<p>3:4 <i>As it is written in the book of the words of Isaiah the prophet: The voice of one crying, In the wilderness make ready the way of the Lord, make his paths straight</i>- Just as the preaching of the Gospel was to make straight paths for the Messiah to come, so we are to make <i>our</i> paths straight (Heb. 12:13)- as if somehow we are the Lord Jesus; His revelation to this world at the second coming will in a sense be our revelation. Hence the final visions of Revelation speak of the Lord's second coming in terms which are applicable to the community of those in Him e.g. a city of people coming down from Heaven to earth. John&rsquo;s preaching was in order to make s.w. &lsquo;to bring forth fruit&rsquo; His the Lord&rsquo;s paths straight- but the ways of the Lord are &ldquo;right&rdquo; s.w. &ldquo;straight&rdquo; anyway (Acts 13:10). So how could John&rsquo;s preaching make the Lord&rsquo;s ways straight / right, when they already are? God is so associated with His people that their straightness or crookedness reflects upon Him; for they are His witnesses in this world. His ways are their ways. This is the N.T. equivalent of the O.T. concept of keeping / walking in the way of the Lord (Gen. 18:19; 2 Kings 21:22). Perhaps this is the thought behind the exhortation of Heb. 12:13 to make straight paths for our own feet. We are to bring our ways into harmony with the Lord&rsquo;s ways; for He is to be us, His ways our ways. Thus Is. 40:3, which is being quoted in Lk. 3:4, speaks of &ldquo;Prepare ye the way <i>of the Lord</i>&rdquo;, whereas Is. 62:10 speaks of &ldquo;Prepare ye the way <i>of the people</i>&rdquo;. Yet tragically, the way / path of Israel was not the way / path of the Lord (Ez. 18:25).</p><p>There was an intensity and critical urgency about John and his message. John urged people to make their path &ldquo;straight&rdquo;- using a Greek word elsewhere translated &ldquo;immediately&rdquo;, &ldquo;forthwith&rdquo; (s.w. Mk. 1:12,28 and often). Getting things straight in our lives is a question of immediate response. He warns people to &ldquo;flee from the wrath to come&rdquo; (Lk. 3:7). This was what their changed lives and baptisms were to be about- a fleeing from the wrath to come. He speaks as if that &ldquo;wrath to come&rdquo; is just about to come, it&rsquo;s staring them in the face like a wall of forest fire, and they are to flee away from it. And yet Paul (in one of his many allusions to John&rsquo;s message, which perhaps he had heard himself &lsquo;live&rsquo;) speaks of &ldquo;the wrath to come&rdquo; as being the wrath of the final judgment (1 Thess. 1:10), or possibly that of AD70 (1 Thess. 2:16). But both those events would not have come upon the majority of John&rsquo;s audience. And the day of &lsquo;wrath to come&rsquo; is clearly ultimately to be at the Lord&rsquo;s return (Rev. 6:17; 11:18). Yet John zooms his hearers forward in time, to perceive that they face condemnation and judgment day right now, as they hear the call of the Gospel. This was a feature of John; he had the faith which sees things which are not as though they already are. Thus he looked at Jesus walking towards him and commented that here was the &ldquo;Lamb of God&rdquo;, a phrase the Jews would&rsquo;ve understood as referring to the lamb which was about to be sacrificed on Passover (Jn. 1:29). John presumably was referencing the description of the crucified Jesus in Is. 53:7; for John, he foresaw it all, it was as if he saw Jesus as already being led out to die, even though that event was over three years distant. And so he could appeal to his audience to face judgment day as if they were standing there already. We need to have the same perspective.</p>