Prepare the Way of the Lord — Roy Daniel

Prepare the Way of the Lord — Roy Daniel

If you're going to open up your Bible specifically to Luke chapter 16, verse 16. Actually, skip that. I'll read that to you. Open up your Bibles to Matthew 3, verse 3. And keep a tab on Isaiah chapter 40.

So keep a tab on Isaiah chapter 40. Okay, now I'm going to speak this morning, and we're going to pray soon, on John the Baptist. And I'm not going to speak on his entire life, and the fact that he was put in prison, and the struggles he had there, when he wondered if Jesus was the Christ, and how he died, and why he died, and why he was the greatest of the Old Testament prophets.

I'm going to focus in on one verse, which is Matthew 3, verse 3, which you find four times in the New Testament, one time in the Old Testament. And I'd like to look at this, and then bring out some things that some of you might not know already, unless you're different to many of the other people I've spoken to in life.

And this is precious. This is really wonderful. This is life-changing to many people. So I'm excited about this. But here we have, in Luke chapter 16, it says, the law and the prophets were unto John.

We read the same in Matthew 11, verse 13. And then in Matthew 11, verse 11, we read, Verily I say unto you, among them that are born of women, there hath not risen a greater than John the Baptist, notwithstanding he that is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he.

So the law and the prophets were preached until John. Now the kingdom of God is preached, and he was the greatest that was born of a woman, but anybody in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he, Jesus says.

Now I'm not going to go into every little bit of meaning of all that, but that's my background to this great guy, and we're going to look at one little part of his life and what that means. And let's read it together, Matthew 3, verse 3, before we pray.

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. And then it says these words, Make his paths straight. So with that, let's go over to prayer.

Father, thank you so much for the Bible. Thank you that it is full of phenomenal things, and all of them in some way, shape, form, or size, point us away from ourselves, except in the sense that it shows us who we are before thee, and points us to Christ.

And Father, I just ask this morning, with very little time, as I lay myself before thee, and I just ask thee to speak to every single heart today. Speak to my heart, and that you will be present, and that you will bind the devil and his demons in the name of Jesus Christ, and that you would allow Jesus to be lifted up in this meeting.

And I ask this, not for any righteousness of my own, but for thy great mercy's sake, as Daniel said in the Old Testament, and for thy righteousness, in Jesus Christ's name. Amen. Now, the Bible says, Prepare ye the way of the Lord.

God Prepares Hearts for Salvation

Make his paths straight. Make his paths straight. Now, I've sat down with many missionaries across the world, and I've sat down with many preachers across the world, and I've sat down with many Christians across the world, and I asked them, What does this mean?

And a lot of them, even guys who read their Bibles a few hours a day, and witness every day, they'll tell me that it just basically means that John the Baptist was getting people ready for the fact that Jesus was coming soon.

He was just preparing them for the fact that it's not later, it's not in a thousand years, it's going to happen within the next few years, the next few months, this Jesus is coming. And I asked them, But what specifically is the picture here?

What is it saying when it says, Prepare ye the way of the Lord, and make his paths straight? How were the paths made straight? They look at me strangely, and they say, That's just some kind of picture that God wants us to read through and think something about.

Now, obviously, this verse is also in Mark 1, verse 2 and 3, Luke 3, verse 4, and John 1, verse 23. But I'd just like to mention before we go on, that God Almighty, and you'll have seen this in your life, I'm sure that some of you here will have experienced before you got saved, that God prepared the way for you to get saved.

Some people like Zacchaeus, I'm sure you heard about Jesus before, and we don't know how it was prepared, but it was pretty amazing. Jesus walked past, and he realized something that changed his life forever.

He heard his name, and he realized this person knows me. It's amazing in one moment how sometimes in a heathen nation even, you'll find people who have never heard the name of Jesus, and in one moment, they get saved.

But in many cases, God prepares the way. God prepares the heart. God prepares the understanding. And we could go for stories and stories and stories if I didn't just have half an hour to preach. Well, I'd like to mention a few in my own life, and there's so many, you guys could stand up and give testimonies, but I remember the first drunkard that God ever gave me the privilege of leading to the Lord that got radically saved and became a soul winner.

And many other people got saved through this drunkard who got saved through Jesus Christ. And it was in a little African village, and I remember going to this place with my friend, and we just happened to be white people.

I don't know if you noticed. And so in this little village, this lady who was a drunkard, and I remember walking past her the first time, and she was shriveled up on the ground. Her eyes were dark. She had had a dream.

Now, I didn't know that. I don't have dreams. I've never, ever had a dream that I preached about. I'm not a charismat. But God saves charismats through Jesus Christ for some reason. Anyway, so this lady, she had a dream that two white people would come and help her and tell her the truth.

And we came there and told her of Jesus Christ very shortly, and she came into conviction. She went to her pastor who said to her, You're fine. You don't have to worry. You give money to church, and even if you're a drunkard, you're going to heaven.

And she went to her knees and she says, That's what the pastor says, but what do you say, oh God? And she found out she was a sinner. She got radically saved. But God prepared her heart and prepared her mind and prepared the way.

I remember one of the first towns that I went to many years back, about 17 years back in South Africa with my friend. We were driving from town to town, going from schools, going to the schools and the orphanages and the mission stations and the prisons and the churches, which were almost like the prisons.

And I remember coming to this town, and there was this guy on the street and he had tattoos all over him. And we handed a tract to him and he walked away. We just said a few words about Jesus. Well, we had no idea how God had prepared his heart because a year before that he was in a desert in a neighboring country and he was walking through the desert.

He looked down and he saw a little book in the sand. And so he went down and he picked it up. He didn't read it and he put it in his bag. He kept it for the next year. We came there and just before we gave him that tract, he landed up in prison.

He just got out. And after landing in prison, that was the first time he really seriously thought about his relationship with God through Jesus Christ, if he didn't have one. And he was wondering, where am I going when I die?

And here comes this person, he'd never heard this before, told him about Jesus, gave him a tract, me and my friend. And we left him. Now, that's typically what people do. You know, you should always stamp the back of a tract or put your number there.

I'm stupid. I didn't do that. So we drove off. There's 60 ,000 people in that town. He's not going to find us again. But we just happened to have met his mother at another part of town. And we gave her a pamphlet with our number on.

She came home. He's in a state. He wants to know Jesus, doesn't know what to do. And he says, these two guys came and I don't know how to get them. I want to speak to them again. She said, do they look like this?

That's them. There was the number. Now, one of the first questions that he asked was, can I get saved with a tattoo on my arm? Poor guy. Anyway, we helped for a while. For about three hours a night, he was texting back and forth.

And then he remembered that book. And you wonder, what is that book? Took out that book from his back. It was a book written by people that we know, step by step, 36 pages, how to get saved. And bit by bit, he read through it.

And that night, sometime in the morning, he met with God through Jesus Christ. The next day, he came and saw us. And after that, the day after that, he was the cool dude at school, by the way, with big muscles, sporty, you name it.

He got all his friends together and said, you are going to the stadium. He had about 100 guys in front of him. He told them what it is to know God through Jesus Christ. And I was this tour. I was traveling around.

And I don't know how many preachers you've heard preach on Gisho. It's not the biggest topic on earth. And I was going to preach a topic, another topic, and I stood up. And for some reason, I don't get led.

I have a broomstick when it comes to leadings. I'm so scared of it. But I just suddenly thought, I'm going to talk about Gisho for 10 minutes. And so I talked about Gisho for 10 minutes. And this one guy came to me afterwards and he said, why did you talk about Gisho?

I said, I don't exactly know. I just wanted to inspire you guys to see that there's amazing stuff in scripture that you might not have seen before. And he came there and he said, for the last week, God has just been talking to me through Gisho because Gisho means pride.

And he said, I've come into such conviction about wrong things that are in my life and wrong attitudes and wrong stuff through Gisho. And I thought, you know, if God just confirms this for me and then here comes this weird guy and he stands up in front and nobody does this.

He preaches for 10 minutes on Gisho. Why? Good guy. I remember one guy, he's in the ministry now and he came to this one town. He really felt maybe God is calling me to full-time ministry. And I always love it how God uses the conservative means to speak to the charismatic minded people, like I mentioned.

And this guy, he came there to a town, I think it was two years back. Actually, it was three years back. And he sat there in a meeting that I was preaching and I just, I preached on calling, how to be called of God.

And before he came there, he said to the Lord, he said, God, I don't know if I'm called, but if Roy preaches specifically on calling, a whole message on it, I'll know that I'm called of God. So I came there and I'd never in 10 years in that church ever preached on calling.

So I preached on calling. The next thing he left his job, went to Bible college and he joined the ministry and he's doing very well. You might think that's just coincidence. You know, my dad was, and my dad is the furthest thing you'll ever meet, get from a thing to a charismat that you'll ever meet.

But my dad once came to a town and he preached on Jonah. And I sat down with people who were in that meeting and they were very angry that he preached on Jonah. The one guy specifically said, I was so angry with your dad.

You know why? Because I felt God was calling me to full time service and I was just angry that he preached that message. A guy in South Africa died of cancer. You later pick him, a godly guy who God used through the years of ministry.

But this guy said to me in this little house with mud floors as he made coffee for me, he said, you know, your dad came and preached there and nobody responded to the message and I decided I'm not going back because I so hated him for this message.

He said, but then I thought to myself, he can't preach the same sermon twice. He can't. It's over. It's going to be something else. It's going to be quiet time or it's going to be how to look after your children or something like that.

So he said, I'm safe. So he decided to go that night. You know, my dad stood up. My dad never ever does this, but that is not a charisma. He stood up and he said, I have no idea why I'm doing this. I have no idea why I felt led this way.

But for the first time in my life, I feel that I have to preach the same sermon a second time. You know, there were five people. Nobody in the morning, but there were five people who went into full-time ministry through that.

You know that God prepares the hearts and minds of people. Now, that's not the general way. We actually want to stick to this in context. But he does that. And I'd like to ask, how did God use John the Baptist to prepare the way of the Lord, to make his path straight?

Isaiah's Picture of Mountains, Valleys, and the Revealed Glory of God

What does it mean that he made his path straight? So let's open up the Bible to Isaiah chapter 40. And in Isaiah chapter 40, we're going to see, and I've asked people, what is the picture here? You might not know what it means, but what is the picture?

What path is being made straight? And a lot of people will say, it's like my own version of all the different stories they tell me. It's like a flat area, but there's this path that's going zigzag and you straighten it out like a string.

And that's not the picture. It's not just a crooked path. They get straight because God is straight. Let's read Isaiah 40 verse 3, 4 and 5 to understand the picture that God is trying to give to us here.

And also at the same time to understand if God used John the Baptist in this way to prepare the hearts of people to see Jesus Christ, then he can use us in this way to prepare the hearts of people to see Jesus Christ.

In Isaiah 40 verse 3, 4 and 5, The voice of him that crieth in the wilderness, prepare you the way of the Lord, make straight in the desert a highway for our God. And then it says these words, listen very carefully.

Every valley shall be exalted and every mountain shall be made low and the crooked shall be made straight and the rough places shall be made plain. That is a very amazing picture. And then it says these words, and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed and all flesh shall see it together for the mouth of the Lord has spoken it.

Now, one of the reasons why many preachers do not preach on this, the two verses that come after Isaiah 40 verse 3 is because it's only found once in the New Testament. It's only found in Luke. It's not found in John.

It's not found in Mark. It's not found in Matthew. But it is talking about John the Baptist because Luke quotes all three verses. And then he explains it. He's the one who speaks the most of John the Baptist.

He explains what it means to a great degree. We understand. Okay, so we read this in Luke chapter 3 verse 4 as written in the books of Isaiah, the prophet saying, the voice of one crying in the wilderness, prepare you the way of the Lord, make his path straight.

Every valley, this is Luke chapter 3 verse 5, shall be filled. Every mountain and hill should be brought low and the crooked shall be made straight and the rough way shall be made smooth and all flesh shall see the salvation of God.

Now the picture that you have to understand in this little 30 minutes that I have is that this is not a flat desert with a crooked path. If you go to Israel, there's lots of mountainous deserts and they have valleys.

And so you've got this big mountain and mountains and you've got these valleys and you've got rough patches and there's a crooked path and you cannot see past it because that's what happens when you stand in front of a mountain.

I don't know if you've ever seen anybody behind a big mountain, no matter how big they are. You haven't. And even if you're down in the valley and you see around the curves that go there in rocky valleys that are wildernesses, that are deserts, you cannot see around the corner.

And even rough places can keep you not only from getting through but from seeing ahead of you. And so God says, I'm going to bring the valleys up. I'm going to bring the mountains down and I'm going to make the rough places smooth and then something's going to happen.

You're going to see something, you're going to see the glory of the Lord. So I've got to get the mountains down. I've got to get the valleys up. It's going to be absolutely plain and now what can you see, Jesus?

You understand the picture? It's a beautiful picture. But now the question is, how did John do that? How did John do that? Let's open up our Bibles to Philippians 1, verse 7. Philippians 1, chapter 1, verse 7 says these words.

Even as it is mean for me to think this of you all because I have you in my heart and as much as both my bonds and then listen to these words, in the defense and confirmation of the gospel you're all partakers of my grace.

Now if you read Galatians, you'll see that if even an angel preaches to you any other gospel, then let him be accursed. In the gospel we've preached unto you, you cannot change the gospel. We're all born sinners.

We've done sin. We need Jesus Christ to have died. We need his righteousness. We need him to have risen again so that his life and his forgiveness and his righteousness can become part of us through faith.

You cannot change the gospel, but what does it mean defense and confirmation of the gospel? Defending the gospel is not going up to our friend with the backpacks and saying, listen, if you've got another gospel, I'm going to defend you.

You don't do that. Okay? The basic meaning of the words here is defense to confirm the gospel is to say it as it is. This is what the gospel is. But to defend the gospel is to remove the stumbling blocks, to remove those things that keep you from seeing Jesus.

And the amazing thing is different people, although everybody out there is born a sinner and everybody out there has done sin and everybody out there needs the same gospel to be saved. Different people have different lies that keep them back from the same Jesus.

Different people have different lies that keep them back from the same Jesus. There's some very obvious examples in life. A Jehovah's Witness, if you can convince them somehow that Jesus Christ is God, you might have done something in his life.

But if you go to a Catholic and you say, I believe in the Trinity, you might say, amen. But they also believe a whole lot of other rubbish. Mary is more than the Bible says she is. And the ordinances of the Catholic Church and there are a million different things they believe.

And you can tell them that Jesus is God for a long time and convince them that Jesus is God and you might not actually have got very much anywhere because there's different lies that keep different people from the same truth.

Some people might believe in work salvation so you can show to them that your good works don't take away your bad works. But then you'll meet another person and he believes my good works do not get me to heaven.

I need Jesus and I've got Jesus because I believe in him intellectually. You meet many people like that in Europe and in Africa. And so you can tell him your good works don't get you to heaven and he'll say amen.

But you're not helping him because you're not dealing with the lie that keeps him from seeing Jesus. And then another person, you might come to him and I've heard this. I've come into a house once, quite a few times actually, walking down the street and I'll see a big, horrible, naked body on the wall and there's pornography, huge, massive images all around the house.

And I asked this person as I'm trying not to look at the walls, are you a Christian? He says, yeah, I'm born again. I'm born again. This is the day that I accepted Jesus into my life and I love Jesus.

And my friend once was with me. He read his Bible a lot every day. He prayed a lot. He witnessed a lot. And he came in there and he said, listen, I want to tell you something. Good works will not get you to heaven.

The guy said, oh man. He said, you've got to accept Jesus into your life. The guy said, oh man. And then we left. He said, that was such a wonderful witnessing opportunity. He didn't let me speak, by the way, my friend.

I said, brother, everything you said was the truth, but everything you said was not the truth that he needed. He didn't need to learn about true repentance. He needed to learn about true faith. He needed to learn about one John with a fruit that comes out of a person.

That is saved. And he needed to see that that's not in his life and he needed those mountains to be taken away so that he could see Christ. And so many people, they accept Jesus like this and there's nothing that happens.

No true fruit, but they have experiences and miracles happen and feelings and oh, it's so wonderful, the presence of God. I've had people who get drunk and sleep around and they come to me and they say, I know I'm a Christian.

Many people have done this to me. And they say, I know I'm a Christian because I have his peace and I have this feeling of God's presence that goes with me everywhere. How could he be so loving to me and so present if I'm not saved?

I said, because the Bible says there's other fruit and you don't have it. And I can show it to you. I remember one guy in England, I showed him some stuff in one John. He said, but that's in the Bible that I'm not saved.

Yeah. So how did he prepare the way of the Lord? How did he bring those mountains down? Why is there mountains and there's valleys and the different things? Because different people have valleys and different people have mountains and different people have rough places, different things that keep them back from seeing Jesus Christ.

Repentance, Lordship, and the Necessity of Fruit

But let's have a look quickly. And Matthew 3 verse 2 says, and saying repent ye for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. This is general. This is to everybody. Before we get to specifics. Jesus said the same words.

Paul said similar words in Acts. It did not change after the cross. Don't let anybody ever tell you that. You know what a lot of people do? They say repentance in John the Baptist's time was from sin, but repentance in Jesus time might have been from sin, but after the cross repentance just mean turning from not believing Jesus to believe in Jesus.

And they saw against Reformation and they saw against work salvation. There's a movement in America which some very good people unfortunately got involved in has led to sin in their life greatly. It's called the anti-lordship salvation movement.

And they believe that good works will not get you to heaven. Amen, brother. But they also believe that repentance is nothing more than intellectual faith. You know, I'd like to. They say if you give any condition of salvation then it's work salvation.

Let's open up our Bibles to James 4 verse 6. I like this verse. I can go through the Old Testament. Now what the anti-lordship salvation do unlike the easy believism of Joel Osteen and Joyce Meyer and all these different people is they actually have theology.

You'll meet lots of people that go to mega churches and they'll sit down and they believe that they go to heaven in spite of lying, stealing, committing adultery because God loves them but they've never read their Bible.

But then you'll actually get this like 30%, 20 of preachers at least in this anti-lordship movement and they're against Ray Comfort and they're against Paul Washer and against anybody who sounds like that.

And they have systematic theology. They can go right to the Bible and show you every verse of repentance and show that it does not mean just like the Seventh-day Adventists do with hell and the Jehovah's Witnesses do with hell.

They can show you right to the Bible that you don't have to repent of your sin. Systematic. And I've wept over some people I love who've fallen for this rubbish. James 4 verse 6 and 1 Peter 5 verse 5 it says, And God resisteth the proud but he giveth grace to the humble.

Is it less of a gift if there's a condition of humility? Is it less of a gift if there's a condition of humility? You know if you're proud in your sin and you come and you say, I don't want to go to hell.

So Jesus please come into my life but I'm proud. I believe my good works are getting me to heaven. That's not going to work. But if you also, there's two ways of being proud. You can be proud and say my good works merit salvation.

But you can also be proud and say Jesus, I'm following you while Jesus is walking that way. I said a prayer. Jesus, please come into my life and then you walk the other way. I do Lordship Salvation. I'm following you.

How stupid. How idiotic. And yet how many millions of people do that? Because it's not work salvation. Listen, the Bible says clearly. It says clearly. And we all like sheep have gone astray. We have turned everyone to his own way and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.

When Jesus in Matthew chapter 7 says, depart from me ye workers of iniquity. He said in spite of the fact that you prophesied in my name that you have done great works in my name that you've cast out devils in my name.

You say in the name of Jesus you follow me. You've got a big ministry. Whatever. You're still iniquitous. You know what iniquitous means? It means going your own way. You walking this way and you say I follow Jesus.

Well, he's going that way. You have to realize that you're born a sinner. You have to realize that you've done sin. You have to realize that makes you guilty and only Jesus Christ what he did in the cross as a free gift can save you.

But you've got to realize that you can't carry on with that life. You can't carry on with that life. It was Richard Owen Roberts who said it's lunacy to think that you can accept Jesus as Savior or rejecting him as Lord.

It's lunacy. Now when we go astray that sheep, all of us are like that with that sheep going astray that shows itself in different ways in different people. If you're a soldier, it'll be a bit different to being a Pharisee.

I mean a bit different to being an adulterer. All of us in our hearts have done stuff that we accuse others of doing in their lives. Some people express it through witchcraft. Now I've never been in witchcraft.

I've never called on devils. Some people rape other people. Some people are on drugs. Some people lie continuously. Some people are disobedient to their parents and some people are proud of their religion.

But this iniquity expresses itself in different ways and that's why John the Baptist, when he came to different people, and Paul does the same in Acts, he dealt with different people according to the expression of their iniquity, their sin.

You can't carry on as a sheep doing what you used to do. You got to stop. It's not going to save you. It's not reformation on the outside. You can clean the outside and the inside you still got a heart problem.

You can clean the outside of a pig and the pig still wants to go to the mud. You need Jesus as a free gift by faith. But you're not going to get Jesus if you want to walk the other way and carry on enjoying sin.

And so what is in your life that's keeping you back? What has to be uncovered? Luke 10, 3 verse 10 -11. We read a general statement. He says when people are saying, what shall we do then? And he said, here that hath two coats, let him impart to him that hath none.

And he that hath meat, let him do likewise. It's amazing. Love. If you're walking down the road, you got a church, you got a lovely, lovely clothes on. I love the story of the goats and the sheep and I know with dispensationism it might be the Jews and not the Gentiles and I don't know whatever.

But I just see it this way. This is the heart of God. You gave clothes to a Christian. You gave a place to stay. You gave food. You gave water, whatever to the thirsty. You were giving it to Jesus. And that was God's proof that they were saved.

It wasn't the means of salvation. It was the fruit of salvation. But you didn't and you're on your way to hell. That's what Jesus said. Exact no more than that which is appointed to you. He said to the soldiers.

He said something different. He said they asked him, what shall we do? And he said, do violence to no man, neither accuse any falsely. I think Christians need to hear about that. And be content with your wages.

The unions need to hear about that. Amazing how people call themselves Christians, but they support unions. Okay, Luke 3 verse 19, but Herod the Tetrarch been reproved by him for odious his brother Philip's life.

He has a king. What is his sin? Well, there's lots of sins. Many evil things he did the Bible says. But Paul honed in on the fact that he was marrying a take in his brother's wife. You know, when my dad got saved, it was one moment through Jesus.

It was one moment through what Jesus did on the cross when he died for our sins and when he rose again three days later. It was in one moment by faith that Jesus saved him. But before he got saved, my dad was with bad friends.

My dad had done bad stuff. My dad was in the world. His father was a drunkard. My dad very much was on the street. And when he came to this church and he'd seen his brother's life chain, he saw what Jesus did to his older brother and saved him in a moment.

He said, I want that. He came in that church and he came to the front. He said, I want to get saved. And the person who sat down with him, not the preacher, but a minister said to him, there's a verse in the Bible that says you've got to count the cost.

It's not going to save you by stopping the wrong stuff. But if you're not willing to and you just want to take it to heaven, you're not going to get saved. So if this is what's part of your life, you have to realize when you come to Jesus, it means you're going to be giving up that life.

You're not going to be perfect. You can never know every little thing that God has to change in your life. But the major obvious stuff that's part of your life, you better realize this is Christianity is not just saying a prayer and getting a ticket to heaven.

I can carry on walking the other way. So there's different sins in different people's lives. But here we get something very interesting. Matthew 3 verse 7, 8, 9, and 10. We read here of the Sadducees and Pharisees.

Now, these are not soldiers with their mountains and their sins and their lies. These are not publicans. These are not in the general populace of the Jews. These are Sadducees and Pharisees and we read here three things.

But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees come to his baptism, he said unto them, O generation of vipers. Good preacher. Who hath warned you to flee from the wrath to come? Bring forth therefore fruits, meat for repentance and think not to say within yourselves, we have Abram to our father.

For I say unto you that God is able of these stones to raise up children unto Abram. And now also the axe is laid to the root of the trees. Therefore every tree which bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down and cast into the fire.

He said three things. He didn't say these same three things to the publicans. He did not say these same three things to the soldiers. He did not say the same three things to the general populace. I wonder why.

Because different lies and different sins kept them back from the same Jesus. Something that much of Christianity seems to not understand. Let's look at this quickly. The first thing, and why didn't he just baptize them?

I mean, how great. I mean, Brother Don, I love him, but every year he says, who wants to be baptized? You know, there's guys who come to me in tears, weeping. I want you to pray for me. I've been for ten years ago, God set me free from drink.