True Greatness

Matthew 11:7‑15

Let's open our Bibles this morning to Matthew chapter 11... Matthew chapter 11. And I want to speak to you on the theme "True Greatness." ... "True Greatness." We're going to be looking at verses 7 through 15 particularly in our thoughts this morning, and focusing on a very, very special man by the name of John the Baptist.

There's a somewhat famous boxer who constantly announces around the world that he is "the greatest." I'm not really sure what exactly his criteria is, but I think he might get an argument out of God. And I guess if we were all to discuss the subject of greatness, and ask the question ‑ who are really the great people in the world? We might come up with all kinds of answers. Some would say the geniuses of the world, others would say the educators, some might think the politicians and the statement ... statesmen are the greatest, or the wealthy or the famous or the entertainers, or the athletes, or the kings, or the princes, or the heroes, or whatever. But when it comes to greatness as God defines it, it's very different than it is for the world.

In fact, today we're going to meet a man who is from a common humble family, no wealth, no worldly education, no success, no particular physical beauty, no earthly possession or position, and yet our Lord says he's the greatest human being who ever lived.

Look at verse 11 of Matthew 11: "Verily I say unto you, Among them that are born of women, there hath not risen a greater than John the Baptist." Now that is an amazing statement. And this is not somebody's opinion, that is a statement of fact from the lips of our Lord Himself who is speaking in this text. And just to emphasize it He says at the beginning of verse 11, "Verily," which means, truly ... a fact beyond dispute. And then He says "Among them that are born of women." Now what is that? Well, basically, that is a sort of a Jewish reference, or a sort of an ancient reference to the human race. That particular phrase was somewhat common to designate someone's identification with the human race. We find it as far back even prior to the establishing of the Jewish nation, as the book of Job. In chapter 14 verse 1: "Man that is born of a woman is of few days and full of trouble." In chapter 15 and verse 14 it says: "What is man that he should be clean, and he who is born of a woman that he should be righteous?"

It became then, a designation of humanness. And that's very important for us. Now listen carefully, the Lord said when it comes to humanness there has never been a greater than John the Baptist. He is the greatest human being ever to live up until his time. Now that does not mean that he is necessarily being defined on supernatural terms or on spiritual terms even, but on strictly human terms ... from the earthly human perspective ... the character of the man, and the calling of the man, and the impact of the man from an earthly perspective make him the greatest man that ever lived.

And you'll notice the statement, "There hath not risen a greater than John the Baptist." And the word risen is interesting because it is commonly used to speak of the appearance of a prophet. In fact, Matthew uses the same verb for that very expression in the Ruth chapter, in two places ‑ verse 11; "Many false prophets shall rise," and verse 24, "There shall rise false Christs and false prophets." The term rise then frequently is used in reference to a prophet.

So, let me sum up what I'm saying. When it comes to humanness, when it comes to the uniqueness of a human being, and when it comes to his special ability to speak, and speak powerfully, there never was anybody like John. As men just stood back and perceived him there was never anybody like him. He was the most powerful personality and the most powerful voice that ever spoke; He had dynamic ability to communicate. There never was a prophet with more human talent, and a more significant role to play in human history than John the Baptist. He was unparalleled. In this sense he was greater than Adam. He was greater than Abel. He was greater than Enoch. He was greater than Melchizedek! He was greater than Abraham. He was greater than Isaac, Jacob, Joseph. He was greater than Moses, Joshua, David, Solomon, Elijah, Elisha, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Daniel. He was the greatest human being that ever lived based upon his human abilities, and his unique calling in human history. A man of tremendous greatness.

Now our Lord reinforces the greatness in this passage over and over again. He is confronting a multitude here as we learn from the beginning of the chapter. And He is going to make sure that they understand the greatness of John the Baptist. Now watch, but only as an illustration of a greater spiritual truth. That's why at the end of verse 11 He says: "Notwithstanding, or in spite of his greatness, he that is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he."

Now, what He's saying is this, and I'll give you the thesis at the beginning and then we'll build to it, when it comes to human talent and playing a role in human history there has never been anybody as great as John the Baptist, but when it comes to the spiritual dimension the least person in the spiritual dimension is greater than the greatest person in the human dimension. That's what He's saying.

Now, our Lord reinforces John's greatness and He does it by discussing three major truths about John that mark his greatness... three major truths. The first one is his personal character.

He was great among men, among them that are born of women, just because of his personal character. He had the marks that it takes to be great, to be a cut above, to be set apart, to be unique. Let me suggest what these personal characteristics were.

First of all, he was a man who could overcome his weakness. He could overcome his weakness. It is always ... now mark this ... it is always a mark of greatness that a man can overcome his weakness. I mean, there are basically only two kinds of people; they are the victims and the victors. They are the people who cannot rise above their circumstances. They cannot rise above their difficulties. They cannot rise above their weaknesses. And there are the people who can. And the people who can are the ones that make a mark. Because everybody has weaknesses, everybody has failings and infirmities and problems. The question is whether or not you can overcome them and that is the mark of greatness. The great ones fight through. The great ones are competitive. They can compete against their own ignorance. They can compete against their own laziness. They can compete against their own indifference. They can compete against their own weaknesses. And they will overcome. That's the difference. And John had that ability.

And we saw that last week, and I'm only going to remind you of it. Verse 2 tells us he was in prison. And I told you last time that that was a difficult circumstance for a man that had knowd ... who had known freedom all his life. He was not only in prison but he had been victimized some ... somehow by the current thinking about the Messiah. And so he was questioning whether Jesus was really the Messiah or not because Jesus was not living up to the current expectations. He was also somewhat hard pressed to know whether Christ was really the Messiah because he had incomplete revelation. He didn't really have all of the information he needed. And, also, because he had been in prison for about a year his unfulfilled expectation of the Messianic kingdom made him question and doubt and become perplexed.

So, at this point he is at a low in his life. He is at a weak place, circumstances, outside influences, lack of information, unfulfilled anticipations have all brought doubt and confusion and perplexity into his mind. How does he deal with it? Does he sulk? Does he just sort of drop his head and shuffle off? Does he despair? Does he start to tell all his problems to everybody else? No. He goes immediately to the Lord. He sends two disciples, it says in verse 2, and said to them, you ask if He is the One that should come or are we looking for somebody else.

And they went and they asked and Jesus demonstrated, you'll remember, with miracles and they went back, of course, and they told him. And that settled the issue.

Now he had to go to some extremity to pull that off. He was quite a long ways away from where Jesus was. He was way down in the eastern part of the Dead Sea and the Lord was clear up in Galilee. He had absolutely no access because he couldn't leave the prison. He had to dispatch two of his disciples. It was not an easy task but the man who is great is always the man who deals with his weakness and overcomes it. And I don't care what dimension of life you're talking about. And we're just talking on a human level. I don't care whether you're talking about the ministry or your job or your school work or your athletic career or whatever it is; greatness comes from an ability to get past your weakness. That marked John. The whole section, as I said, began with John's doubt.

And you remember what I told you last week? That chapters 11 and 12 deal with all the different kinds of responses that people can have to Christ. And the first response the Lord talks about is the response of doubt and John is His illustration. And we see that John doubted. But that only gave an opportunity for him to manifest his greatness, to overcome that.

So, we learn then that the first mark of a truly great person is to ... is to overcome your weakness. But let's see how he did it and I'm going to give this to you fast cause I want to get on to the text we're supposed to look at today. The first thing he did was admit that he had a weakness. I mean, he recognized that. And listen to this; he was also willing to admit it to subordinates, people beneath him. He wasn't trying to play the God‑game, to make everybody think that he was absolutely infallible, flawless and without any weakness. He did not want to play to that illusion because anybody who plays to that illusion remains in doubt and confusion. Anybody who will not admit weakness is not going to get any help. So he admitted his weakness and then he sought to remove it, and so he acted upon that admission.

By the way, I would just point out as a footnote at this point that one of the great marks of this kind of man, one of the truest tests of greatness is humility. Nobody ever really becomes great, even on a human level, unless they do recognize they have weaknesses that must be overcome. It is the person who lives under the illusion of perfection that is the true fool. And Jesus said, the key to greatness, and He said this in many different passages, is humility. Whoever would be great among you, let him be your...what? ... your servant. And John had at least enough humility to say ‑ I don't know...I don't know. And he said it to his subordinates and let them act in his behalf. But we know he was humble from chapter 3, don't we? When he was preaching earlier in Matthew He said, "There comes one after me who is mightier than I, whose shoes I am not worthy to carry." And then he said in verse 14, when Jesus came to baptize him, "I have need to be baptized by you." And, do You come to be baptized by me? And in John 3:30 he said: "I must decrease and He must ... what? ... increase." He was a man of humility. He was a man who would recognize weakness, he would see it for what it was and once you do that you can deal with it. Pride curses greatness. It is an illusion. The great are the ones who see their weakness and work to overcome, not the ones who fancy themselves to be without weakness. And as long as you admit no weakness you will never grow to your full strength.

By the way, John Wesley points out that neither the Romans nor the Greeks had a word in their vocabulary for humility. Because man does not want to admit his weakness and so true greatness eludes him.

General Douglas MacArthur, who is about my fifth cousin, believe it or not, or was, said this and this was a particularly personal prayer on behalf of his son Arthur. "Build me a son, 0 Lord, who will be strong enough to know when he is weak and brave enough to face himself when he is afraid. One who will be proud and unbending in honest defeat and humble and gentle in victory. Build me a son whose wishes will not take the place of deeds, a son who will know thee and that to know himself is the foundation stone of knowledge. Build me a son whose heart will be clear, whose goal will be high. A son who will master himself when he seeks to master other men. One who will reach into the future yet never forget the past. And after all these things are his, add, I pray, enough of a sense of humor so that he may always be serious yet never take himself too seriously. Give him humility so that he may always remember the simplicity of true greatness. Then I, his father, will dare to whisper I have not lived in vain."

Give me a son who knows humility because that is the path to true greatness. So, the first element of John's personal character to mark his greatness was the ability to recognize a weakness and overcome it. Let me show you a second one and that's in verse 7.

He not only was a man who was able to overcome weakness but he was a man who was strong in his conviction. And this is a second mark of the personal character of greatness. Look at verse 7. "As they departed," and that is as the multitude that were there were still remaining but the two disciples left, and the multitude had heard this whole conversation, and they were now aware of John's doubt, and they already perceived that he was a prophet according to Matthew 21:26, everybody knew he was a prophet. They must have been a little bit quizzical at this point and saying, well, now wait a minute. John the Baptist is a prophet and we know he's a great prophet, he's got doubts. Maybe he's a weaker man than we think he is. Maybe he's a more vacillating person than we have imagined. Maybe he isn't as great as we think. And so the Lord begins in verse 7 to reaffirm in their minds his true greatness, because people are so often prone to assume that to admit weakness is not to be great when just the opposite is true.

Verse 7: "And as the two disciples departed, Jesus began to say to the multitude concerning John, What went ye out into the wilderness to see? A reed shaken with the wind?" And we'll stop right there.

And He asks them a very simple question. You went out to see John. He knows what they're thinking, they're thinking, well, John, I mean, he's doubting. He's not as hot as we thought he was. I mean, can we believe him? I mean, he's the one who said, Behold the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world, he is the one who announced the Messiah but now he's doubting. Can we believe him? Is he a vacillating person? And so the Lord says, well, when you went out into the wilderness, did you go out there to see a reed shaken with the wind? What does He mean by this? What is this saying? What are they asking or what is the Lord asking?

Well, He wants to remind them of the greatness of John. And He does it by pointing to their own attitude and their own experience with John. He doesn't want them to think of John as a vacillating kind of weak person with no ability to make up his mind. He wants them to know how great John really is. So, look what He says, the first statement:

"What went ye out into the wilderness to see?" Why did you leave Galilee and go all the way out to the desert around the Dead Sea? Why would you make such a long, hard journey? What was it that attracted you to that man? Why were you so curious? Why was he so magnetic? What was it about him that drew you out?  "Was it because he was a reed shaken in the wind?" Was it simply because he was a vacillating, weak character, blowing back and forth with every new wave that came along?

What is the obvious answer? No, because if they wanted people like that they could have found them in the temple. They were all over the place. If they wanted weak, vacillating, ordinary reeds that blew around with every wind, they could have found them all over their religious system; they certainly didn't need to go all the way out to the desert to find one. I might point out that those reeds that are spoken of here were very common reeds. They would grow along the bank of the Jordan River and they were frequently growing in other places around water. They were by the thousands everywhere along the Jordan. And so they were common ordinary things. And the Lord is saying ‑ Did you go out there because he was just a common ordinary garden variety guy, blown around like everybody else with no strength and no conviction? The reed blowing back and forth symbolizes a man who yields to popular opinion, a man who is blown about by ideas and pressures, a man who can be bought, a man who vacillates on what he believes, a man who plays to the audience, a man who says what he thinks people want to hear, a man who veers from side to side, a man who does not have the courage or the boldness to be a man of conviction. It refers to the spineless. And what He's saying is, if you wanted to find some spineless people there are plenty of them right where you were. You didn't come out here because he was spineless. You didn't come out here because he was weak. The whole land was filled with people like that.

As John Bunyan points out in Pilgrim's Progress, Mr. Pliable does not go to prison to be martyred for the truth.

John was not common and John was not compromising. And they knew that. And he did not hold back his message for anybody. In Matthew 3 when all of the religious leaders came out, if he wanted to play to the crowd that was his moment. But you might be interested in what he said to them. When all the leaders came out, "He saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees." Now that's both parties of leaders. "And he said unto them, Greetings, fellas," no, he didn't say that. "You generation of snakes, who hath warned you to flee from the wrath to come? Bring forth therefore fruits befitting repentance, and don't say within yourselves, We have Abraham as our father for I say unto you, God is able of these stones to raise up children unto Abraham and now the ax is laid at the root of the trees." That's pretty strong stuff.

Then he goes on to talk about judgment of fire and purging and burning them with unquenchable fire ... a devastating diatribe against the religious leaders. In fact, the whole leadership of Israel had let Herod's sin pass, Herod's horrible adultery and Herod's illicit marriage. But John faced him nose to nose and told him it was a sin and that's why John was in prison and soon to have his head chopped off and brought in on a plate.

No, it wasn't because he was a reed shaking in the wind that they went to see him. If they wanted to see that they could see that everywhere. It was because he was a man of great conviction. He was a man who knew what William Penn said, William Penn said: "Right is right even if everyone is against it and wrong is wrong even if everyone is for it." That's simple but true. He was a man of great conviction. He was so great because he faced his weakness and overcame it and because he was strong in his conviction and nobody could intimidate him. He knew what was right and he would do it.

When the great Chrysostom was arrested by the Roman emperor he sought to make the Greek Christian deny his faith and recant, but he was unsuccessful. So the emperor discussed with his advisers what they could do to this prisoner, shall I put him in a dungeon? the emperor asked. No, one of his counselors replied, for he'll be glad to go, he longs for the quietness where he can delight in the mercies of his God. Then he shall be executed, said the emperor. No, came the answer, for he'll be glad to die, he declares that in the event of death he will be in the presence of the Lord. Well, what shall we do then? the ruler asked. There's only one thing that will cause him pain, make him sin... he's afraid of nothing but sin.

What a testimonial. Huh? That's much like John. Scripture confirms the value of a person with conviction. James says; "Don't be a double minded person, going whatever way is easy." Paul says in Ephesians 4:14: "Don't be blown about by every wind of doctrine." Be a person of conviction. Now that is a mark of greatness. You go back in history and just from the human perspective now, you mark out the great people of human history and you will find they were people who had convictions about something, and they pursued those convictions to the end. That's a mark of their greatness. There are lots of people who can go in short spurts and then be intimidated out of that conviction or can't sustain it for a lifetime, but the great ones against all opposition carry through.

Third thing, his life was also marked, and this is another mark of his personal character, by self‑denial. And this is another element of greatness, self‑denial. The truly great people are the people who can deny themselves. That's really true. You know, when I look back in history sometimes and I read about great generals who put their life on the line, who went through incredible hardship to win a victory, or when I read about scientists who were locked up in some kind of a situation for days and weeks and months and years trying to discover something which we now take for granted, or when I read about some person who stayed with a problem hour upon hour upon hour until ultimately it was solved, or a missionary who burned his life out by the time he was 30 years of age trying to get the gospel to some people someplace, and then I remind myself that that's the mark of greatness. I mean, if you are always being diverted by the desire for comfort, if you can't take pain and you've always got to find the easy way, then you'll never know what greatness is. Because greatness understands self‑denial.

Verse 8, "What went ye out to see?" Now you went all the way out into the desert, you traveled hours into the desert to look and to listen to this man, "Did you go out there to see a man clothed in soft raiment like they wear in the king's house?" Did you go out there just to see another typical guy who is a courtier, who operates in the palace, who favors the king, who does whatever you need to do to get the royal favors? A man who lives a life of luxurious self‑indulgence ... did you go out there to see a guy who plays to the court, who seeks the favors because he wants to pad his seat? Hardly ... hardly. And by the way, you might be interested in knowing, I did a little reading on the background of that statement, found that in the early days of Herod the Great many of the scribes who were attracted to Herod and wanted to seek favor from Herod took off their usual plain dress which was the mark of a scribe and they donned the ornate, luxurious robes of Herod's court. They sold out.

But John the Baptist was no self seeker. He was no part of the system at all. He lived in the wilderness. His cause was not comfort. I'm sure there were many times when he wished he had it. His cause was not self‑indulgence. His cause was not to see how easy it could be on him and if he could just hang around long enough to fall into the gravy like so many people who are hoping that every day their ship will come in. He was not interested in the ease of the world. He was not interested in gaining favor from people above him who could pad his seat. He stood apart, unstained by the system. He was above it. He was a man so consumed by a greater cause in his own mind that he couldn't be attracted to the system. Now if you want to know what kind of life style he had it's very simple. He had a raiment of camel's hair, a rough garment of camel's hair, a leather belt, this is Matthew 3:4, around his waist. That's a rough leather belt ... and a rough camel‑hair coat, not the kind of camel‑hair you think of. And his food was locusts and wild honey. Frankly, folks, I don't imagine the wild honey could do much for the locusts, to be honest with you. But in those days they use to dewing, bake and salt those things and eat them like peanuts... with a little honey. Not exactly affluence. He lived in the wilderness. His life style was a living visual protest against self‑indulgence. His life style was a statement against self-centeredness. He was so utterly abandoned to the cause and that is the mark of greatness. That is the soldier, the general, who does all that he needs to do even giving his life if need be to win the victory. That is the man of education who will spend all the time that is necessary to come to the right conclusion. That is the scientist who exposes himself to all the dangers of radio activity to discover what needs to be discovered for the future of man. That is the athlete who beats his body, as it were, because he has a goal. And even though we may not understand that those goals are the right goals, we do understand what it means when they deny themselves.

The great people are concerned with a goal. They are concerned with a mission that supersedes any personal comfort or self-indulgence. And, you know, we're all tempted along that line, to just go to the way of ease.

I was coming in this morning and I turned on the radio and the announcer made the statement: "This is for your easy listening. We hope you have a day of ease." You know, and you Just, yeah! See? I think I'll turn around and go fishing.

That's the way our life is ... more leisure. That's why we have fewer and fewer great people.

To John it was all the way. I mean, John's commitment was a consuming commitment. In fact, according to Luke 1:15 it said: "He would drink neither wine nor strong drink." And that meant he took a Nazarite vow. And the Nazarite vow meant you'd drink neither wine nor strong drink which immediately eliminates you from all the fancy banquets and all the nice little things that you might attend. It also was part of the Nazarite vow to allow your hair to grow without cutting your hair, never putting a razor to your head which didn't exactly keep you up with the current society trend and hairdos.

In other words, you're saying, I do not care about what I look like. I do not care about indulging myself in those delicacies of life. I am given to a cause. There were many people who took a Nazarite vow for a few weeks or a few months. There were only less than a handful who took that vow for life ... Samson, Samuel, John the Baptist. He restricted himself even above the priests. The priests could only have to restrict himself from wine and strong drink while he was functioning as a priest, according to Leviticus chapter 10, but John did it for life. I mean, he just took the highest level, that's all. He was committed to self‑denial.

And it wasn't that he was denying himself to gain some kind of penance, that's foolish. St. Assepsumas wore so many chains because he thought he could get rid of his sin by causing himself pain, he wore so many chains that he had to crawl around on his hands and knees. Bessarion, a monk, would not even give in to his body's desire for restful sleep. For forty years he wouldn't lie down. He slept sitting in a chair. Makarios the Younger sat naked in a swamp for six months until mosquito bites made him look like a victim of leprosy. St. Marin spent eleven years in a hollowed‑out tree. Great contribution to society.

Among ascetics the most celebrated was Simeon the stylite of Sy