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Preparing The Way Of The Lord | David Fisher

I’m ready to go today. Y’all ready to study the scriptures together? His name was John. Y’all know him as John the Baptist.

His name was John. His father’s name was Zacharias. He was a priest.

John was the son of a priest. But you couldn’t tell it by looking at him. Most priests would be dressed in the fine Jewish linen cloths and all the religious gear and the religious cloaks and robes.

Not John. John wore a camel hair robe with a leather belt. And he feasted fine on the land.

He ate, said, wild honey and locusts. We’d know this around here as grasshoppers and crickets. And that’s what he ate.

He lived in the wilderness. It’s a priest’s son who lived in the wilderness because he wanted to be close with the Father. And that’s where he spent his time.

I don’t know about y’all, but that’s not too appetizing, is it? But I’m going to tell you what, there was a difference in his life. And he heard from God. I guess if you’ve got to eat crickets to hear from God, I guess we could eat some crickets.

But he heard from God. He met Jesus when he was still in his mama’s womb. He didn’t know Jesus growing up.

Jesus grew up over, started in Egypt, went up to Nazareth and he stayed there in the wilderness. He didn’t spend his time in the temples and didn’t spend his time in the cities. He spent time with the Holy Spirit.

And it finally came time, he was probably around 30 years old and he began to preach. He didn’t go preaching in Jerusalem. He didn’t go preaching in the synagogues.

He started preaching in the wilderness. He started baptizing people. And it didn’t take long because people started coming to him.

He didn’t go to where they were. They began to come to where he was because they had been expecting something to happen. And so John began preaching and he stated the people, the priests and the Levites from Jerusalem finally sent a group of people to come talk to him to say, who are you? Because this is somewhat strange.

Most of the Jewish religion was all centered around both the synagogue and the temple. And you have this outlier, a priest’s son, baptizing people in the River Jordan. See, good Jews didn’t need to be baptized.

They were already part of the family. They were already part of the covenant. And John was giving them a message that they needed to be baptized for the remission, for the release, for the forgiveness of their sins.

And that was a completely different message that they hadn’t heard. So they sent them John chapter 1. We’ve got the verse here. They said, who are you? So they said to him, who are you? That we may give an answer to those who sent us.

What do you say about yourself? And he said, I am the voice of one crying over in the wilderness make straight the way of the Lord as the prophet Isaiah said. Do you all understand how bold this is? This is a prophecy given more than 700 years before John lived. And they come and ask him, who are you? And he says, I’m the guy that Isaiah prophesied about 700 years ago.

Now you don’t say that unless you’ve got some confidence that you’re the guy. He said, I’m the one that Isaiah prophesied what we know was in chapter 40 of Isaiah. Over in Luke 3, we know that this has to be something important because all four Gospels talk about this account.

All four Gospels talk about this prophecy. All four Gospels identify John the Baptist as the one who was prophesied by Isaiah more than 700 years ago. Flip over if you have your Bible to Luke 3 because Luke adds a little bit more of the prophecy than was stated there in John.

Luke chapter 3 and we’re going to start here in verses 4. It’s talking about what was written. It said, he had gone into all the region of the Jordan preaching a baptism of repentance for the remission of sins as written in the book of Isaiah the prophet saying, the voice of one crying in the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord, make his path straight and every valley shall be filled and every mountain and hill brought low. The crooked place shall be made straight in the rough ways smooth and all flesh shall see the salvation of God.

Can y’all get that image of the road? Any of y’all ever been in road construction? Especially you go out through hill country and you drive through these places where they’ve kind of cut down the top of the mountain, right? Because they’re using that dirt to put it where? In the low places so that the road will be much more smooth, right? And that you don’t have the roads that would be crooked going like this because if it’s going to be crooked it’s going to take a lot longer to get there and if it’s got rocks and boulders and trash in the road it’s going to take you a lot longer because it’s going to be bumpy. It’s going to take you a while. So if you want to get there and the king always would send some front men and they would build what was called the king’s highway and they’d make it straight and they’d make it smooth and they’d make it prepared for the king and that’s what John was doing.

He was preparing the way for the Lord Jesus and for them to hear his message and he didn’t know Jesus as the Savior yet. Jesus was his relative but he did not yet know that Jesus was the Messiah. And while John was out in the wilderness he had been praying God show me who it is and the one who sent him to co-baptize which had to have been the Holy Spirit said he who sent me to baptize said when you see the Spirit of God descending on somebody like a dove that’s the guy.

So why was Jesus baptized? Because John needed to know that’s the guy and as soon as he knew that was the guy then he began to point everybody to Jesus. Began to point everybody to Jesus but he was there first. Even before he even knew Jesus God used him to start preparing the way for all of these people to hear and to understand.

Luke 1 we talked about how would he even know that this is his mission. There was nobody there out in the wilderness trying to instruct him and to tell him that verse in Isaiah that might just kind of be you. The Holy Spirit revealed that even before he was born to his father the priest Zacharias.

Flip over to Luke 1. Luke 1 y’all remember Zacharias was serving in the temple when the Holy Spirit angel appeared to him and said you’re going to have a son. His wife was old they didn’t have a son they’d been praying for a child and Zacharias didn’t quite believe it and so the angel struck him where he couldn’t speak for the rest of the pregnancy until he was born. And so as soon as the child was born the angel even told him what the child’s name would be.

John even though he didn’t have any family members of that name he said you’re going to name him John and as soon as the Lord released his lips to speak he began to prophesy and that’s contained in chapter 1 of Luke. I’m not going to read the first part of it but I’m going to start here on verse 76 and this is a prophecy that the Holy Spirit gave to Zacharias as soon as this child was born. He says and you child will be called the prophet of the highest for you will go before the face of the Lord to prepare his ways to give knowledge of salvation to his people by the remission of their sins through the tender mercies of our God with which the day spring from on high has visited us to give light to those who sit in darkness and the shadow of death to guide our feet into the way of peace.

I bet his daddy told him that over and over and over again. What do you think? Because you know what you’re going to be son? You’re going to be the one who’s going to go before the face of the Lord to prepare his ways to give knowledge of salvation to the people for the remission of their sins. And John the Baptist I’m confident heard that prophecy spoken over him all of his life.

And he spent 30 years in the wilderness alone with the father understanding what it was that he was to do to prepare the way. I’ll tell you it’s important to speak over your children godly things. Speak over your children prophecies.

Speak over your children proverbs and psalms. Speak it into their lives. And even when they’re older, even when they’re 30 you keep speaking it into their lives.

And even when they’re 50 you keep speaking it into their lives. Because they will absorb it. They will absorb it.

And we know John absorbed it because of what his father had said to him. This is the message. Turn over to Mark 3. I’m skipping on all three because all four of them I guess because all four of them have some interesting components that aren’t in the others.

But it’s just as I was flying in the airplane I kept flipping back between Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Look at the different accounts about John the Baptist here. And so what was his message? What did he spend 30 years doing? I guess where did I go? Chapter, did I say Mark or Matthew? Well don’t listen to what I say.

Go to Matthew. Matthew 3. No wonder it didn’t look right when I looked on my verse. Matthew chapter 3. We’ll be coming back to Mark in a second.

Matthew 3 verse 1. In those days John the Baptist came preaching in the wilderness of Judea saying what? Repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. You take 30 years to have that message? That was a one sentence sermon right there. Repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.

You know repent is not a real popular word these days is it? I get the image of the guy with the big billboard sign walking down the streets of New York or somewhere with this sign that says repent and a bullhorn and yelling at people repent and they just don’t listen to him because you think the guy’s just nuts or he’s harsh. But I’m going to tell you it’s a good word. Repent.

It just means change. Change your mind. Change the way you think.

And not just the way you think and what’s in your mind but your behavior begins to change as well. So he said repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. I mean at hand it’s right here.

It’s coming. You know what you need to do? You need to change. If we’re going to fix this road.

If we’re going to make this road ready for the king to walk down we need to start making some changes and that’s exactly what he started preaching to the people. You need to change. You need to change.

All of you people who are coming to hear me you need to be changed. You need to be baptized because the forgiveness of sins is coming. It’s not that John could give them freedom from sin or remission of sin.

It’s that the sacrifice is coming. The Lamb of God is coming and you need to be prepared for it. And people were coming.

And it wasn’t just the good Jewish people coming either. There were soldiers who came. We know that.

When you go back and read over in Luke. Yeah over in Luke. Flip back over to Luke.

In chapter 3. Read that whole chapter when you get home. In all of Luke he starts talking about all the people who were coming. Some of them were soldiers and said what is it that we should do? And he starts telling them how they should be good soldiers.

He didn’t say you are Roman. You are evil. Get out of here.

You can’t be part of the kingdom. He starts giving them advice of how to be good soldiers. Be content with how much you get paid.

Don’t intimidate people. Don’t accuse people falsely. Be content with your wages.

He starts talking to people who were tax collectors. The sinners and says don’t collect more than you are supposed to get. Starts talking to other regular people.

What should we do? Well if you got two coats give one to somebody who needs it. If you got a bunch of food give it to somebody who is hungry. Sounds a whole lot like the kind of things Jesus would say.

Don’t you think? They must have been listening to the same Father for 30 years. The same Holy Spirit has given that message to John. His role was just different.

He was there to prepare them for the words of Jesus. In fact if we flip back over now to Mark. Now really go to Mark this time.

Chapter 1 verses 4 to 5. It says, John came baptizing in the wilderness and preaching a baptism of repentance for the remission of sins in all of the land of Judea and those from Jerusalem went out to him and were all baptized by him in the Jordan River confessing their sins. See they knew there was something wrong with them. They needed to confess it.

They needed a Savior. They couldn’t fix themselves. That’s the message the world needs to hear.

They need a Savior. Because they have a sin problem. There’s no way to get rid of it.

Except by the blood of Jesus. By His sacrifice. He’s our Savior.

He’s the one who saves us. You know what Jesus’ name even means? Yahweh saves. His name means Savior.

That’s who He is. The one really good thing about being away for a week and getting out of your routine when you’re in the same town and you do the same things don’t you kind of get in a rut? I mean it’s not a bad rut but it’s still a rut. I enjoy my rut.

It’s my rut. I stay in my path. Sillsby, Lumberton journey and work and church and family but you kind of get in a rut.

You don’t really think of things that are happening out there except when you make the mistake of watching the news and getting all upset about things that you can’t do anything about anyway. Sometimes it’s really good to get away. We were able to get away and I’m around people who are literally from all over the world.

I was able to sit and talk with the Jewish man and with the Muslim man and with a woman who has no idea of which deity she should follow if any. I’m around people who have no awareness that they need a Savior. The truth is you don’t have to go out of this country to find people who don’t know that they need a Savior.

You just got to go next door. You just got to go to Walmart or Brookshire’s, H-E-B. You just got to go to your work site and there are people there who have no idea they need a Savior.

So when you talk to them about Jesus, they’ve heard of Jesus before. They know the name of Jesus but they don’t know Jesus as their Savior. They know Jesus as a wise man.

You talk to the Muslim and he says, Jesus, yes, he’s a prophet. Very wise man. You talk to even the Jewish person.

Most would say, yes, he was a prophet. A misguided prophet but a prophet. That’s what they would say.

You talk to other people, yeah, I know I love the things about Jesus. He was so kind and he was so loving. They know about Jesus but they don’t know that they need him as their Savior.

And how is it that we’re going to prepare them to even accept and receive Jesus when they don’t see him as the Savior? They see him as the name on our signs and a person we come and have club meetings about. It’s the Jesus Club. I remember talking to a fellow I knew a long time ago and he was fine with me being a Christian.

He just didn’t want you to get too Jesus-y on him. He just didn’t see Jesus as the Savior. He saw Jesus as the head of our club.

And it’s not anything of great value for us just to be part of the Jesus Club where people are friendly and people are nice. If you know Jesus just as the one who’s friendly and nice and just the one who loves everybody, then you don’t know Jesus as the Savior. The Jesus as the Savior is the one who wipes away our sin.

And our problem is not our circumstances. Our problem is our sin. See, they were waiting.

The Jewish people were waiting for a deliverer from their circumstances. They were waiting for a king who would deliver them from the Roman government so that they could be in charge again. They were expecting a king who would come who would be in charge and they would be number one.

And John came to prepare them for the message that this is not who the Savior will be. The Savior will be someone who forgives you of your sins. And I’m telling you folks, that is the biggest problem that separates us.

It is the real problem that separates us from God. Sin separates us from God and only Jesus bridges that gap and makes that gap go away. The Jews who would come to talk to John, he got really harsh with the Pharisees and with the Levites in the same way that Jesus did.

In fact, he called them a bunch of snakes, a bunch of brood of vipers. Who’s warning you to come? I mean, why are you coming? Because you know what? Because you think you’ve got it all together. You think you don’t have a problem.

You think because your father is Abraham and you’re a descendant of Abraham, you have no problem. He says, you’ve got the biggest problem of all because you’re not aware and you won’t recognize that you have a sin problem that needs to be taken care of by the blood of Jesus, the Lamb of God who is to come. If we’re going to prepare people, if we’re going to prepare for the way of the Lord, we have to spend time with the Holy Spirit asking, Holy Spirit, show me how do I speak about this to other people? I can’t be a disciple who makes other disciples until my way and my path with the Lord has been prepared and the things in my life that are crooked need to be made straight and the speed bumps on my road I need to fix and that starts with my repentance.

I do a horrible job of trying to reach out to someone else when my light is not shining. I have a hard time showing somebody else the right path to take when my path is filled with rocks and boulders and twists and turns and I need to come before the Father and before the Holy Spirit and say, Father, I confess my sins. Lord, may we never get to the point where we think we’re so religious and we got it all together that we don’t need to repent anymore.

See, we need a Savior. You know, I think sometimes that it’s my circumstances that are my problem. If I just had a little bit more of this and a little bit less of that, everything would be good.

If my circumstances were better, everything would be good. Jesus is not going to save you necessarily from your circumstances. There are people who come to Jesus because they want a change in their circumstances.

Aren’t there? Jailhouse confessions, you know, people who have gone to jail and said, God, if you just get me out of this problem. Y’all ever prayed that? I remember praying that as a seven-year-old boy who had done some things he shouldn’t have done. We were shooting berries with slingshots at cars when they’d stop at the stoplight, stop sign in our neighborhood.

You’d hear those little berries hit their windows. Tink, tink, tink. And then people would run out and try to catch you and we’d run off.

And I don’t know, one night I almost got caught and I said, God, I better pray about this. Lord, if you just get me out of this one. I know a lot of people spend a lot of time, that’s their prayers.

God, if you just get me out of this circumstance, if you just get me out of this problem, if you just give me a better family, if you just give me a better job, if you give me a better house, if you give me a better car, if you give me better circumstances, I’ll serve you as if Jesus is just here to give you better circumstances. I’ll tell you what, it’s not circumstances that will kill you and send you to hell. What will send you to hell is being separated by the Father, separated from the Father because of our sins.

Our problem is not the devil. The devil is an enemy. He will tempt you to do what you already want to do.

And if you didn’t want to do it, he’ll find a way to kind of make you want to do it. But I’m going to tell you sin is our problem. You know, Jesus lived a whole life around the devil.

Did he sin? The sin problem is in us. It’s in me. It’s in me to confess.

It’s in me to repent. It’s in me. It’s a problem in me.

And it’s a problem in you. And it’s a problem in them. If we’re going to prepare the way of the Lord, we need to be about the business of some road repair.

Father, show me the high places that need to be smoothed out. Show me the low places. See, the low places in the valleys is where your wheels get stuck in the mud.

The high places are just the hard places, it’s hard to get over. The crooked places are the places that just take you a lot longer time to get there. And then all the bumps in the road and all the rocks in the road, they’re just barriers that are preventing you from letting the Holy Spirit work in you.

The Holy Spirit wants a road that’s been prepared so that he can operate in your life. Sometimes I wonder, why is it not happening faster? Well, maybe it’s because the Holy Spirit is having to take me down all these twists and turns to get my mind right. I don’t know about y’all, but I’m tired of twisting and turning on roads.

I want to be on a smooth road. I want to be on a road where the Holy Spirit will manifest his presence to us. John the Baptist said, I’ve come to baptize you with this water, baptism for the remission of sins.

But there’s one who’s coming who’s greater, who’s going to baptize you with the Holy Spirit. I’m going to tell you, our roads need to be fixed. Our roads need to be repaired.

It’s because a man named John spent 30 years in the wilderness that he was able to introduce us to Jesus. And when he baptized Jesus and the Holy Spirit descended upon him like a dove, he told all the people, said, I am not the one to follow. Jesus is the one to follow.

And he’s going to save you from your sin. Because I don’t care how religious you are, we have a sin problem. And we have a sin problem because we have a desire problem.

And we have a desire problem because we need a new heart. And that’s what the whole New Covenant is all about. He promised that he would give us a new heart and a new spirit.

I believe we’re going to be in a season of making disciples. I truly believe that. But how do we, what do we tell them? What are we drawing them to? Are we drawing them to a place that just has nice people? And y’all are nice, most of you.

There’s a few of you. Y’all are nice people. Pleasant people.

Y’all think we’re nice people? We nice people? It’s a good thing. But you know what? They got nice people down at the sports club. They got nice people at Chick-fil-A.

They’re the nicest. Everything’s a pleasure. They’re nice people.

We’re not drawing people here so they can be around nice people and a finer cut of folks. We’re drawing them here because we’re preparing the way of the Lord for them and their lives. And that means sometime we’ve got to tell them the hard thing.

And when they talk to us about their circumstances, you say, we’re going to have to have the guts to say, you know what? You need to change. But you don’t make them despair about the change because you tell them, you say, I know all about it because I’ve changed too. And I’m still changing.

Any of y’all arrived? Any of y’all still changing? Are any of you still changing your mind on things when the Spirit and the God brings it to your forefront? Are there any of you here who are still changing in your behaviors? Because you look up and say, why did I do that? You know, good Christians would still sin and we still need to repent. Good Christians have things in our lives that we need to change. And if we’re going to prepare the way of the Lord, not only in our own lives, but in the lives of those that we’re around, if we’re going to be making disciples, we need to be about change.

And change begins within you. Doesn’t it? It changes within me. And we don’t need to be whining and complaining about our circumstances.

We just say, God, change me. And that’s what repentance is. Maybe you don’t like the word repent.

How about you use the word change? You need to change. You need to change your mind. You need to change your attitude.

You need to change your behavior. It means the same thing. The truth is, if you walked up to somebody and just said repent, they may not receive it.

But you know, the Holy Spirit has different people in different places. For some people, that’s exactly the word they need to hear. And so you say, Father, teach me.

Show me what it is that you want me to say to them. What’s the word that you would have me to speak? Because you’ve already been preparing their path. You’ve already been preparing their hearts just for that chance to hear from me.

I put on my lips the words that they need to hear. There is no cookie cutter evangelism tool. I’ve used words before.

One phrase that, man, just seemed to hit the mark. And I say, that’s a pretty good phrase. And I turn right around and use that phrase on somebody else, and they look at me like I’m the nut.

Well, that wasn’t the phrase for them. That wasn’t where they were on the road. They might be in a twisty, and I’m giving them the message like they’re down in the mud in the bog.

It’s not the right message. They’re in a different place, and it’s up to us to be listening to the Holy Spirit to give us the words to say. I don’t know where you are today in your walk with God, but my hope and my prayer is that God will give you a revelation of the change that needs to be made in your life, and in your heart, and in your attitude.

Because we got business to tend to. We got business to tend to. But I think we need to spend at least this Sunday on us.

Because I believe we’re here to change lives and to make disciples through the power of the Holy Spirit. And I want the Holy Spirit to baptize me, and I want the Holy Spirit to baptize you. I mean in mercy and dunk you in.

There may be somebody here who needs to be baptized for the remission of their sins, and we’ve got water here today for you to do that. It’d be a beautiful time for you to do it. And I believe that’s part of what God uses to prepare the way of the Lord in your life.

And we’re fixed to make some time to do that. If you just need to pray, and you just want to come before the Father and say, Father, I need to change. I want to change my attitude.

I want to change my thoughts. I want to change my path. I want to change my roads.

I want to change… I want to change within me. And it’s okay to want your circumstances to be changed, but I’m telling you it’s not your circumstances. It’s your separation from God that will leave you lonely.

Because you can be lonely rich, and you can be lonely poor. You can be separated in good times, and you can be separated in bad times. Or you can be close to Him without the barrier of sin in your life, in the good times, in the bad times, in prison, in shipwrecked wrecks, while you’re being beaten in sickness and in health.

The Father wants you to be close to Him. He wants no separation. And it’s the separation of sin in our life that keeps us apart from Him.

And my hope and my prayer is that you will run to Him because as a good Father He has open arms. And He says, come back. Come back to me.

Come back. Because that’s all repentance is. Stopping.

Turn around and go in a different direction. And my hope and my prayer is that you’re going to run to Jesus because He’s ready for you. Amen.