John the Baptist

135:7.1John still had con­fused ideas about the com­ing king­dom and its king. The longer he preached the more con­fused he be­came, but never did this in­tel­lec­tual un­cer­tainty con­cern­ing the na­ture of the com­ing king­dom in the least lessen his con­vic­tion of the cer­tainty of the king­dom’s im­me­di­ate ap­pear­ance. In mind John might be con­fused, but in spirit never. He was in no doubt about the com­ing king­dom, but he was far from cer­tain as to whether or not Je­sus was to be the ruler of that king­dom. As long as John held to the idea of the restora­tion of the throne of David, the teach­ings of his par­ents that Je­sus, born in the City of David, was to be the long-ex­pected de­liv­erer, seemed con­sis­tent; but at those times when he leaned more to­ward the doc­trine of a spir­i­tual king­dom and the end of the tem­po­ral age on earth, he was sorely in doubt as to the part Je­sus would play in such events. Some­times he ques­tioned ev­ery­thing, but not for long. He re­ally wished he might talk it all over with his cousin, but that was con­trary to their ex­pressed agree­ment.

135:7.2As John jour­neyed north, he thought much about Je­sus. He paused at more than a dozen places as he trav­eled up the Jor­dan. It was at Adam that he first made ref­er­ence to “an­other one who is to come af­ter me” in an­swer to the di­rect ques­tion which his dis­ci­ples asked him, “Are you the Mes­siah?” And he went on to say: “There will come af­ter me one who is greater than I, whose san­dal straps I am not wor­thy to stoop down and un­loose. I bap­tize you with wa­ter, but he will bap­tize you with the Holy Spirit. And his shovel is in his hand thor­oughly to cleanse his thresh­ing floor; he will gather the wheat into his gar­ner, but the chaff will he burn up with the judg­ment fire.”

135:7.3In re­sponse to the ques­tions of his dis­ci­ples John con­tin­ued to ex­pand his teach­ings, from day to day adding more that was help­ful and com­fort­ing com­pared with his early and cryp­tic mes­sage: “Re­pent and be bap­tized.” By this time throngs were ar­riv­ing from Gal­i­lee and the De­capo­lis. Scores of earnest be­liev­ers lin­gered with their adored teacher day af­ter day.