Christ’s cleansing rampage of the court of Gentiles heartened the Baptist. He may have been an eyewitness of it. His disciples would have been there and carried the news to him if not. It excited hm. He wondered what the Nazarene’s next project would be. Jesus had a wide choice since John had planted an ax at the foot of so many tree-targets. One would be Jewish hirelings in Rome’s employ as tax collectors. Another the lack of a social conscience in Israel. So many walked-in-rags unseen by the few in linen. Even Roman soldiers could be told to mind their manners around Jewish people. Having conquered gave no excuse for brutalizing them, including their constant extortion of money for perceived offenses.
However, when both preached in the Judean countryside, John heard that Jesus spoke of God’s concern for people, not his anger at them. The very people John labelled little snakes! And why would the Nazarene perform miracles for them, when he saw them as subjects of pain and suffering? It confused the eremite. And when Herod Antipas’ long hand snatched him from his baptismal sight and imprisoned him near the Dead Sea, John began a long descent into spiritual depression. Now...lest we misunderstand: John’s appeal had nothing of the anarchist’s call to violence in the early 20th century. Or of the 21st century anarchist’s call for disruption, leaving otherwise more-rational people trapped in an emotional fervor they refuse to escape. They aim only to harm, create fear and divide people—the old “revolt against it somehow” of the early anarchists. John’s single goal was Revival. To turn Israel from the religious somnolents they had become to the Davidic-led heroes of their golden age. Revival his method, their personal return to what Moses could lead them to become his goal. And he saw the Nazarene’s method a departure from his prophetic-denunciation method. He couldn’t see, due to his obsession with instant judgment, that Christ’s cleansing of the Temple offered Israel a symbol of what would happen to both temple and national life if they rejected him as Messiah. Jesus later used Pilate’s murder of Galileans, and the accidental death of 18 dead in Jerusalem, to tell the parable of the infertile fig tree Luke 13:1-9. The owner wanted the useless tree uprooted and burned. The caretaker pleaded for one more year of particular care before destroying it. In essence, Jesus’ 3 ½ year ministry offered Israel the spiritual fertilizer that would have called to fertility any spiritual life left dormant in the culture. That it didn’t meant the spiritual life had departed beyond recall from the body politic of Israel. When the Romans came, they served as garbage men, carting away a corpse. John understood God’s judgment on Israel’s future. He didn’t, because his nature couldn’t, factor in the rousing spiritual power Jesus Christ expressed in his ministry, delaying the PUNISHMENT! End Part VII
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Before studying Christ’s colossal Presence in Ministry, consider an outline of Matthew 11:1-30. The entire context concerns the Kingdom of God in Israel, As It Related To:
John’s Evaluation of Christ’s Ministry 1-3 - Considered his judgment on nation the norm - Considered Christ’s mercy to sinners an aberration Christ’s Commitment to His Norm 4-6 - Continued doing what he had been - Challenged John to believe, not doubt Christ’s Evaluation of John 7-11 - A forceful man of prophetic stature - Renowned as Messiah’s forerunner - Least spiritually educated man in the new order The New Spiritual Order 12-15 - John introduced, Jesus activated - Changed emphasis from impersonal, formal religion - Heart and soul of Messianic kingdom would be obedience to Christ Israel’s Response to Both John and Jesus 16-19 - John too ascetic - Jesus too social The National Privilege and Condemnation 20-24 - Highly honored by Christ’s presence - Particular punishment by rejecting him The “People of Force” Inheriting God’s Kingdom 25-30 - The kind God always honored - Jesus successful in recruiting them - Forceful by accepting their spiritual limitations and Christ’s infinite spiritual power Studying this outline will help you better understand the Master’s harvest of unexpected people. See also I Corinthians 1:18-31. End Part VI John’s arrest silenced his bellowing against Israel’s Top-Hat, Refrigerator religious life and his demand for soul-searching leading to repentance. With his removal Jerusalem expected the ferment raised to settle into quiet: Judea again complacent, Galilee of the Gentiles irrelevant.
Only to learn that the Galilean rabbi, who had smashed his way into national prominence months before by cleansing the Temple, had surfaced as a magnetic influence in the Northern Province. More troubling to the leaders, he continued John’s irritating demand for repentance based on the kingdom of God being near Mark 1:15. What did he mean, since the nation had no need of repentance, having already possessed the kingdom of God? They would be shocked out of their sandals by the answer. We do know: they immediately armed themselves with suspicion and fear of the newcomer. Though they hadn’t seen him as Galileans had by being up-close and personal with him. He spoke to them in a voice quieter than John’s, but with far deeper penetration of their minds. They could brace themselves for the earthquake, wind and fire John preached; but felt an inexplicable dread of the Nazarene’s quiet assumption of Authority in every work spoken, claim made or miracle performed. It filled them with a sense of awe never before possessed and encouraged obeisance before him never before experienced. Though he preached a positive message of hope, they felt ever-less worthy of his smiling message of God’s love for ALL and for each as if the only one LOVED. They couldn’t fathom why their Creator’s LOVE would at once terrify and comfort them. They had become accustomed to John’s hard-edged REPENT or ELSE!, since the kingdom of God was near. Hadn’t every prophet of old demanded repentance or judgment? But when the Nazarene said the kingdom of God was near, he so forcefully emphasized its proximity it seemed to have arrived in him. It stirred their expectations as John hadn’t moved their repentance. The rabbi’s very presence changed the impossible into the probable and the probable into CERTAINTY! What did it all mean? They hadn’t seen ANYTHING YET! End Part V Churches used to count their influence by how many baptisms they performed annually. Today ministers evaluate their influence by how many attend services over a weekend: “Oh, we had 4, 5, 6 thousand in all four/five/six services.” Neither way of measuring influence proves sufficient. It isn’t the number being baptized, or attending, but did they hear the Gospel Message preached at some depth? As Leon Appel used to say, “I know how many people we had in church Sunday; I don’t know how much of the Church got into the people.”
There’s a critical difference. And it misses the point to say, as many do, that “At least they were in church.” That begs the question, which is: what is the preacher’s purpose whenever he stands to speak? THIS: to let the people SEE JESUS John 12:21. Every preacher is accountable to God for THAT Commission, however few or many hear. Every minister’s burden, in every service, then, is to proclaim God’s word to the audience. Only then has he discharged his duty to Christ. How many preachers, especially in black churches, can say with Paul, I serve my community best by “preaching the Gospel”? Not by protesting, being on Community boards, demanding social justice. Revivals have vanished, sadly considered unnecessary. We have religious experts, in BIG churches, now to determine the best way to impact our communities. Which would have been the very argument of every religious leader in Israel when John preached: THEY, not he, had the education, experience, connections and credentials to make policy. Motivation is another favorite explanation of todays’ leaders. It gains nothing to call people sinners when trying to attract them to God, they say. But, interestingly, the only people in Israel offended when called SINNERS were the religious leaders. Other groups, as Luke 3:10-14 records, agreed with John and wanted to know HOW they could REPENT. Are there any churches willing to believe that Matthew 28:18-20 remains Christ’s marching orders for his people, based on human sin he died to forgive; and based on his authority to save ALL people, based on his ability to grow his church if his directions are followed? That, wherever his people go, they are to live the gospel so influentially that others want to know what inspires them I Peter 3:15. And when asked, willingly give an account of the grace that saved them and can save ALL others. That then tells them how to be forgiven: have faith in Christ, repentant of egotism, confess Christ and be baptized for forgiveness Acts 2:38, 3:19. A query: how many churches will use singing, entertainment and good fellowship to attract people but will expect Christians, by lifestyle and verbal witnessing, to look the lost in the eye and urge them to repent so they won’t perish eternally? Believe it or not; that makes evangelism direct, simple, interesting and possible for every believer. End Part IV Assigned and anchored to a specific role, the Baptist lacked patience with those lacking either. Understanding both his and Messiah’s God-given stations, he instinctively humbled himself. He would be best man, Messiah the groom. His role would diminish, Messiah’s would expand. He would be servant, Messiah his Master.
Assigned a role perfectly fitting his eremitic nature, he lived among a few in desert isolation and dressed as the prophet he knew himself to be. Offering praise sparingly, he flattered none, and bowed before only ONE. Confident in his prophetic calling and fearing none, he scattered his protests freely, whatever the offender’s place or power. Attacking with harsh invective everything he saw wrong in society, he particularly denounced the religious quackery practiced by high and low alike, masking their empty souls by addiction to ceremonies, customs, traditions AND the rectitude of their enshrined forefathers. Then, to show he had no fear of authority, he turned his anger from the religious which could but hector him, to the political, which could and eventually would silence him. Wherever his shouts sounded, DOOM threatened. The single voice echoed ominously in city palaces, the hovels and narrow avenues. A herd of wild, uncontrolled horses galloping down cobblestone streets couldn’t have terrified them more. So powerful had he become that the populace wondered if he could BE Messiah Luke 3:15. And so impressed had the sacred seventy become that they sent a delegation to question him John 1:19-28. End Part III Since Jesus referenced John with himself in the context, consider the Baptist as a forceful man. Using Luke 3:1-20 as one of other powerful texts, notice how spiritually-violent his message began: you brood of vipers—little snakes. We’re not surprised he labeled the leaders “little snakes”. But Luke pictured the common people in the same scathing terms.
Note that he preached “a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins,” meaning repentance of sin followed by baptism for forgiveness. The apostle Peter preached the same message: “Repent and be baptized every one of you for the forgiveness of your sins” Acts 2:38. Are we now to believe that, while John preached baptism for the forgiveness of sins, and Holy Spirit-inspired Simon Peter preached baptism for forgiveness of sins, Jesus didn’t consider baptism essential to forgiveness? The ONE both John and Simon represented? To faith-only people interpretation of Scripture depends on one’s theology; one’s interpretation of scripture doesn’t determine theology. That’s the legacy of A.T. Robertson. Focus also on “repent”. In a culture where everyone considered himself righteous, John demanded each adult must “repent”—as the unrighteous. Simon Peter made the same demand on Pentecost, seeing the entire Temple-attending, animal-sacrificing, priesthood-led generation “corrupt”, including every adult in it. Relate John’s vocally-violent message to the contemporary church. Because church leaders have opted for the least invasive path into people’s lives—including music, fellowship and entertainment—they consider repentance as obsolete as REVIVALS! Indeed, both are nothing but religious atavism to these leaders. End Part II Matthew 11:12, an overlooked verse in understanding the Master’s powerful personality, also calls Christians to imitate him. Called the Lion of Judah for a reason, he’s no Hollywood cat, representing a celluloid industry of myth and illusion, throwing off a couple harmless growls.
See him instead as a snarling, fang-exposed, claws-extended champion of God’s Truth against all satanic falsehoods. See him devouring entire societies and shredding entire cultures and nations as they defy the Living God. His people must be as forceful standing with him against everything in society that defies him, even when the one opposing him lives in our family or friendship circle. For example, a lady considered Jesus such a “sweet man” he would find some way to exonerate Judas. Her emotional wish collides with Christ’s rational, immutable condemnation of Judas Mark 14:20-21. The word translated as forceful in the NIV is also translated as violent in other versions. The Greek word occurs seven times in the Gospels, six as something violent, one as something pressing, as in pressing on something. Equivalent English words are strong, forceful, tough, potent, virile, vigorous. In a sense, translating it as violent is perfect—if we understand the spiritual context. Particularly if we see it as individuals appearing in a culture intending to move people and nations from one spiritual persuasion to another. Then you have a collision of two forces, one imbedded, the other even more potently original. Very much as Paul understood his change on the Damascus Road. He saw it, I Corinthians 25:8, as an abnormal birth—extromati, from which we get our word trauma—as equal to abortion. So...appropriately...something more VIOLENT than Saul’s obsessive HATRED of Christians changed him from one spiritual state to another Acts 9:1-9. Saul’s violence against Jesus demanded a greater, not an equivalent, violence from Jesus to prove a greater force than UNBELIEF existed. (Skeptics, take note.) All of that introduced by a LIGHT greater than the noonday Syrian sun that opened Saul’s mind as it closed his eyes. End Part I No doubt exists that popular views favor singing, not preaching. For example, songs get applause while sermons hardly raise an Amen. Vocal fame brings fans from scores of miles to hear a concert, who won’t cross the street to hear a sermon. Singers make a living holding a microphone to their mouth while technology in sound-proof rooms records their voice. And all a preacher has are sometimes weak words that echo in an empty room. Singing has many different sounds vocalizing the very same words in different arrangements. While preachers have many words spoken sometimes in a tiresome manner.
Singing often exalts our spirit and fills our emotions full. It comforts and stirs the melodic nature in even the unmusical person. Judy’s Uncle Jim, a fine Christian man, seemed to have no musical note in his soul. He never sang the hymns in church. But, one day, the words or music SO impacted him that Aunt Von said she heard him hum the melody! When you want all the above, but also want to be challenged in daily discipleship, admonished to strengthen weak areas of your Christian life, convinced to abandon bad and build good habits—and at the same be encouraged and uplifted, learn to love God’s word and its proclamation! Two concluding thoughts. One, music should encourage, not merely comfort, Christians. We listened to several signing groups during the COVID-19 shut-down. Maybe to the wrong ones. For not a single one served to encourage listeners. Since some sounded more like dirges than exaltations, how could they comfort, let alone encourage Christians? In times of stress, such as we face now, in a direct reverse-ratio, the more encouragement offered us means the less comfort needed by us. Two, therefore, as nothing encourages Christians more powerfully than God’s SPOKEN Word battering our brains with God’s Awesome Presence, Preach the WORD! The Holy Spirit energizes even the weakest words with spiritual dunamis—the Greek word for the English dynamite. Finally, singing is often circular, repeating the same words. Preaching is best when it’s linear—going on a straight line between the introduction and conclusion—leading listeners from merely listening to God’s word, or tolerating God’s word, to appreciating God’s word, to delighting in God’s word, to embracing God’s word. It changes our thinking from self to Christ, from our pleasures to our duty, from wondering what God will do for us to asking what God wants us to do for him. We don’t speculate what message would be relevant. We KNOW that God “reconciled us to himself through Christ” II Corinthians 5:18, is the ONLY message of importance. For sin has caused our lost spiritual estate, and only our reconciliation with God through Christ brings peace with God: that then restores broken friendships; heals wounded lives; strengthens weak relationships; renews blasted hopes and builds Christ-honoring discipleship. When we all come to the Cross and accept the forgiveness Jesus never fails to offer; which he offers to all and none ever leaves without receiving; when that message is sung beautifully it will stir our emotions. And when it’s proclaimed powerfully it changes our thinking, which changes lives. And that’s when we know that prophets of God have been among us. Amen! Fini. Where God sees a difference between singing and preaching in worship, we must observe each one’s place. Both have appropriate places in developing reverence towards God: music the emotional; preaching the rational; music secondary by preparing hearts to accept Christ, preaching primary by moving human minds to obey Christ, leading to life-change. As Paul said in Romans 12:2, “Be transformed by the renewing of your mind.” He made the same emphasis in Colossians 3:16.
We have but one account of Jesus singing: when he and the disciples sang a hymn before leaving the Upper Room Matthew 26:30. That he sang often is obvious from the many psalms used in Jewish worship. But the continued emphasis on preaching and teaching cannot be accorded secondary status; as Mark 2:2 summarized, he “preached the word to them”. God told the prophet Amos that he had built Israel according to “plumb”, that is, according to the truth revealed in his WORD Amos 7:7-8. By turning from his WORD—the prophetic message—they had “fallen out of plumb”, that is, away from God into apostasy. And, note, they lived in their fallen state even as they continued to sing their songs and offer their sacrifices. Because they rejected his WORD, God would no longer listen to their songs or accept their sacrifices Amos 5:21-24. The contemporary church should pay attention to this truth. The psalms, representing all musical productions, are but humanity’s upreach to God, whereas God’s Word is his outreach to humanity. The exceptions in the Psalms are Spirit-breathed revelations of God’s WORD through the Psalmist, over which he had no control, but which he wrote as “carried along by the Holy Spirit” II Peter 1:21. The same rule applies to Philippians 2:5-11 and II Timothy 2:11-13. Only as God-breathed truth through the apostle Paul did hymns become Scripture! Though like ancient Israel, the modern church has no excuse for substituting heart-felt music for head-rattling preaching, we have fallaciously “gone out of plumb” by thinking we can SING people, not PREACH people, into the kingdom. We think to ENTERTAIN them into, not REPENT them towards, then BAPTIZE them INTO the kingdom. We can’t, by “having a good time at church”, secure the interest of sinners. That “feel good” approach is nothing but Hollywood or Las Vegas fluff. By imitating professional-style productions, with flashing strobe lights and full orchestras and singers, we mimic a style of theater that offers a distraction from daily life, not the reconstruction of daily life in Christ’s image. Above all we deceive ourselves that a “good time” of fellowship, of singing, of playing instruments, of bible studies, etc., can ever compete with brain-blasting spiritual face-to-face encounters with God through his spoken WORD. How can we possibly be satisfied with such “cheap religious thrills” when God wants us to enter his presence and fall on our faces to receive grace and peace “from him Who Was, and Is and Is To Come” Revelation 1:4, and “from Jesus Christ, who...loves us and has freed us from our sins by his blood...to him be glory and power for ever and ever! Amen” Revelation 1:5-6. End Part III The stories in Part I surface a spiritual truth that’s anathema in many churches today: gospel singing is but an accompaniment of, not a substitute for, Gospel preaching. I’ve even heard one song that glories in “When God’s singers” come home. What about God’s preachers? Or God’s missionaries? Or God’s Bible School teachers? And so on. Are we to believe Heaven is complete only when the singers get there? And no one will have a voice to praise God but those who presently have one? That’s pure spiritual pride. Indeed, it’s a form of spiritual racism.
I have yet to find a person who loves the Gospel message but not Gospel music. But any number of people exist who love the music but not the message. They like the melodies inspired by God but not the God who inspires beautiful melodies. I knew such a man. It’s like skeptic Will Durant sitting in his hotel. He heard a church carillon chime a Christian hymn. It so emotionally moved him that he burst out, “Oh, God, how beautiful.” But when the music stopped, so did his emotional outburst. What was he saying? He could believe God existed, but only in beauty. Perhaps only when instrumental music played. Perhaps, like my friend, only when he heard gospel music sung. As if God will make exceptions for people who love the singing of God’s grace but not the message of Christ dying to forgive sinners. That’s an ongoing problem with unbelievers. If earth were Heaven on Earth, they could love God. Since earth isn’t Heaven on Earth, they don’t. Since the realities of life’s problems, hatreds and disasters challenge belief in a GOOD GOD, they choose not to believe in the Biblical God, particularly not in the Historical Jesus Christ. They adamantly refuse to see SIN as Satan’s intruding marauder in humanity: disrupting plans, shattering dreams, ruining lives—and leading everyone to the grave! They won’t consider Satan as God’s enemy and sin as our deliberate choice of enthroning SELF as a substitute for GOD. The point is: gospel singing can never force this truth on them. For that influence comes only through the Holy Spirit working in the taught and preached Word of God. Besides, the lies told by skeptics are outrageous denials of the truth that Jesus Christ lived among those cursed with pain, and relieved it; among the leprous, and cleansed them; among the immoral, and forgave them; walked unafraid of death and its ceremonial contamination into a death-room and TOUCHED the corpse to new life; and counting even his own separation from God a small price to forgive sinners all their pitiless sins against God. End Part II |
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