John may not have invented baptism, but he sure did popularize it! The Jews were familiar with ritual washings, and they used to baptize their new converts to Judaism. John used it as a sign of repentance and commitment to a new way of life. When Christ and Christians adopted water baptism, the symbolism grew much deeper, but it all goes back to what John was doing in the wilderness. Let's rejoin Jim's sermon, No One Greater than John, as the Lord is arguing with the Pharisees in Matthew 22.

Listen to Right Start Radio every Monday through Friday on WCVX 1160AM (Cincinnati, OH) at 9:30am, WHKC 91.5FM (Columbus, OH) at 5:00pm, WRFD 880AM (Columbus, OH) at 9:00am. Right Start can also be heard on One Christian Radio 107.7FM & 87.6FM in New Plymouth, New Zealand.

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Let's talk about sons! Boys - what can you do with them? If you've got 2 sons, one will say "Yes, sir," and then disobey; the other one will say "No," and then obey. Jesus has some thoughts about those lads. Then He tells another parable involving a son, and has a question about the Son of David. But first, let's recap, as Jim's talking about Jesus cleansing the Temple. We're in Matthew 21, verse 12.

Listen to Right Start Radio every Monday through Friday on WCVX 1160AM (Cincinnati, OH) at 9:30am, WHKC 91.5FM (Columbus, OH) at 5:00pm, WRFD 880AM (Columbus, OH) at 9:00am. Right Start can also be heard on One Christian Radio 107.7FM & 87.6FM in New Plymouth, New Zealand.

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Are you going up to the Temple...or going down to the river? Change is difficult for human beings, and the change that John was instituting was epic. If you were used to sacrificing an animal to cover a sin - and this had to be done by a priest, in the prescribed way, in only one place - then water baptism must have seemed very strange. God was doing a new thing. And change is difficult. Pastor Jim will talk about the "new way of righteousness" in his sermon, No One Greater than John.

Listen to Right Start Radio every Monday through Friday on WCVX 1160AM (Cincinnati, OH) at 9:30am, WHKC 91.5FM (Columbus, OH) at 5:00pm, WRFD 880AM (Columbus, OH) at 9:00am. Right Start can also be heard on One Christian Radio 107.7FM & 87.6FM in New Plymouth, New Zealand.

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There are two kinds of people in the world: The wet, and the dry! We may be balk at dividing all of humanity into two groups, but God does not. The Great Divide is between His kids, and the children of the devil; the saved and the lost. In Israel during Jesus' ministry the two crucial categories were: those who had been baptized by John, and those who had not - the "wet," and the "dry." That decision changed everything. Here's Jim to complete his message, Jesus Continues John's Example

Listen to Right Start Radio every Monday through Friday on WCVX 1160AM (Cincinnati, OH) at 9:30am, WHKC 91.5FM (Columbus, OH) at 5:00pm, WRFD 880AM (Columbus, OH) at 9:00am. Right Start can also be heard on One Christian Radio 107.7FM & 87.6FM in New Plymouth, New Zealand.

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For a while the ministries of John and Jesus were contemporaneous; but they were never competitive. Some people imagine that the huggable Jesus came to tear down the religion of the grumpy God of the Old Testament. No way: the Lord didn't even take issue with the prophet we call John the Baptist. He took the baton from John in stride. Their two ministries are like two gears that mesh perfectly. There was continuity, not conflict, from the Old to the New, and that's what Pastor Jim will show us today and tomorrow. Here's Part 1 of a sermon called, Jesus Continues John's Example.

Listen to Right Start Radio every Monday through Friday on WCVX 1160AM (Cincinnati, OH) at 9:30am, WHKC 91.5FM (Columbus, OH) at 5:00pm, WRFD 880AM (Columbus, OH) at 9:00am. Right Start can also be heard on One Christian Radio 107.7FM & 87.6FM in New Plymouth, New Zealand.

You can purchase a copy of this message, unsegmented for broadcasting and in its entirety, for $7 on a single CD by calling +1 (800) 984-2313, and of course you can always listen online or download the message for free.

John the Baptizer was the linchpin of God's program. We've paid too little attention to the human "messenger" that Jesus picked as the GOAT - the Greatest of All Time, or at least of Old Covenant times. John is the hinge between the Testaments, he's indispensable. And yet, imprisoned by Herod, still waiting for the King to take the throne of David, he may have felt like a failure. He was certainly having a crisis of faith when he sent to Jesus asking, "Are you the One?" We're in Matthew 11 with Jim.

Listen to Right Start Radio every Monday through Friday on WCVX 1160AM (Cincinnati, OH) at 9:30am, WHKC 91.5FM (Columbus, OH) at 5:00pm, WRFD 880AM (Columbus, OH) at 9:00am. Right Start can also be heard on One Christian Radio 107.7FM & 87.6FM in New Plymouth, New Zealand.

You can purchase a copy of this message, unsegmented for broadcasting and in its entirety, for $7 on a single CD by calling +1 (800) 984-2313, and of course you can always listen online or download the message for free.

Have you ever been ambushed by your own assumptions? Few of us have had our expectations exploded quite as thoroughly as John the Baptist did. He was a prophet of fire, working for a God who has been called a "consuming fire." When John yields the stage to the One who "baptizes in fire," he expects there to be...well...fire! But divine judgment would be dispensed in a different way, at a different time, than the prophet supposed. We're in Luke, chapter 3 with Jim.

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"Messiah is coming;" John preached - "watch out!" God's Anointed One, as John the Baptist envisioned Him, wasn't here to hand out candy and preach platitudes; He was here to clean up. The symbols John used for Him were the axe, the winnowing fork, and "unquenchable fire." He was right about all that, of course, but mistaken, too. This investigation of ours started with a simple question: "How did Jesus come to understand His divine identity?" John will figure in.

Listen to Right Start Radio every Monday through Friday on WCVX 1160AM (Cincinnati, OH) at 9:30am, WHKC 91.5FM (Columbus, OH) at 5:00pm, WRFD 880AM (Columbus, OH) at 9:00am. Right Start can also be heard on One Christian Radio 107.7FM & 87.6FM in New Plymouth, New Zealand.

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John the Introducer knew who Jesus was - not "just" the Lamb of God, but the Son of God! Think about what rare company John the Baptist was in. When he was let in on the secret of Jesus' divine nature, only a few people had shared that knowledge. Mary, Joseph, maybe some magi or shepherds. And those who did know, and were still alive, had waited 30 years for ...something. The acerbic John was chosen to announce the greatest news of all time. And now everyone can know who Jesus is. Here's Jim with the final part of, John the Baptist's Preparation.

Listen to Right Start Radio every Monday through Friday on WCVX 1160AM (Cincinnati, OH) at 9:30am, WHKC 91.5FM (Columbus, OH) at 5:00pm, WRFD 880AM (Columbus, OH) at 9:00am. Right Start can also be heard on One Christian Radio 107.7FM & 87.6FM in New Plymouth, New Zealand.

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God never learns. That sounds like an insult, doesn't it? "God never learns." If we said that about a human it would be a put-down. But the Omniscient One doesn't have anything to discover. And this presents a bit of a problem when we insist, as we do, that the baby Jesus was God. The key to this mystery resides in the son of Zacharias and Elizabeth, that wild prophet John. Jim continues to think about him today in a sermon called John the Baptist's Preparation. Here's Part 1.

Listen to Right Start Radio every Monday through Friday on WCVX 1160AM (Cincinnati, OH) at 9:30am, WHKC 91.5FM (Columbus, OH) at 5:00pm, WRFD 880AM (Columbus, OH) at 9:00am. Right Start can also be heard on One Christian Radio 107.7FM & 87.6FM in New Plymouth, New Zealand.

You can purchase a copy of this message, unsegmented for broadcasting and in its entirety, for $7 on a single CD by calling +1 (800) 984-2313, and of course you can always listen online or download the message for free.