Isaiah 40:3 English Standard Version

3 A voice cries:
“In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord; make straight in the desert a highway for our God.”

Malachi 3:1 English Standard Version

3 “Behold, I send my messenger, and he will prepare the way before me. And the Lord whom you seek will suddenly come to his temple; and the messenger of the covenant in whom you delight, behold, he is coming, says the Lord of hosts.

Matthew 3:1-3 English Standard Version

John the Baptist Prepares the Way

1 In those days John the Baptist came preaching in the wilderness of Judea, 2 “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” 3 For this is he who was spoken of by the prophet Isaiah when he said, “The voice of one crying in the wilderness: ‘Prepare the way of the Lord; make his paths straight.’”

Isaiah and Malachi did not deliver John the Baptist’s message of repentance. It was John’s mission to deliver the message of repentance that would lead us straight to the promised Messiah.

Jesus was not to come until the message of repentance was delivered.

Jesus will not knock on the door to your heart until the message of repentance is delivered, believed and acted upon.

If we look back at my testimony of condition, note that my first prayer of not wanting to be angry all the time resulted in God revealing Himself to me. I did not repent of any act, I did not see myself as being wrong, I only saw myself as being out of control.

Some twenty years later I found myself in a position to repent of all that I had done and it was then and  only then that God, in His loving and wise way let it be known to me that His opinion of me at that moment was something akin to “OK, let’s get started.”

Please believe me when I say to you God did not speak to me with an auditable voice. There was something in me that knew what God wanted me to do.

So I went home that night and opened up a bible for the first time since I was that lost and lonely teenager.

I got started.