V.

The First Ministry of the Baptist.

(LUKE III.)

"Hark, what a sound, and too divine for hearing,

Stirs on the earth and trembles in the air!

Is it the thunder of the Lord's appearing?

Is it the music of his people's prayer?

"Surely He cometh, and a thousand voices

Shout to the saints, and to the deaf and dumb;

Surely He cometh, and the earth rejoices,

Glad in his coming who hath sworn, I come."

F. W. H. MYERS.

The Preaching of Repentance--His Power as a Preacher--His

Message--Warning of Impending Judgment--The Wages of Sin

Thirty years had left their mark on the Forerunner. The aged priest

and his wife Elisabeth had been carried to their grave by other hands

than those of the young Nazarite. The story of his miraculous birth,

and the expectations it had aroused, had almost died out of the memory

of the countryside. For many years John had been living in the caves

that indent the limestone rocks of the desolate wilderness which

extends from Hebron to the western shores of the Dead Sea. By the use

of the scantiest fare, and roughest garb, he had brought his body under

complete mastery. From nature, from the inspired page, and from direct

fellowship with God, he had received revelations which are only

vouchsafed to those who can stand the strain of discipline in the

school of solitude and privation. He had carefully pondered also the

signs of the times, of which he received information from the Bedouin

and others with whom he came in contact. Blended with all other

thoughts, John's heart was filled with the advent of Him, so near akin

to himself, who, to his certain knowledge, was growing up, a few months

his junior, in an obscure highland home, but who was speedily to be

manifested to Israel.

At last the moment arrived for him to utter the mighty burden that

pressed upon him; and "in the fifteenth year of Tiberius Caesar,

Pontius Pilate being governor of Judaea, Herod the tetrarch of Galilee,

Annas and Caiaphas the high priests, the word of God came unto John,

the son of Zacharias, in the wilderness." It may have befallen thus.

One day, as a caravan of pilgrims was slowly climbing the mountain

gorges threaded by the road between Jerusalem and Jericho, or halted

for a moment in the noontide heat, they were startled by the appearance

of a gaunt and sinewy man, with flowing raven locks, and a voice which

must have been as sonorous and penetrating as a clarion, who cried,

"Repent! the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand."

It was as though a spark had fallen on dry tinder. The tidings spread

with wonderful rapidity that in the wilderness of Judaea one was to be

met who recalled the memory of the great prophets, and whose burning

eloquence was of the same order as of Isaiah or Ezekiel. Instantly

people began to flock to him from all sides. "There went out to him

Jerusalem, and all Judaea, and all the region round about Jordan." The

neighbourhood suddenly became black with hurrying crowds--as Klondike,

when the news of the discovery of gold began to spread. From lip to

lip the tidings sped of a great leader and preacher, who had suddenly

appeared.

He seems finally to have taken his stand not far from the rose-clad

oasis of Jericho, on the banks of the Jordan; and men of every tribe,

class, and profession, gathered thither, listening eagerly, or

interrupting him with loud cries for help. The population of the

metropolis, familiar with the Temple services, and accustomed to the

splendour of the palace; fishermen from the Lake of Gennesaret, dusky

sons of Ishmael from the desert of Gilead; the proud Pharisee; the

detested publican, who had fattened on the sorrows and burdens of the

people--were there, together with crowds of ordinary people that could

find no resting-place in the schools or systems of religious thought of

which Jerusalem was the centre.

1. MANY CAUSES ACCOUNTED FOR JOHN'S IMMENSE POPULARITY.--_The office

of the prophet was almost obsolete_. Several centuries, as we have

seen, had passed since the last great prophet had finished his

testimony. The oldest man living at that time could not remember

having seen a man who had ever spoken to a prophet. It seemed as

unlikely, to adopt the phrase of another, that another prophet should

arise in that formal, materialistic age, as that another cathedral

should be added to the splendid remains of Gothic glory which tell us

of those bygone days when there were giants in the land.

Moreover, _John gave such abundant evidence of sincerity--of reality_.

His independence of anything that this world could give made men feel

that whatever he said was inspired by his direct contact with things as

they literally are. It was certain that his severe and lonely life had

rent the vail, and given him the knowledge of facts and realities,

which were as yet hidden from ordinary men, though waiting, soon to be

revealed; and it was equally certain that his words were a faithful and

adequate presentation of what he saw. He spoke what he knew, and

testified what he had seen. His accent of conviction was unmistakable.

When men see the professed prophet of the Unseen and Eternal as keen

after his own interests as any worldling, shrewd at a bargain,

captivated by show, obsequious to the titled and wealthy; when they

discover the man who predicts the dissolution of all things carefully

investing the proceeds of the books in which he publishes his

predictions--they are apt to reduce to a minimum their faith in his

words. But there was no trace of this in the Baptist, and therefore

the people went forth to him.

_Above all, he appealed to their moral convictions, and, indeed,

expressed them_. The people knew that they were not as they should be.

For a long time this consciousness had been gaining ground; and now

they flocked around the man who revealed themselves to themselves, and

indicated with unfaltering decision the course of action they should

adopt. How marvellous is the fascination which he exerts over men who

will speak to their inner-most souls! This has always been the source

of power to the great orators of the Romish Church--men like Massillon,

for instance--and to refuse to use this method of approach is to forego

one of the mightiest weapons in the repertory of Christian appeal. If

we deal only with the intellect or imagination, the novelist or

essayist may successfully compete with us. It is in his direct appeal

to the heart and conscience, that the servant of God exerts his supreme

and unrivalled power. Though a man may shrink from the preaching of

repentance, yet, if it tell the truth about himself, he will be

irresistibly attracted to hear the voice that harrows his soul. John

rebuked Herod for many things; but still the royal offender sent for

him again and again, and heard him gladly.

It is expressly said that John saw many Pharisees and Sadducees coming

to his baptism (Matt. iii. 7). Their advent appears to have caused him

some surprise. "Ye offspring of vipers, who warned you to flee from

the wrath to come?" The strong epithet he used of them suggests that

they came as critics, because they were unwilling to surrender the

leadership of the religious life of Israel, and were anxious to keep in

touch with the new movement, until they could sap its vitality, or

divert its force into the channels of their own influence.

But it is quite likely that in many cases there were deeper reasons.

_The Pharisees_ were the ritualists and formalists of their day, who

would wrangle about the breadth of a phylactery, and decide to an inch

how far a man might walk on the Sabbath day; but the mere externals of

religion will never permanently satisfy the soul made in the likeness

of God. Ultimately it will turn from them with a great nausea and an

insatiable desire for the living God. As for _the Sadducees_, they

were the materialists of their time. The reaction of superstition, it

has been said, is to infidelity; and the reaction from Pharisaism was

to Sadduceeism. Disgusted and outraged by the trifling of the

literalists of Scripture interpretation, the Sadducee denied that there

was an eternal world and a spiritual state, and asserted that "there is

no resurrection, neither angel, nor spirit." But mere negation can

never satisfy. The heart still moans out its sorrow under the darkness

of agnosticism, as the ocean sighing under a starless midnight.

Nature's instincts are more cogent than reason. It was hardly to be

wondered at, then, that these two great classes were largely

represented in the crowds that gathered on the banks of the Jordan.

II. LET US BRIEFLY ENUMERATE THE MAIN BURDEN OF THE BAPTIST'S

PREACHING.--(1) "_The Kingdom of Heaven is at hand_." To a Jew that

phrase meant the re-establishment of the Theocracy, and a return to

those great days in the history of his people when God Himself was

Lawgiver and King. Had not Daniel predicted that in the days of the

last of the great empires, prefigured in Nebuchadnezzar's dream, the

God of heaven would set up a kingdom which should never be

destroyed--which should break in pieces all other kingdoms and stand

for ever? Had he not foreseen a time when One like unto a son of man

should come to the Ancient of Days to receive a dominion which should

not pass away, and a kingdom which should not be destroyed? Had he not

foretold that the greatness of the kingdoms under the whole heaven

should be given to the saints of the Most High? Surely, then, all

these anticipations were on the eve of fulfilment. The long-expected

Messiah was at hand; and here was the forerunner described by Isaiah,

the prophet, saying:--

"The voice of one crying in the wilderness,

Make ye ready the way of the Lord,

Make his paths straight."

But some misgiving must have passed over the minds of his hearers when

they heard the young prophet's description of the conditions and

accompaniments of that long-looked-for reign. Instead of dilating on

the material glory of the Messianic period, far surpassing the

magnificent splendour of Solomon, he insisted on the fulfilment of

certain necessary preliminary requirements, which lifted the whole

conception of the anticipated reign to a new level, in which the inward

and spiritual took precedence of the outward and material. It was the

old lesson, which in every age requires repetition, that unless a man

is born again, and from above, he cannot see the kingdom of God.

Be sure of this, that no outward circumstances, however propitious and

favourable, can bring about true blessedness. We might be put into the

midst of heaven itself, and be poor, and miserable, and blind, and

naked, unless the heart were in loving union with the Lamb, who is in

the midst of the throne. He is the light of that city, his countenance

doth lighten it--from his throne the river of its pleasure flows, his

service is its delightful business; and to be out of fellowship with

Him would make us out of harmony with its joy. Life must be centred in

Christ if it is to be concentric with all the circles of heaven's

bliss. We can never be at rest or happy whilst we expect to find our

fresh springs in outward circumstances. It is only when we are right

with God that we are blest and at rest. Righteousness is blessedness.

Where the King is enthroned within the heart, the soul is in the

kingdom, which is righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost;

nay, perhaps more accurately, that kingdom is in the soul. And when

all hearts are yielded to the King; when all gates lift up their heads,

and all everlasting doors are unfolded for his entrance--then the curse

which has so long brooded over the world shall be done away. The whole

creation groaneth and travaileth for the manifestation of the sons of

God: but when they are revealed in all their beauty, then judgment

shall dwell in the wilderness, and righteousness shall abide in the

fruitful field, and the work of righteousness shall be peace, and the

effect of righteousness quietness and confidence for ever; and the

mirage shall become a pool, and the thirsty ground springs of water

(Isa. xxxii. 15, 16; xxxv. 7, R.V.).

(2) Alongside the proclamation of the kingdom was the uncompromising

insistence on "_the wrath to come_." John saw that the Advent of the

King would bring inevitable suffering to those who were living in

self-indulgence and sin.

There would be careful discrimination. He who was coming would

carefully discern between the righteous and the wicked; between those

who served God and those who served Him not: and the preacher enforced

his words by an image familiar to orientals. When the wheat is reaped,

it is bound in sheaves and carted to the threshing-floor, which is

generally a circular spot of hard ground from fifty to one hundred feet

in diameter. On this the wheat is threshed from the chaff by manual

labour, but the two lie intermingled till the evening, when the grain

is caught up in broad shovels or fans, and thrown against the evening

breeze, as it passes swiftly over the fevered land; thus the light

chaff is borne away, while the wheat falls heavily to the earth.

Likewise, cried the Baptist, there shall be a very careful process of

discrimination, before the unquenchable fires are lighted; so that none

but chaff shall be consigned to the flames--a prediction which was

faithfully fulfilled. At first Christ drew all men to Himself; but, as

his ministry proceeded, He revealed their quality. A few were

permanently attracted to Him; the majority were as definitely repelled.

There was no middle class. Men were either for or against Him. The

sheep on this side; the goats on that. The five wise virgins, and the

five foolish. Those who entered the strait gate, and those who flocked

down the broad way that leadeth to destruction. So it has been in

every age. Jesus Christ is the touchstone of trial. Our attitude

towards Him reveals the true quality of the soul.

There would also be a period of probation. "The axe laid to the root

of the trees" is familiar enough to those who know anything of

forestry. The woodman barks some tree which seems to him to be

occupying space capable of being put to better use. There is no undue

haste. It is only after severe and searching scrutiny that the word

goes forth: "Cut it down; why cumbereth it the ground?" But when once

that word is spoken, there is no appeal. The Jewish people had become

sadly unfruitful; but a definite period was to intervene--three years

of Christ's ministry and thirty years beside--before the threatened

judgment befell. All this while the axe lay ready for its final

stroke; but only when all hope of reformation was abandoned was it

driven home, and the nation crashed to its doom.

Perhaps this may be the case with one of my readers. You have been

planted on a favourable site, and have drunk in the dews and rain and

sunshine of God's providence; but what fruit have you yielded in

return? How have you repaid the heavenly Husbandman? May He not be

considering whether any result will accrue from prolonging your

opportunities for bearing fruit? He has looked for grapes, and lo, you

have brought forth only wild grapes; He may well consider the

advisability of removing you from the stewardship, which you have used

for your own emolument, and not for his glory.

For all such there must be "wrath to come." After there has been

searching scrutiny and investigation, and every reasonable chance has

been given for amendment, and still the soul is impenitent and

disobedient, there must be "a certain fearful looking for of judgment

and fiery indignation which shall devour the adversaries."

The fire of John's preaching had its primary fulfilment, probably, in

the awful disasters which befell the Jewish people, culminating in the

siege and fall of Jerusalem. We know how marvellously the little

handful of believers which had been gathered out by the preaching of

Christ and his disciples were accounted worthy to escape all those

things that came to pass, and to stand before the Son of Man. But the

unbelieving mass of the Jewish people were discovered to be worthless

chaff and unfruitful trees, and assigned to those terrible fires which

have left a scar on Palestine to this day.

But there was a deeper meaning. The wrath of God avenges itself, not

on nations but on individual sinners. "He that believeth not the Son

shall not see life, but the wrath of God abideth on him." The penalty

of sin is inevitable. The wages of sin is death. The land which

beareth thorns and thistles, after having drunk of the rain which

cometh often upon it, is rejected and nigh unto a curse, its end is to

be burned; under the first covenant, every transgression and

disobedience received a just recompense of reward; the man that set at

nought Moses' law died without compassion, on the word of two or three

witnesses--of how much sorer punishment shall he be judged worthy who

hath trodden under foot the Son of God, and hath counted the blood of

the covenant a common thing, and hath done despite to the Spirit of

grace!

Even if we grant, as of course we must, that many of the expressions

referring to the ultimate fate of the ungodly are symbolical, yet it

must be granted also, that they have counterparts in the realm of soul

and spirit, which are as terrible to endure, as the nature of the soul

is more highly organized than that of the body. Fire to the body is

easy to bear in comparison with certain forms of suffering to which the

heart and soul are sometimes exposed even in this life. Have we not

sometimes said, "If physical suffering were concerned, we could bear

it; but oh, this pain which is gnawing at the heart--this awful inward

agony, which burns like fire!" And if we are capable of suffering so

acutely from remorse and shame, from ingratitude and misrepresentation,

in this life where there are so many distractions and temporary

alleviations, what may not be the possibility of pain in that other

life, where there is no screen, no covering, no alleviation, no cup of

water to slake the thirst! Believe me, when Jesus said, "These shall

go away into eternal punishment," He contemplated a retribution so

terrible, that it were good for the sufferers if they had never been

born.

All the great preachers have seen and faithfully borne witness to the

fearful results of sin, as they take effect in this life and the next.

These threw Brainerd into a dripping sweat, whilst praying on a cool

day for his Indians in the woods; these drew John Welsh from his bed,

at all hours of the night, to plead for his people; these inspired

Baxter to write his _Call to the Unconverted_; these drew Henry Martyn

from his fellowship at Cambridge to the burning plains of India; these

forced tears from Whitefield as he preached to the crowding thousands;

these burn in the memorable sermon by Jonathan Edwards on "Sinners in

the hands of an angry God." The notable revival which broke out at

Kirk o' Shotts was due, under God, to Livingston congratulating the

people that drops of rain alone were falling, and not the fire of

Divine wrath. The sermons of Ralph Erskine, of McCheyne and W. C.

Burns, of Brownlow Northland Reginald Radcliffe, in the last

generation, were characterized by the same appeals. Though, on the

other hand, because God is not confined to any one method, the

preaching of the late D. L. Moody was specially steeped in the love of

God. It is for want of a vision of the inevitable fate of the godless

and disobedient, that much of our present-day preaching is so powerless

and ephemeral. You cannot get crops out of the land merely by summer

showers and sunshine; there must be the subsoil ploughing, the

pulverizing frost, the wild March wind. And only when we modern

preachers have seen sin as God sees it, and begin to apply the divine

standard to the human conscience; only when our eagerness and yearning

well over into our eyes and broken tones, only when we know the terror

of the Lord, and begin to persuade men as though we would pluck them

out of the fire, by our strenuous expostulation and entreaties--shall

we see the effects that followed the preaching of the Baptist when

soldiers, publicans, Pharisees, and scribes, crowded around him,

saying, "What shall we do?"

All John's preaching, therefore, led up to the demand for repentance.

The word which was oftenest on his lips was "Repent ye!" It was not

enough to plead direct descent from Abraham, or outward conformity with

the Levitical and Temple rites. God could raise up children to Abraham

from the stones of the river bank. There must be the renunciation of

sin, the definite turning to God, the bringing forth of fruit meet for

an amended life. In no other way could the people be prepared for the

coming of the Lord.