Meet John the Baptizer

Old Testament temple housed the place where God lived on the earth. Solomon built and dedicated the temple…He asked the question, “but will God really dwell on the earth? 1 Kings 8:27 This is the question that I would like you to ask yourself, and I will also answer that question today. “Will God Really Dwell on the Earth?” The tabernacle and the temple became the symbol of the place that god occupied. People having a particular place that they could go to ad assembly to to meet God. Isaiah prophesied Isaiah 7:14. Then we come to the New Testament, and we find God dwelling on the earth in the person of Jesus. John 1:15 word became flesh. Tabernacles with us Incarnation of Christ dwelling within us This story of such an individual takes 4 different writers to pin the life of Christ. Matthew Mark Luke and John—-table of contents Why are there 4writers. Not one can express His glory, majesty, and express the image of His Father! Illustrations: A Quartet – like the Holy Spirit is the director of a string quartet Harlem Quartet 1. Bass 2. Tenor 3. Alto 4. Soprano Matthew Mark Luke and John are singing their parts, and the Holy Spirit is directing, and you hear 4 voices, but it sounds like one voice or four instruments, but they sound like one. A compass – it is like the Holy Spirit is the red magnetic needle pointing 1. North 2. South 3. East 4. West Mathew Mark, Luke, and John are coming from 4 different directions. Still, suppose you follow the Holy Spirits leading. In that case, each one of them will point you to Jesus, A director making a movie and needing 4 different camera angles, each one getting the four different angles on the same scene ( unlike the musical theatre view or I love Lucy one-shot). The director of the Holy Spirit getting four different views from Matthew, Mark Luke, and John. Still, when the gospels are being read, it’s like you are walking the dusty roads of Nazareth or fishing in the Sea of Galilee. I love the gospel of John; it is usually the Gospel that I point new believers to read first. Matthew’s gospel was written for Jewish people. Where we find the word fulfilled or that it might be fulfilled. It was written to help the Jewish people see all of the Old Testament prophesies being fulfilled. Marks gospel was written more to a Roman audience. It is a gospel of action. It moves quickly and has lots of actions. It about doing and getting the job done in a short amount of time. Luke seems to be writing to the gentile audience. He is a Greek physician. He has more medical references to the healings and miracles. His scholarly insight gives more detail to most of the highlights. Speaking more of the perfect manhood of Jesus. To other Greek philosophers, they would have wanted that perspective as all the Greek gods were mostly very manly. John’s gospel does not seem to be just the Jews, the Romans, or the Greeks. It seems that John’s gospel audience is the world. Speaks of Jesus as the son of God or God himself. Matthew is what Jesus said. Mark is what He did; Luke is how He felt. John is who He was. Matthew, Mark, and Luke are what we call the synoptic or similar gospels like a snapshot. A trio. John is very different in his approach, more like a study portrait. “We beheld His glory’ John 1:14 John goes further in the genealogy of Jesus than any other gospel John 1:1-8 This Gospel was written by ….John… his name does not appear in the gospel as the writer Verse 6 we have a mention of John, but that is not the author How do we know he wrote it? Irenaeus said so. Irenaeus was ordained by Polycarp, who John ordained. It would be like me ordaining Bro. Cody Johnson, and one day I’m gone, and Bro. Cody quotes Bro. Podaras. Yet he never met him, but everyone knows that Bro. Podaras was my teacher. In his own writings, he calls himself the “disciple who Jesus loved” John is part of the inner circle. Peter James and John…the core. Jarius’s daughter, transfiguration, the garden of Gethsemane John was the first apostle at the tomb; he stayed at the cross until he died, Jesus sends his mother, Mary, home with John. John writes about himself outrunning Peter, One of the sons of Zebedee who was the other…James, they had been in the fishing business with their father. They were partners with another set of brothers around the Sea of Galilee, Peter, and Andrew. Jesus called them a nickname sons of Bernegees, aka sons of thunder. Was that because of who their father was or how they acted? Well, both Mark 3:17 Luke 9:54 call down fire Mark 10:35, 37 sets on your left and right…..others mad:41 John seems to have two sides. He is better known as the beloved, who writes about love, the one that everyone wants to be around, unlike Peter or Thomas. Illustration: I’m considered the person that’s good to everyone… Well, ask MY wife and son how tough I am on them. Get Bro Sean and me on the basketball court in our heyday, me playing QB at Ashbrook, or wrestling 145 and 156