After a brief consultation among themselves over the question propounded unto them by our Lord, these deceitful Jews decided that the most expedient answer they could frame would be to confess that they “could not tell.”  No wonder, now, that he told them that “the publicans and harlots would enter the kingdom of heaven before they would.”  We may here see a verification of the fact that LOVE must precede FAITH.  The truth may be forced upon one, and he be compelled to acknowledge it; yet, unless he falls in love with that truth, he will not believe it as a thing of FAITH, and will not think and act correspondingly thereto.

  “Convince a man against his will—­
  He’s of the same opinion still.”

We may here, very properly, inquire why the heavenly testimony was given at our Lord’s baptism.  Why were the Father’s acknowledgment and approval of his beloved Son not given in the temple of Jerusalem, in the presence of his enemies, that they might be convinced; or in one of its populous streets on a public day, that the world, in a representative sense, might know of him?  It is impossible for men or angels to know the mind of the Lord where he has not revealed it.  He has withheld from us any direct information on this point; but we may draw some inferential conclusions, which may serve to satisfy the mind and rest the heart.

It is a matter of fact that the Father never put his Son on exhibition; neither did the Son ever seek any place of honor or distinction before men.  “He was meek and lowly in heart.”  The Word made flesh, the Way and the Truth and the Life did not appear on earth to be gazed at as a thing of mere curiosity, nor examined and handled as an article of merchandise.

Men have their opinions; and especially at this day is there a decided tendency with many to make a show of their denominational strength and numerical importance; but, really, it appears to me that the Son of God shunned observation, and apparently shrank from the echo of his fame.  More than once did he kindly request those with him to say nothing about some sublime manifestation of divine power and love which he had just given.

Whatever else baptism may signify, to my mind it is plain that it is the visible door to the visible kingdom of heaven on earth.  Christ the Lord is King of that kingdom; and as such it behooved him to enter it by the same door through which he has commanded that all his future subjects shall enter; and that door is water baptism.  “He that entereth in by the door is the shepherd of the sheep.  To him the porter openeth; and the sheep hear his voice.”  The fold is the kingdom; the shepherd is the Lord; and the porter is John the Baptist.

How fitting that the divine recognition be given at the door of the kingdom in which the Lord is to be crowned “King of kings.”  A few honest-hearted witnesses were all the Father wished, before whom to make known this glorious disclosure of love for his Son.