Scripture Reading: Matthew 11:1-19
John was a brave man and a firm believer in Jesus as the Messiah, but in his prison questions arose. “When John heard in the prison the works of the Christ, he sent two of his disciples.” There were some things which he could not make out himself, and he sent promptly to Jesus to ask Him about them. That is just what we should learn to do in all our perplexities. There often are times when all seems dark about us. We cannot understand the things that are happening to us. We are apt to get very much worried and disheartened. The true Christian way in all such experiences is to take the matters at once to Christ.
John’s faith in the Messiahship of Jesus wavered in his hard circumstances. “Art Thou He that should come?” Some people think that John could not really have been in doubt. It is impossible, they say, that such a brave, grand man should ever have wavered in his confidence. They forget that John lived in the mere dawn of Christianity, before the full day burst upon the world. He had not the thousandth part of the light that we have, yet do we never have our questions? The truth is there are very few of us who are not sometimes disheartened without a hundredth part of the cause John had. But that is usually the way. We are amazed at every person’s blindness or dullness but our own. Other people’s failures look very large to us, but we do not see our own at all. We wonder how Moses, once, under sorest provocation, lost his temper and spoke a few hasty and impatient words; while we can scarcely get through a single sunny day ourselves without a far worse outbreak, at a far smaller provocation. We wonder how the beloved disciples, with all his sweet humility, could once show an ambition for a place of honor, while we ourselves are forever miserably scrambling for preferment. We say, “Isn’t it strange that the people of Christ’s time would not believe on Him when they saw all His power and love?” Yet we do not believe on Him any more readily or any more fully than they did, though we have far greater evidence. We think it strange that the Baptist grew despondent when his trials were so great, though many of us are plunged into gloom by the merest trifles.
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