If you could have the opportunity to go and see a really great man one on one how would you use the time? Imagine for a moment that you are received by an administrative assistant, seated and told to wait. Shortly after this, you overhear a phone call made announcing to someone at the other end that you have arrived. Soon the question is asked, “Are you ready? Yes? I’ll bring them right in.”

Then seemingly without a moment to prepare, your opportunity has come, you are brought in. Perhaps the office is lavish; perhaps it is simple and stoic. There before you is a person of character and success. A person of prominence and influence that has at their liberty the right and ability to pick up the phone and speak with leaders, rulers and in simple terms, people who can impact the world. What would you say? How would you use your moment?

Believe it or not we all of have these moments. Sadly most of them are wasted. Not because we lack great questions, but because we fail to appreciate the gravity of the moment. We are in the presence of greatness and fail to take advantage of it. We have at our disposal the opportunity to boldly go before the throne of grace. We can pray directly with God! We can boldly meet one on one with the Almighty, the King of Kings and Lord of Lords, but it was not always this way. During the time of the law, it took blood sacrifices and you went through the priest to make atonement and you found the will of God through the leaders not directly. Could you pray, yes! Could you expect to have such direct access? Not outside of being in Christ, in the beloved can we boldly go to God.

In the time of the Old Testament the sins of the people basically rolled forward another year, waiting for redemption. Those who were alive during the time of the Old Testament were living day-by-day, trusting day-by-day for the promise of redemption, forgiveness to come. Yes the laws and the prophets (who spoke of the promise) were until one man.

John the Baptist is in my humble opinion one of the most misunderstood and least appreciated of God’s prophets. He is also the greatest of the New Testament characters that you could ever study. In case you find the assessment a bit strong, bear in mind that this is what Jesus Christ stated concerning John the Baptist. In Luke 7:28, Jesus said that, “…Among those that are born of women there is not a greater prophet than John the Baptist: but he that is least in the kingdom of God is greater than he.” So in a time where many just don’t care for him or find the very name Baptist offensive, remember that John the Baptist comes with the recommendation of our Lord Jesus Christ. The confidence of John the Baptist is something very special.

Some even try to discount his authority or impact to us today by placing him in the Old Testament. Yet the Word of God declares that the laws and the prophets were until John the Baptist. So he is not only in the New Testament but he is a pivotal beginning point. It is John the Baptist that came declaring the message of repentance. Yes, and it is John the Baptist who prepared the nucleus of the local New Testament church. As Christ built the first local called out assembly or His local church, He had to have qualified candidates. The people who would be qualified for membership would be those who had confessed that Jesus is the Lord and had been baptized. Enter John the Baptist!

So who was the first Baptist? Yes, don’t laugh, John the Baptist. Although John was not the first person to immerse in water completely, he was the first person to do it in testimony of repentance. You see there were sects and groups traveling the countryside even in that time that had gathered followers and for dubious reasons put them through various religious practices. However, John did something very different. John completely immersed people in water and he did it symbolically showing them that something had passed away, an old life. He showed them by visualization that they were being raised into a newness of life. John baptized those who had experienced a complete change, a turning about, we call it repentance we call it a changed life.

Repentance comes to us from the Greek word, Metanoeo. It has a specific understanding as though you are first heading in one direction and then completely come about and head in the opposite direction. Not a little bit, not a gradual change, but a dynamic complete and total coming about. Not a social reform but a total change.

In faith and in practice he believed everything that Baptist, who are not ashamed and walking in sheep’s clothing, believe and should be practicing today. So don’t be ashamed of this one man that Jesus gave such high praise to. Instead let’s learn about this spiritual leader in the New Testament.