Preparing a People for the Lord

Luke 1, 17, and he shall go before
him in the spirit and power of Elias to turn the hearts of the
fathers to the children, and the disobedient to the wisdom
of the just, to make ready a people prepared for the Lord. Now John the Baptist, we know,
was the forerunner of Christ, our Redeemer. In the scripture
that I read a moment ago from John chapter 1, we see that he
was sent to bear witness of Christ. He was sent to announce the coming
of the Messiah. But he was not only sent according
to Luke, to announce the coming of the Lord, he was not only
sent as a witness to tell us that Christ was coming, but he
was sent according to this scripture here, this is what it says in
verse 17, to make ready a people prepared for the Lord. Prepare
ye the way of the Lord, make his paths straight. John the
Baptist was sent on a two-fold mission. He was sent to announce
Christ is the Messiah, Christ is coming. But he was sent also,
according to this scripture, to make ready a people prepared
for the Lord. Now when you read this the first
time, it may seem like a strange expression to you, preparing
a people for the Lord. It hardly looks like a grace
expression, does it? It hardly looks like a gospel
expression, and we're pwned to set it aside, for we believe
that no preparation is needed to come to Christ. We sing, Just
as I am without one please, but that thy blood was shed for me,
and that thy best may come to thee, O Lamb of God, I come.
Just as I am, and waiting not to rid my soul of one dark blot,
to thee whose blood can cleanse each spot, O Lamb of God, I come,
just as I am." We're prone to set this statement aside. And
we're prone to believe that no preparation is needed for coming
to Christ or for the coming of Christ into the heart. One old Puritan wrote, let not
conscience make you linger. nor of fitness fondly dream."
All the fitness, all the preparation that is needed, that is required,
is to feel your need of Him, and that's the key. Here is John,
sent to announce the coming of the Lord, sent to witness that
Christ is the Messiah, but to prepare a people for the Lord. to prepare a people for the Lord. Now get this, and here's the
key to the whole message. This is what I'm preaching tonight.
I'm preaching that the most difficult preparation of all is to get
men to come to Christ without preparation. The most difficult preparation
of all, and it's a work that has to be done. is to get people
to come to Christ without preparation, without works, without merit,
without righteousness, without one plea, only feeling a need,
to come with an empty hand, to come with an empty heart. Like
the rich young ruler, though, everyone wants to do something
to inherit eternal life. Haven't you found that problem?
The rich young ruler came and said, what good thing must I
do to inherit eternal life? All men want to earn eternal
life. They want to do something. They
want to merit eternal life. And this is the preparation. This is it. We are sent like
John in the power and in the spirit of Elijah to prepare a
people to receive Christ as a gift. And everybody's not prepared
to receive them that way. We are sent to prepare people
to receive the grace of God. For the grace of God can only
fill an empty vessel. And an empty center is hard to
find. There aren't many options. The hard and fallow ground has
to be broken up before the seed of the gospel can be sown. Any
farmer knows that. You don't just walk out and take
seed and start throwing it. If you do, I guarantee you won't
any of it come up. The birds of the air will take
away some of it. The sun will burn up some of
it. So the heart has to be prepared for the sowing of the seed of
the Word of God. The heart has to be prepared
for the coming of the Lord. The hard, fallow ground has got
to be broken up. The Lord, the Scripture says,
saith it, such as be of a broken heart. The Lord comes into a
broken heart. The Lord saith it, such as be
of a contrite spirit. And that is the work of preparation. That's what John was sent to
do. He said the hills are going to be brought down. The proud
are going to be brought down. The valleys are going to be filled
up. The lowly, who have no confidence and who have no hope, are going
to be lifted to the place of hope. The crooked is going to
be made straight. Hypocrisy is not going to do
business with Christ. And the rough places, and those
are the people with a hard spirit, the rough places are going to
be smoothed out. And then they're going to shout, here comes the
Lord. The mountains have been brought low, and the valleys
have been raised up, and the crooked places made straight,
and the rough places made smooth, and here comes the Lord. But
it's got to be done. The fig leaf garments of self-righteousness
have got to be roughly and rudely stripped off the sinner before
Christ's robe is going to be put on him. That's what we're talking about
here. He was sent in the spirit and power of Elijah to make ready
a people prepared for the Lord. The old sinner's got to be slain,
slain by the law. before he receives a new life.
Paul said, I died. I was alive once without the
law, but when the law came in the hands of the Holy Spirit,
Paul died. Paul was slain. Paul was brought
down. Our old religious concepts of
God, our old religious idols have got to be broken to pieces.
You're not going to take Jesus Christ and set him up on the
shelf with all your other idols. He's not going to come into your
life based upon the conception you now have of Him. Dr. Magruder said one time, the
reason the Lord Jesus Christ does not come into many of our
assemblies and congregations is we've introduced Him wrongly.
If He came in, nobody would recognize Him. And the true and living
God has got to be preached, and the false conception of God and
the old religious idols and the groves have got to be torn down. And that's preparing a people
for the Lord, so they'll recognize Him when He does come. Hands full of fleshly offerings
have got to be emptied. Hands full of fleshly sacrifice
have got to be emptied. before Christ will be embraced.
I can't embrace Christ with my hands full of the things of this
world and the traditions and customs of religion. How am I
going to embrace Christ when I'm already embracing these things?
I've got to lay them down before I can embrace Him. You see what
I'm saying? In my hands no price I bring, simply the cross of
Christ I cling. Man's thoughts, which are not
God's thoughts, have to be destroyed. Man's wisdom, which is foolishness,
it's not God's wisdom, got to be forgotten. Man's ways, which
are not God's ways, but end in destruction, have got to be deserted. I've got to leave the old path
to walk in the new path. God's not going to take the old
garments and patch them up. He's not going to take the new
bottles and put in old wine, or the old bottles and put in
new wine. Man's reasoning, which seems right, It's got to be forgotten. All of these things have to be
destroyed. There's a preparation work to
be done. And that's the missing note in
present-day preaching. Except you repent and become
as a little child. You know too much. You think
you do. Except you repent and become
as a little child. you shall in no case enter the
kingdom of God." That's what the Lord said. Our problem today
is this, there can be no faith without repentance. There can
be no clothing in the righteousness of Christ till we're stripped. The missing note today, this
is not being done, the work is not being done. We're trying
to build a hope in Christ on a fleshly foundation. We're trying
to bring in a sovereign Christ, a redeeming Christ, a saving
Christ, and put him in an old institution, and an old organization,
and old ceremonialism, and old legalism, and old ritualism,
and he won't come in! This leads to false conversion.
Take me as I am. But the problem is, we don't
realize what we am. Now here's the problem. Take
me as I am means take me with my prejudices, and take me with
my bigotry, and take me with my tradition, and take me with
my pride, and take me with my corruption, and take me... No,
sir, he won't either. No, he will not. And the scripture
said, John came in the power and the spirit of Elijah to prepare
a people. for the Lord. And when he came,
some of them received him and some didn't. That's what we read
in John a while ago. It says he was in the world and
the world didn't know him. He came unto his own things,
the Jewish nation, the Jewish ceremonies, the Jewish temple,
the Jewish synagogue, and they received him not. But as many
as received him, you know who they were? They were a people
not born of the blood or the tradition or the natural generation
or the will of the flesh, but they were a people prepared for
the Lord, prepared by the Spirit of God. That seed came in and
it fell upon ground that had been plowed and broken up and
disked and furrowed and rolled and everything else. The Holy
Spirit had broken it and crumbled it and smashed it, and when the
Word was sown it brought forth fruit to the glory of God. Christ
came with a robe of righteousness, and there was the sinner who
was stripped in poverty and nakedness, and he covered him. And Christ
came there to the broken high, to the man who confessed he knew
nothing and had nothing and was nothing, and he came in to dwell. He came there to the sinner that
had been slain by the law and lay at the feet of a crucified
Christ and said, Lord, if you will, you can make me whole.
Christ said, I will be thy hope. That's preparing a people. Turn
to Matthew 3. And you don't tell me that that's
not so. That's the missing note in present
day preaching. Repentance. Now, the average
person who thinks repentance is just coming down to a mourner's
bench and crying for about 45 minutes. But that's not repentance.
Repentance is to change your mind about yourself. and change
your mind about God, and change your thoughts about sin, and
change your thoughts about the Savior, and change your attitude,
and return unto the Lord as a broken sinner, as a humble sinner, as
a slain sinner, as a stripped sinner, as a needy sinner, as
a repentant sinner. That's repentance. Now here's
John, here's what he did, Matthew 3. It said, verse 5, Then went
out to him, Jerusalem, and all Judea, and all the region round
about Jordan, and were baptized of him in Jordan, confessing
their sins." A sinner is a sacred thing. The word sacred there
is rare. A sinner is a rare thing. The
Holy Ghost that made him so. The first thing, if we're going
to prepare people for the Lord, We prepare those people for the
Lord when they're made to realize under the preaching of our gospel
that they're sinners. There's no shortcut. I don't
know what it'll take to convince you you're a sinner. I don't
know. I don't know what it'll take
to convince you that you are a fallen creature, that you're
a child of wrath. I don't know what it'll take
to convince you that God Almighty, if he gave you what you deserve,
would send you to hell right alongside every reprobate that
ever lived. You may never, you may never,
you may never be convinced of it. I don't know. Some of you
will, some of you won't. You may perish protesting your innocence. You may stand before God at the
judgment and plead what you've done in his name and hear him
say, depart from me. You may go to hell protesting
your righteousness, but I do know this, beyond a shadow of
a doubt, that Jesus Christ came to this earth to save sinners. He said, The Son of Man has come
to seek and to save the lost. Have you ever been lost? He said,
I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance. Paul
said in 1 Timothy 1.15, this is a faithful saying and worthy
of acceptation by all that Jesus Christ came into the world to
save sinners, sinners, of whom I am chief. And our Lord looked
at those professing religious Pharisees of his day and he said,
the publicans and the harlots enter heaven before you. Turn to Romans 5, verse 6 through
10. Listen to this scripture. I don't
know, I don't know how, I don't know whether you will, I don't
know what it will take to convince you, you dear ladies in this
congregation, that you are a sinner. Or you dear young people, or
you dear men, I don't know, maybe God never will reveal to you
your sins. It took him a long time to reveal
it to Paul. He was 40 years old before he
ever knew he was a sinner. But when he found it out, he
began to talk like this, I'm less than the least of all the
saints. I'm the chief of sinners. Oh, wretched man that I am. He
didn't find him protesting his innocence any longer. And you
look at Romans 5 verse 6, When we were yet without strength,
in due time Christ died for the ungodly. Christ died for whom? He died for the ungodly. For scarcity for a righteous
man will one die, yet for adventure for good men some would even
dare to die. But God commended his love for
us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. What are we? Enemies of God.
What are we, ungodly? What are we, aliens? What are
we, strangers, foreigners? That's what we are. The law of
God tells us that. It says the law of God speaks
to everyone and pronounces everyone guilty. Guilty. The word of God pronounces us
guilty, says all have sinned and come short of God's glory.
Turn one page back to Romans 3, verse 10. As it's written,
There's none righteous, no not one. Is that me? Is that you? There's none that understandeth,
there's none that seeketh after God. They're all gone out of
the way, they're all together become unprofitable. There's
none that doeth good, no not one. The saints of the Old Testament
mourned over their sins David cried, my sins are ever before
me. I was in a meeting not too long
ago and I attended some morning services and the pastor had people
give their testimony. I've never been so sick in all
my life listening to those people give their testimony. There wasn't
a sinner in the lot. Not a one. There wasn't a Job
in the lot who could cry. I abhor myself." There wasn't
a David in the whole bunch that cried, my sins are ever before
me. There wasn't a Daniel in the whole crowd who said, my
comeliness melted into corruption. I couldn't hear not one person
who owned his guilt. They were all so special. The apostles mourned over their
sins. Peter said, Lord, depart from
me, I'm a sinful man. All the way through this Bible
you will find that our Lord's words of forgiveness were for
sinners. Mary Magdalene, Zacchaeus, the
publican, the thief. Do you think these are just strange,
unusual happenings? He never saved one Pharisee,
not one Sadducee. And yet he says, thieves and
prostitutes and publicans and all manner of sinners. Doesn't
that reveal something to you? Our Lord's strongest words of
condemnation were for the religious. He said, you may claim the outside
of the cup, you appear beautiful to men, but on the inside you're
full of corruption. Oh, the painfulness of law work,
but it can't be sidestepped. or the painfulness of coming
to know what you are in the sight of God. I'm not talking about
what you are in the sight of people. You're a commendable
people compared to other folk. You're not as bad as you could
be, that's for sure. But you're not holy as God either.
And that's what God requires, is perfection. And we prepare
people for the Lord, first of all, when they have revealed
to them their sins, and they come confessing their sins. Secondly, look at verse 7. Here's John the Baptist preparing
a people for the Lord. And the first work of preparation
was to reveal sin. Sin. Just stop right there. If you haven't got there yet,
just don't go anywhere else. There's no use. You're wasting
your time. You'll never be saved till you're
lost. God only saves lost people. You'll never be found till you're
lost. All right, secondly, in verse 7, But when he saw, when
John saw, many of the Pharisees, the preachers, the religious
people, the Sadducees, come to his baptism, he said to them,
O you generation of vipers, who hath warned you to flee from
the wrath to come." John called these moral, religious leaders,
professors of religion, teachers of the word, pastors of the tabernacle,
he called them a generation of snakes. Now this was disrespectful,
wasn't it? I'm sure this was shocking to
many of his And I'm sure many left the service critical of
John's uncharitable attitude and his harsh words. But John
was preparing a people for the Lord. John wasn't trying to win
friends and influence people. And in preparing a people for
the Lord, he was being honest with them. And he wanted them
to know that being a preacher wouldn't save their souls. He
wanted them to know that being a deacon or a Sunday school teacher,
or praying long prayers on the street corner, or pairing their
tithes, or giving alms, or studying doctrine would not save them.
That's what he wanted them to know. He wanted them to know
that there must be a new birth. There must be an inward work
of the Holy Spirit. There must be a crippling work
of the Spirit, a convicting work in bringing that sinner to the
feet of Christ. And he said, you who sit on the
uppermost seats of the synagogue, you generation of vipers. Turn to Philippians 3, Paul was
a religious man. Paul was one of the leading religious
men of his day. He said he exceeded many of his
equals. He said in Philippians 3, verse
5, I was circumcised the eighth day of the stock of Israel. tribe
of Benjamin. I was a Hebrew of Hebrews. I
was a Baptist among Baptists. I was a Catholic among Catholics.
I was a professor among professors. It's touching the law of Pharisee
concerning zeal I went out of my way to persecute the church,
and if you want to talk about the righteousness which is contained
in the law, I, Paul said, was blameless. Never shot anybody
or stole a watermelon or told a lie or bore false witness or
committed adultery or broke a Sabbath law. I was pure concerning the
law, that is, the outward law. But these things which were gained
to me, I counted loss for Christ. Yea, doubtless I not only count
them, but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus
my Lord, for whom I suffered the loss of all things, but I
do count them but dumb." Somebody got offended because
I called that barnyard manure the other day. That's what he's
talking about. That's what all it's worth. You take all of your
religious training, and all of your going to church, and your
infant sprinkling, and your confirmation, and your adult baptism, and all
your sacraments and communion, and your recitation of prayers,
and your giving of tithes, and bunch them all up together and
put them out there in a chicken house. That's all they're good
for, if you think they'll get you in the glory, if you think
they'll contribute to the salvation of your soul. He said, you generation
of vipers, you people who depend upon the outward form, listen
to verse 9. In preparing a people for the
Lord, we not only prepare them by destroying their so-called
religious works and the things in which they trust, but we turn
their eyes away from their denominational heritage. Now listen to him in
verse 9, Matthew 3. And don't you think around here
within yourselves to say, well, we've got Abraham to our father. Boy, he's touching on everything.
He's preparing a people for the Lord. John is preparing a people
to come to Christ. He's preparing a people for the
coming of Christ. He's preparing a people to receive
Christ. He's preparing a people who will
see their need of Christ, and the first thing he does is show
them their sin. And then he destroys their religious
offices and their religious works, and then he goes back and tears
up their religious heritage. And I'll tell you this, just
as soon as he started doing this, this unbranded preacher, These
proud Jews begin to say, we don't have to listen to this. What
are we doing here? Turn that radio off. Turn that
TV off. Why should we go there? We're
not Baptists. We're Jews. We're Catholic. We're Presbyterian. We're Methodist. We're somebody else. We got Abraham. And John said, don't you start
saying that. Don't you start saying who your
ancestors are. You know, I read the other day
a fella said, you people who boast of your ancestors, you're
like potato vines. Best parts underground. That's
about all it's worth, isn't it? You who are followers of John
Wesley, huh? Martin Luther, John Calvin, John
Bunyan. These men knew God, but they're
dead. They can't help you. You can boast about the faith
of John Calvin or John Wesley or Martin Luther, but you can't
live by their faith. They're dead. Except you repent,
you'll perish. If these men were living today,
they'd disassociate themselves from the groups that bear their
names. I'm convinced of it. John Wesley wouldn't have a thing
in the world. He was a Methodist of this day, and John Bunyan
wouldn't dare enter a Baptist church that that we have in this
generation. They didn't believe what the
folks are preaching today who call themselves by their names.
There's no virtue in having fateful ancestors, except as we know
their Lord. You will not find your denominational
sectarian name in this book. It's not that. It's just not
that. And that's what John was saying
to these people. He was destroying their confidence
in their ancestors. He was destroying their confidence
in their heritage. He said, don't you talk about
Abraham being your father. God's able of these stones to
raise up children of Abraham. And then you know what he did
next in preparing a people for the Lord? He showed them their
sin. He destroyed their confidence in church works and church positions
and places of power. And then he destroyed their denominational
sectarian pride. And then the next thing he did,
he began to talk about the necessity of being right with God in the
heart. Look at verse 10. Now he said
the axe is laid to the root of the trees, and every tree that
bringeth not forth good fruit is cut down and cast into the
fire." You know what he's saying here? He's saying the proof of
a tree's nature and the proof of a tree's life is not in the
leaves, not in the foliage, and not in the wood, it's in the
fruit. And if the fruit is not good,
If the fruit is not good, if that tree does not bear the fruit
of the Spirit, God's going to lay the axe to the root and cut
it down. Unless our religion, unless our
faith produces the real fruit of the Holy Spirit, it's false. And it's nothing but the leaves
of optimism and profession. Unless there's the fruit in our
lives of love and joy and peace and long-suffering and patience
and meekness and faith and temperance, it's a dead tree. And God said,
I'll put the axe to the root of it. The way we prepare men for Christ
is to define clearly. that eternal life is not a decision,
eternal life is not a profession, eternal life is not a mental
acceptance of creeds, eternal life is not to go to school and
study doctrine and become a professor of religion, eternal life is
not to get smart on the verses of the Bible, eternal life is
to know the living God. and Jesus Christ, whom he had
sent, and have that real life of Christ manifested in your
heart and in your life. It's to know him. People need to understand this.
That's what John did in preparing these people for the Lord. He
was sent to announce, Christ is coming! And then he was sent
to prepare people who would, when he came, recognize him.
Who would, when he came, receive him. Who would, when he came,
worship him? Who would, when he came, cry,
Lord Jesus, come into my life? Welcome. And then look at verse
11. We prepare a people for the Lord
when we shut men up to the work of the Holy Spirit. John said,
I baptize you with water. My baptism is a picture of what
you need to be cleansed, to be cleansed, to be washed. But, he said, He that cometh
after me is mightier than I, whose shoes I am not worthy to
bear. He shall baptize you with the
Holy Ghost, the Holy Spirit. I baptize you with water, he
said. I preach to you. I exhort you with the word of
God. I plead with you to repent and believe. I bring you the
means. I bring you the tools. of grace. I bring you the material of the
gospel. Only the Holy Spirit can bring
life. Only the Holy Spirit can make
it effectual. Only the Holy Spirit. I can tell
you you're a sinner, but only the Holy Spirit can make you
believe it, make you experience it. I can tell you Christ is
a sufficient Savior, but only the Holy Spirit can make you
experience it, and believe it, and receive him, and love him.
I can tell you about the joys of heaven, but only the Holy
Spirit can enable you to see them. I can tell you about the
life to come, but only the Holy Spirit can reveal it. Come, Holy
Spirit, heavenly dove, with all thy quickening power, kindle
a flame of sacred love in this cold heart of ours. See how we
grovel here below, fond of these trifling toys. Our souls neither
fly nor go to reach those heavenly joys. Come, Holy Spirit, heavenly
dove, with all thy quickening powers, kindle a flame of love
divine. He's the only one that can do
it in these cold hearts of ours. John said, I baptize you with
water, and that's all I can do. But he's coming who will baptize
you with the Holy Ghost. And that's effectual work. That's
life-giving work. That's the work that God must
do. That's the reason I say we can go through all the mechanics.
I can preach a sermon and do like these other preachers who
glory in appearance, get folks walking down the aisle and tell
them, now you're fixed up. But these are just the mechanics.
I can tell you what the law says, what it requires, but there's
not but one, and that's the mighty, irresistible, effectual, invincible,
Spirit of the Living God that can make you walk out of this
building feeling it in you. Oh, wretched man that I am. Could
it be that I should gain an interest in the Savior's blood? Died he
for me? I can tell you about Christ dying
on the cross, and you can listen to my words, but they're just
words, that's all they are. But when the Holy Spirit comes
and takes those words, he takes those words, and with a sharp
two-edged sword, he rams them clear down into the deepest recess
of your heart, and nobody will ever get it out. And you'll never
forget him. And I'll tell you, if God does
that for you, all the demons in hell can't take it away from
you. If God does that for you, you'll begin a spiritual growth
that will develop into a spiritual maturity. If God does that for
you, it'll be a work which He begins that He will finish in
the day of Christ. If God does that for you, in
the secrecy of your heart, in the quietness of your room, using
your mind and your heart, if God does that for you, if He
baptizes you with the Holy Ghost, I guarantee you, you'll be somebody
you've never been before. You'll see things you never saw
before, feel things you never felt before. But it's only something
God can do. And then John 1.29, and I close
with this. In preparing these people for
the Lord, John the Baptist, John the Baptist told them about their
sins. He interpreted the law. He said,
you've got two coats, you give one to your neighbor. All these
different things. He told them about the law and
they cried, mercy, mercy, we are not worthy. John the Baptist
took their religious institutions and destroyed them. Their denominational
sectarianism and threw it to the wind. He stripped them and
then he pointed them to the Lamb of God. John 1.29, the next day
John seeing Jesus coming unto him he said, Behold the Lamb
of God that taketh away the sin of the world. If we prepare a
people for the Lord, we prepare them by pointing them to Christ.
Not to this pool of water. To Christ. Not to the law. To Christ. Not to the front of
the church. To Christ. Not to the preacher. Not to Calvinism, or Arminianism,
or Legalism, or Ritualism, or any other ism. To Christ. The
true messenger, first of all, has to see Christ for himself.
John saw him, he said, I'm not worthy to stoop down and untie
his shoes. He saw him. The true messenger
declares Christ to be sent of God. He said he is the Lamb of
God, ordained of God, from the foundation of this world, manifested
in these last times. He's the Lamb of God. He's not
man's Lamb, he's God's Lamb. He declares Christ to be the
substitute. He's the Lamb of God. What was
a Lamb? A Lamb was sacrificed in the
stead of the people. A Lamb whose blood was shed for
the people. A Lamb died for the people. Christ
is God's Lamb. And then he declares Christ to
be the only remover of human guilt. The waters of baptism
will not put away sin, only the blood. What can wash away my
sin? Nothing but the blood of Jesus.
What can make me whole again? Nothing but the blood of Jesus.
John said, Behold, look! To the Lamb of God taketh away,
taketh away, beareth away, blotteth out, removeth the sins of this
world. He declares Christ to be the
object of faith. He says to all of them, Behold,
behold. That's preparing a people for
the Lord. And that's, it's not what preachers are saying. They're
saying Calvary, they're saying cross, they're saying blood,
they're saying Jesus. But they're not preparing the
people for Christ. And that has to be done. John
was sent to announce Christ, but he was sent to prepare, to
make ready a people prepared for the Lord. And that's what
I'm trying to do. It may take 20 years to prepare
somebody for the Lord, but I'll tell you, Christ is not coming
until the way is prepared. It's like the old kings of old.
They had forerunners, and the forerunners went before them
to make a way. And the king didn't come till
the way was made! And he's not going to build a
temple to his glory on the rubbish, the foundation we've got? He's
not going to come in with his beautiful, spotless, glorious
robe? and put it around your shoulders
that are already patched up with your old spider-infested, crummy,
dust-infested, ragged, filthy garments? No, sir. No, sir. He's not going to come
into your heart and sit out on the throne along with all these
other idols you got. That old house is going to be
emptied. Those hands are going to lay down, and they're going
to be open. Here I am, Lord. You save me,
I perish. That's a people prepared for
the Lord. Our Father in Heaven, thank you for your Word. We believe
our Holy Spirit has taught us something. We believe that. We believe this is the message
for this day. We believe it's the missing note. It's the neglected
word. We've tried to patch up the old
garment, fill up the old bottles, and it can't be done. We haven't
been stripped. We haven't been slain. We haven't
cast everything down. We haven't counted it but lost,
but done. We haven't forsaken. things of
this world we haven't repented. Until we do, we can't receive
Christ. We've got to lay down these things
at his feet. And when they're laid down, Christ
comes in to reign. Oh, may the way be prepared in
somebody's heart tonight, some young person, a mother or dad. May the way be prepared for the
coming King. Lift up your heads, O ye gates,
and the King of glory shall come in." Who is this King of glory?
The Lord of hosts. He is the King of glory. And
his presence will fill the temple. His glory will fill the house. Even so, come, Lord Jesus. In
thy name we pray. Amen.

Preparing a People for the Lord

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Preparing a People for the Lord

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