There was one man who Jesus himself said was the greatest man born of work.

As we study through the life of John the Baptist, we will discover why God used him in such a powerful way.

Join us now for today's study. What if things don't turn out the way you hope?

You know, it's easy to believe when all is going well.

But when you really have to exercise faith is when you can't see things working

out in the way that you think is best. And such is the case of John the Baptist. Now, we've

established a great deal of first about John the Baptist. We looked at the first family in the

New Testament. That was his family. We looked, of course, at the first

testimony, which was Jesus' testimony about John the Baptist, powerful. We looked at his first

sermon in detail and learned so much from it. We've just studied the fact that he was the first

witness and set in motion, the first disciples of Christ. It's a lot of first.

But now when you come to Matthew chapter 11 to the closing chapter of John the Baptist life,

you find that the first witness was the first martyr. The first messenger in the New

Testament now becomes the first martyr. And I would remind you that the word martyr and the word witness

come from the same root word. That's interesting because your witness is more than a word. It's your

whole life. And if it costs you your life, that's really what it means to be a true follower of Jesus

Christ. I personally have found great encouragement in John's example in Matthew

Chapter 11. You think of John the Baptist as a man above the circumstances, above the fray,

and yet he had human emotions, he had physical limitations, he had disappointments.

John, this strong preacher, would face weakness. He who boldly cried against sin, had his fears.

He who spoke with such confidence had his questions. Let's read a few verses in Matthew

11, verse 1. The Bible says, and it came to pass when Jesus had made an end of commanding his

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