Prepare to Meet The King

] Our passage this evening introduces us to the beginning of Christ’s earthly ministry. We remember that Jesus Christ is Immanuel, God with us. He is the Everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace… the promised King. With the coming of the Eternal King is an implied coming or imminent Kingdom. God wanted His people to be ready to meet the King, so He prepared a prophet to announce the arrival of that king, John the Baptist.

Malachi 4:5–6 KJV

Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet Before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord: And he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children, And the heart of the children to their fathers, Lest I come and smite the earth with a curse.

God announced through Malachi that He would send Elijah the prophet to announce the fearsome Day of the Lord. This Elijah would turn people back to one another, but he would also bring a decree of destruction. After this prediction there were four hundred years of silence, and then John the Baptist came on the scene. John is a figure who is in many ways parallel to Elijah—a prophet calling the people back to God after a long drought.

Platt, D. (2013). Exalting jesus in matthew (D. L. Akin, D. Platt, & T. Merida, Eds.; p. 49). Holman Reference.

Matthew 3:4 KJV

And the same John had his raiment of camel’s hair, and a leathern girdle about his loins; and his meat was locusts and wild honey.

As we prepare to meet Jesus in an intimate way this year, I think it appropriate to understand the preparations that God wanted the people of Israel to make. We too can take steps to prepare to meet the King.

Repent

Matthew 3:1–2 KJV

In those days came John the Baptist, preaching in the wilderness of Judaea, And saying, Repent ye: for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.

Think of a husband and wife in a car, the wife tells her husband to turn right at the next junction and by mistake, he turns left. When he realises what he has done, he says to his wife “I’m sorry love, I went the wrong way.” But if that is all he does, it isn’t enough. His saying sorry isn’t getting them any closer to where they want to be; it isn’t even stopping them getting further away. To get where they want to be, he needs to stop the car, turn it around and go back on to the correct road that his wife told him to take in the first place. That is repentance.

Μετάνοια (repentance) is therefore, primarily, an after-thought, different from the former thought; then, a change of mind which issues in regret and in change of conduct. -Vincent

Repentance Toward God

Mark 1:15 KJV

And saying, The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand: repent ye, and believe the gospel.

Repent Away From Sin

2 Corinthians 7:10 KJV

For godly sorrow worketh repentance to salvation not to be repented of: but the sorrow of the world worketh death.

Matthew 4:17 KJV

From that time Jesus began to preach, and to say, Repent: for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.

More Than Emotion With No Change

Exodus 9:27 KJV

And Pharaoh sent, and called for Moses and Aaron, and said unto them, I have sinned this time: the Lord is righteous, and I and my people are wicked.

Joshua 7:20 KJV

And Achan answered Joshua, and said, Indeed I have sinned against the Lord God of Israel, and thus and thus have I done:

1 Samuel 15:24 KJV

And Saul said unto Samuel, I have sinned: for I have transgressed the commandment of the Lord, and thy words: because I feared the people, and obeyed their voice.

The examples of Pharaoh, Achan, and Saul teach us that there’s more to repentance than confession. Beyond mere confession, repentance involves contrition (sorrow over sin). There must be a deep realization in your heart that you have sinned against God. It’s the kind of sorrow we see in Psalm 51 as David, in contrite brokenness, cries out to God, saying, “Against You—You alone—I have sinned” (v. 4). This is not merely sorrow over getting caught, the kind of worldly sorrow Paul speaks about that is nothing more than selfish regret; rather, godly sorrow is deep realization that you have offended God, and this leads to godly repentance (2 Cor 7:10).

Biblical repentance means more than simply feeling bad about sin. Later in Matthew, we’ll see the rich young ruler who walked away from Jesus was sorrowful but not repentant (19:16–22), for he didn’t want to part with his possessions. And later we read that Judas was sorrowful for betraying Jesus, but he wasn’t repentant (27:3–10). These examples lead us to a third aspect of biblical repentance: Repentance involves a conversion (turn from sin). That’s what this word “repent” means: to “be converted” (BDAG, 640). So yes, we must recognize our sin and be sorrowful for it, but we must also renounce it, or turn from it. We must do what Elijah commanded the people to do in 1 Kings 18 when he was surrounded by the prophets of Baal: “If Yahweh is God, follow Him. But if Baal, follow him” (v. 21). Next we learn why this kind of repentance is so urgent1

1 Platt, D. (2013). Exalting jesus in matthew (D. L. Akin, D. Platt, & T. Merida, Eds.; pp. 51–52). Holman

Prepare - Get Ready

Matthew 3:3–4 KJV

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, make his paths straight. And the same John had his raiment of camel’s hair, and a leathern girdle about his loins; and his meat was locusts and wild honey.

Isaiah 40:3 KJV

The voice of him that crieth in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord, Make straight in the desert a highway for our God.

Amos 4:12 KJV

Therefore thus will I do unto thee, O Israel: And because I will do this unto thee, Prepare to meet thy God, O Israel.

Hosea 10:12 KJV

Sow to yourselves in righteousness, Reap in mercy; Break up your fallow ground: For it is time to seek the Lord, Till he come and rain righteousness upon you.

Matthew 24:44 KJV

Therefore be ye also ready: for in such an hour as ye think not the Son of man cometh.

Prepare the way means “Get a road ready,” “Make a road,” or even “Cut a path.” Of course Isaiah is not speaking literally of a road but is actually speaking about providing the right circumstances so that the Lord can come. However, translators should keep the figure Isaiah used, if at all possible.

The way of the Lord is a road “for the Lord,” a road “on which the Lord can travel,” or “for him to travel on.”

The second command, to make his paths straight, has essentially the same meaning as the first one, as in “Make straight paths for him” or “Prepare straight paths for him (to travel on).”

Since it is understood that this path or road is for the Lord to travel on as he comes to us, some translators say something like “to travel on to us” or “to come to his people.”1

1 Newman, B. M., & Stine, P. C. (1992). A handbook on the Gospel of Matthew (p. 60). United Bible Societies.

Public Profession

Confession

Confessing their sins (ἐξομολογούμενοι τὰς ἁμαρτίας αὐτῶν). The words imply: 1. That confession was connected with baptism. They were baptized while in the act of confessing. 2. An open confession, not a private one to John (ἐξ, compare Acts 19:18; Jas. 5:16). 3. An individual confession; possibly a specific one. (See Luke 3:10–15.)1

1 Vincent, M. R. (1887). Word studies in the New Testament (Vol. 1, p. 24). Charles Scribner’s Sons

As we start do dig deeply into the reality of Jesus, we should be prepared to not only respond with private repentance, but also with open and public confession through altar calls and such.

Baptism - Identify With The Message Publicly

Luke 3:3 KJV

And he came into all the country about Jordan, preaching the baptism of repentance for the remission of sins;

Matthew 3:11 KJV

I indeed baptize you with water unto repentance: but he that cometh after me is mightier than I, whose shoes I am not worthy to bear: he shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost, and with fire:

Baptism was a way of saying, “I am an outsider, renouncing my former ways, and embracing faith in the one true God, the God of Israel.” Therefore, it is astonishing that people from Jerusalem and Judea—Jewish people—came to be baptized. They were admitting that their Jewishness did not guarantee them a right standing before God. They realized that they needed to personally confess their sins and profess faith in God. Here, for the first time in Scripture, we begin to see the significance of baptism.

To be baptized is to renounce your dependence on self and to acknowledge that there is nothing inherent in you that can save you before God, including your family heritage. Ethnicity was extremely important to Jews, many of whom believed that simply being an Israelite meant that they were right before God.1

1 Platt, D. (2013). Exalting jesus in matthew (D. L. Akin, D. Platt, & T. Merida, Eds.; pp. 52–53). Holman Reference.

The Jews baptized Gentile converts, but John was baptizing Jews! His baptism was authorized from heaven (Matt. 21:23–27); it was not something John devised or borrowed. It was a baptism of repentance, looking forward to the Messiah’s coming (Acts 19:1–7). His baptism fulfilled two purposes: it prepared the nation for Christ and it presented Christ to the nation (John 1:31).

Wiersbe, W. W. (1996). The Bible exposition commentary (Vol. 1, p. 17). Victor Books.

Conclusion:

Typical of last minute Christmas shoppers, a mother was running furiously from store to store. Suddenly she became aware that the pudgy little hand of her three year old son was no longer clutched in hers. In a panic she retraced her steps and found him standing with his little nose pressed flatly against a frosty window. He was gazing at a manger scene. Hearing his mother’s near hysterical call, he turned and shouted with innocent glee: "look mommy! it’s Jesus - baby Jesus in the hay". With obvious indifference to his joy and wonder, she impatiently jerked him away saying, "we don’t have time for that!"

As we get ready to meet Jesus in the pages of the Gospels, and in our study through John, let us do so with a prepared, not a distracted heart. Let us repent often, preparing to meet Jesus. When appropriate, let us make those decisions and steps of personal growth public so we can grow together as a community of believers. Then we will be prepared to meet the King.

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Message: Prepare to Meet the King

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