Looking Forward
John 4:1
When therefore the Lord knew how the Pharisees had heard that Jesus made and baptized more disciples than John,
You know, funny things happen when the flesh and the devil get involved. I can hear you wondering now how I know. See, there was a situation at the beginning of the text. The Pharisees, a group of people righteous in their own eyes, found that Jesus was doing more ministry than John. Not that they particularly cared about it, they were just trying to cause trouble either way. Sometimes in ministry you will find people like that. They come up to you for different things. It takes the Spirit of God, wisdom, and some discernment to find out what they are really after. It seems there is a spirit behind that after all and one that is not to be trifled with. People who make it a habit of hanging out with demons will eventually end up bedeviled themselves. This is why I give no place to the devil as in Ephesians 4:27. No, not for a minute. Neither did Jesus as the text shows here. See, had Jesus been operating in a spirit of human wisdom and understanding he might easily have gone over to visit John and taken some of his followers with him. He could just as easily have sent all future disciples to John. That is why it is so important to determine between the person and the spirit. It can make the difference between you savor not the things of God to Peter and a get thee behind me Satan of Matthew 16:23.
As hard as it is to see, there are some people that cannot stand for any to be saved, healed, delivered or blessed, much less to enter in themselves. Here the problem with the religious leaders of that day was simple. So also they bound heavy burdens upon the people and raised not a finger to help lift them off. My, that sounds much like how they do today. If I sat and dwelt on every person who had an opinion but did not help, I would be very mad indeed. In fact, I would be over there with John running a healing and deliverance ministry. Except I am missing out on the fact that God did not call me there. Now in the last days we know that men will not endure sound doctrine as 2 Timothy 4:3. Yet when you are walking with the Lord, he gives you wisdom to know that is not the point. There is a spirit at work behind that whether demonic or the person's own. Sometimes we can do things in the flesh that has no part in God at all. Here, John must decrease and God must increase.
Never has the disciple been above his master in the history of evers. Nor has the servant yet been above the Lord. That was especially true for John, meant to pave the way for the Messiah to follow. He was as the voice of one crying in the wilderness baptizing many with water only. Now, there was one coming after who would baptize in spirit and in truth. Above all, the religious leaders really should have known such. But they did not and here we are. Here, we see the separation between the Father and the Son even though they are still together. It is seen in the words "when the Lord knew how Jesus had." We see at the place of the witness how a generational spirit produces brokenness. It is for this that order prevails in the church of 1 Corinthians 11:10 as in the home because of the angels. Remember, some had fallen also like this. So, 1 Corinthians 14:34-35 also agrees. Thus, the woman keeps silent in the church as for the order but not unto man. Now I do not mean to say that woman should peep and mutter but say nothing. Here, in the text, Jesus as perfect, also moderated himself. Rather, we are to trust him with our lives that of the bishop and shepherd of our souls in 1 Peter 2:25. For so is he faithful, he that called us and also will do it as well.