Luke 3:5 Commentary and Bible Study

John was preaching to men to repent and believe the gospel and come to know God. How is that described? In these simple words: valleys being lifted up, exalted, filled in; mountains being cast down; rough places being made smooth and plain, crooked ways being made straight. This verse may seem difficult. How does that describe conversion? Well the word of God here describes conversion in three different ways. If you don't understand conversion, the most vital thing in your life is that you should get a hold of what this is about. In a similar way there are three main aspects of passing an exam. The first is working towards it, the second is sitting the exam, and the third is getting the results: doing the work, being put to the test, getting the fruit or the reward. In conversion, it is like that. Nobody is saved without being prepared. That is what repentance is about. It is the preparation in the heart for the salvation of God. Yes, in a sense it is part of the salvation of God, but we put this simply. (The examination comparison is not really a good one, because we pass exams ourselves, but there isn't any one of us can do anything to procure our salvation.) The second great aspect then is, how is it procured? How is our salvation wrought? Who produces it? And then the third part is the conscious receiving of it. What does it mean to be prepared for salvation? Does it mean, as some people believe, that I begin to reform my life? I begin to work up some standard of righteousness, which will please God? No, nobody can be saved by attempting to reform their lives. It's impossible. The whole problem with us is that we are so corrupt and so fallen. We cannot mend our ways except in minor respects. If a person tries to deal with certain sins, almost as fast as he deals with them, others rush in. As much as he looks on the outside, the heart sins of pride and selfishness and covetousness are making a fool of him on the inside. No man can deal with his sinful heart. It's impossible. Then what does it mean to be prepared for salvation? The preparatory work in the heart means this, that certain values are going to be lifted up. The scene before us is a landscape. There are great hills and mountains, some in the foreground, some in the background. There between them is a great valley. It is so deep you cannot see the bottom of it from where you are standing. You know you couldn't cross it. When God prepares the heart, there is one important thing that must be done: the valley floor must be lifted up. God must produce something in the heart, and he does it by the preaching of the word. God has got to put into the void, into the valley, knowledge and understanding and hungering and thirsting after the things of God. We have no desire for God; we have no knowledge; we have no fear of what it is to die without him, no spiritual concern. You have no knowledge of how to be saved. The first thing that the Lord God must do is put a concern within you, start working in your heart so that you want to know and you ask questions. Then there are the mountains. What are they? They are the mountains of self-will and obstinacy and pride and haughtiness. We are thinking in terms of the landscape of a human soul. These mountains stand there, towering into the sky. I just want my own way. I want to rule my own life; I am full of selfish ambitions; I am proud of myself; I think my life is good enough. I think I can get to the end of life and succeed; I have no need of God. I am certainly not going to bow the knee to anyone. And as God prepares the life, he must take this pride, this satisfaction with our carnal little lives; he must take this puffed-up obstinate way of ours, and he must cast it down. Every valley must be lifted up, filled in, exalted, and every mountain of obstinacy and pride and self-will must be cast down. And there were many people here who have had this experience. There was a time when they thought nothing of the things of God. They had no feeling, no desire at all, and then suddenly something came into them that wasn't there before. The valley floor was being lifted up: feelings, desires, anxiety about their eternal state, a desire to find meaning and purpose in life, an understanding of their need. These things came in, and their proud self-satisfaction with life began to crack as the mountain was cast down. It doesn't always happen instantly. Sometimes it is as though God takes this mountain of our proud imagination and self-satisfaction, conceit and obstinacy, and he just takes away chunk by chunk from the base of the mountain, and then it tumbles down. When God works in a life, these things always happen. It's what we call coming under conviction of sin. And there are other things which are described here too. What are the crooked places? They represent our twisted notions, our twisted ideas, which block us from understanding the way of salvation. They represent our deformed, twisted characters whereby we love sin, and we won't give it up. Time and time again this happens. There is somebody who has come to realize that life is meaningless unless they come to conversion. Somebody realises this, desires and experience of God. I realise that if I don't find a Lord, it's not worth living. I'm living as a cabbage, and I am meant to live for God. I need to find him. I must have my sins forgiven. I must be born again. Well then, why doesn't the person go and fall on his knees and pray to God who always answers? Simply this. There is some twisted attachment to some really quite petty sin. No sin is petty in one sense, but I mean petty in comparison to what is to be gained in conversion. There is an addiction to some filthy pleasure, and this ambitious or covetous desire for something is going to ruin everything. That is how twisted we are. That is how we love sin rather than God. And these crooked twisted notions of ours must be straightened out. There may be somebody here and you just can't understand the way of salvation because your head is so full of crazy opinions. You remember somebody told you that God would never condemn anybody, that everybody was going to heaven. You've got these crooked notions which encourage you in ignoring your maker, ignoring your God. He straightens these things out. The rough places represent all kinds of lesser difficulties which will prevent us turning to God. There are people who you would never think they were cowards. They seem to have a straight back and already tongue. They seem to be unafraid of anything or anyone, and yet I've known many such people for whom, at the human level, there was one thing that held them up in seeking the Lord. It was sheer cowardice of what their friends might think: what kind of persecution and mockery they might come in for if they turn to the Lord. How is this salvation ever brought about anyway? Man is separated from God as if by this great landscape. Here is the sinner over here. Then there are these great mountains and valleys and rough places and crooked ways. The whole terrain is impossible. God is beyond. That is the picture. We must go to God, and we can look at the illustration in that way. But God comes to us; he first loves us. How can I ever be converted? Christ has done it for us. He has come down out of the courts of heaven, and he has gone to Calvary. What was he doing on the cross of Calvary? Was he just dying as an example to men? Was he dying a death that had never been planned? Was his life and his ministry just tragically interrupted? No, he was doing what had been prophesied throughout the whole of the Old Testament. First of all, he was bearing in his own body on the tree, the full punishment, all the degradation, all the sin of his people. He was bearing the punishment which we should have borne throughout all eternity. He was offering his own perfect, wonderful righteousness, so that it might be credited to us. If Christ did not come down out of heaven and suffered and died on the cross of Calvary, nobody could possibly ever be converted. You can tell when a person becomes a Christian. That stubborn, touchy, difficult, self-willed person has changed. The child of God wants to do things God's way. We want to understand the Bible. We want to know the will of God. We want to pray. We want to be ruled by God. What is life going to be like ahead? There will be many heartaches, many problems. This is a sinful world. ‘Many are the afflictions of the righteous, but the Lord delivers him out of them all.’ As I go down life's pathway through all its trials and difficulties as I pray to him for help and guidance and strength, he will lift up the valleys before me and cast down the obstacles and the problems and the mountains, and he will make the crooked ways straight and the rough ways smooth.