June, 1940
T H E K I N G ’ S B U S I N E S S Prisoner Are You? By ROBERT A. LAIDLAW Auckland, New^Zealand
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Whose
preached to them. And,” He a d d s , "blessed is he, whosoever shall not be offended in me.” The Lord knew John was offended with Him because He had not done the one thing John wanted. Choosing Between T em p ora ry H on o r and E ternal Reward Could Christ hdve delivered him? Of course He could, as-He did Peter three years later, making his fetters to fall off, and the iron doors to open of their own accord. If He could, why did He not do it? John did not know, but we do. John’s work was done. To have delivered him would have brought him out to a failing cause. John wanted the temporary honor of an earthly de liverance. Christ had chosen for His faithful forerunner the eternal glory of d martyr’s crown. How few of us are able to say with Paul, in Romans 8:18, “I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory Which shall be revealed in us.” John’s mistake is still common among God’s people. John was making his de liverance a test of Christ’s Messiahship, whereas Christ was making his nonde liverance a test of John’s faith and trust. May I ask, if God withholds the one thing you have trusted Him for, have you a reserve of faith to fall back upon, or are you bankrupt in faith? The three Hebrew youths in Babylon needed one thing, deliverance; and they had faith, saying, in reality, “ Our God is able to deliver us out of thine hand, 0 King, but IF NOT, w;e will still trust Him and refuse to worship thine im age.” What a great thing it is for God and for us when we have a reserve of faith to fall back on when some great de mand has been made on our supply! It is like a well-established business with reserves sufficient to meet the de mands of a great depression and still have ample funds in hand when better times return. D eterm in ing W h ose P rison er to Be Suffer a personal experience. I was in the hospital after an operation which had proved most successful, when some thing went wrong. I prayed through the night, “Lord I have the faith; Thou hast the power. Heal me.” But nothing happened, and as the days passed I be came a little out of sorts with God. 1 grew impatient with Him. Have you ever felt like that? In this strained re- [C ontinued on Page 212]
[.Manager of the Farmers’ Trading Company, the largest mail-order de partment business in N ew Zealand, M r, Laidlaw is also a soul-winner whom the Lord has greatly used. H e is the author of the booklet, “ The Rea son Why,” of which nearly eight mil lion copies, printed in various lan guages, have been circulated. — E ditor .] T WO babes were bom about the ner, and the other to follow on. John was to point forward to the Lamb of God, Paul to point back to that same blessed Person, as he declares in Gala tians 1:15. We shall seek to learn from the lives of these two men some lessons about doubting and trusting. S u ffe rin g Bravely First, let us sympathetically examine John’S position. John was a mighty man —Christ calls him “my messenger,” and says there is none greater “bom of women.” Faithfully, and with great courage, John has been calling the na tion to repentance, in preparation for the coming Qf the Messiah. He has been declaring that ■what the prophet said in Isaiah 61:1 would be true of Christ: “The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me; because the Lord hath anointed me to preach good tidings unto the meek; he hath sent me to bind up the broken-hearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound.” At last John gazes upon Him, and de clares, “Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world,” and many of his disciples leave him, but there is no jealousy in John’s heart as he says, “He must increase, but I must decrease.” Note specially it is not John’s sin that gets him into prison, but his fearlessness in denouncing Herod’s sin in taking his brother’s wife. When a saint goes through trial, do not ask, “Who did sin, this, man, or his par ents?” (John 9:2). Sin may not be in volved in any degree whatever. John is suffering for righteousness’ sake, not sin, and thus we easily can understand his perplexity. He has been declaring that Messiah would open the prison to the captive. Moreover, immediately af ter His baptism, Christ goes to Naza reth and, reading Isaiah 61:1, turns to the people in the synagogue and says: “This day is this Scripture fulfilled in your ears” (Lk. 4:21).
same time as Christ, John the Baptist and Saul of Tarsus—the one destined by God to be the forerun
“Now,” John in effect is saying to himself, “I declared He would open the prison to thCin that are bound. He Himself has declared it, and yet here I am in prison and He doesn’t deliver me.” Y earn ing f o r Just One Th ing Up to this point John is all right, but it is just here he goes all wrong. He goes on .to deduce that if he is not de livered, he is justified m doubting that Jesus is the Christ, and thus he sends two of his disciples to ask, “Art thou he . . ., or do we look for another ?” What! John, another? Didn’t you see the Spirit descend upon Him at Jor dan? Didn’t you hear from the opened heavens, “This is ,my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased” ? Didn’t you say, “Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world” ? And now you are looking for another? Reader, have you, like John, ever found yourself there ? God has done everything for you—sacrificed His Son —send down His Holy Spirit—blessed you With material blessings—but He has not done one thing, and that is the one thing that you want above all other things at the moment, and thus questions arise in your heart as to the reality of His interest and the truth of His Word. Christ said to John’s two disciples, “ Go and show John again” that “the blind receive their sight, and the lame walk, . . . the dead are raised up, qpd the poor have the gospel
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