"There came a man sent from God, whose name was John (John 1:6) ."
This man (not a real photo - smile 😆) has been living inside my head for months.
He's had a lot to say, so I've taken no small amount of time to listen to him; and, honestly, his life lends itself to many a lesson for us living in these "last days."
At least we are closer to last days than ever before.
When I say last days, I mean the time-frame leading up to the second Advent of Jesus.
John (whom we know as The Baptizer) arrived on the scene of history at a crucial time, as the pre-Advent of the Advent of the Messiah.
The Lord has a way of doing that, doesn't He?
In the midst of darkness and deception, despair and destruction, division and danger, God finds His man (or, woman) and brings him on the scene as a spokes-person.
He does, however, wait until the timing is right (Paul, the Apostle calls this "in the fulness of time").
In John's case, the Lord waited a very long 400 years.
When the prophet Malachi spoke his last words, God stopped speaking (and, His words through Malachi were fairly ominous):
"Remember the law of my servant Moses, the statutes and rules that I commanded him at Horeb for all Israel. Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the great and awesome day of the Lord comes. And he will turn the hearts of fathers to their children and the hearts of children to their fathers, lest I come and strike the land with a decree of utter destruction (Malachi 4:4-6)."
Remember the law...
The people didn't - they went their own way.
So the Lord "went dark."
You know what I mean when I use the term dark: God went silent.
His voice was no longer heard through men to men.
No new prophets.
No visionaries.
No miracles.
No judges.
No kings.
No cupbearers.
Crickets.
Just some priests and religious leaders who made up the "rules" as they went (and, more often than not, they were corrupt with nothing but evil in their hearts). These were men who twisted the truth to make it say what they wanted it to say, causing God's Words to be maligned and misinterpreted.
The result: chaos and confusion.
No one really knew anymore what they believed and why.
As the voice of God goes, so goes the world.
"Dark" bred darkness - politically, economically, socially, morally, and most of all, spiritually.
By the time the fulness of time had rolled around, the Lord needed a man, His guy, to stand in the gap and to prepare the way for the coming King just like He did during the Old Testament.
"And, I searched for a man among them who should build up the wall and stand in the gap before Me for the land, that I should not destroy it, but I found no one (Ezekiel 22:30)."
God is still looking for people who will make a difference, who will rebuild walls of righteousness in our world.
Since he had trouble finding such a one, the Lord "sent a man," miraculously, through the aged priest, Zechariah and his barren wife, Elizabeth.
Enter: John the Baptist.
A little bit wild, a little bit odd, but completely sold out for the Lord.
John came into the world a bit like a fire cracker - a burst of flame and then gone too soon; but he left a big mark!
As I've studied John's life, I'm convinced, God is, right now, looking for men and women to pre-Advent the Advent.
We won't all be imitators of John, thank goodness (I certainly don't want to dress in camel hair, and I sure don't care about eating locusts).
Yet, the world today, while not quite as dark as it was between the two testaments of our Bibles, finds itself in chaos and confusion.
In general, we live in an era of darkness and depravity; moral corruption and spiritual decadence; pure evil and God-forsaken-idolatry (believe me, Baal still dictates and Molech still cries out for our children).
We live for our own truth, do what "feels"right to us (even if the Scriptures tell us it is wrong), and seek to walk our own path.
Before John spoke anything else to me, his life demanded I answer this one question: Are you willing to be a pre-Advent to the Advent? Are you willing to commit to stand in the gap as we wait for the COMING?
The Lord is on a quest for another John/Johanna; and, we are invited to the challenge...
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