself. Now, he's gonna be confident. in his message. He's going to
be bold in his message. By God's grace, he'll never compromise
his message. I mean, he's got a spine of iron,
steel, whatever's strongest. I mean, he's got an unbending
spine in this. I mean, I don't care what it
costs him. He will not compromise this message. But he's going
to have some humility about himself, too. And he should be. he should be
humble, because he's just a voice. Our attitude must be, has to
be this, he must increase, but I must decrease. I talked to
a, some years ago, talked to an old pastor, been in this thing
a long time, and he had that backbone of steel, and he and
I were talking about a particular issue, problem that was going
on. And I thought, well, he's going
to tell me all the answers to this and then I'll understand.
And he said, Frank, I don't know. You tell me. There's some humility
there. I don't know. You tell me. If
you can find a man who preaches the preeminence of Christ, he
preaches Christ is all because Christ is all he needs and he
knows Christ is all you need. If you can find a man preaching
that message, I'm telling you, you should stop and listen to
him, because that's the message that God uses to save sinners.
If he can lift Christ up in his preaching, that's the message
God uses to cause his people to look to Christ. All right,
here's the last thing. John preached that salvation
is a vital union with Christ. Verse eight, he says, I indeed
have baptized you with water, but he shall baptize you with
the Holy Ghost. Now the baptism that John's talking
about here, the Lord baptizes us with the Holy Ghost. Here
he's not talking about believer's baptism. He's not talking about
immersion in water here. This baptism is when the Lord
immerses us into Christ. He immerses his people into Christ
so that we're one with Christ. Now if we're immersed into Christ,
when the Father looks at us, what does he see? All he sees
is Christ, right? Just like when a person's baptized
and we take them completely under the water. For a moment, all
you can see is the top of the water, right? That person's been
immersed in the water. But what John's talking about
here is how the Spirit takes us and immerses us into Christ
so that the sinner has union with Christ. Now that's not a
picture of salvation. Believer's baptism, that's a
picture, isn't it? What John's talking about here is salvation. Salvation is a vital union with
Christ. You cannot have salvation. You cannot have eternal life.
You cannot have acceptance. You cannot have the forgiveness
of your sin unless you're in Christ. Join to Christ so that
you are what he is. See, the only way a sinner can
be saved is to be in Christ, our representative. The only
way we can have a righteousness before God is if we were in Christ,
so that when he obeyed the law, I did too. That's the only way
a sinner can be made righteous. The only way that I can be dead
to the law's demand, the law demands I die for my sin, eternally. The only way that I can be free
from that demand is if I already died in Christ. Look at Romans
chapter six. Romans chapter six. Verse three. Know ye not that
so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized
into his death. And this is what Paul says. He's
not talking about believers baptizing or baptism here. He's talking
about being immersed in Christ, put in Christ, so that when Christ
died, I died in him. That's what baptized into his
death means, that when Christ died, I died in him. Now I'm
square with the law, because I already died. The law demands
I die, I died. I died in Christ, my representative,
and that's what we confess in believer's baptism. Verse four,
therefore, we're buried with him by baptism into his death. that like as Christ was raised
up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also
should walk in newness of life. When Christ died, all of his
people were in him. They died in him. But he laid
in the tomb, all of his people lay in the tomb in him. And when
Christ came out of the tomb, he rose again, all of his people
rose again in him. They rose to new life in him. That's how we're given life.
That's how God saves his people. It's that baptism being put into
Christ. That's what a person confesses
when they're baptized. Now, the only way somebody can
confess that and believe that is if somebody comes like John
the Baptist and is bold enough to only preach Christ to us.
That's God's preacher. And if you find one, you should
listen to him. You understand what I'm saying.
It's not him. You should listen to his message. It's the message
that God has for you. If you're gonna hear God's message
for you, you're gonna have to hear it through a cracked clay
pot. That's how God's pleased to do it. But if you can find
one, you should listen to him, because that's where you'll find
light for your soul. All right, Lord bless you.