PREPARING THE WAY FOR THE KING

The Kingdom of Heaven is at Hand (Verses 1-2)

Repent

Repentance: a change of mind that produces a change of direction. It begins with a godly sorrow over your sins.

2 Corinthians 7:10 “For godly grief produces a repentance that leads to salvation without regret, whereas worldly grief produces death.”

2 Timothy 2:25 “correcting his opponents with gentleness. God may perhaps grant them repentance leading to a knowledge of the truth,”

When you feel godly sorrow over your sins, your mind is changed about sin. Your sin used to be no big deal, but now you understand that not only have you done wrong, but you have sinned against a holy God. You feel the weight of the fact that you have no one to blame for your sins except for yourself. You begin to understand that you deserve death and hell. It is when you understand these things that you long to be set free from the power and penalty of sin.

For the Kingdom of Heaven is at Hand

Daniel 2:44 “And in the days of those kings the God of heaven will set up a kingdom that shall never be destroyed, nor shall the kingdom be left to another people. It shall break in pieces all these kingdoms and bring them to an end, and it shall stand forever,”

Psalm 2:6-9 ““As for me, I have set my King on Zion, my holy hill.” I will tell of the decree: The Lord said to me, “You are my Son; today I have begotten you. Ask of me, and I will make the nations your heritage, and the ends of the earth your possession. You shall break them with a rod of iron and dash them in pieces like a potter’s vessel.””

Psalm 2:10-12 “Now therefore, O kings, be wise; be warned, O rulers of the earth. Serve the Lord with fear, and rejoice with trembling. Kiss the Son, lest he be angry, and you perish in the way, for his wrath is quickly kindled. Blessed are all who take refuge in him.”

So the first question before us is this: Have you repented?

The Herald of the King (Verses 3-6)

Here Matthew quotes Isaiah 40:3 to show that John was the one to prepare the way for the coming King.

Malachi 3:1 ““Behold, I send my messenger, and he will prepare the way before me. And the Lord whom you seek will suddenly come to his temple; and the messenger of the covenant in whom you delight, behold, he is coming, says the Lord of hosts.”

Luke 1:76 “And you, child, will be called the prophet of the Most High; for you will go before the Lord to prepare his ways,”

Why the leather belt and garment of camel’s hair?

2 Kings 1:8 “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.””

Malachi 4:5-6 ““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.””

Luke 1:16-17 “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.””

The Response of the Crowds

They understood that they needed forgiveness of their sins. They understood that they were under God’s wrath and needed to be converted.

1 John 1:8-9 “If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”

Proverbs 28:13 “Whoever conceals his transgressions will not prosper, but he who confesses and forsakes them will obtain mercy.”

The next question before us is this: Have you confessed your sins?

Flee From the Wrath to Come (Verses 7-10)

You brood of vipers

John 8:38-40 “I speak of what I have seen with my Father, and you do what you have heard from your father.” They answered him, “Abraham is our father.” Jesus said to them, “If you were Abraham’s children, you would be doing the works Abraham did, but now you seek to kill me, a man who has told you the truth that I heard from God. This is not what Abraham did.”

John 8:44 “You are of your father the devil, and your will is to do your father’s desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks out of his own character, for he is a liar and the father of lies.”

John 3:16 ““For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.”

John 3:36 “Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life; whoever does not obey the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God remains on him.”

Bear fruits in keeping with repentance

Galatians 5:22-23 “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law.”

Don’t presume to say, “We have Abraham as our father”.

We can’t trust in our parents, our ancestry, our earthly citizenship, or even church membership. We must personally repent and trust in Christ as our only hope of salvation.

Galatians 3:7-9 “Know then that it is those of faith who are the sons of Abraham. And the Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel beforehand to Abraham, saying, “In you shall all the nations be blessed.” So then, those who are of faith are blessed along with Abraham, the man of faith.”

Being a physical descendant of Abraham doesn’t save us, but being a spiritual descendant of Abraham does.

The third question before us is this: Have we sought refuge in Christ from the wrath to come?

The Separation of the Wheat and Chaff

Acts 19:4 “And Paul said, “John baptized with the baptism of repentance, telling the people to believe in the one who was to come after him, that is, Jesus.””

1 Corinthians 12:13 “For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—Jews or Greeks, slaves or free—and all were made to drink of one Spirit.”

Titus 3:5 “he saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit,”

Romans 6:4 “We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.”

Galatians 2:20 “I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.”

For those who have been united to Christ by faith, we will receive cleansing by His Spirit. He will wash away our sins and burn away our impurities. He will gather us to Himself, so we will be with Him forever.

John 14:3 “And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also.”

For those who don’t repent and place their faith in Christ, they will be cast into the fires of hell, to be tormented forever.

Revelation 20:13-15 “And the sea gave up the dead who were in it, Death and Hades gave up the dead who were in them, and they were judged, each one of them, according to what they had done. Then Death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. This is the second death, the lake of fire. And if anyone’s name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire.”

Our final question is this: Where is your destination, to be gathered to Christ or to be cast into hell? If you have never been forgiven, flee from the wrath to come! Repent and flee to Christ! Place your faith in Him as your only hope of salvation, and you will be saved from the wrath to come and given an inheritance in heaven that will never fade away!