PREDICTION ABOUT JOHN THE BAPTIST

“For he will be great in the sight of the Lord, and shall drink neither wine nor strong drink. He will also be filled with the Holy Spirit, even from his mother’s womb” (Luke 1:15 NKJV).

Here in our verse, the angel Gabriel made an announcement concerning John the Baptist. The announcement predicts three things about John: his prominence, his purity, and his power.

His prominence – “He will be great in the sight of the Lord.” John the Baptist would be a great man. But this greatness is qualified as greatness “in the sight of the Lord.” This means that it was true greatness. Today, there are many so-called great achievements of man which God will not even give honorable mention. What God calls “great” has to do with character and spirituality, things which this world despises. In God’s eyes, John the Baptist was truly “great.”

His purity – “He . . . shall drink neither wine nor strong drink.” John would not be a drunkard. He would not frequent the bars. John was an abstainer from what today has been called the ‘devil’s brew.’ This abstaining from “strong drink” goes hand in hand with John’s greatness before God. We definitely will not be great in the sight of God if we are given to drink.

His power – “He will also be filled with the Holy Spirit.” This is not speaking of John’s salvation but of his service. Being filled with the Holy Spirit refers to John’s enablement for service. This meant that John would be divinely equipped and empowered for his ministry. God had His hand on John from the very moment of conception. We all need the help of the Holy Spirit if we are going to serve God well. And when God calls us, the Holy Spirit will equip us with the necessary power and ability to serve Him.

(Adapted from Butler's Daily Bible Reading 3)

Soli Deo Gloria (To God Alone Be The Glory)

Quotation of the Week

“If we give God service it must be because He gives us grace. We work for Him because He works in us!”

Charles Haddon Spurgeon (1834 - 1892)

English Particular Baptist Preacher

Word Study

Expecting / looking

In 2 Peter 3:12 we read, “Looking for and hastening the coming of the day of God, because of which the heavens will be dissolved, being on fire, and the elements will melt with fervent heat?" (NKJV).

“Expecting / looking” is the Greek word prosdokáō (προσδοκάω = pros-dok-ah'-o). It is made up of two words: “prós” which means towards, and “dokáo” which means look for denoting the direction of one's mind toward something. Literally the word means to look forward toward, to wait for, to anticipate. It means to give thought to something that is in the future. Prosdokáō is also in the present tense indicating that this should be one’s habit or lifestyle. It describes the attitude believers should have as we expectantly look for the return of our Lord. Such attitude will radically impact our lives!

“Fear Nots” Found in the Bible

“Therefore I say unto you, take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink; nor yet for your body, what ye shall put on. Is not the life more than meat, and the body than raiment?” (Matt. 6:35 KJV).

Did You Know…

Before blowing their trumpets, the priests of Israel marched around the city of Jericho once for 6 days, then on the seventh day, they marched around the city seven times after which the wall came crashing down (Josh. 6:3-4).

Bible Quiz

Who said, “I did not come to bring peace but a sword?”

**Answer to last week’s Bible Quiz: After anointing the feet of the Lord Jesus, what did Mary use to wipe His feet? Her hair (John 12:3).

Names For the Lord Jesus in the Bible

“PHYSICIAN”

"He said to them, “You will surely say this proverb to Me, ‘Physician, heal yourself! Whatever we have heard done in Capernaum, do also here in Your country” (Luke 4:23 NKJV).

1. Meaning – PHYSICIAN speaks of the Lord Jesus as the One who has brought salvation to bankrupt sinners, and healing and wholeness to brokenhearted and rejected people.

2. Insights – There was a popular saying that a physician should have cured himself before he attempted to attend patients. This meant that folks wanted the Lord Jesus to prove His claims. So, in context, the people of the Lord Jesus’ hometown demanded signs and wonders before they would accept Him as the Messiah. However, the Lord Jesus gave them no miracles. Rather, He used the examples of Elijah and Elisha to show how unbelief in Israel had caused those prophets to work “away from home” with Gentiles (cf. vv. 4:25–27). When people reject God, He will go elsewhere.

Did You Know – Christian History

Thomas Aquinas was born around 1225 near Aquino, Kingdom of Sicily (present-day Lazio, Italy). He was an Italian Dominican friar and priest, an influential philosopher and theologian.

Born to noble parents, Aquinas was sent to the Abbey of Monte Cassino to train among Benedictine monks when he was just 5 years old. Aquinas remained at the monastery until he was 13 years old. During those years, he studied Aristotle’s work, which would later become a major launching point for his own exploration of philosophy. In 1243, Aquinas secretly joined an order of Dominican monks. When his family found out, they felt so betrayed that they decided to kidnap him. His family held him captive for an entire year. Upon his release in 1245, Aquinas went back to the Dominican order. He continued with his studies, was ordained in Cologne, Germany, in 1250, and went on to teach theology at the University of Paris. After earning his doctorate in theology, Aquinas devoted himself to a life of traveling, writing, teaching, public speaking and preaching. Religious institutions and universities alike yearned to benefit from the wisdom of “The Christian Apostle.”

A quiet man when he was in school, Aquinas’s classmates called him “the dumb ox” because of his imposing stature and slowness of speech. However, what he lacked in speech, he more than made up for in his writing. A prolific writer, Aquinas penned close to 60 known works of differing lengths. Handwritten copies of his works were distributed to libraries across Europe. His philosophical and theological writings spanned a wide spectrum of topics, including commentaries on the Bible and discussions of Aristotle’s writings on natural philosophy. His Summa Theologica was written from 1265 to 1274 and was intended as a theological primer for pastors in the Middle Ages. He began writing the Summa at age 39 and died before its completion nine years later. It is considered an unfinished work.

Often called “The Universal Teacher,” Aquinas died on March 7, 1274. Shortly after his death, Aquinas’s theological and philosophical writings rose to great public acclaim and reinforced a strong following among the Dominicans. Universities, seminaries and colleges came to replace Lombard’s Four Books of Sentences with Summa Theologica as the leading theology textbook. The influence of Aquinas’s writing has been so great, that an estimated 6,000 commentaries on his work exist to date.

A Little Humor

A four-year-old boy asked his father, “Daddy, what does ‘ignore’ mean?” His father explained that it meant not to pay attention to someone. The boy responded, “I don’t think we should ignore Jesus.” Puzzled, the dad replied, “I don’t either.” Then the boy explained, “But that’s what the Christmas carol says, ‘O come let us ignore Him.’”

Thought Provoking Church Sign

“Jesus took our place that we might have His peace; He took our sin that we might have His salvation!”