Malachi 4:1-6  "Surely the day is coming; it will burn like a furnace. All the arrogant and every evildoer will be stubble, and that day that is coming will set them on fire," says the LORD Almighty. "Not a root or a branch will be left to them.  But for you who revere my name, the sun of righteousness will rise with healing in its wings. And you will go out and leap like calves released from the stall.  Then you will trample down the wicked; they will be ashes under the soles of your feet on the day when I do these things," says the LORD Almighty.  "Remember the law of my servant Moses, the decrees and laws I gave him at Horeb for all Israel.  "See, I will send you the prophet Elijah before that great and dreadful day of the LORD comes.  He will turn the hearts of the fathers to their children, and the hearts of the children to their fathers; or else I will come and strike the land with a curse."

Those are the last words of the Old Testament.  Those words are words of promise; there is a day that is coming; a great and glorious day.  But those words are also words of judgment; there is a day coming; a frightening and terrible day.  Those words tell of a day when God brings judgment upon the wicked; they will be like dry grass that is burnt in a raging fire.  But those words also tell of a day when the sun will rise and there will be healing for the righteous. It will be a day of rejoicing like calves released from a stall.  Those words are a warning to remember the covenant of the Lord and follow all of its decrees.  But those words are also a prophecy that before that great and dreadful day there would come a prophet; Elijah, to turn the hearts of the people.  Those are the last words of The Old Testament.

500, or so, years pass between these last words of the Old Testament and their resolution. All of Israel was waiting for this Elijah to come.  All Israel was anxious for the sun of righteousness, the Messiah, to usher in this great and dreadful day.  There was a sense of anxiety which hung over the people of Israel.  When would Elijah come?  When would the Sun rise?  When would they be like those happy calves? When would The Day come? They had been waiting for 500 years.

And it was bad.  The pagan Romans ruled their holy land by oppression and brute force.  Cross them and be crossed.  The local rulers were just as brutal.  The Herods were want-to-be tyrants and the ruled with the same disregard for the people as their famous father, Herod the Great.  The Priesthood was a sham.  The High Priest bought his office from the Romans and was more concerned with pleasing his heathen boss, than his heavenly boss.  The nation was divided.  There were Sadducees who wanted power over the people.  There were Pharisees who wanted the praise of the people.  There were Essenes who wanted to get away from the people.  There were Zealots who want to enroll the people.  But no one stood for the people.  No one was concerned with the plight of the people.  No one, no one, that is, except a solitary man in the desert, who came preaching the word of God. 

In some ways, in some ways, it is kind-of-like today.  The world is in a mess.  There are all kinds of groups demanding this and demanding that.  There is certainly disagreement and lots of loud voices screaming, “My way or the highway.”  There are groups in the world advocating death to everyone who is not them.  There are very few standing for the people.  It has certainly been a long time since the Word of God came to a prophet.  I don’t want to over state the case. Our life is much better than life in Nazareth during the days of Jesus, but there are some similarities. You would not want to be a peasant in the days of Jesus. But, it feels like we need a day of the Lord; one of those days of revival; one of those days when the heart of the people is turned back to God. 
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Anyway, 500 years after the last words of the Old Testament, the word of God came to John, son of Zechariah, in the desert.

Luke 3:3-6  He went into all the country around the Jordan, preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.  As is written in the book of the words of Isaiah the prophet: "A voice of one calling in the desert, 'Prepare the way for the Lord, make straight paths for him.  Every valley shall be filled in, every mountain and hill made low. The crooked roads shall become straight, the rough ways smooth.  And all mankind will see God's salvation.'" 

Finally, the day was coming. Just as the prophet Isaiah had said.  Elijah was on the scene.  He was in the desert getting the people ready for that great and dreadful day. He was preparing the way for the Sun of Righteousness.  This road analogy Isaiah paints is amazing.  Suppose you lived here on the mesa in the days before the roads were built.  How hard would it have been to drive to Santa Fe without any roads?  How far would you get?  Just out of the parking lot you hit a canyon, and then a couple of hundred yards later a bigger canyon and then you have to get off the mesa down to the valley and then cross a river and numerous arroyos and more mountains before you get to Santa Fe.  It would take days, maybe weeks, to travel from here to there without any roads.  But then the road crews come in and make straight the highways, and fill in the canyons and build bridges over the rivers and arroyos and put in 4 lane highways and it takes 45 minutes, if you don’t speed, to leisurely drive to Santa Fe. 

That was John the Baptist’s job.  He made the crooked roads straight and filled in the valleys and made the bumpy roads smooth.  He made it possible for people to come to God’s salvation.  Now here is the question that is going to be the heart of what I am going to say this morning.  How did John prepare the way for the Lord?  How did John make it easy to come to God?  What did he do that prepared a way for the Sun of Righteousness?  What was his message that came before that great and terrible day of the Lord?

Let me ask the question another way.  What is it that needs to happen today for us to experience such a day?  What would John the Baptist say to us to make the highway to heaven easier?  What do you and I need to see this morning?   Remember our theme?  Lord, I want to see.  What do we need to see before the kingdom can break out in our hearts?  That is the question we need to answer this morning.
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Well, let’s keep reading in Luke 3.

Luke 3:7-14  John said to the crowds coming out to be baptized by him, "You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the coming wrath?  Produce fruit in keeping with repentance. And do not begin to say to yourselves, 'We have Abraham as our father.' For I tell you that out of these stones God can raise up children for Abraham.  The ax is already at the root of the trees, and every tree that does not produce good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire."  "What should we do then?" the crowd asked.  John answered, "The man with two tunics should share with him who has none, and the one who has food should do the same."  Tax collectors also came to be baptized. "Teacher," they asked, "what should we do?"  "Don't collect any more than you are required to," he told them.  Then some soldiers asked him, "And what should we do?" He replied, "Don't extort money and don't accuse people falsely-- be content with your pay."

Whoa! You brood of vipers; you bunch of snakes.  You need to repent.  You need to produce fruit that proves you have repented. Here is the answer to how John makes the way smooth; here is how John built bridges to God; here is it what makes it easy for us, on the day of the Lord.  The answer is repentance! Repentance precedes revival.  Notice his tough, politically incorrect language.  I don’t care if you are descendents of Abraham, God can do that with these rocks.  The ax is already chopping down the trees.  You don’t have a leg to stand on.  Repentance is your only hope. If you want to be like the calves jumping from their stalls then you need to repent now, before the Day of the Lord. 

Notice how John defines repentance: It is a tree producing good fruit.  We have a little peach tree in our backyard, just outside the fench.  Let’s suppose we cared about it. And we nurtured it and it grew it, and all the time we are thinking about peach cobbler.  One day we are going to have some fresh peach cobbler. Then after years of care, it doesn’t put out any peaches. You give it one more year and then, bam it is in the fire place.  Repentance is producing fruit.  It is doing something. Repentance is done.  Repentance is action. Repentance is demonstrated.   

How does John define repentance? It is very much an action.  It is not simply being sorry.  John never mentions being sorry.  It is all about being concerned with others.  It is about sharing what you have two of. It is about justice. It is about treating others fairly.  It is about concern for the disenfranchised.  In order for the people of John’s day to get ready for the Messiah they had to demonstrate repentance.  Repentance is a prerequisite to revival.  Repentance makes salvation possible.  Repentance makes transformation possible. Repentance gets us facing in the right direction and opens our hearts to receive His kingdom rule over our lives. Repentance is the heavenly highway which precedes the coming of the Day of the Lord.

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This concept stirred the people of John’s day.

Luke 3:15-17  The people were waiting expectantly and were all wondering in their hearts if John might possibly be the Christ.  John answered them all, "I baptize you with water. But one more powerful than I will come, the thongs of whose sandals I am not worthy to untie. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire.  His winnowing fork is in his hand to clear his threshing floor and to gather the wheat into his barn, but he will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire." 

John’s preaching of repentance led the way for Jesus.  It is repentance that opens the heart for the Spirit.  It is in the realization of your sinfulness and your demonstration in penance which really opens up the heart for the Spirit.  Wow.  There is a word we don’t use much; penance. Repentance put to action.  Isn’t this an amazing connection?  Repentance changes our direction.  Repentance paves the highway toward God.  Repentance which is demonstrated in penance, prepares us for transformation.  Baptism then becomes this amazing act of commitment which says to God, “I am yours!”  Then God gives the penitent/baptized believer his Spirit as a gift which empowers us to be a new creation; not a changed person, but a brand new one. 

That is how John led the way for the Christ.  That is how John paved the way for the kingdom.  John preached repentance!  Repentance precedes revival.  Then as Jesus came upon the scene the people were ready to be baptized with Holy Spirit.  Jesus came and died upon a cross and that changed everything. His resurrection demonstrated his claim and people began to flock into the kingdom; 3,000 the first day, 5,000 in a few days later, beyond counting shortly after and then Judea, Samaria, the Roman Empire and to the ends of the earth.  But all that began with… repentance. 
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Let’s not miss the other thing that John said the one, he was not worthy to tie his shoes, would do. Jesus comes to do two things.

Luke 3:16-17   John answered them all, "I baptize you with water. But one more powerful than I will come, the thongs of whose sandals I am not worthy to untie. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire.  His winnowing fork is in his hand to clear his threshing floor and to gather the wheat into his barn, but he will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire." 

Jesus came to baptize with the Spirit and to bring the fork.  You do not want the fork.  Those who do not repent, those who show no penance, those who are not baptized with the Spirit, will get the fork.  Here is a random thought; Satan is never described in the Bible as having a pitch fork. But guess who is? Jesus.  Jesus pitches every person into the air.  Those who are wheat, those who are baptized with the Spirit become his they are renewed and transformed. But the chaff, the part that is worthless, those who never repented, get blown away and get the fork.  They are forked into the fire.

So it is a pretty simple question, The Spirit or the Fork?

Dr. Michael Brown has said, “Heaven and earth have become fairy tales.  We talk the right talk, but our tearless prayers, our whole hearted pursuit of the things of this world, our obsession with worthless entertainment, our idolization of sports, our lack of burden for the lost, our dwelling at ease while the world perishes….all this testifies against us.”

But it all begins with repentance.  Repentance precedes revival.  Do you want the Spirit to make you into a new person?  Do you not want the fork? Then repent. Produce fruit which demonstrates your repentance.

Prayer:  Lord, I want to see where I need to repent.  Break my heart and move my hands.  Amen.