There Came a Man Sent From God (Part 1)

Take your Bible, if you would, please, and turn to John chapter 1. John chapter 1, 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 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.

It answers the question, what kind of man? And we told you that, number one, 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 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 one who had paved the way for the Messiah. And yet, as he sat in that prison, Makarios, and he began to reminisce about his ministry, he asked himself, is Jesus the expected one? And so he sent his disciples to ask that question.

And so we come back and we ask, okay, so how does a man, the greatest man born of a woman, get to that point? 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 1, verse number 6. 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 gonna 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 gonna 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 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 was John sent from God? Later on, in months, maybe years, down the road in John 20, verse number 21, Jesus will say these words. As the Father has sent me, so send I you.

And when we get to John 20, verse number 21, we're gonna 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 wanna 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 will 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. You 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. It says these words in verse 1: 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 number 1, and the word of the Lord came to Abraham.

Same thing about Samuel in 1 Samuel chapter 15, and the word of the Lord came to Samuel. Same thing about Nathan in 2 Samuel, and the word of the Lord came to Nathan. Same thing in 1 Kings 17, verse number 1, and the word of the Lord came to Elijah.

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'd move 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 John the Baptist. We don't know that.

The Bible doesn'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 an 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 listen 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 1, verse number 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 have appointed you a prophet to the nations.

Now, 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 am a youth, because everywhere I send you, you shall 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 number 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 break down, to destroy and to 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.

Listen to the words of Jeremiah. O 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 going in that direction. So he preaches with passion 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 laughingstock all day long. Everyone mocks me.

Everybody's making fun of me. Everybody's laughing at me. For each time I speak, I cry aloud. I proclaim violence and destruction because for me, the word of the Lord has resulted in reproach and derision all day long.

Jeremiah 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 caught between a rock and a hard place. Every time I open my mouth, people make fun of me.

They mock me. 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 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 judgment of God. He became the prophet of terror.

So now they mock him and say he is the prophet. He is the one who is 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 have had as a confidant, every one of them are looking for my fall.

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 an everlasting disgrace.

Excuse me. That will not be forgotten. Yet, oh, 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 evildoers. A different perspective than John the Baptist.

And John the Baptist's 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. In 2 Timothy 1, verse number 9, Paul calls that calling a holy calling. In Hebrews 3, verse number 1, the writer of Hebrews calls it a heavenly calling.

You have 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 are heavy laden. I will give you rest, but you've 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 number 30, that those whom God did predestine, he called to himself. The Bible says in Romans 8:28, that all things work together for those who have been called according to his purpose.

The Bible also says in the book of 1 Corinthians chapter 1, 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 2 Thessalonians chapter 2, verse number 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. 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. Hebrews 1:1 to 3, 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 an efficacious call, 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 1971, 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 you want me to say this prayer? Do you want me to become a Christian? And they said yes.

So I prayed 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 sent 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. He talked a lot about hell and the gruesomeness of hell.

And I sat there, second row from the front, because we had our seats. We sat in the same place. Like you do, you sit in the same spot every week.

We had to sit in the second row from the front every week. I had to sit with my parents every week. I 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 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 on March 19, 1972, on that Sunday afternoon after church, I went home and told my mom and dad, are you sure I'm saved? And I had asked 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 19, 1972, on a Sunday afternoon, beautiful sunny Sunday afternoon in the spring in Dover, Delaware, 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 had 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 to a life of service for the king. God doesn't call you to salvation and leave you dormant. No, 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 Samuel, just like Elijah, just like Nathan. The word of the Lord came to Nathan and Nathan had to confront David on his sin. And he did.

He obeyed. And the word of the Lord comes to us through Matthew 18 and talks to us about confronting sinning 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 1, verse number 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 Tarshish from the presence of the Lord. So he went down to Joppa, found a ship which was going to Tarshish, paid the fare, went down into it to go with them to Tarshish from the presence of the Lord.

Now think about that for a second. This is a 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 calls you to be involved in the ministry of the church, calls 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 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.

God's not going to know that I'm not serving him and his church. And I think that I am fleeing the presence of God, but you're not. You're not.

God calls you to forgive. And we say, 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 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 the call of John the Baptist to the call of Jonah to the call 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 okay because the Lord of armies is with me. The Lord of hosts is my guide. I'm good.

No, we capitulate to the circumstances around us. And all of a sudden, 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 does not quarrel over the way I do my business.

I have a plan. 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 you're here today, 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 heavily. I'll give you rest, but you've 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 responded to the word of the Lord because the gospel of truth has been presented to you, God has called you to serve in his church.

God has called you to minister to one another. He has made you a steward, a household manager of, number one, eternal reconciliation, 2 Corinthians 5, that we're to preach the gospel.

Number two, temporal riches because he's given us all that he has and we're to be good household managers 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.

And 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?

Some will say, well, I don't think I'm doing that. Well, 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 came a man sent from God personally. The word of God came to John.

Number two. I have seven, by the way. The word of God came to John privately. Privately. Luke 3, verse number two, 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 1, verse number 80, after Zacharias' prophecy about his newborn son, so John the Baptist is an infant, verse 80, and the child continued 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 13, 14, 15, 16? 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 into the priesthood, a very public life, he entered the wilderness, a very private life. The Bible didn't tell us. But Luke 1:80, the curtains close on John the Baptist as an infant.

And the curtains are not again raised until Luke 3, verse number 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 an account of Jesus when he was 12 years old in the temple, right? When he told his mother, don't you know I had to be about my father's business? 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 back side of the desert for 40 years.

Thinking that 40 years earlier he could enact the exodus by slaying an Egyptian, but nobody wanted to follow him. So God drove him to the back side 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 a great and mighty way. Think about it.

Think of Elijah. Again, at Kareth, in isolation, in the wilderness, cultivating his relationship with the living God.

Think of Christ. All you have to do is go to Mark 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 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 share it again in closing.

Once there was a man who dared God to speak. Burn the bush like you did for Moses, God, and I will follow.

Collapse the walls like you did for Joshua, God, and I will fight. Steal 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 God answered. He set a fire, not for a bush, but for a church. He brought down a wall, not of brick, but of sin.

He stilled a 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 and not lives, seas and 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 and 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 back side of a desert, personally called by God. Privately, he communed with God.

There came 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.