Battle is joined

Teaching and preaching in the temple, the Lord is challenged by the Pharisees with regard to his authority in speaking and acting. He responds with a counterstrike: "Was the baptism of John from heaven or from men?" The Pharisees are not interested in the truth but in saving their own skins and preserving their own reputations, and so they will not answer his question, and so their own. Christ, with calm dignity, will not play the game of such cringing cowards. But what of us? What do we make of the testimony of John with regard to Messiah? Will we receive Jesus as the Christ?