Prepare Ye the Way of the Lord

By randy in : Discipleship // Aug 4 2010

Isaiah 40:3,4 – “The voice of him that crieth in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the LORD, make straight in the desert a highway for our God. Every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and hill shall be made low: and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough places plain:”

Isaiah prophesied of a forerunner for the Messiah, his job was to prepare the way of the Lord. His task was to make a straight highway for our God. When I read the above passage, it reminds me of preparing a road for paving. The dirt has to be graded, the hills leveled out, and the valleys filled in. Then the road has to be packed down and scraped and leveled…smoothing all of the rough places. So who was this forerunner and how did he do all of this paving?

It was John the Baptist. Matthew 3:1-3 tells us, “In those days came John the Baptist, preaching in the wilderness of Judaea, And saying, Repent ye: for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. For this is he that was spoken of by the prophet Esaias, saying, The voice of one crying in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make his paths straight.”

So how did John prepare the way? What was his message? REPENT. Why repent and how did that prepare the way of the Lord? Repentance has to come from a conviction of one’s sin coupled with a fearful expectation of wrathful judgment from a Holy and Righteous God. It comes through comparing our self-righteousness against the measuring stick of God’s perfect moral Law. That shows us that we have sinned (missed the mark). The Law is what shows us that our righteousness is like filthy rags. Until we see and understand that, we go on thinking that we are ‘OK’ with god. I used a little g for god because if we think that, we have created a god in our own mind that does not exist…a god that our sins and good deeds together and approves us. People have to showed that idols made with hands or minds cannot save us on judgment day. That happens by preaching the full counsel of God’s Word and not just Grace, Love, Peace, Joy and Happiness. We must preach the weightier matters of the Law, Judgment, Mercy and Faith (in that order) as found in

Look at what John said to the Hypocritical Pharisees & Sadducees, “7But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees come to his baptism, he said unto them, O generation of vipers, who hath warned you to flee from the wrath to come? 8Bring forth therefore fruits meet for repentance: 9And think not to say within yourselves, We have Abraham to our father: for I say unto you, that God is able of these stones to raise up children unto Abraham. 10And now also the axe is laid unto the root of the trees: therefore every tree which bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire.” Matthew 3:7-10.

John preached:

1. Wrath
2. The necessity of the fruit of repentance evidenced in their lives
3. Their supposed righteousness by their ancestry was worthless
4. Judgment and Hell were coming-the axe is already in motion.

Notice he first preached wrath and repentance. This prepares the soil of the heart. It paves the way in a heart of stone and makes the path easy, straight and level for the Lord (and the Gospel) that is to follow. And when John preached this, what were the results? Mark 1:5 enlightens us, “And there went out unto him all the land of Judaea, and they of Jerusalem, and were all baptized of him in the river of Jordan, confessing their sins.”

Repentance always preceded belief in the Gospel. Jesus said in Matthew 21:32, “For John came unto you in the way of righteousness, and ye believed him not: but the publicans and the harlots believed him: and ye, when ye had seen it, repented not afterward, that ye might believe him.” Repentance precedes Belief. People that knew they were sinners, confessed and believed. The religious people (Jesus was speaking to) repented not and therefore could not believe. In Mark 1:15 we find Jesus Himself preaching, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand: repent ye, and believe the gospel.”

Finally, the Apostle John writing in John 1:6,7 of John the Baptist said, “ “6There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. 7The same came for a witness, to bear witness of the Light, that all men through him might believe.” It is through John’s ministry, preaching repentance, that all men might believe.. repentance then belief.

About the Author

randy has written 35 articles for Acts 3 Global Ministries.