The following message is by pastor John Piper.

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Please open up your Bibles tonight to our scripture texts found in John Chapter 1 versus 19 to 34.

And this is the testimony of John,

when the Jews sent priests and Levites

from Jerusalem to ask him. Who are you?

He confessed and did not deny, but confessed, I am not the Christ.

And they asked him, what then?

Are you Elijah?

And he said, I am not. Are you the Prophet? And he answered, no.

So they said to him, who are you? We need to give an answer to those who sent us.

What do you say about yourself? He said, I am the voice of

one crying out in the wilderness, make straight the way of the Lord, as the Prophet Isaiah

said. Now they had been sent from the Phar Isaiah said.

Now they had been sent from the Pharisees.

They asked him, why are you baptizing?

If you are neither the Christ nor Elijah,

nor the Prophet, John answered them, I baptize with water. or the me, the strap of whose sandal, I am not worthy to untie.

These things took place in Bethany across the Jordan,

where John was baptizing.

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