Matthew 3:1

JOHN THE BAPTIST. -- Matthew 3:1-12.

GOLDEN TEXT. -- Bring forth therefore fruits meet for repentance. -- Matthew 3:8. TIME. --A. D. 25. Tiberius Cæsar emperor of Rome; Judea. Roman province with Pontius Pilate as governor; Jesus Christ between twenty-nine and thirty years old. PLACE. --The Wilderness of Judea on the Jordan. HELPFUL READINGS. -- Mark 1:1-13; Luke 3:1-18; John 1:15-28. LESSON ANALYSIS. --l. The Coming Kingdom; 2. The King's Messenger; 3. The Holy Spirit and Fire.

INTRODUCTION.

. period of uncertain duration, but from the settlement of Nazareth to the beginning of John's ministry, somewhere between twenty-five and thirty years, intervenes between this and the last lesson. The silence of the sacred history is only once broken during this period, in the account of the visit of Jesus to Jerusalem when he was twelve years old, given by Luke.

At the period we have reached Augustus Cæsar and Herod the Great had given way to other rulers. Tiberius Cæsar was disgracing the imperial throne by his cruelties and crimes; Pontius Pilate was ruling Judea with insolence, rapacity and iniquity; Annas and Caiaphas were sharing in the honors and spoils of the high priesthood; and the people, oppressed and troubled, were hungering for the word of life. Suddenly the silence of prophecy, which had lasted more than four hundred years, since the day of Malachi, is at length broken.. young man of priestly lineage, clad in mantle of skin, and having his home in the desert, stands beside Jordan proclaiming the word of the Lord. He speaks boldly against sin, and exhorts to repentance, of which his baptism is the symbol. He speaks reverently of One who is destined soon to succeed him, and then sinks into seclusion as the Savior appears.

THE PLACE of the preaching of John the Baptist was in the wilderness of Judea--a wild, hilly, thinly-inhabited region (not. desert) lying west of the Dead Sea and the Lower Jordan. John's ministry extended as far north as Enon, near Salim, two-thirds of the way up the Jordan from the Dead Sea. The baptism of Jesus was doubtless at the fords of the Jordan, called Bethabara, five miles northeast of Jericho.

I. THE COMING KINGDOM

1. In those days.

Many years after the incidents of the last lesson; somewhere from twenty-five to thirty.

Came John the Baptist.

Came forth as. preacher and reformer. He was the subject of prophecy, his birth was announced by an angel, he was of priestly family, the son of Zacharias and Elizabeth, the cousin of Mary. He was now about thirty years old.

Preaching in the wilderness of Judea.

A region thinly inhabited, used mostly for pasture,. rocky tract in the eastern part of Judea and west of the Jordan. One great reason why the wilderness was chosen as the scene of his preaching was that the Jordan provided the necessary facilities for his characteristic rite. He is called the Baptist from this rite, of which he was under divine direction the originator. If Jewish proselyte baptism was practiced before this, which is doubtful, it had no divine authority and was very different in nature from the baptism inaugurated by John. In proselyte baptism the person dipped himself under water, while John baptized the candidate.