Good morning.
I would like to turn to a couple of verses. In the Old Testament, Isaiah Chapter 40, starting with verses 3 through 5.
The voice of one crying in the wilderness,
Prepare ye the way of the Lord,
Make straight in the desert a highway for our God.
Every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and hill shall be made low;
And the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough places plain:
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.
And then in the New Testament, Luke Chapter 1, the very last verse, verse 80, speaking of John the Baptist:
And the child grew, and waxed strong in spirit, and was in the deserts till the day of his showing unto Israel.
And then one other set of verses in Matthew Chapter 3, starting with verse 1.
And in those days cometh John the Baptist, preaching in the wilderness of Judaea, saying, Repent ye; for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.
For this is he that was spoken of through Isaiah the prophet, saying,
The voice of one crying in the wilderness,
Make ye ready the way of the Lord,
Make His paths straight.
Now John himself had his raiment of camel’s hair, and a leathern girdle about his loins; and his food was locusts and wild honey.
Then went out unto him Jerusalem, and all Judaea, and all the region round about the Jordan; and they were baptized of him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins.
Let’s pray.
Lord, I want to thank You for the table this morning. I do not want to be like the nine lepers who left without saying thanks. Lord, I am that Samaritan. I know it in my heart. But You have touched me anyway, and I want to give You thanks and praise.
Now, Lord, as we turn to Your Word today, we ask that You will speak to us from it. Do not let us think too highly of ourselves, but speak to us in such a way that we are drawn up to You and want to know Your will.
We are asking that You will give us Your Spirit to help us discern Your voice from Your Word. We ask this in Jesus’ name. Amen.
As I mentioned last week, I have some things to say about John the Baptist. I started thinking about this as we have been considering the Lord’s coming again—considering passing the torch and all these types of things.
I was brought to wondering: if the Lord sent a forerunner before He came the first time, will He send a forerunner before He comes again? And if He does, will it be a generation like John the Baptist, who was the forerunner of Christ and made the way for Christ to come the first time?
Will this generation be one that makes the way for Christ to come the second time, preparing the hearts of the people for the coming of the Lord? Is that going to be the case for us?
Last time, we talked about the generation that produced John the Baptist—a barren generation. I do not want us to be too caught up on that generation as far as what the generation has to do.
I think that generation has its place, and its biggest place is not the idea that it is barren or anything like that. The biggest thing is that they give themselves to the work of birthing that generation.
They do not think about who they are. They do not think about what they do not have. But they look to the Lord and say, “I want to pray for this generation that is coming. I am asking You to birth this generation.”
Whether it is this generation that is coming or another generation, the thing is that we are still asking for the Lord’s return.
In looking at John the Baptist, I think the generation that is going to come at the time when the Lord comes again—the generation that prepares that way—is going to be a nameless generation.
It is not going to be a generation like the Reformation, where it was Luther’s generation, so to speak, where a man was singled out. Or like Wesley—a man being singled out.
I think this is going to be a nameless generation. It is going to be that generation spoken of in Revelation that follows the Lamb wherever He goes, but they do not give a name at all.
It is going to be one whole generation, not an individual who leads. It is going to be the Spirit of God, the Spirit of Christ, the life of Christ, in a whole generation that rises up.
There will be no one pointing out, “This is the one,” or, “This is the one.” It is just going to be a generation—a whole generation made like John the Baptist.
By that, I do not mean that they will have the same qualities as John the Baptist. But I do mean that it is the same calling to the generation. It is the same surrender of that generation to the purpose that God has called them to.
Last time, we spoke a lot about the generation that birthed John the Baptist, but we did say a few things about John the Baptist. Today, my focus is on John the Baptist himself.
In looking at him, we will see what may be the training for the generation that might bring in the Lord.
Last time, we saw that when the angel came to Zacharias in the temple, he said this boy would be a Nazarite for life, that he would come in the spirit and power of Elijah, and that he would be filled with the Spirit from birth.
Then in Isaiah, we also noticed his vocation: he would be a voice in the wilderness.
We have to understand this: the way God works is this. If He calls for a purpose, if He calls a generation to a purpose, if He calls a person to a purpose, He always fits that person or that generation to that purpose.
A person is not on his own. A generation is not on their own, trying to fulfill what God has promised or what God has purposed. God is in the situation to fit that vessel for the purpose to which He has called it.
God called John the Baptist to be a voice crying in the wilderness. That voice was to prepare the way for the Lord. God calls, and then He fits that person to that purpose.
As we look at Luke Chapter 1, verse 80, it says that John was in the deserts. So we are going to look at a couple of things about John the Baptist and this preparation.
I do not know how many of you have listened to things in the past, but remember we had ministry—Brother Stephen, Brother David, Dana—on epic-making vessels. John the Baptist is an epic-making vessel.
We had Paul and all these other people being epic-making vessels. In the same way, this generation will be the last one, I think, before the Lord comes.
It says John was called into the deserts. Into the desert. That is where it says John was—in the deserts, and that is plural.
When you think of this, he was not driven out into the desert. It was not like the Spirit just drove him out there in some way. He winds up in the deserts.
Now, do you have deserts in Virginia? Is there a desert in Virginia? I know there is the Great Dismal Swamp, which is a great name—dismal swamp. But what is a desert?
You guys do not know what it is because you do not have them in Virginia. Now, I am from California. We have some good ones. We have the Mojave. That is where Death Valley is.
You go to Arizona. How many have driven through Texas? That is one big desert, isn’t it? Except for a few things on the east coast, you get some forest, and once you get out of the forest, it is desert.
The desert is barren. There is nothing there. When you go through a desert, it is deserted. There is nothing out there.
Not only that, but it is seemingly a lifeless place. That does not mean there is not life in the desert, but generally speaking, you are not going to see all these animals frolicking around like you do in a forest.
They are hiding. It is too hot. They are under a rock, in some kind of hole, or something like that. You do not see a lot, and even the life you see is spread out and sparse.
It just looks bleak and barren. If you have ever traveled across Texas, which seems like you are never going to get out of Texas, it is some of the most boring driving you will ever have.
Hopefully you have books on tape or something like that to help you through. Maybe some of you remember having that little video in the back for the kids. But it seems to be a barren place, a seemingly lifeless place.
But God brings those whom He wants to do something with out to the deserts. Again, I am going to say it is plural. He brings them out there so that they are alone.
When I am talking about being alone, I know a lot of us are going to think I am talking about a quiet time. You have to have your quiet time, and you can say that. That is fine. But this is much more than a quiet time. This is much more than your daily devotions.
God brings them out. Now John, I think most people say, was out in the deserts for about ten years. His life as a priest should have started at the age of twenty.
Some people think that his parents had died before he reached twenty, because Elizabeth and Zacharias were old. They had passed on, and John was left to himself. Then he went out into the deserts.
When we are alone, when we find ourselves alone, that is the way the Lord brings us to becoming different. We get ourselves alone. We are not satisfied.
John was not satisfied. I do not think he came to the place where it was time to be a priest and then simply accepted that. He went out to the deserts instead.
In other words, he left behind something. What he left behind was the ceremonial and the ritual. He went out in the desert to be alone.
When you go out to be alone, it is not just that you go out to be alone with your thoughts. You are alone. And when you are alone, you begin seeking—seeking things that you could not find where you were.
You could not find it in the ritual. You could not find it in the ceremony. You go out and get alone, and all of a sudden you find out that you are alone with God.
That is the biggest transforming thing for any person: when they get to the place of being alone and find that God is there—even that God has been waiting for them to be there.
It is not that we find the concept of God. It is not by our great thinking, meditating, and thought processes that we come to some realization of what God is like.
No, we meet the actual living God in a way that we have never met Him before. We meet this living God, and we find out that He is the living God. He is a holy God.
Seeing those things and finding those things out has a great effect on our lives. I think the generation of John the Baptist is going to have such a meeting with God that it will change their lives immensely.
They are going to run into the holiness of God, and they are going to run into the livingness of God—that He is alive and that He is holy.
That is something we sing about, but to really come into the presence of holiness is something else. I cannot say that I have come into it fully, but I have had some inklings.
I remember one time, when I first really got started walking with the Lord, I was at a prayer meeting. A sister was praying, and it was like God was in the room. It was scary.
If I had opened my eyes, I felt I would have seen God and died. Just the idea that God is real, and God is holy, and before Him we cannot even stand in His presence.
That is why John, on the Isle of Patmos, fell down as a dead man. This was the experience.
I think this is the thing that God is going to show this generation. He is going to show them Himself in such a way that it is going to burn right through them. It is going to burn out a lot of concepts they have.
All epic-making men have this experience of going out into the desert, whether that desert is a real desert, like John the Baptist’s, or something like a desert—a lifeless place.
It is a place where you do not know, a place where you feel that you yourself are alone. Have you ever felt alone in a crowd? It is the same thing: “I am alone. I am different. I am not like everybody else.”
Everybody else is happy about these things, happy with the way things are. Why am I not? What is going on here?
Look at all these people. Moses was brought out into the desert when he fled. It was not that God drew him out there; he fled out there. But when he got into that place where he was alone for years, God showed him the burning bush and called him to Himself.
Remember what He said to Moses: “Take your shoes off.” Why? Holy ground.
Jacob was not called out. It was because of his own fault that he had to leave home. But it is amazing that when he was alone out there, God met him, even though it was because of his own doings.
That does not mean God is through with you. Sometimes God uses your own doings to bring you out so you get alone and He can show Himself to you.
Joseph had the greatest dreams, and yet we find him thrown into a pit and sold into the desert. But we know Who was behind that. The brothers meant it for evil, but the Lord meant it for good.
Joseph is often spoken of as a very faultless man, but I think he was arrogant, myself. I think those dreams made him arrogant: “You guys are bowing down to me.”
I think the Lord took him out there and said, “You know something? You need to be taken down a peg.” I think the Lord brings us out in the desert sometimes to take us down a peg.
We have to see that we have no hope in ourselves.
Samuel was in a desert. Look at Israel at the time. Nobody knew the Word of God. He did not go out on his own; his mother promised him to God.
Isn’t that a wonderful thing? It was the prayers of his mother that brought him to this place, unbeknownst to him.
David was out with the sheep. Wasn’t it there that he had that revelation in Psalm 8, where he asked before God, “What is man, that Thou art mindful of him?”
Lastly, Paul was knocked off that horse and then spent, what, three years in Arabia, and then went to Tarsus for years before he was used by the Lord.
But in all of this going out to the desert, it is not that the Lord is out just to break you down.
You come there and find out that really you have nothing. You have nothing to give. There is nothing in you that should make you anything of substance.
Yet it is in the desert that the Lord confirms His choice of you. When you get to that place of saying that in you is dryness, lifelessness, and nothing else, that is when the Lord confirms and says, “You are My choice. I have chosen you.”
Why, Lord? What did Moses say? “I have nothing.” It is not about you. It is about Me and what I have called you to do.
God fits you for the things. God equips you for the things. It is not about you. It is about what He is trying to do, what He is trying to get through.
So this is going out to the deserts—the deserts. All sorts of experiences. How many times might you go out to the desert and find yourself alone?
But each time in this desert experience, you are a little more transformed, a little more broken, but a little more transformed into what the Lord is trying to do.
What happens in the desert? Like I said, the desert is lifeless. It seems like there is nothing out there. Where is the water in the desert?
In the cactus. In the succulent plants. The Lord provides, doesn’t He?
In the deserts, John the Baptist found food. Do you know why he found food? Because he looked for it.
The desert does not simply come out and say, “Oh, look at all this lunch stuff that is out here.” No, you have to look for it. It is a barren place.
He had to look for food. He found it because he looked for it. When you are desperate and in a place where you feel there is no life, that is when you seek.
You are looking for a way to get out. “Lord, how do I get out of here? How do I find what I need?” That is when we seek.
A lot of times, how many of us seek when we feel satisfied? Think about it. “I am hungry today. Where am I going to go? I am going to have to go to the pantry.”
That is tough. Then you have all this food staring at you, and you become very choosy. “I will have this and that—chili and noodles.” There you go. I have my meal for the day.
But in the desert, you are looking for anything. It is in the desert that God provides food.
Now, you look at John the Baptist’s food, and we might not think very much of it: locusts and wild honey. How many of you have eaten locusts before? Really? Nobody in here?
I remember our neighbors, an old couple who lived near us when I was a little kid. They were out in the backyard eating grasshoppers, and it just freaked us out—eating grasshoppers.
But the food that God feeds you with—remember, John was a Nazarite for life—what does he find in the desert? Locusts.
Did you know that, according to Leviticus 11:20-22, locusts are clean food? They will not defile you.
The Lord knows what you need. He knows you need food, and He is going to give you food that is not going to defile you. You are not going to be desperate and just go for anything.
But He gave him locusts and wild honey. This is food that is going to strengthen the inner man. It is not going to satisfy your lust for food or your lust for knowledge.
It is food for the inner man, food that will strengthen the inner man and make him stronger. It is going to feed the new life. It is going to feed the Christ-life that is in you.
Then there is wild honey. What does wild mean? It is wild. It is like jumping all around the jar or something like that.
No, wild just means it is unprocessed by man. Man does not take it and try to make it better. It is in its natural state.
You found honey from a rock. Did you know, I was reading about this, that in the wilderness where John the Baptist was, you did not find beehives and things like that? They found honey in rocks.
But it is not as though there are little signs saying, “Honey here.” You have to be looking.
He found honey, and I look at honey as being the Word of God—the Word of God in an unadulterated form, unprocessed by man, untouched by the hands of man.
You are out there alone, and you find this honey. I look at that as being when the Lord really reveals to you things that nobody taught you, but it is the Lord Himself, by His Spirit, revealing things to you about Himself.
All of a sudden, He opens your eyes.
If you look at Psalm 19, this is what I mean by the Word of the Lord. We used to sing this. I do not know if you remember it. Remember, we used to sing Psalm 19?
Psalm 19, starting with verse 7:
The law of the Lord is perfect, restoring the soul:
The testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple.
The precepts of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart:
The commandment of the Lord is pure, enlightening the eyes.
The fear of the Lord is clean, enduring for ever:
The ordinances of the Lord are true, and righteous altogether.
They are more to be desired than gold, yea, than much fine gold;
Sweeter also than honey and the droppings of the honeycomb.
Listen to all these things about the Word of God when the Word of God comes to us directly from Him. It converts the soul. It changes outlooks and the way we think. Therefore, if we think differently, all of a sudden our life is different.
It makes wise the simple. It rejoices the heart. It enlightens the eyes. It is clean and endures forever.
If you read Isaiah Chapter 40 and keep going a little further, it says all men are like grass. The grass withers and the flower fades, but the Word of God endures forever.
The judgments of Him are true and righteous. Finally, it says it is more to be desired than fine gold, and sweeter than the honey of the honeycomb.
I think this is what the food is. It is the food that can only be given to us by God.
It is the food that we find when we get to the place where we are alone and are seeking out God, saying, “Please, God, I need reality. The ritual is not making it for me. The ceremony is not making it for me. I need reality.”
We become like the psalmist who says:
As the hart panteth after the water brooks,
So panteth my soul after Thee, O God.
My soul pants not merely for the Word, but for Thee. I have to find You. That is what the deserts are for.
Remember Jonathan? He came upon honey when there was a ban by Saul, and he tasted that honey. Remember what it did for him? It brightened his eyes. It brightened his whole outlook.
You are in a desert and you find the honey. You taste the honey, and it brightens your whole outlook on what life is all about because you have found something from God, and God has spoken to you.
Being out in the desert, not only are things confirmed to you—God confirms His choice—but all of a sudden you find yourself being put on good ground because you have met God.
Whenever you meet God, He puts you on ground that is acceptable to Him. He puts you on firm ground.
People do not know that we are in a desert. Like I said, you can be walking around alone in a crowd. This is a hidden work of God in the soul of this generation.
It is hidden dealing with you, hidden molding, and even hidden seeking. No one else knows you are even seeking.
But you close yourself off, find that way to Him, and say, “I have to find You.” There are wonderful ways that God meets you.
I remember one time—I am sure you all have had desert experiences, hopefully. You have to find God for yourself.
I remember I was out of the Lord’s perfect will. I was doing my own thing, and I came to a place where I knew it. I knew I was out of it.
I was so grieved, and I felt so bad that I was out of the way because it was my own choice. I remember just looking: “Lord, I have got to find You. Please let me find You out here.”
You start seeking: “What can I do? What can I find? What can I read?” I remember I went to a Catholic bookstore in Napier, New Zealand.
I found two books that looked really interesting. Number one, because their covers were kind of psychedelic. Then the names of them were interesting.
One was The Normal Christian Life. Yes, in a Catholic bookstore. Who would have thought? I had never heard of Watchman Nee before.
The other was another one by Watchman Nee, Changed into His Likeness. Who would have thought?
But when you are desperate, you look. I was looking. I had to find something. There were no other bookstores around.
Who would have thought that in a Catholic bookstore you would find locusts and wild honey?
In reading that book, The Normal Christian Life, the Lord put me on such good ground. He said, “There is nothing you can do to get yourself closer to Me. I have already done that. Stay on this ground, and do not leave it.”
Later on in that same journey, the Lord confirmed to me, saying, “You are Mine. You know you have blown it. You know this is not the way for you. I have something for you. Now you need to find it.”
The Lord confirmed these things. For this generation before the Lord comes, I think that is going to happen to them. They are going to find the Lord, and the Lord is going to confirm, “You are My vessel.”
“You are My vessel. I put you on good ground. I know you find nothing good in yourself, but you are Mine. I have called you by name.”
That is a great thing. Read Isaiah 43, the first few verses: “I have called thee by thy name, thou art Mine.”
Now, his raiment—his clothing. His clothing was all adapted from being in the desert. It was desert clothing.
You find him wearing camel’s hair. How many have a camel-hair coat? Remember camel-hair coats were really popular in the seventies, with your Nehru jacket?
You guys do not even know what a Nehru jacket is, do you? You missed it. You did not even know what I meant by psychedelic, did you? I did not think so.
But the whole thing is that his clothing was adapted from the desert experience. Out of that desert experience, all of a sudden, we find that the outer man takes a back seat and the inner man begins to shine out.
That is what we are talking about. We are not talking about the things we wear.
Romans 12:2 says, “Be not fashioned according to this world.” That is the whole thing. Do not be conformed to the world or to religion.
The world is having a big effect on religion and Christianity. I think one of the things that is really going to come out in the generation before the Lord comes back is that there is going to be such a line drawn.
There will be a recognition that the religion of the world, even its Christianity, is not it.
There will be a seeing that is not merely a covering of a man with some kind of religious garb. Just like in the time when John the Baptist first came, the Pharisees had all the religious garb, and yet they did not know God.
They had everything covered. They had the rituals and the ceremony. They had the phylacteries. They had the Word. They had all those things, and yet they did not know God.
“Go ye and learn what this meaneth, I desire mercy, and not sacrifice.” “Except one be born anew, he cannot see the kingdom of God.”
This was speaking to the religious people of the time, the Jews of the time. There was a turning: “You need to turn and find what reality is.”
So it is not the fashion of the world, and it is not merely some religious covering for men. It reflects the life that has come into us from the desert experience.
That is seen on the outside. Other people see that you are not dressed like them. “What is this?” You are not fashioned after the fashions of other things.
You are fashioned after the experience of God that has had an effect on your life. It has an outward effect, not only an inward effect. That inward effect comes out to the surface, and you are different.
As Floyd Price would say, you are that gray-speckled bird that does not fit. You are the ugly duckling. The others say, “This guy is a freak.”
Is that where “Jesus freaks” came from? Freak—freak of nature. But all of a sudden, we find out that you are a swan, and that life in you is beautiful.
The desert has an effect on you, and it is supposed to have an effect on you. That is why God lets you come out to the deserts—plural.
Then it says John wore a leather belt. I am not going to talk about leather, but a belt enables you to walk and to work.
You have these things happen. You do not just get religious teaching out in the desert. You have something that changes your life, your outlook, and the way you walk.
Then you have to have something that keeps it on you, that gives shape to it. That is this belt.
Ephesians 6:14 says that we are girded with truth. The belt is truth. What keeps this thing on? Because we know it is true.
“I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded.” There is truth. We find the truth about God. We start to find out the truth about ourselves and ourselves in Christ.
It is not just that we find out what we are like, but we find out what it is to have Christ in us, the hope of glory, which we were talking about this morning.
“When He shall be manifested, we shall be like Him.” That is the truth. Everyone who has this hope purifies himself.
Isaiah 11:5 talks about being girded with a belt of righteousness and faithfulness. Righteousness—not merely a positional righteousness.
We have a position of righteousness, but we are not just to say, “That is enough for me,” because it is not enough for God.
If we have a position of righteousness, that should bring us into the presence of God because now we can come. But when we get into the presence of God and have communion with Him, it moves us to do righteous things.
If you look at John the Baptist, when people asked, “What shall we do?” after they got baptized, he told them to do things that were right.
A tax collector asked, “What should I do?” He said, “Collect no more than that which is appointed you.”
A soldier asked, “What should I do?” He said, “Extort from no man by violence, neither accuse any one wrongfully; and be content with your wages.”
A regular person asks, “What should I do?” What you have, do not just hoard and keep to yourself. Give to others.
Righteous deeds. Did you know it says in Revelation that the righteous acts of the saints are part of their adornment?
Now, I am not talking about righteousnesses that make you righteous before God. I am not saying that. That is not it. We have no righteousness of that kind.
But we have righteous acts that adorn us before God, because He is the One Who says, “I have made you for this purpose. I have made you for good works, that you might walk in them.”
So we walk in them. We find ourselves doing righteousness. Not only that, but we begin to see that God is righteous.
Righteousness is not merely a definition we have for it. We see God as righteous. We look in His Word, and He starts revealing Himself to us as righteous in everything He does.
Everything He does is right. Even sometimes if it brings suffering, it is right. Even sometimes if it brings joys, it is right. Everything He does is right.
Faithfulness. We find ourselves walking faithfully in the things He has asked us to do, the places He has told us to be, and the places He has told us to stay away from.
All of a sudden, we find ourselves being faithful. Faithful to what? To Him. Not faithful to a creed, not faithful to a set of laws, but faithful to Him as we find Him in that desert.
First Peter says, “Gird up the loins of your mind.” Our mind is the killer, isn’t it? How many have trouble with their minds?
Where does our mind go? What comes into our mind? A lot of times, what comes into our mind affects the way we think and the way we walk.
What do we watch? What do we read? What do we talk about? All those things have an effect on us.
So Peter says, “Gird up the loins of your mind,” being sober, being alert, so that you set your hope on the grace that is to come at His appearing.
To sum up this whole idea of clothing, Luke Chapter 12 has a wonderful verse about this.
Luke Chapter 12, verses 34 through 36:
For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.
Let your loins be girded about, and your lamps burning;
And be ye yourselves like unto men looking for their lord, when he shall return from the marriage feast; that, when he cometh and knocketh, they may straightway open unto him.
That sums up all of this. All this desert experience is to bring us into a place where we are like servants waiting for their master to return.
By waiting, I do not mean saying, “Oh, I have some time to waste. I will just wait here.” I mean waiting by doing the will of God. Doing the will of God—that is your waiting.
It is active waiting. “I am going to do the will of God until He comes.” This generation will do the will of God until He comes.
Secondly, he is going to be fitted to his message. Isaiah says, “Every valley shall be exalted, every mountain laid low, and the crooked ways shall be made straight.”
The highway has to be level. This is a deeper work in us that goes on.
Every valley shall be exalted. Another way that means is every valley shall be filled up. You have your ups and downs, right? It is going to be level. It has to be made level.
The valleys are places where you lack—the things that you lack. It could be where you lack in your character, in your lifestyle, and in the things you are missing or not giving into.
That has to be filled up. But it is not filled up in the sense that you say, “Oh, I have to get this straight.” It is when the Lord shows you your lack.
He says, “You have been weighed in the balances, and found wanting.” He is not saying, “Oh, you better straighten up.” What He is saying is, “You are lacking here, and I have Christ for you.”
“I have Christ for you to make up for this lack.” It is not you. It is Christ’s life in you. “I have Christ’s life for you to make up for this lack.”
Then there is this idea of mountains being made low. Brothers and sisters, what is the worst of all sins? Pride.
How many of us, when we get to thinking, “I am the chosen one”? Moses thought, “Everybody should know that I am the deliverer.”
Pride. Pharisees. Self-righteousness. “Look at me. I am glad I am not like these people. Look at what I do. I tithe. I do this. I do that.”
Religious pride: “I want to be called Rabbi.” After the meeting is over, can you address me as Rabbi? Rabbi Jim.
Kind of look like a rabbi, don’t I? I have the black on and stuff like that. I just need the earlocks.
But the whole thing is that religious pride—that pride that says, “I can do it myself”—has to be laid low. It has to be taken down.
We cannot see our pride. Do you understand that? We do not see it. But God does, and other people do.
God is faithful. He says, “You know something? You have gotten a little too big for your britches.” I think that is what happened to Joseph—a little too big for your britches.
“I need to level that mountain.”
Then finally, the crooked way is made straight. As long as we are in this body, we have a tendency to be ruled by the flesh, to go into the world, and to do these things.
Jacob walked with a limp. I know it says the Lord touched him, so he walked with a limp. But a lot of Christians walk with a limp because they are walking in two worlds.
Their walk is not even. They are trying to be in the world, and they are trying to be in the Lord. The Lord says, “You know something? I am going to make the crooked way straight.”
If you look at Hebrews Chapter 12—not Chapter 11—the writer says:
All chastening seemeth for the present to be not joyous but grievous; yet afterward it yieldeth peaceable fruit unto them that have been exercised thereby, even the fruit of righteousness.
Wherefore lift up the hands that hang down, and the palsied knees;
And make straight paths for your feet, that that which is lame be not turned out of the way, but rather be healed.
How many of you have had braces on your teeth? I was lucky. I did not have any. I had cavities, but I had straight teeth—rotten teeth, but they were straight.
My daughters had braces. What is the worst part of braces? Tightening, right? They have to tighten them. What are they doing? They are pulling those things back into line.
But you endure the tightening. Why? You want that smile, right? That straight smile, where people look at you and say, “My, what beautiful teeth you have.”
Isn’t it so with us? The crooked ways have to be made straight. It is not that we are trying to do it.
Can you imagine trying to tighten your braces yourself? Some of you would not do it, because you know how much it hurts. Others would say, “I am really going to crank it up, because the more I tighten it, the less I have to do this.”
Then you would just be out of it. Some would say, “I am not going to tighten it too much because it hurts.”
It is the Lord Who does it. The Lord is the great orthodontist. He is the One Who puts things in there.
Finally, with all this happening to him, John was manifested. That is really interesting. I would have thought that he was sent.
But in Luke Chapter 1, it says he was in the deserts until the day of his manifestation. All that means is that all of a sudden, everybody saw that there was something different.
There was a seeing of this man. There was a seeing of John the Baptist and a hearing of him, and his voice rang true.
He was conformed by the things that happened to him—by his being in the desert and by his giving himself to the Lord.
The crooked ways were made straight, the valleys were filled in, the mountains were cut down, and he was manifested in the midst.
He was manifested first to Israel—to the church. In that day, this generation of John the Baptist will be manifested to the church.
This generation is calling them, “Prepare yourself. Prepare yourself. The Lord is coming.”
For the generation that is not prepared, they will see that there is something different, that there is something greater here than what they thought. All these things we have been talking about are worked out in order to manifest.
Now, in closing, I want to say this. I do not know if my generation is the generation that gives birth to the generation of John the Baptist. I do not know.
But I can pray for that generation to come—not for the generation of Elizabeth and Zacharias, but for the generation of John the Baptist. I can pray for that.
I think that is what the Lord wants more than anything. He wants to come back, and He wants this last generation to be raised up.
That should be my heart. I should not be worried about, “Who am I?” I should just pray.
I should not even be worrying, “Well, I have to be sanctified.” No. If I am caught up in that prayer, I think I will find myself being sanctified and set apart to the praying of that.
I will find my life being brought into conformity with Zacharias and Elizabeth, so that the generation to come will see Christ in me.
I am not to worry about myself in such a way. I want to know what God’s will is. I want to pray for God’s will.
And you guys, I do not know if you are the generation of John the Baptist. I do not know. I am sure you do not either.
But you can pray, “Oh Lord, may I be that generation. May I be the generation that brings You in.”
Is that the desire?
Remember Esther? We do not know all the things about it, but remember when they were going to kill all the Jews in Esther, and Mordecai went to her and said, “You need to talk to the king.”
She said, “Well, I do not know. I have to do this and that and the other thing.” He said, “You know something? If you do not do something, God will raise up someone else, and you will lose out.”
But then he also said this. The Lord is speaking to us now. Why is He speaking?
Mordecai said, “Who knoweth whether thou art not come to the kingdom for such a time as this?”
Who knows? Why do we hear the things we are hearing? What is the Lord speaking to us? What is He trying to get in us and from us? What is He trying to show us?
Who knows if this is not for us, for this time? Who knows if my generation is not the generation that births John the Baptist? Who knows if your generation is this generation?
But can we say, “You know something, Lord? Maybe I am. Maybe I am.”
Maybe out of that, we can take it to the Lord and say, “Lord, I want to know. I want to be before You, and I want to pray for this generation to come about, so that I am not going to miss it.”
“If this is my opportunity, Lord, I do not want to miss it. I want to be in there. I want to bring in Your will. I want to bring about Your coming.”
Let’s pray.
Heavenly Father, we thank You that You fit us for the things that You have called us into. Lord, we thank You that You do not leave us to ourselves.
Yet, Lord, we are at a place in our lives where we see things all around the world going really weird. We have never seen a time like this in our history before.
It always seemed like everything was going to be hunky-dory, that we were just going to live our lives and die and then go to heaven and all that stuff. But something is different.
Something has really changed. There is something happening that seems like everything is coming to a close.
Lord, we do not want to be unprepared for what is happening. So we are asking, Lord, that You would help us see what is going on and that You would show us.
We want to be those who are in Your will. We want to be doing what we should be doing that brings You back.
We do not want to sit and think, “There is another conference,” or, “There is another this,” or, “Another that.” We do not want to be there, Lord.
We want to be caught in such a way that we know, we know that You are calling us out. Knowing that You are calling us out, that we would go out.
Lord, bring us and let us come into a desert. Let us find You. Let us find food. Let us look for food and find it.
Let us be strengthened by it in the inner man, and make us into a new creature.
Make us into these ones that call out to everybody and say, “The Lord is coming. Repent.”
Lord, we do not want to be the ones who merely hear the message, “Repent.” We want to be the ones who are calling it out.
Help us, Lord, we pray. We need You. We need You. Help us, we ask, in Christ’s name.