Pop’s Lessons– Part Thirteen

1/19/69

Mat. 11.2-3– ‘Are you the one who is to come, or should we look for another?’

John the Baptizer was a great character. Jesus said he was. He introduced Jesus to people. He prepared the way for the coming of Jesus. He did a marvelous work, but now he was in prison because he had dared take a stand for pure houses and righteous living. In prison he did some thinking and he wondered.  Always physically active, he was now in idleness and the physical acted on the spiritual. He could not understand the plan whereby he should be in prison when he wanted to be with Jesus and preach for him. Jesus was not doing as John foretold, burning and destroying with the refiner’s fire, but living gently. He just could not understand Jesus leaving him in prison and he wondered— ‘Is Jesus really the messiah?’ Personal feelings colored spiritual beliefs.  Strange providences clouded his faith a bit.

Are you in ‘prison’ not understanding the ‘why’ of affairs in Christ? Have you been a good Christian, faithful and true, and calamities have come?  Do you wonder why?  Then have a fellow feeling for John. But John was wise. He sent to Jesus for the answer. He might have sent to his enemies, but he sent directly to headquarters.  Do you do the same when doubts bother you?

Jesus answered, ‘see what I am doing and judge who I am.’ One of the greatest proofs of the deity of Christ are the works that he is doing through Christians today. The philanthropies of the church speak volumes for his deity. How much of his work is being accomplished because of you?