The Message of Preparation

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · May 7, 1908

The Message of Preparation

The subject of the Sabbath-school lesson for May 16 is “The Work of John the Baptist,” and this opens up a large field for study. We can only present a few of the thoughts which are naturally connected with this topic.

The work of John the Baptist was specifically predicted in the prophecies, and was definitely based upon the prophecies. Jesus said of John: “This is he of whom it is written, Behold, I send my messenger before thy face, who shall prepare thy way before thee.” John himself declared: “I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness, Make straight the way of the Lord, as said Isaiah the prophet.” A messenger was foretold in the prophecies, and at the right time the messenger appeared. The prophecies set forth a work to be done in preparation for the coming of “the messenger of the covenant,” and “when the fulness of time came,” the work was accomplished. Students of the prophetic word who were willing to accept light from heaven, even though it should be contrary to their theories already adopted, had a most satisfactory basis for testing the genuine character of the work of John the Baptist.

The message of John was needed first in order to show the need of a divine Saviour, and second to bear witness to the fact that Jesus of Nazareth was the promised Messiah, the Saviour of the world. These were the two distinctive features of John’s work.

Under the teaching of a degenerate priesthood the people had lost their sense of their need of a Saviour who should save them from their sins, and had come to depend upon their strict compliance with forms and ceremonies as the essential requisite for acceptance with God. “The Jews lost the spiritual life from their ceremonies, and clung to the dead forms. They trusted to the sacrifices and ordinances themselves, instead of resting upon him to whom they pointed. In order to supply the place of that which they had lost, the priests and rabbis multiplied requirements of their own; and the more rigid they grew, the less of the love of God was manifested. They measured their holiness by the multitude of their ceremonies, while their hearts were filled with pride and hypocrisy. With all their minute and burdensome injunctions, it was an impossibility to keep the law. Those who desired to serve God, and who tried to observe the rabbinical precepts, toiled under a heavy burden. They could find no rest from the accusings of a troubled conscience.”

To those who were groping in moral darkness, vainly seeking for deliverance from the power of sin by their own efforts to fulfil man’s perversion of God’s requirements, “John was to go forth as Jehovah’s messenger, to bring to men the light of God. He must give a new direction to their thoughts. He must impress them with the holiness of God’s requirements, and their need of his perfect righteousness. . . . He saw his people deceived, self-satisfied, and asleep in their sins. He longed to arouse them to a holier life. The message that God had given him to bear was designed to startle them from their lethargy, and cause them to tremble because of their great wickedness. Before the seed of the gospel could find lodgment, the soil of the heart must be broken up. Before they would seek healing from Jesus, they must be awakened to their danger from the wounds of sin.”

The parallel between the actual condition of things in the time of John the Baptist, just before the manifestation of the Messiah, and in our time, just before “the manifestation of his coming,” is both clear and instructive. The decline of true religion as an experience of the life, the acceptance of tradition and human interpretation and political philosophy, the substitution of the works of self-righteousness for the works of faith, the inculcation of the doctrine of the salvation of the nation rather than of individuals, and of help for the nation through the gateway of politics, plans for bettering the condition of men in this world rather than for preparing them for the crisis just at hand,—in all these respects the two periods correspond very closely. And the remedy is

the same in both cases. There must be a message proclaiming the sacrifice and the righteousness of Christ, the necessity of faith in a personal Saviour in order to overcome sin, and that the kingdom of heaven is at hand.

The first step in preparing the way for receiving the help provided in the gift of the Son of God is to show the utter helplessness of man when left to himself, and thus to destroy all confidence in the flesh. “Education, culture, the exercise of the will, human effort, all have their proper sphere, but here they are powerless. They may produce an outward correctness of behavior, but they can not change the heart; they can not purify the springs of life. There must be a power working from within, a new life from above, before men can be changed from sin to holiness. That power is Christ. His grace alone can quicken the lifeless faculties of the soul, and attract it to God, to holiness.” The message of John the Baptist was designed to bring this truth home to the hearts of the people.

At least a week of centuries before the first advent of our Lord there was announced through the prophet Isaiah that principle which both justifies the need of a Saviour, and, when acknowledged, leads to the personal acceptance of “the power of God unto salvation” as the only hope of deliverance. The statement is brief and simple: “All flesh is grass.” In interpreting this fundamental truth to the people of his time, John said: “Think not to say within yourselves, We have Abraham to our father: for I say unto you that God is able of these stones to raise up children unto Abraham.” The blessing of Abraham—the forgiveness of sin through God’s gift of righteousness—is bestowed upon those who exercise the faith of Abraham rather than upon those who are the descendants of Abraham according to the flesh. “All flesh is grass,” even the flesh of Abraham, even the flesh of every individual, even “my” flesh; for “I know that in me, that is, in my flesh, dwelleth no good thing.” “We are the circumcision, who worship by the Spirit of God, and glory in Christ Jesus, and have no confidence in the flesh.”

Self-righteousness, in all its many and varied manifestations, is estimated at its true worth in the sweeping declaration, to which there is no exception, “All flesh is grass.” With this belongs the equally clear and emphatic statement of Jesus: “Without me ye can do nothing.” Salvation from sin is not accomplished through the evolution of the divinity within; a righteous character is not the result of environment and development; “there is none righteous, no, not one; . . . they have all turned aside, they are together become unprofitable; there is none that doeth good, no, not so much as one.” We are all sinners. We can not save ourselves. There is no other name under heaven, except the name of Jesus, wherein we can be saved. “By grace have ye been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God.”

Such was the message which John the Baptist gave in order to prepare a people to recognize and to receive the Messiah when he should be manifested. Such is the message which should be proclaimed in this generation to prepare a people for the second advent of our Lord. This is the message of the nothingness of man, and his entire dependence upon Christ and his righteousness.