Desert Dawn
“God is faithful,
by Whom ye were called unto the
fellowship of His Son Jesus Christ
our Lord.” 1 Corinthians
1:9.
The Fellowship of
Christ, Greatest Joy of the Heart to
Those Who are Faithful to the
Heavenly Vision…. As All Around
Us Souls Give Way Let Us Be Faithful
to the Heavenly Vision, For It Will
Pay Off… For Eternity… Let
Them Return Unto Thee, But Return Not
Thou Unto Them…
“Truly our
fellowship is with the Father, and
with His Son Jesus Christ.” 1
John 1:3.
“Whereupon, O
king Agrippa, I was not disobedient
to the heavenly vision.” Acts
26:19.
Power Brewing in the
Desert
The desert sun sinks
slowly below the remote mountains of
the western wilderness. The shadows
lengthen and deepen over rocky caves
and wild ravines as the purple sky
blackens into night. Thousands of
stars twinkle above wild desert
ravines. A full reddish moon rises
over the rugged hills to the east. A
campfire glows in the distance. A man
whose very presence breathes power
sits next to the blaze. The fire
illuminates his tanned, rugged
features. He holds in his hands the
scroll of the prophet Isaiah.
The Stern Discipline
of the Wilderness
Features and frame
disciplined by the hard, open life of
the wilderness, he looks to be in his
late twenties. He knows where the
pure springs are located in the
barren hills, for they are his source
of water. He has followed the bees to
find where the beehives are in the
wild, dry ravines, the hives with the
best wide honey, for that is his
food, along with locusts beans from
the locust trees growing in the
wilderness.
Pure, Mighty Spirit
He wears a rough coat
of camel’s hair, with a leather
belt around his waist. He looks, for
the world, like the prophet Elijah,
as well as the garments of Elijah.
However, Elijah had lived hundreds of
years ago. This bronzed man of the
wilderness came out here to this
empty land, alone, while still quite
young, to live alone with God. No
distraction from man, no confusion of
spirit, he determined, would keep him
from his mission.
Nazarite Might
Very long hair and a
beard that had no razor has ever
touched mark him as a Nazarite. His
gaze is clear, powerful, steady,
penetrating, a window into the power
of souls of a man made mighty by the
indwelling Holy Spirit-that same
spirit that made Samson invincible in
battle and Elijah, his type, the most
powerful man in the world. He had to
control his spirit so completely that
no spirit alien to the Holy Spirit
would in the slightest influence him.
No man born of woman until the Christ
was greater than he.
Every so often, he
left his retreat to retrieve the
world news, the significance of which
he pondered back in the desert. He
studied human character with the
illumination of the Holy Spirit to
comprehend how best to reach hearts
with heaven’s message. The
disciple of solitude, prayer, and
meditation girded his soul for a
lifework that would end in martyrdom.
Unmoved by
Circumstances, Moved by the Spirit
Shut in by God, this
wilderness was his school and
sanctuary. God, who called him to the
wilderness, was his Teacher. Here in
the desert he has learned of nature
and nature’s God. The stern
discipline of the wilderness
toughened him physically, giving him
spiritual and mental strength. No
luxury would weaken him. He was a
desert holy man, a man whose body was
a temple for the Holy Spirit. All
appetites and passions were kept
under severe control. He had to be
able to stand among men as unmoved by
surrounding circumstances as the
rocks and mountains of the
wilderness.
The Vision of
Christ
If one is going to
follow Christ, one must obtain a
vision of Christ. The Holy Spirit
imparts the vision of Christ. The
second great work of the Holy Spirit
is to convince of righteousness,
because Christ has gone to the Father
and we see Him in the flesh no more.
Therefore Christ sent the Holy
Spirit, for, as Jesus said, “He
will guide you into all truth: for He
shall not speak of Himself, but
whatsoever He shall hear, that shall
He speak: and He will shew you things
to come. He shall glorify Me: for He
shall receive of Mine, and shall shew
it unto you.” John 16: 10,
13-15.
The Key to Unlock the
Heavenly Vision
With these words,
Jesus has given us the key that will
unlock the heavenly vision of Christ.
The Holy Spirit will impart the
heavenly vision of Christ to us, Who
will reveal to us what “Eye hath
not seen, nor ear heard, neither have
entered into the heart of man, the
things which God hath prepared for
them that love Him.
“But God hath
revealed them unto us by His Spirit:
for the Spirit searcheth all things,
yea, the deep things of God.” 1
Corinthians 2: 9, 10.
Access to the Inmost
Depth of the Heart of God
We need not be
distracted by defections from the
Lord, from the truth, from the narrow
way, for we have resources that are
infinite, unleashed to us by Christ
in His great Gift of the Holy Spirit.
We have access to the inmost depth of
the heart of God through the mighty
Third Person of the Godhead, the Holy
Spirit, “For what man knoweth
the things of a man, save the spirit
of man which is in him? Even so the
things of God knoweth no man, but the
Spirit of God.” 1 Corinthians
2:11.
Filled from the Womb
With the Holy Spirit
John the Beloved
writes under Inspiration that John
the Baptist was sent of God:
“There came a man having been
sent from God, the name of him,
John.” John 1:6. (Greek.) The
verb means to send, to commission, to
send as an authoritative personal
representative, in the perfect form
it indicates the permanent character
of his mission. (Reinecker and
Rogers)
The angel Gabriel told
John’s father, “He shall be
great in the sight of the Lord, and
wine and strong drink he shall not
drink, and he shall be filled with
the Holy Spirit yet from the womb of
his mother.
To Make Ready a People
in a State of Preparedness for the
Lord
“And many of the
sons of Israel he shall turn up to
the Lord their God.
“And he shall go
before him in the spirit and power of
Elijah, to turn the heart of fathers
to children and the disobedient (not
pious) to the thinking, (mind, will,
insight, purpose) of the righteous,
just, honest, to make ready a people
in a state of preparedness
(furnished, equipped, prepared, the
perfect emphasizes a state of
preparedness) for the Lord.”
Luke 1:15.
Make Straight in
the Desert a Highway for Our God:
John’s Work; Our Work
Unmoved Mover
John the
Baptist’s work was to give the
Elijah message in the spirit and
power of Elijah, turning the hearts
of the fathers to the children, and
turning the disobedient to the
thinking, will, and mind of the
righteous, making ready a people who
would be in a state of preparedness
for the Lord. Standing among men with
such a great mission, he had to be
unmoved by their apostasy, as
“unmoved by surrounding
circumstances as the rocks and
mountains of the wilderness.” He
had to be the unmoved
mover-turning men’s heats to
repentance, obedience, and
preparation for the coming of the
Messiah.
Prepare Ye The Way
of the Lord, Make Straight
in the Desert a Highway
for Our God
John laid the ax to
the root of the tree. Matthew 3:10.
His work was thorough. The work of
repentance is to be deep and
thorough, with not one scintilla of
the heart left in sympathy with Satan
and his rebellion. “Every tree
bringeth not good fruit is hewn down
and cast into the fire.” Matthew
3:10
John was “the
voice that crieth in the wilderness.
Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make
straight in the desert a highway for
our God.” Isaiah 40:3.
A Highway for Our God
Just as John prepared
“the way of the Lord and made straight
in the desert a highway for our
God,” this even so our work
today. God wants to have a highway in
human hearts for His glory to be
revealed. Not a small channel, or a
twisted channel, but a highway
for our God.
The True Faith of
Jesus
True Seventh-day
Adventism is a thoroughgoing faith
that eliminates all self and founds
itself on the Rock Christ Jesus in
true depth of self-surrender. This
marks true Seventh-day
Adventism as something radically
apart from false religion that is
seen in the Structure with rock
music, rap, rhythm, and blues, with a
New Theology that provides for
salvation in sin, with its religion
of self-esteem, mind control NLP, and
the rest.
We stand for the faith
of Jesus, for the work of the
forerunner, John the Baptist. Our
faith stands not in the wisdom of men
but in the power of God. 1
Corinthians 2:5. Our faith is
anchored in the sovereignty of God,
in the cross of Christ, in the law of
God, in the Word of God. It is the
one true faith on the face of the
earth, for it is born from above,
from heaven, and is in no way
anchored to the rebellion of this
earth. This true faith is precious
beyond life itself. It is the faith
of Jesus. Revelation 14:12.
Making Low Every
Mountain of Human Pride
John’s work was
to level human pride in the dust:
“Every valley shall be
exalted, and every mountain
and hill shall be made low.”
Isaiah 40:4. The mountains and hills
of human pride, self, and power were
to be made low. The valley of
humiliation, of humility in Christ,
shall be exalted.
Straightening Out the
Perversity of Man
“The crooked
shall be made straight, and the rough
places plain. Isaiah 40:4. All the
perversity of man is to be
eliminated, straightened out by the
power of Christ. This means that our
work in straightening out human life
in the power of God is the
opposite of the work we see in
the Structure with rap concerts for
the youth at Camp Meeting-the opposite
of Willow Creek’s blending of
the world with the gospel the opposite
of the Purpose-driven life that
revels as the flock that likes to
rock.
The Glory of the Lord
Shall Be Revealed
“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.” Isaiah 40:5. This work of
preparation will allow the glory of
the Lord to be revealed.
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