70
The Desire of Ages
“Thou, child, shalt be called the prophet of the Highest;
For thou shalt go before the face of the Lord to pre-
pare His ways;
To give knowledge of salvation unto His people
By the remission of their sins,
Through the tender mercy of our God,
Whereby the Dayspring from on high hath visited
us,
To give light to them that sit in darkness and in the
shadow of
death,
To guide our feet into the way of peace.”
“And the child grew, and waxed strong in spirit, and was in the
deserts till the day of his showing unto Israel.” Before the birth of
John, the angel had said, “He shall be great in the sight of the Lord,
and shall drink neither wine nor strong drink; and he shall be filled
with the Holy Ghost.” God had called the son of Zacharias to a great
work, the greatest ever committed to men. In order to accomplish this
work, he must have the Lord to work with him. And the Spirit of God
would be with him if he heeded the instruction of the angel.
John was to go forth as Jehovah’s messenger, to bring to men the
light of God. He must give a new direction to their thoughts. He must
impress them with the holiness of God’s requirements, and their need
of His perfect righteousness. Such a messenger must be holy. He
must be a temple for the indwelling Spirit of God. In order to fulfill
his mission, he must have a sound physical constitution, and mental
and spiritual strength. Therefore it would be necessary for him to
control the appetites and passions. He must be able so to control all his
powers that he could stand among men as unmoved by surrounding
circumstances as the rocks and mountains of the wilderness.
In the time of John the Baptist, greed for riches, and the love
of luxury and display had become widespread. Sensuous pleasures,
feasting and drinking, were causing physical disease and degeneracy,
benumbing the spiritual perceptions, and lessening the sensibility to
sin. John was to stand as a reformer. By his abstemious life and plain
dress he was to rebuke the excesses of his time. Hence the directions
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