Luke 3:20

added yet this above all, that he shut up John in prison.

The fearless testimony of John made a powerful impression upon the people as a whole. The popular expectation and conjecture was that he might be the promised Christ. This opinion was gaining ground very rapidly, with the people debating the question with great vehemence. But when this movement was brought to the attention of John, he promptly opposed and did all he could to suppress its further spread. His statement seems to have been a formal, solemn, public declaration. His baptism was that of a servant carrying out orders: he baptized with water only. He, for whose coming he was preparing the way, would be so much mightier and stronger that John did not feel worthy to perform the lowest service of a slave for Him, that of unstrapping and bearing His sandals. Christ would baptize with the Holy Ghost and with fire. In and through the Gospel He gives to the sinners His Holy Ghost for the renewing of their heart, for the sanctifying of their life. His power would have the purifying, cleansing properties of fire. It would give the sinners strength to do what John demanded, fruits of life worthy of repentance. But woe unto those that refused to accept this Savior with His Holy Ghost. As the husbandman separates the chaff from the wheat by a careful and repeated use of the fan, gathers the wheat into his granary, but burns the useless chaff, so Christ, as the Judge of the world, will deal with those that have been weighed and found wanting, that have the outward appearance and behavior of real believers, but lack true, sanctifying faith. Unquenchable fire in the abyss of hell will be their lot. But while John thus chiefly gave testimony concerning Christ, he spoke many other things to the people, both in the form of exhortation and in the form of pure Gospel-preaching; he did the work of a true evangelist. But he could not continue his work very long without interference. With the frankness of the preacher of truth, he did not hesitate about rebuking Herod, the tetrarch of Galilee, for his adulterous union with Herodias, his niece and the wife of his half-brother Philip (not the tetrarch of the region beyond the Sea of Tiberius). And John's rebuke was not confined to Herod's sin with Herodias, but rather included all his misdeeds, of injustice, cruelty, luxury, etc. And so Herod felt constrained to place John into prison, being content with that for the present. The later developments Luke does not relate. Though the treatment accorded to ministers and confessors of the Gospel may not often reach this climax in our days, the same enmity toward their open confession of the truth and their fearless testimony against falsehood and every form of sin is abroad in our land today. As Herod rejected the mercy of God and fulfilled the measure of his sins, so many an unbeliever and enemy of Christ is trying to stifle the voice of his conscience by deeds of violence against sincere Christians.