Messenger and King
“The Messenger of Preparation and the King from Heaven”
(Matthew 11:1-19, Preaching: Pastor Stephen Magee, July 22, 2007)
Matthew 11:1 When Jesus had finished instructing his twelve disciples, he went on from there to teach and preach in their cities. 2 Now when John heard in prison about the deeds of the Christ, he sent word by his disciples 3 and said to him, "Are you the one who is to come, or shall we look for another?" 4 And Jesus answered them, "Go and tell John what you hear and see: 5 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. 6 And blessed is the one who is not offended by me." 7 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? 8 What then did you go out to see? A man dressed in soft clothing? Behold, those who wear soft clothing are in kings' houses. 9 What then did you go out to see? A prophet? Yes, I tell you, and more than a prophet. 10 This is he of whom it is written, "' Behold, I send my messenger before your face, who will prepare your way before you.' 11 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. 12 From the days of John the Baptist until now the kingdom of heaven has suffered violence, and the violent take it by force. 13 For all the Prophets and the Law prophesied until John, 14 and if you are willing to accept it, he is Elijah who is to come. 15 He who has ears to hear, let him hear. 16 "But to what shall I compare this generation? It is like children sitting in the marketplaces and calling to their playmates, 17 "'We played the flute for you, and you did not dance; we sang a dirge, and you did not mourn.' 18 For John came neither eating nor drinking, and they say, 'He has a demon.' 19 The Son of Man came eating and drinking, and they say, 'Look at him! A glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners!' Yet wisdom is justified by her deeds."
Introduction
Our previous passage told us the story of the sending out of the twelve apostles on a brief mission during the life of Jesus. But before these messengers went out in Matthew 10, there was an earlier messenger who, though his story appears in the New Testament, he was in some sense the final prophet of the Old Testament. When the Apostles were being sent out to preach that the kingdom of heaven was at hand and to heal all kinds of maladies, this earlier messenger of repentance was confined in prison as one who was about to be killed. He was aware that he should decrease and that the Lord would increase, but his decrease came rather suddenly. He ended up in Herod’s prison hearing about the words and deeds of Jesus, and he was left with some questions.
Are You the One? (1-3)
This great prophet goes to Jesus through messengers. Matthew 11:2 tells us that there was something about the deeds or works of Christ that sparked his inquiry. The prior verse said that Jesus was preaching and teaching in their cities, but we know that the Lord was also doing powerful miracles. Something about this ministry of Christ seemed to cause John to send for answers. Through these messengers John brought this question to Jesus: “Are you the one who is to come, or shall we look for another?”
Something about the ministry of Jesus did not match John’s expectation – at least for the moment. What did John think that the Messiah would be doing? We saw earlier in this book that the Baptist referred to the Old Testament prophet Malachi in explaining the ministry of Jesus. In Matthew 3:11-12 John said, "I baptize you with water for repentance, but he who is coming after me is mightier than I, whose sandals I am not worthy to carry. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire. 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." This teaching comes from several Old Testament passages that refer to the judgment of God as a fire that can not be quenched, and other passages that refer to the wicked as chaff that will be blown away by the wind. One of these passages is Malachi 4:1. “For behold, the day is coming, burning like an oven, when all the arrogant and all evildoers will be stubble. The day that is coming shall set them ablaze, says the LORD of hosts, so that it will leave them neither root nor branch.” John knew that the Messiah would come in judgment.
Malachi also spoke of a messenger who would prepare the way of the Lord. He said at the opening of Malachi 3, “Behold, I send my messenger and he will prepare the way before me. And the Lord whom you seek will suddenly come to his temple; and the messenger of the covenant in whom you delight, behold, he is coming, says the LORD of hosts. 2 But who can endure the day of his coming, and who can stand when he appears? For he is like a refiner's fire … 5 Then I will draw near to you for judgment. I will be a swift witness against the sorcerers, against the adulterers, against those who swear falsely, against those who oppress the hired worker in his wages, the widow and the fatherless, against those who thrust aside the sojourner, and do not fear me, says the LORD of hosts.”
But at the end of that same chapter Malachi spoke of those who in the prophet’s day would find mercy from the Lord. “ 16 Then those who feared the LORD spoke with one another. The LORD paid attention and heard them, and a book of remembrance was written before him of those who feared the LORD and esteemed his name. 17 “They shall be mine,” says the LORD of hosts, “in the day when I make up my treasured possession, and I will spare them as a man spares his son who serves him. 18 Then once more you shall see the distinction between the righteous and the wicked, between one who serves God and one who does not serve him.” There would be a distinction made, Malachi 4 goes on to say. “For behold, the day is coming, burning like an oven, when all the arrogant and all evildoers will be stubble. The day that is coming shall set them ablaze, says the LORD of hosts, so that it will leave them neither root nor branch. 2 But for you who fear my name, the sun of righteousness shall rise with healing in its wings. You shall go out leaping like calves from the stall. 3 And you shall tread down the wicked, for they will be ashes under the soles of your feet, on the day when I act, says the LORD of hosts.”
John certainly knew the book of Malachi, and Malachi spoke about both the judgment of God and the mercy of God. John’s struggle in prison was not because he did not know about the mercy of God. It seems that the timing of that mercy, the method of it, the role of Jesus in mercy and judgment, these things he was searching to understand. It could be that in prison John began to realize that the fulfillment of the kingdom in these great actions of judgment would be at some later time. Therefore, as He strained to understand the plan of God, His question was whether this same Jesus who was doing these great deeds of mercy would also be the agent of God’s judgment.
What You Hear and See… (4-6)
Jesus answered John by referring to the words of another prophet. These miraculous life-changing deeds of the coming servant of the Lord had been prophesied long before in Isaiah 35:5-6. “ 5 Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf unstopped; 6 then shall the lame man leap like a deer, and the tongue of the mute sing for joy….” Also in Isaiah 61 we read, “The Spirit of the Lord GOD is upon me, because the LORD has anointed me to bring good news to the poor; he has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to those who are bound.”
Jesus does not explain everything to John the Baptist. He does not even really answer John’s question. The testimony of these Scripture-fulfilling miracles would have to be enough for John, despite the fact that it seemed so strange to think that the same Christ who made the lame walk would one day be a swift witness against sorcerers. The great words and works of the Lord would have to be enough of a message even for the forerunner who prepared His way. “And blessed is the one who is not offended by me,” says the Lord of both mercy and of coming wrath.
Concerning John and the Kingdom (7-15)
Jesus then speaks to the crowd about John. John was no fickle man, a reed swayed by the wind, first going this way and then going that way. He was no royal assistant to Herod wearing soft clothes and living in a palace. He was a prophet of God. In fact, again according to Jesus, he was someone who came in the Spirit of the great Old Testament prophet Elijah. This Malachi had predicted. “ 4:5 Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the great and awesome day of the LORD comes.”
John had plenty of enemies. Jesus was not one of them. The man who was given the job of physically pointing to Jesus as the One, this prophet was the greatest prophet of the old era. But notice the end of verse 11. We are now in a new era, and everyone in the kingdom of heaven is greater than this great man John. The most humble Christian who knows that Jesus came in mercy to die for us and to rise from the dead, the little child who knows that Jesus saved Him and that this same Jesus is coming again to judge the living and the dead, that little one is able to see something more clearly that the great prophet John the Baptist.
This Generation (16-19)… (Many were offended by Jesus Christ, but then they did not like John either.)
In the final verses of this passage, Jesus very clearly puts John the Baptist and Himself on the same team. The enemies of John, both among the Jewish religious leaders and the Roman military world, are not on that team. Particularly among the Jews, when John called them to repent it was a dirge that they did not want to cry along with. When the time came for Jesus to rejoice with his disciples in the wonder of the new kingdom, the same people who thought that John was too serious also decided that Jesus was too happy, and too friendly to the wrong kind of people. People who don’t want to repent can always find one reason or another to despise God’s messenger.
“Yet wisdom is justified by her deeds.” Here is the question any honest observer of history needs to answer. Which really is from God, the Pharisee-Sadducee crowd who hated both John and Jesus, or the forerunner and his Hero the crucified, resurrected, and ascended reigning Messiah of the Christian church? This is one way to evaluate a movement. What kind of deeds come from the supposed wisdom of the movement? I invite you to seriously consider the fruit of any philosophical or ethical movement and compare the deeds it has inspired with the fruit that has come from biblical Christian faith. We have twenty centuries of Christian deeds. How do you think we Christians have done? But whatever has been done, it will be nothing compared to what will happen one day.
John the Baptist was right. Messiah-King will judge. The axe was laid at the root of the tree for
Questions for meditation and/or discussion:
1. What was John’s concern with the deeds of Jesus?
2. Why were so many Jews against the messages and methods of both John the Baptist and Jesus?
3. What is your understanding of verse 12?
4. What “deeds” was Jesus referring to in verse 19?
posted by Pastor Magee at 6:30 PM
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