John the Baptist – A Voice in the Wilderness
John the Baptist was the forerunner of Jesus. He was born before Jesus, started his ministry before Jesus and died a horrible death before Jesus. It is very interesting that the Old Testament ends with a prophecy about John the Baptist (Malachai 4:6) and the New Testament begins with his birth narrative (Luke 1). He was filled with the Holy Spirit even while he was still in his mother’s womb (Luke 1:16).
Jesus testified that among those born of women John was the greatest (Matthew 11:11). He was raised in the wilderness (Luke 1:30). And the word of the Lord came to him in the wilderness (Luke 3:2). When he started preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sin, people from different walks of life flocked around him (Luke 3:3-10).
Jesus started His ministry after John was imprisoned. Then John died a horrible death. In John’s death we see shadows of the cross of Jesus Christ that would follow. John’s proclamation that Jesus was the Lamb of God pointed towards Jesus’ substitutionary and atoning sacrifice. When the Jewish leaders in Jerusalem sent priests and Levites to ask him about his identity (who he was) he confessed that he was not the Messiah, that he was not Elijah, and that he was not the Prophet. He identified himself as the voice of one calling in the wilderness (John 1:19-28) and identified Jesus as the Lamb of God (John 1:29-34)
who came to take away something (sin) and to give something (the Holy Spirit) to humans.
John the Baptist was ‘a voice in the wilderness’ and HITHA is ‘a voice in the marketplace’. HITHA exists for the purpose of equipping marketplace Christians in marketplace theology, marketplace spirituality, marketplace ethics, marketplace apologetics, and marketplace ministry of evangelism. At the Fourth Lausanne Congress on World Evangelization, marketplace is identified as the largest mission field currently. This gap in fulfilling the Great Commission should be one of the top priorities for the
Church.
May the Lord help the global Church and all the local churches to wake up to this need and strategize to equip the Christians that God has placed in different places of work to be His witnesses.
Shalom!
