Luke 7:30

But the Pharisees and lawyers rejected the counsel of God against themselves, being not baptized of him.

High praise indeed: All the prophets of old merely prophesied of the Messiah as one coming in the future, John pointed to the present Christ, testified of Him directly. And yet, by a strange paradox, he that is smaller than all in the kingdom of God is greater than John. Though John bore witness of Jesus as having come into the midst of His people, he yet saw but the dawn, and not the full break of day. His work was finished, his course was run before Christ entered into His glory. And so the children of the New Testament that have the complete fulfillment of the prophecy before their eyes, that know Christ crucified and resurrected, that possess the complete account of salvation in the writings of the evangelists and apostles, these have a greater revelation and a brighter light than even John the Baptist. But in spite of John's greatness, his ministry did not receive the recognition everywhere that it should have had. The popular judgment, indeed, had agreed with the estimate which Jesus had just given. The whole people, even the publicans, had, by submitting to the baptism of John, acknowledged the power of God in him. had endorsed him as a prophet. But the Pharisees and scribes had been found a sad exception. The counsel of God with regard to the salvation of all men concerned also them, they were invited as well as the others. But they deliberately rejected and spurned this counsel of love; they refused to be baptized by John; they preferred the damnation brought upon them by their hardheartedness. This has always been the fate of the Gospel-message with regard to the majority of people. God calls out to the whole world, He invites all men without exception to become partakers of His grace and mercy in Jesus Christ the Savior. But they refuse to accept His love and the proffered hand of help; they prefer to continue in their life of sin and thus are condemned by their own fault.