Read and Believe in Jesus.

“Are you the one who is to come, or shall we look for another?” Matthew 11:3.

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REVIEW – Jesus had sent off His twelve disciples/apostles to learn how to bring the gospel to the Jews in cities and towns. Jesus also empowered them with “signs and wonders” to prove the truth of their message.

He ALSO gave them many things to expect. Just as He Himself was sometimes rejected, or even after a healing, ignored, THEY would experience the same. And more. Eventually, they would follow their master into harsher persecution, arrest, trials, and even martyrdom. They were to be prepared and steady in their commitment. The END would make it all good.

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Matthew 11:1-3.

As His disciples went out, Jesus continued teaching and preaching in the towns of Galilee.

(Imagine this ministry spreading everywhere! People heard of healings, cleansings, and other miracles from all directions. The dead were even being raised. It was a miraculous time. Glory be! Surely the Messiah had come! The news spread far and wide.)

Deep in the dungeon of Herod Antipas’ fortress in Perea (across the Jordan), even John the Baptist heard. He wasn’t sure he was hearing it right. All this compassion and helping people… John hadn’t pictured Jesus that way!

(“I baptize you with water for repentance, but HE will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and FIRE.“ John had preached. “His winnowing fork is in His hand, and He will clear His threshing floor and gather His wheat into the barn, but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire!”) Matthew 3:11-12.

So John sent some of his faithful disciples (who brought him food and news in prison) to ask Jesus what was going on.

They said, “Are you the One who is to come, or shall we look for another?” How frustrating it must have been for John, confined, hearing second- and third-hand news without seeing for himself.

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Matthew 11:4-6.

Jesus did not say, “Sure, Cuz, it’s me. That fire-and-brimstone stuff comes later. Stay cool!”

No, Jesus showed and told the messengers from John JUST WHAT the Messiah was prophesied to do at His first coming. Jesus healed the blind, made the lame walk, cleansed lepers, made the deaf hear, raised the dead, and preached the “good news” to the poor.

And John recognized the passages in Isaiah as soon as his own disciples brought back the news.

Isaiah 29:18-19, “In that day the deaf shall hear the words of a book, and out of their gloom and darkness, the eyes of the blind shall see. The meek shall obtain fresh joy in the Lord, and the poor among mankind shall exalt the Holy One of Israel.”

Isaiah 35:4-6, “Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened and the ears of the deaf unstopped; then shall the lame man leap like a deer, and the tongue of the mute sing for joy.”

This describes the Messiah’s first coming. Each of those passages goes on to describe the second coming as well, when evil will be defeated, and the King will rule in justice and holiness.

John had missed that, but when he heard Jesus’ answer, he remembered and realized, YES!! Jesus WAS the Messiah of Israel, the one He’d prepared the way for.

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Matthew 11:7-17.

As John’s messengers left, Jesus turned to the crowd.

“What did you expect to see out in the wilderness?” Jesus asked. “A reed shaken by the wind? A man dressed in soft clothes? NO. But a prophet. MORE than a prophet. John was God’s messenger sent before Me to prepare the way before Me.”

“Truly, I say to you, among those born of women, there has arisen no one greater than John the Baptist.”

John was greater than the Old Testament prophets because he actually SAW with his eyes and personally participated in the fulfillment of what the others only prophesied.

“Yet… the one who is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he.”

All believers after the cross are greater still, because they participate in the full understanding and experience of Christ’s actual atoning work (which John only foresaw).

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Matthew 11:12-19.

This next part is a little confusing, but Jesus is probably confirming what He said earlier: entering the kingdom is difficult. “The violent take it by force.” He says, “Everyone forces his way into it.” Meaning the way is truly narrow and hard to travel.

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Then Jesus says a strange thing. “If you are willing to accept it, John IS Elijah who is to come.” WHOA!

Of course the people KNEW that the prophet of old HAD NOT DIED. Elijah was taken up alive in a chariot of fire. But hadn’t John the Baptist, himself, denied that he was Elijah? What did Jesus mean?

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Yes, John ‘had come’ “in the spirit and power of Elijah” (Luke 1:17), but if they had believed, John would have been ‘the fulfillment of the Elijah prophecies’….

Interested? Check out Mark 9:11-13 and Revelation 11:3-6, in light of your knowledge of the Old Testament.

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Then Jesus compares Himself with John and says people like neither example!

John came neither eating nor drinking, and they said: “He has a demon.”

On the other hand, Jesus came eating and drinking, and they called Him “A glutton and drunkard, and friend of tax collectors and sinners.”

Sheesh!

Thank goodness, Jesus came to please only His Father and do His will… not what fickle people thought He should be and do! Where would we be then??

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