And then all mankind shall see the Savior sent from God!

Luke 3:1-6

In the fifteenth year of the reign of Emperor Tiberius Caesar, a message came from God to John (the son of Zacharias), as he was living out in the deserts. (Pilate was governor over Judea at that time; Herod, over Galilee; his brother Philip, over Iturea and Trachonitis; Lysanias, over Abilene; and Annas and Caiaphas were high priests.) Then John went from place to place on both sides of the Jordan River, preaching that people should be baptized to show that they had turned to God and away from their sins, in order to be forgiven. In the words of Isaiah the prophet, John was “a voice shouting from the barren wilderness, ‘Prepare a road for the Lord to travel on! Widen the pathway before him! Level the mountains! Fill up the valleys! Straighten the curves! Smooth out the ruts! And then all mankind shall see the Savior sent from God.’”

Food for thought!

John went from place to place on both sides of the Jordan River, preaching that people should be baptized to show that they had turned to God. Long ago, John preached to the people with only one intention: that people show that they had turned to God. Just like John, Isaiah many years before had also called on the people to do a number of things:

1. Prepare a road for the Lord to travel on!
2. Widen the pathway before him!
3. Level the mountains!
4. Fill up the valleys!
5. Straighten the curves!
6. Smooth out the ruts!

Prepare. Widen. Level. Fill. Straighten. Smooth. Six verbs. Six actions. Six things to do in order to see the Saviour sent from God. “And then all mankind shall see the Savior sent from God.” In other words, we are called on not only to straighten paths, but also fill valleys, bring down mountains, straighten what is crooked, and smooth that which is rough. What does all this mean?

It means that God is interested in us; God wants every person to be accessible; God wants us reachable. He wants to have a straight path to each one of us. He wants every valley in a person to be raised up. That means that He wants the mountains in our lives brought to level ground.

The mountains represent our pride, or even idols in our lives that take precedence over the Lord. They have to be brought down for us to have level paths. He wanted crooked roads to be made straight. There are households, businesses, and churches that have some crooked places in them that need to be straightened out.

It may be the financial places that need straightened. It may be the dysfunctional relationships where there is a spirit of dictatorship. It may be ungodly methods of leadership. God wants the twists and turns of the path to become straight. He also wants to make the rough places in our lives, our personalities, our reactions, and our relationships to become smooth. He wants the places where we rub others the wrong way or others rub us the wrong way to be smoothed out, so that we come to the place of being unoffendable.

Let's work on the six items and we shall get the seventh item, that is, “And then all mankind shall see the Savior sent from God.” We cannot get item number seven without working on the six items. Prepare a road for the Lord to travel on! Widen the pathway before him! Level the mountains! Fill up the valleys! Straighten the curves! Smooth out the ruts! And then all mankind shall see the Savior sent from God.