Luke 3:4 Commentary - Dr Peter Masters | Metropolitan Tabernacle

Navigator

Luke 3:4

Comments

These are marvellous words, quoted there from Isaiah 40, graphic words, a wonderful illustration of the way in which God deals with men. The original reference of Isaiah’s words was a message of hope to the captives in Babylon. Let a road be prepared in the wilderness because God’s people are coming home. They will return to their own land, led as it were by the Lord. But the greater application is to the gospel age and to the ministry of John the Baptist preparing the way for Christ who comes into the hearts of his people. Now the purpose of this illustration is to show that conversion is a momentous event. There is no bigger operation that can possibly be conceived than conversion. There is no possible surgery that could be as radical as conversion. It is technically possible that the human race could develop the skill to transplant just about every part of the body, but conversion is something which no human being will ever be able to do. It is a momentous event, and that's why the Bible uses such graphic language to describe it. The Bible is never exaggerating, just using words to dramatic effect. What were the means that God used to make it possible? He had to do certain things. Even Almighty God had to prepare things, accomplish things, bring about certain things before he could begin to convert individual souls. What God did to make it possible for men to be converted is so hard that it was even hard for Almighty God. That stretches the mind. God is infinite; he is all powerful. He is, if you like, the ultimate, infinite, multi-millionaire in every respect: in resources, in power, in intellect, in every way. Now that seems extraordinary. If God can create the whole cosmos, complex as it is at a single word, then surely nothing is too hard for God. Nothing is impossible with God, yes, but that's not quite the same thing as saying nothing is hard for God. The salvation of man is the one thing described in the Bible which was hard even for God. Which caused the Lord, God so much pain, such a price had to be paid. It's impossible for anybody to be truly converted without preparation. Something has to be done. Does that mean somebody has to go to church for three to six months first? No, it's not what we do, it's what God does. No one can be converted unless there is a preparation on the part of Almighty God. He must do something himself, by sending his Son into the world to make salvation possible, and he must do something in us also to prepare our hearts for salvation.What is Christ doing coming out of heaven? What is he doing coming to earth? He’s paying on behalf of millions of people so that he can acquire them for himself and rebuild their lives and wash them clean and make them fit for heaven. Unless he came they could never be fit because it would take them all eternity in hell to pay the debt for themselves. He suffered and died in the place of all those who will be saved. He bore the terrible punishment of their sin in their place. See what God has to do has to prepare you for conversion. Negatively Christ had to pay the debt of your sin. But positively he had to offer in obedience an amount of purity and righteousness which would be applied to the credit of all those he would take to heaven with him. There are two problems. My sin keeps me from heaven, but if that can be got rid of, that is only half the problem. I still do not deserve to go to heaven. I have never earned it. I have to be given a righteousness which will make me fit for heaven. Christ came and obey the law for us. His righteousness is credited to us the moment we put our trust in him.

Application

Some people just won’t trust God. They have been so godless for so long: the idea of turning to God and asking for mercy, pleading for forgiveness and yielding the life. They couldn't do that because they have been so self-sufficient and so carnal and so all out for this world for so long. They find it very hard to trust that there is a God and that God will deal with them. That would stop you ever being converted if God were not prepared even to help you through that.

Looking back to the hebrew of Isaiah, it's very interesting the way it is introduced. A voice: that is all. It comes over in a slightly more polished manner by the time it is quoted by John the Baptist. The prophet says the voice of one crying in the wilderness, a voice in a wilderness where people are not listening. The idea is that by and large people know nothing about the living God. By nature we are far from him. We do not understand how we may come to know him, what the position is between us and God, how God describes us and looks at us. It was a wilderness when John the Baptist came. Although the people were trained in the Old Testament about a holy God and human sin and the need of sacrifice and reconciliation with God, most people took very little attention. The land was a wilderness; there were not very many people with real faith in the Lord. So it is the voice of one, crying out in an appealing, urgent tone. That is a good description of the days in which we live? When we explain the gospel these days, the way of salvation, how to come to God or mighty God, we speak by and large to a nation that has lost all knowledge of these things. Any preacher in any town is a voice crying in a dry, barren place.

Questions

Outline

Purpose

Introduction

Luke 3:4 Commentary and Bible Study