Thursday, June 28, 2007
Luke 3:5 Every valley shall be filled in, every mountain and hill made low. The crooked roads shall become straight, the rough ways smooth.
A MESSAGE OF DEMOLITION
Sally is no more righteous in herself than either the Sadducees or Pharisees of our two previous devotions. In fact, she would be the first to tell you that. She loses her temper at times with her children. She's been known to gossip. She worries about money, and sometimes envies those who live in the fancy houses she passes on her way to work. She doesn't always read her Bible like she should. She's not the perfect wife.
But God has done to her heart what he wishes to do to every heart. He's demolished it. With the bulldozer of his holy Law He has destroyed any pretensions in Sally that she could possibly ever save herself. God's Word has shown her that by her very nature she is sinful and unclean.
Faithful preachers like John the Baptist speak a message of demolition. "Every valley shall be filled in, every mountain and hill made low. The crooked roads shall become straight, the rough ways smooth." The mountain of our stubborn pride needs to be leveled. Our crooked lives need to be exposed for what they really are. Our hearts need to be made ready by being struck with the awful truth that we have sinned and deserve nothing but God's everlasting wrath.
Made ready for what truth? Ready for that truth of all truths: that God loves the sinner, and truly desires the salvation of each and everyone of us.
As she wets her pillow at night with tears over her many sins and failures, Sally knows that Jesus still loves her. That her loving Lord has removed her sins as far as east is from west. That God does not remember her sins for Christ's sake. That the handwriting that was against her has been nailed to her Savior's cross. That God does not count her sins against her, but that, they were instead counted against Christ. On the judgment Day she will stand, clothed in Christ's righteousness, and cleansed His by blood.
Then cleansed be ev'ry Christian breast
And furnished for so great a Guest.
Yea, let us each our hearts prepare
For Christ to come and enter there.
(The Lutheran Hymnal, 63:2)
