Luke 3:4-6

Luke 3:4

Earnestness.

Of all men that ever lived, John the Baptist was one great concentrated earnestness. The earnestness of which I wish to speak consists in a "prepared way" and straight paths.

I. Before there can be earnestness, there must first be: (1) A fixed conviction that God loves you; that God desires to have you; that Christ is waiting to come into your heart; that He will soon be here; and that your eternal happiness depends upon whether you are ready to meet Him as a forgiven man, as a holy man, as a prepared man. (2) Next, upon these facts it is to have made up your mind thoroughly, once and for all, that you will be a Christian cost what it may. (3) It is to have made up your mind that nothing whatever shall stand in the way no object, however dear, no sin, however pleasant. (4) It is to have some great object in view, something steadily in hand, something you are living up to some good work which you will enterprise, something for love, something for God. (5) It is to be faithful and diligent in the use of means, as one who feels very weak, whose new warmth makes him feel very cold. (6) It is to do all as in a very short time. "My Saviour will soon be here, I must keep all the approaches clear."

II. Let me ask three things: (1) Are you, as yet, really in earnest about your soul? Are you earnest in proportion to the greatness of the subject? (2) Is the way of God prepared? Is it a highway? Could He come in and find everything open and ready to receive Him? (3) Are all your "paths," your little "ways" your paths, are they all straight, quite straight? With a God so earnest in all He is doing for you, with death so earnest all about you, with an enemy so very earnest in your breast, with so much to be done in that heart of yours before it is ready, with such a work for God to be done in the world before you die, with such issues at stake a Christ so near it is time to be earnest.

J. Vaughan, Sermons,1871, p. 137.

References: Luke 3:4. Spurgeon, Evening by Evening,p. 3.Luke 3:7. New Manual of Sunday School Addresses,p. 52.Luke 3:7. Preacher's Monthly,vol. i., p. 127. Luke 3:8; Luke 3:9. Ibid.,p. 46.