The Perfect Truth

"Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the LORD:" (Malachi 4:5)

John the Baptist was Elijah. He came before Christ. He came with the spirit of Elijah. When he preached the people trembled. He did not care for food or dress. He ate wild food and wore very rough clothes and lived by river Jordan. The Jordan flows 600 feet below sea level and at the dead sea it is 1300 feet below sea level. In the Jordan valley there were caves in which there were a number of Jewish sanyasis, but only John the Baptist had the vision of Christ, and began to preach the gospel. People flocked to hear him. He preached and baptized. He said he was not the Christ. When he saw Jesus he said, 'Behold the Lamb of God which taketh away the sin of the world.' Jesus came when the nation was astir by the preaching of John the Baptist.

When religion goes down, it is the family that is hit. The unifying love and discipline fail and children turn against parents. Homes are ruined. During those 400 years between the Old and New Testaments many set backs came to the Jewish religion. The greatest hindrance to the preaching of John the Baptist was the sinful life of Herod, who pretended to promote the Jewish religion by building them synagogues, while living in open sin. He had to go boldly and rebuke this big man. It meant imprisonment and death to him but the whole country felt the impact of this rebuke. After this came Jesus who brought them the perfect truth. The world never heard such words or saw such a consistent life. People thronged to hear Him and be healed. Have you found the key to this powerful life? May Jesus put the principle of the new life and the resurrection power into us.