Now you have three points that concern John's witness in verses 6-9 of chapter 1, and if you look at it carefully, I'm sure you can see what they are. The first is that John was aware that he himself was not the light. Second, John pointed to Jesus Christ who was the light. And the third point is the goal for which the witness was given, and that is that all men through him might believe. This is exactly the outline that you find in verses 6-9, which is then illustrated in the latter portion of the first chapter.

In this series we are going to be studying the characters of John's Gospel who had encounters with the Lord Jesus Christ. Some of the best-known characters in the biblical story are found in this Gospel, and others that are found in the other Gospels as well receive fuller treatment in John. We begin with John the Baptist and what strikes us immediately as we turn to his story at the very beginning of this Gospel is how extensive it is.

Even for the righteous, God sends sorrow as well as joy, hardship as well as material blessing. Today we begin our look at four uses of this doctrine.

1. Reverence for God. The first use of this doctrine is to encourage reverence for God and humility in us, since God's ways are not our ways and his ultimate purposes in life are usually beyond our finding out.

Yesterday we read of the Pilgrims’ abundant first harvest in their new home and their three-day thanksgiving celebration. But there is another side to this story, and it is that the good times were succeeded by hard times again. As far as the Pilgrims were concerned, there was anxiety over divisions caused by people who arrived at the colony from other places, distress at being cheated by ship captains who had hoped to profit at the Pilgrims’ expense, and fear of war with more distant Indian tribes. And, of course, the crops sometimes also failed or did poorly, and sicknesses returned.