Religious Backgrounds; John the Baptist

We are in our third study on the life of Christ. We are surveying the gospels pretty much thus far doing introductory type work and studies to introduce the backgrounds and so forth of the life of Christ and of the time of the gospels. We talked last week about a number of different kinds of background type themes, you know, historical, political type backgrounds. Tonight we wanna pick up and finish with that topic. We're gonna talk about religious backgrounds and then we will actually start our survey of the gospels with the first theme of the gospels, chronologically, which is the life and ministry of John the Baptist. So let's pick up on our outline with the religious backgrounds to the life of Christ. That's where we will start tonight. And as you, if you're a newcomer to the grow class, I want you to be aware of the fact that this is, we try to make at least as much as you can do in an auditorium setting with PUS, try to make it kind of a classroom setting where you're free to ask questions, raise your hand, discussion, whatever, be glad to do that. And if there's something that I have no clue about, I'll find someone to ask about so that you can answer the questions, okay? Religious background, let's talk first of all about the Pharisees. The Pharisees, these are religious sects in Palestine at the time of the gospels, the time of Christ, and the first and most important one really for our study of the gospels is the Pharisees. There were 6,000 Pharisees by the time of Christ, at least estimated by the time of Christ. And as you can see, the Pharisees are known as separatists. That's what the word means. And the Pharisees started out very well. In most preaching and teaching today, they get a lot of bad ink and rightly so because by the time of the New Testament, they had degenerated into something that they did not start out to be. They started out very well. They arose during the Maccabeean period, and if you remember, that was the time of 150 years or so before the time of Christ where there was a real religious and spiritual and national fervor and the Maccabees led the Jewish national independence against Syria. Well, they arose during that time period, and the reason they arose is they protested the heavy political, social focus of the Maccabees. And they thought there needed to be more of a spiritual focus. So that a good beginning, a good motivation for starting, the Pharisees were more concerned about spiritual renewal. And so they were separatists in the sense that they separated themselves in a sense from all of the political, social stuff and tried to focus on spiritual things. That was a good beginning. But by the time of Christ, they had kind of mutated into something different. By the time of Christ, their zeal for the law had kind of morphed into a desire to apply the law of Moses to every area of life. Now that's not a bad thing. But what happened in this gradual drift of the Pharisees is that they came up with this intricate mass of oral interpretations of the law, which they made just as important as the law. Now do you see what's happening there? Man-made rules, man-made applications of how this law applies to this situation, this situation, this situation, and this situation become equal to scripture in their eyes. And they began to confuse tradition and man-made applications with the actual scriptures themselves. And that led to this tremendous mass of teaching of the scribes and Pharisees that were put on the people. And Jesus described it as a yoke that even the Pharisees themselves couldn't bear, would not were not able to carry. I mentioned their name means separatists, but by the time of Jesus, they had become so separate that they were proud of their holiness, their self-righteousness, and separated from everybody that wasn't just like them. Now that is a real danger. That kind of drift is a real danger for anyone who takes the Bible seriously. It's a danger for fundamental Bible-believing Christians and churches to fall into that same drift the Pharisees did. The Pharisees had a wonderful beginning, but they got all hung up on their man-made interpretations of the law and applications of the law and made all these rules about how you were to live in every area of your life that the Scriptures didn't talk about and became very proud and self-righteous and just pulled away from everybody that wasn't like them. And that's a real danger that we have to always be on guard against. That's why Jesus had so many battles with the Pharisees. His sharpest conflicts with any of these religious groups was with the Pharisees because they had become very hypocritical and confusing their man-made rules with the word of God by the time Jesus came to this earth. Okay, that's the description of the Pharisees. Comments or questions about who they were, what they did, anything like that. Yes, John? There's a fall into, you know, we're talking about the inter-avolation here about heading to or taking some of the circumstances. Are we in this thing category? I mean, were they just making amendments like to the law? Were they taking the law into okay that's the point of being the fairs that were going to exist? Yes. Are they accused of that? Yeah. Yeah, I think it is. John's asking if the Pharisees were guilty of making amendments to the law and saying this is how this law is to be lived out in this situation or that situation. And I think that's exactly what they were doing. Now, part of your question also was whether or not that fits under Revelation 22 adding to the word of God or taking away from the word of God. And in time that someone takes something and says, this is equivalent to the Bible. That it comes very close to that prohibition in Revelation 22. It's not exactly the same, but it comes very close. What really Revelation 22 is talking about is anyone who claims to have additional revelation that they claim is the Bible or takes away what God has clearly revealed and says it's not the Bible. That kind of tampering with the word of God is what really Revelation 22 is talking about. The Pharisees came off close to that with their interpretations. Why did the Bible say that? Yeah, they called them white and white and sephalchers, white and tombs, white and graves. They white washed on the outside full of dead men's bones on the inside as the way Jesus described them. That was a metaphor for their hypocrisy. Good on the outside dead on the inside. What? I don't know how it came. I don't know. I don't know. I'm not sure. That's a great question. Not sure. I'm thinking it was just a particular school of thought that you bought into and you were trained in and you followed. I don't think it was a society that you had to join or anything like that. It would be pretty much like the different religious groups in our day. For instance, the Sadducees, what we're going to talk about next, were liberals. When you talk about the liberals and the fundamentalists, you're not talking about an organization. You have to join. You're talking about a kind of a category you fit in because of what you believe. I'm pretty sure is what the Pharisees would have been. It was a way of looking at the law and interpreting it and applying it and you fell into that school of thought. It was not really like a denomination or anything. That's a great question. Any others? Let's talk about the Sadducees. Sadducees were rationalists. They were the liberals of the day, which means they looked at everything from a rational perspective. They did not believe in the supernatural. They did not believe in the miraculous. They were the religious liberals of the day. They had a rational explanation for everything. If you couldn't figure it out with your mind, and that's basically where religious liberalism came, applying the rules of the Enlightenment and rationalism to supernatural things and anything that doesn't fit logic and rational thought, then is not true. That completely does away with anything supernatural or miraculous. That's where the Sadducees were. Matthew chapter 22, verse 23, for instance, that same day, the Sadducees, who say there is no resurrection, came to him with a question. That little descriptive comment, who say that there is no resurrection, Matthew 22, 23, that indicates that they did not believe in the supernatural, the miraculous, that kind of thing. Now, the Sadducees were more political than they were religious. They were opposed to the Pharisees, and you can see why you're talking about the liberal fundamentalist controversy here. The fundamentalists were the Pharisees, the liberals are the Sadducees, and so they fought against each other a lot. The only thing they agreed on was what? Yeah, they're hatred and opposition to the Lord Jesus. Yeah, they finally joined camps in that regard. There were not as many Sadducees as there were Pharisees in New Testament times, but they did have control of the Sanhedrin. You know what the Sanhedrin was? And I can't write big enough for everybody to see this. This is one reason why everybody needs to move closer to the front. Make this more of a classroom setting if we can. I'll get in my dig this week. Let Jim do it next week. Okay. The Sanhedrin, what was that? Dana? Political power of the day. It was the ruling council of the Jews, 70 people who were considered leaders, Pharisees, Sadducees, maybe some other groups involved too, but those would be the two main ones. They were the ruling council. It would kind of be like our Senate or House of Representatives. They had limited authority because the Romans were the government, obviously, but the Romans had a policy of letting things kind of operate as much as possible within the context of a national integrity and so forth. So they would let the Jews decide most matters, but they were limited in what they could do. So the Sadducees controlled the ruling council of the Jews. Okay. Let's take a look at the third group, the scribes. The scribes are the legalists. Now, by legalists here, we're not talking about what we normally think of when we use that term. We're not talking about in the sense religious legalists. These are legal scholars. That's what they really are. Legal scholars. They would be the lawyers of the day. In fact, the New Testament sometimes the word is translated, lawyer. There were scribes among both the Pharisees and Sadducees, but they were recognized as scholars and authorities on the law, authorities on what the law said and also how it should be applied. Most of the rabbis, the teachers, would come under the category of scribes. For instance, just an example in Matthew chapter 2 verse 4, remember when the Magi came to find out where Jesus was being born and they show up in Jerusalem and ask Herod and Herod when He verse 4 says, when He had called together all the people's chief priests and teachers of the law that scribes. He asked them where Christ was to be born. In other words, if anybody knows where this prophecy is supposed to take place, the teachers of the law would. They know the Old Testament and sure enough, they went back into the Old Testament and they found Micah chapter 5 and verse 2 and they told Herod in verse 5, in Bethlehem and Judea they replied, but this is what the prophet is written. And they quote, Micah 5 too. So the scribes were Old Testament scholars. In the New Testament, in the ministry of Christ, you often see them with the Pharisees. You see this mentioned a lot. Scribes and Pharisees are the Pharisees and scribes because Pharisees kind of kept scribes along with them. You know, scribes would take along, behind them, and if the Pharisees encountered a situation that they weren't sure how the law should be applied, the scribe was the legal analyst and legal scholar that said, this law should be applied in this instance in this way. And there would be a new interpretation given that applied for that situation. But the scribes were often found with the Pharisees for that reason. And they would challenge Jesus as to the interpretation of the law. Let me give you a couple of examples of that. Mark chapter 2 and verse 16, Jesus was having dinner at Levi's house. This is Matthew's house after he got saved. There were many there with him. Verse 16 says, when the teachers of the law who were Pharisees saw him eating with the sinners and tax collectors, they asked his disciples, why does he eat with tax collectors and sinners? They were challenging Jesus because in their minds the law applied to this situation and said, you shouldn't do that. And so they were always challenging Jesus about his interpretation of the law. Another example would be Mark chapter 7 and verse 5. So the Pharisees and teachers of the law, again, got this little scribe following all behind the Pharisee, telling him how to apply things. When the Pharisees and teachers of the law asked Jesus, why don't your disciples live according to the tradition of the elders, instead of eating their food with unclean hands? So again, they're challenging Jesus on the basis of one of their interpretations of the law. And in their mind, the law of clean and unclean had to do with how you cleanse your hands before you eat a meal. They had very meticulous standards of how you clean it. You take a half egg shell of water, pour it over one hand, hold the hand up so that the water drips down so that the file of your fingers, then you take that clean hand and do the other hand. I mean, they have very meticulous detailed intricate ways to even wash your hands before meal. It was considered spiritual cleansing. And Jesus didn't do any of that stuff. None of that was in the law of Moses. So they're asking him based on their interpretation of the law. Why are you breaking the law? Why don't you follow the traditions? Oh, Jesus didn't care. He'll be about their traditions. He cared about the Word of God. So that's where the scribes came in. Any question about the saggesties or the scribes? Okay, let's take a look at where we're in number four. The Herodians, the Herodians. The Herodians were identifying as loyalists. And what I mean by that is that they were more political in nature. You can tell by the name. They were loyal to Herod. They supported the Herodians, the Roman instituted kings and so forth in the different provinces. They were typically Pharisees in religion, but they were more political. They supported the Herodians and got involved more in politics. That leads me to a fifth group, the zealots. The zealots were going to call revolutionists. Now, they were really revolutionaries. They were political radicals. They were extremists. They wanted Rome out of the country. And they did everything they could to try to overturn the Roman Empire. I think that they couldn't mount an official army to try to attack Cessaria or a major Roman fort. What they did is they had these little guerrilla groups where they would try to sabotage Roman detachment who were traveling down the road or attack and little ways out in the woods and Robinhood kind of stuff. It was that kind of warfare that they tried to carry on. They were very good at it. It was their antagonism. They never gave up. It was their antagonism over a period of years that the Romans finally got tired of. It's like this mosquito keeps biting me over here. I'm going to slap that thing. And so they did. In 70 AD, they came in with the full Roman army. And Roman general Titus just scoured the land and destroyed the city of Jerusalem, tore the temple down to where there wasn't one stone left on another. And Rome said we've had enough of this little Judea place down here. We're getting rid of it and they did. But that was because of the zealots. Now, does that name ring a bell to you? Do you think of anyone who was a zealot in the New Testament? Simon. Yes. Who was Simon the zealot? Is one of the twelve disciples? Yes. This is a very interesting scenario here. Jesus, obviously he had come to accept who Jesus was, the Messiah. And so he probably gave up his revolutionary views. But can you imagine one who hated the Romans and wanted to overthrow them and probably was involved in some kind of skirmishes against Roman soldiers sitting down across the table from Matthew who was a tax collector, worked for the Roman Empire, was considered a traitor by every, you know, blue-butted, blooded Jew. I would love to have heard some of their dinner time conversations. That would have been interesting. Believers, no doubt, but still probably had some interesting conversations. Okay. Let's move to the Essings. This is one of the most interesting groups of New Testament times. The Essings were going to call extremists. And I think you'll understand why when we describe a little bit about them. The Essings are not mentioned in the New Testament. You'll not find them mentioned in the New Testament, but they are mentioned in the historical literature of the day. And we know a good bit about them. They were a monastic group that lived in a communal setting, kind of like monks would live in a monastery. That's the way the Essings were. And they lived in an area on the west side of the Dead Sea in this little settlement called Cumron. Now, we'll see that word in a few moments because I'm going to show you some pictures of Cumron. It's Q-U-M-R-A-N. But they lived in this little settlement, settlement, and they lived to themselves. They didn't intermingle with society. In fact, they would not go to the temple in Jerusalem and they rejected the priesthood of the day and the worship of the day as being corrupt. They were very extreme in their views. All they did is copy stuff, copied scriptures. They copied other texts of the day. They wrote commentaries on Old Testament books. That's pretty much all they did in their little settlement and they hid them away. And you know what they became? The Dead Sea Scrolls that were found in 1947. Now, we'll see a little bit some of the places where they were found. But the Essings were the copyists of scriptures of the day and many other pieces of literature as well. But they were very extreme. They were excluded from all other interaction with people. Just one other group real quick and then we'll look at some pictures of the Essings. That's the Samaritans. We mentioned them earlier when we were talking about the historical background. So we're just going to say the Samaritans were a religious group, kind of a hybrid group, north of Galilee. Remember they had their own temple, their own religious system. They really don't factor much religiously into the gospels or the life of Christ because of being so different. So those are the main religious groups. Let's take a few moments to look at Kumbhra because it's one of the most fascinating places in Israel. This is, Kumbhra is on the west side of the Dead Sea right at the northern end. It's about 10 miles south of Jericho. This is what it looks like. You've got these cliffs that rise up out of the area of the Dead Sea right along the Dead Sea. Let's look at another picture. These are just some of the cliffs and so forth that would be found in that area and water sources, the scriptorium. These are the archaeological remains, the dig from Kumbhra. I've toured this most everyone that goes to Israel does. Dining hall, this is where they live. They lived in this commune-type setting. There's a crack right there evidently from an earthquake in a staircase. Kumbhra on Symmeteria. It doesn't look like much but archaeologists can tell when they've come across a Symmeteria. Now here are the caves. What happened is as these men copied these copies of the Old Testament Scriptures or wrote commentaries on them or copied other documents, they would hide them away. In caves. These caves are fascinating in what they contained. In 1947, a Bedouin Shepherd who was chasing an animal, there are different legends about how this happened. Some say a little shepherd boy was throwing a rock up in some of these caves and broke one of the vases that these squirrels were contained in. Most believe it was a Bedouin Shepherd chasing an animal and went into one of these caves and saw all these containers. These jars and other vessels. That was when the squirrels were discovered in 1947. It's probably the most well-known and most significant archaeological discovery ever. Let me show you some pictures of the caves and I've got some descriptions here that we didn't put on the screen of what's inside some of them. This is cave number three which is a copper scroll was found in this cave and it contained a listing of things that were hidden in caves and other places even as far away as Jerusalem. It's in a man Jordan today in a museum. Cave number four, this is the most well-known, the most pictured of the caves at cumeron. In this cave alone, and this is the inside of it, 15,000 fragments of documents were found. Now there were fragments because most of them were not put in containers and so they did not weather quite as well. There were 122 biblical scrolls in that one cave. Now there are 11 caves in all and we'll just kind of roll through the rest of them. There's cave five, cave six right here. Seven and eight, I think seven is up here, eight is down here. Cave ten and then cave eleven. There were 11 caves that have been discovered to this point in all and in those 11 caves every Old Testament book is found except the Book of Esther. A scroll, a copy, a fragment of every Old Testament book is found and some of them, why did they hide them? Who knows, they didn't really leave any indication as to why they hid them. It may have been for protection because of attack or I don't know, but they hid them in these caves just to preserve them and keep them. Of course they knew where they were and they were left there for centuries. It was the most amazing archaeological find because previous to this, the earliest manuscripts and if you were with us in our study, the doctrine of the Bible, you're familiar with that term, copy of ancient scrolls or ancient documents. The earliest manuscript of an Old Testament text was from around 800 AD. We didn't have anything earlier than that. The Old Testament was finished around 400 BC, 1200 years earlier. These copies went back to 200 BC and some of them did. That took us back a thousand years prior to any known manuscript and what scholars found is that the text from 800 AD was exactly the same, very little variance at all from a thousand years earlier, which indicated the great care of the copyists. It was a great archaeological find. Another great thing about this archaeological find is that for many years liberals felt like they tried to tear apart the books of the Old Testament and say they were written by different authors and they had a theory on Isaiah, which was called the Duda Roe Isaiah theory, which basically Isaiah was written by two different people, they said. The first 39 chapters written by one person, last 27 written by someone else, when they found a scroll, a copy of Isaiah in the Dead Sea Scrolls and it's on display today in the Knesset Museum in Jerusalem, I've seen it, it goes straight from chapter 39 into chapter 40 with no break. There's no indication of any change in author from the copy, no indication that this was a different book, a different author. This is a tremendous archaeological find and supported what we believe about the Bible in many ways. Kumaron is an interesting place. Questions, comments about religious backgrounds before we jump into the story of John the Baptist? There's really no definitive answer as to why Esther was excluded. There were probably lots of other documents that were not preserved, that were not kept. Once these began to be found, better when thieves looted a lot of these tombs or these caves and tried to make money off of selling them to antiquities dealers in Jerusalem. Many of them were arrested, but some of some things could have been lost and all of that confusion. There have been those who have said, well, that just shows maybe Esther shouldn't have been in the Bible, but it really has nothing to do with that. The only thing we can say is that Esther was not found whether or not it was copied by these essays, we have no clue, we don't know. It may have been and been lost or may have been stolen, but no copy of Esther was found. Okay, any other questions? What? Do we know what happened to the essays? I don't. I'm trying to remember in any reading I've done what happened to the Mid-Bah Yusno, I don't recall. There were very few in number, and so they may have just died off. I mean, there was a male only type of situation, so they may have just died off, and there may have been taxed, Romans. I'm not sure what all happened to them, but they didn't last all that long. Okay, let's talk about John the Baptist, and what we're going to do now is change procedure a little bit. I'm going to ask you to really open your Bible and follow along with us because we're going to actually start surveying the gospels now. Remember, this is a survey. We will survey some major passages. We will not do a verse by verse analysis. This is not a kind of, you know, verse by verse and look at each word, each verse, and that kind of thing, that kind of detail. But I would like for you to follow along in your Bible. I will sometimes summarize a whole passage as you're looking at it. I will sometimes call your attention to a verse here or there, but we'll begin and just move chronologically through the gospels, through the life of Christ, beginning with John the Baptist. And by the way, I should say something about his name. The name John the Baptist has often created confusion among Baptist groups only who claimed that John was the first Baptist. He started the first denomination, you know, and it goes all the way back to New Testament times. It's got to be the right one, right? Sorry, that's not what it means. The Baptist really is a poor translation, and I only use it because that's typically how he's known. But the Baptist actually is from a participle, a Greek participle, and to put that in English, a participle in English usually is an ING word, climbing, running, racing. That would be a typical participle. I know that's not exactly correct, but you get the idea. In Greek, it's the same thing. So really, what we're talking about here is it's John the one baptizing or John the baptizer. It was just a description of what really kind of stood out about his ministry. It was not a denomination, it was not a church, you know, there wasn't any such thing then, not till the book of Acts. So John could not have started a church, but it just described who he was. John the one baptizing, you know, the one out there in the wilderness baptizing all those people. It's a baptizer, that's who we're talking about. That's really what the word means. But I'll use the term John the Baptist because that's what he's typically known as. Let's look at a few slides that give us some indication of where we're talking about. The life of John the Baptist, his birth and his ministry all occur. Well, early on, his birth and his family lived in the hills of Judea, the Judean hill country. Luke describes it as and that's here's Judea, the province of Judea, the hill country of Judea is typically in the middle of the country, but typically is referred to as this area down here. It's a very harsh environment. It's wilderness area. It's called desert, sometimes in the New Testament, but that's where it would take place. Let's take a look at the next slide. You see a closer up view and a little bit more of a elevation view. Here's Kumran right alongside the Dead Sea, Masada, the fortress of Herod became the last holding out grounds of the Jews when the Romans overtook them, the zealots. And this is what it looks like. This is what the area looks like, the wilderness of Judea. Now, when we think of wilderness or desert, what do we think of? We think of sand. That's not the way it is in Israel. It's just barren, dry hill country. That's the wilderness or that's the desert when the Bible speaks of Jesus going out in the desert or the wilderness for 40 days to be tempted to the devil. This is the kind of terrain you would find. This is the kind of terrain John ministered in, grew up in. Now, some of his minister when he started baptizing was alongside the Jordan River or along the Jordan River, but his growing up days was in this kind of territory. Alright, let's look at Luke chapter 1, Luke chapter 1 where we find the announcement of his birth. And this is really what word do I want to use here. This is astounding that this occurs because there has been no prophet and no voice from God, no word from God. The last prophet, the last spokesman for God and between the testament you've got around 400 years where there is no prophet sent by God and there is no voice from God to the people. And that silence is about to be broken in a very unusual way that silence is about to be broken. And we're going to see that it causes a great degree of amazement in the Judean hill country when this silence is broken. And it's broken with a very normal couple, Zacharias and Elizabeth are their names. Let's take a look at the story there in Luke chapter 1, talk about the circumstances of the parents in verses 5 through 13. As you scan through those verses, I just want to point out the highlights there. Both Zacharias and Elizabeth were of priestly descent. Both of them were in the tribe of Aaron. They were both from priestly families. And Zacharias himself was a priest. And so he would take his turn. You see priests lived out among the people and they were they would take turns different divisions of priests would go to Jerusalem and usually about one week out of every six months you would serve in the temple in Jerusalem. And so this was Zacharias turn his division was in Jerusalem and he has a very rare opportunity for a priest some priests never in their lifetime got to do this because it was always done by the drawing of lots. And whoever got the lot on this particular day would would take the incense into the holy place not all the way back into the holy of holies. That's the sacred room the high priest can only go there once a year. But in the holy place you've got this altar of incense and incense has to be placed on there at the time of the morning sacrifice and the evening sacrifice twice a day to keep the incense burning. Okay. And one priest gets to do that each day. So he's there one week out of six months one day he draws the lot to go in and do that. And so it is a rare and special opportunity for Zacharias and he goes back in to offer this incense and what happens is that in the faithful performance of his duties an angel. An angel appears to him inside the holy place now one one important part of the story I left out is these people Zacharias and Elizabeth are very old and they are childless they have no children. They have prayed for children because the angel says I've come to answer your prayer makes you wonder though were they still praying or was this a prayer from 30 years ago. Because they're physically too old to have children. But this angel appears to Zacharias and I love this thought it's not original with me so it's not the reason I love it but it's I just love this thought he was in the normal performance of his duty and God crashed into his life in an unusual way. You know so many people are looking for the spectacular and waiting for the spectacular to happen spiritually for them to God really to to move in answer prayer something like that. And what we often don't realize is that God has his own way of choosing his own time. He just wants us to be faithful every day to do what he wants us to do and he will come crashing into our lives sometimes when we least expect it. I'm sure Zacharias did not expect what he saw in fact what is it verse. Oh. Where am I looking he's 12 yeah 12. The Bible I studied this from this week it was in the right hand page upper column confused me. When Zacharias saw him he was startled and was gripped with fear. Startling gripped with fear he didn't expect to see this and so the angel says to him don't be afraid your prayers been heard you have a son. And so the circumstances of his parents were pretty amazing now let's just talk a little bit about the birth of the son at their age next slide please. This this was a natural conception it was not okay let's let's go to the next it was miraculous but not supernatural. Now that may be a little picky distinction of words but the next phrase I think will will draw it out this was not a virgin birth it was not a Holy Spirit conception. Okay this was unlike the birth of Jesus. Jesus birth the Holy Spirit caused Mary to be with child it was a Holy Spirit conception and so it was a virgin giving birth that was not the case with John the Baptist. This was a natural conception but it was miraculous in the sense that they were like Abraham and Sarah beyond child bearing years. Okay so it's very special it's miraculous but it's not in the same category as the virgin birth. Okay that's the circumstances of the parents let's look at the character of the son in verses 14 through 17. The angel describes the character of their son and in this need they get to hear ahead of time what their boy will be like when he's an adult. You know wouldn't you like well maybe you wouldn't like to hear that depends on you know what happens but they got to learn ahead of time before he was ever born what he would be like as an adult. And just look quickly at the description verse 14 he will bring great joy verse 15 he will be a great man. He will he will in verse 15 never take wine or other ferment a drink which probably means he was a nasa right he was under the nasa right vow for his whole life. Oh sorry this is misspelled and that's my fault not not soo that should be an eye right there. Nazareth Nazerite the town would be a but not the Nazerite vow the Nazerite vow is an eye comes from the Hebrew word net share which means to separate oneself. And in the Old Testament you you came under a nasa right vow and the way you demonstrated that was no strong drink no alcoholic beverages no contact with dead things you could not touch dead people or animals and third thing no razor to the head you could not cut your hair. So who is this picture of yeah Samson right allowing his hair to be cut after giving up the secret of his strength now there were three men in the body. So three men in the Bible who were under a lifetime nasa right vow Samson was one can you think of any others. Not a lifetime he did he was under a vow but not a lifetime vow there was one other in the Old Testament he was the last of the judges. Samuels Samson and Samuel were the two in the Old Testament New Testament John the Baptist obviously John the baptizer. The only three that we know over under a lifetime vow the Nazerite vow was not intended ordinarily to be a lifetime vow it was it was intended to be a vow according to numbers chapter 6 where it's described it was intended to be a vow that was taken for a period of time. And you would take a vow to separate yourself unto God for a particular purpose particular season maybe a month or you know six months or a week or whatever to do something in a special way for the Lord what you felt God had laid on your heart. And then after that time was up you would go off or sacrifice that would release you from that vow. So it was only while you were under the vow that these three stipulations held true it was not typically a lifetime vow but evidently that would be the case with John the Baptist he would be under a nasa right vow as a for life that seems to be the indication here never to take wine or other firm in a drink and then the other thing about him is to these filled with the Holy Spirit. Fillable the Holy Spirit from birth. King James says from his mother's womb and so some have taken that to mean even from conception. It probably means from the time he was born he was he was filled with the Holy Spirit. And verses 16 and 17 will have a great ministry to Israel so he is the character of the sun is described for them ahead of time in that amazing. And then let's look at the consequences of doubt verses 18 through 25. Zachariah expresses doubt. He says you know how can this be we're old and the angel says because you haven't believed me. You're going to suffer some consequences you remember what the consequences were. He would not be able to speak until this is fulfilled it is said we'll see later on that after the baby's born as they're naming him on his eight today is when this is released but for the entire nine months of the pregnancy he's not able to speak and he comes out of the temple. Out of the holy place unable to speak and so the people assume that he must have seen some kind of vision or something and you can just imagine the hubbub in the talk in Jerusalem priest goes in he's fine he comes out he can't speak something happened in there and he made signs to them as to what went on. So that was the consequences of his doubtless let's real quick deal with the birth and childhood of John before we stop and well no it's eight o'clock your kids are getting out we need stop. Okay let's stop let's pray. Thank you father for your your word and especially as we get into the gospels and really begin to understand the life of our savior and even the forerunner of our savior John and how he pointed toward the city. We thank you for this opportunity to study your word pray that you would bless us in this time and as we live our lives the rest of this week. Not just not just then the rest of our lives Lord we want to we want to honor you and be more like our savior and we would also want to be more like John whose whole purpose on this planet was to point people to Jesus. So maybe we'd be like him too we ask in Jesus name amen.