- THE DIVINE APPOINTMENT

There came a man who was sent from God… to testify concerning that light…(John 1:6 a, John 1:7 b)
I confess that I find myself coming back often to the message and the ministry of John the Baptist, for the Bible record is very plain that this man John was a man who was sent from God.
Looking into the Scripture, I do not think we would be challenged if we said that John the Baptist was the greatest of all the prophets. Our Lord Jesus Christ made a very plain and revealing assessment of the greatness of this John in Luke 7:28 : “I tell you, among those born of women there is no one greater than John; yet the one who is least in the kingdom of God is greater than he.”
I cannot refrain from asking you a question here: How do you suppose the Christian church, as we know it today, would be inclined to deal with John the Baptist if he came into our scene?
Our generation would probably decide that such a man ought to be downright proud of the fact that God had sent him. We would urge him to write books and make a documentary film and the seminary leaders would line up to schedule him as guest lecturer.
But in that distant generation of mankind to whom the eternal Son of God presented Himself as suffering Savior and living Lord, John the Baptist gladly stepped down—allowing Jesus the Christ to displace him completely.
This was his example: instead of insisting on recognition as a man sent from God, he pointed to Jesus as the true Light and said in genuine humility, “I am not worthy to untie His sandals” (see John 1:27).
That was John, and when his ministry was over, Jesus came. It was then that John said to all who would listen, “Look, the Lamb of God” (John 1:29). He directed all the eyes away from himself to Jesus. And then? John the Baptist just faded out of the picture.
Actually, John the Baptist would never have fit into the contemporary religious scene in our day—never! He did not keep his suit pressed. He was not careful about choosing words that would not offend anyone. Something tells me that John the Baptist did not quote beautiful passages from the poets.
Adjusted to the times
Some of the doctors of psychiatry in our day would have had quick advice for John the Baptist: “John, we have been observing you and the way you live and the way you talk and the way you dress. John, you really ought to get adjusted to the times and to society!”
I will just put in a thought for myself here. If a doctor ever checks me over and tells me that I need to “get adjusted,” I will just grab my hat and leave. I am not a machine and I do not need to have anyone trying to adjust me.
Adjust—that is one of the modern words I have come to hate. It never was an expression in the language used to speak about human beings until we forgot that we have a soul and began to think of ourselves only in materialistic terms. Then when men like John B. Watson began to say that besides not having a soul, man also really does not have a mind, actually doing his thinking with his gut muscle, the need for personal adjustment was explained to us. Since then we have had weird guys with mental “screwdrivers” adjusting this person a little tighter and adjusting that one a little looser.
My brethren, John the Baptist did not invite adjustment—he preached repentance.
John the Baptist did not invite people to sit down with him in order to engage in religious speculation. The Baptist was not afraid to preach about sin, and he knew that religious speculation is an evil because it leaves sin in the life completely undisturbed.
Religious speculation never deals with the self-sins—those hyphenated, little two-part devils that eat at the vitals of men. They are self-love and self-righteousness and self-admiration and self-esteem and a hundred other such self-sins that lie within man’s being.
I remember hearing about a Chinese boy who was learning the English language and he had trouble with certain words and phrases. Asked if he could cook eggs, he gave a proud reply in his English: “I can fry them or I can disturb them.”
Well, the scrambled egg is a disturbed egg. We admit that. Our human trouble is that we can talk for years about religion without having any inward conviction or disturbance. We never allow God to “scramble” us, to get hold of our hearts and bother us about our sin. We find it very hard to take the lid off and allow God to see deep inside of us.
John the Baptist proclaimed a straight, spiritual message and he preached for decisions and for results. I am confident that at no point in his ministry did he ever invite a group of inquirers to come together for a discussion session about their problems.
Now, this of course gives me opportunity to assume one of those radical positions which I am always supposed to be taking. I may as well play in character because I do take it.
A religion of discussion groups
I am greatly bothered about Christianity becoming a religion of discussion groups. The trouble is that people in our day like to come together to discuss religion, but not to repent.
I would not give you 50 cents a group for all of the religious discussions that are scheduled throughout this entire year. You have a moderator and he wants to know what everyone thinks and when it is all over we have just been playing a game. We have been batting the shuttlecock back and forth across the court but we have not gotten through to our hearts.
It is my opinion that five minutes on your knees with God in complete sincerity will get you closer to the Lord and closer to the truth than all of the discussion groups in the world. The farther we get from the cross and the farther we get from repentance, the more we run to panel groups and discussions.
I believe the Lord will forgive me—for I have taken part in some of them myself. I want to testify right now and report that no one ever got anything out of it!
I hope you will just take it for what it is worth. If someone suggests that you discuss religion with them, I recommend that you say, “Let’s pray!”
I know that when people used to come to Dr. A.B. Simpson and ask: “Dr. Simpson, just what do you mean by this or that teaching?” he would often respond, “Let us just bow our heads. We are going to pray together.” That usually ended the discussion because you cannot very well argue with a godly old man who is pouring out his heart to God in your presence.
Oh brethren, how much we could learn from the life and ministry of John the Baptist if we were willing to be disturbed, willing for God to put spiritual desire in our hearts.
It is certain that the greatness of this man John did not lie within himself and within his own capabilities. His greatness lay in his high office and in his high privilege as a man actually sent from God. John’s office was bigger than John because of what God was doing in the fullness of time.
On the other hand, Elijah was bigger than his office for he had no position, really. It is not difficult to be bigger than a position that you do not have.
You may think that both you and I are confused at this point, but I think it will be clear as we go on.
The Bible record tells us that Abraham saw our Lord’s day and was glad. But John the Baptist actually lived in our Lord’s day and that made him greater than Abraham.
David played his harp and sang of the coming of One who would be wounded and pierced, yet would rise and sing among His brethren. But John the Baptist was there when He came. He saw Him and knew Him.
Isaiah prophesied of the One who should come, born of a virgin; One who should eat butter and honey and should grow up as a root out of the dry ground. But John the Baptist recognized Him and touched Him and baptized Him. His privilege was the greater.
Reasons John was greater
Malachi said He would suddenly come into His temple and sit as a purifier of silver, but John the Baptist actually walked in that temple. We may give an application of Malachi’s vision of One to come as a reference to the second return of Christ, yet that same purifier of silver was there and John saw Him and recognized Him and, in a sense, inaugurated Him into His earthly ministry.
There are good reasons why I say that the privilege of John was greater than that of any of the others among men.
The first rests upon the fact that John was indeed a man sent from God. The writers Matthew and Mark tell about John the Baptist, but they give us no pedigree. Luke writes about him, giving us his family history, telling who his parents were, as well as the wonder of his birth.
But John presses in farther, rising higher as John always seems to do, penetrating through to the essential greatness of the Baptist as a man sent from God. The evangelist had special discernment and penetration of vision. Others might say of John the Baptist that he was the greatest, that he was the wisest, that he was the strongest or that he was the most eloquent.
But the Apostle John witnesses that this was John’s greatness—he was a man sent from God!
In this, I say, he took note of the real mark of excellence, for John the Baptist could not have had any higher honor. For John it was not only an unspeakably high honor, but for the world it constituted a treasure, as well.
You know that I am never through talking to you about using the mind God has given you. Do you ever just get away by yourself to think and meditate on some of the wonders of God?
When I am on trains or waiting in a station I notice that many people spend their spare time with crossword puzzles. Many of them look as if they are bright but I doubt if they are if I am to judge by what they are doing with their time.
Now, I don’t want you to get mad at me. If you really like crossword puzzles I guess it is all right. I guess it is all right, too, if you want to suck your thumb. My point is that there is something we can do with our time and with our minds that is a whole lot better than crossword puzzles.
I recommend as a mental exercise that you try to think what the world would be like today if John the Baptist had never lived and ministered. Then go on and try to think what the world would be like if your Lord Jesus had never come to dwell in our midst. Think what the world would be today if there were no church of the firstborn.
Think them all out of the world—and then try to piece the world together without them. I assure you it will be an exercise in history and in spiritual values that will infinitely exceed any puzzles you might ever hope to complete.
When Moses died, God sent a man whose name was Joshua, who gathered the nation as a hen gathers her chicks and established Israel in the land that God had promised to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.
There was a man sent from God whose name was David and he reached into his own heart and tore out the sounding strings and set those strings in the windows of the synagogues for a thousand years so that the winds of persecution blew across them, making music for the Jewish worshipers.
When the veil of the temple was rent and the Holy Ghost had come, those same harp strings taken from the heart of David were strung in the windows of the churches; so today in our churches we cannot sing without having David sing also. In a very true sense, the man sent from God whose name was David taught the world to sing, and we have been singing David’s songs ever since.
Oh, there was a man sent from God whose name was Paul, and another man whose name was Peter. And many centuries later when the church had been buried under the debris and settlings of the dust of Romanism, there was a man sent from God whose name was Luther, and he feared no one. He brought back the Bible again, translating it into sonorous and musical German.
There was a man sent from God whose name was Simpson and he was joined by another whose name was Jaffray, and they combined in praying and taking the Christian gospel to great unreached sections of our world in the past generation. Go down the line—take any list you happen to be fond of and wherever men had done great things for God, they have been men who were sent from God.
Secular honors
In our human society we give honors to many men and women for noble things that they do.
There is no doubt that Winston Churchill played a most important part in turning back Hitler and his hordes in the great war, and perhaps saving the western world from extinction. As a result, he was called Sir Winston for the rest of his life.
He had an important mission, but I do not think that anyone ever suggested that Sir Winston was sent from God.
I think of another great Englishman and I think it could be said of him that there was a man sent from God whose name was John Wesley. When the records are all written and the angel of God has graded them and approved them, I am confident that the man sent from God whose name was Wesley will take his place high above the man who was sent by the government of Britain, great statesman though he may have been.
I hope our young people never forget the true estimate of honors and of values. Young man, the president of the United States could call you to Washington, commission you as an ambassador of your country and send you off on important missions to other nations—but how much greater for you to be owned and commissioned and empowered and sent from God on His business and for His glory.
No king and no president has authority and power enough to bestow that greatest of all honors—to be owned and honored and sent from God!
You young people, with your energy and enthusiasm and potential, I plead with you—get your values right and get your ambitions right and take great care before you pick anyone for your life’s example.
God Almighty has meant for us to sail high and far with purest motives—and we just settle for lesser things. How sad that we who are provided with a kind of heavenly propulsion, aiming at the stars and planets, should so prostitute our ambitions that we burn out and come down with a thud only a little way over in a rice paddy. Remember that the honors God gives are the eternal and unfading honors!
Why John was honored
Let me give you some reasons why I believe God could honor John the Baptist in that day in which he lived.
First, John had the ability to live and meditate in solitude. He knew the meaning of quietness. He was in the desert until the time of his showing forth unto Israel as a prophet. He came out of his lonely solitude to break the silence like a drumbeat or as the trumpet sounds. The crowds came—all gathered to hear this man who had been with God and who had come from God.
In our day we just cannot get quiet enough and serene enough to wait on God. Somebody has to be talking. Somebody has to be making noise. But John had gone into the silence and had matured in a kind of special school with God and the stars and the wind and the sand.
I think it is really true that the more understanding we have within our own beings, the less need we have of people all around us. If you do not have anything inside, you must compensate for your inner vacuity by surrounding yourself with social noisemakers. A lot of people live like that. They have never practiced the art of quietness, of holy solitude.
John the Baptist probably did not have good manners and he was unaware of all the social niceties—but he had met God in the silence. I do not believe it is stretching a point at all to say that we will most often hear from God in those times when we are silent.
The abrasive action of society has taken the character out of many a man and has reduced him to be just one more thin, shiny dime among all the dimes of the world, shiny from much use and many contacts. He has lost all his milling, his design. He has lost all of his proper characteristics.
I am not impressed by the active, frenetic soulwinner who has to get out where the action is and “make some contacts for Jesus!”
Brother, just get alone with Jesus for a while; let your two knees make contact with the ground and do not be afraid or ashamed to stay there for a while. John the Baptist could be sent of God; he had the proper training somewhere in the quiet presence of his God.
John had a second attribute that was blessed of God, and that was his simplicity. He was satisfied to be simple in dress and in diet. He was simple in his faith in God. He was not trying to impress anyone.
A friend was telling me about being in a meeting of religious men and one of those present got up and said, “What this denomination needs to do is to get out and begin bragging about ourselves!”
Oh, brag about ourselves, indeed! Just as soon as we get such ideas in our relationships with God, He washes His hands of the whole mess. I can just hear Him: “That bunch of braggers. I will have nothing to do with them!”
Well, John the Baptist was sent from God and he did not spend any of his time bragging. He just walked around simply doing the will of God.
Another thing that John the Baptist possessed was the right kind of vision, a true spiritual discernment. He could see things as they were.
The Holy Spirit came like a dove, descended like a dove, putting down his pink feet and disappearing into the heart of the Son of God.
I wonder out of all those crowds who saw the Holy Ghost come?
Only John the Baptist. I do not think anyone else had the kind of vision that was necessary to see Him.
You know I am not talking about magic; I am talking about a divine revelation for a specific cause, a specific reason.
John said, “I would not have known him, except that the one who sent me to baptize with water told me, `The man on whom you see the Spirit come down and remain is he who will baptize with the Holy Spirit’” (see John 1:33).
John the Baptist was a man of vision in the midst of men who had no vision. He knew where he was in his times. The drift of the hour or the trend of the times in religion would never carry him away.
John had courage
Now, one more thought and that is about courage. John had it; he stood there and said to the religious leaders of his day, “You brood of vipers!” (Luke 3:7 b).
No poetry there, brother. No religious accommodation there.
When I meet some of the Christians of our day who apparently do not have the courage to meet a real live mouse head on, I conclude that not many of us will be “sent from God.” We do not have the courage to be different. We do not have the courage to risk losing something—for Jesus’ sake.
What kind of Christians and what kind of preachers are we in these days? Afraid that we will lose our reputation. Afraid that we will lose public esteem and be criticized. Afraid we will lose our influence, or “pull.” Afraid we will lose our friends.
Let me give you some spiritual advice about spiritual courage. God Almighty has called us to be His sheep; and He has made no mention of mice, at all.
There are exceptions to every rule, and the figure of sheep just does not hold up when it comes to prophets and soldiers and warriors in a day of declension and sin.
Therefore, it does not surprise me at all when God sometimes straps the shield and buckler on one of His sheep and stands him up on his two hind legs and by His own kind of miracle changes him from being a sheep into being a roaring lion. That is how God gets Himself a John the Baptist or a Martin Luther or a Charles Finney.
Well, brethren, John the Baptist did not want anything for himself. He just wanted to live to glorify His God. He admitted that he was not the bridegroom: “Just to be present and hear the voice of the bridegroom is all I want.”
I do not need to remind you that the God of John is still the God of this hour. Nothing has been changed and He is still seeking men and women in whom He can find those characteristics that marked John the Baptist.
That does not mean that we must go back into the woods and eat locusts and wild honey and do away with education. That would be foolish.
But it is within our hearts and our beings that God searches and looks. It is our spiritual heart life that is to be simple. It is in our hearts that we are to meditate and be silent. It is deep within our beings that we must be courageous and open to God’s leadings.
If there ever was an hour in which the church needed courageous men of prophetic vision, it is now. Preachers and pastors? They can be turned out in our schools like automobiles off the assembly line.
But prophets? Where are they?
The simple, humble and courageous men who are willing to serve and wait on God in the long silences, who wait to hear what God says before they go to tell the world—these do not come along too often. When they do, they seek only to glorify their God and His Christ!