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Fellowship at Cross Creek
The Story of Sin…
Part XI: A Voice Arises in the Wilderness
By Joseph M. Cross
2/7/14

“And you, child, will be called the prophet of the Most High; For you will go on before the Lord to prepare His ways…to give people the knowledge of salvation by the forgiveness of sins” (Luke 1:76-77).

In addition to prophesying Judah’s national forgiveness and salvation (as explained in “The Story of Sin: Parts IX and X), a late first century B.C.E Jewish priest named Zacharias was prophesying that his new-born son, John (who would later come to be known as John the Baptist) was in some manner, a fulfillment of the last words of the Old Covenant or Testament, found in Malachi 4:5-6 and spoken over four hundred years earlier:

“Behold, I am going to send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and terrible day of the Lord. He will restore the hearts of the fathers to their children and the hearts of the children to their fathers, so that I will not come and smite the land with a curse.” Malachi 4:5-6.

Zacharias, inspired by God, was now prophesying that his son, John the Baptist, was indeed Malachi’s prophetic and “figurative” Elijah.

I say Malachi’s figurative “Elijah” because when some Jewish priests and Levites were sent to John later as he was preaching and baptizing at the River Jordan and asked him if was Elijah, he answered that he was NOT…meaning I am NOT THE Elijah, the 9th century Old Testament prophet (John 1:21), and John wasn’t.  Continue reading →