John's Water

​If Christians would study the message of John the Baptist they would discover some interesting things. Why would you want to study John’s message? Because many churches today claim to be able to trace themselves back to John the Baptist. Why would you want to be able to do this? Because most churches today claim to be “New Testament” churches and claim to be “New Testament Christians” So, are you a NT Christian? Stop now and read Luke 3:1-14……. John’s message and preaching is very clear in this passage. John was an OT prophet specifically preaching things that were clearly revealed in the OT to Israel. What was the good news John was preaching? His message is “wrath to come” and what did John require? “fruits worthy of repentance” John’s good news continues in verse 9, saying any tree not producing fruit is cast into the fire. Obviously, these people are very concerned about their future and want to know “what shall we do then?” Here is a clear question in scripture, so what comes next is clearly definition. You must always pay close attention to anytime the Bible defines things for you. You already read the passage, so I will very loosely paraphrase, Vs 11: give stuff away if you have plenty and be generous. Vs 13: Be honest and fair in your dealings. Vs 14: Be honest, content and nice to people. John the Baptist required works. John required you to DO things. This is in direct contradiction to the message of Grace we should be preaching today that salvation is available solely on the merits of what Christ accomplished on the cross. So why do churches today still break their necks to trace themselves back to John? They want his water baptism. Churches today are so tied to their water that they will trace themselves back to John to get his OT Jewish ceremonial washing for purification, but they will then ignore his preaching. We can find many things like this that churches pick and choose something they want and avoid what they don’t want. John’s baptism is preached regularly but John’s message that was PART OF his baptism is never taught or preached. This is the direct result of hundreds of years of tradition being mixed with a failure to rightly divide God’s prophecy program from his mystery program. This problem has snowballed over time to the extent that when you try to show many people what the Bible actually says they refuse to read the words for what they say. How does every word of what John the Baptist said make complete sense? Leave his words and his baptism right where God put them. In the Old Testament books of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John and to his people Israel.