Will you take your Bibles and turn to Mark's gospel chapter one, as we continue to make our way through this amazing historical narrative that speaks so profoundly about the person and the work of Christ. This morning, I've entitled my discourse to you "Make Ready the Way of the Lord", and that will become obvious to you as we move along. Before we look closely at the text, I wish to remind you that whenever we approach any section of Scripture, we must always see it as part of a larger tapestry. Every phrase, every word, is a piece of thread that is woven into a magnificent wall hanging of divine revelation, created by God himself, to bring glory to himself and to those he indwells. And such is the case here with Mark's narrative, known as the gospel of Mark. Simply said, it does not stand alone, separate from the rest of Scripture. It is all part of the tapestry. It is all woven together with the rest of Scripture. It is therefore an indispensable and marvelous part of the whole. And you might think of the Bible as the big wall hanging, the big tapestry. God wrote the 66 books of the Bible through the pens of 40 human writers, over a period of about 1500 years, from about 1405 BC all the way to 95 ad. And the big picture of this tapestry, you might say the, the unifying theme of all of the Bible is the glory of God and His eternal kingdom, which involves both spiritual as well as physical material elements. We know according to Scripture, that solely by His grace, and for His glory, God created and chose a group of, of sinful people to be reconciled unto him, so that he could put his glory and His grace on display through the redeeming work of His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. And this is the grand and glorious unifying theme of the Bible. It is the revelation of God's sovereign plan, decreed in eternity past and completed in eternity future. And it basically is twofold; to redeem the people and restore the kingdom. That is the Bible in a nutshell, if you will. There are at least five recurring motifs in Scripture, five categories that you will see in varying ways when you read the Bible. You will see it on every page and in every verse first you will see, the revelation of the character of God. Secondly, you will see the revelation of divine judgment for sin and disobedience. Thirdly, you will see the revelation of divine blessing for faith and obedience. And then fourthly, the revelation of the Lord Savior and sacrifice for sin. And then finally the revelation of the kingdom and the glory of the Lord Savior. And we see this most vividly in our passage today.

So let me read the text to you. Mark chapter one, beginning in verse one, "The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. As it is written in Isaiah the prophet: 'Behold, I send My messenger ahead of you, who will prepare your way, the voice of one crying in the wilderness, Make ready the way of the Lord, make His path straight.' John the Baptist appeared in the wilderness preaching a baptism of repentance, for the forgiveness of sins. And all the country of Judea was going out to him, and all the people of Jerusalem; and they were being baptized by him in the Jordan River confessing their sins. John was clothed with camel'shair and wore a leather belt around his waist, and his diet was locusts and wild honey. And he was preaching and saying, 'After me, One is coming, who is mightier than I, and I am not fit to stoop down and untie the thong of His sandals. I baptize you with water; but He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.'" And so here Mark sets the stage for all that is to come by focusing on at least three basic categories. And some of this is by way of review. First of all, the preparation of the coming King, we looked at that last week. Secondly, the prophet of the coming King and we're going to look at that today. And then Lord willing, the next time we get together, we will look at the preeminence of the coming King.

By way of review, the preparation of the coming King is really seen in Mark's opening statement, which as you will recall, is a royal pronouncement of a divine deliverer. In the beginning, he says, or this is "The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God." And both Jews as well as Gentiles, the Romans, they understood the term gospel to mean "good news". They understood it to mean the arrival and the ascendancy and the enthronement of a coming king, who would save the people and bring about peace and bring about prosperity. So this is how they understood this. And this was especially a challenge to the Romans because Mark is writing primarily to the Romans to the church in Rome, because what this said is, Jesus is God. Jesus is the King, not Caesar. Jesus is the one who is one in nature with God, He is the true God, the one true King of Israel, the long promised messianic monarch of Israel. And indeed, the gospel message is rooted in the sovereignty of God over his creation, that He is the King of glory. He has ordained to the end from the beginning. And he has a plan to save sinners to the praise of his glory. And as our King, the Lord Jesus Christ is to be worshipped, and he is to be obeyed. And that is at the very heart of Biblical Christianity, which is contrary to much of what you see in our culture today, that calls itself evangelical.

So today, we come to the next category that we want to see in Mark's words here in Mark one and that is, with respect to the prophet of the coming King. Notice verse two, "As it is written in Isaiah the prophet: 'Behold, I send My messenger ahead of you, who will prepare your way the voice of the one, crying in the wilderness, Make ready the way of the Lord make His path straight.' John the Baptist appeared in the wilderness preaching a baptism of repentance, for the forgiveness of sins." Now, it was customary for official messengers or heralds to precede the arrival of monarchs when they would go into a particular region. And they would come and they would make preparations for the arrival of the King make sure that the people were ready to receive their king with celebratory praise. And this was the role of John the Baptist he was the forerunner or the Herald of the Messiah King, whom Jesus called the greatest prophet to ever live, according to Matthew 11. And here Mark connects the kingdom proclaimed by ourLord Jesus Christ with the kingdom of Old Testament prophecy. And John, the Baptist, you might recall now, is the last of the Old Testament prophets, and he is the royal Herald of the Messiah King, the King of Israel, and this is why he was born. You may recall in Luke's gospel Luke chapter one, we read how God sent an angel to appear to John the Baptist father, his name was Zacharias, he was a priest serving in the temple. And there, he received an angelic announcement that his barren wife would bear a son. Her name was Elizabeth. In Luke 1:17, we read, "'It is he who will go as a foreigner before Him in the spirit and power of Elijah, to turn the hearts of the fathers back to the children, and the disobedient to the attitude of the righteous, so as to make ready of people prepared for the Lord.'" Now immediately, Zacharias knew that this was a reference to the Messiah King of Old Testament prophecy. Later, Zacharias gave a magnificent prophetic utterance to the people when his tongue was loosened. And there he used many Old Testament references that connect the kingdom prophecies of the Old Testament in Luke one beginning in verse 67. Here's what he said. "And his father Zacharias was filled with the Holy Spirit and prophesied saying, 'Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, for He has visited us and accomplished redemption for His people. And has raised up a horn of salvation for us in the house of David, his servant--as He spoke by the mouth of His holy prophets from old-- salvation from our enemies, and from the hand of all who hate us; to show mercy toward our fathers and to remember his Holy covenant, the oath which He swore to Abraham, our Father, to grant us that we being rescued from the hand of our enemies, might serve Him without fear, in holiness and righteousness before Him all our days.'" And then he says, "'And you child, will be called the prophet of the Most High; for you will go on before the Lord to prepare His ways to give to His people, the knowledge of salvation by the forgiveness of their sins, because of the tender mercy of our God, with which the Sunrise from on high will visit us to shine upon those who sit in darkness, and the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace.'" Now, it should be no surprise therefore, that Mark connects the kingdom proclaimed by our Lord with the kingdom of Old Testament prophecy by citing Isaiah and Malachi. This is what we will see next even though Malachi is not mentioned in verses three through four. And I might add, the reason for that and why this is really not a problem is it was customary among the Jewish writers when referencing multiple Old Testament prophets, they would quote them under the heading of the most prominent Prophet, in this case, it is Isaiah. So we read in verse two, as it is written in Isaiah, the prophet and here now he literally first references Malachi three, one, "'Behold, I send My messenger ahead of you who will prepare your way.'" Now, if we go back and look at Malachi's prophecies, we see that about 500 years before Jesus arrives, the prophet Malachi exhorted Israel to prepare for the revelation of the Lord's glory at the arrival of the Messiah. And all of the gospel writers see John the Baptist fitting this role. If we go to Matthew's gospel, in chapter three, verse three, we read, "For this is the one referred to by Isaiah the Prophet when he said, 'The voice of one crying in the wilderness, Make ready the way of the Lord, make His path straight.!’” Luke’s Gospel, Luke chapter three says the same thing beginning in verse four, "'The voice of one crying in the wilderness, Make ready the way of the Lord, make His path straight. Every ravine will be filled in every mountain and hill will be brought low, the crooked will become straight, and the rough roads smooth, and all flesh will see the salvation of God.'" And likewise, you will recall in John's gospel, chapter one and verse 23, when the priests and the Levites come to John the Baptist and ask, who are you? "He said, 'I am a voice of one crying in the wilderness, Make straight the way of the Lord, as Isaiah the prophet said.'"

So Mark begins here by reminding his readers that the Messianic forerunner was all part of God's plan, from the very beginning, revealed to us through the Old Testament prophets. And by the way, dear friends, if you do not understand the Old Testament, you will never understand the New. Again, "As it is written in Isaiah the prophet: 'Behold, I send My messenger ahead of you, who will prepare your way.'" The full prophecy, in Malachi three one reads as follows, "'Behold, I am going to send My messenger and he will clear the way before Me. And the Lord, whom you seek, will suddenly come to His temple; and the messenger of the covenant,'" referring to Christ, "'in whom you delight, Behold, He is coming,' says the Lord of hosts." And it's interesting, we know that when Jesus came, what did he do? Well, the messenger of the covenant, at the very beginning of his ministry, went to Jerusalem at Passover and He cleansed the temple. Malachi goes on to say this in Malachi three, two, "'But who can endure the day of His coming? And who can stand when He appears? For He is like a refiner's fire and like fullers soap. He will set us a smelter and purifier of silver, and He will purify the sons of Levi and refine them like gold and silver so that they may present to the Lord offerings in righteousness. Then the offering of Judah and Jerusalem will be pleasing to the Lord as in the days of old and as in former years. Then I will draw near to you for judgment; and I will be a swift witness against the sorcerers and against the adulterers and against those who swear falsely and against those who oppose the wage earner in his wages, the widow and the orphan, and those who turn aside the alien, and do not fear Me,' says the Lord of hosts." And there he was pointing to the unscrupulous and wicked, religious leaders of Israel. Not much has changed in our day. So indeed, God sent His Messenger, John the Baptist to announce the arrival of, as Malachi said, "the messenger of the covenant," the Messiah, who would suddenly come into his temple, as promised, and he did so again, by the way at the end of his ministry, as you may recall, and there he asserted his lordship over the temple, which by the way, was a supernatural act with all of those greedy people there on that Temple Mount. Can you imagine how terrified they were, when he began to run them out, and they could not overpower him, nor did they even try? So prophecy was fulfilled, and for a brief time, the people witnessed the messianic king, personally present in his own temple. The word of the Lord was proclaimed from Jerusalem, as Isaiah prophesied, in Isaiah two. Supernatural healings from the hand of the king, were being manifested there at that time, as prophesied in Isaiah 35. The greedy shepherds of Israel were being cast out, as we read in Ezekiel 34, and the children were crying out Hosannas to the king, as we read in Psalm eight. These were some of the things that the nation might have had, might have enjoyed without limitation or interruption, if she had known the time of her visitation, and the hearts of the people would have been open to receive their king. But as you know, for most, that was not the case. But this final taste of Messianic authority that we saw in the temple precinct, when he cleansed it, as well as all of his compassion and miracle working power, was also prophesied for another and better day when Israel will be contrite. And according to Isaiah 25, nine, they will say, "Lo, this is our God, we have waited for Him, and He will save us. We have waited for him, we will be glad and rejoice in his salvation."

Now after Mark, in verse three, references Malachi three one, he references Isaiah, chapter 40 and verse three. And he says, "'The voice of one crying in the wilderness, make ready the way of the Lord, make His path straight.'" The full quote in Isaiah 43 is this, "a voice is calling, clear the way for the Lord in the wilderness. Make smooth in the desert a highway for God." And like many passages and Isaiah's prophecies, Isaiah 40 anticipates both a near future partial fulfillment, as well as a far future ultimate fulfillment. the near future fulfillment is that the Lord would lead his people back to their homeland in Israel after their Babylonian captivity, and he would abide with them. But not all of Isaiah's prophecies were fulfilled in the sixth century. Sothe prophecy extends to yet another future day, when a foreigner would announce that he would call a remnant of Israel to remove the obstacles from the path of the coming Messiah through repentance from their sins. And that's where Mark is now. And there was, there's also a far future reference in Isaiah 40 and many other passages, that also sees a future forerunner beyond John the Baptist, who is to be like Elijah preparing for Christ's second coming. This is why the Pharisees asked John the Baptist, "What are you? What are you then? Are you Elijah?" and he said, "I am not." If we go back to Malachi four, we read about this beginning in verse five. There, the inspired Prophet says, "'Behold, I am going to send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and terrible day of the Lord.'" And here God is speaking about the time of judgment, Daniel 70th week just prior to the Messiah's final return. And he goes on to say, "'He will restore the hearts of the fathers to their children and the hearts of the children to their fathers, so that I will not come and smite the land with a curse.'" So to summarize this, and hopefully not make it too complicated, even as John the Baptist was an Elijah-like person, announcing the arrival of the Messiah King at the first coming, there will be another Elijah like person who will announce the arrival of the Messiah King at His Second Coming. In fact, it could be Elijah himself, we just don't know, we're not told. You will recall Moses and Elijah appeared with Christ on the Mount of Transfiguration in front of Peter, Jamesand John. And we know that the two of them will be the two witnesses in the great revelation, or the Great Tribulation about described in Revelation 11. Moreover, in Matthew 17, beginning with verse 11, after the death of John, Jesus said to the disciples, "'Elijah is coming, and will restore all things, but I say to you that Elijah already came, and they did not recognize him, but did to him whatever they wished.'" There he is referring to John the Baptist, then he goes on to say, "'So also the Son of Man is going to suffer at their hands.' Then the disciples understood that he had spoken to them about John the Baptist." So there are you might say two Elijah's, two heralds. Indeed, John the Baptist was not Elijah, but he came in the Spirit and the power of Elijah, according to Luke 1:17. And there will be another Elijah announcing the final return of the Messiah King. My how I long for those days, you know, I preach these things, I understand them, I revel in them, they many times move me to a point where I just, I just don't even know what to say. It is so exciting to know what God has planned and what he is going to implement. And beloved, all I can say to you is you must live in light of His coming return. Don't live just for this life, live for what Christ is going to do in the glory of His Kingdom, I long for that day. And I might also add an important word of encouragement at the conclusion of the Old Testament writings, Israel continued their covenant disobedience, their idolatry, the immorality, and so they were taken captive by the Gentile nations. But we also know that God will never renege on his covenant promises concerning a kingdom in which Israel, ethnic Israel, and many Gentiles will experience both the spiritual salvation as well as the physical blessings under therule of the ultimate Davidic King, the Lord Jesus Christ, which would be in fulfillment of both the Abrahamic and the Davidic covenants. And we can find comfort in this knowing that the king is coming, He will establish His kingdom. And so all of this garbage and ridiculous stuff that we are enduring right now in our country, and around the world, all of that's going to be over one day. And it won't be announced by CNN. It will be announced by many others in the pre-kingdom judgments, including an Elijah like figure. By the way, Moses saw this. We read about it all the way back in Deuteronomy 30, beginning at verse five, here's the prophecy, "'The Lord your God will bring you into the land which your father's possessed, and you shall possess it; and He will prosper you and multiply you more than your fathers. Moreover, the Lord your God will circumcise your heart, and the heart of your descendants, to love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul so that you may live. The Lord your God will inflict all these curses on your enemies, and on those who hate you, who persecuted you. And you shall again obey the Lord and observe all His commandments which I command you today. Then, the Lord your God will prosper you abundantly and all the work of your hand and the offspring of your body and in the offspring of your cattle and in the produce of your ground, for the Lord will again rejoice over you for good, just as He has just as he rejoiced over your father's.'"

Now, let's look more closely at this prophet of the king here. Verse four, "John," it says, which, by the way, means the Lord is gracious. All right, "John the Baptist appeared in the wilderness preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins." Now here we see that baptism was one of the most distinct features of His ministry. But you must understand, his focus was not merely to dip people in water, but to call people to repentance. And to do so in the face of divine judgment. You see this all throughout the Gospels, he was commissioned by God to clear away all of the obstacles that were there amongst the people, greedy, materialism, immorality, cruelty, slander, an arrogant, self-righteous, smug self-satisfaction that they had, and you know, they would say, "We have Abraham, he's our father, you know, so we don't need to hear this stuff."  Baptism is merely a, a symbol of repentance. Baptism is a public affirmation of one's identification and union with the death and the burial and the resurrection of Christ. It's merely a picture of the cleansing of sins. In fact, the word baptize from the Greek "baptizo" means to immerse or to dip. And when used figuratively in the New Testament, it refers to the close identity, identity with or, or the solidarity between two people. We read about this, for example, in First Corinthians 10, verse two, Paul said, that "all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea, and all ate the same spiritual food," and so forth. And this, of course, underscored the unique solidarity and the identification of the Israelites with the one God and the one man that God had placed in authority over them. Likewise, but infinitely more glorious and profound, at the moment of conversion, all believers are immersed into Christ Jesus.  Romans six, three, we are immersed by Christ. He is the one that does the immersingwith His Holy Spirit. He literally immerses every believer with the spirit into unity with all other believers. And this is entirely a work of God. Through the Spirit baptism, we are forever united with Christ, First Corinthians 6:17, Second Corinthians 5:17, Galatians 3:27. And I'll not continue, on and on, okay. But at the moment of regeneration, we are forever placed into or immersed into his body, the church, First Corinthians 12:13, "For by one Spirit, we were all baptized," or immersed, "into one body, whether Jews or Greeks, whether slaves are free, and were all made to drink of one Spirit." Now, there's much that could be said about this. But let me just give you one text that is often butchered by those that believe that somehow there's something mystical that occurs when somebody goes into the water, and that's what saves them. Peter speaks of the spiritual reality in First Peter 3:21. He says, "Corresponding to that," and there he is referring to God's preservation of Noah and his family, in the midst of his judgment, "Corresponding to that," salvation you might say, "baptism now saves you." Then he says, "not the removal of dirt from the flesh, but an appeal to God for a good conscience--through the resurrection of Jesus Christ." In other words, it is not the external action or ritual of water baptism, that saves, as he says, "the removal of dirt from the flesh." But the internal reality of as he puts it, "an appeal to God for a good conscience," which is only made possible through faith in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, as Peter makes clear. The only baptism dear friends, that saves people is dry, it has nothing to do with water, the spiritual immersion and identification into the death and the resurrection of Christ, that great work of God upon those who appeal to him, to place them into, shall we say, the spiritual ark of salvation. You read about this in Romans 10, nine and 10, for example. And by this great work of grace, we enjoy newness of life that culminates one day in the resurrection to eternal life. Let me read the passage in Romans six beginning of verse three. Paul instructs the Romans he says, "Or do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus had been baptized into his death? Therefore we have been buried with Him through baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we too, might walk in the newness of life." So again, spirit baptism occurs at the moment of salvation, when a believer is born again and placed into the sphere of the Spirit's, sanctifying power and indwelling presence. And this occurs only once, it's never to be sought again, as some kind of secondary post-conversion experience that supposedly elevates a person into an elite status of Christianity that is validated by the speaking of tongues that you hear from people, which has nothing to do with the types of tongues that we see in the book of Acts. It's just glossolalia, is just ecstatic gibberish. Again, First Corinthians 12:13, "For by one Spirit, we were all baptized into one body, whether Jews or Greeks, whether slaves or free, and we were all made to drink of one Spirit."

Now, back to Mark's description of John the Baptist. I chased the baptism of the Spirit rabbit just a little bit there, hopefully, that'll give you some clarity. Let's return here. The Jews now we're very familiar with baptism, but their baptism was for proselytes to become Jews. But for John, then, to come along and say that the children of Abraham needed to repent and be baptized, Oh, my, I mean, that was horribly offensive. I might add that it's no different today with unbelievers. When you call people to repentance and say, you know, unless you trust in Christ as your Savior, you're going to pay for your sins for eternity. People don't want to hear that. Paul addressed this, by the way, with respect to the Jews in particular, in Colossians, two began beginning in verse 11. There we read, "In Him you were also circumcised with a circumcision made without hands in the removal of the body of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ; having been buried with Him and baptism, in which you were also raised up with Him through faith in the working of God, who raised Him from the dead. When you were dead in your transgressions and the uncircumcision of your flesh, He made you alive together with Him having forgiven us all our transgressions, having canceled out the certificate of debt consisting of decrees against us, which was hostile to us, and He has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross." There it is, what a magnificent gospel truth.

So again, verse four, John the Baptist appears in the wilderness, and he's "preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins." And here dear friends, the key word is "repentance". And this is the stuff of genuine conversion. This is what validates genuine saving faith, the manifestation of a changed life. A Christian is not someone who just merely has made some profession of faith or has been baptized or done some other religious ritual or whatever. But a true Christian is one whose life manifests the fruits of genuine repentance. Without repentance, beloved, there is no salvation. No salvation, no matter what you believe about God or Christ or sin. Unless you repent, you will never be saved. And repent essentially means to change your mind and your purpose, and to turn from moving in one direction in your life to going in a different direction in your life. That's what repentance is all about. Repentance is not reformation, just a resolution to do better, to turn over a new leaf. No, that's not repentance. And by the way that will never last more than about a week if that. Moreover, repentance is not contrition. Just merely feeling sorry for your sin and all the misery that it's caused in your life. But true repentance, beloved, is a God-induced hatred, a turning from sin, and a Spirit empowered forsaking of sin, resulting in a turning to God. And that's all a work of the Spirit in the life of someone that has truly been born again. We've all witnessed sin's powerhaven't we? We've seen how it's brought misery into our life, miseries of others. And so often, the sin in other people's life kind of splatters on me and my family. And now we're having to deal with your sin and you're having to deal with mine and we're having to deal with a whole, it's just a mess, you know. Sometimes I see the world as this giant septic tank, and we're all just kind of splashing around in it. And we need, we need a big time cleansing. The process of sin can be heartbreaking. Especially in the case of our family members, you watch people making choices that directly oppose the will of God. And it brings upon them every kind of misery and sorrow over a period of time. You see lives that have either been decimated by their own sin or by the sins of others. Like ancient Israel's spiritual harlotry, described in Hosea eight, in helpless horror we watch people sow the wind, only to reap the whirlwind. Yet in the drunken stupor of their sin, they experience no guilt, they have no desire for remedy. They're just completely caught up in it. And beloved, were it not for the grace of God, there we would all be. There's a way that seems right to a man, but the end is death. There is pleasure in sin for how long? For just a season. By the way, there's displeasure in godliness, but only for a season. When we walk by the Spirit we will not carry out the desires of the flesh because the desire of the flesh is against the Spirit, right? And so when we move in a godly direction, our flesh says, no, no, no, no, you need to go this way. And so there's this battle going on. And at first, it's difficult, "God, I'm going to obey you." But my is this tough, but the more we obey, and the more we live consistently with his will, and the more he blesses us, the more we walk by the Spirit, the more we see how the desires of the flesh are just kind of canceled out. Beloved, I can tell you that some of the desires that I had, when I was a young man, I no longer have, they're just not an issue. Doesn't mean that I am perfect by any means, you know, you get a whole new set of temptations, right? But you just watch the Spirit of God do this work and that's all the work of repentance. Repentance is a foreign concept in our postmodern culture, even among many evangelicals, because when you think about it, repentance assumes the existence of a moral standard that has been violated. It assumes that there is a a righteous and a holy God that has been offended. Neither of these things are considered to be valid presuppositions in our modern age, that denies any moral truth, any absolute truth. They have rejected and replaced everything with prevailing attitudes of skepticism and relativism and subjectivism and so forth.

Whenever I think of repentance, especially in the context of the church, my mind goes to Matthew's gospel and chapter seven. I'll just touch on this lightly for a moment, verses 24 through 27. In particular, the Lord describes two men who each try to build a religious house. One is wise, one is foolish. Each house represents the two options of salvation that he described earlier in the chapter, in verses 13 through about verse 23. And there he made it clear that every man is invited to faith in Jesus Christ and when they are invited, they have two options, both promising heaven, one option is true, the other option is false. The true way will be hard to enter. The false way will be easy to enter. Few will even be able to find the narrow way much less choose to enter through it instead, they will choose the false way and the easy way. Essentially, he warns that every person must choose between the following; two gates, the narrow and the wide; two ways, the narrow and the broad; two destinations, life and destruction. And there's two groups of people that he mentions, the few and the many. And these people are likened to two kinds of trees. One good and one bad; and two kinds of people who profess Christ, the sincere and the insincere; two kinds of spiritual builders, the wise and the foolish; two kinds of religious foundations, a rock and sand, upon which two kinds of houses of faith are built, one will stand the storms of final judgment, the other will collapse in a heap of eternal ruin. And what is the key to entering into the gate that leads to life, the one that few will enter, that few will even find? What is the key to entering through that gate? In a word, repentance. As I have written elsewhere, "Repentance is far more than the voice of conscience bringing our sins to remembrance and causing us to feel ashamed. It is more than trembling with fear when contemplating the penalty of sin in eternal hell. It is more than a man attaching himself to some religious system and depending upon servile submission to that system to earn his way to heaven. It is more than tearfully confessing long list of sins and temporarily renouncing them only to return to them again, like a dog returns to its vomit. Instead, true repentance is a God induced hatred of sin, a turning from sin. A Spirit empowered forsaking of sin, resulting in a turning to God for mercy and grace."

You will recall that this was at the heart of the tax collector recorded in Luke 18. Remember, he was so overwhelmed by the reality of his sin and his unworthiness to be forgiven. The text says, in Luke 18, verse 13, he, "Was even unwilling to lift up his eyes to heaven, but was beating his breast saying, 'God be merciful to me, the sinner!'" You see friends, true repentance so grips a person's heart with the fear of God as to cause that person to hate his sin more than hell itself. And in his loathing, of his sin, he desperately embraces the truth of the gospel, the only hope of his salvation, only one Savior. And therefore, he decisively commits to turning from sin, denying himself, following Christ regardless of the cause. Beloved, this is the stuff of genuine repentance that leads to salvation. That's a fruit of salvation. And I would humbly ask you, does this describe you? This is what's at the heart of John the Baptist crying in the wilderness. He's calling the people to confess their sins, to be cleansed from their sins.

So he's appearing in the wilderness preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. I must comment on the wilderness. Those of you that are going to Israel with me, you will see it firsthand if you haven't already, it is a wilderness beyond anything that you can imagine. Mountainous, rocky, barren, hot, hostile, desert wilderness. It's interesting that between the second century BC and the second century AD, there was a group of ancient Jewish ascetics like hermits called the Qumran, or the Essene community that lived at Qumran, which is right there in that region. And they use this passage, and some of the others that we're looking at here, as their rationale to live in the wilderness of Judea and wait for the Messiah. And one of the passages of the Dead Sea scrolls that were found there and were written by these people. We read this quote, "They shall separate from the habitation of ungodly men and shall go into the wilderness to prepare the way of him. As it is written, prepare in the wilderness, the way of, make straight and the desert a path for our God." End quote. This was their thinking. I might also add that the great Jewish historian Josephus described an ascetic recluse by the name of Banus, with whom he lived for three years in this wilderness region and a period shortly after the gospel of Mark was written. RT France comments, quote, "Thus, it was specifically in the wilderness that the men of Qumran expected God to appear and vindicate their stand against the apostasy of the official priesthood in Jerusalem. It was the theologically correct location, for the wilderness was a place of hope, of new beginnings. It was in the wilderness that Yahweh had met with Israel and made them into his people when they came out of Egypt." End quote. Well, he says it was the theologically correct location, I would add, it was not the theologically correct application. Nevertheless, this was the wilderness where they were. This was the wilderness in which John the Baptist lived and preached his fiery sermons. And there was not a single politically correct, seeker sensitive woke corpuscle in John's body. He was fearless calling people to repentance, whether man or woman, Jew or Gentile. He never spared the truth from anyone even confronted the hypocritical and, and corrupt religious elite, calling them in Matthew three, seven, "You brood of vipers, who warned you to flee from the wrath to come?" I mean, here's a guy that was not ashamed of the gospel. And unlike the Qumran community who were withdrawn from the public, John welcomed them to come to them. I might add, as I think about it, Jesus did even more than that, he took the initiative, and he went out to them. We read in Luke 19, verse 10, "For the Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which was lost."

Now I want you to notice again, that what we read here in verse five, at the end, is that these people were confessing their sins. "Homologeo", a compound word in the original language. "Homo" means the same, "logeo" means to speak. And so what he's saying here is they were speaking the same thing about their sin, as God is speaking. In other words, there is an agreement with God about their sin. This is what real confession is all about. Therefore, when we come to Christ, begging for undeserved mercy, when we're broken and contrite of spirit, and we recognize that we're, we're depraved, and we are hopeless, we cannot save ourselves, we're utterly incapable of contributing anything to our salvation; when we come with that kind of an attitude, confessing those sins, that's when God saves us. It's for this reason that Jesus said in Matthew five, three, "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven." The term poor comes from a Greek word "ptochos" meaning, to grovel, to cower, to cringe, like a beggar. It denotes one who shrinks or crouches back into a corner in absolute destitution, like a penniless pauper. I've seen this before in third world countries. It's a pathetic thing. Tears your heart out. This is the person who recognizes that they have nothing, nothing to offer, utterly poverty stricken, one who simply cannot survive unless someone intervenes. And sowhen we read about these people confessing their sins, or when Jesus said, "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven," These are the people who come to Christ and say," Lord God, I realize that my sin is overwhelming and I only see a small portion of it. I realize that compared to your holiness, my life is nothing but filth. I confess that all I am and all that I do are fundamentally offensive to you. And I also acknowledge the fact that there is absolutely nothing that I can do about it. And so all I can do is come before you in brokenness begging you to do what I cannot do and that is to reach down and save me by your grace. And by the power of your Spirit help me to walk in a new direction and to worship you." Beloved, only the truly penitent will testify that many times in the midst of their anguish, they will become so convinced that they are beyond the reach of saving grace, that they feel as if giving up, but thankfully never is a man closer to grace, than when he is convinced he cannot attain it. That's the stuff of confession. That's the stuff of genuine repentance. Not this phony, oh well, I believe Jesus and I like these Christian people and I like the church and you know, I'll join a church, I think I'll serve with these people. I like singing their songs. Folks, that has nothing to do with genuine Christianity. Only when a person has no hope of saving himself or herself, can they be sure that God alone is the Savior? What a marvelous and inscrutable mystery this is; that the Holy Spirit brings us to the end of ourselves and he makes the unwilling, willing, and he makes the dead come to life. That is the great work of salvation. And we must confess that we have nothing to contribute. It is all of grace. Thus we share none of the glory right? Indeed this is what Paul said to Titus in Titus three, beginning of verse five. I love this passage, "He saved us, not on the basis of deeds, which we have done in righteousness, but according to His mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewing by the Holy Spirit, whom He poured out upon us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that we being justified by his grace, we might be made errors according to the hope of eternal life." Oh, dear Christian, would that we all be John the Baptist? And certainly, we got a wilderness that we're crying in, right?

And when it says "crying", that means there's some passion there. There's got to be some fire in the furnace. Not this mealy mouthed pusillanimous little stuff that we see today in so much Christianity. Oh, yeah, you know, Jesus saves, and you need to come to our church because we're just like the rest of the world, you're gonna feel real good here. No, what they need to hear is, Jesus saves sinners who are willing to confess their sins and repent of their sins and cry out for a mercy that they cannot achieve on their own, and for a righteousness foreign to theirs. And I would beg you to come to Christ, and experience the miracle of saving grace and the new birth. And of course, we want to do this, knowing that is that it is ultimately God that grants repentance. God is the one that grants repentance. In fact, Paul told Timothy to speak with gentleness in Second Timothy 2:25. Speak "with gentleness correcting those who are in opposition, if perhaps God may grant them, repentance, leading to the knowledge of the truth, and they may come to their senses, and escape from the snare of the devil, having been held captive by him to do his will." My how I'm thankful that God granted that to me, and he granted that to you. And may that, therefore, motivate all of us to cry out to others to come to saving faith in Christ. Father, thank you for the eternal truths of your word. May they bear much fruit in each of our lives and for those that do not know you as Savior, I pray that today, they will be so overwhelmed by the reality of their sin, and the horrors of hell that awaits those who choose to pay for their sins on their own. Rather than depending upon Christ, I pray that those great truths will move upon them in such a powerful way that they will indeed repent and be saved. We thank you for this marvelous gift of grace, and how we long to see you face to face. But until that day, strengthen and empower us to live lives that are pleasing to you.  And help us to be salt and light in this decaying and dark world, I pray for Jesus sake and in His name. Amen.