“Prepare your hearts to prepare the way.”

Mark 1:1-11 (NKJV)
1 The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.

2 As it is written in [a]the Prophets: “Behold, I send My messenger before Your face, Who will prepare Your way before You.”

3 “The voice of one crying in the wilderness: ‘Prepare the way of the Lord; Make His paths straight.’”

4 John came baptizing in the wilderness and preaching a baptism of repentance [b]for the remission of sins.

5 Then all the land of Judea, and those from Jerusalem, went out to him and were all baptized by him in the Jordan River, confessing their sins.

6 Now John was clothed with camel’s hair and with a leather belt around his waist, and he ate locusts and wild honey.

7 And he preached, saying, “There comes One after me who is mightier than I, whose sandal strap I am not worthy to stoop down and loose.

8 I indeed baptized you with water, but He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.”

9 It came to pass in those days that Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee, and was baptized by John in the Jordan.

10 And immediately, coming up [c]from the water, He saw the heavens [d]parting and the Spirit descending upon Him like a dove.

11 Then a voice came from heaven, “You are My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.”

John the Baptizer was no doubt one of the key aspects of Jesus’ ministries.

He was sent by God to prepare the way of the Lord (Malachi 3:1, Matthew 3:7-10, etc.).

Malachi 3:1 “Behold, I send My messenger, And he will prepare the way before Me. And the Lord, whom you seek, Will suddenly come to His temple, Even the Messenger of the covenant, In whom you delight. Behold, He is coming,” Says the Lord of hosts.

Matthew 3:7-10 New King James Version

7 But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming to his baptism, he said to them, “Brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? 8 Therefore bear fruits worthy of repentance, 9 and do not think to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father.’ For I say to you that God is able to raise up children to Abraham from these stones. 10 And even now the ax is laid to the root of the trees. Therefore every tree which does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.

Before he was born, the angel of the Lord went to his father, a Levite, the High Priest Zacarias, that he was the one prophesied of Elijah to be great in the eyes of God (Luke 1).

I want to backtrack just a little; John the Baptist was a Levite; his father was the high priest.

He was meant to be great and most likely meant to be the next high priest; he was supposed to make the priesthood money, the good money, but that’s not what God had in store.

I fully believe John the Baptist had to forsake all of that so that he could fulfill his full destiny, to prepare the way of the Lord.

Now, John the Baptist was raised on the Nazarite vow. He couldn’t cut his hair; he couldn’t drink hard drink; none of these he could do; he was set apart.

A lot of people called him weird. I mean, he ate locusts and honey; he was an oddball.

Now, John’s ministry took place in the wilderness, and in a lot of ways, he resembled the Prophet Elijah.

Not only did he dress like him, but if you will, had that same bold demeanor about him.

I mean, look how he called out Herod Antipas and his wife on how he stole his brother’s wife.

And yes, that is what led him to being killed.

But that didn’t stop John’s ministry; no, his ministry was fulfilled when he baptized Jesus.

Remember what the scripture said when John was talking to his disciples concerning Jesus, saying, “I must decrease so he must increase.”

I like this idea Pastor has that every time John would baptize someone, he looked up for the heavens to be opened.

But there was nothing until Jesus came.

When Jesus got baptized, I believe the people there knew it was Jesus who was meant to be the Messiah.

The heavens were opened; that dove descended onto Jesus, and then God said, “THIS IS MY SON ON WHOM I’M WELL PLEASED.”

When I said that the ark of the covenant led to Jesus, if you weren’t here, you missed that part of this message.

WE NEED JOHN’S TO ARISE.

John was bold.

Nothing would stop John from preparing the way.

His whole life was created to prepare the way of the Lord, to make his path straight.

We need people that have it built into them.

God, what you do, I wanna do; what you say, I wanna say; what you pray, I wanna pray.

We need people to be bold, to hold up the gospel, not to fold into the things of the world.

Not to fold into homosexuality or depression or the LGBTQABCDEFGHI. I don’t care.

No longer are you going to be confused in your identity because church; your identity is found in Christ.

He made you in his perfect image; what you are is what you are supposed to be.

Oh, come on; we need people that will say, “I wanna be a watchman for the kingdom; I wanna be on watch for the attack of the enemy.”

That’s what’s wrong with the church today; we let go of our watch; who is behind our pulpits, look at those preaching to us; thank God for such great pastors.

Who care about their sheep I say this with full love.

But we need watchmen to arise.

Our watchmen can’t just be our pastors or a preacher.

We need Johns to arise that say no matter the cost I’m paving the way of the lord.

We need people like the women with the issue of blood that will fight to get to Jesus.

YOUR WILDERNESS CRY.

Church, it’s time that we live on our wilderness cry.

It’s time we go back to that all the way how was in the days of John; start going into the streets repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.

But we need to change it to repeat for Jesus is coming back; you don’t want to miss.

If you miss him, what’s gonna come is much worse than what you’re facing now.

I don’t want to miss Jesus. I don’t want to miss his call. I don’t wanna miss anything that he has for me.

Church, I don’t have to wait until I’m 20 to start evangelism, to start prophesying, to start preaching.

I don’t need credentials to let out my wilderness cry; all I need is Jesus.

Do you need Jesus, do you need Jesus?

If you need Jesus, he’s right here in Wildways be there ready for you to give him your hand.

And say I want to God I don’t wanna miss you I need you God