4 as it is written in the book of the words of Isaiah the prophet,
“The voice of one crying in the wilderness,
‘Make ready the way of the Lord,
Make His paths straight.
5 ‘Every ravine will be filled,
And every mountain and hill will be brought low;
The crooked will become straight,
And the rough roads smooth;
6 And all flesh will see the salvation of God.’”
Sorry you guys. Finals week. For reals. Also, for anyone wondering, my girl is A-Ok. Fractured radius. She got her cast yesterday, and is doing very well.
Down to business!
I love these verses. So filled with the Gospel. Can you imagine? Being a part of the generation to see the salvation of God? Not that it mattered to many people who met Jesus, but still.
John the Baptist had a very important job. His job was to cry out, "Make ready the way of the Lord!". But John didn't just preach the coming of the Christ. He didn't just preach the wonderful gift of salvation...he also preach repentance. He called for people to turn from sin and turn to our salvation in the flesh. But that's another post, maybe. Looking at these verses, we are seeing the promise from God, being recited and fulfilled.
1 comment:
So glad your girl's ok and that you're done your finals!!
I love MacArthur's explanation of this analogy....
The wilderness here is your heart. The wilderness is the heart. The voice is crying in the wilderness...Get the pathway through the wilderness ready. The wilderness is really the heart. It's the sinful heart, the sinful mind through which a path must be made. And that path is the path of repentance. And this is a magnificent analogy of what repentance is like. Here's where it starts. Every ravine shall be filled up. What's that? Low places, analogous to the low, base, dark, hidden things of the heart.
See, repentance involves an honest dealing with the depths of wickedness in your heart and mine. You've got to go down deep into the ugly muck of your sinful life and bring it up. And then he says, "Every mountain and hill shall be brought low." You know, the Jews were not only good at hiding the filth down low, but they were really good at elevating themselves in self-righteous ways, weren't they? You've got to...you've got to knock down the proud, haughty, self-righteous attitudes.
And then you've got to take the crooked places and straighten them out. That's the word skolios, from which we get scoliosis, which is a curvature, the devious, the deceitful, the lying, the perverse.
So you've got to dig deep into the filth of the hidden things. You've got to go high and pull down your pride and self-righteousness. Then you've got to deal with all the perverse, devious, deceptions of the heart. And then he says, "And the rough roads smooth."
What's that? Anything that's laying out there on the road of repentance. Could be self-love, could be love of money, could be love of the world, could be lust of the flesh, could be indifference, could be apathy, could be unbelief, any of that.
You want to get...you want to get...you want to get the path ready through the wilderness of your heart? Then repent and that means deal with the deep, base, hidden, secret, dark, low things. That means deal with the pride of your life, bring it all down to where it needs to be. Deal with the deception, the perversity, the wickedness, the devious elements and everything else, all the junk laying out there in your life that needs to be wiped clean. See, John is calling for a full repentance. And he says to them...If you do that, look at verse 6, if you will do that, all flesh shall see the salvation of God.
You know what? That's just another way to say the Kingdom will come. The whole world is going to see the salvation and if you do that then the nation will be saved and the nation will be exalted and the Kingdom will come and salvation will cover the earth, if you do that.
There's a simple message here really. Messiah's arrived and He offers you a Kingdom. If you want to be in that Kingdom you need your sins forgiven. If you want your sins forgiven you must repent. You have to prepare a pathway through your heart, a path of true repentance and the Lord will come to that heart and He'll reveal Himself and He'll save that sinner and that nation.
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