Mark chapter 6 and verse 14. And King Herod heard of him,
that is the Lord Jesus Christ, for his name was spread abroad. And he said that John the Baptist
was risen from the dead, and therefore mighty works do show
forth themselves in him. Others said that it is Elias,
and others said that it is a prophet or is one of the prophets. But
when Herod heard thereof, he said, It is John, whom I beheaded. He is risen from the dead. 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 is not lawful for thee to have thy brother's
wife. Therefore Herodias had a quarrel
against him, against John, and would have killed him, but she
could not. For Herod feared John, knowing
that he was a just man and unholy, and observed him. And when he
heard him, he did many things, and heard him gladly. And when
a convenient day was come that Herod on his birthday made a
supper to his lords, high captains, and chief estates of Galilee,
and when the daughter of the said Herodias came in and danced
and pleased Herod, and them that sat with him, the king said unto
the damsel, Ask of me whatsoever thou wilt, and I will give it
thee. And he swear unto her, whatsoever
thou shalt ask of me, I will give it thee unto the half of
my kingdom. And she went forth and said unto
her mother, What shall I ask? And she said, The head of John
the Baptist. And she came in straightway with
haste unto the king and asked, saying, I will that thou give
me by and by in a charger the head of John the Baptist. And the king was exceeding sorry,
yet for his oath's sake and for their sakes which sat with him,
he would not reject her. And immediately the king sent
an executioner and commanded his head to be brought, and he
went and beheaded him in the prison. and brought his head
in a charger, and gave it to the damsel, and the damsel gave
it to her mother. And when his disciples heard
of it, they came and took up his corpse and laid it in a tomb. Amen. May the Lord bless to us
this reading from his word. When the Lord Jesus Christ spoke
the words, what think ye of Christ, in Matthew chapter 22 and verse
42, he was inviting the religious people of that time to comment
upon what they understood the Old Testament scriptures to say
about the promised Messiah. The best that they could come
up with was that he, the Messiah, would be born into
the line of the family of the great King David of Jewish history. The reality of the situation
was that the Messiah, Jesus of Nazareth, was standing right
before these men, these teachers of the Old Testament, these possessors
of the Scriptures, these heirs of Moses and the prophets, that
the Messiah was standing right before them and they did not
recognize him. The reason for that is that there
has always been confusion in the minds of sinful men and women
as to the true identity of the Lord Jesus Christ. That was true
then and it continues to be true today. And that confusion is
seen in the opening verse of our reading today from Mark chapter
6. Herod, the king, of that region,
a man who should have had his spies and his informers and an
awareness of whatever it was that was going on at grassroots
level in his little fiefdom. He should have known better than
anyone what was happening. But he wondered when he heard
about this Jesus of Nazareth, he wondered who this man was. He had heard much about him,
certainly, so I suppose his informants had at least served that purpose. But he did not know who Jesus
was, and it perturbed him. And that question, as to the
identity of this Jesus of Nazareth, gives Mark the occasion and the
opportunity to tell us a little about the death and the circumstances
of the death of John the Baptist. And that's what we're going to
be thinking about for a little while today. But just before
we do that, I want us to think about this matter of the identity
of the Lord Jesus Christ. Not simply from the point of
view of being able to to provide a few facts about who the Lord
Jesus is. Surely it is more than that.
Being able to identify the Lord Jesus Christ is about recognizing
him to be who he said he was. He was the Messiah and it is
believing what the Old Testament teaches about the Messiah is
found fulfilled in Jesus of Nazareth. The Old Testament prophecies
concerning the coming of the Messiah were fixed and fulfilled
in Jesus of Nazareth. Knowing the identity of the Lord
Jesus Christ is seeing that the hope of the Old Testament saints
concerning the coming Emmanuel, the coming Christ, God with us,
is that same hope that we have. That the resting on the promises
of God that he had made to his people, though they were sinful
and undeserving, Those promises for salvation, those promises
for cleansing, those promises to make them holy, though they
were in themselves sinful and unrighteous, to lead them and
bring them into glory, were all fulfilled in this one, the Messiah,
Jesus of Nazareth. In our day, it's not simply that
we see and share with those Old Testament saints that the Messiah
will come, but it's that we understand he has come. And that all righteousness
has been fulfilled by this Jesus of Nazareth. Jesus of Nazareth. a man born 2,000 years ago in
Israel, a man born under the Roman rule of the time, the Roman
Empire, that this man who had been a carpenter, who took up
this ministry for three years, who was taken by the religious
people of his day, his age, and was crucified and slain, that
this one is the true Messiah who has taken away the sins of
his people. It's believing that. It's entrusting
our souls eternal well-being on that fact that Jesus of Nazareth
is the Messiah, the Christ. It is resting our souls' eternal
security on that one single fact. Many years ago, the Lord Jesus
Christ was speaking to a dear friend of his, a friend who had
lost her brother. And she was grieving, and she
was broken, and she was confused. And seeing her state, the Lord
pitied her, and he gave her one of the greatest and clearest
revelations to his true identity, in the whole of the Bible. Turn
with me please to John chapter 11. John chapter 11. I just want
to read a couple of verses from John chapter 11 to you. Just as we think about this.
You know, I'm speaking here about Martha, the sister of Lazarus
and the sister of Mary. And we often think of Martha
as being the one who sort of missed out because Mary chose
the better part and sat at the feet of the Lord. But let's not
be too rash in thinking that. This revelation that was given
exclusively to Martha is amongst the greatest and clearest revelations
as to the identity of the Lord Jesus Christ and Martha understood
which we see from her reply. Here's what we read in John chapter
11 and verse 21. Then said Martha unto Jesus,
Lord, If thou hadst been here, my brother, that's Lazarus, had
not died. He wouldn't have died if you
had been here. And then she says this. But I know that even now,
whatsoever thou wilt ask of God, God will give it thee. Do you
see what Martha's saying there? Martha is saying to Jesus, Jesus,
if you ask God God would raise him from the dead. Verse 23. Jesus said unto her,
Thy brother shall rise again. Martha said unto him, I know
that he shall rise again in the resurrection at the last day.
Jesus said unto her, I am the resurrection and the life. He
that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live. And whosoever liveth and believeth
in me shall never die. Believest thou this? And she
said unto him, Yea, Lord, I believe that thou art the Christ, the
Son of God, which should come into the world. What an insight
and an understanding that woman had that day from those words
that the Lord Jesus Christ spoke to her. She gave a glorious testimony
of her faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. And I ask you, Can you
testify to that today? Can you say, as Martha said that
day to the Lord Jesus Christ, I believe that thou art the Christ,
the Son of God? Because that is what a believing
Christian is. That is what it is to trust in
the Lord Jesus Christ. To see that this man, Jesus of
Nazareth, is the Messiah, is the Christ, is the Son of God,
and that all that he has done and accomplished has opened that
way of salvation and acceptance to sinners like you and like
me. Martha understood that. Herod
had no idea who the Lord Jesus Christ was. And what we discover
is that in his ignorance, he conceived an explanation that
betrayed his own sin and his own guilty conscience. And so
it is with all carnal conjecture. So it is with all the vain, foolish
imaginations that men and women have about what religion is all
about. The reality is that it was not
given to Herod to know the true identity of the Lord Jesus Christ. So what did he do? He concocted
his own story. And that's the story of religion. That is what men and women have
done from the beginning of time. Whether it's Laban with his little
gods. or whether it is the false religion
of our day that has constructed a Christianity using the language
and vocabulary of the Bible which is no more like true Christianity
than Laban's little gods. To know the true identity of
the Lord Jesus Christ is a God-given gift. Herod was perplexed. Some said that the Lord Jesus
was Elias or Elijah, who indeed was expected to precede Christ, and was actually a type of John
the Baptist. Some imagined he was another
one of the prophets. But ignorance was rife. Who is
this? Who is this Jesus of Nazareth? Eyes to see and ears to hear,
to truly and properly understand the identity of the Lord Jesus
Christ is a spiritual gift and it is a mark of God's grace towards
us, knowing Christ. May the Lord be pleased to reveal
the Lord Jesus Christ to us and in us, that we may know Him who
is true, Whom to know is life eternal. The account of the death
of John the Baptist is mentioned by Matthew and Mark and briefly
also by Luke. And the narrative in a sense
is clear. We read it together and it's the story of Herod's
birthday party, Herodias' daughter, she's called Salome by tradition,
that's not actually mentioned in the New Testament, whether
that was her name or not, she was the daughter of Herodias
to another man, to Herod's brother, and she danced for Herod. And this story really is quite
straightforward when we look at the details of it. there's
an element of confusion inherent. He appears to have had a grudging
respect for John, and he certainly had an awareness of the respect
that was borne to John by the common people. And we discover
that there is in this Lady Herodias an implacable desire for revenge
against John. She feels threatened by John's
honest claims. And her daughter? Well, she's
just complicit in her mother's scheme. The birthday party, the
pleasing dance, the overdone gestures, all probably fuelled
by wine and alcohol. Ends, terminates, concludes in
Herodias obtaining the head of John the Baptist. And the earthly
life of God's finest prophet and faithful servant ends in
the dirt and in the foulness of a prison cell underneath the
castle where John's enemies were partying upstairs. That's the story, that's the
account that Mark gives us. But I want to draw just a couple
of points to your attention that perhaps the Lord will use to
grant us some personal encouragement today and some spiritual comfort
from the wretched events that transpired that day of Herod's
birthday and John's death. And the first point is this,
and there's only a couple. Let us take this little phrase
and note it. the fickleness of the stony ground
hearers. Now I hope you remember that
we've been thinking quite a bit really and I've spoken about
how the Lord is teaching his disciples using as it were every
incident, every comment that the Lord makes, every action
to build the experience and the understanding of these men who
themselves would soon form the core of the New Testament church
and the New Testament gospel ministry. So, might not this also be a
lesson for the disciples? Do you remember when we were
in Mark chapter 4 and the Lord was speaking about the sowers
going forth to sow seed, the sower going forth to sow seed,
and how that the seed was sown, it was good seed, it was sown,
but some of it landed where? On stony ground. Stony ground
hearers. And I suggest to you today that
Herod was an example of a stony ground hearer. To Herod, John
was an enigma, he was a puzzle. Herod was very likely a Sadducee
because most of the leading rulers of this time in Israel were Sadducees. It was a religious group, there
was a religious group called the Pharisees, there was another
called the Sadducees, and the Pharisees tended to be more religiously
fundamentalist, whereas the Sadducees had a religion that was more
permissive and allowed for other kinds of activities. But Herod
knew enough of the Old Testament scripture to recognise in John
the Baptist an honest and a faithful preacher of the truth. Herod
had enough religion to have a conscience and a belief in God. Indeed,
there was a time when onlookers, when observers might have wondered
if Herod was not one of John's disciples. Now you say, where
on earth would that idea spring from? Well, John certainly seemed
to influence Herod greatly. Dare I say, even to the point
of changing his theology, because the Sadducees did not believe
in resurrection from the dead. John the Baptist did. And it
would appear that by the time this Herod was wondering who
Jesus of Nazareth was, he had come to the point of recognising
that there was indeed a resurrection from the dead, just as John had
taught, because he was concerned that Jesus was John, risen from
the dead. So maybe John had even changed
Herod's theology. Listen to what Mark chapter six,
verse 20 says. We read it earlier. Herod feared
John. Listen. Knowing that he was a
just man and unholy, Herod observed him. And when Herod heard John,
he did many things and heard him gladly. Now that sounds like
a disciple of John to me. Doesn't it to you? Preachers
love it when their congregations hear them gladly. But think about
this. Think about the effect that John
had had on Herod. Herod respected John. He listened
to John. He even obeyed John. He altered his conduct. to accommodate John's teaching. He changed his beliefs when John
spoke. That in itself from the writings
of Mark is an amazing testimony and it is pretty obvious that
to some degree it was publicly known. But it was false. Or at least
it was natural. It wasn't spiritual. Herod seemed
to have been convinced of John the Baptist's teaching about
sin. John the Baptist's faithful ministry
had improved Herod's religious understanding. But Herod was
not a converted man. Herod was a stony ground hearer. He sprung up with enthusiasm. He heard John with gladness when
that seed was sown. But he became offended when the
worldly attractions brought conflict. He was a stony ground hearer,
a perfect example of one. And was not that a lesson for
the disciples? Did not that fulfil Jesus' teaching
to them in his parable, that a person may have a positive
response to the ministry of the word, indeed delight in it for
a time, appear to do well and grow in it, even grow under gospel
truth? And yet the word has come in
word only and not in power, not with spiritual effect. And we will not be long in the
Christian life until we have seen this personally. And that
is a solemn and a sobering warning to us as it was to the disciples
of Jesus' day. May God preserve us all and confirm
the reality of our faith to us, that we may not be stony ground
hearers. And may he give us wisdom to
discern that there are still such amongst us today. So that was one lesson for the
disciples. And here's another one. Here's
the second one. They learned from the experience
of John. that the price of faithfulness
to the cause of Christ was death. Perhaps it was only a few weeks
or indeed days between John baptising Jesus and then being arrested
by Herod. It couldn't have been very long Was this a reality check for
the disciples? Was this the Lord giving them
an indication of the cost of service? The Lord Jesus once
told a man, no man having put his hand to the plough and looking
back is fit for the kingdom of God. And yet it was into this
very kingdom that the Lord Jesus Christ had called these disciples. There is a cost to being a follower
of the Lord Jesus Christ, and that was becoming obvious to
the Lord's disciples, and it ought to be clear to you and
to me as well. Let me tell you something about
being one of the Lord's elect. If you have any other option,
if you have any better offer, if you have any preferable option
than following after the Lord Jesus Christ, then you go and
take it, you go and do it. Because until and unless we come
to the conviction in our heart and in our mind that we have
nowhere else to go. We've not taken up our cross
and followed Christ. We must be able to say with Peter,
Lord, to whom else can we go? You have the words of eternal
life. It is knowing who Christ is and
knowing what he has done. The little phrase here at the
end of the chapter that I just want to touch upon in conclusion. Verse 29 says this, And when
his disciples heard of it, the death of John the Baptist, they
came and took up his corpse and laid it in a tomb. When you read
the parallel passage in Matthew chapter 14 verse 12, it says
exactly the same as Mark tells us here in verse 29, and it adds
just a couple more words, a few more words. It says, and went
and told Jesus. And I want to, if you will excuse
me, Just weave that little comment into the tail end of this narrative,
this text by Mark. Because the disciples of John,
when they heard it, they came and took up his corpse and laid
it in a tomb. And they went and told Jesus. It's a delightful comment. Upon
burying their teacher, John the Baptist's disciples at once went
and told Jesus. Why did they do that? Because
they had been taught by John to honour and respect Jesus of
Nazareth as the Messiah, as the Christ. And I suspect that these
disciples also stayed with Jesus. They had lost their leader, they
had lost their master. I suspect they stayed with Jesus.
That's the point that Matthew is making here. Having learned
from John that they need look for no other. Jesus of Nazareth
was the Messiah that had long been promised in the Old Testament
Scriptures. He was the Christ who had come. And for these disciples of John
the Baptist, and indeed the disciples of the Lord Jesus Christ, there
was much still to learn. They still harboured a belief
for a long time that Jesus' kingdom was going to be of this world
and that Christ would rule on earth. and they had to learn
that Christ's own death and his burial would usher in a spiritual
kingdom of worldwide proportions through that cleansing blood
and God-given faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. A lesson that they
in turn would teach to others by preaching that gospel to the
ends of the earth. but they also learned that it
was to be a pricey and costly activity. And many of the disciples
we know about the circumstances of their death, many we don't,
but they knew that they too had to serve the Lord even to the
point of laying down their lives. So I want to close today by returning
just to John the Baptist's death briefly, not to mourn him or
to lament the wicked circumstances surrounding his execution, but
rather let us look beyond John to the love and to the kindness
of his saviour in extracting him so expeditiously from time
and transporting him so gloriously into eternity. I'm reminded of
Elijah being carried in a fiery chariot into the presence of
God. And was not this Elijah, this
Elijah, this Elijah of the time of Christ, was his translation
any less blessed I am sure that a fiery chariot
was waiting for John the Baptist too. And whether it is a fiery
chariot as with the prophet Elijah or the executioner's axe as with
John the Baptist, both of these opened heaven's door for this
child of God. Matthew 25 verse 23 says, His
Lord said unto him, Well done, good and faithful servant. Thou
hast been faithful over a few things. I will make thee ruler
over many things. Enter thou into the joy of thy
Lord. John's service was over. He had
come with a purpose, He had come with a task, and that task was
complete. He had announced the coming of
Christ. He had identified to the world
the Lamb of God. He had preached repentance, which
is the necessity of righteousness imputed by God through grace
by the death of the Lord Jesus Christ and the sacrifice of Christ
for His people. And in all of these things, John
the Baptist had successfully served and now his work was done. He had no need to remain on earth
and he had no desire to remain on earth. John was pleased to
be gone. I'm sure he was. He would no
longer wear that hairy shirt and eat locust. Now he wore a
robe of righteousness and ate angel food. He was home. And soon the Lord Jesus Christ
will take all his people home. And either he will gather us
to himself through death, however that might be, or he will come
for us personally when he comes again. Either way, we shall have
no regrets. When his disciples put John the
Baptist's body in its grave, the corpse was without a head. But John the Baptist didn't need
either. He already had a heavenly body
in the presence of his King, and that was far better. We look forward to the day when
it will be our turn also. Amen.