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DECEMBER 16, 2007
Now when John heard in prison about the deeds of the Christ, he sent word by his disciples and said to him, “Are you the one who is to come, or shall we look for another?” And Jesus answered them, “Go and tell John what you hear and see: the blind receive their sight and the lame walk, lepers are cleansed and the deaf hear, and the dead are raised up, and the poor have good news preached to them. And blessed is the one who is not offended by me."
As they went away, Jesus began to speak to the crowds concerning John: “What did you go out into the wilderness to see? A reed shaken by the wind? What then did you go out to see? A man dressed in soft clothing? Behold, those who wear soft clothing are in kings' houses. What then did you go out to see? A prophet? Yes, I tell you, and more than a prophet. This is he of whom it is written, ‘Behold, I send my messenger before your face, who will prepare your way before you.’ Truly, I say to you, among those born of women there has arisen no one greater than John the Baptist. Yet the one who is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he.”
Matthew 11:2–11
Last week we saw the imposing figure of John the Baptist at his fiercest. He came out of the desert wilderness dressed in camel’s hair and eating locusts and wild honey. His preaching was one of stern repentance. To those who came to him, his message was repent or perish. Jesus paid him the highest compliment when he said of John, “Among those born of women there has not arisen anyone greater than John the Baptist!” But then he added, “He who is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he.”1
Jesus means to say that John, due to his soon–to–come martyrdom, would never see the fulfillment of God’s Messianic prophecies. But New Testament Christians will live in the light of knowing that the Old Testament prophecies of Christ crucified, risen, and ascended have, indeed, come to pass. They will have a more complete revelation than John could ever thought of having.
And yet, as great as John was, there was a time when he was plagued with doubts. When he was in prison, John’s disciples kept giving him reports about Christ, testifying to his preaching and his miraculous healings. But John, strangely, did not rejoice in this. In fact, he sent two of his disciples to Jesus—to ask him this question: “Are you the Coming One or shall we look for another?”
What gives? How is it possible for him to ask such a shocking question, a question that was filled with doubt as to whether Christ was the Messiah or not?
I believe that John’s doubt arose because of a misunderstanding about Christ’s first and second comings. Old Testament prophecies foretelling the advent of the Messiah often weave his first and second comings tightly together. That is to say, when John read (shall we say) certain of the prophecies of Isaiah and Malachi, he saw both comings as though they were one, as though they occurred at the same time. The prophetic picture is without perspective as to time. Grace and judgment are seen together. The intervening time between the first coming of Jesus with his works of grace and mercy, and his second coming with the works of judgment is not always clear.2
I like to call this phenomenon “prophetic perspective.” Suppose, for example, that I am driving my car and in the distance I see a snow–capped mountain range. From my perspective it appears to be a single range. I do not know that there are really two ranges separated by a valley. It all looks as one. It is not until I drive past the first range and enter into the valley that I realize that there is a second. Messianic prophecy is something like this. As the Old Testament prophets looked to the future, the mountain range of grace and the mountain range of judgment appeared to them as one. So, from their vantage point, the first and second comings appeared as one. They often did not see the intervening valley of the New Testament age.3
This, it seems, was the cause of John’s perplexity. When, from his prison, he kept receiving reports of Christ’s work, he heard only the works of mercy like the cleansing lepers and making the blind to see.
John didn’t know. He didn’t know that these things were yet future, reserved for the Lord’s second coming. And so, due to the absence of works of judgment, John had doubts about whether Jesus was the Messiah or not. So he sends two of his disciples to Jesus to ask him if he was, in fact, the Expected One, the Messiah.
Like John, doubts can, and do, arise in the hearts of believers. In times of adversity, when we cry out, “Why me, God?” we may doubt whether God is truly on our side. When we see the prosperity of the wicked while we, ourselves, are barely able to get by, we sometimes doubt whether God is fair. When our prayers seem to drift off into thin air, we wonder if God hears us. But we must understand that the Lord knows what is best for us and, for that reason, his answers are sometimes no or wait — and oh how we hate the word wait!
Sometimes we feel like the man who was driving a truck on a narrow mountain road. As he rounded a curve he suddenly lost control of the vehicle. Just before the truck plunged over the edge, he managed to throw open the door and jump out. But he was far from safe, for he found himself clinging ever–so–tightly to a small bush on the side of the cliff. He was dangling precariously over the abyss. After trying to pull himself up for several minutes, he cried out in desperation, “Is anybody there?” In a few seconds, the thundering voice of the Lord echoed across the canyon, “Yes, I, the LORD, am here.” What do you want?” The man pleaded, “Please save me! I can’t hold on much longer!” After another agonizing pause, the voice said, “All right. I will save you. But first you must let go of the bush and trust me to catch you. Just release your grip. My hands will be under you.” The dangling man looked over his shoulder at the burning truck in the canyon below, and then he called out, “Is anybody else there?”4
Sometimes this is a picture of us and our doubts. We know that God is there and that he promises to help and save us. But we’re not so sure which we trust more, his promise or our grip on the bush. If we rely on our own strength to overcome our doubts, we will soon enough lose our grip and fall onto the rocks of death and unbelief below.
So when doubts arise, what should we do? The one thing we must never do is to let them fester lest they grow and give birth to outright unbelief. I remember a time when I was a baby Christian. Some Jehovah’s Witnesses came to my door and told me that Jesus was not God. They showed me a couple passages that seemed to support their contention.
Then they left. I was dumbfounded and doubts begin to arise in my heart. I began to see the consequences of holding to such a belief. “If Jesus is not God,” I thought to myself, “then his death wouldn’t have been big enough to atone for all my sins.” Now I was really afraid. And suddenly I wished I had paid more attention in confirmation class! What to do? I called my pastor. (I know of no pastor who would not want to be of help to you)! He pointed out that Jesus called himself the great “I AM,” the very name of God.5 He showed me where Jesus said, “I and the Father are one,” in John 10:30. He showed me from John 1:1 that the Scriptures said that the Son of God was God. He gave me more passages to look up. I did. And my doubts quickly disappeared. Yes, we extinguish doubt by going to the Word!
So, what did John do? Just as we go to the written Word, John went to the incarnate Word, Jesus Christ. He sent messengers to ask him if he was the Coming One. “Jesus,” they might have said, “John wants to know ... where are your deeds of judgment? Why don’t you call down fire from heaven and consume the evildoers as you once did to Sodom and Gomorrah? Why are the Romans, pagans that they are, still ruling over God’s people in God’s Promised Land?” Why, Jesus, why?
Jesus sent John's messengers back with a message of his own. He reminded John of all the things he had been doing, namely, bringing sight to the blind, making the lame to walk, cleansing lepers, unstopping the ears of the deaf, even raising a little girl from the dead.6
But Jesus did more than to give John a catalog of his miracles. He directed him to the Scriptures, in particular to a passage from Isaiah 35. There it speaks of the Messiah’s works. It says, “Then the eyes of the blind will be opened and the ears of the deaf will be unstopped. Then the lame will leap like a deer, and the tongue of the mute will shout for joy.”7 So then, Jesus was doing the works of the Messiah. So Jesus was saying to his forerunner, “Everything is going according to plan. Yes, I am the King of kings coming to judge the world in righteousness. But not so fast, for first I must be the “Lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world.”8
So then, when doubts arise in our hearts, we go to Christ and the Word, for doubt is starved by feeding our faith with the Word.
Do you remember the time when Jesus walked on the water and Peter sank in it? We have our sinking moments too, don’t we? In those moments of doubt, are we left to be swallowed up by fear, to have the wind and waves of life engulf us, to experience the horror of spiritual and eternal darkness? I tell you no. Affix your eyes on Peter. He is sinking. And what does he do? He cries out to Jesus, saying “Lord, save me!”11 And Jesus accepts him just as he is, as he stretches out his hand to catch him.
In our moments of doubt, Jesus accepts us just as we are too. To Peter, on that harrowing night, Jesus said to him, “O you of little faith, why did you doubt?”12 Please notice that Jesus does not accuse him of having no faith, but of having only little faith. And we remember that little faith does not mean little salvation any more than big faith means big salvation. Any faith, so long as it trusts in Christ alone, is saving faith!
What a wonderful Savior we have, for he says to us, “My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me; and I give them eternal life, and they will never perish. And no one will snatch them out of my hand!”13 So go to Jesus. In him you have eternal security.
May God grant us the grace to seek him and his Word in moments of doubt and peril, for in him we are safe. And forever so. Amen.
Soli Deo Gloria!
Endnotes
1 See Matthew 11:11.
2 An Example of this is Isaiah 11:1–9. Verses 1–3a seem to refer to his first coming, whereas verse 4b seems to refer to his second coming. Verses 5–9 seem to refer to the “new heavens and the new earth” which shall come into being after the earth is destroyed by fire. See 2 Peter 3:10–14. In Joel 2:28–32, there is a prophecy about Pentecost (Acts 2) and the final coming of Christ on Judgment Day.
3 Though this is true, it must be stated that there are many prophecies that clearly see the intervening New Testament age. Isaiah 53(the suffering Servant) and Joel 2 (the day of Pentecost) are two examples.
4 Adapted from James Dobson, When God Doesn’t Make Sense, (Wheaton, Il: Tyndale House Publishers, 1993) p. 25.
5 See John 8:58.
6 Jesus raised up the daughter of Jairus. See Matthew 9:18-26, Mark 5:22-43, and Luke 8:41-56.
7 See Isaiah 35:5-6.
8 See John 1:29.
9 Romans 8:31-32.
10 Romans 8:35, 37-39.
11 Matthew 14:30.
12 Matthew 14:31.
13 John 10:27-28.
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