Atlanta tri-weekly journal. [volume] (Atlanta, Ga.) 1920-19??, 1920-10-07
Sabbath School
Lesson
Matt 3v-4:4
BY DIR. MARION MczE. FUEL

vince them. So today we are to
consider his story of the way the
King was heralded and inaugurated
into office, and tested.
The Herald of the King
We have on record only one Incl
dent in the life of Jesus after His
birth until His public ministry be-
gins, and that is not recorded by
| Matthew for reason that will be
| seen. 1t was not until he was thirty
years of age that Matthew has any
thing more to say about Him. Then
| he tells of the stir that was caused
| by the appearance in the wilder
ness of a prophet whose plain dress,
direct language, and simple life
broke through the crust of the UNI
ed on all that was religious, and
| brought the nation to a sense of
| it's need.
In order to properly understand
member that he came to nation of
legalists. God had given them the
law to give them a standard of holi-
ness, to let them know what right
eousness is; but they had assumed
their ability to live up, to that
standard. 1t was intended to show
them their need, and they had per-
verted it into a system of religion.
They had of course utterly failed to
attain to it's standard, had been con-
demned and judged by it, and yet
had increased their sin by adding
a mass of tradition that made their
whole lives an attempt to do or a
failure to do.
To such a nation John came with
his abrupt message: Repent, for
the Kingdom of the heaven is at
hand" This was not the gospel
gospel of the grace of God, and it
was entirely different from the COS
pei of the kingdom that John preach
ed and that the disciples preached
before the cruciixion. John was
telling the Jews that the Kingdom of
the heavens that the prophets of the
past had spoken of was now ready
to be established because the King
was at hand. He was announcing
the approach of the King; as of old
when a king was to come that way
the forerunner went ahead and had
the rough places made smooth and
the ruts filled up to make a highway
for him, so now John was preparing
the way for the coming of the King
of whom all the prophets had spok-
en-, by telling them that pride must
be abased and humanity exalted that
the way might be made smooth
Repentance as John preached it
was not reformation, as SO many
seem to, have thought, not doing
better" but it was the repentance
such as Job made. Job was the best
man that the Gentle world had ever
known; in fact, he was used by God
as an illustration of righteous
man; but Job had to be brought to
the point where he could see that
all his doing was of no avail, and
to cast himself as utterly worthless
and undone when he saw himself in
the light of Gods Holiness.
II the crowds that came to John
were many of the Pharisees and Sad
1Jft
and darkness, except that they both
trusted in their descent from Abra-
ham for their salvation. When John
saw them he distrusted the reality
Oh their repentance, and SO said to
| them that they must show fruits
worthy of repentance, and that the
best way for them to do this was to
cast away entirely any dependence
they might have in their Abrahamic
descent; for if necessary God could
the stones that were all about them.
This was a bitter pill for these Jews
to swallow, but it was necessary
one If they were to be subjects of the
| Kingdom.
Those who confessed their sins and
repented after this fashion, he bap-
tized in the Jordan, as an evidence
that they had turned their back on
helf and all that it represented, and
turned to cast themselves wholly on
tinctly stated to them that his hap
tism was only of water and had no
efficacy, but that there should come
One after him whose shoes he was
unworthy to unloose, who would bap-
tie with the Holy Ghost and with
fire, and whose purging would sepa-
rate the good from the bad.
The Inauguration of the King
At this time came Jesus from Gal
| lice to the Jordan to be baptized of
| TnI 11ot fnr hi
| ticular purpose that He came; it was
not out of curiosity or by chance. Of
course, John demurred; but Jesus in
sisted, saying, "Spffer it to be so now,
for thus it becometh US to fulfill all
righteousness"
| We can probably get a better idea
of what Jesus intended and why He
was baptized if we go back to the Old
Testament a bit. Of course He had
no sins to be repented of, and it
could not have been for that purpose
But we know that it was. at the be:
ginning of His public ministry and
that He was at that time about thir-
| ty years old, and that all of the years
prior to this had been years of ST
Hence, and that there was an interval
with this as a background We, may
get some further light. When the
paschal lamb was taken 1t was on
the tenth day, it was then kept four
|
sacrificed. I had to be without spot
or blemish. Now after three times
ten years of silence, during which He
| had lived as a man without spot or
| blemish, Jesus comes to identify
Himself with His people and to Of
fer Himself as the Lamb of God, as
John proclaimed Him to be without
spot or blemish, that He might offe'
| Himself as a sacrifice for His peo
pie acceptable to God. And after His
| hoy hi e
my beloved Son in whom I am well
pleased" In other words, I do ac-
cept you as a Lamb without spot, /
am satisfied that the years of ST
lence has about pooved that you are
worthy to take the sinners place
| And further to prove that, the
! Third Person of the Trinity, the
Holy Spirit, descends upon Him as
a dove and rests upon Him. At last
He had found a Man whose heart
| His own that He could come and
lodge with Him. 1t is rather sig
nificant that He took the form Of
dove for that was the only bird that
the 68th Psalm, verse 10, the wings
| on the dove are spoken of as silver
and the feathers of gold-speaking
of the divine redemption and the di-
| vine glory.
And so the baptism of Jesus was
for the purpose of inaugurating Him
into the office of the king; for be-
| fore He could become the actual
King of the Kingdoms which God was
to set up, He must be the priest and
the sacrifice to put away the sin
| which separated the people from
| God. He was anointed but not vet
crowned. From this time He was
in reality the Christ, the Amounted
one.
The Testing of the King
1 u 1f~ III
work, however, He had to be tested,
and 50 Immediately after His bap
tism He is led of the Spirit into the
| Wilderness to be tested of the devil.
The first man had been tested in
| garden, where he had everything