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RESPONDING TO DIVINE E-MAIL!

I’ve made it no secret that e-mail may very well be more of a curse than a blessing. At school I receive about three dozen e-mails every day of the week. I scan them and instantly delete thirty-three of them and read the remaining three. The ratio of cursed to blessed is about 9 to 1. At home the number varies each day and because most of these are from family or friends the cursed to blessed ratio is quite a bit better. Nevertheless, I filter through them at home and instantly delete some of them.
How do you handle e-mail? On those days when you are overwhelmed by the sheer quantity of them, how do you decide what is deleted, read and deleted, or read and saved? How do you decide who to listen and respond to as you scan your e-mail?
Suppose an e-mail was sent to you by God, would you recognize it as indeed being from God? If so, how? How would it be different from the e-mail you simply delete? And if you knew it was from God, what would you do with the message? Save it for later reference? Plan on reading it more carefully when you had more time? Reply to it? And if you replied, how would you reply?
John the Baptist was the e-mail of his day. Fetched by God through Zechariah and Elizabeth, he burst on the scene with a message that was hard to ignore. Like the e-mail of our day, John’s message demanded your attention. Those who heard it had to decide right then and there what they were going to do about it. They had to make a decision about John and they had to make a decision about his message.
We read his story in Luke 3:1 - 20.
In the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar – when Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea, Herod tetrarch of Galilee, his brother Philip tetrarch of Iturea and Traconitis, and Lysanias tetrarch of Abilene – during the high priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas, the word of God came to John son of Zechariah in the desert. He went into all the country around the Jordan, preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. As it is written in the book of the words of Isaiah the prophet:
“ A voice of one calling in the desert,
‘ Prepare the way for the Lord,
make straight paths for him.
Every valley shall be filled in,
every mountain and hill made low.
The crooked roads shall become straight,
the rough ways smooth.
And all mankind will see God’s salvation’”
The first few verses tell us two things. First, the emergence of John the Baptist is so pivotal to history that his entrance on stage is dated rather precisely. Tiberius, the second of the Roman emperors, succeeded Augustus in the year 14 A. D. The fifteenth year of his reign would therefore be about 29 A.D.
The second thing these first few verses tell us is that the region was dominated, politically and religiously, by those who enjoyed power and didn’t hesitate to exercise it on their behalf. In this political and religious atmosphere, John the Baptist didn’t test the wind to see which way it blew before he spoke. He spoke out, no matter which way the wind blew.
The next few verses, vv. 4 - 6, remind us that John was simply a courier for the king. Whenever a king chose to tour a part of his dominion in the east, he sent a courier before him to tell others to prepare the roads. They filled in the ditches, potholes, and smoothed the hills so the king would have a more comfortable trip.
Today, heads of state do the same thing. Whenever President Bush visits a certain area others have already gone ahead of him to prepare the way. Security measures are taken, the itinerary is laid out, preparatory conversations are taken care of, goals are clarified, and the speech writers have word-smithed the keynote address until they are tired of thinking about it. Then on the other end, those who are being paid the visit are making sure that the president of the United States receives the red- carpet treatment so that everything will go smoothly.
In a similar manner, John announced that a great king was coming and that all obstacles to his coming needed to be removed. But, as is evidenced from the text, John was not talking about geographical obstacles. He was talking about getting ones personal and corporate lives straightened out. In the spirit of Isaiah, he was talking about preparing your heart so that you’d be free to walk side by side with the king. For in Isaiah 57:14 - 16 we read:
“ Build up, build up, prepare the road!
Remove the obstacles out of the way of my people.”
For this is what the high and lofty One says –
he who lives forever, whose name is holy:
“ I live in a high and holy place,
but also with him who is contrite and lowly in spirit,
to revive the spirit of the lowly
and to revive the heart of the contrite.”
So what e-mail did John send to those in Israel? Just this:
John said to the crowds coming out to be baptized by him, “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the coming wrath Produce fruit in keeping with repentance. And do not begin to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father.’ For I tell you that out of these stones God can raise up children for Abraham. The ax is already at the root of the trees, and every tree that does not produce good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire.”
“ What should we do then?” the crowd asked.
John answered, “The man with two tunics should share with him who has none, and the one who has food should do the same.”
Tax collectors also came to be baptized. “Teacher,” they asked, “what should we do?”
“ Don’t collect any more than you are required to,” he told them.
Then some soldiers asked him, “And what should we do?”
He replied, “Don’t exhort money and don’t accuse people falsely – be content with your pay.”
The people were waiting expectantly and were all wondering in their hearts if John might possibly be the Christ. John answered them all, “I baptize you with water. But one more powerful than I will come, the thongs of whose sandals I am not worthy to untie. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire. His winnowing fork is in his hand to clear his threshing floor and to gather the wheat into his barn, but he will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire.”
And with many other words John exhorted the people and preached the good news to them.
But when John rebuked Herod the tetrarch because of Herodias, his brother’s wife, and all the other evil things he had done, Herod added this to them all: He locked John up in prison.
For some, John’s message wiped the smile off their face. He wiped the smile off the face of Herod the tetrarch and he was locked up for it. Herod responded by deleting the e-mail. He read it, but he didn’t like what it had to say so he simply deleted the e-mailed and trashed John.
He wiped the smile off the face of those who thought he was the Messiah. He made it clear to them that he was simply a courier; someone unworthy to even untie the thongs of the Messiah’s sandals. Some in the crowd read the e-mail, and they may have even saved it for future reference. But they did not respond to it. They were the ones, like the Pharisees, who found it easier to spend twelve hours discussing religion as opposed to one hour rightly responding to a message from God.
He also wiped the smile off the face of the Pharisees and Sadducees who came out to see what he was doing. They believed that they, as sons of Abraham, were automatically qualified to receive the king. But John quickly destroyed their false sense of confidence. He called them snakes in the grass and told them that they were in danger of being cut off from having any relationship with the coming king. In essence, he told them they needed to admit, confess, that they weren’t right with God so that they could be right with God.
But the Pharisees and Sadducees, for the most part, never responded to John’s message. Instead they, undoubtedly, got on their own computers and started sending out their own e-mails arguing that John was surely a false prophet.
But others, who hadn’t had a smile on their face for a long time, saw themselves rightly. What John had to say hit them right between the eyes and in response they pleaded guilty; no contest. They stepped forward gave their name, confessed their sin, readily submitted themselves to the baptism of John, and repented; that is, they turned their life around.
It happened like this, George approached the table and picked up his name tag and on it he wrote the word “adulterer.” He then got in the next line, the line for baptism. Matt approached the table and picked up his name tag and on it wrote the word “thief.” He then got in the next line, the line for baptism. Sarah approached the table and picked up her name tag and on it wrote the word “witch” spelled with a “B.” She then got in the next line, the line for baptism. Frank approached the table and picked up his name tag and on it he wrote the word “addict.” He then got in the next line, the line for baptism. Shelby approached the table and picked up her name tag and on it she wrote the word “slanderer.” She then got in the next line, the line for baptism.
When all these, as well as others, came out of the water, however, they had a smile as big as all outdoors on their face. For they knew in their hearts that they were ready to receive the king. Their conscience was clear, their shame had been taken care through the act of repentance, so they could freely walk alongside the king.
Then, in the weeks that followed, Jesus came along and took each of their name tags. He then went to John and asked John to baptize him. At first John was hesitant to do so, but Jesus insisted that it was the right thing to do. As Jesus was baptized, as he identified himself with sinners, the River Jordan washed away the ink on all the name tags he bore. The smile that was initially on each of the above faces as a result of turning away from sin and doing the right thing was now forever etched on their hearts.

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