Hi, this is Hank Hennigrath, President of the Christian Research Institute, host of the Bible Internet

Interband broadcast with another Hank unplug short.

Thinking today as I was reading through the gospel of Matthew, how Jesus quotes Malachi

in reference to John the Baptist. See, I will send my messenger who will prepare the way before me.

And of course, this fulfilled in John the Baptist, who was not like a reed shaking in the wind.

He was not someone who would change according to popular opinion.

He was a man of conviction.

And I'm wondering today

how many of us are men and women of conviction,

willing to stand for truth,

no matter the cost.

If ever there was a time in which that was necessary, that time has come.

And so my admonition to you and mostly to myself is stand for truth. For if you do, you will receive life.

John the Baptist was in prison.

He was imprisoned by Herod.

He, in his sense, had hoped that Jesus would overthrow an earthly king.

But Jesus had come for something far better than that.

He had come to inaugurate a kingdom that would never end. And you and I are part of that kingdom.

We will one day be carried by our Lord over the threshold of Jordan into the new Jerusalem

coming down out of heaven, prepared as a bride, beautifully adorned for her husband.

So my admonition to you and to me today is to labor not for that which perishes, but rather for that which is eternal.. So for now.