Leviticus 19:14 English Standard Version (ESV) You shall not curse the deaf or put a stumbling block before the blind, but you shall fear your God: I am the Lord.

If we believe that God is going to come to us then the stumbling block that is in our path is not one which trips us but rather blocks God’s access to us.

Ezekiel 7:19 English Standard Version (ESV) They cast their silver into the streets, and their gold is like an unclean thing. Their silver and gold are not able to deliver them in the day of the wrath of the Lord. They cannot satisfy their hunger or fill their stomachs with it. For it was the stumbling block of their iniquity.

Our iniquity is what blocks God from coming to us. This is what John the Baptist did to remove the stumbling block that was preventing God from coming to us.

Matthew 3:1-2 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.”

John preached repentance.

⁵ Then Jerusalem and all Judea and all the region about the Jordan were going out to him, ⁶ and they were baptized by him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins.

Repentance and confession happened and then Jesus came to them.

Repentance will only come to those who realize that they were wrong.

Luke 1:17 English Standard Version (ESV) “and he will go before him in the spirit and power of Elijah, to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the disobedient to the wisdom of the just, to make ready for the Lord a people prepared.”

1 Peter 3:15 English Standard Version (ESV) but in your hearts honor Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and respect,

Luke 1:67-79 English Standard Version

Zechariah’s Prophecy

⁶⁷ And his father Zechariah was filled with the Holy Spirit and prophesied, saying,

⁶⁸ “Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, for he has visited and redeemed his people ⁶⁹ and has raised up a horn of salvation for us in the house of his servant David, ⁷⁰ as he spoke by the mouth of his holy prophets from of old,  ⁷¹ that we should be saved from our enemies and from the hand of all who hate us; ⁷² to show the mercy promised to our fathers and to remember his holy covenant, ⁷³ the oath that he swore to our father Abraham, to grant us ⁷⁴ that we, being delivered from the hand of our enemies,
might serve him without fear, ⁷⁵ in holiness and righteousness before him all our days. ⁷⁶ And you, child, will be called the prophet of the Most High; for you will go before the Lord to prepare his ways, ⁷⁷ to give knowledge of salvation to his people in the forgiveness of their sins, ⁷⁸ because of the tender mercy of our God, whereby the sunrise shall visit us from on high ⁷⁹ to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace.”

The child being prophesied over is John the Baptist, Zechariah’s son. What John does in his life prepares the Lord’s way to redeem His people. John is the forerunner spirit spoken of by Isaiah.

Isaiah 40:3 English Standard Version (ESV) A voice cries:“In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord; make straight in the desert a highway for our God.”

What we often say to the lost is that they need to come to God but the message is to prepare a straight path for Christ to come to us.

We do not come to God, He comes to us.