A Call to Repentance
FLEE THE WRATH TO COME [LK 3:7]
There is a sacredness about divine revelation that is not to be squandered on the casual.
Insights into God’s word are reserved for those who are wholeheartedly separated unto Him. God’s message is not conveyed to carnal men though they may mount pulpits of grandeur. The word of the Lord came to John the son of Zacharias in the wilderness [Lk.3:2]. Neither the Pharisees nor the Sadducees, though daily in the temple, had such a testimony. God never casts pearls of truth before religious swine [Mtt.7:6].
John’s declaration sprang forth because the word of the Lord richly indwelt him; no other reason motivated him. He did not derive his message from the commentaries of renowned rabbis, neither did seminary training certify his ministry. His secret was solitary communion with God and thus the message he proclaimed was not his own.
Truly approved of God as a prophet, the Baptist did not come speaking a vision of his own heart as so many do. John did not dare to attach the Name of the Lord to utterances which did not proceed from the mouth of the Lord; this the false prophets do.
The effect of the impartation of God’s word was that John emerged from his wilderness preparation to proclaim repentance and inevitable judgment on the wicked. This is the essence of true prophetic ministry in contrast to the smooth but deadly delusions of those who have heard nothing from heaven [Jer.23:16-17,22].
True prophets have no heart for worldly mundane affairs and the alluring comforts of the city. The holy city of Jerusalem with all its temple fineries of religious ceremony had no appeal to the godly soul of the prophet John. Rather, he chose to stay in the uninhabited wilds. Yet, Jerusalem, all Judea and all the region around the Jordan went out to him—Mtt.3:5.
Friend, is this not a contrast with modern ministers who seek to establish their churches in thriving cities of renown? Aren’t we destitute of discernment when we imagine that God cannot move in the rural areas as we expect He would in the urban? Yea, it is even more lamentable to think that apart from the stimulants of technology, we do not know what to do in order to worship God.
Dear reader, do your best to seek the approval of God, bind yourself to Him in intimate communion, and with the authority of God pronounced upon your life, men will seek you out to hear the word of the Lord from your mouth. Your location irrespective, men will surely come to you when you have in hand the bread which their soul desperately hungers for.
At the time of John’s appearance from his desert seclusion, religion had degenerated into the scandalous. The temple’s priestly custodians indeed continued conducting their ceremonies, but God wasn’t there. The outward form of life was present, but true spiritual perception had long since vanished.
The religion, which ought to have been blossoming and bearing fruit, had become a desolate maze of crooked paths. The people did not even know the God they professed. God’s moral laws, in the hands of unscrupulous scribes, had decayed into a burden of legalistic rules and human traditions.
Sadly, this evil trend continues today. We put up appearances of sanctity and fill our tongues with Christian terminologies, yet we have not renounced the hidden things of shame. Our church meetings qualify more as social functions than divine services. A typical religious gathering today is little different from a political campaign with the gubernatorial aspirant dishing out empty promises from his elevated platform.
In such conditions, the way of the Lord must be prepared before His glory can be revealed among His people. However, God’s ways can only be prepared by those who have known them. He made known His ways to Moses, His acts to the children of Israel—Ps.103:7. While the children of Israel were content to rejoice in God’s external acts, Moses pursued and was ushered into the greater honor of knowing His ways.
Dear reader, what about you? Moses knew the inner workings of God’s heart and so did John. Do not be like the children of Israel who had no acquaintance with the principles of godliness but were merely content to experience His works. Christ has thrown open the way into the holiest. Arise, do not linger in the outer courts any longer, come to the fount of all knowledge and drink to your satisfaction in intimate communion. Christ is willing to unlock the great storehouses of eternal realities to your soul. If you be willing, and I pray you will be, lift up your voice and earnestly cry out, Open my eyes that I might behold wondrous things from your law— Ps.119:18. And you will experience the sure promise of entrance into His secret counsel reserved for the upright in heart [Prov.3:32]
Like Moses, John was a man who spent years in the wilderness pondering the ways of God. He was no mere product of some human institution of learning, echoing hollow traditions of men. Disciplined and tutored by the Lord Himself, the Baptist was outfitted to now herald the ways of the Lord.
Following the illumination of the Spirit to his own soul, John came announcing, Prepare the way of the Lord; make His paths straight. Every valley shall be filled and every mountain and hill brought low; the crooked places shall be made straight and the rough ways made smooth—Lk.3:5. Every vivid image employed in this startling declaration is pregnant with spiritual significance that we do well to carefully consider.
A valley is a place where everything drains to the lowest level. Valleys are always known to impede progress. They typify the low, debased and profane thoughts that fall short of the majesty of God. Delivered as they were by a mighty right hand from Egyptian bondage, Israel yet entertained unworthy thoughts about the Lord. Yes they spoke against God; they said, “Can God prepare a table in the wilderness?”—Ps. 78:18.
Even Zacharias, father of the Baptist and priest of the Lord, showed no higher conception when, after hearing the word of God, he still said, How shall I know this? For I am an old man, and my wife is well advanced in years—Lk.1:18. All such deficient thoughts dishonor the Lord and place Him on the same plane as man with the weaknesses of mortal limitation. Such inferior thinking becomes even more lamentable when we discover that even priests in the temple are not exempted from this profanity.
We do well to consider to what level our own estimation has descended. What base thoughts do you entertain against the Lord? They will only blight your path with thorns. Of what use is your anxious unrest? [Mtt.6:25-26]. Of whom have you been afraid so that you doubt the power of God [Isa.57:11]? Look away from your weakness to His Omnipotent storehouse of might! Occupy your mind with things that are noble, pure, lovely, and true [Phil.4:8]. With God all things are possible. Strengthen yourself in the Lord. To the one who believes, there shall be a performance of the things spoken of in the word of God [Lk.1:45].
Mountains and hills are places of exaltation, elevation and loftiness. Leaving God in the valley and brazenly ascending the peaks of pride, man imagines that he is sufficient apart from God. Human wisdom is counted by him as an adequate substitute for divine revelation. Observe how his ceremonies have replaced that true spirituality of worshipping in spirit and truth. And in contrast to humble submission, his arrogant and self- willed independence presumes a sufficiency that he does not possess.
But God alone can properly be referred to as self-sufficient and exalted. As for men, we are neither. For thus says the High and Lofty One, who inhabits eternity, whose name is holy: I dwell in the high and holy place with him who has a contrite and humble spirit, to revive the spirit of the humble and to revive the heart of the contrite ones—Isa.57:15. Should we not then join with the apostle Paul in casting down arguments and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God —2Cor.10:5?
Dear reader, there is nothing to be proud about. You have every reason to be humble before the God of heaven. Prides sets you in battle array against the Lord whom you are resisting. Will you indeed fight God? What have you that you did not receive? [1Cor.4:7]. Power, beauty, intelligence and eloquence all come from the Lord. They are reasons to be humble. God hates pride. Before the first dawn of the earliest ages, He made this clear as He expelled Lucifer from heaven because of it. Rejection and condemnation is the lamentable end of all who are self-exalted.
Crooked places lead us down lanes that are not forthright and honest. They constitute things that deceptively direct the feet to wander in unprofitable paths. All such courses must be immediately abandoned for the straight way, if the glory of the Lord will be made manifest. The Lord warns, Do not enter the path of the wicked, and do not walk in the way of evil. Avoid it, do not travel on it; turn away from it and pass on— Prov.4:14-15.
What have you to do, O believer, in crooked places? The way into God’s presence is straight. Sever your relations therefore with shady dealings. Renounce the secret things of shame, disengage from questionable associations, and have nothing to do with the unfruitful works of darkness. These things hamper your progress and set your feet on a twisted trail that surely shall ensnare your soul.
Rough places cast obstacles of stumbling before us, plunging men to ruin and destruction. Not only do they imperil us, they may also cause others to stumble if they are allowed to remain. Our relationship with people should be to edify and inspire them unto good works, not to cause them to stumble.
Friend, you are an influence on others either directly or indirectly. Therefore you ought to be sensitive; smooth out all rough places in your life. Cut down the appetite for that food which causes your brother to stumble. Slam the door against the suggestions of unholy friendships. Do not enter into that which will cause the name of the Lord to be reproached among the Gentiles [Rm.2:24].
Thus according to the message proclaimed by John, it is only as these issues are addressed that true spiritual awakening can be realized. In the prophet’s own words, apart from these, no flesh shall see the salvation of God—Lk.3:6.
The forceful witness that resulted from the prophet’s resounding thunder came with a potency that sent tremors of alarm to the defiled consciences of religious authorities. He had no formal training from any rabbinical school; neither did he learn religion from what was on ground. He was neither among them nor under them. John was no product of any sect and represented no institution.
God was doing something apart from established man-made order. The Spirit of the Lord cannot be made to conform to man’s religious ideas. Though Pharisees abounded in the temple, they were altogether bypassed by the word that came to the wilderness prophet.
Unlike “prophets” of today, John was not a man to bask in carnal statistics cataloguing the numbers attending his teachings. Flocking congregations of sinners, hypocrites and the superficially religious, did not signal successful ministry in the mind of this prophet. Rather than compromisingly diluting his message in order to attract and maintain a following, he reproved them publicly and condemned the perversity of their rebellious natures. John had no interest in gaining a favorable reputation in the eyes of men.
His indictments fell on the common man and religious elite alike without exception. Then he said to the multitudes that came out to be baptized by him, “Brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come?”—Lk.3:7. But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming to his baptism, he said to them, “Brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come?” [Mtt.3:2]. The multitudes were as equally corrupt as their Pharisaic teachers. It was a case of, “like priest, like people;” thereby fulfilling the words of Christ against those whose “ministries” plunged both minister and followers into everlasting ruin [Mtt.23:15].
People have never had a heart for true prophetic voices as is the case even in our own day. The Lord Jesus' preaching in synagogues often provoked the Pharisees to fury and violence. This indicates that no message from the Spirit during this time had sounded forth in their meetings.
In John’s case, the multitudes filing out to meet the Baptist in the wilderness was to mere attend a religious event that left the prophet under no delusion and even provoked his question, Who warned you to flee? The true response to that question is, “Nobody.” They weren’t fleeing the wrath it was mere curiosity that drew the masses out as spectators. But unlike the crowds, the Pharisees were not motivated by curiosity, and certainly not out of repentance. A religious phenomenon was taking place under their very noses and they would never allow spiritual movements to transpire apart from their jurisdiction and influence.
Christendom follows suit. The emperors of the various sects and denominations converge to monitor all who dare to proclaim God’s word apart from their common assent. They frown at preachers who have not been ordained by their empty hands. With phone calls and Internet facilities, faster moves are made to oppose and hush the voices of any true servants of God.
But John was not a man to be intimidated. His message had not come from man. He feared no one and sought no human endorsement or applause while preaching the gospel without fear and apart from courting favor. He called for a change of heart, way and mind resulting from repentance, while debunking any claims to descendancy from Abraham as a guarantee of salvation.
Prophets like John are lacking today. Like the children of Israel who dutifully practiced their religion, the church today chants choruses laying claim that “Abraham’s blessings are mine,” while their lives bear no semblance to the faith of Abraham. They carnally appeal to grace while they wallow in the mire of sin.
Stones, in the estimation of Christ, have more spirituality than such people. Indeed, it is better to be a stone and have God as your Father, than to be a man and not acknowledge God in genuine devotion [Lk.3:8].
Oh! How the word “misery” aptly describes our generation! With consciences seared as with a hot iron, the sober probing of spiritual convictions no longer has an effect on us. Benumbed with willful insensitivity, we still cling to the vain practices of a lifeless ecclesiastical order.
As a true prophet, John called the people to repentance from the deadness of an empty profession unto a life of fruitfulness and reality, while not shrinking from proclaiming inevitable judgment on those who chose to continue in their wicked ways. This is the task before all genuine men of God; preaching repentance, fruitfulness and judgment.
By calling the people a brood of vipers, the Baptist exposed the serpent’s venomous flow of sin in their system. The multitudes at least had hears to hear. Vast numbers, now penitent, applied his convicting words to themselves; “Indeed, we are a brood of vipers and though repentance is possible, God is about to cut us off if we
do not repent.”
do not repent.”
While the Pharisees and Sadducees remained hard-hearted, the now remorseful throng pleaded, What shall we do then? John, unlike today’s “prophets,” did not fill them with false hopes through smooth words, deluding self-made prophecies, or by binding imaginary spirits of fornication and greed. Rather, he preached death to self and emphatically stated that their good works must prove their claims to faith.
And thus too we are called, not to revel in false promises, but to die to self, to mortify through the energy of the Spirit the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes and the pride of life. Away with the covetous and deceptive shouts for breakthroughs! Gird yourself like a soldier and engage in conflict against the fleshly lusts that sap away the vitality of your soul. The flesh, lust and Satan have sworn themselves not to rest until you are rendered useless for all eternity. Arise, put on the whole armor of God, fight bravely and trust in the Lord Jesus! Thus and only thus, will you subdue the accursed crew and the unholy trinity of the world, the flesh and the devil.
The conviction that the message of the Baptist brought endeared him to the hearts of the sincere. But John himself was neither deceived nor distracted by the people’s opinion of who he was. He simply continued his glorious task of drawing men beyond himself to God. Rather than be referred to as “papa,” “daddy,” or any other carnal titles that men entertain, John immediately identified himself as the least of slaves. According to his own words, One mightier than I is coming whose sandal strap I am not worthy to loose. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire—Lk.3:16.
Untying the Master’s sandal was the duty of the lowliest of servants. John says he is unworthy to do so, that he is even less than the least of slaves. Though John preached a message of repentance and judgment, he did so with utmost humility. The tendency today of those warning of impending wrath is to be harsh, arrogant and overly forceful. This John did not do. John’s humility enabled him to preach a balanced message, presenting Christ as both the Justifier of the repentant and the Judge of the wicked.
And with many other words John exhorted the people and preached the good news to them—Lk.3:18. The good news or gospel is that which every true servant of God is sent to proclaim, that gospel which alone is the power of God unto salvation [Rm.1:16; 1 Cor.1:17-18]. The message of the Baptist was plain and simple. All he preached was: If you repent, your sins will be forgiven and you will bear fruit [Lk.3:3], be baptized in the Spirit [Lk.3:16], God will take you for His own, and you will be gathered into God’s eternal storehouse [Lk.3:17].
John’s words not only proclaimed repentance from coming judgment, but he also offered the people hope. He preached what he knew to be true. He was no respecter of persons but faithfully and fearlessly declared the counsel of God to the point of laying down his life for the sake of the gospel. May the Lord raise up in our generation men like John who will not speak a vision of their own hearts, or merely re-echo the message of men as if it were God’s.
Lord, let the days of attempting to maintain large congregations by offering false hopes and promises to the people come to an end! May our hearts once again abound with the fruit of godliness springing forth from the reception of Your word in truth! And Father, we pray Thee, work in us that humility which is conscious of its unworthiness to loose the thong of His sandal and thus prove to be Your servants indeed. Amen.
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