What Shall This Man Do
“What Shall This Man Do?”
St. John 21:21
January 18, 2009
By: Carolyn Sissom, Pastor
Our Church Fellowship is presently studying the Apostles, their commissions and their ministries. Our quest is for the anointing and enlightenment for the present apostolic commission for the church of the 21st Century. Last Sunday we had a visitation of the Angel of the Lord after the preaching of the Word. The angel wrapped us in a blanket of love. Listen to the message on our streaming sermons.
In the 21st chapter of John, the Lord had just given Peter his commission and the prophecy of the suffering he would endure as the Lord’s chosen Apostle. Peter then saw John, the disciple whom Jesus loved following… Peter seeing him said to Jesus, Lord and what shall this man do? Jesus then told him “What is that to you?”
We can in no way in one short sermon give anything but a highlight of the ministries of these great Men of God. John was the youngest of the Lord’s disciples about 25 when the Lord called him to come follow Him. Mark 1:19-20: And when he had gone a little farther, he saw James the son of Zebedee, and John his brother, who were in the ship mending their nets. And straightway he called them: and they left their father, Zebedee, in the ship with the hired servants, and went after him.” John 1:35 identifies John as one of John the Baptist’s disciples.
He stood with the Lord at the foot of the cross with Mary the mother of Jesus. It was to John, “the disciple standing by, whom he loved, he said unto his mother, “Woman, behold your son” (Jn. 19:25-26. ) It is right that we should mention all the names of those who stood with him at the foot of the Cross. There was Jesus’ mother, his mother’s sister, Mary the wife of Cleophias, Mary Magdalene and John. It was John and Peter who ran to the empty grave. He was with Jesus in the Mount of Transfiguration. John stayed with Jesus right up to the Ascension and then served the Jerusalem church for a time as an elder. After that he drops out of the New Testament until he writes the Gospel according to John and the Book of Revelation.
It is believed he wrote 1 John, 11 John and 111 John in his mid-60’s. He could not have continued to make his home in Jerusalem much longer than A.D. 66 of the Jewish War which ended in the destruction of Jerusalem in the year 70. Before this event, James the Lord’s brother and Peter—who together with John had formed the leadership of the early disciples (Gal. 2:9) –had both met death in martyrdom. Paul and John were left alone. According to tradition, years later he served the seven churches of Asia Minor as Pastor. He assumed the leadership after the deaths of Peter, Paul and Timothy.
Persecutions had taken their toll of the disciples. And John is the last. When John dies, not only would the last of the Apostles be gone, but with him the final, authoritative voice of the church. In 1 John, “That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon and our hands have handled of the Word of Life: (for the life was manifested, and we have seen it, and bear witness, and show unto you that eternal life, which was with the Father, and was manifested unto us;”
It is believed that he wrote Gospel and the Book of Revelation in and around his 90th year. The enemies of the church were making good headway with their false teachings. These enemies arose less than fifty years after our Lord ascended into heaven. It had numerous forms but essentially it denied the Deity of the Lord Jesus. Scholars give it the high sounding name of Gnosticism. The Book of John was the Sword of the Lord raised up against these false teachings. Today this same religion exists in the world.
These false teachers believed that Christ was a unique personage, perhaps even “A” son of God, but that He was equal with “God” was vigorously and viciously denied.
1 John also counters this false teaching. This heresy was rising fast in every place where the gospel had been preached.
So John writes as did the Apostle Paul before him. Paul wrote letters to people and churches. The other Apostles addressed themselves to problems within the church. Matthew, Mark and Luke gave the history of our Lord. John writes to set forth the Lord’s claim to deity. This is why He presents Jesus as the WORD OF GOD.
John 1:1: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God.” The fourth Gospel begins in eternity. From eternity there has never been a distinction within the Godhead. The same Word, the God/Word, was actively participating with God in eternity.
The gospels are narratives reporting how Jesus went here and there, doing this and that. John reports what Jesus said after a miracle. Jesus worked with words. He spoke and a storm subsided. A word from Him and the blind saw, the lame walked and demons fled. He called and Lazarus came forth from the grave.
In his day there was a philosophical term which was popular with religious thinkers. About A.D. 50, some forty years before John wrote his gospel, Philo, a Jew of Alexandria, began to use a word that lumped all the knowable things of God into a single package. That word was LOGOS. By the time, John was ready to write his Gospel, the term Logos was the common way of referring to God’s revelation of Himself.
Paul used this term when speaking to the Men of Athens in Acts 17:23. “The LOGOS of whom you speak in ignorance, I will now declare unto you. He is none other than Jesus Christ of Nazareth.”
Without any apology, John states bluntly, this Logos people are referring to is a person. He is a specific Person, and I am going to identify Him for you. He is none other than Jesus, the Christ of God.”
John 1:14: And the Word was made flesh ,and dwelt among us, ( and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,)”full of grace and truth….For the law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ.”
The gospel of John is a careful selection of events from the life of the Lord which prove that He is the Logos. John has but one purpose: it is to prove that Jesus is the Logos, God in Person. The active word (Jesus) is no less God than the transcendent God beyond all time and space.
Logos means the communication of ideas from God to man. So John takes this term Word and says a particular Person is the Logos and that this person is the means by which the Lord speaks from the mind of God to man.
The Gospel of John reveals the Glory of God through the person of Jesus Christ.
John 6:63: It is the spirit that quickens, the flesh profits nothing: the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life…. (65) Therefore said I unto you, that no man can come unto me, except it were given unto him of my Father.”
John 1:3: “All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made. The entire creation came into existence through Him, so that nothing which exists can remain in existence apart from His presence. Jesus is the person that holds together all of our natural laws.
As the spirit words penetrate our souls via this Gospel, miracles happen and our faith rises to heights of worship. John did well to call Jesus the Word of God for… “Never spoke a man like this man!”
“What shall this man do?”
“All things work together for good to those who are called according to His purposes.”
The Lord had yet another calling upon John. It was a time of trouble for the 90-plus year old apostle. According to most scholars, John was banished to the Island of Patmos toward the end of the reign of Domitian Caesar. This tyrant died A.D. 97 and his reign was every bit as brutal as that of Nero. The church suffered terribly under this emperor. Some scholars believe John was born A.D.1 and could have died A.D. 100.
John refused to worship Domitian and was given a pre-paid trip to the isle of Patmos, a Roman penal colony for political prisoners. This rocky, barren island 40 miles off the coast of Asia Minor was roughly 10 miles long and 6 miles wide. It was while a prisoner on this island of Patmos that John wrote the Revelation.
Jesus had told the Apostles, “I will come again! I shall return.” BUT WHEN?
Sixty years after the Lord ascended to heaven, He got in touch with John and revealed to him some missing pieces of the Old Testament prophecy puzzles. On the Island of Patmos, the Lord had John all to Himself. By means of visions, visitation and angels, Jesus told him what to write.
To speak openly against the Roman government or write about its destruction would be regarded as treason. This meant the book had to be in another language that only people of God would understand. This is known to us as metaphorical language and is one of the languages of God he has always used to speak through the prophets in times of persecution.
John wrote down the vision clothed in the truths of the symbols of Daniel, Ezekiel and Zechariah. These prophets had written under similar circumstances. Those who were students of the Word of God would understand these symbols.
Daniel 12:3: And they that are wise shall shine as the brightness of the firmament; and they that turn many to righteousness as the stars for ever and ever.”
The Lord is raising up prophetic people in this time who are being trained in the gift of interpretation of metaphorical language. The time will come, when like John we will need to speak to each other in this language in order to be able to continue to preach the Gospel. Many fault me for teaching and preaching metaphorical language. It is for a purpose. There may be a John who will need to understand this language one day.
When the roman soldiers examined John’s writings, they made no sense to them. That’s how John was able to get his book of the island and to the churches on the mainland.
Even though the letter is addressed directly to 7 specific churches in Asia, we’ll find that collectively those seven churches represent the whole church as it has moved down through the centuries. What’s more the truths are presented in such a way that the churches of every succeeding generation can feel the words were written for their time. The conditions in those 7 churches are timeless. Yet, we must be careful to note that John mentions things that can only be applied to the generation on earth at the time of Jesus’ return.
Rev. 1:1: The Revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave unto him to show unto his servants things which must shortly come to pass; and he sent and signified it by his angel unto his servant John. Who bare record of the Word of God, and of the testimony of Jesus Christ, and of all things that he saw.
“What shall this man do?”
The Apostles of the 21st Century will do no less. Let us walk circumspect and bent over before the Lord as to our gifts and callings. It is not wise to compare ourselves with ourselves and with others. Nor is it wise to compare ministers of the Gospel with one or the other.
Jesus said, “What is that to you? Follow thou me.”
Preached by: Carolyn Sissom, Pastor
Eastgate Ministries, Inc.