The way to deal with our doubts.
Whether the doubts were John's own, or such as he knew disturbed the minds of his disciples, he certainly took the wisest and most hopeful way in which to secure their removal. If a man is an intelligent man he is sure to have doubts; doubts come in the process of thinking; but everything depends on the way in which a man deals with his doubts. He may foster them; he may indulge them; or he may make earnest effort to secure their removal. He may keep them to himself, and grow proud of them; or he may take them to Jesus, and get them solved and dissipated.
I. JOHN DEALING WITH HIS OWN DOUBTS.
1. Thinking them over in his own heart. It is certain that John had occasional glimpses, at least, of the higher and more spiritual aspects of Messiah's mission; but it is equally certain that he never shook himself quite free from those temporal notions of Messiah which were the characteristic of his age. The teaching and healing, and the very gentle ways, of Jesus, did not at all match the idea of Messiah which he had formed. The Jewish nation was not likely to be delivered from Roman bondage by such a man. Perhaps, after all, the work of Jesus was only preparing work, like his own had been.
2. Talking them over with his disciples. They might well be more puzzled than he, for they had none of those prophetical visions which had been vouchsafed to him. Evidently the talk did not mend matters. It even seemed to increase the uncertainty, and it made John feel that something must at once be done. Neither thinking doubts over, nor talking doubts over, ever helps us very much. Too often they grow big by brooding; and so much de ends on the friends whom we choose for the talk.
II. JOHN TAKING HIS DOUBTS TO THE LORD JESUS. He would have actually gone himself, but he could not. So he sent two disciples, that he might see through their eyes and hear through their ears. Our Lord solved the doubts by, in effect, saying, "You find a difficulty in recognizing me because you are hindered by wrong ideas concerning the character of Messiah's mission." A Messiah who heals, delivers, and saves, exactly fits a forerunner who called to repentance. John's doubts fled when he learned to say, "He is the Messiah, he must be the Messiah, for I see that his moral and spiritual work is precisely the carrying on, the completion, of that moral work of mine."—R.T.