There Came a Man Sent From God (Part 1)

Take your Bible if you would please, and turn to John chapter

John 1 · chapter mention

1. John chapter one, verse 6.

The Bible says these very familiar words.

There came a man sent from God whose name was John.

Now we spent two weeks looking at this man.

What kind of man was he? It's always important that when

you read the Bible, you major on observation because observation

helps you with interpretation. The more you ask the question

who, what, why, how, where, and when, the easier it is for you

to interpret the context and the text itself.

So observation of a text is very important, but I come to realize

that that many people just don't observe much of anything at all,

let alone the text of Scripture. So we looked at the very first

phrase which says there came a man and answered the question,

what kind of man? And we told you that number 1,

he was uncompromising in his message.

That's the kind of man John the Baptist was.

He was unorthodox in his mannerisms.

He was unequaled or unrivaled among men.

He was unlimited in his mission, uninhibited in his ministry,

unpopular before the multitudes, unforgettable as a man, and yet

unimaginable for one brief moment.

And we had to take you to Luke 7 to show you that, because you

come to ask the question, how is it this this great man, the

greatest man who ever was born of a woman, according to the

words of Jesus, would have doubts and disillusionment about

who the Messiah really is. After all, he was the the one

who would pave the way for the Messiah.

And yet, as he sat in that prison, Macarius and he began to

reminisce about his ministry. He asked himself, is Jesus the

expected? 1 And so he said his disciples

to to ask that question. And so we come back and we ask,

OK, so how does a man, the greatest man aboard of a woman

get to that point? How how do we get to a point in

our lives where we begin to question God, his ministry in

our lives, his authority over our lives?

What brings us to that point, especially when you realize the

second aspect of John one verse number six.

There came a man sent from God. How does a man who was sent from

God doubt God? How does a man who was sent from

God be disillusioned about God? How does a man sent from God

become discouraged and depressed about his God?

That's a good question. So we're going to answer that

question for you. There came a man sent from God.

The question is how was John the Baptist sent from God?

So we're going to spend this week and next week answering the

question, how was John sent from God?

Because once you understand how he was sent, it will even make

you question all the more how he he could come to this moment in

his life where he would begin to doubt and become disillusioned

about his God. This is very, very important.

How, how was John sent from God? Later on in months, maybe years

down the road in John 20 verse #21 Jesus will say these words

as the Father has sent me, so send I, you.

And when we get to John 20 verse #21 we're going to ask the

question, how was the Son sent? Because once you see how the Son

was sent, then you can see how the apostles then were to be

sent, which will tell us how it is God sends us.

But that's many, many, many sermons down the road today.

We just want to ask and answer the question, how is it John the

Baptist was sent from God? And I think that once you begin

to understand this, it would help you understand life from a

biblical perspective. For when you lose a biblical

perspective, the circumstances around you are bigger than life.

And they need not be need to always keep a biblical

perspective when going through life for that one brief,

unimaginable moment, the forerunner to the Messiah lost a

biblical perspective and it caused him to doubt and become

disillusioned. So let's ask the question, how

is it John was sent from God? Turn back with me, if you would,

to Luke's gospel, Luke chapter 3.

Luke 3 · chapter mention

It says these words in verse one.

Now in the 15th year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar, when

Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea and Herod was tetrarch of

Galilee, so Herod was in charge. It says that the word of God

came to John the son of Zacharias.

The word of God came to John. How was John sent by God?

Number one, he was sent personally.

God spoke to John. Luke chooses his words very

carefully that the word of God came to John.

Same phraseology used of Abraham in Genesis 15 verse #1 And the

word of the Lord came to Abram. Same thing about Samuel in first

1 Samuel 15 · chapter mention

Samuel chapter 15 And the word of the Lord came to Samuel.

Same thing about Nathan and second Samuel and the word of

the Lord came to Nathan. Same thing in First King 17

first number one. And the word of the Lord came to

Elijah. That there was a personal call

upon their lives, and that call would move them to ministry.

And John the Baptist would be subject to that call, the divine

call of God upon his life. The word of God came to John.

God would speak to John and He moved John to ministry.

Now, just for by way of illustration, turn back with me,

if you would, to the book of Jeremiah, because the same

phrase is used about Jeremiah and it gives us a little bit of

the details about what God said to Jeremiah.

Now we don't know what God said to to John the Baptist.

We don't know that Baba didn't tell us, but we do know what God

said to Jeremiah. But I want you to remember

Jeremiah is a lot like John the Baptist, except for a couple

instances. John the Baptist had a 18 month

ministry. Jeremiah had a 40 year ministry

a lot longer. John the Baptist was thrown into

prison, Jeremiah was thrown into a pit.

So they had that similarity. John the Baptist wasn't married.

Jeremiah wasn't married. Jeremiah had.

Nobody listened to him. At least John the Baptist had

people coming down from Jerusalem and were baptized in

the Jordan and had some semblance of listening to what

John had to say. But nobody listened to Jeremiah.

So keep that in mind when you read this.

Jeremiah one verse #4 Now the word of the Lord came to me.

This is Jeremiah speaking. This is what God said to me

before I formed you in the womb. I knew you.

Before you were born. I consecrated you.

I've appointed you a prophet to the nations.

Now maybe, maybe John the Baptist heard something similar.

We do not know, it says. Then I said, Alas, Lord God,

behold, I do not know how to speak because I am a youth.

But the Lord said to me, do not say I'm a youth, because

everywhere I send you, you should go, and all that I

command you, you shall speak. I'm sure the Lord told John the

Baptist what to say, what to preach on verse #8 do not be

afraid of them, for I am with you to deliver you, declares the

Lord. Then the Lord stretched out his

hand and touched my mouth, and the Lord said to me, Behold, I

have put my words in your mouth. See, I have appointed you this

day over the nations and over the kingdoms, to pluck up and to

breakdown, to destroy and overthrow, to build and to

plant. Jeremiah is rehearsing,

reviewing all that God said to him about his ministry.

And he would go in the power of the Lord.

But it wasn't long before Jeremiah became disillusioned

and discouraged, a lot like John the Baptist.

And yet Jeremiah's response is different than John the

Baptist's Turn to Jeremiah, Chapter 20.

Jeremiah 20 · chapter mention

Listen to the words of Jeremiah. Oh, Lord, you have deceived me,

and I was deceived. You have overcome me and

prevailed. Jeremiah feels helpless.

He feels taken advantage of because God called him to preach

to the nations and no one's listening, no one's following.

Remember, Jeremiah is right before they go into Babylonian

captivity, they're on the cusp of of going in that direction.

So he preaches with passion and and energy and intensity, trying

to get people to understand that they need to follow God and obey

God. But he feels that he was

deceived by God. He says I have become a laughing

stalk all day long. Everyone mocks me.

Everybody's making fun of me. Everybody's laughing at me.

For each time I I speak, I cry aloud.

I proclaim violence and destruction because because for

me the word of the Lord has resulted in reproach and

derision. All day long.

Jeremiah is is distraught. Here I am preaching here I am

called by God here I am giving my all and people mock me and

they make fun of me and they laugh at me.

I've become a derision all day long but if I say I will not

remember him or speak anymore in his name, then in my heart it

becomes like a burning fire shut up in my bones and I am weary of

holding it in and I cannot endure it.

He says I'm cop between a rock and a hard place.

Every time I open my mouth people make fun of me, they mock

me, they they say all kind of slanderous things against me.

But if I don't say anything and I hold it in, it's like a

burning fire in my soul and I and I got to let it out.

I just can't be quiet, and yet when I do, I face all kinds of

obstacles, all kinds of criticism, all kinds of

slanderous comments. So listen, for I have heard the

whispering of many terror on every side.

They were mocking him because he would come and preach terror on

every side. Because of the judgement of God,

he became the prophet of, of, of terror.

So now they mock him and say he is the prophet.

He is the one who has terror on every side.

Denounce him. Yes, let us denounce him.

All my trusted friends watching for my fall, say perhaps he will

be deceived so that we may prevail against him and take our

revenge on him. All my trusted friends,

everybody that I've has a confidence, every one of them

are looking for my fault. Now, I'm not sure any of us have

been in that situation. John the Baptist was not in that

situation. He was unpopular because they

said he had a demon. But John had followers, he had

disciples. Jeremiah had none.

He had nobody, so he's expressing himself.

Now. Listen to what he says next.

But the Lord is with me like a dread champion.

The Lord is with me like a mighty warrior.

The Lord is with me like a fierce warrior.

The Lord is with me as one greatly to be feared.

Therefore my persecutors will stumble and not prevail.

They will be utterly ashamed because they have failed with

with an everlasting disgrace. Excuse me, that will not be

forgotten. Yet, O Lord of armies, Lord of

hosts, you who test the righteous, who see the mind and

the heart, let me see your vengeance on them.

For to you I have set forth my cause.

Sing to the Lord, praise the Lord, for he has delivered the

soul of the needy one from the hand of the evil doers.

A different perspective than John the Baptist.

And John the Baptist situation was not near as dire as

Jeremiah's was. And although John the Baptist

would soon be beheaded, Jeremiah was in complete and total

isolation. No friends, no family, no close

associates, no place of refuge, no church to go to for people to

pray with him and for him, no pastor as a confidant to go and

receive counsel from. All he had was all you need.

A dread champion, the Lord of armies, A fierce warrior.

My friends, that's all you need. That's all you need.

And Jeremiah would be able to continue his ministry even

though nobody ever responded. Didn't quit.

I'm sure there were times he wanted to quit, but he never

threw in the towel. Why?

Because he was personally called by God.

Personally called by God You as a Christian have been personally

called by God. In Philippians 3, Paul calls

that calling a high calling. And secondity one verse #9 Paul

calls that calling a a holy calling.

In Hebrews 3 verse #1 the writer of Hebrews calls it a heavenly

calling. You've been called by a high,

holy heavenly calling into the Kingdom of God's dear Son.

God offers a general call to all men, a universal call to all

men. In Matthew 11 he says, Come unto

me, all you that labor and a heavy laden, I will give you

rest, but you got to come to me. It's a universal call.

And the Bible says that whosoever shall call upon the

name of the Lord shall be saved. But the Bible also says in

Romans chapter 8 verse #30 that those whom God did predestined

Romans 8 · chapter mention

he called to himself. The Bible says in Romans 828

that all things work together for those who have been called

according to His purpose. The Bible also says in the book

of First Corinthians chapter one, that we are to consider Our

Calling. How did the Lord call you?

Listen very carefully. He calls you the same way He

called John the Baptist, the same way He called Jeremiah.

Listen to 2nd Thessalonians chapter 2 verse #13 and 14.

Paul says, But we should always give thanks to God for you

brethren, beloved by the Lord, because God has chosen you from

the beginning for salvation through sanctification by the

Spirit and faith in the truth. It was for this he called you

through our gospel, that you may gain the glory of our Lord Jesus

Christ. John Paul says you were called

through the glory of the gospel of truth.

In other words, you heard what God said in his word.

Faith cometh by hearing and hearing about a word concerning

the Christ. Romans 10/17 So somebody

presented the truth to you, somebody spoke the truth to you.

And this book, this Bible, this truth, this law, this revelation

is God's word to man. And while God does not speak

verbally to man anymore, he makes very clear all that we

need to know in his Word. He was one, one to three tells

us that God has spoken in these last days only through His Son,

Jesus Christ our Lord. And these are the very words of

the living God. This is how God converses with

you through His Word. And so while there is this

general call that goes out to all men, there is a efficacious

call, a, a, a divine call that calls those who have been

predestined into the Kingdom of the living God.

And the word of the Lord came to Jeremiah.

Jeremiah had to wait for God to speak like Abraham had to wait

for God to speak like Elijah had to wait for God to speak.

We don't. God has spoken, so we pick up

His word. We read what He says, and God is

speaking to us through His Word, and we converse with Him through

prayer. But His Word is called the

living and abiding word of God, and God speaks to us through His

Word. In April of 19, 71, I had made a

profession of faith. My parents had presented the

gospel to me and I made a profession of faith in April of

1971. And I asked them, I said, do do

you want me to to say this prayer?

Do do you want me to to become a Christian?

And they said yes. So I pray this prayer, thinking

that that made me a Christian. And so from April of 1971 to

March of 1972, I was a very uncomfortable person, one

because I was 13 years old. I don't know any 13 year olds

that are very comfortable today. But mainly because I knew in my

heart I did not give my life to Christ.

I prayed a prayer for my parents sake, not for God's sake.

And God in his sovereignty was so good, he said, a preacher to

our church. And back in those days we had

Bible conferences that lasted all week.

And back in those days, the church was packed every night of

the week, unlike churches today. But in those days the church

would be packed with a Bible conference and sure enough, we

would go Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday,

Friday, Saturday and the place was always packed with people

and the preacher was preaching on hell, heaven and hell.

Where will you go? He talked a lot about heaven and

the glories of heaven. They talked a lot about hell and

the gruesomeness of hell. And I sat there, 2nd row from

the front, because we had our seats.

We sat in the same plate like you do.

You sit in the same spot every week.

All right, We had to sit in the 2nd row from the front every

week. I had to sit with my parents

every week. Could not sit with my friends.

He preached on the gruesomeness of hell as he began to preach

more and more vehemently through the text.

My heart was screaming for help because I realized that that

what he was saying was true. And I realized that I had never

given my life to Christ, that I had done it for my parents sake,

not for Christ's sake. And the Spirit of God was

convicting me through the scriptures and God was calling

me through His word. And March 19th, 1972, on that

Sunday afternoon after church, I went home and told my mom and

dad, Are you sure I'm saved? And I'd ask that question all

throughout the week leading up to that Sunday.

Finally, my parents said, no, no, we're not sure you're saved

at all. And I said, I know I'm not

saved. I need to give my life to

Christ. So on that day, March 19th,

1972, on a Sunday afternoon, beautiful sunny Sunday afternoon

in the spring in Dover, DE, I knelt beside my parents bed and

I gave my life to Christ. Didn't follow along in a prayer,

didn't have a written prayer. I just cried out to God because

God had called me through His Word.

God has spoken through His word. That's how man gets saved.

It's that personal call of God upon your life that when the

Word of God is preached, God calls you to Himself.

And when God calls you to salvation, He calls you to

sanctification to set you apart from the world unto himself.

He calls you into a life of service for the King.

God doesn't call you to salvation and leave you dormant.

No, He, He calls you to salvation and drives you through

life because the Spirit energizes you day by day.

Just like Jeremiah, just like John the Baptist, just like,

just like Samuel, just like Elijah, just like Nathan.

The word of the Lord came to Nathan and, and, and Nathan had

to confront David on a sin and he did.

He obeyed and the word of the Lord comes to us through Matthew

18 and talks to us about confronting sitting brothers.

But note this, there are some people who are called by God and

they do not want to obey. Perfect example is the man

Jonah. Look what it says, Jonah one

verse #1 and the word of the Lord came to Jonah.

Same phrase, God is speaking to Jonah the prophet.

The word of the Lord came to Jonah the son of Amati, saying,

Arise, go to Nineveh, the great city, and cry against it, for

their wickedness has come up before me.

But Jonah rose up to flee to Tarsus from the presence of the

Lord. So he went down to Joppa, found

a ship which was going to Tarsus, paid the fare, went down

into it to go with them to Tarsus from the presence of the

Lord. Now think about that for a

second. This is the prophet of God, and

in his disobedience he lost all biblical perspective.

In his rebellion against the call of God upon his life, he

lost all rational perspective because he thought he could

actually flee from the presence of the Lord, that God somehow

wouldn't see him getting on a different ship, going a

different direction, and that God would forget all about him.

But you see, when you live in rebellion against God, you don't

think biblically, you don't think theologically, you don't

think rationally, you think ridiculously.

Do you know that when God calls you to himself and cause you to

be involved in the ministry of the church 'cause you as a

Christian to live your Christian life, that when you don't obey,

in essence, you're saying I am fleeing from the presence of the

Lord. The Lord's not going to see my

non involvement. The Lord's not going to see that

my disobedience is is front and center.

The Lord's too busy with everybody else.

He's not going to see me not doing what he's called me to do.

But yet God is everywhere. God sees everything.

But God has gifted you to serve in the body of Christ.

And when you don't serve in the body of Christ, you are saying

to God, I'm going to Tarshish, I'm going to flee your presence.

Then God's not going to know that I'm not serving him in his

church. And I think that I am fleeing

the presence of God. But you're not.

You're not. God calls you to to forgive and

we say we're, we're not going to do that.

And in essence, we're saying I'm going to flee from the presence

of the Lord. He'll never see my unforgiving

spirit. He'll never know that I'm an

unforgiving kind of person, but he does.

God calls you to to give the first fruits of your increase.

And yet we give all kinds of excuses as to why we don't give

from the first fruits of our increase.

And in so doing we think we are fleeing from the presence of the

Lord, that the Lord doesn't see that I don't give to him.

The Lord doesn't see. I don't give him my time or my

talents or my treasures to him. But he does.

He sees it all. And so from from the call of

John the Baptist to the call of Jonah, to the call of of

Jeremiah to the call of you and me, God calls to His word.

He calls very specifically, very clearly, very obviously He calls

us and tells us what to do. And yet so many times we are

more like Jonah than we are Jeremiah.

We don't say my Lord is with me like a dread champion, a fierce

warrior. I'm not worried about what other

people think or what they're going to say or how they're

going to slander me or criticize me.

It's OK because because the Lord of armies is, is with me.

The Lord of hosts is my guide. I'm, I'm good.

No, we, we capitulate to the circumstances around us.

And all of a sudden we we shrink back like John the Baptist and

fall into the dungeon of doubt and disillusionment and

discouragement and then say, God are you who you say you are?

And God never changes. He's always the same.

That's why he told John the Baptist or John the Baptist

followers in Luke 7. He said very clearly, blessed

are all those who do not stumble over me.

Blessed is the man who who does not quarrel over the way I do my

business. I've planned it's going to

function exactly as I designed it to function.

So the question for you and me is this, if you've been called

by God and maybe here today and, and the general call of God is

given to you, you've never given your life to Christ.

And God says, whosoever shall call upon me shall be saved.

Call upon the name of the Lord. Come to me, all you that labor

and heavenly, I'll give you rest, but you got to come to me.

Will you be disobedient to that call or will you be obedient to

that call? And for those of you who have

who have responded to the word of the Lord because the gospel

of truth has been presented to you, God has called you to to

serve in his church. God has called you to minister

to one another. He he has made you a steward, a

household manager of #1 eternal reconciliation.

Second Corinthians 5 that were to preach the gospel #2 temporal

riches because he's given us all that he has and we're to be good

household managers of of the riches he's given to us.

Spiritual resources because God's gifted us with a special

gift because we're in his Kingdom and we're to be a good

steward of that spiritual resource being used to build the

body of Christ and personal relationships.

It's required of a steward to be found faithful.

It's the word of the Lord to us, the call of God upon our lives.

We have to ask ourselves, are we like Jonah when it comes to God

calling us to do certain things? When it comes to presenting the

gospel or encouraging other people in their relationship or

giving to the ministry of the church, or exercising my gifts

in the body of Christ, are we trying to flee from the presence

of the Lord? And someone will say what?

I don't think I'm doing that. Well, yes, yes you are.

Why? Because you think that God

doesn't see what you're doing, that God doesn't see you in your

disobedient state, that God doesn't see you in your

rebellious state, but he does see you.

The question comes, how do you respond?

Because you see, John the Baptist was called in a very

personal way, like Jeremiah, like Jonah.

He was called by God because there there came a man sent from

God personally. The word of God came to John #2

I have 7. By the way, the word of God came

to John privately. Privately.

Luke 3 verse #2 says the word of God came to John the son of

Zacharias. What's the next phrase in the?

Wilderness where in the wilderness if you go back one

page to Luke one verse #80 after zechariah's prophecy about his

newborn son. So John the Baptist is an

infant. Verse 80 And the child continue

to grow and to become strong in spirit, and he lived in the

deserts until the day of his public appearance in Israel.

So the question comes, how long did John live in the desert?

How long was John privately in the wilderness?

Did he go when he was 13141516? Did he go when he was 20?

Because some would say that at the age of 20 he would begin to

enter the priesthood. Instead of entering to the

priesthood, a very public life, he entered the wilderness, very

private life. Bob didn't tell us, but Luke

180, the curtains close on John the Baptist as an infant, and

the curtains are not again raised until Luke 3 verse #2

when it says the word of the Lord came to John the son of

Zacharias in the wilderness. There's more said about Jesus

from ages 1 to 30 than there is about John the Baptist from ages

1 to 30 because we have a, a counter of Jesus when he was 12

years old in the temple, right? We told his mother, don't you

don't have to be about my father's business that there,

there is no like such occurrence with John the Baptist.

We know nothing about John except that he grew strong in

the Lord. And the question comes, where

did he grow? Strong in the Lord?

Privately. In seclusion.

Listen, Total obscurity breeds tremendous maturity.

Total obscurity breeds tremendous maturity.

Ask Moses. Moses was on the backside of the

desert for 40 years, thinking that 40 years earlier he could

enact the the Exodus by slaying an Egyptian.

But nobody wanted to follow him, so God drove him to the backside

of the desert because it would take him 40 years to learn how

to shepherd people. When God came to Moses in a

burning Bush, Moses was a completely different man than he

was 40 years earlier. But in the privacy of the

wilderness, in the desert, in isolation, he became the man God

needed him to be. How about Paul after his

conversion? Three years he was in the

Arabian desert before he began to be used by God in the great

and mighty way. Big about Think of Elijah again

at Careth, in isolation in the wilderness, cultivating his

relationship with the living God.

Think of Christ. All you have to do is go to Mark

Mark 1 · chapter mention

chapter 1 and realize that he had spent all day ministering,

but arose early the next day to go off in isolation, in

obscurity, so he could commune with his God.

After the death of John the Baptist, Christ told his men,

come apart with me for a while to a secluded place.

Why? Because they needed to reflect

on all that had taken place in the death of John the Baptist

and the fact that they one day would lose their lives because

of their commitment to the Christ.

But for John the Baptist, let's just say he went at age 20.

His ministry began when he was 30.

He was on the backside of the desert for 30 for for 10 years

before he began his ministry at age 30.

It only lasted 18 months before he was beheaded.

Not very long at all. But there he was growing strong.

There he was communing with his God.

There he was reviewing Old Testament manuscripts.

There he was understanding his call upon his life, there in

solitude and in silence, the two most neglected disciplines of

the Christian, he grew strong in his walk with the Lord.

Oh, by the way, the number one spiritual discipline that marked

the life of Christ was solitude and silence.

If you want to be like Christ, you got to spend a lot of time

alone in silence. I've shared this with you

before. I'll I'll share it again in

closing. Once there was a man who who

dared God to speak. Burn the Bush like you did from

Moses. God and I will follow.

Collapse the walls like you did for Joshua.

God and I will fight still the waves like you did on Galilee,

and I will listen. So the man sat by a Bush near a

wall close to the sea, and waited for God to speak.

God heard the man so got answered.

He set a fire not for a Bush before a church.

He brought down a wall, not a brick, but a sin.

He still the storm, not of the sea, but of a soul.

And God waited for the man to respond, and he waited, and he

waited and he waited. But because the man was looking

at bushes and not hearts, bricks are not lives, sees are not

souls. He decided that God had done

nothing. Finally, he looked to God and

asked, Have you lost your power? And God looked at him and said,

have you lost your hearing? God speaks in the silence, in

solitude of life, in the loudest of ways.

But most of us never take the time to listen.

John the Baptist did for at least 10 years, probably more,

on the backside of a desert, personally called by God.

Privately he communed with God, became a man.

Not just any man, an extraordinary man whose name was

John and that man was sent by God.

How personally, privately, oh, and yes, prophetically, but

that's next week. Let's pray together.

Father, we thank you, Lord, for today and the things you teach

us. Our prayer Lord, is that we

would be the kind of people that when we hear God speak to us

through His word, we say, Yes Lord, we will follow, we will

obey, we will honor and glorify your precious name until you

come again, as you most surely will in Jesus name, Amen.