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INTRODUCTION: HURRY UP AND WAIT

It’s a rare occasion when only four words can summarize a major chapter of your life or the organization to which you belonged. But, “hurry up and wait” certainly fits that bill. From my earliest moments of hurrying up to wait at MEPS (Military Entrance Processing Station); to the chaotic screams of drill sergeants prodding us urgently off busses, leaving us standing there for hours in an empty parking lot, leaving us wondering what was going to happen next and when would we get new orders; to the meticulous packing and shipping of all of our gear, thousands of miles away to Iraq, so we could sit in empty bedrooms waiting for the orders to come down. The military is a hurry up and wait kind of place. 

Perhaps, this is how John the baptist felt as he was sitting in prison, soon to be executed. The LORD had called him to preach fiery, desperate, sermons to the apostate Jewish nation. Like the prophets of old, the Spirit of God had stirred up incendiary words within the vagabond prophet’s mouth, which did not make him any friends, but did bring him plenty of foes. To John, the warnings God told him to declare felt grave, pressing, and imminently dire and he certainly was urgent in speaking them. But now, sitting in a dank Jewish prison, John must have wondered when were all of these cascading judgments to come about. 

Think about it this way. John was like a traveling geologist who was sent to warn a small mountain village of coming destruction. He had noticed that the rock structures above were unstable and that a deadly rockslide would soon destroy the town. So, he entered the city urgently, warning them, “flee from the disaster that is to come”, but few would listen to him. In fact, they became so annoyed by him, that they arrested him and threw him into the local prison. To add insult to injury, they viciously mocked the poor man, discrediting his “expert” opinion, leaving him to rot in the dampened cell alone. Before long they executed the man, believing his quackery had been disproven, as the city was lulled into a false sense of security and hope. For just a few months later, the deadly landslide consumed them all and there wasn’t a single survivor. This was the kind of ministry John the Baptist was called to. He was called to hurry up and wait. 

JOHN AND THE PROPHET OF DOOM

As we learned last week, Malachi is often called the prophet of doom because of the calamitous prophecy he proclaimed against the belligerent people of God. He warned them that God was going to send a sudden devastation by fire that would overtake the nation (Malachi 3:3). This fire, according to Malachi, would coincide with the appearance of YHWH’s messenger, whom Malachi called “Elijah” (Malachi 3:1). That coming messenger, Jesus tells us, was none other than John the Baptist (Matthew 11:14). This means that John the Baptist would not only prepare the way for the Lord, who would save His people from their sins, but would also warn the rebels of the awful judgment that Christ was going to bring against them. John’s appearing as end-time prophet coincides with Malachi’s imminent eschatological judgment against the Jews. 

Why is this so important? Because we tend to think of John the Baptist as Jesus’ eccentric first cousin, who shows up eating grasshoppers, dressed in camel skinned robes, with the role of introducing Jesus to the world. That is kind of true, but it misses the entire theme of imminent judgment that is so carefully woven into the narrative. When John steps onto the scene in Judea, his goal is to warn the people that the Christ has come. For those who repent, they will be saved. For those who resist, they will experience a kind of hell on earth. 

JOHN AND THE END OF APOSTATE JUDAH

While we don’t have a panoply of quotations from John, we have more than enough information to validate what Malachi says about him, that he is the prophet who will precede imminent judgment. For instance, his father Zechariah (through the Holy Spirit) fully anticipated his boy would grow up to become “the messenger” of destruction foretold by Malachi (Luke 1:76-79). John, himself, believed he was the forerunner of the light-bearing Christ (Malachi 4:2; John 1:6-8, 23), who would bring healing to some and disaster unto others. 

We know this was John’s focus, because the tone of his ministry is all about repentance (Luke 3:3; Matthew 3:1). The nation had so deeply offended her God that repentance was critically and corporately needed. In John’s view, they were so far off course, the only remedy would be to humbly return to their national origins, to rewash themselves in the same old Jordan river as their ancestors had before (Joshua 3; Matthew 3:5-6), and to wait for the Davidic Messiah to come and reconstitute ta new Israel. Yet, for all who refused to turn from their sins, like the Pharisees and Sadducees, this same Messiah King would become their enemy. 

John outlines how this will take place in highly covenantal ways. He calls the Pharisees and Sadducees a brood of vipers, which first and foremost gives the picture of the ancient symbol of the Adamic curse. But there is more going on in this designation. The religious leaders truly believed that Abraham was their covenantal Father (Matthew 4:8), so John in calling them a brood of vipers, is casting them as offspring of the devil (Matthew 3:7; see also John 8:44). This meant, like Satan, they would undergo the same covenantal crushing, by the true and better Adam, who would put them under His feet (Psalm 110). 

This eschatological and covenantal crushing by Christ was so imminent upon the horizon, John could rightly say to these men that the theoretical ax was already at the root of the tree (Matthew 4:9). In layman's terms, one more swing of the ax and their entire house of cards would come crashing down. John was letting the Pharisees, Scribes, and Sadducees know that their woes would come upon them soon and it was unavoidable. 

They, like the rotten tree John is describing, would be chopped down by the messiah and thrown into the furnace (Luke 3:9). This is the kind of doom Malachi pictures Christ accomplishing and is confirmed by John the Baptist who says it explicitly in Luke 3:15-17

“Now while the people were in a state of expectation and all were wondering in their hearts about John, as to whether he was the Christ, John answered and said to them all, “As for me, I baptize you with water; but One is coming who is mightier than I, and I am not fit to untie the thong of His sandals; He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. “His winnowing fork is in His hand to thoroughly clear His threshing floor, and to gather the wheat into His barn; but He will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire.” - Luke 3:15-17

JOHN AND THE OVERLAPPING OF ERAS

So far, we have had the privilege of seeing an overlooked aspect of John the Baptist’s ministry. He would be the Malachi-predicted prophet, the Elijah-like man who would prepare the way for the Lord of salvation and judgment. His appearing meant salvation would soon come to the elect of God through Christ. His appearing also meant judgment would soon come upon the turncoats of Judah by the very hand of Christ. But there is one more aspect of his appearing we need to cover. His appearing also meant that the end of the Jewish age had come, the end of the Old Covenant era was here. 

We know this because Jesus, who was reflecting upon the ministry of John the Baptist, rebuked the Pharisees with these words in Luke 16:14-16

Now the Pharisees, who were lovers of money, were listening to all these things and were scoffing at Him. And He said to them, “You are those who justify yourselves in the sight of men, but God knows your hearts; for that which is highly esteemed among men is detestable in the sight of God. “The Law and the Prophets were proclaimed until John; since that time the gospel of the kingdom of God has been preached, and everyone is forcing his way into it. - Luke 16:14-16

Let us not downplay the significance of this statement. Jesus rebukes the Pharisees and tells them their era is coming to an end. The era of the law and the prophets is coming to a close. The world of temples, priests, sacrifices, and feasts began to end with the appearing of John the Baptist. Now that I am here, Jesus alludes, you will either join and be part of My Kingdom or you will lose your place entirely. John’s coming marked the beginning of the end of the entire Old Covenant order and for forty years after the resurrection and ascension of Christ those two eras existed simultaneously. 

For forty years after the ascension of Jesus, the temple still stood, the sacrifices continued to be placed on the altar, and the Jews had forty years to wander in the wilderness of dead religious trappings before their bodies littered the streets of Jerusalem like their ancestors of old. Forty years to repent or perish, which is what so many of them did. 

CONCLUSION

While the ministry of John the Baptist may not seem like it is important eschatologically, it contributes much to our understanding and to world history. First, his coming begins the cataclysmic and seismic shift from the old world of Judaism to the new world of the Kingdom of God. His coming signaled the end of the Old Covenant order and heralded the beginning of the Kingdom of God. What a monumental life and role that the Lord allowed this humble servant to have. It was He who Jesus called the very best man, out of all the Old Testament men, to be born of woman. But, although he was the greatest in that era, a better era was dawning where he would be considered the very least (Matthew 11:11)

He appeared to call all the remaining elect from Judea to repent and run after Christ so that they could be a part of this glorious Kingdom. But to the Sadducaical scoffers, the Scribal liars, and the whitewashed Pharisaical tombs, he came to heap condemnations galore. Why? Because they would crucify God’s one and only Son. 

In true Malachi-like fashion, the prophet preceded the awful fiery judgment of God. Nearly forty years after John was beheaded, it was this Christ who set flame to the schismatic city and removed its religion, never to be built again. 

Join us again next time as we continue this theme of near term judgment upon Jerusalem. And let me just encourage you, these preliminary discussions are absolutely essential for us to understand if we want to understand eschatology. If you miss all of the detail I am sharing with you now, and overlook it as irrelevant to the topic, you will misunderstand everything that follows, such as the rapture, the great tribulation, the abomination of desolation, the signs of the times, the mark of the beast, and so much more. Hang in there, next week we will look at how Jesus views His role in eschatology. 

Until next time, God bless you!