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WHY DID JESUS NEED TO BE BAPTIZED?
So why would Jesus need to be baptized by John?
Well... Jesus' baptism by John was the beginning of Jesus' ministry
Mark 1:1 starts out: "The BEGINNING of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God" and then Mark starts telling us about Jesus' baptism by John.
In Luke 3:23 we're told of Jesus' baptism by John and then we read: "Now Jesus himself was about thirty years old when he BEGAN HIS MINISTRY..."
Obviously, for some reason, Jesus' ministry began with His baptism.
Now, at this point in Jewish history, water baptism served one of 3 purposes.
1st, there was the Baptism Of Repentance.
This was what John the Baptist's was preaching.
But of course Jesus didn't need to repent because He hadn't sinned.
The 2nd kind of baptism was for people who desired to convert to Judaism.
It was a Baptism Of Conversion.
If you were a Gentile who wanted to convert to Judaism, they baptized you in water.
ILLUS: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown explained that: "The Jews were accustomed to say of a heathen proselyte, on his public admission into the Jewish faith BY BAPTISM, that he was a new-born child."
So, baptism was used when someone wanted to convert to Judaism. But Jesus had no need to convert to Judaism. He already was one. He'd been born a Jew.
So baptism in those days could be for repentance or conversion... and Jesus did not need to be baptized for those reasons. So, for what OTHER reason would a person be baptized in water back then???
Well, the only other people who experienced baptism - in the Jewish faith in that day were priests. The Law dictated that especially the High Priest was to "washed with water." And the Temple had pools set aside for just that purpose.
In Leviticus 8:6 we're told that - by the instruction of God -- "Moses brought Aaron and his sons forward and washed them with water."
Then, later, during that ceremony Moses "poured some of the anointing oil on Aaron's head and anointed him to consecrate him." Leviticus 8:12
This act INITIATED Aaron's ministry as High Priest. When Aaron and his sons were washed with water and anointed with oil, they BEGAN their priesthood and were empowered to make sacrifices and to handle holy things as God's representatives.
At that point (their baptism) God put His mark of approval on the ministry of Aaron and his sons.
The Bible tells us that Jesus' ministry began with His baptism by John.
After His baptism, the Father anointed Jesus with the Holy Spirit as it descended on Him in form of a dove. And the Father put His mark of approval on Jesus by loudly declaring:
"This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased." Matthew 3:17
This was the beginning of Jesus' ministry as our High Priest.
Did you realize Jesus was our High Priest?
Indeed He is!
Hebrews 4:14: "...we have a great high priest who has gone through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God..."
From the day of His baptism by John at the Jordan until His death on the Cross, Jesus (as our High Priest) prepared the ultimate sacrifice for our sins... His own body.
MOODY AND THE FILLING OF THE SPIRIT
One of the great preachers in U.S. history is D. L. Moody. He pastored in Chicago and there is still a wonderful Bible College there that bears his name and values. Mr. Moody was a successful minister, but by his own admission, he lacked the power in his ministry. One day two women came up to him after a service. They said, "We have been praying for you."
"Why don't you pray for the people?" he asked.
"Because you need the power of the Spirit," they said.
"I need the power! Why?" said Mr. Moody
In relating the incident years after he writes, "I thought I had power. I had the largest congregation in Chicago, and there were many conversions."
Moody also said that in a sense, he was satisfied. He was in a comfort zone. But these two praying women rocked the boat. They told him that they were praying for an anointing by the Holy Spirit. Mr. Moody could not get this off his mind and he wrote, "There came a great hunger in my soul. I did not know what it was and I began to cry out to God as never before. I felt I did not want to live if I could not have this power for service."
Rev. Moody began crying out for God to fill him. He withdrew, prayed, and sought it over a period of time. He writes the following: "Well, one day, in the city of New York -- oh, what a day! -- I cannot describe it, I seldom refer to it; it is almost too sacred an experience to name. Paul had an experience of which he never spoke for fourteen years. I can only say that God revealed Himself to me, and I had such an experience of His love that I had to ask Him to stay His hand. I went to preaching again. The sermons were not different; I did not present any new truths, and yet hundreds were converted. I would not now be placed back where I was before that blessed experience if you should give me all the world."
To again quote Charles Spurgeon:
"It is joy to all nations that Christ is born, the Prince of Peace, the King who rules in righteousness...Beloved, the greatest joy is to those who know Christ as a Saviour...The further you submit yourself to Christ the Lord, the more completely you know Him, the fuller will your happiness become. Surface joy is to those who live where the Saviour is preached; but the great deeps, the great fathomless deeps of solemn joy which glisten and sparkle with delight, are for such as know the Saviour, obey the Anointed One, and have communion with the Lord Himself...you will never know the fullness of the joy which Jesus brings to the soul, unless under the power of the Holy Spirit you take the Lord your Master to be your All in all, and make Him the fountain of your intensest delight."
(From a sermon by Todd Leupold "Joy To The World" 12/21/2008)
The clock is my dictator, I shall not rest.
It makes me lie down only when exhausted.
It leads me into deep depression.
It hounds my soul.
It leads me in circles of frenzy, for activities sake.
Even though I run frantically from task to task, I will never get it all done,
For my ideal is with me.
Deadlines and my need for approval, they drive me.
They demand performance from me, beyond the limits of my schedule.
They anoint my head with migraines,
My in...
Dr. David Nichols states, "There must be a difference between the knowledge that comes from the gathering of information, and that which comes by revelation. The Pharisees and Sadducees had the best information anyone could have in their day. If you asked them, they would tell you they were in touch with revelation, as well. But when revelation of the fullness of God stood in front of them with skin on, they called Him Beelzebub (Matthew 12:24)...How can this be? How can people who are trained in the Scriptures, some of whom are even anointed by God to perform their ministry, deny the revelation of the Son of God? There is a kind of zeal in the teaching gift when it is not submitted to apostolic and prophetic authority that is destructive. This zeal combines itself with pride in knowledge to oppose what cannot be controlled. And Jesus could not be controlled by the religious hypocrisy of the Pharisees and Sadducees. Neither could the apostles in the book of Acts...In Acts chapter 1, Jesus handed off the task of advancing the Kingdom to His followers."
(Page 17, 18 Who’s In Charge?)
GOD ANOINTS MEN OF PRAYER
E. M. Bounds says in his classic book, The Power of Prayer:
"Men are God's method. The Church is looking for better methods; God is looking for better men...What the Church needs today is not more machinery or better, not new organizations or more and novel methods, but men whom the Holy Ghost can use--men of prayer, men mighty in prayer. The Holy Spirit does not flow through methods, but through men. He does not come on machinery, but on men. He does not anoint plans, but men--men of prayer."
There is a story about a vaccum salesman down in Tennesee. He was out in rural Tennesee. He had a his vacum cleaner and all of this tools and everything, and he went out there and he told a lady, "I’ve got the most exciting vacum cleaner you have ever seen. It will clean your house from top to bottom...you only have to pay so much down." And the lady said, "It sounds real good." He said, "You see that big pile of dirt right there on the floor with all those fur balls and bugs and things." He said, "My vacum cleaner will just pick up all those things up just like that and if they don’t, I’ll eat it." She said, "well you might as well get your knife and fork, because we do not have any electricity out here!"
You will be sucking up dirt the rest of your life if you do not have the power.
The clock is my dictator, I shall not rest.
It makes me lie down only when exhausted.
It leads me into deep depression.
It hounds my soul.
It leads me in circles of frenzy, for activities sake.
Even though I run frantically from task to task, I will never get it all done,
For my ideal is with me.
Deadlines and my need for approval, they drive me.
They demand performance from me, beyond the limits of my schedule.
They anoint my head with migraines,
My in-basket overflows.
Surely fatigue and time pressures shall follow me<...
Actually my wife Laurel found something at Hastings the other day that might be able to help us out: "Its called "Wash Away Your Sins - Soul Saver Pack"... "For liars, cheaters, and wrong-doers."
"It says its Bishop tested" and "Cardinal approved". Its contents are two bottles and an instruction book:
One bottle: "Holy Water" are for those little sins: "1) Remove cap - 2) Pour into palm - 3) Admit wrong doing - 4) Think pure thoughts - 5) Anoint forehead and - 6) Go fourth purged from sin, ready to do it again."
The second bottle: "Bubble bath" are for those more major sins: "1) Kneel before thy tub - 2) Reflect upon wrong doing - 3) Run warm bath water - 4) Pour in enough bubble bath to equal your sins "(I would need a 55 gal. drum)" - 5) Soak in blessed bubble - 6) Arise cleansed from sin, and ready to do it again." The instruction book adds "that you should soak 3 minutes for each deadly sin committed." Though you are to soak "15 minutes per each large deadly sin committed". Now if you commit an "extra large mortal sin", "which includes lying to your mother" then you must "add two capsuls of holy water", "soak for twenty minutes" and when exiting the bath "annoint your forehead with the blessed holy water".
Now if this were reality, we would at least know the sinners, because they would be the ones walking around with their skin all shrieveld up. And we would be going "Hah, lied to your mother again didn’t you?" And if this were the method by how you got clean from your sin, it would be really no different then the ancient practice of animal sacrifice. I mean, some of us would be living out by the barn. "What’s Joe-bob doing out by the barn". "Well slaughtering some more pigeons, and another calf. He sinned again".
FINDING REAL POWER
Someone has wisely said what it takes to find freedom in the power of the Holy Spirit.
"It costs much to obtain the power of the Spirit. It costs self-surrender and humiliation and the yielding up of the most precious things to God. It costs the perseverance of long waiting and the faith of strong trust.
But when we are really in that power we shall find this difference, that whereas before it was hard for us to do the easiest things, now it is easy for us to do the hardest things.
James Hervey, the friend of the Wesleys at Oxford, describes the change which took place in him through his anointing by the Spirit: that while his preaching was once like the firing of an arrow, all the speed and force thereof depending on the strength of his arm in the bending of the bow, now it was like the firing of a rifle ball, the whole force depending upon the powder back of the ball, and needing only a finger-touch to let it off".
SOURCE: A. J. Gordon as quoted by Walter B. Knight. Knight’s Master Book Of New Illustrations. Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Company, 1986, p. 292.
