Such a messenger appeared in the person of John the Baptist who after his long discipline in the wilderness came with a definite message from God and drew out great throngs to the Jordan Valley to attend his preaching and to accept his baptism as a sign and seal of their repentance. The nature of his ministry is declared to have been a fulfillment of the prediction of Isaiah who described “one crying in the wilderness,” one sent of God to prepare the way for the coming of Christ. This preparation is pictured in terms of Oriental imagery. When a monarch was about to make a journey, a servant was sent before him to prepare the highway. Valleys needed to be filled, hills lowered, crooked places made straight, rough ways made smooth. Thus, before men would be ready to receive Christ, moral obstacles must be removed; men must repent of their sins and turn from them. Luke closes his quotation from Isaiah with the line, “And all flesh shall see the salvation of God,” which is in accord with the universal character of his Gospel. The burden of the message preached by John was that which in all ages has awakened a response in the hearts of men: he preached sin and judgment, repentance and pardon. The tone of his message as recorded by Luke, however, was particularly severe; here he is said to have addressed the multitudes as the “offspring of vipers” and to have asked them why they were pretending to have heard a warning of wrath to come. The reason for such severity was that, while wishing to escape the impending judgment, the people were unwilling to forsake their sins. They regarded the baptism of John as a magical rite which could make impenitent men safe in the hour of judgment. John bade them show their repentance by their works and not to trust in their descent from Abraham as securing their salvation. He declared that judgment was upon them; the ax was already lying at the root of the trees and every fruitless tree was about to be “hewn down, and cast into the fire.”