59 Why Even John the Baptist Doubted (Matthew 11:1-6)

Krisan Marotta: Thank you for downloading Wednesday in the Word. I'm Krisan Marotta, and this is my podcast about what the Bible means and how we know. This is the 59th talk in my series on the Gospel of Matthew. We'll be studying Matthew chapter 11, verses 1 through 6. You can find lecture notes for today's talk on the link below the podcast, or by going directly to wednesdayintheword.com slash Matthew 5.9. Thanks so much for joining me today. In chapter 10, we found Jesus sending his disciples out to minister on his behalf. The instructions he gave largely focused on the reaction that the 12 were going to receive from the children of Israel. We're moving on from that teaching today. Jesus called the 12 together and gave them the authority to go out and represent him, to proclaim the gospel, cast out demons, and heal every disease and affliction. He makes it clear that they're going to face great opposition. Many people reject Jesus, and so they will reject his disciples too. Jesus is not acting like the Messiah that they were expecting. He says he has come for the very purpose of confronting people with a choice. As he said, he didn't come to bring peace but a sword. He's a kind of touchstone. He's the person you must deal with in deciding what you think about God and life ever after. And right now, the Jews in particular are going to reject him, and they will reject his disciples as well. As we move on into chapter 11 and the next events Matthew covers, we're going to see that Matthew shifts the focus to how people respond to Jesus, particularly how the Jews respond to him. What he said to his disciples was fundamentally a sobering warning about the kind of response they could expect when they represent Jesus. And now Matthew is going to give us a series of stories which highlight the growing opposition to Jesus. These stories explain the various reactions people have as they try to sort out who Jesus is when he fails to meet their expectations. And the first one we're going to look at is John the Baptist himself. Surprisingly, John is confused by Jesus. John looks at what Jesus is doing and says, Are you the guy? I thought you were the guy, but you don't fit my messianic expectations. So let's get started. Matthew 11, 1. When Jesus had finished instructing his twelve disciples, he went out from there to teach and preach in their cities. So we just had this body of teaching that Jesus gave his disciples when he sent them out to the cities of Israel. Matthew doesn't tell us anything about how that mission went. Mark and Luke give us a little bit of information on how they responded. This is Mark 6, verses 12 and 13. So they went out and proclaimed that people should repent, and they cast out many demons and anointed with oil many who were sick and healed them. And then Luke tells us only in 9 6, and they departed and went through the villages, preaching the gospel and healing everyone. So Mark and Luke tell us they went out and they did exactly what Jesus asked them to do. Matthew doesn't tell us anything. He goes right on with the story. And that suggests to me that Matthew is more interested in the instructions Jesus gave than on the events of the journey itself. It seems like it's more important to him that we hear the instructions than that we hear how the journey went. Now he moves right on. This is chapter eleven, verses two through six. Now when John heard in prison about the deeds of the Christ, he sent word by his disciples and said to him, Are you the one who is to come or shall we look for another? And Jesus answered them, Go and tell John what you hear and see. The blind receive their sight, and the lame walk. Lepers are cleansed and the deaf hear, and the dead are raised up, and the poor have the good news preached to them, and blessed is the one who is not offended by me. At first reading, this story seems very strange. Why is John the Baptist of all people questioning whether or not Jesus is the Messiah? This is the prophet, the guy who announced that Jesus is the one. Jesus and John the Baptist were cousins. John was only a few months older than Jesus. They had known each other their whole lives, and John has seen and heard all that Jesus is doing. Now we know that earlier John was quite convinced that Jesus was the Messiah. John's gospel gives us this event, which took place after Jesus had been baptized. John the Baptist has just been explaining to the priests and the Levites that he is not the Christ. Rather, he claims to be the voice crying in the wilderness, and he says that he is not fit to untie the strap of the Messiah's sandals. And then we read this. This is the Gospel of John chapter one, twenty nine through thirty-four. The next day he, that's John the Baptist, he saw Jesus coming to him and said, Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. This is he on behalf of whom I said, After me comes a man who has a higher rank than I, for he existed before me. I did not recognize him, but so that he might be manifested to Israel, I came baptizing in water. John testified, saying, I have seen the Spirit descending as a dove out of heaven, and he remained upon him. I did not recognize him, but he who sent me to baptize in water said to me, He upon whom you see the Spirit descending and remaining upon him, this is the one who baptizes in the Holy Spirit. I myself have seen and have testified that this is the Son of God. So here we learned that God told John the Baptist, This is how you'll recognize the Messiah. When you, John, baptize this person, the Spirit will descend and remain upon him. And John says, God told me this sign will happen when I baptize the Messiah, and this sign happened when I baptized Jesus. I myself have seen this. So John the Baptist was given specific testimony as to how he would know for sure who the Messiah is, and he saw it happen. When John says in 131, I did not recognize him, I think he's saying, I didn't know for sure. I thought Jesus was the one. I had an educated guess that Jesus was the Messiah, but God told me this is how you'll know for sure, and then it happened. Before he baptizes Jesus, we don't see John telling others who the Messiah is. But notice how this account starts. This is after the baptism, and John says, Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. After the baptism, when John has seen the sign God told him would happen, John is very happy to announce, look, Jesus is the one. Now this is years later, John is in prison and he's wondering if he's right about who Jesus is. He's sitting in prison and he sends messengers to Jesus to ask Jesus if he's the one. Now, I don't know about you, but this doesn't seem to be the sort of response that I would have predicted from John the Baptist. Matthew doesn't tell us why John is in prison, but we can learn why from Mark six. John got on Herod's bad side and Herod arrested him. Eventually Herod executed him, and after the execution people are wondering who Jesus is, and they say that maybe Jesus is John the Baptist raised from the dead, and then Mark explains why John was arrested and kept in prison and eventually executed. This is Mark chapter six verses seventeen through twenty nine. For it was Herod who had sent and seized John and bound him in prison for the sake of Herodias, his brother Philip's wife, because he had married her. For John had been saying to Herod, It is not lawful for you to have your brother's wife. And Herodias had a grudge against him and wanted to put him to death, but she could not, for Herod feared John, knowing that he was a righteous and holy man and he kept him safe. When he heard him he was greatly perplexed, and yet he heard him gladly. But an opportunity came when Herod on his birthday gave a banquet for his nobles and military commanders and the leading men of Galilee. For when Herodias' daughter came in and danced, she pleased Herod and his guests, and the king said to the girl, Ask me for whatever you wish, and I will give it to you. And he vowed to her, Whatever you ask me I will give you up to half my kingdom. And she went out and said to her mother, For what should I ask? And she said, The head of John the Baptist. And she came in immediately with haste to the king and asked, saying, I want you to give me at once the head of John the Baptist on a platter. And the king was exceedingly sorry, but because of his oaths and his guests he did not want to break his word to her, and immediately the king sent an executioner with orders to bring John's head, he went and beheaded him in the prison, and he brought his head on a platter and gave it to the girl, and the girl gave it to her mother. When his disciples heard of it, they came and took his body and laid it in a tomb. Okay, so Herod had married his brother's wife, and John told him that wasn't lawful, so Herod had him arrested, but Herod feared harming John because he was popular with the people, and Herod recognized that he was a prophet, so Herod kept him sitting around in prison for many months. Meanwhile, Herod's new wife, Herodias, is angry with John for criticizing her marriage to Herod. She plots to have John executed, and eventually she succeeds. At a big celebration, her foolish, drunken husband promises half his kingdom to her daughter. The girl asks her mother what should she ask for, and Herodias tells her to ask for John the Baptist's head, and Herod complies. So it is while John is waiting in prison with his fate unknown that he sends messengers to Jesus asking if he is the Messiah. Now Matthew doesn't tell us why John is beginning to have his doubts, but I think we can speculate. We can look at clues in the text and we can make an educated guess. So first let's remember what Matthew has told us about John the Baptist before this point. Matthew introduced John this way in chapter three, verses one through three. In those days John the Baptist came preaching in the wilderness of Judea. Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. For this is he who was spoken of by the prophet Isaiah when he said, The voice of one crying in the wilderness, prepare the way of the Lord, make his path straight. So Matthew quotes Isaiah forty, verse three. In this context, Isaiah's point is this is an announcement of comfort. This is an announcement that the exile will end and that God is coming to meet them again. A herald is calling that the king is coming and it's time to get ready for him. Now, Isaiah's immediate prediction, I think, concerned the end of the exile, but John the Baptist is a fulfillment of that in the fullest sense of the word. He is the herald who announces the ultimate king is coming, and it's time to get ready to meet him. If exiled Israel was to humble herself to return to God because her period of judgment is coming to an end, how much more important is it that the people of John the Baptist's time prepare to meet the Messiah? The voice is a herald. The king is coming and his servants are going before him to build the road in the wilderness, and the herald is announcing his coming, and that is exactly what John the Baptist did. God is coming to save his people by sending his Messiah, and John is the herald who announces his coming. So we know that Matthew understands John is the voice described by the prophet Isaiah, but we also know that John understands himself to be that voice. This is the Gospel of John, chapter 1, verses 19 through 23. And this is the testimony of John when the Jews sent priests and Levites from Jerusalem to ask him, Who are you? He confessed and did not deny, but confessed, I am not the Christ. And they asked him, What then? Are you Elijah? He said, I am not. Are you the prophet? And he answered, No. So they said to him, Who are you? We need to give an answer to those who sent us. What do you say about yourself? He said, I am the voice of one crying out in the wilderness. Make straight the way of the Lord, as the prophet Isaiah said. So here the leadership in Jerusalem sends some priests and Levites to find out who this John the Baptist is, and they say, Who are you? And John says, I'm the herald. John understands himself to be the prophet who will announce that the Messiah has come. Matthew summarizes John's message as repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. The kingdom of heaven is the time when God steps into history to establish his rule once and for all, to end sin, death, and rebellion, and to establish justice, peace, and righteousness. It is the time when God establishes his perfect law over all creation and all the earth. And God is going to establish that kingdom through the Messiah. Remember, the word Messiah means anointed one. That's also what the word Christ means. The Messiah is the anointed king of Israel, a son of David and a son of Abraham, who will rule over all the earth. God promised that a king would sit on the throne of David who would rule over all the earth. David's kingdom and his throne were lost in the exile. But the prophets promised that one day a son of David would rule on his throne again and establish peace and justice. And God will establish his rule through a man, the Christ, the Messiah, the anointed son of David. And John the Baptist's message then is the kingdom of heaven is at hand. Why? Because the king himself, the Messiah, has come. Now we don't know how much John understood. He knows that the Messiah has come and is about to start his ministry, but does he know that this is the first of two comings? Well we're not really told. I think it's quite likely that John could have believed, like many other Jews of his day, that the Messiah would come once in victory. He might have expected this was the coming of the Messiah in which he would establish his righteous rule over all the earth. And it seems likely to me that that's what he expected Jesus to do. We talked about how the disciples of Jesus probably thought that their journey would be a victory tour, and we see Jesus kind of gently and persistently correcting that understanding. I'm speculating, but I think it's likely that John shared that expectation. For example, when the Pharisees and the Sadducees come to him for baptism, John tells them this, this is Matthew 3, 7 through 12. But when he, that's John the Baptist, when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming to his baptism, he said to them, You brood of vipers, who warned you to flee from the wrath to come, bear fruit in keeping with repentance, and do not presume to say to yourselves, We have Abraham as our father, for I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children for Abraham. Even now the axe is laid to the root of the trees. Every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. I baptize you with water for repentance, but he who is coming after me is mightier than I, whose sandals I am not worthy to carry. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor and gather his wheat into the barn, but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire. Now we talked about that section way back in chapter three. When the grain is harvested, the first step is to break up the stalks because parts are edible and parts are not. Winnowing is that process of separating the edible from the inedible or the wheat from the chaff. You're separating the part you want to eat from the part you don't want to eat. Winnowing involves throwing it all in the air and the wind carries the lighter chaff away while the seeds fall back into the pile, thus separating them. The wheat is the good part that you keep and put in your barn, and the chaff is the useless part that you burn up to remove. This is the sort of king that John is announcing. The Messiah holds your destiny in his hands, either renewal and repentance or judgment and condemnation. If you want to avoid the fire, if you want to avoid judgment and find a place in the kingdom of heaven, what must you do? Repent. So the arrival of the king forces this choice. The Messiah is bringing freedom for the children of God, but wrath and judgment for those who pursue evil. And John says, The axe is laid to the root of the trees, and the trees that don't bear good fruit are going to be cut down. The Messiah is coming with his winnowing fork to gather his wheat and burn the chaff, and he is going to bring judgment on the enemies of God. Now everything John said here is accurate. I'm not saying he was wrong in any way. The Messiah is going to do all those things. The Messiah is coming as a judge, and all that John said is true. I'm suggesting that perhaps John didn't know the details of how it's all going to unfold. Perhaps John thinks the judgment part is going to happen now in his lifetime during the first coming of the Messiah. That gives us a little bit of window on what John may be thinking. So let's go back to chapter 11. I'll read verse 2 and 3 again. Now when John heard in prison about the deeds of the Christ, he sent word by his disciples and said to him, Are you the one who is to come, or shall we look for another? Now here's where I speculate based on everything we just read. In light of what we know that John the Baptist taught and probably expected, what is confusing John about the deeds of Christ? As he sits in prison wondering, is this day going to be my last? John compares his expectations of what the Messiah will do to what Jesus is doing and saying. Jesus has not yet established the kingdom of God over all the earth. He has not brought the wrath of God down on all evildoers. John is sitting in prison for rebuking one of those evildoers. Jesus doesn't seem mightier than John in many ways. He's not going out challenging the leadership in Jerusalem, and he's not getting in trouble for it like John is. His winnowing fork doesn't seem to be in his hand because evil and idolatry are continuing unchecked. Herod's still on the throne, and John is sitting in prison wondering if today, every day he wakes up is going to be the day he's executed. That had to be a huge test of faith. Now John must know that Jesus is from God because the works he's doing are amazing and miraculous. I don't think John is asking here, have I been deceived? He has known from his youth that Jesus is someone special. I don't think we see John dismissing or rejecting Jesus. He's asking Jesus, please tell me if I have misunderstood who you are. I think John is trusting Jesus to tell him the truth and give him the right answer. Perhaps Jesus could be a forerunner for someone else. Perhaps there's another Messiah coming who will bring all the judgment part and establish the kingdom. So John's asking basically, look, you're not the Messiah I expected. I don't see you bringing judgment. I thought you were the one. All the signs pointed that you were the one, but you aren't doing What I expect you to do, so please, Jesus, tell me what's going on. Now Jesus gives a somewhat cryptic answer, but when we walk our way through it, I think it's actually a more helpful answer than if he had just said yes. Jesus instructs John on how he should be viewing these events. He gives John the right perspective. Let's read chapter eleven, verses four through six. And Jesus answered them, Go and tell John what you hear and see. The blind receive their sight, and the lame walk. Lepers are cleansed, and the deaf hear, and the dead are raised up, and the poor have good news preached to them. And blessed is the one who is not offended by me. Jesus highlights the significance of everything he's doing. I think he's saying, John, you've heard that I'm doing miracles, but you're not thinking about those miracles in the right way. Think about the significance of the kind of miracles I'm doing. The blind see, the lame walk, lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor hear the gospel. Which you'll remember are exactly the stories that Matthew gave us in chapters eight and nine. Now I would divide this list in two parts. Jesus says, Report what you hear and report what you see, and then he tells us what they see and hear. The first part is what they see, the description of the miracles, the blind see, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised. And the second part is what they hear. Jesus teaches the poor have the gospel preached to them, and blessed is the one who listens. Okay, so we have to figure out how does this answer John's question? And let's talk about each half-intern. First, Jesus recounts the miracles he's been doing. And in chapters eight and nine, I argued that the miracles accomplished several things. One important thing the miracles did was put God's stamp of approval on Jesus. Jesus can heal the sick and raise the dead because God is with him and has given him the authority to do these things. So these miracles testify to the fact that Jesus is the Messiah. I think that's one reason Jesus reminds John of the miracles he's doing. He's saying, look, the miracles testify to the fact that God is with me and I have been sent by him. Another important significance of the miracles is their symbolic value. Each miracle points to a greater miracle yet to come. He heals people now because one day he will heal people completely of sin and death. He raises people from the dead now because one day he will abolish death. His miracles are not random magic tricks that are supposed to impress people, they point ahead to miracles yet to come. And I think that's another part of his answer to John. He's saying these are the kinds of acts of mercy and compassion that you would expect the Messiah to do. They point ahead to the fullness of the promises to come. But as we talked about, the miracles also point backward to the prophets. Jesus is doing the kind of miracles the prophets said he would do. And we talked about this in chapters eight and nine. The most obvious look back is Isaiah 35, 3 through 6. Isaiah is speaking to Israel about the future days when God restores them to their promised blessings, and he says this strengthen the weak hands and make firm the feeble knees. Say to those who have an anxious heart, be strong, fear not. Behold, your God will come with vengeance, with the recompense of God he will come and save you. Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf unstopped. Then shall the lame man leap like a deer, and the tongue of the mute sing for joy, for waters break forth in the wilderness and streams in the desert. Now again, as we talked about, I don't think Isaiah intends to predict the Messiah will heal the blind and make the lame walk. Isaiah is using the striking picture of restoration to represent the full restoration that God has promised in the future. And I suspect that this description of healing the blind, the lame, and the deaf is a poetic representation for the full and complete restoration from all suffering and guilt. Now, Isaiah is not predicting, I think he's not predicting that the Messiah will come and heal the blind, lame, and deaf, but there is a connection. Jesus' miracles remind us of this picture of restoration from Isaiah. Why did God testify to Jesus through miracles of healing the blind, the lame, and the deaf? Partly because those miracles call to mind and foreshadow the kind of thing the Messiah is ultimately going to do. The Messiah will bring a future day of complete restoration, and now he's performing these smaller temporal miracles of restoration. So the Messiah has arrived and he's doing miracles to show who he is. And if we've read the Old Testament, then these sorts of miracles are very symbolically appropriate and significant. They're the kind of miracles we would expect him to be doing. So Jesus is reminding John of all of this. He's saying, not only do the miracles show that God is with me, Jesus, these are the kinds of miracles we would expect the Messiah to perform. God gave Jesus these kinds of miracles because he is the Messiah who is ultimately coming to heal and rescue his people from all their suffering. Second, Jesus reminds John of His teaching that the poor have the good news preached to them, and I think this is an echo of Isaiah 61 verses one through three, which reads The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me, because the Lord has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to bind up the broken hearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of prison to those who are bound, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor and the day of vengeance of our God, to comfort all who mourn, to grant to those who mourn in Zion, to give them a beautiful headdress instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning, the garment of praise instead of a faint spirit, that they may be called oaks of righteousness, the planting of the Lord, that he may be glorified. Now, I do understand Isaiah 61 to be a messianic passage, and I believe the speaker here is the Messiah himself. We know on one occasion that Jesus went into the synagogue in his hometown, and he's asked to read the scriptures, and he reads this passage from Isaiah, and then he says in Luke 4, 20 and 21, and he rolled up the scroll and gave it back to the attendant and sat down, and the eyes of all the synagogue were fixed on him, and he began to say to them, Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing. I think we can conclude from that that Jesus sees a connection between his own proclamation of the good news and the role of the Messiah described in Isaiah 61. So what is Jesus saying in his teaching ministry? He does more than announce that the kingdom is coming, John the Baptist did that. Jesus is the one who proclaims and explains who will enter the kingdom. As Matthew has been crafting this story, Jesus starts his ministry with the Sermon on the Mount. And in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus proclaims good news to the poor. The first thing he says in that sermon is, Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. And we talked about that way back in the beginning of this series. Throughout the sermon, Jesus authoritatively clarifies who will enter the kingdom of God. No one has ever explained better the nature of the good news and how we partake of it. If we hear what Jesus has been saying, we can see that Jesus has proclaimed the good news of the kingdom with an unprecedented clarity and authority. And I think that's what he's telling John. He's saying, listen to what I've been teaching. This is the good news explained in a way that no one has ever explained it before. I am truly the one who has been sent to preach good news to the poor. And Matthew has told us this story in such a way that by the time we get to John's question, we have the ability to understand the answer, because we have the Sermon on the Mount followed by the authoritative miracles. And then finally, Jesus tells John, and blessed is the one who is not offended by me. Or we could translate that, the one who does not stumble over me. The metaphor of stumbling is drawn from common human experience. Person is traveling, trying to get somewhere, they hit a rock, they fall down. You see this in every movie chase scene. Whenever someone is being chased by some evil villain, they're running, usually at night, in the dark, in a wooded area, they stumble and fall only to be caught. Or you see someone trying to stay on some narrow path of a cliff and they trip and they fall headlong off the cliff. Something that causes you to stumble is something that hinders you or keeps you from crossing the finish line or sends you hurtling off the cliff. In the New Testament, the picture usually pertains to the goal of obtaining eternal life in the kingdom of heaven. In many contexts, to stumble is to come across something that causes you to fail to reach your goal, and usually in the context, the goal is eternal life. And Jesus, interestingly enough, acknowledges that he's a stumbling block. He's not the Messiah people were expecting. His miracles symbolically point to the prophetic promises he will one day fulfill, and his teaching is the great proclamation of the good news that Isaiah said would come. So Jesus acknowledges that he is not acting in a way that everyone expected him to act, and that could be a stumbling block, that could be offensive for some. But his miracles and his teachings show that God is with him and that he is the Messiah. One day all that the prophets predicted will come to pass, and in the meantime, you, John, need to hang in there and keep believing. I would say one of the themes in Matthew's gospel is the unexpected Messiah. In the end, Jesus will come again and fulfill everything that was expected of the Messiah. He will come in judgment, he will come with his winnowing fork, and his axe will be laid to the root of the tree. But his life and ministry the first time was surprising and confusing to people. Up until he died and was resurrected, his people didn't understand that he was going to come twice. And Matthew is highlighting the difference between what people expected the Messiah to do and what Jesus actually came to do. And no story highlights that theme more than this one about John the Baptist. Because of all the people in the world at the time, the prophet John the Baptist ought to be the one who's convinced beyond doubting that Jesus is the Messiah. He had direct revelation from God that Jesus was the one. But Jesus was so different from what he expected that even John had moments where he didn't understand what Jesus was doing. If even the prophet John the Baptist had to adjust his thinking, we should be prepared to do the same. We've had two thousand years to get used to the idea that there is a first and second coming, but even so the gospel can be startling. For John, Jesus didn't come to fix things the way John wanted him to fix them. After all, John's imprisoned by one of the very rulers, the Messiah is supposed to conquer. And John ends up dying at that ruler's command. That's probably not what John was hoping for. Jesus doesn't always fix things the way we want him to fix them either. I suspect every one of you listening has faced trials, losses, and tragedies where if we had a choice, we'd say, you know, God, I didn't really want to go through that. I don't want to walk that road. I don't want you to put me on it. And yet, that's what God does. Jesus did not come to rescue John from prison and execution, but ultimately he will rescue John from sin and death. Likewise, Jesus did not come to make our lives now peaceful, prosperous, and smooth sailing. In this life, we're going to struggle with pain, loss, tragedy, guilt, and evil. And in that way, Jesus may not seem like the Messiah we expect or would prefer. If we're honest, we probably want a sugar daddy who will rescue us from all the pain and problems of this life right now, or at least by Friday. But that's not what we have. There is a time for triumph, but it is not the time of triumph yet. Although Jesus is not necessarily the Messiah that we would have chosen, he is in fact the Messiah. He is the one who is mightier than John the Baptist. He is going to use his axe on the root of the trees that don't bear fruit. He will use his winnowing fork to gather his people and burn the chaff, and he will bring healing and eternal life. He will establish his righteous rule over all creation. I think John is focusing on the things that Jesus is not doing, and Jesus says, You need to focus on the things that I am doing. Life may not go the way you expect, but I am still the Messiah who has the power to grant you eternal life in my kingdom. And we today all face the same choice that John the Baptist faced. Jesus may not be doing what we expect him to do, but we can keep our eyes on what he is doing. If we stick with him, if we faithfully follow him and cling to his promises, we will arrive at life in the kingdom of God. Thank you for listening to Wednesday in the Word. This is the podcast that explains not only what a passage means, but also shows you how to figure that out. You can hear all previous episodes in this series on my website, wednesdayintheword.com. There is no charge, no spam, no ads, and no requests for donations. If you've been blessed by this podcast, please subscribe to the mailing list. Leave a positive rating or review wherever you listen. It really does help people find the podcast, so please leave a review if you can. But most importantly, tell a friend what you learned and where you learned it. Thanks again to Reggie Coates for the use of his beautiful song Tenacious. You can listen to more of Reggie's music at heartfeltmusic.org. Thank you for joining me today. I'm Krisan Marotta, and I'll see you next week at Wednesday in the Word.