When Life Disappoints You – Some Counsel from John the Baptist | Jonathan Cahn Sermon
When Life Disappoints You – Some Counsel from John the Baptist
Not just in prophecy but in your own life maybe things in your life didn’t go the way you thought they would go in your walk in your ministry, in your calling in your marriage, john the baptist was never called john the baptist, he was never called a baptist was never called john his real name is Yo konnen say it broken in the first part.
The io or yah is means God Hanan, Yohanan Hanan means grace.
His name could either mean God is gracious or the grace of God in english.
When you take it into english the wise always become J so the Yohannan becomes joe cannon and that then becomes john that’s how he got the name john that’s why john has that h in it, that’s the Hanen part.
So he is Yohannan the immerse er so he could have been called most likely was called Yohannan Hamad Bill the immerse er his ministry was to prepare the way to for messiah and he did it hailed him at the Jordan river where he baptized him but people have an idea that he stopped ministering after he didn’t, he kept going messiah ministered and john ministered until this point and so he did say I have to decrease and he must increase but he continued ministering until finally he was arrested by Herod, not Herod the great that’s coming up and we talk about messiah’s birth but his descendant his sons.
He was arrested by Herod. It’s amazing because we actually have historical records outside the bible that speak of john the baptist, it’s in Josephus the first century jewish writer.
He says that john, he speaks of john as a great prophet and all the people were were were following him.
But then he was arrested, Josephus said by Harry and put into his desert prison called Mark Arias, messiah said john was the greatest of all.
Why john was the last of the old testament prophets.
See the new testament that the new covenant doesn’t begin in the new covenant at the beginning of the new covenant, it begins when messiah dies and rises, that’s when the new covenant comes.
But so so john up to that point, it’s still old and it said, you understand what I’m saying, not the book, but the covenant is still the old covenant.
So john was the last great old testament prophet except for messiah himself, who was that and the first new testament prophet.
And so john was the one because all the profits were speaking messiah’s coming, but he’s the one who actually heralded him like all the profit and he’s also the the great priest because he was a priest.
The priest are all offering sacrifices for shadows of messiah.
John actually symbolically offers messiah by him, messiah going down and coming up death and resurrection, john greatest one because of that, I think about that.
But now he’s at his low point, he’s downing, are you?
The he says in Hebrew haba remember we say messiah said, you will not see me again until you say Baruch Haba blessed is the one who comes.
So john is saying, are you the Haba the one who comes? Or are you that one now?
Think about that, john is the one who identified him.
Behold the lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.
He’s the one who said, I’m not worthy of this. You are the one, I can’t baptize you.
And it says the holy spirit descended. They heard a voice, This is my son now, he’s doubting why?
Well, things changed, time went on. Nothing happened. The way john thought it was gonna happen.
There’s the kingdom beside didn’t come and set up the kingdom of Israel.
You know, john his whole life was to prepare for this. So he must have been so excited here.
I did it. But it didn’t Then what happened?
It didn’t happen the way he thought his whole life, we have to be careful.
John is the one who said, you know, he will, he will thresh the threshing floor.
His fork is in his hand, judgment fire. You have to be careful of your expectations.
John had his own ideas, problem of expectations.
You know, we have all sorts of expectations that may not be God, you might have expectations of marriage and maybe you’re not married?
Maybe you were never married. That doesn’t mean it was God.
And you thought maybe it was God, maybe expectations of ministry by the time I’d be doing this, this, this, this and maybe it didn’t happen, expectations of your life.
I thought it would go this way. It went this way. Why did you go that way?
So you set yourself up for disappointment.
The bible says my soul wait only for the Lord and from him is my expectation.
We can put our ideas on God. We often think that God has to do things the way we want.
And the problem of human nature is we have an ability to fool ourselves.
And so what happens is we only take the evidence we want. We block out everything else.
If you want something really bad, Be careful if you have a vested interest, be very careful because we have a a way of fooling ourselves and we don’t listen to anything.
We ignore the signs and we get our own signs and that’s the problem.
God doesn’t have to do things as we want. God will do things as he wills. He’s God.
We’re not john’s whole life was to herald the king. It’s easy to end up focusing on.
You know, he’s focusing on that of course, but he didn’t know everything. He’s not God.
He saw what he was to do and say, john stumbled now because it didn’t happen according to his ideas, his expectations and and there are those who have stumbled.
Our expectations of God can keep us from seeing the reality of God, john has his ideas messiah comes.
it’s not exactly as john thought it would happen or he’s not exactly coming as the messiah.
He thought, john how john did what he said, said, what he said, it was all true and right from God.
But he had his ideas filling in the blanks. Where’s the winnowing fork? Where’s the fire? Where’s the judgment?
Where’s the ax to the root things seemed to go on as usual.
So the real messiah is that reality is almost always different from our ideas. God is different from our ideas.
You know, there’s a hebrew prayer. The kaddish says far above. High above all, above all hymns, all consolations.
High above everything. Everything we say or think is God, God is above what we think.
Whatever your, whatever your theology is, he’s above it. Whatever your doctrine is, he’s above it.
Whatever your pictures, you know, people had pictures of jesus for so long, look at so much, Most of these pictures, for most of the age are a jesus who looks european, you know, and, and often he could have blond hair, you know, blonde hair, light hair, Blue eyes, probably not what he looked like.
You have jesus of prosperity.
The prosperity, jesus, who is your personal trainer, he is there, he exists to make you successful in your business.
Now, God can bless you, but that’s not who jesus is, he’s God there’s a jesus of hyper Calvinism who died only for some people and the rest, they can go to hell, even by God’s pleasure, that’s the different jesus.
There’s the jesus of the far away jesus and the jesus of the stained glass windows and the statues of much of christian, you know, christian dumb, that’s not, that’s also missing it, jesus of modern christian culture.
Very easy, jesus, but not necessarily the true jesus. We relate to images very easy.
We make an image, we relate to it.
That’s an idle when you make an image and you relate to it of God, that’s an idol, that’s not God says be still and know that I am God be still and know and put away your preconceptions just be still and know me and see me, I’ll be in my presence, listen to me.
You know, they asked messiah, what’s the greatest command?
And he said, hear O Israel the Lord, our God.
The Lord is one half to you shall love the Lord, your God with all your heart, mind, soul and strength and your neighbors.
And he said, so what’s the first command we said, well, you shall love the Lord, your God, yes and no, because he said that.
But the first thing he said was Shamali, Israel hear O Israel, listen, you can’t love God, if you don’t know God, you can’t know God if you’re not still with him.
If you’re not if you’re not hearing him, seeing him listening to him before you do anything else, be still and know that I am God, I am not necessarily the idol you made most likely at all.
Not Yo konnen, john thought he knew him and he did know him.
He announced him and he was anointed to do that. But then it didn’t happen. Then what happened instead?
He’s ministering on Snow Kingdom, ministering on, no big thing happened and then he gets arrested.
Things don’t go as he expects. He’s arrested by Herod, taken away. His ministry is ending. He’s in a dungeon.
No redemption doesn’t, he’s in prison. He’s as if he’s forgotten, it’s dark. It’s nearing his death as a criminal.
Easy to doubt. Where’s messiah? Where’s the Messianic age in prison? It’s, it’s very tough.
You know, he’s not preaching anymore. At least nobody there, he’s condemned. The system is going to kill him.
The great johan in the profit alone in a dungeon. Who was his whole ministry was heralding messiah.
And now that doesn’t seem anything. Everything’s gone wrong. Everything has gone against him.
We are to be into end time prophecy because the bible says we need to be expected of the coming of messiah and be ready.
We are to be into prophecy.
Because we are living in the last days, Israel right away as a sign of him.
But you have to be careful soon after. I came to the Lord.
There were all sorts of books saying jesus will return by this day, this year this day this day, this day.
And it didn’t happen. And when it doesn’t happen and people fall away like God failed. God didn’t fail.
When he comes is his business.
Our business, your business, my business is to be ready whenever he comes, not just in prophecy, but in your own life.
Maybe things in your life didn’t go the way you thought they would go in your walk, in, your ministry, in your calling in your marriage, john tries to figure it all out and it doesn’t seem, doesn’t add up.
And he’s struggling. Why Lord, why did it happen? The way I thought, john the greatest one anointed.
And yet he’s doubting. Well, that tells you something of encouragement right there. John is the greatest.
And yet he’s doubting. What did I tell you? Everybody has their moments. This is John’s moment.
Abraham had his moment. He doubted God made a big mistake that still affecting the world moses had his moment made a big mistake, didn’t enter the promised land.
He doubted God. David certainly had his moment committed adultery and murder. Elijah had his moment doubting God, totally doubt.
I’m the only one left doubting ready to give up. Jeremiah had a few moments.
Peter had a lot of moments. Everybody does. So be encouraged.
You know, you’ve got, you had your moments be encouraged. You’re not alone. Even great people have moments. Everybody does.
God knows your weaknesses. God knows what you’re going. God knows when you messed up.
God knows we are, but does take courage and that john’s weakness didn’t nullify his greatness, nor does it, nor does you falling doesn’t nullify your walk.
You fall, you get up.
You know, it didn’t nullify Abraham’s greatness, moses greatness, David or Elijah be encouraged if you stumble, if you fall, God knows it doesn’t excuse it.
You repent of it. Get up and get on with it and know that God still loves you and know that he knows you still love him.
Now look at his words, are you the hob, are you the coming one now?
You could have stopped there, but he goes on or should we be expecting somebody else?
Did you get that? Are you the one or let me know I want to know right now.
Are you the one or not? And if not, I want to look for somebody else.
Is it gonna be you? This is these are the real, this is you can you can feel it.
These are the words of a real man, wrestling, frustrated, disappointed, anxious, worried.
And this opens up an important realm that that often we again, the realm of expectation that God didn’t seem to answer some of you are believing for a marriage.
You know, that didn’t happen.
You know, and you thought God gave you the signs and all that and didn’t happen.
You were heartbroken and you might say, well, that’s easy for me to say.
You know, you don’t know what it’s like, what I do, know what it’s like.
I was once engaged and I thought that this was we thought this was it.
We thought that there were signs of it and it was not God. At that time you could question God.
But I knew one thing I knew that even if I didn’t understand everything, there was one thing I had to know that God is good, God is faithful and his love will never fail us.
Hi, I’m Jonathan cahn and I hope you were blessed with the video.
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