How John the Baptist Learned to Preach - Glenn Conjurske

How John the Baptist Learned to Preach

Perhaps the greatest preacher who ever walked the earth—-him only excepted who spake as never man spake—-was John the Baptist. He was personally chosen by God to fill a place which no other man has ever been called to fill, to be the forerunner of the Messiah. His faithfulness, courage, and power have excited the admiration and stirred the spirits of the ages. His success was unexampled. The whole nation closed shop and went out into the desert to seek him, and great multitudes of them were converted and baptized. “Then went out to him Jerusalem, and all Judæa, and all the region round about the Jordan, and were baptized of him in Jordan, confessing their sins.” (Matt. 3:5-6). At the close of his ministry he received such a commendation from the lips of the Son of God as no other mortal has ever received. He is “a prophet…and more than a prophet,” and “Among them that are born of women there hath not risen a greater than John the Baptist.” (Matt. 11:9,11).

How did this man learn to preach? Surely not by the means and methods so confidently relied upon in the modern church. He was “in the deserts till the day of his shewing unto Israel.” (Luke 1:80). “In the deserts”—-living off the land, dressed in a coat of camel’s hair, and eating locusts and wild honey. “In the deserts”—-far off from the homes and haunts of men—-far off from the crowded ways of life—-far off from the religion, the politics, the literature, and the pastimes of the nation. “In the deserts until the day of his shewing unto Israel”—-until the day that he stepped onto the stage of history a man of God, a powerful preacher, an eminent success. Till that very day, he was “in the deserts.” It must be plain enough, then, that the man was deprived of all of those “advantages” which are pushed and pursued in the church today as the means of preparing men to preach.

He was deprived of all “educational advantages.” Men think now to prepare preachers by educating them, but the greatest preacher who ever walked the earth was uneducated—-as indeed most of the greatest of preachers since his day have been, from the “unlearned and ignorant” apostles of Christ, to John Bunyan, to Christmas Evans, to the Methodist itinerants, to D. L. Moody, to William Booth, to Gipsy Smith. John the Baptist never saw a Bible institute, Bible college, or seminary. Indeed, it was well for the testimony of Christ that he had not. If he had sat at the feet of the religious leaders of his day, he would no doubt have been ruined as a prophet of God, as so many young men in our own day are, who attend the educational institutions of the church. Some knowledge they may gain (though much even of that is of the wrong sort), but meanwhile they are deprived of the spirit, the power, the zeal, and the fervor of apostolic Christianity. The traditions of men they know well, along with all of the miserable shifts by which those traditions are maintained, and the word of God made void—-but of the Scriptures and the power of God they remain largely ignorant. But John the Baptist was deprived of all of these “advantages”—-never had a course in homiletics, and of course knew nothing of “the art of preaching”—-never had a course in psychology, and so knew nothing of how to address the people—-never had a course in hermeneutics, and therefore had not a clue as to how to interpret the Bible—-never had a course in creation science, so could never tell how God created the world—-never had a course in apologetics, so knew nothing of how to defend the faith. Yet some way he learned to preach, and excelled all of the men who have had all of these “advantages.”

John the Baptist had no “social advantages.” He was no doubt orphaned early (for his parents were both “well stricken in years” before he was born), and so had no fond mother, and no proud father, to see to his “social development.” He never went to the public schools, nor to the Christian schools—-never joined the Boy Scouts, nor the 4-H—-never participated in the competitive sports, nor the Christian young people’s organizations. In short, he was deprived of all of the opportunities to learn how to “relate to other people”—-deprived of all occasions of social development. He was “in the deserts.” For “friendship evangelism” he may have had but little aptitude. He made friends, to be sure, but he made friends by making disciples. He may not have fared very well at making disciples by making friends, for he was so devoid of tact as to call the multitudes who forsook the comforts of home, and travelled out into the desert to hear him preach, a “generation of vipers.”

Finally, he had no “practical advantages.” He had no “hands on experience.” He did not learn to preach by preaching, as many now suppose men must do. This is part of the regular course at the schools which exist to prepare men to preach. And I have heard it said, by some who abhor a “one-man ministry,” that we ought to encourage the young men to get up and speak in the meetings of the congregation, so that they may learn to preach. But where has God prescribed anything of this sort? My Bible says of the meetings of the congregation, “let all things be done unto edification.” The solemn meeting of the congregation of God is not the place for spiritual boys to practice the art of preaching, but for men of God to deliver God’s message. God, of course, had raised up and equipped John the Baptist for a one-man ministry, and I dare say no spiritual boys shared the platform with him. If they would learn to preach, they must learn as he did, and John the Baptist did not learn to preach by preaching.

Though I cannot now remember names or circumstances, I once heard an account of a statesman who awed and moved his peers by an impromptu address. When they expressed their admiration, he informed them that that message had been burning in his soul for years. He only needed an occasion. Here, here, is the secret of preaching. The “principles of preaching” which boys learn at college, or the written and rehearsed sermons of a T. DeWitt Talmage, are nothing, nothing, to the spontaneous gushing forth of the message which has been welling up in the man’s soul for years. And if that message has been long pent up within him, so much the better. Such was no doubt the case with John the Baptist, and I know for myself that some of the best preaching I have ever done was when for ten years I had been almost entirely deprived of the opportunity of preaching at all. But oh, how the word of the Lord burned in my soul for those ten years! Men who know nothing of this, but who “learn to preach by preaching,” need hardly expect to rise above mediocrity—-if ever they rise to that.

John the Baptist rose to the pinnacle of power, usefulness, and success, and that without ever possessing any of those “advantages” which so many regard as essential to the preparation for the ministry. But John’s disadvantages gave him an advantage of another sort. They gave him the advantage of solitude. He was “in the deserts,” as David had been with his father’s sheep, and as Moses had been with his father-in-law’s sheep. In that solitude he walked with God. In that solitude, free from all of the corrupting influences of the traditions of men, free from the pressure to conformity, free from the deadening influence of the lukewarm spirit of evangelical orthodoxy, he learned to think God’s thoughts. Year after year in that solitude the thoughts, the words, the feelings, of the living God were burned more and more deeply into his receptive soul, and he became a “burning and shining light.” Set then upon the public platform by the living God who had called and equipped him, he spoke from the fulness of a full heart, with the blazing zeal of a burning heart—-and he moved the multitudes.

Glenn Conjurske