Preparing for the King

Have you ever been unprepared for something, and it costed you? As a kid growing up in the big city of Backus, my parents would sometimes drive down to Brained for the evening to go grocery shopping, and they’d leave me and my 2 brothers home, under the supervision of my older sister.

But before they would leave, they would often give us specific instructions on things they wanted done before they came home. Usually things like: Clean up dinner Wash the dishes Clean our rooms Things like that. And these things had to be done before they got home, or else, there would be... unfavorable consequences...

Now, we didn’t know what time they would be home for certain. Sometimes they’d get home earlier, and other times much later. Which meant, if we put off our responsibilities too long we would run out of time and end up in trouble.

Which… occasionally… would happen sometimes. I’d be sitting there having a good time, unaware of how late it had gotten, playing Nintendo, and all of a suddenly the bright lights of the car would reflect on the wall as one of my brothers would shout: “THEIR HOME!!!” And sure enough, at the end of the driveway there was their car pulling up. Which would often result in a sinking of the Titanic like panic.

I can remember rushing to the kitchen frantically doing dishes, hearing the key slide into front door, the lock turn, the door open, and then the sound of my dad’s boots stomping on the rug. Which now that I’m a dad, I am about positive he did extra loud on purpose, just for effect!

So in they’d walk and find me there working frantically at the sink, out of time and into trouble.

And it wasn’t like I had a good excuse. I couldn’t even say I lost track of time, because they usually would call and check in on us and let us know how many stops they had left. The reality was, I deserved the consequences because I had failed to be ready for my parents return.

In Matthew chapter 3, verses 1-12, we find a situation which we must ALL be ready for. Which is, the arrival of the King.

in Fact, the book of Matthew is all about the arrival of the King! In Matthew 1 we saw birth of the king and how His the family tree was a Dark Family Tree, which shows that this King is not ashamed to be associated with sinners. We then saw in Matthew 2 that we must bend our knee this king, for He will conquer all lesser kings. And we also saw how He is an unexpected King who associates with the lowliest of the low, and who Himself is meek and mild.

And in our text this morning, we find that this is a king we must be ready for!

If you have your Bible’s turn to Matthew 3 with me this morning, we will see 3 ways we can be ready for the King’s arrival. And here they are To be ready for the King’s arrival, we must:

1. Hear
2. Prepare
3. Obey

Let’s look at the first one.

To be ready for the King’s arrival, we must:

1 In those days John the Baptist came preaching in the wilderness of Judea, 2 “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” 3 For this is he who was spoken of by the prophet Isaiah when he said, “The voice of one crying in the wilderness: ‘Prepare the way of the Lord; make his paths straight.’”

John the Baptist was the forerunner of Jesus. What does it mean to be a forerunner? It means to announce the King’s arrival.

Back in the day, the King would send an emissary to announce his arrival. Which means - you better get your stuff together, make sure things are tidied up, and roll out the red carpet for His arrival. For if the King arrived, and the people hadn’t prepared for it - He wasn’t gonna be happy and there would be serious consequences. And so the King would send a forerunner to announce His arrive. Sort of like how my parents would call ahead, to let us know they were coming home soon.

in Luke 1:13-17 we find the birth of this forerunner named John: it says:

But the angel said to him, “Do not be afraid, Zechariah, for your prayer has been heard, and your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son, and you shall call his name John. And you will have joy and gladness, and many will rejoice at his birth, for he will be great before the Lord. And he must not drink wine or strong drink, and he will be filled with the Holy Spirit, even from his mother’s womb. And he will turn many of the children of Israel to the Lord their God, and he will go before him in the spirit and power of Elijah, to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the disobedient to the wisdom of the just, to make ready for the Lord a people prepared.”

Luke 1:13-17 ESV

Notice the text said that he would come in the power of Elijah. which relates to a significant prophecy about Jesus, the Messiah.

Let me show you it. In Malachi 4:5-6 it says:

“Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the great and awesome day of the Lord comes. And he will turn the hearts of fathers to their children and the hearts of children to their fathers, lest I come and strike the land with a decree of utter destruction.”

Malachi 4:5-6 ESV

The Jewish people believed that before Messiah came, Elijah, who remember never died and went to be with the Lord in a chariot of fire, would come back and announce the Messiah’s coming. In fact, to this day as some Jewish feasts they keep an empty chair reserved for Elijah to remind themselves of his return.

And so here comes John the Baptist, who is acting a whole lot like Elijah. How? Look at verse 4 (Matthew 3:4).

Now John wore a garment of camel’s hair and a leather belt around his waist, and his food was locusts and wild honey.

Matthew 3:4 ESV

His garments were made of camel’s hair, which was coarse and cheap. And he wore a leather belt, which would have been durable and lasting - He also ate locust and honey. I don't know - maybe he didn’t get the mega preacher memo that if you’re win people to God you gotta have a $10,000 smile, perfect lighting, and at least 2 fog machines!

But John didn’t rely on any of that. He relied on preaching the Word of God, which is sharper than any two-edged sword, able to slice between soul and spirit and joint and marrow, and is powerful enough to expose the thoughts and attitudes of the heart. John, like Elijah was a simple man who lived a simple life, and his description matches 2 Kings 1:8 of Elijah, who also wore a garment of hair and a leather belt.

They answered him, “He wore a garment of hair, with a belt of leather about his waist.” And he said, “It is Elijah the Tishbite.”

2 Kings 1:8 ESV

But… was he actually the fulfillment of this prophecy? Was he Elijah to come?

Let’s look at John 1:21.

And they asked him, “What then? Are you Elijah?” He said, “I am not.” “Are you the Prophet?” And he answered, “No.”

John 1:21 ESV

OK wait a minute, cuz in Matthew 17:10-13 Jesus doesn’t seem to agree:

And the disciples asked him, “Then why do the scribes say that first Elijah must come?” He answered, “Elijah does come, and he will restore all things. But I tell you that Elijah has already come, and they did not recognize him, but did to him whatever they pleased. So also the Son of Man will certainly suffer at their hands.” Then the disciples understood that he was speaking to them of John the Baptist.

Matthew 17:10-13 ESV

Oh boy.... there it is… a contradiction in the Bible. That’s it - everyone head home. We had a good run, but we’ve got a contradiction here. Is that right? Not hardly.

I’ve had atheists point this out to me as being a contradiction - but the truth is, it’s really not. Here’s why: First, John very well could have been in the dark about the fact that he was fulfilling the prophecy of being a TYPE of Elijah, OR - John was just saying, “no I’m not literally Elijah… I didn’t come back on my flaming chariot of fire.”

But, that’s not all there is too this: for John BOTH WAS and WASN’T the fulfilment of the coming of Elijah. Matthew 11:13-14 reveals why.

For all the Prophets and the Law prophesied until John, and if you are willing to accept it, he is Elijah who is to come.

Matthew 11:13-14 ESV

What is the condition Jesus gives for John being the Elijah to come? “IF YOU ARE WILLING TO ACCEPT IT.” Accept what? The message of the forerunner of Christ. And what was that message?

“Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” For this is he who was spoken of by the prophet Isaiah when he said, “The voice of one crying in the wilderness: ‘Prepare the way of the Lord; make his paths straight.’ ”

Matthew 3:2-3 ESV

“REPENT FOR THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN IS AT HAND! PREPARE THE WAY OF THE LORD! MAKE HIS PATHS STRAIGHT!”

To understand how John both was and wasn’t the Elijah to come, requires understanding the difference between Christ’s first and second coming Now, this is a little bit complex, but I’ll try to keep this simple, and maybe later we can talk more about the complexity of it in our Fellowship & Focus time But here’s the short version.

When Jesus entered the city of Jerusalem riding upon a donkey, what He doing? He was offering the Jewish people the Kingdom of Heaven, which John the Baptist preached of. He was fulfilling Zechariah 9:9 which says:

Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion! Shout aloud, O daughter of Jerusalem! Behold, your king is coming to you; righteous and having salvation is he, humble and mounted on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey.

Zechariah 9:9 ESV

With Jesus’ first coming, He had to go to people of Israel first, which is why He instructed His disciples in Matthew 10 to preach only the Jewish people. And in Matthew 15:24 Jesus says precisely this about His own ministry, saying:

He answered, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.”

Though Jesus still would have still had to die, the offer of the Kingdom was a legitimate offer, and if accepted, would have made John the Baptist the fulfillment of Elijah to come.

Matthew 15:24 ESV

Are you still with me? Now why did this matter you ask? IT MATTERS BECAUSE THE MESSAGE OF JOHN STILL RINGS FORTH TODAY OVER 2,000 YEARS LATER! “REPENT! FOR THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN IS AT HAND!” Which means, praise God, there is still time for you to accept the crucified King! There is still time to be ready for His return! For as Romans 9 makes clear, Israel’s rejection has led to our salvation! And so: “Prepare the way of the Lord; make his paths straight!”

Well how do we do that? How do we make His paths straight? By not only hearing HIS CALL but by also preparing for it. Which leads us to our second point.

To be ready for the King’s arrival, we must:

‘3. Prepare the way of the Lord; make his paths straight.’ 5 Then Jerusalem and all Judea and all the region about the Jordan were going out to him, 6 and they were baptized by him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins. 7

Why is John called “John the Baptist?” “Cuz He was a member of first Baptist church! AAAAAAMEN!!!”

No, it was because he baptized people, which symbolized a prepared heart. It symbolized a REPENTANT heart.

Now do you understand how significant this was that John was baptizing Jews!? It was incredible, because Jews didn’t get Baptized… PROSELYTE GENTILES got baptized when they converted to Judaism, but NOT Jews! For Jews didn’t need to be converted, or so they thought, because THEY WERE THE CHILDREN OF ABRAHAM!

And so when these crowds listened to John’s preaching, and responded with repentance, their baptism was a REMARKABLE statement! It was to admit that their acceptance into the people of God was not based upon their ethnicity, but upon their confession and repentance of sin, which prepared their hearts for the King’s arrival. And by doing so, it “prepared the way of the Lord - and made His paths straight.”

Verse 6 tells us where John Baptized them, and it was the river Jordan, which is the river Joshua led the people to cross over into Canaan, the promised land. And so here are these Israelites, accepting that it is not their ethnicity that get’s them into God’s promised land It is not their ethnicity that makes them the TRUE people of God For to be a TRUE ISRAELITE requires more than ethnicity - it also requires repentance and confession of sin, which is what John’s baptism symbolized. But... it also required obedience, which leads us to our last point.

To be ready for the King’s arrival, we must:

Obey His will.

But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming to his baptism, he said to them, “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? 8 Bear fruit in keeping with repentance. 9 And do not presume to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father,’ for I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children for Abraham.

The Jews repenting of their sin and coming for baptism drew the attention of the religious leaders, who came out to the desert to see what all the commotion was about. And these religious leaders were made up of two factions:

Sadducees.

The Pharisees were the conservative traditionalists of their day. They were legalistic about their legalism! They set up all these laws which protected them from breaking other laws, which protected them from breaking God’s laws.

The Sadducees however were more liberal in their beliefs. They didn’t believe in an afterlife at all And they only followed the Pentateuch - which are the first 5 books of the Bible. And while these two groups were very different in many ways, in the MOST IMPORTANT way, they were exactly the same. What was is that? They both believed that you got what you got based upon what your works Your blessings and judgment were based upon what you did! The Pharisees believed you got them in the afterlife, but the Sadducees believed you got them in THIS life based upon your works.

And so here they come, poking their heads around to see what was going on with this John the Baptizer. And what does John do? He straight up blasts em! He doesn’t hold back! Not even a little bit! “YOU BROOD OF VIPERS!” He says. “Who warned you about the coming wrath of the King?”

The imagery John uses here for God’s coming judgment is of fire. And when a farmer would burn their field, the snakes would come darting out of their holes ahead of the flames trying to avoid them. And so John asks: “Who warned you about the coming fiery wrath of the Lord?” And He asks this because HE KNOWS that they aren’t responding with repentance at all! They are responding with satanic unbelief and simply trying to avoid God’s wrath through their works. They are responding with their moral and religious achievements, which is why in verse 8 he tells them to instead “Bear fruit in keeping with repentance.”

Do you realize that repentance ALWAYS requires change in behavior? It certainly does.

I like how one theologian put it, when he said: “Repentance is a three fold action:

And in the will, it means a change of mind”

And so here comes John telling the Jewish people that without repentance of sin they have no right to enter the Kingdom of God. None whatsoever, no matter who they are related to!

In fact, John goes on to say, if God wanted to, He could raise of children of Abraham from the stones to replace them and their hearts of stone. And so through repentance they had better receive heart’s of flesh, which are heart’s that are prepared from the King’s arrival.

In the Bible, repentance doesn’t just mean to be sorry. In the Bible, repentance doesn’t just mean to change your mind about something. For in the Bible, though repentance involves sorrow and a changing of the mind, it also REQUIRES a TURNING of direction. It requires turning from sin to God. Which means to obey His will.

What do Pharaoh, Balaam, Achan, Saul, Judas, and Esau all have in common? What they have in common is their repentance, which wasn’t biblical repentance... For SORROW over you difficult circumstances DOESN’T prepare the path of your heart and make it straight for the Lord! For biblical sorrow always leads to understanding of sin + feelings of pain and grief over your sin + a change in the will and mind. It doesn’t lead to a pity party. It leads to a response like we see with King David who sinned BIG TIME.

A Maskil of David. Blessed is the one whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered. Blessed is the man against whom the Lord counts no iniquity, and in whose spirit there is no deceit. For when I kept silent, my bones wasted away through my groaning all day long. For day and night your hand was heavy upon me; my strength was dried up as by the heat of summer. Selah I acknowledged my sin to you, and I did not cover my iniquity; I said, “I will confess my transgressions to the Lord,” and you forgave the iniquity of my sin. Selah Therefore let everyone who is godly offer prayer to you at a time when you may be found; surely in the rush of great waters, they shall not reach him. You are a hiding place for me; you preserve me from trouble; you surround me with shouts of deliverance. Selah I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go; I will counsel you with my eye upon you. Be not like a horse or a mule, without understanding, which must be curbed with bit and bridle, or it will not stay near you. Many are the sorrows of the wicked, but steadfast love surrounds the one who trusts in the Lord. Be glad in the Lord, and rejoice, O righteous, and shout for joy, all you upright in heart!

Psalm 32 ESV

The response is like that of the Prodigal Son’s, who understood his sin, responded in sorrow from His it, and then turned with ACTION from it! How? By arising and going to His father in humility and repentance - which leads to obeying not out of duty, but out of delight! which is the pattern for us all.

“Bear fruit in keeping with repentance” John preaches Why? Because as verses 10-12 say:

Even now the axe is laid to the root of the trees. Every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. “I baptize you with water for repentance, but he who is coming after me is mightier than I, whose sandals I am not worthy to carry. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor and gather his wheat into the barn, but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.”

Matthew 3:10-12 ESV

The point here is not that good works can save us, for that would be to make the mistake of Israel’s religious leaders The point is, that those who are saved produce good works, for as James says: Faith without works is DEAD!

John is warning them, the axe is already laid at the root of the tree so they must repent with a repentance that produces good works... for the KING IS COMING, and when He comes His Baptism will be a baptism SO MUCH greater than the baptism of John.

The Baptism of King Jesus is a two-fold baptism: A Baptism of the Spirit And Baptism of Fire. which is a baptism of blessing, and a baptism of judgment.

What is this baptism of fire? It refers to the coming terrible day of the Lord when He will separate the wheat from the chaff The Good from the Evil The righteous from the unrighteous And on that day, the chaff - which are the unrighteous - will be separated and gathered together to be baptized by fire and judgment.

For by fire will the Lord enter into judgment, and by his sword, with all flesh; and those slain by the Lord shall be many.

Isaiah 66:16 ESV

At Christ’s first coming He rode upon a donkey, which symbolized peace and goodwill towards men. But at His second coming Christ will come riding upon a white horse, which symbolizes war and judgment, with which He will baptize the unrighteous with fire.

This terrifying truth should lead us to asking the same question as the Prophet Malachi, who said:

But who can endure the day of his coming, and who can stand when he appears? For he is like a refiner’s fire and like fullers’ soap.

Malachi 3:2 ESV

So who can stand? Who can endure? NONE BUT ONE! For there is only one who is worthy and able to endure. There is only one who is worthy and able to stand! And it is the WORTHY Son of God, Jesus Christ, the King of Kings and Lord of Lords, who’s value and worth is so great, than even John, the greatest man to ever live, wasn’t worthy enough to even carry His dirty and dusty sandals!

BUT... it is only because HE was baptized into the fire of God’s judgment for us, that by grace through faith we prodigal sons and daughters can be Baptized by His Holy Spirit to become the perfectly righteous children of God which alone enables us too to be able to endure and stand on the day of judgment

But who can endure the day of his coming, and who can stand when he appears? For he is like a refiner’s fire and like fullers’ soap. He will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver, and he will purify the sons of Levi and refine them like gold and silver, and they will bring offerings in righteousness to the Lord. Then the offering of Judah and Jerusalem will be pleasing to the Lord as in the days of old and as in former years.

Malachi 3:2-4 ESV

Have you been refined by the King? Have you been made righteous by the perfect offering of His body upon the tree?

Lest you be wise in your own sight, I do not want you to be unaware of this mystery, brothers: a partial hardening has come upon Israel, until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in. And in this way all Israel will be saved, as it is written, “The Deliverer will come from Zion, he will banish ungodliness from Jacob”; “and this will be my covenant with them when I take away their sins.”

Romans 11:25-27 ESV

Christ alone, the lamb of God, takes away the sins of the world. Have your sins been paid for? Through they are as scarlet, have they been made white as snow? Are you READY for the King’s arrival?

If not, as we sang a moment ago: Come, ye sinners, poor and needy Weak and wounded, sick and sore Jesus ready, stands to save you Full of pity, love and power And if you do, you will find a loving Savior who will surely embrace you with His arms.

This is the manuscript the sermon was preached from, so the recording may differ in places.