Luke 3:3 He went into all the country around the Jordan, preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.
Luke 3:4 As is written in the book of the words of Isaiah the prophet: “A voice of one calling in the desert, ‘Prepare the way for the Lord, make straight paths for him.
Luke 3:5 Every valley shall be filled in, every mountain and hill made low. The crooked roads shall become straight, the rough ways smooth.
Luke 3:6 And all mankind will see God’s salvation.’”
Is. 40:3 A voice of one calling: “In the desert prepare the way for the LORD; make straight in the wilderness a highway for our God.
Is. 40:4 Every valley shall be raised up, every mountain and hill made low; the rough ground shall become level, the rugged places a plain.
Is. 40:5 And the glory of the LORD will be revealed, and all mankind together will see it. For the mouth of the LORD has spoken.”
Whenever a king would go out into his kingdom, his subjects would go ahead of him and fix the roads that he would travel on. I saw something similar happen in Central Asia. We had some friends that lived on this really nice asphalt paved street. It was different from every single street all around it, except for the main thoroughfare through town that it was perpendicular to. I found out that the President of said country once came down that road and gave a gift to something like the oldest surviving veteran from WWII or something. Anyway, the week before the president came, they asphalted the street.
John the Baptist is preparing the way for the Lord. Preparing the way…so what is his prep?
Repent, quit cheating, share your extra coat, be content with your pay, don‚Äôt steal extra for yourself, and the most haunting for the people at the time, really…That the sons of Abraham aren‚Äôt the ones born in certain families. The children of Abraham are created by God.
This is definitely preparing the way for Jesus and His message. The great part isn’t that John is getting them cleaned up so that they look good for Jesus, he is getting them ready to leave the vain acts of the Law and to come to know God again.
He is cracking the hard boiled egg so Jesus can come and peel it.
I think we have a lot of these guys nowadays that come through and shake everyone up so we can fall and settle in new ways. The hard part is that John got taken out and his teaching slipped away as Jesus became stronger.
Today the crazy guys come and shake everyone up so we can come down and settle in new ways, but then they stick around for a long time, trying to keep their message as current and cool and different as it was a few years ago, and things just become weird.
Some of you might know some of the people I’m thinking of. Very radical thinkers and full of great ideas that helped us reshape the kingdom, but now we’ve rethunk and we need someone else to come along and show us how to live the new stuff out.