What's up, guys? Welcome back to the Forgotten Jesus podcast. My name's Andrew Bolton. Of course we have Pastor Robby Gowdy and Candy Gowdy.

Pastor, I have to start off today with an apology to one of our podcast listeners. Oh, boy. So this weekend, I was in a hurry to get to my son's football game. Okay. And I accidentally cut off a mailman. I didn't mean to, but I instantly got scared because you know the phrase going postal, like that for a reason. And I look in my rearview mirror and he's

throwing his hands up. You're kidding. And I look back and it's one of our church members that we

also talk about the podcast every single week. And so I, you know, rolled down my window and I

stick my head out. I'm so sorry sorry and he just started busting out laughing like

it was really funny but just a reminder you don't want to go post you know what you don't want a post off

postal work exactly exactly so I apologize profusely and we had a great laugh about it yesterday

oh man yeah that is funny okay so I'm I Apparently, we need driving lessons for you and Rick.

No, I was just driving like you is the problem. I was saying, I'm normally in the Lord. Discipleship. Yeah. Moving on. Okay, so today, speaking of that, we are going back to Matthew chapter 3. Yeah. And we're talking about John the Baptist, the ministry of John the Baptist. Yeah. Last week we talked about baptism and is it necessary for salvation.

I got us on a rabbit trail. I apologize. Yep, no, it was good. Kingdom of Heaven concept. And now we're back into where it came from. So we're going to go back to where we started with Matthew chapter 3. So, Candy, give us a little context here. Start reading verse one, Matthew

chapter three. We're going to see this wild man in the wilderness, John the baptizer.

Okay. In those days, John the Baptist came preaching in the wilderness of Judea and saying, repent,

because the kingdom of heaven has come near. And remember, has come near means here, near, like around you. It's happening. It's upon us. It's not like a time. It's more of like a, like, it's actually here. Yeah, it's not spatial. Okay. It's a person. Yeah. I mean, it's not chronological. It's more spatial. Sorry. It's not chronological. Like it's coming down the road. It's more spatially. It's here. Okay. So, yeah. Okay. Keep going. Yep. For he is the one who, no, for he is the one spoken of through the prophet Isaiah who said, a voice of one crying out in the wilderness prepare the way for the

lord make his paths straight now john had a camel hair garment with a leather belt around his waist

and his food was locusts and wild honey okay so uh we notice a couple things about john the baptist right

away uh he has a particular attire. He's wearing a costume,

if you will. He's preaching a certain kind of message, and he's here on a certain kind of mission.

He's preparing the way of the Lord. Okay, so let's talk about the man himself, John the Baptist.

Who was John the Baptist? Okay, so he was the cousin of Jesus. He's the cousin of Jesus. Yeah, we say cousin. I'm pretty sure it's the cousin, but he's a relative for sure of related through Mary and Elizabeth. Okay. So John the Baptist is about six months older than Jesus. Okay. The question is, did they know each other?

Did they hang out?

They didn't live by each other because I believe John lived south by the Qumran, Jericho

area, mainly because his father, Zechariah, went to the temple.

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