All right, we have a lot to talk about. This is extremely hard to pick out the highlights for the public life of Jesus granted. We're gonna do two lectures. This is part one, the next lecture will be part two, but there's just so much to talk about.
So I'm gonna just cover the tip of the iceberg really, just some highlights, a 30,000 foot view that's going to be looking at the main points of his public ministry and even there, I inevitably am gonna be skipping over a different elements, different aspects, events of his life. What I'd like to do for this lecture is look at his actions and deeds, because Jesus proclaims the kingdom and words and deeds. So this lecture will be the deeds, the actions, miracles of our Lord, and then the next lecture will focus a lot of his words and his teachings. And that's just kind of the method of the madness for this little introduction to the public life of Jesus.
Now let's begin in lesson, chapter three. Matthew, we're gonna, of course, there are four gospels and we'll look at a little bit of Matthew, a little bit of Luke, a little bit of John, we're gonna hop around a little bit, but we're gonna look first at his baptism and we'll look at the account in Matthew. Let me just read for you a few of these verses, Matthew chapter three verse one. In those days, King John the Baptist preaching of the wilderness of Judea, repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.
For this is he who was spoken up by the prophet Isaiah when he said, the voice of one crying in the wilderness, prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight. Now John wore a garment of camel's hair and a leather belt around his waist, and his food was locusts and wild honey. And it sounds, sounds yummy. Then he went out to him Jerusalem in Judea, and the region of all the Jordan, and they were baptized by him, and the river Jordan confessing their sins.
All right, this is the introduction to John the Baptist. It's not so much an introduction for us because a couple lectures back, when we look at the enunciation of the Archangel Gabriel to Zechariah, we talk a lot about the role of John the Baptist. So we're just gonna kind of touch upon this really, really quickly here. So the first thing, the first words out of his mouth is repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.
That's really important. That's really gonna be kind of the underlying theme of this whole lecture, and the next lecture is the kingdom of heaven, the kingdom of God, which really is the kingdom of David, as we talked about many, many lectures ago in the covenant that God made with David in Second Same with Chapter Seven. But the first word repent, in order to here understand, to see the kingdom of heaven that has come in our midst, in order to enter into the kingdom of heaven, we must repent. And later we're gonna see Jesus picks up that his ministry on that very note as well.
It says the same thing, repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. We'll talk about that just shortly here. So John the Baptist comes into the scene and Matthew quotes Isaiah, Chapter 40, that John the Baptist fulfills the prophecy of Isaiah. Now don't forget, John the Baptist concludes the whole cycle of prophets, we call it.
It begins with Elijah, it ends here with John the Baptist, and all the prophets in between are part of his larger cycle of prophets. And all of them together really, the office of prophecy is to call the people to repentance, to encourage them and exhort them and appeal and beg them really to turn back to God. Turn back to God, otherwise there will be consequences, as we saw with the destruction of the temple. So in a certain sense, you can say all the prophets are the herald of the Messiah.
They foretell the coming of the Messiah. But John the Baptist in a particular way, is the last of the cycle of prophets, who comes as a new Elijah to prepare the people. And so the quote from Isaiah 40 here, we read it in Matthew, Chapter three, verses three. But I have it here in your notes as well, a voice cries in the wilderness.
See, punctuation has kind of messes this up a little bit. A voice cries colon in the wilderness, prepare the way of the Lord, or a voice cries in the wilderness, prepare the way of the Lord. You see, hopefully my emphasis is, it can make it that clear. Both of them work, right?
A voice cries in the wilderness, prepare the way of the Lord, or a voice cries in the wilderness, and John the Baptist fulfills both of them, both senses, right? So prepare the way of the Lord, make straight in the desert a highway for our God. Now Isaiah 40 is important because if you remember in a previous lecture, or two, I should forget right now, we talked a lot about the book of consolation. Okay, actually it was the last lecture, I guess that's to do with Simeon, right?
Remember Simeon was looking for the consolation of Israel. And at the presentation in the temple, he's excited, exhilarated, he sees the Messiah who brings salvation and lights to the nations, right? If you remember that passage, the whole story. Well, he's waiting for the consolation of Israel, and it begins here with the arrival of John the Baptist, who is the herald for the Messiah for the Savior.
So I wanted to make that connection for you as well. Everything is super duper connected here. John the Baptist and Jesus, I've said before, they're BFFs, they're besties. Their ministry, John's ministry flows right into Jesus' ministry.
And so John is in the wilderness now, preparing the people for salvation, preparing the people to receive the consolation of God, the consolation that begins here in Isaiah chapter 40, and goes throughout the rest of the book of Isaiah. Now, and I also have in your notes the couple passages from Malachi, you'll remember these, Malachi is the last profit of the Old Testament, and these verses, I'm gonna skip to Malachi four verses five and six. These are the last verses of the entire prophetic genre, a prophetic office of the Old Testament, and it says, behold, I'll send you Elijah the prophet before the great and awesome or terrible day of the Lord comes. He will turn the hearts of fathers to their children and the hearts of children to their fathers.
So in John the Baptist is showing up, he looking like Elijah, having bad food like Elijah, I'm sure like Gordon Ramsey, or people like him, these great cooks could even turn this nice locust with wild honey into a gourmet dish, but very, very austere way of life. He had the way he looks, the way he preaches, all right, what he eats, what he says, all of it. John the Baptist is a Nazarite. He hasn't shaved the day in his life.
He might think he sneaks things, but actually, parenthetically, I'd like to point out that he doesn't, because he's in the Jordan River baptizing everybody. So at least he's got that going for him. He's very, very clean. All right, so here he is in the wilderness, fulfilling Isaiah in the book of consolation, fulfilling Malachi, he's preparing the people for the coming of the Messiah, and that's Jesus Christ.
And again, Archangel Gabriel told Zacharite all of this. We looked at this a couple of lessons ago, right? Okay, so here he is in the Jordan River, and the Jordan River is significant. Geography is significant in scripture.
Everything is right, hopefully you're convinced on that by now. People, places, things, events, locations, all of it is very important. So why is John at the Jordan River? Well, if you remember, Elijah has taken up into heaven at the Jordan River, that's significant, but if you go back even farther in the Old Testament, you're gonna look at the end of the Exodus when the people cross into the Promised Land on dry land when the Jordan River parts.
It's kind of like a little mini Exodus story there. We talked about this back in lesson 17, right? This is really awesome how the whole Exodus story begins and ends with the parting of water and the people walking through dry ground. So I got this reference here in your notes, at Joshua chapter three verse 17, while all Israel were passing over on dry land, or dry ground, the priests who bore the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord stood on dry ground in the midst of the Jordan until all the nation finished passing over the Jordan River.
Now this marks the conclusion of the first Exodus. I really try to hammer that point home with you back in lesson 17, Joshua completes the Exodus. Moses left things kind of, left a lot to be done because he died before he get into the Promised Land. And so the conquest of the Promised Land under the leadership of Joshua is very important.
The Exodus is complete and God fulfills his promise of giving the people the land during this time. Now, so with all that going on, as time goes on, we look through Old Testament, salvation history, the people had the cycles of naughtiness and turning back to God, to have the golden years of David and Solomon, and that's awesome. But then the people plunged into sin and idolatry and then they were exiled. And in the period of the exile, if you remember, we covered a lot of different passages in the prophets where God said, I will bring the people back from where I have scattered them.
Okay, so consistent theme, there would be a new Exodus. Now, Hosea chapter two here in your notes I have for you is a very, very important passage that's gonna tip people off as to how God wants to bring his people back to him. And it says this, chapter two verse 14 and following, therefore behold, I will allure her, so this is God speaking of Israel. I will allure her and bring her into the wilderness and speak tenderly to her.
And in that day, he says, the Lord, you will call me my husband. And I will make for you a covenant on that day. This whole section, that's a little bit of editing work there, the whole section talks about how God wants to bring Israel back into the wilderness to woo her, to allure her, to bring her back to him. So that way Israel would call God my husband once more.
This all happened at Mount Sinai, if you remember, God has this covenant with Israel at Mount Sinai. God essentially wed Israel to himself. You got those two powerful images, a covenantal familial images of God with his people. The first is God is the father of Israel, Israel is God's firstborn son, that's very important.
Then you have the other aspect that God is also the bridegroom, the divine bridegroom of his people. And so what Hosea is saying is that God wants to bring the people back into the wilderness to kind of light the flame alive a little bit. You know, a lot of people do this. If you've been married a while, you know, 20, 30 years, you've got kids and careers, you're tired.
Maybe the flame in the marriage is flickering a little bit. Maybe it's dead. And you're like, you know, let's go back to the place of our honeymoon and reignite that flame again. That's kind of what's going on right now, right?
God says, let's go back to the wilderness. That's where we were first betro. That's where I wed you, not necessarily the best place for a honeymoon, but between God and his people, the wilderness is the place of covenantal union. And so when John the Baptist goes out to the wilderness to prepare the people through the baptism and the repentance of sins, he's fulfilling Hosea as well.
He's preparing the people to receive their divine bridegroom. So this is why John calls himself the quote unquote best man. He says the friend of the bridegroom. By the way, I have to before I forget, I have to recommend another of Dr.
Rant Petrie's books, Jesus the bridegroom, he'll get into this in a lot more detail. There are other resources as well, but I just recommend anything that Dr. Petrie writes on scripture is just super accessible. And he'll get into this whole point that Jesus is the divine bridegroom.
And John the Baptist understands this and he is the best man preparing Israel as the bride for her husband. He says in John chapter three, verse 29 following, he who has the bride, there's the bridegroom. The friend of the bridegroom who stands in here and rejoices greatly at the bridegroom's voice. Therefore, this joy of mine is now full.
He must increase and I must decrease. So at this point, he's basically saying, I've done my role to prepare Israel as a bride to receive her heavenly divine bridegroom in Jesus Christ. So that's all to say, rapid fashion, typical of me, but it's all to say that the Jordan River and the wilderness is really significant because now God is coming back as the divine bridegroom to wed his people to allure her again in the wilderness. And John the Baptist is a new Elijah who and the best man of the bridegroom in order to prepare the people.
So I hope you're hope you're tracking with me and all of that. That is what John is doing and why he's doing it.