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Imprisonment and Death of John
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state, receiving honors from others, he bore a smiling face while he
concealed an anxious heart oppressed with fear. He was convinced
that God had witnessed the drunken scene of the banqueting room,
that He had seen Herodias’s gloating and the insult she offered to
the severed head of the one who had condemned her behavior.
When Herod heard of Christ’s works, he thought God had raised
John from the dead. He was in constant fear that John would avenge
his death by condemning him and his house. Herod was reaping the
result of sin—“a trembling heart, failing eyes, and anguish of soul.
... In the morning you shall say, ‘Oh, that it were evening!’ And at
evening ... ‘Oh, that it were morning!’ because of the fear which
terrifies your heart.”
Deuteronomy 28:65-67
. No torture is worse
than a guilty conscience that gives no rest day nor night.
The Reason Christ Did Not Deliver John
Many minds question why John the Baptist was left to languish
and die in prison. But this dark outcome can never shake our con-
fidence in God when we remember that John was only a sharer in
the sufferings of Christ. All who follow Christ will wear the crown
of sacrifice. Satan will war against the principle of self-sacrifice
wherever it appears.
Satan had been untiring in his efforts to draw the Baptist away
from a life of unreserved surrender to God, but he had failed. In
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Jesus’ temptation in the wilderness, Satan had been defeated. Now
he determined to bring sorrow on Christ by striking John. The One
whom he could not entice to sin, he would cause to suffer.
Jesus did not intervene to deliver His servant. He knew that John
would bear the test. The Savior would gladly have come to brighten
John’s dungeon gloom with His own presence. But He must not
imperil His own mission. For the sake of thousands who in later
years must pass from prison to death, John was to drink the cup of
martyrdom. As the followers of Jesus would languish in lonely cells
or die by the sword, the rack, or the flames, apparently forsaken by
God and man, what a comfort to their hearts would be the thought
that John the Baptist had passed through a similar experience!
John was not forsaken. He had the companionship of heavenly
angels, who opened to him the prophecies concerning Christ and the