When we fish for people, our primary responsibility is to eventually share with them Jesus, the Lamb of God, just as John the Baptist did for those who listened to him.
The next day he [John the Baptist] saw Jesus coming toward him, and said, “Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world! John 1:29 (ESV)
John the Baptist was given the privilege and responsibility of introducing Jesus to the world. Followers of Christ today are commissioned to follow in John’s footsteps. It is our honor, privilege, and responsibility to announce to people that Jesus is God’s Lamb, who was sent to die for our sins and open the door wide for us to be reconciled to God.
The idea of a human sacrifice to appease God’s wrath is shocking and offensive to many of us today because we refuse to acknowledge the enormity of the evil of our sin or the demands of God’s holy justice. Our sin induced separation from God was irreparable without God’s assistance.
Even though the Jews accepted animals had to be sacrificed to atone for sins, they would have been shocked at the idea that Jesus, or any person, could be such a sacrifice. The proclamation that Jesus was and is God’s Lamb is beyond the limits of our power to logically comprehend. Without a revelation from God’s Spirit, we cannot see or accept who Jesus really is – God’s Lamb.
Sin alienated us from our heavenly Father and made us his enemies. (Romans 5:10) Adam and Eve committed treason in the garden, and we have been following in their footsteps ever since. By nature, we are proud, self-sufficient beings, who insist on trying to live independently from God. Our sin and rebellion cut us off from God’s life and blessings.
God loved us so much that he was willing to make the ultimate sacrifice of his own Son to restore us to himself.(John 3:16)
It was the only way back for us. The just punishment for our sins had to be paid, and we needed a new source of life. God’s solution would have to be something radically new and different. God sent his Son to provide forgiveness and life. By his Spirit, Jesus lives in and through all who believe and receive his gracious offer.
The good news of the gospel is that Jesus earned for us a right relationship with God and gave us his life, too. All we have to do is acknowledge that he is Lord and Savior and declare allegiance to him.
The Gospel message is so simple that even a little child can believe. However, adults who have learned from Satan to doubt and question everything often have a much more difficult time.
The announcement of Jesus’ identity as God’s Lamb will fall on deaf ears unless the Holy Spirit opens our hearts and minds. Otherwise the Gospel sounds like nonsense. In that day, some heard and believed John, but many others scoffed and rejected his message. The more humble and hungrier the hearer, the more likely he or she is to be granted revelation from God.
25 At that time Jesus prayed this prayer: “O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, thank you for hiding these things from those who think themselves wise and clever, and for revealing them to the childlike. 26 Yes, Father, it pleased you to do it this way! Matthew 11:25–26 (NLT)
The more educated, nuanced, and cynical the hearer, such as the Pharisees, the greater is the barrier to faith. This is because faith resides in the heart. The unredeemed mind will not accept the gospel message.
14 But the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; nor can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned. 1 Corinthians 2:14 (NKJV)
When our human reasoning ability becomes the litmus test for spiritual truth, the heart is left out in the cold. Only the Holy Spirit can break through the fortress of logical arguments against God that reside in a hardened heart.
4 We use God’s mighty weapons, not worldly weapons, to knock down the strongholds of human reasoning and to destroy false arguments. 5 We destroy every proud obstacle that keeps people from knowing God. We capture their rebellious thoughts and teach them to obey Christ. 2 Corinthians 10:4–5 (NLT)
God’s Spirit penetrated the logical defenses erected by the Apostle Paul, and he can do it again today for anyone who is open at all.
When we crack open the door to our heart, God is ready to rush to our aid.
John the Baptist issued an invitational command to his hearers: “Behold the Lamb of God!”
He knew that it always takes revelation for anyone to recognize who Jesus is.
God had to open John’s eyes, too, for him to know his cousin in this supernatural way. (John 1:30-34)
Paul, perhaps the greatest evangelist the world has ever known, also understood this. He fearlessly announced the Gospel of Jesus the Messiah, because he was convinced that it contains the power to save people when coupled with the Spirit’s ability and activity to open the human heart. He wrote the following.
And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled only to those who are perishing. 4 In their case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. 5 For what we proclaim is not ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, with ourselves as your servants for Jesus’ sake. 6 For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. 2 Corinthians 4:3-6 (ESV)
To be able to recognize that Jesus is the Lamb of God requires that God’s Spirit open our eyes today, just as in John’s and Paul’s day. Nothing has changed. While John was uniquely the Messiah’s forerunner and Paul was a ground breaking evangelist and apostle, their experience of “beholding” Jesus is what might be considered “normal” for every believer to experience.
One cannot become a follower of Christ without some measure of revelation from God.
I am not suggesting that each follower of Christ must begin with a vision of God’s Spirit descending upon Jesus as a dove or that we must be knocked off a horse while in route to persecute believers, but the Spirit must open our spiritual eyes and hearts for us to know Christ. How He does this is unique for each person.
When John commanded his hearers (and so the Spirit commands Bible readers throughout the ages) to behold the Lamb, he understood what every fisher of men must know today.
God’s Spirit must be actively engaged in the evangelism process for there to be any fruit at all.
What is also true is that God asks his followers to point others to Jesus, the Lamb. We are to invite them to be reconciled to God through his Son.
Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. 21 For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. 2 Corinthians 5:20-21 (ESV)
When we proclaim the Gospel and ask people to believe in Jesus, we depend upon the power of the Gospel and the activity of God’s Spirit.
God usually uses these three things – a person proclaiming the Gospel, the latent power of the Gospel itself, and the activity of the Spirit – to create an explosion of faith and revelation in the heart of the hearer that results in conversion and the new birth!
Those who are open and hungry and in whom the Spirit is working will supernaturally experience what it means to behold the Lamb! It takes faith for us to trust in the power of the gospel and the hidden working of the Spirit. We must refrain from trying to do the Spirit’s work for him by merely trying to reason a person to faith. Reasoning is important, but it can never replace the inner work of God’s Spirit to open our spiritual eyes.
Every fisher of men must be willing to proclaim a gospel that depends from beginning to end on the power and activity of God.
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