04 - John's Doubt and Discouragement

If you were to read several biographies of a person, you would find some information in one book that was not in another.

Most biographies focus only on certain aspects of a person’s life.

The biography I read of Abraham Lincoln last year focused largely on the development of his attitude towards slavery and his relationship with the Union army.

Others focus on his religious background, his speeches, or his family life.

If every biography said the same things in the same way, would you not think that they copied from each other?

Since the biographies are different, do you assume that they cannot be true because one mentions facts that the others do not?

Of course not!

Yet this is exactly what critics of the Bible try to do.

They say that since certain events in one gospel account are not mentioned or identical to the described events in the other gospel accounts, then that proves the Bible is a work of man and not God.

Yet if they were all identical you know that they would say that they just copied it (in fact, that is what they accuse Luke and Matthew of doing: copying Mark’s gospel and then adding stuff to it to fill it out).

When we study about John the Baptizer, as we have been doing the past few weeks, we need to realize that the most complete picture comes from taking all the mentions of him in the gospel accounts and putting them together.

This is also what we must do if we want to get the most complete picture of the life of Christ.

We saw the prophecies of John’s birth and work in Isaiah and Malachi.

We saw John’s prophesied miraculous birth as well as his naming in Luke.

We see John dealing with questions about whether or not he was the Christ in John.

We read about John’s instructions to those he was baptizing also in Luke.

We know the message John preached from Matthew and Mark.

Have you ever been unsure of yourself or someone you believed in?

Many times people have absolute faith in themselves, but later begin to doubt.

Look at Peter’s experience trying to walk on the water as an example.

This week we will look at John’s uncertainty

Even inspired men can have times of uncertainty.

John the Baptizer knew beyond any doubt that Jesus was the Son of God sent to be the Messiah.

He had been told ahead of time that the one upon whom the Holy Spirit descended was the one they had been waiting for (John 1:33).

He saw the Holy Spirit descend upon Jesus (John 1:32).

Because of this, He knew that Jesus was indeed the Son of God (John 1:34).

He openly proclaimed “behold the lamb of God which taketh away the sins of the world!” (John 1:29).

As we saw last week, John knew that he must decrease while Jesus increased, and he rejoiced that Christ was come.

However, when we look at Matthew 11 and Luke 7, we see that something had changed: doubt had crept in.

In Luke 7, we see that Jesus had raised the son of a widow in Nain from the dead (Luke 7:11-16).

Because of this event, people knew that God had visited His people and send a prophet (Luke 7:16).

This event was reported throughout Judea and the surrounding areas (Luke 7:17).

Some of John’s disciples heard the report and relayed it to John (Luke 7:18).

In response to this, John sent a couple disciples to Jesus to find out if He really was the one they had been waiting for, or if they should look for another (Luke 7:19-20).

You would think that John would have been sure about Jesus being the one they had been waiting for.

After all He had literally seen the Holy Spirit descend like a dove upon Jesus.

He heard the voice from heaven which declared “this is my beloved Son in whom I am well-pleased” (Mark 1:9-11).

Now he heard about Jesus raising people from the dead.

Don’t you think that would be enough proof for you?

What changed? What could have caused John to feel the need to send disciples to ask Jesus this question?

For “the rest of the story” we need to turn over to Matthew 11.

When the message was brought to John about Jesus raising the widow’s son from the dead, he was in prison (Matthew 11:2).

John had been put in prison by Herod Antipas at the request of Herodius, his brother’s ex-wife (Matthew 14:3).

John was cast into prison for teaching the truth.

John was out doing God’s work, trying to call people back to Him, and now he found himself locked up in prison.

It is also quite possible that John thought that things would move quicker one Jesus came.

Perhaps he thought that the kingdom would come during his lifetime.

Perhaps he was wondering why those things hadn’t come to fruition yet.

Things don’t always go the way we think they should, and sometimes that causes us to get depressed or unsure about our path in life.

Some people get a new job, expecting it to be wonderful…and it is for a little while.

Then things aren’t going the way they thought it would when they first came there.

Then they start to get easily discouraged.

This, possibly as much as being thrown into prison, would cause great discouragement in John.

Difficult times can sometimes cause us to doubt.

Job is a perfect example of this.

Twice, Jesus had to appear to Paul to reassure him (in Corinth – Acts 18:8-11, and in Jerusalem—Acts 23:11).

John was indeed going through a difficult time and began to doubt his entire mission.

He did the right thing, though: he looked to Jesus for the answer.

Jesus was the only one who had the answers for John’s doubt.

Jesus, in the sight of John’s two disciples, performed miracles and then told them to go back and report to John the things that they had seen (Luke 7:21-23).

He quoted from Isaiah 35:5-6 and basically said, “you know that I am the one because of the works that I am doing.”

In our times of doubt (suffering, questioning of our beliefs), the best thing is to go to Jesus by reading the Scriptures.

We can pray to God and ask for strength, but one of the main ways He gives us strength is through the Scriptures.

If you do make a habit of reading God’s inspired word, you do not have the strength and confidence that you could have.

All the words of the New Testament are the words of Christ, either spoken directly by Him or conveyed by Him through the Holy Spirit for the New Testament writers to record (John 16:12-15).

It is not a sin to get discouraged or to have doubt.

The sin comes when we give in to that doubt and discouragement.

Pray to God!

Study His word!

Talk to other Christians, because every one of us has had periods of doubt or discouragement.

Even Jesus seemed to be discouraged and in need of comfort when His disciples slept while He was praying in the garden.

God is there for you!

Are you a Christian?