Hezekiah's Repentance

Kongsvinger Lutheran Church

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Welcome to the teaching ministry of Kungsvinger Lutheran Church. Kungsvinger is a beacon for the gospel of Jesus Christ and is located on the plains of northwestern,

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Minnesota. We proclaim Christ and him crucified for our sins and salvation by grace through faith alone.

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And now here's a message from Pastor Chris Roseberg. The Holy Gospel according to St.

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Mark chapter 1 verses 1 through 8. The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the

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Son of God, as it is written in Isaiah the prophet, Behold, I send my messenger before your face who will prepare your way.

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The voice of one crying in the wilderness, prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight. John appeared baptizing in the wilderness and proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.

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And all the country of Judea and all Jerusalem were going out to him and were being baptized by him in the river

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Jordan, confessing their sins. Now John was clothed with camel's hair and wore a leather belt around his waist and ate locusts and wild honey.

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He preached saying, After me comes he who is mightier than I, the strap of whose sandals I am not worthy to stoop down and untie.

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I have baptized you with water, but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit. This is the gospel of the

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Lord. In the name of Jesus. All right, I don't really watch a lot of television, but I am aware of the fact that, well, one of the more popular programs on TV has to do with zombies.

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Yeah, I'm not sure what it's called. Maybe The Walking Dead or something like that. And if you think

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I've got the idea, The Walking Dead, what a weird paradox that is. Now, I'm going to note something.

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Our texts today, our texts today create all kinds of conflict in our minds if we really ponder what they are saying, because there's all kinds of paradox going on.

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For instance, John the Baptist, is he the last of the

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Old Testament prophets or is he the first evangelist? Answer? Yes.

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Right? Is he pointing to, in our text today, Christ's first advent or his second advent?

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Well, yes. The answer, you notice the conflict going on here. And, you know, this is kind of the issue with our texts today.

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And then here's the other question. Our texts today, are they pointing to John the Baptist's baptism, or are they pointing you to your baptism today?

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The answer again is yes. And so you're going to note, we're going to have to work through some things here.

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And in order to get that, you're going to note the John the Baptist, with him showing up, which is, he does this every advent.

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John the Baptist shows up, and he points his bony fingers at us, and he spits a grasshopper leg in our face, and tells us to repent.

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Repent is his message. And with that, I would like to explore this concept of repentance and the prophecy regarding John the

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Baptist by returning to our Old Testament text. And in doing so, we're going to have to apply our three rules for sound biblical exegesis, which are context, context, and context.

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Because you're going to note, Isaiah 40 began with these words, Comfort, comfort my people.

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I'm going to put the emphasis on the people there. Says your God, speak tenderly to Jerusalem, and cry to her that her warfare is ended, that her iniquity is pardoned, and that she has received from the

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Lord's hand double for all of her sins. And you're going to note here, it's not double judgment, it's double grace, double forgiveness.

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It's as if, Isaiah is saying that Jesus could have finished his work on the cross at the three -hour mark, but he decided to go six, so that he can give us double grace.

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That's kind of the idea. And then, this wonderful prophecy regarding John the Baptist, a voice cries in the wilderness, prepare the way of the

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Lord, make straight in the desert a highway for our God. Now, a little bit of a preview.

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Next Sunday, John the Baptist himself is going to key in on this prophecy, as far as identifying himself as a voice.

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But you're going to note, Isaiah begins with these comforting words about comforting my people.

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And here, we're hearing all this gospel stuff in the midst of a pericope that really is telling us to repent.

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It seems a little weird, a little off. So, with that, we're going to do some work today.

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You remember, context is important, but rather than just merely backing up into Isaiah 39, which is important, you're going to note, in the beginning portion of Isaiah 39, it mentions the fact that King Hezekiah had been sick.

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So, in order to get the bigger context, we're going to have to go into 2 Kings first. We'll spend a little bit of time in 2

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Chronicles as well. 2 Kings chapter 20, if you want to flip over there, we're going to take a look, starting at verse 1, and we're going to pay attention to some of the details of the story and let

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Scripture interpret Scripture. 2 Kings chapter 20, verse 1. In those days,

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Hezekiah became sick. He was the king of Judah, by the way. He was a direct descendant of King David, and you can say that the

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Messianic line had come to this point. So, he became sick and was at the point of death.

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Isaiah the prophet, the son of Amoz, came to him and said to him, Thus says Yahweh, set your house in order, for you shall die.

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You shall not recover. Now, this has got to be way worse than if the doctor says you have cancer and you have like six months to live, because sometimes people are told that they have six months to live, and they continue to live for a long time.

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You know, something happens, the medicine kicks in, the treatment actually does its work, and they linger for much longer than the specified six months.

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But when God says you're going to die, generally, that means you're going to die. I'm just saying.

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You kind of get the idea. And you're going to note, we're going to pay close attention to Hezekiah's reaction to this.

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It says this, Then Hezekiah turned his face to the wall and prayed to Yahweh, saying,

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Now, O Yahweh, please remember how I have walked before you in faithfulness and with a whole heart and have done what is good in your sight.

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And Hezekiah wept bitterly. Now, a little bit of a note. This is not a good prayer. And you're thinking, well, it,

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I mean, why not? Well, the other portions of Scripture are going to help us out here. Because if you're going to die, the last thing you want to do is hold up your good works to God as if somehow they have, you earn something by them as far as salvation or life or things like that.

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That's what Hezekiah is doing. And you're sitting there going, well, how do you know? Because other texts tell me this.

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And I'll show you this in a minute. So Hezekiah is, this is a very prideful prayer on his part.

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It's not a good prayer. It is not a prayer of faith, but it is a prayer of works with an expectation that God owes him something.

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So, he prays this and he weeps bitterly. And then listen to this. Before Isaiah had gone out of the middle court, the word of Yahweh came to him, turn back and say to Hezekiah, the leader of my people, thus says

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Yahweh, the God of David, your father. I've heard your prayer. I've seen your tears.

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Notice, he doesn't say, you're right, your works have earned you longer life. That's not what

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God says. He says, I've heard your prayer. I've seen your tears. Behold, I will heal you on the third day.

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Pay attention to that third day stuff in Scripture. On the third day, you shall go up to the house of Yahweh, and I will add 15 years to your life.

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I will deliver you and this city out of the hand of the king of Assyria. I will defend this city for my own sake and for my servant

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David's sake. Notice that God is doing these things for his own sake and also for the sake of his servant

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David. By the way, David's been dead for quite a while. So this is for the sake of the Messiah coming.

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And so Isaiah said, bring a cake of figs and let them take and lay it on the boil that he may recover.

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And Hezekiah said to Isaiah, what shall be the sign that Yahweh will heal me and that I shall go up to the house of Yahweh on the third day?

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And Isaiah said, this shall be the sign to you from Yahweh that the Lord will do the thing that he has promised.

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Shall the shadow go forward ten steps or go back ten steps?

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Hezekiah answered, it is an easy thing for the shadow to lengthen ten steps. Rather, let the shadow go back ten steps.

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And Isaiah the prophet called to Yahweh, and he brought the shadow back ten steps by which it had gone down on the steps of Ahaz.

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Think of it this way, in Joshua chapter 10, we have the story of the sun standing still.

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In this particular case, the sun went backwards. This was a longer day.

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Now, if you really want to be technical, the sun didn't go backwards. The earth decided to spin a different direction.

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So that was the miracle here. So God demonstrating His power, His sovereignty over His very creation, that if He wants to make the sun go backwards,

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He can. And so this is the the shadow go backwards sign, if you would.

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Now, all of this we have to now interpret. What are we to make of this?

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Why is God making it so that Hezekiah is going to live 15 years longer?

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Now, I told you that his prayer wasn't a good one. My cross -reference for this then is 2nd

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Chronicles chapter 32. 2nd Chronicles chapter 32, verses 23 through 26, shed more light on this particular event.

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It says this, in those days Hezekiah became sick and was at the point of death.

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He prayed to Yahweh and He answered him and gave him a sign. But, yeah, but, but Hezekiah did not make return according to the benefit done to him.

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For his heart was proud. Therefore wrath came upon him and Judah and Jerusalem.

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But, here's the second but, Hezekiah humbled himself for the pride of his heart, both he and the inhabitants of Jerusalem, so that the wrath of the

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Lord did not come upon them in the days of Hezekiah. So 2nd Chronicles tells us that Hezekiah was a prideful dude.

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He had arrogance in his heart and, by the way, pride is the very sin that led to the devil's demise.

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You are most like the devil when you are saying, how wonderful I am, and taking stock of yourself.

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I like to think of those people who have a bunch of selfies on their social media.

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You know, it doesn't matter where they are, but they're always trying to kind of get that good angle that the selfie is like the satanic photo to take.

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Pride is the thing behind it. And so here we've got a conundrum. Why did

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God allow Hezekiah to live for 15 more years when 2nd

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Chronicles tells us that this guy's ego was bigger than the

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Titanic? What do we do with this? Answer, our epistle text helps us out here.

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Take a look with me back at 2nd Peter chapter 3, 8 through 14. I forgot to warn you, we're gonna be all over the

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Bible today. All right, 2nd Peter chapter 3, starting at verse 8, hear again the words of the

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Apostle Peter from our epistle text. Do not overlook this one fact, beloved, that with the

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Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years is one day.

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The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promises, some count slowness, but is patient towards you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance.

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Why did God give Hezekiah 15 more years? So that he would repent.

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God's will was that that he would perish, but that he would repent and be forgiven, and that bears out with what we just read in 2nd

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Chronicles. But the day of the Lord, by the way, will come like a thief, and then the heavens will pass away with a roar.

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The heavenly bodies will be burned up and dissolved, and the earth and all the works that are done in it will be exposed.

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This is that wonderful theme to let you know, don't grow attached to anything you see here right now.

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All of this is going bye -bye. Every last bit of it, anything that you can smell, taste, touch, see, with your senses, it's all gonna be destroyed.

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Every last bit of it. By the way, you included. And when we get to that part of Isaiah, I will note again that we are all getting older.

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We are like grass. We are withering. The very creation itself, all of us included, we all will be renewed through death and resurrection.

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It's as if because of our collective sin, we've mucked up the universe so badly that God at the very end says, okay, we're gonna have to get rid of that thing.

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And we're gonna start all over. That's kind of what's going on. So why did God give him 15 more years?

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So that he would repent. So let's go back then and again, note what it says in the text, that after God showed him a sign and healed him, 2nd

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Chronicles 32, Hezekiah did not make return to the benefit done to him, for his heart was proud.

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Therefore wrath came upon him and Judah, but Hezekiah humbled himself for the pride of his heart, both he and the inhabitants of Jerusalem.

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That humbling takes place after his healing. Now, that's our backstory.

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A little bit of backstory. Let's take a look now at Isaiah 39. We have a fuller picture of what's going on here.

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And see if you can spot the pride of Hezekiah, because it's on display for us in spades in Isaiah 39.

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At that time, Merodach Baladon, the son of Baladon, king of Babylon.

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All right. So the Babylonians are on the rise, on the world stage. They sent envoys with letters and a present to Hezekiah.

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For he heard that he had been sick and had recovered. Apparently Hezekiah's sickness made the news.

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Al Jazeera clearly covered it. So did CNN and Fox News. Everybody knew about it.

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So the king of Babylon sends an envoy and a gift. And so Hezekiah welcomed them gladly.

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And, watch this, he showed them his treasure house. The silver, the gold, the spices, the precious oil, his whole army, and all that was found in his storehouses.

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Really? Wow. This would be like if Bill Gates invited you to his home, and he decided to show you everything on his property.

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And then to kind of like top it off, he said, come over here, check this out. He brings you over to his laptop computer, opens up his bank account statements on the computer, and says, have you ever seen a bank account with that many zeros?

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That's me. That's me. Right? That's pride.

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That's what Hezekiah is doing. There was nothing in his house.

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There was nothing in his house or all the realm that Hezekiah did not show them.

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And of course, Isaiah the prophet, not thrilled here, Isaiah the prophet came to Hezekiah and said to him, what did these men say?

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And from where did they come to you? Hezekiah said, they've come to me from a far country.

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They came from Babylon. He said, what have they seen in your house? Hezekiah answered, well, they've seen all that's in my house.

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There's nothing in my storehouses. I didn't show them. Yeah, he still doesn't see it.

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It's like, okay. Isaiah said to Hezekiah, all right, hear the word of the

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Lord. Yeah, hear the word of Yahweh Sabaoth, the Lord of armies. Behold, the days are coming when all that is in your house and that which your fathers have stored up till this day shall be carried to Babylon.

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Nothing shall be left, says Yahweh, and some of your own sons who will come from you.

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These are your unborn children whom you will father. They shall be taken away and they shall be eunuchs in the place of the king of Babylon.

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Yeah, some of your own sons, they're gonna be taken to Babylon itself. All of the stuff that you showed them, the

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Babylonians are gonna get it, thanks to your pride. Oh, and some of your own sons, they're gonna have the

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Lopatophany procedure done to them so they can't even have kids and they're going to be serving the king of Babylon all because of Hezekiah's pride.

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Now watch his response. So Hezekiah said to Isaiah, the word of Yahweh that you've spoken is good, for he thought at least there's gonna be peace and security in my days.

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Wow! That is some blinding pride right there.

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It's just about me, myself, and I. All right, and so you'll note in the corporate world, corporate trainers oftentimes will deal with fellows or even women who are quite ambitious.

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Everything they do is about them and climbing the corporate ladder and getting that next raise or promotion or whatever and they point out these words.

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They kind of point this behavior out by saying, there is no eye in team.

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There is no eye in team. And that really then forms the basis of the next verse in Isaiah 40.

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Again, hear the words of these of the prophet. Comfort, comfort, my people says your

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God. Hezekiah is thinking about me. Isaiah says no, comfort my people.

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Now a little bit more before we get into this. God made good on his judgment against Hezekiah's pride.

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Take a look at 2nd Chronicles 33. I want you to hear about one of his sons, the son who would be born to him during his 15 years of extra life, who would become the king.

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His name is Manasseh. 2nd Chronicles 33 tells us about this fellow and to say that he was one wicked dude is to, well kind of, it's an understatement.

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There's no way to describe just how evil this fellow was. 2nd Chronicles 33 verse 1.

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Manasseh, he was 12 years old when he began to reign. So he was born during the 15 years.

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Three years after Hezekiah's sickness, Manasseh is born. He's 12 years old when he began to reign and he reigned for 55 years in Jerusalem.

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And he did what was evil in the sight of Yahweh, according to the abominations of the nations whom the

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Lord Yahweh had driven out before the people of Israel. For he rebuilt the high places that his father

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Hezekiah had broken down. He erect, excuse me, he erected altars to the

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Baals, made Ashtoreth and worshiped all the hosts of heaven, those are the stars, and served them.

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And he built altars in the house of Yahweh. Altars.

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So think of it this way. There's the Temple of Solomon. Beautiful center of Jerusalem.

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The worship life of the Jews. The place where the sacrifices are. The place where God said that his name would dwell forever.

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Manasseh is so wicked, he set up altars to false gods in the very temple itself.

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That's how wicked this fellow is. And so he built altars in the house of Yahweh, of which

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Yahweh had said, in Jerusalem shall my name be forever. He built altars for all the hosts of heaven in the two courts of the house of Yahweh.

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He burned his sons as an offering in the valley of the son of Hinnom. Burned his sons.

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Plural. This, it means, he sacrificed several of his sons, at least two, to the false god

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Molech. Molech was this terrible, terrible false deity. And Molech, what they would do with a statue of Molech, they would heat his hands.

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His hands were out like this. They would heat his hands with fire until they were glowing red.

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And then they would take small infants and put them into the hands of Molech. And that's how they perished.

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This is what Manasseh, the king of Israel, did. He used fortune -telling, omens, sorcery, dealt with mediums, and with necromancers.

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He did much evil in the sight of Yahweh, provoking him to anger. And the carved image of the idol that he had made, he sat in the house of God.

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Of which God said to David and Solomon, his son, in this house and in Jerusalem, which I have chosen out of all of the tribes of Israel, I will put my name forever and I will no more remove the foot of Israel from the land that I appointed for your fathers.

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If only they will be careful to do all the things I have commanded them in the law, and the statutes, and the rules given through Moses.

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Manasseh led Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem astray to do more evil than the nations whom the

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Lord had destroyed before the people of Israel. So think of it this way, one of the things that God says to the children of Israel when they're in the wilderness, is that he's going to drive out from before them the

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Hivites, the Jebusites, the Hittites, the Canaanites, the Uptites, and the Balaatites, because of their wickedness and their evil.

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And here, describing Manasseh, his sins exceeded all of the people that were living in the promised land prior to the children of Israel showing up, and he did this all within his lifetime.

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Now, we would expect that somebody as wicked and evil as Manasseh, that upon his death, that there would be a very special place in hell for somebody like this.

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You think of Dante's nine levels of the Inferno, that Manasseh's place has to be in the ninth ring, right next to Lucifer himself.

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That's what he deserved. Is it not? But that's not what happened to Manasseh.

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Listen to this, Yahweh spoke to Manasseh and to his people, but they paid no attention.

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Therefore, Yahweh brought upon them the commanders of the army of the king of Assyria. They captured

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Manasseh with hooks, bound him with chains of bronze, brought him to Babylon.

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The one who exalts himself will be humbled, Scripture says. And when he was in distress, he entreated the favor of Yahweh, his

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God, and he humbled himself greatly before the God of his fathers.

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He prayed to him, and God was moved by his entreaty. He heard his plea, and brought him again to Jerusalem into his kingdom.

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And then Manasseh knew that Yahweh was God. Afterward, he built an outer wall for the city of David, west of Gihon, in the valley for the entrance into the fish gate, and carried it around Ophel, and raised it to a very great height.

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He put commanders of the army in all the fortified cities in Judah, and he took away the foreign gods and the idol from the house of Yahweh, and all the altars that he had built on the mountain of the house of Yahweh, and in Jerusalem, he threw them outside of the city.

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He also restored the altar of Yahweh, and offered on it sacrifices of peace offerings and of thanksgiving.

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He commanded Judah to serve Yahweh and the God of Israel. Nevertheless, the people still sacrificed at the high places, but they only sacrificed to Yahweh, their

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God. That, brothers and sisters, is repentance.

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That is being confronted with your sins, the very judgment of God, knowing that you are guilty, and saying,

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Lord, I confess that I have done wrong. Have mercy on me.

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And did God have mercy on Manasseh? Yes, He did. It's not His will that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance.

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And so, with that, all kind of boiling around in our head, let's go back to our

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Old Testament text. We'll pick up a little context from Isaiah 39, verse 5.

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So Isaiah said to Hezekiah, Hear the word of Yahweh's sabaoth. The days are coming when all that is in your house and all that your fathers have stored up until this day shall be carried to Babylon.

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Nothing shall be left, says the Lord. And some of your own sons who come from you, whom you will father, shall be taken away.

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And they shall be eunuchs in the palace of the king of Babylon. And then Hezekiah said to Isaiah, The word of the

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Lord that you've spoken, it's good, for he thought there will be peace and security in my days. So at this point, he's still prideful and wicked.

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But you know, 2nd Chronicles also tells us that Hezekiah eventually repents, as does his son

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Manasseh. And so, since there is no I in team, and this isn't about Hezekiah, Isaiah then writes these words.

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Comfort, comfort my people, says your God. Speak tenderly to Jerusalem, and cry to her that her warfare is ended, that her iniquity is pardoned, and that she has received from the

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Lord's hand double for all of her sins. Remember last week, we talked about repentance consisting of two primary things.

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First, sorrow and contrition, or even terror on account of our sins. And at the same time, confidence and comfort in the forgiveness of sins proclaimed to us in the good news.

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The two have to go together. And here, Isaiah, rather than preaching judgment and God's law, instead is preaching the good news to Israel, to assure them that the

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Lord has pardoned their iniquity. Speaking about Christ's death on the cross, all the way back then, as if it had already happened.

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Because scripture does tell us that Christ was slain before the foundations of the earth. How that works, I don't know.

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It's quantum stuff. So let her know that her iniquity is pardoned, and that she has received double forgiveness for all of her sins.

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So a voice cries in the wilderness, prepare the way of Yahweh, make straight in the desert a highway for our

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God. Every valley shall be lifted up, every mountain and hill made low.

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Think of it this way. Have you ever noticed the epic flatness out here? Yeah.

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You're thinking, there's no mountains, there's no valleys, all there is is flat.

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And you think that there's nothing to look at. But this text is telling us that's exactly what it looks like to stand righteous before God.

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There are no valleys or peaks, because those are caused by sin. God has smoothed it all out.

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The new earth, it's gonna look just like Oslo. You betcha. So every valley shall be lifted up, every mountain and hill made low, and the uneven ground shall become level.

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The rough place is a plain, and the glory of Yahweh shall be revealed, and all flesh will see it together.

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For the mouth of Yahweh has spoken. Notice the comfort and the good news here. So a voice says, cry.

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And I said, what shall I cry? And here's the law. All flesh is grass. All its beauty is like the flower of the field.

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The grass withers, the flower fades. When the breath of Yahweh blows on it, surely the people are grass.

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The grass withers, the flower fades. But the word of the Lord will stand forever.

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I've said it before, and I'll say it again. I've been here for three and a half years. You guys look worse than ever. So do

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I. So do I. And the reason for that is quite simple. We are all like grass, and we are withering.

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Now those of you who are young and haven't hit your peak yet, give it a couple of days. You'll be on the downhill slope with the rest of us.

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But see, the fact that we are withering and getting old is God's law in action.

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The wages of sin is death. And unfortunately, it's on some kind of a weird payment plan. Every month you have to dole that out.

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It's getting worse. But the word of the Lord endures forever. This is not saying that God's word is going to be here when you're gone.

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That's not the point. Because remember, it's the word of the Lord that regenerates this. Remember, we're the walking dead.

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We are. We're alive and yet still heading to the grave. We're born heading to the grave.

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Doesn't matter how young you are. It's kind of tragic when a new baby is born. You sit there and go, they're so fragile, and you have to try to keep them from dying.

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It's like, and that's a lot of work. Have you guys noticed that? Like when they're really small, all you're trying to do is keep them from killing themselves by accident.

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Right? But all of that is the wages of sin. But see, we are in Christ and his word has given us life.

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Even though we are heading to the grave, we will soon no longer be the walking dead. We will be the walking living.

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And I cannot wait for that day. And that's what this text is telling us. So go up on the high mountain, O Zion, herald of good news.

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Lift up your voice with strength, O Jerusalem, herald of good news. The gospel shows up here in Isaiah.

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Because by the way, the word gospel, you know what it means, right? Good news. And see, this is good news for us.

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Lift it up. Fear not. Say to the cities of Judah, behold your

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God. And this isn't behold your God in a terrifying sense. This is behold your God in the gracious, merciful, and kind sense.

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Behold, the Lord God comes with might. His arm rules with him. Behold, his reward is with him, and his recompense is before him.

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And he will tend his flock like a shepherd. He will gather the lambs in his arms, and he will carry them in his bosom and gently lead those that are with young.

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And that's you. Jesus is our good shepherd. You are his sheep and his little lambs.

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And that then is the context. All of this ringing in our ears. We know the full story here of the repentance of Hezekiah, the repentance of Manasseh, at the good news being proclaimed in Isaiah 40.

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We now turn to our gospel text, which reads, the beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the

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Son of God. As it is written in Isaiah the prophet, behold, I send my messenger before your face who will prepare your way.

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The voice of one crying in the wilderness, prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight. John appeared baptizing in the wilderness.

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Notice, Israel leaves Jerusalem to go back out to the wilderness. Yeah, now you begin to see it.

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They're out in the wilderness once again confessing their sins, because he was proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.

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And all that the country of Judea and all Jerusalem were going out to him, and they were being baptized by him in the

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River Jordan, confessing their sins. And his message was repent.

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And our message to us from John the Baptist also is to repent. But he's not having us return to his baptism.

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He's calling each and every one of you to return to yours. Because our baptisms are a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins and the receiving of the

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Holy Spirit. And that again requires us, like Manasseh, like Hezekiah, like all the saints before us, to recognize that we have grievously sinned against God.

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That we are guilty of making mountains and valleys and crooked paths.

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You might hide it better than Manasseh did, but each and every one of us are just as guilty as he are.

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He are, he was. Got to work on my verbs there, right? To be or not to be.

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All right. So, John the Baptist is calling us again to repent.

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John was clothed with camel's hair, wore a belt around his waist, ate locusts and wild honey.

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You think of it this way. I mean, this is a guy who put, he basically forsook all of the creature comforts of this earth, including good meals.

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Because I'm pretty sure honey is still not going to make locusts taste good to me. And he didn't wear fine clothes, kind of just kind of wore whatever.

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And he, in his very wardrobe and menu, challenges us who are so caught up in our homes and our creature comforts and our decorations and that warm snugly bed and our furnace and all the things that make life more comfortable.

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He gave all of that up to preach repentance and it calls us to put no stock even in those good gifts that God has given us.

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John was clothed in these things and he preached saying, after me comes he who is mightier than I, the strap of whose sandals

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I am not worthy to stoop down and untie. Isn't it interesting that John the Baptist demonstrates that not only was he a preacher of repentance, but that he himself recognized his own sinfulness and his unworthiness before the

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Lord. He was repentant, just like Hezekiah and Manasseh. And he's right.

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He did not deserve, none of us deserves, to even stoop down and untie

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Jesus's shoelaces. And yet, the good news is that God Himself, this very one who we are unworthy to be in the presence of, came to earth, was born of the

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Virgin Mary, and suffered and died for your sins and for mine. He did not come expecting us to fall on our faces and kiss

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His ring. He came to serve us so that we can be forgiven. This is why it talks about how our sins are already pardoned.

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He says, I have baptized you with water, but He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit. And brothers and sisters, you have already been baptized into Christ's baptism.

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You have been baptized into Jesus's death and His resurrection. You have had your sins forgiven and washed away.

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And so returning to our baptisms, again, requires us, like the Baptist, to recognize our own unworthiness and at the same time have confidence in His mercy and His forgiveness and grace, one for us on the cross.

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So, Kongsvinger, prepare the way of the Lord. Repent.

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Return back to your baptismal waters, confessing your sins, embracing your death, taking up your cross and following your

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Savior now to the valley of the shadow of death, into life itself. He is coming soon.

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He is coming quickly. Watch for it. Wait for it. Long for it. Jesus, your salvation is near.

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In the name of Jesus. If you would like to support the teaching ministry of Kongsvinger Lutheran Church, you can do so by sending a tax -free donation to Kongsvinger Lutheran Church 15950 470th

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Avenue Northwest, Oslo, Minnesota 56744 and again that address is

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Kongsvinger Lutheran Church 15950 470th

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Avenue Northwest, Oslo, Minnesota 56744 We thank you for your support.

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All of our teaching messages may be freely distributed as long as you do not edit or change the content of the message.