Honey From The Rock

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Honey From The Rock
Psalm 81:16

"Sweet Stuff From God's Word"

A daily Bible study with Victor Knowles
Copyright 2007

PLOWING HARD GROUND

This entry was posted on 12-16-2008 and is filed under BIBLE CHARACTERS.

"If I have seen further," confessed Sir Isaac Newton, "it is by standing on shoulder of giants." I know that is true in my own life. How about you? It was also true of the man whose life we are examining this week, John the Baptist. He stood on the shoulder of a giant named Isaiah, who lived some 700 years before John. Hear his prophetic word on this cold winter night (it is 9 above zero as I type these words from the warmth of my den in Joplin). "A voice of one calling: In the desert prepare the way for the LORD; make straight in the wilderness a highway for our God" (Isaiah 40:3 NIV).

Building a highway for Jesus must have been a hard and lonely task for John. Have you every worked in obscurity at what seems to me a monumental task? No one is praising you, no one is noticing you, no one even seems to care. Those who toil at the job of road building are sometimes hit and injured, or even killed, by careless motorists. Others whiz by and barely take notice. But John knew his purpose in life. Do you? In 1958 I first heard the call of God on my life to preach His word. It was at Camp Diagonal in Iowa. While I did not respond to that call until the fall of 1964 in Bible College, I never forgot that call. Preparing the way for the Lord is often hard and thankless work. But I thank God tonight for a man named John who stood on the shoulder of giants to see ahead for the road He was building for Almighty God.

Prayer: Father, bless, I pray, those obscure road builders who this very night are plowing hard ground in difficult places around the world to prepare people's hearts to receive the Christ whom You sent to die for us all. Through Christ we pray.