What's Your Real Birthday?

says, “A voice of one calling: ‘In the desert prepare the way for the LORD; make straight in the wilderness a highway for our God.” Who is that voice calling in the desert? John the Baptist! Isn’t that amazing, the prophet Isaiah, who prophesied so clearly about Jesus, also prophesied about the coming of John the Baptist. And so what is John the Baptist saying there in the desert? He was preaching repentance for the forgiveness of sins. John knew that the promised Messiah of Israel, the Lamb of God who would come to take away the sins of the world, was at hand—was in the world, just as Scripture had been foretelling. John was preaching the message to repent. He was telling the people, yes, you are sinners, but God loves you so much that He is sending a Messiah to save you from yours sins. So stop sinning, and be sorry…repent… of your sins—and then watch what God is about to do in your life! By repenting of your sins and by being baptized, you are making, “A highway for our God.” Repenting of your sins, and being baptized is your highway, your expressway away from what your sins have earned you and takes you straight back into fellowship with God. The fact that John the Baptist is proclaiming this is very important. Consider these facts about John the Baptist:
• His mother Elizabeth was pregnant with him at the same time Mary was pregnant with Jesus. In fact, his mother and Mary were sisters. That made John Jesus’ cousin. One time Mary walked by Elizabeth, while they were still pregnant, and Elizabeth felt John leap for joy inside her womb. Even before they were born, John knew Who Jesus was. And he knew that Jesus wasn’t just an ordinary cousin, but instead, he knew that Jesus was, “The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.”
• The name John means, “The LORD is gracious.”
• John knew that baptizing by water was the best a man of God could do, but that Jesus would make that baptism by water complete by baptizing with the Holy Spirit.
Yes, Jesus makes everything complete. Yet Jesus doesn’t take away God’s Law, but rather He fulfills it. He completes the Law for believers.
Before Jesus appeared to John, John was preaching repentance-baptism, which back then meant that baptism preceded or accompanied repentance. Baptism of this sort really wasn’t new, and was typically used to baptize Gentile converts to Judaism. But it was unheard of that the Jews themselves…the very descendants of Abraham…needed to repent or be baptized. In fact, John’s practice of baptizing those who came to him in repentance was so characteristic and well-known of his ministry that he became known as “the Baptist” or the “the Baptizer.” All along though, John kept telling people that there would be another One—meaning Jesus—Who would come soon, whose baptism was by far more powerful than that of John. John’s baptizing there in the river Jordan became so well known that people from all over the area came out to watch him at work and/or to be baptized themselves. Now of course, this got the Pharisees—the religious leaders—all up in arms and interested in what this fellow was doing there. Remember, the Pharisees were some of the top Jewish priests who were really quite self-righteous…they thought that they were way better than anyone else, when in fact they weren’t preaching or practicing God’s love at all. So they asked John what