OUR FATHER WHO SENT HIS ONLY SON TO SAVE US AND THERE IS NONE OTHER TO EXPECT

The Lord Jesus, having completed issueing His instructions and guidance to His followers on the side of the mountain, left from that area and began moving through the territory preaching the good news of the kingdom of God. 

As Jesus travelled, John the Baptist ( who was in prison ), heard of Jesus' activities. 

John was perplexed by the variance between what He thought the promised Messiah whom He had  heralded would usher in and what he was actually hearing while in prison.

John believed that the Messiah would come as a conquering king who would deliver Israel out of the hands of the Romans and bring the rulership of the God of Israel to the whole earth.

What was happening instead was that he himself was imprisoned and Israel was still under the control of the Romans with no sign of abatement.

John, as delicately as he could, sent two of his disciples to ask Jesus a question.

1 Now it came to pass, when Jesus finished commanding His twelve disciples, that He departed from there to teach and to preach in their cities.

2 And when John had heard in prison about the works of Christ, he sent two of his disciples     3 and said to Him, “Are You the Coming One, or do we look for another?”

4 Jesus answered and said to them, “Go and tell John the things which you hear and see: 5 The blind see and the lame walk; the lepers are cleansed and the deaf hear; the dead are raised up and the poor have the gospel preached to them. 6 And blessed is he who is not offended because of Me.”

The question John asked stemmed from the conflict that John felt over the fact that he had, with certainty, identified Jesus as the promised Messiah when Jesus arrived at the Jordan river to be baptized and yet John found himself languishing in prison and no great political earthquakes were occuring in the country since that day.

 “Are You the Coming One, or do we look for another?”

When Jesus was asked this question, He recognized the cause of John's internal conflict as a misunderstanding of the progression of events that were to transpire once the Coming One was identified.

Jesus told the messengers to watch the miracle services he was conducting and witness with their own eyes that He was indeed doing what was prophesied in the book of Isaiah chapter 35 verse 5 - 6 which foretold of coming time when these things would occur when the arrival of the reign of Zion would draw God's people and they would experience supernatural interventions. 

5 Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened, And the ears of the deaf shall be unstopped. 6 Then the lame shall leap like a deer, And the tongue of the dumb sing. For waters shall burst forth in the wilderness, And streams in the desert.

The Lord sent a message back to John to assure him that all his toil was not in vain and that the program was proceeding exactly as prophecied even though it was not playing out as expected.

The Lord added that there is a blessing that stems from not being offended by the unexpected manifestations of the Lord's agenda and from a willingness to dump our own tightly held orthodoxies in the face of new revelation from the scriptures.

Amen.

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