MESSAGES
Demands of Commitment-Part III
From Egypt to the Promised Land
Overcoming Obstacles part - II
Overcoming Obstacles Part -III
Receiving the Promises of God -I
Receiving the Promises of God - II
Reformation: Going Beyond the Obvious
Well Done is Better Than Well Said
When the Church is Gone - Part II
When the Church is Gone - Part III
When the Church is Gone - Part IV
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FORERUNNERS FOR CHRIST MALACHI 3:1; MALACHI 4:5-6 Both of the scriptures
we just read prophesy of messengers or forerunners that would
come before the Lord came to Earth.
There are some that believe that these two scriptures refer
to the same person and that the forerunner in question will come
before the second coming of Christ. However, I, like many others believe that these
2 scriptures refer to forerunners for two distinctly different
events, the events being the birth of Christ and the second coming
of Christ. MATTHEW 11:7-10 Here Jesus identifies
John with the Messenger of Malachi 3:1. He says of John, “For this is he,
of whom it is written, Behold, I send my messenger before thy
face, which shall prepare thy way before thee. The
messenger of Malachi 4:5-6 comes before the great and dreadful
day of the Lord, i.e., before the Second Coming of Christ to take
vengeance on those who oppose him.
REVELATION 11:3-7 I believe that
the two witnesses spoken of here are the forerunners to the Second
Coming of Christ. These
two men have been ordained to prophesy to the remaining peoples
of the world of the coming wrath of God and to give testimony
of Christ. At the end of
their 3.5 years of performing their duties of forerunner, they
will be killed. As a point
of note, I believe these two men to be Elijah and Enoch because
these are the only two Bible characters that left this earth without
first tasting death. They did not escape death; rather their deaths
were delayed by the plan of God for their lives. Thus there was a forerunner at the first coming of Christ and
there will be a forerunner before the final coming of Christ to
set up his kingdom. However,
there is another event in the life of Christ that is of worldwide
importance to mankind, that being the rapture. And just as there
was a forerunner Christ’s first coming and will be a forerunner
before his second coming, I believe that there is a forerunner
before the rapture. By
now you should have surmised that the title of today’s message
is “Forerunners For Christ”. Now the Wycliff
Bible Dictionary says that forerunner is the term used of one
sent ahead, either as a spy to reconnoiter for those who are to
follow or as a herald to prepare the way for a coming king.
So we see John to be the forerunner to Christ in His first
coming to earth in human form and the two witnesses of Revelation
to be the forerunners before the second coming of Christ.
Who then is the forerunner before the Coming of Christ
to get his saints? I believe that the Church is to serve as the
forerunner before the coming of Christ to rapture his people.
Jesus told His disciples in Matthew 28:19-20 “Go ye
therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of
the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost:
Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded
you: and, lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of
the world.” This essentially
means that he told them “go and prepare a people for me.” Disciples are later called Christians for the
first time according to Acts 11:26, in LUKE 1:5-17
Recognizing that we share the role of forerunner for Christ
with John, there are several points that we should pay close attention
to in this announcement of John’s birth.
Here in this announcement we can gain information on the
requirements and purpose of the forerunner. But the first thing that we should recognize
is that John was not appointed to be the forerunner because of
anything he had done. He
was not the forerunner because he was good or because he lived
a perfect life. John was
chosen while still in the womb.
Likewise God has chose to use the church as a forerunner
for Christ not because we who are in the church are good; not
because we have any special talents, gifts or abilities but rather
because as I Cor. 1:21 says, “it please God to save the world
by the foolishness of preaching.” In other words, it pleased God to establish
preaching as the mechanism by which foolish man would hear the
Gospel of Jesus Christ and get saved.
Thus he established a church to preach that very Gospel. LUKE 1:15
Here we begin to see some of the qualifications for being
a forerunner. It says that John drank neither wine made from
grapes or any other intoxicating drink which is received as John
was a Nazarite. Now a Nazarite
was a lay person of either sex who was bound by a special vow
of consecration to God’s service for a defined period of
time or for life. There were rules for Nazarites, the first being
that they could not partake of the fruit of the vine. In John’s day there were several version
of what might be called wine.
There strong intoxicating wines, new wines freshly squeezed
and only lightly fermented, and vinegar wine which was cheaper
than regular wine. These were all make from the fruit of the vine.
The Nazarite was commanded not to partake of anything coming
from the fruit of the vine. He was to be pure and holy both in how he behaved
and how he was perceived by the people.
It was not that he was just to refrain from drinking strong
drink and becoming intoxicated.
He was to refrain from anything that could even be used
to make strong drink. I Thess. 5:22 says “Abstain from all appearance
of evil”. This is
the equivalent of telling the Nazarite not to even touch grape
juice; for there was to be no question in the eyes of the people
as to the holy standard set by God.
Likewise the church as the representative and forerunner
for Christ must live the standard set before us in the Word of
God and taught to us by the Spirit of God. We must leave no doubt in the hearts and minds
of man as to what standard God will use in judging mankind. Because mankind does not truly understand what
separates sinful man from God, we who have joined to God in relationship
with him, must make a difference between us and them. And the difference must be so plain that it
leaves no doubt that they are outside of the will of God and thus
stand in need of his salvation.
Another requirement of a Nazarite was that he had to leave
his hair uncut. He had to allow it to grow long. The long hair was symbolic of dedication one’s
life to God. If one made
himself a temporary Nazarite, when their vow was over, they shaved
the head to symbolize a completion of their time of dedication.
The church can not be temporarily dedicated to Christ and
thus the people in the church cannot be temporary Nazarites. We are to be 100% dedicated and sold out to
Christ. Our dedication
to Christ is not to be shown by long hair but rather by our daily
commitment to surrendering our will to him.
Those who don’t know Christ as savior are not judging
our commitment to Christ by the length of our hair as one would
a Nazarite but rather they are judging our long display of the
fruit of the Spirit. I CORINTHIANS 10:31-33 As the forerunners for Christ we who
are in the church of the Lord Jesus Christ must be committed and
dedicated to having every aspect of our lives glorify God.
Our commitment and dedication must be daily, constant and
unfailing. This means that
our commitment and dedication must be selfless.
When the choice is to glorify God or yield to self desires
we must with unfailing resolve choose to glorify God.
As forerunners for Christ we, the Church of the Lord Jesus
Christ, can offer the world no opportunity to doubt our dedication
to the service of the Master.
Finally the Nazarite was required to remain free from all
impurities including touching of dead bodies. I COR 6:17
We have spent some time on this scripture in other messages
and recognize that it is a call of the church to holiness.
We are not to separate ourselves physically from the world
but we are to separate out actions, our behavior and our way of
approaching life and life circumstance in the manner of the world.
We are to remain pure in word, thought, deed and action.
And like the Nazarite we are to refrain from touching that
which is dead; not that which is physically dead, but rather our
old habits, sin both new tempted sin and past temptations.
We must refrain from going back to the dead things from
which God has already delivered us and press forward into the
new life in Christ. The church in its mission as forerunner for
Christ is to prepare a people for Christ at his return. We know that Christ will return for a Church
without spot or wrinkle. Thus
we must be spot and wrinkle free ourselves so that we might draw
others to be prepared to meet Him. LUKE 1:15
Another thing that we notice about John the forerunner
for Christ is that he was filled with the Holy Ghost even while
in his mother’s womb. Verses 40-41 in this same chapter tell of how
John leaped in his mother’s womb when carrying Jesus, Mary
entered into his mother’s presence.
ACTS 1:8
Jesus did not send his disciples out to win the world and
prepare a people for him without first giving them the power that
they needed to fulfill the task. Just as John was anointed from his mother’s
womb so the church has been anointed from its very conception
to go forth in the name of Christ.
We they saints of God have the same anointed which bring
the same power as that received by John.
We also have the same mission as John to be forerunners
for Christ, sharing the gospel, preparing a people for our Lord.
Failure on John’s part would have made success on
Jesus’ part more difficult. There would have been fewer people to present
his teaching to at the Sermon on the Mount.
Jesus would have had to work harder to plant hope in the
hearts of the people; to awaken them to the move of God in their
midst. Failure on the part of the Church will also
make it difficult for Jesus to complete his goal of presenting
God with a people who will love and serve him by choice.
Being a forerunner for Christ is an important task given
to the church. Fulfilling
the desire of God for which he first created man rest now on the
shoulders of the Church. God’s desire to have a people who would
love, honor, glorify, praise and fellowship with him now hinges
on the work of the church. The
church has a role in determining whither the people standing with
God in glory will be countless and countless of un-numerable souls
or if there will be just a few stragglers here and there.
As the forerunner for Christ, ours is an important task. JOHN 3:25-30
As the forerunner for Christ, John recognized that the
show was not about him. John pointed even those who saw themselves as
disciples of John in the direction of Christ.
So often we who are in the church and especially church
leader forget that this is about Christ and God and not about
growing our individual churches or our specific denomination.
The mission of the church is to grow the family of God
by birthing new babies into the family and growing them to maturity
that they may in return participate in the birthing process.
So often we who are in the church become to inward focused
and forget that ours is an outward mission.
As the forerunner for Christ we must be outward focused
or we will fail in the mission of preparing a people to meet Christ
at his coming. HEBREWS 6:20
The church is a forerunner for Christ, but this verse explains
that Christ has already served as a forerunner for us; entering
as our high priest into the Holy of Holies in Heaven to offer
his pure and righteous blood as a sacrifice for our sins.
Because he has offered himself in the presence of God as
a substitute for us, we who accept the great sacrifice that has
been made on our behalf no longer stand guilty before God.
He who was a forerunner for us only ask now that we who
are in His church commit ourselves to being forerunners for him
as he seeks to present his father with the gift of a family of
loving children. |