The Bible doesn’t tell us a lot about John the Baptist and his disciples, but apparently he had several men who had heard him preaching about the coming Messiah, and who followed him as disciples. But look with me at John 1:35-37, “The next day again John was standing with two of his disciples, and he looked at Jesus as he walked by and said, ‘Behold, the Lamb of God!’ The two disciples heard him say this, and they followed Jesus.”
Notice how quickly they followed Him. After all, Jesus was the promised Messiah that they were seeking, and as soon as John pointed Him out – they were gone! The Bible doesn’t say that they spent any time discussing with John if they should go after Him, or wait…it just says “…and they followed Jesus.” As soon as He was made known to them, that was all they needed to know!
Look at Matthew 4:18-22, “While walking by the Sea of Galilee, he [Jesus] saw two brothers, Simon (who is called Peter) and Andrew his brother, casting a net into the sea, for they were fishermen. And he said to them, ‘Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men.’ Immediately they left their nets and followed him. And going on from there he saw two other brothers, James the son of Zebedee and John his brother, in the boat with Zebedee their father, mending their nets, and he called them. Immediately they left the boat and their father and followed him.”
Note again, how in both of these incidents the response was IMMEDIATELY! The Jewish people had been looking for the Messiah to come on the scene for years, and when He came – these men knew there was nothing else worth following. They didn’t sit around and discuss it, or argue about if the timing was right, Jesus called and they dropped everything and followed Him.
That should be our response to Jesus. When God through the Holy Spirit speaks to us by His Word today, there is nothing to discuss – we must obey! We should find like these men mentioned above, that when Jesus comes – there is NOTHING to do but follow Him, even when it costs us EVERYTHING!