Text: “Behold, I will send
My messenger, and he shall prepare the way before Me; and the Lord, Whom ye
seek, shall suddenly come to His temple, even the messenger of the covenant,
whom ye delight in; behold, he shall come, saith the Lord of hosts.”
Malachi 3:1.
“The voice of him
(John the Baptist) that crieth in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the
Lord, make straight in the desert a highway for our God…and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all
flesh shall see it together; for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it.”
Isaiah 40:3-5.
Good morning, believing
Christian! You have, by the grace of God
and His gracious gift of faith, believed the Gospel account of Salvation
through Christ’s Sacrifice at the Cross for
us. You have believed without seeing all
things for yourself. You have been
enabled to trust in the unseen Lord God, and His Son, Christ Jesus by grace
through faith. Blessed with blessings
are you indeed.
“Jesus saith unto
him, Thomas, because thou hast seen Me (the resurrected Christ Jesus), thou
hast believed; blessed are they that have NOT seen, and yet have
believed.” (John 20:29)
“For by grace are ye
saved through faith; and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God; not of
works, lest any man should boast.” (Ephesians 2:8-9)
God sends men and women into
our lives as His witnesses, His messengers, to testify that God’s grace has been poured out; that Christ Jesus has
come to save us by His full and Holy Atonement Sacrifice on the Cross; and that
Eternal Salvation is offered to us, if we put our full trust by faith in
Him. What a privilege it is to carry God’s message!
However, how will precious
souls ever hear of this great deliverance if God does not send someone to bear
witness to us for Him? Thus, God sent us
John the Baptist, His messenger, to proclaim that the Messiah, the long-awaited
Lamb of God’ had indeed come to take away
the sins of the world.
“There was a man
sent from God, whose name was John. The
same came for a witness, to bear witness of the Light (Jesus), that all men
through Him might believe.” (Vs. 6-7)
The wonderful man we know as
John the Baptist was the gift of God to the faithful, ageing, yet childless
priest of God, Zacharias (Zachariah) and his barren wife Elisabeth of the tribe
of Aaron. (Luke 1:5-7)
An angel of the Lord appeared
unto Zacharias as he was fulfilling his priestly duty by burning incense in the
Temple .
The angel told Zacharias that his prayers for a son had been heard and
were about to be miraculously answered; that his wife Elisabeth, in spite of
her barrenness and age, would bear him a son, whose name must be called
John. He would be filled with the Holy
Ghost from the very time of being in his mother’s womb; and he would turn many of the tribe of Israel
to ‘…the Lord their God…’ (Luke 1:13-17)
Yet, most important of all, he
would be sent as the prophesied ‘messenger’, “…in the spirit and
power of Elias (Elijah)…to make ready a
people prepared for the Lord.” (Luke 1:17)
What a God-sent mission!
Elisabeth was the cousin of
the woman whom, a mere six months later, was privileged to be the chosen human
mother of Jesus - a Jewish virgin called Mary.
(Luke 1:36)
Zacharias, ‘…filled with the Holy Ghost…prophesied…’ that John would be
part of the fulfillment of Old Testament prophecies concerning the long awaited
coming of the Messiah. John would go
before Christ Jesus to call the Jewish Nation to repentance; to prepare the way
for Christ’s coming to His own as
promised in Holy Scriptures. (Luke 1:67-80)
“In those days came
John the Baptist, preaching in the wilderness of Judaea, and saying, Repent ye:
for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand…this is he that was
spoken of by the prophet Esaias (Isaiah), saying, The voice of one crying in
the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make His paths straight.” (Matthew
3:1-3) (Malachi 3:1) (Isaiah 40:1-11) (John 1:23)
John would not come as the
Light of the world, Christ Jesus, but to bear strong witness of Him - and
praise God, he did. John proclaimed the
good news of Christ’s first coming into
the world as the Lamb of God Who would take away the sins of the world. Hallelujah!
What a witness to those of us who sat in the darkness of sin and Eternal
damnation. Bless the Lord!
Thought: John was faithful unto death - will you and I
bear witness to Christ with our daily lives? (Acts 1:8)
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