Heaven Appointed Witnesses

“There was a man sent from God, whose name was John.” —John 1:6

This man came to make the most important announcement ever made to Earth: the announcement of the fact that God is coming down to the earth, that the kingdom of heaven is to be established among men—it is to be an actual kingdom with a real king, this king to be the Messiah, King of the Jews, King of every nation,—God himself made manifest among men.

We could not direct our attention to any man who could give us more light on our calling as members of the Body of Christ than John, the forerunner and witness of the coming kingdom. We are now God’s chosen witnesses to the whole world, the only light that it has, the only salt that it has. If our light is hid under a bushel, the earth will not be lighted, or if the salt has lost its savour, the earth will not be salted. I am not saying that John was the same kind of a witness that we ought to be, for John was a witness of the coming of Jesus Christ, a single, lone witness sent by God to announce the fact that Jesus was to appear among men and to offer Himself as King of the Jews and to usher in the kingdom.

Jesus has come to Earth, has lived, suffered, died, and risen again, and is calling out a people for Himself and is coming back again to put into operation this kingdom on this earth, Himself to reign and rule. The only witnesses on Earth are the Word of God, the Holy Spirit and those of us who have the testimony.

In order to appreciate the testimony of John the Baptist we must look at the key to the Gospel of John. God never leaves the key to a book in the neighborhood, never has someone call you over the telephone and tell you [that] you will find the key on the back porch under the milk jar, never left it with Mrs. Eddy or any theologian in the world, but He has put the key in every book, and would be delighted if you would walk into the “house” and rob it of its treasures. You cannot get in without the key. If you try to crawl in some other way, you will break the very window from which you ought to get the light on the Book. Many have tried to rip open the side of the Book in order to get in, but they always spoiled it before they found out what was on the inside.

The key to John’s Gospel is John 20:30–31. “And many other signs truly did Jesus in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book: but these are written, that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing ye might have life through his name.” John tells exactly what he is proving in his Gospel, he is calling witnesses to tell of the many miracles performed by the Lord Jesus Christ, that when we have finished we may believe that He is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing, we might have life. We get life through belief, and He has put down the evidence that we may believe.

John starts his book, without any proof, but with the statement he expects to prove, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made. In him was life; and the life was the light of men. And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not.” He is talking about this Jesus who walked around in a body like ours among men, washed the disciples’ feet, took the spit on His face, died on Calvary, and yet He was God who swung the sun, He was God, He was God, HE WAS GOD!

The Light Of The World

There is no light in this dark world other than that which God gave in the face of Jesus Christ. There is no hope to answer Earth’s problems other than the Light and the solution that is in Christ Jesus, our Lord. Science throws no light upon the future. Poor driveling humanity! Oh, it is most pitiful to see a man like Sir Oliver Lodge, a man who has been knighted by Great Britain for his scientific knowledge, coming into a city like this, not knowing he is playing with demons, thinking he has gotten in touch with another world, while he has his finger in hell; talking about being in touch with departed spirits, when the devil has him hoodooed and hoodwinked, deceived and deceiving others, thousands gone crazy over spiritualism in England, led by a man supposed to have a brain, supposed to be a scientist. I pity him with all my heart, an aged, grief-stricken man grieving over the loss of his son, trying his best to get some comfort, knowing nothing of the resurrection and the life.

Science has no light for this broken-hearted world today, talking about the twentieth century’s scientific light, with the light of eternity shut out and God unknown. Jesus is the only light for this old world, the only burden-bearer, the only one who can break into the world’s gloom and bring light.

The light which He sheds never shines upon you until you take Him into your heart. It is life that sheds light. If I get up in the morning with low vitality, my light is low, but if I, like a baby, have life booming within my heart, my face is lighted up. When you have run out of life, you have run out of light. “In Him was life, and the life was the light of men.” Thank God there is no death in His life, for He is eternal, and He is coming back to this old Earth, bringing a new people, a new race. It is not an idea, it is not a doctrine that is our light, but it is the life that is in Christ Jesus that is the light of our hearts.

The Personality Of God

You may hold mentally every Christian doctrine, and yet be dark, with gloom all through your heart; but if you get in touch with the “live” one this day, the gloom will have to go. His life, His presence is your strength and your comfort. The peril of our day is the peril of unreality, of holding the doctrine and the teachings of Christ, without keeping in dynamic contact with the reality of the person of Jesus Christ so that He is real.

That Jesus is God is the statement of John, and all the rest of His book contains witnesses and signs proving the truth of this statement. John says that this “Word” (“logos” in the original), or concept, was more than a man, He is God and man together.

The Bible does not teach pantheism—that “God is all and all is God,” but teaches that God is God and will be forever God, and I am I and will be forever I; but when Jesus comes to give life, He gives to me a regenerated personality, puts away all my sin and my old record, and does not simply forgive me, but gives me a new life so that as God looks at me, I am complete in Him,” “accepted in the beloved.” The Word does not teach that I am going to run out into the ocean of God some day and be lost like a drop of water in a pool, or that I am going to sink into a snack or a bug, and then change into an animal. It does teach that I am I, and you are you, and God is God, and you will always be an individual, and as an individual will have to stand before God.

The Word teaches that God is God, and that Jesus came into the world, was born of a virgin, that He sits now at the right hand of God as He never did before; for He is sitting there as a God-man who conquered death, the Head of a new race and a new world system, and yet He is God. He has a body like mine in glorified material with holes in His hands.

We do not believe in a “beautiful Isle of Somewhere,” but believe in a definite heaven where Jesus is at the very heart of it. Wherever a body occupies space that is a place, and Jesus has a body which He took from the Virgin Mary, made out of the kind of food that you and I eat, resurrected from the grave without any blood in it, sitting at the right hand of God. That is a place, that is heaven and God is there, and the Lord Jesus Christ is at the right hand of God. He is coming back with that body to sit on an actual throne in this actual world, and clean up this old dark alley, making a palace down here.

John does not call Him a man, but calls Him the “logos.” If I were to take the “logos” of you, the concept of you, I would draw a circle around everything that you are, all your talents, all your heritage from father and mother and ancestors, all your possibilities, all your money, all your friends and influences, all that you ever could do, all that you ever could be, all your ambitions and plans, all within that circle would be the concept of you.

To draw a line around all that God ever was, around all He ever will be, all His eternal fulness and godhead that dwell in Jesus bodily, all the plans, the ambitions, and the program of Almighty, eternal God—all of that is centered in His Son Jesus Christ, all within this circle is the logos of God. If you get to glory, it will be because God’s Son died on Calvary. If this old world is ever cleaned up, it will be because His Son died on Calvary and comes back to Earth.

Over against that is the hope of men, of politicians, of many church people, of many church federations and movements—that by getting men together and money together, getting a machine going and trying to make the world righteous and reform it, they will present this old world unto God, something that will tickle Him. I hope you get the contrast. I do not belong to that regime that is trying to get men to do it, but I belong to the regime that is going to have it done through the blood of Jesus Christ and the power and coming of Jesus Christ. I cannot federate and cooperate with a crowd that is doing it by man’s ingenuity; for the program adn the plan of God are all in His Son Jesus Christ, this logos. Whether we eat or drink, God tells us, it is all to be to the glory of Christ and not to the glory of men. I must belong to something, if I am a Christian, that gives Jesus the glory.

“Choose Ye”

You have to choose which one of these crowds you are going to walk in, and you have to do it very soon. Twenty-five years ago it would not have made so much difference, ten years ago; five years ago it made a great difference, but in 1920 it makes all the difference in the world, for there may not be any 1925. You are either going to go with the Jesus crowd that looks for the Son from heaven and expects things from God; or you are going to go with a world crowd that believes in righteousness from a worldly viewpoint, believes in reformation, believes in cleaning things up, and is going to give the credit to men. Some of you are professed Christians, and are in the other crowd. You have not gotten into God’s way. His program you have not seen. His plan the eternal purpose of God in His Son. Therefore men and their program attract you.

We are not going in for any of this social program—not at all. We ought to be a separated people from all of the world’s stuff and its actions and its ways, and all of its isms, and all of its plans that are world things and manmade things—separated unto Jesus Christ waiting for His Son from heaven, saving souls, telling men of the glories of the coming Son of God and the glories they may have in their hearts now as the children of God.

Beloved, all our help is right up there. There is none of it down here, and if you must federate, communicate with Michael and the angels, who are working under Jesus Christ. Get in with that great grandstand crowd up there waiting for the Lord to return. Paul is chafing at the bit right now, Stephen and the martyrs are anxious in heaven, waiting for the hour when it is done. He is coming down to Earth to clean up the last sin on the face of the universe. God will then be all and in all, and there will not be one knee that has not bowed to the Son of God and given Him the glory.

O friend, when you get a vision of this glorious program in Christ Jesus that manmade program will seem trifling to you, and it will make no difference to you what men nor devils say. You will walk in the program of the Son from Glory. When men hated and despised Him, when there was no eye to pity and no arm to save, no strength in men, Jesus died for the ungodly and made them joint-heirs with Himself. It is His to do the whole thing, and I will not deny His grace by entering into works and turning away from the glorious plan and the grace of Jesus Christ, by which he will hand back the universe to God cleansed of sin, the heavens purged of devils, until there is no sin as the eye of God looks up and down His universe. Then Christ will say, “It was all by grace, and nothing by works, lest any man should boast.” Everyone who is around the throne when He hands it back will be shouting the praise of God for the blood of the Lamb that taketh away the sin of the world. This is the concept of God. His program is in His Son and in the men and women that He is going to bring back with Him to this Earth.

An Important Witness

John makes His statement, and then begins to call witnesses to the stand to prove that Jesus is God. The first witness is John the Baptist. The angels in glory had been waiting, Simeon and others in the temple had been expecting, Isaiah, Daniel, Jeremiah, and the other prophets had talked about the coming of the Messiah, this glorious Christ. Now He has come, and although He offers Himself as King, He has really come to die, through His cross to redeem men and put away their sin first, afterwards to establish His kingdom on a basis where there is no sin—not on the basis of the will of men, nor the ability of men, but on the basis of a new generation, on the basis of the ability of Jesus Christ to conquer the devil, which He did when He was down here the first time. Now He only awaits the gathering out of a people.

It seems to me that the very word, “church,” ought to wake up some ministers today. “Church” never means any federation or anything the world is doing—the word is “ecclesia,” meaning “called out ones.” I do not see why the very word itself does not startle some of them into thinking that the church never was intended to mix with the world, to federate with the world and organize a great get-together business to do it; but it means to call them out of that regime, out of that manmade plan, out of that evolutionary theory of working men up, out of civilization theories, unto God Himself, to prove what Jesus Christ the Lord will do.

I do not see how folks can read the Bible and see God take men like Moses from the backside of the desert, so weak he could not even talk for himself, and had to have another man talk for him—take a man like that and with him, defy the armies of Egypt. Without federating any other prince or power, God from heaven, by the spilling of blood that dark night, and by the angels from heaven, delivered His people and called them out—not to federate and get their way by a compromise with Pharaoh, but to take the plan of God and step out.

God fed them miraculously, so that for forty years their shoes and clothes did not wear out. He guarded them by day with a pillar of cloud like an umbrella, and with a fiery pillar by night. He fed them with quail and with the manna that dropped from heaven. They were a called out, a separated crowd of people.

Gideon stood before God with his army of men, and God said, “Send some of them home. Just keep the little crowd that will not get down on their stomachs and enjoy a cool drink, but the energetic, eager crowd who scoop it up into their mouths with their hands, keeping one eye on the enemy, a little crowd separated, separated, SEPARATED!” Don’t amalgamate them! Don’t put more on top of them—forty thousand more; but cut down to the little band that will be true, and God will be true to them as He was to Gideon’s little band.

Jesus Christ said, “Fear not little flock (not federated flock); it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.”

The devil has been trying for the last fifty years to start some theology that will do away with the preaching of the Gospel of the grace of God. That was his first method, to get a lot of people in the church who were not born again, and were not shouting the praises of the grace of God and the banner of the cross, and then sweep in an awful scourge of educated ministers who knew nothing of the Holy Spirit, who did not believe in a call to preach, and did not believe they were sent from God, who did not talk to their audiences as the very voice of God and feel their responsibility as the mouthpiece of God to men, but who talked as the mouthpiece of science and of civilization and education.

It is no wonder the churches are empty and they have to go out in a manmade way to get something doing [sic], and stick in a moving picture show or something else. Whenever the church will get back to the place where she is the voice of God, she will have power, and never until then. If you want power in your life, you have to separate unto God and not federate nor tied up with men. The great test of your life will not be your ability to mix, but whether you are strong enough in your faith to start and walk alone, if need be, with Jesus Christ, into the dungeon, or into the lion’s den. God’s men have always been marked by separation—never by federation. All the saints from the time of the opening of your Bible to the end, those who have seen the Master face to face have had to suffer persecution because they would not go with the crowd.

Today we are asked to go with the crowd, to turn in and make one mighty army and call it God’s army. No, thank God, none of this mixed multitude for me, but a crowd separated unto God, waiting for Him to give us the victory.

A Separated Man

John the Baptist belongs to the separated crowd. As he comes upon the witness stand, we notice that a man like him was never before seen. Let us ask him a few questions: “Where did you come from, John?”

“I came from the wilderness.”

“Who educated you?”

“What has that got to do with it? I am not talking about myself; I am talking about somebody else. I am nobody; I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness. Prepare ye the way of the Lord.”

“Yes, but John, you are not popular with God. If you were, He ought to send fifty million to announce His message.”

“You do not know the markings of God. I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness, make straight the way of the Lord.”

“But John, nobody will hear you!”

“They seem to hear alright, don’t they? Look at that crowd.” No evangelist who ever lived, no three evangelists combined ever talked to the crowd John the Baptist talked to. No man ever shook the world like John the Baptists. No Luther ever began to be anything like John the Baptist in his power of reaching men. The Jordan was lined. The whole world was subject to Caesar and the world power of Rome. Its literature was known, its architecture was wonderful, and couriers were running through the whole world empire, while John the Baptist was at the very heart of it all, near the Mediterranean...baptizing in the River Jordan telling the people that God was coming down to Earth in the form of a man, to appear among them.

John had the attention of the world. They were listening to him. Soldiers came. Pharisees came, rulers came, all classes of men came to hear him. His voice was mighty, they could not make him afraid. Why not? He did not have a thing that he got from men.

“Where did you come from, John?”

“God sent me. He came and talked to my mother and father and named me before I was born, and the first word my father heard after God struck him deaf was my name. I am a specially born witness. I did not happen, but was specially born. The Messiah was born shortly after I was, and when His mother visited my mother, and my mother heard the voice of the mother-to-be of the Son of God, I leaped within her womb. I was prepared ahead of time to witness to the fact that this lowly Nazarene was to be God. I have lived in the wilderness for a long time.”

“Where is He?”

“I do not know, but the God who took me from my mother’s womb and put me in the desert, and brought me out here to baptize has given me a sign that when I see Him I may know Him. There is coming one whose shoe’s latchet I am not worthy to unloose. He is God. He must increase marvelously, but I must decrease. I am only preaching until He comes, and the moment I introduce Him to you, He become the speaker of the hour, He is the man with the message, He is the light of the world. He is God. He is the Lamb of God. I will give Him to you and then say goodbye and get out of the way.”

Some of us need a tailor, but John did not. He kicked a camel and came off with its clothes, or else found a dead one and took them from him. John did not have to go into the marketplace and dicker with men, saying, “I need something that you have.” He did not need a thing the world had—not a thing! He wore camel’s hair that he could easily fix himself, wrapped it about himself and walked about in it.

Let us ask John to one of our tea parties. “Uh-uh,” you object, “he is a roughneck.”

Let us call him to one of our churches. “Oh, well, we like a fellow who talks better than John. John has been in the backwoods all his life and is kind of rough.”

Oh, I would to God that we could get rid of some of this perfumed, “pussyfooting” business and get men of God who would slam the truth home from the streets and every place else, that we are going to hell and going mighty fast, and going soon. There is only one thing in the world that will save us as a nation, and that is to accept Jesus as God. It is awful; it is coming, and it is coming mighty fast. If ever the church of Jesus Christ ought to give her witness to the earth she ought to give it now, that Jesus is coming back. Tell them before the tribulation breaks on them.

John the Baptist did not need anybody’s restaurant; he did not need a thing the world had. They could not say, “We will fix John. He is pretty rough on us. We will take him to lunch and warm up to him, and say, ‘What will you have, John? We are going to have a little lobster a la Newburg.’”

“Much obliged,” John would answer, “but I do not eat anything but locusts and wild honey. Got any grasshoppers around here?” that is what John ate. They could strike all they pleased. Wheat could have been fifty millions a barrel, but you could not scare John, or keep his mouth shut. God had plenty of honey bees making their hives in the trees, and He could call up John and say, “Go to two four six eight nine, middle tree, and you will find all the honey you need.” He was not dependent on the people, on the populace, on the world—he was a separated clean-cut individual, who could give his message without any compromise. They had to hear. There wasn’t a one of them who could do anything but hear. He did not want anything they had. The final test of a man’s testimony is whether the thing he is telling is the one thing for which he is living, whether that to him is supreme and he himself willing to die for it and get out of the way.

“What will he look like?” they asked John.

“I do not know,” he replied, “but one of these days, I will know Him.”

His Mission Fulfilled

Men were making their way down the river bank, splashing into the river to be baptized, repenting of their sins, crying out because they knew God would judge them. John had said, “The axe is laid at the root of the tree.” The judgment foretold by the prophets was suspended for a while, but it is coming in our day. Our King is coming back from the glory world with all the keys of victory at his hip, coming to bring judgment. John announced the thing way back there. Jesus came and suffered, and is now calling out His own to be joined to Him through the precious shed blood. He is coming back before long, after the awful tribulation, Himself going on into the millennial season to reign and rule here.

One day Jesus pushed through the crowd alongside of another carpenter from Nazareth and walked down into the river. There was no halo around His head, there was no beauty about Him that you should desire Him. He was not above the ordinary stature, did not raise His voice above the multitude, was not known as a silver-throated orator or a mighty framer of sentences—a common ordinary carpenter He walked down to John.

As He approached, John began to tremble. I know how John felt. I remember when Jesus came close to me the first time. I had to put my hand over my mouth and run into the subway. For three days and nights I wrestled with Him in a little room. John did not have to see any outer halo, but he knew that God Almighty who had brought him from his mother’s womb, who had talked to him, was now speaking to him through a human being. The same voice he had heard in the wilderness was now speaking, and he trembled, as he said, “Master, I have need to be baptized of Thee.” He had been talking about repentance, but now, in the presence of God, he said: “I wish you would just turn around and baptize me. I am undone, I am a poor man like the others. I am unworthy, I am unworthy. You baptize me.”

“No,” Jesus answered, “suffer it to be so now; for it fulfills the Scripture. Treat me as you would treat any other man. I am living as a man; I am going to die for you.”

When He came up out of the water and stood before the people, the heavens opened and a dove descended. I imagine that John said, “Hallelujah.” Nobody heard it, because they thought it was thundering, but God was speaking, and John was looking up into heaven, shouting, “Hallelujah, it is done, it is all over. He has come. My witness is true. The one I have told you about is here. There He is, go and seek Him. Behold, the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world. Goodbye crowd, goodbye world. Follow Jesus, that is the only way. My witness is over. Am I dismissed? The light of the world is here.”

“You are dismissed John,” the answer came, and John walked away and into prison, where they cut off his head. Did he believe Jesus was the Son of God? Ah, he believed it enough to have his own head cut off for it. He was born to witness, he lived to witness, he died for his witness to the Lamb of God.

Your Call

Do you recognize you have been born for no other purpose than to witness to this world that Jesus can take a man (or a woman) out of sin, and make him a joint-heir with Jesus Christ; then to wait for the glorious Son from heaven, and to stand while they malign you, and hate you and spit on you, and say, “He is there, and I know He is coming?”

The crowd might have said, “John, you have been baptizing here for months, and we do not see Him. We are getting tired of this. He is not coming.” But John kept right on. You had better keep right on. Do you believe Jesus is coming from Glory? Then in God’s name, witness it to men and women that there is no hope outside of Jesus, and prove it to them by the way you live, and your willingness to separate and pass out of sight that He might be all and in all.