Welcome, morning. I'll say this
again later, but it is a real blessing to see your smiling
faces. If you would, open your Bibles with me now to Matthew
chapter 14. That's where our lesson will
be from this morning. Matthew chapter 14. Welcome to
Brother Eric's class out here this morning. Some of my very
favorite Eric is preaching in Danville this morning. We want
to remember him in prayer. Before we begin, let's bow together. Our Father, oh, how we thank you for your
mercy and your grace to your people that enables sinful men
and women like us to be able to bow at your feet and call
you our Father. What an amazing wonder of your
mercy and your grace. And Father, we're thankful. We're
thankful for our Lord Jesus Christ, for his obedience that makes
us righteous. How we thank you for his precious
blood that cleanses us from all sin. They could come no other
way than through him. And Father, we thank you for
him. And it is our earnest plea this morning that the name of
our Lord Jesus Christ be lifted up and exalted and that we might
be enabled by thy spirit to worship thee. Father, we thank you for
your many blessings. We thank you for beginning to
ease this pandemic and enabling us to meet with some more freedom. And Father, we pray your continued
blessing be on our country and on our world that you would deliver
us completely from this, if it could be thy will. Father, we
pray for our children's classes going on now pray for Brother
Eric as he's away preaching that you'd bless him mightily in preaching
and give he and Abby traveling mercies back home today. Father,
for your people that you brought into the time of trouble and
trial, we pray for them. We pray for your hand of healing
and direction and leadership and comfort upon your people. We continue to pray for our Brother
Aaron as he begins to face these treatments that are upcoming
that you'd I'll use these things to heal his body and be with
him and his family in a very special way during this time.
All these things we ask in that name, which is above every name,
the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen. I've titled our lesson
this morning, Sin and Repentance. I want to begin by reading the
text and go back and making a few comments on it. Matthew chapter
14. At that time, Herod the Tetrarch
heard of the fame of Jesus and said unto his servants, this
is John the Baptist. He's risen from the dead and
therefore mighty works to show forth themselves in him. For
Herod had laid hold on John and bound him and put him in prison
for Herodias' sake, his brother Philip's wife. For John said
unto him, it's not lawful for thee to have her. And when he
would have put him to death, he feared the multitude because
they counted him as a prophet. But when Herod's birthday was
kept, the daughter of Herodias danced before them and pleased
Herod, whereupon he promised with an oath to give her whatsoever
she would ask. And she, being before instructed
of her mother, said, give me here John Baptist's head and
a charger. And the king was sorry. Nevertheless, for the oath's
sake, and them which sat with him at meet, he commanded it
to be given her. And he sent and beheaded John
in the prison And his head was brought in a charger and given
to the damsel. And she brought it to her mother.
And his disciples came and took up the body and buried it and
went and told Jesus. Now this is a gruesome and sad
story, something that really happened to one of God's children,
to one of God's prophets. Our Lord said, among them that
are born of women, there hath not arisen a greater than John
the Baptist. This was a powerful, powerful
prophet. that was with him in a very special
way, yet he died in this horrible way. I want to give you five
lessons that I hope that we can learn from this story of the
death of John the Baptist. And number one is this, the depravity
and the depth of our sin. Now, sin is our nature. That's
all we are. Everything we are by nature is
sin. And this story, gives us just
a small window into just how far we would go in our sin and
rebellion if the Lord didn't restrain us. We would do the
very same thing that Herod did here. Man's sin nature has caused
all of this horrible story, and the particular sin that set it
all in motion was the sin of adultery. Now, Herod had a half-brother
named Philip. And they were both given areas
to rule. They were called kings, and areas
to rule by Rome. Rome ruled the world, and they
put these people in charge of these provinces. Herod and his
half-brother Philip were two of them. And during that time,
Herod had a torrid affair with Philip's wife, with his brother's
wife, a woman named Herodias. And Herod ended up divorcing
his wife and marrying this woman, Herodias. Now, that's pretty
bad. I mean, even by human standards,
that's bad. I mean, to have an affair with
your sister-in-law and end up divorcing and marrying her, I
mean, that's pretty bad. Now, adultery is a sin against
God. Number one, it's a sin against
God. Adultery violates the picture the Scripture gives us of marriage,
a beautiful, beautiful picture of redemption, Christ and His
bride, the union with Christ and His bride. And adultery is
also a sin against man. It's a sin against God and a
sin against man. I mean, it causes such horrible
pain to families, to the other spouse. It's just horrible. And
John the Baptist told Herod, this adultery, this is wrong.
Even though Herod had divorced his wife and Herodias had divorced
Philip and they married each other, you'll notice that John
still called Herodias Philip's wife. Philip's wife. Look at
Mark chapter 6. This is Mark's account of this.
You know, when John told Herod, this is wrong. You know, Herod
wasn't used to that. I mean, this is the king. He
was not used to people telling him what he did was wrong. He
didn't like it too much. But it made Herodias mad. I mean, it made her angry. And
so angry, she began to plot how she could kill John the Baptist.
Look at Mark 6, verse 17. For Herod himself had sent forth
and laid hold upon John and bound him in prison For Herodias' sake,
his brother, Philip's wife, for he had married her, for John
had said unto Herod, it's not lawful for thee to have thy brother's
wife. Therefore Herodias had a quarrel
against him. She had an inward grudge against
him, and she would have killed him, but she could not. And she
began plotting how it was that she could, I'm sure she hatched
up different plots on how she could kill him. But the plot
that finally happened, that she was finally able to make happen,
was so violent and so disgusting. She got her daughter to do some
kind of dance at Herod's birthday that Herod promised to give her
whatever it was she wanted. Now, who knows what kind of dance
this was that her mother coached her daughter to do? I don't know,
and I don't want to know. But then her mother coached her to
ask for the prophet, ask for his head, on a charger. And the
word means a dinner platter. Now here they are at dinner.
They're having a dinner party for, you know, a birthday party.
And they've got, you know, platters of meat and vegetables and fruit. And they're eating their dinner
on a platter just like what they're eating their dinner off of. She
asked that this man's head be brought into this party on a
dinner plate. Think about that today when you
sit down to eat dinner. She asked for a man's head on
a dinner plate. And they cut it off. He sent and cut this
man's head off. And as soon as they cut it off,
they set it on a dinner platter, blood running down the neck and
stuff, and brought it into the birthday party. And they thought that was fun.
They thought this was a good party. I mean, how disgusting,
how depraved can you get? And that's our nature. And my
nature and your nature. Very same nature. Our sin nature
has been passed to us from our father, from Adam down to his
sons, from father to child, all the way up to now, from one generation
to the next. That's how sin, a nature, is
passed from our father. Now righteousness, that can't
be passed from one generation to the next. We can't give that
to our children. Righteousness can only come through
God-given faith in Christ. And we parents, we cannot teach
our children to be believers. We can teach them the scriptures,
but we can tell them to look to Christ. We can't make them
believe. We can't give them faith in Christ, but we can teach them. We can teach them the scriptures.
We can teach them about Christ. And we can also teach them by
word, which we should do. But we can also teach them by
giving them an example of faithfulness. By living a life, our lives in
such a way, they see it that we need Christ, that we're not
self-sufficient, we need him, that we need the gospel. We can
teach them that by our example. And you know, the opposite is
also true. One generation can teach the next generation to
sin more and more and more, to act on that sin nature. This
Herod in our text is the son of Herod the great. Herod the
Great is the one. He was a horrible man. He just,
for reasons unbeknownst to me, I guess just because they looked
at him wrong, he killed several of his own family members. He
just killed them. And this is the same Herod that had all those
Jewish babies killed when he heard this baby had been born,
king of the Jews. And he had all those babies killed.
That's Herod the Great. His son is Herod in our text.
He had a sin nature he received from his father. But his father
taught him by example to go further and further and further, to sin
more and more and more openly. This vile, murderous man taught
his sons to be vile, murderous men. And we parents who believe
on Christ, we need to watch this. We can't teach our children and
make them believers. But that does not remove our
responsibility to teach them and to point them to Christ to
set an example of faithfulness and dependence on Christ to them.
But we have to be aware of this. We can also teach our children
to give lip service to the gospel, but live in a way that violates
the gospel in every way. We can give lip service to the
gospel on Sundays and Wednesdays, and the rest of the week We can
live in a hateful, disobedient, self-willed, greedy way. We can
give lip service to the gospel, but still live like the world
and try to gather things in the same way, in the same thought
process that the world has. See, we can do, we can say one
thing and do another. And this I can promise you about
children. They'll get the message loud and clear. I promise you
they will, I promise you. The nature of man from this time,
the time of this story, the beheading of John the Baptist till now,
the nature of man hasn't changed one iota. Now I know we act more
civilized than this, but what we're reading about here is our
sin nature. You and I have the very same
nature these folks were reading about. And the only reason that
we haven't acted on it The only reason you and I aren't here
and lopping people's heads off and bringing their heads into
a birthday party is the Lord's restrained us. That's the only
difference. This is our sin, the depravity
of our nature, and we desperately need Christ to save us from our
sin because our nature is too vile and too depraved for us
to handle. All right, here's a second lesson. Salvation from sin is not in
liking the preacher. or being impressed by the preacher.
Herod was impressed by John. He liked John the Baptist. If
you're still there in Mark 6, look at verse 20. For Herod feared
John, knowing that he was a just man and a holy, and he observed
him. And when he heard him, he did
many things, and he heard him gladly. Now Herod was so impressed
by John, and you know people like this. They are so impressed
by the preacher. He's a good preacher. He's got
a good personality. People, you know, tend to listen
to him. They tend to like him. They're impressed by the preacher.
And he did many things because of what he heard John say in
his preaching. He heard him gladly. He was anxious to hear him preach
again. But boy, how quickly that changed,
wasn't it? He was a king, but he wasn't
a very good one. He couldn't even lead his own family. He
is a henpecked man who ended up cutting off John's head because
his wife was just henpecking him to do it. Now salvation,
he was impressed with the preacher, but he still cut his head off,
didn't he? Salvation is not in believing a preacher. Salvation
is believing Christ and believing Him so that you trust your soul
to Him. That's salvation. Salvation is
not being impressed with the preacher. Salvation is being
impressed with Christ. So impressed with Him that you
trust your entire soul to Him. Salvation from sin is not in
liking the preacher. I mean, I just assume that I
would like, you know, if I had my choice, I would choose that
you all like me. But salvation is not in liking
the preacher. Salvation is in loving Christ. Loving Him so
much that you commit your all to Him. Salvation is not found
in following a preacher. Don't follow me. Don't follow
me. Salvation is in following Christ, following Him in faith,
following Him no matter where He leads so that you trust your
all to Him. That's salvation. Salvation is
in following, loving, trusting the Lord Jesus Christ, being
impressed with Him. And that's the goal of God's
preachers. to preach Christ in such a way that you'll be impressed
with. That's the goal of God's preaching.
All right, here's the third lesson. Look back at Matthew chapter
14. A guilty conscience is not repentance. A guilty conscience
doesn't mean we've been saved from sin. Look at verse 1 again. At that time, Herod the Tetrarch
heard of the fame of Jesus and said unto his servants, this
is John the Baptist. He's risen from the dead, and
therefore mighty works to show forth themselves in him. Now,
it's been a full year since Herod had John beheaded, and his conscience
is still bothering him over it. And Herod heard of this man Jesus
of Nazareth, and his conscience was bothering him so much, the
only thing Herod could think, this has to be John the Baptist,
risen from the dead. He's coming to get me. It has
to be who this man is. He thought because your guilty
conscience can make you think all kinds of things. He thought
this has to be John the Baptist risen from the dead. I mean it
couldn't be another man. It has to be John the Baptist
risen from the dead because I did wrong. He's dead and he shouldn't
be dead yet because I did wrong. That's the only possible explanation
for this. That's what a guilty conscience
will make you think. Now conscience is a good thing. You know the
Lord put a conscience in all of us for a good reason. so that
we know right from wrong. And when we do wrong, our conscience
bothers us for this reason. Trying to get us not to do it
again. That's why our conscience bothers us. A conscience is a
good thing. But a conscience alone will never
lead anybody to trust Christ. Our conscience can tell us it's
right from wrong, but our conscience is just like the rest of us.
It's fallen. It's depraved. It's dead in sin. Our conscience
alone can never lead us to trust Christ. All our conscience can
do is give us a legal fear and a legal guilt. I give you the
perfect example, Adam and Eve. After Adam fell, their conscience
bothered them, didn't it? Their conscience told them that
they had done wrong, but their conscience gave them a legal
fear. An illegal guilt. And so what their conscience
told them to do is try to cover it up. Try to cover up that guilt.
Try to cover up that sin. Try to make up for that sin because
I've done wrong. It's a legal guilt. It's a legal
fear. They were afraid that God would punish them. So they tried
to hide themselves with their fig leaves and aprons that they
made. See, their conscience tried to get them to cover their sin.
It didn't lead them to beg for mercy, did it? It didn't lead
them to trust Christ. It's a legal fear. Look back
at Zechariah chapter 12. Next last book in the Old Testament. Zechariah chapter 12. A guilty conscience is not repentance
from sin. Repentance from sin can only
come by hearing Christ preached and by faith seeing Christ crucified. And I show you that here in Zechariah
chapter 12 verse 9. And it shall come to pass in
that day that I will seek to destroy all the nations that
come against Jerusalem. And I will pour upon the house
of David and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem the spirit of grace
and of supplications. And when I do that, they shall
look upon me, whom they have pierced, and they shall mourn
for him, as one mourneth for his only son. And they shall
be in bitterness for him, as one that is in bitterness for
his firstborn. Now that is repentance from sin.
Repentance from sin only comes by seeing Christ whom I have
pierced, who was pierced for my sin. When I see Christ crucified
by faith, I see Christ crucified for my sin. This repentance and
bitterness of soul is not just because I've sinned or because
God's going to punish me, I'll be damned if I don't trust Christ.
They're in bitterness for Him, for Him. And you know when I'll
see that? When the Lord pours upon me the spirit of grace,
the spirit of supplication. When the Lord is gracious to
me, then I'll see Christ. And then, and only then, will
I repent. I'll see what sin really is when
I see Christ crucified. I'll see what it takes, what
it costs to put sin away when I see Christ crucified. And when
I see that He did that, then I'll repent and turn to Him.
and trust Him. See, the only way that I'll trust
Christ and repent of my sin is to see Christ as He is. And I
want to be real clear here when I talk about repenting from my
sin. You know, your conscience tells you the sin that you do,
the evil thoughts that you think, all that, you know, your conscience
tells you that's wrong. That's not repentance. Repentance
is turning from what I think is good. repentance is turning
from what I have been trusting in my religious works and my
flesh to quit trusting in those, turn from those things and turn
to Christ and trust Him. See, repentance is a turning. My conscience tells me I've done
wrong. I mean, my conscience tells me
that. But you know what your conscience doesn't tell you?
Your conscience doesn't tell you all your religious works.
all your attending the services, all the things that you think
you've done, all your morality, all the things that you think
that you've done to make God happy with you, your conscience
tells you those things are good and trust in them. Isn't that
what our conscience does? Our conscience is fallen. Our
conscience is depraved. It doesn't tell us to look and
trust in the right place. But when the Holy Spirit comes
through the preaching of the gospel and shows me Christ, then
I'll quit trusting in those good things that I think I've done.
I'll see those things are nothing but filthy rags and I'll turn
to Christ and trust him to be my salvation. See, that's what
repentance is. Our conscience is not repentance
from sin. Repentance from sin is a powerful
movement, powerful gift of God, the Holy Spirit by showing us
Christ. All right, here's the fourth
lesson. There's only one message of the gospel. There's only one
message that we preach and God's servant, always preaches it,
always, every time. This is something I admire greatly
about John the Baptist. He preached the same message
if he was preaching to the poor rabble of Judea or he's preaching
to the king on the throne. He preached the exact same message.
John's message was repentance from sin. John preached that
all we are is sin. All we do is sin. All we say
is sin. All we think is sin. That was
John's message. John said, we must repent. We've
got to repent of our sin. We've got to claim that we're
sinners who need a savior. John the Baptist preached, repent
from your sin and trust Christ. That was his message. And John
was the forerunner. He was the forerunner of Christ
who came to prepare the way of Christ. He came to prepare the
hearts of the people for the coming of Christ. He preached
the same message all the other prophets preached. But John came
to tell people, not only is Christ coming, I mean, Moses told us
Christ is coming, didn't he? John told us Christ is coming.
But John had the honor of saying, the long-awaited Messiah is here. There he is. Behold, he said,
the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world. Now
you trust him. Trust him. Look to him. He must
increase, and I must decrease. There he is. Trust him. That
was John's message. And John preached that message
to everybody who came to hear him preach. Whether they were
rich or poor, old or young, didn't matter. He preached the same
message to everybody. John even preached that message
to King Herod. This man who's vile, who's violent,
who's been known to kill people and just how horrible he was.
John was not afraid to tell him, Herod, you're the sinner. This
is a problem and you've got to repent of it. He pointed out
his sin. And you notice the difference in two kings. King Herod and
King David. Nathan came to David and told
him, you're the man. And David's heart was broken. He saw I've
sinned against God. God have mercy on me. King Herod
heard that and he threw John in prison. What's the difference? God's grace. That's the difference
between those two kings. John preached that message boldly,
knowing that Herod could have him killed. And he ended up doing
it. But John preached the message anyway. Because it's the only
message he had. It's the truth. It's the truth. Preaching a lie won't save anybody. It won't help anybody. And God's
servant knows it, so he'll always preach Christ the truth. Because
it's the only thing that'll help your soul. The gospel message
is repent of your sin. Repent of those things that you
think that have made you righteous or added to your righteousness
and trust Christ. Look back at Matthew chapter
3. John the Baptist preached it boldly and clearly. Matthew chapter 3 verse 1. In those days came John the Baptist
preaching in the wilderness of Judea and saying, repent ye,
for the kingdom of heaven is at hand." That was his message,
repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. Now look over the
next page, Matthew chapter 4. The Lord Jesus Christ himself
preached this same message. Matthew 4 verse 17. From that
time, Jesus began to preach and to say, repent for the kingdom
of heaven is at hand. Our Lord preached it. Look over
Acts chapter 17. This is the message that the
apostles preached. Matthew 17, verse 30. In the times of this ignorance,
God winked at, but now commandeth all men everywhere to repent. Are you wondering maybe is this
message for me to repent of my sin and trust Christ? God commands all men everywhere
to repent because he hath appointed a day in the which he will judge
the world in righteousness by that man whom he hath ordained
whereof he hath given assurance unto all men and that he hath
raised him from the dead. God commands all men everywhere
to repent and to trust Christ. That is the message of the gospel.
John the Baptist preached it, our Lord did, and the apostles
did. And God's service today still preach that same message.
The message of Christ is the only message that'll save any
sin. The message of Christ is the
only message that will comfort the hearts of God's people, instruct
them, edify them, cause them to grow. The message of Christ
is the only message that'll do it. This is our message. That we're lost. All of us. Me
and you both. Now we're all. We're lost in
sin. We're undone by sin. We're dead in sin. Oh, but God. But God, who's rich in mercy.
He has provided the remedy. The Lord Jesus Christ. Now look
and live. Look and live. Trust Him. Here
He is in His Word. Let me preach Him to you. Let
me tell you about Him. Now you trust Him. You cast your soul
upon Him. See, repentance is a gift of God. Repentance is
not something that we can make ourselves do. We cannot make
ourselves turn from trusting in our flesh and trust Christ.
Only God can grant that repentance. And He does it through the preaching
of Christ. See, we've got to know who we're
turning. Somebody's got to tell us about Christ. We've got to know who
He is. So we'll turn to Him and trust Him. And God's servant
is faithful to preach that message and only that message to anybody
who will come here and preach. He preaches the same message
Every time he preaches. Different text, but same message.
And somebody might hate him for it. They sure might. Matter of
fact, I promise you they will. But it's not going to stop him.
It just won't. I am not the best people person
in the world. I tend to take people at face
value. I'm not the The one who can figure out what
people are thinking and what they're doing. But I know enough
about this. Buddy, I could flatter your flesh. I mean, I could tell you a lie
and I could flatter your flesh and make you feel so good about
yourself that you would absolutely love me. I could do that. I'm
not the most gifted guy in the world and I promise you, I could
lie to you and flatter your flesh and I mean, get you to just absolutely
love me. But you'd lose your soul. God is my witness. By God's grace,
I'd a whole lot rather tell you the truth and leave you in the
hands of God and pray that God give you faith to believe it
because I care for your soul. Honestly, by God's grace, I do.
That's what John did, even though it cost him his life. And God's
servants do the same thing today. And you'll notice Herod did many
things, didn't he? We read that. He heard John preach.
He did many things. He heard him gladly. But of all
the things he did, one thing he did not do was repent and
trust Christ. I hope that you and I do not
do the same thing. Do many things. Become Calvinists. Become followers of what we call
the doctrines of grace. Do many things except this one
thing. repent and believe on Christ.
God help us not to do that. Because you know what our Lord
said? Except you repent. You, each of us, except you repent,
ye shall all likewise perish. God help us to repent. Alright,
here's the fifth lesson, quickly. Go tell the Lord. Now what do
we do when there's so much going on in our world? Things happening
in the world around us, Things happening to us. Things that
cause us to suffer. Things that we see cause people
all over the world to suffer. What do we do? Well, let's do
the same thing John's disciples did. Go tell Jesus. See that in verse 12? And his
disciples came and took up the body and buried it and went and
told Jesus. Now in all your troubles, in
all your trials, in all your heartaches, And in all your victories,
in all your blessings, in all different situations, no matter
what the situation is, go tell the Lord. Go tell the Lord. He already knows, but go tell
Him anyway. It'll do your soul good to commune
with our Heavenly Father. Go tell Him. The songwriter said,
I must tell Jesus. I must tell Jesus. I cannot bear
my burdens alone. I must tell Jesus. I must tell
Jesus. Jesus can help me. Jesus alone. So go tell him. Go tell him. That's a good lesson for us to
end on. All right. I hope the Lord blesses
you.