Acts 13:23-25\u00a0<\/b>\u2013 \u201cFrom this man\u2019s descendants\u00a0God has brought to Israel the Savior\u00a0Jesus,\u00a0as he promised.\u00a024\u00a0Before the coming of Jesus, John preached repentance and baptism to all the people of Israel.\u00a025\u00a0As John was completing his work,\u00a0he said: \u2018Who do you suppose I am? I am not the one you are looking for.\u00a0But there is one coming after me whose sandals I am not worthy to untie.\u2019<\/i><\/p>\n
\u201cFrom this man\u2019s descendants\u00a0God has brought to Israel the Savior\u00a0Jesus,\u00a0as he promised.<\/i>\u201d\u00a0 David is the man being referred to.\u00a0 It was promised that through his descendants the Savior would come (2 Samuel 7:11b-16, Psalm 27:29, 36, Psalm 132:11, 17<\/b>).\u00a0 Paul has declared that Jesus had the lineage of David that was required to be the Savior (See also\u00a0Matthew 1:2-17<\/b>).<\/p>\n
As these verses reveal, the One who fulfilled all the prophecies about David\u2019s descendant would be the Savior, as Paul calls Jesus here.\u00a0 Jesus was the fulfillment of God\u2019s promise to David.<\/p>\n
\u201cBefore the coming of Jesus, John preached repentance and baptism to all the people of Israel.<\/i>\u201d\u00a0 We can see from this verse that it was apparent to Paul that even these people who were so hard to reach had heard of John the Baptist.\u00a0 It was well known that John was known by many as a prophet.\u00a0 He was the first prophet since Malachi who prophesied four hundred years earlier.\u00a0 Among the Hebrews, those hungry for the Lord were aware and desiring the blessing of hearing from God again.\u00a0 John was highly regarded.<\/p>\n
Isaiah 40:3-5<\/b>\u00a0revealed that one would come and who would \u201cprepare the way<\/i>\u201d the way for the Messiah.\u00a0 There would come a prophet who would herald the imminent coming of the Messiah and preach that everyone should prepare their hearts to receive Him.\u00a0 John preached that to prepare their hearts they needed to repent of their sins and to be baptized in acknowledgement of their sins and of their desire to turn from them.\u00a0 John preached repentance to everyone so they would be ready for the imminent coming of the Savior.\u00a0 He preached that to \u201call the people of Israel<\/i>.\u201d\u00a0 Therefore we see that John the Baptist was heard of throughout Israel.\u00a0 Even Herod the King, who wanted to kill John, was afraid to do so because he knew the Hebrew people considered John a prophet (Matthew 14:5<\/b>).<\/p>\n
\u201cAs John was completing his work,\u00a0he said: \u2018Who do you suppose I am? I am not the one you are looking for.\u00a0But there is one coming after me whose sandals I am not worthy to untie.\u2019<\/i>\u201d\u00a0 Another example of how highly John was regarded and how obvious it was to the people that ee was a prophet is that he was continuously asked if He was the expected Messiah.\u00a0 His answer was always that he was not.\u00a0 He emphatically declared it by saying that not only was he not the Savior but that the Savior was so far above him that John was not even fit to untie his sandal.<\/p>\n
Paul begins by declaring that the Messiah that the Jews were expecting to come, one of David\u2019s descendants, was in fact Jesus Christ.\u00a0 Then, because of the veneration for John, Paul made it clear that John was not the Messiah and that being so by his own words.\u00a0 John was the one who was prophesied to come and to let the people know the Messiah was coming and to prepare themselves to receive Him.\u00a0 He emphatically and undeniably told and repeated to the people that Messiah is far above him.\u00a0 After all, the Jews knew that their Messiah would be God Himself.\u00a0 They have always looked to God as their Messiah and to no other (Isaiah 43:11<\/b>).\u00a0 This is a firm statement of the deity of Messiah Jesus.<\/p>\n
Our calling is the same as was the calling of John the Baptist.\u00a0 We are to do the works of God, we must proclaim the Gospel wherever we are, and we are not to allow people look upon us as if we are something.\u00a0 Rather we preach the Word and if God uses us to do a miraculous healing or physical miracle, then we instantly and always point to God and say it is He, and only He, that deserves all praise and credit for the moving of His Holy Spirit, the power of His Word and the signs He are His doing.\u00a0 We call people to yield to God through Jesus.\u00a0 We make sure that all their praise and gratitude belongs to God.\u00a0 John said get ready because the Messiah was coming.\u00a0 And Jesus the Messiah did come.\u00a0 We proclaim to the world and encourage each other to get ready because Jesus the Messiah is coming back.\u00a0 And Jesus will come back.\u00a0 Let the world that we all stand upon be the podium for us to cry out for all to be ready because Jesus is coming back.\u00a0 Praise God Jesus is coming!\u00a0 Praise God!<\/p>\n
Psalm 150:6<\/b>\u00a0–\u00a0Let everything that has breath praise the Lord.\u00a0 Praise the Lord!<\/i><\/p>\n
Micah 7:7<\/b>\u00a0–\u00a0But as for me, I watch\u00a0in hope\u00a0for the\u00a0Lord, I wait for God my Savior; my God will hear\u00a0me.\u00a0<\/i><\/p>\n
Micah 6:8<\/b>\u00a0–\u00a0He has shown You, O man, what\u00a0is\u00a0good; And what does the\u00a0Lord\u00a0require of You but to do justly, to love mercy, And to walk humbly with Your God.<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Acts 13:23-25\u00a0\u2013 \u201cFrom this man\u2019s descendants\u00a0God has brought to Israel the Savior\u00a0Jesus,\u00a0as he promised.\u00a024\u00a0Before the coming of Jesus, John preached repentance and baptism to all the people of Israel.\u00a025\u00a0As John was completing his work,\u00a0he said: \u2018Who do you suppose I am? I am not the one you are looking for.\u00a0But there is one coming after…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1192],"tags":[82,103,101,94,17,2187],"class_list":["post-1718","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-devotion","tag-acts","tag-isaiah","tag-matthew","tag-micah","tag-psalm","tag-samuel"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.Bob4God.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1718","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.Bob4God.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.Bob4God.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.Bob4God.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.Bob4God.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1718"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.Bob4God.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1718\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1719,"href":"http:\/\/www.Bob4God.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1718\/revisions\/1719"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.Bob4God.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1718"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.Bob4God.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1718"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.Bob4God.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1718"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}