Matthew 11:10 For this is he, of whom it is written, Behold, I send my messenger before your face, which shall prepare your way before you. God does not seem, as a rule, to allow any great truth or blessing to burst upon the world without some sort of preparation. In this case two series of preparations:(1) Prophecy, educating religious souls among the Jews to look out for a Messiah; and(2) St. John Baptist, to point Him out when He had come. John's business was, first of all, to gain the ear of his countrymen, and then to say, "The kingdom of heaven is at hand," and afterwards to announce Jesus as " the Lamb of God which taketh away the sin of the world." Thus John was, in the kingdom of grace, like those gifted men in the world of thought, or in the world of practical life, who are always ahead of the mass of people around them; they have the inspiration not of supernatural grace, but of natural genius, which is itself a gift of God, though of a different order of value and power. They are like lofty mountains whose summit the sun has already lit up, while he has not yet poured his beams upon the plain beneath. They are alone on their watch-tower; and, if they say what they think, it is only to be smiled down as enthusiasts. Two requisites for work like that of John Baptist: I. COURAGE to tear the mask from evils and abuses, and this implies(1) a firm, definite conviction that certain things are absolutely true, worth working for, suffering for, and (if need be) dying for; and(2) Independence, i.e., detachment from those motives of subservience which, at critical times, stay the hand and silence the tongue of ordinary men. II. DISINTERESTEDNESS. A man may be brave, and yet he may be selfish; he may work and endure, yet only for himself. John Baptist had to resist this temptation. Some of his disciples would have liked him to become the founder of a new religious school. But he himself never yielded to the temptation to make selfish capital, in the way of influence or consideration, out of his popular power. He ever regarded it as his highest work and glory to bury his own miserable self beneath the surpassing greatness of his commission from Heaven. (Canon Liddon.) Parallel Verses KJV: For this is he, of whom it is written, Behold, I send my messenger before thy face, which shall prepare thy way before thee. |
    |