<TITLE>06. Par 43-48</TITLE>L-43   Like John the Baptist, now, we had had four hundred years, from Malachi to John, there had been no sign, a prophet of the Old Testament, about as long a space (lest the time the judges) that there ever was without a prophet. What was the matter, why didn't they have a prophet during that time? There was no Word placed for that time. They had to wait until the time got right. They had to wait. The prophecy in Malachi said, was Malachi 3, "Behold, I send My messenger before My face, he'll prepare My way before Me," Malachi 3:1. Now, that was Malachi's prophecy of the coming of the Lord Jesus. Nothing was to take place between that time, so the church just got slothful and went on in its own way, until the time of the promise drew nigh.

L-44   And when the time of the promise drew nigh, God, in a supernatural way, brought John on the earth. He was a man borned of a woman, of course, and we know his mother was called "Elisabeth" and his father was called "Zacharias." They were good people. And his father was a priest. It was a custom of the boys of that day to follow the--the work of their father, but we're taught that John, when he was nine years old, after the death of his father, went into the wilderness and stayed alone until he was thirty.

L-45 See, if he'd turned to what his father had, they'd have had him so messed up that he'd not knowed how to see that Messiah when He come. He'd have never knowed Him. But he stayed in the wilderness. If he'd went to the seminary, with his father's line of thought, then every one of them would have said, "Now, John, we understand that you're going to be the one that'll know the Messiah when He comes. Now, don't you think that Brother So-and-so here just fits the figure exactly? What about Caiaphas, our high priest today, don't you think he's just a wonderful man?" All that into his holy mind, he would have never been able to have thought it straight.

L-46 He went out in the wilderness, and waited! His job was too great for education. His job was too great for theology. He had to announce the Messiah. And he stayed in the wilderness.

L-47   Watch his preaching. His preaching wasn't ethics of--of that day's theology. You notice that it wasn't. What did he talk about? Axe at the tree, serpents. See, that's all he knowed. He was raised in the wilderness. That's what he knowed: serpents, and trees, and axes, and so forth. And that's what his message was based upon, nature. When he said, "You generation of vipers, who has warned you to flee from the wrath that's to come? Don't think that you got Abraham to your father, because God is able of these stones to rise children to Abraham. And also the axe is laid to the root of the tree; and every tree that bringeth forth not good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire." Said, "I indeed baptize you with water unto repentance. But there comes One after me Whose shoes I'm not worthy to bear, He'll baptize you with the Holy Ghost, and fire. His fan is in His hand; He'll thoroughly purge his floors, and burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire, and take the wheat to the garner." Amen.

L-48   There is a man, a prophet indeed. He had a sign that he had to watch. And when he seen the Messiah, he was so sure that He was coming in his day, he was so positive. Oh, if the Church could only get Its positive position, if It would only know Its stand in the hour! For, according to the Scripture, he was the one to introduce the Messiah, and he knowed He had to be on earth in the days of his prophecy. Therefore He was lingering near to where he was preaching, so much that he said, "There is One standing among you now, that you don't know, One among you right now." He knew it. He was there. The hour was at hand. He knew it.


<A HREF="P7">Next Page</A>