Matthew 11:7-15

CHAPTER 22.

JOHN THE BAPTIST THE GREATEST PROPHET

Matthew 11:7-15, & Luke 7:24-30. “And the messengers of John having gone away, He began to speak to the multitudes concerning John, What went ye out into the wilderness to see? A reed shaken by the wind?” Well did the multitude remember the thrilling scenes two years ago, when they all left their employments and went away to hear the wonderful prophet of the wilderness; and the waving of the tall reeds growing in the rich alluvial soil on Jordan's bank, moved by the sighing zephyrs, hither and thither, were vivid in their memories. Those reeds are there now, fifteen feet high. My comrades, a few days ago, brought away some of them as souvenirs. “But what went ye out to see? A man clothed in soft raiments? Behold, those who are in gaudy and soft apparel are in king's houses.” No, they never went to see a royal dude or a leader of the hon tons. A great man of the world could never have attracted that multitude, away into the wilderness, to run a camp-meeting six solid months. He was the very opposite, dressed like a tramp, and living like a soldier who proposed to conquer or die. “But what went ye out to see? A prophet? yea, I say unto you, and more than a prophet. This is he of whom it has been written, Behold, I send My messenger before Thee, who will prepare Thy way before Thee. Malachi 3:1 For I say unto you, That among those who have been born of women, no prophet is greater than John; but he who is least in the kingdom of God is greater than he.” That John the Baptist was a transcendent intellectualist and climacterically spiritual, actually filled with the Holy Ghost from his infancy, the greatest of the prophets and peerless in his dispensation, no one can call in question; yet the smallest saint in the Pentecostal age is dispensationally greater than John, the prince of prophets, and even more than a prophet, as he was the precursor of our Lord. While the Bible is preeminently spiritual, yet it is the most intellectual Book in the world, exhibiting many specimens of the highest mental culture the ages have produced, among those who have given themselves world-wide notoriety as hornines unhts libri, “men of one book.” Our Savior frequently indulges in terse, enigmatical statements of truth, in order to sharpen our wits, develop our intellects, and superinduce profound and exhaustive research. If John the Baptist were living now, he would be the sensation of the world, as he was in his day; yet, dispensationally, he lived and died under the Law. Hence all the sons of gospel grace stand on a plane superior and more luminous, and richer in privileges and opportunities, than the brightest and the best enjoyed under the old covenant. “And all the people hearing, and the publicans justified God, having been baptized with the baptism of John; but the Pharisees and theologians rejected the counsel of God against themselves, not having been baptized by him.” While the rank and the of the Jewish nation, and especially the poor, were melted and convicted by the preaching of John, gladly receiving baptism at his hands, the Pharisees (i.e., the influential and official members of the Church) and the lawyers Greek, nomikoi, from nomos, “law;” i.e., the law of Moses who were the learned exponents of the Old Testament Scriptures, and not lawyers in the modern sense, but theologians (i.e., the learned preachers), took gross offense at the stern rebuke of John, calling them “generation of vipers,” and demanding of them satisfactory evidence of repentance, and consequently they were not baptized by him. (Matthew 3:7.)