The witness bearing works of Jesus.
I. THOSE TO WHOM THE TESTIMONY WAS OFFERED. Jesus had done two things which exceedingly shocked and horrified the Jews of Jerusalem. On the sabbath day he had healed an impotent man, and told him to take up his bed and walk. He had also said that God was his Father, making himself equal with God. The words, the deeds, and the appearance of Jesus seemed contradictory to those who would not wait to look under the surface, but judged everything by their own traditions and prejudices. And when Jesus was confronted by all this prejudice and narrow-mindedness, all he could do was to go on with his work and his witness bearing. Not for himself he needed to fear anything, but he did fear for those who were blind to his claims. The hearts of men had got so hardened and their minds so twisted, that the true was reckoned to be the false, and the right to be the wrong. It did no harm to Jesus that he should be called sabbath breaker and blasphemer, but; it did great harm to those falsely calling him so. Hence he tries, quietly and patiently, to get them to examine into the evidence for his claims. Jesus never wanted people to take his bare word. He knew that false Christs would go out into the world, and therefore he would furnish ample and comforting evidence that he was the true Christ. Somehow or other, there were immense difficulties in the way of people receiving Jesus as the Christ of God. But they were not difficulties that Jesus made. Jesus is on our side against the difficulties. The works of Jesus, going on from day to day, gradually mounted up to a body of testimony, on which the faith of a sincere heart could build as on a foundation of rock.
II. THE WITNESS BEARING WORKS. John was a witness, but Jesus had greater witness than that of John. Jesus did not speak in any way depreciatory of John. The best of men may not be the best of witnesses. John told people where to look. He fixed their attention on Jesus, and they were then to watch what Jesus would do. From our own observation of Jesus we know far more than ever John could have told. us. The deeds of Jesus speak with unsurpassed power and tenderness to those who are disposed to listen. There they lie in their simple beauty and depth of suggestion, waiting till we look at them and search into them and put them together, investigating to their very depths, so that whatever witness bearing power is in them may be brought out to the full. What men say about Jesus is all very well in its way, but what we can see Jesus himself doing is far better. He means that we should, as it were, see him with our own eyes.
III. OUR RESPONSIBILITY BEFORE THIS WITNESS BEARING. We may neglect to examine into these witnesses, but that does not prove them unworthy of our closest study. Jesus knows his own. What you are disinclined to look at just now, you may be eager to search into by and by. Thousands pooh pooh the reality and possibility of the works of Jesus, measuring the possible and the impossible by their little experience. Supposing what happened to Martha and Mary happened to them, and one of their dearest was raised from the dead, where would their incredulity be then? Those Jews who so savagely charged Jesus with breaking the sabbath must surely have been men whose own persons and dearest friends had been untouched by suffering. We are responsible, too, for examining into all the works of Jesus—works in the spiritual sphere as much as in the natural; works like the conversion of Saul of Tarsus as much as the resurrection of Lazarus. It is indeed a great responsibility to be face to face with the testimonies from more than eighteen centuries of Pentecostal power.—Y.