Sermon Tone Analysis

INTRODUCTION

Please take your Bible and turn to Mark chapter 1

Today we are looking at verses 2-4

Verses 2-8 form the unit of thought, so I will read the entire section

Read Mark 1:1-8, “1 The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. 2 As it is written in Isaiah the prophet: “Behold, I send My messenger ahead of You, Who will prepare Your way; 3 The voice of one crying in the wilderness, ‘Make ready the way of the Lord, Make His paths straight.’

” 4 John the Baptist appeared in the wilderness preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.

5 And all the country of Judea was going out to him, and all the people of Jerusalem; and they were being baptized by him in the Jordan River, confessing their sins.

6 John was clothed with camel’s hair and wore a leather belt around his waist, and his diet was locusts and wild honey.

7 And he was preaching, and saying, “After me One is coming who is mightier than I, and I am not fit to stoop down and untie the thong of His sandals.

8 “I baptized you with water; but He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.””

Last week we began a new study in the gospel of Mark and looked at verse 1 and saw that this is a title for the contents of this gospel

Mark is telling his readers that his gospel is about Jesus Christ

And who is Jesus Christ?

Mark says He is the Son of God, the Lord of Glory, God incarnate!

Now Mark proceeds to tell us about John the Baptist who was the forerunner of Christ and “A Voice in the Wilderness”

Mark doesn’t begin with the birth of Christ like Matthew and Luke

He doesn’t take us where the Apostle John does to the face-to-face relationship Jesus had with the Father

No he begins with...

The Prophecy of Isaiah (vv.2-3)

R.C. Sproul says, “…when John the Baptist appeared on the scene of Israel, when he came out of the desert and began to preach after hundreds of years of silence since the last Old Testament prophet, his appearance stirred more national interest than Jesus’ initial appearance...The people had thought God was finished with prophets, but suddenly a prophet emerged out of the wilderness”

More than 700 years after Isaiah’s prophecy, the voice of one calling in the wilderness appears

And all 4 gospel writers citing this prophecy ascribe that voice to John the Baptist

So as Mark begins his gospel, he begins by citing this prophecy as says “As it is written”

To begin with “As it is written” is to introduce this OT quote

Mark uses that same formula 4 other times in his gospel when introducing OT prophecy (7:6; 9:13; 14:21, 27)

As you examine verses 2-8 you quickly see that they form a closely knit unit setting forth the ministry of Christ’s forerunner (Hiebert)

Verses 2-4 are...one complete sentence (Hiebert)

It begins with the prophetic citation in vv.2-3

This forms the introduction

Then in verse 4 he gives the historical statement which completes the sentence (Hiebert)

The prophecy says: “2 As it is written in Isaiah the prophet: “BEHOLD, I SEND MY MESSENGER AHEAD OF YOU, WHO WILL PREPARE YOUR WAY; 3 THE VOICE OF ONE CRYING IN THE WILDERNESS, ‘MAKE READY THE WAY OF THE LORD, MAKE HIS PATHS STRAIGHT.’””

Some versions begin with “in the prophets” but the better Greek manuscripts read “Isaiah the prophet” (MacArthur)

Mark’s quote is from two OT passages (Mal.3:1;

Isa.40:3)

He merges both together

Only the last two lines quoted are from Isaiah 40:3; the first two are from Malachi 3:1.

(Stern)

The point of the whole quotation is that John’s preparatory ministry, in fulfillment of prophecy, authenticated Jesus’ messiahship and prepared for the beginning of His official ministry as the Messiah (Hiebert)

Malachi says the messenger in Malachi 4:5 is Elijah

But both Matthew and Mark identify this messenger as John the Baptist in Mat.11:10 and Mark 1:2.

Jesus also said in Matthew 11:14, “And if you are willing to accept it, John himself is Elijah who was to come.”

John would come, according to Luke 1:17, “...in the spirit and power of Elijah, to turn the hearts of the fathers back to the children, and the disobedient to the attitude of the righteous, so as to make ready a people prepared for the Lord.””

This answers how he would “prepare” and “make ready the way of the Lord”

These two prophecies foretold that before the Messiah would come, God would send a herald, and that herald’s responsibility would be to prepare the way for the coming Messiah (Sproul)

Just as earthly monarchs in the ancient world sent official messengers before them to prepare the way, announce their coming, and make the people ready to receive them (MacArthur), so does God

John the Baptist ran ahead to prepare everyone for the King’s arrival

Luke 1 records the birth of John the Baptist

Luke 1:7 says that Zacharias and Elizabeth “had no child, because Elizabeth was barren, and they were both advanced in years”

But while Zacharias was doing his “priestly service before God” (v.8), he was in the temple preparing to “burn incense” (v.9) and “an angel of the Lord appeared to him, standing to the right of the altar of incense” (v.11)

The angel identifies himself as Gabriel (v.19)

Verses 12-13 says “Zacharias was troubled (tarasso, “to cause great mental distress” LN, “to terrify” MCEDONTW) when he saw the angel, and fear gripped him.

But the angel said to him, ‘Do not be afraid, Zacharias, for your petition has been heard, and your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son, and you will give him the name John”

Just a footnote - Elizabeth was “barren” which meant she “had no child” but now she will be pregnant and “bear a son”

Life begins at conception

Both Psalm 139:13 and 15 state that God forms you in your mother’s womb

So therefore abortion for any reason (life of mother, rape, incest) is murder

Since the Roe v. Wade decision legalizing abortion, there have been “over 63 million abortions…in the US since 1973” (https://www.foxnews.com/politics/abortions-since-roe-v-wade)

My prayer is for this to stop but given the climate I don’t think it’s going to stop since the Democrats want to make it the law of the land

The angel proceeds to tell Zacharias what kind of man John will be

Verses 15-16 says, “For he will be great in the sight of the Lord; and he will drink no wine or liquor, and he will be filled with the Holy Spirit while yet in his mother’s womb.

And he will turn many of the sons of Israel back to the Lord their God”

But because Zacharias didn’t believe the angel’s word about John, he is told that he will be “silent and unable to speak until the day when these things take place” (v.20)

Looking at the Gospel of John, the Apostle John said John the Baptist’s was sent from God and He was not the Christ but was sent “as a witness, to testify about the Light, so that all might believe through him.

8 He was not the Light, but he came to testify about the Light” (Jn.1:6-8)

So Mark repeats Isaiah’s prophecy in Isaiah 40:3 and applies it to John the Baptist as “the voice of one crying in the wilderness”

John the Baptist was literally “a voice of one shouting” (Hiebert)

The word “crying” is speaking of a loud cry or shout heard from a distance

It was a cry marked by intensity and emotion (Hiebert)

The call “to make His paths straight” is probably an allusion to preparation through repentance (NETBREN)

The way of the Lord is the way of repentance (MacArthur)

It’s turning from sin to righteousness

It’s turning spiritual paths that are crooked into ones that are straight and holy (MacArthur)

We’ll say more about that in a moment

Applying verses 2-3 to John the Baptist, Mark now tells us about...

The Forerunner of Christ (vv.4-8)

Verse 4 begins with...

His Revealing (v.4a)

Mark says, “John the Baptist appeared in the wilderness”

Notice first his name

He was not named after his father Zacharias

He was given the name John by the angel Gabriel to Zacharias in Luke 1:13.

John was a common name in the 1st century

It meant “the Lord is gracious”

It is the Greek equivalent of the Hebrew name Johanan

The name “baptist” is not his last name

It is a title and it literally means “the baptizer”

This distinguished him from others with the same name

Lenski says “While baptizing was distinctive of John and thus gave him an additional name, his work in general was that of a prophet, more specifically of a herald, sent of God to the nation.”

Mark says “John the Baptist appeared in the wilderness”

According to Luke 1:80 this is where he also grew up

He spent the duration of his ministry along the Jordan River, about twenty miles south of the sea of Galilee (Jn.3:23)

For Mark to say to his audience that John “appeared in the wilderness,” was to constantly remind them of the exodus from Egypt and entrance into the Promised Land (MacArthur)

Mark also says what he did in the wilderness:

He was “preaching a baptism of repentance for the remission of sins”

Let’s notice...

His Preaching (v.4b)

“Preaching” is the Greek word kerysso

It occurs over 60 times in the NT

It means “to proclaim as a herald” (Mounce)

As already noted, this is what Mark is saying with identifying John the Baptist with Jesus