Gold Nugget 210 - Heart to Die for Truth

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      It has been supposed that John accepted a crafty invitation from Herod Antipas to come to his court.  The last act in the tragedy of his life is when he appears before us as a courageous “court-preacher.”   Here the Baptist would not take things easily, as courtiers do, but denounced the infamy of the monarch.  His reward is a dungeon.  The finale is his murder.

      So has the world rewarded its spiritual heroes.  It has nothing better for the noblest than a castle-dungeon and a headman’s sword.  This shadow is inserted in Luke’s history by anticipation. 

      But there is artistic power in so inserting it.  It completes the picture of a great ministry.  The forerunner of Messiah has not a much better fate than Messiah himself.  The age of heroes is beginning in the person of John, the heroes who had heart to die for truth.  Their blood is truth’s most precious seed, and the gospel which can command “the noble army of martyrs” is destined to endure.

The Pulpit Commentary, Luke p. 82, Luke 3:1-20, (R. M. Edgar)

Gold Nugget 210

Heart to Die for Truth

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