God's infallible Word. And this is the testimony of John when the Jews sent priests and Levites from Jerusalem to ask him, who are you? He confessed and did not deny, but confessed, I am not the Christ. And they asked him, what then? Are you Elijah? He said, I am not. Are you the prophet? He answered, no. So they said to him, who are you? We need to give an answer to those who sent us. What do you say about yourself? He said, I am the voice of one prying out in the wilderness. Make straight the way of the Lord, as the prophet Isaiah said. Now they had been sent from the Pharisees. They asked him, Then why are you baptizing if you are neither the Christ nor Elijah nor the prophet? But John answered them, I baptize with water but among you stands one you do not know even he who comes after me the strap of whose sandal I am not worthy to untie. These things took place in Bethany across the Jordan where John was baptizing brothers and sisters in Christ The testimony of the Lordship of Jesus Christ is one of the church's most basic and fundamental things that is vital to our existence as a body of believers. You can't have a church without the confession of the Lordship of Jesus Christ. What distinguishes us from every other institution in the entire world is that we testify, that we confess to the Lordship of Jesus Christ, and that He is essential in every single aspect of life, and especially and particularly of the Christian life. In fact, that's exactly what you should be thinking about yourselves. That's exactly what you should be thinking about yourselves. That is, when you go to work, when you're at home, when you're hanging out with friends, hanging out with family, when you go out to eat, when you live your regular, ordinary, everyday life, what's different about you versus the entire rest of the whole world, even the so-called spiritual but not religious world of our life, whatever that means. What's different about you is that you bear testimony to the Lordship of Jesus Christ, that He is the Lord. You bear testimony about that everywhere you go. that He's not just your Lord, your personal Lord, but that He is the Lord, the Lord of glory. You bear witness to Him in everything that you do. If you claim the name of Christ as your own, that's something that you just simply can't turn off. Your life is hidden with Christ and God, as Colossians 3 will say. And we can do this, of course, with our words and in our actions. We can bear testimony about the Lordship of Christ and how our life is hidden with Him. both in our words and actions, and it's no different now than it ever was in the history of the church, and we can see that this very testimony that we bear about Jesus is given crystal clearly by John the Baptist way back 2,000 years ago, and that's, as a matter of fact, what we have for the remainder of the chapter. The remainder of the chapter from verse 19 and following is one prolonged testimony about the Lordship of Jesus Christ. You can take a look at it with me. If you remember back in the prologue when we considered the prologue, we read that John the Baptist was someone who in verse 7, he came as a witness, to bear witness about the light. Down to verse 15, we've gotten something of the sample of that testimony that he bears. John bore witness about him and cried out, this was he of whom I said he who comes after me ranks before me because he was before me. And here we get something of the expansion of that testimony that he bears in sample form in kind of a three-tiered fashion. Firstly, this from verses 19 through 28, then from verses 29 through 34, and finally the last one from verse 35 to the rest of the chapter, which admittedly isn't as much of a raw testimony as the other two. But that's where he kind of, you know, tapers down significantly until John chapter 3, just briefly. But I want you to see, first and foremost, that this gospel follows suit with the other three. This gospel follows suit with the other three gospels in that John the Baptist serves as a forerunner to the ministry of Jesus Christ. Each of the four Gospels begins with a note about John the Baptist as he prepares the way for the coming of Christ. And it's no different than the Gospel of John here. He is approached by certain people who compel him to give part one of his testimony about Christ. which is why verse 19 starts with this inspired heading which says, this is the testimony of John. That's what it should be, in big bold letters on top of verse 19. This is the testimony. And so we'll be taking a look at this swath of verses. This is our theme statement that's printed in your bulletin, that the ministry of Jesus is introduced by John the Baptist bearing his self-denying testimony about the majesty and the supremacy of Christ. And we'll be looking at these three separate thoughts for this evening. Number one, John's opposition. We're going to be considering John's opposition rather fully. John's confession, we'll be considering that rather fully as well, and to a lesser degree, John's location. That's going to be our three thoughts for this evening. And looking at our passage, we firstly see John's opposition, John's opposition. Verse 19 says that the Jews sent priests and Levites from Jerusalem to John the Baptist. Oftentimes, the Gospel of John will use the phrase, the Jews, to refer to the religious class, and that's what you have going on here with the priests and the Levites. In the Gospel of John, I believe it's somewhere in the vicinity of about 65 to 70 times where the phrase, the Jews, is found, versus the other three Gospels, it's only found just a handful of times. Well, here it refers to the religious ruling class, particularly the priests and the Levites. Now, the priests were those who handled the conduct of worship in the temple at the time. Levites, it's kind of a lesser known factoid about the Levites. The Levites were supposed to see to it that things would go smoothly in terms of the temple's civil order. So they were kind of the bodyguards, if you will, in the temple at the time. So you have the priests and Levites who do their thing. So the people who were sent and the ones who were sending were the religious bigwigs of that day. That's what you need to know about them. They most likely heard of the influence that John the Baptist had, or perhaps maybe even the kind of fiery and sort of purist style of preaching, the messages that he gave, and so there was some sort of an interest generated from the religious elite in that day. Now it was common for the priests in that time to use their religious office, and if you can imagine this, this doesn't come to any surprise for those who are in the know. It was common for the priests, the religious class in that day, to use their religious office to impose their influence and really their self-interest upon the people, sometimes for political gain, sometimes for for the publicity stunts, sometimes just for popularity, but it's common in that day and age for the religious type to do this. Now thankfully that doesn't happen anymore. We're 2,000 years removed from that, and I cannot think of a single religious public figure that uses their position for any political gain or any social clout or anything like that. Thankfully, that is all in the past. Obviously I'm being facetious. I could call out names, but I'm not going to. You can really see that within the history of the church 2,000 years later, nothing has changed in what constitutes the human heart. Absolutely nothing has changed. People will still use their religiosity as a billy club. And that's exactly what you have nowadays. I'm not going to name any names, but you can tell that I have a lot to say about that. You get the idea that the Jewish temple back in that day was incredibly corrupt. And if you get that impression, you are about 100% correct. It was there that you could see open hypocrisy on full display, and so it's no wonder that John the Baptist would have his ministry outside the bounds of the temple. Time permits me from laying this out in a really full fashion, and of course we're going to be expanding this when we get to chapter 2 of the Gospel of John, our study in the Gospel of John, but I'll put it this way for now. that throughout the entire Bible, the word hypocrite is exclusively used by Jesus, except for one time. And if you could text me that time, you will be my favorite for this evening. That the word hypocrite is used exclusively in the Bible by the Lord Jesus. And you know what his number one target was? It was the religious elite. It was the Pharisees, the Sadducees. Read Matthew chapter 23 if you need to be proved that. It was primarily directed at the religious elite. that should tell you something about the antagonistic opposition that comes here to John the Baptist. Now, they were sent, this delegation from the Pharisees were sent to John the Baptist and they have a number of questions to ask John the Baptist. Verse 19, who are you? Verse 21, are you Elijah? Are you the prophet? verse 22, who are you? We need to give an answer to those who sent us. What do you say about yourself? Finally down in verse 25, why are you baptizing? Now these questions are not here so that they, as this delegation, so that they can kind of listen to John and kind of see what he says and kind of weigh out the the facts and go back and study the claims about the Messiah and about himself so that they can go back and consider this a little bit more. These questions are here not because they're interested, but because they want to go back to form somewhat of an accusation about John the Baptist. Some sort of sectarianism. charge him, so that they can charge him with going rogue with the things of God, or having some sort of cultish practices that go on with the church of John the Baptist or something like that, whatever they would know it as. So even though John the Baptist, ironically, was of priestly lineage, as we learn from the Gospel of Luke, the priests themselves had a predetermined verdict against him. And we'll get into this point a little bit more in the next point, but notice here in the Word of God that John answers either in the negative or he answers rather elusively. But as I said before, these guys are not curious people who just simply want to know the truth. They're not curious at all. They want to use, they want to know things about John the Baptist so that their charge of insubordination could stick to something. So, in verse 22, when they say these things like, we need to give an answer to those who sent us, when they say things like that, whatever they're saying, what they're not saying is that the ones who sent them already had it in their minds that John either was becoming or had become somewhat of a pest to them. And so they need some specific charges to be levied against him. So these questions aren't directed to him because they're curious or because they want to get to know him or they want to get to know his theology or anything like that. They're directed against him specifically because they want to interrogate him to substantiate their prearranged claims. Brothers and sisters in Christ, you will face your opposition. You will face opposition for the cause of Christ. You definitely will. You certainly will. Perhaps more in the coming days than in the past number of years. But be assured, you will have your opposition. that is with 100% certainty, you will. Whether it's from people who are right in your face, or whether it's from people who are mediated through a screen of some sort, whether it's from the temptations of the devil, or whether it's from the person who is in the mirror, you will have your opposition to the cause of Christ. you most certainly will. Whether it's the world, the flesh, or the devil, you definitely will. Sometimes that opposition that we have to the cause of Christ and for the cause of Christ is very clear. Sometimes the opposition that we have for the cause of Christ is not so clear. Sometimes it's rather hidden. Sometimes the opposition comes from a place that denies that they're even opposing you. But the world is filled with antagonisms like this for the cause of Christ, some more visible than others. Some of it could even come from what the world would deem as our religious elite. We have our Pharisees of our day and age. and they will use the vestiges of their Pharisaism even to this very day to oppose the cause of Christ that is within you and that is within your prerogative. So what do you do about it? What do you do about it? How do you withstand the opposition? Well, it might be simple, and oftentimes it really is, isn't it? What do you do about your opposition that either you will face or that you are facing? Pretty simple, actually. Read your Bibles, come to church, pray, fellowship with like-minded believers, raise the next generation of Christians to do so. That's what you do about it. Bible, church, pray, raise the next generation of believers to do so, fellowship. All of us can do one or more of these things. We do have our opposition. but the weapons of this warfare are not carnal. They're not of the flesh, just like with John the Baptist here. His accusers come to him almost like an inquisition. And so we read his confession next, which is going to bring us to our next point on John's confession right here. So the delegation, after the delegation asks their questions, he gives his answers. Verse 20 says that this is in the form of a confession. Verse 20 says that he confessed and did not deny. You see that it sticks out to you like a sore thumb. He confessed and did not deny, but confessed, I am not the Christ. They asked him, what then, are you Elijah? He said, I am not. Are you the prophet? He answered, no. Now normally, we have what's called the Westminster Confession of Faith. Normally when a confession is made, the person doing the confessing is confessing something about what is, alright? Not about something that isn't, something that exists, not something that does not exist. That is to say, this confession of John the Baptist is one of the only ones that I can think of in the Bible where the confession first and foremostly is about something that is not believed in, which is a, it's an ironic thing to think about, being, you know, a good Presbyterian as I am, and from what we've considered thus far, there's a good reason why he answers in the way that he does, because they're trying to trap him in his words. They want him to make some sort of messianic claim About himself, they want him to make some sort of messianic claim about Jesus, perhaps, that they can twist, that they can bring to the Sanhedrin, so that they can, at the very least, ridicule him. At the very least. Now, the first three answers that he gives in his confession are in the negative. One interpreter I read, it was a very interesting thing, says that John gives these three negatives kind of as a counterbalance to Peter's denial. of Christ toward the end of the book, but the first three answers that he gives are just a straightforward no. So it's implied in verse 19 and verse 20 that they asked him, are you the Christ? And of course his answer, I am not the Christ. Are you Elijah? No. Are you the prophet? No. And going through these, we can kind of see their logic in this. Firstly, they ask if he's the Christ. which of course he denies. At this time there was something what's called messianic expectation. That's a five dollar theological word. You can look that phrase up later. Messianic expectation, it basically says, get this, that the Jews expected a messiah. Okay, that's a big concept there. So there's already a messianic expectation. Jews already expected the Messiah to come. As a matter of fact, there had already been a number of people before this event, before Jesus, who claimed to be the Messiah. A number of people. As a matter of fact, the Word of God, Acts chapter 5, verse 35 and 36, even names those people who claimed to be the Messiah themselves, guys named Theodos and Judas. You can read that later, Acts chapter 5. And from what we know in Luke chapter 3, verse 13, verse 15 rather, There may very well have been a rumor going around that John the Baptist did say that he was the Messiah. You can take a look at Luke chapter 3 verse 15 to substantiate that. So there's a rumor going around that John perhaps was the Messiah, and of course he's going to deny this, and in the original language he does so very emphatically. I don't have time to go through this. Secondly, they ask if he was Elijah. Elijah. You might say, okay, why Elijah of all people? Like, what is the significance of Elijah? Elijah had a significance to the coming Messiah. Malachi chapter 4 verse 5, in that passage God says that Elijah would be sent before that day of the Lord comes, that awesome day of the Lord comes. He would turn the hearts of the children to their fathers and vice versa. And so there's this expectation that Elijah would precede Christ. And there's also an interesting similarity between Elijah and John the Baptist in the way that they dress. If you take a look at 2 Kings 1.8 and Matthew 3.4, Both of them, both Elijah and John the Baptist, are described as wearing clothing made of camel's hair, and both of them having a leather belt around their waist. That's a very interesting thing with regard to the way that they dress. Now the detail that would be perhaps most confusing to the interpreters is why John denied this question. I mean, after all, wasn't it prophesied of him at birth, Luke 1 verse 17, that he would go before Jesus in the spirit and power of Elijah? Did his dad not communicate that to him? And didn't Jesus explicitly say, Matthew 11 verse 14, that John the Baptist was the Elijah who was to come? Isn't this a contradiction? of sorts here. Why does he deny being Elijah? Isn't this a contradiction? Of course I'm going to say no. I'm going to say no for a couple of reasons. Firstly, some take this as an example of John's humility right here in not drawing attention to himself, not verbalizing his own importance. And there is some merit with this, but I think more than this is the idea of, more than the idea of his own humility is that he's likely considering the people who are questioning him, okay? He's likely considering the people who are questioning him. And it's not very difficult of a concept to grasp. That is, if he said, yes, I am Elijah, The opposition is not going to check for clarity. They're not going to check for comprehension. They're not going to check for any clarity. They're not going to care about anything other than the incredibly literal and wooden meaning in what he plainly said. So if he said, yes, I am Elijah, they most likely would have him up against charges on charges of heresy or insanity or something like that in no time. And so he says no. He denies it, knowing his audience. Thirdly, they ask if he is the prophet. Now this is a reference back to Deuteronomy 18 verse 15. It says this, The Lord God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among you, from your brothers. It is to him you shall listen." They ask if he is this prophet, by which, of course, they, his opposition, could mean a few things. It could be a calling back to the Messiah, by which they mean to ask him again, are you the Messiah, by using that code name. It could be another reference to Elijah, or it could be a reference to someone who repeats the miracles of Moses in Egypt, which would make sense during that time under pagan Roman rule. But whatever was meant at this time, he answers, of course, in the negative as well. So, we can say the John the Baptist Confession of Faith, I know we have the London Baptist Confession of Faith, but here we have the John the Baptist Confession of Faith of 3rd D.A.D. or whatever it would be, is no, no, no. Pretty easy to memorize, isn't it? But it's only after they ask, what do you say about yourself? Now they give him a little bit more freedom to speak, and only then, after they push a little bit further, does he finally make a positive confession in verse 23. Take a look at verse 23. He quotes Isaiah chapter 40, verse 3. I am the voice of one crying out in the wilderness, make straight the way of the Lord as the prophet says. So here he finally answers their question, albeit in a very cryptic sort of way, but he finally gives them a positive confession of who he is, not who he isn't. Now we can look at this quotation for an incredibly long time from multiple angles, but there's only three quick features of his answer that I want you to pick up on, because it contains, I mean, just about virtually everything concerning his life and work. Everything concerning John the Baptist's significance is found within this one quotation. that he is a voice, he is a voice. There's a dramatic impact of anonymity that's intended here, a dramatic impact of anonymity. In other words, even though we know who this originates from, the quotation is meant so that the speaker themselves would go unnamed. And all that's left is this nameless, faceless voice that gives a message. This idea of anonymity, it's very much fitting for John the Baptist, isn't it? Very much fitting for John the Baptist. He positions himself as the one who puts Christ in front of himself. He's only a voice, that's all. He's only a voice. Secondly, that he is a voice that commands repentance. He's a voice that commands repentance. This is implied when he says, make straight the way of the Lord. In other words, what he's doing is he's looking at the delegation and saying, Mr. Delegation, or Mr's Delegation, I know exactly who you are. You and your bosses, all of y'all, are underhanded and all of y'all are shameful in your hollow and insincere worship of God. You delegation, your hypocrisy is literally without rival nowadays. You of all people need to correct and you of all people need to amend your ways rather quickly because the Lord God sees through it all. He's a voice that commands repentance. Thirdly, that he is a voice that commands repentance and promises comfort. He's a voice that commands repentance and promises comfort. The passage in the book of Isaiah where this is taken from is known as the comfort passage. It's a passage of a time where the people of God would leave their exile in Babylon and come back to the land of promise. where again they would feel the comfort of their home. It's a homecoming verse. Here John uses this to look to the homecoming of the people of God in Christ. That is to say in the fullness of his quotation of this passage, when you repent, when you make the straight paths of the Lord, when you repent and claim Jesus as your own, he gives to you of his own comforts, and then they're yours. Those comforts are your own. This is the testimony of John in front of the opposition. It has a negative and it has a positive quality to it. And that leads us then to our last thought this evening that we'll very briefly consider, that of John's location. So we've looked at his opposition, we've looked at his confession, and finally, his location. When you think about John's location when he gives his testimony, there's a couple of ways, there's a couple of different ways that we can understand this. Firstly, we can consider his location in terms of how he sees himself compared to Jesus, or that in this particular passage, we can see John's location positionally as it relates to that of the Lord Jesus. And for that, again, we look briefly at verse 26. Verse 26, John answered them, I baptize with water, but among you stands one who you do not know, even he who comes after me, the strap of whose sandal I am not worthy to untie. Now when John the Baptist says this phrase, I baptize with water, but, whatever comes after it, he's admitting something about himself relative to Jesus, that whatever it is that John the Baptist does, you know, specifically preaching and baptizing, Everything that John the Baptist does, including maybe some other things that the Bible doesn't speak of, I'm not 100% sure, but we know him as a preacher and as a baptizer. Whatever it is that he does, it's important in its own right, but all that stuff is microscopic. compared with the importance of the one who is coming after him and everything that he is going to be doing. He says, in effect, guys, I can only do what I'm told. That's all I can do. You know, I can only follow a little bit of what Ezekiel 36 says about the sprinkling of water and the symbolism and the like. I can only do what I'm told with regard to that. I cannot cleanse those who come to me. I cannot cleanse those who come to me from all of their uncleanness like the rest of the passage in Ezekiel 36 verse 25 says. Only the Lord Jesus can. That's it. Only he can. He says this to point out that however popular he is, however significant this is to the public eye, to the religious elite, to the ruling class, It's so pales in its significance that it really tests the bounds of how to compare one person to another in the first place. It really tests the bounds of how to compare someone to the Lord Jesus, especially him. So when he says this about his location relative to Jesus, he preaches himself as one who won't even be worthy to untie his master's sandals. And think of this, if he preaches this with his mouth, one only has to wonder what's going on in his mind, right? If he has the gumption to preach that, I'm not even worthy to untie my master's sandals. You gotta be wondering what he's thinking then. It was common in that day for slaves to do the job of removing sandals for their masters whenever they would enter houses, and by him saying that he's not even worthy of doing that, it means that he views himself not even worthy of serving him in the most menial and inferior of tasks. So, we can see his location relative to the position of Jesus. We can also see his location in terms of geography as well. That's exactly what this passage does, verse 28. These things took place in Bethany across the Jordan where John was baptizing. Now this note on John's location geographically is less a thought on the interpretation of this specific particular passage and more a point on understanding the entire book as a whole. The Gospel of John is broken up into two main sections. You have the book of signs on the one hand and the book of glory. the book of signs and the book of glory. The book of signs begins in one verse 19 and it ends at the end of chapter 11. The Book of Glory, which contains things like the Upper Room Discourse, Jesus' High Priestly Prayer, what he says about the Holy Spirit in the Gospel of John, the Crucifixion, the Resurrection, the Ascension, all of that is found in the Book of Glory. That's how the interpreters have divided it up, and I tend to agree with this. Now it's fascinating as we think of this very verse being placed in the beginning of the book of signs that all this takes place, verse 28, in Bethany across the Jordan where John was baptizing. And what do we find all the way at the end of the Book of Signs in chapter 11? Well, chapter 11 verse 1 says that the end of the Book of Signs, where the resurrection of Lazarus takes place, takes place in a town called Bethany. Now, these aren't the same place, but they do serve an interesting traveling pattern that the ministry of Jesus was introduced by John the Baptist in Bethany across the Jordan. The bulk of his miracle working ministry in the gospel then ends in Bethany, which is just east of Jerusalem, only then for him to be crucified and resurrected in Jerusalem. From this vantage, we have an across the Jordan, just outside of Jerusalem, Jerusalem, we have an east to west movement going on here that the Lord Jesus performs in his gospel. It's a fitting start to the book of signs that sets up for a rather fitting end, not only to the book of signs, but also to the entire book as well. And you know what the original hearers would understand at this point? This east to west pattern. They would understand return from exile. That's what they would understand. We're coming home. That's what they would understand. They would understand that in Christ, we're coming home. This is our homecoming, celestially. More pointedly, the original hearers would understand that we find our home in Christ. who took upon himself flesh and made his dwelling amongst us." That's exactly what the original hearers would understand. It's John's location geographically that speaks rather loudly to us as the original audience. So what have we seen? That the ministry of Jesus is introduced by John the Baptist bearing his self-denying testimony about the majesty and supremacy of Christ. This is part one of his testimony. We've seen John's opposition, we've seen John's confession, we've seen John's location, and I'll leave you with one note of application, that if you confess Christ before men, what does the Bible say? He will confess you before his Father. If you confess Christ before men, he will confess you before his Father. In belonging to him as you do, you will confess him before others, and you do already. You, like John the Baptist, do make negative as well as positive confession about Christ. That's what you're supposed to do, and that's what you do anyways. There are still things that you have to answer in the negative. There are still things that you have to answer in the positive. In other words, something that you can answer in the negative. You cannot be Christ to them. You cannot be Christ to them, and they need to know that. They need to know that you're not the Messiah, and that you don't do what you do because you want to believe for them. That's not what you can do, and they need to know that. You don't do what you do because you want to show them that you're somewhat of a sage, or so that they can look to you as somewhat of an enlightened one, or even as the one who can be exactly like me with the one exception that you are a Christian. That's not what you're supposed to do, so you're still to answer in the negative with regard to your witness and your testimony that you bear. You are also still to answer in the positive, still to this very day, that all you are is just a pointer to Christ. That's what you are. At best, you point to Christ and you let him do whatever he does best, which is save sinners, as we've learned this morning. That you're the one who isn't right in and of yourself, but you're the one who has been made right by the real Messiah, the one who came down for you, and that he's so far superior to you that you aren't even worthy of being his servant, but by God's grace, you are. So let's humbly make known our position compared to his, like John the Baptist.